(Pretty) In Pink

Now the pink on my nails bothered me, though. It was suddenly too pink, to bubblegummy prep school perfection. I wanted something understated and out of the way, but the only "understated" colors I have are pink. Rose pink, tea dress pink, dusty pink... too much pink. I never thought I'd admit it, but there is definitely such a thing as too much pink. So the best idea seems to be clear polish, but there's too much dirt under my nails, and it won't come out. There's too much to hide, so I need a color. And what's the opposite of pink? Black. All black is depressing, especially when summer is almost here, so a French tip might work. It'll cover up just enough.

There's a difference between planning and doing, though. The plan is to make a glossy line of black on each fingernail with that new polish-pen we got at Sav-ons a month ago, but as soon as I start painting my right hand I know that that won't happen. It just doesn't work, so out comes the acetone and off goes the black. Now it's looking worse, and my only other option is orange, purple, or red. Red is classy. It's safe. That's what I wanted, anyways-- something safe that wasn't pink.

It's funny how things turn out, right? Wrong. It's not always funny. Sometimes it's annoying. Like how sometimes I wake up with a piece of last night's dream still waltzing in my head, and I try to spin it out for as long as possible after I wake up. I pick up where my subconscious left off, adding scenes and giving directions as if I were on a movie set in my head, and then, right when the the problem's been solved and all that's left is the happily-ever-after, someone turns the light on.

"Are you awake? You need to help me with the laundry."

I want to wake up one day, look at the glowing light bulb, and tell it to go away. I'm dreaming, let me sleep. Go away. I heard from somewhere-- maybe it was one of the senior quotes-- that you know you're really in love when you don't want to sleep, because reality is finally better than your dreams. Something like that. Well, I know I'm really living when I'd rather see the sun than the stars; I'm better off seeing things happen than dreaming them up.

Right now, I'd like to see stars until Sunday.

But I don't want to be depressing and sad! I don't want to feel gloomy. There's just so much going on tomorrow...so much homework I'll need to finish and so many quizzes I need to study for, not to mention finals...I don't want to be sad. I want to be alive, sitting in the sun every day and listening to my heartbeat.

Beyond poetry

If I read one poem every day, it would take me a year and a half to finish the book.

It's called the Oxford Book of American Poets. It's got Dickinson, Lindsay, St. Vincent Millay, Whitman, Frost...five hundred seventy one poems in all. Five hundred seventy one days. It seems almost impossible that I'll be able to read them all, but that's part of the mystique of the thing. One small blue-covered book, with five hundred seventy one separate emotions and scenes. There's so much in there to see! If I can read them all...

I don't really know why I consider this such an accomplishment, a task that I feel I have to finish. But I do. I have to read it all and understand it all too.

Sophia is on a Shakespeare binge. Her class is performing Romeo and Juliet (guess who's Juliet?), and now she just can't get enough-- she's watching Romeo + Juliet (the Leonardo one), and we saw Shakespeare in Love last night. It's kind of a good thing she's going so crazy. If not Shakespeare, what would you have her crave? And the more I sit and listen to the lines with her, the more I understand. I've never heard Shakespeare like this before. It used to be that these were just words, beautiful feelings created by a rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter. But now the words are alive in my heart too, and I think I might know why. But is that reason ok? Do I really love you beyond poetry? I'm not sure, which makes me think I'm not. But maybe? Question marks times a hundred.

Things are falling apart brick by brick, and yet Shakespeare and poetry stand still in the middle of it. What in the world are they doing?