Heads being dork heads. Because this day was filled with many of these. And good laughs. Thank you Ed for letting us invade your “community phone”! >:)
(Source: BETWEENLEGS, via raindropsandsunspots)
The Year in Covers
Isn’t it weird how Vogue covers look like Vanity Fair covers used to look and Vanity Fair covers look like US Weekly covers?
Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman photographed by Victoria Will
Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see!
Oh my God these two
I listen to John Mayer all the time. His voice is just so soothing. If there is such thing as a voice massage, John Mayer will be my champ. Here’s his song “Come Back to Bed”.
Daylight
I was at the Maroon 5 Overexposed concert. I know most of the songs in the band’s setlist, but there are some 4 songs I am not familiar with. One of them is the second to the last song, the 18th lullaby of Adam and the band.. it is the song Daylight.
The most extraordinary thing happened to me. I was just standing, eyes fixed on the stage. My mind was blank; I figured that I do not know the song. But when it started, I just listened intently and continued to watch.
Suddenly, I was brought to a dream.. a time travel. I closed my eyes while I allowed the song to penetrate my mind and heart. The book that is my life was opened, the pages turned rapidly. Images of the past appeared in my mind. I saw myself with people, a lot of people. There were my family, my friends, acquaintances, strangers. I saw myself in my childhood, in high school, with people who believe in me.
It was a whirlwind of pictures and colors. It was odd but I felt a multitude of emotions. My heart explored my pain, my happiness, my contentment, my gratitude, my emptiness.
Then the moment brought me to my dreams. I imagined a bright future. I saw myself in a happy place, doing something that I love. It filled me with faith. The feelings of doubt were swept away. I felt that I could pursue my dreams, that little by little, I will reach them. I felt loved. I felt that the world will surprise me with great things and great people if I work hard enough. I felt that life’s meaning was restored, that my questions will not be left unanswered. I felt hope surging through me.
My heart was swelling with joy. I couldn’t believe that days of sadness and feeling lost would be recuperated in a concert, during the singing of a song that I do not even know.
Then I opened my eyes. I was absorbed by the experience of traveling within my soul that I forgot that I was just a pinprick in a mass of listeners. I realized that I was almost tearing up. I had a faint smile in my lips and whispered, “Thank you, Maroon 5. I will chase my dreams.”
And I listened to their last song.
Fiona Apple:
It’s 6pm on Friday,and I’m writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet.
I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.
Here’s the thing.
I have a dog Janet, and she’s been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She’s almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult offi
cially - and she was my child.
She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.
She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.
She’s almost 14 and I’ve never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She’s a pacifist.
Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.
We’ve lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it’s always really been the two of us.
She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.
She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.
The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she’s used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.
She has Addison’s Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.
Despite all of this, she’s effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.
She’s my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she’s the one who taught me what love is.
I can’t come to South America. Not now.
When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.
She doesn’t even want to go for walks anymore.
I know that she’s not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people.
But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.
I just can’t leave her now, please understand.
If I go away again, I’m afraid she’ll die and I won’t have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.
But this decision is instant.
These are the choices we make, which define us.
I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.
I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.
And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.
Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.
I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.
I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.
I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.
Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I’ve ever known.
When she dies.
So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.
And I am asking for your blessing.
I’ll be seeing you.
Love, Fiona
She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.
She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.
She’s almost 14 and I’ve never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She’s a pacifist.
Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.
We’ve lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it’s always really been the two of us.
She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.
She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.
The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she’s used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.
She has Addison’s Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.
Despite all of this, she’s effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.
She’s my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she’s the one who taught me what love is.
I can’t come to South America. Not now.
When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.
She doesn’t even want to go for walks anymore.
I know that she’s not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people.
But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.
I just can’t leave her now, please understand.
If I go away again, I’m afraid she’ll die and I won’t have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.
But this decision is instant.
These are the choices we make, which define us.
I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.
I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.
And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.
Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.
I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.
I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.
I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.
Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I’ve ever known.
When she dies.
So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.
And I am asking for your blessing.
I’ll be seeing you.
Love, Fiona
The Things I Miss
I miss mother. She leaves 5:30am, so when I wake up, she’s already left for work. At 10:30 or 11:00pm, I arrive home, but she’s already asleep. We only have the Saturdays or Sundays, but sometimes, I still go out for a shoot or a meeting. So we don’t have the chance to talk or eat together.
I miss my friends. I cannot anymore talk to them like I used to. I’m longing to eat with them, and take random pictures. I miss seeing them together and complete—13 heads bobbing with laughter. They are people who make me really happy, especially when they make me realize that they are always at my side.
I miss reading a number of good books in a month. I miss sleeping for long hours. I miss taking care of Bubba Jones. I miss window shopping. I miss studying— taking notes, memorizing, comprehending readings.
I miss so many things I sometimes tear up.
I miss stopping and smelling the flowers, and I wonder if I’m on the right track.
Life of Pi Chapter 56
I must say a word about fear. It is life’s true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law of convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become assured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.
Feat next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terrible wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they have malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. they pay proper attention to fear.
Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
