the light.

For the past ten minutes my eyes have been glued on a distant street lamp that keeps flickering on and off.  I'm in my office, looking down from a high vantage point at the city beneath me, and of all the thousands of flickering lights I see below -- this one has managed to catch my eye and captivate. 

It's sporadic.  The light goes on, then off, for a few minutes, seconds, at a time.  On occasion it spurts back on with quick successions of effort, like an epileptic attack, like a resuscitated heart.  I hear a faint buzzing noise.  I wonder if the bulb is dying, if there is a short circuit somewhere, but mostly, I wonder if this one dear street lamp is simply a fighter, unwilling to give up even when the circumstances suggest that come tomorrow night, this interesting exchange of darkness and lightness will be no more.

It's silly, I know, but I find myself rooting for this street lamp.  I want it to keep shining.  The part of the street that has been darkened by its failure bothers me -- it's as if there's a little less hope in the air.  So please, little guy, keep beaming, figure out a way.  I'll check back with you tomorrow night.  Don't let me down. 

the covet list (celine one-piece).

Maybe it's because my birthday and the holidays are coming up, but there are sooooo many items I am coveting.  And even though it's much too cold to even consider wearing bathing suits right now, Daniel and I have a trip planned to a tropical location coming up soon.  This Celine one-piece is beautiful and would be perfect.  I want.

the covet list (victoria beckham).

I am always finding random pictures online of items I love and covet.  Rather than storing them in my personal collection, I thought I'd start sharing them here instead.

Victoria Beckham makes questionable fashion choices at times, but for the most part, she is absolutely one of my fave style icons.  I adore everything she is wearing in this picture, though her satchel is a bit too boxy for my taste.  But the dress is lovely -- just a few inches longer and it would even be work appropriate!

the red pumas.

I paused and looked down at my red Pumas kept near the front door.  For a second, I thought to myself that I shouldn't put them on, but I went ahead and slipped my feet in them anyhow, opened the door, and snuck into the night.  He was waiting for me to arrive.  And while the pretense was innocent enough, I'm sure we were both just kidding ourselves to uphold the roles of social decorum we had perfected over the years.  My heart was hurting; my head was a mess; he was company on a chilly, lonely, night.  The ingredients were there and I was hungry.

"I like your shoes," he said.  I smiled.  Of course he would - they were kind of awesome.

I didn't know then, but that night was certainly a turning point in my life.  It was the night that started a spiral of occurrences; mostly negative, all memorable.  It ended friendships, forced me to make involuntary decisions, and turned my life to the current course that it's on.  I learned what it felt like to disregard another's feelings to save my own.  I learned what it was like to prioritize myself above all others.  I learned that I could do both much too easily, suffering only a few moments of hesitation that were easily overpowered by a mountain of self-preservation.  

And when I snapped out of it, finally realizing the error in my ways, finally acknowleding that I was clinging onto something temporary while forsaking something potentially permanent, I again found myself pausing at yet another front door - this time at one that was entirely unfamiliar to my eyes - before slipping on my red Pumas for the second time that night.  I headed home.  I then engaged in honest, painful, conversations.  I owned up, confessed, but I've never fully recovered.  Whereas most of memories fall to a soft blur with each passing year -- this one remains crystal clear.

* * *

A few years later, in a completely different place, with an entirely different man, in a seemingly different existence, he told me that he purchased a pair of red Pumas.  I smirked.  "I had a pair once upon a time. . ." 

Life.  It's humorous at times.

sunday books.

Today is Sunday and I'm at work.  It's nothing new, but sometimes I wonder why I volunteer for certain assignments.  These days it feels as though I've involuntarily turned into some type of clutch-hitter, and though a part of me is drawn to the intensity of the moment, when I am afforded the luxury of catching a breath, I realize that the "intensity" probably aged me a few years.  Ironically, in order to stay focused, I have to allow my mind to wander.  Often times my mind wanders and lands on creating a list of coveted items.  And though I covet 304839483 different items at any given moment in time, today I am especially desirous of these luscious, glamorous, books:

[they say never judge a book by its cover, but with these gorgeous books, i'm judging.]

I read a lot every single day, but it's usually for work.  It gets increasingly difficult to finish a novel unless it's very riveting and captivating; I no longer have patience nor time to muddle through boring works, even if they are highly regarded and redeemed.  The two unfinished novels currently stuck inside my bedside drawer are (1) Elegance of the Hedgehog and (2) Anna Karenina.  Both are exceptionally well-written, but so trying to absorb after a long and exhausting day at work.  Perhaps if I displayed them with this rustic and simple bookshelf, I'll feel more compelled to read a few pages in bed each night instead of playing Bejeweled with Daniel.  Tough choice.  

[truly tempted to see if D can make this. . . ]

pancakes and poker.

Most of the time, I feel very "adult" with the numerous responsibilities, obligations, and duties I take on.  There are, however, the occasional unplanned moments where I allow myself to be a kid again and where I forget about propriety and appropriateness.  I love those moments.  At 10:30 at night, Daniel spontaneously proposed making pancakes and playing cards.  I immediately went to the pantry to see if luck was supportive of our impromptu plans.  It was.  I found a box of pre-made pancake mix, Daniel added some water, threw some butter into a pan, and several minutes later, made each of us a stack of delicious pancakes to complete our night.

[I had mine with a little medley of fruit.]

[And because Daniel doesn't eat fruit, he just made himself a huge stack of goodness to compensate for the lack of pretty colors.  :)]

[We opted for poker.  I won!  I cleaned him out after making a statistically-unwise choice of calling his all-in bet when he had two pairs to my one.  But I picked up a King on the river and ended up beating his two pairs with my higher set.  Talk about luck.]

the cliche.

[note from daniel on the bathroom mirror]

I'm blow-drying my hair, staring at the bathroom mirror, looking at my freshly-scrubbed but tired face.  I'm running late, as I am most mornings.  Most days he's still warmly snuggled in bed when I'm up and about, still enjoying the remaining days of his limited "freedom".  But today he was feeling particularly productive, and he was up with me, making coffee.  "Can you please choose something for me to wear today?" I shout.  He comes into the bathroom a few minutes later carrying one of my many black dresses and holds it against me, still on the hanger, assessing whether he likes it or not.  I laugh.  "No, not that one - that dress barely covers my ass; I can't wear it to work."  He takes it away and comes back a few minutes later with a different (and appropriate) black dress.  "I like it," he says, so I put it on, then quickly run a few comb strokes through my damp hair.  He hugs me from behind.  "You're pretty," he says.  I smile.  I can't wait until the day is over and I can return home to him.

In those gentle moments, I forget precisely why I am so tired, why I was running late yet again.  Because the mornings are extra brutal and painful when, for the previous week, night after night I've been up to the wee hours of the morning working on an assignment that's new, challenging, perplexing, but exceedingly frustrating because there's no manageable way to do it all in the time period allotted.  So I sacrifice sleep, energy, coordination, all the while consoling myself by believing that it's just temporary.  And while I am often reminded of how tough my life can be in certain moments, he always counteracts all the negativity by reminding me of how lovely it is, as well.  


I no longer wake up in the mornings muttering expletives; instead, I roll over, tap his arm, and place myself in that comfortable nook I've grown accustomed to for a few minutes before it's time to really get up.  I no longer return home to an empty and vacant apartment; instead, I return home to a lit apartment that's full of (usually fatty) scents from whatever he has cooked during the day.  Though I am still perfectly content with entertaining myself with only the silence of my thoughts, still perfectly fine with being my own best friend, I've realized that by opting for that solitary life, I rarely laughed, rarely smiled, and while not lonely, it felt a bit. . . unfulfilling.  I can't really identify my favorite thing about him because I don't think that it is a trait or a characteristic to which I can readily point; it's that he has changed me by just existing.  And whether he initially set out to do so or not, I owe him very much for proving to me that I am more than just a cliche.