The lie had worked so far, but lacey felt its softness, like a floor of rotten boards beneath her feet.

The Passage

So Maybe Shakespeare Has a Few Gems

Pistol: Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
And of buxom valor, hath by cruel fate,
And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel--
That goodness blind,
That stands upon the rolling restless stone--
Fluellen: By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it; Fortune is an excellent moral.

Henry V

"I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "it's interesting that I know about them being there."

Teddy looked at him directly for the first time. "Are you a poet?" he asked.
"A poet?" Nicholson said. "Lord, no. Alas, no. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know. Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotion."

J.D. Salinger
Nine Stories

Trust your heart, buddy.

"The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly."

J.D.Salinger

Time is on our side.

Some of the greatest commentary on relationships I've ever heard:

"...in the beginning of a relationship there are dragons to be slayed."

Too good not to share. I hope my friend doesn't mind I borrowed her words.

Love is a many splendid thing.

Julia had once told him that the ideal partner was one that you could keep in a cupboard and take out when you felt like it. Jackson thought it unlikely that there were women out there who would acquiesce to being kept in a cupboard. Didn't stop men from trying to find them, though.

Kate Atkinson
Started Early, Took My Dog

You're off the hook.

Pacey: The simple act of being in love with you is enough for me.

Dawson's Creek
The final episode


I don't know why I watch this show over again every year. I also don't know why it surprises me when Jen dies. Breaks my heart every, single time.

Started Early, Took My Dog

Arkwright banged on the door and shouted, "Hello, it's the police here, is anyone in there? Shit, Tracy, can you hear that?"
"Flies?"
Ken Arkwright bent down and looked through the letter box. "Oh, Christ-" He recoiled from the letter box so quickly that Tracy's first thought was that someone had squirted something into his eyes. It happened to a sergeant a few weeks ago, a nutter with a Squeezy washing-up bottle full of bleach. It had put everyone off looking through letter boxes. Arkwright, however, immediately squatted down and pushed open the letter box again and started talking soothingly, the way you would to a nervy dog. "It's OK, it's OK, everything's OK now. Is Mummy there? Or your daddy? We're going to help you. It's OK." He stood and got ready to shoulder the door. Pawed the ground, blew air out of his mouth and said to Tracy, "Prepare yourself, lass, it's not going to be pretty."

Kate Atkinson
Started Early, Took My Dog


This gave me chills on the train today. Kate Atkinson is my hero.

"I don't think everybody's made of iron, buddy"

J.D. Salinger

The Beatles

I don’t know how
Someone controlled you
They bought and sold you
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

"Welcome to the age of un-innocence. No one has breakfast at Tiffany's and no one has affairs to remember."

Carrie: I've done the merry go round, I've been through the revolving door, and I feel like I've met somebody I can stand still with for a minute and... don't you wanna stand still with me?
Big: You dragged me out to a park at three in the morning to ask me if I wanna stand still with you?
Carrie: ...Yes

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody.

Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger

"...she must seek them abroad..."

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Moorland in her infancy, would have supposed her to be born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother; her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard-and he had never been handsome."

Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen

"And he had taken Gabriel, too."

"Gabe?" The new child stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him. "There could be love," Jonas whispered.

The Giver
Lois Lowry

"The strolling woman had been right, he was going the wrong way."

"Strangers on a train. If there was an emergency, would they help one another? (Never overestimate people.)"


When Will There Be Good News?
Kate Atkinson

"It was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion..."

"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others."

Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen


Growing up I always liked to think of myself as Elizabeth Bennet. In fact, I'm extremely Marianne.

"You've lost me in your sea of pronouns."


I'm not afraid to admit this comes from my all time favorite t.v. show: Dawson's Creek.

I Think I Wanna Marry You

Proving, proving; and for no other reason than that he was married to a woman who had somehow managed to put him forever on the defensive, who loved him when he was nice, who lived according to what she happened to feel like doing and who might at any time- this was the hell of it- who might at any time of day or night just happen to feel like leaving him. It was ludicrous and as simple as that.

Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason...Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You're a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I'm feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I'd give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.

Seymour An Introduction
J.D. Salinger

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy.

“[Gatsby] stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast...and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.”
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald


I try to figure out why it is that I am so in love with this novel. I think about Gatsby and the detestable Daisy and I try to figure out why it is that I care about a novel with less than likable main characters. And then I realize that it isn't the love story between Daisy and Gatsby that gets me every time, and it isn't even the beautiful relationship that Nick has with Gatsby. I think the real reason that I love this story so much is because every word is so powerful. Fitzgerald did an amazing thing by creating such a beautiful piece of art about such (mostly) selfish people. It makes me see those people as a little less selfish, it makes me almost give them allowances for being so cruel. And that's kind of scary.

The Only Exception

Forgive the total emo mushy-ness of this. I'm not a huge Paramore fan but the lyrics to this song are dazzling.

So Many Opportunities to Not Be Alone

And, still more salient, why had I jumped into the car in the first place?...There seem to me at least a dozen answers to these questions, and all of them, however dimly, valid enough. I think, though, that I can dispense with them, and just reiterate that the year was 1942, that I was twenty-three, newly drafted, newly advised in the efficacy of keeping close to the herd-and, above all, I felt lonely. One simply jumped into loaded cars, as I see it, and stayed seated in them.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
J.D. Salinger




It's interesting that in a city as full as New York that people are in a constant state of loneliness. People are yearning for some type of interaction, any type of interaction. A smile on the train, a wave at the station attendant, a regular trip to a local coffee shop, anything to feel a connection. I usually end up in conversations with those around me. And for those few minutes we share something that no one else will. We complain about the MTA or remark on the weather and it isn't the conversation, but rather knowing that you aren't alone. And even in something as simple as that we find that we've jumped into a loaded car to fight off the loneliness.

And I hope they don't feel so lonely anymore.

Rain, Rain, So Much Rain

He stopped to look ahead. Then the rain started again and this time it wasn't a passing shower, the sky was full of dark gray clouds, he turned up the collar of his suite jacket, it was going to get worse, nothing surer. And he would get bloody soaked.
By the Burn
James Kelman



It has been quite the week here in Lizzy Land. Finals are quickly approaching and it's a good thing because I literally couldn't take another day of classes. By far this has been the most challenging year of my life. But I'm still here. And things can only get better. At least they have to. So, do me a favor, Mother Nature, cheer up. I don't know how much more rain I can take.

But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived.

No, the romance and beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a "break" that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown think with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?
Mark Twain

Sometimes I feel this way about The City.

More Than What it Means

How terrible it is when you say I love you and the person on the other end shouts back 'What?'
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
J.D. Salinger

Not with the fire in me now.

TAPE: --gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on and she agreed, without opening her eyes. [Pause.] I asked her to look at me and after a few moments--[Pause.]--after a few moments she did, but the eyes just list, because of the glare. I bent over to get them in the shadow and they opened. [Pause. Low.] Let me in. [Pause] We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! [Pause.] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.
[Pause. Krapp's lips move. No sound.]
Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.
[Pause.]
Here I end this reel. Box--[Pause.]--three, spool--[Pause.]--five. [Pause.] Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back.
[Krapp motionless staring before him. The tape runs on in silence.]
CURTAIN

Krapp's Last Tape
By Samuel Beckett


I think this kind of speaks for itself.

The most important things work out rather beautifully.

"For the faithful, the patient, the hermetically pure, all the important things in this world — not life and death, perhaps, which are merely words, but the important things — work out rather beautifully."
- J.D. Salinger

I'm trying really hard not to be to much of a downer. A friend of mine had a stroke on Sunday night, at 28, and was declared brain dead yesterday. He wrote me a letter and I never responded, due to my selfishness of focusing on my extremely busy life. Sometimes in life we lose contact with people we care about and become insular. It's so easy to do living in The City where every second can be spent doing something with someone. We cancel plans here and there, forget to call, talk of meeting up but never do. It's so easy. So I figured now was as good a time as ever to finally get back to him.

Sorry it took so long, R. Hope this helps:

From R:

February 2, 2011
Hey Liz,

thanks for taking a moment to read and digest. It's much appreciated.

i wrote a friend:

I'm in the place that's been my home for 27 years... and i'm lost.

so she responded with:

I am beginning to think being lost is just part of it, who ever thinks they are found is naive. What would being found look like? Definitely not like me.

i responded:

life is a journey, and in every journey we're always looking for something. At each stage we find what we're looking for, we appreciate it for what it is, then we begin the next trek. If within this journey we find that we're lost, then we either continue seeking for what we've been looking for, or we fool ourselves into believing that what we've found is the answer or that we'll never find what we were looking for in the first place. I believe if we accept the last two options, the all we've found is complacency. At this point in my life, there are certain things I want to find, and find myself in. Once I'm found within those things, I can appreciate them and find myself in something else at the next step. But if I'm perpetually lost and I've accepted being lost as my way of being, what motivates me to continue searching?


Dear R,
Never stop searching for your way. It's interesting that at different points in life we are so sure of how things will progress and how they will turn out. When we're little we have this sense that we know exactly how life will turn out. "I'm going to be a doctor!" "A pilot!" "I'll be President!!" No one ever tells us we can't accomplish everything we want. It's only when we grow up and exist in this imperfect and damaged world that we trick ourselves into thinking that we can't accomplish absolutely everything that we want to. The road gets thick with prickly bushes sometimes and it can be hard to find our way back to our road, but it's still there. It just means we have to cut some bushes down. Walk on, R. Never stop searching for your way in life. Time is precious and life is way to short.

I'll see you soon,
Elizabeth

Coldplay-Sparks

Kind of the perfect song for a rainy day such as this.

Do you see me?

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room."
"Frequently."
"How often?"
"Well, some hundreds of times."
"Then how many are there?"
"How many? I don't know."
"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed..."

Recently after reading A.C. Doyle's "Scandal in Bohemia" I realized that I'm extremely unaware of what's going on around me. Living in The City that never sleeps is stimulating to all the senses, but can also leave you dull.

It's nice to have little reminders telling you to keep your eyes, and interestingly enough, your heart, open and aware.

So, world, keep your head up, your eyes open, and your heart ready. You don't want to miss something amazing.

I loved thee with a love I seemed to lose

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I'm not a mushy person. In fact I don't see myself as someone who is traditionally romantic. But something has happened to me recently. I guess you could say that I've become more in-tuned with my sensitive side. We read the above poem in my British Literature class today and something absolutely out of the ordinary happened: I cried.
I don't cry in public very often, if ever. And I'm known for staying away from relationships and commitment. And at every turn I debate against this idealized, romantic, unfounded notion of "love". I don't believe in "love" as associated with the fairy tales and prince charming's most of us have grown up with. But what I realized in class, while reading Browning's words to the man who would become her husband, I understood a little better what this idea of "love" was.
Browning speaks of love as something that is limitless. It is the deepest, widest, highest love that anyone can fathom. And that got me to thinking about what a limitless love means. And I think I'm slightly closer to understanding what the capacity of actual love means and what that does to the heart.

The Facade of an Existential Crisis?

“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry." J.D. Salinger

I titled this post with a question mark because the entire basis of my personal existential crisis is shaky. At this point in life I'm not really sure if there is such a thing as an existential crisis.

Sometimes I think that growing up in love with an author, and subsequently his work, may have hindered me from experiencing life genuinely. I have been in love with Salinger for most of my life. Sometimes I wonder that if by living in The City, and reading his work over and over again, I'm not somehow forced into a false sense of existentialism and the constant questioning of "what is life?". Were I not saturated in Seymour Glass' life and family, and had I not felt myself going through a nervous breakdown like Holden, would I still step back from my life and question the "why" of the Universe? I suppose it will have to be one of those chicken and egg dilemmas.

As for now, I will sit here looking out on The City, on 23rd Street and Lexington, 13 floors above the rainy streets, and think about Salinger and The City and Life. And I'll wait for spring to come and bring a little color to my gray scale world.

I love it when we're cruising together.

"Baby let's cruise, away from here
Don't be confused, the way is clear
& if you want it you got it forever
This is not a one night stand, baby, yeah"


I took a trip to (what my city mind calls) the country this past weekend and I learned something very important, I belong in the city. I had been operating under the impression that I belonged in the city for awhile but last weekend proved it. To me, the city signifies a mindset that we live in a united world, not a state, or a town.
In The City, I am bombarded with pictures of the distraction in Japan and the political unrest in Libya. I hear discussions about the economic state of our world and the devastation in war torn countries. But while I was in the suburbs I could feel the disconnection from the world. Soccer mom cars, chain restaurants, big houses.
I'm not saying that living outside of a large city is a bad thing, I'm saying that for me to feel connected to the world, I need to be near the city. I can see myself being easily lost in the comfort and familiarity of people and things around me. I'm more afraid of being complacent than almost anything in my life. Living in a place where I see people from all over the world on a daily basis reminds me that I'm not the only culture living in the world. It clarifies the idea of one race, the human race.

So while I will probably take many weekends away to "get away from it all", I'll always find myself coming back to The City I love. The City that reminds me how precious life is, how fleeting and temporary it all can be. A City that challenges me and that pisses me off, that makes me angry and that also enlightens me, and romances me, and reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive.

Wow. Thanks suburbia for the epiphany.

Another Year's Over, A New One's Just Begun

It's New Years Eve and Im feeling pretty wonderful. I've been chosen to work a private party at my job. In case you aren't familiar, I work at a restaurant in the heart of times square- and we happen to have the perfect view of the ball drop.

So, here I am, looking down at thousands of people, cozy and comfortable, and rockin out. The night goes by in waves, there are so many happy people, lots of dancing, and nothing but laughing and smiling. We are all ecstatic.

The time has come, the last few minutes of 2010 (good riddance), most of our guests have gone outside to our private pen to watch the ball drop first hand, so its mostly me and my coworkers upstairs. And then one of the most magical New York moments happens, the dj is playing my song. I grab my dear friend and we begin dancing. He twirls me around and we sing the familiar lyrics to each other, our other coworkers doing the same. And I get a little teary eyed and I think about this past year and all the good and bad and everything I've ben through and the insane amount of awful things I've put off thinking about and the beautiful moments of love I've experienced, and its almost a new year, a new decade. And then we all join in and sing, "If you can make it here, you'll make it anywhere, New York, New York."

And then the countdown to a new year begins.