other voices...

Upon receiving many a threat upon my life and my sisterhood eligibly from Mindy,dear- I decided I better read this:
I could immediately see why she was drawn to it; the novel was immediately charming.. I mean, 100 year old African American farmers named Jesus Fever who own mules named John Brown and name their daughters things like Missouri and call her "Zoo" for short -twins named Idabel and Florabel .. all of those kind of things are super great...

but it wasn't until i reached page 141 that i was convinced that it was one of the best books i had ever, ever read... I didn't understand the importance of the character of Randolph at first. All the other characters seems to affect Joel (the protagonist) in much more interesting ways.. and "Randolph" what kind of a name is that next to "Jesus Fever"? (I mean honestly..)

But then Randolf started saying things like this:

"Let me begin by telling you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilac opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. A nostalgic list, but then, of course, where could one find a more nostalgic subject?..."

I don't think that i blinked from page 141 to page 154... I am almost finished with it, but i have slowed down because i know i will be sad to finish.. i think everyone should read this book. As my sister put it, its a really amazing coming of age story- just as import and, and beautiful Catcher in the Rye or any of the great coming of age stories. This one holds my particular attention because of Capote's clear emphasis on the importance of getting to know ourselves.. and the great challenge thereof.

The inside cover of the book quotes a very interesting scripture.. Jeremiah 17:9,

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Indeed, who can??

Last night...

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Oh god, its raining
But Im not complaining
Its filling me up
With new life

The stars in the sky
Bring tears to my eyes
Theyre lighting my way
Tonight

And I havent felt so alive
In years

Just for a day
On a day like today
Ill get away from this
Constant debauchery

The wind in my hair
Makes me so aware
How good it is to live
Tonight

And I havent felt so alive
In years

The moon
Is shining in the sky
Reminding me
Of so many other nights
But theyre not like tonight

Oh god, its raining
And Im not containing
My pleasure at being
So wet

Here on my own
All on my own
How good it feels to be alone
Tonight

And I havent felt so alive
In years

The moon
Is shining in the sky
Reminding me
Of so many other nights
When my eyes have been so red
Ive been mistaken for dead
But not tonight

dinner attire

my favorite time of day has been recently renamed "the dinner hour"..
it was nice spending the dinner hour with Andrew Bird..

Andrew bird was wearing red stripped socks and when the yellow light hit them just right they looked pink...

we were really close to the magic. i was wearing a happy, happy face.
(just too bad that the happy face ended up looking like that in the picture)

sit. feast on your life.

So i feel like my blog posts are really just the same format over and over lately.. a picture or two, a poem.. booooring.. well, i am sorry for that, i really am.. i will try to refrain from posting poems for the next couple of weeks.. after this post, promise.promise.

i just had the best morning this morning. i got up, not too early, but early enough and i got dressed and i rode my bike to the temple.. i listened to sigur ros all the way there.. i was early for the session so i had time to sit and think..

i wasn't in a hurry when the session was over so i walked around the grounds for a while, just quiet. i ended up inside the JS Memorial Building and from there i took the elevator up.. i was just going to sit on the cushioned window seat and look out at the city..\
but after a few minuets of that, i decided to buy myself lunch at The Garden... so there i sat, at a perfect small white table.. i didn't pull out my ipod, i didn't pull out my book, i just sat quietly and alone.. i thought about miss gallo and how she used to give us assignments to do things like that, to go out alone, to eat or to the movies, and to pay attention to who we were when we were alone and then i thought about this poem:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Love after Love, Derek Walcott

It was nice to sit and feast on my life. and it was nice to feast on that Avocado BLT as well.. it was really quite delicious.

Camelot... etc.

i am no longer in my early twenties. i am in my mid twenties.. this is an odd thing.

a couple of weeks ago i drove past my old preschool out in West Jordan, Utah..
i stopped to take a picture:

it used to be called "Camelot Academy".. i went to preschool at Camelot.. that explains a lot of things..

i don't know how exactly to articulate how i feel about turning twenty five, so i will let e.e.cummings say a little bit about it:

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even it it's Sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

Venticinco!

So this is how the first day of my twenty fifth year played out...

It started with a lil bit of this around midnight at village inn:

Then there was sleeping in and a few hours of this:

Then, of course, there was this:

And then!!!:

Which to us looked a little something like this:
(photo by liz)
(please note how all of us have our left fists in the air.. rocking)



and it ended like this:


Happy birthday to me!!!

"smites" is a great word..

My friend James sent me this quote the other day.. i think that it's just so interesting..

i don't want to be cynical.. i don't want to be disliked.. i really dislike the idea of those two things..

i'd like to always be naive enough to believe in myself...

It’s the naïve people who become the true artists. First, they have to be naïve enough to believe in themselves. Then, a performer—especially an actor or actress—must be naïve enough to keep on trying, using his talent, in spite of any kind of discouragement or double cross. He doesn’t pay attention to setbacks. In his ingenuousness he doesn’t know a setback when it smites him. Money doesn’t concern him. But most importantly, when he reaches the top and becomes famous, he doesn’t change. “That person wouldn’t hurt me,” is your unconscious reaction when one of these actors comes on the screen or walks across the stage. Even when he plays a villain (like Lionel Barrymore) he does it with such enormous, hardworking good will that you see the truth underneath and continue to like him. But the minute the cynical person walks in front of the camera—it picks up. It photographs. You know it. Your feel it. You dislike him.
--Mack Sennett, King of Comedy

i just want to be your firecracker..

So Thursday the 3rd of July was my last day at the elementary school.. i am really going to miss faces like this:
Awww, man. That picture kills me! It might be my favorite picture in existence right now..

The 4th of July was spent in Vegas.. and good thing too because i am pretty positive that there is nowhere else in the world you would be able to see the Liberty Bell on top of slot machines:
Yep, Vegas is awesome! America is awesome! Yep, Yep, Yep!

Yeah.. so, i am just going to go ahead and say that was the best 4th of July ever.ever.ever.

i feel like.. you (might not) like me... if you met me..

i was a lucky duck when i was a sophomore in high school. An audition came up for a play and for some reason not that many theatre majors opted to audition for it, but i did. i worked my little tooshie off to be ready for that audition and then.. it came. i was called back and then, amazingly, i was cast! I was cast as a lead role in a main stage production with mostly upperclassmen my sophomore year. A miracle.

I think it had a little to do with the work I did, a little to do with timing and a lot to do with luck.. but that show seemed to set the stage for high school. From then on I kept working really really hard and found myself getting cast in things that I really wanted to participate in and it was fantastic. But it wasn't completely fantastic for a few reasons. One, it was not really <>preparation for the rejection that I would encounter upon entering the 'adult world'. I think that acting is one of the hardest professions in the world because you are constantly being rejected and because it is about you and how you act, it feels so so personal. I didn't feel a lot of that in high school but what i did feel in high school was the sense of unfairness of it all. I would get cast and I would be so excited to start this new project knowing that it would help me grow and shape me in some new way... but after looking at my name printed on the cast list, i saw behind those letters all of the names of the girls who thought their name could've been on it.. all the people who worked really hard on their audition as well. A lot of these girls were really really good friends of mine and I knew they were talented and amazing and underappricated and I hated that all of that was happening to them. I wanted to kick something hard for them.. they were supportive and loving but i knew there were probably many times when they thought, 'damn emily.. could you just not audition for this one, or something??.. just leave this one alone'.. And i thought about it a lot.. i thought about not auditioning for things.. i wondered if it would make it any better. i wondered if they would get cast if i didn't.. and i also wondered if they would have been happy with whoever got cast as long as it wasnt me...

i remember how weird it felt to feel such opposing emotions at once.. excitment and joy and also resentment for myself and the situation and confusion and a little bit of sadness.. it was really hard to know that i didnt really deserve it any more than they did.. and it was hard to not feel like i was stealing from them in some way. they work hard. they are awesome. why don't they get it?

things always come around though.. i found myself after high school in college with one of the girls that i respected so much in high school who was underappricated but none the less incredibly tallented.. she had always stuck out to me in high school, her work was always sensitive, honest and brilliant and she was rarely cast. At the university, there was this one audition for this one play and in the play there was this one role.. and i really really wanted it.. its one of the roles i just want to play before i die, i still would die to play it.. i worked hard to get ready for the audition but... guess who got cast.. yep, she did.. if i remember correctly, i didnt even get called back. she had no idea how much i wanted it, i never told her.. but while i was sorely disappointed that i didn't get it, i was glad she got it..

i guess.. welp, i guess i have just been thinking about that lately.. about feeling many things and once and about who i am.. yeah, those experiences in high school meant so much to me, and yes i grew and they have literally made me into who i am.. but maybe i should have just backed off some in high school.. paid more attention.. respected more boundaries.. maybe it wasnt about who got 'cast' as much as it was just about me backing off.. maybe i should have just sat some of those auditions out, left them alone.. but i didn't..

and what does that really say about me? ... i wonder (not unlike tegan and sara) if i wouldn't like me if i met me..

that has to be the worst combination of feelings.. excitement and joy contrasted against guilt and embarrassment and the weight of the emotions of other people who you truly respect admire and like.. not good.. not good at all..

But, while I am still learning about all of these things in the context of my life as an actress and my life in general, I take some consolation in knowing that i have pure intentions.. i don't ever mean to be a jerk.. i take consolation also in the fact that i certainly now felt my share of rejection, injustice, heart trampling etc. etc.. i guess its just part of growing up.. hope i get it figured out more and more as i go...