color theme:  Meredith Harlow + Cherry

↳ requested by @scrumptiousperfectionwizard💖💖💖

mean girls the musical sentence meme, pt. vii.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME? (REPRISE).

“Different boss, same old song.”

“I try so hard... is that what’s wrong?”

“It’s like all I do is plan for joy I don’t get to feel.”

“I’m whoever you want, is that my only appeal?”

“Who am I really?”

“Ask me for help, ask me for hugs.”

“Girl stuff sucks. Why couldn’t it just be drugs?”

“I try to give you love, I try to give you space.”

“You roll your eyes so hard they're gonna roll right off your face.”

“Why are you mad?”

“Why do we fight?”

“Why can’t I do anything right?”

“Someday, you'll have children too and then baby, wait and see. You'll be worshiped for years, and then she'll turn three.”

“And everything’s wrong with me.”

WHOSE HOUSE IS THIS?

“Whose house is this?”

“It’s my house now!”

“Seriously, whose house is this?”

“Text all your friends, tell 'em where to meet you.”

“So you know nobody. That's not what counts.”

“Drinking from the neck of the bottle, what the heck?”

“Really, this is not---”

“Really, that's a lot---”

“Really, is that pot?”

“[name], do a shot!”

“Shot! Shot! Shot! Wooh!”

“Oh wow, that's really strong.”

“Why's [name] taking so long?”

“Put that down! That's not a bong!”

“[name], look at this party. It will pass into legend.”

“Say, ‘Thank you, [name]!’”

“Really, this is fun?”

“This is how it’s done!”

“Turn the freakin’ music up!”

MORE IS BETTER.

“I was alone a lot, mostly observing things.”

“And who cares?”

“Now I have all these friends, I’m never by myself.”

“More is always better.”

“’Cause when you have less you have more to lose.”

“Wait, that’s confusing.”

“See, I don't mind alone.”

“Sometimes alone is good ‘cause time to think is in short supply.”

“Yeah, I pretended to be bad at math to get you to talk to me.”

“Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“Don’t tell me to shut up.”

“You are like a clone of [name].”

“I am more and I am better.”

“And no one likes you more, not anyone, not her.”

“Don't look at me that way.”

“What girl/boy would you prefer?”

“I would prefer the girl/boy you were, not who you're trying to be.”

“You think this works with me? Well, you thought wrong.”

“I see you trying to erase what is best about yourself just to belong.”

“You say more is always better, but there is less of you than there was before.”

“So, if more is always better then you should have thought it through a bit more.”

woods, red cheeks, wooden fence

woods: where do you feel at peace?sharing a piece of furniture with someone i love, whether it’s my brother taking up two thirds of the sofa as we binge watch something, or sitting opposite my best friend while i catch up with her over a distance of a couple of feet rather than a couple of hundred miles, or perched on the arm of a chair occupied by my mum or dad or aunt at a family party, being love slugs with my uni besties, squashed up and blanket-clad, and most especially pressed against a good friend, head in their lap or legs over theirs, or arms linked.also libraries, biiig bookshops where you can wander a few shelves without meeting anyone, and empty churches.and sitting in pamela or lois’ car, parked outside my family home.

red cheeks: what makes you nervous?meeting new people for the first time, if they are friends of friends or if they are someone i might want to meet again. I think i’m pretty funny, but i am quiet a lot, not always great at maintaining a conversation solo, and i think i am better (or perhaps just more expectant of forgiveness of that) when i know someone a little, when they’ve had a chance to see me bounce off someone else.handshakes.the prospect of someone asking me what i want from my life, or what my plans are. because i don’t know and i don’t know how to work that out, and i am so very good at being content and so very bad at motivation, so it could pretty easily stay that way forever.

wooden fence: a favorite memorythis is a hard one. i have a very poor memory for experiences. it is a cause of some genuine distress in my life. but i don’t have none.there are the sudden shocked eyes and then impossible to stop laughter of my friend Nicola when she, in white shorts, sat on a paper plate of orange poster paint as we made set decorations for a children’s holiday club in Montrose on summer mission over a decade ago.there are many family events that feature a moment of laughing until we cried, but top of the list might be dinner at my aunt’s to celebrate my mum graduating with her law degree where a bunch of my fam had a go taking pictures wearing my mum’s gown and my uncle gary’s subsequent comedic rant about how everyone else’s pictures had the nice curtains as a backdrop - which he kept inexplicably but hilariously referring to as “the sheen” - when he just got a plain wall. second place goes to the christmas my granda thought my best friend Pamela had bought my dad a Levi’s t-shirt for Christmas.there is your hand gentle on my face as you gave me some fancy eyeliner, and the odd but cherished photos of us all in fancy dress in my front garden, plus my brother and his best friend as they happened to be moving into a flat together that same day, and the general pervasive excitement of that whole day and night of the deathly hallows release: ju reading us excepts of hbp, janki’s delighted smile in the aforementioned photo where steven is leaning his arm on the top of her head, your unbridled joy when a stranger but fellow fan bought you that little snowy owl, the bemused drunk glaswegians outside Borders after we’d picked up our books.there is playing articulate as a drinking game with my old school friends in a caravan in st andrews, where the boys just kept getting drunker and thus even less articulate, as Pamela and I thrashed them as we always do. it might not be the same occasion, but also the time Pamela described a water tower with a reference to a story she had never told me but assumed she had, but i still got the answer. also while i’m mentioning articulate, throw in that time janki managed to very succinctly describe lemmings, when what she was supposed to be describing was mongoose. was the day you dyed my hair for me.there is the heart-skipping, fingers-shaking moment the cute cardiology masters student messaged me in final year, saying we should go see wicked together, which we didn’t end up doing because of costs but we did see Prides in the Arches not long before it closed its doors for good, and grabbed a late dinner, and got absolutely drenched in some classic Glasgow torrential rain, and i had a really lovely time but it is the effervescent jitters invoked by his asking that remains the more palpable memory. it’s not a feeling i’ve gotten to experience much.there is the first time i felt like i’d saved a patient’s life. and the first time i got a thank you card from a client who felt that way (different case), the first card addressed just to me, my only card for a surviving patient and the bunch of flowers they gave me with it. there is the video one of my nurses’ sent me yesterday morning of my retired guide dog patient walking, with support, for the first time since he came in tuesday morning off his legs.there is my first dnd experience, DMing my own birthday party. my friends and brother having travelled from either end of the country to give me this gift, their generosity, my brother calling me “Ditto” during the game. and reprising the responsibility for your birthday a year later, Laura leading a chorus of “Arr, we got R” as you joyfully engaged with the stuff i’d made for you.This was a real nice question to ponder all day. Thanks.

This week’s biggest news: the Pulitzer Prizes! Even bigger? Black Pulitzer Prize winners:

Screenshot of a tweet from my favorite person/poet/writer ever, Saeed Jones AKA @theferocity.

I was elated to find out that Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with The Underground Railroad (Amazon | Indiebound), which I read and reviewed on this blog last year (Read: A Lifetime of Remembering with Colson Whitehead).

I have yet to read Tyehimba Jess’s book of poetry Olio (Amazon | Indiebound), but I am planning to while getting into this month’s poetry books. We’re about midway through April, National Poetry Month, so are you getting your daily dose of poems? Check out my lifelong affair with poetry, and do check out what I’m reading.

* * *

If you’ve been weary from the news these days, from Trump’s brand of all-the-things-your-worst-dreams-are-made-of, here’s a little reprise: hope. I’ve been using Deepak and Oprah Winfrey’s latest meditation series (cost: free) called Hope in Uncertain Times and it’s been giving me the kind of peace and calm I need. I’ve been a fan of these series since 2013, and trust me — this stuff is gold.

Me on a Saturday, at Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA

* * *

After doing the necessary inner work, there’s a ton of things happening around us we can always be plugged into. Unless you’re a Buddhist, of course, but for folks like me (brown, queer immigrant activists in the belly of the beast) there’s this: Peace Tour 2017.

In this week’s book review (War and Turpentine by Steffan Hertmans), I wrote about reading the story of the author’s grandfather, who was a soldier and a painter. I intentionally omitted the war years, because 1) honestly not a fan of war novels and 2) here we are in another war again, dropping missiles on other nations (Syria).

What I don’t see in the realm of international geopolitics are attempts to address the root causes of conflicts, which is why the Peace Tour 2017 gives me infinite hope. As a Filipino, I’ve long wondered about the longstanding civil war between the government and the “other government,” led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. If you’re interested in finding out more, look up to see if the tour will be making a stop in your city!

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If you follow me on Instagram (and I think you should), you’ll know that I like to eat my feelings. Here are a few things that have brought me joy in the past few days:

Damn good homemade pasta at Affina.

  Live music in someone’s living room in San Francisco (yes, like the good ‘ol days). Lattes in the rain, specially turmeric lattes like the one pictured below from As Quoted in San Francisco.

* * *

Have you ever fallen in love with a magazine? Because I have, four times a year for three years now. Kinfolk magazine is one of a kind. It’s a lifestyle magazine filled with thoughtful pieces on philosophy, culture, art, design, fashion and cooking.

Imagine my joy at As Quoted cafe with Kinfolk as pictured above, as I read and learned about Shoshin, a Buddhist concept of “a beginner’s mind which refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions.” Total hyggeligt.

* * *

Please say hi.

Until the next post, your friendly Libromance creator + curator, Pia

  #GetLit: Peace, Pasta & the Pulitzer This week's biggest news: the Pulitzer Prizes! Even bigger? Black Pulitzer Prize winners: I was elated to find out that Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with 

Blog 2017/SEP/14 - “New Moon (Reprise)“

- - - And the Day I always wondered if I would see, one that I never really thought would come, knowledge I never thought I would learn. Luna's Explanation, the reason for the rift. It was that we got too close... in a way. She was embarrassed somehow at showing her weakness to me in a quiet moment of tears. I remember it well, her voice over the phone, and her soft sobs. I knew what it was like, to let someone see yourself like that, and while I don't understand why pushing me away completely was the solution, I know the emotions behind it. Ironically I got a refresher course, when I told her that I think I was in love with her back in May. - - I've written about that before, but as I told her, it felt so wrong in a way. I felt exposed and weak for admitting it. Something I was so confident and self assured about, but I never really told anyone, there was never a person on the other end to judge me, and watch my pride crumble before them. And it felt so wrong because all of these fucking blogs I’ve written on the subject, where I express my feelings so well just went to the way side and I practically just blurted it out like a pathetic buffoon. She deserved better than that... not to mention the fact that I was stealing her damn thunder. She worked up to telling me this and coming clean and 2 minutes later I make it about me. What's wrong with me? - - - I'm over it now because I told her that I felt conflicted about it, got it off my chest, and we moved past it. I don't want to hide things from her, ever, period. But I still feel like I did a shit job. I toiled with the thought of it that night on the drive home. I think I legitimately got angry at myself for how I handled it. After a night of sleep and thinking about it some more with some peace of mind I think I found my answer, so why I was so confused and angry with myself. It felt wrong to me because I feel like saying it devalued and cheapened (I guess those are synonymous) my dedication to her as a friend and the things I've done in the name of that friendship, rather than just some chemicals in my brain that were addicted to her and compelled me to act that way. I didn't realize those would be possible interpretations of my confession until it was already drooling out of my mouth. - - - I wrote this a couple weeks ago, intending to record it for her. A project that would entail others in my life, just giving them a video message when I move out into my own house. I thought about it for weeks and wrote it over the same timeframe, editing and re-editing. I think it's a little null now. I might keep some of it to send her a short message when I do start the project, but I think most of it doesn’t need to be said, knowing what I know now. So I'll post it here instead. I put so much thought into this to really try to say what I wanted to say, I don't want it to be unspoken, even if it only speaks to the wind.

============================== - - - So here we are. This is the place I used to come to when I was talking to you on the phone. It's very peaceful. And when talking to you at the same time it was extra tranquil. I mean I found peace within myself a while ago, but you just never know that it could be even better. - - So why am I doing this? I'm just trying to level with you. I want you to know where I am. And of course I want to continue being friends with you. I miss talking to you. I'm doing this because I hope that we can get past this, whatever it is. Because it feels like something is still up. You don't need to, but I encourage you to level with me too, with whatever you can. It just feels wrong somehow, that everything played out this way. And so here me out please. - - - So elephant in the room, or at least in my imagination: I found that I think I did fall in love with you, it crept up on me, it scared me, and I didn’t know it until we already stopped talking. I didn't want to stir the pot especially since you had so much stuff going on, and I didn't want to just be another guy on your list. But you always asked me those questions like if I could ever fall in love with you or if I could be sexually attracted to you. And I'm not saying that was what caused it, but I'm sure it started to get me to think about it and it pushed me further. You know I don't remember if I was ever clear about it, but I'll say it now. If you gave the word, I would have just removed the mental blocks holding those things at bay. I know we frequently had fun friendly fantasies about living with each other, and I even was curious one day and looked up places where I might have worked if I went to visit for an extended stay. Maybe we should have listened to the part of you who was worried about meeting each other so quickly and it all happening so fast. Maybe we wouldn't be in this weird purgatory now. - - - I want to say something and I want you to believe me when I say it: I was never upset at you for wanting space, never then or the other times where you wanted to stop talking for a while. What upset me was that it came out of the blue, at least it seemed that way to me. Sometimes I feel like no one ever tells me how they feel because they think it will hurt my feelings or some shit, it hurts more that they can’t just tell me. Because to me it feels like I'm being treated like a child or I'm weak. That's what I was more upset about, because it has happened for my whole life. I was hoping that maybe you, even if it was a friend, would break that cycle. But they don't call them curses for nothing I suppose. - - I blame myself for that, I showed you a side that no one else really see's, and none of my hardened exterior that everyone else sees. And I'm sure I didn't make things easy for you. I know joking about buying you things came off the wrong way. But I always just said it because I wanted to share in the dream of you having things that you wanted. I loved seeing you light up and get excited about that, that’s why I did it. The only thing I actually considered buying you was a Purity Ring CD, because I still think you'd really like the rest of their music. The Kawaru Statue was because it was cheap, I liked it, and I knew it would bring you joy, even if you never got to have it. And it did, it seemed. - - - I've looked back through our conversation log to see if I could find something that could help me understand THE ACTUAL REASON why you wanted to stop being best friends. I have my outlandish theories but none really stick. None have me sure that I got the reason right. I even thought that maybe this is just you, maybe you have this relationship with allot of people, or maybe this is what happens over time. I guess I can't say I really know you because of the time factor alone. Ironically I don't think I can talk to you about it because whatever it is, I can tell it brings you a bit of pain. And whenever I hint at it or bring it up it gets dismissed, as most things do that bring you pain, Maybe I'm one of them, so you dismiss me. And I've never been around you; I can't really infer any body language. - - - You probably already know this, and I'm saying this for me just as much as I am for you. You’re going to suffer in life no matter what, you don't have a choice, and none of us do. But you can choose the suffering, and this is where it comes down to you. You’re going to suffer if you choose, but it’s more important to think about how much you will if you don't do what you need to do. Life starts whenever you’re ready. And I know you've been ready for a long time. I have faith in you, even if you fail, that faith will not be shaken. There are few things I've been so sure of. And when I think of you, as I've mentioned before, I get this overwhelming feeling of life and truth, and love. What you mean to me aside; I am sure of this. I believe in you, and I don't care if you fail, I care that you try. It looks like you need to start fighting for yourself, treating yourself like someone you love. I think that's what they mean when they say love yourself. Love yourself like you would love a friend, and when your friend is down you find out why and do what you can to make things better for them. - - And I want you to know that I know that I might upset you by saying that. Because I know you know it, and I know you beat yourself up every day for it. But that's what friends do right, isn’t that what they’re there for? They tell the truth even when it may hurt the other person. Tell the truth even if they fall out of good graces. And friends do it because they love each other, like I love you. Friends do it because they want you to be happy... happier, like I want you to be happy, because you deserve it. "Angels with Silver wings shouldn't know suffering" - - - You don't have to be anything for me Luna, just yourself, good, bad, ugly, beautiful. I'm sorry if I ever made it seem like I needed something more than you could give me, because that couldn't be further from how I felt. I counted my stars everyday you were there for me even when everything was perfect. And the 4 Months that I considered you my best friend are and will always be some of my most cherished memories. - - - You were so real to me, and it's no easy task. You more than earned my unconditional respect and love. If I had a woman like you, tell me she loved me, and I knew that when she said it she actually meant it, then I guess I'm doing pretty good in life. - - You were the light I needed, when the night was dark and times were hard. No matter what, you will always be my Moon Princess. Your Friend, Always & Forever, Love, ~Seth ============================== - Luna, if you ever read this, just remember that I'm and idiot and I over think everything, and I'm probably full of myself. I hope I’ll always be here for you, I’ll do my goddamndest. Read the Note I put in book 4 of those PDFs I gave you.