dreams of sleep

on longing

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:57:22 -0400

I have not been writing. I have been very, very busy not writing. I have been taking out the trash, washing the dishes, and painting my toes to dismal results. I took my hands hostage, forcing them into copying, printing, organizing, and whatever verb that could occupy them. I was updating my resume, my diet, my wardrobe, my life. I was breaking in new shoes and throwing out old bras, curating new playlists and burning old lyrics. I was packing and tossing and cycling and pacing and ignoring the boiling inside.

Life was settling into order, and there was one enormous, insurmountable problem: me.

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“Of course I wanted to be in love, of course I wanted to have someone light up my night in the darkest hours, of course, of course I did. But I wanted a novel, I wanted a story in motion, and I didn’t want that love to be the end of the story. I wanted him to be a character and I wanted our novels to crash together and rivet us. I wanted to be bewildered and have my breath stolen and the rug ripped out from under me and to read him top to bottom for the rest of time.”

-DOS

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:54:31 -0400

-DOS

"I think about all of the things I’ve done, Oskar. And all of the things I didn’t do. The mistakes..."

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:21:36 -0400

“I think about all of the things I’ve done, Oskar. And all of the things I didn’t do. The mistakes I’ve made are dead to me. But I can’t take back the things I never did.”

- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (via thepagesofourlives)

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Fri, 01 Mar 2013 07:43:55 -0500

"What is a poet? An unhappy man who in his heart harbors a deep anguish, but whose lips are so..."

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:53:45 -0500

““What is a poet? An unhappy man who in his heart harbors a deep anguish, but whose lips are so fashioned that the moans and cries which pass over them are transformed into ravishing music….And men crowd about the poet and say to him, “Sing for us soon again”- which is as much to say, “May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be fashioned as before; for the cries would only distress us, but the music, the music is delightful.””

- Søren Kierkegaard, The Victims of Phalaris (via sunrec)

Why are you so fascinated with Lincoln?

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:37:02 -0500

Honestly, I think I’d have an easier time explaining why I’m less fascinated by just about anyone else in the world.

I just saw Spielberg’s Lincoln last night, and wow. It was the best dialogue I’ve “seen”/heard in a movie in ages. If Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t win an Oscar, I don’t know what is happening in life. About three or four times during the movie, I thought to myself, “Oh yeah, that’s Daniel Day-Lewis”. The rest of the time, I was completely convinced it was Abraham himself on screen. I don’t remember the last time I was so pulled in to a movie. Sally Field was great, James Spader was great, Lee Pace was great, and ~~Joaquin Phoenix~~ stole the whole show in my opinion. (Edit: That awesome actor is NOT Joaquin Phoenix, but holy cats does he ever look like him. Such a good acting job that he successfully convinced me that he was two different people!)

I couldn’t really imagine a life in which I watched that movie or read that story and wasn’t completed fascinated, but I think you’re rather referring to what I wrote about the book Lincoln’s Melancholy. Yeah, I really, really love that book. As interesting as Lincoln’s Presidency is, I believe his younger life and his road to the Presidency are even more interesting. I suppose most great leaders are fascinating enough, but I don’t know any whose flaws and idiosyncrasies are exposed as Lincoln’s are. He helped to save the most iconic democracy in the history of the world, but he was still so obviously human. He loved and he lost, in all senses of the word, from the loss of young love in the form of Ann Rutledge, all the way to the loss of his two sons. Everyone deals with heartbreak in their own way, but most leaders conceal their pain. I celebrate a man that not only wears every emotion on his face, but holds that head high in doing so, even if only due to uncommon height.

-Dreams of Sleep I’ve posted this before, but the...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:38:14 -0500

-Dreams of Sleep

I’ve posted this before, but the Kierkegaard quote came up in conversation earlier, and this is one of my favorite chapters.

"I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time..."

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 21:48:07 -0400

“I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.”

- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

contact high-five

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 23:53:15 -0400

dictionaryofobscuresorrows:

n. an innocuous touch by someone just doing their job—a barber, yoga instructor or friendly waitress—that you enjoy more than you’d like to admit, a feeling of connection so stupefyingly simple that it cheapens the power of the written word, so that by the year 2025, aspiring novelists would be better off just giving people a hug.

-Dreams of Sleep

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:30:12 -0400

-Dreams of Sleep

"Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke."

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 23:44:48 -0400

““Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.””

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"What about an animal that’s already dead, like a cow that’s been sentenced to death for..."

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 22:44:42 -0400

““What about an animal that’s already dead, like a cow that’s been sentenced to death for a murder? Or a pig that commits suicide from listening to too many of your songs?””

- Stephen Colbert, speaking to Morrissey about vegetarianism

(Colbert conducts the funniest interviews in the history of television—apologies to Jiminy Glick—but damn it, they can be awkward sometimes…)

-Dreams of Sleep (There are so many parts that I’d like...

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 23:26:49 -0400

-Dreams of Sleep

(There are so many parts that I’d like to share, lines that I like, that I’m proud of even, but so many are worthless without context. Just know, I’d share the whole thing if I could.)

It's my grandfather's 93rd birthday

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 19:13:37 -0400

I’ve gone up to Massachusetts for his last few birthdays because, you know… 90 is a big deal. And 91. And 92. But at a certain point, you just think, well, there’s no end in sight, and unfortunately I just can’t go every year.

For reasons I don’t need to get into, I have much more time and experience with the elderly than the average person might have, and I can say that he’s the most positive and healthy person I’ve ever known in that age range. Until this year. For a 93 year old, his health has still been incredible, but he’s had his first minor setbacks, and he’s beginning to slow down quite a bit.

You begin to wonder if there will be a 94th birthday party, or a 95th, and you’re not sad because that’s a good life, a long life. And when he says, “Don’t forget, I want to go to your wedding,” the implication is clear. There won’t be a 94th birthday party, or a 95th, at least in his mind. (And if that’s already determined in his mind, what else matters?)

You can laugh off those jokes at the 80th birthday party. They’ve entered the realm of possibility by the 85th birthday party, but at that point, it’s still the truth to say you’re not rushing things. By the 90th birthday party, it’s okay to admit to yourself that you’re not sure that you’ve ever felt real love for anyone, but it’s harder to say it out loud. And when he reaches 93, when he’s hit an invisible speed bump that’s at least jarred him, if nothing else, you stay home. You stay home because it’s easier than saying that you’re certain now, that you’ve never felt true love. It’s easier than admitting you’ve begun to embrace the fact that you might not ever feel it. That you think the movies are bull. That you think your friends are anomalies. That the girls who have loved you are crazy. It’s easier than laughing off talk of weddings that you can’t even fathom. It’s easier than risking disappointing him. It’s easier than saying goodbye.

-Dreams of Sleep

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 17:32:30 -0400

-Dreams of Sleep

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:55:23 -0400

-Dreams of Sleep

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Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:34:15 -0400

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Wed, 26 Sep 2012 20:16:12 -0400

Run on

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 20:10:58 -0400

So there’s this girl and she likes me quite a bit and I may like her but that’s TBD and then she read my book in two days and couldn’t stop raving about it and actually wrote a song inspired by it (an amazing, beautiful song) because she’s an amazing, beautiful singer who, like, has gigs every weekend and now she’s reading my book again because it’s the kind of book that if you like it, you immediately want to read it again because that’s how good books should make you feel and I just don’t know if she likes me because she likes the book or if she likes the book because she likes me but she really, really likes me and really, really likes my book and I find it cute that she keeps emailing me all these lines that I wrote and what I’ve learned is that while it isn’t practical to meet girls by making them fall in love with my book, it’s more practical than getting my book out there by making girls fall in love with me.

The point is, while I slowly gain momentum in gaining the confidence in trying to get this bad boy published, if you’re a young woman with a big heart and romantic tendencies, you should read my book, and if you’re single, maybe you should do it while I’m still single. And don’t worry, the song is not required. (But it is pretty damn cool.)

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Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:09:30 -0400