hello

i haven't forgotten about you. shall we make date on sunday afternoon? we can have tea and toast together.

good morning

I opened my mouth and the room filled with birds.

Elliott Smith

a daydream

"... and a city like a forest, cool and quiet."

from Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

found

i found this sign outside the bats theatre when i was walking home last night. there is something very beautiful about its sadness.

away again

But where is "away"? Of course, "away" does not really exist. "Away" has gone away.

from Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

eclipse of the heart

i've been working on an artwork for charity. it's a paper collage that has been sublimate printed on to fabric. this is what i do when i'm living at Uni.

the artwork under construction

a photograph of the finished piece

i wrote...

Through the use of paper collage, scoring and stitching, I have created a composition based around the idea of the heart as the centre of all things. I have taken a conceptual approach to the heart, looking at circles as a representation of the heart. Intersecting lines define the heart motif and the abstract composition plays with the relationship between shapes.
 
Eclipse of the heart has been created as a gift to auction for Ronald McDonald House Charities.  This inspired me to look at quilting as a gift that represents family and the home. The piecing of quilts and the idea that the heart is what connects people to each other has inspired the subtle hand stitched lines. I have looked to the work of Bauhaus designers for inspiration. The glass compositions of Josef Albers and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s paper collage work have informed the overall aesthetic. The artwork has been assembled through paper collage and sublimate printing. Glowing edges from the printing process lift the circles from the background providing a contrast to the fine scoring lines. The golden circle becomes a symbol of hope set against a soft heavenly blue.

last night we had a wonderful auction night with Ronald McDonald House Wellington. the event was hosted in the Great Hall at Massey University and it was delightful.

a bookshelf

i love this. it's so erratic and hoarderish (a new word?) and a little bit wonderfully organised all at the same time.

Photo by Melchior Tersen via Andrew Harlow.

sunshine at Makara beach and only one teeny cloud in the sky

on a Sunday morning

i am not meant for mornings.

but fresh coffee and french toast with golden syrup... makes it a little easier.

away

"there is no away to throw things to."

snow day!

happiness.

mornings

author unknown. i received this in an email from my love. myself and the character share some similarities.

a weekend away

a flannelette shirt, photographs, cold fingers and a walk through the mist.

a few little words

"I never read, I just look at pictures."

                                            Andy Warhol

sometimes

i am afraid. the list is getting too long.

sleeping

i like that you blow me kisses even in the middle of the night when you are mostly asleep.

a sense of humour

"i think you're the one," he said.

"really?" she said.

"yeah, i think you're the one."

"what?"

"well, someone was going to get me chocolate, and i think you're the one," he answered.

dear winter

thank you for my new flannelette shirt. it makes me look like a logger and i don't mind one tiny bit.

i'm off to chop up wood for the roaring fire inside.

sharing stories

beautiful words make me happy.

Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico 

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by God, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

i found this here http://or-so-i-feel.blogspot.com/

dr. diver on good manners

"Good manners are an admission that everybody is so tender that they have to be handled with gloves. Now, human respect - you don't call a man a coward or a liar lightly, but if you spend your life sparing people's feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so can't distinguish what should be respected in them."

from Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald