The thing about epigraphs is that they don't mean anything until you've reached the end. Is this eerily similar to life and the wisdom our elders lay before us as we set off? Or am I stretching a metaphor? No, I think not. An epigraph sets the stage for a great novel to follow... a novel we know not yet and an epigraph we understand not.

The essence of life lies in little strands of lace flecking their essences through moments in time. The similarities that tell us this moment is one of beauty, just like the one before it. For me: warm violet mixed with sunset orange, a soft clementine really, a young purple waiting to grow bold into eggplant. Books. Always books. Real literature--that's sacred. Just Kids. A Visit from the Goon Squad. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Salinger. Wild. Fang. Kerouac. Dickinson. Whitman. They imbue the soul with fresh warmth. They relieve the world's blanching of...

• French Movies
• Okonokos!
• Fog
• Fruit Salads
• Indigo (as in the color)
• tea
• Pianos
• old books
• Thunderstorms
• friends' parents
• Fake accents
  • French accents
• adding U's to words even though I'm American
• inconveniently placed benches
• window seats in the nighttime
• four a.m.
• "Rainbow Colored Friends"
  • And Other Adventures Into Cultural Divers...

• bungee jump
• compose a song
• get in shape. that really good Outside shape.
• give up place in society for a year
• go on road trip
• live in another country
• ride bike through two states on one trip
• write book
• skinny dip
• run up steps (of important/grand building) to Rocky theme

• reservoirs
• Casablanca
• free records
• electronic indie music
• folk music
• absolute sincerity
• reviewing the past only to find a more pleasant present
• talks
• accidental dates

• go camping
• reread Franny & Zooey
• read something by David Ives
• discover a new band
• make a "day in the life" photojournal
• watch The Darjeeling Limited
• watch the sunrise
• watch Casablanca
• drive
• AP summer work

• best of cole porter
• edith piaf
• http://www.redbubble.com/products/config...
• the professional
• the thin red line
• black swan
• rave on buddy holly

• october
• tuesday
• 4 am
• southwest
• saturn
• old wooden chests
• willow trees
• owls
• lilys
• cherry wood
• thunderstorms
• cellos
• purple
• longing
• grapes
• gongs
• incense
• nose
• shoulders
• syncopated thirds
• rounded edges

• looking out car windows at nighttime
• the sound of smooth pebbles being knocked around by the waves
• smell backstage behind a backdrop
• smell of screens when wind is blowing through them
• sincere hugs (especially when needed)
• flirting
• freckles
• hot pavement after a light rain
• turning on a bike without brakes at the bottom of a hill
• crackling of the phonograph
• very beginnings and very ends of movies
• wet paws

• i ate tomatoes i found in a bowl on a table on the sidewalk outside a house i've never been to before
• i collected sand at 11 pm from the reservoir to mail to my friend
• i love so many people and hate so few, i feel my entire being tilting on the scales toward single extremes.
  • and with this loss of balance, I feel centered at last
• time to go walk a dog!

• The Perks of Being A Wallflower
• Something by David Ives
• Three Cups Of Tea
• Franny & Zooey (again)
• Franny & Zooey (again) (again)
• Seymour, an Introduction (again)
• Wuthering Heights
• Summer Reading
  • This Boy's Life
  • Slaughterhouse Five
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  • Huckleberry Finn
  • Glass Castle
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• A Confederacy of Dunces
• On The Road
• Heart of Darkness
• something by Charles Bukowski

• ✔ Citizen Kane
• ✔ Casablanca
• ✔ The Godfather
• Gone with the Wind
• Lawrence of Arabia
• ✔ The Wizard of Oz
• ✔ The Graduate
• ✔ On the Waterfront
• ✔ Schindler's List
• ✔ Singin' in the Rain
• ✔ It's a Wonderful Life
• Sunset Boulevard
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• Some Like It Hot
• ✔ Star Wars
• All About Eve
• The African Queen
• ✔ Psycho
• Chinatown
• ✔ One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• The Grapes of Wrath

• Audrey Hepburn
• Jimmy Stewart
• Norman Bates
• Eleanor Tilney
• The Glass Family

• spend 24 hours outside
• camping
• road trip to Canada
• BE OUTSIDE
• beach day
• bike to another state (New Hampshire)
• write stories and poems regularly
• do something I can be proud of every day
• drive without direction
• Free jazz/music concerts
• go into Boston
• record adventures either with camera or words
• picnic
• climb a mountain
• read a book a week (or thereabouts)
• go to Gloucester/Rockport
• a whole lot of spontaneous ones

• Breakfast At Tiffany's
• A Hard Day's Night
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• The Royal Tenenbaums
• Donnie Darko
• (500) Days of Summer
• Harvey
• Black Swan
• Almost Famous

• reread The Great Gatsby on 30th birthday
• amnesia so i can write about it
• les francais
• new friends, old friends, and limousines
• but not actually limousines
• new friends
  • infinite friends
• infinite presence, infinite reality, infinite bound, finite bounds, no bounds

• Labyrinth (eh. bored.)
• Pineapple Express
• Up
• The Darjeeling Limited
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Schindler's List
• Milk
• The Birds
• The Exorcist
• American Beauty
• Brazil
• Harvey (again)
• Fargo
• Winter Passing (Kami)
• The Room
• Psycho
• The Birth of a Nation
• Strangers on a Train
• Gone with the Wind
• A Fish Called Wanda (Own)