Oh Henry, you're not really the stick in the mud most people think you are...in fact, few writers (in my reading experience, at least) have captured the pain of broken hearts and being socially awkward the way you have.

I'll be circling the barn*with some of your most long-winded words ever and suddenly I feel caught off guard by how you manage to find little ticks and mean quirks smack dab in the middle of polite society. It's quite obvious that you and your equally famous brother William both had great insights into the human psyche...

And nothing has ever quite gotten to me the way Washington Square and Beast in the Jungle have...




*just a quick side note:

example of what seems like circling the barn, but in fact makes beautiful sense after more than one reading....see, the thing about Henry James is that you really need lots of patience to get through what he's saying, but the pay-off is very high:):


from the short story "Georgiana's Reasons":

1. 
   
   

   I.
   
   She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he
   did n't know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should
   have felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he
   did not feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm
   which--once circumstances had made them so intimate--it was impossible
   to resist or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted
   at times to a positive distress, and shot through the sense of
   pleasure--morally speaking--with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of
   neuralgia) that it would be better for each of them that they should
   break off short and never see each other again. In later years he called
   this feeling a foreboding, and remembered two or th

I thought I was getting a cold yesterday so I did what I usually do when I'm home and too tired to read...I watched movies. The first one ("Tank Girl") I knew would be good because I'd already seen it and it's one of my favorites. It has a "bring it on" attitude I love and wild colors and kangeroo men and Naomi Watts so I'm happy...but the second movie "The Real Life of Angel Deverell" (or just "Angel" as it's more commonly called) was so bad it circled around and almost became good...but more on this film later...I'm still trying to figure out how I could spend two hours watching something so bad that wasn't the kind of campy bad that makes you laugh your ass off...

Normally I prefer pie over cake, but oh my gosh is Nina Persson's "Black Winged Bird" (off of The Cake Sale) one of the most beautiful and dreamy songs I've heard in recent years. Persson is from the Cardigans and more recently A Camp and she has so such a lovely voice I could listen to it for a long time...




You've got to hear this track (just click on the Cake Sale picture for a link to the sample!) and tell me if you don't start crying...

And her wicked duet with Tom Jones on their cover of "Burning Down the House" is also awesome...it's off of his Reloaded Hits album:

 

I dream about staircases a lot in my dreams which seems fitting somehow since my dreams often have different layers or levels of weirdness and reality. There are many theories on staircase dreams

(http://thedreamwell.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/dream-symbols-stairs-staircases-and-lifts/ )

and I respect people who use dream interpretation a lot even if I don't personally believe in it.

Because I really think it's hard to tell one person why they dream of stairs when it could mean different things to different people. With me I find that my staircase dreams are like intermissions between each of the dreams that I'm lucky enough to recall when I wake.

It's a great song to dance to, but if you listen more closely to Robbie Williams' "Bodies" you actually start to think about the words and whether our culture does worship at the temple of the human body so much it forgets about what's really important...not to mention that for many of us we want physical perfection so much it hurts (because, after all, who will really love us without those luscious abs and perky breasts?)...



God gave me the sunshine,
Then showed me my lifeline
I was told it was all mine,
Then I got laid on a ley line
What a day, what a day,
And your Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me
UK and entropy,
I feel like its ****in’ me
Wanna feed off the energy,
Love living like a deity
What a day, one day,
And your Jesus really died for me
I guess Jesus really tried for me
Bodies in the Bodhi tree,
Bodies making chemistry
Bodies on my family,
Bodies in the way of me
Bodies in the cemetery,
And that’s the way it’s gonna be
All we’ve ever wanted
Is to look good naked
Hope that someone can take it
God save me rejection
From my reflection,
I want perfection
Praying for the rapture,
‘Cause it’s stranger getting stranger
And everything’s contagious
It’s the modern middle ages
All day every day
And if Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me
Bodies in the Bodhi tree,
Bodies making chemistry
Bodies on my family,
Bodies in the way of me
Bodies in the cemetery,
And that’s the way it’s gonna be
All we’ve ever wanted
Is to look good naked
Hope that someone can take it
God save me rejection
From my reflection,
I want perfection
Bodies in the Bodhi tree,
Bodies making chemistry
Bodies on my family,
Bodies in the way of me
Bodies in the cemetery,
Bodies in the bodhi tree,
Bodies making chemistry
Bodies on my family,
Bodies in the way of me
Bodies in the cemetery,
And that’s the way it’s gonna be
All we’ve ever wanted
Is to look good naked
Hope that someone can take it
So God save me rejection
From my reflection,
I want perfection
Jesus didn’t die for you, what do you want?
(I want perfection)
Jesus didn’t die for you, what are you on?
Oh Lord
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh
(Jesus really died for you)
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh


You really full feel the full effect more if you listen to the song or watch the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US8cgUq_XBY