100 (Find You Now)

1. Have blue eyes
2. Be over 6 feet tall - unless your name is Erich Hochstrasser, because then you're perfect just as you are
   
3. Be a baseball fan (or football or hockey -- no New York teams)
   
4. Know Heathcliff without being told
5. Love to cook breakfast and dessert
   
6. Be generous and kind to homeless people
7. Hate rodents as much as I do
8. Tell me when my hair looks silly
9. Have strong hands
10. Walk in the snow. Walk in general
    
11. Take advantage of opportunity; say "no" to very few adventures. Don't repeat them if they weren't wonderful the first time.
    
12. Need a dog in your life -- a big dog, not a little dog
13. Wear plaid
14. Believe in both coincidence and magic
15. Travel
16. Appreciate, even enjoy, my "fifteen year old girl" moments
17. Wear Chucks
18. Don't wear a tie to work
19. Respect my need for you to not watch the Victoria's Secret fashion show
20. Let me trust you without a wedding band
21. Trust me without a wedding band
    
22. Know not to buy me a diamond
23. Know to buy me a dictionary
24. Love children
25. Hate golf
26. Don't be settled with having; have a need to open doors that have never been closed to you for others that have had to break windows to even look inside
    
27. Value independence, both in yourself and in me
28. Love your family
29. Be my Trivial Pursuit partner
30. Don't take yourself seriously or believe you are more important than the moment you exist in
    
31. Read. Don't just say you read. Read.
32. Laugh often, but not without cause
    
33. Never make someone feel stupid or embarrassed
    
34. Laugh at yourself
35. Don't laugh at others
36. Always say "Bless you" when someone sneezes, even a stranger walking behind you on the sidewalk or a train conductor
    
37. Make my brother laugh
38. Introduce me to new music
39. Make me think
40. Fascinate me
41. Confuse me
42. Treat anyone whose job it is to help you not like "help," but like a human being. Understand that mix-ups like lost reservations happen
    
43. Don't value form over function
44. Be of use
45. Understand what "Be of use" means and why it matters
46. Keep an open mind
47. Go puddle jumping with your children (and me)
    
48. Teach your daughter to ice skate
49. Go to your child's plays
50. Be torn between the coldness of mp3 and their convenience over vinyl
51. Appreciate a well turned phrase
52. Wash my dishes for me when my back is turned
    
53. Bring me sunflowers on Van Gogh's birthday
54. Know not to buy me roses
55. Tell me a secret you have never told anyone else
56. Don't try to fix my problems; just be there to hear about them
57. Know that I can re-hang the door or re-grout the bathroom on my own, but do it with me
58. Write me a song, however terrible it is
59. Make me believe I can be better
60. Challenge my assumptions
61. Call me on my lies, my nonsense, my half-assed arguments and devil's advocate "Mary, Mary, quite contrary" moments
62. Aspire to more than mere mediocrity
    
63. Take risks; go sky-diving with me
    
64. Realize how lucky you are just to exist
    
65. Get along with my father
66. Understand that what my grandfathers would have thought of you matters more than what I think of you
67. Teach me something new
68. Let steak, roasted potatoes and green beans be your favorite meal
69. Be kind to your sister above all other girls you might meet
    
70. Don't ever believe in your own superiority, physically, mentally, intellectually, ecumenically, or otherwise
    
71. Love hockey fights
72. Don't be disgusted by boxing
73. Find humor in your flaws and in mine
74. Don't be willing to settle for less than you are capable of becoming
    
75. Never believe we are finished products
    
76. Have convictions
77. Make the world a better place, be it through direct interaction with the world or by providing the world with just a little more beauty
78. Appreciate the importance of beauty in this world
79. Watch Sunday morning PBS with me while reading the travel section from the Boston Globe and eating omelets and bagels
80. Don't be jealous
81. Be a little jealous. (But trust me, too.)
82. Love movies
83. Spend Saturday afternoons at museums of all sorts -- natural history, science, modern art, Renaissance art, etc.
84. Prefer Van Gogh to Monet and night to day
85. Stay up late with me, watch the sun rise and then sleep 'til noon
86. Bring me my hot chocolate
87. Let me listen to you
88. Don't get impatient when I meet strangers on the beach and swap life stories with them until the moon has risen
89. Accept my need to be near the sea
90. Let me teach you something
91. Don't try to understand or change me; just accept me
92. Drive to the beach and watch the full moon rise
93. Climb a mountain. Stay the night. Let me set up the tent.
94. Don't ask me if I need help. I'll ask if I do.
95. Don't need me to fix you; don't need to fix me
    
96. Don't ever act smarter than someone else
    
97. Treat everyone as if they are just as important -- more so, even -- than you
    
98. Engage in ice cream eating contests with me
99. Watch me walk away until you can't see me anymore
100. Don't tell me you love me.
     

Practical Magic to snare an Ideal Husband

I love Alice Hoffman. I really, really do. I think The Blue Diary is this hot, sweaty, sticky book -- the sort of lustful, crazy-intense, rollercoaster ride of a book that absolutely captures what a humid Massachusetts summer is like. The colors of the air, the way it can drive you mad. And the story just unfolds so languidly and yet, it doesn't occur to you that it's moving slowly because it feels exactly like that summer; the days are long and the months are short.

Anyway, my first Hoffman was Practical Magic and I'm pretty sure I read it very early in my high school experience. She has such an ethereal voice, such a way of making the ordinary seem magical, and this book is a really excellent example of that.

Anyway, in the book, one of the characters decides she never wants to fall in love again and so she vows never to fall in love again unless she meets this very specific man that she is certain is absolutely impossible. There's no way he can exist.

The first time Sally falls in love, it happens like this:

"The man Sally fell in love with was named Michael. He was so thoughtful and good-natured hat he kissed the aunts the first time he met them and immediately asked if they needed their trash taken out to the curb, which won them over then and there, no questions asked. Sally married him quickly, and then moved into the attic, which suddenly seemed the only place in the world where Sally wished to be.

"Let Gillian travel from California to Memphis. Let her marry and divorce three times in a row. Let her kiss every man who crossed her path and break every promise she ever made about coming home for the holidays. Let her pity her sister, cooped up in that old house. Sally did not mind a bit. In Sally's opinion, it was impossible to exist in the world and not be in love with Michael. . . His kisses were slow and deep and he liked to take off Sally's clothes with the bedside table light turned on and he always made certain to lose when he played gin rummy with one of the aunts.

"When Michael moved in, the house itself began to change, and even the bats in the attic knew it and took to nesting out by the garden shed. By the following June, roses had begun to grow up along the porch railing, choking out ragweed, instead of the other way around. In January, the draft in the parlor disappeared and ice would not form on the bluestone path. The house stayed cheery and warm . . . Throughout the night, it sounded as if a river were flowing right through the house; the noise was so beautiful and so real that the mice came out of the walls to make certain the house was still standing and meadow hadn't taken its place."

Anyone else think SMeyer ought to hand over the Twilight Saga to be rewritten by someone who knows about the magic of first love? Not some submissive wretch of a woman who thinks that love is about giving up who you are -- or about lacking a personality to begin with? Those passages are phenomenal. If I could write like that, I wouldn't be writing blogs. The best description of a girl who breaks hearts?

"Gillian broke hearts the way other people broke kindling for firewood. By the time she was a senior in high school, she was so fast and expert at it that some boys didn't even know what was happening until they were left in one big emotional heap."

Ugh. My jealousy cannot be contained.

Anyway, Sally's list. I'm going to try to find it. [Musical interlude while I scour book for specific passage.]

[Except I just found this and it breaks my heart.]

"What had she thought, that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, just to play with? Real love was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake."

Seriously, who writes like that?

In describing how Sally felt when faced with the prospect of losing Michael, who she loved so very much, Alice Hoffman writes,

"Now whenever he kissed her, she cried and wished she had never fallen in love in the first place. It had made her too helpless, because that's what love did. There was no way around it and no way to fight it. Now if she lost, she lost everything."

So good, so true. Love makes you helpless. And it's the best reason I've ever heard for not falling in love. Except, there are even more compelling reasons for why one SHOULD fall in love. The roses and the river and the meadows, and all that.

I can't find the passage in the book, but the quote from the movie is this...

"He will hear my call a mile away. He will whistle my favorite song. He can ride a pony backwards. . . He can flip pancakes in the air. He'll be marvelously kind. And his favorite shape will be a star. And he'll have one green eye and one blue. . . That's the point. The guy I dreamed of doesn't exist. And if he doesn't exist, I'll never die of a broken heart. "

But he does exist. And he looks like this.

Man, I love Aidan Quinn. My point is, I'm making a Practical Magic list. One with one hundred items. So that he is impossible and I will never find him and never die of a broken heart.

28 days later...

I'll be hooooome!

Let the countdown to omelets and craisins begin.

I should be writing the final that's due tomorrow. Two 2000-word stories, plus a 1000-word explication for each. But I'm not sure what to write about. So I'm listening to Warren Zevon right now, though my iPod is on "shuffle," and dreaming up things to do in Denver when you're dead. So I'm trying to think of what I can blame my recent bouts of unproductive-itis on, and I've come up with a list. With pictures!

-The Red Sox. I think that the more productive their lineup, the less productive I become. In particular Jason Bay. I'm told he has strong hands.

From Miscellaneous

-Beaver. The less said about this, the better.
-Clark Duke. Also from Greek. "For a gay guy, you're shockingly ignorant about matters of home decor." "It's a valence. A window treatment."
-Snood.

From Miscellaneous

-Henry DeTamble. (I actually had a dream that I had the same genetic mutation as Henry last night.)
-Chuck Bass. Especially Chuck with Blair.

From Miscellaneous

-The Bobby + PJ dating scenario. It works for me.
-Bobby saying, "Wicked? Like, Boston wicked, or witchy wicked?"
-Todd Snider's Excitment Plan. I need it.

From Miscellaneous

Now, I have a new group of Shetland friends who might not know how I roll over the summer. I ditch facebook, thoroughly, and try to stay as "at home" as possible. Which means that, unless I find a very good reason to keep up with my blog, I'll be off the grid. They might just be that reason.

I know you guys have all be talking about possibly making some rules for the blogging, and I think that might be the only thing that motivates me to not abandon ship once I'm home. (I originally began this as an attempt to keep people back home in my specific loop, so going home sort of erases that need.) I think this could be a really good way to stay in touch. What say you?

I'm issuing my first challenge. Write a blog that includes as many cliches and platitudes as humanly possible. And it has to make sense. Cara, I think, would be good at this for some reason.