Cocktail hour isn't complete without the balloons.

It's been a year. Even though I never met you, I miss you very much.
Watch over everyone in Cali and beyond, okay?

Love,
Ate Angelica

Because mistletoe can also be a garnish

I'm still crazy about you. I know I shouldn't be.

I Promised Happy, I Deliver Happy: What I'm Thankful For (On a Large Platter, of Course)

I promised a happier next post. Here you have it.

What I'm Thankful For:
Mom's stuffing. Dad's Christmas tree lighting ability. Little cousins. Lots and lots of little cousins. Black Friday sweater deals. Blankets. Yaya. Twenty-pound turkey. Leftovers of twenty-pound turkey. Even more leftovers of twenty-pound turkey. Stuffing leftovers. I reiterate, stuffing leftovers (yes, Mom's stuffing is THAT good). Keyboards that make clicking noises when being typed on. Blue-ink pens. Tea & honey. LUSH's Christmas Products. Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice. The guy from AP Micro who asked me to edit his paper. The teacher who assigned him that paper (go Friebs!). Intentional sentence fragments. Tap shoes. Tap footage. The mentor who introduced me to YouTube tap footage. That same person, who made me realize that I really don't want to put tap dancing aside when I go to college. Online Degrassi episodes. Fingerless gloves. Carolers. The feeling that, while your fingers are numb, everything else isn't.

Happy Holidays, blogfolk.

Empty Plate?

Sorry about not providing you with fresh appetizers like I promised.

Writers' block. Chefs on strike. Kitchen's clean.

Kitchen's not supposed to be clean.
It's supposed to be a delicious mess.




RANT:
I do more writing than I want to
and not as much as I need to
writing for the sake of writing
because damnit,
college essays demand exigence
rather than tickling for it.
itching for it.

It's like how most of us stop reading for pleasure after Freshman Honors English because literature is force-fed rather than savored.

And damnit,
I want to be tickled and itched again.
I want to savor again.



ENLIGHTENMENT:
And this is why I like hors d'œuvres so much.
They're little bites of insight, ingenuity, flavor
not platefuls
not gallons
just...bites.

And bites never make you sick of tasting.

I promise, the subsequent post will be happier. I love the holidays, and everything but the academic is working out rather swimmingly right now.

Small Talk: Bend it (verse) like Bécquer

This is where the cocktail chatter gets both erudite and desperate. I get a little more candid after the second Shirley Temple. Forgive my longwindedness, and pardon my grenadine breath.

They say Bécquer is the last of the Spanish romanticist poets. His life's cited in my textbook as breve y dolorosa - short and painful. The typical "sucks-to-be-that-guy" stigma. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer was, in essence, the 19th century emo kid of Spanish literature.

I'm a huge fan.

No digáis que, agotado su tesoro,
de asuntos falta, enmudeció la lira;
podrá no haber poetas; pero siempre
habrá poesía. - Rima IV

*Don't say that the treasure is gone.
Don't say that the harp stopped playing.
There won't always be poets; but there always
will be poetry.

Mientras haya unos ojos que reflejen
los ojos que los miran,
mientras responda el labio suspirando
al labio que suspira,
mientras sentirse puedan en un beso
dos almas confundidas,
mientras exista una mujer hermosa,
¡habrá poesía!

While there are still eyes to reflect back
at eyes looking back at them,
while there's still a sighing lip for each lip that sighs,
while, in a kiss, two souls feel confounded into one entity,
and while there still exists a beautiful woman,
there will be poetry!

*Note: Translations are rough; the Rosetta Stone wasn't sculpted to be skipped across a pond.

This is the stuff of a girl gone optimistic. This is the stuff of a girl internally pleading,
I can be that for you. I can be your corresponding set of eyes, lips, poetry, and your
et
cetera.

And then I remember that it's all hyperbole.
That it doesn't really work like that.
And then I feel silly and teenaged and whiny and
blah
blah
blah
because catharsis is meant for real sob stories,
and when push comes to shove, I've got it pretty good.

Bécquer was orphaned at age 9; his wife cheated on him, and he'd escape it all through traveling.

I'm lucky.

I'm loved.
Loved enough.
Loved like Plato dished it.
Loved like The Cosby Show dished it.
Loved like the kind of love that deserves more poetry than it's got.
Loved like
you used to be annoying in sixth grade but now you give the greatest hugs in the entire world
Loved like
i can walk into your house without knocking, and you know where we keep the chocolate
Loved like
damn, i'm in a family so big we've got our own mascot
Loved like
you know more about me than i do, and i hope i can be as good of a mom as you are because of it
Loved like
you make the best paella in town, dad
Loved like
abba on the car ride home and everything's coming up roses and padiddle and i dig your rhetoric in a big way and your visual rhetoric in an even bigger way because you are hot and do i really remind you of juno and awesome possum cherry blossom and handshakes and high-fives and concentration 64 no repeats or hesitations i will start by naming
Love
and that is you
and never forget
that you are loved like you are love
like you love
and i love
you and i
are loved
like we are
and always will be
poetry.

Feast on Song. It's Real Fresh.

It's been another month; I'm so sorry! School, life, college, college, dancing, and more college have been getting in the way. That said, I can probably speak for everyone in saying that we're all entitled to a bit of zen every once in a while. Or maybe you need a jolt. Or, hipster-ly put, maybe you just need something surreal. For like three minutes and something seconds.

Music does that for me.

They're all different flavors, just like you. Bon Apetit.

Feel like you're looking out of a car window when it's raining;

Feel like you're stargazing;

Feel otherworldly, Part 1;
Feel otherworldly, Part 2;
Feel otherworldly, Part 3;

Feel electric;

Feel like you want grab his hand and take him to the local street fair, and everything's glowing;

Feel like even though he won't take you up on that offer, I'd be cool if we were like this;

Feel awkward, and laugh about it;

Feel the chaos, then just sit back and chill;

Feel like you want to go on a adventure, with Carpe Diem as your tour guide;

Feel like you're with your best friend, partner in crime;

Feel the music so hard you're singing into your comb.


Yeah. What ^ they said.

Past-Month-And-A-Half-Of-My-Life Special, Course Two: TEDtalks

TEDtalks is the greatest website on the internet - a binge on brilliance, if you will.
Get inebriated* - drink's on me.

Johanna Blakely: Lessons from Fashion's Free Culture
Crazy interesting. A must-watch for shoppers, couture connoisseurs, and budding designers. Blakely's talk explores the fashion industry's lack of copyright protection, delving into topics such as copyright law, the driving forces behind innovation, and the distinctions between art forms that are and aren't utilitarian.

Edith Widder: Glowing Life in an Underwater World
We live in a beautiful world. That said, most of us aren't able to experience the full of it, as the average person cannot plunge thousands of feet into the ocean. Luckily, Edith Widder has caught some such wonders on film for us. The creatures she features are ridiculous.

Magnus Larsson: Turning Dunes into Architecture
This is probably my favorite TEDtalk, along with Miru Kim's talk on self-portraiture and abandoned buildings. Larsson discusses a brilliant yet counterintuitive idea: using the desert itself to prevent desertification.


*Which is to say, get erudite. When it comes to all things literal, please: drink responsibly. Juice is my personal favorite.