Reposting the Awesomeness

"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 Twilightseries.

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."

- Rosemarie Urquico

Creative DNA

I'm working my way through a new book, The Crafter's Devotional. It's not exactly a workbook, and it's not a how-to book either. It's a set of 52-weeks worth of ideas and activities to help spark and nurture creativity. Today's entry asked an interesting question, along the lines of: If you had to only make one kind of art for the rest of your life, what would it be? What medium expresses your soul?

I'm not sure I have an answer. I am reading a book about assemblage right now, so that seems very appealing off the top of my head. It uses a lot of the same techniques and materials as a lot of other crafts I like. I can include beading, decoupage, altered books and scrap-booking, and all sorts of other things. The trouble is, I don't think I could ever actually limit myself to one medium. I enjoy dabbling in things, and although sometimes I do wish that I had more skill in one area or another, I'm generally thankful that I don't actually have to choose. Jack of all trades, master of none, is a very comfortable place for me to be most of the time.

The question did bring up another idea though. I have this old day-dream of some day making a living (or a retirement) running a small shop where my friends and I can sell our arts and crafts. I have so many talented friends: jewelers, photographers, a leatherworker, musicians, fine artists, seamstresses, assemblage-makers... the list just goes on. I wish there were a place I could gather us together to share our work and our worries, our joy, our struggles, and our successes. It would be wonderful if we could actually sell some stuff, but the real point is to have a community of people who encourage us to make what we want to make, and to have a place to share those items with the world. I've always imagined it being a little shop in a New England-ish setting, with lots of sunlight pouring through the windows and tons of foot traffic wandering past and drifting in because something in the window catches their eye. I don't know what we'd call it. I already have my own "brand", and most of my crafty friends do too, so we'd need a name for the shop that was its own thing. In the spirit of creative dreaming, I'm taking suggestions!