dear person i knew once,

I was planning on kind of telling you off, insisting that you aren't worth my time anyway and I don't care that you have so unceremoniously ended our friendship of seven years without any actual notification and have a nice life thank you the most very much. I think you'd just gain some satisfaction from that, since it would be pretty obvious that I do care about our apparently ended friendship, enough to write a public letter-blog even.

Instead, I very earnestly want you to know, you are worth my time-- or at least, you have been worth my time when you were nice and squishy and my friend and filled with endless "Who loves you, baby?"s. You were worth my time when you sent me flowers to congratulate me for a performance you had to miss. You were worth my time when I was sad and feeling hopeless about all those boys who really weren't worth my time, just like you said, and I wrote your name in my scriptures next to a verse you suggested to me. You were worth my time when you read my blog and told me I was good, and all those times when you said I was unappreciated as an actress. You were worth my time when you read my friend's blog and then decided you loved her and I went with you to buy her jewelry. You were worth my time that night you texted and told me to be with her, even though I knew you were miserable too, and I wanted you to know that. Genuinely.

We were friends for seven years after a misunderstanding was smoothed over, and I asked you to that dance because I really did want to go with you. I promise. We ate ice cream and watched lots of movies at your parents' house. You called my parents by their first names, which is typical of you, but it made me feel happy anyway. You were sad when my dog died. She liked you, you know. You wrote a movie once, in about 800 drafts, and I was going to be in it since you said the character was based on me, even though the character was called Kelly. I went to all those concerts in your backyard and our friend's backyard, and we talked online very late at night. We talked about critical theories sometimes. You're smart, and you know it, and I'm smart too. It was nice to feel smart together, even when I suspected that you might feel smarter than me (which isn't a truth-- you're just different smart. I hope you accept that).

I do want you to have a nice life. I want you to be happy, and I know you can be. Maybe you are happy. You keep writing as if you are, though I've noticed you've been sick lately from status updates and things. I have kept track of you, even though you don't really want anything to do with me, I think. My updates are still public if you ever want to check, since you won't see anything automatically now.

I know you think I had adverse opinions about you that I'd never say. For what it's worth, I didn't. Still don't, really, except for when you say mean things about people I love-- including yourself. I like that you are who you are, without apology, almost to a fault. You think, and study, and make decisions, and stand up for yourself and other people. I'm not even mad that you put opinions in my head and words in my mouth. I'm mostly just sad about it. I thought you knew me better than that, to know that I wouldn't think or say those things about you. Maybe we grew apart more than I thought.

I know you've thought some adverse things about me and mine, too. It doesn't matter how I know. I know sometimes you say mean things about people behind their backs. We all do. I've known for a while that you probably say mean and untrue things about me. It's okay. I don't know why you think those things. I'm happy. My people make me happy. My marriage makes me happy. Whether or not you understand or think I'm wrong or misinformed or blinded, I'd hope you'd be happy for me, being happy. I'd hope you'd trust my decisions and my choices and my husband. I try very hard to trust you and yours (sans husband-- though if you had one, I'd try to trust that too).

I guess I'm not really sure why we have to end. I kind of knew it would happen. I don't resent it. But I did know, all the way back in March to some extent. And while I know our end has mostly to do with my best friend, I guess we probably would have ended anyway. We're different people than we were seven years ago, though I never thought our differences were exactly irreconcilable. I kind of always thought you'd be you and I'd be me, and we'd bounce along together with a sort of mutual understanding and respect for the person we've cared for such a long time. I know you think I take her "side" with everything, but I don't. I'm not sure there's a "side" to be had. I talk to her a lot. I'm with her a lot. I know how she feels about you and about things, but I also know how I feel about you. I didn't really think my friendship with another person would permanently get in the way of us. It hasn't in the past, though I know how you feel about many of my other long-time friends.

It might go to your head, this letter-blog, but as much as I love you, you need to know I'm not going to fall at your feet. I'm not going to leave a zillion comments on your blog or text you eighty times, only so you can tell someone else how needy and annoying I am. I have people who want me. I can turn to them. But I'll gladly turn to you again, when you want me, when our history means something to you, when I'm not so easily forgotten by merely removing me from your blog roll and friend's list and probably from your phone, too.

Maybe it's sentimental. And maybe it's inappropriate to declare publicly. And maybe you won't even read this, or maybe you will and you'll resent it. Or maybe you'll read it and all those things about us being friends will remind you that de-friending a person is a very sad and symbolically final sort of thing. One little click has made a clear impression on me, because you made an impression on me. You continue to make an impression on me, or I wouldn't even be writing this.

You're money, baby. You're so money, and you don't even know it.

Love,
Emily

thoughts on having blonde hair

So I've decided I should never be a blonde.

I mean, I've got no problem dying my hair. At the moment it's a faded sort of burgundy that needs to be unfaded, in fact, so I guess it's lucky that I'm all intent on dying it all pretty and artificially burgundy again. With highlights.

At the moment, in the spirit of Halloween, I'm wearing a little blonde bobbed wig as I sit in the Box Office of Hale Center Theater Orem, dressed as a 1920's stenog. How thoroughly modern of me. I've got a cute little blue dress with cute little red heels and cute seamed stockings and a cute red hat, and this hair which is, on anyone else, a cute little blonde wig, but I look at myself and hear all kinds of sirens blaring, BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA!

Once upon a time, I wore a blonde wig all summer and was more or less convincing:
Clearly I'm thrilled about it, yeah? Actually, to be true, that wig was pretty good, and I was only partly self-conscious about my brown hair poking out around my ears. The ringlets were another story:
Note the suspicion in my eye. I felt like a Marie Osmond doll, where they all kind of look like her. You know what I mean? But for real, Marie Osmond dolls that look like Amy fully exist. Behold, little Adora My Dolly:It's freakin' Marie Osmond (or me, since we have matching enormous brown eyes and naturally dark hair aren't I cool I'm like a celebrity hair toss imaginary cigarette tap) as Amy March.

But okay, okay, duh-- that was a stylized thing, and in truth, ringlets only look good on tiny children and Wendy Darling. They look especially CA-RAH-ZEE on Irish dancers, particularly small ones, am I right?:
But the point is that I had to be blonde in that play. I couldn't not be blonde, regardless with how comfortable I was. I think the thing that bothered-- and is currently bothering-- me most is how dark my eyebrows look(ed) against the hair. And I am sooooooooo not confident enough to pull a Scarlett Johansson:
She's not my favorite to start, and call me crazy, but I just feel like this is a BAD IDEA! BAD IDEA! in spite of her pretty eye makeup and perfect teeth.

I bet if I had pretty eye makeup (and perhaps perfect teeth) at the moment, I'd feel less awkward about my light hair and dark eyebrows at the moment. Unfortunately, the wig was a last-minute decisions, and I didn't even put on any extra makeup for this costume except a swipe of red lipstick. So yeah, I'm pretty awesome-- mascara from yesterday, no fixes to the complexion, and red kiss-proof lipstick to go with light blonde hair. BAD IDEA!

I've done those virtual make-over things where you upload a picture of yourself and then the website puts outdated/ugly hairstyles on your crappy, pixelated head, and I've tried various colors. Turns out purple is a pretty good look for my coloring.

Why didn't I even grab a purple wig from the wig shop this morning, instead of a blonde one?

book people

I went to the library the other day. I went to the library because I live only two blocks from the library and I wanted to get a library card. I like libraries very much. I worked in one once. I like to read the books that are in the library, and sometimes use the computers because even though they're public access and slow and grandpa dinosaur computers, there's something more smart-- or at least more calm-- about a library computer than my teensy laptop which is so trendy and small and can fit in my purse, practically.

So I walked to the library in my favorite black cardigan that has the stitching on the outside instead of the inside, and my purple shoes from Target, and I was reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as I walked because it helps to pass the time. I like tripping across the cracks and the weeds in the sidewalk because I'm reading a book and not watching my feet. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has been called one of the Best Books of the Century, and it was given to me for my 23rd birthday from one of the Best People of the Century-- one julieannaface-- and it was pretty fitting for me to have that book with me, since I had three-- literally three-- people in those two blocks comment on that book.

"Oh, what a good book!" one woman remarked as she sat in her van in front of a stranger's house, windows rolled down, so suddenly that I jumped out of my cardigan almost and all I could do was laugh uncomfortably and reply with a shaky, "Yeeahahahaaaaah."

A kid with a backpack on a bike whizzed by, but not without telling me, "That is one of my favorite books!" I thought that was pretty neat because he's a man, but the swollen backpack hinted it might be filled with books, which made me assume he's either just one of Those People who have read and know everything, or he's a Book Person-- a Book Person like me.

I am a Book Person, I'll have you know. My degree doesn't automatically grant a person the title. I know a startling number of English majors who aren't, in fact, Book People. Maybe they're Writing People or Research People, or sometimes they're just I Don't Want To Be An Elementary Ed Major People, and I guess that's fine because at least they're honest. I'm a Book Person, and so was that kid on the bike. We're those who smell the insides of books at the store, or in the library, because there is something so familiar and comforting about the smell of books, new or old. We're those who probably haven't read all the latest Best Sellers, though we have read some, because we like to read the classics, the Best Books of the Century. We like to sit in libraries just because. Maybe we even carry our own books to the library, even though we intend to read other books once we get there, because we just love books books books. Am I right?

For better or worse, there is a breed of Book People that surpasses all-- the Librarian. I revere librarians and their Book Personedness. When I bounced into the library and up to the front desk to get a new card, I had half a mind to play Francie Nolan-- you know, being inspired by trees growing in Brooklyn-- and ask the librarian, "Do you know any good books for 23-year old girls?" I didn't, though. I didn't need to. Because I am a Book Person, and I Get It.

The librarian, looking every inch her part with perfectly smoothed hair and a forest green turtle neck and her gold-rimmed glasses connected to a chain so they could hang around her neck, eyed me with my messy ponytail and skinny jeans and tiny purple purse (which maybe I'm not even cool enough to carry), and asked how she could help me. I suddenly lost all my nerve. It turns out, I am unnerved by Supreme Book People. I stood there like a jumbly mess, thumbing the corner of my book and rolling back and forth on the side of one foot. "I'd like a library card, please," I did manage to stammer and felt my cheeks start to burn for an unknown, and very discouraging, reason.

I suddenly reached out and rested A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on the counter so she would somehow know of our kindredship and she wouldn't look at me That Way. She nodded at it, but didn't comment, and said, "I think we can do that for you. Do you live in Orem?" By my uneasiness, I'm quite sure she figured I might be 17-years old, 18 at best, and probably still lived with my mommy and daddy. After the fact, I guess I could have drummed my married-fingered left hand across the cover of my book, but maybe that would have been trying just too hard. I nodded that I did, somehow unable to form any kind of words in my mouth, and growing more and more annoyed that I couldn't stand before her with poise and an air of don't mind me, I come here all the time. "Do you have a driver's license or picture ID with you?" she asked, the brooch on her sweater mocking me. I nodded again and started to fumble with my purse to get my wallet. Why was this so difficult? "We'll also need a proof of address," she added, and when I paused, dumbfounded, I could swear there was a condescending glint in her eye.

I haven't printed a new driver's license yet, see, with my new name and address, and most of the mail I receive still has my maiden name. "I... I... I don't have anything like that with me," I admitted quietly, screaming in the back of my mind, "NO! NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I GET THIS PLACE! I BELONG HERE! I'M ONE OF YOU! A BOOK PERSON, LIKE ONE OF YOU!!!!" while she shrugged politely sort of and oozed a strange kind of pity and judgement. "You'll need to bring those before we can issue you a library card," she informed me. I nodded and backed away slowly, hoping the bottom of my pants wouldn't catch on the carpet and send me tumbling to the floor, since that definitely would be the most graceful way to bow out of this situation.

I crawled away to the Adult Non-Fiction section, feeling less of a Book Person than I ever have and intending to find some solace in William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb and maybe some A.A. Milne if I could be so lucky. Book of the Century or not, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn couldn't cut it being fiction, and a novel, and therefore out of the general realm of my recent (read: past three years) experience. While pleasant, and inspiring, and beautiful to read, and borderlining on non-fiction, Betty Smith was no match for the personal and intellectual ramblings of Vernon Lee. I breathed a literal sigh of relief when I got to that row with all those beautiful authors and the word "essay" sprinkled throughout most of the titles and wanted to hug the whole shelf so that scary librarian could see because something tells me she probably doesn't even love essays and while she may be the Mother Superior of Book People, there are only a handful of us that are ESSAY BOOK PEOPLE.

I am an Essay Book Person. I love to be an Essay Book Person.

I started pulling collections of essays from the shelf almost at random, really only intent on reading The Essays of Elia which I grabbed specifically and tossed my hair about it because how many people in the world can actually say they even know the title The Essays of Elia and grapple it off the shelf specifically? NOT MANY, YOU SCARY LIBRARIAN BOOK LADY. And I took all those books and plopped into a comfy library chair off in the corner all by itself, with all these books scattered at my feet, and I read that Essays of Elia for an hour before I trekked home to be with Ames, and you know what I did? I put away all those books I didn't even touch right there on the Books for Reshelving shelf-- all except The Essays of Elia because maybe that librarian will find it and smile with satisfaction, happy that someone finally took that book (which she has probably never read, thank you) off that shelf and enjoyed it for a while and enjoyed it enough to leave it for her to find and enjoy herself.

Because I am a Nice, Essay, Book Person, and I hope you will be too.

this is all

For now, anyway. Five weeks! Five weeks! Five weeks!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

fortelling

I found this scrawled across a piece of paper in a box filled with assorted things from my old apartment.


January 1, 2009
I threw a really big party tonight. People came to it, and it was beautiful. I danced with half a dozen boys who all attended because they love me-- and I danced with one who might actually love me a little for real. He squeezed my hand when I brushed his fingers and my heart raced when we just danced in silence. I felt pretty and I knew, even though he didn't say it, he thought I looked pretty too. I felt pretty with him. I wanted to hold his hand and it felt easy and normal, like I might, but I didn't, and he didn't kiss me at midnight.

I should liked to have kissed him.


That was a really great party, Julie. Let's have another one this year.

things i love

Ames (doi)
Diet Coke (also doi)
Peas
Pasta, in various cream sauces
My glasses
Good evaluations at work
Good hair days (today is one)
Old movies
Television
Peach rings
Cardigans
Taco Bell
Fortune cookies
When Ames comes home from rehearsal
Old pictures
Target
Target gift cards
Working in the box office
Writing
London
My wedding rings (I'm allowed to brag)
Chelsea Lately
Feeling pretty
Being told I'm pretty (Thanks, honey)
Sprout
Emilie Wright the Emerald Queen
My pillow
Burberry Brit perfume
Hilary Duff's With Love Perfume (don't hate till you've smelled it)
Christmas Carol
Zeb the Zebra
Smartfood whice cheddar popcorn
Self-proclaimed artists
Museums
Trashy reality tv (guilty pleasure)
AUTUMN
Scarves
Tights
Boots
Dresses
Large purses
Crunching leaves under my feet
Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
Glee (Josh Groban and Victor Garber. GET EXCITED.)
The Office
All the people who love me (srsly)
Twitter (don't even fight me about this)
Left over wedding cake
Kissing
Throwing junk away
John, or Kate, Plus 8
Stacy and Clinton
Essays
Being married for ever and ever and ever and ever