My Weekend According to my iPhone

This past weekend I took a road trip with my family to the small town of Phillipsburg.

We...

ate at an old fashioned soda shop and diner.

stoked up on cady at The Sweet Palace.

and browsed countless antique shops.

(more pics to come!)

Sometimes, when I have a bad day I think to myself, "New York would fix this."

Because, somehow, no matter how big and scary the world is, New York makes me happy. Just the simple though of the city, just sitting here writing about it makes me feel like everything is ok.

It's funny isn't it? Thinking about how a place can heal you. It makes me believe that city may be magical. If only Disney had set a fairy tale there. (And I don't mean "Enchanted" - I'm talking the old animated ones.)

But I couldn't be in New York today. So, here I am at my favorite coffee house. My baristas make my usual right when I walk in the door and never charge full price. I take my soy latte and a book, tuck myself away in a corner, and escape.

If I can't be in New York, it's a pretty good second.

My Exact Thoughts

"I wanted to do something with food, I said. That was what I kept coming back to, after everything else. At the end of the day, when I was exhausted and fed up and unsure of everything, food was a certainty. It was what I thought about, what I cared about, what I wrote about, what got me out of bed in the morning. (I mean that, I get up for the sole purpose of eating breakfast. I don't know why else you would.) It was so obvious, so utterly terrifying."-Molly Wizenburg, A Homemad Life, p. 166

Makeover Time!

Tea & Audrey will be undergoing a makeover within the next few weeks.

Please stick with me, as it may look a little messy at times.

I promise it'll be worth it in the end.

:)

Date a Girl Who Reads

 I first found this little gem via the always lovely Meg and I couldn't resist not passing it along.

It makes me giddy.

It makes me want to cry.

Tears of happiness and sorrow.

It makes me smile and laugh.

And it even makes me feel a little bittersweet.

Simply put, it could be writen about me.

Date a Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

 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 Twilight series.

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.

 My favorite part?

"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."

I'm in love with that...I understand it more that I understand anything else.

I won't buy a purse if I can't fit a book in it.

And yeah, I'm that weird chick sniffing old books in public places.

My favorite part of any day, what I always do when I have down time, is grab coffee and find a corner to crack open that book in my purse.

Or my journal.

And I escape.

I escape into a world where yes, of course the characters matter.

Often times, I want to be the heroine.

Of course, I want the characters to be real.

I want to be Elizabeth Bennet. Or Ali Hamilton. Or Eowyn.

I want to experience the climax.

Don't we all?

Happy Friday

{image by Mandy Clyatt.  copyright 2010. all rights reserved}

Wishing everyone a lovely Independence Day Weekend!

Be back Tuesday.

:)