“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.”
May 2012
6 posts
April 2012
16 posts
So, I attended weekend one of Coachella with my best friend, his 2 coworkers, 2 other girls I knew, acquaintances & 65 other people. All huddled together on the corner of 148th and Park ave (?) 21 cars deep.. and enough canopys to shade the Eastern Saraha (Is just about what weekend TWO felt like.)
Yes, I bought another ticket last minute from my boys who were attending the 2nd go around. How could I pass up on memories with the guys?! “WHY SAY NO WHEN YOU CAN SAY YES” Is what I practically live by if you know me..
I jumped in the car and jumped out to surprise the rest of the caravan from the east bay with, “GUESS WHOS BAAAACK :)” ..They thought I was crazy but I gave a fuck cause I was ready to have fun, with them!
The first weekends experience was unlike ANYTHING I’ve ever placed my two feet into. It had my two favorite aspects of life.. hitting both ends of my spectrum: Camping outdoors and raging like the untamed animals we are. Once in awhile I get to let go.. and just be me. It’s much needed as you all know with the reality we all live. All the glitters is not gold I’ve learned so just play in the dirt and be you.
4/20 was the departure date so we set off starting it with edibles. My last experience on the plane ride to Miami with Sean taught me to never, ever, do that again. I don’t smoke casually anyway so please believe it really fucked me up. I passed but let the others indulge while I rested the lids. Later awakening to the driver going 65MPH on I-5 south at 4am, only to find us a complete 15 minutes behind the other two cars and still 2 hours till LA….. I insisted, really insisted on driving. LOL! I love em don’t get me wrong but we had somewhere to be :)
Paranoia pulled over and they got their turn of shut eye. Arriving by the security gates’ morning opening, we passed with flying colors and made camp.. in 100 DEGREE WEATHER! DAY 1, Lady Coachella was brutal. She pounded us with relentless heat for 3 days.. and covered me in a shade my epidermis has never neighbored with. In the down times and thoughts of wandering mountains she taught me about the rage I’ve been running around with.
She opened my eyes to the thoughts laid dormant in my cortex that had been waiting for that EXACT moment to pop out and tell me, now. Now is when you’ll turn. Turn the wheel and go this way. Because you are suppose to. With no influence from anybody else but the rays of light transcribed by my cones and rods, she taught me, me.
I wish I could write here what really happened…but some of the things I just can’t explain. (ask me in person though) …She humbled me. She showed myself from the strangers eyes and grew the bean stock of the height of my wisdom.. Why did I act like this? Why was I doing it that way? Why are you going to this again? There is a world out there. ..The random memory of reading “EAT WELL & TRAVEL FAR” from someones twitter bio(?!) that I read once, permanently imprinted in my head. As if Mya Angelou surfed through the fissures of my brain.. The thought was beauty. Coachella. the 2nd weekend with the people I camped, interacted, saw and just felt.. was exactly what I needed.
A couple weeks ago on my facebook cover I posted a picture with a sign nailed to a tree, the direction pointing right and the caption read “To?”
Now I know where.. Follow me.
For those of you that read this and have plans with me this summer, I might just be cutting a few of those out.. to eat well and travel, far.
