it's been a minute

to: charlie
from: laurie
so i had a dream last night that I ran into you in an airport - you were going to Japan and asked me to watch your bags while you checked in. i woke up before you came back for your bags. what do you think that means? are you going to Japan or has has it been long enough without us talking? it's been too long don't you think?

i think it's time

to: charlie

from: laurie

re: i've never written a cliche before

I looked into her eyes and I swore
I've never written a cliche before
And I'll probably never do so
She was beautiful though

I think it's time for me and you to take over the world
I think it's time for me and you to take over the world

I'm only a paperboy from the North West
But I can scrub up well in my Sunday best
How could I ever do for you?
Because I'm true and I'm real and this is how I feel

I think it's time for me and you to take over the world
I think it's time for me and you to take over the world

A glossy magazine on the coffee table
And you've held court with half of the culprits in
There who seem unstable
But you don't look at them like you do at me

Those eyes are only mine, what a wonderful time
When your eyes are mine, and mine are yours
I turn over in bed and you're not there

Nowhere to be seen
All I can do is flip the Mac and gently touch the screen

I think it's time for me and you to take over the world
I think it's time for me and you to take over the world

Take over the world
Take over the world

oh best beloved

We were taking the same Renaissance Literature course and the same Visual Art course. It was first semester of sophomore year. I don’t remember the first day that I realized the quiet girl in the corner of my art class was the same one sitting across from me in our lopsided Circle of English Class Trust, although I do remember smiling at you in Art because I eventually realized we had the same English class and anyone who likes art and is an English major is good in my book, and wondering if you thought the English professor was secretly totally awesome and inspiring and totally batshit and terrifying the same way I did.

You must have thought the same thing, about people liking English lit and art, because one of those rainy days we spent painting the in the hallway you struck up a conversation with me. It was the start, just as Rick told Louie.

Relationships are interesting things, even more so when you consider the world around them. True, genuine friendships were sacred rarities all the way up to modern times. So often, relationships were driven by interpersonal needs – you have an actual relationship with the merchant who is going to buy your wares or lend you money or marry your daughter and friendships were based on such a value. If there was a friend who you loved and there was no political gain to be had from said relationship – that was a true friend, a sacred friend. In today’s world, we don’t have to have relationships with our bankers or our merchants, so in theory you should be able to choose your friends.

(But still, how often did people become fast friends, best friends in the whole wide world, with the people they lived with in college? It happened to you, it happened to me. It wasn’t by some miraculous all seeing head of housing that knew, just knew it in her BONES, that all of the people on my floor in freshman year were perfect matches for each other, even though we lived with each other all four years. We wanted easy, happy lives and warring with the girls down the hall over who stole whose belt (or boyfriend or blanket) was not going to help. It is true, though, that some of my best friends come from that floor, and I love them dearly.)

Today, we have Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and blogs (and you know I’m guilty of all but LinkedIn) and so many aspects of friendship have become accoutrements. Or maybe, maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe we’re so focused on being liked and valued and wanted that we use Facebook and Twitter to validate ourselves with how many friends and followers we have. And because we want as many people as possible to like us, to want us, we’re more afraid than ever to say something or be someone who will cause people to dislike us. We are all sweet and cute and craft careful personas of witty awesomeness, so that a lot of the relationships of today are just as political as the ones back in the middle ages. Just instead of being polite and sweet to your butcher, you’re being sweet and polite to the cute kid who sat in your class a couple of semesters ago and you still think is cute. Which, whatever, I’m not going to lambaste anyone for doing that. I think it’s part of the composition of today’s society and our particular generation – I’m careful about what I put out on Facebook because I care about how it’s received. I’m not about to throw any stones when I’m just as guilty. Glass houses, and all that.

It’s hilarious and ironic that you and I use the internet the way we do. Various and sundry are complaining that the internet and all its little ‘networking’ sites are all manifestations of the way interpersonal relationships are becoming less and less personal. No one sits down and has deep conversations for hours on end, they cry. Business writers caution that emails shouldn’t go on for more than a page, which means the letters Liza sent her sister Jane – pages on pages – really are a thing of the past.

But you are my soul friend, one of those sacred rarities “difficult to find but dearly beloved,” that summons me to the good, by offering advice and not being afraid to call me out, but still loves me unconditionally. You are the Dianna to my Anne and because you do not live down the street and through the grove from me, we cannot drink our tea and discuss every afternoon. Instead, The Constantine Papers is a series of love letters between us, that tide us over when you’re in your old city and I’m in my little city, until we can see each other and sit across from one another by a fireplace and drink tea and talk about everything.

where are you?

to: charlie
from: laurie

i miss you.

she speaks to my soul

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: ingrid michaelson

I don't wanna be the one to say goodbye
But I will, I will, I will
I don't wanna sit on the pavement while you fly
But I will, I will, oh yes I will

'Cause maybe in the future, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back around
Maybe in the future you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back

Oh, the only way to really know is to really let it go
Maybe you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back to me

I don't wanna be the first to let it go
But I know, I know, I know
If you have the last hands that I want to hold
Then I know I've got to let them go

'Cause maybe in the future you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back around
Maybe in the future you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back

Oh, the only way to really know is to really let it go
Maybe you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back

I still feel you on the right side of the bed
And I still feel you in the blankets pulled over my head
But I'm gonna wash away, oh I'm gonna wash away
Everything till you come home to me

Oh, the only way to really know is to really let it go
Maybe you're gonna come back, you're gonna come back
You're gonna come back to me, you're gonna come back to me
You're gonna come back to me

and that has made all the difference

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: a few crystallized thoughts

Advice is a funny thing. You get it all the time even if you don’t ask for it and you rarely take it. Even more rare is to follow the advice you give. I am no dr. phil but I like to think I give pretty good advice.

You and you alone are responsible for your own happiness (that’s an original) I can’t tell you how many times I have told someone that. Happiness really is within our reach and I think there is a lot to be said for deciding to be happy. There is always something in your life to make the glass half full – isn’t there? Living by this truism also prevents anyone (myself included) from allowing their happiness to be determined by the actions of others. I know it’s close to impossible – but recent events have reminded me that it’s the best way to go into everyday. I promise that if you try it, I will do the same.

You know, there is nothing greater than deciding in your life that things maybe really are black and white! (drew baylor) I think we may be the only people who love this movie and cry every time we watch it. So how could I not include my most valuable piece of wisdom gleaned from drew. I don’t think I really understood what he meant here until a few weeks ago. Something is this or that – there are literally no BUTS in life. If you have to explain or justify then something is wrong. Someone is a good friend or their not, a good boyfriend or a crap one, a person who respects you or doesn’t. Once you eliminate the in-betweens life gets a little less complicated. And making life less complicated and being pragmatic is pretty empowering. Especially when you can finally put certain people in that bad friend/boyfriend category and begin to clean up the in-between and move on.

He who breaks a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom. (j.r.r. tolkien) this man is so smart, so how could we ignore what he tells us. Sometimes you have to break something right open, shatter it to find out how is really worked and more importantly what it was made of. For me this meant literally breaking me. Breaking apart who I thought I was and who I thought I was going to be. Oddly enough one crack lead to another and I started understanding other relationships in a different light. I would never call myself wise but I would like to think that since breaking things apart I have gotten to know others and myself a whole lot better. And consequently been able to take the previous piece of advice.

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else. But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself (the weepies). How could a song not inspire me? First of all I could go on for hours with all the lyrics that have made met think or all the songs that have lived on repeat. But at this particular moment in my life this one applies the most. First, it’s the weepies – and you know how we feel about them. Second, it gets at the challenge I am facing right now. Taking steps forward – alone. My friends are my life. They are the people who have challenged me celebrated me and more important simply been there for me. However, for all their outstanding and marvelous effort it has always been me who had to make the tough decisions and follow though. I can only make these steps, however, knowing they are there to catch me. Knowing that I can’t step back but if I waver they keep me steady. And this love, because that’s what a great friendship is, love, allows me to follow 1-3. I now know that I will never really fail as long as I have quality people around me.

Not sure why I am listing out all this advice for you, not that you need it at the moment. But a few things have crystallized for me in the past month and having you there has made all the difference. I am sure that I will read this in a few years and laugh at myself thinking I had it all straightened out. When I know I have tons more heartbreak and happiness to live though. But maybe knowing, knowing I don’t know what coming – but that I am ready for it, maybe that will help. More importantly knowing that whatever it is I can take it with you.

the chosen ones

to: charlie
from: laurie
re: invisibility cloaks and backpacks

I was 12 when Harry Potter started at Hogwarts, only a year older then the young wizard himself. Except unlike Harry I was not so quick to embrace the magic of his word. My parents came home from a trip to London with the first two books in hand raving that Harry was simply all the rage across the pond. Did I mention I was 12, and in SEVENTH GRADE – you know the grade where you get a real full-length locker, with a real lock, like the eighth graders. So, you see, someone that cool could never be caught reading a children’s book. Not to mention I took the bus, a girl from my class, my Malfoy if you will, rode with me. We never got along and I lived in fear that she would discover my love for Potter and I would be the laughing stock of the entire seventh grade. It was bad enough I was growing my bangs out and had to wear the same purple headband everyday for a year! I digress. Point was, when I finally decided to dive into Harry Potter I hid it in my backpack. It wasn’t until the third book when I was comfortable to read them in public.

After three I was hooked, I remember wanting to bring my book everywhere to sneak in a few pages here and there. I reread one, two and three so many times to ease the pain before the arrival of four. I remember exactly how I pictured the maze in the Goblet of Fire and how horrified I was when I first read an Avada Kedavra. A few years later, I remember reading Entertainment Weekly’s list of 200 new classics, on which they included Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. “Sure Rowling was all fun and games in the first three but she took it up a notch in Goblet, when she killed a kid.” So she did. By this time I was in College and actually waited until Christmas break to enjoy number five. Then it stopped. For no particular reason that I can remember I “look time off” from Harry and held off picking up six. Seven came, I saw everyone on the subway, in the office, on the train, on the street, in every Starbucks, young, old, EVERYONE was reading Harry Potter. Not me. I had morphed back into that disinterested seventh grader who wouldn’t be caught dead in Diagon Alley.

Senior year of college, the night before my last final of the semester, instead of studying Irish history I ate pancakes and watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And sure enough as Fudge put it “He’s back!” Harry was back for me. There was something about enjoying Harry with my piers that made me remember what I loved about him in the first place. I even remember one of my friends coaxing me to blow off studding, saying “you will remember this night for the rest of your life, you won’t remember your essay question next week.” He was half kidding, but he ended up being 100% right. As soon as I was home for break I cracked open six and didn’t leave my room for days. Christmas Eve I started seven and a few days after that I had only pages to go in the entire series. As Harry made his way though the woods, I paused. The real reason I had been putting this off was staring me right in the face – it was going to be over. The series complete the journey finished. The end. By some mystery or magic I had been able to resist skipping to the final paragraphs or even hearing from another, if Harry had lived or died. We had already lost so many I really convinced myself that Rowling could go either way on this one. I really didn’t know how it was all going to end.

When I think of that moment I savor it. Never again will a generation be able to grow up with Harry. To hid books in backpacks instead of under invisibility cloaks. However, perhaps of even more consequence, never again will anyone live in a world where we don’t know if Harry Potter will live or die. We are the chosen ones. Chosen for nothing more than our imagination, our ability to see beyond the page and imagine a word of broomsticks and butter beers. I feel sorry for this next crop of Harry fans, as they will inevitably catch a Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family and have the entire saga played out for them in a mere eighteen hours instead of a little more than a decade. How fortunate I was to become so intimately acquainted with, the boy who lived.