No, not my boyfriend.  No, not my beautifully-decorated £25 Christmas tree, complete with red and gold theme, garland, lights, and special teddy bear Christmas ornaments (photos to come later).  No, not my grandmother’s breakfast casserole (recipe to come later).  And no, not film The Nightmare Before Christmas, though that is a close second.

My Christmas love, this year, is my new favourite London discovery:  Sass and Belle.

Full of the loveliest, most adorable vintage and cutesy-inspired decorations, Sass and Belle provides the perfect gift-giving destination while staying Secret-Santa-budget friendly.

Some of my favourites include this Tea Kettle Chalk Board — just £4.95 and the cutest thing for your kitchen!

(And I love love love the the  message!  So very English — trust me!)

 

Also in the British-inspired theme:

This pillow is just so — what’s the word for it — cute!  There is a novelty about the Union Jack to me; as I am not English, the symbol is still a bit foreign, pretty, and exciting for me (trust me, you’d never see me with anything bearing an American flag…).  But now that I live here, I feel as though I have the back-up to rock something like this in my home.  And at  £14.95, this Union Jack Pillow won’t break my bank to have something so patriotic!

 

And lastly, to conquer my ever-lasting problem that has only grown proportionally since I began working at a jewelery store:

Where to put my necklaces?  For my shape, I tend to look much better in long necklaces; since I now receive 75% off fantastically trendy and fun jewelery from here, I have a plethora of them.  The trouble is, I never know where, or how, to hang them.  Throughout university I invented the “shabby-chic” (and by that I mean significantly broke) way of pushing white thumb tacks into the walls and using my necklaces as art.  Now, being 23 and, you know, not wanting to damage walls that I now have to pay for, I need something a bit older but still cheap.  This Necklace Jewellery Hook, at £5.95, is a steal!

Located in two Covent Garden locations (and thus conveniently located close to my favourite London cafe), Sass and Belle is chic, affordable, adorable, and where I am hoping the boyfriend takes a pit stop in my Christmas bundle

 

(And no, Sass and Belle did not pay me to make this post; I just love boasting about the little, off-the-beaten-track places I discover in London.  Especially ones with home accessories and ones that are just so cute!)

 

Sass and Belle

21-22 New Row, London

WC2N 4LE

 

or find them at 31 The Market

Covent Garden, London

WC2E 8RE

A quick but sad update on my life over the past three months (has it really been three months since I last updated?  Oh my, oh my…)

Ladies and gentlemen, big news on the ATMorning front.  Perk up your ears and try not to gasp dramatically:

In less than two weeks, I will officially have completed my Master’s degree.

Don’t erupt into cheers just yet — this is on the basis that I, you know, complete my dissertation (finish the research and write a 50-page postgraduate thesis in less than 2 weeks?  Sure, totally doable… right?).  Let alone pass my dissertation.  Is it terrible that I simply aim to pass now-a-days?  I harken back to a distant time that seems not so long ago — that good ol’ year of 2009, when I graduated summa cum laude, acheived some of the best grades, was inducted into multiple honors societies…it was a different time, oh so long ago.

Enough musings of the past.  While most people (my boyfriend included, who likes to remind me often) tend to goof off in their undergraduate, realize their folly, and focus more on their postgraduate degree, I — in my infinite wisdom — decided to do the opposite.  I can admit here (mainly because I have 2 readers on occasion) that I have done significantly worse in my Master’s degree than in my undergraduate.

Why, you ask?  For one (and I can’t emphasize this enough) I. Hate. The. English. Schooling. System. Period.  I really don’t work as well in it, particularly in a postgraduate setting (as many of you can/cannot recall, I did quite well as an undergraduate at the University of Essex, UK).  Secondly, while going to a brand new country in one of the most diverse and exciting cities in the world for a MA degree seems like a great idea, really it’s just distracting.  For your postgraduate that matters — and when you only have one year to do it — I say stick with the boring, where you have nothing else to do except study.  Thirdly, doing a one-year intensive postgraduate degree immediately after finishing your undergraduate, I have learned, is not the best idea.  Talk about overwhelming overload.  And this leads into my fourthly — after so many years of schooling, my priorities have changed.  Well, not changed really — but opened up.  I want to make money.  I want to be a young professional.  I want a house, a boyfriend, a job, stability, to be taken seriously when I say what my profession is.  To figure out what I want to do.  (I think a lot of this has to do with envy of one of my closest friends, Cj, over at SomethingToChase, where she has just recently become engaged [YAY!!], works hard on her new home, and works hard at her job.  I am over the moon happy for her, but as her and I have always wanted similar things in life, I, too, have moved to the stage where I want that)… the point is, I don’t care as much about this as I should.

So, in summation, here is the A Tuesday Morning’s Infinite Wisdom to Doing your Master’s Degree:

1. Do your undergraduate in the UK.  Do your MA in the USA.

2.  Pick a nice, boring, familiar place to do your MA degree, where you have easy access to Mom’s cooking and laundry facilities, where you would rather sit at home in your slipper socks than go to that same bar with the same people again.

3.  Give yourself a break.  Take a year to work, to realize you don’t want a 9-5 desk job.

4. Or, if you are going to go straight on [which isn't always a bad thing -- for me, I don't think it necessarily was], try a 2 year program.  Give yourself time to work for your degree, to work for yourself.

5.  Figure out your priorities first and foremost.  What it is you want in life.

(or, you might end up pulling an Erin, who arrives in London, falls in love with an adorable English boy, and takes 3 days off in alone-time bliss with her Boy for his birthday … when she only has 2 weeks left to write her entire dissertation).

Yes, my friends.  Priorities.

A quick note about my baking dilemmas, a few positive notes, then I need to tackle that pile of books looming next to my laptop.

So, as I just stated, my Boy’s birthday was on Monday the 30th, which just so happened to be a Bank Holiday (for those of you in the USA who don’t know what those are, just go here to gain a little knowledge.  Otherwise, a simple explanation: it’s a day off, much like President’s day or whatever, without the name).  I had work 10-8 on Saturday, knew I would be going straight to the Boy’s house, and I would spend the next couple of days in work-free, alone-time bliss.  I had his presents wrapped; I had his cards written; I had my pretty lacy things all packed away in my bag.  Yes, I was ready.

And in my head, I was going to make him the ultimate of chocolate cakes, wield my love for baking to its fullest and leave him in a warm-chocolate coma.  I had plans to make two indulgent mini cakes for each of us to have after we went out for his birthday dinner.  This was great, in theory — until I realized that, in my dissertation haze, I hadn’t gotten my ingredients, nor had I put it all together that I would be at his house without access to my house until after his birthday. Whoopsie.

So instead, I took a little trip (with him) to Waitrose (our UK super fresh), bought a mini chocolate cake and a mini Victoria Sponge cake, some fancy candles, and on Monday, I had his entire house + me sing “Happy birthday” — and the grin on his face was worth it all, and in the end, I was happy I hadn’t made him and I individual cakes.

So, is this a disaster?  And can I rightfully blame my dissertation for this?  No to both of those; but as I blame my dissertation for everything (1. Increased appetite  2. No future  3. Lack of energy 4. Lack of brain cells 5. The surge in Starbucks economy 6. Empty wallet 7. An unnecessary 2 bowls of cereal for breakfast in the morning 8. Have I really gained that much weight? .. you get the picture), I figured this was no exception.

Okay, okay, amidst all my woa-is-me updates, I do have some positive things to talk about.  I am sitting here, writing this, in the middle of the British Library — home to the Beowulf manuscript, every book ever published, and the place where I achieved half of my MA degree.  Not bad, I’d say.  I am so incredibly happy and in looourve with my English boy.  I am, in theory, almost done this bloody degree.  My mother has recently finished her dissertation, and I am so proud of her.  As I said before, one of my dearest friends recently got engaged, and my other friends are happy with their lives.

So really, I’d say it’s all good in the hood.

(ATMorning will return on September 14th, most likely incredibly hung-over from September 13th celebrations.  Signing off).

I need to stop ignoring ATM (A Tuesday Morning, for all of those who are acronym-challenged [like yours truly]):

I don’t know why I wait so long in-between posts.  Probably because I lead the most boring, sorry-excuse-for-a-student-in-London life there ever was.  (Case in point: Saturday nights, I finish work at 8, and by 8:30 I am in a bathrobe with my hair in a towel watching episodes of Sons of Anarchy on a DVD Matt lent to me.  Completely normal, right?)  But most likely it’s because I have been oh-so-lazy with my baking and writing ideas; and surprisingly enough, I’ve been quite busy with a recent holiday to Turin, Italy, a coffee or drink date with someone-or-another pretty much every other day, working, dates and nights-in with the monkey-man/boyfriend figure/Matthew multiple times a week, the rare occasion shopping day (like today)…

oh, and a Master’s dissertation thrown in there somewhere, right?

But mostly I have been quite busy because —

The Moving Plans:

That’s right — in two weeks time, I will be leaving the oh-so-touristy (and apparently ‘posh,’ according to some.  Clearly they have never seen my flat) Knightsbridge area of London for another, a bit farther out, up-and-coming area of London called Bermondsey.  I’ll be moving in with my friend/manager from work, Katie, into a white-washed and wooden-floored two bedroom, separate toilet and bathroom, newly remodeled flat on the 15th floor.  Currently it’s unfurnished, but soon the landlord (who just happens to be a famous singer!  Ever heard this tune before?)  will put in a couch, some wardrobes, a TV.  The only thing we have to supply are, annoyingly, beds.  But, with the rent being as cheap as it is (about £150 less a month than I pay now), and with the council tax being taken care of for a year (an extra £30-40 I am saving a month), I figure a bed really isn’t that bad.  And now I get to pick one out!

(And by “pick one out” I clearly mean find the cheapest one on the Ikea or Argos websites…)

I have pictures on my horrible “new” (and by new I mean more outdated than my older phone) phone, and when I actually figure out how to send the bloody things to my email account, I’ll post them here.  But overall, I am SO excited, and after a million house and flat viewings (all over the damn city) it’s nice to finally be excited about a place.

New Recipe Plans

As most–all?–the two people who read this?– of you know, nothing brings me more joy than cooking and baking and sharing my food with those whom I love.  I have “the gene,” as my grandmother calls it, “the need to feed people.”  Sometimes, I get quite lonely being here, with no one to bake desserts for; I bring them into work, sometimes, but mostly I end up eating them myself (never good for the calorie-conscious, like myself).

Recently, Matt has divulged his secret infatuation with bananas-and-custard to me.  Apparently, this is a normal dessert combination here that people grow up on; maybe it is so in the USA, too, but Mom never mentioned or served this when I was a kid.  Matt made it for me (and for himself, too, and he happily ate most of mine), and honestly, I think it tasted like the inside of a doughnut with bananas on top.  However, my mind immediately went to various dessert options — what if bananas and custard could be made into a cake form? Matt heartily agreed that it’d be the best cake in the world.  I have been brainstorming, and tomorrow, I will accept the challenge.

Baking Challenge #1: to turn bananas and custard into a cake. (I say cake because pastry would be too easy — it’d be a banana cream pie, essentially — and Matt isn’t a big fan of pies and pastries.  So cake it is!  And clearly, calling it a “challenge” makes my want to bake a dessert way more exciting and Iron Chef-esque than it actually is).

Baking Challenge #2: A Dairy-free baked dessert. Matt’s housemate, Mike (who is one of my favorites in his house) is “severely allergic” to dairy.  And by severely,  I’m pretty sure he is just lactose intolerant, but I will go with this “extreme dairy intolerance” (very similar to this scenario, obviously… if anyone would be Superdude, it’d be Mike!)… When I was pondering my bananas and custard cake possibilities (while the three of us inhaled — well, more accurately, while the boys inhaled — a stack full of fajitas), I proposed the idea of making this impossibility called the Dairy-Free-Cake.  Mike rejoiced at the idea and said I’d be a legend if I created one for him; and thus, my challenge was set (though Matt vehemently argued that I should just ignore that and make the bananas and custard cake instead).

Clearly, as a Master’s student in London, I have time to do both

So, to be continued:

- Pictures of the new flat

- Updates on the recipes/results of the two cake challenges

- Photos of these updates

And on a final note, I want to mention how fantastic my good friend, CJ, is with her house renovation site, Something To Chase, where she diligently describes the exact processes she does in home improvement, home decorating, and gardening.  I will definitely be using these tips when I am lucky enough to have my first home.  Go and take a look!

I have only been awake for the past 5 hours or so, but so far, today has been quite instructive.  Of course, I will list everything of my day thus far in my favorite format: listing.

1.  I have a horrific, mind-numbingly bad natural sense of direction.  Case in point: I decide to get off the tube a stop early at South Kensington station and find my way to Knightsbridge (where I live)t this morning after leaving Matt’s.  It was a beautiful day (see #3 for the amending of this fact), so I figured, why not?  Now, there is a one stop difference.  One.  Somehow, I manage to fuse my memories from my London visit two years ago with my actual knowledge of the city to walk for 20 minutes in the complete wrong direction.  In fact, I even stood at the intersection, thought deliberately, “I need to turn left,” and did so, feeling pretty confident and proud of myself.  It turns out, if I had just gone straight, I would have gotten home in about 5 minutes.

2.  However, I do have a pretty-damn-good natural sense of baking and cooking. Case in point: the alterations I made to the Loaded Blondies I made this morning for Ella’s birthday (see below for amended recipe and pictures).

3.  Always — and I repeat, always – check the weather before you wear a light, airy, almost-too-short sundress on a spring day in London. You never know when the sun will immediately disappear in place of heavy rain.

4.  They really should invest in little measurement teaspoons and tablespoons for the UK.  (Case in point, see #5).

5.  The amount of baking powder you use in a recipe really, really matters.  When they say “3/4 teaspoon” do not just guess.  Next thing you know, you have blondie remnants smoking all over your oven floor…

6.  Baking powder is a rising agent which makes your cakes and other baked goods rise.  I already knew this, but I figured this would help those of you who didn’t know understand lesson #5.

7.  The guy I am seeing probably is the cutest boy in the world.

8.  Buttermilk is actually quite easy to make.  (This is called for in pretty much every cake recipe in the universe, and I could never find it here in the UK.  For the recipe, see here.

9.  Hockey is a fantastic band from Portland, Oregon, that Matt introduced me too.  I can’t get enough of them — go and listen to their music!  (And no, no member from the band asked me to advertise this to my 2 readers.  I just like to promote things that I like!)  And yes, I realize this isn’t something I learned today, but I can definitely say (as I listened + danced to them while baking this morning) that I have relearned how wonderful they are!

10.  One of my poems will be published in a King’s College London literary magazine, The Notebook.  Issue #2 comes out today!  Go to the website to read it!

11.  Ridiculous fact of the day/of my day in particular: some people really just don’t understand the concept of loading a dishwasher.  Case in point: I come home this morning to find all the utensils of my kitchen loaded into one compartment of utensil holder of the dishwasher.  And 4 plates loaded right on top of each other covered in food.  Rinse off your dishes, people!

12.  Annoying fact of the day: my washer is broken

13.  Happy fact of the day: despite the overflowing debacle, my “Ella’s Birthday Loaded Brownies” taste DELICIOUS!  Hooray!  And really, how important are looks when it comes to a delicious dessert, right?…

The main differences I made were in the preparation.  As in, I only have  one tiny (over-used, over-baked) 9×9 round cake pan, in which I bake everything. I don’t have a rubber spatula nor any form of mixer (besides my hand and a spoon).  Thus, my general consensus for how to bake anything is “mix and stir.”  Seriously, I cannot WAIT to have a place where I might be permanently enough to buy kitchen and baking utensils…

Loaded Blondies with a Banana and Pecan Syrup Topping

(Adapted from Amanda from FakeGinger.  You can view the original recipe here.)

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder (do NOT overestimate this step!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, melted/room temp (I did mine somewhere in between)
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sweetened coconut

For the Topping

2-3 heaping tablespoons of butter (You might need more if you use a bigger pan than the one I used, and thus have a bigger surface area to cover with topping)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 ripe banana, cut into silvers (again, you might need 2 if you are using a bigger pan for the blondies)

1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans (same note as above)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 162 degrees C. Butter a 9 x 13inch baking pan and put on a baking sheet (though I used my horrific 9×9 round cake pan.  I highly recommend using a 9×13 baking pan for better results).

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Mix the butter and each sugar (add one at a time), stirring constantly until well mixed.  Add the eggs 1 by 1, stirring rapidly for 1 minute after each addition, then repeat with the vanilla.

Slowly mix in the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter.  Fold in the chips, nuts, and coconut. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula (or a spoon) to even the top as best as you can.  Place in fridge for about 10 minutes while you make the topping.

The Topping:  in a medium pan/saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add in the brown sugar, stir until melted.  Turn the heat up to medium-high and cook for about 1-2 minutes, until the mixture is bubbling.  Reduce the heat slightly;  add in the banana slices (make sure they are not stuck together) and pecans.  Stir for about a minute until everything is coated.  Let the mixture cook until the sauce thickens and turns into a dark amber brown, about 2 minutes.

Place the batter into your prepared pan, smoothing so it’s even.  Pour the syrup-banana-topping on top so it covers the entire surface.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the blondies come out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool for about 15 minutes.  I just leave the blondies in the pan to cool, since I don’t have a wire rack, so take that into consideration with baking time (don’t overbake, as they will continue to cook in the pan once you’ve taken them out of the oven).

let me know if you try them, and how they taste!

For now, need to get ready for work, clean up the kitchen, and make some lunch (and by lunch, I mean have some of my blondies…)

… I feel the need, after the attempt, to write something like this (the poem I am about to post).

As I have just completely bared my soul through the form of poetry, I thought it was time for a break and to move onto another subject (that I frequently write and think about): the inefficiency of language.

I guess it’s a bit ironic, using language to discuss its inefficiencies.

I love the irony.

(Note: The format of this poem is meant to be quite jarred, full of indents and random spaces.  As I mentioned before, wordpress hates poetry and does not format it – despite my best/terrible efforts at html – the way I attempt to format it.  And out of sheer laziness,  I just don’t feel like trying.  Thus, the poem will remain as is, long and listed.)

Rambling (and no answer in sight).

It’s all tumbling up there.  Ideas, stories, people

Bursting to come to life.  It wants to come to fruition, but

Just can’t.

Never will.

Upside down and

Rightside up,

I’ll be Rosencrantz and you be

Guildenstern and we’ll try to save him

(but we can’t) and because it all doesn’t doesn’t

Doesn’t matter, we’ll wind up

Dead.

Sitting two seats down, I want to impress and

Open the trap and snap, a spark aiming for

Fire but the wire is cut, short-fused and

Ending with a mutter.

The one in the middle, brilliant, bursts

To life and catches the eye.  What did I say? Did you hear me?

Listen listen listen,

But who can hear when all our

Ears are plugged?  Stuffed with cotton and

Straining to hear all the

Nuances of the

World.

It’s tough with words like these.  Inefficient.  Begging to be used and

Crying for fruition.  But just can’t,

And never will.

V.Release

Finally, finally, a sigh of release for my aching, burning heart.

My cheeks betray that satisfaction, still aching from the weight of salt.

I miss you already.  Just check on him, call him, find him, tell him it was

All one big, fat, spur-of-the-emotion joke.  All in confusion. All in disillusion.

But it wasn’t, you see, it really wasn’t – I need to be free of the

Bleeding, uncontrollable hurt.  It grips my being too much.  I lied when I said

I could do what I said, and you saw right through my disguise (not such a

Great actor, am I?).  Contradicting words were my masque, and yours was

The tears burning red in your eyes.  Exposed, the truth a fire between us as

We stood, melting, crying out for help, but we were alone, you see, in the

Underground.  You were stronger than me as I said no more and confessed that

I love you.  The flames licked high towards my head as I kissed your cheek (right

On the corner of your lips, so close) and I ran, ran away, your reaction consumed

By the smoke.

I never turned around.

You never followed me.

- – -   – - -   – - -   – - -   – - -   – - -

And that ends this tale between a girl and a heart.  Who will emerge from the ashes?

The crusted salt hardens, yet the burning heart lingers.

I hope the phoenix will rise – alive, free, and satisfied

Part IV did not come the next day. This is because, for some reason, wordpress is now against formatting (at all) the way in which basic formatting should be.

As in, it’s very against multiple spaces between paragraphs.  And against poetry.

So instead, my life has become actually doing my reading (Erec and Enide by Chretien de Troyes, anyone? I am in love), eating (olive bread is my favorite food ever), and watching Criminal Minds (I have now lost the ability to feel human compassion when I see a dead person on TV.  This is bad news)… but I am attempting to bring back my creative spark and keep up with my poetry/writing/personal reading.  I think I need it, too.  In a big city in a country that isn’t my home, my creative outlet reminds me that I am home in me.

IV.Enough.

Could I be enough?
Thoughts wandering to a fresh, shiny-new
Tiny-stoned wide-eyed damsel –
I wonder as I glance shyly to my left and notice
You haven’t noticed me.

I want to be enough.
Our thoughts that were once consummated
Just can’t find the same peak.  Aggravated,
Desolate, confused me fights
Fate, but Lady Fortune is a force unreckonéd.

Will I ever be enough?
Love-sick, heart-swollen.  Desperate hands
Grasp at the dark.  You shift your weight
And grab those cold hands and give them a
Home.  For a moment, it thrives comfort.

Let that be enough.
Fourteen pass and not a word – my hands
Are now clutching at the air.  Pushing dials to
Find my lost cause.  To find what you
Want, what you need – what is enough.

I don’t know what’s enough,
You tell me, and the water glistens
As those words reverberate through the thick air.
All I can do is stare, haunted, and miss
A fantasy that could have been enough.

But it’s never enough.
Fourteen pass and the spell is gone.
I sit lost in my own confusion, delusion,
Disillusionment and what it had all meant,
At one time, not so long ago.

Enough for you, I realize,
Is a fresh, shiny-new tiny-stoned
wide-eyed Damsel who sounds something like me.
Every day is a labor convincing myself it’s okay;
And that, for now, is enough.

III.  Satisfied

I sit, confused, alone.
The music lilts and the
up-down-up of the string
sings what my sewn mouth,
clapped shut, tongue-tied,
holds trapped away.

I watch, wondering, missing.
The music forces the frantic
out from their hiding place,
and they question, they cry,
Do I walk away?  Do I try?
I was waiting before, now should I?

Could I find a way
To try and make you stay? –
The music begs me to
bring to life, to burst open
what I have sewn away for you.
Needle and thread, unsatisfied.

[Edit:  This is a stanza that I, eventually, took away.  I just didn't know where to place it - it was the original ending, but I felt as though, if it were to be, another stanza (or two) needed to be inserted before hand.  And I just didn't know what else to say.

So here is the other "lost" stanza (in case you were oh-so-curious):

You, as you, satisfy me.
Bore your eyes on mine,
and show me, cry, scream-
at-the-top-of-your-lungs to
me, think of the world and
answer: what satisfies you? ]

Day 2, Part II.

II.  Waiting

Terrified.  All the eggs

Tumbling, tumbling,

Tumbling down.

Crack, splatter, drip

down, a rivulet of

my blood and heart.

Beating.  The steady is

Erratic, squeezing with

Each tick-tock, flip-flop.

Thrash, cry, pray to

Nothing, empty Gods

Mask the trees.

Waiting.  Just waiting.

When did love,

When did fire,

When did life turn

Into this?

The end.  The final words

Of a message is where

Meaning comes to die.

My new blog.

A couple of things I should note in the first entry:

1.  This will be a simply me blog.  I have all these high-hopes that it will be a fashion discourse, or a “Look!  I’m here in London and exploring!  See what I’ve found!” blog, or a dissertation-topic discussion.

But really, this will just be whatever the hell I’m thinking about, or what I find, or what I do, put into words.  I am not dedicated (or brilliant) enough to stick to just one thing and do it well.

2.  The layout is not mine.  The photograph in the title is mine.  I took that on a (appropriately dated) Tuesday morning at Mary’s Garden in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.  No, I am not a religious zealot (or religious for that matter), and yes, I did attend Catholic University (the home of the aforementioned basilica).

Yes, I miss Washington, DC.  But no, I don’t wish I were there instead of London.

3.  What does “A Tuesday Morning” mean?  Listen to The Pogues, and you’ll understand.

About the title of this post:

So, this post (the first, the original) is an attempt at something new.  I previously had a blogspot blog (Let There Be Songs to Fill the Air), but I truly like the formatting options of wordpress better (though, my earlier blog contains all of my trials-and-tribulations getting myself to the lovely country that I am currently living in.  So, if you are bored and desperately curious about my life [I think desperately bored is a better assumption], then take a look!) and so the switch was necessary.

But there is a larger (more personal, moving-forward self-growth) reason behind the “something new:” I will be posting some of my poetry on this blog.

Thus, my try at something (somewhat) new. Somewhat referring to the fact that I have always written some form of poetry, and new referencing that I have only shown 2 people in my life my personal writing.

So here it is, out for the world to see. Thank goodness the world doesn’t read this.

This is my story of the past three months – or at least, a part of my story. My heart’s story (while my mind’s story is wrapped up in the British Library and early books and manuscripts) more than anything. I wrote all of these individually, beginning in November, ending just yesterday. After I wrote the last, I realized they created an arc in their own right, telling my story. It’s interesting to read them all together, but I think it’s more effective to separate them into “chapters,” in a way. I will post one each day for the next five days.

As I stated before, I clearly am not one to show off my writing, or think it’s important to anyone else besides myself.  These words won’t change the world (duh) or affect anyone else (obviously, Erin).  I write at that moment how I feel; poetry doesn’t have the same constraints (in my opinion) as writing prose does.  It just is about me, bubbling feelings I don’t want to condense, and the ability to type.

I also use the term “poetry” quite loosely… these are somewhere in between poems and blurbs of thought. But as I said, showcasing my work isn’t my forte. In this case, however, it just feels necessary; by doing this, I feel as though I am coming clean. These are just too powerful (to me) to be kept locked away in my word documents. It felt like they were screaming to be out somewhere.

Anyways, on with the show. My ‘poetry,’ which is in fact my Wordsworthian “spontaneous overflows of emotion” … oh how I love William Wordsworth

F a l l i n g i n L o v e
(In Five parts)

I. Muse

Stability, compatibility,
Intertwined in the harvest bow.
Captivated, motivated,
Thoughts assimilated one, slow.

Pressed together,
Tethered and altered.
Taste each other and
Fall into each other and
Wide, shy comments of weather.

Consuming, devouring,
Chronus ticks away the sacrifice.
Apprehend, should we amend?
Hearts and breaths their own device.

Love grabs ahold,
Choking away grasps of old.
The trewand pen kicks for spite,
My heart beginning to write.