Bookshelves.

I've decided, in a very Me way, that I want more books and more bookshelves to put them on. I want floor to cieling bookshelves, stacked high with all the literature, poetry collections, classics, picture books, etc that you can think of.

I just finished "The Bell Jar" and I have to say, after starting off kind of slow and wandering, I decided towards the end that I really liked that book. It was destined to happen as I think Sylvia Plath was a literary genius and could've been destined to greatness - but then again if she hadn't lost herself in the tangles of love and poetry and ended it that fateful morning, we never would've gotten "The Bell Jar." She would've been like every other normal, straight-laced sane person in this world and not Sylvia. But I digress. It was a lovely novel and well-written. The end really surprised me in some ways. The main character starts in one place - New York seemingly being normal or trying to be, then she moves into craziness where everyone is out to get her and its all too hard to bare, but I felt shockingly akin to what she was saying, as if it all really made sense to feel that way, then after a suicide attempt she goes to the asylums and gets treatments. It's all very well done. I almost felt as though I was trying to be normal, then slowly going nuts, then coming back from Crazyland with Ester. Wherever you are Miss Plath - well done!

On to other news. Today - tonight - this evening - I become a real poet. After a month of knowing I won the Rising Phoenix Award for Poetry on campus, I finally get to see it in the journal at the launch party tonight, and I'm reading it in the coffeehouse. My family is going to be there which makes me more nervous than just rambling it out in front of random strangers, but that's a-OK. It's such a high knowing that anyone who picks up the Sheepshead Review Journal is going to see my name, face, and poem in a place of honor and grace. They will see that someone somewhere out there was touched by what I WROTE. Something that came from MY MIND and MY PAIN was able to reach off the page and grab the throat of another human being and say, "I'm here. Feel me." It's all incredibly overwhelming and amazing. I can't wait!

On that note, I have to get ready for the day. It's already 10:34 and I've done nothing but surf Tumblr and Facebook since 9:30. Woops!

A favorite quote from "The Bell Jar":

"How did I know that someday--at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere--the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?"

Oh Sylvia. <3