I'm going to Wichita Far from this opera for evermore

I've been noticing recently that new people have started following this blog (hey, new people!) I just wanted to let all of you know that this blog has been inactive for, let's see, almost a year. I have two new blogs, though, that I would be tickled to have you check out.

The first is my fiction writing only blog: moon-letters.blogspot.com
and the second is my blog blog, like this one, but hopefully more sophisticated and better done: blackberrycrowns.blogspot.com

Alright?
Enjoy!
~Lola

Ttile Quote: The White Stripes, Seven Nation Army

Dearly beloved, we gather here To say our goodbyes

Well guys, I think this is the last time we shall meet. It's a new year, indeed, a new decade, and it seems a fitting time burst into flames and go down, like a phoenix. But also like a phoenix, I have risen from my ashes as a chickling, a baby blog. Where this one ends, a new life begins, and grows, and grows. It is called Wandering Moon, check it out. It will focus on my creative writing, and some of the pieces posted will be ones posted here, but I guarantee you there will be many new ones, too.

I don't want you to look at this as the death of a blog. I want you to look at it like a tree, a sapling that has grown to, to 130 posts, and now stoicly stopped growing. It will not rot and decay, for it is so well preserved that instead, it will turn to petrified wood, still standing here for anyone to read it and look at it as much as they want. And this tree has sent out a seed, which has floated down and taken root as my new sapling blog, which need love and attention to grow strong and tall. So come! Rejoice in life! Change! Make some resolutions, people! Tell me, did your past ones come true?

title quote: Rent Soundtrack, La Vie Boheme

I'm happy knowing that you are mine The grass is greener on the other side

Here's a great weblink to a bunch of pictures done by this artist, Christopher Gilbert. I hope they will interest you if you are bored one day (and you probably were right now, since you came here, didn't you?).

These are some of my favorite photographs from the series:

Title Quote: NeverShoutNever, Happy

Call her green and the winters cannot fade her

Just felt like it you guys, because it makes me really happy to think of it in my head, and I don't want to forget any of it: I am presenting Lola Bellybutton's List of Favorite Sounds.

(In no particular order)

1. The sound of a guitar string as the hand playing it slides quickly across to reach another chord.

2. The sound of keys clacking as someone types on a keyboard at their computer.

3. The sound of rain hitting the roof.

4. The sound of Real Laughter (not fake laughs, I hate the sound of those).

5. The sound my brother makes when he sleeps, which is this slow, rhythmic breathing.

6. The sound of Flower's fingers when she drums them on the table.

7. The hisspop of eggs frying.

8. The silence right before a movie starts.

9. The sound of crickets and cicadas outside my window in the country when it's summer.

10. The bubbling of boiling water.

11. The sound you can hear when you block out the ruckus of the train: that rhythm of clickclack, clickclack.

12. The word the Wizardress sometimes makes when she's very happy: "Da!"

14. People speaking another language (especially french) so fast that all I hear is exoticity, flamboyance, elegance, beauty, without meaning.

15. The sound of the words "I Love You" when they are really and truly meant.

Please add your own favorites on the comments or in your blog and link to mine!

Title Quote: Joni Mitchell, Little Green

Did you know you're still crying Did you know that we all did Is it paradise?

I am sitting here, with a happy warm purring cat at my feat, encircled by my family. We're listening to Reggae and making an Indian feast for Christmas Eve. And might I remind you that I am of Russian Jewish descent, and a definite New Yorker. We are not Rastafarian, Hindu, or Christian. Yet we manage to get it all in, because that's who we are, and we love good music and good food and Love. And the snow is sparkling outside, and I've finished all my cards in beautiful sharpie and trusty colored markers, and I've wrapped gifts and helped make an origami star for our solstice tree. And Lola is having her happy time.

Sometimes I get this feeing from the middle of my chest, like it's filling and filling and warming and warming, and it's going to burst. And sometimes it does. And you know what happens then? I feel like streams of color burst forth and paint invisible streaks of color all over everyone and everything around me. But you know what's funny? I don't feel like that depletes me, I feel like it makes me fuller, more whole. Like, sometimes it's better to give than to get. I've just started reading Lord of the Rings, and in it, a hobbit tradition is that on birthdays, instead of getting gifts, you give one to each guest. That way, over the course of the year, you get presents gradually at each party you attend, instead of a whole bunch on one day and that's all the whole year. I absolutely love this idea, but I know I can't do it, because if I gave gifts, I wouldn't receive any from anyone else on their birthdays. No one else does it. But if they did...

Man that would be awesome!

And I guess all I want to say now, is that I love you. I love life, I love earth, and I think that each of these posts are like love letters to the world. Hmm, that would be a good description for a blog! I'm taking it. Dibs.

I'm leaving you all to your Christmas Eves, be you Christian, Jewish, or of no faith at all. Enjoy it, just as you should enjoy every warm night while the world outside shivers and frosts.

Love,

Lola

Picture Credit: Manoli Lopez

Title Quote: Cocoon, On My Way

It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life.

Hey, you guys. It's Solstice. December 21st. In purely scientific terms, the shortest day and the longest night of the year. But my family celebrate it for something more. We celebrate Solstice as a Pagan holiday, though we are not Pagan. You don't need to be to celebrate it. We celebrate the fact that another year has passed, that another Solstice has come around. And more importantly, we celebrate the fact that from here on out, the days are getting longer. The Pagans used to celebrate by lighting a huge bonfire, and/or watching the sun rise through monuments like stonehenge. Many people migrate there still today for this very reason. You see, before we knew much about the earth rotating around the sun, every Solstice, we would get very worried. We would become terrified that the sun had disappeared, that the world had grown dark, and that we would never see sunlight again. So we set up huge bonfires for light, warmth; comfort. And we danced and feasted and in the morning, gave thanks that the sun was once again back. Often, we would hang candles from trees, where the image of stringing lights on your christmas trees originated. You see, Christmas originated from Solstice.

You don't need to be Pagan to celebrate Solstice (as I said before, I'm certainly not). Just tonight, find a place in yourself to give thanks that the metaphorical sun will rise again, look back on your year, and be happy for the world around you. Light a candle to symbolize that flicker of sunlight those people craved, to symbolize hope, warmth, love. What my family does is light candles and hold hands and talk about what we give thanks for. Then we give presents. You don't need to do it that way, though. Flower celebrates is by lighting candles and incense and playing drums. Make up your own way, it only needs to embody the feeling. I love you, and I give thanks for our minds continually whirring, and for our feet continually stepping forwards.

Happy Solstice.

Title Quote: Green Day, Time of Your Life

In the cool of the evening When everything is getting kind of groovy

The cold is creeping in, winter has come. It has invaded our very bones, it has chapped our lips, brittled our hair. Yet it is somehow still so inviting... it reaches our noses with the smell of pine, it wets our tongue with the taste of falling snowflakes. Winter kisses some, and slaps others.

I feel that winter picks my hair up in long, spindly fingers, and licks it until icicles hang, and my cheeks are turned to crystal. But I feel warmth, for winter forces us to cocoon ourselves up in warm wool coats, wrapped tight from the icy slush, encased in a big warm hug. It forces us to brew warmth in a cup, hot chocolate with cinnamon sticks.

And I love winter. Despite some of my grumblings about the cold, or wind, or ice, winter is my favorite season. I love going to the park and sledding, I love snowball fights, I love bringing icicles home to live in our freezer until August. I love Solstice (which is coming up on monday), and I love the smell of coming snow. People are just very fickle. We want what we haven't got, and when we get it, we n0 longer want it. In the summer, "I wish it were cool and wintery", in winter, "I wish it was warm and summery". You can't exactly have both at the same time, so enjoy it as it comes!

Enjoy the frost flowers on the windowpanes enjoy the feeling of a warm shower after you've been outdoors, enjoy making snowmen, or snow angels, be you twelve or twenty two or one hundred and two. And enjoy it especially because who knows how much longer we've got? Already global warming is giving us much less snow, and, not to be morbid or anything, but no one really knows when they're going to die. I don't believe in living each day as their last, but I do believe in keeping the idea close in your thoughts, so as to motivate you to live each day to its fullest. I walked outside this morning, and do you know what I smelled?

Snow.

And now I am sitting here waiting.

Waiting for the snow to come.

Title Quote: Imogen Heap, Spooky

you cease to smell the steel plant after you've been here for awhile

First off, I'm REALLY sorry I haven't blogged for a fortnight (giggle! who can tell me how long that is?). I am basically done with all of the time consuming high school applications though, and now I just have tons of time to sit and worriedly wait. And so blog I will, and make it up to you all. (which happens to be nobody, except my faithful friends of course, though half of these things don't matter to them because they're the people it happened with.) In fact, I feel unsuccessful as a blogger. I feel like it helps ME a lot, but is anyone else really that interested? I love to blog, but I used to be able to blog to no one and be content with telling the interenet. Now, not so much. I don't really know what to do. I don't want this to by my resignation letter, my final post. I promise it won't. But I have a feeling that this blog is winding to a close. I feel like no one else in the world is listening, besides The Wizardess and Flower. And hey, I don't blame you. Who wants to hear abotu my life? As interesting as it is to me, and even maybe to others. if I were you, I would not just go to someone else's website and read them writing about their life.

And that's why I feel like I have to close up this blog. That wouldn't mean I would stop blogging, Good Heavens no! I would just stop on thsi blog. You may have noticed I have ceased to update both my bellybutton blog and Nobody is Home. Maybe I will work on those. And hopefully, I will start a new blog. Bu it needs to have apurpose, a theme. It needs to be something other people will have in common, or find interesting. Not just the general "my life" but something about... well, something. But the problem is, I don't have a lot of ideas. I need to think. I need help with this, and if those anonymous nobodies I wish were reading this are truly there, now is as good as ever to comment and give me an idea for blogging. I was thinking maybe an art project, maybe an interactive project. I don't know. I will continue this blog until I have a new idea. But be warned, be thinking, be it known. This house will not stand much longer.


Title Quote: Ani Difranco, Trickle Down

He's a man you must believe Helping anyone in need

Recently, I have been forced to really think a lot about the future. What high school you go to can determine the college you go to which can shape the job and life you end up with. And I was really thinking, what do I want o be when I grow up? When people ask, I often tell them I want to be a flying, fire breathing purple dragon, but somehow, I have the feeling that that might just not work out.

So what do I really want to do? Who do I want to be when I grow up? I;m not so sure, which is just fine for a teenager. But I do know something: Whatever it is I want to be, I want to make an impact, I want to make a difference in the world. I want to make people's lives better, make them smile, bring them justice. I want to make a difference, but not really one where it's like me on tv, being famous, a difference as in the world knows who I am. I don't mind if my difference is fairly nameless, as long as it really does change something. I'm not sure what I'm getting at, or how to phrase it. Even if it's only one person's life, I want to be able to make it better. What I want is to make a really profound difference in someone's life, hopefully the world. Sitting in a cubicle office job transcribing papers doesn't cut it for me. I mean, I know the people in that position (or most of them) don't want to be where they are, and don't have much of a better option, but I don't even want to get there in the first place.

I'm thinking maybe I'll be a lawyer. I come from a family of lawyers, and I'm pretty logical, and like to argue, and I don't know, I could be making history, you know? But I don't want to be the "stereotypical" lawyer, corrupt and putting the wrong people in jail and then spending the rest of my days playing golf. No, I was thinking maybe something not-for-profit, where I could help people's live, give them the justice they deserve but can't get otherwise. Like making sure that special ed students get an equal opportunity in schools, or helping to get gay equality like marriage, or something like that. Getting women in Africa the education, healthcare, treatment they deserve. Getting that everywhere. To know that I had made someone's life that much better, would make me so happy. It would motivate me.

So, that's it. I want to help the world, I want to DO something. Hey, maybe not even when I grow up! Maybe even now! Or one day soon...

Title Quote: The Beatles, Doctor Robert

Once we set sail to catch a star

I just wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

(disclaimer:In no way, shape, or form, does this mean that I, Lola Bellybutton, endorses hurting any turkey of any kind. I am simply stating that it is the day of turkeys. And, frankly, I'm sick, and don't feel up to ranting cynically about how thanksgiving is bogus etc. etc., and i'm sure you've heard it before. So instead, just celebrate TURKEY DAY. And hey, why not even hug one? Find a nice, happy turkey, and hug him. And then take him home for dinner. You can share your opinions about the world over a nice steaming hot plate of tofurky. Enjoy!)

Title Quote: Cream, Deserted Cities of the Heart

just sitting here and trying to decipher what's written in Braille upon my skin

I was rummaging around in my documents folder on my laptop trying to get rid of stuff I don't need anymore (The Wizardress informs me that this is a form of OCD) and I found this old monologue I wrote last year about this 6 year old girl who... well, I'll let you read it it to find out.

So today, I was walking down Oak Avenue, and I met someone. He was this old guy, you know, the one we always see when you take me to school? Well, today he stopped me and asked me why I wasn't in school, and so I told him how it was spring break, and it was raining. I told him that I was going puddle stomping, because all the rain makes all the puddles. He said his name was Oliver, and I told him mine was Marisa, and I was six years old, so I was old enough to go puddle-stomping alone! But he said he wanted to come along, even if I was old enough to go all by myself. He said he could help me find new stomping puddles. So we, the two of us, went walking. Oliver was so nice, he gave me a big red lollipop, because, he said, we were friends. Oliver is my best friend! I was about to eat it when we saw a super huge puddle! So I put the big red lollipop in my pocket, the one you sewed on my dress, and I went and stomped a huge stomp in the middle of the puddle. It was so much fun! Then all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rat! Or I thought I saw a rat. But really, it was a cat. A kittycat, and she was so wet and shivery she looked like a rat! So I ran off to catch her so I could cuddle her all better. Oliver was the one who caught her though, and he said I could keep her. So then we started walking again, this time with kitty. Oliver said he lived close by, and we could go home to his house and he would give me some more candy and some nice, hot chocolate. He said he would give kitty some milk too. But, oh, no, then kitty jumped right out of my arms and scratched poor Oliver! He said all these words and then his face got really red and his face was really purple! It was really funny! So I started laughing, and I guess Oliver thought it was funny too, because he started laughing too, and his eyes bulged out so I could see all the white parts. He said I was trying to demean him. "Are you trying to demean me, huh?" He said, over and over, and he just kept laughing, I did too. I don't know what demean means, but it must have been very nice because he was smiling very widely at me. And then he started started walking to me, and I thought he wanted a hug. because we were friends, and kitty had given him a boo-boo. And so I gave him a hug and he picked me up and squeezed me really hard and he was still laughing and his spit got on me. And then I heard this boy. He was shouting at Oliver! He was a big boy, and he looked funny 'cause his hat was on backwards and his pants kept falling down really low. Then Oliver saw the big boy and dropped me and started running. It hurt a little, but I guess he had someplace to be that he was late for. it's too bad he couldn't show me his house, and we would have played more, but maybe I'll see him next time I go puddle stomping.

So then the big boy came over to me and he took my hand and asked where my Mommy and Daddy were, and when I told him you guys were working and I was old enough to go puddle stomping alone, he smiled really wide too, just like Oliver, except different, and said he had a present for me. He said he knew where magical fairy land was, and that I was the only little girl in the whole world who could go inside it. He said that once I went there, I would be a fairy princess! He took me to this shiny silver car and told me that to get to the magical fairy land, first I had to play a game. He said I had to play hide and seek in the car, so all the fairies couldn't stop us from going to their land, so I got in the car and hid all the way in the backety back, where you put the suitcases. I curled myself into a little ball like a snail. The car ride was bumpety. But then, we got there! Or really, we stopped, and I kept all curled up because I was worried the fairies would find me, but then the big boy came out and told me the car had broken and then he heard a police car. It had lights and the police car noise, and the big boy got very scared. He told me to hide in the bushes from the fairies, and so I did, but after a while, the fairies hadn't found me and I was hungry.

So I thought I could stop hiding, and I tried to find the big boy or Oliver again, but I couldn't so I decided to go home. Too bad kitty couldn't have been there, but she ran away when I went in the car. Anyway, I walked a really long time, and my feet hurt, so I decided to climb a tree to see where home was, but when I got way up, a doggy came and started barking and he was a scary doggy, and he was drooling and there was white spit all around his mouth, so I stayed up in the tree. But I'm sure he was a very nice doggy. I just didn't really want to go down just then. But finally he left and I went back down the tree and I kept walking until my feet hurt so much, but finally I got home! And then I saw you, And I told you all about my day! And, oh, I forgot! I still have the lollipop that Oliver gave me! Mommy, why are you screaming? I want my lollipop back!

Title Quote: Regina Spektor, Braille

I felt a little fear upon my back He said "Don't look back, just keep on walking."

So last weekend, I got some henna done. I know, not the coolest thing in the world, but still. I really appreciate art, and I never cease to be amazed at this certain art form, being able to literally wear intricate art designs on your hand/ body, watch it move and twist as you. Tattoos, too, but these are better, Especially since it is something sort of in a way much more common yet much more rare, as it is freehand, and can only really be done once, yet stays on for only a few weeks, and then vanishes with the rest of your old skin particles rubbed off. Here are some pictures of my current one (sorry for the bad lighting!)
The woman who did was from Pakistan, and had been doing her job for about 5 years. She asked me where I was from, and though all I said was New York, she kept on persisting,asking where my parents were from (new york). She must have though I was Pakistani or Indian. Which is very funny, since I'm kind of the opposite (eastern european jew). She was surprised at the fact I was even carrying on a conversation with her, and then she became pretty astonished when I talked about Henna so knowledgeably. I guess most of the people she does are ignorant americans, but I know a fair amount about it, having just done a school project on it and having done at home myself a few times. I encourage you to try some henna; if you haven't already. Each time you look at it, you smile, a little painting on your skin. It can go anywhere on your body, and, like I said, lasts a few weeks. If you want it to look the way mine does, go somewhere professional. It doesn't hurt in the least. They basically jsut paint a stain on you. If you want to do something yourself, just find a place near you that sells henna or order it online (it comes in dried green powder form) and then mix it with some water, something acidic (lemon juice works best) and essential oils, adding parts until you get the right mixture, smooth and thick, but not too thick to be unable to paint, and not runny so it pools everywhere. Then put it in a squeeze bottle, or, for better accuracy, a cone (you can buy these where you bought the henna) and draw! Wait for it to dry, about 30 mins, then wait a few hours longer before rubbing it off, revealing a stain beneath. The longer you keep it onl teh darker it gets.

Have fun!

love,

Lola

Title Quote: KT Tunstall, Black Horse and a Cherry Tree

But has he run to you In those shoes in the rain?

I am water person. I mean, zodiacally, I believe I'm an Earth sign, but though I am close to the Earth, I am water. I love how when you're underwater, feeling intensifies. You can't hear much--and if you keep your eyes closed, see much either, so it's just feeling the water push you and flow you and I just feel so graceful. Like, I know it sounds silly, but like a mermaid, you know? And I feel that too on the ice. I love to skate. Not that I'm very good, nor that I want to be some ballerina figure skater, but when I get on the ice, I start gliding around and faster, and fast, and I'm swaying from side to side and I feel the wind rush through my hair and my feet aren't lifting from the ice, and and and...

I get a feeling as though, if there weren't people, and city, and lights, and cars, and just ice, and more ice, just stretching out like a path, I would just skate and skate and skate and glide along while the trees sing to me, "Lola, Lola." And I would be full of grace. I'm not very graceful on land, never really have felt it. And I don't think I'm especially graceful on ice, either, but at least I think it. Grace--and beauty, that comes with grace. The ice, the shine, the night, the happiness, it shows through. I like it. I think I like the freedom of it. Perhaps it's the closest to flying I can easily get. It would be amazing to fly. But hey, I'm content to stick with swimming and skating, gliding and turning and speeding. Eventually you get tired, but that just means that after you get out, or off, you have another chance to get in again. I think that's a dream of mine: To fly and fly and spin and twist and be the ice, be the water, more often. Ice isn't cold and unfriendly, it's welcoming, supporting, lifting, graceful.

Title Quote: Ill Willed Person, Jaymay

Well if you want to say yes, say yes

Well isn't this strange. Isn't the world strange. Isn't strange strange? I feel like there a million thoughts zooming through my head, each trying desperately to find a hole, a way out: through my ears, perhaps. And I seem to have let my guard down, and they keep on escaping, and then who knows where they go. Once they're out, I can't keep track of them. Maybe they find some with a less cluttered brain, maybe someone who's better at organizing their thoughts, and settle in, and talk to them instead. I don't know.

Sometimes, I feel as if there's an epiphany coming on, sometimes I feel as if it's happening this very moment, that I'm on the verge of a breakthrough, on the verge of understanding... something. And then I lose it. I think to hard, or someone interrupts me, and then there I go again. I'm back in the dirt where I started again, blindly searching for the glasses I need to find them. How can I search for my glasses if I need my glasses to search for them? This is all metaphorical, mind you. It's like trying to see something up close and in depth, but from the corner of your eye. If you look straight at it, it disappears. Like those, what do you call them, (google informs me they're called stereograms) where you have to unfocus to see the picture? I feel like these great ideas, these great understandings, if you will, are continually flitting in and away. Does anyone else ever get like that? My brain just plain hurts. (you can tell because I'm using waay to many italicized words.)

You what my situation is? It's like this: I need two very sharp pencils do what I want, and all I have is one small dull one. But sometimes it's not the pencil, is it? Sometimes it's the hand that's wielding it.

Title Quote: Cat Sevens, If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

Head full of candy bags Costume shops and punks in drag

I want to talk about Halloween. You know it was originally that on October 31, the spirits of the dead came back, and people wore costumes to disguise themselves against the harmful spirits. Now, it's just an excuse for little kids to dress up as fairies or princesses or ghosts or characters from movies--or an excuse for the older crowd to have huge parties. And don't get me wrong. I rather like dressing up, assuming another identity, and I am not at all against this. But isn't it ironic that barely anyone ever dresses up as something scary any longer? And if they do, it's usually a mask or store-bought costume that some company tells them is the definition of scary. This is what I'm being for Halloween: A zombie goth ragdoll.

The picture is something storebought, I know, but it's only my inspiration. I spent about an hour and a half weaving my hair with black and red yarn, to create a stunning effect, and put together a bunch of clothes (fishnets, yay!) and finally modeled my makeup on the picture, and was so incredibly happy with the result. I love halloween and dressing up, but I'm also a procrastinator, so I usually never actually get around t being much more than a witch. (been that like seven times.) Remember I was love last year? The blog had only just started, huh? Wow that's some bad writing from back then. Anyway, I feel accomplished.

But back to actual halloween. Did you know that the word come from All Hallow's Evening, that was shortened to even, which was then e'en, which is halloween. Cool, huh? I think that everyone should dress up on Halloween, but also that everyone who dresses up should have to make their own costume. You go to school or enter a competition, and the costume that wins is never the mask or storebought, packaged idea. It's the one which looks homemade yet still very very cool. It makes everyone happier to make it themselves, that's what I think. And why do so many people dress up? Because no matter how "dorky" some people might proclaim it, it's so fun and refreshing to dress up as someone else, something else. to be able to shed your own skin and personality, and by hiding behind a mask you come out as someone different. By hiding, you can show a different part of yourself that You wouldn't normally. And I think somany people want and desperately need that. To be, for one night, ghouly and creepy and scary and screamy--That's what the world needs, they need sometime to just scream out loud, to let it all out. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but one of my favorite parts of the Marriage Equality Rally was being able to just let it all out. People around me chanted and screamed and yelled and cheered and I just opened my mouth and cheered as loud as I could, and I felt as if I had blown dust from the depths of my lungs, as if that last old bit of air had finally been cleared, and I could feel the old dirty empty spaces filling with joy, happiness, unity, peace. We all just need time to express ourselves in the most animal of ways. Happy Halloween, everyone.

Title Quote: Ryan Adams, Halloweenhead