It’s not what you want that matters it's what you want more,
So go on, lie to yourself but don’t lie to me,
Everybody feels locked out of a house they can’t get in. Keep on wanting

In each interaction with someone you only have two choices, yes or no. And two chances to get it right. There's no asking for more.

Have you ever loved someone so much, you'd give an arm for them?
Not the expression, no, literally give an arm for them?
When they know they're your heart
And you know you were their armour
And you would destroy anyone who would try to harm her
But what happens when karma turns right around and bites you?
And everything you stand for turns on you to spite you?
What happens when you become the main source of her pain?

And when I'm gone, just carry on, don't mourn
Rejoice every time you hear the sound of my voice
Just know that I'm looking down on you smiling
And I didn't feel a thing, So baby don't feel no pain
Just smile back

If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room would you trust it

"Maybe it's not about growing balls but about growing roots" -Aurora W.

I've always seemed a little sad to people throughout my life. Because I know it doesn't last, it all fades and I try to hold on because it meant something to me, but people aren't like that. The things I've liked and wanted to hold I never really had. And the people who loved me most can't be my friends sometimes. Because it was too much to forget. And in that sense it's one of the only indications that it wasn't a dream. I never knew when I was young, what a loaded silence is. That two people who avoid looking at each other on the street might have more between them than other's who hug and want to catch up. There are lives lived that we don't talk about. Anyone who says nothing's wrong just isn't confiding in you.

I just want the things I love, all I have to give, seen, and appreciated. I think to work with someone like me would make me feel so lucky- when I care about my job and am getting paid right- I don't think there's anyone who would do more or better. But it's like back in high school how as soon as I lost respect for a teacher or saw something I didn't like in a friend, I could find no way to want to be anything like them, and turned away.

I wanted to perform, draw, to be in love with someone really beautiful inside and out. I still want that. To explore with them, share our families and friends. A man is invisible if no one else sees him. M remembers me like a past life. When I'm with him I feel like I could be redeemed somehow. I want him to want to see me.
I've always been told I had all this potential. But really. What is a life of potential, a month away from being 26, if it's not acknowledged the way I hope.

I found this video I made two years ago as some sort of weird self inflicted art project I didn't show anyone. From a time when I'd film scenes I liked on my iPhone. Anyway. Some thoughts on love from the movies:

Every Romantic Scene I like from the Movies from andrea chen on Vimeo.

I think my nature was always searching for something or someone. And like a drowning man flailing, that need kept me from seeing the clearly those trying to save me- the people and places I'm so lucky to have in front of me.
There's a story I heard Tuesday about a man who's young child asks him for a quarter. And he looks into his pocket and says he doesn't have a quarter, only a $10 bill. The child get's upset and exclaims- but I want a quarter!

I was on the subway platform tonight coming home from work and there was this guy singing this song… I thought it was really beautiful. About people learning to be better with time, and building things. Enjoy: http://youtu.be/qU4wxPw6t_g

"I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly:
I perceived that this also was vexation of spirit"
Ecclesiastes

Once in awhile I'll decide it's Booty's birthday. I'll order ribs from the Chinese takeout place that's seemingly open 24/7 and we'll lay around hand n paw watching Anthony bourdain. 

Lift your head when you're down so you don't drop your crown.

I really like how Madonna writes: (from her Harpers article)

"I was defiant. Hell-bent on surviving. On making it. But it was hard and it was lonely, and I had to dare myself every day to keep going. Sometimes I would play the victim and cry in my shoe box of a bedroom with a window that faced a wall, watching the pigeons shit on my windowsill. And I wondered if it was all worth it, but then I would pull myself together and look at a postcard of Frida Kahlo taped to my wall, and the sight of her mustache consoled me. Because she was an artist who didn't care what people thought. I admired her. She was daring. People gave her a hard time. Life gave her a hard time. If she could do it, then so could I."