"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."

I know things get hard but girl you got it, girl you got it there you go
Can't you tell by how they looking at you everywhere you go
Wondering what's on your mind, it must be hard to be that fine,
When all these motherfuckas wanna waste your time
It's just amazing, girl, and all I can say is...

I'm so, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so proud of you

Everything's adding up, you've been through hell and back
That's why you're bad as fuck and you know you are.

Mark.

Shirley asked me some questions today.
One that stuck with me is what I've learned.
I guess I've learned how big my heart can be.
Love is like a liquid that needs to be held in a safe vessel.