Marie Antoinette

I have always been fascinated by Marie Antoinette. Last year when I took a course in European history and was able to choose my research topic, I wrote a paper about Marie Antoinette and gave a more balanced view of the controversial queen. Much of my information came from Tea at Trianon. Isn't she gorgeous?

love,
hilary/grace

So Much Love

You got so much love in you
You got so much love in you
I'm amazed that I'm talking to you
You look like the songs that I've heard my whole life coming true
-The Rocket Summer

Uninhibited Hilary

Okay. I realized why I'm so addicted to blogging. I've been on a quest since idontknowwhen. A quest to find myself. Sitting there at the computer, reading my blog, can you honestly say that you know who you are? I keep trying to answer questions. I keep collecting little pieces of myself. I keep trying to learn about myself. I need to know, you know? I'm at my happiest when I understand myself and I understand my life. But sometimes I think I know who I am and then something happens and it tests my trust in myself. I can't ever completely understand myself, let alone the world, but I can put the pieces together. That's where blogging comes in. I write on the computer if I'm doing a longer piece because I hate seeing my shapeshifting handwriting cover the paper. Blogging lets me write about myself, about my views, about my life. My blog is a chronicle of my life since basically June. If you look at my earlier posts I was very hesitant to mention anything about my personal life, and certainly there are still many things I don't mention on my blog, but blogging let's me explore myself.

This morning my friend Katie told me that her mom said, "That Hilary is so uninhibited!" When Katie first told me this I thought it was more of a disapproving statement, as in... "That Hilary is... hmm... how can I put this nicely? Uninhibited." But Katie told me that wasn't it at all. Outgoing. Confident. Extroverted.

I am outgoing, I will say that, but my confident levels waver up and down quite often. In general, I'm a fairly confident person. It often depends on the vibes I get from other people. I'm only outgoing when I'm comfortable. If you came into my creative writing class last semester, you would hear me laughing so loud and talking a lot, being myself, but enter my Hero in Lit class this semester and you wouldn't think I was the same person. I have absolutley no friends in my class. It's all people who took the class as a joke, and while I signed up for journalism, I got thrown in with the mix. Yesterday in class I got really nervous when I had to introduce myself to the class... my hands were all clammy and I was shaky and looked down the whole time. It was not good.

There's no way to define me indefinitely, I understand that. If I were to give a shot at defining myself, I would present my friends. I rely very much on my relationships. I always need to be by people. That's why I never get my homework done =] I constantly need to know that there are people there for me. Without my friends or even acquaintances, I don't know who I am. It's a very rare occasion that I want to be alone. Even when I'm upset I'll usually want to be with my friends. They just make me feel better. Yeah, if I'm crying I'm not going to want a bunch of random people standing around, but I feel so much better when I cry with my friends by my side. With Andrea, Veronica, Amy, or Julija. I can cry and not worry about being judged.

It's probably not so great that I rely on my relationships so much because I can't always be with someone. So yeah, I'll be home, in my room, but I'll be on my laptop, connected to AIM or Facebook, or I'll be talking on the phone. I am extremely dependent on my friends. I think something I need to work on is being alone. Over the summer I have a lot of time to myself, and I am happier during the summer because I understand myself more, but I also get very depressed during the summer because I am not constantly in the midst of life, in the middle of action.

Okay, I am just losing my train of thought now... stress is getting to me. [I've spent a considerable amount of time not talking to anyone, so that's good.] Let me just say, that as this week is going on, it is getting better. It's been busy and stressful, but it's definitely improving. Hopefully tomorrow will be better yet =]

I'll post more when I get my thoughts together.
Love,
Hilary.... Grace

The Sunrise

I hope that today I see the sun rise. I don't think I will because we will be taking the streets to school instead of the expressway, but I hope I see the sun rise. My dad always says that if you see the sun rise, it will be a good day. So I want to see the sun rise.
love,
grace

Hilary Marie

For the last few years, I have been confused about who I am, what I am supposed to do with my life, why I am here. I think I should start right now but just saying my real name. I'll still go by Grace on my blog, but my real name is Hilary. Hilary Marie. Hilary means "cheerful one." That's a start.

Hate Poem--Julie Sheehan

I'm cleaning my room [I keep getting distracted either by the computer or by all the things I find] and I was sorting through everything I got from my Creative Writing teacher. I found a poem that she gave us and that Will sent me last year. Ms. Wagenschutz, my Creative Writing teacher loves this poem. I thought I'd post it, to see what you think of it.

Hate Poem

by Julie Sheehan

I hate you truly. Truly I do.

Everything about me hates everything about you.

The flick of my wrist hates you.

The way I hold my pencil hates you.

The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped

in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.

Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I'm digging

from under by third toenail, left food, hates you.

The history of this keychain hates you.

My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases

hates you.

The goldfish of my genius hates you.

My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious

symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.

My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.

My pleasant "good morning": hate.

You know how when I'm sleepy I nuzzle my head

under your arm? Hate.

The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit

practices it.

My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning

to night hate you.

Layers of hate, a parfait.

Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,

I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one

individually and at leisure.

My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity

of my hate, which can never have enough of you.

Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

This is from Poetry 180, a poem a day for american high schools. Now, substitute each "hate" with "love."

love, grace

i carry your heart

Last night my friends Carol and Caroline were over and we watched In Her Shoes. At the end of the movie one of the characters recited this poem by e.e. cummings. I don't usually like cummings, but I really liked this poem. Then I was surfing the blogosphere (I realize I sounded like a huge computer nerd there by saying that and I don't care) and I ran across this poem again. I thought there must be a reason that I ran into it twice in two days, so I thought I'd post it.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings