wish you were here.

[Can someone please tell me where people are linking to this picture from?]

Maija fancies me a young Louise Brooks.

I woke up in the dark mist and sleepily drank the damp air in large gulps. early early in the morning, I watched the mountains fade away into the fog. for the next two and a half hours my focus turned to the two square feet of space allotted to me and I succeeded in distracting myself with the New York Magazine crossword puzzle.

No matter how long I am away from home, coming back always feels as though I've never lived anywhere else. Minneapolis is a more populated cold-weather version of where I live now, and for that I feel thankful. It's probably why I find myself feeling so comfortable in the mountains.

the Midwest has crept into the smallest crevices of my being and i am rereminded at the oddest of times.

Of course, coming here has been an overstimulation and act of excess. An excess of family, an excess of cold, an excess of vietnamese food. yesterday the four of us went to half-price books and made their day by buying no less than 30 books. i enjoy drowning in excitement, losing breath to the new, the exciting, something unknown and yet unbelievably beautiful.

In the stacks I found the most amazing collection of old Hollywood portraits, 1925-1940. The complexity in the simplicity of these people's faces makes me want to see how long I can hold my breath. Gary Cooper (above) could make me last to at least 120. I plan to pour over every inch of light and angle and focus until my own eyes can't focus anymore.

There are few places I feel more comfortable than with family.

In their craziness I feel normal, and accepted, just the way I am.