My Eden

I found heaven today.

After a relatively productive morning of waking, coffee-making and a trip to the next town over for a personal appointment, I was left sitting here on this couch at 1 o'clock in the afternoon wondering what in the hell I was going to do with the rest of my day. After weighing a few options I decided to run down to Natural Bridges State Beach, approximately 1.2 miles down the hill from my apartment. This is new for me: I usually run loops around neighborhoods. This was a destination run.

As usual, I took a wrong turn, and instead of getting to the state beach, I found myself running down a highway, left on a residential street, over abandoned train tracks, and into a vast expanse of gardens, farms and wildflowers. Off in the distance, I could see the ocean. I ran ran ran.

I ran ran ran and, finally, I came to a stop at the edge of a cliff. No one was around. Far in out in the waves I could make out a lone surfer, but as far as I was concerned it was just me and the ocean, crashing and bashing against the flat, stage-like rocks below me.

It was too steep to get down to the beach, so I sat on a bed of ice plant at the edge of the furthest reach of the cliff and I closed my eyes.

First it was before me, and then suddenly it was all around me, and then it was within me, and then we were one.

I have never felt so utterly at peace in a physical place, so it follows that this place goes beyond the physical and expands to lap against the sea-rocks of my spirit. That is what this seashore is to me: it is my spirit place. My temple. I sat there with my eyes closed for at least twenty minutes. Maybe it was more. I could have sat there forever, and something tells me that when my body is no more, that is what I will do.

I obviously can't disclose the location of my heaven but, to give a general idea of how beautiful it is, this photo was taken a ways down the shore.

Coffee coffee coffee

This is my coffee mug. Isn't it lovely?
I FINALLY found time over the weekend, when I was back home, to go get my coffee beans. I will of course drink coffee from anywhere, because I'm an addict (It's out there now), but when it comes to the one I brew at home in the mornings, I'm a little picky. After all, at that point, I'm buying the beans by the pound.
I get my favorite blend from Philz Coffee, a drip-only coffee shop in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Every "cup of love", as they call it, is completely customized for each person who walks in. My last two years of high school I went in there every single morning (on birthdays and Christmas and other holidays, my family would get me Philz gift cards to support my habit). When I walked in, sometime around 8:30, my usual barista would yell "Philtered soul! Lots of cream and sugar!" at the top of his lungs. Yes, they memorized my drink of choice.

That was back when I a) liked my coffee incredibly sweet and b) smoked. My favorite thing to do was to sit at one of their outdoor tables and drink my coffee with some 27's. Nowadays, I take my coffee almost black and, as of about a year and a half ago, I've been smoke-free. (yay!).

Anyway, if anything I love coffee more now. I have this wonderful little collection of mugs from Goodwill that I'll be drinking from this year (my parents wouldn't let me take any mugs from home). The one above reminds me of a faerie garden. I swear, left to my own devices I would start a coffee cult. This is my holy vessel out of which I drink my blessed beverage. GOD I LOVE COFFEE. Love, the coffee faerie (new blog name alert...must resist constant switching of titles).

Two Roads

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

This poem is probably one of the most well-known of our time, or at least the last three lines are. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference".
I believe most people take that to mean that the "road less traveled by" is the better one; that it was the right choice. But does he ever really say that? No. He simply states the obvious: that it has made all the difference.
While collecting a few things from my family's overstocked garage today, I found, in a box that looked much older than it is, my acceptance letter to Sarah Lawrence College. It was mostly typed--"you are among a distinguished group of students", blah blah blah--but there was also a handwritten note from the Dean of Admissions.

Welcome, Juliana. I hope SLC is as transformative as Middle College was for you.

Middle College was the half-high school, half-college, alternative-education program I was a part of my last two years of high school. It was indeed transformative, and it ultimately allowed me to graduate with my class.
For two years Sarah Lawrence was my dream. It was small! It was in New York! They were so alternative they didn't even have dorms or majors (technically)! As a writer, SLC appealed to me the way that Cal Poly appeals to an engineer, or NYU appeals to a film student, or LSU appeals to an aspiring NFL quarterback. SLC would allow me to design my own major, to benefit from the opportunities of New York City while living in a sheltered, fairytale-like campus in Bronxville. There was no other place I could see myself happier. It was, by a long shot, my first choice.

I was accepted, and I didn't go.

Hard as I try, reason after reason that I feed myself and those who ask, I can't figure out exactly why I chose UC Santa Cruz, my current school, over SLC. Maybe it was because UCSC was my first acceptance, and it was in California (no east coast weather to deal with), and it was close to my family, and, perhaps most importantly, my boyfriend.

Yes, nearly everyone will tell you, DO NOT base your school choice on your significant other. I like to think that I didn't. After all, I did fall in love with Santa Cruz as well when I visited.

Oh, there's another thing. I never even visisted Sarah Lawrence.

My parents were more than happy to get on a plane with me and go see this dream school that had somehow decided I was a perfect fit for them. After a few days of avoiding the question the words came out of my throat like glue, slow and stifling and painful. I don't want to go.
They were confused, I'm sure. Why this sudden change of heart? But to my surprise, they accepted my choice without many questions. They let it go after a few days.

Sarah Lawrence would have been the road less traveled by. Most of my fellow high schoolers didn't even know where or what it was (although let me assure you, my teachers did, and they loved that I wanted to go there). SLC is very small and very intimate and it takes a certain type of person to want it. I thought I was that person. Even though I didn't go, I will always have a special place in my heart for Sarah Lawrence, who wanted me as much as I once wanted them, who validated my talent for writing in a way that no one else ever will. I did not attend, and a part of me will always long to know how my life would have turned out differently if I had. I did not attend, but I can assure you that in this moment, I am happy with my life. More than happy. To me, in its evolving imperfection, my life is perfect.

So I'd like to amend the last few lines of this poem to fit me. Yes, by most people's standards, I took the road most traveled by. I went to a big California public school close to home, instead of journeying across the continent to attend a small, private liberal arts school in a land of ocean sunrises, sweltering summers and snowy winters. But this poem, or at least its public interpretation, assigns a negative connotation to the road most traveled. I wish to challenge that.

Two roads diverged in a wood.
I took the one that called to me,
The one that reeled me in
Though the other sang so sweetly.
I took the one most traveled
Yet my footsteps are my own.
I took the one most traveled,
But my own seeds I have sown.
Many roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one that called to me
And that made all the difference.

-My Own Road, by Me.

A Traveler's Comforts

Riding a train, drinking an overly sweetened cappuccino (I've gone over to the dark side and prefer my coffee bitter), reading Vogue, thinking that if I ever had to look like another person, it'd be Keira Knightley.

Homemaking Altar & Beautiful Minds Sing Alike?

Well, I'm settling into my new apartment. While things are by no means perfect, I think we're off to a good start. I'm finally comfortable enough to sit down and write, so here comes a long long post.
My wonderful roommate (E)is just as OCD as I am, if not more, and while I think we get slightly annoyed at each other sometimes because of it, it usually works in our favor and I love her all the same. We're great at keeping our apartment clean and also at making it feel homey. Observe, our altar to the homemaking goddesses:

Surprisingly, this is the only area in our apartment that we didn't plan out before moving in. It just kind of came together. On the left is a bouquet of flowers illegally cut from around our complex by E and I in the dead of night, placed in a vase I collected from goodwill. In the back is a rather eclectic painting my parents found at a garage sale, one that I'm starting to grow quite fond of. In front of it is a sunny little platter from a secondhand antique store; it's scattered with rose petals and in the middle we placed a little white Malayan Coco candle I picked up last year from a cute boutique in Paia, Hawaii. And of course, to its right, E's copy of The Joy of Cooking opened to a page of tomato sauce recipes (on my list to try: octopus pasta sauce). This collection of treasures rests atop another garage sale find by my parents, a one-drawer table in like-new condition (where do my parents find these things?!).

End my detailed account of items on a table. This is probably the part of our apartment (or dare I say, home) that E and I are most proud of. After all, it adds the beauty element to my criteria for a well-rounded home: clean, beautiful, functional, and comfortable.

Now, completely unrelated to the previous topic (or is it?): over the past couple years I've become completely obsessed with--for lack of better words (I'm sure they would find better ones)--soulful, powerful, female musicians. They are by no means from a single musical genre or era: among them are Simone Simons of Epica, Etta James, Tarja, old Nelly Furtado (revived from my elementary school days), Sharon Den Adel, Tracy Chapman, Sierra and Bianca from CocoRosie, Corinne Bailey Rae, Hannah Fury, Diana Krall, and Fiona Apple. To polish off the list are these two beautiful women.

Imogen Heap, and

Emilie Autumn.

Yes, I chose photos that depict them from the same angle, and maybe I can safely say there are similarities in their musical style, but it would be wrong to say that these ladies are like anyone but themselves. They are individuals among individuals; completely one-of-a-kind, inspired by things I only hope I can see too one day. Yet while I was listening to them recently, I realized that two of their songs, Castle Down by Emilie and Candlelight by Imogen, sound suspiciously similar.





The majority of Castle Down is played in a minor key, while Candlelight is predominantly major, but other than this their melodies--especially the down-up up-down of their choruses--are practically interchangeable.

Now, with any other musicians, I would assume that one had simply copied the other (here I would think Imogen's song is the original, as hers was released in 1998, while Emilie's was released in 2003). I would have a little laugh and shake my head at the music industry and move on with my life. But the fact that Imogen Heap and Emilie Autumn are so utterly unique, both musically and personally, makes me wonder if more is going on here. No, I don't have any logical theories at the moment. I will soon. Stay posted.

A Little Green Amidst the Gray

Yesterday, I moved into my first apartment. It's both wonderful and terrifying, and my pots and pans haven't even gotten here yet, so I'm feeling a little lost.

So you can imagine how grateful I was when my dad came by today (I moved about an hour south of my parent's home)and arranged this little herb garden for me, tapping into the apartment complex's watering system (legality questionable) and setting up little sprinklers. I proceeded to run back and forth between the patio and the kitchen at least 20 times to water them, as I don't have a watering can and was giving them tapwater with a very small creamer cup. Behold, my first herb garden!

From left to right: chives, rosemary, sage, tarragon, cilantro, Italian parsley, and more Italian parsley. They make this place feel a little more like home, and I can't wait to raise these little guys and use them in my cooking :)

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon!

I don't read enough.

I write plenty; too much by some people's standards. I can't stop writing and I never want to. It's how I let my soul out. But I need to read more.

I am a book lover by every definition of the word. I still read a good amount, but I want to return to the way I was when I was little. Since I could read on my own, I stayed up late in my bed with a neat little reading light poring through lines and lines of wondrous stories, opening up new worlds and giving new meaning to my own. Other kids got in trouble for staying up too late watching tv; I got in trouble for staying up too late reading.

In the mornings, my dad would lift me out of my top bunk bed before school (I've never been a morning person) and set me down in a fluffy emerald armchair in the living room with my blankie and the book I was currently reading (usually the one they had taken away the night before so I would get some sleep in).I would read as long as I could until it was time to go to school.

I never read those silly, fun-but-shallow, overridden-with-onomatopoeia books targeted at young kids with no interest in literature (I'm talking about you, Animorphs). My more popular choices included The Little House on the Prairie(I was in love with the whole series), Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, and Hans Christian Andersen books (I still have my first copy of The Little Mermaid; the original). Anything with fairies or princesses or magic was fair game. The American Girl books were an addiction. I loved Josefina, who was Mexican, like me, and Samantha, who lived in this beautiful Victorian house and had a parlor and ate petit fours and had tea time with her grandmother.

The point of this rant is that I don't read like that anymore, and I want to. I've gone through every J.R.R. Tolkien book; The Silmarillion was the last full novel (I hesitate to call it that) that I read. So here is my newest challenge, though it's really more like an indulgence:

I'm about to crack open this beautiful old book.

Yes, this is The Complete Works of Shakespeare. It belonged to my father, who acquired it in college from someone apparently named "Kayle Mack", or so it reads on the left inside cover.

I've read Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth through and through and seen plays and numerous adaptations of those and Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, and Much Ado About Nothing. But what I really want is to read his complete works and really try and understand Shakespeare. My first step is reading about Elizabethan England, to understand the world he lived in; then I'm going to choose a play and start reading.

Here begins the maturation of my relationship with Shakespeare. I'm going to try and read a play a month. Wish me luck!

And to close, a mouthwatering picture of a film version of the playwright, from Shakespeare In Love. He is possibly the only movie character I have ever become truly infatuated with, and to be fair I think I fell in love with Gwyneth Paltrow's character as well (one of my favorite movies).

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe,
Than this of my neglect of reading.

Apartment #2: Update

I just bought my very first cookware set.
All by myself! I had been looking for a simple, reasonably priced set of pots and pans that was NOT non-stick: that stuff is toxic (can't be used at high temperatures without releasing perfluorooctanoic acid, a known carcinogen, and other toxic compounds) and unnecessary (I'll spend that extra ten seconds scrubbing my cookware, thanks very much). Enjoy this image below of a burning pot emitting deadly fumes.

My best option was stainless steel, and I finally found that beautiful set, identical to the first one my parents ever purchased (!).

It's a 7-piece set from the Revere 1400 Line, which is a great brand according to myself, my father and Consumer Reports. Brands are not usually something I pay attention to/care about, but this is the notable exception.

Speaking of high-quality things: my wonderful parents completely surprised me by buying me a new, full-size posturepedic bed complete with a frame and everything! Things-bordering-on-unnecessary are not usually paid for by my rents. They cover housing, my education, and food; everything else I am expected to pay for (as it should be). I feel so spoiled. I tried it out today and I feel like I am lying on my own little cloud (or big cloud, as it were; I've slept on a twin my whole life and a full-size feels giant).

Almost everything on my master list is accounted for now. So close!

Apartment Packing!

In about a week, I move into my new apartment and start my sophomore year of college (I still feel like a 16 year old. It's weird). I am excited beyond belief. My roommate is perfect; she was my freshman roommate and somehow we were matched up perfectly and became best friends. We're both obsessed with food and crafty things and the like.
Throughout the course of the summer, we've realized how much work and money goes into furnishing an apartment (at least to our standards, which I admit are a little high for college students). We lucked out with a two bedroom, one bath apartment with a standard sized living room and kitchen (although, being the avid chefs that we are, ideally the kitchen would be 19039845 times bigger). So it's not like we're furnishing a studio apartment here. No, we need to think about five rooms, a hallway, and a little balcony (isn't that wonderful! We're planning on having a little herb garden).
Our bedrooms are the easiest, because we're mostly just transferring our rooms in our parent's houses to this one. We already have dressers and beds and clothes. Only minor updates, if any, are needed there.
But for all the other rooms, we set out to somehow acquire couches, a dinner table, side tables, cookware, bakeware, dinnerware, utensils, drinkware, bath rugs +mats, shower curtains, lamps, cleaning supplies, etc, etc, etc, etc. That is the most compact version of the list I could give. We somehow found most of these things for good prices, at secondhand stores and from friends, and I'm currently making a master packing list. It's color-coded green and yellow: green for the things I have, yellow for the things I still need (I don't like using red on lists, it makes me anxious).
My two big challenges are a) finding a full-size mattress to go on my floor, futon style, and b)packing all my clothes.
Challenge A is a little consumerist and, I'll admit, bordering on unnecessary. I already have a twin-size bed. But sleep is my biggest indulgence, and to be honest, I don't want my boyfriend sleeping on the couch/floor every time he visits (he's a tall skinny giant and doesn't fit on my twin bed with me). I'm going to put it on the floor, futon-style, to save money on a bed frame.
Challenge B has been looming on the horizon for a long while. I have way too many clothes, a wardrobe that has been accumulating since I was 13. I have never really done a major clean out of my closet, because I get attached to material things easily (sigh), even though I don't love or wear most of what I own. So it's time. I'm planning on giving away around 80% of my clothes (maybe more), and I've been putting off the grand sorting all summer. I have to do it tonight or tomorrow if I'm going to have it done with by move-in day.

Here goes!

Like Planted Hearts

Lo! Young we are and yet have stood
like planted hearts in the great Sun
of Love so long (as two fair trees
in woodland or in open dale
stand utterly entwined and breathe
the airs and suck the very light
together) that we have become
as one, deep rooted in the soil
of Life and tangled in the sweet growth.

-J.R.R. Tolkien on his wife, Edith

He called her "his Luthien", which, if you have read The Silmarillion, says it all (he wrote an epic poem about two lovers, Luthien and Beren). They met when she and Tolkien were 19 (as she is in the photo above) and began a courtship when they turned 21. She was his muse. I would love to know more about her; to be muse to the writer of The Lord of the Rings is, to me, evidence of a great love.

Underground Supper Clubs

I recently found out about "underground restaurants". Some are more secret than others, and some are not secret at all, just highly selective (such as the 24-hour, all-you-can-eat Chinese-food-oriented Paiza Club on the 36th floor of the Venetian in Las Vegas, where you need a minimum credit line of $1000000 to get in the door). Most, like the one I found below, are like private "supper clubs"; dinner at a secret location, perhaps in someone's home, or on a rooftop in the city. Some are held by aspiring restaurant owners with limited funds, or an aversion to official restaurant regulations (read: illegal). I read about one that smuggled in and served cheese from Paris that is apparently illegal in the United States.

I'm sure I will never know every underground chef's reason for doing what they do, but it fascinates me. I'd love to go to one, especially this semi-secret one that I found, called the Wild Kitchen (http://foragesf.com/home-foragesf/). It's in San Francisco and is centered around foraged ingredients.


To get in, you have to "apply" and sign up for the email list. If they decide you're in, they tell you the date of the next dinner, and on that day, email you with the exact location. I want to do this so badly!