I love Chelsey's poetry. It's a whimsical rendition of universal truth.

I'm finally done moving out of my lavendar-scented room and into a cold, white square at the bottom of our basement. I volunteered to move in a mood of self-sacrificing altruism that is not likely to strike again any time soon. It's not a bad spot, especially with all my books and fanciful posessions. Just-- chilly. And in desperate need of redecorating. There's this sterile sponged-on print forming a border. Absolutely shudder-worthy. The light shines out in three-pronged brightness, giving me a headache.

I miss my warm, softly lit home of comforting colours and gentle scents. But I'll make this place livable. I'm getting rid of that horrible paint-- maybe paint red windmills or those little 'truth, beauty, freedom, love' signs at the credits in replacement. I'll plant living things in that hollow that we would call a window, get a new light fixture. When I go to the Las Vegas art museums, I'll buy enough prints to cover a dozen rooms with Monet, Matisse, Morsoit, and Cassat. And I'll finish that hooked rug I've had in half-finished form for two years.

I don't want to go to school today. I've established a pattern of not doing anything academic for the past few days, and I refuse to break it. Besides, I have a headache, and don't want to move from this bed.

I have some posessions that I adore. Little knick-knacks and such that define me delightfully. And tonight I think I'll mention a few of my favorites in my place of rest. My Victorian toiletries set, to begin wth. Heavy plated silver set of mirror, brush, and comb, they are shaped from roses and ornate curves and twirls. The tiny tea sets that shimmer behind the glass door of a display case. The teapot itself is barely the size of my fingertip, and they seem to be waiting for a pair of faeries to drop by for a bit of sponge cake and marmalade. Speaking of faeries, the finger puppet I got for Easter dances among creamy tulle at the headboard. Her pale gold yarn hair spills to her satiny waist, while slim feet perpetually dance a delicate ballet. A single crimson rose, dried and surrounded by a wreath of baby's breath that spills out over the glassy rim. Translucent gold ribbon that weaves itself around a vase. A heavy lavendar candle that Princess gave to me on my birthday. It smells like the soaps that you keep in neat squares on a boutique shelf. Notebooks filled with poetry and musings in my scribble-scrabble handwriting that spills over the pages in red ink, blue ink, black ink, reminding me of style and substance. Cream-coloured lace screens my matelesse bedspread, blurring the printed lilacs. The greeting cards Alise gave me, a glossy white surface with a single stylized woman on the front, holding shopping bags, flowers, a dog, her enormous, puffed-out skirt. Hankerchiefs-- real ones, embroidered with French knots and stitches that meet in a cross of pastel thread.

I want a hope chest. A simple one that slopes and rises to meet the end of my bed and smells like those blocks of cedar my parents used to keep in their drawers. I would sit there, my fingers running over cotton to taste the wood born scent of those old blocks. I want to lay smooth sheets in careful, edgy folds and place sprigs of lavendar among them. I'll go and buy flower-rimmed china, wrapped in layers of brown tissue paper, and put them in with the bedding. Bath crystals and soaps in stiff cardboard boxes imprinted with nature scenes. The bell-like quality of crystal in wine goblets that will be used once or twice for orange juice and pastry, then put into the back of the china cabinet for Christmastime. I don't care much for marriage, but raising my own baby house to life-- that's another matter entirely. I'll hunt up old bits of pottery to go with that dear blue ruffle of a curtain. I want to plant bulbs by the neatly trimmed square of grass, brightly coloured tulips and daffodils to bring smiles to the winter-weary passerby. I love braided rugs, and they'll lay neatly on the broad boards of shining wood that I walk on. My featherbed will be a glory of lazy nights, and a little window seat will perch in the corner of the parlor (I'll have a parlor, you see, not a living room) like a jewel in an understated setting.

I'm going to end up unregretfully peeling off fresh bills from a stack of pay and pressing them into the palm of a store clerk. As I walk out, my head held high even as shopping bags try to draw me back from the revolving exit, I'll be secure in the knowledge that I just bought a frivolity-- something I didn't want, just needed.

I just thought I'd share a very original and delightful thought with everyone.

I'm me.

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Gedia Kacela is me too! She gets the standard sparkling gold sticker on her Jane Austen book for being me.

Web design is an exercise in futility. That's what I've decided. I may be able to take words and string them together like the gloss of pearl beads on my mother's necklace, but I'll never be able to make my blog uniquely my own in style as well as substance. Maybe this summer I'll have the inclination to struggle through coding my own template again, but for now Rivendell will have to remain my sanctuary.

The last few days have been fairly lazy ones. I sit and listen to the rain hum gently on the roof and glisten like silver polish on the sidewalks. Being out in the rain is a kinetic experience. The drain pipes flow like a river out onto the streets, where cars slosh waves of water onto the cracks and bladed weeds that grow up into the cracks. It's dizzying-- centifrugal, almost, the way the rain spins around you. A thousand jeweled drops fall in an mass of shameless wealth from the clouds. Long, knife-edged clouds that drift slowly on the sky and gather to weep for mother earth. There's something freeing about the rain. It's catharsis.

But like all things that release, it's painful. That small, pink blossom that fell from the trees and landed gracefully on a mat of grass. Do you remember that? How it sat there, looking wistfully up at the tree and bowing silently to the gods of humanity. The rain takes it forcefully, bruises the delicate blush of the petal. It's a brutal hand snatching the wayward flower away, not a blessing. It softens the earth by forcing icy droplets into the warm soil. The chill snaps angrily, leaving a cold, muddled silence after the rain stops falling.

And the flower falls, stumbling on the swift sheets of wind, wet and muddied so that all beauty and elegance has vanished. A woman runs a hand moist from fear and sweat across her face, leaving jagged shadows from kohl and mascara around watercolour eyes. The makeup softens, running in beige rivulets down her face, revealing imperfections, tiny bruises. Her lips stain the ground with a fatal kiss.

The rain cleans, though. Purifies.