the inevitable bucket list

i. write things.

ii. screw all literary norms.

iii. inhale ink; exhale vividry; circulate substantial quantities of hope.

iv. fall off a cliff, preferably a metaphorical cliff.

v. pierce minds with music, in a good way.

vi. the Venetian riviera.

vii. Don Giovanni.

viii. the cathedrals of Prague; the snows of St. Petersburg.

ix. the salted streets and stained windows of New Orleans.

x. write on anarchy of perfection; write on reality; write on everything the world is scared to hear and everything that no ones wants to read.

xi. Les Misérables.

xii. hug Tom Hiddleston, tell him that I think he is what all humans ought to be.

xiii. chart stars.

xiv. keep a terrifying library. 

xv. cause some sort of profound inspiration; make other people happy.

xvi. Iceland.

xvii. own multiples cats named after raw twentieth century novelists.

xviii. find someone who reads the layers of reality the same way that I do.

xix. explore myself as a decidedly strange individual; drink words and music and forge art.

xx. leave.

twenty-one wayward thoughts

Today I'm giving you something slightly special, which is a very shallow adventure inside my sporadic thoughts. However ordinary the workings of my mind may be, there are sometimes sparks of disorientation that wander across the peculiarly normal inward vision. This is a list of wayward inklings. 
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"For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” 

-- Oscar Wilde 

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i. i really do dislike the word inkling. it reminds me of ink and in reality it has nothing whatsoever to do with ink, which makes me slightly disappointed. the word also has an unnerving sort of fluidity. i dislike it.

ii. i am currently hoping that the listless mediocrity of my life is the deep breath before the plunge. this is a thought of which i have reminded myself multiple times.

iii. the sky outside looks like a dome of shattering ice today, as the clouds are coming in strands.

iv. i think that adventure should be a priority.

v. sometimes i think that the stars are portals inside disorienting fantasies and sometimes i think that they are distant and cruel white holes in the sky. i have never seriously considered the theory that they are merely very large spheres of flaming gas.

vi. even the reality that is portrayed as raw is only ever a perfected version of true reality.

vii. there is quite a lot that has been sacrificed for the creation of things.

viii. the skin on my hands feels as if it has been stretched too far. it's cracking in little red grooves because of the cold.

ix. it would be a very offended world if everyone was honest.

x. i often look in the mirror and wonder why i am myself and not someone else. it is quite a disturbance, and a practice i do not particularly enjoy.

xi. there are one hundred thousand million stars in the milky way, and great quantities of light, and faerietales and hand-bound books and obsidian rock and Doctor Who episodes and invisible colour waves, and quite a bit of humans, and there is also you, which is kind of cool.

xii. there is a distant watery sound above my head, and i want to know where it comes from, and why it exists, and why it sounds distant but still entirely close enough to be distracting.

xiii. i wish that lovely people were told more often that they are lovely.

xiv. paper is one of the best substances ever to be conceived.

xv. light is altogether very unappreciated. light is very important, and very beautiful, and also very overwhelming, when you think about it in any sort of depth.
as is anything.

xvi.  i love the feel of warm coffee on the inside of my throat. i am currently in need of it.

xvii. i wonder if any individuals in the future will have already retired from reading this post, carrying a lack of interest. i am certainly on the verge of it.

xviii. yellow is an underappreciated colour.

xix. i think that changing the present and watching the future will always be more important than regretting the past.

xx. days are for action. night is for reflection. sleeping is for health. death is for motivation.

xxi. cats.

pieces of a birthday

this list is twenty-three memories of yesterday and today; which happens to be the day that i was born.

i. white and silver snow on harsh Canadian ground.

ii. chocolate cake.

iii. my intensely amazing aunt gave a life-sized standup poster of Kili the Dwarf. he is very content in his corner beside my bookcase, and i can't stop laughing every time i see him.

iv. pulsating adrenaline before the symphony choir enters a stage on which we are to sing.

v. the ringing of an orchestra tuning.

vi. the performance of Handel's Messiah, from the view of a chorus soprano, before hundreds of locale in a magnificently stifling stone cathedral. the soloists were pristine. the conductor is passionate, and he moved with fluidity and grandeur and flamboyance. the months that we had spent in rehearsal were threaded into the performance. we were given a standing ovation lasting three minutes. the sound was piercing in the acoustics of the church, and my mind still throbs with violin strings. it was glorious.

vii. decreasing adrenaline and a sore throat post-concert.

viii. wishing myself a happy birthday as i climb into bed after the performance, as the clock read twelve o'clock A.M. on the morning of December eighth. it is mine and Dominic Monaghan's birthday.

ix. dreams of music.

x. breakfast with my father this morning, marked with conversation concerning geological mining samples and the alto soloist's turquoise dress from the night before.

xi. the excessive consumption of eggnog.

xii. embroidered leather moccasins, in which i hope to spend the rest of my walking career.

xiii. the overwhelmingly underwhelming thought that i have now gone around the sun fourteen times.