Danielle Boone

Out into the wild frontier. Here I come, pushed from the nest that I grew to call my home, and the words on everyone's lips are, "You're going to be great. We wish you success. You're ready." And, I find myself just sitting there, at the end of the table with 32 eyes on me, choking on my words just wanting to scream, "STOP STARING AT ME!" Tears well up in my little eyes and I think to myself, "Today was not a good day to wear mascara." It was an awkward but necessary silence for everyone, and though brief, I couldn't help but feel it was more drawn out than it ought to have been.

I excused myself to the ladies room to cry some more. The door swung open and nearly knocked me flat, and as I squeezed my way in and peered into the looking glass, I couldn't recognize that red, wet, splotchy face looking back at me. I miss the days where it was impossible for me to cry, and now I feel like a total ninny. I tried desperately to dry my eyes but toilet paper was a poor solution, and the abrasive paper towels weren't any better.

I gripped both sides of the sink with my little fingers, looked hard into the mirror and in a voice just a bit louder than a whisper, said "Get a hold of yourself, you've got two more term sheets to finish before you can go home."

They showered me with gifts that are supposed to comfort me in my moments of nostalgia, sadness, and fear. I find it rather unfortunate that none of them were neither warm nor cuddly, but those are the kind of gifts you're given when you grow up, I suppose. No more teddy bears and rag dolls. I accepted them with gratitude and a smile, still terrified of failure.

Fashion & Apparel

So, it appears that after working for 7 months after some somewhat necessary disciplinary actions, I've found out that I seem to have come full circle.  I find myself again at the same place, but looking down a different road.  

The possibility of this change is not at all what I expected and for the first time, I'm fearing opportunity.  It's like my Republican inclinations as I age, whereas my Democratic self reigned for years when I felt I had nothing to lose.  I'm afraid of this opportunity because I fear this unplanned possibility for change.  

Oddly enough, what this change might bring is not a change in scenery.  I'd be in Los Angeles, still, among family, friends, loved by those around me, continually showering those whom I love with the only kind of love I'm capable of, the only kind I know.

It's all a "learning experience" or so I'm told, and those words keep resonating with me as I keep asking myself, "why do these things keep happening to Me??"

Only time will tell, and then the truth will show itself, however beautiful or ugly it may be. 

Late Night Art: Berlin

I wish you were with me last night at the L.A.C.M.A.  I imagined us navigating through those great halls on the second story as you shared with me the history behind pieces that struck me as provocative.  My eyes would carefully study the paintings and photographs while listening to your deep voice whispering haunting secrets of Germany into my left ear, in a language completely unknown to me.

May 2008, It's You, not Me.

My unease is something that has been consuming me these last few weeks. It began long before I met you. But, it wasn't until I met you that light was cast into those shadows buried in the corner of both my mind and in my heart. And then, the unease grew.

There is so much about you that I don't know. I feel that we are still strangers, as if we just met. Every encounter with you is like the first time. And, I just keep wondering, when does it get easier? Isn't it supposed to be that with each subsequent visit, I learn something new about you? Yes, and there is that...the way you wash your fork before putting it back into the cooking pan, the way you are an absolute control freak when it comes to your music-always the right song for the right moment, to capture the right feelings (which drives me crazy because it's so orchestrated, and that's NOT how LIFE IS).

But why isn't it getting easier for me? I feel so guarded, so scared.

You're a writer, an artist, and I don't want to change anything about you. I'm not in the business of changing people. But I can't help that I feel this way and it's all because you're a writer. The words that appear next to "writer" in my thesaurus read, "spy, danger, lies."

So far, you've been able to notice things about me that I hoped would go unnoticed. You've even noticed things about me that I have long since taken for granted. And the worst part of it is that you write about them after putting them into a petri dish under a microscope, dissecting me, exposing me in ways that are wrong, and untrue. If they go unwritten, they're scribbled somewhere in your mental notebook, filed away for a later time.

Despite the fact that you're so forthcoming about certain things, others you're actually not forthcoming about at all.

You make me want to start over. I don't want to start over. Every scar I wear, I wear with pride. You make me want to begin again when all I want is to continue.

In e-mails everything is so short, brief, just enough to get a point across. But the point that is made is like a black and white coloring book. No details are explored or shared. Nothing sacred is shared, just words, text on a page. There's always more that I mean to tell you, but I constantly feel this indirect pressure to string a bunch of beautiful words together because I'm afraid you won't understand me otherwise. Writers.

Life is strange that way isn't it? A person doesn't get to choose who they meet or when. It's always random it seems. I feel like a ball in a pinball machine, stuck, ricocheting off one thing only to get hit by something else so unexpectedly. How ever did our paths cross? Remind me if you remember, because I've already forgotten.

Love Traveling across 5,000 miles

A private joke.  That's all it was.  The one thing that had given me a glimmer of hope turned out to be a joke.  How do you catch yourself when you know you're just going to face plant? For the first time in 2-years I was able to stand on my own two feet, walk alone and move through my own life, alone.  I didn't think it would happen to me for the rest of my life, but here I stand and there it is, happening.

My heart is in France, I left pieces of it in San Francisco, and now it longs for Germany.

Premature Heartbreak

Until today, I didn't know it was possible to experience heartache before love.  I don't understand how it's possible, it's irrational.  Matters of the heart I suppose aren't meant to be rational, which in my opinion is bullshit.