I really, really, really love this shawl that Parker Posey wears on Louie, and have been hardcore trolling etsy for a similar one. I never want to wear a real coat ever again.

Also, I both love and fear Parker Posey.

Beautiful

"Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." --Omar Khayyam

Enjoying the weekends so much that when I return back to normal weekday school life, waiting for the weekend to come back gives me that insane, fever-inducing impatience we experience in childhood.
READY TO GRADUATE, ready for summer, so ready for summer. I have no idea what my summer is going to look like or feel like but I know it is going to be wonderful! I will be living with my grandmother again (let's cross our fingers I don't get any of the jobs I applied for, really) and will have nothing to do but try and earn money while giving myself the mental and emotional break I'll have surely deserved.

And riding my bike and gardening and reading and swimming and copulating sweatily in the heat.
!!!

Still feeling it. This energy has been flowing strong and steady for the past week.
I feel like I was reborn; containing an infinitely more patient, forgiving, and perceptive soul than before.
I feel amazing.
Not a day in the last week has gone by without me crying tears of ecstasy that I have been given such a comfortable life with such remarkably beautiful people in it. I am so grateful.

And yes, I do get embarrassed every time I cry because REALLY, what a fucking weenie. Not really at Bodhisattva level yet.

I can't study for genetics, I'm in love!

Why is this not a more valid excuse? It is the best thing that can happen to a person: we shouldn't allow any other person, event, or institution make it seem small, light, or unimportant to us.


I am feeling a love that permeates and saturates my entire being. I am in love with a man who deserves all the devotion, appreciation, and gratitude I can give in my infinite number of lifetimes. He deserves all the love of the universe because of all of the love he puts out there.
He does not even realize that the beauty and kindness and selflessness he so generously, unconditionally shares with those around him is so much more intense and radiant than what one is usually able to experience in their entire lifetime of experiences.
He deserves it all and more. He is a glorious human being and my past, my present, my future, and my entire being all so much richer, so much fuller, and so much more ornately beautiful because of him.

This is Camille in love.

We are not back together. We are not even close to that point. And I don't want to be his girlfriend: the girl he takes to the movies, the girl he shares a home with, or the girl he takes to family parties. I have a real lack of desire to be any of those things.
I just want him to understand my deep gratitude
and for that to make his life just a little bit richer, happier, and more secure- however that may work itself out.


"The real gratitude can never find words to express itself. The gratitude that can find words to express itself is just a formality because anything heartfelt immediately goes beyond words, concepts, language. You can live it, it can shine from your eyes, it can come as a fragrance from your whole being. It can be a music of your silence, but you cannot say it. The moment you say it, something essential dies immediately. Words can only carry corpses, not living experiences." — Osho

Watching a lot of That 70's Show

My finals studying playlist is obscene.

Mostly this:


with the occasional Dolly:


This is my absolute favorite time of year. I love finals week at Columbia because I have nothing but time to sleep, exercise, eat carefully, and prove just how much my silly head can hold. The holiday lights are strung on Columbia's College Walk (116th St.) and everything looks beautiful and smells like the roasted nuts from the Nuts4Nuts cart parked off campus. All is perfect in the world in those moments before Christmas.

And Christmas is always a saga that I never want to get into. Please please December last forever.

I have never thought of myself as any kind of nationalist or serious patriot of any kind,

but I feel deep distress and turmoil when China behaves badly, which is often. It shouldn't really affect me, as I've lived in New York for 16 years now and am QUITE Americanized and I definitely embarrass my entire family with my poor grasp of my first language and my refusal to be more Chinese and right handed. I am good at America. I bake cookies. I have been to Vermont.

But when I think about why it kills me every time China glazes over child abductions and human rights abuses and lack of mental health care across the board, AND why I take tremendous pride in China taking the gold in Olympic events (and believe me, I do), it makes me feel like I've been keeping a big huge secret about myself that I'm barely comfortable thinking about, except when I need to rise up and defend a country that my whole family and I left, and where I only spent 5 years of my life. It's a real trip.

I never feel less Chinese than I've ever felt, or forget how closely my parents guarded my upbringing so that I would always take my shoes off when I got home, felt better with chopsticks in my hands than a fork, or measure how different an American person's house is than mine (you guys always have juice). But I never expected that I would feel so many things for a country that for me is more of an idea than a real place. Even when I think about religion, I am forgiving of the folksy nature of my mom's traditions and the altars she insists on keeping, while I outwardly object to religion in general. When I see a Buddhist temple I feel happy because they are peaceful and charming. When I walk past a church I feel nervous and my chest tightens up.

I don't know if I've ever shown you this, but I thought it might bring you some pleasure.

Sunday bun day

Baking with Apples!

I baked a cinnamon apple cake today, recipe via Nigella Lawson. It was DELICIOUS and apple-y and soft and spicy and warm and so autumnal and perfect for today.

Today's just that kind of day where all you want to do is sit on your bed and pluck out all of your hairs while eating vitamin C tablets.

Why do they make them so delicious if you're only supposed to eat ONE a day? She probably thinks she's reeeeal cute.

Some weekends I go to the Catskills and look at plants.



But most weekends I just go to Long Island and have raging staph infections whose treatment=
1. heavy antibiotics that tear apart my stomach and make me loopy and lethargic,
2. bathing in diluted bleach water 3x a week, and
3. washing every piece of fabric that touches my skin immediately after it touches my skin.
Add some triple-antibiotic ointment to the mix and you get an idea of where I am at.

I smell like a hospital, I hope I won't scar, my tummy is in a constant state of ache, and I have no quarters left (for laundry).

But I am really appreciating the smell of clean laundry. And I am really appreciating how delicious almond milk and nutritional yeast are in combination with other sweet and savory (resp.) foods. And I am really appreciating the fact that I don't have anyone in my life who takes up serious amounts of my time or attention, because I prefer to really focus all my love, energy, time, and affection on MYSELF.
I am young, it is alright.
RIGHT?

There are a lot of reasons why I love fall, but it's mostly because it's witch season.

This movie taught me what vaginal intercourse is.

My parents had given me "the talk" before but it was super convoluted and nervous and they did very little explaining of what typical vaginal intercourse actually entailed. They only really talked about the possible outcomes, of which there are two:
1. babies
2. crabs

So I walked away from that talk quite confused and believing that I just had completely misunderstood the mechanics part. I didn't believe that penises could bend like that and it just seemed a little too puzzle-piecey-perfect that those penises would magically fit into vaginas.
I just thought "wow, I COMPLETELY misunderstood that talk" (which I hadn't) and went on with my life, trying to make myself believe that one could get pregnant and crabs from intense making out.

Then, this movie.

Clarity.
And as I watched I had this sinking feeling of "jesus, I was right. What a messy process."

A day and a night before I moved back into the city, we spent the night at the beach. I was too drunk to take pictures that evening (perhaps you remember this?) but I did catch some while we were waking up.
Our sleeping spot and the sand-covered fire pit around which we danced, lugged around heavy logs, laughed, and spit gin.
The sunrise.

I am so glad you came out that weekend. I told you at the time but maybe you don't understand the real value of it:
You were the best date I had ever brought.

And there is no competition at all.

It is Sunday evening and I am sitting on my bed, watching Goodfellas, and trying not to eat more sauerkraut than I already have.

My first adult boyfriend looked exactly like a young Robert De Niro. Every time I see movies/pictures of Robert De Niro I get happy and excited, as it reminds me of this lovely ex and all of the fun times we had together.
After we broke up, whenever I would be feeling exceptionally miserable in the company of then-current and unsavory boyfriends, I would always bring up how attractive I thought Robert De Niro was. I would never say that the only reason I thought he was attractive was because he reminded me so much of this ex, but I would take immense secret pleasure in the fact that I was rubbing this comparison in their faces without their knowing it.

Add that to the list of why it's a treat to date me.

I'm in love.

I want to cook for him all day. He makes me want to dress up and put on eyeliner and heels, even though I know he prefers me without them. He said my name with his last name in a heavy Italian accent and looked so pleased with how it sounded that my heart melted into a puddle at my feet and I could have sung. He talks about the children we used to talk about having when we were a couple 3 years ago.
He puts no pressure on me to love him, or to not love him, or to change myself, or to change him, or to remain the same. He is currently the only person that is able to completely alleviate me of the stress I've been experiencing lately.
He loves me.
He plays songs for me which he wrote about me when we were together. We are good drinking buddies. He brings out the dirty, crudely hilarious Camille that is so often tamed by those around her. He appreciates the little things I do for him, the exact things I want him to appreciate, and he makes me a more caring and compassionate human being.
He makes me happy.
When we hold hands it is electric.

It is romance.

girl in the maxi dress. eyeliner wrong.

The reason we make such an amazing couple is that we never let the other forget how much we adore them. Our soul sister best friendship reminds me of how to behave in the real world and how to be the best version of myself for others and how relationships CAN function and why we shouldn't settle for less. This weekend we reunited for the first time in nearly a year and it was the same as it has always been, because we are the best most dating-est dream team ever. We ate lustful Greek food twice in two days, and ate mounds of mushroom and pineapple fried rice together, and we made GENEROUS gin and tonics, and we got questioned about our age because we are young and good looking in a way that makes old drunk guys nervous. Fuck that noise though.

Jason Isaacs.

Dream man since 2001