Le Petit Prince

Currently listening to: Song to the Siren (Paula Arundell)

Currently pondering: Please, please, please, let me get what I want this time

It is something past 1a.m. and I have been watching very short clips of a video I haven't seen since I was...well, I dunno, "knee high to a grass hopper": The Adventures of the Little Prince. Urrbody throw your hands up if you know what I'm talking about (sorry...I've been listening to a lot of Usher and Ludacris today, but please note the heavy irony).

Ta-daaaa! Anyone? No?

I was a fairly fickle child, and whilst I enjoyed the adventures he had (finding out what made Mitzi mean, bringing the flowers back to the valley, asking Sean to play it again etc) I would always rewind and watch the first few minutes over and over again before going onto the rest of it because 1. He flew wild geese and captured comets to travel around space and 2. Because you'd catch a brief glimpse of his Rose Girl.

So preetty..I loved how her hair looked like petals. Couldn't get over it. Astounding. For aaages I wanted to be the rose girl, but err, she was the only regular female character and until I made it into my "Tomboy" phase, I rejected all male roles.

I then decided tonight to do a little study on the Little Prince, and apparently- it's a lot deeper than childish whimsy I'll have you know! So different is the concept of the book from the re-telling of the video, I'm now hell bent on reading the thing to see for myself at the risk of shattering my childhood illusions. Well, too late for that really, I just found out the Rose Girl is a complete and utter cow.

 Admittedly, I didn't own the full video set, just a few episodes from the later series (yeah this thing had a series timeline- who knew?!) and unless you see the first few episodes apparently you miss out on the majority of the Rose's horridness. 

Basically, the Rose Girl lands on asteroid B-612 as a seed carried by a really strong wind, and the Prince plants her, nurtures her and builds a little rock garden around her to keep away mischievous caterpillars and butterflies. When she blooms though, Rose is really stuck-up, scornful, mocking and vain- really vain- demanding that the Prince dotes on her all the time. When he decides he wants to go travelling for a while though, she gets even more annoying and whiney, guilt-tripping him into staying, and then threatens to rips herself out of the ground if he leaves but spikes him with a thorn when he tries to calm her down. (Told you she's a cow). Having had enough of her guff, the Prince leaves anyway, and as he hooks himself onto a passing-by shooting star, then she's sorry, and really worries that she's put him off ever coming home again. Then some episodes happen in-between, but from then on, the Rose Girl is a lot nicer to him when he is around and is a general delight to have living with you on a tiny asteroid.

The Prince loves the Rose Girl to bits, in the episodes I remember, towards the end of his trips he's always anxious to get back to her to take care of her and tell her his stories, because he knows she hates being alone for too long. I just did a little sparknoting on the characters of the book, and came across this:

 "Although the rose is, for the most part, vain and naïve, the prince still loves her deeply because of the time he has spent watering and caring for her."

...Am I the only one who finds that really sad? That it seems like he's only with her just because he's spent that much effort on her, it'd be a waste to let it all go? I preferred to think that he came to love her because he could see her softer side and loved her in spite of her flaws- aha! and he even says it himself!

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;what is essential is invisible to the eye"

Men who are willing to be patient with a girl throwing a supreme strop and take care of her when she really needs to be taken to the glue factory are worth their weight in gold.

 
There. Take that spark notes. Oh wait, I think I've just obliged myself to give the Rose Girl a second chance...

But I certainly don't want to be her anymore, nobody wears "high-maintenance" well.

Tonight I Can Write...

Currently Listening To: If  You Had My Love (Jennifer Lopez, before she became J-Lo) // No Scrubs (TLC)

Currently Pondering: *Head nod* Those ladies had it right. And awesome outfits. IS THAT WELSH ON MY SPOTIFY??

Another long one folks! And a bit odd. I'm having an odd week, and I'm not quite sure what to think of it myself. But we have Neruda, and his poetry is awesome, so there's a plus at the very least.

Strange things are happening in the world lately...there's either something in the air or water, or perhaps there's a full moon (there isn't. And even if there was apparently lunar madness is a myth) but either way, something curious is happening. Odd things are happening, people are acting odd- even I'm feeling a little nuts. I'm getting really antsy, feeling a little out of place everywhere I go, I'm over-analysing nearly EVERYTHING that's being said to me, and I'm pretty sure my bitchier/more wreckless alter ego is trying to bust her way through. She typically only comes out when I'm a combination of drunk and pissed off, and leads me down the path of vodka shots (I frickin' hate vodka shots), drunken texting and lewd behaviour. Only now she's not so much drunk, just, pissy and looking for someone to pick on. The bitch.

Anyway, "stuff" has triggered me to go for a walk down memory lane, taking a left-turn onto "Past-Relationships Drive" and here I am sitting at the doorstep of the "International House of Fuck-Ups". I'm thinking: men are really screwy. I attract weird things and events. I'm not trying to say my entire love-life and persons therein have been terrible, but there are definitely some points I'd rather forget, or time-travel back to and undo. What is it they say? It only takes one negative thing to cancel out FOUR positive things? That's horrible. Yuck.

In my weekly stumblings however, I found this little gem:

"The best part of being in love is when you just love a person, and be happy about it. Even if that person can never be yours, even if you know it can't last forever. That's the true essence of love. It's not about winning someone, it's not about owning a relationship. It's just about being happy because you know you've loved someone. It's about being happy because you know you've loved someone."

-Source: Allenstar

This is probably the most succinct way of summing up my thoughts during a break-up. And I didn't even come up with it. Rats. Asides from thinking "oh you complete knob. You are such a knob" during a break-up, I do honestly try to think of all the things I've learned/learned never to do again in future relationships (so far the list is pretty long). I think the most resilient teaching was "how to put your defences up and keep them there", a message hammered home by seeing women in my family being messed around and then personal experience from relationships C and E. Maybe a little bit of G too. But it was somewhere between D and G that I figured there's no point in letting the horrible memories corrupt all the good ones. And sometimes it's ok to put your guard down. Now I think I've gotten the hang of looking at the bad, leaving it there, and going on to enjoy the good memories as if I'm living them all over again. C'mon, good first dates are still good first dates, and a good first kiss is still a good first kiss. 

Let's look at the beautiful words of Pablo Neruda now, the man knows how to write a good heartache:

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

It's a killer to read if you're even the slightest bit not happy with some sort of relationship. Or breaking up with someone. Sorry for any anguish caused, I really should've put a foreword in there or something.

As I did with Wuthering Heights, I shall do here, I'm going to pick up on the really minute undertones, and proceed to love and adore them.
"Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too."      This makes me think "500 Days of Summer". Haven't seen it? Sort that out. It makes me think about the times when you look at the other person and just begin to wonder "I'm not so sure anymore.." Either you've begun to notice the flaws you didn't before or you're feeling the tremors of impending doom. *Spoiler Alert* In the movie, you re-watch scenes which the boy saw as normal, enjoyable dates, but it's only when you get the slightest hint that the girl is getting "cold feet" and the same scenes look so different. It's so sad, but I think I can slightly sympathise with "No, this doesn't feel right, I see trouble on the horizon" and the best thing to do is to break than continue proverbially flogging the dead donkey. I was called a bitch (thanks, Alex) when I said I was happy the two of them ended up doing different things at the end of the movie. I'm sorry, but as lovely and Hollywood-friendly as it would've been, I appreciate just ONE love story where everything doesn't have to end up as planned- but is even better. My mother has always told me the problem with my exes is not the issues of "maturity" or "chronic dick-headedness" but its that we couldn't *handle* each other. Her theory is that you don't just move around each other, but you move each other. Like a Tango. Or a stream, flowing around and over big rocks, but picking up shells and sand. How calming, mother. She maintains that I should only marry a Chinese zodiac that can "tame a snake". Dig that innuendo. For clarity, I was born in the year of the snake and Mum's really supersticious. And she thinks I can be a bit too "willful" (read: domineering cow) Agreed. Anyway, that's what I think was the problem with the above relationship. The two obviously got on, but after the honeymoon period, she must have felt like the chemistry was replaced with convenience, and with no "good reason" like a fight or infidelity to break-up over, the relationship was just kind of plodding on. Then she tells him she wanted to shoot him in the head. Hahaha.

"Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes."      My biggest relationship vice? I'm hugely jealous/ protective. But getting better at it, I've figured out how to just let things go, and now laugh when I would've sulked, pouted and gotten all irate. I have more fun when I'm not wasting time being annoyed and not changing anything. Sounds like this woman had really beautiful eyes though doesn't it? He keeps mentioning them...

I know that this poem conveys a huge sense of him having a really tough time getting over a past love, but I do see just the tiniest glimmer of hope in the last lines: "...my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her./ Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer / and these the last verses that I write for her."
Almost sounds like he's saying he's ready to just leave things alone now, leaving them in this poem, and moving on from it. Closure. I like it. But then you might read something completely differently from all that. I'll just err on the side of optimism.

Damn I love Neruda.

So there you have it. This is what happens when the planets align just right, and I start thinking "Girls are from Venus, men are from...where the hell are you coming from!?"

For anyone feeling cynical about love,
be assured you could buy it with change from a fiver

Poor tumour-bear! I still don't have the heart to eat him,
he looks sad enough without knowing the end is nigh..

I'll be back to normal next week. I might even have a sparkly new phone to show off! Happy face.

Old Long Syne- James Watson (1711)

1.

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
on Old long syne.

-Chorus-

On Old long syne my Jo,
in Old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
in Old long syne.

2.

My Heart is ravisht with delight,
when thee I think upon;
All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,
and speedily is gone;
The bright resemblance of thy Face,
so fills this, Heart of mine;
That Force nor Fate can me displease,
for Old long syne  

                               
-Chorus-

3.

Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,
when from thee I am gone;   
will not thy presence yeild relief,      
to this sad Heart of mine:
Why doth thy presence me defeat,
with excellence divine?
Especially When I reflect
on old long syne

-Chorus-              

A quick round up on the words which have haunted me throughout this year,
where better to sum them all up?

"I'm a loser in love, so baby,                                                   

raise a glass to mend all the
broken hearts of all my wrecked up friends"

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

"You know sometimes baby I'm so carefree,                                              
with a joy that's hard to hide

Then sometimes again it seems that all I have is worry                      

and then you're bound to see my other side"

"Alors on danse"

 
"El octavo día Dios,                 ¿Quién se iba a imaginar
después de tanto trabajar,      que el mismo dios al regresar
para liberar tensiones,             iba a encontrario todo
luego ya de revisar,                 en un desorden infernal?
dijo: "todo está muy bien,       Y que se iba a convertir
es hora de descansar",           en un desempleado más
y se fue a dar un paseo           de la tasa que actualmente
por el espacio sideral.             está creciendo sin parar"

"Wish I had a mango tree

In my backyard
With you standin next to me
Take the picture
From her lips I heard her say
Can I have you
Call her up oh what to say
I said you do 

"Old habits die hard when you got, when you got a sentimental heart"

"Sugar man, won't you hurry?
'cause I'm tired of these scenes
for a blue coin won't you bring back
all those colours to my dreams?             
silver magic ships you carry...
jumpers cold, sweet Mary Jane

Sugar man, made a false friend

on a lonely dusty road.

Lost my heart when I found him

it had turned to dead black coal           

silver magic ships, you carry...

jumpers cold, sweet Mary Jane

Sugar man, you're the answer

that makes all my questions disappear
sugar man, cause I'm weary

of those awful games, I hear"

 

"I’ve been here since first period, I had a cold, I took all my antibiotics at the same time, now I forgot how to leave."

"There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love."

Have fun finding where these all come from!

Happy New Year everyone, I hope it's a good one xxx

"....Like my knob!"