the ellas.

my name is ella. i think it quite an interesting name. an old name. means beautiful fairy woman (ha). rather rare among my age group, though i have heard it is a newly popular baby name at the moment (which quite frankly frightens me). if i started to hear my name called in public the way that jessicas and sarahs and lauras must, i would have the piquiest fit of pique imaginable. anyway, i was bored the other day and i thought it might be fun to google ella. just to see who else is wandering around out there being called the same thing i am called.

and there they all were. ellas. most very accomplished and all very strange. not a single accountant among them.

a certified hypnotherapist, four children's book characters, malaysia's "undisputed queen of rock", a first class passenger on the titanic, a suicide bombing victim from jerusalem, a porn star, a kirk in yorkshire, a famous suffragette, an israeli opera composer, an unpublished author of paranormal romance novels, a wine bar in dublin, a norwegian national ski team champion, seven fashion designers, twenty artists and illustrators, five singer/songwriters, fifteen boutiques, an indie jazz label, a valley in israel, one of the highest peaks in sri lanka, a famous japanese girl band member with pink hair, a london dominatrix, a member of the manson family, a famous poet, a sunday comic serial from 1925, a huge naked woman made out of peaches in a park in sydney, a chartered cruise ship, a button designer, a transylvanian street performer, a movie critic for the village voice, a famous gun runner for the irish republican army, a dog who stars in cheesy calendars, a giantess who stood 8 feet tall, a jazz singer from 1942 who hit it big singing the cowcow boogie, the first female governor in the US, an astrobot orbiting the earth at the speed of light, a famous turn of the century communist/socialist organizer, a transgendered blogger and a xena: warrior princess fan fiction author.

i was in there somewhere too. I wonder if any of the other ellas have looked to see who else was out there, or if i would be included in their list of nifty ellas. right next to the transylvanian street performer or mistress ella, the london dominatrix. ella, the struggling actress from indiana. meh. i would much rather be ella the astrobot.

orbiting the earth at the speed of light.

i've seen it twice in theaters already.

you should go see 'the fall' with lee pace. i literally cannot stop thinking about how beautiful it is.

the boy in the somewhere.

he needs must have the sense of humor, infinite quirk and style of a mark twain. and he must be devilish like jamie lockhart and have a certain measure of wanderlust that requires he kidnap me once in a while for an impromptu jaunt to the countryside. he must enjoy epic picnics on grassy knolls, during which he must climb trees and shout to the heavens his beauty and his truth. and that having done, he must help me up too, for i am short and often come to odds with tree trunks.

he must wear hats. i like hats. with that in mind, he must let me impulse buy for him when i go on my frequent thrifting sprees. that said, he must not reprimand me about said thrifting sprees, as they do a world of good for his hat collection.  

he must like castles. in fact, he must like all manner of ancient mossy decrepit ruinous and romantic things, for he'll be seeing a lot of them if he wants to follow me around the wide world. and even after admiring noble palaces atop vast precipices, he must be able to gaze on the world's largest ball of twine with similar wonder, for i happen to stop the car for that sort of thing too.

he must not chide me for my jellybean habit, or for being a music elitist, or for quoting clueless. and he must read things. i find i simply cannot abide by people who don't read things as they usually turn out to be crashing bores.

there's much much more he must be, which may or may not make him non-existent. which i think is just fine. i can (and do) enjoy all of the above without him after all, and will for some time to come. so i do hope that he's not sitting around waiting for me or anything silly like that. i hope he's busy finding out who and what he doesn't want and learning all sorts of neat things he can teach me when we meet (provided one of us doesn't get hit by a bus the morning said meet-cute is supposed to happen, which quite frankly wouldn't surprise me too much).

goodnight.

the boy on the screen just fell to earth.

oh my goodness. i just found out that brad renfro died two days ago. what a strange and tragic blast of reality to cap off my once fantastical childhood crush on an actor so enigmatic and smoldering. enigmatic and smoldering is an accomplishment at age thirteen. you didn't disappoint mr. renfro. you never disappointed. 

i am actually fighting off a fair amount of vague sadness at the moment. perhaps i am mourning my former self more than anything. the kids you watched and wanted as a kid become such mile markers, such notches in a door frame. early indications of what you'll eventually seek in real lovers and friends. they aren't supposed to die, but i guess they will anyway if it suits them. 

my earliest celebrity crush was (oh. my. goodness. am i really about to admit this...) jonathan taylor thomas, adorably dimpled child actor one's mother couldn't help but approve of having plastered to her preteen daughter's walls (believe me. i have pictures). he was all over my bedroom. all over my school books. the subject of doodles and prepubescent poetry. long hours were spent scouring the walgreens magazine isle for back issues of tiger beat. it was pretty tragic. i was smitten at the time, but in the end jtt would be equated with the popular boy at school i snuck sidelong glances at from a distance across the quad and never actually spoke to.

but brad renfro. he was what i really wanted. what i still occasionally want. he was huckleberry finn. he was the boy with the scrappy, lean, muscled frame and the untucked shirt who could curse and cajole in the same sentence. even a thirteen year old midwestern girl who had never been kissed could tell the boy was a fiery thing, a head of hair constantly disheveled, a pair of lips that could make your breath catch in your dry throat if they met yours. I never understood why becky thatcher went for tom sawyer. the boy himself aside, what he did onscreen was so artful, so unbelievably good- thirteen years old and i had my first talent crush. jtt disappeared from my walls, but i didn't replace him. somehow one sensed one's mother would approve less of a young man who starred in neo-nazi morality tales and played motherless mongrels gallivanting about the woods in bare feet. 

though the last place it seemed brad renfro would turn up was in a tuxedo on a red carpet, he was the first imaginary hollywood boyfriend face recieving tearful thank yous during a great many imaginary bathroom mirror oscar acceptance speeches. and thank you brad (tears) for supporting me in everything i do (more tears) i couldn't have done it without you (i wave imaginary oscar high in the air and blow a kiss before going on to thank my agent).

my fiery talent fueled crush didn't last past the news of mr. renfro's first DUI. and it definitely didn't last past his first arrest for possession. by that point i had moved on to thanking other boyfriends in other imaginary acceptance speeches. leonardo dicaprio in seventh grade (i had discovered shakespeare- at least baz luhrman's version of it), heath ledger my sophomore year ('ten things i hate about you' somehow didn't cement my current crush on joseph gordon levitt), and james mcavoy my junior year of college (so wonderfully talented, so nuanced and subtle, so versatile, so...married). all bathroom mirrors aside, within a few quick years my own early discoveries about life and art inevitably eclipsed all fantasy and i began on a path toward an actual acting career, actual friends, actual lovers. 

this endless rainy morning, and the news of his early death by alcohol poisoning, have brought my days of secret celebrity adulation back in one big wave of slightly embarrassing nostalgia. i hadn't even seen him in anything since his small role in 'ghostworld' several years ago. but he was of great import in the imaginary world of a young girl during her awkward formative years and though never to appear on imdb.com, i give him credit as a major player in the movie of my life. scene ten- age thirteen. ella meets poor doomed brad renfro, falls in love with his celluloid self and her whole being begins to begin to be. 

a visitation.

my grandma yoyo is not terrifically well. so i am visiting her in clearwater (they do not lie. the water is oh so clear) with her husband george. they married several years ago after my grandfather died. yoyo said that george was the only able bodied gentleman at regency oaks retirement community who could dance with her. so she married him. george is a philately expert, and he talks often of stamps and the canadian mail (about which he has written many books and scholarly articles). strangely enough, i find it all very interesting- that so small a piece of paper could be so very sought after, in some cases worth a fortune. suffice it to say i could make good on all my college loans and move to hampstead heath with nary a care in the world if i found myself in possession of an inverted jenny. which, apparently is a stamp with an upside down airplane- a printing mistake. can all my mistakes end up being worth that much?

i love florida. i really do. had i actually grown up here i might feel differently, but to me it's never seemed like the place where america goes to die. in a way, i did do a fair amount of growing up here, visiting both pairs of grandparents on opposite coasts. mamaw and papaw in st. augustine, the ancient and welcoming colonial coastal mecca. christmas was always spent at the house on espinosa ave, with its back garden and its hummingbird feeders. there was a great deal of jellyfish dodging and shell hunting on the beach. lighthouses. spanish moss and huge twisted trees you could climb (i liked to imagine living in them like the swiss family robinson). a real castle stronghold- the castillo de san marco, spanish colonial fortress on the banks of the strategic inter-coastal waterway. and gecko lizards. when we were small, my sisters and i used to try and pin their tales just to see them fall off. children can be cruel. i do hope dante doesn't have a ring in his hell for kids who tortured animals unknowingly. i haven't had occasion to visit st. augustine since mamaw and papaw died, but i will. someday soon. all that delicious history, it calls me back.

yoyo and grandpa once lived in swampy homosasa springs in a house with a pool and many owl-shaped paperweights. yoyo lives with george now at regency oaks, a very nice independent living facility that happens to be across the street from the "sunset horizon crematorium and reflection garden". whoever decided to build one beside the other lacked some major tact, but all in all the place is nice. more spanish moss. an ice cream shop. i take yoyo down to the makeshift village on the grounds and watch as she gets a haircut, her once blond now white curls falling in whisps to the floor. the apartment they live in is light and airy with two sun porches, westward facing windows and walls bedecked with yoyo's many paintings and etchings. a portrait of an eight year old me in a straw sunhat stares across the living room at the couch where i sit to read whenever i visit. i wish these apartments existed in manhattan. and were somehow magically within my price range.

i would write more, but i have been beckoned. yoyo and i have a date to watch 'murder she wrote'. more to come. cheers.

ps- i saw atonement the other day. JUST when i thought james mcavoy couldn't get any hotter.