my name is ella. i think it is quite an interesting name. rather rare among my age group, though i hear that it's a huge baby name right now. that scares me. i would most likely commit harrykarry (how does one spell harrykarry?) if i started to hear my name called in public the way that jessicas and sarahs and lauras must. 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 get called.

there they were. all ellas, all very accomplished and all very strange. not a single accountant or non-entity among them.

a certified hypnotherapist, 4 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bombing victim from Jerusalem, a porn star, a kirk in Yorkshire, a famous suffragette, an Israeli opera composer, an unpublished author of paranormal romance novels, a wine bar in Dublin, a Norwegian national ski team champion, 7 fashion desighners, 20 artists and illustrators, 5 singer/songwriters, 15 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 cool ellas. right next to the transylvanian street performer or Mistress Ella, the london dominatrix. ella, the struggling actress from indiana. hm. i would much rather be listed as ella the astrobot.

orbiting the earth at the speed of light.

Currently Listening The Boatman's Call By Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds see related

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 roadtrip. he must like picnics in the countryside, during which he must climb trees and shout to the heavens about 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 and all manner of similarly decrepit historial 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 precupices, 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-existant. 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 (providing one of us doesn't get hit by a bus the morning it's supposed to happen, which quite frankly wouldn't surprise me too much).

goodnite.

Currently Listening Armed Forces By Elvis Costello see related

oh my, everyone. did you hear that brad renfro died two days ago? maybe you don't even know who he is, but he was a pretty major (albeit random) figure in my childhood.

which seems wierd. the kids you watched as a kid aren't supposed to die.

of course my major cheesy childhood crush was (oh. my. god. am i really about to admit this?) jonathan taylor thomas, aka JTT, a sickeningly sweet and loveable child actor from ye olde random 90's sitcom Home Improvement. he was pasted all over my walls and all over my school notebooks and he was the subject of doodles and prepubescant poetry. I spent long hours scouring the walgreens magazine isle for back issues of  tiger beat. it was pretty tragic.  

brad renfro didn't enter onto the scene until i developed what one might call "taste". or at least some early artistic sensibilities. my first talent crush, if you will. he was this scrappy southern boy who seldom played roles in disney fare, but tended toward john grishom adaptations and neo-nazi morality tales. and when he did work for disney, it was playing huckleberry finn, who was definately the literary precursor to all my jamie lockhart fantasies.

funnily enough, 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 baby (i wave imaginary oscar high in the air and blow a kiss before going on to thank my agent).

of course my talent crush didn't last past the news of mr. renfro's first DUI. and it definately didn't last past his first arrest for possession. no, by that point i had moved on to thanking other boyfriends in other imaginary acceptance speeches. leonardo dicaprio in eight grade (oh, titanic), heath ledger my sophomore year (i love him still, but don't proclaim it to my mirror), and my current favorite actor EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD James McAvoy (so wonderfully talented, so nuanced and subtle, so versatile, so...married).  

i've since left my secret life of celebrity scandal behind completely in pursuit of an actual real life acting career. but upon hearing about brad renfro's untimely death, it all comes back in one big wave of slightly embarrassing nostalgia. i simply have to acknowledge what a presence he was in my early celebu-concsiousness. poor guy- 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 will always be given posthumous credit for this fact.

Currently Watching Atonement By Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Vanessa Redgrave, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan see related

my grandma yoyo is not doing so well. so i am visiting her in clearwater (they do not tell lies. the water is oh so clear) with her husband george. george is a philately expert. so he talks a lot about the canadian mail (about which he has written many books and scholarly articles) and stamps. strangely enough, i find it all very interesting- that so small a piece of paper could be so very sought after. not to mention what some of them are worth- whew. 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 possesion 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. to me it's never felt like the place where america goes to die. in fact, the fountain of youth is there. seriously. in st. augustine- i've seen it many a time. lighthouses. mmmmm. and spanish moss and huge oak trees you can climb and (i like to imagine) live in. and a real castle stronghold. the closest thing to my arthurian fantasy world one can find in the states. and lizards. when we were small, my sisters and i used to try and pin their tales just to see them fall off. children are so cruel. but it was funny. i sure hope dante doesn't have a ring in his hell for all the children who tortured animals unkowingly.

yoyo and george live 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, i must say. the place is nice though. i wish these apartments existed in manhattan. and were somehow magically within my price range.

woop, 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? he did. oooh, he did.