One from the archives - June 2007

There is something quite terrifying about driving alone, in the dead of night with only the ghostly vocals of Dylan to keep you company.
Your only companion is the tales of a mans past, your own head full of bad memories and the blinding lights of the streets. Blinding lights that turn into water colors of the most beautiful yellows and burnt oranges. They stain your skin like some freshly primed canvas, tracing lines down the canvas stretched over your bones, the curve of your neck until they soak away into nothing in the collar of your shirt.
Night after night I find this to becoming re-occuring. It scares me to feel that my soul emotion of confusion forces me from the warmth and safety of my bed to put myself in a position of vulnerability. I visit places miles out of my way, just to find something safer than what I allow myself to be lead into. It worries me yet I do nothing about it. I joke and laugh off what otherwise is a serious matter. Maybe I'm hoping to be saved by a prince that doesn't exist. It's a tough call and I'm not prepared to make it. Not excited at discovering what lies around the corner in waiting. I'm more content to shrug it off, play my part, get lost in the darkness, the street lights, the clouds brewing in my head.

In all honesty, there should be nothing to complain about. I'm self indulgent, just in need of an anchor that wouldn't mind curling up in bed with me and promising me everything will be okay. Even if we both know, it might be a while until that much is true.

Conversation between Sills & Bills....

Nat: Alex whatshisface Alexa Chungs boy looked hot at reading

Nat: He never usually is.

Danielle: Haha it's the hair

Danielle: Long hair and a guitar and girls swoon, even if they are against said swooning.

Danielle: Seriously, you fight it like crazy but your knees start to talk to your lady garden and you're done for.

Danielle: I wish twitter had enough characters so I could quote myself.....

No one but everyone in particular.

During these long nights I’ve fallen into your arms and woken up alone, tangled in the sheets. They were once crisp, fresh and unsoiled by the pollution we drew into our lungs and one day their colour will match the black of our hearts. 
I’ve never been one for romance, big gestures and declarations of adoration in public. My heart beat races at the simplest of moments. Your fingers tracing out the bumps of my spine, how the words tumble from your lips as we lay side by side, whispering about the past. These are but a few of the moments I’ve engraved into my memory. Collections of stories, snippets of conversations and the mischievous smile that graced your lips the first time we ever were introduced. 

I’ve never claimed to live a hedonistic lifestyle, but the highs from the pot we smoked outside in the biting night air only made my topics become deeper and my urge to break the rules more desired. There’s a need to get beneath your skin, confess my deepest and darkest secrets, drown myself in your heady smell that lingers deep in my skin. There were days I felt almost dirty, bruised and claimed, left questioning my morals. Questioning my motives, all because I could never get enough of you.

It makes no sense that the last few weeks have sent me into a, hopefully, permanent state of tranquility. While everyone else has received an over-dose of drama and heartache, I'm lapping it up on the opposite scale of things. In a lot of ways, I can't help but feel as though I should wish to be an almighty power for the day just to share the good vibes and sugar coated days I've enjoyed. Trust me, to those people who deserve it, I would if I could.

Bob Dylan is invading my eardrums at this very moment, distracting me from what I'd really like to write about with his catchy acoustic rhythms and swoon-worthy, velvety voiced vocals, I believe every word he's serenading me with. 

In a side step from dearest, most adored Dylan; I've sadly left behind the rain in London something which had been my companion for the past couple of weeks, along with a incredible new boy and a irreplaceable group of individuals. The mini-vacation from work or lack there of, had given me time to indulge in everything I call that place my home for; tiny little cafes, karaoke, beautiful rolling landscapes, lazy brunches and a little je ne se quoi that the town possess. There was no real priority in regards to spending time with one person over another from one day to the next, it's always a free for all and that's just the way I like it, chilled out and un-planned. Opened for negotiation and a million coffee 'dates'. 

The rain has always done an amazing job at keeping me smiling, maybe the unusually warm weather of our June summer has out stayed it's welcome with me and I was in need of a quick burst of dull and dreary in my life. Home provided me with that in every sense. This isn't me getting soppy, it's just me being honest. 

In life we will meet so many acquaintances that we will enjoy the company of until the evening comes to a close, then in passing only acknowledge each other for nothing more than a 'hey, how are you?' style moment, pretending it meant the world to us to have bumped into them again but then we will meet the true diamonds, the people we will pull out of the group and keep as close as family and lovers. Recently, I've met one or two of these precious gems that were dragged out of the crowd whether they wanted to be or not. It was the best descion I've made in while. 

These people keep me sane. keep me grounded and keep me loved, in return they get exactly the same and I sure do hope that they know I adore them. Anytime spent with them is worth every second.

My actions will always speak louder than my words, my dreams scream louder than my actions. I’m not blessed with the ability to write beautiful prose, join my thoughts together eloquently enough for them to be easily understood. I can’t promise this. I can’t promise never to jump from one topic to another or reveal how I really feel about certain matters. 

Some days I can’t even begin to understand my emotions, my thoughts or myself. My dreams lead them astray and I find myself lost. 

There are always so many thoughts colliding in my head at once, it's harder and harder with each passing day to draw out the ones most needed. Words have a purpose, whether written down or spoken but recently, my words come out in nothing but the most love-struck of lines. I feel as though I am and will repeat myself a million times over but recently I've never been happier than to be in such a position. 

I never believed my mother when she told me that the most precious things in life are usually right under our noses. We spend a lifetime searching in all the wrong places for love, romance, trust, friendship. Only occasionally do we think to look closer to home. In the past I've spend hours and days by your side and never realized just what I was missing out on, to step outside of 'best friends' into the sun, scared it may blind us and burn with such a pain, we'd have never been able to expect. 

Happily, I'm relieved to have quickly adjusted my eyes to the brightness, to have taken a risk I feared may have left us both separated, the situation too awkward to repair. These words could never do justice to what is really caught up in my heart. They are something that could never be spoken because they are only the kind that reveal themselves in a invisible tangle that keeps us bound together. Some bond that has always laid dormant like the oldest of volcanos until recently it exploded and burnt the village into piles of ash, everyone but just us laying under the depths. 

I have such a hard time trying to explain exactly how much you mean to me and in all honestly, I don't think I will ever be able to. However, I know you know exactly what I am willing myself to say, you tell me you can feel it and that's good enough for me. I don't know how I had overlooked this for so long. Everything seems to have fallen perfectly into place since I finally opened my eyes.

In every fairy tale I have ever had read to me, the damsel in distress is always save by her prince charming. Dashing, well rehearsed in song and smartly dressed, our hero sweeps our defenceless woman off her feet and gallops off into the sunset. Though, it seems to be a running theme within the pages of any girls childhood story that in order to be happy, in order to be in love, we need to be rescued first.  In modern music, the birth of the emotional man erupted out of the speakers of males and females a like around the world. Our fairy tale heroes became our modern day damsels in distress. The power was exchanged in a relay to heartache. Single women swooned over the hard copy evidence that men with emotions existed, while the lucky taken percentage cursed their other halves for not living up to these new standards of masculinity.  As spectators on the sidelines, we saw the vulnerability exposed within the lyrics of a song somehow get lost and along the way, twisted and corrupted, used as a king to check mate the queen. Honest became a game plan, stories of heartache a tactic.  Love never has been related to anything-otherworldly fates. For us it’s a matter of fist fighting for power, taking the upper hand and using any tactic possible to lure another into our arms.  Heroes and Romeos don’t exist.  We’re all fighting for something.  Sneaky and underhanded.

I could whisper secret and confess my sins, separated by a intricately designed sheet of metal, walls of wood to my confident who hides safely to the left of me, their identity remaining a secret, living their life in the shadow of annoyminity. Completely free from judgment. In that box could I admit I feel secure or anonymous? Could I confess that I feel like my body is failing me and no matter how much sleep I find myself lost in, the dreams are better than the reality.

Everything became so clinical and sterile, warm red liquid flowing into capsules, labeled with symbols I could never begin to understand. Marks left in skin, letting people make their assumptions of how they came to be or why. Do you need to me to spell my life out for you? Slips of paper, plastic containers containing man made capsules, warnings and instructions bold and black. Do you not trust me?

I'm beginning to wonder if my ways of loving are inconsistent, changing from man to man with the seasons.

My heart used to be tied to another, a bond that I was promised would be forever, that the knot would never come lose and the ribbon wouldn't fall to the floor to be crushed in the race to find a new love. In the public eye or out of it, as low key as we strive to be there will always be someone with an opinion, a tale to tell. Would it be wrong to take the incentive to lock away my heart? Tear it from my sleeve and set it on display - look but don't touch - who am I kidding? I know I'll break the rules and throw it at the next guy who comes along. Here's the criteria - young twenty something seeks older tortured artist, preferably singer/song writer, dark and brooding. Apply within.

There's always the temptation to break the rules - 'Do Not Touch' - and you're pressing your fingers up against the glass, leaving fingerprints across the transparent cage that precious object is kept so secure behind. Wondering what it's like to touch, hold in your grasp and toy with is sometimes never enough, so we will strive to bust open that case and send the sharp shards flying in a rain shower to the floor around our feet. We know a step further and the reminder of the rules will bite into our flesh and leave foot prints of brilliant red across the pristine floor, a trail to remind us of where we once stood, protected before we toyed with an forbidden gem.

Is it wrong to admit I have this flaw in my design? Some would consider it weakness to admit the truth to your un-adoring or un-interested audience. They've heard this all before, girl with good rep admits wrongs, creates bad rep, loses credibility and is seen as nothing more than a 'slut' among those who doesn't understand how we can so freely give our love without giving our bodies.

Hearts are racing, pounding and beating out of time yet oddly in sync with the flow of our blood rushing, twisting and surging through our veins. The heat waves predicted by the weather man and satellites feel constant even in the coldest of air conditioned spaces, goosbumps sweeping over our skin are almost as constant as the knots twisting in our stomachs, butterflies bursting and fluttering around with the most welcomed warmth. This sounds like a fever, a sickness or effects of an addiction, the latter proving the most fatal to the human heart and our emotions. However, nothing could be as fatal as the four-letter word I've so often criticized, l o v e.

It has always astounded me how matters of the heart can take over your mind, completely devouring every other thought you would wish for in order to distract yourself from passing the seconds, minutes, hours and days contently, although unwillingly, focusing on one thing. It will tear your soul apart bit by bit until you're left with nothing but tape in one hand and the pieces in a pile in front of you, waiting to be reassembled and fixed back together.

Nothing in my life has changed so drastically for me to spout this non-sense into this white box. I'm watching the characters travel from my fingertips to form in pixels in front of my eyes and it's like magic, like I've wired myself up to a machine which sucks the pure essence of my thoughts out of me, displaying them for anyone to view. I don't know if this is what any of you expect or want to read, to hear, to be aware of but at least it's mine and mine alone. No one can touch this and no one can take it away from me, these words and feelings are engraved into our souls for the pure purpose of creating us as an individual, they make us who we are and because of that each and every person I've met is complete unique even if they share the same characteristics, mannerisms or constant tone of sarcasm on their voice.

I really think the way we treat each other; friends or enemies, needs to change. We're fighting for the sake of trying to extract, force love from someone who isn't destined for us, playing poker with peoples lives and using their happiness as chips all to cash in on that amazing thing called 'love'. We're aware our actions will hurt others, destroy them and cause them all kinds of pain, yet we'd never believe we would be capable of stabbing someone, physically hurting them with bare knuckles to the face. I don't see the difference in the two acts anymore, purposefully setting out to ruin someone in that was is absolutely disgusting. My mom brought me up to always believe in treating others, as I'd like to be treat. Did it hurt when it happened to you? Did it shatter your world into tiny, un-recoverable pieces? Did you ever stop and think about the actual meaning of what you're so desperate for? That four letter word that makes and breaks people.

Love: noun;

Love has many meanings in English, from something that gives a little pleasure ("I loved that movie") to something one would die for (patriotism, pair bonding). It can describe an intense feeling of affection, an emotion or an emotional state. In ordinary use, it usually refers to interpersonal love. Probably due to its large psychological relevance, love is one of the most common themes in art. The majority of modern movies have a love story and most pop music is about love.

A noun is just a name.

We break hearts for it.

My name's Elle.

Are we going to hurt someone in our struggle for that as well?

I am a huge fan of photo booths - mainly old but occasionally i'll break and dive into the new ones too. Maybe this all stems from my obsession with instant photography, my undying love for polaroids and the not too perfect colours you get from them. 

So far I've tried old school (4 different pictures per strip), new school (4 repeated pictures per square) and the self decorated Japanese photo booths. The latter happened to be in L.A rather than Japan but after discovering one in Covent Garden, London a lot of money was soon spent there too. Sadly, my little CG love was closed down a couple of months later no thanks to the recession. 

Unless you're able to pop over to France every time you fancy a bit of photo booth silliness, it's really impossible to find anywhere in London (or indeed England) that houses the good old fashioned photo booth. The digital age is literally stealing everything we once loved for it's not quite perfect style. I have no desire what so ever to own four of the same image and goodness knows why anyone else would as well. 

However, while desperately searching online for at least one remaining old photo booth in London, I stumbled upon this wonderful little website, Photobooth.net. This little gem holds a wold wide database of  where to find those oh so missed photo booths around the world. It gives you maps, prices and comments from the people who have found them across the globe, so you'll never have problems getting your 4 strip fix any more!