My Noah

After much contemplation,

I think I've figured out the key to love is timing.

Timing can be the difference between requited & unrequited love.

Timing could be the difference between two soul mates meeting and passing each other by.

Love also grows with time...and fades with time...

But when the right paths cross each other at the right time, time suddenly stretches to eternity.

-bary

02.26.2007

A Tribute To Brittany Murphy. A Real-Life Angel.

"I wasn't mad, I was confused...

everyone was talking, talking, talking at me

and I couldn't understand a word they were saying,

and then their voices became a blur and soon I couldn't

even recognize their faces; they were like these blobs

and they started to grow fangs and their eyes became

green and I knew I had to run away.

So I packed my knapsack, got on the train, and looked up at

the map and decided I wanted to live on Coney Island. I thought

it would be... you know... a real island. That I thought I could

hide there like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin, but imagine

my surprise...

The teacups were the only ride they would let me on by myself,

so I got on it and I started spinning around and 'round and 'round.

But I feel like I am still there... spinning 'round and 'round and 'round...

and the ride won't stop... You were right, Ray, I am scared.

But you're scared too.

You're scared as I am

and I thought that maybe

if we could go

together...

- Molly Gunn (played by Brittany Murphy  RIP 1977-2009)

-Uptown Girls-

"Science and Religion are not at odds.

Science is simply too young

to understand..."

- Dan Brown -

*click*

The Fourth Of July

"SOME FOLKS SAID I WRAP MYSELF

TOO MUCH IN THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE

THEY SAY I'M NAIVE, LIKE A CHILD.

THAT MY BELIEFS ARE TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

WELL, SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT, MY FRIENDS.

SAY WHAT YOU WANT ABOUT ME,

AND REMEMBER THE REASON YOU CAN SAY THOSE THINGS

IS YOU LIVE HERE, WHERE WE'RE FREE

LIBERTY: THAT'S WHAT OUR ANCESTORS HEARD

WHEN THEY MADE THAT BIG BELL RING

LIBERTY! WHAT A SWEET, SWEET SONG...

A PRECIOUS AND HARD-WON THING.

WHAT SO MANY HAVE FOUGHT AND DIED FOR...

HOME OF THE BRAVE, AND LAND OF THE FREE.

A LAND THAT IS GOOD, AND GRAND AND TRUE...

AND THERE'S NO LAND I'D RATHER BE."

Wedding Crashers

"Rule #76: No excuses!

You play like a champion!"

-vince vaughn

The Thing About New York...

"New Yorkers, more than anyone,

don't like things they can't rationally

explain. That goes for non-native

New Yorkers as well."

- James Patterson

You've Been Warned

Pinball Wizard

" Pinball is a metaphor for life, pitting man's skill, nerve, persistence & luck against the perverse machinery of human existance. The playfield is rich with rewards: targets that bring huge scores, bright lights, chiming balls, free balls and extra games. But it is replete with perils too; culs-de-sac, traps, gutters & gobble-down-holes which the ball may disappear [into] forever."

- Anthony Lukas

Bary' Alyssa's mind-blowingly perfect chocolate brownies. [to. die. for.]

INGREDIENTS
- 4 squares of Baker's unsweetened chocolate
- 1/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup flour
[optional]
- 25 Kraft caramels
- 2 tablespoons milk
DIRECTIONS
1. Make sure to preheat oven to 350 degrees first thing. Then grease a 13x9 inch baking pan.
2. Place 4 chocolate squares and 1 1/2 sticks butter in large microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until the better gets just to the melting point. Stir these ingredients continuously until the chocolate is completely melted.
3. Add 2 cups sugar to chocolate/butter mixture and mix well.
4. Add 4 eggs to the bowl and mix well.
5. Add 1 cup flour to the bowl and mix well.
6. Spread batter into the baking pan and place into the oven.
7. Bake brownies for 30-35 minutes - give or take - until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out with fudgy crumbles (Do not overbake or underbake! This timing part's a bit tricky - it'll come with practice)
AND OPTIONALLY - DURING BAKING:
- Place 25 caramels and 2 tablespoons of milk into a microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high for 2 1/2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute. Stir slowly until the caramels are completely melted and the mixture is well blended.
- Gently spread caramel mixture over brownies while they are still in the pan.
- Cool brownies in pan on wire rack.
- Store at room temperature in a tightly-covered container.

Enjoy!

-b.

Columbia-Yonkers Represent

A collection of quotes collected

during the summer of 2008

(when i worked for cumc - yonkers office)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Life; an uncontrollable disaster."

- Ms. Luisa Cerqua

"To live is so startling it leaves

little time foranything else."

- Emily Dickinson

"Life is just a chance to grow a soul."

- ?

"Vigilance is key."

- Tony

"Death before dishonor."

Jay-Z

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

and more of Luisa's musings...

"Do not dwell on the past. Concentrate your

mind on the present moment.

- Anonymous

A dream is an incoherent thought that doesn't

slip out of mind quite quick enough; it has feelings,

emotionsand images that only one could figure out; to

what isleft of a dream is nothing. quite simple so you see;

a journey to figure out what's true and false can end

an adventure of pain and love. A dream is little less

than a feeling but a little more than an emotion.

Can dreams really come true or are we just left in

the dark after the lights turn off?

- Luisa Cerqua

You've Been Warned

08/04/08
"Don, don't go!" she wailed in desperation. "Please!" the woman had begun crying. The tears were geniuine, true, but he didn't trust her anymore. He had decided no longer to rely on anyone's instincts other than his own. He ignored her tears and continued packing.

"I dreamed you died on that island!' She inched toward angry at that point. 

"Then so be it," Don hissed under his breath.

"It's not safe," she cried.

"Let it go!" he bellowed, finally, eyes full of rage. "Let me go! You've changed so fucking much I don't even know you anymore. This is it for you and me. I'm leaving. We're over. Do you understand?"

She sobbed silently, nodding in pain. Feeling...no...knowing deep down she'd never see him again. 

No one would.

-b.

The Art & Tradition of the Hardcover

If he had any 3 wishes in the whole world what would he do?
Lord. Jesus. Jesus H. Christ. The world was in the palm of his hand. The cost? His integrity. All of the goals upon which he had built his life and personality.
But hard times are hard times. Self-preservation instincts strongly urged against this type of situation. He wanted so dearly to ignore them. But they'd brought him this far...
Something inside him told him to turn to God on this particular issue. He'd long ago stopped asking favors from the Big Guy in the Sky, but what the hell...
Lives rested on his decision. A whole lot more than just a few lives, too. Money. Family. Respect. Honor? What would his father do? He'd learned a lot watching Dad's mistakes and always noting where, how & why; why he seemed destined to fail at most things he'd delved into.
His only really success to date? A massive, immaculate library of books. Rare special edition copies. Bestselling novels. All hard-covered. He didn't much care for paperbacks.

La Familia

07.12.08

They gathered around him awaiting instructions like hunger pups. He had decided, for this one time to go with Her judgement, to deviate. Her input always seemed to wind them up in a heap of trouble, though. Mostly utterly useless nonsense. If it weren't for their family connections, he'd have cut ties with her long ago. She was a liability. Solely for the fact that, under the most extreme and dangerous of circumstances, she let herself be guided by heart and intuition first. Rumor has it, he doesn't have a heart to speak of. No compassion. No feelings. They'd faded away long ago. She knew these emotions were essential to the very nature of staying alive. She knows the value of compromise. He'd never much liked that term. That made things dangerous for him. She felt compelled to watch after him; ensure his safety. All he did was laugh when she offered up the odd bit of advice. She was a joke to him. An anomoly. Didn't she know the rules were not to be deviated from - under any circumstance? Obviously not, as he blamed her for today's situation.
He knew that they were awaiting his orders. If he couldn't damn well find a way out of this disaster, the Board Room would most certainly become the war room. But his mind was elsewhere. There was just too much to deal with.
"Maybe..." he thought to himself, "Maybe if I could get rid of her somehow, the concentration would focus elsewhere. Anywhere but here," he mused. He then brushed the idea away as quickly as it had come. He couldn't let anything happen to her. She was family. His older sister.


by: me (b.)

Story In Progress

They met on a bench in Central Park. The moment was magical; typical New York City wintertime with light snowflakes falling.
He was writing. She was reading. They were both Libras. Both under 30. Both lived way downtown and had faced the cold for some Central Park winter inspiration.
Her gloved fingers could turn the pages of her book, while his bare hands were frozen around his pen. They traded. Gloves for a scarf. They forgot to trade back later that afternoon. Each still keeps the other's article of winter clothing as a memento dear to their hearts.
She was reading a Russian novel of love & betrayal. He was writing a story of lust and mystery.
They began talking. They both hated math, loved the ocean, had never been to Australia (though his "Aussie" accent sounded quite real) and they were both attending college in the city. He lived alone in a loft in the Lower East Side. She lived (temporarily) with a rich girlfriend she'd gone to elementary school with...
TO BE CONTINUED...
-b.

Echo.

06.11.08
His hoodie was Ecko (presumably). It was an inky black with thick white stitching around the hood. It hid his athletic frame, although making him look bigger than he actually was. His complexion was olive - either European or South American. He wore jeans and a brightly-colored pair of sneakers that had only been released in a small number. Less than 450 pairs had been made by a combination of the two most creative minds in the sneaker industry.
He did a double-take as he saw the chick he'd come for pass right by him on the sidewalk. "This is highly unusual," he thought to himself. He wondered anxiously if the situation he'd just encountered was another one of those damned coincidences that seemed intent on driving him nuts.
"Coincidences? God-sends? Warnings? A figment of my imagination?" he went through the various possibilities in his mind like a revolving door. He wished to God that his father was still alive.
He'd have had the right answers. Though the father/son relationship was particularly curious, the young man had come to rely on his old man's input, advice, words of wisdom, utter wit. His father; his best friend - gone before the relationship he'd belatedly fostered had a chance to evolve to a full-bloom.
A tear made its way down his cheek. His tattooed hand flicked it away quickly, before it had a chance to shatter his manly facade. There was a word that described the man's personality with pure clarity: machismo. He defined the word.
He decided then and there to take off running from this f**ked up situation, leaving the (actually) innocent girl to live her life. He knew where he was headed and knew, instinctively, that he'd be left alone there.
"Potential get-out-of-jail-free card situation," he thought to himself. "Peace out, Chi-Town."
He smiled while walking out on both the city and his cantakerous career.
-b.

Are we here to test each other?

They sat in disgruntled, yet startled frustration. They didn't understand. They thought they knew the job they felt responsible for. In fact, they had no idea. They felt like amateurs, not the geniuses they once thought themselves. The only problem was they were too foolish to admit it to themselves, let alone to each other.

-b.

"please put your seats and tray tables in their locked and upright position"

7.29.09
11:30 pm

He whispered in her ear and she nodded. Her cheeks reddened. He made her feel absolutely divine. She pulled on her North Face fleece vest and he tied up his boots. She pulled her hair up and he escorted her out of their cabin. They were on their way to their favorite place in the woods. It was a short hike to the most beautiful waterfall either one had ever set their sights on. There was green algae growing on the rocks. He took her hand. They sat on their favorite log. He fiddled with his wife's wedding ring.

"Let's do it," she said. "Let's go to India!"