| day 352 |

"Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."

| day 351 |

"I had thought of all the things I had done, and couldn't undo. And I longed for a moments peace."

| week fifty |

T-minus 15 days...what?

| day 350 |

"Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting."

| day 349 |

"She danced. She sang. She took. She gave. She loved. She created. She dissented. She enlivened. She saw. She grew. She sweated. She changed. She learned. She laughed. She shed her skin. She bled on the pages of her days, she walked through walls, she lived with intention."

| day 348 |

"But the space between where you're smilin' high is where you'll find me if I get to go. The space between the bullets in our firefight is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you."

| day 347 |

"It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is tomorrow. Not today, but tomorrow. And then things will happen...wonderful things."

| day 346 |

"Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless."

| day 345 |

"What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful."

---

This idea was taken from the "Uglies" series by Scott Westerfeld. At age 16, everyone undergoes an operation to make them "pretty", giving them perfectly symmetrical features, perfect skin, big eyes, etc. - all for the sake of equality. In the book, the technology allowed the "uglies" to transform their faces on a digital screen to see what they would look like after the operation. I attempted to duplicate this...and found my right side is more beautiful!

| day 344 |

"She never slows down. She doesn't know why, but she knows that when she's all alone, feels like it's all coming down, she won't turn around. The shadows are long and she fears if she cries that first tear, the tears will not stop raining down."

| week forty-nine |

I am quite literally in the final stretch. Has it really been a year? I have about 3 weeks left of an entire year of photos. I have no idea what I'm going to do when it's over.

Also, by the end of this, I will have a decent post to share with anyone who actually reads my blog.

Until then...

| day 343 |

"I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while."

| day 342 |

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."

| day 341 |

"From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended."

| day 340 |

"If those cats could of dug me and my gangster ways, they would have hung up their guns and dug into their graves."

| day 339 |

"Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine - you taste so bitter and so sweet. Oh, I could drink a case of you darling and I would still be on my feet. Oh, I would still be on my feet."

| day 338 |

"Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That's what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice."

| day 337 |

"I got lost in the night without the light of your eyelids, and when the night surrounded me, I was born again: I was the owner of my own darkness."

| week forty-eight |

Whoa. Less than a month!

| day 336 |

"We are all like fireworks. We climb, shine and always go our separate ways and become further apart. Then, even if that time comes, let's not disappear like a firework and continue to shine forever."

| day 335 |

"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

| day 334 |

"She knew that for her the greatest sin now and in the future was to delude herself. It had been a long lesson but she had learned it. Either you think--or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you."

| day 333 |

"I don't care if it hurts - I want to have control, I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul, I want you to notice when I'm not around. You're so fucking special. I wish I was special."

| day 332 |

"Maybe you're just a daydream, taken out of my window panes, making sure everything is just alright."

| day 331 |

"An empty frame, in which the picture is always changing, makes a statement about how time is always passing. It doesn't really stop, even in a single image. It just feels that way."

| day 330 |

"It's easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you'd be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it's lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul."

| week forty-seven |

35 days!?!

| day 329 |

"Lady, lady, never speak of the tears that burn your cheek- She will never win him, whose words had shown she feared to lose."

| day 328 |

"Between the two extremes, the nightmares and the dreams, the colors blend to one and I'm overcome in a white hot light."

| day 327 |

"After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt."

| day 326 |

"So often this summer I keep thinking: I know I'm holding back. I know I'm waiting. I know I'm afraid to go forward. But I don't know how to get there from here."

| day 325 |

"I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away."

| day 324 |

"So I should be aware of the dangers of self-consciousness, but at the same time, I’ll be plowing through the fog of all these echoes, plowing through mixed metaphors, noise, and will try to show the core, which is still there, as a core, and is valid, despite the fog. The core is the core is the core. There is always the core, that can’t be articulated. Only caricatured."

| day 323 |

"All I can do is keep breathing."

| week forty-six |

Blah.

| day 322 |

"Wherever you will go, I will let you down - but this lullaby goes on."

| day 321 |

"Open me up and you will see I'm a gallery of broken hearts. I'm beyond repair, let me be, and give me back my broken parts. Just give me back my pieces, just give them back to me please. Just give me back my pieces and let me hold my broken parts. I just want to be ok."

| day 320 |

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

---

I usually stray away from overediting, but I liked this a lot.

| day 319 |

"I could float here instead, but there's a calm under the waves, so I choose to sink."

| day 318 |

"Outlook not so good."

| day 317 |

"Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with."

| day 316 |

"I had forgotten that time wasn't fixed like concrete but in fact was fluid as sand, or water. I had forgotten that even misery can end."

| week forty-five |

| day 315 |

"Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater."

| day 314 |

"On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more."

| day 313 |

"...extraordinarily beautiful, and slightly out of focus."

| day 312 |

"And she was good to me: strong, fun, and fiercely loyal. And if I didn't have many other friends because of her - most girls were intimidated by her looks, or thought she was too pushy, or just flat-out feared for their boyfriends - it never bothered me. I never missed having a wide, thick circle of girlfriends: she was more than enough. We were comfortable with each other's flaws and weaknesses, so we stuck together and kept to ourselves."

| day 311 |

"Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country."

---

Disclaimer: I love this girl more than the air I breathe. Do not knife me in my sleep for our inside jokes :P

| day 310 |

"But time has a way of stealthily deciding a person’s mind without her conscious knowledge, and as she studied and procrastinated, poison found one day that she had come to know her choice."

| day 309 |

"Can anyone tell what I've done? I miss the life, I miss the colours of the world. Can anyone tell where I am?"

| week forty-four |

8 weeks. Less than 2 months.

I think it will only truly hit me when I finish. I'm not going to know what to do with myself. Or what my final picture will be.

Also, I'm thinking of having a "party" kind of deal on my last day. Something that will bring all of the people that are in my pics, helped me take them, and the people who just got me through it. I want everyone to be there when I take my final picture. It was suggested I make it semi-formal as well, a bit different from my usual parties. I think I want to.

We'll see.

| day 308 |

"Lie to me - I promise I'll believe."

| day 307 |

"She said planes made her feel like she could get away."

| day 306 |

"She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum."

| day 305 |

"Grab somebody, come on down, bring your paintbrush, we're paintin' the town. Oh, there's some sweetness goin' 'round, catch it down in New Orleans."

---

Again, not late. Different time zone.

| day 304 |

"Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life."
---
I'm reminding the world that my picture is not late. I am in the central time-zone now, so every pic while I'm in New Orleans may be an hour later than expected.

| day 303 |

"Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light."