Melissa Jensen
I grew up in San Francisco, which gave me a love of fog and funny-colored houses. My mother is an amazing watercolorist, my father an architect. I can’t draw. Never could. But I always loved telling stories (occasionally of the sort involving passing Vegetable Fairies and disappearing sweet potatoes at dinnertime). I read lots of pretty wonderful books as a kid, but haven’t been quite the same since I was fourteen and my English teacher handed me a copy of Pride and Prejudice. I still want to be Elizabeth Bennet when I grow up. Elizabeth Bennet with a career and jeans, anyway. My husband got a second date by telling me he had once played Mr. Darcy on stage. There would have been a second date, in any case, but still…
I’ve written lots of stuff over the years, including a few novels, magazine articles, and even a syndicated newspaper etiquette column. I like dinner parties. I don’t give nearly enough of them. I love to make lists of whom I would invite if I possibly could. My fab friends aside, there’s always a spot for Jane Austen (who probably would always politely refuse), Robert Burns, and Charles Darwin. Then there’s Oscar Wilde, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Dalai Lama, and William Steig. Abigail Adams and Oprah. Orlando Bloom (anyone have his phone number?) and Julia Child. Bonnie Robinson: that long-ago English literature teacher, later my creative writing teacher, who told me that I’d better spend a lot more time in England if I was going to insist on writing about it.
My fave places in the world are London and Dublin, neither of which are as foggy as literature would have us believe. I spend as much time as possible in Ireland, often on the edge of one cliff or another. It makes my family crazy. It makes me feel like a Bronte.
Now I live most of the time in Pennsylvania, in a house old enough to have hosted Elizabeth Bennet, if she had cared to visit the Colonies. Of course, as Mrs. Darcy, she would have been very grand and my house isn’t, but then, she was all about having a curious and open mind. Not a bad philosophy. I do my best, but it doesn’t always work. Nothing will ever make me like sweet potatoes.
Melissa's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Melissa...
“The Top Ten Things Every Girl Should Have the First Time5. A guy who realizes it's a big deal for you, this time.6. A guy who understands that it's a big deal every time.7. A guy who tries to make it special. Every time.”
“Guys generally need us to come with subtitles, cue cards, and liability waivers.”
“Is love meant to make us feel like fools?”
“Promise me this: ... you will stand for yourself, especially in the times when no one seems interested in standing for you.”
“One may hide cruel. One may even hide a certain amount of madness. One can never hide stupidity.”
“We only tell the secrets we secretly want not to be secret, right? And learn as much from what isn't told.”
“when he kissed me i couldn't have cared less about being a good person. i felt amazing.p304 the fine art of truth or dare”
“You are a walking litany of imaginary flaws”
“—Oh, creo que ya sé la respuesta, por si acaso.—¿La respuesta a qué?—La pregunta. La pregunta que deberías preguntarte antes de involucrarte con alguien. No era “¿Podrá él o ella hacerte feliz?” se trata de “¿Sacaré lo mejor de mí, estando con él?”
“Aveces no importa cuántas pestañas o dientes de león soples, no importa cuánto tu corazón se despedace y bofeteé tu cubierta, simplemente no va a suceder.”
“¿Cual era el punto en tratar de explicar que gustarte algo y usarlo en público tenia casi nada que ver una cosa con la otra?”
“Relationships are like Whack-a-Mole. You squash one annoying deformity and another one pops up in no time.”
“Love is one of two things worth dying for. I have yet to decide on the second.”
“sometimes no matter how many eyelashes or dandelion seeds you blow, no matter how much of your heart you tear out and slap on your sleeve, it just ain't gonna happen.”
“Ella. If you don’t learn to carpe the diem, you will be, while most certainly not Nobody, something less than a Somebody.”
“What is it about those two words - I'm sorry - that makes otherwise articulate guys into babbling idiots?”
“Truth (according to Edward Willing): People who rely on first sight are either lazy or deluded.”