"Kristen and the Beast"? I wish I lived in a fairytale...

I watched Disney’s ”Beauty and the Beast” Saturday night for the first time in, say, 12 years and I noticed and thing or two about it that had never occurred to me before.
Firstly, I now understand that I knew nothing of romance at the age of nine. Well, that’s easy to determine. I didn’t quite understand anything at the age of nine. And even now, at twenty-one, it’s hit-or-miss. But I do remember watching when Belle is “released” from the castle and runs off to help her father. I remember thinking “Oh no! Gaston the meany’s gonna do something bad now.”
I never remembered, nor realized, how heartbreakingly romantic it is. How heartbreakingly romantic the entire movie is.
The creators of ”Beauty and the Beast” were and are geniuses.

With the subtle romantic tension slowly giving way to full on feelings for each other…

The character development in the short amount of time given…

The tiny details that I never would have noticed had I not read the Trivia section on Internet Movie Database…like how the costume designer specifically arranged it so that Belle was the only one in town who wore blue which emphasized how she didn’t fit in. Then she meets Beast, another outcast who wears blue…

The snippets of dialogue:

Cogsworth: Well Your Highness, I must say everything is going just swimmingly. I knew you had it in you, ha ha!
Beast: I let her go.
Cogsworth: Yes, yes, splen - You... what? How could you do that?
Beast: I had to.
Cogsworth: Yes, but, but... but... why?
Beast: Because... I love her.

Then the scene shifts so suddenly that you’re left gasping.

I also now understand how much of a sap I am.
A movie, made in 1991 and watched again in 2008, made me sob uncontrollably.
The last scene, when Beast “dies”, made me hyperventilate with sobs.

I now understand how lost I am in the world if something so small can send me a-wailing. Am I really a twenty-one year old young woman? Or a nine year old child?

I also came to the conclusion that Belle is like a thinner, more musically talented version of me. She has brown hair, a semi upturned nose, a love of books and a want to go out into the world and have adventures but instead looses herself in fantasy lands and dreamscapes.
Now all I need is my own charming Beast.


And so, I cry again.
Why? Simply because of the following message-tag that occurred on Sunday between me and the amazing Jeanann Verlee on MySpace.

{my name},
to your blog "Crashing" posted Nov. 19, i commented:

"new chapbook coming in march.
first off the press is yours.

i'm listening.

-ms. verlee"


the copy is yours.
please send a current mailing address.
i promise i'm not harrassing you.

She’s sending me her newest book of poems.

I must have deleted the entry on MySpace because I can’t find it now.
{Actually, now that I think about it…I’m not sure I posted it on MySpace. Haha! Silly me.}
I am in slight shock. That this woman, whom I admire so much, read my journal and is listening…She is an inspiration. She made my day, week, month, year.
I simply can’t stop smiling!
I think I’ll be able to do my presentation on Tuesday with ease and relative grace (and I say “relative” because I have a tendency to trip over my own feet/stumble over words like “magnetic generator” in public).

I think I’ll be able to smile.