Version4 was a long time coming, because I made about sixty different layouts and hated them all. And of course you know after the Philomel debacle, your dear Diary-Writer couldn't bear to despoil her beauteous page with another horrendous, hastily-scribbled-together layout just because of the enormously special occasion of her fiftieth entry (which, incidentally, I passed several entries ago and realized a bit ex post facto.) But that, er, isn't to say that I didn't hastily scribble together this layout, but I did prioritize it above all my other pressing needs, and cobbled it on a Sunday morning that should have been devoted to the transferring of files from my old computer to my new one. Cough.

I've noticed a trend in the layouts -- have you? It alternates. Version1, Saltwater, was all structured and tabular, no graphics, just a bunch of white and blue and black. No gradations. Very blunt, very orderly. Then along came Philomel, which was the ultimate embodiment of disorder and messed-up-ness, largely because of the discrepancy of screen resolutions between the HTML and the graphics. *covers eyes in reminiscent horror* I was totally grossed out and went for the clean, structured layout again in My Side of Summer // Intellectual Leprechaun. But this one, you'll notice, has again reverted to the old, hazy, misty brushes and such. Fortunately, I tried to avoid utter chaos by putting it all in a nice, pretty little box. Which, I know, is severely hampering to the eye, but sacrifices must be made for the sake of sensibility.

Now, let's get past the retrospective comparison and go on to admire version4, Religion.

First off: No, I haven't been converted. The title comes from a John Keats love letter that I fell in love with. It goes along these lines:

To Fanny Brawne:

I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me.

I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving. ...I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is love and you are its only tenet - you have ravish'd me away by a power I cannot resist.

- John Keats

There. Now you read that, and you tell me you don't believe in real, deep, true, heart-wrenching, wholly soul-consuming love.

He met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne (Jesus Christ, what a terrible name), literally the girl next door, only after the doctors had diagnosed the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him. Obviously that put any thoughts of marriage out of question, but I like to think that loving her made him die a better man. Like an emo fool, I’ll venture into the precariously treacherous bog of sentimentality: love trumps everything. Truth, duty, sense, order, impossibility, hopelessness, oceans, mountains, death. They fall like wheat in a hailstorm when it comes to love.

Just for the record, I'd like to state this now:

Love is my religion.