Abandoned by user

I'm going to tell a little story about my life. My daughter - I usually call her Animal Girl on the internet - was a horse crazy adolescent not that many years ago. Her first horse was named Cricket, a sweet gray with beautiful eyes, that we bought when she was in the 4th or 5th grade.

We boarded Cricket at a barn about twenty minutes away. The barn owners had a teenage daughter who was quite a horsewoman, and my girl idolized her. This was around the same time that Taylor Swift released the first, and most country, of all of her albums. I think Taylor was around 17 when the first album was released. Anyway, there was a CD player hooked up to speakers, and AG would play the CD while she rode. After a while, I bought her a copy of the CD for a birthday, and we would listen to it driving back and forth from the barn and singing along at the tops of our respective (and pretty much terrible) voices.

From there, Taylor Swift grew up, and so did my girl, and with every album, Taylor Swift became less country and my daughter got older and more into pop and she continued to love Taylor Swift's music. And, you know, people can say whatever they want about Taylor Swift and I just don't care, but I enjoy the music, too. And my girl and I have always listened to TS in the car, and we've always sung along at the tops of our respective (and pretty much terrible) voices. Just this year, when I picked her up from college and we made the two hour return trip home for Christmas together, we listened to 1989, and sang to Clean, and I Know Places, and, yes, Blank Space.

I've always admired Taylor Swift as well. Her behavior in public is exemplary. No Justin Bieber-like tantrums. No Lindsey Lohan-like antics where she's gotten shitfaced and made a fool of herself. She is genuinely sweet to her fans, and she is the first to promote a fan mashup of her songs with a complimentary tweet. And the dresses that she wears are beautiful.

Which brings me to this:

@taylorasbooks

A twitter feed that posts pics of Taylor - in all of her fashionable gorgeousness - along side a YA book cover. It's genius, and delightful, and I spent twenty minutes scrolling through and smiling.