Sparrow Alone

this morning

2010-09-17T07:36:00.001-04:00

It's my favorite time of the day, the space before all the household is awake, the space when I have the silent house to myself. It is one of the few times in the day that I will be able to hear the clock ticking, or listen to the sound of my own typing. The feeling of the morning is very insular. I am wrapped in my house, merely an observer of the world outside.

The sky is a single, solid light gray with wisps of clouds adding texture. It is hard to tell if I am hearing the drip of rainwater from the eves and the light wind, or if it is raining in ernest. A flock of wild turkeys is in the driveway. They started in the north pasture when I was drinking my first cup of coffee. Now I'm on my second, and they are nearly in my front yard.

The goats will stay in this morning and in the afternoon, the barn will be warm and full of soft bleating and the chewing of cud and horns butting against horns. It will be a damp day, the kind of day where your clothing never dries between forays into the mist-like rain that is too heavy to be mist and too light to be rain. The kind of day where you wear wool hats and sweaters, but even though you are damp and chilled it is too warm to be in layers and long sleeves all day. It's a day of rubber boots and tea and warm leftovers for lunch. It's a soft, seductive sort of weather that doesn't really interfere with daily activities but at the same time controls everything.

The turkeys are back in the north pasture now, headed towards the tree line. Grieg is playing softly, easing me into the day, and I can hear sounds of stirring in the rest of the house. I'll need something with more energy soon, if I'm going to actually wake up this morning.

What it is

2010-08-27T22:25:00.004-04:00

I haven't been posting much lately (just pretend you've noticed) and it's kind of stressing me out. Just a little bit, just when I think about it, but just enough. I put so much pressure on myself when I get ready to write here, all of which is unnecessary since all of (the two of) you who read this probably aren't looking for Pulitzer material. If you were, you've probably realized your error by now. Recently, I visited a friend from my Montreat days. It was a wonderful visit for a variety of reasons. Among the many (many) things we talked about, blogging happened to be one of them. "Just write what you're doing," I told her, "simple narrative stuff and the rest will come." Maybe I should follow my own advice.

This is what I have been doing today:

Writing! A good, two solid hours of work. It felt amazing to get back to Rob and Trish, and to realize how close I am to being done with this last revision. Now to actually being done with them...and entering the stormy waters of agent searching.

But writing wasn't the only thing I did today...look what else I was up to:

Painting! Finger painting! On old grain bags! Maybe I am abusing my exclamation mark privileges, but it was the perfect creative outlet for the day. I love writing, but it tends to leave me both exhausted and thirsty for more creative expression. This was about as low key as possible – no brushes, on the back porch, complete freedom, good music and beer. Big, bold, no pressure, because the 'canvas' came from the dumpster a hundred feet away. Plans for both include favorite quotes and maybe photos. Or not.

And yeah, that's what I've been up to. Good times, my friends, good times.

chill a little

2010-07-26T21:20:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I drove half an hour - the requisite distance to just about anywhere - to the fabric store. Simply wandering in and out of the rows of fabric, I quickly learned that only two people were working that night, that someone hadn't come into work. I joined the line of people at the cutting counter, the woman flustered, customers impatient. I couldn't help thinking that if everyone just chilled out a little then none of this would really be a problem.
*
Yesterday I spent the day at Minute Man National Historical Park. I watched the multimedia thing at the visitors' center, stared at maps and read excerpts of journals. I walked along the five mile path that's 'Battle Road,' stopping to photograph ruins and monuments to dead British soldiers. I found myself thinking about those dead British soldiers a lot. I found myself thinking a lot about those emotion wrought journal entries, economic and political tension, hot headed 'patriots' with a taste for freedom. I couldn't help thinking that if everyone just chilled out a little, Battle Road would never have existed.
*
A few days ago I led an activity about food systems, the difference between industrialized and local food. The simplified industrialized system is 14 participants long. The local, four. During our debrief, the first thing a chaperon said was "If we got rid of the industrialized food system, then all of those people would be out of jobs." Those farmers, getting 20 cents on each dollar consumers spend on food. Those truckers, making 10 cents on the dollar. Those migrant workers, making 1 cent. I found myself thinking how easy it is to defend our lifestyles of conspicuous consumption by claiming that at least we give people jobs. I found myself thinking how easy it is to support a system that makes life so comfortable – for us. I found myself thinking that predicting the doom of the American empire, the slide into economic chaos by a change in the food system, seemed like a pretty stressful way of thinking. I couldn't help thinking that if everyone admitted that the problem is complex and the answer unknown, that things worthwhile aren't simple, and that actions always have consequences – if everyone admitted that and then just chilled out a little, then maybe we could start with whatever is in front of us.

Hemlock House

2010-06-05T14:03:00.001-04:00

I stood on my porch, hanging my laundry out to dry. Off in the woods to my left, I could hear a fellow volunteer leading a tour:

"What do you guys think we might be growing here?"

"Alligators!" A little boy's excited voice shouted.

I imagine he was disappointed to learn that the correct answer is mushrooms. The tour moved off towards the gardens. Kids from last night's global gateway program were playing basketball in parking area and I could hear goats bleating in the south pasture. All of my five housemates were working or gone and the house was oddly quiet, other than my music.

There are a lot of us in the house, but so far, things work out pretty well. We listen to a lot of Iron and Wine, Dar Williams, and The Decemberists. We keep a list of our goals for the summer on the fridge: Learn to make yogurt, do yoga, make time to play guitar, learn to make amazing pizza, bring back the spork, practice tai chi, knit mittens, write a song about food that people will take seriously, chill out. We had a meeting and talked about making a chore chart and having some sort of system, but mostly we just do what needs to be done. We come home in the evenings worn out, but after showers and jostling elbows around the stove and fridge and table and eating dinner things start to pick up. On a tame night, we might put in a movie or play a game or wander off to read and write and play guitar. But more often hilarity ensues, and we end up making infomercials for sporks and playing madlibs to create a house horoscope. We hang out in the kitchen or on the porch and the living room is sadly neglected. We talk about what we did that day, things happening on the farm, food we want to cook, spirituality and religion, our families and lives. We plan theme dinners and write them on the calendar and then forget the dates. When volunteers from the other house come over, they say our house seems like a fun - and clean - place. We agree about the fun. The clean part comes and goes.

There are 23 full time volunteers here at the farm, the farm being Overlook Farm. It's part of Heifer International and serves as an education center, about Heifer's mission (to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth) and about sustainability and about other cultures. I'm an education volunteer: think a mixture of camp counselor, tour guide and outdoor ed facilitator and then throw in some sheep herding and goat milking and pig slopping to round things out. I've had two weeks of training but only one week of work, so I'll tell you more about that later.

For now, it's good to be done with college, not have classes and books looming up in the fall, to come home in the evening and not have to work on homework. To spend my days off baking black bean brownies and going hiking and making yogurt and working on my novel. To read Shakespeare just because I feel like it.

Dog Backwash = Gross

2010-05-13T22:35:00.003-04:00

My dog and I are sharing crackers and soymilk in the room that I used to share with my sisters but is now a storage room about to be restored to it's original status as master bedroom. Actually, I am the only one drinking the soymilk. Sharing beverages with dogs is gross.

Did I mention that I am also sleeping in this storage room/not quite parents' room? I am. I have to climb over a box or two and my older sister's piles of notebooks she left behind and also a pile of bedding and hangers to get to the ladder to reach the bunk bed. But then I'm in bed, and who really cares what sort of chaos surrounds you? As long as it's not moving and not turning on lights and keeping quiet, then I'm cool with that.

Turning on lights is the whole reason I am not sharing my younger sister's bedroom. (Which used to be my parents bedroom, after it housed my sister and I, which was previous to being my older sister's room, back when I had the room my brother now has after moving out of the room the three youngest boys sleep in. Yes, my friends, I hold the distinct honor of having occupied all four bedrooms in my parents' house. Next time I come visit, I'm hoping I score the sunroom futon!) That was a long parenthetical comment. Allow me to reiterate: Turning on lights is the whole reason I am not sharing my younger sister's bedroom.

"She has the trundle bed, you can sleep on that," my mom said, after I filled up a corner of their living room with all my worldly possessions.

I was super tired already, from a weekend hanging out with friends, from carrying the interior of my apartment down three flights of steps and into my car, from the drive to my parents'. I was also pretty certain that I was suffering from post traumatic stress after my 24 credit semester. Any bed sounded great. Even curling up on the tile floor held its charms.

"Oh, you might want to check the light levels before you go to sleep," my dad suggested after dinner. My little sister requires both a night light and the hall light in order to sleep. My previous sojourn at the family homestead left her traumatized when I, horror of horrors, shut the door.

I trooped upstairs, turned on the night light. Shakespeare could have written Hamlet by the light. Even if I could bully my sister into leaving the door shut the light would feel like a saintly visitation, but I doubted I'd be penning any noncommittal Danes.

I made up the bunk bed above the sea of chaos.

And then I nearly cried myself to sleep, because I was exhausted and worn out and missed my apartment and realized that I no longer had a home and might not again for a while – home as in the place where you know where everything is, where you aren't living out of a suitcase, where you have your own space, where you belong and know how everything works.

And then I nearly laughed, because I was lying in my old bedroom in my parents' house and feeling homesick.

Final Finals (Finally)

2010-05-04T21:49:00.004-04:00

Today, I took the final to end all finals and am finally done with college. So far, I have celebrated by taking a nap, meeting a friend for ice cream and terrorizing small animals. Now I'm reading through loan repayment paperwork. I'm trying to find the "I don't friggin' know how much I'll be making and I might be living in a cardboard box" option, but it doesn't seem to be listed. Speaking of cardboard boxes, I need to start packing...

I spent the whole last week of classes counting down the minutes and days and barely able to contain my excitement. Now that the day is here, I'm not particularly excited. I'm just worn out. It was a rough semester.

I thought I would come up with something to put here. Looks like I was wrong. Here's a picture I drew for a friend in class one day...like I said, it was a rough semester.

Respite

2010-04-17T09:56:00.002-04:00

It's a windy, gray morning with whispers of rain, and staring out my window in my silent, the backyards and small road deserted, it's easy to feel like only the birds and I are awake. But every now and then a cyclist goes past on the road, disappearing and reappearing behind trees and houses, and sometimes a solitary figure walks down the alleyway. Even less often, a car drives past, loud in the silence. There's a pensive feel, the trees and clouds waiting for the rain. Before a storm, it is always the small trees that make more noise, their leaves anxiously rattling against each other. I never know if they are nervous or excited, but I have always felt it is a mixture of both. It is easy to imagine trees loving a storm, particularly the sedated, suburban trees. Perhaps I am projecting too much of myself onto the trees.

***

Last night I sat at this same desk, rain outside turning the road to a darker shade a gray, wind slipping in through the screens and suggesting wilder places than the town that surrounds me. Vivaldi played in the background and I read article after article on the role of Edgar in King Lear and on the performance of self and the importance of disguise. Today, I will spend in the same manner. I have been anticipating this paper all semester, flipping through my planner and staring in despair at the swathes of yellow highlighter outlining my life. ENGL 444 paper, I say to myself, that will be fun. And it is. It is a respite and a relief, almost as good as slipping away to the wilderness. I sometimes think I could live, breathe and eat literature. I sometimes think I could subsist on Shakespeare alone. But I have thought the same of Hemmingway and of Tennyson, of T. S. Eliot and Chaucer.

***

It is nearly the end of May. Soon, this will all be over and I will leave this town and school behind. A friend asked if I was getting nostalgic. I am not. I think about packing, and I am excited. Last weekend, three girls stopped me on the street and asked if there was a Thai restaurant nearby. I told them there was and where it was. I gave them directions to another store. It's time to move on.

Edge of Day

2010-04-05T07:57:00.006-04:00

Have you ever paused on the edge of a day and wished that you could hold it back, wish that it would never begin, that you could remain there, poised on the edge, forever? But forever is a long time, and 8 a.m. is no longer the edge of day, and soon you have to let go and take the plunge. Somewhere in the back of your head you know that it isn't so bad. That eventually this day will end, that the things that need to happen will happen, and sooner than you realize it will all be over and it will be Thursday evening and Friday will be rolled out before you, slower paced and pleasant, with the tantalizing promise of the weekend at the end. That soon it will be one more week down, three more to go, and then it will be life and the hellish horror of pointless papers and mindless assignments and out of touch professors will be over and new horrors will replace them. But all things in moderation, and a foretaste of hell is always a good reminder.

Society of Solitude

2010-02-28T18:55:00.004-05:00

today, i felt hemmed in by humanity.

if i had a car, i would have driven down unknown roads and through small towns.

without a car, i had only my feet, which could not carry me nearly as fast or as far as i wished.

because no matter how far i go...

there are always people.

In Which I am Confused

2010-02-24T19:16:00.003-05:00

Every time I walk home – or anywhere, really – I cannot understand sidewalks. It's the right angle thing. It goes completely against my nature. It goes completely against human nature. When, when would I ever turn at a right angle, or anything resembling a right angle on foot if my direction wasn't controlled for me? (That's a rhetorical question, but if you're wondering, the answer is never.)

There are a lot of things I don't understand. Like people who want careers. Or young people who just want to settle down, are content to work a 9-5 job and stay in the same place they've lived for years. Or grocery stores, I really don't get something fundamental about grocery stores, and I'm pretty good at suspending my disbelief.

Modern American society, I do not understand you.

Tigers and Texting

2010-02-20T12:57:00.007-05:00

This morning I woke up, after a long restless night full of dreams with tigers mauling people to death, and lying half awake trying to remember if I locked the door and if that noise was someone in the hall, or breaking into my apartment, or inside my apartment. Walking out of the bedroom and two feet to the bathroom was a trek of terror, because I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the full length mirror at the end of the hall, and my heart decided to break free and make a run for it, poor thing.

My thought process is not the most clear in the middle of the night.

But what I really want to tell you about is waking up. I turn my cell phone off at night to avoid late night or early morning calls, and also brain tumors. So this morning when I came to, un-mauled by shadow tigers or mirror men, I turned my phone on to check the time. (Not to sound my age, but there's not a clock in my bedroom.)

The time was 8:30, and it was Saturday, and I was so happy and rolled over to go back to sleep. I figured another hour wouldn't hurt, since I had a traumatic night to recover from. Two minutes later, my phone beeped. An alarm? A phone call? Maybe my editor, with more contact info for the story I'd just been assigned, or, heaven forbid, maybe a source calling me back.

My thought process is not the clearest when I am just waking up, either.

I blindly groped for the phone and peered at its screen. A text message. From my little brother. The word 'fratricide' slid across my heavy lidded eyes. The all important query that the 14 year old felt he must know on a Saturday morning before 9: "So...sup?"

Fortunately, I didn't reply with exactly the words in my mind, because our mother would probably not have appreciated it. I decided it was time to lay down the texting law.

I began by helping him to see the error of his ways, on his own: I asked him what time it was, and if he knew what day of the week it was? Sometimes, 14 year olds are a little out of the loop, and I wanted to be fair.

But he knew, the child was fully aware: it is saturday 8:30

Me: Yeah, so why are you texting me?

14 Year Old Brother: lol i was bored? and everyone else was sleeping i figured you where a college student and would be up paaarrrtttyy

Obviously, he had such a warped view and understanding of life, college students, time, weekends, spelling and logic that there was really nothing more to say except to set up acceptable texting time parameters.

And make some coffee, because there is nothing like being woken up by a 14 year old brother from over 100 miles away! Little brother, don't worry: there's not an app for fratricide. Yet.

Post of Pre-Paper Writing Frenzy

2010-02-06T11:46:00.006-05:00

I have a fairly important paper due next week, and have set myself a goal of having a damn fine rough draft by the end of the day. Despite waking up at 8:30 on a gloriously snowy Saturday, I am only just now sitting down to my computer. I had to do the dishes, and lounge, and drink a pot of coffee and take a shower.

There must be some Murphian like law about long showers and impending papers of doom, as well as blogging as deadlines march inexorably closer. Really, on a snowy Saturday, one where the social highlight of my day might be a trip to the library, did I need to take an entire 45 minutes to shower and brush my hair?

And the answer is yes, I did. I did because I felt like it, and because this paper that my professor stresses as oh-so-very-important is, in the grand scheme of things, completely and utterly unimportant. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, I am of the opinion that showering and cutting my toenails was probably more important. Papers endure for but a semester, toenails endure for life. Or at least, that's the hope, which is why periodic care for said toenails is important.

I find myself more and more drawn to The Grand Scheme of Things viewpoint. I think this is maybe what some people refer to as "senior slump," but The Grand Scheme of Things has a more authoritative sound. Besides, senior slump with a 24 credit course load just doesn't go well together, but looking at The Grand Scheme of Things goes well with life in general. I just need a diploma, thanks. Three semesters seems to be about my limit of focused academia, the limit of time I can spend in one place.

In other news, I had an interview with an organization that I would really love to work with. And in not so other news, I cannot wait to skip commencement.

In Which There is no Point in Writing or Reading this Post.

2010-02-04T21:38:00.003-05:00

There is some sort of alarm going off in my apartment building's hallway. It's super obnoxious, which is a phrase that shows off my amazing prowess with words, don't you think? No one seems to be doing anything about it, although I've heard people wander up and down the hall, wondering. I guess we'll all burn or die of noxious fumes or whatever together.

When you hear that I am dead, you'll know why. Or more likely, you'll just open this post up and see: Edited to Add: The Official People told me that I had to leave, and now I'm stuck at Dunkin' Donuts for the rest of the night because they are open 24 hours and have free wi-fi...

Honestly, we'll probably all just go to bed and mumble curses into our pillows. Which is the coping method of choice when there is random knocking in the middle of the night, or the people downstairs are playing music so loudly the lamp on my end table is shaking, or it sounds like someone very large jumping on the floor above me except I live on the top floor. Humans are funny things.

Wait, scratch that. Not the part about humans being funny things, the other part. From a conversation I just heard through my door between a neighbor and an Official Sounding Man With A Meter Reader, it is apparently a meter (I know!) of sorts, the kind that goes off when the levels of noxious fumes become too high. But also apparently, someone's car running outside the doorway for too long can set the alarm off, and the Official Sounding Man's Meter Reader only showed low levels. So it's all okay! We can all go to bed, exactly like we would have anyway!

Except, I guess we won't die of carbon monoxide poisoning or anything, which is always nice to know. And also the beeping stopped, which is a total plus. G'night, everyone!

Things I Don't Understand: A Camera Phone Photo Essay

2010-01-31T16:45:00.009-05:00

Why my kitchen always looks like this, even when the dishes have been washed at least four times in the past two days:

How Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus can still be such a source of inspiration:

A cat's propensity for inconvenient resting places:

How things could possibly have gotten to the point where they required a sign, and if it was merely a cultural misunderstanding...or if something more interesting was going on:

What someone tried to keep in this library carrel:

Organized religious institutions, and oh yeah, God and religions in general:

Why I can't – and won't – resist the open road:

Porcupines:

(Look, it was a camera phone, and porcupines are large and pointy. Would YOU have gotten any closer? Yeah, I didn't think so.)

So what's special about Friday?

2009-12-21T11:16:00.002-05:00

There are Chinese textbooks on the table in front of me, and christmas cards, and remnants of breakfast and my father’s work binder and a blender. I don’t know why there is a blender. My coffee sits beside me, growing cold, because there is no driving urge to gulp it down and run out the door. Yesterday, I made the long, difficult journey (read: two hours on pretty much the same highway) to my parents’. Or maybe home, I haven’t quite figured out the semantics. It’s not exactly home, and not exactly not home.

The kids are in the living room watching Lord of the Rings. I think my return to the homestead was mostly anticipated because I promised that I would come with said trilogy. At least they had the decency to wait until I had been here for nearly half an hour before asking if I’d remembered.

The kids. There are so many reasons to be glad I’m not with them every day. And there are so many reasons to be sad that I’m not with them everyday.

“I like it,” my 10 year old brother said, regarding my sweater which was long on the sides, short in the back. “But I don’t understand it.” I told him that he didn’t really have to understand clothes, particularly not women’s clothes. Just tell them that they look nice, my sister and I explained.

***

“I don’t understand why people buy books,” my 14 year old brother said. I suggested he move, before I leaped across the seat between us and hurled him to the ground. He recanted.

***

On the ride home from sledding, huddled under the toboggan, the 10 year old turned to me. “You know what I just realized? You’re only 13 years older than me. Isn’t that creepy?”

“Creepy? What’s creepy about that?”

“Well, 13 doesn’t seem like that much, and you are so much older than me.”

So much older. 23 is nearly ancient. I’ll be an antique when he’s 23.

***

“I can’t hear you, you talk too quietly,” my 9 year old sister said.

“That’s because I don’t feel the need to shout all the time,” I said, “Unlike some people in my family.”

“I still love you,” she said, as though this was the obvious response to my statement, as though vocal levels led to love.

***

“Did you do your Christmas shopping yet?” my 19 year old brother asked me. I replied in the negative. I haven’t even entirely registered that this is the week before Christmas. We stopped at our grandparents after sledding:

“Well, if I don’t see you before, I’ll see you Friday,” my grandmother said.

“Friday?” I looked at her blankly. “What’s Friday?”

Okay, so it's a semi-sabbatical

2009-11-18T20:57:00.003-05:00

August 29 to November 18. I mean, that's a sabbatical, right? And I'm not really coming back, or making any commitments and still have grand plans for my little piece of cyberspace. But I missed this. Because I am an egoist and think people want to hear my thoughts.

I've had a lot of thoughts recently. This is probably a good thing, since I'm in college and thinking is kind of expected. I wish I could disseminate all of my thoughts to you, give you a taste of my intellectual angst, but I don't really know where to start. Ethics? Advertising? Globalization? Alternative energy, the future of civilization, what being civilized means,writing, loneliness, aloneness, being a loner vs. being independent, what the individual owes to society, what a country owes to the world, how we define ourselves, how to break free from materialistic consumption? The list is endless, people. I can't turn my brain off.

No, really. This is kind of a problem. I woke up at 5:30 this morning, and found myself contemplating commodity fetishism while waiting for the coffee to brew. This might be because I just wrote four pages about an ad for the Gap holiday collection run in the New York Times. (Totally just corrected that sentence for AP style. Please begin planning an intervention.) In case you were wondering, I argued that the ad uses counter-hegemonic visual and verbal rhetoric but promotes hegemonic social norms. The point is, I shouldn't be contemplating these sorts of things at freaking 5:30 in the morning. I should at least ease into it slowly, start by figuring out what I'm going eat for breakfast, say, before trying to solve my country's problems.

Let's talk about that last sentence for a minute, can we? It's definitely a judgement call. "Solve my country's PROBLEMS," (emphasis added). To some people, consumerism and materialism aren't a problem. This was driven home to me in one of my courses the other day. We were discussing Adbusters in class, and some people really had a problem seeing the problem. (I've got mixed thoughts on Adbusters, but that's a different post for a different day). That same day in a different class we looked at different forms of visual rhetoric, including a video on the contrast between life in the US and most of the rest of the world. Sometimes, the reactions of my classmates caught me by surprise.

It isn't until I'm in situations like this that I realize how out of the mainstream my thinking is. Situations where I suddenly realize that the important issues I contemplate on a regular basis haven't even crossed the minds of some of my peers. Where I suddenly realize that the people I am with are viewing the world– and their role in the world – from a very different standpoint than my own.

It makes me ask myself: Just what exactly do I believe? And why? It makes me step away from the comfortable circle I surround myself in – the magazine, the e-zines, the groups and people – that share my views, or challenge my views with other so called "radical" views.

Step away. What do you believe? Why? And what are you going to do about it?

Sabbatical

2009-08-29T09:25:00.004-04:00

Just in case you couldn't guess, I'm taking a break from blogging until I have a more focused and worthy sort of blog. Which will probably be linked to my personal website which only currently exists in very rough form. The goal is to have it up and running by the end of the fall semester, but, um, let's talk about what the semester looks like? Which is why I am "officially" going on sabbatical.* When I return, it will hopefully be on a more consistent basis.

*Subject to whims of personal desire, nature, divinity, sanity, etc.

Random Observations

2009-08-05T22:01:00.002-04:00

It's 10 o'clock and I should be in bed, but it's rather hard to convince myself of this fact. My day was entirely spent with 1 yr olds followed by an evening spent in a house full of 9-13 yr olds. (Okay, so there are only 4 of them, but it feels like more. And it sounds like even more. Honestly, how do the kids do it?) Now that the house is (nearly) silent, and I am actually in a room by myself I hate to give the silence over to sleep.

I actually had a long, self absorbed, whining and pitiful post written out - in long hand - in my head. It's probably best for the whole world if it stays there, so I'll just offer you a few random observations and then go read The Fellowship of the Ring and drink some tea for a bit.

Random Observation #1:

Tomorrow is my last day as an editorial intern at a magazine. I didn't expect to feel sad, but I kind of am. What will I do for the remaining 3 weeks of summer when I don't have an hour long lunch break twice a week with people my age? When I don't put on grown-up clothing twice a week and speak to others who answer in complete sentences? When I am forced to listen to Barney sing about his affection for me and my young charges without the respite of an entire day spent listening to my indie rock or chill stations on Pandora? My friends, the rest of this summer could be rather dire. Oh, and right. I won't be writing articles of a magazine anymore.

Random Observation #2:

Driving to work on Tuesday, I saw a bumper sticker that read "Art is freedom." I like that phrase, and it sparked a deep and intellectual conversation within myself for the next fifteen seconds.

Random Observation #3:

I would really like to have an adult meal some day. With, like, conversation. Conversation that does not revolve around telling people to sit down or not throw food or not smother everything in hot sauce or who is going to do what chore.

Random Observation #4:

It's a really bad idea to put granola in the fridge over night.

Random Observation #5:

I may have a serious issue with lying about fake boyfriends. It's just that, people are so gullible sometimes. And it's so fun. And also, I tell stories. It's just what I do. There are always stories in my mind and there isn't enough time to write them all down. At least most of them are never passed off as truth, but somehow postmen and gibbets and guys are easily believable fiction.

Lighten Up (The World is Waiting)

2009-07-27T19:43:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, when the day has been crappy and the world depressing, all you have to do is read the NY Times to remember that the world is a funny, crazy, beautiful, mixed up sort of place. It's a world that includes yoga music festivals and portaging canoes as art and bears as smart as humans.

What else is out there? You just have to dig a little...

Defining Irony Through Real Life Examples

2009-07-09T07:31:00.005-04:00

My great-grandmother used to say "Never say never," wisdom I readily acknowledge but utterly fail at following (or maybe it was my great-great-grandmother, but it's been passed down all the way to my mother, so it's immaterial).

Here's a list of things I once swore I would never do:

1) Study journalism

2) Attend Penn State

3) Work an office job

4) Work in childcare

5) Commute to college

6) Write romance

7) Continue studying Spanish

Guess how many of those things I've done. Go on, just take a wild stab.

Are you ready for this? Because the grand total of the list of 7 things I swore I'd never do but which I've ended up doing comes to...six. (If you guessed 7 we are no longer friends because I can't believe you think I've written romance. Please.)

As you pretty much all of you are aware by now (read my profile maybe?) when my sabbatical from college ended I found myself (literally, that's what it felt like) commuting to a Penn State branch campus. And then I was at main campus studying journalism, something else that just seemed to happen. Honestly. To round out my BA requirements, I found myself in a college Spanish course, and this summer my internship at a magazine includes the joys of working in a cubicle 9-5 and wearing business casual. In order to make money and afford a degree from a school I swore I would never attend, I'm working a job I swore I would never work - can you say 'daycare center'? Yeah, I have trouble saying it too.

As for writing romance? Still haven't succumbed to that. But you know, even if I become that desperate in life, I'll use a pen name.

Trusting God

2009-07-05T20:36:00.005-04:00

I started reading a book on trusting God today. It was given to me last semester, and I've left it sitting in my room wanting and not wanting to read it. I wasn't sure I was ready to hear glib Christians comments on trusting God. I wasn't sure I wanted to trust God.

But when there is no center to your life, it can start to feel repetitive, and today I felt that I at least needed to give some thought to the faith question. My biggest complaint against the church is it's fear of questions, but there I was, afraid to really face my own questions. To some, I know there aren't answers and even though questions without answers are the ones worth asking, they are difficult. Others, I don't even know what the question is. And for others, I am afraid to face them alone.

I picked up the book and started to read, and the experience was pretty much what I had predicted: I'd heard it before. Some of it I agreed with, some I didn't. It was good to face the issue, though, comforting in some way to read words and language that I've been hearing all my life. Language that might make me angry, language that I might find trite and unloving, but language I can also forgive. Because I've been there, tried to put things into words and failed, tried to describe divinity in human terms.

There was nothing extraordinary that the book taught me, but it made one things very clear in my mind: I am tired of being told what to think. I am tired of feeling boxed in, scripture so familiar that the struggle is not in understanding it, but it in approaching it openly and without preconceptions. If I am going to follow this faith, then I will not be afraid of questions.

–––

This post is a little more open than I envisioned it being, a little more honest and straight forward. I'm tempted to edit it, but I am also tired of hypocrisy. More on that later...

June Is Nearly Over (and other obvious statements of that nature)

2009-06-30T23:59:00.000-04:00

I realized this evening that I only posted once in all of June. I realized I must remedy that even though I don't have much to write. Or, rather, I don't have the energy to write much. At the same time that I feel certain it is better to end June with two posts instead of one, I also feel certain that it would be better to let June stand as the month in which I only posted once. And I also feel certain that quoting some T.S. Eliot is probably what everybody needs right now. Since this last certainty is very certain indeed, a selection from Burnt Norton follows. And in order to satisfy my mind on all accounts, I'll schedule this to post at 11:59 pm - as possible as it is to reach the edge of time and melding of June and July.

"Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves

I do not know."

Stories Without Endings

2009-06-20T16:33:00.004-04:00

I opened my short story folder today, giving one a last read through before submitting it to a magazine. (Sometime between today and 60 days from now, I will probably be able to add another rejection to my file.)

Down at the bottom of the folder was a file named 'untitled' and last modified on 8/4/08. Intrigued, I opened it. What I found falls into either the category of "Sad Things" or the category of "Exciting Things", depending on your temperament and outlook. Today, it strikes me as sad, because this is truly a story without ending. I don't know what I had in mind - I'm not even certain if both parts were written at the same time, if they were even supposed to go together.

In fact, I probably didn't know where it was headed when I began, either. Maybe one day I'll work it into something. Maybe it will never grow anymore than this. Maybe it doesn't deserve to.

Here it is - tantalizing, distressing, uncompleted:

It started out as the perfect idea: perfect in inception, perfect in every way. Even other people they told it to thought it was prefect. The execution of the idea. Now that was another thing. Somehow, the perfect plan was far from the perfect action.

She never could understand it, even years later, when she woke up and stared at his sleeping face, lying just inches away on the pillow but somehow miles, ages, eons apart. How could she be so lonely when they were so together? And where, in all of its dazzling perfection, had the plan gone wrong? Where had things misfired between the inception and the beginning, the beginning and the completion, the completion and now.

She spent those waking hours, in the middle of the night while everything around her slept, trying to follow back the twisting and tangled threads, trying to cut through the Gordian knot that their perfect plan had somehow managed to snarl into. She would lay her finger along the beginning - here, where it started, and try to trace it; trace it past all the others saying how wonderful, brilliant, how perfect. Trace it past the planning, the giddy excitement because they were planning the perfect path the perfect choices because everything would be the way they wanted it and the way it should be. Trace it into the beginning, into the heady days with the early success, the freedom and the thrill and pleasure. Keep it, keep following, keep watching. But now the threads started to tangle, now the pattern changed and she couldn’t follow it with her eye anymore.

She pressed harder and harder, until her eyes hurt from thinking and her brain hammered against her skull, until she unconsciously bit her hand, bit hard and harder, pain clearing her mind and letting her think. But it didn’t, because something had gone wrong. They had follow the blueprint so dutifully, and still something had snapped. Something, somehow, had failed.

She would slip out of bed while he still slept, walk into the bathroom with blood dripping from her hand. Water, gauze, antiseptic, tape. Then the kitchen: water in the kettle, kettle on the stove, tea scooped into the pot. The waiting. The waiting...it always happened when she was waiting.

For a moment she would see the instant, the single simple knot that started the snarl and then it would be gone. She would let the kettle boil dry while she tried to remember, but she could never remember. She only knew that there had been a single, certain instant and that it had been her fault.

---

He leaned across the bar, trying very hard to make things clear, to make her understand. “Pain. Pain is what makes it better. Do you see? The pain makes things clearer, because you can’t think about other things. Just the pain, at first, and then you learn to stop thinking about the pain and concentrate all that thought onto one other thing. Just one other. No distractions, because if you stop and think about something else there’s the pain to bring you back.”

He frowned at his hands where they lay on the smooth counter. They were covered in thin scars, weals of skin running across his hands. They looked like extra veins and the desert ground. They were mesmerizing, and she didn’t get up and walk away.

“They’re like a graph that plots everything I think. It’s a map of my mind, only I lost the legend and I don’t know where the paths lead anymore.” He turned his hands over, flexed them under the dim lights, stared at them as if he’d never seen them before.

“Each time I try to answer a new question, an important one, I cut another to remind me. But what good is a reminder if you don’t know what it’s for?” He raised his eyes to her’s and they were puzzled.

“I think about a lot of things, and I think if I think long enough, if there’s enough pain, I’ll find the answer. There’s truth in pain, isn’t there? Because otherwise, why would there be so much of it?”

She stopped looking at his face, because it was too full of longing and to ernest and too open. He looked back at his hands, bewildered, closing and opening them, watching scars ripple like waves across his knuckles.

Her friends came and said they were leaving, was she going with them? She looked at his hands, reached out and touched a finger criss-crossed by his thoughts. She shook her head no.

Knight of Betrayal

2009-05-15T22:32:00.003-04:00

Back in the dark ages of 2004, I had just made myself fairly authentic garb and was in desperate need of a really fun reason to wear it (I mean, besides washing the dishes or something). So I came up with this medieval extravaganza mystery party improve drama reenactment LARP...thing. It was called 'Robbery at the Wayside' and we converted our home into a medieval inn and managed to fill it with a crowd ranging in age from 5 - 75, all pretending to be characters that I had spent months worth of hours writing. The plot was loosely based around a theft, and we did (sort of) solve the mystery, but mostly the night was just some crazy sort of fun. Lots of shouting, lot's of m'lord and m'lady, men in hose, telling tall tales about exploits on the crusades, and dancing country dances. All in all, an amazing evening.

I've wanted to throw another night of medieval madness ever since, but what with one thing and another, never got around to it. But now, my friends and foes, behold! (and also, check out the website I made for the event. I'm just a little bit proud of it.)

Knight of Betrayal

June 13, 2009

The year is 1252 Anno Domini : it is a year of bloodshed, and of fear and of superstition. Your small village of Stretton is nothing but charred rubble and you have joined the other survivors at The Black Plowe. At any day, any moment, your enemies may return...

The unexpected arrival of Sir Walter Admound brings a glimmer of hope - until he demands the death of one you, a fugitive of the law. Unless the man is handed over to be punished, Sir Walter will leave. Capture him, and the knight promises his protection to the death of the last of his men.

Will you betray one of your own to save your life? Or will you aide in his escape? Can you trust Sir Walter’s promise of protection? Will it be enough? And is the fugitive truly guilty?

Beware, friends! All is not what it appears...

Today

2009-05-07T11:42:00.003-04:00

Today, there are problems in my life: I have a brutal headache, I need to unpack my life from my car to my room, I have a final to finish, I need to find a job, I need to shop for clothing suitable for my internship. Then there are the bigger problems: the little sister (still) waiting in Taiwan, friends going through had times, questions that can't be answered...

Today, there is another problem. Today, there are over 15 million children orphaned by AIDS. Today, another estimated 6,000 children will be added to that number. Today is World AIDS Orphans Day.

By 2010, the number of AIDS orphans will be at least 20 million. These children are left without parents, facing discrimination and exploitation. Less then 1 out of 10 of these children receive help. Those are a lot of numbers, cold statistics and facts. And those are only a few.

But these are kids, too: stories, faces, names - lives. You can read some on the WAOD website here. And if you look over to the right, under the organizations links, you'll notice Forgotten Voices International. FVI is a non-profit working with local churches and communities in southern Africa, helping them meet the needs of AIDS orphans. You can read the stories of some of the kids and leaders they work with. And while you're there, check out how you can get involved.

The world AIDS crises is called a crises for a reason. It's overwhelmingly large and there is no easy solution. And for most of us, there doesn't seem to be much we can do. But even if you can't donate to groups working for a solution, even if you can't pack up your life and join a cause, even if you can't adopt - you have a voice. If you're reading this, you have a computer, the internet: educate yourself, educate others, spread the word.

Some links to get you started:

World AIDS Orphans Day

Forgotten Voices International

Full House, Full Hands, Full Hearts - an adoptive mom and passionate advocate for HIV+ kids.

FXB - International non-profit working towards sustainable solutions for AIDS orphans

AHOPE for Children - non-profit caring for HIV+ orphans in Ethiopia

Heifer International - a group which provides livestock and training to combat hunger and poverty, they have an AIDS campaign as well.

And those are just a few I happen to know of.

The Semester is Three Weeks Too Long

2009-04-30T21:26:00.004-04:00

So I have this article to write. It's a feature story, the final piece for one of my COMM classes. I've known about it for, oh, a month or so. I mean, technically, I've known about it since the beginning of the semester since it's on the syllabus, but who the hell reads past the first page of the syllabus? Besides people like me who like to start procrastinating way in advance.

This article is due tomorrow. At midnight. Seriously? I have eons of time. Except, dammit, I want the semester to be over. And the sooner this is done, the closer that day approaches.

So I've sort of been writing at it all week. By that I mean I conducted the final interview on Monday. And, um, wrote a couple of really fantastically horrible paragraphs on Wednesday. And then wrote a few more slightly less horrible ones today. I've got about three or four more pages of horrible paragraphs to go. Hopefully, once they are all strung together, they will sound less horrible.

The problem is actually writing the stupid paragraphs in the first place because apparently? I cannot write. It's like spring fever and writers block and senior slump and end of the semester all rolled into one! It's amazing! I have caught up and gotten ahead in every single blog I read and found new ones! And I just used up my quota of exclamation marks for the rest of the summer. Hopefully this article doesn't require any. If it ever gets written. Maybe I should take out that neglected syllabus and see how badly it will hurt my grade if I just ignore the assignment?

I am so ready to graduate. And I have three semesters left. Do you realize I will be 24 by the time I have my BA? Maybe I'll have a real job by the time I'm 30!

Fellow Millennials

2009-04-27T20:09:00.006-04:00

I was sitting on a stone wall, eating my sandwich and studying Spanish, enjoying the sun and sudden summer weather. A girl walked past on her cell phone, deeply involved in a highly indignant conversation - about being tagged in a Facebook note.

There is nothing as entertaining as Facebook drama. Nothing as entertaining or as depressingly sad.

I worry about my generation, sometimes. About the cell phone conversations I overhear on the bus. About the discussions going on around me before class. About notes on Facebook and entries on blogs and photos on flickr.

We need to find a bigger thing to think about, things a little more important to consume our time than Facebook, or our plans on a Thursday evening. The world and its problems and our lives are in front of us - and they won't go away, no matter what Facebook changes its terms of use to.

Eventually, we are going to be the ones 'in charge' and as a generation, we need to grow up. Take responsibility. Lose ourselves and find others. Maybe in doing so, we'll find something of ourselves that was lost in a sea of technology, find real community and real connection that no social networking can provide.

There's so much more to life, if we'd only look up from our screens, turn off our iPods, and re-engage in life.

"Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."

-Tennyson

Some Days Are Poetry

2009-04-25T18:00:00.003-04:00

It must have been a day like today when e. e. cummings wrote "i thank You God for most this amazing." And because this day is a beautiful one, and because this poem is one of my favorites, I think it demands to be shared.

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any -- lifted from the no

of all nothing -- human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

2009-04-24T08:58:00.001-04:00

From xkcd - go look (and laugh)!

Every Day is Earth Day!

2009-04-23T08:36:00.003-04:00

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow."

- Theodore Roethke

The semester is winding down, and for once in my academic career the work is actually winding down as well. Oh, there are still two tests, essay revisions, a creative nonfiction piece on beginnings, a final feature article, and two finals - but none of that is immediate. I slept in until 8 this morning. 8 o'clock! It was exciting, my friends.

The weekend was one of amazing fun (Rent! Driving! Friends! Brie Cheese! Graveyards! Chocolate! Dead Robins!), but it was full of People and Social Activities. Introvert that I am, I needed to recharge. So I bought fage yogurt (yep - some people buy ice cream, I buy yogurt) and spent the evening curled up on my bed reading "Frankenstein."

Best part? I didn't even have to feel guilty in the least because it was an assigned reading. Second best part? The book was good - I pretty much read the whole thing in one sitting. This was a surprise, because when I was around 8,9,10? my family tried to listen to "Frankenstein" during a long car ride. I was deathly bored. Not so much, this time around. I like my fiction with a hefty dose of philosophy.

Some find themselves sympathizing with Frankenstein, some with his creature. Personally, I'm drawn to Walton: Thwarted in his dreams, thwarted in his desire for a friend, wavering between devil and saint. I find him a sympathetic character and, perhaps, the only hero of the tale. Although, I could make a case for Frankenstein as a tragic hero.

And now, glancing at the title of this post, which is completely unrelated to the post, I have only one word: stet.

(Because it's true - Go hug a tree!)

Hello, My Name is Breka and...

2009-04-14T20:18:00.005-04:00

I am a little worried that posting twice in one day will cause my blog to implode (can blogs implode? even if they don't physically exist?) but I am in desperate need of a procrastination method besides making tea. Actually, no, I am in desperate need of an intervention for my procrastination habit (and probably my tea/coffee habit).

Except - I don't have a procrastination problem. I just like to procrastinate every now and then, you know, when I'm hanging out with friends or trying to have some alone time. Or if I'm really stressed or if I'm really laid back. Everybody procrastinates now and then, right?

The problem is that I have to finish and submit a scholarship application tonight. And yes, I know it is 8:30 p.m. already. I hate scholarship essays. I hate them nearly as much as I hate cover letters, resumes and queries.

Which is saying a lot, because the only thing I might have felt more hatred towards was asparagus when I was 10. I used to name the asparagus Fred and march them around my plate before biting their heads off because becoming a blood thirsty, unmerciful, burning eyed monster was the only way to deal with them. True story.

You know what else is a true story? I bought asparagus at the store this week and have been enjoying it lightly steamed for lunch and dinner. Sometimes I still name it Fred and bite it's head off. Old habits die hard.

And the award for 'Young Idealist' goes to...

2009-04-14T08:26:00.003-04:00

"Idealist" my political science prof scrawled on the board the first day of class. "If you don't know what that word means, look it up," he said, turning to the class. "That is what all of you should be. Because if you aren't that now, you never will be, and we need idealists."

I am nothing if not an idealist. I flatter myself by thinking that I am a realistic idealist, but seriously? I'm just a young 20-something, dreaming crazy dreams and demanding more from life and myself than a steady job, a house, a car, 2.4 kids and money in the bank.

That call to idealism from my prof, to starry eyed dreaming and audacious hope, was encouraging, affirmation that these years can be spent doing something other than grooming for a career. The world does need idealists, people willing to break patterns and insist that things can be different. The world asks for idealist, raises kids on phrases like 'think outside of the box,' 'be your own person,' 'reach for the stars,' 'girl power.' But then, those kids reach working age, head to college - and suddenly the stars are high paying jobs and being your own person means having power. Somehow, there is a disconnect: change things, but be cynical about it. Dream - realistically. Think outside of the box, but don't break it, and stick to the well defined area around the box, that shady area we won't admit is really part of the box because going outside of that? That's entering deviance, that's leaving the killing comfort of the norm.

Snark and cynicism are the default. But cynicism doesn't take risks, and anything worth doing requires risking something.

And Maybe a Moose

2009-04-11T22:40:00.004-04:00

"When you don't know what to do, just do the next thing."

That's the best piece of advice that I was ever given. I don't remember who said it - possibly the former pastor of my old church, but he might have been quoting someone else. It's good advice. I constantly remind myself to take things a day at a time, like paddling a canoe down a twisting river, never knowing what rock or moose you might face next but not being able to do anything about it until they show up.

Maybe that is a strange metaphor to you, but for me it makes perfect sense. My family often went canoeing in Maine in the summers, a week of near-perfect life (except for the mosquitoes) paddling the river in the day and camping at night. The first time my sister and I were in our own canoe it was much lighter than our parents' boat. They shoved us off from shore and we were gone, carried by the river. Soon we were around the bend, our family gone from sight. I was in the bow, uncertain, on a faster river than I remembered with more rocks, and suddenly, shockingly, terrified. What if there was a split, or a turn? What if we went the wrong way? There aren't street signs on the Penobscot river. What if we hit a rock? Or a moose?

But we didn't. At least, not then, and after my heart decided to return to it's habitual place, and my terror turned to laughter, Annie and I started singing. We'd take things as they came. And besides, our parents were Master Paddlers - they'd catch us. We had the lunch.

It's easy and direct in a canoe. The river, the paddle, the boat, the rocks and you (and maybe a moose). But in life, it's not so easy. What do you do when you don't know what the next thing is? When there are two choices, and you don't know which is right - and you don't even know which is better. When you have no idea where your life is headed, because you've just been doing the next thing and no longer plan more than a few months ahead? When things change by the year and the month and the week? When suddenly, the next thing is unknown?

The Evening I Have Wasted

2009-04-09T19:06:00.004-04:00

A minute ago, I was walking in the door and it was 5 pm and I had the evening before me to pack and read and maybe even write. And now I look at the clock and it is 7 pm. How did that happen? Seriously, that's what went through my mind. How did it become 7 already? How did it go from being early evening to pretty much early nighttime. Little kids get sent to bed at seven! This extended daylight out my window is a tricksy thing.

To make things worse, a certain quote that is making me feel very guilty:

The day you have wasted, is the one that the person who died the day before wanted so much.

- Hyun Woo Yang.

That's a really inspirational, guilt ridden quote that is now going to haunt me forever. I'm so glad I came across it.

Let's reconstruct my evening, shall we? Discover the answer to the mystery of 'where did the time go?' (Related to the just as vexing question of 'What happened to the socks in the dryer?')

First, I washed the dishes. Exciting, I know. Then I dashed off a quick email to the student from Taiwan who's coming to join my family for Easter. Looked up song lyrics. Started putting away laundry. Said student called. We talked. I was distracted by blogs. Went back to putting away laundry. Was distracted by my cell phone and called a friend. In a moment of pure serendipity and possibly a dash of miracle, the friend actually answered her phone. We talked. My mom called. We talked. I was distracted by Facebook. I realized that it was 7 o'clock and that drastic measures were needed to redeem the time. So I wrote a really unessential blog post.

Yeah, that about sounds like it accounts for 2 hours of my life. Sorry, person that died yesterday. Really.

Life at the Speed of Blur

2009-03-31T10:23:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting half dressed, my hair wrapped in a towel, staring at the intro paragraph to my paper on the signifigance and use of the words 'Free/Freely/Freedom' in Milton's Paradise Lost. The only thing I can think is, wow, this is a really bad opening paragraph. Time is ticking down: 2.5 hours to class time.

More than enough time, really, but somewhere in there will be grabbing food and getting dressed and stopping by the computer lab to print the paper. Food and clothing are difficult, today. I've been wearing the same hoodie for the past three days, and I think it's about time to change. I haven't been to the grocery store and am down to peanut butter and jelly but low on bread. I might have tuna.

Two point five hours and I'll hand this paper off to my prof and a week or two later get it back, look at the grade and shove it in a folder. If I'm feeling industrious or bored before my next class I might read it one last time. I will probably not remember most of it. The topic is interesting and the poem is great, but writing it has been a blur.

That's the way it is with most class assignments - with most things. A blur of activity and it's done. I guess that's why I've dropped some activities: I don't do life at the speed of blur.

I like room for contemplation, meditation - slow thought. Just chill, I want to tell the world, If you pause and think, some things might suddenly seem less important. But the world is on speed, and I have 2.5 hours for this paper. And after the paper, a list of 13 other items to be finished Thursday evening.

Just chill. If I pause and think, some things might suddenly seem less important.

Things I've Cooked and How They Rate

2009-03-21T10:39:00.005-04:00

Today's Brunch:

With spinach, eggplant, olives and green pepper it would have been hard for this omelet to fail. I sauteed the vegetables before adding them to the omelet - which had to be two eggs to fit them all. With a slice of whole wheat toast (nearing the end of last week's loaf) and a pot of coffee (it's a small one) this is way more food than I normally consume in the morning. But it's nearly 11, so we'll call it brunch. All in all: Epic Success

Yesterdays Dinner:

Never shop when you're hungry, because if you're like me, you'll end up buying eggplant and then realize that's something you've never personally cooked before, just eaten. (You'll also buy olives and feel guilty over the cost but they will be so worth it.) If you do find yourself with eggplant, let me recommend a grilled eggplant sandwich. I pre-cooked eggplant 'steaks' and sprinkled them with cheese, then added spinach and olives and shoved the whole thing inside a pita. It would have been better actually grilled, with a charred taste, but even without it gets a high rating: Epic Success

Thursday's Supper:

I threw adobo, olive oil, some water and a little garlic, crushed red pepper, and cilantro in a pan and then added eggplant, green peppers, and corn. Once it was cooking nicely I added a serving of cooked brown rice, and then warmed up left over frijoles. It looked great, it smelled great, and it probably would have tasted great. But I don't know where my analytical ability was when I added the adobo because WOW. Sodium overkill. The meal required two glasses of water. The rating? Epic Fail.

Wednesday's Supper:

Starting with a base of crushed tomatoes, I added eggplant, green pepper, corn, and onion and brought it all to a simmer. There were some spices, too, but they slip my mind at the moment. Served over brown rice, it made a meal. Not stunning, not objectionable the meal rates: Better Than Peanut Butter

Economic Woes (with a twist)

2009-03-19T07:23:00.003-04:00

Do you ever get sick of hearing about the economy? Because I know I do. Open the NY Times and count the number of articles on the homepage that are about the economy. I dare you. No wait, you know what? I'm feeling nice this morning (or maybe I'm just not feeling the whole study for Comm Law and Spanish thing) so I'll count them for you: Eleven. 11/22 obviously chattering about the economy in the headline or lead. We're even talking about the economy in view of museums and basketball. The general consensus seems to be that if you want to keep your readers interested? Talk about the economy! Because the economy causes atrocities like pastel pants to suddenly be back in style! Are we reverting to childhood, to those happy days when AIG meant we messed up the order of the alphabet song, and an economic crisis was not being given 25¢ for the gumball machine?

Well. This reader is no longer interested. At least not this morning, at least not right now. Because I know the economy is important but I could do with some optimism this morning. (My daily 'And now for the good news' update from Ode magazine didn't entirely fit the bill because it pointed me towards the somewhat disturbing Times article about a coed commune dedicated to...female sexuality. Please Ode, I'd already been damaged by stumbling across that article yesterday morning. It sounds so...Roman temple-esque.)

So, friends: What's good? What's going on in the world that we can all be happy about? And if it's tied into the economy, like people volunteering or saving others from being run over by trains, that's cool with me. (Although, just to be clear, I'm pretty certain Mr. Lindsey would have saved the guy in a good economy as well. And dang, 'Mr. Lindsey'? What do I think this is? A news story?)

And although too much joy can be dangerous, with the current societal pessimism I doubt we have to worry about that. Just don't go manic on me and electrocute yourself in joyful ecstasy. And if you do? Delete your web browser history first - I refuse to take the blame.

Cheers, all. I have an exam to study for...

In Which Our Lives Do Not Suck

2009-03-16T06:57:00.003-04:00

"I mean, I've never seen a hot librarian before,"the kid working the cash register said to the guy in front of us. I turned around to exchange stifled laughter with my sister and cousin. The phrase 'hot librarian' did sound slightly oxymoronic, at least coming from a teenage boy.

The three of us were having a crepes night, a 'tradition' we'd started the weekend before (and which may or may not continue, according to our whims), and had made the 10 minute trek to the corner store to pick up some heavy whipping cream. Spirits were high.

Alex plopped the small blue carton on the counter, handed the boy dollar, and dug out 50¢. We discussed among ourselves the excitement in having nearly exact change.

"If I'd brought the 2¢ in my wallet, we would have been even closer!" Annie said, and the three of us agreed that had that been the case, our excitement would have known no bounds.

"You know your life sucks when you get excited about having enough change," the kid said, ringing up our purchase.

The three of us exchanged bemused glances. Had he really just told us that our lives sucked? How was one supposed to respond to that?

The kid must have picked up on the slight awkwardness of the moment, adding "You know what I mean?"

We gave him a combined, unspoken and noncommittal reply and left the store.

"My life does not suck," Alex announced, rather defiantly, as we climbed back into my car.

I agreed, and we decided that maybe his life sucked and for that reason correct change made him happy, but ours did not. As Annie pointed out, who buys heavy cream when life truly sucks?

Then things became serious - serious in the way things can get when three friends are hanging out and making French pastries. We lamented our lack of whatever it is that would have been frank with the kid, that would have said, um, actually, no. (And you could feel that way too! For only $10.99!)

"I wish I'd explained to him that my life doesn't suck, and partly it doesn't suck because I do get excited about little things - like correct change," I said. I wished I'd taken a moment to explain to that kid that unless he started getting excited about correct change he's not going to survive life. Or maybe I should say, he'll probably survive (as much as anyone does, when life comes with a 100% likelihood of ending in death), but he won't live life.

And so my friends, go ye forth and do likewise. Make crepes, and pay for cream with exact change, and get excited. And then tell the kid at the register, the one whose hair is falling in his face and is talking to his friend at the next register and obviously thinks you are completely uncool - tell him about living a life where you notice the small things, and that takes a bad day and makes it okay, elevates an okay day to a good one, and makes the good ones like eating a warm crepe with chocolate and fresh whipped cream.

Notes to the Unknown

2009-03-04T07:58:00.002-05:00

To the guy three rows ahead of me in my Comm Law class:
I should not have been able to make out the words of the song you were listening to. Pretty sure you have ruined your hearing for life. I hope the music was worth it.

To the guy that stepped back and let me get on the bus ahead of you:
Wow. Thanks. Maybe gentlemen do still exist.

To the girl that waited an extra 3 seconds so the door didn't close on my face:
Thank you! Particularly considering the freezing weather.

To the kid behind me boasting about being drunk until 6 the day before:
Honestly man, that's just pitiful.

To the girl singing while walking to class:
You have a lovely voice. Thanks for making that morning a bit brighter.

To the guy I almost threw a container of tomato sauce on at work:
Sorry 'bout that. Glad you found it as amusing as I did.

Advertising Myself

2009-02-13T17:43:00.003-05:00

The play that I wrote, "Almost the Weekend", is being performed at the Penn State York campus in Room 114 of the Pullo Arts Center at noon on Feb. 24, 25, and 27 and at 7 p.m. on Feb. 26.

The play awarded second place, "Liar, Liar," by Megan Shawver will be performed at the same time. (I got to see an abbreviated version of Megan's play in class, and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing. Hopefully it's humor will make up for the rather bleak nature of mine.)

Food & I: A Romance Story

2009-02-13T17:41:00.000-05:00

I love food. I love cooking it, smelling it, cutting it, tasting it. I love looking at it. The mere existence of certain foods make me happy. I love the way a good meal is satisfying on so many levels besides stopping hunger. I love the way food and memory are almost one in the same, and you can never recreate the exact taste of an amazing meal, but at the same time a single bite of food can bring back a myriad of memories.

I love food almost as much as I love words.

This probably comes as a surprise to some of you that know me. But she barely eats! you’re might be thinking, and you’re right. Meals are a problem for me. Eating is an inconvenience. If I could make it through a busy day without eating, I probably would. Loving food does not mean loving eating. Eating just so I’m not hungry, just so my body keeps running and my mind functioning, that is not satisfying.

A few days ago I stir fried vegetables and threw them over rice for lunch. An excellent meal, one of my favorites. It was completely ruined by being inhaled in under fifteen minutes while at the same time finding all the books and papers and pens I needed for that afternoon.

The reason I tend to eat as little as possible, is that I simply love food too much.

All of this begs the question: If I am so in love with food, why on earth am I having so much trouble writing a food article for my class? An article with a scope so broad (food!) and on something I am in some ways passionate about?

Probably because every writing assignment I have ever been handed that I think “oh, that should be fun” ends up causing more headache then the ones that make me groan and curl into the fetal position beneath my desk...

Title? Seriously? Do you think this is a book?

2009-02-08T13:54:00.002-05:00

I am writing an obituary for a living man, which besides being a rather morbid undertaking is also surprisingly difficult. I feel like I should send some fan mail, to offset the bad karma. I mean, really, making up a real person's death? Wouldn't it be horrible if there it was in the paper the next day? Really, if Guillermo del Toro dies anytime soon you will find me locking myself in an asylum and promising I had nothing to do with it.

I wish I had some deeper thoughts to share with you, or, you know, something interesting and actually worth reading. But all my mental effort right now is going towards settling down and actually finishing this assignment without thinking every five minutes of everything else I should/could be doing. One day I might actually start blogging again. Really. But, you know, it might not be anytime soon. Don't hold your breath is all I'm saying...

So it Begins

2009-01-14T12:12:00.003-05:00

It feels like something is missing, some important part of me; a limb, maybe, or my cerebral cortex. I feel lost, aimlessly wandering like a ghost that doesn't know what it left undone. 'It's only a computer...it's only a computer,' I tell myself, but telling myself does not help. It is missing, and like it or not, my computer has become a part of me. Today, I found my way to the computer lab I knew existed but couldn't find and there, there in the back row, was a shining line of white. iMacs. I had come home.

Of course, now that I have found a temporary home for my technological soul, there are no more excuses and I must work. Or so I am trying to tell myself. This happens at the beginning of every semester. I sit down, and realize - I am so not ready to be back in school.

Between Times

2009-01-09T21:42:00.001-05:00

These are strange moments, ones where you hesitate on the edge between what is and what is about to be. All around and behind you is the known, and before and in front of you is the unknown. There is so much hinging on the unknown; desires, goals, fears, plans. You can only have hazy half formed ideas of how things will slowly move from the realm of future to the realm of present. It seems almost that it would be easier to hesitate, stop time from moving and teeter forever on the edge of what might be and what will be. That way, no hopes are dashed, no fragile hard earned gains are lost.

Hesitating is so easy. You could waste a lifetime in hesitation.

But time won’t stand still, and slowly minutes pass and the future yesterdays move closer. You know that nothing is forever; if you have learned nothing else in life you have learned that. Nothing is forever, and sometimes you use this phrase to comfort and sometimes to mourn and make sense of mourning.

Change. Beginning. Starting over - again. Strange the way life is continuous and everything can be traced to others and everything changes both the past and future (because the past can be changed because the past is memory and memory is volatile) and yet: it is so distinct. Here, this section with these times, places, people and lessons. There another, with these failures, these successes. Another, there, and certain emotions encapsulated forever, certain moments you didn’t notice at the time that now make up the whole of what that time was.

You can never start over, and no change is the whole change you want from it. You are always dragging the past behind you, and even if it is a simple past, a light one that doesn’t often get in the way - it is still there. And the beginnings will never really be beginnings but continuations, life a series of lives with the same protagonist and you can only hope that each sequel is better than the last.

The Obligatory New Years Post (2 days late)

2009-01-02T20:36:00.004-05:00

It's now 8:37 pm on Friday, January 2nd 2009. I think we can conclude that the New Year has officially begun and the world did not end in a rain of giant fire lizards or similar catastrophes of that sort. (Although, would a rain of giant fire lizards really be catastrophic? How giant is giant? And would they die when they hit the ground? Or wreck havoc on the unknowing earthlings?) Despite the fact that I wouldn't mind seeing an actual giant fire lizard, I guess the as yet young year is a happy one.

Ergo, Happy New Year. (Exclamation points cost extra. Besides, I'm still reserving judgement. Little bitter about the lack of fire lizards.)

Funny the way every year feels the same. Of course, lots of things change too... (Warning: Approaching Moment of Reflection. Assume Delays. Objects In Mirror May be Closer Than They Appear.)

In 2008 I: served a lot of coffee, wrote a lot, discovered that 4 younger brothers is a lot, got very good at enrolling (and withdrawing) from colleges, drove a lot, never once left the country (not even to Canada!), drank a lot of coffee, laughed a lot, cried a lot (and then a little more), helped a lot of people move, changed my major, yelled at the dog a lot, slept a lot less than I wanted to, failed to make my bed a lot, did a lot of loads of laundry (but probably not as many as I should have), spent a lot of time online, and did not read nearly enough good books. I think I did other things, too.

And that's pretty much it. I mean, minus a lot of angst and stuff.

Enjoy 2009 - leave the country, read books, drink coffee, eat good food, do crazy things, think about attempting to learn from last years mistakes - I plan to.

Finals Week

2008-12-16T11:03:00.005-05:00

Outside, it doesn't know it if wants to sleet or rain or snow. It seems to be settling on all three in succession. I am inside and fine with that. When I walked from my theatre final to the main classroom building on campus, there was very fine hail that was rain on the sidewalk but tiny pebbles of ice in my jacket pockets. It was windy, and even though I had just fixed my hair after the damage done to it while writing essays, when I reached the next building it was windblown and had mostly escaped the elastic.

I smiled a lot and said 'thank you' a lot when I was presented with the award for my play, and after all the hand shakes and photos and friendly laughter, the congratulations and discussion of plans, I was back out in the chilly wetness and a story was already taking shape in my mind:

It was dark when it happened. There was pain, and blood. That is what I remember. I am sorry that is all there is, that I can't ease you into my story with some delicate, detailed description, some gentle or even mystical thoughts to win you over and make you trust me. That is what there was: pain, darkness, and blood.

There is more to the story, more that I wrote at the kitchen table still wearing my scarf, my bag and books left on the floor. It isn't a very good story, yet. I don't understand it myself. I'm not sure it will ever become a good story. But there are words on a page and they are there only because I want them there and because they want to be there.

I am finding it difficult to study for my last exam. It isn't until Thursday night. It is macroeconomics. The stories are so much more important. Yesterday, I re-read the new beginning of my novel. On Friday, the semester is over. I cannot wait to write.

Hold that thought

2008-12-14T17:15:00.003-05:00

Remember I said I was changing my major to media studies? Well, I lied.

I actually switched to journalism.

I have now been officially enrolled in three different institutions of higher education in three different states, two schools, four majors, and switched from a B.S. to a B.A.*

I think this has to be the last. It feels right. Fits right. Sounds right. And it should only take 3 more semesters.

*Okay, so all the official enrollment business in GMC didn't really count but it sounds really impressive.

2008-12-11T09:37:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas...

From Central PA.

R.I.P Rudolph

(It seems someone was a little overly zealous this hunting season.)

Study Break

2008-12-07T21:24:00.004-05:00

Right now, I am writing a sociology paper (obviously - writing it at the same time as this post because I am amazing like that). Actually, I'm writing a section of a sociology paper about domestic terrorism, the section on the political aspects and what will happen politically with a rise in domestic terrorism. I'm also writing an intro and conclusion paragraph and a section on why the plans currently in place will or won't work to protect communities.

Whew. Got all that?

Seriously it's not that hard. I actually sort of like the topic. I know what I want to say. It's just the saying it, you know? Making it sound academic and putting in citations. While I was stalking friends on facebook - I mean, writing my paper - Kai came in.

"You know that I can unlock mom and you door with my finger nail?" he asked conspiratorially. I pretended to be duly impressed.

"What you were watching?"
"Nothing. I'm writing a paper." He looked skeptical. Drat the child, he must have walked in while I was still on facebook.

"I was looking at pictures of a friend," I amended.
"Oh." He still looked skeptical. "He eh?" Which is a sound effect that goes along with a specific head movement and is used to denote someone that is dead. I had absolutely no idea where that question came from. Does he think that a lot of my friends are dead?

"Um, no."

Discovering that the friend in question is still alive and well, Kai lost all interest and hijacked my computer instead. (Speaking of domestic terrorism...) We agreed that he would write my paper, but between the language and age barrier there seemed to be some sort of miscommunication. The following is Kai's take on the politics of domestic terrorism (parenthetical comments are my corrections of his spelling):

kaiwei to(o) good.

i lake(like) dog. my dog is crazy. i sade(sad) my dog is crazy. you sade(sad) to(o) or no? yes im (i am). we have tow (two) dog one is black little dog the other dog is brown and white big dog. my dog always fighting. because my dog lake(likes) to play.

my bad(bed) is comfy because is for kaiwei.
that why my bad(bed) is comfy.
my mom and (dad) is crazy and funny.

It's very symbolic, you see. The dogs represent society and the government and the bed is, er, um, the bed is...it's very deep, the meaning. Really.

So maybe I should just write the paper on my own instead:

Domestic terrorism is bad. Fear. Societal reaction. Politics of fear. Society of common risk. Deviants. The 'Other'. Discourse of fear. Victimisation. Moral panic. Enabling environment. Folk devils. Politicians. USA PATRIOT Act ad infiitum. No more democracy. The End.

Some days just start out really well...

2008-12-05T21:25:00.002-05:00

Take Tuesday as an example. I opened my inbox to this:

"Congratulations. Your play, Almost the Weekend, was selected as the winner of the Pullo Center's New Play Competition. I'll be contacting you about your prize and a possible (likely) production in the spring."

And I thought personalized rejections were exciting...

In other big news, I'm switching my major (again - I know) to Media Studies. No, I don't know what I plan to do with that. Except hopefully break the changing majors habit.

I'll keep you posted about the possible (likely) production of my play. Excitement!

Dear Sarah-Grace,

2008-11-26T10:22:00.004-05:00

Last night, I threw my clothes on your bed when I took them off. I'll probably do the same thing when I leave for work this afternoon. You need to come home soon, so I learn to put them in the laundry basket. Maybe I'll try to be the responsible big sister and start making my bed, too.

In your last update there was a picture of you hanging from monkey bars - I think you'll like the trees in the back yard. Sometimes I hang upside down from the branches, just to get a new perspective.

Every time we get a new court date from you it's like being hung upside down. Suddenly, all those fantasies about the future are impossible. First it was the summer, then the start of school, then Thanksgiving, now Christmas. You told the judge that you want to be home for your birthday. We want that too, little girl. You get bigger in every photo.

I guess it's good that I've stopped imagining what it will be like when you're home, because it can never be the way I imagine. But it gets hard sometimes; I just want to see you sleeping in the bed across from me and not think of you upset and frightened in a bed on the other side of the world.

Yesterday I drove home from North Carolina. There was a yearling calf in the middle of the highway. He looked utterly lost and frightened and confused. When I came home, there was an update on you. It made me think of that little calf.

Please come home soon.

Love,

Your Big Sister

FREEEEEDOOOOOM!

2008-11-21T18:08:00.002-05:00

Oh, sweet, sweet freedom. William Wallace was disemboweled for freedom. I rather think tests and papers might be a sort of intellectual disembowelment, because that gut wrenching cry was the only thing going through my head as I left my Poli Sci exam this morning.

I stopped by work to take care of a few things, stopped by my grandparents (and was fed!), stopped by the bank...and then crashed on the couch and slept for an hour. I was supposed to leave for North Carolina to visit friends (and a friend's new son!) but you know, when I have trouble writing a two sentence email and can't quite see straight, somehow driving 8 hours doesn't seem like the best idea. So now I'm leaving early tomorrow, which cuts short my visit. But at least there is less of the risk of cutting short my life.

Here's the crux of this post: I woke up from my nap thinking about the book 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' but I can't really remember anything about it. Just the title and pictures were in my head. (Reversion to childhood due to stress?) So please, help me! What's that book about? Why's it such a children's classic?

And then share your thoughts on domestic terrorism and how individuals are effected by it. I've got a scoiology project coming due after break...

Not a Depressing Post (Even Though I Wanted to Write One)

2008-11-07T21:15:00.003-05:00

What I really want to write is a long, angsty post on isolation and the way society so easily kills that little spark of life that makes waking up in the morning worthwhile. But I don’t think I need to put myself into any worse of a depressed mope than I’m already in. I’m also rather confident that you can come up with enough of your own angst to not want mine. Instead, I’ll write about a few good things.

Hot cocoa - hot cocoa is pretty amazing. I’m drinking some right now, the real kind - made with cocoa and sugar and milk, and it’s the perfect blend of creamy and sweet and bitter and chocolate. Actually, less sugar would have been good when I made it, but it’s still pretty fantastic stuff.

And more fantastic stuff in the drink category is gatorade. Good stuff, that. Normally I’m not a fan of it, but lately it’s somehow been the perfect thing. The lack of sleep, the overabundance of coffee, the constant headache, the eye strain, the stress of life- gatorade sort of helps with that. You know, replenishing electrolytes and all that.

Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle is another thing that makes life better. It’s the perfect book when I’m in a funk. I only read the first few pages tonight and it put me in a better mood. Without Ms. Smith’s writing you’d be getting that angsty, depressing post. Or no post at all. The only down side of the book is that it has a tendency to make you want to be in love and go for moonlit swims in a moat. (I’ll have to give Dom a ring and see what he’s up to on a Friday night...)

Incense, that’s something that makes me happy. Some is burning right now - it’s supposed to be patchouli scented, but it doesn’t really smell like patchouli.

The smell of patchouli also makes me happy. It’s relaxing, brings back good memories, and I always remember that a certain prof at school was very allergic to the scent. Eh, that’s a story that makes me smile...

Fox skulls are good, too. I remember finding that fox skull - I went for a de-stressing hike instead of writing a paper and found it in the woods, over by the old ropes course. You have to walk over a ‘Danger Zone - Authorized Personnel Only’ sort of sign lying in the path to get to that area. I like being in danger zones. That’s why I stick around, I guess.

Baskets. There’s just something about baskets. And wool blankets. I’m not sure why baskets and wool blankets go together, but they just do. A picnic on a wool blanket with a wicker basket. Good, crusty bread, brie cheese, olives, fruit - maybe plums? - and wine and a good friend and good conversation. Wouldn’t that be the perfect afternoon?

My picnic today was good, but not that good. I went to the lake, ostensibly to study, but I only read a few pages of sociology. Mostly I ate lunch and stared at the lake and contemplated Deep Thoughts. Then I called a friend to talk about possibly going to visit her, but when she actually answered it was too much work to talk about that, so we chatted about inane things until she had to go.

Back to foodstuff: bread and butter is good. Real bread. With real butter. I had some tonight. Italian bread, supposedly. It actually wasn’t that good, though, and I sort of ate it in the hopes that it would become as good as real bread with real butter. It didn’t. It stayed the kind of bread you get in central PA: generic white bread with not really crusty crust. The Italian is the French is the Portuguese. They just change the shape. Actually, if you look, and if you pay, you can get okay bread. You’re better off making it yourself, though. Maybe I’ll bake bread tomorrow. It’s therapeutic, and I haven’t baked in a long time.

That’s another good thing, baking. More specifically, baking bread. And to get even more specific, the bread book I bought last year is downright amazing. Run to the bookstore and buy 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood. Then go bake any one of the amazing breads, but may I recommend the basil and olive focaccia on page 58? Two words for that bread: Freakin’ Awesome. If I was feeling a bit less colloquial I’d come up with two words more worthy of that bread, but I’m feeling very 21st century 22 year old, so that’s what you’re stuck with.

Handel’s ‘Messiah’ is another wonderful thing. I have the 2 disc set of the Scholars Baroque Ensemble on the Naxos label. It’s done in the original manner, without much instrumentation, and I’m in love with this version. Others sound too brassy - the emphasis of this is on the voice. The sad part is that sometime, somehow, back in the dark ages before all my music lived on my computer, I lost the first disc. I have to fix that. But then, I’ve been saying that I have to fix that for years now. I mean, we’re talking since high school, I think. And I know I’m young, but that’s 4 almost 5 years ago and that’s a long time to be missing a CD for.

I’m rambling. It’s almost late enough for me to curl up and fall asleep over a book.

Lacking a Mind Reading Typo-Robo...

2008-11-03T07:51:00.002-05:00

I have this thing about blogging - if I'm going to post, then I have to feel like there is some basic quality to the post that makes it worth reading. The post has to be slightly humorous, or thought provoking, or informative, or good writing. Preferably, all of the above. But see, a humorous, thought provoking, informative, well written piece requires time and thought which are in rather short supply.

There's all sorts of lovely posts I'd be happy to share with you, but until they invent a brain wave reading typing robot, well, you're stuck with me. And even if they invent that robot, I probably wouldn't be using it anyway. It's just seems so...dangerously insidious. Like browsing the FBI website or writing their name in your blog. And a little like cheating, wouldn't you agree?

Of course, if such a robot existed you'd get to read posts about The Freaky Incident In Which There Was (Not) a Creepy Person Playing Mind Tricks On Me. Or all my musings on civic obligation, voting, and single issue voting. But then, there's so much of this later topic out there that who really wants to hear what I have to say? Blogging is so narcissistic.

But on Tuesday, go vote. Vote for whoever you want, but voting is your right and privilege and if you don't exercise your rights, how long before you don't have them? And remember, if you don't vote, you don't earn the privilege to complain about whoever wins.

Sickly Sunday

2008-10-12T11:06:00.003-04:00

Here are the symptoms:

-Piercing headache

-Dizziness

-Off kilter vision

-Shakiness

-Heightened sense of touch and hearing

-Spatial disorientation

-Ringing in ears

-General feelings of weakness, soreness, etc.

All in all, feeling rather like I did something crazy and wild that involved possibly wrestling someone twice my size last night. Only, also something so crazy and wild that I have not only forgotten what it was but I have created and alternate reality. Because I'm 100.99% certain that I spent yesterday on a school bus and wandering around looking at dorm rooms and apartment buildings and then came home and nursed a mug of cocoa on the couch before going to bed at 9:30.

I've tried aspirin. I've tried coffee. I've tried water. I've tried Gatorade. I've tried protein (as in, eggs) and I've tried a hot shower. That last did help me feel slightly more alive and I'm no longer huddled on the couch in slippers, a long sleeve shirt, a wool sweater and still shivering. My hands are warm!

And I can't type and keep writing treid and wram and ginfers!

My diagnosis? Political Overload, leading to a high count of dead brain cells and overall stupidity. It is catching, my friends, and we need change! Doncha think? (Quick someone, toss me a Biden-ism.)

I don't anticipate feeling any better by the end of the day, because my plans include curling up on the couch with Fred* and working on a fake TV commercial for Obama. My brain cells will be next to nil by the end of the day.

I walked around campus the other day with a 'Registered to Vote and Voting for Obama!' sticker on my shirt. That was after cheering my head off at a mock political rally. I found that fact very ironic. (Wow, my typing today is starting to scare me. Seriously. I just typed a 'the' instead of on and the word 'the' never even crossed my mind. And then I wrote chirt instead of shirt and damn it, but I just did the same thing again. I need an alternate reality...anyone have one for cheap?)

"Don't you feel a little hypocritical?" Mom asked when I showed up at the house (for all of 20 minutes between school and work).

"It's just for a class," I explained, "and I'd feel just as hypocritical working with the McCain team."

Yes, my dear readers. I am registered to vote. But who to vote for? That is the question. All that talk about 'voting your conscious' is just a little difficult this election. Every election. I would provide you with great insights, except I have none. I also need to save my remaining brain cells for this TV ad.

Enjoy your Sunday. If you are very lucky and behave yourselves, you might get a post of links to the articles I've been reading recently that made me think. That's what this post was going to be, but it sort of didn't turn out that way.

Now I'm off to spend quality time with the tea pot and quicktime and iMovie and maybe my slippers and blanket because it's starting to feel like the thermostat is wrong and this house is somewhere in the 30's.

*Dom - chillax. Fred's my computer, remember? Besides, you know there's always room on the couch for you...

Seeing People (Also, Artists)

2008-10-06T22:31:00.002-04:00

It’s that time of the semester again: everything is due at once, there isn’t enough time for any of it, there’s definitely not enough time for all of it plus work and actual life is just this nice hazy thing in the future, something that one day I’ll have. Right now I sit through lectures on how I should get involved with things outside of school and then leave class with yet more assignments to complete.

I also see people.

That’s how I know I’m stressed: when I start seeing people. Obviously it’s midterms, even if no one refers to anything as a midterm and there is no fall break on the horizon, if I’m seeing people. What I mean by this, is that I am seeing people who aren’t really there. A lamp on the other side of the room, the coffee grinder at work, a shadow on the wall - nothing. Something in the corner of my brain tells the corner of my eye that there is someone there and there isn’t. Not even little slime creatures happily evolving into someone. Just nothing.

This isn’t as freaky as it sounds. I don’t worry about these people. I don’t feel like they are watching me. I just see them. Or, my brain does, and then I realize that, oh yeah, that’s just the stress talking. Silly synapses.

So if you’re seeing people, too, or eating copious amounts of peanut M&Ms or freaking out about your peanut butter crackers killing people or cooking or cleaning or whatever it is you do when you get stressed: breathe. Breathe deeply. Calmly. Regularly. And also repetitively (this is an important point - pay attention).

Then go check out the links I just added under the nifty little heading of ‘artists’. They’re, um, pretty much all musicians at this point (except lonely Duy Huynh) for a lot of reasons (such as: Escher is dead) but hopefully that will change. One day. And hopefully one day I will also write a post about each one. But, um, first I have this TV commercial to make, and a group presentation on student retention and recruitment, and an epidemic project (really!), and a test...or was it two tests? And what is that man doing over...oh right.

Silly synapses.

Take it As it Comes

2008-10-02T14:57:00.003-04:00

"Is the change over happening here, too?"

I recognized the customer from the other store, the coffee bar I first worked at. I'd always thought of him as 'Gold Fish Guy' because he often wore a cap with a goldfish cracker embroidered on the front. It looked more normal than it sounds.

"Yeah," I said, "here too."

"How are you feeling about it?"

I shrugged, answered noncommittally.

"Are they keeping you on?"

"Yeah, they are."

"Did you have to fill out an application? The girls at the other store were in a frenzy about it, saying they had to apply and didn't know if they still had their jobs."

I laughed. "Yeah, I did..." Guess I came across as pretty chill about the whole thing.

"Just taking things as they come, huh?"

"Pretty much."

He left, and I was back to beans and stocking cups and wondering what exactly Wednesday would bring.

I know I've written about where I work before: a coffee shop inside a larger store. I'd heard rumor that our store was being bought by another company, one that wanted to get a foothold in the area but didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by wiping everyone out.

Well, we were bought, just not by that company. No - by the store we've inhabited. Meaning now I wear a different colored shirt, a different hat, can't earn tips and suddenly have to have slip proof shoe coverings. Because, um, obviously I was slipping all over the place and at risk for breaking my neck before.

It also means eventually the coffee will change, the menu will change, things like that. (The word is the new coffee isn't as good as what we have, but you know how that goes). At first I was pretty upset about the whole thing. I never would have chosen to work for this company, really. Too much drama. Too many levels of power. Too many nit picky rules and regulations. I liked being on the outside.

When they came and said, "We hear you're interested in working for us," I smiled and nodded and thought, "No, not really, I just want to keep my job."

So I've just been keeping my job. Just taking things as they come. And non-verbally cursing under my breath while shopping for new pants to fit the new dress code and struggling to pull on the slip proof covers and doing nothing for 6 hours because I can no longer study behind the counter...

Rebel

2008-09-28T13:52:00.004-04:00

I'm listening to a combination of the rain on the sunroom roof Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Fionn Regan, and Iron & Wine. There is a hint if cinnamon in my coffee and a pile of books on the futon next to me. I'm studying for a sociology exam. Obviously. I don't know what you thought I was doing.

Last Tuesday feels like just a few days ago, maybe less, but this Tuesday is almost here and with it the exam. Instead of finding me happily ensconced on the couch becoming reacquainted with Whitman and Eliot - or more likely Hamlet, since I'm required to read him (poor me) -this rainy Sunday afternoon finds me comparing and contrasting social conflict theory with structural functionalism (while paying special attention to the way each theory treats the origin of social change).

I enjoy sociology. It's one of the few texts I actually read - and don't mind the reading. (Besides the theater anthology, which doesn't count.) I don't agree often with things my prof says, but I've never been against listening to things I disagree with. The class makes me think. Even more, the class makes me want to rebel, to show the all knowing 'them' that they can't predict my life and that I'm not forced to follow the role assigned to me. (On a lot of the rides home I find myself listening to the soundtrack from 'Rent'...)

And yet, at the same time, it's because of my society and culture that I want to rebel. There is a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed' that I've found myself thinking about a lot:

He was, in fact, a revolutionary; but he felt profoundly that he was such by virtue of his upbringing and education...he could not rebel against his society, because his society, properly conceived, was a revolution, a permanent one, an ongoing process. To reassert its validity and strength, he thought, one need only act, without fear of punishment and without hope of reward: act from the center of one's soul.

I often find myself feeling very anti-Christian and anti-American, the two distinct cultures and societies that I have been raised in. This quote, and in fact the entire book which you should read, helped solidify something that I'd begun to realize: I feel that way because of the very fact that I was raised within those cultures. The basic ideas, the basic revolutions which began both, are the same things I find behind my own rebellious feelings. It is not so much the ideas themselves that I feel against, as what they have become.

Le Guin's Shevek responds to this realization with action; action without fear of punishment or hope or reward, action from the center of his soul. His answer is beautiful, brave and tragic.

Can you conceive any response other than action? I can't. And so the question is: what action, and how? Without fear of punishment, without hope of reward, from the center of your soul - where do those lead you?

A Brief Note

2008-09-04T21:39:00.003-04:00

This is a brief note to say: there are many blog posts in the works, but they all take thought. And thoughtful posts and writing take time, and time and I are not on the best of terms right now. We're having an argument about full time student status and how it has to take up a sizable chunk of time. I am not happy about this. I am slowly realizing that, to be perfectly frank: I'm so not into this college student thing.

When I was a freshman and even (although a little less so) when I was a sophomore school was my life. I was also living on campus in a different state and even though there was a point where I was working three jobs, two were on campus. Now, after being out of school for a year and a half, commuting, working the same job I was before, caught up in the third draft of a novel? School is just a side note. Or, I want it to be.

I show up for class and pay attention and take notes. I enjoy the lectures. I enjoy that I disagree with some of my profs. I enjoy learning. But being a student? Eh, I don't know. Maybe it has to do with commuting, but I'm glad I'm not living on campus. Not sure I could handle that level of student commitment. Certain I don't want The Drama of The Dorm. Just saying the word 'dorm' raises my blood pressure-and I had a great roommate. The words 'all female dorm' makes me hyperventilate and sends me into acute stress. Breathing...breathing...

Street Urchin Fantasies

2008-08-22T12:04:00.001-04:00

I realize more and more often how tactile I am, and how the feel of something is almost as important as the look and how some things I love only because of the feel.

Dust - thick, silty powder like dust. The dust under the swing set or in the middle of a dirt road at the end of summer. It swirls up in miniature clouds around your feet and coats them with light brown. I love the feel of dust under my feet.

When I was little, I coated my feet and hands in dust on purpose. I liked the feel, I liked the look. My secret dream was being a street urchin in the middle ages, maybe the youngest member of Robin Hood’s merry men. (The fact that I was a girl was conveniently ignored.) A crisp fall day near the evening, a fire filling the air with wood smoke, and a decent coating of dust - that was my ideal playing field. The perfect place to be a pickpocket, a young thief escaping the gallows, small fast and free from adult supervision.

It was a simple fantasy: a bustling town in which I knew all the alleyways and secret hiding places, bumbling constables I could always allude, shady figures to pay me to steal important things, being able to eat or not eat when I wanted to, owning a sheath knife, never wearing shoes and going to bed dirty. Even cold and hunger and possible beatings held a certain allure.

My little brother has no such illusions: “Why would you want to be a street urchin? That’s not fun. You’d die. I want to be a powerful knight and live in a castle and fight battles.”

Being a child is so easy; it’s you and the world and you have the inalienable right to live happily ever after.

Delusional

2008-08-19T20:58:00.002-04:00

I like to pretend that I’m not addicted to coffee.

Some days, that’s a lot harder than others.

Take Monday, for example. I was at a friend's. There are a total of four people in that house and none - none - of them drink coffee. Not even tea. Luckily, I knew this beforehand and came prepared with my own tea bags. Unluckily, tea was not enough.

I’m pretty used to being tired most of the day, and recently I’ve been really tired all day, but Monday? On Monday, I was really, really tired. And by mid afternoon I was verging towards cranky as well. By then we were crashed on her couch eating peanut M&Ms and watching a movie, though, so it didn’t really matter. (Afterwards, be it the pleasant state of non-thought movies tend to induce or the sugar in the M&Ms, I was awake enough to toss a frisbee around the backyard until it was too dark to see and I nearly caught it in my teeth. Not in some fancy frisbee catching maneuver either.)

I also like to pretend that I can plan things in advance, be prepared, carefully figure things out ahead of time. Actually, this isn’t really something I pretend, it’s more like a delusion I suffer from, because despite repeatedly learning lessons to the complete opposite, I continue to insist on trying to plan my future. And by this I don’t mean ‘what I’ll be doing three years from now.’ Oh no, I’ve just about learned to leave that alone. By this I mean ‘what I’ll be doing one month from now.’ Or, even better, ‘what I’ll be doing next week.’

Next week, I’m supposed to start classes. Commuting. To Penn State. Taste the irony...there was a point where I swore I would never do either of those things. Obviously a good reason to stop swearing, wouldn’t you say?

This is all so very Story of My Life, though. The last minute, the doing things I once said I would never do (which, um, does make me wonder about some of those things I say I'll never do - a list which is getting shorter by the way, but mom stop looking worried, it still includes that. And that. And that.) Oh the irony. The almost sickeningly funny irony.

Life...it’s all so completely out of my control.

Good Morning, World!

2008-08-16T05:29:00.003-04:00

5:30am on Saturday morning...what exactly am I doing not only awake, but up and dressed and ready for not a first but a second cup of coffee? Good question, that.

Let's just say that when I woke up at 4:30 and still hadn't fallen back to sleep at 5, getting up seemed like a good idea. I mean, I do have to be at work at 6:45. And besides, getting up an hour and a half early gives me time to um, write a blog post and check my voicemail. Because we all know how important it is to check ones voicemail and blog at 5 on a Saturday morning. I'm just saying...

But really, I like being up early. You might not guess it from my normal habits, but I do. Sitting on the dock (because it's the only place my cell has reception) looking out over the lake before there's sun, before there's much noise, sipping fair trade organic coffee and watching bats flit over black water - really, is there a better way to spend a Saturday morning? I don't care how amazing your dreams are, it doesn't beet the predawn...

It's still dark, but with a half light, the rim of sky surrounding the bowl of the lake is a very pale, dusky blue. Mist lies along the surface of the water, and the ducks and geese are dark silent shapes. Bats are still out, swooping low over the water only a few feet away. Sometimes they fly close enough that I can hear their high pitched clicking, their wings over the water - see their distinct outline and not just dark speeding shapes. Orion is low on the horizon, just over the trees to my left. When I was little, I thought he was Old Ryan the Might Hunter and he was the first thing I looked for as soon as I saw the first star. Somehow the stars in the morning constellation are both brighter and whiter than in the night sky. More light is slowly creeping along the edge of the sky, just enough to outline the thin legged spiders hanging from branches on the forsythia. A rooster crows somewhere, and this reminds the ducks that it's starting to turn into morning. They stir the water and quack softly to one another. In one or two homes around the lake lights turn on, a dog barks, someone starts their car. My coffee is finished, so I go inside. Maybe I'll spend a pleasant hour cursing my father's dog.

Internet Sabatical

2008-08-14T11:47:00.003-04:00

It's been a long couple of weeks. I don't really know why, or even what happened in those weeks. Yes, there have been a lot of activities with extended family, and yes, there has been a strange change in mind set as I realize that more of my extended family now lives in Pennsylvania - within half an hour of my home - then lives elsewhere. (Still not really used to that idea. Since when can you spend just the afternoon with relatives?) There have also been Sudden and Abrupt Changes in Plans leading to feelings of unreality and stress. (Also, spending more money on college related things! Like transcripts! And sending AP scores! Which I took FIVE years ago!) Mostly its been feeling constantly tired, and in pain, and headaches. Kinda knocks me out of commission, if you know what I mean. Staring at a computer screen doesn't really help. Ergo, this silence.

But now the silence is broken and I have accomplished all sorts of worthy things online. Like, um, helping (wink wink cough cough) Dom make his facebook page. Yes, Dom is on facebook. Yes, I wonder about my own sanity and the collective sanity of my friends. And I have also read up on the arts section of the New York Times! Hard work, but someone has to do it.

In other news, the lovely Lili, with whom I managed to spend possibly a full hour (or more?) on the phone with discussing such important things as, um, well...(we did talk about important things, didn't we? I mean, besides drinks you enjoyed in Europe and why I avoid getting drunk and why our friends were going insane and getting married?)literature and writing. I'm pretty confident that we talked about those two things, because we always talk about those two things...at any rate, Lili has started a blog! You should go read it, because she's an excellent writer, a deep thinker, and a good friend (and also has mad ninja skills so you want to keep her happy).

Zippers, and the Time Space Continuum

2008-07-28T12:05:00.002-04:00

I’m trying to work on Service but I’m running into a slight difficulty: zippers. Yes, zippers. Every time I start thinking about the plot problems I’m running into I find myself thinking about zippers instead, and have to drag my brain’s wandering attention back to Service and the Harrigans and the rest. It’s not an easy task. Who knew zippers could be so enthralling, so mind consuming?

Here’s the deal: Yesterday, I very randomly found myself thinking about a book which I began reading and then stopped because I wasn’t in the mood to do the work to get past the poor writing quality. The basics you need to know for this story are that it was a book involving time travel, and the main character was wearing a period appropriate costume when she was transported back in time. Only it wasn’t fully period appropriate, and one of the problems was the zipper - something she kept worrying about and trying to keep hidden.

Well. I found myself wondering, what would happen if you went back to a time before zippers and someone did see the zipper? You could come up with some excuse, say that the dress was from a foreign place, brush it off as nothing. I don’t think a zipper would damn you, unless you wound up in the middle of the Salem witch trials, in which case it might. (By the way, The Crucible...excellent.) You might not be in personal danger from the zipper...or would you? Because what if the person who saw the zipper thought it was a great idea - since zippers are great ideas, particularly when you’re used to laces and tiny buttons you need button hooks and maids for. (The zipper was the beginning of the end for personal maids.) And what if, this person realizing the genius in zippers, went on to begin making their own zippers?

Do you see the problem? Do you see where this is headed? Or have you not read enough science fiction time travel novels? (That’s really nothing to be ashamed of; it’s probably better for your health. Although, on second thought, maybe you should be at least a little ashamed.)

If this person recently introduced to the zipper years before the zipper was invented begins making zippers, then they will have become the inventor of the zipper. There will be no need of a further inventor of the zipper. But then...how was the zipper ever made in the first place? If something goes back in time and begins being made before it exists, how can it ever have been made before it was made, yet after, and thus be brought back to the inventor?

It’s similar to helping your own parents meet or not meet, or providing ideas that you know work from history. If it was truly you causing the event all along...how did you know before that point in your life? Or are you breaking into time and destroying someone else’s opportunity? Do you end up changing history - or does the event or item cease to exits, leave a vacuum in it’s place? Does part of the time-space continuum unravel, or the whole thing, and just how much influence does a single zipper have on society, time, history, and the existence of mankind?

Please, pontificate.

(Actually, don’t. Just give your deep insights, minus the pompous and belligerent attitude associated with pontificating.)

Light

2008-07-26T09:02:00.001-04:00

Light is white; or more accurately, colorless. The only reason we see light in different colors is because the waves bend as they hit particles and are reflected back, like light through a prism. Without light, our world would be colorless, because color is essentially the reflection of light. I know this, scientifically.

I’ve always wanted to see the world without color. The light striped away, and trees drained of their green and brown. And then, slowly, steadily, the light brought back and the color touching first the edges and the growing, spreading, like flames or a flood. What would it look like before color returned? Gray and washed out? Or with the absence of all color would it be white? White nothingness, outlines of everything erased. Would they even exist, then? Could you stumble through blank whiteness and still say, here is ground, here a tree, that is the ocean.

This is a scientifically impossible speculation, which I think might be the best kind. I spend so much of my time considering scientific impossibilities that I often wonder why I chose to study science. Perhaps it is because the more scientific facts I learn, the more I wonder about the impossible and question the accepted. Who knows, and how, and what if? I don’t think you can really hope to accomplish anything in a scientific field unless you question and wonder, and unless you balance what you know scientifically with what you have known since you were a child.

For example, light. Scientifically, I know it is colorless, the same as water is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless liquid. But anyone can tell you that they have never had completely odorless and tasteless water. I can also tell you that light isn’t colorless, and I’m not referring to blue light or black light or light through a prism casting rainbows on the wall.

No, I mean the light you see everyday. The pale, hazy yellow in the morning and the stronger gold in the afternoon, and if you are fortunate enough, the deep, mystical gold that is nearly bronze on specific evenings, where everything picks up the tint and even the front yard is transformed to something else. Then there is the light through the leaves, a golden green that isn’t gold or green but both at the same time but also not either one. The warm light on the brown earth and the same light that has less depth when it falls on the flat wood of the porch. Where it strikes the trunk of a tree it brings out the greens and grays and whites and blues of the bark’s surface. It’s silver white on the back side of a ripple and black in the dimples between. A fish jumping from the water is made of light, and where the ripples throw the light back at a rock it is pale white and silver.

I know that light is colorless in the same way that I know water is tasteless but it always has taste.

[60-(4.63x7)]8=220.72 Minutes w/o Customers

2008-07-24T10:40:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, over my eight hour shift at the coffee bar, I re-read 'Life, the Universe, and Everything' in its entirety. This might make me sounds like a horrible employee, but I assure you: everything was done, and it was that or gnaw my leg off in shear boredom. I shopped for items we needed, labeled muffins, pulled coffee for the next day, swept and mopped the floor, cleaned every possible part of the espresso machine, kept the condiment bar stocked and clean, kept the coffee ready and fresh, and served all 37 customers the caffeine laden beverage of their choice (even the woman who asked for a white chocolate mocha 15 minutes before closing when I had various parts of the espresso machine soaking in cleaning solution. Even her.)

It was the 37 costumers who were the problem, because 37 over an 8 hour shift means I was serving about 4.63 customers every hour. It's the .63rds of a costumer that really get to me. You have to look at them with a sort of sideways squint, looking through the lightwaves, as it were.

The effects of standing on a hard concrete floor for 8 hours and reading Douglas Adams are obvious. I'm very well educated now, about eddies in the space-time continuum, the Krikkit wars, how to fly, and all the funny bits about frogs and the whole truth. Especially those. Today I only work a half shift, which means I might have time to recuperate. If I want to. Or I might bring "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish." Or maybe I'll take Ford's advice and go mad?

Either way, I very cleverly slept in this morning and didn't emerge until 8:30, when everyone else had left the house. I'm rather proud of this, particularly as it was a spontaneous decision on my part and included complicated calculations and my alarm clock when I was only barely awake at 7. Now I have a quiet house to myself until I leave for work this afternoon and, um, I should probably do something besides email people and write blog posts? Yeah, probably.

[?]

2008-07-21T13:29:00.003-04:00

For lunch today I had a cold cob of corn and a handful of string beans. Then I decided that probably wasn't enough food, so I had a banana with peanut butter, the all natural, just peanuts kind of peanut butter (the best kind). It reminded me of the time a friend had all natural, organic peanut butter with honey and flax seed. We came to the conclusion that it was too healthy.

I'm back to working as a 'barista', handing out people's daily caffeine fix and musing deeply about humanity as I watch people choose produce and chatter away into their hands free headsets. I'm at a different store this time, and I'm closer to the floral department. My newest favorite category of shoppers to observe is the Men Buying Flowers category. Endless entertainment. Do you smell flowers, touch them, count the buds? Roses or carnations? Maybe wildflowers? Potted? Confusing decisions, and from the look on the faces on some of these guys you'd think their future depends on the choice. Maybe it does. The stats are currently: more men in the 20-30 age range buy flowers, but those in the 40+ category are more purposeful and faster in their choosing. They are also less self conscious and awkward when they walk away with the flowers.

Last night, my cousin Matt came out to call me in from the dock. "Your mom wants you!" he shouted at me. "It's getting dark and she's going to worry about you. Maybe you'll get kidnapped by your stalker." Hm, funny, didn't realize I had a stalker. Back in high school I had a stalker, but Dom chased him off for me. True story.

I spent most of yesterday lying on my futon, feeling dizzy and spatially disoriented. When I was sick of drifting in and out of sleep and daydreams, I picked up 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. I realized I haven't read it in a long time (at least a year!) and it was time to remedy that. You should probably go find the nearest copy because really, the world would be a better place if we all went around read zany and hilarious sci fi books. Really. Reading the first few chapters, I realized that Ford Prefect is basically Robert's hero. Which explains rather a lot about him.

I've done nothing all day, and I can't even write a blog post. It's definitely time to fold some laundry.

Break for Processed Foods

2008-07-07T14:27:00.003-04:00

I don't know about you, but I need a bit of a break from recent posts. Let's talk about something that doesn't require nearly as much emotional investment, something like...processed food.

This is something I dislike. It doesn't taste great, it makes me feel not so great, and it isn't great for you. Have you ever eaten food and felt like all it was was food, it was completely lacking in anything even close to nutrients? Sometimes I read the ingredients in even innocent looking items, like crackers, and besides wheat and maybe oil and sugar it all sounds like something from chemistry lab. If you ever want to stop eating packaged cookies, read the ingredients label. Then read cooking ingredients for the same cookies. I'd much rather have them go bad in a few weeks but contain real food items then sit in my cupboard for years and taste the same. Don't get me started on 'cheese products' or 'processed milk items'. You know how packaged cheese tastes like plastic? There is a very good reason for this. I can tell when I've been eating a lot of processed food - I start craving nutrients. I long for vegetables, and whole grains, and fruit, and maybe I'm starting to come off as just a little strange?

This is when I mention that despite the above, I just made myself a bowl of ramen noodles. Yeah, you heard me: ramen noodles. Of course, being me, I threw in some cilantro, mushrooms, onion, egg, thyme, cumin, salt, pepper and maybe a few other things, but still, they were ramen noodles. Even cilantro can't hide that fact.

In other news, I've done some college phone calling today in an attempt to find out what happened to the credit from the course I took over the winter. The woman I talked to said they hadn't received the grades yet, and she was just going to call that afternoon. A surprising number of people are planning to make calls or send out paperwork on the very same day I happen to call. I find that rather interesting.

As far as the WIP goes, I think I've found a new beginning that I like and Waltuck has been renamed as Harold S. Waltuck. He also looks a little different than before and shows up sooner. It's all rather interesting, (like people being on exactly the same wave length as you when it comes to making phone calls.) My only worry is that Robert comes off as too mature and even borderline normal, and Patricia is too relaxed. This could be a problem, since then they can't develop. I may have to go back and knock off some maturity points. Or maybe by the end of the third draft their characters will have developed nicely. These are important problems, people! They must have a solution. I think.

As you were...

Remembering, Part II

2008-07-04T11:30:00.002-04:00

(This is a continuation of Remembering, Part I.)

Daddy and Mommy are getting in a truck with their friends. They’re going to the mountains to go backpacking. Annie and I are staying at Grandmas. I want to go with them, but mostly I don’t want to be left behind without them. I cry, and Grandma gives me a handmade cloth doll. She’s dressed in yellow, holding a bouquet of flowers. I call her Dolly and sleep with her every night for years, until her skirt is permanently stained and dulled and the cloth on her face is worn off and the stuffing shows through.
***
I’m in the dining room when the phone rings and it’s someone calling to tell Daddy that Grandma ‘Dette died. He’ll maybe take a plane to North East for the funeral and I wish I could go with him. Partly it’s because I want to take a plane, too, and partly it’s because I want to go to the lake because I love the wind and waves and rocks. And partly it’s because death, I think, is probably pretty important. Plus, I’m a little morbidly curious about funerals and dead people. This is the first time I really think about the fact that my great grandmother is daddy’s grandmother and my grandma is his mother. It seems strange for dad to have a grandma and mother and I think it’s sad that I don’t have a great grandmother anymore. It all happens fast and I’m not really a part of any of it and I don’t think I cry.
***
Annie and I are sad when Grandma sells Grandma ‘Dette’s old bike at a yard sale. She says that a mother bought it for her son who has special needs and can’t ride a normal bike. I try to be glad that he has a bike to ride now, but I’m sad Annie and I don’t have it anymore. I think that maybe we’re getting too old for the bike anyway, because we’re both bigger and might not have fit on it together now.
***
I have a bottle collection that I keep on the shelf above my bed. There are certain standards for my collection: the bottle can’t be broken (unless I really like it), the bottle can’t be bigger than my hand (unless I really like it), the bottle can’t be too much like any of the ones I already have (unless I really like it). I like smaller bottles better than bigger bottles, and ones with tops are the best. Strange shapes are also best. I like the ones that I find most, because they have stories behind them. One time at Grandma’s, she reaches into the big glass cupboard that’s in the dining room. She hands me a small, old perfume bottle. It’s tiny, and the glass is surrounded by lacy metal. The top is heavy and there is a glass applicator. When I open the bottle, I catch a whiff of old perfume. Grandma tells me that I can have the bottle if I promise to be careful with it. My great-grandfather brought it back from France for my great-grandmother. I promise to take care of it, and we wrap it in paper towels and put it in a small tin. The perfume bottle from France is my absolute favorite bottle out of my entire collection. It’s old, it’s elegant, and it has a story that is connected to me. I hold the bottle and imagine my great-grandfather giving it to his wife, imagine her smelling the perfume and that every time she wears it he tells her about France.
***
We’re all crowded around the the table in the dining room for Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s. I heap mashed potatoes on my plate and cover them in gravy. Grandma doesn’t care for potatoes, because Ronald, her husband and my grandfather who was dead before I was born, always wanted her to make potatoes. I think potatoes are so great that I’m not sure how she ever got tired of them. I want her to tell me more about the grandfather I never knew. I’m getting older, and have a hidden, insatiable appetite for stories about the past and all the relatives I never knew. I like to hear grandma talk about her grandfather, the French Canadian lumber jack who couldn’t read, but always sent someone for the paper and pretended to read it, holding it upside down. When I was little I thought that was funny. But now I’m getting older, and even though it still makes me laugh a little, it also makes me sad.
***
Grandma is at our house for christmas. Her present to me looks like an oddly tall and narrow shoe box and when I open it there is a china doll dressed like a cowboy, but his legs and body are stuffed so he can sit. Grandma says she thought I could play with him with my horses, that he would fit on the larger ones, but maybe I’m too old and don’t play with my horses anymore. No, I assure her, I still do, and I like him, it’ll be fun. But later, when I pull out the old backpack of horses and set the doll on the largest, I realize that I don’t play with horses anymore. I’m sad about this, and put the backpack away and put the doll on my bookshelf. I try to convince myself that I’m just not in the right mood today, that maybe another day I’ll get them out. But really I know my grandmother was right, and I am getting too old for them.
***
We’re on our way to Grandma’s house, driving up through the woods and the old mining towns. I’m looking out the window, lost in thoughts and daydreams. I’m glad we’re going to Grandma’s because I always like to be going somewhere. I like the car rides, the glimpses of other people’s life, listening to Dad’s music. Grandma is short tempered sometimes, though, and she doesn’t sit around and talk really, and there isn’t a whole lot to do. I feel guilty that I don’t like being at her house more. I’m in high school, and tired all the time. I plan to spend most of the time working on chemistry or napping on the couch. Out of the window I see a large stone house, a wide flight of stairs running up to a landing, then another set of the same slab stairs running up to the door. I have brief vision of walking up those stairs, of the way they would feel and sound under my feet, of how it would feel to call a house like that home. Later, on other drives, I look for that house. But I never find it again.
***
I can never actually remember which trip to North East was my last, and it’s something that makes me sad every time I think of it. Grandma was moving down to our area of Pennsylvania for a long time, it seems to me, and everytime I went up there I thought maybe it was the last time. But then when it was the last time I don’t realize it until it’s too late. I hate missing endings. Endings to me are almost more important than beginnings.

Remembering, Part I

2008-07-03T12:09:00.002-04:00

How can you encapsulate an entire life on a single afternoon? How can 75 years be condensed to an hour? How can rooms and closets be emptied until everything left of a person is set on dressers and table tops and boxes in the corner of rooms?

As easily, I suppose, as eyes arms hair feet and smiles can be turned to ash. That is to say: not very easily at all, but it’s done.

But even after the person you once hugged and whose knees hurt is only a few handfuls of fine sand, even after the eulogies, the memories, the strange items found in the backs of drawers and the jewelry with dates that suddenly, two days ago, no one knew the significance behind; even after all of this, when it seems like it should be the final The End it isn’t. Because lives are like stories, and even once they end and no more details will be added and nothing can be changed, they’re still going on. The world feels very crowded, when you realize how many stories it holds. All the memories hidden everywhere, in everything. Words, objects, even the weather and smells. The world is made up of memories, which is why memories are so important. Which is why it’s so hard to watch someone loose their own.
***
I’m little and I’m at Grandma Far-Away’s house. I don’t know how little, but Grandma Oudette, my great grandmother, is still living with grandma and my head is only just near the top of the TV tray. Grandma’s house is special, a place with flat faced cats and exotic foods like twinkies. Grandma ‘Dette is sitting in an easy chair and the TV tray is in front of her. We are playing with plastic, wind up walking octopuses. One is red, and one is blue, and Grandma ‘Dette winds them up and lets them walk off the edge of the tray. We both laugh, and I pick them up from the floor and we wind them up and watch them fall again. Grandma is cooking dinner in the kitchen, and if I’m good, I might get to brush the dog later on.
***
The car ride to Grandma Far-Away’s house is one of my favorites. It’s 6 hours long, but it’s North and I always love driving North. When I get hungry, I hope we stop at McDonald’s because even though I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to, I like the food there. And I like getting the happy meal toy, and sometimes we get to actually stop and play on the playplace. Later, when it gets dark and I’m tired and we’re driving past unending acres of trees, I try to fall asleep with my head cushioned on the lap bar of my booster seat. It’s not quite high enough and I get angry with the booster seat again. It’s always too high or too low or too tilted to sleep or play or draw on, and in the summer the plastic gets hot and sticks to my sweaty arms and legs.
***
During the grape festival - or maybe the cherry festival - Annie and I sit on a blanket by the road. Grandma and mom and dad sit on folding chairs behind us. We wait for the parade, and Annie and I drink juice from plastic bottles shaped like bears. They’re special: we don’t get things like that at home, and Grandma got them for us. I think that juice out of a plastic bear’s head tastes especially good.
***
I like Grandma’s bathroom, even though it’s small and dark. It has a scale and a black stone that keeps the door open. I love that stone, which is smooth and oddly shaped. I like to pick it up and stroke it, and weigh it on the scale, and feel its weight in my hand. Because the rock seems very, very special I’m never sure I’m really allowed to play with it, so I always make sure no one is nearby or that the door is shut. The mettle fly with the wings that open and close is another thing that I think must be very special. It has flowers in red painted on it’s heavy mettle wings and I don’t know what it is used for.
***
Grandma takes Annie and I home with her. We drive the entire way to North East in her car, which smells different and special. She has a compass on the rear view mirror, and I love the rapid tickticktick of her turn indicator. Grandma stops at a rest station and when I get out of the car I feel excited and special: it’s just Annie and Grandma and I. At Grandma’s house, we play with the Early Bird game and ride Grandma ‘Dette’s oversized tricycle around the block over and over and over. Grandma ‘Dette doesn’t live there anymore and I can’t imagine her ever riding the bike.
***
One of my favorite parts about going to Grandma’s is going to Lake Erie. I love the rocky shore and the cold, freshwater waves. We don’t go there to swim, but we feed the ducks and play with the rocks, and Grandma tells me about the time she took Yorkie to the lake and he swam out to the end of the leash. He’s only a small yorkshire tarrier and the waves were big and it was hard for him to swim back to shore. I want to see him do it again, but grandma doesn’t think that’s a good idea.
***
When we stay with Grandma, she takes us to the zoo. I like all the animals, but I like the petting zoo the best. There are calves there, and sometimes they suck on my thumb and push their heavy heads against my chest. Grandma lets us buy corn and pellets to feed them. We get our picture taken sitting on top of a giant fake rabbit. There’s a turtle too, which I like better, but Annie likes the rabbit. Later, we go to the nursing home to visit Grandma ‘Dette. Annie and I are bored, and Aunt Jan ties out shoelaces together. We hop around like the penguins at the zoo.
***
I don’t like the nursing home. It smells like old people and doctors offices and dying and going crazy. I’m a little bit afraid of the people there, because they sometimes talk to me and I don’t always know what I’m supposed to say. Sometimes I don’t understand what they’re saying to me. I don’t think Grandma likes to be at the nursing home either, and I feel bad that Grandma ‘Dette has to stay there. She doesn’t like the food. We sit in uncomfortable chairs and the adults talk to her, but Grandma ‘Dette looks past my dad and my grandmother and me and spells out Coke from the soda machine behind us. I think this is a very strange thing to do, and Grandma ‘Dette doesn’t seem like Grandma ‘Dette anymore. She seems like the other old people there and I’m a little bit afraid of her. I wonder if everyone ends up like that if they go to live in a nursing home.

Shocking Announcement!

2008-06-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

I've fallen behind on posting.

Why do you not look surprised? Come on, you could have at least had the decency to feign surprise. But, then, I'm sure you're all the very personification of truthfulness. The silence will be broken soon. With my aunt's family staying with us for a while I promise that there are many interesting stories to impart. Trust me.

Also, the fair trade certified, imported from Germany, with the word 'Divine' in swirling golden letters on the front, 70% dark chocolate bar that my younger brother gave me on my birthday 5 days ago is still sitting unopened on my desk. Can you say amazing feat of self control or what? I'm waiting for the perfect day, with the perfect cup of tea, to take that first nibble and...

Who knows. Maybe today is the day.

Update from the Homefront

2008-06-17T21:45:00.000-04:00

Java, the puppy I’ve been trying to hate for a year, has learned the fine art of fly chasing. He wanders around our kitchen looking worried and dopey, pointing at flies and trying to catch them. So far, he hasn’t learn Baron’s trick of barking like mad and jumping at the ceiling. He does chase swallows, though, and I think he thinks he can actually catch them. The creature is hopeless, but excellent at barking.

We had a young rabbit living in our front yard. There were three places it could commonly be found: by the clothes line, next to the red maple, and by the front window. Now I can always find it whenever I feel like watching it; I point you in the direction of the road. The crows are now more interesting wildlife to watch than the rabbit. May that be a warning to us all.

Kai announced at dinner that he wants a tiger for his birthday. It can sleep in his bed, because tigers are so comfortable. Dad will build it a cage and a little house, or maybe we’ll move into a new house and the tiger can have this one. He isn’t worried about it eating him; he’ll raise it from a cub and it will be his friend. It might, however, eat Java. That should take care of the barking.

I sent in a deposit to Green Mountain College in Poultny, VT, so come September I shall resume my career as a college student. Hopefully my brain hasn’t atrophied in the year and a half I’ve been gone. July 10th will find me up there to check the place out. If nothing sends me running for my car declaring ‘I’ll to go back to Montreat before I go there!’ then we should be good.

At the same time, I’m heading down the enrollment road for Juniata College, just in case. Wouldn’t want to end up like that rabbit.

Times Like These

2008-06-12T18:12:00.003-04:00

A lot has been happening lately. Some Bad Things, some Good Things, some Really Bad Things, and some General Everyday Life Things. I've gone backpacking, decided to get back into running on a general basis, enrolled in a college, one set of Aunt and Uncle moved to the area a few days ago, a second set is moving to the area soon, my younger brother is graduating from high school, and I am taking two trips to CT within as many weeks. One of those trips I am about to depart upon in, oh, 20 minutes ago...

These would be the reasons why I haven't been posting recently and why I probably will not be posting anytime really soon.

Of course, I could be completely wrong about that. I often am. In the silence, check out this site: http://grist.org/

Melodramatic Angst: An Inventory of my Life

2008-06-05T14:44:00.002-04:00

1. I don’t have a job.

2. But I do have a car

3. I have 145 reasons for needing and wanting a job, just no motivation.

4. I’m on the 3rd draft of my 1st novel.

5. I can’t write.

6. I’m enrolled in a college for the fall.

7. I think I might find all the same problems that made me leave the last one.

8. I have a lot of dreams and desires.

9. Unfortunately, they all seem to conflict.

10. I have no idea where my life is headed.

11. Unlike previous times, I’m decidedly not okay with that.

12. I believe there is a God who rules the universe and provides salvation.

13. At the moment, I’m a bit unclear on how that works in my life.

14. I’m rather lonely.

15. I’d rather be alone than with people.

16. In 20 days I’ll be 22.

17. I’m in relatively good health.

18. Except I often feel like I’m 80.

19. I have a future ahead of me and might live until I’m 80.

20. I find that very distressing.

Begin

2008-06-04T17:06:00.001-04:00

It’s so hard, this putting of the first words on the page. Rewriting what’s been written twice, but writing it new and different. I know where I’m going, though. And I know where I’m starting. But how am I starting?

Just write, girl. Patricia in the library. You know what the library looks like, you’ve written it before. And you know Patricia, and you know what she’s doing in the library. So write it.

Those first words, though. Difficult. No matter how many times I start something those first words are always hard.

What is she doing in that library? Researching, yes. But is she multi tasking? Does she have her computer? Is she checking emails or on the phone or trolling for jobs and is her research procrastination?

Starting with just a snapshot: Patricia in the library.

It’s a large table, dark red brown, a smooth nearly reflective surface. The shelves are tall and old and stretch away to nowhere. This part of the library is rarely used and very quiet. The tall windows look out on buildings that have grown up around the library, and they’re smudged. The drapes are heavy and dusty, wine red, a close shade to the color of the table. The library would feel scholastic and elegant, only it’s so run down, the chandeliers draped in cobwebs and dust. There’s a reading lamp on the table by Patricia, one of the old kinds with a green glass shade and a brass pull chain. The light bulb is dying, flickering in and out.

She’s looking through old newspapers. They were bound together in thick black cardboard years ago, and now the cardboard is flaking. The papers are yellowed and musty, but those smells are mingled with the acidic tang of ink which somehow manages to still smell years later. In some places, the print is blurry. All of it is old, and the lighting is dim enough that Patricia is squinting to read the pages. When she turns them, the corners sometimes break off under her fingers. Her hands and face are starting to feel coated in dust and ink, and maybe even the smell of the paper.

She’s frustrated, and the long shelves feel maybe a bit ominous. She wishes she’d sat on the opposite side of the table, away from the emptiness, with her back to the window.

She’s writing notes on a yellow legal pad, because she likes the visceral feel of her pen against the page. It’s the same reason she’s looking through the old papers, the reason she likes to track things down, the reason she prints things she finds online. She likes her research to be tangible. She likes to watch folders and files grow larger, likes to sort through stacks of photocopied documents and articles and old pictures.

It was a brilliant fall day when she walked to the library, but now it’s getting windy, and soon the first rain drops splatter against the windows. She’ll leave the library soon, uneasy even if she doesn’t know why, and she’ll run into her brother on the street and he’ll give her a ride home and tell her about the man Trevor overheard at Zeds...

Little Ugly

2008-06-03T11:10:00.006-04:00

As I told my family last night at dinner, when it comes to car colors, I prefer understated, nuetral colors. Which is why I just purchased this:

Understated? Right...

'95 Subaru Impreza in a nearly indescribable color, 80,000 miles, great condition and the price was right. Is it green, blue, teal, aquamarine? I really can't say, but I do know it's easy to find in the parking lot! I call it 'Little Ugly', but there's great affection in that term. My aunt recommended large hippie flower decals.

Sleep Less

2008-06-02T23:15:00.001-04:00

Remember how I wrote a long post on how I wasn't doing so great at the sleeping thing? Well, if the trials of an almost-insomniac-but-not-quite aren't your thing, you probably want to read no further.

Still reading? Cool. Because I'm at it again: 11:00pm after a very long weekend and all I want is to sleep. Instead I'm lying in bed thinking that when I end up in a dorm situation again I'm probably going to opt for a laundry bag as opposed to a hamper because it takes up less space. Seriously. 11 at night, brain kicking into high speed and that's what I'm thinking about. I think its a sort of avoidance response, because all the important things I could be thinking about give me a stomach ache.

So at any rate, my computer and I are having some quality time in the semi-darkness of my living room. Actually, to be accurate, in a rocking chair right on the edge of the living room and kitchen. This is because my Aunt is sleeping in the next room over, separated only by curtains over glass doors, and I don't want to wake her up. The kitchen light is on as low as it can go, and if I sit on the couch all the small bugs that manage to creep in through the screens are attracted to my computer. It is a rather attractive little machine, since it's a Mac.

We had hoped to be joined by a nice cup of thyme tea (good for your immune system, and...heart, I think? Or circulation? Something in that general area) but the kitchen is fresh out of thyme. My search through the spice cabinets yielded only bay, parsley, basil, and cloves. Cloves make good tea, particularly with cinnamon, but both are stimulates - not really what I'm looking for. The tea shelf (yep, we basically have an entire cupboard devoted to the stuff) is running low and there is no herbal tea to be found. Just a lot of green tea. And Lyons Original. Fabulous teas both, but they also contain a certain stimulus beginning with 'c'.

What I really want to do is work on my WIP. As soon as I open the file, though, I feel utterly brain weary. Maybe if I open the file and stare at it long enough I'll be ready for bed?

....

Nope. I just started thinking about laundry containers again. And how woefully inadequate I am at this thing called life, particularly in the areas of sleep, decision making, and human relations of all types.

I'm going to research anti-inflammatory diets, and if that doesn't put me to sleep I don't know what will.

Massacre of the (not so) Innocents

2008-05-30T10:34:00.003-04:00

Coming back from the library this morning, I drove past road kill alley. Over the course of the night, two possum and a raccoon had been turned into little more than heaps of fur and tails - all within ten feet of one another. Did one possum stroll out into the road for a nightly constitutional and then, SPLAT! no more possum? And then his friend, huddled and traumatized on the shoulder, with one last desperate wail, ran to his friends still quivering body, sobbing onto his blood encrusted fur when suddenly SPLAT! No more possum. The world is better off without them, nasty varmints.

But the raccoon? How did the raccoon get involved? Maybe the two possum were working together, part of the secret society that I am sure possum must have. They lured the unsuspecting raccoon to the edge of the woods, then pulled claws and forced him into the center of the road - that's right buddy, right on that yellow line. And then, before the death blow could come, headlights cut through the darkness, four wheeled death tearing in their direction. They scattered. But too late. Silence once more claimed the road, all three animals dead.

That doesn't fully work though. Raccoons are notorious tricksters, I doubt even two possum could trick one into something that stupid. Although possums are tricksters too. Maybe all three were plotting together and just chose a really stupid place to meet.

I learned that there was a dead fox in the same place yesterday. Maybe the woodland creatures use the spot for executions or to dispose of unwanted dead bodies. What, old Reynard? Its a shame, isn't it. Never thought a car would be the end of him. Me? What? No, I have no idea how it happened. I was just walking past, and SPLAT, no more Reynard...

Schadenfreude

2008-05-29T08:23:00.004-04:00

Maybe this is the hopeless english geek coming out in me, but I love learning new words. Today's is Schadenfreude. It's a noun, the "satisfaction or pleasure felt at somebody else's misfortune." Your challenge is to use it (correctly) in the course of a normal conversation. I wonder if Schadenfreudien is acceptable? That would come in handy.

In other news that isn't, yesterday I was enjoying one of my favorite pastimes - making fun of the book descriptions in Christian publishing catalogs. A few of these were so amazingly bad that I had to share them.

First prize goes to Colleen Coble's book Anathema: "Hannah Schwartz slipped away from her Amish family to meet with her beau. When she returned, she discovered her parents murdered and their handmade quilts stolen." I'm still laughing about this.

Coming in at a close second is Dark Horse by Ralph Reed: "Offering a looking-glass into presidential politics, Dark Horse contains characters, plot twists and rare insight to the real-life presidential campaign now underway." A novel with plot twists? And characters? This is earth shattering, revolutionary! Or maybe it's more along the lines of, 'gee gosh, I don't remember much about this book, but I know it had characters and plot twists.'

Third place is awarded to Melanie Wells' My Soul to Keep which has a great cover, but a bad description: "A joyful summer afternoon goes south when a little boy is snatched from a neighborhood park, setting off a chain of events that seem to lead exactly nowhere." I'm running out to buy this book because, man, I love plot lines that lead exactly nowhere.

It was a tie for fourth place. Does it go to Deeper Water by Robert Whitlow? "Leaving behind her Bible-believing family, Tami Taylor accepts a job with a prestigious Savannah law firm and quickly discovers the politics of a city with many ghosts." Or is Randy Alcorn's Deception a more worthy choice? "Homicide detective Ollie Chanler has seen it all. But when he's called to investigate the murder of a university professor, he finds himself going places he's never gone before." As in, the prof's office?

Enough of the Christian publishing industry for a moment. If you live in central PA, did you know that the farmers market is a great place to meet new people? So claims the central PA magazine. If you have ever met anyone in a farmer's market, step forward and make yourself known! But on your first date beyond the market, check on your parents and their quilts when you get home.

Excitment!

2008-05-23T10:54:00.006-04:00

Some things are so exciting that you simply have to share them. This is one of them. I'm sitting on my dock by the lake, the breeze still a bit more chilly than you'd expect for the end of May, the lake brown from all the recent rains, the maple trees casting a full, green tinged shadow over where I'm sitting. This last part is important because it means I can easily see my computer screen. I can sit out here as long as I like, enjoying the spring like weather (finally) while working on virtually anything. I don't even have to worry about my battery running low because I'm using an extension cord. Oh yes. Bliss. Now if only I could make the dog shut up and reheat my coffee, we'd be in great shape!

Oh, and I cut my hair to the shortest it's been since I was about two. I'm also buying a car. But, you know, those are dim in comparison to being able to write, forever if I so desired, on the dock.

As far as the WIP goes? I'm working on the plot at the moment, getting the beginning to catch up with the end and have things a little more evenly spaced. I'm also making sure that I actually understand what's going on...

What to Write?

2008-05-21T19:02:00.004-04:00

I want to write a blog post right now, but I'm not sure what it should be on. Anyway, I already wrote a really good one today - in my head. I was sitting up by the lake, enjoying the sun and warmth after a week of dreary rain and it wrote itself, the words flowing one after another. It was about adoption, and life, and maybe one day I'll actually write it down.

I've found myself thinking about brevity in writing lately. It's something I need to work on...you've probably noticed that. There's an art form called the 'Short, short story'. One day, I'd like to be able to write a short, short story. For now, I'll focus on short stories. And, er, this novel o' mine.

And now, in the name of brevity, and because I've been staring a text on a screen for a long time and it's making me sick, I end.

Chau!

Prince Caspian Review

2008-05-17T12:53:00.001-04:00

There has been a lot of talk about The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and how it’s going to be bigger, massive, epic! After watching it yesterday evening, I concur; it is a bigger, massive, epic disappointment. If I was going to sum the film up in one word I would say: uninspiring.

I should probably pause to note that the Narnian Chronicles have part of me since I was 2, and Prince Caspian has long been one of my favorites of the seven. I had very few expectations for this movie, in regards to it meeting the book, but I had hoped it would be a good movie. I walked into the thearter with my eight year old brother gripping my hand, willing it to be good. There were points where that will power was required in order for me to enjoy the movie.

There are two angles in which to approach this review: how the movie compared to the book, and how the movie is as a movie. However, the plot line was so very different from the book that comparing the two is hardly worth it and will just make all of us frustrated and angry. I’ll save those thoughts for later.

Whenever I watch movies based on books, I try to keep in mind that it is ‘based’ on the book - often in the very loosest sense of the word. As in, if you wrote a one sentence synopsis of the book that would be generally the same for the movie. In this case: “Caspian and the Pevensies fight to save Old Narnia from the Telmarines.”

Knowing this, I try to keep an open mind and watch the movie as a movie. If I didn’t know the book, would the movie be good? (This is why I am able to so thoroughly enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies, despite the numerous heresies.)

Prince Caspian the movie? Like I said, uninspiring. The plot was poorly conceived and even less well developed. The characters were flat and other than a few lines of modern American humor (which I found jarring in context with swords and a fantasy world) unmemorable. The script was unimaginative and at times cumbersome. It lacked tension, it lacked emotion, it lacked storytelling. Most memorable set of lines because they were so poorly written (and delivered)?
Lucy: I wonder who lived here?
Susan: (picking up a golden chess piece) I think we did.
This should have been such an exciting moment! It should have had a feeling of mystery to it - showing up in a world where you lived thousands of years later, realizing you lived in the ruins you’re standing in? It’s such a great plot element, and here it felt like something they had to get out of the way as quickly as possible.

And they did, because they had all those epic battle scenes to get to.

Normally, I love epic battle scenes, but there was nothing to excite the imagination here, nothing to make you grip the edge of your chair or feel the tension and danger of the moment. Penetrating the fortress by dropping soldiers from gryphons was clever, but once the action started it lost the edge. I don’t love blood shed or watching people violently killed, but after this movie I’ve come to the conclusion that a PG rating and large scale battles don’t mix. And did it bother anyone else that a single goat creature (what are those supposed to be, by the way? Anyone know?) could hold the gate up on its own, but no one else went to help it and then none of the others could push the gate back up and had to stay and die? Things like that bother me.

Letting the underground passages of Aslan’s How collapse was clever, if implausible, and am I the only one tired of one small fantasy army being surrounded by a larger fantasy army on the edge of a crater?

The power struggle between Peter and Caspian is fake, obnoxious, and unresolved. If they felt they had to have it in the film then a bit at the beginning and a resolution after the night raid would have made it more palatable. ‘Immature’ is the word that comes to mind - for both of them. Glenstorm should have ignored them both and taken over.

The flirtation between Susan and Caspian was one of the better handled parts of the movie: a few glances, sympathetic looks, shy smiles and a chaste, impulsive kiss at the end. They could have improved this theme by taking out most of the lines that are involved. Because it provided a bit of subtly and character development, and actually made it seem the characters had feelings, I’m in favor. Bet you never thought you’d hear me say that, did you?

Plot points I completely did not see the point to and which didn’t work:
Lucy riding off into the woods - I presume to find Aslan?
The appearance of the White Witch. All that served to do was make me dislike Caspian more. (And, lets face it, the scene was stupid. Sorry.)
Lucy’s dream about Aslan. Was that supposed to be prophetic? And was it supposed to feel magical and enchanting? Because, call me a cynic, but it wasn’t.

On to character development - or the non existence thereof.

If you had no connection to the four children from the previous movie, then this sequel won’t provide any. Besides Peter, who comes across as obnoxious, arrogant, and stupid, none of the other children have any personality. This might be in part because they have so few lines, like all the characters in the movie who are too busy hacking at people with swords and staring at the cameras with the exact same look to be bothered with dialogue.

As far as Caspian is concerned? Clueless, spineless, and confused are the words that come to mind (and his fake Spanish accent that came and went was irritating). Not exactly who I would choose as a king - unless I was someone like Sopespian and planned on doing away with him as soon as I could.

Speaking of Sopespian, Miraz, and the other villains? They were actually my favorite characters. Miraz didn’t come across as the strong, plotting villain other characters seem to think of him as, but he came across as having more personality than any of the Narnians. The portrayal of the villains were all more subtly portrayed than any other characters. My favorite scene from the movie might have been at the Ford of Beruna after the Narnians stole weapons from the Telmarines. The looks between Miraz, his general, and his councilor spoke volumes.

The Narnians were only mere sketches. Trumpkin? Eh. He didn’t have much of a personality, other than curmudgeon. Reepicheep...well, if you got rid of the annoying American accent and humor and emphasized his chivalrous side a bit more, well, then he might be endearing. Trufflehunter was just this talking badger. Doctor Cornelius might as well not have existed and Caspian’s fondness for him was confusing. Were there any other characters? Because I can’t seem to bring any to mind. Oh right, Nikabrik. As my little brother said, “which one was Nikabrik?”

I hate to be so harsh in my response to a film so many have worked long and hard on, but I can’t help it. Never once did the film draw me. In fact, I was composing reviews, rewriting (even re-filming) parts in my head, and even, at times, being bored. To end as I began, it was thoroughly and disappointingly uninspiring.

Sweet Sleep

2008-05-15T23:30:00.001-04:00

Apparently, my body's internal clock has reset itself to a sleep pattern that really makes no sense to me. I wake up around 6 or 7 without the help of an alarm - but not fully. It’s a hazy, dreamlike state but I know I’m awake because my dreams are grounded in reality and if I wanted to I could push myself into a complete state of wakefulness. Sometimes I drift back to sleep, other times I slowly drift more into wakefulness. Sometime around 8 or 8:30 my mind kicks in and there’s this sudden moment of brilliance in which I realize, gosh, I’ve been lying in bed more or less awake for at least an hour! And then I get up. And I feel great! No more caffeine addiction here (although I fear I’m working back towards one).

No, the fuzzy, not really awake feeling doesn’t set in until around...11? Right. Eleven. So I ignore it, whatever, go on with life, maybe have some coffee or tea. Time moves on, I eat lunch, do what I’m doing.

Four o’clock rolls around and bang, I’m tired. I mean tired where every other thought running through your head is “must...take...nap...” And because I’m not working right now, I often do - even if I don’t mean to. More often if I don’t mean to, actually, which is a problem, because then I don’t set any sort of alarm and the ‘short nap’ may turn into an hour long affair. Any nap is also followed by the whole awake but not really thing, until suddenly I realize I’ve been lying there daydreaming and didn’t know it. Then I get up.

The day goes on, I have supper, evening rolls around. 8:30, 9, 9:30 - hey, I’m ready for bed. But I’m in my early twenties and we do not go to bed before ten, and preferably not even before eleven. It’s one of the cardinal rules of being in your twenties. If you go to bed before eleven, you don’t have a social life. If you go to bed before ten? You’re probably still living at home and not in school. Oh right, like me. But I digress, and I’m sure you’re all very disappointed because I know you’re dying to know about my strange sleep patterns, aren’t you? Just lie, okay, make me feel better. Make me feel like I may not have a social life but I have people who care about my sleep patterns, and hey! what else do you need in life?

So there I am, 9:30ish, far too early for any self respecting 21 year old to go to bed. I figure I can still get another hour at least of my, er, nonexistent life into the day before going to bed - and I’ll still be going to bed early! Plus, it’s now almost officially summer for all of my friends and they don’t come out of the woodwork until after 9pm. (I think when they talk about sleeping in until 10 they mean 10 at night. It’s just a hunch I have).

Guess what happens at around 10 or 11? I wake up. Wide eyed, bushy tailed, ready to go for a run. Only its 11 at night and I have absolutely no where to go. And there would be no one to go with anyway, even if I wanted to, say, go cow tipping. Often I end up writing, because it’s less physically demanding than cow tipping. My lap top is also much closer then the local cow pasture, because that actually requires at least a 10 minute walk. I mean, I could probably make it there in 5 if I ran, but no matter what happens I will never admit to being so desperate for something to do that I will run to the cow pasture to push over cows*.

Eventually I go to bed. Sometimes I turn in at 11 because there is nothing to do (see above) and I might as well be lying in my bed and thinking. I suffer under the delusion that my mind will settle down in the silence and darkness. Yeah. Right. This is my brain we’re talking about, people. The thing does not turn off.

Often I’ll half wake up in the middle of the night. So far, I’ve done nothing exciting - that I know of. If I find an amazing manuscript lying under my hands some morning, I’ll let you know.

Then it all starts all over again, minus the cow tipping. (Confession: I have never actually gone cow tipping. Or if I did, it wasn’t memorable enough for me to recall it. But I think I might have been in a taxi that forced a cow off the road and probably over a cliff in Bolivia. That must count for something.)

All this to say: It’s 11:30. I’m going to work on my WIP. Cheers!

*Caveat: Unless friends (and probably alcohol) are involved.

Making Deals

2008-05-15T11:16:00.004-04:00

I've made a deal with myself: When I finish the important things I have to do today (like calling schools and responding to job postings-anyone have a job they want to offer me?) then I can take myself off somewhere quiet and work on Service. Of course, it's already 11 since I woke up late and then had to wait while two (2!) other people took showers. I was also roped into watching a Chinese movie about the Christmas story (yes, Christmas) with my youngest brothers, and yes, I did browse through the blogs I read, and yes, wrote an email to a friend.

But still, I think I can do this. I really think I can, you know, accomplish something today.

All is not what it (once) appeared

2008-05-14T22:04:00.001-04:00

Notice anything new? Because if you don’t, you seriously need to work on your powers of observation. I’m just saying...

After four days of fruitless attempts to upload the new header for this blog, I finally tried using a different computer. After two fruitful minutes, I had it up. I’m thinking my computer and I may need to have a bit of a chat.

Now, what are thoughts on the new look? Do we like it? Hate it? Think it doesn’t really matter?

I’m not sure how I feel about all white. It might be too sterile. Or I might like it.

For those who are wonder, the sparrow is a rufous-collared sparrow. Very common in Bolivia. Very common in most of South America, actually. I’m rather fond of them because they were the first species I identified using a Spanish language guide.

Field Smell

2008-05-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

A year and a half ago, when I was in school (1 1/2 years - who knew it had been so long?) I used to ride my bike to work three days a week. It was about a three or four mile ride, not very long, but the return ride was all up hill. Yesterday, I got my bike out for the first time since I’ve been home, to see if it was still in working order (it was - eventually) and if I was (I wasn’t).

The route I chose was a meandering, circuitous route along mostly back roads. It ended up being even more meandering than I meant for it to be, because the road I turned down wasn’t actually the road I thought it was which made things interesting. The day was beautiful, warm and sunny, one of those days where those lines from Pippa Passes don’t seem so naive and simplistic:

The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven-
All’s right with the world!

On day’s like these, I actually think maybe Browning was on to something. Other days, I want to punch him and Pippa both.

When you’re riding or walking or running you see and smell and hear so much that you miss from a car. Plants pushing up through the asphalt, mice running back into the grass, a hedgehog along the side of the road. Really! I know there aren’t supposed to be any in this country, but my brother and I saw one on a bike ride a few years ago. Someone’s pet on the loose, I suppose.

Have you noticed that there are certain smells or sounds or tastes that make you happy, that bring back memories of memories? Nothing distinct, not something you can name just a shadow of a feeling. I passed fields warmed by the sun and this feeling came to me. It was the smell.

Do you know the smell of a field in the sun? Not even just any field; it has to be one with tall grasses, a few thistles, maybe scattered flowers. Fields that you can lie down in and disappear, where the grass is alive with the hum of insects and mice, and where you come across hollows where deer spent the night and you curl up on the flattened grass and chew on straw and try to imagine what it’s like to be a deer. Do you know that smell? It’s the smell of lying in tall grass and staring at the tips above your head and the clouds above that. It’s the smell of wading through a field and making paths and little hollows for houses, or of running through grass taller than you and later finding seeds and bits of straw in your hair and shoes and teeth. It’s summer, and imaginary friends, and adventure and being a kid. But it’s also being, sitting in the field and thinking long thoughts about nothing and everything, taking those moments to walk and reflect, taking time out, stopping. It’s a wonderful smell. I’m sorry if you don’t know it.

Writing is Hard Work

2008-05-11T16:00:00.001-04:00

I’m thinking deep thoughts today, can you tell? This is revolutionary stuff, people! Really, who else has written about how hard writing is? Someone said that writing was easy, just put paper in the typewriter and bleed, but really, that doesn’t fully plumb the depths of this topic now, does it? That’s just spilling out your life onto the keyboard, and all us writers know that it’s so much more than that. If all you had to do was slit a vein and hold it over the page, well, that’d be easy. Anyone could write a book in minutes! It might be the last thing they ever wrote, because I’m not sure how many pages you can cover in blood before you die, but really, slitting my wrist open would be easier than actually writing.

Erm, yes...I’m okay, really. Don’t panic. It’s all under control, so put down the phone.

It’s just been hitting me lately how hard this writing stuff is. And I know every writer out there with a blog complains about this, and I’m sure you’re sick of reading these complaints here and elsewhere - you’re probably thinking, if writing is so hard, just give it up and spare us from hearing about it - but I’m human, and we humans find absolute joy in self torture: from the flagellates in the middle ages to us modern humans who forgo the whips but say we are so busy we’d better cram in another activity to help us relax. Dang. I’m out of breath just from writing that sentence. Good luck if you’re reading out loud (weirdo).

About writing, though. I’ve got a short story I’m working on that I’m rather excited about: the topic, the plot, the tone. But to actually write the thing? Do you know how hard that is? (See paragraph one). As soon as I open the file I’m overwhelmed by exhaustion.

As for my WIP? Yes. Well. I’ve started on the third draft. It’s exciting and all, but sometimes even more exhausting than writing fresh material. Some of it is fresh material, but most of it is rewriting a scene...which sometimes means taking the basic plot point and writing it new. It also means deleting sections and then tying the remaining ones together without those sections. As I said, rather exciting but also a large task.

The worst thing? When I know something needs to change but I don’t know how. Or even worse, is when I know how but I can’t write it. Does that even make sense to you? Because it doesn’t always make sense to me.

The Muck Digger's Shovel

2008-05-09T10:24:00.007-04:00

I apologize for the poor quality of the last post. This one will probably not be any better. In fact, this one might be worse. You'll probably walk away wondering, 'what was she on when she wrote that'?

Faire friends, behold the idea for my next novel! It came to me one night a few months ago while driving home from work. I find it incredibly entertaining. But what do you think? Should I one day write this? If this was the back of a book you picked up in the library, would you check it out? Even better, if this was a book at a bookstore, would you buy it? Or at least write the title down and check it out of the library later. Or am I the only one with this sort of twisted humor?

Maya was 7 the first time she pondered the question, ‘if I held the fate of nations in my hand, what would I do?’ Unlike most 7 year olds that give thought to such things, for Maya it was reality.

Heir apparent of the kingdom Xanthiron, she rose to Supreme Empress when her mother died in a freak accident involving lighting, grease, and inexplicably, the muck digger’s shovel.

Not that the young empress truly holds the fate of nations in her own hand. Her bevy of ministers, advisors, and protectors sees to that, doing their best to ensure she is merely a puppet queen and the whims of a 7 year old are not inflicted on the world.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Maya is actually the warrior queen Havron, ruler of Xanthiron’s most hated enemies. Her healer mage found her dying upon the field of battle, torso nearly severed from her legs, and kindly did his best to restore her to life by placing her within the closest still warm corpse - which happened, rather inconveniently, to be the stillborn baby girl of the Supreme Empress of Xanthiron.

Now, seven years after the fateful day and with a new lease on life, she finds herself in the unique position of ruling her enemy’s kingdom while her own is ravaged by barbarian, half human half amphibian hordes.

All that’s left for Maya to do is take complete control as Supreme Empress of Xanthiron, reinstate herself as warrior queen of Havron, eradicate the plaque of frog men, and inflict her own fate on her healer mage (who claims the only other choice was a mule).

The first task would be nearly impossible for an average seven year old, even for a warrior queen trapped in a seven year old’s body, but Maya is not just any seven year old. She is not even just any warrior queen trapped in a seven year old’s body.

She is Maya Stillborn, former Queen of Havron, and she has a conspirator: her 25 year old son sent to Xanthrion at the tender age of 17 to serve as a spy for his mother. He has risen from potboy to errand runner to scribe to advisor in a series of events that took even him by surprise, and is now in the perfect place to help his mother.

If he wants to. And if they can reach an agreement about such ethical questions as stealing baby’s bodies, using a mage to prolong one’s life, and the ever present question of the muck digger’s shovel.

So, what do we think? Should I write it? And should it be her son...or her lover? Because that would make a strangely twisted plot just a bit stranger and just a bit more twisted. Are you thinking of slinking off and shaking your head? Because you shouldn't. One day, people who come up with thoughts like these will rule the world.

And now you probably should slink off shaking your head. Then, send something nice and calming in my direction.

Thoughts on 'The Brothers Karamazov' at 1:30 AM

2008-05-07T02:00:00.000-04:00

I can honestly say that I don’t want to be awake right now. It’s 1:28am and I’ve been lying in bed trying to sleep since 10:30. It felt much more possible at 10:30. We’re talking tired enough that I didn’t feel like brushing my teeth. So what happened in between stumbling into bed and giving up on sleep and getting out my computer? That’s one of life’s great mysteries, right up there with what happens to socks in the dryer.

In order to soothe myself to sleep, I’m listening to the soundtrack from ‘Rent’. Maybe I should re-think that.

Yesterday, my friend Jessica and I hiked Lookout trail and in one of those serendipitous moments, we ran into another girl I used to know at the trailhead. I caught up with her at the top, and we talked for quite a while, our conversation roaming from humus to world travel to Buddhism to nutrition. Conversations like those are my favorites.

I’m reading The Brothers Karamazov, a state of things which came about by yet another serendipitous circumstances. I’m also reading Madeline L’Engle’s Walking on Water(for the second or third time - fabulous book) and she mentioned The Brothers Karamazov. Since I’d just been trying to decide what my next classic reading choice would be this seemed like a good reason to choose it. I tried to find it in the library that evening, but couldn’t. Pretty sure I was looking in the wrong section, because what college library doesn’t have the great Russian classics? The very next day after my fruitless search, Jessica and I took a friend to a doctor’s appointment. We were sitting out in the parking lot and beginning to get board. Not wanting to study New Testament Theology with Jessica, I scrounged through her trunk for reading material. The sixth Harry Potter book? I’d rather not. The Bible? Not really what I had in mind. A clarinet? Everyone else in the general vicinity wouldn’t appreciate my attempts. The Brothers Karamazov? An obvious sign!

I have to confess: this is my first Russian novel. I know, I know, a despicable state of affairs. However, may I make up for it by stating that I’m thoroughly enjoying the book? It’s weighty on theology and philosophy which is almost as much a part of the book as the story. I’m in the second section and there isn’t really a plot yet, just the sketching of one. I’m not sure you could write that sort of book anymore. Well, you could write it, but I’m not sure anyone would publish it.

Black Mountain

2008-04-29T18:51:00.000-04:00

It’s funny, the things that working in a coffee shop will do to you. Or at least, the things it’s done to me.

For example, I really like coffee now. Really like coffee. The taste of it, the smell of it, even making it. In some ways, my taste has expanded and I’m more appreciative of a wider variety of coffee than before. In other ways, I am far more picky. The coffee has to be good.

You might think that having access to lattés and cappuccinos and flavors would breed a taste for such drinks. For me it was the opposite. Other than enjoying the taste of espresso more I’m really rather over the specialty drinks. I had a mocha the other day and you know what? It just didn’t do much for me. I enjoyed the plain old cup of joe I had the day before. That’s what I have again today, coffee with a touch of cream. Decaf, because I already had a mug of regular and it’s 6:30pm. The regular was better. It normally is.

I’m back down in North Carolina where I went to college for a bit, revisiting my old haunts. The Dripolator, the coffee shop in Black Mountain, has been the place that has most felt like coming home. Campus is strange and surreal. The Drip is still the place it was, small town and artsy but the atmosphere isn’t faked. The coffee is good and so is the food. The wifi is free, the couches comfortable, the baristas friendly, and you’ll probably see at least one person you know. Well, if you used to go to school in the area.

If you are ever in the Asheville area of NC you have to make a side trip into Black Mountain if only so you can visit the drip. They have an Asheville location now as well, but I haven’t spent much time there. Black Mountain has other things going for it: My Father’s Pizza, small stores that are fun to wander into (once or twice), great hiking trails up the mountain in Montreat. If you need a place to stay, allow me to recommend The Inn Around the Corner. It’s a bed and breakfast run by the sister of one of my former professors. I used to work there, scrubbing tubs and making beds and learning about spray on starch and how to iron sheets that were already on the bed. (The best room, in my opinion, is Eagle’s Nest.)

If you want a quite little place to spend some time hiking and writing, I’d recommend Black Mountain. You can always wander into Asheville for more of a city feel (but think small city. Very small. You can see it all in an evening. You’ll feel familiar with it by the end of a day.).

Oh, if you’re ever in Asheville, eat at Rosetta’s Kitchen! I’ve never frequented it (I never really frequented any restaurant in college, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I ate out. Maybe two hands.) but the food is amazing. It’s a vegan and vegetarian restaurant with a lot of atmosphere. Allow me to recommend the Mediterranean wrap. Garlic humus with olives, onions, tomatoes, and sprouts on a whole wheat wrap...mmm...

You should also check out the drum circle on Friday nights (I think - and I think it’s still going on). Even if it’s not your cup of tea you should experience it at least once in your life. Plus, if your into people watching it’s an amazing place for that. Actually, all of Asheville is great for that. It’s a very eclectic sort of place.

I don’t miss my school much, but I miss this area. Didn’t actually realize that until coming back here. If I’m ever a writer by trade then I might come back to this area. Or if certain friends buy certain property I might move in. With my goats and a yurt.

Live Beyond Your Means

2008-04-26T17:14:00.003-04:00

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination ~ Oscar Wilde

What an amazing quote. I know Wilde isn't always to be taken seriously, or great depth found in his witticisms, but sometimes I have to. This is not great financial advice - but what about in other aspects? What about living beyond your means in a hypothetical sense? Taking chances, making mistakes, doing things you shouldn't really be able to do but somehow doing them anyway.

And what about living beyond your means in the sense of imagination and creativity? Dreaming and breaking the rules, 'beating the system'. Can it be done?

Or spiritually - our spiritual means are never great enough to fulfill us. If we live within our own spiritual means then we truly will suffer from a lack of imagination in the truest sense.

I know I'm extrapolating from Wilde's satirical comment on the stick-in-the-muds, and I doubt he meant for this quote to have any great spiritual depth, but there it is.

Go out, live beyond your means.

(But if it involves large debts and loosing money - you never heard it from me)

What to Write?

2008-04-25T21:48:00.004-04:00

Do you ever have the feeling that you must write? Perhaps even that you must write a certain thing, such as a poem, or short story, or, er, blog post? The feeling grows, and grows, and you've been doing so much thinking and realizing that you know that there is something to be written and soon the feeling is almost a need - but besides journal entries you can't seem to get anything else started.

Anyone? Anyone? I know I'm not the only one that feels this way.

My options are broad; much has happened to blog about. There is a novel to work on. There is a short story to finish. There are short stories waiting to be born. There are novels waiting to be born! Oh wait, did I say that? Because I didn't mean it. Not yet. Really. Please, not yet. Please. Go. Away. No, don't go away, just go back to sleep and wait. I'll get to you one day.

But what if I don't? I know I'm not the only writer to worry about this. All those stories, ideas, fragments of poetry - what if something happens and they don't get written? No one will read them! I won't know how they end! The characters will never be fully alive! The world will stop turning! People will die!

I exaggerate. But it feels that way, sometimes. The thought that certain stories in my mind might never be written is not a thought. It can't happen. Inconceivable!

The past few days the feeling of needing to write has been growing. But what will I write? Even sitting down to write this blog post I had ideas in my mind: write about the various happenings, all those thoughts churning and churning in your mind that won't shut up. Then I clicked 'new post' and, well, this is what you're getting. Maybe those thoughts have been churning for too long. Maybe I'm tired of writing them because I've journaled about them and talked about them. Maybe I'm just a lazy writer.

That can happen to thoughts. As fabulous or terrifying as they are if you think and write and talk and think and write about them sometimes they are too tired to write about anymore, no matter how badly you want to. Sometimes you can't talk about them anymore. Why is that, I wonder? Is there a certain limit? Is it the same for all thoughts, or different for different ones? Some days I think it is a bad thing. Other days, I think and write about the thoughts until they're too tired to even whimper because its as close to killing thoughts as you can get.

Killing thoughts - it sounds like a horrible futuristic dictator's activities in a science fiction novel, or a far seeing political satire. It's something I want some days. Do you know how it is when you can't turn your mind off? You aren't even thinking productive thoughts, just the same ones over and over and over again. Writing is one way I turn off my mind, one way I practice the art of Being. Walking is the other way, or even sitting by a stream or in the woods. It's not always easy, Being. Like most difficult things, though, it's important.

My own songs awaked from that hour

2008-04-12T10:57:00.002-04:00

What I should be doing right now: Cleaning my room, doing important paperwork, writing about the Han Chinese Diaspora in Zambia, finding a place to stay when I show up in North Carolina on Thursday.

What I’m doing instead: Looking through pictures from my friend in Austria, listening to ‘The Magic Flute’, drinking coffee, trying to decide if I like Whitman’s poetry.

Obviously the things I am doing instead of the things I should be doing are much more important.

For example, the question of Whitman’s poetry. I’ve never really been a fan of Whitman. I think it’s probably because the few pieces of poetry I’d read by him were from “Song of Myself”, a title which always struck me as insufferably egotistical, and seemed mostly about young men in bathing suits by the ocean. Sorry, Walt, but that’s not really my thing. Well, okay, maybe that would depend on the young men...What was I saying? Oh right, Whitman. This poetry stuff, it’s just so distracting.

Whitman also happens to be an American poet. I have nothing against American poets, but I never really studied them the same way I studied British poets. Much of the poetry and poets I enjoy now I didn’t care for until I studied them and discovered that they were really, really good. T.S. Eliot, for example - I love his poetry, but I didn’t the first time I read it. But Eliot isn’t Whitman.

When I was younger, my biggest complaint against Whitman was that he wrote free verse. (Obviously he wrote free verse, the man has been called the father of free verse.) It was only recently that my preference began to move from lyrical to free verse - recently as in a few years ago. Now that I enjoy free verse, I think I might actually enjoy Whitman. Or some of Whitman.

I picked up one of my poetry anthologies a few nights ago (Immortal Poems of the English Language, ed. by Oscar Williams) and was flipping through, reading a poem here, a poem there. And then I came to Walt Whitman. Eh, why not, I figured. A poet can’t be considered one of the most influential in his country and not have something to offer me. I read There Was a Child Went Forth. And I enjoyed it. Then I read Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, and that was good as well. So were I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing and Grassfrom Song of Myself.

(Short intermission to say...wow...Motzart...Oh, Zittre Nicht, Mein Lieber Sohn...wow. And there was a point in my life when I thought I didn’t like opera because it was just a bunch of big bosomed women singing. What an ignorant little twerp I was.)

Overtly sexual? Yes, some of it. Homosexual overtones? Yeah. Sometimes obscure, downright strange? Uh, yeah, I’d say so. But he wrote in the transitional period between transcendentalism and realism, and somehow managed to capture both in his works, so what can you expect? And it wouldn’t be Whitman if it wasn’t all those things.

I love stumbling across a new poem or poet. Even better is stumbling across one I’ve read other times but really enjoying, really reading it, for the first time.

The Laws of Adverse Productivity and Multiple Procrastination

2008-04-07T09:27:00.001-04:00

I’ve recently been operating under the Law of Adverse Productivity, which states that the more there is to be done in the course of a day, the less which will be accomplished in the course of said day, as well as the Law of Multiple Procrastination, which states that the number of deadlines which fall at the same time is inversely related to the number of projects which will be started in a timely manner.

The obvious result of these two laws at work in my life is this blog post. Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with a Daily To Do list - I haven’t really been boring myself with those either. Might help if I did, but I always get over ambitious when I start writing them, and before I know it the list is two pages long and even the most die hard To Doer would faint at the sight. My lists are somewhere more along the lines of a monthly or weekly list. A procrastinator list, with dates written next to the items so I know how long I can put them off for. I’d probably generally be less stressed if I procrastinated less, but then, stress is often what leads to procrastination. It’s a vicious cycle my friends, a vicious cycle.

On the flip side, there’s a lot of good news! For starters, April 12th is my last day of work. Huzzah! No, I have no future employment plans (that’s one of those things on my hypothetical To Do list) and I’ve only sort of been looking. But this is still a Good Thing. I’ll tell you more later. Maybe.

The second draft of Service is finished! What I mean by this is that all my hand scribbled notes and changes have now been entered into the manuscript and have themselves been changed. I could actually print the second draft and other people would be able to read it. They would no longer have to decipher my scribbles in between the lines and half hidden by coffee stains.
This is part of the procrastination problem (the second draft being completed, not the coffee stains): I really just want to curl up with my laptop and a note pad and read through the beast and figure out what works and what doesn’t...and then start revising. Again. The book is growing and maturing, the plot becoming more cohesive, the characters filling out, motives coming clear - all those things you want in a final book. I’m rather excited by it. I’m not excited about re-writing the beginning, though, and I rather think it needs it.

I actually applied to schools! Crazy stuff, actually accomplishing a task. The schools currently in possession of my application (I wince to think of admissions people reading my essays. Why am I never happy with them?) consist of the following: Carleton College (it’s in MN), Juniata College (in PA) and Green Mountain College (in VT). There, the words out, no one can claim I didn’t tell them. Now I wait.

Pero ahorita, I go to make coffee. And then accomplish, er, something. Something important.

Put it in Perspective

2008-03-28T11:55:00.002-04:00

20% of the world’s population live in industrialized countries - and they consume 80% of the world’s food...

Malnutrition is the cause of death for 55% of children under five...

In the minute it takes you to read this, 24 children will have died from hunger and preventable diseases. That’s 720 children dying in the half hour it takes you to eat breakfast. That’s thirty-four thousand children dying every day...

You’ve heard statistics like this before. You’ve felt guilty, frustrated, wanted to do something - and then felt helpless and done nothing and felt guilty for doing nothing. Hunger is a huge problem. Poverty is a huge problem. Feeling guilty is not the answer.

Consider: A woman in Malawi receives a small loan and starts a bakery. In six months, she pays back the initial loan, sends her four children to school, and can buy clothing, school supplies, and additional food. She begins planning to expand her bakery business and wants to open a restaurant. The initial loan was about $40.

Forty dollars. Think about it. Even if you make minimum wage you make over $40 working a single eight hour shift. One day of work can mean a new business for a woman in Malawi. It can mean a future for her children.

How many of us have bought something we really didn’t need for $40?
Gone to a concert or out for the evening? I’m not against going to concerts or spending an evening with friends. I’m not even against buying a $40 pair of shoes.

But if we’re willing to spend $40 on things we don’t need and won’t have a lasting impact, then we should be willing to spend it in ways that will have a lasting impact. Do we? Or do we look around us and see people spending more, making more, and say, ‘I don’t have that much - I can’t give much, so why bother?’

Here’s my challenge: Don’t feel guilty about living in a wealthy country. Do something! Even if all you do is donate money, go and do it. We’ve all been told, or told ourselves, at some point not to feel guilty, to do something for ourselves, blow forty bucks and have some fun. Do something for yourself by doing something for someone else and blow forty bucks.

And if you truly are broke, if you don’t have $40 to spend on anyone or anything, then figure out a way to get it. Do you eat out, even cheaply? Don’t, and save the money you would have spent. Give up buying sweets, or books, or music, or whatever it is you like to spend money on, for a week or a month and take the money you save and help other people buy food, and clothes, and a future.

Would you rather take an active role besides entering your credit card number?

Forgotten Voices works with AIDS orphans and their communities in Southern Africa. They’re looking for help researching topics, promoting AIDS awareness and getting the word out about their projects.

Heifer International helps people rise from poverty through livestock. You can ‘buy’ animals (they make fun gifts!) or fill out their volunteer application, start a ‘Read to Feed’ program with a group of kids, or help promote them in you local community.

Host a jewelry party with Women At Risk, buying beautiful handmade jewelry made by women rescued or at risk from sexual slavery.

Ten Thousand Villages is one of my favorite stores. It’s also one of the oldest and largest fair trade organization, and if you browse one of the stores in person you might be there for hours.

Even simpler - use GoodSearch as your search engine. Select a charity, and each time you search the web money is donated to that cause. Pretty simple, huh?

There are hundreds of other organizations and ways to get involved. (Add your favorites in the comments!) I know it’s not always easy - life is busy and transportation sometimes difficult. I know I’m never as involved or doing or giving as much as I would like.

Think: You could go out today and spend $40 on a pair of shoes, a computer game, a couple of books, a fancy meal. Or you could check out the links in the side bar under ‘Organizations’ and give $40 dollars and give a family a goat, help a woman start a new life outside the brothels, feed a child and send them to school.

(Stats from the World Relief Corporation)

Dedicated to a Cause

2008-03-17T10:43:00.000-04:00

It was a feeling...which would be as difficult and embarrassing to speak about as religious experience and yet it was as authentic as the feeling you had when you heard Bach, or stood in Chartres Cathedral or the Cathedral at León and saw the light coming through the great windows; or when you saw Mantegna and Greco and Brueghel in the Prado. It gave you a part of something that you could believe in wholly and completely and in which you felt an absolute brotherhood with the others who were engaged in it.
~For Whom the Bell Tolls

It’s a feeling that is mostly lacking in life but that most people long for, even if they don’t realize it. Life is senseless without a reason to live. Sometimes it seems that this longing has all but disappeared. It is virtually nonexistent in places where you would expect to find it at its strongest - like the church.

The general consensus of my generation - correct or incorrect- is that the church is dead. If we want to find a thriving christian community, if we want to find a cause to dedicate ourselves to, we have to look outside the church. ‘Vibrant’ or ‘alive’ are words that might be applied to other movements (environmental, artistic, humanitarian, alternative lifestyles) but only in the past tense to the church, or in a dreaming projection of the future.

It would be easy for us to pass out judgment: the church is hypocritical, judgmental, uncaring, unfriendly, afraid to ask questions, afraid to change, fake, focused on rituals, opaque and intolerant.

It would be easy for the church to turn to us and ask why, if we see problems, we do nothing about them.

We would both have legitimate complaints and questions. I’m too worn out and frustrated with both sides to try and address them. Instead I’ll just offer some observations from the point of view of my generation: a generation in which many have been raised in the church but now are leaving the church - and even leaving the faith - because when they wanted and needed it most it wasn’t there.

When we look at the church we see closed doors and an age segregation we can’t fit into. There are kids, and there are adults, and then, oh right, there’s this group of people who don’t really fit into either group, and they have some kind of different ideas about their faith and the world and they’ve got a lot of frustrated idealism and we’re actually a little bit uncomfortable with them. So we’ll just do our best to segregate them and ignore them, and soon they’ll be adults and fit in with the rest of us.

As our response we’d like to say: we sincerely hope not. We realize we’re idealistic, dreamers, still immature and naive. But we sort of think it would be nice if you encouraged our dreams, like you did when we were little and you told us we could be whatever we wanted to be. We’re figuring out what that is, and it’s looking different from what you had in mind. Remember, change can be a good thing. (You used to tell us that, too. But when we want change you seem a little leery about the idea.)

A lot of us don’t want to simply find a good job, make a living, and settle down to a comfortable life. We’d rather dedicate ourselves to a job, make something out of our lives, work towards something bigger than ourselves. It’s a shame the church isn’t more encouraging and open. There are a lot of causes and movements that actively recruit young people. Honestly, we’d rather go somewhere where our ideals are encouraged then struggle to carve out a foothold in the church.

A lot of us don’t want to be segregated. We might not always come across this way, but we actually like adults. We like talking to people with more wisdom and experience than us. We don’t like teaching your kids but never talking to you. We don’t like feeling that we have to seek out others our own age to feel comfortable.

Why don’t we step out and make changes, ask to be included, find places for ourselves? We could. We should.

But let me ask you a questions first: Why don’t you reach out to us, include us, help us make a change?

It was something that you had never known before but that you had experienced now and you gave such importance to it and the reasons for it that your own death seemed of complete unimportance; only a thing to be avoided because it would interfere with the performance of your duty. But the best thing was that there was something you could do about this feeling and this necessity too. You could fight.
~For Whom the Bell Tolls

We want to fight for a cause and if we don’t give up first we will find one. It would be nice if some of us could fight with the church instead of despite it.

Just one of those bad days

2008-02-28T15:00:00.004-05:00

Today has been such a bad day that I can only laugh at it. It's only 3 in the afternoon, and so much has gone wrong that seriously, what else is there to do? Dissolving into tears, loosing myself in the hypnotic writing of Hemmingway, getting completely trashed - those are all tempting possibilities. But it is only 3 and I still have homework to finish not to mention class tonight, so I think I'll stick with laughing. A slightly maniacal laugh, maybe, but still a laugh.

Things started going wrong when I woke up this morning. By that I mean that the mere act of waking was the wrong choice. Further wrong things occurred throughout the morning, cumulating in my arrival at work at 7:30.

At work, only half the espresso machine is currently operable, so anything requiring more than 2 shots of espresso requires making the espresso, then pulling it again and making it again, extending the normal process by at least 30 seconds. And when an impatient person without their morning coffee is waiting (desperately, impatiently) for you to make their latte, and there are three people behind them (also waiting on their life giving drugs), then 30 seconds builds up. And actually, I think it's more like 45 seconds.

Upon my arrival at work I discovered that there was not hot chocolate mix. And there wasn't any in the back either. And I was developing a nasty headache that was growing steadily worse and seemed to be contemplating reaching migraine proportions. But other than that, things were going okay.

Then the cash register broke.

I don't think you really got the impact of that last sentence. Allow me to reiterate:

And then...the cash register broke. Itbroke. As in, no longer worked. As in, nothing could be rung up. As in, no change could be made or cash placed into the till. As in, inoperable. It was about 9:30am.

We started taking exact change from people and keeping it in an envelope, which doesn't look at all sketch on the camera. If they didn't have exact change, we printed out a bar code, slapped it on their cup, and sent them to a different register. (Remember, this coffee shop is inside a larger store and has some sort of symbiotic relationship going on. At least, I think its symbiotic). The printing of stickers, the refilling of the sticker tape, the explaining to confused and bewildered costumers kept us occupied for a solid half hour.

As time went on and still no one had fixed our register, we tried not to think about the fact that the CEO of the company that own the larger store our store is in was coming through that afternoon. We tried not to think about the fact that our order had come in and we really needed to put it away and refill the beans.

But there's only so long you can not think about things like, and so the lunch hour found me covered in burlap and oil from the bean bags and praying fervently for the cash register to start working. People get nasty when all they want is a cup of coffee and you say, "um, see that long line over there? You have to go stand there to pay for this coffee...sorry..."

Our register was fixed around 1:30. I was done work at 2:30. My head was begging me to take a running jump off a cliff, but instead I had to finish homework and go to class.

Like I said, it was a long day.

Turn Inward

2008-02-26T10:58:00.001-05:00

It’s raining today, soft gray rain that’s only a murmur on the roof. It’s a day that somehow feels separated from other days, as though the misty fog that envelopes the countryside manages to hide this day from time and from life. I feel as though not accomplishing the things that need to be accomplished will not matter on this day, because this day is not a real day, not a day to do things in.

This is a day to spend driving back country roads, music playing softly, rain falling even more softly on the windshield, the rain and the gray and the mist turning everyday objects into something else, turning the normal drab landscape into a poem.

This is a day to spend cocooned in the house, huddled quietly like the deer and the rabbits hunker down in the briars. It’s a day to slip back into rhythms of the world were rain slows things down and everything spends the day in a half sleep, lost in thoughts and dreams. Only things that have to be done are done and the rest ignored.

It’s a day for poetry, philosophy, music and writing. This is a day to turn inward.

Go to the Unprintable and Unprint Thyself!

2008-02-18T21:06:00.002-05:00

The man, Agustín, spoke so obscenely, coupling an obscenity to every noun as an adjective, using the same obscenity as a verb, that Robert Jorden wondered if he could speak a straight sentence. - Hemingway

I know I already blogged once today, and posting more than once is very much an anomaly for me, but when a writer says something so well I feel compelled to share it. Doesn’t the above quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls describe some people amazingly well? It drives me crazy, particularly because there normally is a “principle obscenity that...lard[s] the conversation.”

I’m tempted to say to people like Agustín, “if you’re going to swear every other word, couldn’t you at least come up with a new word every now and then? Couldn’t you be a little creative about your obscenities? For the shock value, if nothing else. The same obscenity really looses its effect.”

Maybe it would help if they saw their sentences printed out. Take this excerpt from Hemingway:

Is it true about the bridge?...That we blow up an obscene bridge and then have to obscenely well obscenity ourselves off out of these mountains?...Go to the unprintable...and unprint thyself...

I have to say, I love that last bit. It sounds like a threat out of bookland. Plus, there is not much to laugh about in Hemingway’s work. It’s a little like life - you have to think to find the humor.

Introducing Kai-Wie! (Also, a rant against Roman Supremacy)

2008-02-18T10:53:00.002-05:00

I don’t have to work today, but I was up at 7:30 this morning. Partly it was because my biological clock kicked in and told me it was morning. Mostly it was because the door was flung open and a little boy called “Come on!”

Groggily, I sat up to listen to Kai Wei’s animated reenactment of Java and Hagar’s (one of the cats) boxing match. I laughed obligingly, said good morning, and promptly turned over and tried to go back to sleep. I don’t work today and it’s been a long, stressful week, and since I went to bed at 11 waking up at 8 would give me 9 hours of sleep which sounded like a really great idea.

It really does, in theory. But an excited 10 year old boy still in the grace period of sisterly niceness sort of ruined the theory. It wasn’t just that he was back a few minutes later to tell us that the snow was gone, but that he was back a few minutes after that to shoot me with a nerf gun.

I guess he’d decided it was time for me to get up.

I tried to hide under my covers, but he pulled them back and shot me anyway. Annie told him in Chinese that I wanted to sleep. “No!,” he replied, also in Chinese, “she want’s me to shoot her!”

That was news to me, but by then it was 7:45 and I was pretty much wide awake. Being shot at does that to you.

Now I have to do my homework for my class on Thursday night, but a lot of the articles I have to read were written by Ralph D. Winter. And I hate articles written by Ralph D. Winter. Or at least, I hated one he wrote (I didn’t finish it) and barely tolerated the second.

That first one, that horrible one I hated that I didn’t finish? It trashed Goths (the ancient people group, not the modern ones), referred to Alfred the great as “a tribal chieftain (“king”) of Wessex” who “successfully headed up guerrilla resistance” (and for this they called him ‘The Great’? No, because he was great, lead his men to an amazing victory against great odds, and managed to unite a divided kingdom - I mean, there are always two sides to a story, but this...this...), said that Charlemagne was “much more a Christian than Constantine” (um, who is Winter to judge men long dead? And how can one Christian be ‘more’ than another? But then this is also the man who called the Goths “total pagans”...as opposed to...partial pagans? I mean, come on!), and worst of all he completely trashed the Vikings!

“These savages” were “neither civilized nor even lightly Christian” (gosh, I wonder why? Because they didn’t know about Christianity maybe?) and “took a special delight in burning churches, putting human life to the sword right in the churches and selling monks into slavery” (they were there for plunder, which included slaves, and churches were the richest places around and the lest defended. Of course they went there. Not that I think they were in the right, but if you’re raiding to get wealthy, would you attack the poor huts, or the rich monasteries? Um, lets think about that one...) they were “depraved people” (and Winter isn’t? And the Romans weren’t? Guess he doesn’t believe in the total depravity of man. The Vikings didn’t build the coliseum. Think about that, Winter, think about that).

Sorry, I get a little worked up about things like that. Don’t even get me started on the writing quality of this article...

I know, I know, he’s the one with the degree, the experience, the age. But such an imperialist, Western superiority that considers all other civilizations apart from Rome to be ‘barbarian’ and ‘uncivilized’ and declares that missionaries had to civilize them and Christianize them makes me very, very angry. In case you couldn’t tell.

I think I’ll go read some Beowulf. Its one of those great masterpieces of literature that’s lasted for thousands of years and is amazing poetry and was, you know, written by uncivilized, totally pagan, depraved barbarians. No wonder I like it...