(Parenthesis)
{Dream-logic rarely succeeds.}Archive for February, 2008
Watching Girls Cry
E is breaking down.
I’ll leave it to Edward to sort out.
He’s much better at this sort of thing than I am.
Missing and Misued Language
Today’s word of the day is…
Dramastically: striking, startling, exponential, possibly theatrical in nature. “The energy in this part of the piece needs to increase dramastically.”
Senor Biggles had a moment of senility in band today when he attempted to combine the words “dramatically” and “drastically,” though he was reasonably successful. I imagine we’ll probably continue using it fairly regularly just because it annoys him.
Smailes caught me in the parking lot this morning and expressed a desire for more interaction than we’ve had of late. Apparently my feelings of seriously missing AP Comp and Lit were mutual, despite the fact that Smailes’ ego is approximately–no exactly–the size of Belgium and fancies itself as wondrous as the Colossus of Rhodes. At least the level of conversation was fairly elevated. Brit Lit is a bit of a let down in that respect. The reviews for the AP test are coming up rapidly, however, so I’ll have time to catch up with him in due time.
For now I need to concentrate on not failing spectacularly at life.
My mother has taken to trying to psychoanalyze me when she gets bored, and so far she’s managed only to decide and then inform me that I have serious self-esteem issues. I tend to focus on the things I can’t do instead of those I can. This is true, but it’s not usually so much an issue of a lack of self-esteem on my part as that I really just like to complain. I find it entertaining and stress-relieving. Stress is bad. Really, she doesn’t know the half of the matter.
Besides, no matter how much my negative mental state has twisted me (and here I have a mental image of my soul shaped like a corkscrew and then bent at a right angle to resemble a piece of oblique modern art), I make up for it by having an ego about a mile high. In that respect I suppose Smailes and I make quite the pair, except that he has the advantage of having figured out what his calling in life is. I still don’t even know where I’m going to college.
About a thing called Love
I do occasionally enjoy making peoples’ day.
Though the way his face lit up when I mentioned the great man will never cease to weird me out just slightly. I don’t think he’s ever actually smiled in his life (not really), but his face sort of lights up and his eyebrows raise. It’s a strange event to behold, particularly since it happens so rarely, and I think I’m picking up the habit. Unfortunately.
In any case, I find myself elated beyond all reason.
I think I’ll go bash my head against a wall for a while until I learn not to put myself out in the open like that ever again.
I’ll tell me ma when I go home, the boys won’t leave the girls alone
My long and detailed analysis of King Lear is coming, but there are a few things I need to get out of my system first.
I was in Atlanta, Georgia (appropriately christened “CNN land” by E) when Kurt Vonnegut died. I was probably in the CNN building when it happened, as yet I still didn’t know until a day or two after the fact when E solemnly passed me the phone during a call from her mother. He was gone, the only author I’d ever wanted to meet (except for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but that wish was always a bit far-fetched). The bastard.
The other day I was talking with my father about a man he met while in California just recently who had actually gone to college with Vonnegut in Indiana. Apparently they’d been quite good friends, since when the man my father met got the rather pompous application letter from Harvard Law School and told Vonnegut he wasn’t going to go since they were such assholes, Vonnegut immediately urged him to go. In the end the man wrote his essay on the subject of how pompous and ridiculous he thought Harvard was, how he couldn’t believe anyone would actually want to go there, and that he most certainly would not be enclosing his application fee, since it would only be putting salt on the wounds Harvard had caused him. He was accepted with open arms and graduated some years later.
The realization that I’m in my last semester of high school (unless I somehow managed to fail my government class, something I hope to hell does not happen) is finally starting to cause me a degree of anxiety, particularly concerning what the hell I think I’m going to do with my life after high school. There’s really no way I’m going to be able to continue on in my current manner.
The situation is particularly sticky because my parents managed to find out that I was just recently accepted to both CSU and the Colorado School of Mines. I only applied to Mines to see if I could get in (I am not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination) and CSU in the omnipresent in-state fall back. I also applied to Cornell College in Iowa, where Kitty goes. I’ve still yet to hear back from them, but to be perfectly honest, they are my school of choice right now. I miss Kitty like you wouldn’t believe.
My parents want me to go to Mines. I probably will.
This just goes to show you what free will is good for.
- – - – - – -
On a mildly lighter note, I stole “Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened” from E the other day and spent most of the weekend playing it. It’s… interesting, though difficult to play on a laptop with only a touch-pad, since it makes navigation rather difficult. But anyway, at one point Holmes is in Switzerland at an insane asylum, and he encounters a rather enigmatic inmate with no name who was found half-drowned on the bank of a river. It turns out to be the long presumed dead Professor Moriarty.
The renditions of the characters are actually fairly good. Holmes and Watson are both pretty much as I imagined, but I always expected Moriarty to be a blonder Sherlock, not a squat, graying man with all of the personality and personal charisma of a toad.
It’s just something that’s been bothering me.
- – - – - – -
Also, I recommend that anyone with a soul goes out right now and picks up some music by both The Young Dubliners and The Pogues. “A Pair of Brown Eyes” by either band is one of the best songs I’ve heard in a very, very long time.
It reminds me of Whitekeys, for some reason, even though his eyes are not brown.
‘Twould drink the cup and all.
Act 1, Scene 1, line 21, quoth the Bishop of Canterbury, “Henry V.”
Evidently I was mistaken in my assumption that we would begin reading “The Tempest” today in Brit Lit, and we were actually all given copies “Henry V” instead. I’ve never actually read a history before, so the experience should be interesting. And I mean that both in a good and bad way. I have a considerable amount of interest in that period of English history, however, that puts me in a minority of approximately five out of some thirty, including the teacher. Frankly, I’m surprised most of the people in that class can read. I think some of them are as well.
Needless to say the level of interest was at an all time low today, particularly after the mostly-naked faerie shenanigans in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” of the last two days. I’ve seen that movie far too many times for it to really be all that entertaining anymore, even when Lysander is running around dressed only in one of Hermia’s petticoats.
At any rate, I think I’ll need to be sure to snap up the role of the Bishop of Canterbury, or at least the Bishop of Ely again, since otherwise I’ll probably be bored out of my mind. There is a considerable dearth of appropriate roles in this particular play so far. I much prefer a roguish character, like Edmund (bastard son of the Duke of Gloucester) or Tybalt, if given a choice.
I finally remembered to bring my “King Lear” notes home, but now I’ve gone and left them in the car. If I’m motivated enough tonight, I may go get them, but as this is unlikely, expect my actual update tomorrow.
- – - – - – -
Also, we went and played at Blevins today. I made my speech again (last, as it happens, since my particular point of view is considerably different from those expressed by everyone else besides Sam) and this time Whitekeys was actually there, so I could motion to him when I got to the part about meeting interesting people. He was not amused.
A Small Update
I just remembered something marginally intelligent I can put up here.
After I did them out tomorrow I should probably put up the notes I made on the motif of “Love” in “King Lear.” Given the amount of time Graeme, Yoshi and myself spent on the damn presentation I ought to know what I’m talking about by now.
I should go do math homework now.
Feeling British
Which is entirely ludicrous. My family hasn’t been “british” for at least two generations. Now if only the Westley-Smythe woman would leave me alone. Her voice grates. Terribly.
Anyway, the reason for my temporary change of nationality is that since watching Torchwood for several hours on Saturday I’ve started making tea again. Admittedly it’s really more along the lines of what my mother always refers to as “cambric tea” (hot water, mild, sugar… and maybe some actual tea, usually black), but considering how badly I fail at concocting beverages I’d say I’m doing well. It’s certainly a change from green and Thai tea, so I’m not complaining. I should probably consider getting some better tea, however. Right now I’m using generic brand black tea/orange pekoe mix. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly acceptable tea, but it tastes of cardboard if you leave the bag in for too long.
I think I may have failed a brit lit test today. Writing out one of King Lear’s speeches–the one that starts “No, no, no, no. Let’s away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.”–went pretty well, but I realized about one question in to the quote identification that I had no bloody idea who said most of them. I ended up making a lot of stuff up in the end. Hopefully it will work out as well as the same method did with Beloved in AP Comp and Lit. I aced that test.
I believe that we are reading “The Tempest” next, which should be interesting. I’m considering going out and getting my own copy so that I can write in it instead of having to be so careful with the bloody school hardback copies. And furthermore I keep stabbing myself with the corners. Very annoying.
Apparently E finally started working on her nameplate in 2-D art today. She’s very excited to be working in color again after spending forever on her self-portrait. It does actually look like her, though, and Wolf has all but promised that it will go up in the entry way to the school with all of the other particularly exemplary work. I think after that a sort of prismacolor induced squee-fest will ensue. I’m going to have to make a point to be well away from the art department at that point.
That is all for the time being. Perhaps sometime when I’m feeling more industrious I’ll touch on something in King Lear that has been bothering me and record a couple of the dreams/nightmares I’ve been having of late. After a shower, maybe.
An Assortment of Things
Evidently his Majesty Mr. Whitekeys has seen fit to grace the greater populace with his presence once again. I hate to say I’ve missed him, but I have.
- – - – - – -
On the rare occasion that the mood strikes her, my mother seems to derive some sort of strange pleasure from taking me aside on a Sunday morning and informing me, in a quite matter-of-fact sort of way, that my great-grandparents (and even my grandparents on some level) would be absolutely horrified to find out that I had been raised as an agnostic, and was rapidly veering towards the atheistic. I for my part am rather horrified for the exact opposite reason, but it’s a cultural thing. And when it comes right down to it, there’s really nothing I can do about other peoples’ beliefs, so why care at all?
(Though, between the internet and myself, I do rather fancy that there is a God. That way, in the event that by some miracle or mistake I do go to Heaven, I’ll be able to shake his hand for trying to bring people peace and productive purpose, and then give him a swift kick in the groin for failing so spectacularly at it.)
What really entertains me, however, if when exert enormous amounts of time and energy railing on peoples’ relgions or lack there-of. Particularly amusing is the manner in which Zagreus (and if he knew that I named him after not only a greek god, but a character from a nursery rhyme he’d probably flip) has been ranting about Scientology non-stop for the last week or so. Scientology is bad. Great, I get it. You can stop complaining now. Aylin cares less than I do. I’m surprised she hasn’t killed him yet.
It is still my belief, however, that the award for the silliest religion should go to the Church of All Worlds (or CAW for short), mostly because Iacchus or whatever his name what the wrote the “What is the Church of All Worlds?” section spelled “Valentine Michael Smith” incorrectly.
Honestly, that’s about as pathetic as spelling “Jesus” incorrectly.
- – - – - – -
I was going through my blog stats this afternoon and decided to come up with a list of some of the more entertaining ways in which people have been finding me.
messy kitchen
weird things happen at night
restarting over with my boyfriend
victory at last
instruments musicians friends
sonnet
eddie izzard
conversation about nothing
zagreus wife
all about zagreus
hermione granger’s haircut
This is, mind you, only a small portion of a much longer list. There were five or six other variations on a search for the Zagreus Rhyme, several which likely led straight to my post about my messy kitchen, and one from a girl who was apparently searching for herself.
The last one takes the cake, however: “hermione granger’s haircut”.
I laugh, really.
Change your face, change your fate
A new day, a new look for my blog. I chose this one because it seemed a bit more “balanced” than the others for some reason, though now that I’m actually looking at it I can see that I must have been somewhat delusional at the time. The far left column is absolutely massive compared to the others, particular the two on the right portion of the screen.
The lighter colors are a nice change, however. Somehow a theme called “Chaotic Soul” doesn’t seem like the best one to be using right now. Despite it’s unbalanced nature, this one should at least provide a bit more inner tranquility…or something.
I’m making this up as I go along in order to justify my tendency to rearrange things when I get bored, particularly those which are just as well left alone.
Well, now that I’ve run out of things to say here I may as well go dust the house again, as much as I dislike doing so. I need something to do that doesn’t involve bumming around the Alley Cat for several hours on end. That coffee shop, despite the quality of its food and drink, is rather panic-attack-inducing for me. I still don’t know why I ever bother to go there alone, someday it will be the death of me.
On a completely unrelated note, I’ve started to actually pay attention to my blog stats and have noticed, rather to my distress, that people have actually been reading my ramblings for quite some time now. Some of you I am aware of (though the question arises of how many of my recent readers were brought here by searching for “laudanum” and “transcribe” and the like), but others apparently just lurk.
I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps I’ve been found, finally, by the one person who would likely find this particular corner of the web of particularly relevant interest. For the time being I think I’ll steer clear of paranoia. I’ll let panic set in when it actually becomes necessary.
I bet laudanum could cure this
Apparently Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Dickens both took laudanum as a means of curing writer’s block. If I thought I could get a hold of any (or any sort of opiate for that matter) I’d try it. At this point, I’m annoyed enough to be fairly desperate.
I sat at the computer today for several hours with a blank word document open. And I stared. Occasionally I’d type a few words, or even a sentence, but decided they were somehow “wrong” and press the backspace button until my computer beeped at me to stop abusing the keyboard. At some point in the afternoon I gave up and started watching an Eddie Izzard marathon on BBC America.
Except for this (which doesn’t really seem to count as “writing” as such) I still haven’t written a word today.
I may have finally figured out what my overall problem is when it comes to this sort of thing: I have rather a lot of difficulty seeing the “big picture.” Why should I care about plot when there are endless details of imaginary societies to be explored and pinned down? How important is dialog, really, when the way a character thinks and reacts on the most minuscule of scales is far more interesting? I spend too much time on the details that don’t really matter in the great and grand scheme of things, when what I really should be doing is just vomiting on the page and going back and fixing it later.
As a result I spent the day trying to pin down the back story of one Maxwell Glass, only to be thwarted by the fact that I can’t very well give a character a society-driven motivation for going mad if I have no idea what said society is like. So instead of recording the sordid details of Sabraldis’ past and how it interconnects with Ourania and the rest of the characters, I find myself making hurried notes and diagrams depicting the social and political hierarchy of an elvish race. If this keeps up I’ll probably end up losing interest in the project altogether, which will leave me with a lot of notes and nowhere to use them. I may offer them to Aylin for use with the Eight Kingdoms (I think there are eight, anyway) in exchange for picking her brain for vocabulary for use in the common tongue.
I really need to work on my grammatical structure as well, particularly verbs and the use of nouns as verbs if I’m going to carry out my end of the year plans for Whitekeys.
“Don’t let ‘em school you. Please don’t let ‘em change you. And never ever listen to what they say.” -Gogol Bordello
