From the tired corner

I feel run down at the end of the day. I suppose one good thing about being an adult is that when you've had a long day, spent cheering others and charging through, you can come home and eat cheesecake for dinner if you want. One midterm down, two to go. I'll start making a Shakespeare terms list tonight. For some reason, I have 1642 written in my notes for the start of Interregnum, but then I have 1629 written above it, and even worse, the internet says 1649. I'm so bad with numbers. I think of them as words and end up messing them up. I transpose digits with similar phonemes.

Today, I saw Michael's cookie cutter ear, and it was neat-o. I'm always jealous of the newly pierced, punched, or inked. I wonder what such a punchy punch costs. I shall have to look into that. So cute. I haven't even posted this and someone sent me a message telling me I should "renew [my] facial piercings." Isn't that cute? "Renew," as though they were library books taken out too long.

It's 11+ o'clock. I've done little in the way of studying besides making a terms list, reading some Eudora Welty, and listening to Lou Reed (though I'm not entirely sure how he factors into "studying"). The enormous black spider is still there at the top of the stairs, growing larger and larger. I'm considering naming him/her Betwixt.

"We live as we dream--"

I am drawing the story of how hard we tried

Back in the day, when pirates were captured, they would be buried up to their neck in the sand for three days, awaiting the terror of the tides. When three days were up, provided they were still alive, the pirates were hanged. Sometimes I worry that I'm the wave--the ugly prelude before the truly awful. Jason told Steve once, "You date her and you'll end up just like me. This is what she does to people." I still hope this isn't true. Sometimes that habit of simply moving on just isn't enough. If many of the instances of unfortunateness in my life were more me than the crazies of others, then I owe something, somewhere. I want to go spy on Zeus, see which way the scales are tipping.

It isn't as if all of my relationships have ended badly, but I don't have the best of track records. So I worry. Probably too much. I should stop complaining, blathering, whatever it is I do on blogs. To end this post on a happier note, the nicest thing an ex-boyfriend ever said to me was years after we broke up. We'd long since gotten over being mad at each other, and he told me he had figured out what the problem with our relationship was. I was eager to hear, as he had generally been of the mind that I was the problem, so I expected to hear it again. Instead, he told me we were never meant to be lovers; we were meant to be best friends. I think he was right.

Grammar update

None of the definitions I memorized were on the test.
Figures.

Don't eat the creamed corn

I got a catalogue in the mail from Blair. How could they have found me?! I'm not old! I've hidden so well. I do not want their tankinis, rancho denim split skirt, or polyester pant suits. They may have my name and address, but they shall never have my sooooooouuuul. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm a thespian. Mel Gibson likes to pretend he's getting tortured. I think I'm far better off.

Is pretending something that generally only young people do? At work once, we were talking about things we like to pretend, and my boss said he is past the age of pretending. I don't see how one can be that. It's good fun to pretend to be a child who is being chosen to become the Dalai Lama, "Oh yeah, those are sooo my glasses." I feel confident that no matter how old I am, I may still enjoy pretending to be Nancy Grace or a ballerina, twirling over to the microwave in the kitchen to get boiling water for tea. Now I don't really want to be Nancy Grace or Anna Sobeshchanskaya, but it's still fun to pretend. My co-worker, Ron not Ronald, likes to pretend that his arm is a dinosaur. Now from his perspective, screeching loudly into his or someone else's face and threatening mock prehistoric reptile violence is similar fun to pounding on your desk and demanding that the truth reveal itself at your feet, topped with a pretty red bow. I think we should all have at least one thing we like to pretend to be. As long as it's not BOB.

I've got that "oh nice and chubby baby" song stuck in my head.

Grammar test tomorrow. Two more midterms later in the week. Must memorize definitions.

Pell-mell

Last night I dreamed that Tobey Maguire was learning to breakdance, and I was searching out carrot cake. I haven't had carrot cake in ages.

I'm going to take two science classes in the summer. One shall be online, which is a little more expensive, but well worth it. I'm going to get the inside scoop on oceanography.

Thank Me, it's Friday. I plan on spending the weekend doing homework (naturally), watching Twin Peaks, shoe shopping with Margo, studying for midterms, and sleeping as much as I like.

TK-421, why aren't you at your post?

Things I know are true

Turkey makes people sleepy. C₁₁H₁₂N₂O₂
My eye is twitching. It stopped for a month. Now it's back.
I like Dr Seuss. And owls.
I sit too close to my monitor.
"There is nothing in the dark that wasn't in the light."
I still miss my precious Nanobyte.
Telephones are evil.
Pretty sundresses are often expensive.

I feel like one single blink will cause me to lose another half hour of time. It, time that is, is flying by. One more blink and it will be morning. I can afford no more blinking. I'm tired. The paper is now laughing at me. It might help if I stopped anthropomorphizing writing. It's too easy for a paper to become a leopard. I've not enough energy to tackle a leopard, but I can certainly spew out a few pages of iconographical context synopsis without breaking a sweat. This is a long way of saying procrastinating does me no good, but old habits die hard, and pretty sundresses really are expensive.

"Now is the time for hallucination." -Eudora Welty

Waiting for opponent

The weekend has been spent doing homework (lots of homework), drinking Vitamin Water, and watching my nails grow (They are! Is it all the Zinc water? Calcium?).

I watched Notes on a Scandal last night. Philip Glass = annoying music. Dame Judi Dench = huzzah. I also watched The Good Shepherd. I think it's safe to say I was not the target audience. And it went on forever. Tsk tsk, De Niro.

I've created the file for my historical context tidbits, and I typed my name and the class. It is quite an accomplishment. I don't really feel like researching and writing at this point, even though I find the topic rather interesting. There is so much to address that I shall have to put my powers of concision to the test. I had Dennis read the rhetorical precis I wrote the other day. He agreed with my wordy assessment and offered splendid suggestions. Unfortunately, it was due in ten minutes, so they'll be suggestions for next time. I was advised to give a days notice so we could sit down and discuss how best to chop chop my writing, for it is in desperate need of chop chopping. Marj^God help me if I ever go to grad school. Of course, Dr. Marjie doesn't sound half bad. Not sure if it beats Queen of Locquaciousness.

I just took a moment to look around. I counted 19 books around my desk area, and that doesn't include the ones in my bag still. Sometimes it's nice to be surrounded by books, even if they are indicative of all the work you still have left to do.

I always remember my dreams

I had the most annoying dream last night. In it, I was about to take a history midterm, but I hadn't gone to class for the weeks leading up to it. The questions on the test were written more like riddles than essay prompts. The class was loud and talkative the entire time, which was fine with me, and people kept telling me to at least try bullshitting through it. Instead, I went to Safeway where I bought Junior Mints, Gummi Savers, and Peanut Butter and went to try to find a computer to type up the historical context paper that I have due tomorrow in real life. On the way to finding a computer, I saw writing center assistants dressed in 19th century garb on their way to Van Tassel's house. I woke up feeling pressed for time and like I need to start writing this historical context business as soon as possible. In the dream there was a storm (it was pouring last night) as well, which took off part of the roof and the deck didn't look like it was going to last much longer. I said, "Uh, Steve, you ought to come look at this. It appears part of our roof has fallen off." He came to the window and said, "So it has." We looked up at the ceiling, but it was still there, so we shrugged, and that was that.

Not quite the diamond mines

Things to do this weekend:

Read grammar chapters
Do grammar exercises
Read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Research historical context of Barnum's American Museum
Write paper on historical context
Read The Life of Timon of Athens
Read sections of The Golden Apples
Laundry
Dishes

Tea and sympathy

I'm so fucking wordy. And shame on me. This rhetorical precis is getting worse all the time. Grrr. Why can't I be concise? I feel like a crappy James Madison.

My top 5 favorite F.B.I. agents, in no particular order:

1. Dale Cooper
2. Clarice Starling
3. Mark Felt
4. Fox Mulder
5. Dana Scully

I ♥ Twin Peaks. I'm gonna eat some Lego fruit snacks and look for Laura's secret diary on ebay.

I've checked out all the books the library has on P.T. Barnum, leaving a gaping hole in the GV1811 section. Knowledge of the Fiji Mermaid shall be mine!

"It avails not, time nor place - distance avails not" -WW

A Black Day in the Blue Ridge

I think anything I say would be redundant to everything I've read. The sentiment is still there, of course. I think the words of Lucinda Roy, co-director of the creative writing program at Virginia Tech, say it all pretty well.

A prayer

To any god that isn't me,

I just want to go live in the woods, in a cottage well stocked with books, tea, and electricity. I honestly don't think it's too much to ask. I'll play ya for it. Scrabble. Best two outta three.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Amen.

The owls are not what they seem

I think I might be getting sick. I'm drinking juice though, and it's bound to turn out well. Look at me being positive. In an effort to limit sniffling and sneezing to a minimum through dust removal, I washed the sheets and blankets on the bed yesterday. It took a long time as there are two sheets, two blankets, and two comforters. I'm a girl who likes to stay warm.

Tomorrow I am going to a fun lil talk called "Inventing Womanhood: Gender and Language in Late Medieval Literature." I've taken classes from the professor giving the lecture three times now, and she's awesomeness incarnate. Even Chaucer was a good class despite the fact that the bawdy rhymster and I do not get along, and if I were to come face to face with him, I doubt I would do more than tip my hat and advise him not to try raping any girls and paying off the family in Corvallis. That shit don't fly no more, Chow Sir.

I should be writing my grammar autobiography, but unfortunately Sopranos is on soon, and I'm hungerified. I've wasted my weekend with remarkable alacrity, happily sitting back and watching time fly by. The autobiography began with relating how I learned what an adverb was doing Mad Libs on vacation as a kid. I'd rather watch Twin Peaks than write this.

Lately, I feel as though I've been doing things rather half-assed. I've no real gauge of whether it's true or not. Things tend to turn out the same regardless. No idea if that's good or bad either. I'll just drink my chamomile tea and dream of living in a library, quietly pushing all thoughts of inadequacy out of my mind. Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill pipe up in my head, "How we doing?" "Same as always." "That bad, huh?" Leia's somewhere in a metal bikini, and I still try to use the Force^TM every time before getting up to get the remote. Sometimes I'm so small.

"I guess you go too far
when pianos try to be guitars"

Boring random information (again)

We got new doors today. They are sturdy and windowed and have a bolt. I'm excited about this. I didn't like the old hollow wood doors. Funny how small pieces of metal can make you feel so much safer, isn't it? Knowing I could kick through the kitchen door if I wanted always bothered me. I'm not that big. I've girth, but not girthy girth. I don't think I could get through these steel ones.

It's been another agonizingly long day. Three hours of classes followed by three hours of work. I did my first OWL of the term. I was going to go to a reading this evening, but by the time 4 o'clock rolled around, I was so worn out that I came home, ate, and then fell asleep on the couch. It's nice that I managed to get up and accomplish my homework for tomorrow. Yes, it's an accomplishment. I really didn't want to do it. I did not do it well either. There's a test on Friday I should be studying for, and there are readings for Gotham I ought to do. I stayed up late last night to get them read for today because I knew there was a reading check. Unfortunately, the check was so horribly easy that I do not feel vindicated in the least, as I could have guessed the name of the prison Dickens visited even if I hadn't read that part of the anthology. It did make me want to read Dickens more; he was hilariously harsh on New York. Perhaps it was well-deserved.

Last night I dreamed that my fingers were being cut off by one of those hand-held saws with the rotating heads. They would cut through about 4/5 of the finger, leaving it weighted and dangling if it was not held properly. Every time they chopped into another finger, I said, "Aww man, they almost cut off my finger." Eventually, I had bloody stumps, bones perched precariously upon each other.

The other day Margo told me that "warm milk is no place for a ninja!" I think it's one of the best things I've ever heard.

Losing heroes

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.

From the AP: "The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

'I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,' Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

Kurt Vonnegut was incredible. I remember in 8th grade, my Russian teacher, Mr. Engle, gave me Player Piano to read. And then Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, Welcome to the Monkey House, and Breakfast of Champions. These books consumed many days, and they carried me through. I had never read him before that time, and it was like finding a little treasure trove. I remember being so amazed by the tone of the books and how well the pain of the characters were conveyed. I knew there was no way he could have written those books without having had any number of tortured moments of his own. I admired him, and I still do. I don't know what else to say. Another spark gone out. He will be greatly missed.

Just because

I didn't sleep enough last night, and I have been tired all day. It's been an off day. Eating oatmeal surely will not help the cause of alertness. Nor will crying listening to "Marianne." Maybe it's misplaced opportunities, stomach aches and white whales. We girls are peculiar. And sometimes... well, sometimes you're just tired and tired. And I'm starting sentences with conjunctions; tell me, tell me, what's your function. When Shakespeare repeats words, it's because he means them. When I do, it's just because.

Randomnimity

Sometimes, when I'm playing gin online with Steve, he boots me from the table. I mock him by pretending to be the Emperor. "Unlimited Pooooweeeeer." I bet the Pope feels the same way when he has a lackey bring round the Pope Mobile. "You there! My Pope Mobile out front in 5 minutes, or it's your immortal soul!"

I like the idea of making commercials. Not ones that sell anything. I just want to make random commercials for no other reason than to make them and perhaps perplex people. They'll be waiting to find out what they should be buying, but there will not be anything to be bought. Nor voted for.

This good night's sleep has been brought to you by cinammon roll flavored instant oatmeal with raisins, chamomile tea, the number 6, and the letter Z.

Last but not least. A comic. With zombies.

Givin' up the ghost

I just grabbed a piece of paper to jot down someone's phone number on, and it had an old shopping list of mine on it which included things like candles, pippu, sumfing with nutritional value, and an NFL team that isn't the Broncos. It's good to be optimistic, especially where shopping is concerned.

I went to bed at four am. I only read to act II of King Lear, which means I must read the rest today. Every so often, Steve called out ominously, "Three daughters!" I slept for 5 hours, and I am awake and ready for the three daughters, the bastard, King Lear, and many others to die in the last act, only they won't be coming back like our dear friend, Zombie Jesus.

[Zombie Jesus appears out of a giant chocolate bunny. Exclamations of glee]
Child: Zombie Jesus! Will you grant my wish this Zombie Jesus Day morn?
Zombie Jesus: Have you been good this year?
Child: Zombie Jesus, Did you lose your omniscience?!
Zombie Jesus: No, I just wanted to see if you would lie to get some chocolate and a wish. You see there's what I like to call a moral deficit in this country--
Child: Right, right, ZJ. Can I get my wish now?
Zombie Jesus: My, but you're in a hurry!
Child: Dad says it's the only way I'm gonna get elected when the time comes. Decisiveness, that's the key, ZJ. Know what I mean?
Zombie Jesus: No, I can't say that I do. You see, when I was a child, it was pretty brazen just to go hang out at the temple and talk to the know-it-alls.
Child: No matter. If you're not up to the wish-granting, I can always get Production Error Jesus to do it.
Zombie Jesus: You wouldn't!
Child: Try me.
Zombie Jesus: [muttering] moral deficit...kids these days...hungry...brains...stealing office supplies...lemon meringue pie...no respect for their deities...

To doot doot do

This weekend I need to:

See Grindhouse
Read King Lear
Think up question about King Lear for class
Read grammar chapters and do exercises
Study for grammar quiz
Create new blogger accout and accept grammar blog invite
Watch Gangs of New York
Readings for Gotham
One page paper on possible research topics
Pick reseasrch topic for Gotham Lit.
Begin writing response to Leslie Marmon Silko reading
Begin writing analysis page about Summer
Laundry
Dishes
"Celebrate" Zombie Jesus Day

Left to our own devices

I'm writing my first little assignment for grammar class. I am so rarely this acutely aware of my grammar or the ways in which I'm writing. It makes me weary--and sometimes frowny. Seems like such a horrible thing to say considering there's really nothing wrong with a certain mindfulness. Sometimes though, a little something is lost in writing when you stay so assiduously aware of errors for extended periods of time. I'm an advocate of idleness. So much good comes of it.

Banish all the world

As I was walking to the microwave to make some instant noodles, I looked down at the package. It advised me to "Use care when handling to avoid spilling or burning yourself." I successfully avoided spilling myself, and turned, only to find that the Chips Ahoy packaged warned me to "STOP, open at Snack N' Seal end!" Maximum freshness is not something to mess with, so I took special note of that. I looked up from the package, and my eyes fell upon the Pasta Express Instructions pamphlet which told me, "To avoid possible skin burns, use caution when handling." The kitchen is wrought with danger! It's a miracle I made it to back to the living room alive, with skin intact, and unspilled.

School has begun again. So naturally, all I want to do is sit at home and read Harry Potter.

Today in Shakespeare class, the professor suggested reading plays before seeing them on state or screen because people like Kenneth Branagh can "hijack imagination." What a wonderful thing to say! Hijack imagination. The syallabus is not yet available, but I do hope we read Henry IV and V. "But for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world." I always liked that part.