Little Fishy on Parade

Town 11 North, Range As Far East as She Goes, 4th Meridian

2011-05-18T22:18:00.005-04:00

Sometimes the Historical Society building makes me think of a crazy old B-movie from my childhood, Return to Oz. It reminds me of the insane asylum they throw Dorothea in, with random bits of glass and ancient chromish metal on the walls, and solemn, bodiless, echoing footsteps in the hallways. Maybe one day while in the depths of the archive stacks I'll run across a machine man and turn the key, and then watch out! I'll be dealing with Wheelers climbing the stairs, and Gnomes invading the marble floors and pillars, and there will be no chickens to save us, my friends, because animals are NOT ALLOWED in archives or libraries.

In other news, I'm still working up the courage to try internet dating. I have failed to work on writing any more. I have been reading a satisfying amount of books: got through all the Narnia novels, Crime and Punishment, The Lady and the Unicorn, and a few random fantasy novels.

Upon the printed page,
also by word of mouth,
we have a record of it all
and how, unfearful of deceit,
etched like an equine monster of an old celestial map,
beside a cloud or dress of Virgin-Mary blue,
improved 'all over slightly with snakes of Venice gold,
and silver, and some O's,'
the unicorn 'with pavon high,' approaches eagerly;
until engrossed by what appears of this strange enemy,
upon the map, 'upon her lap,'
its 'mild wild head doth lie.'
-from Marianne Moore's "Sea Unicorns and Land Unicorns"

Cat Checking Bowl for 15th Time this Morning: Still Empty

2011-04-10T09:50:00.003-04:00

The night time breeze last night was amazing; it was the first night of the year warm enough for me to leave the porch door cracked open.

So, my last p.m.s. post was kinda intense, and I don't want it to give people the wrong idea. Sometimes p.m.s. is kinda nice, because it gives me a different perspective on things for a short time. And then it's back to normal with just the memories of the little problems blown up into zeppelins and hot air balloons. Plus my clothes appreciate the warning to prepare for blood. Really, it's amazing how a hormone change you can't even see can alter my general outlook and personality. It's weird how much a personality or mind can be affected by hormones, or drugs, or brain damage, or whatnot.

And also, I am wondering what wants, normal or extreme, my readers harbor and think about.

No really, heed the warning.

2011-04-09T01:20:00.004-04:00

This post is angsty, whingey, and personal on a nearly embarrassing level. If that makes you uncomfortable, do yourself a favor and skip this one. You have been warned.

I had a really good day. Two meals with my family, an unusual amount of socialization, plus some moments at my new job that make me think maybe the other map cataloger will turn out to be a friend rather than just a co-worker. Bonding over, of all things, a lolcat moment. I kan haz friend?

So at the end of it all, when I slid into bed and turned off the light, I expected to fall asleep and wake up to a shiny new day. But instead my brain started turning over events, like brains tend to do at night. Revving up the engine before it shuts down. And I started weeping uncontrollably.

I regretted being alone at that moment, like I seldom do. I spend a lot of time alone these days. Maybe it was all the socializing today that put things in perspective. Maybe too much watching a TV show featuring a happily married wife. I'm not sure I could handle a romantic relationship; it seems like it would require so much sacrifice and time and bother. But I feel like going on thirty as a virgin verges on the ridiculous and possibly the slightly broken. And I would have accepted comfort from someone else, and been told that I am wrong and not broken at all, except it's too late at night to call anyone and my cat wouldn't say that to me, even if he could speak English.

Also, I regret sending my car away like an empty can to the recyclers. It was a good car, a wonderful gift, and although I think I made the right decision financially, I am sad about it too.

Most of the time I enjoy honing my skills as a spendthrift. But I'm also a little tired of it, and of looking at the road ahead, paved with debt, as a repetition of days curling inward. Curtailing expenses so that I can be free of debt, cutting back on events and going out. Not dating yet because I don't feel settled here. Not being able to settle into a home because the libraries can't hire me as a permanent employee. Wanting to save up money to go on a much-needed road trip with my college friends, or a visit to Sweden to see my family, or even catch a bus to Minnesota to spend even just a limited block of hours with my beloved high school buddies. I want to go birdwatching in New Mexico. I want to design a beautiful tattoo and decorate my skin, learn to drive and fix my own motorcycle, repair my clarinet, and join an archery club. I have a lot of wants that seem to be stretching away into a black hole, spaghettification pulling them thinner and thinner as they stretch into my future.

But it's not all so bad. By the time you're reading this I've recovered my equilibrium and am happy enough, as I am 98 percent of the time. I've banished my dissent and disappointment into these words, and cheered myself up by watching my favorite Firefly episode (“Everybody dies alone”). And now it's time to go to bed again, and actually fall asleep this time. “Ya'll gonna be here when I wake up?”

Mal: “A ship like this, be with you 'till the day you die.”

Zoey: “'Cause it's a death trap.”

“That's not-- You are very much lacking in imagination.”

“I imagine that's so, sir.”

“Come on, you haven't even seen most of it. Let me show you the rest. And try to see past what she is, and on to what she can be.”

“What's that, sir?”

“Freedom, is what.”

"I meant what's that.”

“Oh, just step around that, I think something must have been living in here. I'm telling you, Zoey: we get a mechanic, get her up and running again. Hire a good pilot, maybe a cook. Live like real people. A small crew, must feel the need to be free, take jobs as they come. Ain't never have to be under the heel of nobody ever again.”

-from Firefly, “Out of Gas”

My life is not an elaborate plotline

2011-03-28T11:37:00.002-04:00

I wasn't expecting anime to make me so reflective this weekend. Often anime is pretty silly stuff, which is partly why I enjoy it, but out of the blue, Trigun killed someone in a sadly epic manner, and Black Butler was just dark all the way through. In one case, "I didn't want to die this way," and in another case, having made a contract to die in order to live a certain way. If I died today, what would I regret? What have I lived for? [Insert fortune cookie motto: not to decide is a decision.] I regret living far away from so many people I care about, but everyone is so spread out I can't fix that. And I almost regret not having a significant other, but at the same time I don't, because I've been able to spend my spare time and love on other things. Some of which are just golden calves, but some of whom are people (and a cat) who deserve every penny ounce of it.

It's easy to live though, I really enjoy just being alive. Is that enough? I suppose it depends where we all end up afterwards...

I've been pondering getting a memento mori tattoo. Maybe a little winged hourglass. Too gothic?

Jelly Brainies

2011-02-08T22:36:00.003-05:00

Being able to look forward to guests visiting makes me really happy. I love having a friend visit. Just one at a time tho, because that's really all I can fit. Anyway, being able to get fun co-op food to share, being more aware of events going on in Madison, trying to decide what Madisonian destinations best fit each person--so good for my soul. Plus it's another excuse to stop pinching pennies for a bit and enjoy living in a modern consumable century.

So, my lease is not up until August, and I've already had to commit to renewing my lease again or not. Kinda soon, innit? Plus, today while I was at work they showed my apartment, and left my light on when they left. I didn't remember they were showing it until I was already walking to work; my apartment wasn't a disaster, but I'd left out a dirty laundry basket and a few things. Maybe leaving my light on was a subtle rebuke. I wonder what a complete stranger thinks when they see my life crammed into this space, or when they see all the cat stuff and no cat (because I'm sure he was hiding by the time they got in the door).

I Disagree With My Subconscious

2010-11-14T20:30:00.004-05:00

I had a dream the other night where I confessed to a dentist that I'd been a small shark in my past life. Huh. I dislike sharks. I wonder why I said that.

And the cat just plopped down on my lap so I'm done.

Remember Remember Too much In November

2010-11-07T12:04:00.002-05:00

After all the years of not participating in National Novel Writing Month because of being busy with school, I missed the start of this year's by a week through sheer disconnectedness. Writing 50,000 words would be hard enough in a month, but I think the missing week would be crippling. So, sigh, I guess I'm not doing it this year either. November is such a confusing month, coming hard on the heels of Halloween and the excitement of costumes, pumpkins, and the living dead. Then there' trying to remember to wish happy Bonfire night to my Scottish friends, worrying about remembering Veterans Day on the 11th, and reminding myself to pay rent. It just took me by surprise that it's novel month too. So I'm starting a novel at least, but doing it at my own apathetic pace. Hopefully it won't fall off my mental bandwagon and die of snakebite and dysentery.

Haha, I'm looking across the room at a big lump under my bed covers. Apparently my cat deals with my being at work all day by crawling in my bed as soon as I leave and sleeping all day like a true teenage angst monster. This is funny on weekends because he's been doing it even when I'm here. We just eventually trade places and take turns sleeping in the coveted warm spot under the blankets. Eventually in late afternoon he'll come out again, fur especially soft from the hours of warm pent-up humidity, and beg for dinner. And then he will be playful, naughty, and psychotically violent in turns while trying to stave off boredom for the rest of the night.

Update from the front lines: yesterday Moby Squix climbed my screen porch door for no understandable reason, just hanging onto the wire with his saggy grey belly pressed against my window. I took it as provocation, started spewing verbal harpoons, and chased him off. He went careening down the brick wall and then up into the tree next to my window, where he proceeded to refuse looking directly at me. Cursed squirrel.

Stay tuned for the shocking conclusion in the next installment!

Note: Please don't take this seriously.

The End.

-from Saiyuki Reload vol.8 by Kazuya Minekura

This Is War!!!

2010-11-04T18:24:00.003-04:00

I have successfully moved into my new hermitage! Now I may strew my hairs all over the bathtub wall, watch gory movies at all hours, fill the cupboards with my exclusive tastes, and talk to myself because there's no one else here.

Although, to be fair, I also have a hungry "wee man" too. But at the moment, he's tiffed at me because he has no dinner yet, and I'm tiffed at him because he does absolutely NOTHING to deter squirrels from being on my porch. He is a cat, by the way. Cats are supposed to hunt rodents, right? And squirrels are rodents. Yet, here is my pumpkin, not even an inch from the porch window-door, and it's got a dad-gummed HOLE bitten through it. The hole is the approximate size of a squirrel's stomach, and lined with double-tooth marks. This. Is. War. I dub thee Moby Squix, my arch-enemy.

In other news, it turns out that espresso at work is a terrible idea for me. Being jittery, light-headed, and hyper in a library gives people the wrong impression. One of my co-workers declared that I am "a strange one" today, which until now I had been able to hide. The big slip-up was when he commented, "Something smells like hot dogs." And I responded in a panic, "It's not me!!" Which is totally understandable, I think, as a reaction. Because it was true.

"Power as cottage industry for the mad. The shepherd is slave to the sheep. A gardener is in thrall to his carrots. Only a lunatic would want to be president. These lunatics are created deliberately by those who wish to be presided over."
-from Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

Half Lion Half Fish

2010-07-29T22:33:00.002-04:00

I've been so busy, so happy, and now am so poor. Oh the wiles of summer vacation. Wonderful, vain, and draining vacations with people I love. It was good to get out of the rut of habits for a while, but I can already feel the changes slipping away again. It's a bit of living in the past too, being among old friends who have all been living their lives, and testing to see if we are still the same as before. Tick tock.

Speaking of time passing, I have to link this xkcd comic because they use "grok" in it: http://xkcd.com/771/

So how annoying do we find it when a book in a series ends with the protagonist getting wounded by a gunshot and falling into a lake? It's bad enough that all the TV shows do it between seasons, but I thought authors would somehow be kinder. It's kind of rude. I know they want us to stay interested and pounce on the next installation, but come on! What if a reader is dying of cancer and just can't wait? What if the author gets hit by a car next month? Then we will all die unsatisfied and the world will be full of ghosts wandering around, comparing guesses as to what would happen. Could you imagine if there had been no question-answering revelation of the true nature of Snape? If LOTR ended at Two Towers with Frodo taken by the orcs?

How many loose ends might exist if things had gone differently.

Sam: Percent sign, ampersand, dollar sign.
Max: And colon, semicolon too!
Psychic: What are you [bleep]ing doing?
Sam: Swearing in longhand, asterisk-mouth.
-from Sam and Max Hit the Road (computer game)

upsingle

2010-06-14T23:11:00.001-04:00

Graduated. =)

I'm tired of the rat race already, and I don't yet have a job. I bet when I get a job I'll feel a lot better. Jumping job search hoops makes me feel like a big fake fish.

Reading the day away.

Flyers --> ??? ---> Spartans

2010-04-06T01:39:00.004-04:00

The fewer nights I stay up to all hours doing homework, the less I seem to write in this. Sad. I have one month left of being a student before I become merely a lifelong learner. Lifelong learners do not have homework due dates, hence more sleep; I am excited to switch.

Of course, lifelong learners have no due dates, which means in all likelihood less learning going on for lazies like me. But I gosh darn will do it. I have plans to join a library association or two and keep up with the professional literature (though I don't do that now... humm).

Oh, I remember why I'm making a post! I realized tonight that I don't remember what my middle school mascot was. 0.0 I forgot. I forget so many things. Was it the same as the high school one? Can anyone help me out here? That's right, deep dark secrets. If you don't know mine, you can always tell me what your middle school mascot was.

I owe this blog some quotes but I don't have any handy. Alla my books been returned to library.

Morbid and Creepifying I Can Handle

2010-01-28T23:29:00.002-05:00

There once was a little boy kitty
whose tail-holding manner was pretty;
it bent straight ahead -
horizontally spread -
toward the smarter half of the kitty.

Hoping for more time.

Saying Night Owl is a bit redundant, yes Day Robin?

2009-12-15T04:50:00.003-05:00

I am not meaning to neglect this blog forever. I do intend to keep it up and running; it is just that I usually don't get to it. I guess I'm usually just too vegetative to feel reflective, and so I have nothing to ramble on about.
I think two all-nighters in a row make me much more reflective. I have a strange, wobbly appreciation for the world like this. I wonder what tomorrow's all-nighter will bring. Were you aware that spell check does not believe in the word "nighter"?

My cat is growing like a weed. Not like a creeping charlie or kudzu, mind you. That would be alarming. He is growing more like a milkweed. An ornery, troublesome, lovable milkweed with those pretty fuzzy seed pods and possibly some creepy-crawlies where they shouldn't be. Um.

Lately I've been watching a burn heal on my arm. Exciting stuff, right? There was dead skin, and then a sort of divot, and then scabs, and now pink new skin that doesn't really fit in with the other skin. How did it know to fill in the shape of my arm again there, and grow like that? And if it has such wonderful DNA memories, why will it always be pink and scarred instead of healing all the way? Not that I mind a scar there. Every time I look at it I remember the delicious sweet potato and parsnip hot dish I was making at the time. That was really yummy.

Okay, I need to go write about my digital library some more. I need to get to bed by 6 so I can get my 3.5 hours of sleep before getting up again to finish my project. Ahhhhh. It is so refreshing to have homework to complain about on this blog. It's making me nostalgic. I better scoot off quick-like before I really get mushy.

"Look... this is from the 1980s."

"What does 'gnarly' mean?"
"How did you find it...? I looked all over the net."
"I used that advanced method of information retrieval known as the public library. You know, thre are all kinds of books and magazines out there that have never been scanned...
if it makes you feel better though, they hardly had any porn."
from The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service vol 4 (or 5, I don't remember which).

Why does it feel Social to complain?

2009-09-15T02:40:00.004-04:00

Here's an interesting tidbit: for the last years of his life Casanova, the renowned Venetian lover, was a librarian. Okay, so he found it dreadfully boring, but still! Just one more reason to have a cat with the same name, though hopefully the cat gets into far less trouble and scandal than the man.

Nova is settling into the routines of apartment life. Except, between 4:30 and 6:00 every morning, he wakes up and expresses his extreme hunger and boredom by chewing on my hands and rubbing his slimy cat nose all over my face. Other than that though, good times. $300 down so far and more to go, but I don't regret bringing him home at all.

And, I'll say it for the trillionth time, I need to not procrastinate anymore, especially not on schoolwork. There's no good reason to be up at 2 anymore; it's getting as old as I am. I'll finish ranting about this later.

"Presumably the techno-peasants, to paraphrase the famous saying of Marie Antoinette, are expected to eat 'digital cake.'"
-from "The Digital Library: Myths and Challenges" by Terry Kuny and Gary Cleveland

Ready to Find It When You're Not Looking For It?

2009-09-09T13:51:00.004-04:00

I went to Iowa this weekend to meet my cousin's husband, a nice fellow who gets up as early as she does and eats lots of avocados. And while there I was charmed by a stray kitten, which, combined with my sister's encouragement, has led me to adopt a cat. I had been holding off on cat ownership until, say, I found more permanent residence and/or employment, and I had been thinking of taking more troubled and certainly older cats from a shelter, but... I guess my cat found me instead.

He's really cute (of course he is, he's a kitten, goes without say). But he's also snuggly, has a tiny quiet meow, beautiful markings, amazingly friendly, and cooperative. Because of his charming act, we named him Casanova, Nova for short. I will say that I feel a little bad about signing up a cat named Casanova to be neutered. Right now he's in quarantine in my room until the meds the vet gave us kill off his fleas.

And school started again. I think I chose some good classes; I'm at least looking forward to them now. Ready at last to leave days of sleeping and lazing and reading and playing and gardening and traveling behind me in the days of a past summer. Ah, what a good summer.

One more note: I've started thinking of Halloween already. I wish there was a 24/7 Halloween music radio station. If we are going to be thinking of our favorite holidays ridiculously early, at least it could be to music.

Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode
Deep silence reigned, save when a gust
Went rushing down the country road,
And skeletons of leaves, and dust,
A moment quickened by its breath,
Shuddered and danced their dance of death

-from the Prelude of Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Barely Faking

2009-07-28T23:39:00.002-04:00

Wow, been a while. Welcome back.

So I haven't chronicled a majority of my summer so far, and I'm just going to skip most of it now. I will say that I've met someone's new house, I've met someone's boyfriend (and I suppose I approve, he's nice enough), and the plants in the garden are finally starting to produce produce.

Plus, I really like Kentucky. There it is, I was impressed with it. Now on my long-term desire list===> road trip into the South, ideally with some birdwatching involved. And I wouldn't say no to a birdwatching boyfriend too, but hey, we can't have it all can we?

Um, otherwise wheels spinning, trying to catch up to-do lists etc. Watched the first two seasons of Dexter this weekend. Filled out my Fafsa (kinda late). You know, lots to do. ;)

It is not exaggerating to say that, as Aristotle is a philosopher of happiness, he is also a philosopher of leisure. Happiness can appear only in leisure. The capacity to use leisure rightly, he repeats, is the basis of the free man's whole life.
-from Of Time, Work, and Leisure by Sebastian de Grazia

I'm late, I'm late, I'm zzzZZzzz

2009-05-11T04:22:00.003-04:00

It is now past three o clock in the morning, and I just popped open my fourth can of caffeinated nectar. I have one page written out of fifteen minimum, due tomorrow. Ready, set, start your stopwatches folks!

It's been hard for me to concentrate on final papers with a list of summer ambitions as long as my arm (and as wide as my bum). And now back to that. The homework I mean, not my ambitions. Or my bum. What were those improperly placed pronouns called?

She was to remain in mauve for the rest of her life and increasingly became the eccentric maiden aunt.

They were women who seized every opportunity life threw their way to build careers at a time when the tide had turned against them. As the new ideal of femininity became the housewife and mother, this small band of librarians insisted on the right of single women to an independent and fulfilling existence.

-both from Jim Cleary's article "Women Librarians and the Public Library of New South Wales"

People Don't Notice Who Is Not There

2009-04-14T22:52:00.003-04:00

I'm sorry to anyone who has checked this blog repeatedly only to find the same post sitting there like a lump of coal for her effort.

Today is a good day for me to update because I am very happy today. I've been wondering why I decided I'm so dependent on sleeping in lately. I sleep in most days of the week, and even when I work I don't have to get up until 8:30. But the Powers That Be at work asked me to come in early today (well, plus they bribed me with a mocha). And I remembered that after I get past that first minute of desperately wanting to crawl back into bed, I like mornings. I can be an awfully chipper morning person. Even though I know I'll be up until the wicked crack of morning tomorrow because of this paper I have to write, I am happy I woke up early. I look forward to doing it again.

Plus I had a really nice moment sitting by the lake today, eating a burrito, feeling the sun on my back and listening to the waves at my feet, and reading an amazing little memoir-type composition by a civil war soldier I photocopied at work. He wrote about how the troops were all their own librarians. Due to their load they could only really carry one book, but they all constantly traded books with each other. To advertise they had a book to trade, they'd dangle the book from the top of their rifles as they marched.

In other news, I'm rather angry at Nexon, the company that runs the game Mabinogi. They banhammered my account for no reason I can figure out. My characters have been hauled off to some Nexon prison camp and I may never see them again. All I can do is whine on my guild's forum (wow, good use of free speech, huh?) and hope that my innocent characters aren't killed. Grrr. This role playing game at least has instilled a renewed healthy fear of strong-arm government.

And hmmm, I have decided to stop trying to guess which summer will be my last "free" summer. I don't know. I guess I'll just take as many as I can get. =) Now, who to visit...

A weasel you call me? No, I am but a humble mongoose!

The confrontation between librarians, who seek to assure the maximum use of information, and security officials, for whom the ideal state may be one in which material is destroyed before anyone can read it, is as natural and instinctive as between the mongoose and the cobra. --Herbert S. White
Taken from Refuge of a Scoundrel by Herbert Foerstel

I devised hundreds of ways to waste five minutes and I use them all.
-fellow SLIS student speaking of his study habits

Free-floating is relative, like 'wild and crazy.' 'Wild and crazy' for catalogers is like hooking all of someone's paper clips together so when they try and pull one off they get a whole chain.
-quote from Professor

No amount of postmodern pixie dust will make two plus two equal pie.
-quote from that same Professor

And the theme of a librarian's education:
"I am NOT cheating; I am making use of my resources."
-that Professor again.
[okay, this was in relation to cataloging, but still]

Now this is just getting pretentious

2009-01-31T11:51:00.003-05:00

After an unfortunate nail-clipping incident with a bunny, I've decided I think the most disturbing thing about blood is its warmth. Not its cherry-syrup color or its ooziness, but the way it is just at body temperature, just a bit warmer than your skin so you can feel it where-ever it touches you.

Now I have a sort of poll question for all of you: do you believe in soul mates?

Because I was wondering what would happen if there are/will be an odd number of people in the universe. What then? Then multiple soul mates would have to be allowed or some one person would be left out. And how literally should we take "mates"? Can I have a soul sister instead, or soul friends? I think I have quite a few soul friends.

"There comes a time when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough."
-from Bud, Not Buddy by Julius Lester

because awkward confessions are F.U.N. fun

2009-01-26T01:54:00.003-05:00

I'm mostly reconciled by now to being a somewhat lazy and unsociable person, but at the same time I have a fascination with people that conflicts with this. Do you ever just sit in a room of people that you don't know really well but you know you love them? I love my library people. I love my work people. I'm starting to love my church people. But I don't have much to say to anybody. So I guess I just want this internet shout-out to claim that if I don't have beans to say to you, it's not because I'm not fascinated and interested. I just don't know what to say.

Speaking of communication, I've been thinking about how letters used to fulfill one of the (arguably) major functions of the internet--the social needs. The need people have for a buffer between their social interactions and for the ability of a person to show different facets of herself to different people. With the actual internet, it's easier for "our" generation to indulge different parts of their personalities. What part of me is on display on facebook? Who am I when I play Mabinogi? What the heck am I talking about on class discussion boards? WHOSE BLOG IS THIS?

Will the internet allow us to not conform/mature as much as our elders had to?

That's enough tom-foolery for one eve. Here's a sentence to diagram:

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,
But that the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep,
Great nature's second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.

-The Duke's version of Hamlet's soliloquy from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

the smaller they are, they still fall hard anyway

2009-01-22T13:24:00.003-05:00

Well, after all that de-virusing and re-installing I've done this last month, my computer took a small fall yesterday and broke its power cord connector port. =( I'm not too upset, but I sure hope I can get it fixed somewhere.

I've forgotten everything else I've been meaning to post.

(Added 1/31/09 -- I'm stealing this quote from Lizard's diary and putting it in my blog for safekeeping. I haven't read this book yet but I DO have a crow named Grok, so--):
"Groc sank down, his flesh into his blood, his blood into his soul, his soul into nothingness."
-from Ray Bradbury's A Graveyard for Lunatics

Not much profounds today

2009-01-13T10:41:00.004-05:00

It's my last day of break again. I will really miss long breaks when I "grow up" and get a career. At least, if my luck holds out, I'll get a decent boss. My current boss sent me an email that consisted solely of "See you Wednesday, Snookums." I still laugh when I think about it. =)

By the way, students have to reinvent the wheel all the time. I'm sure their teachers make them do it. I hate that saying. I bet lots of people invented the wheel simultaneously.

And the early bird will probably freeze to death today; it sure won't find any worms. That's not a criticism, just an observation. You know, chatting about the weather 'cause I'm from the Midwest.

And after careful pondering yesterday, I've decided that prayer is like dental floss. Hard to reach that far, kinda awkward, but good for me to do anyway. Also, many people do both before going to bed. I guess that's as far as that metaphor goes.

INORITE?

Things I learned last semester ('copyright' of other people):

"Standards are like toothbrushes. Everybody knows they're good things but nobody wants to use anybody elses."

"All UR copyright R belong to us! --Publishers"

"There was a time when libraries had only scrolls. And stone tablets. And no one wore pants."

Mary Told Me So

2008-12-02T02:37:00.004-05:00

AND a very delayed congratulations to Laurie on the birth of her boy child! Will his nickname be Number One? Like in Star Trek?? Blessings on your family, distant pseudo-sis!

I really enjoyed break. I saw a lot of really fun people (and to those I didn't see I'm sorry I missed you). It was good to see my grandpa and grandma getting back into the swing of things after all that surgery business. And breakfast at 7:30am turned out to be a surprisingly good idea.

The drive home terrified me with its bad weather in ways I didn't expect. It was like the knife-weilding guy again. No panic, just a fatalistic acceptance that we would probably crash and I might very well die. Oh well. It's been nice a life and all that. Ask Mary why she's going over 45mph. Try to resign myself all over again.

And I'm up all night writing a paper tonight. Because I forgot the final paper for a class was due tomorrow. WHO DOES THAT? Really now, I know I'm forgetful, but this is a little silly. I'd feel better if someone ridiculed me so I can start to get to the anger and then acceptance phase. My brain needs some healing.

History is a lie and those who believe it are deluded... Of the day's confusion and the night's apprehension, the historian is silent.
from "Magician in the Dark" by Robert Sampson

Short Stories are Good for Bus Rides

2008-11-17T00:56:00.005-05:00

I have been so ridiculous lately. Every time I think about homework I want to hide under a rock. With a movie or book or a certain online cooperative game. ANYTHING except work. I don't know if I'm getting burnt out or if I'm just being more ridiculous and flabby-willed than usual.

I'm also getting over a paranoid what-if-a-potential-employer-finds-this-blog or what-if-this-information-is-used-by-the-forces-of-evil phase. That's a bit why my blog has been flagging. Also, when I'm not under a rock being "lazy" (potential employers please read "conserving energy", "working on social skills" and "personal interfacing?!?"), I feel very overworked. So much that I don't update like I used to, nor read other blogs as much as I wish I did.

Well.

So I went to the PSB today (the less high-security of the two jails). It is an interesting place because they have the prisoners in pods instead of cells... a big room full of bunk beds and some tables and a deputy station. So they're pretty much loose in there with supervision, and I get to go in the room to switch the book carts. I like the women's pods--the ladies were very happy to get fresh books (and I hear they usually are). Some of the mens were happy too, but I'm still getting used to roomfulls of male prisoners, I guess. I don't feel threatened so much as very awkward. I feel "awkward" a lot of these days though (potential employers please read "not aggressive" and "malleable").

I should go write my book review. I am going to go to bed instead. What does proof have to do with pudding?

(employers please read "wow this blog is great let's hire this librarian at $50,000 a year)

"There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot.
"Then find it yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts."
from The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

See My Books and My Tag Cloud!

2008-10-25T21:40:00.003-04:00

Poor neglected blog, I'm sorry...

I had never really appreciated having a room until I didn't have one for a month. Other people my age are off getting their own apartments, but I'm thrilled just to have my own room in one. Now, how bad an idea would it be to get a cat?

If only I had time to write fiction for fun--reading so many oral history interviews at work makes me feel like I understand how dialogue works. And it keeps my grammar in good practice.

And school, so many tried and true metaphores come to mind: drowning, landslides, speeding-up treadmills. I'm in outer space with an hour to find appropriate articles in the database about reentry. There's so much to do and learn I can hardly manage it, but do it myself I must. As my professors like to say, "You're a librarian, go look it up!" I should have taught myself HTML and RSS feed use and google documents and citation tools so much earlier... gah. If you think librarians just sit around at desks or shelve books all day, you should read some librarian blogs.

Also, I'm in love with LibraryThing. I'm posting some widgets on my blog for my LT library! Find them and see how pretty they are!

"The catalog is available for the whole public, for all of "mankind," like a common woman [prostitute]."
-from Hope Olson's "The Power to Name"

“’It is so very easy,’ he [Charles Francis Adams] says, ‘and so very pleasant too, to read only book which lead to nothing, light and interesting books, and the more the better, that it is almost as difficult to wean ourselves from it as from the habit of chewing tobacco to excess, or of smoking the whole time, or of depending for stimulus upon tea or coffee or spirits.’”
-from Library: an Unquiet History by Matthew Battles

Finding the Purple Pebble

2008-09-10T22:33:00.002-04:00

So I've neglected to fill in some intense chunks between my last post and this one, but I suspect we've all been too busy to bother spending tons of time here.

My grandmother's knee-replacement surgery went well, and she was out of the hospital sooner than anyone (except I think herself) expected. She has quite the power of determination on her side, as well as a belief (that I share) in fortuosity. But then the pain block wore off all the way and the pain settled in, and the real battle started between just plain getting around, let alone fitting in some self-therapy and walks up the block. So I did a lot of ice fetching, cooking, washing, pill-dispersing, and general helping about and nursing (I'm not the best TED sock applicator, but I get it done). I did not get much sleep, and I had my fill of clinic rooms and hallways and parking ramps. And as my grandmother said to me, they are still muddling through things ok.

So I leave that situation to dive into graduate school. Finding housing didn't work out, so I moved into my sister/brother-in-law/nephew's apartment. I think this was more fortuosity. It has its tiring points (at 7:30am) and is not the best place to study (Mabinogi is very tempting), but Mary cooks me wonderful food, Alex makes me yummy smoothies, and Braiden is generally very lovable even for me, an avoider of children. The problem with this setup is that we need three-bedrooms, and are still waiting to hear back from the apartment people how much the in-the-process-of-being-renovated 3-bedroom apartment across the hall will cost. How much can we afford? Hard to say since I haven't found all the jobs I wanted to yet. But light at the end of the tunnel: I did find a job! A work-study job mind you, so it's really in these people's interest to hire me, but I'll be working at the Wisconsin Veteran's Museum, writing abstracts in the archiving section. It's only ten hours a week, so I still want to find a second part-time job to supplement.

As to library school, it's going well enough. Very chock-full of workshops and student groups and wonderfully dorky students and tech-talk and books everywhere. I take the city bus. The SLIS area is right by the lakeside, so I can eat my dinner there and watch the sailboats. My favorite class so far is my digital tools class. I want to get really involved with the Jail Library Group, which collects books, catalogs, and distributes books for the inmates of the city's courthouse jails. Otherwise I'm still trying to sort out what my life is like there and get to know some other students which has not happened in depth much yet. I miss my Hope apartmentmates when I'm at school; I've already pinpointed which buildings or which plots of landscape remind me of parts of Hope. The poultry research building though reminds me of nothing but shock that it exists. The campus here certainly is its own little town size-wise.

So, I'm updated. There.

I care a lot for my idea and my work, but, come to think of it, the whole thing, I mean, this whole world of ours is just a speck of mildew grown up on a tiny planet. And we think we can have something tremendous--ideas, actions! It's all grains of sand!
-from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy; Levin (my favorite charater) speaking

Trying Not To Be An Old Woman

2008-07-28T22:30:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here with a cup of irn-bru in my hand... it makes me very happy. A special beverage sent via two parcel rides. Mmmm, cheers Beth, Sam, and Sali!

Lately, I've been tearing through books like a cheeta. Wonderful to read entirely for pleasure again, no guilt, whatever I want! X-files, Princess Bride, William Kent Krueger mysteries, sci-fi, trash and lit and whatever I like. Yummy!

And I saw Hello Dolly with my grandparents this weekend--lovely show!

Lazy Isn't Necessarily Easy

2008-07-13T23:30:00.002-04:00

So I put out an ad to other students at my new grad school looking for a roommate and got back four responses. How am I supposed to choose? I finally sent them each a reply tonight, but I feel a bit like I'm giving them an unintentional run-around. Maybe after some convoluted emails I can refer them to each other and then everyone will have a roommate!

Summering with my grandparents has been interesting. I've become aware of how like my grandmother I am (not sure if it's a good thing--I inhereted her unreasonable stubbornness, her fondness for collecting clutter, and a certain blind-eye towards popular fashion). Sometimes it's fun being with them, doing yard work, helping sort and clean and drive. Sometimes it's shouting matches between them and tedious personal sorting that I can't really help with at all.

And, as always, I'm looking forward to my annual camping trip. I'm even starting to think about being ready to go off to school in Madison (knowing Mary and Alex are there helps).

The year 977 was a good time in which to be six years old. People knew then that a mountain might really be a giant; they had not yet reluctantly concluded that a giant was only a mountain... You tell me that fire is combustion. I prefer to think that fire is the god Lok, who also takes the shape of a salmon. It is I who seem to be right, because a leaping salmon looks like a leaping flame, and if you had argued with me about it in 977, I would have turned into a bear and killed you.
-from The Utmost Island by Henry Myers

Jiggety Blah Blach Blah

2008-05-23T01:05:00.002-04:00

So I'm back in Rochester, for some reason avoiding all the things I need to be doing. I blame the used bookstore warehouse for selling me all those books. My car's license plates are no longer valid. I found a grackle skull in the backyard thanks to the Cooper's hawks that moved in and litter their dinner remains all over the backyard. I had a fantastic roadtrip (if you're curious, look at my photos). I have lots of plans this summer, though none of them involve earning money. I love reading on the couch with my cats, a book a day. My dad found a weird Austrailian show on TV, a drama comedy about astronomers. I'm feeling a little disjointed today.

Thanks for the Chains

2008-04-30T19:55:00.003-04:00

Taking a year off after graduation is actually not at all a bad idea. When better to have freedom and choice and experimentation of jobs and volunteering and such? My favorite professors did it. And the prospect of taking a year to give back to the world, to humanity, by volunteering--good stuff. Even though it's worrisome and may be difficult, I want to congratulate the people who are jumping off the cliff of graduation without knowing how beautifully they will fall. I really think you'll manage to be happy with whatever you do or do not find.

But that's not me anymore. I was ready to jump, and then I got a letter from Madison telling me I could back off and come study with them, so I'm going back to school to be a librarian. This is good.

But I'll be wondering all next year, in the back of my head... if I could have flown.

Furthermore, a bow that's always bent
Becomes unsound, and dulls the string;
So does the mind that's always diligent,
With ernest thoughts, and studying.
-Robert Henryson (translated from Middle Scots to English by me)

"Like a Ninja" Would Be Going Too Far

2008-04-19T23:09:00.005-04:00

The future is a sneak. You're always told it's ahead of you, but if that were true you would be able to see it. Your past is in front of you; the future is behind. And it's gonna get ya. It chases you everywhere, breathing down your neck and pulling on your collar. Navigating backwards is interesting; the whole world is made of people walking backwards down forest paths. You try to guess where to turn based on the turns you've already made, and there's no predicting where the tree roots will trip you. Or where there might be flowers, or bears.

The funny thing about my horribly long metaphor is that it's not really accurate. People have this weird ability to plan the future. I'm not sure how we so frequently create paths that we can't even see. Kind of amazing and, you know, cosmic.

Well, not in my case. I should really start planning ahead...er... backwards again.

Next week is the last week of normal classes--there's the normal rush of everyone trying to get stuff done, and at the same time a myriad of goodbye ceremonies and finalities of which to take care. There will be shocks. Crying. Games. Panic. Confusion. Graduation. Road trip. Hilarities will ensue. And that something breathing down my neck.

...such things are said to be
Good for you, and you will have to learn them
In order to become one of the grown-ups
Who sees invisible things neither steadily nor whole,
But keeps gravely the grand confusion of the world
Under his hat, which is where it belongs,
And teaches small children to do this in their turn.
-from "To David, about His Education" by Howard Nemerov

I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it's a stupid question.
-from J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

The Madison Letter

2008-04-08T12:17:00.002-04:00

So I've finally heard back from the library grad program.

I have a favorable rating, they say, but they just don't have enough room for me. I'm on a waiting list to get in--if enough people turn down their offers I might hear from them again (by August). But now I know I need to plan something else.

Live with my parents? Get a job? Travel around? Oh please oh please not the gas station again...

Something else.

Any suggestions?

Also in the news, I went to Chicago last weekend and saw Wicked. It was good--I loved the stage, and the dragon, and otherwise it was what I expected. Good.

What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? ... It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude towards so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple...
--from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

Weather: 2 Me: 0

2008-03-21T12:23:00.003-04:00

Some old friends were planning to meet up with me at House on the Rock, a big touristy house built to hold a an assortment of eclectic collections. We had to cancel though, because of the big winter storm coming through. I was really bummed about it. Some part of me decided to revenge myself on the weather by driving back to Michigan in it. It took me about 10 miles to realize that I was being a complete dork, so I turned around and came back to Meursy's. We're going to hole up and watch movies, and I'll leave tomorrow morning instead. I'm glad I turned around.

I think my inability to deal well with disappointment is one of my character flaws.

But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men's eyes, because they know--or think they know--some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.
-Bram Stoker's Dracula

Gearing Up Is For Cars

2008-03-13T15:57:00.005-04:00

Spring is here, baby-bird ugly and covered in snow-melt dust. I don't care how warm it gets--I have a hard time liking spring until it sprouts feathers.

I do, however, greatly appreciate spring break. I'm going to drive to Madison and visit Meursy in her new abode. I'm really looking forward to this.

The sad thing about this break is that it is the start of the parting of ways. One of my friends is heading off to Japan for a semester, so he'll be the first to really say goodbye to. Grrr to goodbyes. The other night was open mic night at the tiny college coffee bar, and this friend read some poems he wrote, one of which he said was about the people in my apartment. It was a really sweet poem. We are gypsy magicians here. =)

On a different note, I wonder if I'll ever meet the person I dreamt about last night, or if I can remember him long enough to recognize him if we ever do meet.

I'm tired of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they are going and meet up with them later.
-Mitch Hedberg

P.S. An angry rant: Apparently Madison lost my transcripts; I got an email about it to my ratworld address, which I don't check very much. I resent them today, but I wonder if my slow response is going to affect my admission chances... and it's not really my fault since they lost it in the first place.

The Clock Goes Drip Drop

2008-02-26T11:12:00.003-05:00

It would be nice to know that the coming year will work out, and not leave me someplace I regret. I'm afraid opportunities are slipping by, deadlines are passing. Everyone else is planning ahead and putting effort into their futures. One of my weaknesses is that I don't like to put effort into things that are uncertain. I'd rather just focus. One path, one school, one job application. Instead of risking overspreading myself, I'm gambling on one school because it's where I want to go. I don't even have special reasons why I chose it, like I chose Hope. It would just work. Why take advanced math, why apply to Harvard, if I can be happy in mediocrity? Or if I can be in the upper echelons of mediocrity? I guess I'm afraid that some day I'll realize I could have been a success, or that I'll wish I had tried harder, and that being wonderfully happy in a mediocre life isn't enough. I can't even predict my future self, let alone my future.

What am I doing after graduation? I have no idea.

"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars..." -Walt Whitman

Been a Bit Since

2008-02-01T21:29:00.000-05:00

The semester has been going well for me. I'm pushing to finish my book list: 8 reports behind and 13 books left to read. Still doable.

I can manage some west coast swing now... working on east coast. And a few line dances. A photo of me was in the weekly tiny school paper for participating in an Opus (the school lit publication) reading by reading my peice from Opus. As for TAing, the people in the class are super smart this semester... kind of intimidating all over again.

Right now, I'm in the basement with my housemates (and a visiting Maya's sister) watching psych and eating cookies (Mary's homemade recipe--Beth says you're a genius Mary).

As to what I've been thinking lately: trying to come up with short-story ideas, missing the energy to want to do photography, and wondering what to do if I don't get into Madison. I think maybe I'll do some road-tripping. Live out of my car for a little while, visit friends, and go places I've never been. Bring my camera, use internet at coffee shops, collect my self.

Christmas Break Week One wid ps quote

2007-12-20T16:59:00.000-05:00

There's a house near me with crazy Christmas lights crawling over it like overgrown ivy. The thing is dripping with kitch, and even more-- they hired a Santa Clause to stand outside all day talking to people and handing out candy canes.

I had a depressing trip to the car doctor yesterday. There's a leak on the power steering which is making Marhejo squeel like a dying rabbit everytime he idles. A partial fix is going to cost me 400. At this point I feel like I'm stuck in that movie in which a guy buys a fixer-upper house that turns into a money pit. I acknowledge that it was a mistake trying to fund keeping a car; it's too much. But at this point I have parking and insurance paid off for the rest of the year, so I'm going to hang on to him. I hope nothing else goes wrong with the poor thing.

At the same time, whenever I despair at a bill demanding more money than I have, my parents appear and help me out--unexpected every time.

Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.
-from Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Done With Another Thinger

2007-12-17T00:33:00.000-05:00

Well, that was an interesting finals week. I got about 4 hours of sleep per night, and lots of caffeine to make up for it. I was up 'till 7:30am the day I drove home. Happily, no ditches were involved this time. There was a mystery animal that ran into my car in Wisconsin, I think, but it was dark and I was going 70, and I have no idea what actually happened. There was a thud, that's what I know.

I spent my first day home doing the Christmas birdcount with my dad. Cold as nuts outside, but it wasn't windy. We actually found a peregrin falcon downtown this year, but other than that there wasn't really anything exciting in our sector: lots of mallards, crows, and house sparrows as usual, and one very dumb very cold grackle.

Goals for the next week:
catch up on sleep
catch up on Christmas present purchases
stop dreaming about sentence diagrams
maybe take some more fun wintery photos to put on flickr, maybe just sleep more instead

as you wish

2007-12-07T01:27:00.000-05:00

I stole the following, and if the author reads it and objects I will remove it as soon as possible. Let it be known that I am plaguarizing this from copyright sources, and by that I mean borrowing and it's not mine:

if i were a boy i would lay on the floor and surf around on my back, looking up
skirts and smirking and blaming my sex. i would fall in love with the girl with
one sharp canine and a fascination of bridges; she would speak
choppy phrases in german that i wouldn't understand even if
i knew the language, but i would become familiar with schmetterling,
for i would be her butterfly. she would think it means i change with her into something
exquisite, but i know from the beginning it means i will fly away
in the end

Purple Skies and Pizza Pies

2007-12-06T23:48:00.000-05:00

I forgot how purple the skies get in the wintertime, and how nice it is to live somewhere where it snows practically every night.

I meant to mention in an earlier post that I saw Beowulf when I was home, and I really liked it. I liked what they did with the story; they didn't take the plot too far away from the actual epic poem, and I was pleased with how they integrated paganism and Christianity, and captured the importance those people put on glory, and how they even managed to stick in some Old English (it is all that Grendel spoke). And the dragon was beautiful!

Finally, I got all my grad stuff sent off, good riddance and good luck. Now to await the outcome that will decide the location of the next year of my life. In the meantime I have one paper to write on the ending of Jane Austen's novels, and one last bunch of Am lit tests to go through. Then a few days of fun with my housemates before heading home to have fun with family and friends there.

It is actually really easy to be me. I live a good life. I wish I could live it forever.

Three Weeks Left

2007-11-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

I had a great Thanksgiving at home, although I used up one of my lives to get there (how many lives do people get again?). I put my car Marheyo into a ditch, but it was shallow so I drove out again and crept the rest of the way home slowly on the icy roads. I saw a surprising number of people for being home only three days: the Mary/Alex/Braiden family, my grandparents, my parents, my pets, and Lizard and Abby. Basically, I ate a lot, played a lot of games, and went shopping a couple times.

It's about countdown time for end of semester now. And I should really send in that grad school application...

Thoughts Of Last Night

2007-11-16T16:15:00.001-05:00

The problem with easily loving everyone around me is remembering to make my love felt to those who are far away. I have a sort of forgetfulness--not a lessening, but an indefinite postponement.

My most fantastical and deep-grown wish, other than to live forever, would be to live in the same city as all of My People. What a simple yet life-altering thing! These past couple years have brought to my attention the downfalls of space and vast possibility; America, the world even, is just a vast expanse between me and you.

Nothing has become a problem, and I could do with less of it.

Semisuccess Playing Now

2007-11-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

I found three strange MNans who were feeling stranded, so I will have a full station wagon next Wednesday. Now if only I can manage to get everything done before then; once again I am struggling to get through loads of work. At least I'm getting paid for some of it--yeah TA.

Sidenote--two wonderful new web comic links have been added to the "For the Surfer Fishes" section: Goblins and A Girl And Her Fed.

And now for something completely different.

An everywhere of silver,
With ropes of sand
To keep it from effacing
The track called land.
-Emily Dickinson

Decision Reached

2007-11-11T12:11:00.000-05:00

I finally decided yesterday to just go home for Thanksgiving. I haven't been home for it for the past three years, and now that I have the means it's time to decide if I am going to recognize this holiday not only this year but for years to come. It will always be a drain on time and money, but I guess my choice is to use Thanksgiving as the excuse I want it to be. =)

Now the next goal is to find one or more strangers to ride back to Minnesota WITH me and help pay for gas money... I love rideshare.

It's Not That I Don't Love You

2007-11-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

The Halloween party was pretty fun. We have yet to take down many of the decorations--a huge black yarn web in the living room, orange lights, and tombstones in the kitchen. The cookies and brownies were taken care of pretty quickly though. There are a few photos of my housemates's costumes on my flickr page.

I gave a lecture on Edgar Allan Poe to my American studies class. I was up until 5am (the latest I've stayed up in quite a long time) on Monday night getting ready for it. It went well enough. Next week is another test week though. I've been spending quite a bit of time on this TA business in the past few weeks, with more to come.

My satire class wrote modest proposals this week, and there were lots of "good" proposals. Mine solved the healthcare coverage and cost problems through the enslavement of doctors and hospital workers. And more sentences were diagrammed in my grammar class; I think I'm getting quite good at it.

Shame of the week: I still have not applied to grad school.

Don't Mention Pumpkins...

2007-10-23T23:42:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a busy couple of weeks. The class I TA for on Tuesday nights took a test on Emerson/Thoreau/Whitman today, and I get to read through them all. Last time it took me about 25 minutes per test... equalling about 10 hours. But I'm excited--I love seeing what people have to say about the stuff we've been reading, and to see all the different writing styles (sometimes random, sometimes not so great, sometimes brilliant).

Then this weekend will be preparations for the Halloween party! My roommates and I are going to figure out how to dye our skin (koolaid or food coloring). We also bought some fun decorations to put up, and we want to bake some goodies. And I want to find more spooky lit to read, and we have to sort out art supplies for the morbid/macabre art contest. Perhaps most importantly, we have to figure out how to unstinkify the basement. For the past couple days it has smelled funkay.

Plus, Mary and I have figured out how to play real-time boggle on facebook...

"Do you mean to say," he began, "that if I take the trouble to observe your directions--place myself in the conditions that you demand: solitude, night and a tallow candle--you can with your ghostly work give me an uncomfortable sense of the supernatural, as you call it? Can you accelerate my pulse, make me start at sudden noises, send a nervous chill along my spine and cause my hair to rise?"
Colston turned suddenly and looked him squarely in the eyes as they walked. "You would not dare--you have not the courage."
From "The Suitable Surroundings" by Ambrose Bierce

Is It Time for Timelessness?

2007-10-11T16:15:00.001-04:00

My time is up.

This 300th blog post is dedicated to my poor pocket watch, which suffered a severe concussion on October 7th. Let me clarify its injuries: a hole has appeared in the glass face, filling the inside with tiny glass shards. I must have hit it on something and I didn't even notice. I am unsure of whom I would go to to get it fixed. It still works, but I'm afraid to carry it around with me so unprotected.

Drat.

I really liked knowing what time it was any time, down to the date.

In other news, Halloween is coming up, and I really like Halloween. My apartment is thinking of hosting a small Halloween party. It would involve reading scary/gothic stuff like Poe, Bierce, random ghost stories, etc. And hopefully it would involve lots of candy.

Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the wood-side... they are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness... Oh-o-o-o-o that I had never been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the grey oaks. Then--that I had never been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and --bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods.
-Henry D. Thoreau in Walden, on screech owls

No Fish Were Harmed... For Long

2007-10-06T17:39:00.001-04:00

Last night my apartmentmates and I had another delicious family style meal, and this time we made sushi! It was so delicious... so good. We made combos with cucumber, avacado, imitation crab meat, and green pepper.

Someday, I'm going to have to buy myself a sushi makin' mat.

I could understand that I was a bug riding on a dragon's forehead as it roams through space, its speed so different from my speed that I feel the dragon solid and immobile. In quarries I could see its strata, the dragon's veins and muscles; the minerals, its teeth and bones... I had worked the soil, which is its flesh, and harvested the plants and climbed the trees, which are its hairs. I could listen to its voice in the thunder and feel its breathing in the winds, see its breathing in the clouds. Its tongue is the lightning.
-from Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior

Bless the Swinging Road

2007-10-03T12:34:00.000-04:00

It has been pointed out to me that I have not been updating regularly, and this is true. I feel that many of my friends are also not updating regularly any more. I wonder why that is. Are we finally starting to detach from each other and find our own separate lives? Or is it just that we are so good at procrastinating and forgetting to keep in touch?

Last week my sister Kathy and neice Ravenna visited me here at my apartment. It was a lot of fun. We did a short trip to the beach, and went wandering around Holland's little downtown specialty shops a few times. Ravenna's favourite activity seemed to be walking up and down stairs (with help). I did have one problem--I kept getting lost driving around. Apartenly my mother's directional instincts are hereditary, but luckily, so is her good-natured calmness about being lost. There's always something in the back of my mind reassuring me that I know vaguely which direction to go, and if we only drive around a little more...

Anyway, as always happens around my sisters, I was amazed at motherhood. I think the part of me that decidedly does NOT want children is the selfish part of me... it takes too much sacrifice and patience. My sisters do it so well.

Next weekend is homecoming, and my apartmentmates and I are going to the dance. It is supposed to have a live band, and a lot of swing music. Smells like high school to me.

He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things... Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Self-Reliance"

Brainless Barnacles!

2007-09-10T00:04:00.000-04:00

So I avoided homework today, whooo, first time this semester I have slacked off too much! I was waiting all day for the muse to inspire me to write for my satire class. I now know that that is a bad tactic. At least, bad for getting writing done. Im'a be up late tonight.

I'm writing a character sketch on Gamers. I hope it works.

I also only have one day left to be 21 years old. I'm not really excited about racking up more years anymore. I was happy being 21, but I guess 22 can be good too. At least it is a multiple of 11, my favoritest of numbers.

Going Round in Ovals

2007-08-29T12:53:00.000-04:00

I am back at school again, pretty much moved in and settling into the class routine. Lots of work ahead, but I'm pretty happy right now. As classes go, I ended up taking grammar, a Jane Austen seminar, and a satire writing class, along with TAing for an American literature course and continuing my old job at the library.

I like our "apartment". We've got the basement set up as a TV room, the ground floor as study room (and also the kitchen is there), and we've gotten our bedrooms upstairs pretty well set up. I am really enjoying not having to go the cafeteria for meals, mostly living off of toasted sandwiches and the occasional ramen noodles so far.

I love to sail forbidden seas and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it--would they let me--since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.
-from Herman Melville's Moby Dick

Augmenting August

2007-08-14T01:34:00.000-04:00

If life is going to give me a checklist, then by gum I am going to check everything off.

I'm going to Seattle on Thursday! I'm going camping again next week (maybe twice)! My car is all checked out, oil changed, and windshield-wipers-replaced (and I'm thinking of naming it Marheyo... I'm pretty sure that my vehicle embodies an eccentric old man). If only I can sqeeze in a few more days with Mary and one more with my friends in the Twin Cities, I shall be satisfied. Plus maybe getting ten more books done too.

I'm ready to say goodbye to that SA, fare it well. I'm ready to pick and move again, ready for change, season and all.

Still, there is time leftover to listen to a summer storm roll through.

The luxurious siesta was hardly ever omitted, except by old Marheyo, who was so eccentric a character, that he seemed to be governed by no fixed principles whatever; but acting just according to the humor of the moment, slept, ate, or tinkered away at his little hut, without regard to the proprieties of time or place. Frequently he might have been seen taking a nap in the sun at noon-day, or a bath in the stream at mid-night. Once I beheld him perched eighty feet from the ground, in a tuft of a cocoa-nut tree, smoking...
-from Typee by Herman Melville

Half Way Not Done

2007-08-08T00:02:00.000-04:00

I always let people down.

I get such grand intentions, such wonderful vague plans... and then I spend the summer working at a hole-in-the-wall gasstation, and watching TV all night. Well, I do get stuff done now and then, I suppose.

I've floated down Whitewater River on an innertube... it was nearly as serene as that Northern Lake, and just as fun. I've reconnected with my estranged childhood best friend. I've made a little progress on carving that nativity scene. I've gotten through 25 out of 50 books for that honors program (I thought it would be sooooo easy for me, but it has really been hard to motivate myself). I've seen a bit of my other high school buddies... not as much as I would like to. I've seen some of Mary and Alex and little Braiden-Boo, but definately not as much as I would like to. I've gone to the MN zoo with them a few times. I haven't seen much of Leroy, and I haven't gotten out to Seattle to visit Kathy and little Ravenna.

So much stuff, I feel like my life is a giant check list. But hey, no one I know died in the bridge collapse... check.

The Bad News

2007-07-15T00:39:00.000-04:00

Funny thing happened at work today...

A crazy man was creeping around in the station's parking lot. He had a knife. He was waving it around in an amazingly cavemanish hokey-movie way. He came up to one of the doors and tried to push it open (except, it being an exit door, it couldn't be opened from the outside). He then came over to the entryside door, and attacked a trashcan with his knife. He then started pushing the entry door repeatedly (again with caveman-like fascination that it moved).

This is where I failed my survival check. I stayed in the checkout watching in fear and fascination instead of locking the door.

Hmmm (think I), what will happen when this obviously crazy and aggressive and armed man comes inside this store with me? ...I wish I had a key to lock the door with.

This is when the police showed up (and no we hadn't called them), and got the guy and pinned him down for a while in the parking lot until an ambulance came and took him away. Saved by the bell. And after all this I realized... the doors have turn locks on the inside... you don't need a key.

The Good News

2007-07-15T00:33:00.000-04:00

Camping was as wonderful as I'd hoped it would be, such a complete rest. There was a day spent floating in an amazing remote lake under the sun, listening to loons and laughing. Nights were spent in front of the fire, roasting all sorts of campfire deserts (ranging from banana yumminess and pies to peep-s'mores) along with watching the stars and defending our site from avaricious and fearless woodland warriors (also known as raccoons, the little devils).

Real Live Vacation, Huzzah!

2007-07-07T08:35:00.000-04:00

I got to see so much of Ravenna and Kathy last week--it was wonderful. I wish it were easier for me to just take time off and visit them and the Mary family and the Leroy/Amber duo.

And now it is time for the annual camping trip! This year we are going to Crow Wing State Park in Minnesota. Bean hole days, turtle races, lakes, campfires, traditional and secretive larping: it should be a lot of fun. I'm heading up there right after I get off work today, and hopefully I'll meet the others before the park closes for the night and I get shut out. I'd rather not sleep in the car alongside a road that first night... but if I have to I have Lizard's sleeping bag, so I won't be the only sad one (Mwahahaha).

Titch of a Tizzy

2007-06-26T15:16:00.000-04:00

Alright, so that was interesting.

Turns out we have some similar interests (sci-fi, movies, books, piano), and he (name of Chris) seems nice enough. I'm not sure we'll do it again, but I suppose I shall see. We had dinner at Zorbas (mmm spanikopita) and then rented a movie. Now at least I can say I've done the whole date thing; I don't think Joe and I ever actually went on a nice date together- we just hung out a lot.

Anyway, this week my Kathy sister is in town with her little one, so I've been getting to visit with her a lot. Mary and my pa are still down in Iowa visiting family.

Darn sirens going off for darn severe thunderstorm watches. Mark, WATCH not warning. I don't really know why they bother.

Has anyone ever eaten or cooked elk before? Suggestions?

Tying New Rings

2007-06-23T21:32:00.000-04:00

I'm trying something weird and new tomorrow night... a date with a guy I run into occasionally at work. He seems nice enough. I guess I'll find out.

Now, what ever will I wear? ;)

Yes Still

2007-06-11T21:04:00.000-04:00

I'm still not getting through books fast enough. The TV calls to me after I get home from work, and I just want to put up my heels and zone out. It's probably a good thing that I think most of what is on TV is junk, although sometimes that doesn't dissuade me.

I housesat again this weekend, for my bosslady, who happens to have a very excitable dog and a very large tv. It was fun and interesting as ever.

So most of my friends have moved out of town, but almost as a trade-off I am very happy that my childhood best friend has moved back to town after adventures in Washington state, and we are getting back in touch and hanging out again. After being out of touch for so long, it is still easy and fun. We've both changed some, but it's good to know that, friends-wise, with some people it won't matter how long I'm away from. It's comforting.

For I went to a university, and I listened to lectures on all sorts of subjects, but as for the art of living and an orderly way of life, well, I not only did not learn that but, what is worse, learned rather the art of spending as much as possible on all sorts of new refinements and comforts, became acquainted, for the most part, with such things as demand money... we will seize the superficies of enlightenment but not enlightenment itself.
-from Nicholai Gogol's Dead Souls

Shoulda Upda Ateda

2007-05-23T16:00:00.001-04:00

We've been having too many drive offs at our store- it is making me loose my faith in humanity. At least while I am working.

I also need to get unaddicted to TV. I find myself going down there at night to watch movies and shows, and sit with my cats, and draw or carve. I need to be reading instead. 5o books really didn't seem like too much until I realize how long it actually takes me to read books like A Tale of Two Cities (just finished) and Ivanhoe (my current).

This weekend should be fun and busy. I'm going up to the cities to dog sit for my brother on Thursday. Saturday I'm driving back down for a wedding rehearsal (my pseudo-sister is getting married this weekend!). I get to play piano at the wedding, entry and exit type music. It means I've been practising a lot, and remembering how fun it is to play piano every now and then. Anyway, I'm driving up again Saturday night, and then returing again for the wedding on Sunday.

Also, thank goodness for coffee houses with wireless internet. Also, I overuse the word 'also'.

Cat, Interrupted

2007-05-15T03:28:00.000-04:00

Susan's current status is frustrated.

I don't know what to do about my family. I'm not used to having to be so... diplomatic? [I'm a flipping English major; I should be able to think of the appropriate word.] Anyway, there is a situation. The crux of the problem is not the people, but the house. It is a mess. It has always been a mess as far as I can remember. With so many siblings accumulating so much stuff to be stored until a final destination, combined with a family tendancy to packrat, it has accumulated more than its fair share of stuff. Plus, it has suffered years of children and pets, and it has been in a slowly deteriorating condition. The flooding it suffered due to a sinkhole (surprise surprise, sinkholes are not covered in insurance) sealed its disreputation. It is cramped, it is dusty, it is possibly moldy. Multiple siblings now say it makes them sick to visit (compounded by the scant space which makes it difficult to fit visitors), and so they have finally and sadly decided they don't want to visit anymore.

Great, so what do I do? One has dreams of getting rid of all the excess stuff, but that wouldn't satisfy another. Plus, there is still stuff being stored. Some blame it all on the parents' habits. Some imply the house is hopeless. Should I confront the parents? Can't we all just talk about this openly? Am I supposed to just quietly help out and be the go-between stuck between the different sides? Everytime I try and figure out what to do, people just get sad and don't want to talk about it. Now I only have my blog to talk to. So, blog and commentators, what should I do?

I have to live here too.

His household returned to its usual way of life... How foolish his aims had been! He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life without him and to dam up, by rules of conduct and active interests and new filial relations, the powerful recurrence of the tide within him. Useless.

There was a lust of wandering in his feet that burned to set out for the ends of the earth. On! On! his heart seemed to cry. Evening would deepen above the sea, night fall upon the plains, dawn glimmer before the wanderer and show him strange fields and hills and faces. Where?
-the best parts of a book I did not particularly enjoy, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Relazzzing

2007-05-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

I had a nice nap on the couch today with my cat.

Today, it was also my priveledge to watch training videos for three. hours. at a gas station today. It marks the beginning of my trip down the skunk hole to magical customer service land, where everything smiles and thanks everyone for doing anything. It is a mechanical Carly state park, except with fields of paperwork instead of bluebells.

Then there was the neighborhood meeting. The first half consisted of instructions for what departments of the city should be contacted to file complaints against neighbors for various offenses, and we are encouraged to all do our part to help prevent... "undesirable elements", as well as protect our property values. That part really did creep me out a bit. The second half regarded a biodiesel processing plant that is getting put in on third street in the midst of a neigborhood (but already on an industrial zoned lot so there is little to prevent it, but this doesn't prevent the community from being upset). It was insteresting watching a group, half of whom seemed to have given up being able to do anything, and the other half angrily telling the first half about how dangerous and bad for property value the plant would be...

Tomorrow I am off to the cities!

Welcome Mr and Mrs K-----

2007-05-04T15:47:00.000-04:00

My sister is now officially a wife!
And that tricksy The Great is also a husband. ;)

The wedding was beautiful, and I had a lot of fun. When that much of my family gets together I feel like a retriever dog, running from person to person with a wagging tail and goofy grin. Extended family from Washington state to Pennsylvania showed up, including all my siblings (and all two of my nephews and nieces) and most of my cousins on my mom's side, as well as a variety of aunties and uncles.

Anyway, I am now home for the summer. I slept for twelve hours last night, the first chance I've had at starting to catch up on my sleep debt. It sounds like that job at the gas station is waiting for me, and eventually I have to figure out how to cram my stuff into this overpacked house. And that about catches up on my life.

Welcome home.

Running The Endurance Test or I See Ponies!

2007-04-26T00:07:00.000-04:00

Progress so far:
two 12 minute presentations complete with power points done, and I've finished reading Pride and Prejudice. Environmental Exploration Project (EEP) begun, although I may have only dug myself a hole (and perhaps *desperately hopes not* made a comment in one of my papers (see below) that could be taken as noticible/offensive mockery of the professor I will be TAing who has a tendency to write "too cute?" in the margins next to my writing)... I meant it is a sucastic way, like I usually mean things, only it was not probably at all professional of me to voice it in front of the class. I blame the lack of sleep. And the fact that somehow I committed to throwing the theme of trolls into what was previously a serious series of papers about the environment...

Still on the list: I need to obtain a signiture from a professor tomorrow who has an office in a building I don't understand. I have two nights to finish my huge photography paper, dunes lab report, small brit lit paper, and EEP, along with watching an episode of Doctor Who and going to dinner with my friends. I am putting off studying for my final until next week.

On my mind right now: I just want it to be said to my dear Meursy that I still frequently have her wedding on my mind, probably more frequently on average than normal since I have been awake so much more than normal to be excited during. I am busy wishing that two certain soon-to-married people will have a fantastic wedding and a happily ever after.

General weirdness: I kept getting woken up by the rain this morning because I thought it sounded like people typing away at clacky keyboards, and the construction noise kept making me think my radio alarm was going off (and that the radio station was playing heavy metal). I needed that sleep. But then again, I guess I didn't, since I didn't take it.

Here are sneak peeks at my papers:

I have been a little hesitant to define this quest... It is too unrealistic, too cute, to be taken seriously. With these accusations out of the way, I ask for a serious consideration before being dismissed. My ultimate aim in returning to the boardwalk time after time was this: I wanted to see a troll.

The way that documentation of the existence of these bones (which are in turn evidence that people had once been), has changed over time, from sentimental to rigorously scientific. The photographs become more businesslike, and so do their uses. Previously seen as Memento Mori, reminders of mortality, bones become to Western culture keys to the past instead of portents of the future.

Some People Are Hard to Please

2007-04-22T13:49:00.000-04:00

I am on 7.5 out of 20-25 pages. And then... I have two more papers to do by the end of the week, along side a presentation on Tuesday and another presentation on Wednesday. So that's what I'm doing.

And then on Friday--WOOWOOOO--I'm going home on the train for wedding time. =)

P.S. If anyone wants to read about the photography of skeletons from 1860-1939... just let me know.

Skeletons in the Closet

2007-04-21T20:13:00.000-04:00

I don't even know what I'm doing.

It's ok though.

And Also Call Me

2007-04-15T21:36:00.000-04:00

Oh, and I've decided that someday I will own a canoe. Then, whenever someone comes to visit me, we can go canoeing. I heart canoeing.

Also, I've added a new clump of links that people should check out: favourites of youtube and other random multimedia wonders.

Call Me Busdriver Su

2007-04-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

I decided not to graduate early after all. Instead, I am going to concentrate on two things: grad school and enjoying my senior year. As to the first, I need to do some serious research into which ones I want to go to, and do what I can to puff myself up enough for them to admit me. To that end, I am going to continue working at the library, as well as be a TA next semester. One of my English professors (who is also my advisor, and knows I'm trying to look good for grad school) offered me a TA position for his American Lit 1 (pre-1850) class. I think it will take up a lot of time and thought, but I'm only going to take 12 credits of classes, so I should be able to deal with it. Plus, I like the professor, and I like American literature, so... voila. TA.

As to the other, I will get to spend another full year with my blessed wonderful roommates, as well as all the other people. Take classes purely on the basis of what I want to learn. Not have to worry about rushing. Roleplaying. Socialness. Wanderlust. Good times assured.

I'm Late For Work As Of Now

2007-04-13T13:35:00.000-04:00

I was going loopy this week, so last night I just stayed in my room. I took a nap, and read in bed, and got enough sleep last night, and I feel so much better now. Ambition has been a problem for me; I fear I have too little of it to really amount to much. Sometimes I think not amounting to much would be at all bad, but sometimes I wish I could. Full potential. Expectations. Career. Blah.

Maybe back to more mundane things. I'm going on a litter-pickup canoe trip tomorrow morning, so I hope its not too cold. One of my friends/housemates dropped out of college this week, which is sad and awkward. I've been watching Doctor Who when both of my roomies and I can get together and don't have to do homework (which has not been often. In fact, it has been once for one episode.).

End.

I didn't mean I wanted to be a schoolteacher. I just made that pretense to be there, for I had never heard that anybody went to a university just to read books. There had to be a real reason--namely, something you wanted to do later...

The university thought of itself as a place of freedom for thought and study and experimentation, and maybe it was, in a way. But it was an island too, a floating or flying island. It was preparing people from the world of the past for the world of the future, and what was missing was the world of the present, where every body was living its small, short, surprising, miserable, wonderful, blessed, damaged, only life.
-from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Distinguished Distractions

2007-04-08T23:10:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone who had/cared about Easter had a good one. We had one day off, and as usual I did not do anything extra special with my long weekend. I did pick up a brand shiney new addiction. Mary showed me where to watch a tv show called Heroes online, and over the weekend I watched thirteen (hourlong) episodes. In addition to doing an all-day dungeon run with some DnD buddies (human cleric of Boccob).

I need to go grocery shopping, as soon as a ride comes up. I need to do laundry, except I have no quarters (or any cash at all). I have two weeks to finish all my major projects so I have them out of the way for the wedding (the wedding!!!!!). I need to watch Doctor Who and Heroes, and maybe fit in some spades.

*cliche warning*

Need is such a strong word.

Brrring Brrrring... Brrrring Brrring...

2007-04-01T15:09:00.000-04:00

I am in a weird mood today- a salmon brownies kind of mood, but since I don't have those I am eating carrots, chocolate chips, and mountain dew. And periodically screeching or going outside to look at the clouds. I have so much work to do.

I have procrastinated past one of those points. My brain is not so much in panic mode as in a wandering daze. I've been procrastinating by reading Catch-22 instead of working, and I only have 1/8 of the book left. It has been so good, so wacky and fun and satirical, but now people in it are dying, and I am afraid to read it. Yossarian is so afraid of dying and I understand that so much that I am afraid of reading the rest, because I think it will kill him. Characters have started dying off at a steady pace.

And registration is tomorrow- I must decide my life to come, tonight.

...Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn't a chance of winning. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated."
-from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Question for the Masses

2007-03-28T21:43:00.000-04:00

Class registration is next week, so I've been looking at what classes I still need to take, and I made a discovery. If I take an online May term class, or take one extra class next semester, I will have enough credits to graduate a semester early. It will be more initial pressure if I do, and I will miss out on spending that last semester with my friends, but it would save money and it would give me lots of breathing space before graduate school. I am very much wanting people's advise on this quandry: should I, would you, do the little extra and graduate early?

"Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?" Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. "This long." He snapped his fingers. "A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man."
from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Change Again Change Again Change

2007-03-24T19:24:00.000-04:00

Spring break is ending for me, as it has already done for many of my friends, as breaks always seem to do too quickly. I had been afraid that this break would be like Winter break was, empty, boring, and too void of people. It wasn't, though. It was like taking a bubble bath instead of a shower.

That's about it. I'm not smarter after this break, I don't have any exciting stories, I haven't done much of anything at all. But I feel more relaxed, and that is worth something.

I highly recommend this book:

"I have never known my full capacity for solitude," she would say.

Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering...
Suffering shows us what we are attached to -- perhaps the umbilical cord between Mother and me has never been cut. Dying doesn't cause suffering. Resistance to dying does.

-from Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

Appreciate the Style

2007-03-20T16:32:00.000-04:00

I am bonding with this house. It keeps me company- it's got so much attitude. Four different levels, basement to attic, and I have it all to myself. When I clean it, it stays clean, and I can run around, jump around, sing, shriek etc at any hour of the day or night.

I've been keeping myself busy enough to not be bored. I finished the Feminine Mystique, watched plenty of movies, taken long naps, played spades with my sister, and gone for a long walk at Window by the Waterfront. It's nice to stop working and just drift, to let time crystalize like amber around me and enjoy the space between the minutes. I love break.

The more your intelligence exceeds your job requirements, the greater your boredom. This is so to such an extent that experienced employers never hire above-average brains for routine jobs... It is this boredom plus, of course, the day-to-day frustrations which makes the average housewife's job more emotionally fatiguing than her husband's.
-McCalls's article quoted in The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

As of Tomorrow, Timmer is MINE

2007-03-16T18:02:00.000-04:00

It's now spring break! Huzzah!

I have so much wonderful Doctor Who to watch, and a photography project to work on, and spades to play with my sister, and movies from the library to watch. Last night I got lots of food at the grocery store. So I'm all set. =)

Hello, different pace of life.

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.
...
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my good
-Satan in Paradise Lost by John Milton

It's My Life (Not That Life Takes Any Notice)

2007-03-07T16:45:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning with a cold that has been shuffling around campus.

There is a definite pattern to my life this semester. It consists of having no free time Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which wears me out. Then comes Thursday, with small pockets of free time, then Friday which is half-work, a quarter free time, and then Vampires into the night. Saturday I should do work, but at that point I am so worked-out that I take it as my day of relaxation. Which means that I have to work all of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to keep up...

I want to go watch Doctor Who and work on carving my nativity set. Although I don't know what I'll do with it anymore, now that the grandmother for whom it was intended is dead.

But all this seemed so little, so virginal, against the other. Yet, as the night wore on, and white lights parted the curtains, and even now and then some bird chirped in the garden, gathering a desperate courage she would urge her own exemption from the universal law; plead for it; she liked to be alone; she liked to be herself; she was not made for that; and so have to meet a serious stare from the eyes of unparalleled depth, and confront Mrs. Ramsay's simple certainty (and she was child-like now) that her dear Lily, her little Brisk, was a fool.
-from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse

Spaceship Speculation

2007-02-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

"Last night I had a dream..."

Captain Jack Sparrow got abducted by aliens, but had escaped in a little shuttle. He ended up docking with Firefly, and he and Captain Reynolds got to meet face to face. I don't think they liked each other very much. I wish I had been able to stay asleep and see more of the conversation/shenanigans, but then again, if I had kept sleeping I would have forgotten the dream.

Wouldn't that be a crazy episode? Battle of the captains...

I Think I Can Make It Now

2007-02-20T19:24:00.000-05:00

It is amazing how much for granted I take good health. And it feels so good not to be in pain.

I had one of those periods today that starts off inconspicuously enough. I went to lunch, then I went to work afterwards. Then cramps started tearing my guts apart, and I went through the whole series of now-predictable problems. The pain intesifies, I start getting cold sweats, and then I get nauseous. Then I start shaking. I had to leave work early, so I could run home and get some IBprofen. I felt so awful, my brain just shut down and I lay on the cool bathroom tiles in pain, hoping they would stop the sweating. Then I crawled into bed and covered myself with blankets. It is always such a sweet wonderful feeling when the drug kicks in and the pain goes away; indescribibly wonderful lack of feeling. A little while later I feel completely better. I don't know why these episodes sometimes happen. It's rare. I think the last time was in my freshman year of college; I remember having to leave class early. Then once before at a music festival, and once before that during high school. It always seems to happen when I am not at home.

Anyway, that was probably more detailed than it needed to be. I just wanted to express my thankfulness that we don't have to go through pain very often. Yet, it is so easy for me to forget it, and how much it takes over. It is easy for me to think I can handle pain until those sorts of moments remind me to be thankful I don't have to.

If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything.
-Count Rugen in The Princess Bride (movie)

Looks Undercast To Me

2007-02-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I did that thing where my roommate comes in late and "wakes me up". I apparently tut-tut-tut-ed at her in a motherly fashion for being out so late while glaring and shaking my head, and eventually rolled over and "went back to sleep". As is usual for this kind of episode, I remember nothing.

I went on a field trip to a gypsum mine this morning- it was a lot of fun. I carried back a lovely gymsum rock the size of my head, all full of salmon- and dusky raspberry-coloured crystals. It's still got some grey shale stuck to it, but when I wash it all off it is going to be very pretty. I am wondering if a certain Anne lady - who I helped do landscaping for a couple summers back - would like it as a present.

In other news, we are forcasting heavy homework tonight, with mostly homework tomorrow. Tomorrow night the responsibility may drop into the lower digits and we may get some sprinkled funtime. The rest of the week looks to be mostly homework into Thursday. Do not ever expect to see the sun.

I wish I hope I pray that my poor old cat does not die while I'm at school.

Exorcism of Before Bed Thoughts

2007-02-16T01:06:00.000-05:00

I acutely realized something about my temperment tonight that has been on the periphery of my awareness for a while. My mood is dominated by the company I am in. It is a little worrisome that my temperment is so dependent upon other people's presence. I feel like a little asteroid that is always seeking a beneficial alignment of other planets. When I am with one friend, I feel able to vent all my frustrations; comine this one with our third, and my spirit is shifted into a wonderful and annoyingly bubbly happiness. At one lunch table I am apathetic and sullen; switch to a different table and I commence into happy social activity. It isn't that I am happy around good people. Their virtues and friendliness do not seem to matter so much as some strange chemistry of souls.

For so long I have been trying to resign myself to the thought of a lone-wolf life. How will this ever work, then, if I find myself so dependent on company? I will always have wonderful friends and family to visit, but in my mind I see myself going home to an empty apartment. Well, hopefully not empty; I plan to have cats.

I guess I'm jumping the gun a little. I still have quite a bit of roommate-filled schooling ahead. Assuming Madison works out.

On a different note, my dinner was postponed. Everyone forgot about the visiting writer who was speaking tonight, and so many people would have had to miss it, that I called it off last minute. That means I made about half the house sad and hungry, and the other half didn't have to miss out on dinner. *sigh*

Nevertheless, if we look through all the heroic fortunes of mankind, we shall find this same entanglement of something mean and trivial with whatever is noblest in joy or sorrow. Life is made up of marble and mud.
-from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables

Dew Drop By

2007-02-13T23:47:00.000-05:00

There are icicles outside my window that go from the top of the gutter above my window down to the roof that my window overlooks. The beasts are as tall as I am, and they would be bigger if they'd had more room to grow. Now they are just getting fat.

Someone brought home some dry ice tonight, which we submersed in the tub. It was very pretty- a homegrown, warm pet cloud that had a brief but appreciated life. I took a few pictures, not very quality, and put them on my Flickr site.

Speaking of things my blog is linked to, I am now a happy follower of the Erfworld comic, based off the same site as Order Of The Stick. I put a shiney new link up on the side for Erfworld. It took a few comics for me to get into it, but it is so quirky, and the characters are shiney, that I now appreciate very much indeed.

I volunteered to cook the weekly cottage dinner this week. I'm going to make three courses (for about nine people, assuming everyone comes): artichoke dip with baguette (which Amber made for Christmas and it was soooo good), potato pancakes (family favorite) with homemade applesauce, and cookies (ready-bake, but give me a break here, and they're still good. Not all of us can be Abby, you know). Anyhow, I hope it goes well. I'm trying to find someone who is willing to drive me to the grocery store: it is a 40 minute walk with all the snow, and I don't want to drag a sack of potatos and a sack of apples plus everything else.

I thought I might as well acknowledge Valentine's Day, since my other option is to be bitter, and that is not a very nice thing to be. So, in recognition, a couple of old sonnets:

I find no peace, and all my war is done,
I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice,
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise,
And naught I have, and all the world I seize on.
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison,
And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise;
Nor letteth me live nor die at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain;
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;
I love another, and thus I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Likewise displeaseth me both death and life,
And my delight is causer of this strife.

-"I Find No Peace" by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his prey.
"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay,
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wyped out likewize."
"Not so," qoud I, "let baser things devize
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."

-"Sonnet 75" by Edmund Spenser

A Nother Night

2007-02-09T18:23:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am.

It is winter break again, and my friends have gone for the weekend. I have stocked up on food, movies, and books, and of course there is always the computer, so I should be able to keep myself occupied. Oh, homework too. There's always that.

Last night I dreamed that my grandmother came back from the dead in order to help plan her own funeral. She just wanted to be useful, and it was very helpful to have her there, even if we all knew she was dead. It made it so that no one was upset, just kind of determined to get some normal thing arranged, like it was a family reunion or something.

Then I dreamed that I was riding a flat-bed train around Europe with my family, only, at one stop I got off to pick up some invitations that had fallen over the side and the train left without me. I tried to chase it up this mountainy thing, but it was too far ahead. I ended up by the ruins of some buildings, and I went to explore them. A horse started following me, but it wouldn't go inside with me, and I found out that it was because the floor was unstable. I had to do a lot of legwork to escape the collapsing floors. Later, the horse and I had a conversation (in English), but I don't remember what we talked about.

Rant Amok

2007-02-06T22:23:00.000-05:00

I'm on the rollercoaster again. What a dried-up cliche to use, but I'm too angry or tired to think of better. Partly it is stress from the usual heavy workload, plus trying to figure out my housing situation for next year. Mostly though, it is from reading Walden for the second and a halfth time.

It's not that Walden is a bad book. It is a wonderful book, and I agree with so much of it. But I feel like such a hypocrite reading it. I agree with what Thoreau says about living life deliberately, and about how people are sickeningly content to live their lives running in hamster wheels. Work is not a reason to live, yet it is turned into a pivotal focus in life. So much depends on what you do for a living, and whether you went to college or not. It's shallow. Yet, I am too scared to bother finding out what else there is, because this is such a well-worn path. I don't want to get lost in the woods, so I will never get to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. Honestly, this education is not worth $100,000 and four years of my life, even with all the scholarships and pats on the head, and that ultimate goal- a piece of paper saying I graduated. I'm spinning my guts out running their rat-race, and spending my vitality on papers and studying for tests that I will not remember the information for a year from now. I'm already 1/4 dead, and the times that I hold dearest have nothing to do with school.

It's just a little frustrating to think about. Alone. And did you know Valentine's day is next week? I hate being bitter, but I can't help it either, for all that I tell myself that I'm happy as I am; and it's TRUE, I AM happy, really. But the other half wonders what it is those couples have together, and why every movie ends with a kissing scene if it really doesn't matter so much.

The greatest part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possesed me that I behaved so well?
-Henry Thoreau in Walden

Cause You Gotta Have

2007-01-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to university life in the US: here, have a pile of scantily-awarded but very time-consuming homework, and by the way we want a write-up for every class, due this week.

Gee, thanks. I guess I'll just sit spend my youthful vitality sitting in my room and doing homework instead of sleeping.

Great choice, Su. By the way, you should be honored that we even considered you, but we decided that if you jump through hoops for us you will be allowed to join mortar board. It is an honor to be selected. We look forward to seeing the paperwork (deadline last Friday). It is an honor to be asked by us.

Uhm... that sounds pretty hoity-toity, but I'm going to pass.

Fine. As long as you pay the exorbitant bills for your education and obey our rules, you can do whatever you want. Your loss.

Gee, my heart is filled with school spirit. I'm going to go be a slave to my books now.

So here I am, awaiting the return of my wayward Beth-roomie and trying to whittle down my workload. And by the way, last night I dreamt that Mary was having another baby (it was Braiden's twin, who hadn't been ready to be born until now). And I also dreamed that the Beth was upset because she was pregnant. I think all those, 'So, Susan, do you think there is something in the water?' type questions got to me at last. And my answer is no. Nothing in the water. Except, you know, chlorine and pesticides and stuff, which should be reducing the chances of children, not increasing them.

I forgot I was supposed to be doing homework instead of blogging. Bad me.

Has anyone seen a David-loving brown-haired dancer-poet wandering around, sickly and lost?

It is said that mourning, by its gradual labor, slowly erases pain; I could not, I cannot believe this; because for me, Time eliminates the emotion of loss (I do not weep), that is all. For the rest, everything has remained motionless. For what I have lost is not a Figure (the Mother), but a being; and not a being, but a quality (a soul): not the indispensable, but the irreplaceable.
-from Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

We'll Always Be Friends. Right, Copper? Right, Tod.

2007-01-25T18:41:00.000-05:00

Here I am back at Hope after a whirlwind trip to Iowa to attend my grandma's funeral. This is the first chance I've gotten to put up new pictures on flickr, and generally dink around the internet; homework catch-up has not been very fun.

I finally got to meet Ravenna, my neice. She is very cute, very slimey, and both babies combined have given me a new repect for parenthood. To have to put that much energy into keeping those babies happy, whenever those babies demand it, is exquisitly tiring. I understand the theory of worth behind the whole set-up, but I think it's funny that my relatives all start telling me things like 'if you teach her baby this, she will teach your baby the same'. What is so unbelievable about not wanting to have children? I understand that my thoughts might change, but then again, I think I know myself pretty well. I prefer to just borrow other people's children for short periods of time. ;)

=,(

2007-01-19T12:43:00.000-05:00

I don't tend to cry until after I say goodbye to people. It's as true of my friends in Soctland as it is of the death of my beloved Grandma Betty.

I just need some alone time.
To mourn,
and to cry,
to mend my heart,
and to say goodbye.

Workin Weekend Wonders

2007-01-15T00:47:00.000-05:00

I spent a lot of time walking around by Lake Macatawa today. It was cold, but I had a peaceful walk with a great view. I really wished I had my binoculars- I saw a lot of birds. I found a great spot to go regularly for my Environmental Exploration Project, but I suspect it is a hobo campspot. So I should choose somewhere else.

I realized tonight that one of the essays I had written in Scotland (due tomorrow) I had not done the bibliography for, and I no longer had the bibliographic information that I had once written down in a now-lost notebook. Oops. That is why, folks, you should not be lazy; just write down the bibliographic information as you do it. Unless you don't think you will be switching countries or recycling notebooks in the meantime. Anyway, I did eventually dig up the information I needed.

But I felt, as I have felt at every death, that something intangible had slipped through my fingers before I discovered its nature. All deaths are scandalously mistimed. People do not live long enough.
-John Banville in Birchwood

Very Funny In The Way That It's Not

2007-01-11T21:53:00.000-05:00

I was mock-complaining to my roommates that no one ever calls me.

Then my parents called an hour later. News is that my grandmother has taken a turn for the worse. I will probably not ever see her again, as her life-sentence has been reduced to the spans of days, maybe weeks. I can remember what I said to her last, just before leaving for Hope: "It's always good to see you."

=(

If I don't think about it then I won't cry.

Unleash Your Word Hoard

2007-01-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

I have the priviledge of sitting here listening to Beth read Beowulf out loud. We're reading it for Brit Lit. It is much improved by Beth's voices. She makes Beowulf sound sexxy. ;) Really classic.

Classes are going well, although I still don't have my books. Barnes and Noble failed me- so much for shipping within three business days. I still have that darn essay to write though. I sit down to write it and my mind rebels. I don't know why it is so repugnant to me to write this one paper, but I am having special troubles. It's due next Monday, so I still have some time.

I wonder, corrupt with reading, if there ever was a moment when this sentence-- outside my window is a cardinal-- was not an artifice; when the blood-red bird on a steel-blue tree was quietly surprising, and nothing urged me to translate it, to domesticate it into a texual enclosure, to become its literary taxidermist. I wonder if there ever was a moment when a cardinal outside my window sat there in blazing spendour signifying nothing.
-Alberto Manguel in The Bedside Book of Birds, ed. Graeme Gibson

Back in Blue (And Orange)

2007-01-08T14:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm all moved into my cottage at school. It is a lovely living arrangement. I'm sharing a room with Beth, and we have more space than we know what to do with. Plus sharing a giant living room and a kitchen with 9 other womens. I'm all set up with groceries for now, and books, and unpacking. This is all good.

It even snowed here last night.

=)

Up To Speeding

2007-01-04T20:34:00.000-05:00

I haven't been blogging a lot lately because I don't really know how voice my thoughts, and I didn't want to try, which I think is a little cowardly of me. The world has just been spinning around too fast. And writing about serious topics on my blog always makes me sound like I'm depressed or like I don't really care, neither of which is necessarily accurate. So really, I'm just going to throw my updates out there, plain and simple.

My grandmother is dying of stomach cancer.

My sister had her first baby, and named him Braiden Alexander.

My mother is paying for my meal plan next semester with money taken out of her retirement plan, because that's the only place money is left.

My skin-and-bones cat turns out to be diabetic.

I got to see my childhood best friend again for the first time in a couple years.

Along with seeing lots and lots of family and other friends.

I still have not started my essay which is due very soon.

I have not packed. Or looked into buying cheap school books online. Or babysat the pirates. Or run all my errands.

I am heading back to college on Saturday; I don't think I'm excited. More like resigned.

'I think it wants to go to Ankh-Morpork. I want to go there too,' he added definantly. 'Can you get us there?'
'Is that the big city on the Ankh? Sprawling place, smells of cesspits?'
'It has an ancient and honorable history,' said Rincewind, his voice stiff with injured civic pride.
'That's not how you described it to me,' said Twoflower, 'You told me it was the only city that actually started out decadent.'
Rincewind looked embarrassed. 'Yes, but, well, it's my home, don't you see?'
-from The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

They BROKE NESSIE! (in memorum)

2006-12-20T17:04:00.000-05:00

Sir Alex makes the very best and tastiest drinks for me. At the moment, I am sipping a delicious coconut-Kaluha-coke type mix. Mmm.

On a sidenote, apparently last night after I fell asleep on the couch I was dreaming about being a cat. I know this, because Alex said I was talking to him about purring and then asked him to pet me. So he pet my head, and I said thank you. Then I shut up and continued to sleep. No memories of this, myself.

I still get tired early. When I arrived in Scotland, I think I was too enchanted to suffer much from my jet-lag. But this time around, I was tired before I even got on the planes, and the luggage schenanigans did not improve my mood. I'm feeling much better now though. And I got to see Bex last night; we watched Fiddler on the roof and ate Chinese food with Meurs.

The stranger, dressed in battered clothes, exuded a calm, assured air. In his hands was a bow, at his side a long hand-and-a-half sword. A white horn bound with silver fittings lay in his lap, and the hilt of a dagger protruded from his boot. His serious face and fierce eyes were framed by locks of brown hair.
-descripting of my favourite character, Murtagh, in Eragon by Christopher Paolini

'Tracing Continues. Please Check Back Later.'

2006-12-18T16:52:00.000-05:00

I am still missing both of my checked luggages, and Northwest has no idea where they are. It is really frustrating. I have very few clothes, no power cord for my laptop, none of the many Christmas presents I bought... grrr.

I slept in another hour and a half this morning (till 6:30), so I guess I'm starting to adjust. I'm also getting used to all the grass being brown, and the clouds seeming so extremely distant and aloof, and the extra sun, and all the people asking me if I'm glad/excited to be home. Which I'm not sure about. I like home, but I liked Scotland. Maybe I would be more eager to adjust if I had all my stuff, I'm not sure. But my mind is wandering around with my luggage.

On the better side of things, I spent all day so far with my Mary sister, shopping and seeing the movie Eragon for the second time.

No books, no quotes.

There's a Fly in my Past

2006-12-17T07:41:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am in Rochester once again. Having jet lag from Scotland has put me on an Abby-like waking schedual. I couldn't sleep past 5am, so I am online with a cat in my lap, with good intentions of making my family pancakes.

The flights home went ok, although they lasted forever and made me feel smelly, and my face got hive-like things all over it from the altitude and it hasn't gone away yet. Also, my two checked bags were lost, but I was told they will hopefully deliver them to my house this afternoon.

My parents and Mary picked me up from the airport, which was really nice. We stopped at Little Oscar's for dinner on the way to Roch. They have a cool little model train that runs all around the restaurant. Then I said hello to my kitties. Rascal is so much thinner than when I left! It's worrying to me. Maybe she went into depression when I left, or fear of Louie is causing her to waste away.

I'd better go work on those pancakes.

Another Chink in Time

2006-12-14T06:50:00.000-05:00

Tonight is the last night that I will sleep in my dorm. Today I plan to watch Blues Brothers, a Sam-gift, while beginning to pack. As soon as I finish my tea and shortbread. I hope that everything will fit into my two suitcases.

Soooooooooo I am the leaver soon, and shall fly away from this dear country.

Your heart was so warm dear, it now has turned cold
You no longer love me, for your memories grow old
It's almost tomorrow, for here comes the sun
But still I am hoping that tomorrow won't come
-lyrics from 'It's Almost Tomorrow', The Dream Weavers

Highland Coup

2006-12-11T07:10:00.000-05:00

Beth and I had our last Aberdonian session of DnD last night. Being almost killed by a dragon, "Lucky" Lodli Silverhand retired in a new but pleasant city named Neverwinter. She will open up a gambling parlour (named the Tipsy Terrasque, in honour of surviving an encounter with THE one and only legendary terrasque), and she plans to introduce rat racing to the city. Beth's character Rex, possibly the best dancer ever thanks to a Christmas wish, plans on wandering the world/planes of existence having dance offs. Not quite legendary deaths, but they will do.

In other news, I've still got loads of work to do. I'm looking forward to taking a study break for dinner; a bunch of us are going out to a Spanish restaurant for a farewell meal.

Goobye to Pastel Hues

2006-12-09T16:51:00.000-05:00

Beth and I took a break today and went to say our goodbyes to the beach. I will very definately miss the North Sea and the beaches of Aberdeen. The lighting and colours there are always so fantastic, and the sea is so stereotypically vast and magnificent. The Don river is wonderful too, because there are always seagulls and ducks or herons or deer or seals or some form of new and exciting Scottish wildlife.

Chris told me goldfish have a retention span of four seconds: that's why they don't notice they're going round and round the same circuit, they keep thinking it's new. I used to believe it. Now I wonder how he knew that, how his source worked it out. Who it was that thought they had a right to say they know what fish think.
-from Foreign Parts by Janice Galloway

Captivity Was Involved

2006-12-07T20:44:00.000-05:00

I am still freaking out about leaving, but mostly I am still freaking out about all the work I have to do before I leave. And then today, Beth said the p-word!

Packing.

I just don't want to go there yet. I want my brain to remain in Scotland for the week it has left. Except the essays are making my brain yoyo around. I was remembering in the library today a short story I wrote in high school about reptilian aliens invading Earth, and I wonder if I still have a copy somewhere. I hope so. I want to read it. And I want to read the beginning of The Mistwraith again. And I want to read the part of The Pride of Chanur where the human gets on the alien spaceship. Basically, my mind is everywhere it shouldn't be, and very far away.

I am still in Scotland.

I am still in Scotland.

Once did I weepe, and grone,
Drinke Tears, draw loathed Breath,
And all for Love of one
Who did affect my Death:
But now (thanks to Disdaine)
I live reliev'd of Paine,
For Sighs, I singing goe,
I burne not as before, no, no, no, no.
-'Change of Love' by William Drummond

Barbuil3eit Braine

2006-12-06T06:54:00.000-05:00

My mind is absolutely all over the place right now, scattered like April showers. I want to be out enjoying the rest of my time in Aberdeen, walking by the river or visiting the beach or Christmas shopping. But nooooo, I have to write papers because otherwise my conscience will addle my sleep with bad dreams about low scoring grades and angry professors. Gorram conscience.

To add to this mix, my gramma Betty was admitted to hospital this week. They don't know exactly what is wrong with her, and are doing tests. I've heard she's feeling a little better, BUT. My family is sad, and we're all worried. Sometimes memento mori are not welcome. Plus, I miss my siblings as always.

It is a beautiful day, a GORGEOUS day in Scotland, and the sun is actually OUT! And I'm not! Booooooooo hiss.

I hope everyone else survives their end of terms too. See you soon.

There is a sentence said by some,
Let none uncald to counsell come,
That welcom weines to bee.
Yea I have heard another yet,
Who came uncald, unserv'd shuld sit,
Perhaps sir, so may yee.

-from "The Cherrie and the Slae" by Alexander Montgomerie

Alarm

2006-12-04T08:24:00.000-05:00

I had a fun time in Glasgow this weekend, despite the weather being cool, rainy, and windy again. Sam, a friend from Uni, led us around. She also invited us to stay with her Oma in Cumbernauld, a nearby town. Her Oma/Grannie grew up in Germany but moved to Scotland and married, and she is a very cute old woman. She told us all about the situation with rubbish disposal and abandonment/littering at her flat building, and we also discussed the contestants in Xfactor and the British Dance show/competition, which she watches regularly.

It was nice to come back to Aberdeen though, with its straightforward grey granite buildings and Union street with its random city people. As we were walking from the bus station to the no.20 bus stop, we even got to see glimpses of random fireworks and hear them echo off of Marishal college like cannon fire. It feels like a home city to me now.

And I just realized while trying to go to sleep how little time is left to me here.

Next weekend will be my last full weekend.

This thought disturbed me so much I had to get out of bed and fight with my internet to post about it. I thought I was ready to go home, but I'm not. I'm going to miss my friends. I'm going to miss the beach, and the river Don. I'm going to miss riding on the tops of double decker buses and being amazed at their defiance of physics. The sparkley grey granite. The cobblestones. The walk through Seaton park. The tiny round European robins. Having to use British words. The toasties and crisps and poppadums. Watching movies in Sali's room, singing songs with Sam. The psychotic weather and the beautiful sky full of scudding clouds, and sunsets that take all afternoon. I can't believe I'm nostalgic already.

I fear going home and not being able to remember being here. Like it never happened. It will fade away like everything does, turning only into some vague memory and the ability to tell people I was there. The feelings and mental images melting away.

Anyway, that's what's going through my mind at 1 am. And this post is too long. Sleep time.