I refuse to stuff stockings.

I am now going to proceed to do none of the things that I promised I would do.
Don't worry; there's still time.

What I want to talk about now is some random Christmas and family stuff.

I love my family.  I love each and every one of the whole lot.  We're spread out around the country, and I love that, because it makes every meet-up a destination-vacation, without even trying.  Getting together to see family is never just an afternoon's worth of an ordeal.  We span days, sometimes weeks, and we always inevitably see too much of each other for our own collective good, but I personally never get sick of anyone.  That's all the old-folks' jobs.

That's another interesting piece of revelation I've recently had about my family.  We're all pretty old, and we've all been old.  Now, I guess I should clarify that when I say, "we" and "old," I mean them in the most general senses: I am not old, nor would I really call most of my family "old," but when we get together, so much of the conversations revolve around "us" being "old" and how none of us can stand it.

My aunts and my mother complain about their faces getting wrinkly, my cousins and I complain about college being harder than high school and how we don't want to become adults.  My uncles and father complain about how they can't hear or see (well, no, they complain that everyone talks so quietly and writes so small) and my sisters complain that their children are growing up.

My question is this: is there ever a moment after our seventh birthdays when we're content to be swept along in the progression of time?  Holding on to our childhoods, fearing the discomforts of what's to come...or, like when we're kids, wishing we were older, with big-kid privileges?

Or, better question: is there a way that a person can just learn to be happy where they are, knowing that they aren't going anywhere faster than sixty-seconds in a minute, and that's how it's always going to be?  I feel like, after the hustle to get to college and the scramble to feel like an adult, I've reached a point where I'm getting sick of looking ahead, and bored of watching my back.  I know there were high times and hard times in the past, and I know there are more of both to come.  I don't think dwelling on either of those eras of my life is very productive for the moment in which I am actually living.

I firmly believe I'm only as old as I want to be.  (Of course, you're going to tell me that that's because I'm 21).  My body may deteriorate slowly, and I may not be able to do the things I used to, and I may not enjoy them.  But every phase of life can be full of excitement and...well, life.  Sometimes, I'll see it immediately, and other times you might have to look around a bit.

Insecurity about your age is one of the worst kinds of insecurity, since it is the hardest to even pretend to control.  When you're insecure about your body weight, you can eat healthier or exercise.  When you're insecure about your singing voice, you can take lessons, or lip sync.  When you're insecure because you're too old or too young, you can't change to improve your confidence--you'll only act more foolish if you try--so you end up worrying about it constantly.  Why not work to let it go?

That turned into a rant.  Scwhoops.

But anyway, back to my family and Christmas.  We're not all together this year, which is upsetting, I think, to everyone.  For some of us, this year has been full of pains and fears, and we wish we could have each other to bring us out of them.  For others of us, it's been a really great year, and we want to get together to celebrate.  But for all of us, our desire to be with family this year is not being wholly fulfilled, as we're all celebrating Christmas in our own abodes around the country.

It almost doesn't feel like Christmas because of that.  I'm scared it will be just like any other day.

But I get to see my brothers, my aunts, my uncle, my mom, my niece, my sisters and their families, my grandmother, and her caretaker.  It will be a full room tomorrow, as we gather around the tree, opening presents.

You know, I hate the commercialization of Christmas, and I refuse to buy meaningless gifts for people just because 'tis the season, but there really is something...strangely magical about sitting together with hoards of family, opening gifts and stockings, and eating eggs and sausage.

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes.


<3 spadeALLcross

Coming Soon to an Internet Browser Near You

I'm going to quickly jot down a few ideas for winter-break posts so I don't forget them.

- Summation of NaNoWriMo Experience
- Book Review of Machine of Death
- Year in Review (? this is very iffy, as I'm not a huge fan of writing them, and I don't know that anyone actually reads them)
- Summation of my birthday experience
- Freak-out session about the coming Spring Semester
- rant about Hipsters

Stay Tuned!

<3 spadeALLcross

...and the winner is...!

ME!



That's right, ladies and germs, I FINISHED MY NOVEL A DAY EARLY!

PWNED.

FTW.

YOWZA.

ALL OTHER CONCEIVABLE REJOICING PHRASES HERE!

And to put the topping on the cake, I will herein unfold the last chapter I wrote, including the last 1K words, which were specifically for one Kathy Rittenhouse (EDIT: for those of you who bet on my progress for NaNoWriMo and can't remember what you bet, you can find the details here):

The men and Uma came back to camp around the same time, each man carrying at least a brace of conies, if not some form of larger or more plentiful game.  Tony, now practically a member of the married women’s quilting circle,  he was introduced to all the husbands and children, and the women, particularly Rachel and Polonia, vouched for him with their families, saying that he was an asset to the camp and that they would gladly accept them into their homes if he needed a place to sleep that was more fitting than Uma’s tiny hovel.

And although the sensible and level-headed Poplar seemed to actually like Tony by now, Toleman did not seemed wholly convinced that it was safe to have him in camp.

“How do we know this isn’t some elaborate ruse and that he’s really trying to pull one over on us so he can slaughter us in our sleep.”

“The man could barely chop scallions,” Therese said, rolling her eyes in what Tony had discovered was her characteristic way.  “We would have to be a sorry excuse for a camp indeed if we could not defend ourselves against the likes of him.”

“All the same, I’ll not let him within twenty paces of my cabin.”

“You’re cabin is even smaller than mine,” Uma said with a sharp laugh.  “We wouldn’t want your help anyway.”

Toleman looked hurt by Uma’s words, and Tony realized in that split second of silence where he looked at Toleman’s expression of both longing and sadness when he looked at Uma, that if he really did want to woo Uma, he’d have to fight for her.

And then, with a pop that sounded like a central-vacuum turning on and opening, everything around Tony froze, and out of nowhere, the strange, long-haired, invisible-eyed witchy woman appeared right next to Uma, leaning on her shoulder.  

“Well well well,” she said, her voice on the brink of laughter, “what have we here?  It seems that Mr. Graduate Degree in Narcissism has actually found someone he can love as much as himself.  Is that true, or do mine eyes deceive me?”

Tony blinked and looked around, confused, at the frozen world.  It was as if his life was a television screen and someone had pressed pause.  “Okay, that’s it.  Who are you?”

The woman smiled, stood up, and thrust her hand out in front of her, as if to prompt Tony to shake it.  “My name is Bonjo, damsel of distress.  It’s really has been a pleasure working with you thus far.”

Tony just looked at her hand.  “What?”

“I specialize in tomfoolery, have a degree in ballyhoo, work part-time for mayhem, and generally thrive on total chaos.”  She saluted him eagerly.  “You’ve been one of my pet projects for the past couple days.  I’ve really enjoyed the progress you’ve made so far, but I’m afraid that it might be because of the unfamiliarity of your environment.”

“What do you mean, I’ve been your pet project?”

“Well, you have obviously figured out by now that I am the one who brought you here, right?”

“Yeah, that incident with the field and the wolves and the random treadmill  in the middle of nowhere kind of tipped me off on that one.”

“I’m proud of your observational skills.”  She nodded sagely.  “I did all of this for your benefit.  You see, you are, what we call in the business, an ‘orderly.’  You try to organize too much of your life, putting yourself into a dangerous box that keeps you from realizing your full potential.  I brought you here to take you out of that box.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.  “Excuse me?” 

Bonjo shook her head, as if she were mourning something.  “This conversation is a result of your self-imposed box.  If you would just let go of your death-grip on reality, let yourself go a little bit, give in to the imagination and spontaneity you were born to have, you would have a lot easier time believing me and moving on with your life, if you had any reason to talk to me at all.”

“So, basically, you’re trying to make me as crazy as you are?”

“Oh, gaawwd no,” Bonjo said exaggeratedly.  “I am the last thing I want  you to be.  If I were human, I would be so out of balance, I would hardly be able to breathe.  I simply want you to be more chaotic than you are, since right now, you are more lawful than you need to be.”

“Wait, you’re not human?”

“I’m technically only half a being,” she sighed.  “But you’re getting off topic.  This is not about me.  This is about you and your little female friend over there.”

“Who?” Tony asked feigning innocence.

“Let’s not try to play that game,” she said, raising an eyebrow.  “Little Uma over there is a real person, with real feelings and a real brother and all that.  Just because you think you’re in some sort of dream doesn’t mean you can treat her as if she’s a fictional character.”

Tony narrowed his eyes.  “Okay, I actually don’t know what you’re talking about now.”

“You’ve been doing a pretty good job since yesterday of keeping up with all the hitches I’ve thrown at you, from the wolves and the treadmill, to that walk through the cave, to the breakfast club this morning.  That dance epic while belting out Gloria Gaynor was quite the show, I must say.”

“Hey, now—“

“But I’m growing more and more leery that your seeming comfort with all of this is simply due to the fact that you’re convinced that all of this is fake, that you’re in some sort of dream state and are imagining all of this.”  She shook her head sadly again.  “It happens with my clients a lot, actually.  I throw too much at them at once and they get overwhelmed, and just blot everything out.  It’s one thing to become a balanced, contributing member of society in a fantasy dream world.  It’s another thing entirely to translate that way of life into your reality.”

Tony laughed.  “Okay, so you’re basically saying that I’m screwing up, but it’s your fault.”

“Oh, I certainly misjudged you, yes.  But you’re the idiot who thinks all of this is fake.”

“Well, what am I supposed to think when you’re messing with everything going on around me?  How could you do that if it weren’t fake?”

Bonjo laughed a high-pitched clear sound like tiny bells on a Christmas wreath decoration.  “You think I’ve waited until just recently to start interfering with your life?”  

Like a wave of color and fabric was washing over her, her shape changed into that of the woman at the coffee shop whom he had argued with for five consecutive days about the way he brewed her drinks.

“Recognize me?”

Tony didn’t say anything.  He just stared.

Then a second wave passed over her and she turned into his landlord, who he had been ripping off for the past six months by paying him in singles and leaving out at least $150 every month because he knew the man didn’t own a cash-counting machine and he secretly didn’t believe he could actually count for himself.

“Do you feel bad yet, for the way you treat people?”

“Not if that man was you the whole time.”

She rippled back into herself with a jolt like lightening and launched herself at him, tackling him to the ground and pinning his neck under her forearms.  “I told you,” she said, hissing into his ear, “these are real people.  You can’t just mess around with them and think there aren’t any consequences.”

He pushed her off of him with surprising ease and choked out, “Hey, it’s your involvement that’s got me thinking they’re fake—“

“I never said I became them.  I only manipulated them to affect you.”

“Oh, so it’s okay for you to manipulate people, but it’s not—“

“I told you, I’m not human.”

“So you’re above the law?”

“I am the law!” Her black dress turned into a flowing judge’s robe and her hair turned into a long, white powdered wig.

Tony deadpanned.

Her face cracked from a stern, even angry expression to an irrepressible grin instantly.  “Bah ha ha,” she blurted out, clapping her hand over her mouth.  “I couldn’t help it.  It was just so perfect,” she said from between her fingers.”

Her appearance returned to its original state, and she brushed herself off while clearing her throat.  “Anyway, this is all just to say that I think you need some continued intensive work.”  She snapped her fingers and everything around them fell away as if the Earth had dropped out from under them, leaving nothing but one of those vast white rooms that seems to go on forever that they use for car commercials and the Matrix movies.

“Wait,” Tony yelled, lunging at the empty space where Uma had just been seconds before.  He stumbled and fell onto his knees.  “What did you do?”

To his horror, Bonjo smiled.  “I see my plan is working,” she said, her voice soft.  “I just have a little test for you, and then you and your little lady friend can be merrily on your ways, galavanting about the world, having a gay old time.”

“What sort of test?” Tony asked, looking up at her from the ground.  

She didn’t say anything, but made a dramatic move with her hand, bringing it around and over her head, while bringing the other one down near her waist, and shaping her fingers in the poise of two snaps.  

“Ida Rango!” she said, then snapped twice, doing some sort of seductive salsa dance move with her hands and stomping her feet, and with a loud crack that echoed throughout the endless room, she was gone.

Tony sighed heavily and pushed himself to his feet.  By the time the soles of both his shoes were planted firmly and flatly on the ground, the starkly white room was replaced by a stage floor filled with fake fog and reaching arms whose bodies he could barely make out beyond the limited visibility of the fog.  There was scaffolding all around the perimeter of the stage, and women were dancing in cages hovering dozens of feet in the air  

He turned behind him and looked out beyond the blinding lights into the house, and he could make out the shapes of what had to be hundreds of people sitting in plush red velvet chairs.  He looked down at his own body and saw that he was wearing tightly fitting white pants that had artistically place rips along the thighs and shins, and he had a sort of torn sash barely covering a diagonal strip from his shoulder to his opposite hip.  He felt a headband constricting the flow of blood to his head, and felt sweat beading up on his arms, chest, and face.

It was his worst nightmare; he had been thrust into some perverted disco movie, and he knew in his heart, the only way to escape was to dance his way to freedom.

Suddenly, the thudding dance music that had been playing grew stormy, and Tony watched a spotlight move from him to a place up stage onto one of the scaffoldings.  There, sliding down banisters and suggestively wrapping slender athletic legs around poles and hand rails, was Uma, dressed in a red sequence unitard with a glittering gold headband around curly brown hair Tony hadn’t seen before.  Though the movements of her body were fluid, graceful, and beautiful, her face looked horrified.

Evidently, this was her worst nightmare too.  

“Curse you, Bonjo,” Tony said under his breath.  “I thought you said this was a test for me.  Why did you have to pull her into it?”

She came to a break in the scaffolding, and, held at the wrist by two men dressed like dominatrixes, began gyrating heavily, thrusting her pelvis at angles not seen in nature.

Tony was surprised by how calm he felt about all of this.  Not only was he not freaking out at the idea of being on a stage and being expected to perform dance feats he’d never even tried to imagine pulling off, but he was not even remotely turned on by Uma’s seductive dance movements.

The men holding her lowered her knees on to his shoulders.  He turned her slowly around and slid her slowly to the ground, where she gave him a quick look of terror, before taking off backwards into the fog with long, dancing steps.  

Tony chased after her like a panther stalking his prey, but he tried to convey to her with his face that he was just following a script already set out for him, that he didn’t want to scare her, and that he wasn’t any better at dancing than she was.

He grabbed her arm and spun her close to him, and they danced and lept together across the stage, before she did an amazing back bend and he followed the curve of her body with his chin.  Then they both stood up and he spun her again before dragging her off behind him slowly and rhythmically.  He whispered into her ear, trying to keep his ragged breaths even enough so that she would understand him.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I swear I’m going to get you out of this.”

She broke away from him and dance forward on gazelle-like toes, and they chased each other flirtatiously in an elegant game of cat-and-mouse.  When they met at center stage, he held her in another fierce backbend, and then spun her through the air in a sweeping circle, as if she were a banner he were waving for the whole world to see.  He held her on his back while she did slow, strong kicks in the air, and as the music grew in momentum, the zombie chorus dancers popped up out of the smoke like daisies and began pulsating like waves crashing against rocks on the beach.  

Uma made a violent dancing gesture that Tony couldn’t have described if he had been asked to, and disappeared.  Tony leapt like a frolicking white-tailed deer around the stage looking for her, and while he was standing in one corner, he was accosted by a woman who jumped on to his leg and began swinging herself around his pelvis.  If he hadn’t been caught by surprised and slightly revolted, he might have enjoyed it.  While she sat there on top of him, more of the zombie dancing women gathered around him and he felt compelled to push her off so that he could jump out of the crowd and skip across the front of the stage, spinning and dancing all the way.  Another zombie woman jumped him when he got there, but he fended her off with the grace and poise of a love-struck swan prince, and turned to find Uma running at him.  

She broke into his arms and he spun her around in the air again, letting her hips gyrate unnaturally again, and supporting her as she did nauseating backbends in his hands.  She kicked her leg high into the air, stood up, and ran off into a sea of zombie woman dancers, then turned around and ran at Tony.  

This was it.  The part he was most afraid of.  The part he’d seen in a couple dozen dance-related movies from the eighties that completely wowed him and made him awfully glad not to be a male dancer.

She leapt into his arms, and he caught her with his right arm, vaulting her into the air above his head while she held onto his shoulders and stretched her legs out behind her.  Then, as the drums in the song beat the final cataclysmic cascade of bass beats, he dropped her onto the ground, holding her back with his hands and looking down at her sweaty, frightened face.  Her eyes were squeezed shut in a wince, expecting the worst.

After a moment that seemed to Tony to last a lifetime (wherein he envisioned himself growing old and adopting two sets of twins whom he would name Reggie, Martha, Pongo, and Perdita) the unseen audience began to clap and cheer, and he felt the breath return to his lungs.  

Unlike his counterpart of the silver screen, Tony did not attempt to kiss his dancing partner.  He just looked down at her and smiled.  “It’s going to be okay now,” he whispered to her.  “It’s all almost over.  I just have to strut a little bit, and then we’re done.”

Then the clapping stopped, the stage disappeared, and Tony and Uma were standing in their sweaty dance uniforms in the middle of Kings Cross Station, between platforms nine and ten.  Bonjo was standing awkwardly close to them, her face pushing in between theirs.

“Good job,” she whispered, her voice light and clear like the ringing bells.  “You both passed.”  She then walked slowly away, and Tony and Uma were left to deal with the dozens of confused Britons who were staring at them.

I believe all (but one) bets have come to their respective ends at this point.  If you owe me money based on our wagers, click the monkey to the right and follow his instructions.

If you're Ben and your wager with me technically goes until tomorrow...don't fear.  Your turn will come soon.

If you just want to donate, I'm still open for that, for sure.  Click the monkey and follow his wise words.

Stay tuned in the next couple of days when I will update my NaNo merit badges (I've earned four more since the last update...) and tell you more about my NaNo experience.  But now I've got to shower.

Thanks for all your support this past month!

<3 spadeALLcross

Slacker!

I'm trying really hard to not be mad at Ben today.  He came over last night after I got home around 9:30, and we hung out for a while.  At 11:30, I remembered that I hadn't finished my NaNoWriMo writing for the day, that I had almost 1000 words left, and now it was too late, and it was his fault that I would now owe him $5.  What a jerk.

I'm not really mad.

But I was really proud of myself up until yesterday D=  I can't believe I just plum forgot about that last 1K.

I'll make it all up today, of course, and then...

NaNoWriMo Ends Tomorrow!

<3 spadeALLcross

Turkey Day!

If you're reading this blog, I almost guarantee that I am thankful for you today!

Have a great weekend.  Eat until you've eaten so much that you'll never be able to eat again!  Sometime in the next couple days, I'll come around to changing the layout to Christmasy, including the music.  You'll love it, trust me.

Oh man, so excited for the holiday season!  It's the most wonderful time of the year!  


<3 spadeALLcross

Word of the Week: Penultimate

I've seen this word around more often, I think, than I've ever seen it before...considering I don't think I've ever seen it before.  It was on the NaNoWriMo homepage this week, as this is the fourth and last full week of the month of reckless noveling abandon.  It was on a friend's blog in reference to the release of the seventh Harry Potter movie into theaters last weekend.

And it was in my life, as this is the penultimate semester before I finally venture across the pond to Europe.

And as I wrote the penultimate essays for many of my classes that require gigantor final essays.

And as fall made its penultimate attempt to stay alive yesterday, before finally giving way to freezing temperatures and a snowy forecast for today and tomorrow.

I actually have no idea if I used "penultimate" correctly in any of those contexts, as I haven't yet bothered to look up its exact definition and am relying entirely on context clues, which are sketchy at best in this situation.

Forgive me.  It was so delicious, so sweet, and so...long.  And I am sesquipedalian in nature.

Tune in next week for: Sesquipedalian, and oldie, but a goodie.

<3 spadeALLcross

EDIT: "penultimate" means "second to last."  So I was wrong.  Quite wrong.  About all of this.

Lots-o-Huggin' Bear

Firstly, gotta clear something up about my NaNo calendar to the right there.  It says I didn't get to 1667 yesterday, but in fact, I got to 1703 by about 8:00 pm, but didn't have internet to post it, and when I did have internet, I forgot until I got home from work at 1:00 am this morning.

So I still only owe Ben $5.

On to other things.

I've been posting a ton of videos lately, and I'm sorry if that's messing with your browser, but I'm going to post one last one, and I'll wait until these other ones go away before posting any more.

I personally don't believe it's a good idea to make abortions illegal, because that won't make them stop, it will just force people to go through other, potentially more dangerous channels to get them, which would only be worse for both mother and child.  But I do believe that abortion is a terrible thing, and there are very few circumstances in which I can see the need at level with the cost.  Of course, my entire argument gets very convoluted when people bring up the idea of abortion as murder, because I can't get beyond the fact that it is, but I can't believe that it can be treated the same way.

Anyway, government shouldn't be the regulator, but some greater effort should be made to keep people from making this choice. The woman in this video has some points I don't agree with and is kind of kookie at points, but her story is amazing, and people like her, as well as people who support people like her, should be in charge of a privatized movement to end the demand for abortions.

Granted, she doesn't agree with me.  But that's neither here nor there, because we're probably never going to meet.


Gianna Jessen from LMF CAM on Vimeo.

<3 spadeALLcross

Oh yeah...

...I also remember how much I love Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Not the movie.  Never the movie.






<3 spadeALLcross

Checking In

I ate some bad something on Sunday, and so was in bed/in pain/insane all day yesterday.  I forgot to write my NaNo Novel until after midnight, so...shoot.  I owe Ben $5.

But I still have $25 from him coming at the end of the month if I keep up my word count from now on, so there is still hope.  Just gotta not get sick.

<3 spadeALLcross

P.S. Oh my gosh.  I love The West Wing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21UELSDw3_Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Ni1vDb_u4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rigI3FkwE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAnwYfEUtLw


















*Halo Voice* Movie Spree

*also*

I wanted to include this song in the playlist at the bottom of the screen, but I cannot find a link to it in any form but video, so I'll embed it here for your enjoyment.

Yes, I know The Beatles did it first and different.  Don't worry; I may be mostly musically illiterate, but not by that kind of margin.

NaNo Badges

Introducing...*drum roll*...

NaNoWriMo Merit Badges!

*tada*

I bought these a little while ago and have already earned some for my novel.  I pinned them all to my wrist warmers (because I generally wear those when I type on my computer, and I like to think that their presence adds good energies to my writing) and have been taking them off and pinning them to my purse as I earn them.

NaNo-Socializing:  I earned this before NaNoWriMo even began when I attended the Ottowa County/Grand Rapids regional NaNoWriMo kick-off party in Holland (the Michigan one, not the Europe one).  It was so much fun to meet other people who were going to be spending their November the same way I am. I earned the badge again when last Friday when I attended an East Grand Rapids write-in with three other writers and a NaNo-mom.  Also a really good time.  I'm excited for the next one.

Padding the Word Count:  I've already earned this badge a couple times by adding unnecessary elements, such as essays and short stories that I wrote for my classes, to my novel to boost my word count on especially imagination-starved days.  The first instance of this is still my favorite example of "word padding" thus far: when my main[ish] character Agatha, who is about as promiscuous as Marian the Librarian, danced around her apartment in her underwear to the song "Take it Off" by Ke$ha.  I included all the lyrics.  Every last word.

Secret Novelist:  I earned this badge by working on my novel during biology class.  It was a lot easier than you think, and probably had fewer consequences than you would expect.  We were watching a movie on industrialized farming in the United States, so I just pulled out my laptop and started typing.  During one of the scenes I wrote during those two hours, Agatha went on a rant about vegetarian sustainability.  And we just took the test on the unit, and I felt very comfortable with the material that was covered in that movie, even without having watched it.

Master Procrastinator:  I earned this badge last Thursday when, after classes ended at 1:30, I went on a 2.5 hour Meijer trip, made dinner for four people, served an unnecessary dessert of cinnamon rolls, and cleaned the bathtub drain before finally starting on my novel at 7:45.

Life-imitating Art: This one came when, strapped for ideas for characters, I constructed one out of the worst parts of me and all of my high school and college friends.

NaNo Bucks

Herein sits a list of the donation/wager standings to date:

Straight-up donations:

• $35 -- Thanks to my mom and my best buddy, Cari!

Wagers:

1. Ben - He'll donate $30 if I get the 1,667 daily word goal every day, but I'll owe him $5 for every day I miss (not to exceed $30)
   
2. Katri - $0.50 on every 1K words
   
3. Kathy - $1 for every 1K words, plus a free bonus $25 if I write 1K words specifically about the movie Staying Alive.  (I'm going to have to get a copy and watch it, probably...)

Also, more of my friends than I thought are doing NaNoWriMo this year.  Two of my housemates, and at least one of our mutual friends (though I haven't found his username on the website yet, so I can't check in on his progress.)  Plus, as the scoreboard currently shows, I'm 8% over Chris Baty, the Executive Director of The Office of Letters and Light.  So, booyah.

For those of you who try to avoid giving money to strangers, you can go here to find how OLL uses donations (an exercise in patience, since their servers have been struggling to keep up with the demand for bandwidth).  Most of the money is needed for operating costs, like salaries, server upkeep, etc.

Thanks for all your support!  Current wordcount = 5,988
And my main character spent most of the last chapter dancing around her apartment in her underwear to Ke$ha.  I wish I could say that I planned that.  This book is chock full of surprises...

<3 spadeALLcross

Does that make me cRaZy?

In short, yes.

It's that time of the year, yet again, friends and family.  November is just around the corner...as in...it starts tomorrow.  And with november comes National Novel Writing Month and my participation in a little thing called NaNoWriMo, affectionately called around here "Insanity Epitomized."  I will be attempting (and hopefully succeeding) in writing a 50,000 word novel in one month, between midnight on November 1 and 11:59 on November 30.

I did this last year, as some might recall, and I "won" (meaning I reached the 50K goal within the time limit...there's not like a limited number of winners or anything).  It was an exhilarating month, and I am really excited to do it again...even though I don't really have a rock solid idea for what I'm going to write about.

In preparation, I've been reading this book.

It gives a lot of tips on what to do to make sure that the novel actually gets written, and that I don't chicken out and back away from my goal.  One of those tips is straight up gambling.  I'm not usually the betting woman; I think it's a good way to waste money fast.

But NaNoWriMo stands for a lot of things that are important to me, including global literacy (through their book drives for BetterWorldBooks.com) and exciting writing programs for both children and adults through schools and libraries around the world.  Because of this, I'm ready and willing to waste good money fast, as long as it's on their behalf.  And they've given me a great way to do that!

This links to my personal donation page for NaNoWriMo.  Here's how this is going to go.

Certainly anyone is allowed to donate free of nefarious connotations: just go to the page and donate and I'll be happy, and you'll be happy, and writers around the country and world will be happy, too.  Everyone wins.

But if you're of a more competitive spirit, or you don't think I can do what I say I'm going to do, or if you want to keep me honest, then let's set up a little wager, shall we?

There are many benchmarks for NaNoWriMo that we could put some money on.  There's the obvious one, 50K by the end of the month.  There're also the challenges of getting 1,667 words/day, or 11,669 words/week, or staying above someone else's daily word count, i.e. Chris Baty (the head of NaNoWriMo.org).  The wagers set thereon would work as follows:

You bet, say $50, that I don't make the 50K by the end of the month.  If I do, then you donate that $50 to NaNoWriMo.  If I don't, then I donate it to an organization of your choosing.  Any organization: NaNoWriMo, the NRA, Scientology, or even your own checking account.

The same goes for any benchmark.  I'm going to ask that there be a $1 maximum wager made for every 1,000 words expected for the benchmark, because I'm not made of money, and I'm sure you're not either.

If you accept any of these wagers, or if you want to donate just for the good of the cause, let me know in a comment below, or an email, or a text, or via facebook, or any other of the numerous ways people can reach me these days...

Happy Halloween!  And Happy National Novel Writing Month!

<3 spadeALLcross

Clarification, Qualification, yadda yadda

I've gotten some comments in the past few days (readership?  what?) on my disillusioned-with-the-world post.  The comments were confusing me, so I went back and re-read that post, only to realize that I sounded way more depressed than I actually felt or am about this whole situation.

I'm not living in a down-on-myself way because I have this wealth of opportunities and overall happiness that most of the world does not have.  I'm living in a frustrated turmoil because figuring out how to use my gifts and wealth and privilege in the best and most efficient ways possible is very...well...frustrating.  I suddenly don't know what I want to do with my life.  I don't know what's important to me or what I'm best at, where I should be investing myself and how best to serve a world that needs me.

Long term, this could mean changing my career plans.  I'm considering dropping education as a major, taking some art classes and going into marketing and computer-aided design, because that's something I really love and am fairly good at, and it's something that could be useful for companies, not-for-profits, starving artists, etc.  I really get into that kind of work, and fears I have with it are actually considerably fewer than fears I have with teaching.

Because, let me tell you, the idea of molding young minds is looking less and less fun and more and more like no one should be trusted to do it.  It's too scary to me, to have that much power over lives.  But maybe I'm over-thinking the job and underestimating myself, so I really am still thinking and praying through all of this.

Short term, this revelation means I'm reevaluate the way I live my life day-to-day, specifically how I treat and interact with people.  I'm a very selfish person (I think I hide it well, so if you disagree with me, you will not be able to convince me) and I need to work on that, because it gets in the way of loving others.

And right now, "loving others" is suddenly the number-one priority in my life.  Doing for others, being there for others, giving myself away in order to get myself back, if that makes any sense.  I don't like who I am when I'm all about me.

I'm aware that this doesn't mean letting people walk all over me.  It's much more challenging than that; it involves a change of the heart, a change of priorities.  And that's what's really getting to me, what's giving me the hardest time.  That's what prompted me to write that post a couple days ago.

Last week was like taking the lens cap off a point-and-shoot digital camera; it took a while for the exposure settings to adjust to a functional level.  That last post was a summation of the blinding white and painful haze of realizing that my world is too comfortable.  This week, and many weeks, months, years to come, is the slow adjustment into a life the knowledge I've gained from that haze.

This post may worry some of you as much as the last did.  But if you love me, give me the benefit of the doubt.  And give me time.  If we had but the world enough, and time...

<3 spadeALLcross

EDIT:

I came up with an idea last week for my second tattoo...and I'm actually actively pursuing it.  (By actively, at this point, I mean I'm passively and slowly saving money for it.)  My drawing tablet appears to have bitten the proverbial dust, so this is obviously not a final rendering (also, it is not a very good example of my skills in computer-aided design...) but this is the general concept.  The final product will still be this simple, but with better lettering and, you know, straight lines.

It comes from something in Tim Russert's memoir, Big Russ & Me, wherein he writes a letter to his son, Luke, as an epilogue.  "Lukeman, along the way you'll hit some hurdles and experience some setbacks.  I will always be there for you, as Grandpa was for me.  But remember, while you are always, always loved, you are never, never entitled.  As Grandpa likes to say, 'The world doesn't owe you a favor.'"

This is huge to me, especially right now.  I'm just thinking about it, because permanently marking up your body is one of those things you don't just do for fun on the weekends, but I am thinking about it.

In other news...

On a lighter, but only slightly note: I don't know how people survived the era of the corset.  I have this one skirt that's really tight around the waist, and it gives me gas pains like you wouldn't believe, and when I bend at the waist to pick something up (in the privacy of a closet or bathroom, since it would be indecent to do that in more public settings) my sight turns bluish purple for a few moments.

Corset?  No thank you.

<3 spadeALLcross

I couldn't possibly fit my big stuffed Eeyore through the eye of a needle...but I can't just leave him behind, either. He and I have spent fewer nights apart than my mother and I have...

This week has been hitting me over the head.  In general, it was one of the longest weeks I've had in a very long time: the days dragged on and there seemed to be no respite, except for Thursday, which was glorious, but also tumultuous for its own unique reasons.  More specifically, though, this week seemed to have an agenda.

It's like, Sunday said to last Saturday, "Hey, if you could go back, get the buddies together, and get one message through to this kid, what would it be?" and Saturday told Sunday, and Sunday--a more enterprising Sunday than I generally have--found a way to rally the troops, and this week has been themed.

And it all boils down to this: I don't deserve anything that I have.  Nothing.  80% of the world lives on less that $10 a day.  I just got a pay check of eight times that, and most of it went into savings, because I don't have to live on that.  I bought a Prius this summer with money that I didn't work for, I'm living in a house that I don't pay for, and half the books I own are technically someone else's.

But it's not just about money.  I don't deserve the life that I have.  I don't have any debilitating illnesses, any massive emotional trauma, anything that stops me in my tracks and I have to shovel myself off the floor before I can continue my life.  I don't have half the emotional strength of some of my friends, and yet the amazing force of will that they have is often not even enough to deal with their problems--problems to which I cannot relate.

I've never really had to work for anything my entire life.  This isn't news to me or anything, I've known it for a very long time.  I'm privileged beyond belief, but I've just now, this week, several. times. over. gotten a glimpse at just how far beyond belief.

And it's not fair.  As much as I wish I could give everything away and make everything equal, that's not actually possible.  And I can't honestly say that I wish that at all, because I like my life and I like my money and happiness and crap.

This week has just been a steady realization of my own pointlessness as a human being.

Okay...wow.  That sounded way more depressing and angsty than I meant it to...but I'm leaving it there, because that's what it feels like.  It's a gaping hole, an empty pain in my chest.  It's a consistent thing that makes it very hard to feel good about anything.

But I don't think it's the end of the story, either.  I mean, being depressed about how awesome my life is and wallowing in my relative wealth in both wealth and status would only make matters worse.  The problem is, I don't know where to take this revelation.  Sitting with it and rolling it around in my hands over and over again each day is fruitless and demoralizing; it won't get me anywhere.  But I can't see an avenue through which I can satisfy my urge to fix something. 

It's sad.  I approach problems, conversations, friendships, workshops, Bible studies, naptimes, lunch breaks...everything with the intention of fixing whatever is broken.  And here is the brokenness to end all brokenness, and naturally, this is not a problem within my range of fixing.  This is so far beyond me.

And whoever is reading this, saying the whole, "Give it up to God; let Him take care of it, because He can do everything," in their heads, I want you to not speak.  Because that's not an answer, and you know it.  It's a dodge.  If God wanted us to wait around on him to fix everything himself, Martin Luther would have said, "Corrupt church?  Meh." and Jesus would have built houses for a living.  God works through people, not around them.

Basically...I feel like the past 20 years of my life have been a festival of Mary.  I'd like to get past that now, finally.  Start new.

Dear World,


Mary has had her own inflated sense of self and purpose erased from her memory.  Please never mention their relationship to her again.


Thank you,
<3 spadeALLcross

I once was born to bad...

When I become president, my first act will be to rename all the days of the week.

Sunday = Sunday
Monday = @#%$!
Tuesday = TGINM
Wednesday = Almost Almost Friday
Thursday = Almost Friday
Friday = Friday!
Saturday = Saturday

<3 spadeALLcross

Frigid Adventures

So, this weekend, specifically this Sunday, was the coldest one we've had since the spring.  I don't know if you noticed.  And since our house has decided to categorically deny the possibility of winter hitting before November, I had to come up with some other...unorthodox ways to warm up such as

- Taking scaldingly hot showers (I didn't think they felt that way, but the shower nossel told me that the water was as hot as it gets)
- Blow-drying my hair on low so it takes longer
- Making a lot of soup or eggs so that I can stand near the stove
- Burning candles in my room and warming my hands over them like a hobo over a lit garbage can
- Wearing my sweatshirt, sweatpants, and three pairs of socks to bed
- Forgoing orange juice and drinking tea instead

Pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our frosbite, amen.


<3 spadeALLcross

But really...what is with all the breastfeeding?

I've seen an increase of bumperstickers, billboards, and television commercials advertising the advantages of breastfeeding and promoting public nursing (an infinite degree of increase, at that, since I now see some where I before saw none).  I personally don't want to watch people nurse their kids in restaurants, but I also realize I can just turn away if it makes me uncomfortable, so I'm generally okay with it, but when did this become such a huge deal?  I just don't understand the sudden urgency.

Also, I think I found out today that most American and Canadian men are circumcised.  When was someone going to mention that to me?

Probably never, and I should probably thank them for that....

One other, less "reproductive and progeny-related organs" thing that I've noticed recently: my desire to be a good friend often hampers my desire to be a good friend.

Let me 'splain.


Sometimes, my friends will be very disappointed by something going on in their life--it will make them sad, angry, frustrated, etc.  They will tell me about it, and I will do my best to comfort them.  Then we will both move on with our lives, and time will pass.  At some later time, I will remember them telling me about the aforementioned disappointing thing, and I will wonder if it has gotten less disappointing, or if they're still struggling with it.  However, most of the time, I decide not to ask them about it, because I'm afraid that, if it is still disappointing or they haven't yet gotten over that initial disappointment, talking to me will make them sadder about it and I will ruin their day, or if they're not still struggling with it, reminding them that they once were and that it once disappointed them so badly that they felt compelled to talk to me about it will also make them sad and ruin their day.

Examples always make things better.

Let's pretend I had a friend named Yvaine.  I love that name, so I wish I did have a friend named Yvaine, but I don't so it's safe to tell a story about her.  She has a boyfriend (to whom, for the sake of fun and adventure, I will arbitrarily give the name Roland) and they have always seemed happy to me, though I subconsciously assume that they have their ups and downs like most relationships.  One day, out of the blue, Yvaine tells me, "Roland almost broke up with me yesterday."  I, surprised both by the out-of-the-blueness of the statement as well as its contents, respond, "Oh?  Why is that?"  Yvaine responds, telling me that they disagreed on a fundamental matter, and Roland would have rather have ended the relationship over it than tried to work it out.

A few days pass. I wonder, "Are Yvaine and Roland on better terms now?  Or are things still rocky?"  But I don't want to ask, both because of the above reasons, but also because, in this case, it might seem like I'm prying if I ask.

Am I just being stupid?  Should I just ask?

<3 spadeALLcross

P.S. Happy Autumn!

You can settle for less in ordinary life...

This week started with a shazam of sorts.

Monday morning, I had my first "observation" for my education class.  I need 15 hours of this observation for the semester, where I go to a local high school, sit in on my assigned class, and apply the theory I've learned thus far to the students and teachers I see in this setting.

This observation was scheduled for 7:50 to 10:00.  AM.  Yes.  It was ugly and disgusting, and I was dreading it.  Sure, I looked forward to the experience, the opportunity to finally get into a classroom, but waking up that early?  Yeah, no good.

The service-learning department set us up with willing local teachers based mostly on our schedules, though some consideration was taken for grade and subject preferences.  I asked for junior high, because I've been considering that as an option, so I'd like to get some experience with it.  That didn't work out, though, so I was placed in an AP English class at a public high school downtown.

I observed two classes because the girl who carpooled with me was going to observe the second class, so I just stuck around and added to my notes.  I can't describe how...useless I felt.  Not just because, for the first time in my life, I was in a classroom where I had no specific role in what was going on, but because those classes were completely beyond my realm of understanding.

It made me realize, I think for the first time, the breadth of what I'm trying to accomplish by becoming a teacher.  I'm going to be taking children I do not know and possibly will never understand or be able to relate to, and trying to teach them things that may or may not mean anything to them, and I'll have to work around and through all the darknesses in my own soul, as well as theirs, and everyone in my classroom is going to be vulnerable, whether they know it or not.

This all felt a lot more radical and shattering on Monday.  That that day was nearly 22 hours long didn't help my mental state by the end of it all.

I've always known I've been pretty sheltered all my life, either by my own volition, or through the insulation of my high school, my circle of friends, my hometown, etc.  But it hasn't before occurred to me on such a frightening scale that that shelter is going to severely hinder my ability to be more than just an instructor to the students I teach.

...

I still have three years to work through all this, though, so I'm not going to give up hope entirely.  But suddenly, teaching seems more like a challenge than a calling.

I had more to say, but I've spent too much time updating this thing.  I have homework to do and a nap to take.

<3 spadeALLcross

My life is a canopy over my head...

Wow.  It's ridiculous how much my life is running away with me right now.  As happy as I am, and as much as I feel like I'm generally doing a healthy combination of the things I love to do and the things I need to do, at the end of every week so far this semester, I've looked back and thought, "Crap!  Look at all the stuff I forgot!"  We're only three weeks in, and I'm already feeling like I need a few days off just to catch up on everything I feel like I'm missing.

But it's pretty exciting, actually, having a full life again.  The past two years, I've had school work and a generic social life to occupy my time.  With all the free time I had...things could get pretty boring pretty fast.  Now, my days are more whirlwind, and there have been nights where I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow, but this is a good change of pace for me.  I have stuff to do now, and more than just two friends.  I'm a little worried about my school work, but I trust myself to get it done.

Anyway.  That's the status of my psyche right now.  I'm about to conk out and take a nap, but before I do, I'll [finally] post some pictures of my abode.  I only have my room fully photographed thus far, because I kind of forgot that people would care about the rest of the house if they haven't seen it.  As far as I'm concerned, my bedroom is the coolest place ever...and the rest of the house is kinda great too.

This is my desk and work area.  It looks cluttered, but it's not really.  I just haven't taken the Jarritos bottles out to the recycling yet.  Settle down; we just got our recycling container yesterday, so I'm not being negligent.  

This is above my desk.  The dry-erase calendar is for deadlines and television shows.  Batman and Robin are for comic relief.

This is my sleeping area.  My lunchbox is also here...I somehow always forget to take the icepacks out of that.  Oh, and there's the open window through which the neighbors' dogs stare at me.  Kind of creepy.

D'aww, Eeyore's adorable.

And here's my favorite part.  My reading nook.  It's actually become more of a nap nook recently, but that's certainly not a bad thing.

And here's my other favorite part.  My adorable closet.

So that's my room.  Right now, it's actually quite messy because I didn't have time yesterday between class and work and homework and work to put things away properly, and because the sudden storm that hit a couple nights ago did me the honor of wetting my bed.  I will fix it either presently or tomorrow.

Okay.

Naptime.

<3 spadeALLcross

Burning slowly, my one and only.

Okay, so someone told me that I haven't posted in "four years." This, I realize, is a hyperbole, but nonetheless, I feel it is necessary to inform my readers that the time between posts is officially lengthening. I can no longer realistically post every day. I will try to post a couple times a week, though, or at least as interesting things occur. I still need to post pictures of my room. This will happen sometime this week. Maybe even Tuesday or Wednesday. Not today or tomorrow, though; far too busy.

But to quickly summarize everything that's happened since "Tuesday," the last time I posted:

I love my new janitorial job, though the timing is kind of sucky. Also, they've evidently changed things up at my other on-campus job, tour guiding, so I have to relearn some things. Had to think on my feet for a tour on Thursday, and will have to do so again for one I have tomorrow.

Classes are really great. I actually have stuff that's not English for this semester, and I'm really looking forward to being able to break up my schedule like that. My Econ prof is great. Maybe not a good Bruce replacement, but he's really funny and young and I understand him when he talks, which is a plus. Granted, all the stuff we're doing right now is review, so it's not really hard to understand yet anyway. My bio prof is...kind of a stereotypically old prof. He has energy for his subject, but his attempts at focusing that energy in a hip and fresh way fail 9 times out of 10. I'm actually pretty excited about my Education class; this prof seems a lot better than my last one.

Life is pretty hectic during the week, but that has skyrocketed my productivity levels outside of class time, which is a huge plus. I'm not really having a problem with sleep yet, which is also a plus.

But I do need to get to bed now. So night night.

<3 spadeALLcross

All I know is my steak tastes better when I take my steak-tastes-better pill

Mary: So, Jared, how are the Timmer apartments?

Jared: Oh, they're great. Well, crappy in comparison to KHvR, but still pretty good. And I have an awesome roommate, so I'm enjoying myself.

Mary: Oh yeah? I remember you were worried last year about your roommate...

Jared: Oh, well, I got a different one actually.

Mary: Yeah? Why?

Jared: Well, he's still in jail, so he couldn't come.

Ahh, the first day of school. Quite enjoyable, actually. Things went generally well. I enjoyed my classes ("Intro to Creative Writing" and "Shakespeare"), and though they will certainly prove challenging, I look forward to their continuation throughout the semester. I got a ton of odd-jobs done that I needed to get done, and even made good headway on my homework.

In my creative writing class, the professors made some off-hand comment about workshop groups, and it made me realize that, in my brief history as a serious fiction (and ill-fated poetry) writer, writing groups have been the one thing that ensure that I write. Not only does the pressure of creating work for others to read spur me into writing just anything as long as it's something, but the pleasure of getting feedback from those others often spurs me to take new risks and really enjoy my writing in a way writing on my own never does. This revelation is...well, huge. It's why NaNoWriMo, though grueling, is so much fun for me. It's why my Creative writing class last semester (ironically a higher-level course than the creative writing class I'm taking this semester) was by far my best experience as a writer ever.

In summary: I need to find a [semi]-permanent home in a writing group.

Work started tonight, too. It was actually very fun. Evidently, I was put in charge of all the gym floors and the stairs in the Hoogenboom Health and Rec center. I dust-mopped all the gym floors, and then swept and mopped the stairs. I worked with a freshman media-productions major named Taylor and listened to a post-modernist philosophy lecture on my iPod.

Now to bed!

Well, first a word from our poor, neglected sponsors.

<3 spadeALLcross

P.S. I actually wrote most of this either before the end of the day, or during the day/night of the eighth. Sorry if my insincerity and outright lies bother you.

This day we fight!

Good day, all things considered. Woke up, did some stuff around the house [quietly, as the roomies were a-sleepin'] and then went and hung out on the floor for a bit. That was really fun. I got to see everyone again, and I even met some of the freshman. Sometimes I wish I still lived there. But then I come home to my house, and I remember that I love it here too.

Then Ben and I went to Meijer. (Who is surprised?) We tried out the "new" Meijer on Kalamazoo, which is closest to our houses, but also the most jankity. It now has everything we'd want to buy, but it's all very hard to find. Generally pretty good, though. It doesn't have a full parking lot yet, which could cause problems in the future.

Then Ben and I went back to his house, watched some NCIS with Jonathan, watched some TNG by ourselves, and then went out separate ways for dinner. I tried to unpack some stuff, but was so distracted I didn't get much of anything done before Ben V came over and he and Amy and I started hanging out. Then Carley and Christie came home from their respective haunts, and then Ben N came over. We played Catchphrase.

Oh. My. Word.

That was the most hilarious game of catch phrase ever. Possibly the brightest highlight: Ben N, a man who does not swear or use dirty words, possibly more because of a physical handicap than a moral compunction, frustratingly yelling the sentence, "THE VERB FOR BEING PUSHED OUT OF A VAGINA!"

I was not on his team, which is good, because I was laughing too hard to be of any use anyway. Also, Carley said, "It's a big store, kind of like Marget!" The answer was Target, she was trying to say Meijer as a clue.

Then we played question/answer telephone, which was also very funny.

Then everyone went home, I did some last-minute stuff before classes tomorrow, and then I went to bed.

Then, at 4:00 am, a car alarm went off and didn't stop going off. It woke me up, and now I am blogging about it.

Summer is officially over.

Goodnight.

<3 spadeALLcross

We gotta stop meeting like this, hun.

Another crazy dream, not as terrible as the last, but still kind of hard to stomach in places. Americans had been enslaved, I think by some European nations, and we had pretty much given up hope of ever being rescued, since we'd never been very nice to anyone but the Europeans, I guess. Anyway, there was a class system among the slaves, and one guy in his twenties or thirties had a lot of "money" that he had used to build himself a really nice hut that stayed out of the heat, and a little corral for his car. He had also used it to buy one of the slaves; I think it was Megan Dincher. He had her stay in his hut all day while everyone was working, because he was afraid of this other slave who was in love with her and might have tried to steal her.

Meanwhile, Ben Verhulst, Ben Niewenhuis, Carley, and I watched all of our friends die off one by one [in a weird movie-like montage] from a plague that the slaves were all prone to for some reason. We carried of J$ and Jasmine, Breems and Luke, some of my more remote high school friends, etc. And then the four of us were all relocated and we thought we'd never see each other again.

I got to hang out with all the old people and the little tykes, which was creepy, because this wrinkly old woman [whom I shared a sleeping bag with because the nights got really cold] was evidently a very...excited lesbian. Then, one day, while working, I came across Megan Dincher's prison hut, and saw that there was a guy trying to break into it. I went to go stop him, and found Ben, Ben, and Carley, as well as some more of my remote high school friends had already tried to stop him.

Eventually, we were all crammed into this little hut, and I some how figured out that it was this guy who was in love with Megan (though she did not reciprocate) who had bought her prison hut and everything, by giving Megan's owner all the money he needed.

We decided that instead of turning the one guy in, we'd all try to escape. Somehow we made it to South America in a matter of a couple hours of a train ride. But there was still slavery down there; there were training camps for children who would one day be old enough to be slaves. We got stuck in one of those; they were going to hold us there until one of the camp overseers could come and pick us up and take us back to the states. So we tunneled our way out of there, and discovered all these wonderful places, including a place where Chilean children chase penguins into ice caves. We were all really scared that someone would find us, so we were soaking up as much of the landscape as we could, since it was much more temperate in Chile than it was in America, where it had gotten unbearably hot.

Then my phone went off and I decided it was not a good idea to try to go back to sleep in a dystopian society.

Other than that, today went pretty well. I washed off my new bookcase, packed up my car, finger painted with Annabelle, showered, watched some Royal Pains with Dennis and my mom, watched the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, ate dinner, then left Illinois. I listened to the tail end of The Prisoner of Azkaban and then switched to music for the last 45 minutes of the trip. Now I'm back in my Michigan room that smells like Thai Dragon Fruit or something like that. And I'm not dying of heat exhaustion. Life is good.

Goodnight, World.

<3 spadeALLcross

Peter swam across the water, found it on a beach.

Woke up late today, no weird dreams that I recall, worked off and on all day on some stuff for D&D, photoshopped [terribly] a picture for my mom, and visited with the family as they came and went. Patrick was the best man in a wedding today, and he needed our help to get into his three piece suit (complete with cufflinks, suspenders, and those stupid little fancy buttons), so I helped him with that. Then, at nine, we all went to a restaurant/bar in downtown Palatine for Dennis' show. About halfway through, most of the place cleared out, and these three women walked in. They were probably already inebriated from a previous excursion, or else they are just very... exuberant people in general. They put on more of a show than Dennis did. And I got to see Andi Kauth again; haven't seen/heard from her in probably years. It made me miss the old poetry slams, and Writer's Week. I feel like my later high school years were when I had the most energy for life, and writing, and everything. I've mellowed so much in the past three years...it changes day to day whether I like that or not.

Tomorrow is more family time, putting air in my tires, cleaning off a bookcase for me to bring to school, and then going back to Michigan.

<3 spadeALLcross

I need some sleep, I can't go on like this...

I've been having troubles staying asleep past five or six hours for the past few weeks, and the past couple of days it's been really catching up to me; I've been falling asleep at friends' houses, while using my computer, and even while eating. It hasn't been a whole lot of fun, so I decided when I got home last night, that I would try to catch up on all that "lost" (I went through most of the past school years on five to six hours of sleep a night without any problems, so I don't know why I can't now) sleep. I went to bed at 10:00ish and promised myself not to get out of bed until at least 9:00.

That failed. I woke up at 1:00 just long enough to look at the clock and roll my eyes. Then I woke up again at 5:30. If I had gotten up then, I would have gotten almost exactly 7 hours of sleep, and my body definitely wanted to get up then. My mind started churning about stuff I had to do today, expecting me to get up and start doing it. But I refused, and eventually, though it took a while, I got back to sleep.

Mistake. I had the worst dream of my entire life between 5:30 and 7:30 this morning.

In the dream, my mom and I went to a movie together. My mom had suggested we see it because she'd heard it was revolutionary film with a lot of really poignant social commentary, etc etc. (In real life, my mom would not recommend that kind of movie: if a movie is depressing, she doesn't want to see it. More and more, I'm finding that that is my view too. Revolutionize me with real life, don't make my escapism tragic) Anyway, so we went. But while we were watching the movie, we were in the movie. It was weird, and no one questioned it; dreams are like that.

In the movie, the US was going to war with Egypt for what ever reason, and the president had decided to fire a nuke at them. So, we fired one, and then everyone started preparations for someone to fire one back at us. The president went into his bunker and a bunch of people kind of stowed away with him (not the Vice President, oddly. He decided to stay above ground). My mom and I got into the bunker, somehow, and the First Lady showed us around, since she had been in charge of the décor.

For what ever reason, there were windows facing DC (which suddenly had rolling hills of open fields and camels...?) and holes in the ground to, as the First Lady said, "Let the smell out," whatever that meant. We were all milling about in the giant bunker, just kind of chilling. This part was funny; it felt like Dr. Strangelove a little bit; when dealing with the end of the world, all these people could do was fuss about the stylish curtains in the fallout shelters. While dreaming, I was thinking, yeah, this is quite the social commentary. Good movie, I thought. People should see how ignorant we all look.

Then the first bomb hit. We watched it out the window. For a dream full of surrealism and an American President of a different color, it got everything about nuclear warfare spot on. At least, the bomb that exploded maybe three miles away from the windows in our bunker acted exactly like the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs did, according to all the reports I've read. We watched from safety as the camels and random people who didn't have an in with the President were instantly incinerated, and the shockwaves tore at the landscape. Then the ground beneath us started to heat up, and (this part I'm not sure is realistic) the molten crust of the earth below the bunker started to boil and pop into the holes in the floor that the First Lady had been so proud of. There was a little boy there, I'm not sure who he was, but I grabbed him and he and I lay on the floor, my back to the lava pits that we were all too close to, me screaming in pain and promising him I would protect him. My mom got too close to one as it bubbled and popped and the skin on her arms...well it was gross. Then Ben's roommate, Luke Breems jumped into one of the holes. I'm...not sure why. Breems is probably one of the most sane people in that house he lives in...but it was a dream after all.

It was very gruesome, very vivid, and for a while, I forgot it was a movie. The President was scheming with his staffers on some way to escape the lava, and they recommended he lock himself away in the sub-bunker (that looked suspiciously like the fallout shelter from Blast From the Past) and he agreed to do so. Meanwhile, all the people who's started to burn alive were turning rapid, including the little boy in my arms, the First Lady, Breems, and my mother. I started yelling at my mom that I'd had enough, that I wanted to leave the theater, that I didn't care how revolutionary the rest of the movie was, I didn't want to see it or live through it. her eyes went wild and she bared her teeth at me and I started hitting her with pillows and trying to escape.

When I woke up, I started crying immediately and groggily made my way downstairs to my mom on the couch and started the slow process of forgetting the dream. But it's still as vivid to me now as it was when I was in it.

...

Aaaanyway...

After that whole fiasco, and while I battled the inevitable exhaustion that comes from waking up mid-REM-cycle, today was a full, fun day. I went out shopping with my mom, my aunt, and my niece: three generations of Rittenhouse women. We went to Meijer (yup...that's the fourth time this week) and then to the mall to visit the Apple store, f.y.e., Sam Goodie (or whatever...I wasn't there for that), and to let Annabelle play in their little play area.

Then we went home, put Annabelle down for a nap, and began watching the movie, Where the Heart Is, with Natalie Portman, among others. We didn't finish before my mom had to go to a party of a friend of hers who moved to Texas a while back, but is in town for a little while.

While she was gone, my aunt and I went to Barnes&Noble's, where I had an old gift card, and I bought far too many books...but they were all worth it. ... Hopefully. I really hate spending money, especially on books. It's all very counter intuitive, I know, because I love having books, and I love earning money so I can spend it. I struggle with the whole have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too thing. But boy, being around all those books, and holding them, carrying them around the store with me, smelling them, talking to them and about them to myself...it just put me in the best mood. And it smelled like fall outside; I love fall. I'm excited for when it decides to come and stay.

Then she and I went to Starbuck's, checked the air in my tires to discover that I may need to fill one of them up tomorrow, and came home. I played with Annabelle a bit, then put her down to bed, and my mom eventually got home in time for us to finish watching the movie. Very good movie; definitely recommend it. It's a chick-flick, but by no means a shallow, two-bit one.

Now I'm going to bed, with a full mind and sagging eyelids.

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omgairconditioningbbq!!!1!!1!

Woke up, did some banking stuff, took a shower, yadda yadda, went to Mitchell's and played Mario Kart with Mitchell and Luke, then took Luke back to Calvin on my way out of town. I decided to wait on getting my paperwork done until I'm back on campus Tuesday, because I wanted to get on the road in time to avoid all possible rush hours.

Was in a car for three + hours. Listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Got home. Am tired. Going to bed soon.

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If I close my eyes tonight...

I've been in a weird funk all day. This morning was great, when I woke up and was all well-rested and stuff, and it was even raining a little so the humidity wasn't as bad, and I even got to use my blanket for the first time since moving in. But then it went steadily downhill all day. My guess is that I was just lonely for most of the day, watching Psych by myself on usanetwork.com and waiting for the UPS guy/Ben to come.

Ben came first, and when he did, I got really tired all of a sudden. And then the UPS guy came, and I was hyper. Then we went to see Inception, but ended up going to a later show than we had anticipated, so we went to Meijer first (yes, I've been there every day this week except for Sunday...) to get some screws for Ben's foosball table. Then we saw the movie, and it was great. Again. Then I went home, ate some dinner, tried to watch The Guild, failed, and went over to Ben's, and ended up just watching Psych on TV. Only this time, Nelson was there, so it wasn't all bad. And then I fell asleep. Ben woke me up in time for the Colbert Report, but I fell asleep during that too.

Funk. Gah. Obnoxious. I really wanted and tried to be awake tonight. Failed.

Anyway. Tomorrow, I'm going to Calvin to pick up an employment slip, playing some Mario Kart with some friends, and then going home for the weekend. Then classes start on Tuesday.

Summer is officially over.

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The seasons don't fear the Reaper. Why this comes as a surprise to anyone is a mystery.

Went to Calvin again to pick up my textbooks, then picked up Carley and we went to Meijer again to pick up the stuff I forgot yesterday as well as her prescription. Then we went back home and ate lunch and I watched Psych on usanetwork.com or whatever site that is. Then I went to Ben's, played sporcle quizzes (I fell asleep while he got in the 49% percentile on the Countries of the World quiz...) then went home, showered, and went to a "job interview." The guy asked me if I'd ever cleaned anything professionally, and I told him that I had to clean the restaurant every day when I worked at Subway, and he hired me and I start Tuesday at the late shift cleaning the Field house. That will be...fun...

Then came home, ate dinner, watched some more Psych, then the landlord came over (unannounced...) to fix our stove, which is exciting because I like making eggs for breakfast in the morning. Then I went over to the Bens' again and played Rockband with Ben and his roommate whom we call J-Money, or J$. I sang a bunch of songs I didn't know, and am now hoarse. But it was fun.

We played "Don't Fear the Reaper" which made me think of The Ripper again. Hilarious, again, I just have to say it.

Now, off to bed.

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I didn't hate this Monday.

Trotted over to Calvin, picked up an application for the York semester abroad program, registered my car for on-campus parking, was perplexed by the freshman-orientation posters, etc. Then went to Meijer and got some much-needed grocery shopping done. When I got home, I had an email from Calvin telling me that I should go back and pick up the textbooks I ordered. I rolled my eyes and baked some cookies, then went to the Bens' house to watch them play D&D.

Carley was going to start playing tonight, but they had to work her into their quest by finding her and rescuing her from her imprisonment or something like that. Long story short, Carley, Jasmine, and I ordered pizza and played rockband, and the party never found Carley and they almost died. Pizza was good, though. Really good. Dang...I want more now.

And now I'm going to bed earlyish.

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