Who am I? [Me: Part II]

So, last poast, I talked about January through June.  This week, I'm going to talk about July through...well...July.  It was a very complex month for me, even outside of Harry Potter.  And it started out with a bang.

At the end of June, events transpired that threw all of this over-time development, all of my personal growth and goals into sharp relief, and I got my first real dose of self-induced shame.  And this is where both disaster struck and the light at the end of the tunnel appeared.  Let me 'splain.  No, there is too much.  Let me sum up.


All my life, I've been told that I was special, that I was great, that the world could tell me that I was flawed, tell me that I had no merit, but that none of that mattered because I was loved in a way that I should never forget.  My mother instilled this belief in me for years, and it was reaffirmed by my Church and my brand of Christianity (which primarily revolved around "God loves me, he's gone to great lengths to show me that, and his love for me is all that matters.").  The only thing wrong with this belief was that I thought (completely subconsciously, in unchangeable ways) that I was loved because I was special, because I was great, and that when the world told me I was flawed and had no merit, the world was unquestionably wrong on all counts.  That is a very dangerous worldview, and at the end of June, I realized how dangerous it had made me as a person.

I'm not going to tell you, Internet, what happened in June, because it's not important to this conversation.  But essentially, I finally did something that, in my mind, was "bad" enough to make me feel ashamed.  Really ashamed.  Not the shame that I've felt before because someone is telling me I should, like when, in junior high and high school, I felt like I was fat and was ashamed that I wasn't able to lose weight and wear clothes like other girls did.  Not the shame I feel when my standards are too high, like when I wanted to take AP physics even though I had no designs for a scientific career or any need to sweat through an entire year of a killer class, and when doing so would hurt me in the other subjects I actually excelled at and wanted to better understand.  Not shame that is in anyway connected with an outside source or something beyond my control.  Shame that I had done something seriously wrong, and now I had to live with the consequences.  Shame that no one I told about my situation would have any reason to feel pity for me; I had brought this upon myself.

Whether what I did was actually as bad as I thought it was at the time, I can't say.  Whether the worst punishment I could have reasonably deserved for it was anything life shattering or shame-worthy, I don't know.  What's important is what I felt in that moment, because that's what changed everything.

The "you're special, you're great, don't ever change" mantra that had been playing on repeat for my whole life sort of skipped for a moment.  Suddenly, I looked at my life, my faith, my relationships, and everything I did and thought and said in a completely new way.  And it was not refreshing.  What I saw was brokenness, complacency, and a dangerous habit of doing what I want because I want to, and then expecting things to work out in my favor regardless.  Most of my life had been shame-free, and it was only this one instance that made me see things this way, but I saw laid out ahead of me two paths branching out from one decision: either I could take my situation seriously and really reflect on what it meant to me and how I wanted to proceed, which would probably involve pain and loneliness and challenges I felt unprepared for, or I could pay the minimum penalty and revert back to comfort and safety where things were exactly where I expected them to be and I could count on my instincts to see me through.

The first path didn't lead out very far.  I couldn't see the whole way down.  But kind of like a real road on a really foggy night, when you can see the glow of the street lights even though you can't see what they're falling on, I could see the satisfaction in that road.  I could see spots of darkness, but I saw a comfort that went beyond the shallowness of my previous comforts.  More than just making myself happy and trying to get to oases of pleasure, walking down that first road would create oases where there were none, would find comfort in places I didn't think it existed, and would end with the happiest, most satisfying destination I could have, though I don't yet know what that is.

I could see farther down the second path, but then it too turned foggy, even foggier than the first path.  It looked easy and familiar, not much different than the path I was walking down already.  But the streetlights were not welcoming.  If I had screwed up already, (and such a small screw up had affected me this much), I was bound to do it again, and there was a huge chance that it would be worse in the subsequent times.  There was no guaranteed warmth down this road and no assumption of a happy ending.  That didn't mean there wasn't one, but just that I wasn't as sure of it.

It sounds cheesy with all the analogies.  But I guess describing my self-reflection during this time is like trying to describe a dream.  Since dream worlds are not the same as the real world, you have to change some details to make the dream explicable.  Since my mind works differently than yours, I have to make analogies to help you understand.  It wasn't cheesy at all when I went through it.  It was very real and actually very scary.  But my decision was easy.  Of course I took the first road.

So that where I was in July.  Tune in next time for the continuation of my journey, which concludes summer.

<3 spadeALLcross

The time has come, [the Walrus said]...

It's been a few days since I saw HP 7.2, and I now feel solid enough in my opinion of it to review it.  Not in-depth, as I don't think anyone who reads this blog really cares about the play-by-play of a movie they could easily watch themselves, but at least enough to discuss the parts that struck me the most.

WARNING: Spoiler City up in hurr.

I walked into the theater last November for the midnight showing of HP 7.1 with very low expectations.  I've been to every midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie since Prisoner of Azkaban as a tradition, but have never actually liked the movies.  But after HP 7.1 was over, I was incredibly and pleasantly surprised by its quality.  The filmmakers had definitely made choices that I didn't understand, like not including the invisibility cloak, rushing through an introduction of Bill Weasley, and skipping over so much of Harry's Dumbledore-related angst.  But the movie did a much better job than its predecessors of staying true to the depth, vision, and feeling of the book.  Things were dark, scary, and hopeless, and the comic relief came in short bursts of smiles before nail-biting drama struck again.

So Thursday night, my expectations were high for a Harry Potter film for the first time in seven years.  And when the credits rolled, I was less disappointed than I could have been. I think the movie did as good a job adapting the book as it could have, given the circumstances.  Ending a series beloved by so many people and trying to include all of the bits that audience would expect--"The Prince's Tale," Molly-Bellatrix dueling scene, Neville's defeat of Nagini, many of the priceless bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout, etc.--while still creating an enjoyable movie that wasn't absolute Hell to sit through is a task that I do not envy.

Because the job was such a hard one, I'm quite happy with the way the movie turned out.  It does, however, solidify in my mind that the books outstrip the films in every way that counts.

The movie didn't really include anything about the Hallows at all.  It registered their existence and sort of nodded to the fact that Harry possessed all three by the end of the war for Hogwarts, but it didn't show the struggle that Dumbledore had faced, like so many others within and -out of fiction have faced, throughout his life of trying to use them to overcome death.  Dumbledore's ascension to the position of Hogwarts' Headmaster and decline of the position of Minister of Magic was hardly mentioned, if at all.  Harry's choice not to try to beat Voldemort to Dumbledore's tomb and take the Elder wand didn't happen.  Voldemort's fear of death was downplayed in favor of his fear of defeat.  These choices changed the entire point of the Harry Potter story.  The saga went from a relatable tale of young people overcoming internal and external obstacles by learning to think for themselves while still relying on others, a tale of friendship and bravery, of unity and mutual respect, of trusts lost and regained, to a coming-of-age story that no one can ever identify with, since it's set in a fictional world whose struggles are nothing like ours.

In the first book and movie, Quirrell/Voldemort says, "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too weak to seek it."  This is the theme of the Deathly Hallows; the internal battle between action and inaction, the conscious decisions Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort each make in their separate quests to "win," and each person's individual definition of what "winning" means.

All three of them have different relationships and responses to power.  Voldemort obviously desires to increase his own power.  As a child and a student he uses his innately strong magical power to bully and coerce those around him, to make them see how strong he was, to make others see how week they were.  He also hones his social power to ensnare people who have more actual authority than he does in order to use their power to his advantage.  But the only reason he wants any of this power is his fear of death.  He fears the unknown that comes after death, and he spends most of his life ensuring that he will never have to face it.  It is his search for ways to overcome death that brought so much of his power, and once he believes he has achieved immortality, he knows that he is better, stronger, smarter than everyone else in the world, including Dumbledore.  Because, if anyone else were as talented and as driven as he was, they would have created horcruxes as well, they would have done the things he had done, because death was something everyone feared.  How could they not?  He could not see any other way of approaching the power he had discovered.  He could not see why anyone would not want to live forever.  What was the point of a whole and pure soul if it could be destroyed?

Meanwhile, Dumbledore also desires power his whole life.  Similar to Voldemort, he sharpens his magic and knowledge from a young age.  Perhaps it is Dumbledore's habit of (born out of his opportunities for) relying on other people that allow him to have friends at school who then keep him from becoming the lone-ranger that Voldemort is.  Maybe Dumbledore's quest is more for knowledge and study than it is for power.  But for whatever reason, Albus gets through school without attempting to take over the world.  However, once school is over and his mother's death forces him to settle back in at home to take care of his younger brother and sister, he feels trapped in an inferior life.  His belief that he could do more with his talents, should be allowed to move forward, fuels his friendship with Grindelwald, someone who agrees with Albus that he was made for better things.  Maybe Gelert has a more straightforward desire for power for the sake of power than Dumbledore does, but Dumbledore, blinded by love and a feeling of partnership he probably didn't feel with anyone else and isn't getting from anyone in his broken family, dares to dream with Grindelwald.

Dumbledore's crippling fear that made him seek power wasn't death, but stagnation, discomfort, and intellectual restraints.  Where Voldemort wanted the horcruxes primarily to ensure his eternal existence and only secondarily used the power he had gained from making them to subjugate those he thought were weaker than him, Dumbledore and Grindelwald wanted the Hallows primarily to place their superior intelligence and talent rightly on top where it belong, and only secondarily to allow themselves to live forever.

Albus is shocked out of his desire for power by the loss of his brother, sister, and best friend/boyfriend in one fell blow, and for a while, his fear overshadows  his guilt.  His grief over his lost loved ones and his knowledge that he is at least partly responsible keeps him from grabbing power where he can. But that fear of discomfort is something he struggles with his entire life, between desiring power over other, lesser people, as he exhibits when he borrows the cloak from James Potter, and wanting power over his grief, as he demonstrates by attempting to bring Ariana and his parents back from the dead with the resurrection stone. But he is always disgusted by his relationship to power, which is why the Elder wand is safe with him. He doesn't trust himself, and he doesn't trust the wand, so he remains headmaster of Hogwarts and keeps his own power and the wand's in check.

Unlike Dumbledore and Voldemort, Harry does not want power. All his life he is powerless, alone, and mistreated, much like Voldemort, but at school, he gains friends and fame, like Dumbledore. His fame does not treat him well; it makes him as many enemies as friends, and it gives him as many problems as solutions. Some of his fame is based on his own talent, and some of his success comes from skill, but he knows that an equal, if not greater amount comes from luck, chance, and the providence of others, and between this knowledge and the pains his fame gives him, he doesn't get as big a head as he could. Instead of focusing on overpowering others, he genuinely tries his best to do what he thinks is right. What he thinks is right is not always the most intelligent course of action, but he is only a teenager, and he is often dealing with the complex power schemes and magic of adults much stronger and smarter than he is. He knows that he isn't good enough to do everything by himself, but he also knows that doing something was too important to leave entirely to someone else. He is the perfect combination of Voldemort and Dumbledore, of relying on himself and relying on others, of choosing to act and choosing to wait, of having a will to live without putting it above everything else. If he has a crippling fear, it is that he was not worth dying for: that his parents and his friends loved him too much and for no reason. Instead of driving him to take power wherever he can find it, his fear dives him to be the best person possible, fighting for the best causes he finds.  His fear makes him constantly reevaluate his actions and his goals, to know himself...something Dumbledore learned too late, and Voldemort never learned at all. Because of this, he gets all three Hallows and learns what it really means to be Master of Death. Not to live forever, but to embrace the inevitable end, to know that it's coming, and to not fight it once it arrives.

So many themes regarding life and what it means to be human float in and out of Harry Potter: persistence in the face of overwhelming adversity, unlikely forgiveness, the importance of friendship, the need for humility, and so on and so forth.  A lot of them feel cliché when said aloud, which is probably why people call Harry Potter fans "nerds."  The story is a coming-of-age adventure; how could it not be with a group of adolescents as the protagonists? But its fan base is proof that its characters and plots speak to more than just adolescents and that the series is more than a mere didactic fairy tale about the ideal human being.

The major overarching theme of the whole series is not cliché or nerdy, but a real question that people ask themselves constantly, whether they take note of it or not.  The theme is expressed in that striking quote of Quirrell's: "There is no Good and Evil; there is only power and those too week to seek it." The question Harry Potter asks is whether Good seeks power, and whether not seeking power is a weakness. Harry, Dumbledore, and Voldemort represent three case studies in dealing with power that can show us our own feelings about the subject.

But the movies do not focus on that aspect of the books. It makes sense that they wouldn't: in order to do so, all of the movies would have had to have been much longer and probably would have included more scenes of exposition and talking than of action and excitement, and that's not exactly what a movie is best at. As it is, the movies portray a good story about children becoming adults and overcoming the obstacles their parents and mentors could not.

So, while I certainly can't say I love the movies as much as I love the books, I'm not surprised or upset by their inability to match up with each other. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey, and when I drink water, I drink water.

And I'm sad that Harry Potter is officially over, but I can't afford to care too much for too long.  Everyone has different experiences with literature, and I have confidence in mine and shouldn't worry for anyone else's, since I can't control it anyway.

Here's to you, Harry. And here's to many happy years of your own immortality, one you gained without Hallows, without Horcruxes.

Now...if only Hogwarts were real...

<3 spadeALlcross

Hey ho, the wind and the rain...

Fun fact: 


Did you know that "trivia" is a latin word that literally means "three roads"? It encapsulates the idea that in a place where three roads meet, people often get together and talk...mostly about meaningless or pointless things, like gossip and...TRIVIA. Yes, yes, it's all very exciting.


So, I have some housekeeping items to get out of the way before I deliver a proper post.  


One is that I'm currently in a 100-year war with iPhoto and it's fancy-pants internet photo publisher doohickey that allows me to easily and quickly publish my photos to facebook and flikr.  Rather, it's supposed to allow me to do so easily and quickly, but my current struggle with it is that it's doing this rather clumsily and slowly and jumbling everything up like a big jigsaw puzzle, evidently just for kicks.  Please bear with me as I attempt to fix this.


Another thing is that I'm going to try to make a schedule for my snidgets so that I stop doing them just because I'm bored or procrastinating.  I'm thinking once a week, generally on Fridays.  Does anyone have any better ideas?  Are Fridays too weekendy for anyone?  My other thought was Wednesdays...  


I also think I'm going to try to update this blog once a week now, definitely on Fridays, because I have this huge awkward break between my two courses on Fridays around this time, and I'd like to fill it with something less scholarly than Boudica.  But there might be weeks when I don't post at all due to the need to do actual work (because Dreaming the Serpent Spear isn't going to read itself).  


No one ever really comments on what I say here, except to say, "Good job," or "Sweet photos," or "I liek ur stuphh, plzz chexzors out mi hott pixx at www.nakeyLOLcatzz.com!" so I don't know if asking for you to comment will ever really work...


Not that I don't appreciate the comments I do get!  I love knowing that people actually read this.  It's always a surprise and a joy, and you're all so supportive.  So thanks.  


...or should I say...Cheers!


No.  I don't think I should say that.


< / housekeeping >


< real post >


This week went much more quickly than the last, and it was both more satisfying and less.  It was more satisfying because I feel far less cripplingly homesick now, and I'm actually beginning to really enjoy the prospect of being here for four months, and I'm even getting the (sadistically excellent) sinking feeling that four months is actually too short a time to spend in this amazing country and on this amazing continent.  I'm definitely going to have to plan an extended stay in Europe after I graduate college, or between my senior and super senior years.  There's just so much to see and do here, and so little time right now in which to see and do it.


It was less satisfying because the stabilization of a routine has allowed me to settle into my good old self; content to be alone, happy to stay in my room all night, and shoving homework and exciting prospects of England off to the side.  In my heart of hearts, I really want to go out into the city and explore what life is really like here, but I'm really comfortable and really enjoying not doing so.  


In order to counterbalance my natural tendencies (which I'm not spurning, just pushing aside for now), my goals for the coming week are as follows:

1. Do at least 80% of the homework assigned to me.
2. Get to know some of the other people from Calvin and go out with them for an evening
3. Leave open the door to my room to better facilitate conversations with my flatmates
4. Buy fricking A4 folders in order to get my life organized

So, with you, Internet, as my witness, I swear to do these.  After all, there is no try.


I and a few of my Calvin-based friends went together to Manchester on Monday, since none of us have class then.  Manchester was an exciting city, much bigger than York.  It felt to be just a bit smaller than Chicago, but not quite so squished together with the buildings.  It was incredibly windy; Ae Hee, the smallest among us, almost got blown away.


We went to the Manchester Museum, got lost a bunch of times, attempted to use the free shuttle-bus system and failed miserably, and brunch and dinner, went on the Wheel of Manchester, and visited the John Rylands Library, which was a fantastic and nerdy experience, at least for me.


The rest of the week was pretty mellow.  My flatmates had a bit of a raucus party on Tuesday evening that went until Wednesday morning at around 8:30...which wasn't my favorite.  But they did apologize about it later, and I didn't feel terribly tired Wednesday, so it was generally not a terrible experience.


Wednesday we went as a class to the Yorkshire museum which had a ton of exhibits that told about the Roman history we're actually studying, so that's cool.  It's nice to be able to put faces (albeit without noses in most cases) to the names and eras we're learning about.


It's been very hard this week being away from my friends and family in America, though not because of homesickness so much as just feeling useless over here.  I want to be doing life with them--celebrating the good times and consoling in the bad--which is actually kind of ironic, considering I was never very good about doing that when I was with them, and I'm not really trying to do that with the people I'm with now.  But this distance has made me realize how little I involve myself in others' lives, and how much I owe to those people who have involved themselves in mine.


For those of you struggling this week/month/year with various world-suck, and for those of you enjoying this week/month/year of excitements and treasures, I hope you know I wish I could be there with you.  It probably doesn't mean very much, considering I'm going to post this and then go off to do my own thing, but we cannot always be torn in two.  We must be one and whole.


But know that I am praying for you.  That is one thing I've actually accomplished over here, as far as life-goals go.  I've finally started really praying, especially for the people I can't see daily.


I must be off now.  Ta!


<3 spadeALLcross

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

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

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

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.

<3 spadeALLcross

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.

<3 spadeALLcross

Busy day of nothingness...

Did a few odds-and-endsie sort of stuff, then visited my old floor where my two friends are the RAs, helped 'em make decorations. Including this awesome one that I'm really [unhealthily] jazzed about:

See, every consecutively linear combination of three is a cause&effect story. They all make sense to me, though I'll admit that most of them are quite...elaborate. But I want it to be like those inkblot things where people create their own stories as they find them, and I want to know what stories they come up with...

So if you're reading this and you can see that picture, please post your stories in the comments! Please please please! I don't care if I don't know you; I am inordinately excited about this.

Then I came home, did some dishes, found out that I'm getting my own room, and am now about to go to sleep on the couch.

<3 spadeALLcross

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture.

I woke up with "She's Leaving Home" stuck in my head. That's oddly specific, Brain. Way to make me feel like a champ.

Also, I found out that some woman named Jessica Somethingorother gives my phone number to all the people she doesn't want to call her.

- Last fall, a creeper guy left a voicemail on my phone once, telling me that it was great to meet me at the bar the other night, and he thought I was really great and wouldn't I please give him a ring, now that I had his number, and that he was really sorry about the incident with his sister. He called me Jessica.

- A few weeks ago, I picked up a call that was from a number I didn't recognize, but my phone told me the area code was from Colorado, so I figured I might be related to the person on the other end. As it turns out, I probably wasn't; she was an elderly [and hard of hearing] woman trying to find her stolen car...and looking for Jessica to see if she knew where it was.

- Then this morning, I picked up an 800 number I didn't recognize thinking it might be my bank. Nope. A collection agency looking for Jessica Somethingorother.

And it all clicked; I don't know who this Jessica is, but she's got a sordid past littered with creepy men she doesn't want to talk to and misdemeanors and debt she doesn't want to deal with, so she's shuffing it all off on me. Well, thanks but no thanks, Jessica: I don't want your cast-offs, especially if they come with blind dates, interest, and/or jail time.

Drove to Michigan. Listened to HP3. Good times had by all. Moved my stuff into the house, but kind of just left it everywhere. Went to Meijer, ate dinner, and am now doing nothing of import...just chillin' on Ben's computer while he washes dishes.

Tomorrow I have some stuff I should get done...don't have my list here though, so I can't share it with you yet.

Sponsors are a mile or so away at my house, while I'm here at Ben's.

<3 spadeALLcross

Wikipedia keeps me from feeling awkward...and facilitates much laughter.

This morning, I woke up from a weird dream that combined my high school teachers, my youth-group retreats, my college friends, and my family camping trips, and decided to look up that paper that Mr. Schaefer had been talking about. I also reread a letter I had written to myself in his class, that I have a feeling he's not going to send me like he promised to.

I also found out what lavaliering is, and that my roommate from Freshman year just experienced it...and I laughed pretty hard, which, in retrospect, was a mean thing to do. I just cannot take greek life seriously. I'm sorry. Everything I read about related to the traditions and practices of sororities and fraternities sounds cult-ish and really silly, and the idea that people live their lives for such traditions and practices seems...pathetic. I understand, and even to some degree envy the greek concepts of community living and lifelong friendship, but only when they're at the ideal, which I'm guessing is not often. My parents both belong(ed?) to greek societies, and a ton of my friends do, and I can't say I've ever heard a horror story, but lavaliering? Seriously? You have turned a piece of jewelry--created to commemorate the relationship between a king and his mistress--into a verb, and that makes you happy?

"The Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity's inaugural lavaliering was held by Charles Stewart Jr., during which he presented his letters to Erika Rae Antisdale, member of the Chi Omega female fraternity. Historians of the American collegiate Greek system have noted this particular lavaliering as a "landmark achievement in modern Greek Life, the reverberations of which shall be evident on college campuses nationwide for generations to come."^[1]"

Yes. Oh my...I feel the reverberations in my very bones. My soul is rocked by your letters, Charles Stewart. I'm glad you and Miss Antisdale had a serious relationship that might have even led to engagement or marriage. I wonder...did they even end up getting married? How many lavalier-ers actually get passed that stage in their relationship? It would be an interesting thing to research...if I cared enough.

Now, my old roommate and her boyfriend, as I recall, are pretty serious, and I would actually be surprised if they didn't get married, so this isn't all that ridiculous to me. However...why go through all those dumb motions? I mean, engagement and even marriage to a certain degree, are social constructs that people structure their emotional lives around, which can be dangerous: Why hasn't my boyfriend proposed to me yet? Maybe he doesn't really love me, maybe he doesn't think we're serious enough, maybe he doesn't feel the gravity of our love for each other the way I do. My wife and I are married; shouldn't we be happy all the time? Shouldn't we always want to be together?

Why create yet another reason to freak out? Why hasn't my boyfriend given me his pin? Why doesn't my girlfriend want to get pearled?

Anyway...that was kind of a high-horse thing, wasn't it? Sorry...

Also, while being nostalgic this morning and going through old Fremd papers, I found a "story" I wrote for my Creative Comp class first semester of senior year. I don't know why, but I enjoyed it, and when I read it, I made a mental note to post it here. So I will.

Yellow Dandielion from Ohio

“But airplanes are beautiful, too,” he called up to me from the ground. “The sun shines off their wings and the pictures on their tails can sometimes be really pretty.”

I hung limply from the bar, concentrating on the next one, just a foot beyond my hands, barely out of reach. “Yeah, I guess,” I said, though I wasn’t really paying attention. I was much more focused on the challenge that stretched out before me.

“So then you like airplanes as much as birds?” he asked, bobbing up and down on his toes. I rolled my eyes: he did this whenever he was excited, and that annoyed me.

“No. I still like birds more,” I said, probably just to disappoint him.

“But Mary,—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the whistle blew, signaling that we had to go back to class. Defeated, I dropped from the monkey bars and shuffled off next to Eugene, who continued a well-worn rant about the superiority of machines and science over art and nature. I rarely paid attention to those anymore. In fact, I had begun to not pay attention to Eugene at all much anymore.

When we got back to the small room, Miss Deligio had us sit in a clump by the whiteboard, where she had written a sentence:

“All stories have characters, actions, and settings."

She asked Ashley to read it aloud, and while she did, I turned to Eugene, who was sitting next to me, like he always did, and said, “That looks like ‘Ch-aracter.’”

Of course, Eugene, being the outspoken nerd that he was, put his hand to his mouth and said loudly, over Ashley’s timid, first-grader voice, “That word looks like ‘Ch-aracter.’”

“Eugene,” Miss Deligio said with a dark look, “please raise your hand when you want to talk, and wait until I call on you.”

He shrugged. “I still agree with you,” he whispered to me. Then, narrowing his eyes, he asked, “Why are you blushing, Mary?”

“Nothing,” I said, hiding my face. I couldn’t help but be embarrassed for him, and for myself.

Most of that year was spent with me feeling embarrassed for Eugene, actually. He was socially awkward (though, at the time, I didn’t know what either of those words meant) and I was one of his only friends.

“It isn’t a flood,” he said. “If it were a flood, the basement would be all wet.”

In retrospect, I suppose it wasn’t a good idea to invite Eugene over to my house: he and my brothers didn’t get along very well.

“It is a flood,” Dennis said with all of his eleven-year-old empathy. “Do you hear those sirens? That means we’re all going to die.”

“We are not going to die!” Eugene said in a frenzy, jumping up and down and flailing his arms everywhere, almost smacking Patrick in the nose. I buried my face in my hands.

“Don’t worry about it, Eugene,” I said quietly. “They’re just trying to scare—”

“You’re not going to die, Mary,” he said, still looking at the prepubescent bullies towering over him. “I promise.”

“Well, whatever, but I’m going to go to higher ground,” Dennis said, walking towards the stairs. “Come on Patrick.” Patrick, sniggering, followed.

Eugene was absent from school a lot. When I’d ask him why, he said it was because he was always tired and him mom didn’t want him to get sick. I kind of resented him for it, because if I told my mom that I was tired and that I didn’t want to get sick, she would have sent me off to school anyway with only a reminder to drink lots of water. When he was gone, though, I was free to spend time with my other friends.

Like Mark, the boy I was going to marry.

Mark and I were meant to be. He collected beanie babies, just like me, and I had a dog, just like him. He liked to play kickball at recess, just like me, and my favorite color was green, just like him. We’d play with K’nex in his basement and share stories about Star Wars on the bus rides to and from school. In the long history of this world, there have never been two people more destined for each other.

Sadly for me, Mark was a rather dense boy, and had his eyes on my best friend, the aforementioned Ashley. I tried not to let it show that I was jealous, but I think I blew my cover when I cried for ten minutes after intercepting a letter Ashley wrote professing her love to Mark. To this day, our friendship is tainted.

With Mark “out of the way” so to speak, Eugene had a new spring in his step. That Eugene had hated Mark had never been much of a secret. Now that I was spending less and less time with my ex-fiancé, Eugene took it upon himself to fill the void with exciting adventures pretending to break the sound barrier on the playground. He came to school more often so that he could draw me pictures of underwater turbines in the sandbox and try to teach me how to make dye out of dandelion petals.

“You need two stones,” he said, diving under the Yellow and Green Thing where thousands of pebbles waited. “You use one big one to collect the dye that you make by rubbing a smaller one against the flower.” He demonstrated for me and showed me the piddly color that resulted from his efforts. It didn’t look to me like it could dye anything, but I didn’t tell him. We sat under that plastic play set during recess for an entire week just making yellow juice that would dry up every day.

But I didn’t complain, because, as much as I try to play off Eugene as the lone nerd in our dynamic-duo, I’ve come to realize that I can’t escape the fact that I had fun. Every ridiculous day he and I spent making purposeless, pus-like nonsense. Every stupid knock-knock joke he told. Every weird game we ever made up and played together. I had fun.

Which is probably why Eugene was taken aback when I stopped paying any attention to him at all. That was when James came.

James was from Texas. He was tall and had a funny accent, and I only have two distinct memories of him.

“What’re you makin’?” he asked me one day when it was too cold for us to go outside for recess. “Looks like fun.”

“It’s a town for Dragons.” Heaven help me, I had just seen Dragonheart and had cried my poor, innocent eyes out. “Do you want to help?”

And in one sentence, James replaced both Mark and Eugene. “Yeah, I do!”

After that, no matter the weather, and even if we were the only ones in the room besides the teacher, James and I stayed inside for recess and played with our paper dragons in their paper school and paper houses. There was a small contingent of students, The Dragon club, that stayed with us sometimes, but he and I were always there.

Eugene stayed most of the time, but after a while, he stopped playing with us and would just sit at a table and watch us from afar. I remember looking over at him and seeing the most malicious look on his face.

Then, just before school let out, James invited most of the class to his birthday party. It was the first (and last) time I went to Chuckie Cheese’s. I remember I had gotten him a figurine of a dragon that lit up and could be attached to a key chain. Eugene was there and had gotten him a book about leaves, but didn’t look to happy about it.

The rest of my first-grade year is fuzzy after that: I can only remember three things that happened.

“Will you marry me, Mary?” was one of them. It was shortly followed by, “I’m moving to Ohio and if you don’t marry me, we’ll probably never see each other ever again.”

Which was followed by our entire class going to our teacher’s wedding over the summer. Eugene wasn’t there. I hadn’t married him. I haven’t seen or heard from him in ten years.

But I hardly think that matters anymore. Ideally, I think we all wish that we could keep all of our friends forever, but reality dictates that we make concessions, choose one thing over the other, even if one or both of those “things” is a person that means a lot to us. Eugene and I were pretty amazing friends, even though, looking back at him, I can’t help but think of him as an outlandish, troubled child. Ten years ago, when asked to list the people I thought had made a huge impact on my life, he wouldn’t have been on it. But I’ve come a long way in that ten years and have forgotten a lot of things, but I haven’t forgotten Eugene. That has to mean something.

asdf

I don't know why that struck a chord with me this morning. But it did.

What else did I do today? I cleaned my dog, dyed my hair (schwoops! the wrong color, but whatever) watched A Knight's Tale which is much funnier now that I have a cursory knowledge of all things Chaucer, watched TNG, watched The Princess and the Frog, which was much more delightful than I had thought it would be, watched The West Wing, and did nothing really productive besides that. The only things that were really on my list were dying my hair and washing Fudge. Got those done at least.

Tomorrow =

Church

Family hang-out time

Minimal packing, but some nonetheless

At this point, I really wish I weren't going back to school on Wednesday. This, too, shall pass. I'm not just not in a good, stable emotional place right now, I guess. Meh, it happens. I'm pretty apathetic about everything else in my life.

And I really can't wait to see some people. I'm just not too excited about leaving the ones I've got.

<3 spadeALLcross

Psst...can you keep a secret?

...I'm not actually posting this on the 18th. I slept over at Cari's house on the 18th, so I didn't have my computer. Don't tell anyone...

But it was a very productive day, all things considered. Ripped another audiobook (Nineteen Minutes) shipped a sold textbook, packed up the rest of my books, and burned a [non-functional, but who knew that?] DVD. Then we celebrated RC and Dennis' birthdays over an excellent steak dinner, which was fun. After dinner, Cari and I went to Best Buy to get her TV for school, which was also kind of fun, and then we went to her house and watched The Office. I am now almost completely caught up, except for the last two episodes from the fourth season, and I don't know how many episodes from the sixth season. I'm not über excited about those, though, so whatever.

Cari leaves Friday for school. Carney leaves Thursday. Summer is ending. Curses.

Tomorrow (Thursday), I'm going shopping with my mom, and I need to rip some more CDs.

<3 spadeALLcross

Tired of the insincere; gonna give all my secrets away...

Power was out this morning when I woke up. A little upsetting, but...meh. I wrote a letter (that's right, I handwrite things and put them in envelopes and even occasionally put stamps on them. Karazay!), did some paperwork for the bank, wrote an email (that didn't send until the power came back on) and then, once my dad's computer was up and running, I burned 4 of the 6 DVDs I needed to burn (as well as light-scribing them) ripped a bunch of audiobooks to my hard drive, including Dune and Old Man and the Sea and the beginnings of Nineteen Minutes and The Hour I First Believed. Through all this, I was running out, getting gas in my car, trying to find a CD case to fit all the DVDs I was burning, and generally making a fool of myself. But it's okay; I drive a Prius. Then we had dinner, I went out with a friend, came back, talked to God for a while, and am now going to bed.

Tomorrow, I'm watching Annabelle. During her nap, I plan on burning some more DVDs and ripping some more CDs, as well as possibly searching again for a CD case, and probably at least thinking about packing either clothes or books. Once her father gets home and takes over her care...I don't know what I'll do. Probably nothing of consequence. Certainly nothing productive.

But let me tell you, I love my friends. I've got a lovely bunch of them, and I don't know where I'd be without them. Each of them has changed my life in startling ways, some more recently, more often, or more positively than others, but whatever. If you are my friend (and, I'm kind of assuming you are at this point, since my readership is probably hovering around five people) I really appreciate you, even if I don't tell you often enough in person.

No sponsors. Go watch thedailyshow.com. It's a hoot sometimes.

<3 spadeALLcross

We can act if we want to; if we don't, nobody will...

Today I hung out with Molly for lunch, [barely] helped pack her car, and then she and Rich left for Pittsburg. I probably won't see her until December, unless my pipe dreams to visit her during the semester actually pan out. It makes me sad...already, I've had a few instances today where I've wanted to drive over to her house to either a) borrow some item that I knew she'd have or b) just sit and do nothing. Many of my other Chicago-land friends leave at the end of this week. Summer is coming to an end. Sad day.

Carney came over and attempted to fix our network. Then we discovered it wasn't a network problem we were having so much as a Mary's-computer-is-wonky problem. That took too long to fix...and it's still not really fixed, so...yeah, my computer's just...fun? I dunno; he and I get along just fine. It's when other people try to ruin our perfect relationship that things start to get a little weird.

Burned some DVDs, and even lightscribed them. That was intense. Well, not really. But it was something new.

Tomorrow, I have to

-Burn more DVDs

-Start packing up my books

-Maybe start packing my clothes, though that seems like overkill

-Read She's Come Undone

-Talk to Ben a lot to make up for not having talked to him much these past couple weeks due to Colorado and Schaefer.

-and other stuff that is on a list I don't feel like opening right now.

You can count on me!

Sponsors already went to sleep tonight. Good for them.

Although, the HD version of Artie doing the Safety Dance is pretty cool. And the song is stuck in my head right now, if you couldn't tell.

<3 spadeALLcross

Giving All My Secrets Away...

Went trail riding with Cari and her family today, then came back and babysat Dylan again. Well, I baby sat him for about ten minutes, and then it was his bed time, and then I watched Ghost Rider and...well, fell asleep for a while, then watched A:TLA for a bit before embarrassedly switching it to baseball as the Schaefer's walked in the door.

Ghost Rider made me think of Sorcerer's Apprentice, and now I really want to see that movie again.

Actually, mostly, I just want to get to Michigan and see my friends there again. I miss them. I'm going to miss being home, though too. It's funny; this blog tracks, over the years, my excitement level for school. Thinking back to before Freshman year, I was pumped to start my new life, and then last year, I couldn't sleep for weeks I was so excited to get back to school. Now, since acquiring Seamus, and through him, the feeling of freedom my house had previously lacked, I've gotten much more comfortable at home, and I really can't decide if, if given the choice, I'd stay or go.

But, like my brother pointed out to me once, it doesn't matter what I would decide. I'm not deciding; I have to go. So I better make the most of it.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

Race you to the top of the morning...

Nathan Fillion, I love you man, but just shut up, already. Seriously. No one should twitter that much about nothing, especially no one as adorable as you.

Moving on...

Watched Dylan, forgot my lunch at home (so I stole a banana and some carrot shavings from my old English teacher...and his baby...I may go to Hell, after all) then came home, did some stuff, including reading the entirety of Anders Loves Maria. Come to think of it, I don't know for sure if you're supposed to italicize webcomic titles. I'm fairly certain, judging from the pattern of italicizing complete works--music album titles, book titles, and ship names--while using quotes on parts of a whole--song titles that are parts of albums, chapter titles that are parts of books, short story titles that are part of a collection, and...not ship names--that you should italicize webcomic titles and italicize the individual strip titles. Anyway...that was a digression. Anders Loves Maria is incredibly...saddening. I feel really...down right now just from reading it, and not just because I get easily depressed by depressing fiction. It's a sad commentary on a life, and a sad ending to that sad commentary...so...all around...I feel sad.

I'll move on quickly, though. That's the glory of sleeping and forgetting things when you wake up.

Also threw together some lists of things I need to do and pack and buy before I go back to school. Which is happening on the 25th. I don't know if I mentioned before when I was going back. But here I am, mentioning it now. The 25th. If anyone is stalking me, planning to hunt me down and get my autograph or something, I will be on the road on the 25th. You can't stop me. Well, I mean, you could. But that would be rather silly.

Our sponsors have been forced into silence for a while, so here's a quick overload on your browser. (If you were wondering why this page was taking so long to load, look no further.)

<3 spadeALLcross

Where are we? What the hell is going on?

Good day. Packed for camping, hung out with Molly, watched TV with my mom, babysat, and had a hard-but-necessary conversation with a person I care for very deeply. Now to bed, perchance to dream. But really, with my track record, not-dreaming would be okay too.

<3 spadeALLcross

EDIT: Find our sponsors here.

But these are old-man shoes...

Movies are constantly disappointing me. Take, for instance, Despicable Me, which I saw yesterday. It was a great movie. Yes, a children's movie, with a children's movie's flaws, but a great movie once you get past that, which is pretty easy for me.

But real life will never get this cute.

A man's nose can't be that pointy, his legs can't be that spindly, and his adorable little adopted daughters would never be that spunky, nor would his minions be that...weird. Steve Carell doesn't even have an accent. Great movie...great disappointment.

Take, for instance, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which I just got back from seeing. Not as great a movie, but a much greater disappointment. So, it was another sci-fi/fantasy movie with half-baked explanations that greatly irk the actual sci-fi fan. Big deal. It was no Twilight-disaster movie; it was just a Nicholas-Cage-playing-opposite-a-tennis-ball-on-a-stick movie. But so much of me wished that so much of it was real...ugh.

I wish I could just be normal and detach myself from the fiction I love. I seem to have more troubles than most of my friends at settling for the harsh fact that books and movies are just that and little else. But I suppose, without that...feeling...that almost-pain I get after every time that harsh fact settles in again...without that, I wouldn't be as interested in books and movies as I am. And without those little faux realities, I don't know how much I'd like living in the real one. So, I'll just have to deal with the pain.

That's really all I did today. I watched Annabelle a bit (we went to the library again) and ran some errands, and then went to a movie with Cari. Good day. Tomorrow will be better (=D) By the way, if anyone is reading this and cares (fat chance) I probably won't blog tomorrow night. If I miss it, I'll recap on Sunday night.

Sponsors' Time!

<3 spadeALLcross

Quintessence of Dust...

Brains are frustrating things. What with hormones, subjectivity, and the overall inescapableness of my own mind, I never know what's true and what's me confusing myself. For instance, right now, I think I'm mad at someone, and I think I have good reason, but he's so confused as to why I'm mad, I can't help but wonder which one of us is right. And of course, as I sink lower and lower into my anger, it turns into sadness, and as sadness takes over, everything makes me sad, and so, by the time I'm at my lowest point, there will be nothing that can get me out, but there might have been nothing substantial that actually got me there, either.

Also, I'm not very good at staying angry so it just turns into overall melancholy. And what is the point of that? Melancholy doesn't give you energy or spur you on to do productive things, you can't misdirect melancholy towards anyone and get righteously stirred up...melancholy just makes you want to go to bed at 10:00 at night. Ugh. If my emotions are going to hide their origins from me, I'd like them to at least do work for me.

Ah well. 1.5 weeks left before I'm out of this place and back where things at least used to make sense.

<3 spadeALLcross

Mr. Sandman, come send me a dream

I have been having really vivid dreams lately. I'm still trying to remember the one I had early this morning, because it was a good one, whereas the other ones this week have all been nightmares. They wake me up and keep me from easily getting back to sleep. I'll look at the clock, hoping that it's late enough, close enough to the time I would have to get up anyway, that I can just start my day and not have to go to bed. And I've been going to bed later and later and avoiding naps even though I really need them because these dreams scare me, and I wake up unable to stop thinking about them.

The one I had on Monday was the first one I can remember, though I vaguely recall some frightening sleeping experiences over the weekend. Monday morning, I woke up at 3:00 and couldn't figure out why I had , except that maybe my decongestants were wearing off and I was having a hard time breathing. I feel asleep again eventually and had a dream where I was going around with my boyfriend and this other girl I know, following the destructive path of a serial larcenist. I think I've had this dream before, and in the dream I recognized what was going on and kept trying to be one step ahead of the guy. But all the stuff ended up getting stolen anyway, and the girl that was with me almost died because I'd brought attention to us and the larcenist was trying to stop us from catching him. He burned down my house, and I think my grandmother was still inside. I woke up at 6:30 with that thought in my head. I almost got up and started doing homework or something, but my body was still too tired to be on my side about that.

Then yesterday, I fell asleep reading for one of my classes, and I had a dream where I was in Arabia during the 1950s. I don't know if it was really supposed to be Saudi Arabia or somewhere in Africa; all I know is that it was called Arabia. I was captain of the guard, right hand man (because I was a man) to the Sultan. After WWII, they were planning some big reforms of policy, and the Sultan had me sit in on the meetings when he couldn't. The one meeting I vividly remember was talking about beginning a census in Arabia. The US had made the form template and had sent us a copy to approve, and most of the people in the meeting thought it was a bad idea. One guy asked, "Who's in command of Arabia? Is it Harry Truman? No, I don't think so. So why does he suddenly call the shots." It was then that I remembered some bit of intelligence that said someone was going to try to assassinate the Sultan, so I ran out of the meeting and to his chambers, but he was already dead, and his son, Aladdin (yes, that Alladin. Don't judge my subconscious stereotypes) had been taken from his crib. And I woke up to go to dinner wondering why I hadn't remembered the foul plot in time.

And what sucks most about this is that I remember these dreams really clearly. And the one I had this morning, which I remember being happy about because it wasn't scary or sad, I don't remember.

Also, I'm breaking out like crazy. I have five zits on my face right now, which is three more than I had this weekend and five more than I ever got through all of high school. I hope all of this is just a result of the stressful time of year, but just in case it has something to do with my diet, I've started being more conscious about what I eat.

But it's creeping me out/making me angry, and I would like it to stop. I keep snapping at people for no reason other than the fact that I don't sleep well, and I get into slumps where I can't focus on my work because I'm so tired. I usually love sleeping, but now it scares me.

Anyway, that's what's going on in my life right now.

<3 spadeALLcross