31.8.08

Perhaps I haven't been eating enough exemplary vegetables?

    If I were a super hero and I could choose my default power, I think I'd choose invisibility.  If I'm only allowed one, I can think of no better all-around champion than the ability to stand next to someone and listen to them talk about their next big dastardly plan to blow up Wayne Tower or something.
    
    But sadly, with my luck, if I were to become radioactively charged or what have you and sprout some fantastic ability out of nowhere, I probably wouldn't be able to choose it, and it probably wouldn't come out as invisibility.  No, I'd probably have very little control over any aspect of my new identity.  My name would probably be something unbelievably lame like "Oracle" or "ThirdEye" and I'd look something like the nerdiest thing this side of MIT*.


     And my power would barely be a power at all.  Something like the ability to dream in color.  I mean, if we're coming from the Stephanie Meyer perspective, that would make the most sense: I would be bringing with me one power I possessed in my normalcy to my super-cy and amplifying it.  

    Because let me tell you: I have the weirdest dreams.

    You know, there are countless people who have told me they never remember their dreams, if they even have any, and the ones they do remember are very mundane, as though they're just reliving their day minute by minute in their heads.  So what my subconscious does at night must be some sort of genetic mutation.

    Last night, for instance, I had a dream that somehow, I was still in high school, still in band, and still in Outdoor Adventure II and everything was the same as it was last year when all those things were true in real life, as well. (Which is to say, in my sleep-weakened state, I thought everything was the same, when really, nothing looked like anything I'd ever seen, and had I been trying harder, I wouldn't have recognized anyone I came into contact with)  There were some oddities in my schedule: Wind Symphony was only a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday class at third period (a set up we endured in Junior High with some strange consequences) and the other two days, I was enrolled in Outdoor Adventure (an awesome P.E. class offered at my high school) with the main football coach for my teacher.  In fact, I was technically enrolled in that class all five days, but it was just accepted that I was to be absent Wednesdays through Fridays.  

    There were many facets to this dream, one being an activity done in the gym class involving the climbing rope doubling as a bungee cord and an unreliably springy gymnastics floor, which of course ended with me uncomfortably splayed on the floor, jaw throbbing, face reddening, and the whole class laughing at me.  (There is always some spark of truth to these things).  

    But the more interesting facet was the one involving Wednesday.  It was evidently protocol for me to check in with my gym teacher before skipping away to band, so I was doing just that, except said teacher was not letting me leave.  He insisted that, since I had arrived early (in order to arrive in the band room on time), I should help him set up the room for the activity they were planning on doing that day.  So, reluctantly, I did, and did not finish even after the bell rang to signal the start of class.  I asked Mr. D (his name was long and Italian) if I could leave, since I had another class to attend, and he said that I had to finish what I was doing first, that, if necessary, he would talk to my band director for me.  When I finally was allowed to leave, Mr. D didn't even give me a pass, so I was roaming the hall (lanyard-free, by the way, to those who care, if you happen to read this) unprotected.  

    I did finally get to the band room, which had morphed somehow into an actual classroom, complete with desks (circa third grade) and chalk boards and my band director sitting behind a computer while the rest of the students bent silently over their respective rhythm quizzes (only one who has gone through this particular band program can fully appreciate the ridiculosity of that image).  I made my way to my desk, which was nowhere near the desk of the one other person in my instrumental section, a fact that perplexed us both, judging by the shrug he gave me before returning to his quiz.  Mr. Banddirectorman called me out to his office, and I followed, with some difficulty, as everything was very cramped and no one felt it necessary to keep their belongings out of the walkways.

    When we got there, he sat down and pulled out his pad of hall passes, looking somewhat frightened for whatever reason, and asked me where I was coming from and I didn't have a pass with me.  I told him I had come from gym with Dr. Divertimento (o.O).  And without hesitation, or even waiting for me to finish my sentence, Mr. Banddirectorman forged the pass for me.  Why?  I don't know, because the only person who would need to see it was him.

    And then I woke up.

    So no superpower, just super-weird nights.


<3 spadeALLcross

* Both my father and one of my better friends has/is attended/attending MIT, so the term "nerd" is used here with due reverence and all the love in my heart.

30.8.08

"Call me up before you're dead: we can make some plans instead."

10:30

    After eighteen years of struggle, stooping over a hot blow dryer, flat iron, curling iron, and table filled with a myriad of hair products, after eighteen years of disappointment on picture day, of looks of resignation at the mirror, of avoiding photographs, video cameras, and really fast painters, my hair has finally bended to my will and does what I want it to do on cue.

    And I emptied three years worth of my life out of my car this morning, fitting it all into a time capsule marked "For my Someday Car."  

    What do they call it when everything intersects?

12:51

toothpaste for dinner



13:39

    Just got done packing up all my...stuff into boxes and Tetris-ing it into the smallest possible corner of my basement.  Well dang, I hope it all fits. 

    Now to attack my bedroom and all my clothes and such together.  Guess I'm going to go the rest of the weekend naked?  Whatever, I'm a Saggitarius; nakedness is expected of us.

14:55

    Is it seriously still saturday?

14:59

    I wonder what kind of person I would be if I had been born elsewhen than when I was.  My current ponder is the Pre-Victorian Era (does that have its own name?).  I can't stand most [fictional] women I read about who are set in that time period because they're simply so fake and obnoxious, which isn't to say any of that is entirely their fault, so much as that time in general wasn't a woman-pleasing time anymore than the rest of history.  

    But I still wonder, what would I be like if I were a Bennet sister, for example?  Would I be proud?  Or would I be quieter, more easily shattered, like Jane?  Or, heaven forbid, would I be like one of those other insufferable girls or their mother?  

    It makes me want to write a book, just to have myself as the main character and get all the possibilities down on paper.  Of course, then I'd have to Become Jane, so to speak, which is a night terror I would rather not live out.

   Although the clothes are kind of cool, and I really do enjoy the sentence structure.  No one talks like that anymore, which is really a shame.  Maybe their sentiments are skin deep and all that, but phrases like "I desire you will stay where you are" and "I was hoping, if it would not trouble you, that I might solicit a private audience with you in the course of the morning," and certainly, having drawing rooms and parlors, and calling that space in front of your door a "fo-yay" and not a "foi-urr" or a "lobby" would be perfectly lovely.  And, I know it wasn't a rule or anything that everyone should end up in only the best of situations, but I would give anything to be "completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy."



17:42

    Ladies and gentleman...my evening in a nutshell:



21:17

    I wonder what I'll be doing this time next week.  I mean, I'll be in Michigan, in the prime of my life, without any homework or--as far as I know--any set agenda to stick to for the evening.  I wonder if I'll have made any friends by then, or if I'll be about as alone as I am now.  Will I be listening to music in my room alone, wondering where Genevieve got off to, or not listening to music because Gen's in the room and I'm self-conscious that she won't like my tune-age?  Will I be in the room at all, or will I be wandering the campus, doing who knows what?  Will I have talked to my High School friends since my departure, or will they have been temporarily taken out of my head by the pooper-scooper of business?  9:17, September 6th, 2008.  Maybe I won't have blogged in a while.  It's crazy the way time works.  Absolutely insane.

    Hi ho, let's raise a glass.  To being an us for once instead of a them.  To starting something that I'm going to finish, one way or another.

22:59

    In case anyone should ask the following questions of me when I die, please direct them here, to this blog post, which shall serve as a sort of snap-shot of my life.  Note: This is not me being dramatic; everyone dies at some point.  Really, I just couldn't think of any better way to introduce this.

    Favorite Lord of the Rings Character(s): Aragorn (am I right or am I right?) and Samwise Gamgee.
    Twilight Team:  New Moon/Breaking Dawn Jacob.  Everything else, Edward.
    Most admirable trait as portrayed by Shawn Spencer: Randomness of wit.
    Middle Name: OrganizedClutter.  No hyphen.
    Future Husband: Henry DeTamble or Gino, if either of them are still around at that point.
    Desired country of Residence at the age of 25: Japan or Ireland.
    Song stuck in my head right now: "La vie Bohem"
    Song playing on Reggie right now:  "Lullaby" (Josh Groban)
    Who is Reggie: my iPod.
    Desktop picture: fake psychic. real detectives.
    What I want to be when I'm grown up: a sugarless gum connoisseur.  Or a High School English teacher.  It's a toss-up.
    Phrase I'm most trying to adopt into my daily vernacular: "dare say"
    Current mood: 


    So, to whomever is keeping the notorious record, let it show that this was how I spent my last Saturday before my first week of college.


<3 spadeALLcross

29.8.08

I dunno, Jeb. I just dunno.

    I have posted a few times in a row now, haven't I?  Either I'm feeling more inspired than usual of late, or I simply have less to do.  Give you one guess which one of those is right.  I'll give you a hint: I haven't felt inspired (by anything but Gino and Danny Concannon) since the summer after my junior year of high school.  (yes, that was last summer.  what of it?  I feel older now...that's all that counts.)

    Anyway.  

    I'm an issues voter, I believe, not that I've yet had much experience, but that's what I believe anyway.  And if there were going to be an issue that would sway my vote the most, I don't think it would be health care or capital punishment or social security or the economy or school vouchers or...yeah, anything that's out there right now.  No, they'd have to invent a whole new issue to get me to really turn my head one direction or the other.  Don't get me wrong, this particular issue is one that has existed as long as the sands on the shores of the seas, my friends.  However, it's never been given any serious attention.

    But now I have the ears of...well...not many, maybe, but...yeah, a few.  The Internet as my sword and my as-anonymous-as-possible identity as my shield, I will cast a mighty blow to this thing, this tempest, this plague upon both of our proverbial houses:

SEXUAL TENSION .

    You know it.  I know it.  The socially stunted junior high kids know it.  This monster is everywhere: it hides in our daily conversations with people who could be our best friends, it burrows itself into the dashboard when two people reach for the stereo switch at the same awkward moment, it laughs conspicuously and loudly in our blushing faces when we realize that our good-natured attempts at being good people have just been taken the wrong way.  The wrong way.  That's what this monster is called.  Because sex doesn't even have to have anything to do with it.  Just people thinking other people are thinking something that those other people aren't thinking, and rethinking all of this too late.

    I grew up in a family filled with testosterone: three older brothers, a father, and a decidedly male dog.  It was just me, my mom, and the two aloof cats (and for a time, the guinea pig) without that pesky Y chromosome that causes so much trouble.  So I relate nicely to guys.  Often more nicely than I do to girls, or at least it feels that way to me, so I have several good friends who are all of the man type.  Now, as I venture off into the wild blue that is college and the life here and after, I'm leaving several of those friendships with the man types by the regretful wayside, bidding them an indefinite farewell, hoping that it's not the end, but realizing that it probably will be anyway.  And all I want to do, as the inescapably emotional girl that I am, is tell these swell fellas that I'm probably going to miss them scads more than they realize, and that, at least for a little while, my life was a bit more frolic-and-gambol than oh-gosh-did-I-really-wake-up-this-morning-and-is-it-too-late-to-fix-that? and I have them to thank for that.

    But every time I strategize ways of doing that, the wrong way stares back at me, its red, slitty eyes smiling in a very Voldermort-esque manner, and I put my pen/phone/keyboard/car keys down and I return to my seclusion, figuring I'll just let our relationship fade and they'll just have to trust that I did care, even though, in the end, their gender was just too much for me to handle.

    In a better world, this wouldn't be this challenging.  But what can we do?  I swear, Rubik invented the symbol for every interaction people will ever have with each other.  

    And what's worse is we're getting rid of my car tomorrow.  I was wrong about the four days.  And thus it was a carless age of my life began and The Fellowship of the Camry, though enternally bound by friendship and love and a bonding experience of a fender bender, will be ended.

    So long, good buddy, it's been a nice run.  Thank you for the music.



<3 spadeALLcross