I'm going to wander in and wander back out and pretend like I haven't been missing since the end of September. (I'm trying to be better. My writing has really taken a hit, for some reason, I just...I'd call it writer's block but it doesn't really feel like it. The ideas are there, I just can't seem to get them out.)
Anyway. Hello. Welcome.
If you didn't know, I absolutely adore The Piano Guys. I also happen to like Dave Matthews Band. This is kind of, for me, the best of both worlds. Have a listen.
(I'm trying to blog every day in the attempt at being a better blogger. Key word is attempt.)
I have a six-year-old niece and she watches a lot of Disney channel, and that's where I first heard this song. Then I think I heard it on the radio. It's strangely addictive, and has also become one of the songs I listen to on my walk.
Have a good rest of the weekend and I'll be back on Monday!
We're going to completely ignore that I missed Throwback Thursday yesterday on my Instagram, and roll with Flashback Friday instead.
All the way from March 2008 and somewhere in Belgium. I went over with other students from my high school athletics section to play soccer for a week. Played one of the best games of my life as a goalkeeper there, too, after we had gone from Belgium to Germany. That soccer uniform - including my white goalkeeping jersey - wound up in a plastic garbage bag in my soccer bag in the bottom of my suitcase. That week was a ton of fun, and I met a lot of great people.
(Mom really loved unearthing that bag when it got home. It was beyond gnarly.)
- I can drive again. (Considering I've had my license since I was sixteen, this shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. Trust me.)
- I'm back to doing volunteer hours at the library and loving every minute of it.
- It's friggin' cold here.
- I got accepted into my first choice graduate school - Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England - and am waiting to hear from them whether they're going to defer me for a year so I can start January 2015.
- It feels really nice to have a goal to work toward again.
- I still haven't heard back from that agent that requested the rest of Two for the Rent.
- Because of the above I'm attempting to develop patience.
- So far that's not working.
- I seriously do wonder how the people who follow me on twitter find me.
- But I'm still not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
- Sneezing still hurts enough to make me swear in languages I don't even know.
I'm not going to lie, I'm having a hell of a time getting through this paper. But what's helped - other than some extremely useful suggestions from my professor - is that I've been cycling through some staple songs on YouTube. I get the feeling they're going to be the ones getting me through the next few days and my upcoming two exams.
And the rest of this paper.
In no particular order, they are:
Better Dig Two - The Band Perry
Blow Me (One Last Kiss) - P!nk (Warning: Explicit Content)
I'm not one for self-promotion - especially when it comes to my writing - but I thought I'd try something a little bit different.
Many of you have probably figured out that I'm a little stuck with Murphy and Me. Mostly because I finished Sophomore Fall and started Sophomore Spring to have an excerpt to apply for the Trias Writer in Residence Workshop, and I kind of haven't touched the new writing process really at all yet, and I've been trying to edit my way through the first 59 pages of printed manuscript. So that's kind of stalled out right where it's at and I'm not entirely when I'm going to be doing something new with it, since I chose the retyping the whole damn thing route in terms of editing. I was already leaning that way, my professor also suggested it....
Anyway.
Maybe some of you knew this - and maybe some of you didn't - but I have this tendency to work on more than one project at a time. That way, if and when writer's block (yes, it's a real thing, and really frustrating to work with at times) hits, then I'm not totally stuck not writing for however long it takes to break out of the funk. In some cases - like with parts of The Crossing, that massive thing in composition books - it could be anywhere from a couple weeks to over six months. Patience, when writing, is key.
I have other projects, other novels in progress, that while not in the same sort of genre as Murphy and Me are somewhat in the same style and voice. So I thought I would go ahead and share their blurbs, their links, and a little bit about the inspiration behind the story. That way, while you're waiting on Murphy and Me to do something or actually go somewhere - hopefully in the direction of a publishing contract - you might find something else you like just as much, maybe more.
Sage
Eleanora Hope knew from the tender age of four what she was destined for – she was the latest in a long line of Sages, those charged with keeping the dead beneath the graveyard ground – and she had more than willingly accepted the task at hand. At eighteen she was the youngest Sage, a byproduct of the passing of her grandmother, Lynette, fifteen years after the murder of Ella’s parents. And while the dead might deem otherwise, Ella was more than content with the life she had reconciled herself to.
Until Azrael and Aeryn literally drop in and introduce her to part of reality she hadn’t rightly considered. With two voluntary fallen angels – one who might not be as angelic as he should be – they turn Ella’s quiet existence as Sage sideways. Now with the possibility of an apocalypse and a power-hungry council of women after her graveyard, Earth seems to have become the proverbial war zone, and the lines between angel, demon, human, and Sage are more than a little blurred.
But if life weren’t complicated, it wouldn’t be worth living. And life for this Sage is far from simple.
Sage was born out of the cemetery by the Colleges and walking through there with my best friend and her camera in the fall of our sophomore year. It originally started out as my National Novel Writing Month story, but I didn't finish even remotely close in the month of November, and it's sort of turned into an ongoing project.
The Icicle Man
Mari's life was to look after the animals on the small farm she and her mother kept in the New York Adirondacks. Other girls had come back from college looking to settle down, shack up, and raise babies. She'd come back to the farm and its simplicity. It was all she wanted. Until she met Jack. Or rather, Jack met her on her way through the forest to her grandmother's.
Convinced she was one of those piper-stolen children, he cages her into returning to his palace, for he is the Icicle Man, Jack Frost. Mari's not sure what to believe, but she knows she's no piper's child. Jack's plan, whatever that may be, is turned on its head when Mari gives him a challenge he can't refuse - what it means to be human. As Jack steps out of his centuries-old role, Mari discovers what makes the frozen Winter Prince tick.
And what it means to be truly human.
The Icicle Man started out as a play text - and is actually still in that form, as well, though not here, here is the novel form - and was started during my semester abroad in Wales in the fall of 2010. It's a retelling of the European fairytale Jokul Frosti (Jack Frost) mixed with a little bit of The Pied Piper. And a whole lot of fun.
I'm hoping that while I figure out what I'm doing with Murph and Ollie that you'll take a look and maybe find something you enjoy just as much. Or maybe you spam my inbox with messages looking for more Murph and Ollie and that will kick start me into writing them again. Either way works for me, truthfully.
To breaking out of your comfort zone - or what little of it you have left after being a theater minor - and doing something different in the hopes of spreading the word to end the violence against women and girls around the world.
For more information, click the link below to learn about Eve Ensler, V-Day, and other information. The Vagina Monologues.
While I grab the gumption to go back to wrestling with analytical chemistry - which is kicking my ass, by the way, thought you should know - and waiting for my coffee brewed this morning twenty minutes after I decided I was sleeping for another hour to reheat, I figured I should say something fairly worthwhile.
For those waiting on Murphy and Me updates, I'm working on it, but my current schedule doesn't really allow for a lot of time to do anything other than homework. I broke it down the other day, more or less, into what I think I do and wound up with:
Time Usage (Outside of Class and Lab) 95% - Homework 5% - Sleeping, Eating, Soccer, Writing, Community Service, Teaching Placement, and Relaxing
Go figure. Anyway, whatever this might look like on the outside, it's been keeping me much more calm and everything is going great so far. That's on the academic front.
On the Weight Watcher's front, some days it feels like it's working a little more than others. Predictably, I have my good weeks and my bad weeks, but none so bad as to make more than one trip to Cold Stone during the week. That is positively a thing of the past. I'm not entirely sure how accurate my housemate's WW scale is, and as I'm making at trip home this weekend for a little bit, I'll check in on the one in our home bathroom to see if there's been some progress.
Oh, before I forget - and how could I, considering they were moving furniture at lovely times of the day yesterday while moving in (which is expected) - we have 3 new housemates. They're men. No idea who they are, but I have run into one of two of them as they were on their way from the bathroom to the stairs to the third floor, though I don't think any of us have actually met them. We think they play a sport, but as my one housemate didn't see them during hockey warm-ups last night, we're not actually sure which sport they play.
Wandering into the bathroom in the morning just got a hell of a lot more interesting.
The email from our house manager said they would only be staying 1-2 weeks. Knowing our Residential Education system, they're probably going to be here for the rest of the semester, which is just fine with all of us. It's actually feels good to have a full house, believe it or not.
Last but not least, I'm approaching 300 posts. I'm a little excited about that, having been around long enough to have 300 posts. So, because of that - and because I have a love of this particular song in general - I'll leave you with the song I have stuck in my head nine times out of ten.
It's been a long week. Granted, I don't have class on Mondays, but I haven't heard from the teacher I'm supposed to be in with - I'm debating literally just showing up on Monday because I don't want to continue screwing around with this - and Wednesday's lab was spent making "Bouncing Putty" (Silly Putty, really), but in general, it's been a really long week. Wednesday was the day I stayed up the latest I've stayed up this entire semester - one in the morning - and then had a quick turn around to be in class at 8:45 the next morning with the entire afternoon spent at our Professor's house for food chem.
It's just been a long week.
The constant reminders coming through email and campus mail, along with the signs around campus for the Senior Event: Cap and Gown Measurements got a little difficult to handle. It was one of those days where it automatically gets filed under difficult because, you'd think with the technology we have today it would be feasible for them to get me off that email list. Hell, throw me onto the juniors list in the emails. I'm still a senior by the virtue of the amount of credits I have, but when you're not graduating, it hurts some deep part of you that doesn't quite have a handle on the fact that you're waiting a year.
I'm not entirely sure I'm making sense right now. I'm tired. It's 11:23, and I'm more than ready to crawl into bed. I hesitate to do that, though, because I told some of my friends I would DD for them. So I dropped them off a few houses down from one of the fraternity's and told them to call me when they were ready to be picked up. I didn't want to drink tonight, and I wanted them to be safe - someone was attacked earlier this week - and I figured I would just drive them rather than have them walking back this late.
Not that it's technically late. It's actually probably rather early.
Normal has become a sort of relative thing. My new normal is keeping track of my Weight Watcher's points, doing homework in nearly all of my free time so I can go to soccer, and then getting at least seven hours of sleep at night. So far, two and a half weeks into the semester, the plan is still going strong. The more you believe you can do something, the better you feel about actually accomplishing it.
And at the end of this week, while I'm really tired, I feel pretty damn good.
2. Imaging poking vital areas of the body with a bluntly sharp object - especially someone you're not quite fond of - produces a rather shark-like smile.
3. Something has to bring me out of my coffee induced delirium for me to actually get some decent sleep.
4. Repetitive motion I don't really have to think about does wonders for my blood pressure.
5. Revisiting #2 is also quite good for my blood pressure.
6. It's a fairly productive way to procrastinate.
7. Knitting is soothing.
8. When you finish a product, people look at you like you've actually accomplished something worth talking about.
9. Two very important concepts: Pretty colors and something shiny.
10. It's not a miracle cure by any means, but it works.
11. Teach someone to knit and you've possible taught them to clothe themselves for the rest of their life.
12. Revising #11: Or until their attention span runs out.
13. I'm really a 94-year-old woman at heart.
14. It's fun. (Yes, that's all there is to this one.)
15. If you're really good at it, you can do it both sober and drunk.
I dunno whether it's because I'm in that kind of mood or because it's quarter after midnight, but I found this to be more than slightly hysterical. The only reason I went looking for this particular song? It's been stuck in my head since I heard it this afternoon after taking my grandmother to get her car from the repair place.
It's okay to headbang a little. You know you want to.
This is when I think I should probably get out of this chair and crawl into bed.
It's the only way I could figure to describe the fact that today I'm 22. Double double digits. Two twos.
As for what I'm going to do on my birthday, well, I've got my copy of The Strategic Teacher open and a curriculum unit to pretty much finish. That's my plans for the day. My plans for the next year? To continue to wander, live, love, laugh, and enjoy every day on this earth, even if getting up at 7:30 and ending that day well into the next is the order of business.
I figured my next milestone was 30, whereas my mother has assured me it's 25. How about we just shoot for tomorrow, first.
Appropriately, this video - this song rather - has been one that's been stuck in my head. Here's to living uncharted.
A little while ago I sat at my mother's good oak table in the kitchen (for future reference - and general FYI - we have two tables: one is a tile-top we use generally, when it's just us [my sister, niece, and our parents] or us and our aunt and uncle, and the other is the Amish-made oak table with four leaves that we only use at holidays or other occasions when absolutely necessary) and thought back through the various Thanksgivings I've experienced over the past few years.
Most of them were held at the house I used to live in; I was 11 turning 12 at the tail end of our week at Disney World, so we ate Thanksgiving dinner at Port Orleans; there was the year we ate at my sister's house (in which my uncle pegged me in the jugular with a roll from across the kitchen because I said "chuck me a roll"); one year I decided not to go to Rhode Island and was the only one in the house and spent the weekend painting the room I was going to move into when we moved; I spent on Thanksgiving in Rhode Island, having been picked up at college on the way through the Thruway; and last year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my English and Welsh flat-mates, who then surprised me with a cake because Thanksgiving was also my 21st birthday.
Of course, interspersed with that, have been the holidays I've spent puking my guts out because it's fairly well-known tradition in this family that for one of the three holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year - someone is going to be sick. There are years when I'm only down for the count at one, and the memorable year where I accidentally had two birthdays in the same year because I didn't have my party until February, due to illness.
Tomorrow, of course, is Thanksgiving. For as much as the last six months have been rather interesting - and at times more than difficult - there's still a lot to be thankful for. The family is healthy, we're happy (for the most part, there are some things that just....just can't be easily fixed right now or that are flat-out going to take time) and we're all going to be gathered in the kitchen and generally just being us.
I'm good with that.
Not to mention I have the biggest craving for stuffing that I can't seem to explain. Seriously. Big bowl of stuffing. Gravy. That's all I want.
And then the day after I'm really hankering for some burgers, chips, and birthday cake. But I have a feast to get through first. A feast by the name of Earl. Yes, we're the type of family to name the turkey we're going to be eating. It's been a tradition ever since I can remember, and we've gone through George, Igor, Edgar, Oliver, and many, many more. It took roughly 20 minutes to decide on Earl.
We're a little quirky. But I wouldn't have us any other way.
Have a fantastic day with your family (both chosen and the ones you have no choice in the matter) and your friends. Happy Thanksgiving.
[I think I'm reaching the end of my Roman numeral knowledge. Might have to start looking stuff up. Anyway - Here's a new segment for those of you who regularly read here, and those transplanted IP users, welcome to The Wandering Sagittarius. This might be a little easier on your eyes than what HarperCollins has decided to do to our beloved (sometimes infuriating) site. Enjoy.]
Rain spattered against the window, louder and softer depending on the wind gusts. It was shaping up to be one of those lazy Sundays only found in romance novels. Lazy Sundays that meant not getting out of bed until noon and with Murphy probably still sleeping downstairs. We hadn't stayed together last night courtesy of my monthly visit from Mother Nature. Sleeping sprawled face-down in the middle of a twin bed doesn't leave much room for anybody else. And, bless him, Murph hadn't taken more than a couple seconds to figure it out.
I crawled outta bed around twelve-thirty. Felt good to sleep in, truthfully. Brunch didn't appeal to me, mostly because it meant walking in the rain, so on went the computer, some Dave Matthews Band, and hello inbox full of Facebook notifications and tagged photos. Since yesterday was Halloween, it was practically a given.
And, oh, were some of these priceless. But what do you expect when a pirate shows up to a costume party at Robin Hood's house with the Blues Brothers and a grown up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? There was a photo of all of us. Then of Murph and Liam in matching suits and sunglasses; Colby looking dapper and Old English-y (tights included, the brave man); Murphy and me; me after having stolen Murph's sunglasses; Murphy and me when he picked me up in an attempt to get his glasses back, one of my arms around his neck and the sunglasses hanging off my nose. Hell, the knee-high hooker boots were even in that one.
Couple clicks later and that was my new profile picture. Yes, I was hopelessly romantic.
Besides - Robin Hood doing a fantastic Captain Morgan impression? Made me giggle when it happened and laugh outright in retrospect.
Lazy Sundays were made for curling up in a pullover, putting a movie on, and settled in with a book (textbooks included). Maybe some chips and salsa, too. Which, I had the chips, but as Jo and I traded off when we jointly went to Wegman's, the salsa was in her room. I grabbed a bowl and trucked across the hallway.
Jo took one look at me and grinned when she opened the door. "Good night last night?"
"It had its moments." Leaned against the door frame. "Do we have salsa left?"
"Yeah." She went to her mini fridge. "Dinner tonight?"
"Five-thirty?" Medium salsa went into the bowl. "Hopefully I can get something accomplished."
Jo snorted. "Right. Good luck."
It'd be needed. Sundays were an enemy. And with the mountain of physics reading that had been piling up it was going to be a battle. Then there was chem and T-S Britain and, of all things, a dog and vampire scene for acting.
Great. Just great.
The bottom dropped out of the temperature midweek, enough to start layering footless tights under my jeans and long-sleeves under tees. As there was no going back when the peacoat left the closet, it was the goal to leave that as long as possible. Winter hats, however, popped up all across campus as the north wind started to blow hard and cold.
Practices got interesting. Namely we broke out the spandex. Nobody wants hexagons on their thighs in this weather unless absolutely necessary. Mostly 'cause the ball felt like it was inflated with ice instead of air.
I spent one late night swearing my way through my T-S Britain paper that gratefully received a B and dropped five points out of ten on an orgo quiz. Physics stayed out of the equation completely, mostly for my sanity, and we slogged through the first full week of November to the weekend.
And, consequently, Liberty Leagues.
The weather forecast going into Saturday sucked. Rain, low temps, and tough competition. We squeaked out a win on Saturday to put us in the championship Sunday. Don't know how we did it, but we did.
It was my first Liberty League tournament. Last year saw me as a sort of flux player between JV and varsity, practicing with both teams in almost equal measure. Sasha was the veteran, and as we stood on the sideline for the national anthem, I squeezed the hell out of her hand and felt Gilly's nervous energy on my right. My family was here - mom, dad, Izzy, El, Dean - and parked on the hill not far from them were my boys: Dev, Liam, Colby, and Murph. Tanya, who said hi to me every time we crossed paths, spread out a blanket on the ground to sit between Colby and Noah.
Dear God, I was going to throw up. All over the sideline and my Puma cleats.
There was a moment, after stepping onto the field and before kickoff, when I looked around, took in the crowd, and temporarily forgot that I knew how to play soccer. Just completely blanked out.
When the ref blew the whistle, it was all muscle memory after that.
We stood poised on the sideline, silent and tense, squeezing the blood out of each other's fingers as we watched Ally place the ball on the penalty stripe. If she made this, we were champions. If she didn't, we went another round of penalty kicks.
Don't think my nerves could handle another round.
It was drizzling. Ally stood at the top of the box, waiting for the whistle. Cozzens Field was eerily silent, so much so that the whistle seemed extra loud when it went. Ally took a deep breath, got her approach, and the entire sideline seemed to stop breathing. We started running before the ball hit the net.
The hill went nuts; we screamed and dog-piled Ally and Gilly and for the first time in my life I was going to the NCAA Women's College Soccer Tournament as a player, not a spectator.
Holy shit. We we were on the road to Greensboro. Granted, we needed to win more than a few to order the charter bus, but damn. It was a start.
I've been kind of absent lately. I know. There's a reason behind it. Three, actually.
Waitressing, subbing, and refereeing. Not necessarily in that order, either.
However, due to the amount of time I spend in either my car or my mother's (depends on which is in the driveway for me to drive wherever I need to go to get someplace to do one of those three previous things) I've had the chance to sort of preview this summer's music. I'm more of a country fan (I'm a country child, so it makes sense) and these are two songs that I've heard and I've, honestly, fallen quite a bit in love with.
So, in the hopes that I can fan my blogger spark into something larger again, I share with you Dirt Road Anthem by Jason Aldean and Barefoot Blue Jean Night by Jake Owen.
First of all, I have somehow managed to gather and corrupt forty followers. I consider this quite the accomplishment, considering that I'm just a college kid blogging about what it's like to go through this stage of life and occasionally getting sidetracked by other stuff along the way. Or getting lost. Those two are kind of interchangeable in my world.
To my forty bright and shiny followers - Thank. You.
This is the second full day that I have been home for the summer. The mountain of laundry I brought home with me has been done, and it was a nice way to invite in the summer because I got to hang out most of it yesterday to suck in the country air. Makes everything smell so good and when you take a big whiff the only thing that really permeates my braincells is home.
I have not, however, woken up in the morning with eighteen pounds of cat on my chest or fifty pounds of dog on my ankles. However, I have had my ears cleaned a number of times already.
Now that junior year is done (which, by default, makes me a senior and scares the hell out of me) and it's summer, it's more or less time to look ahead (or try to, at least) to what the upcoming three months will bring. Considering I picked up two work shirts while I was in town today, I think it just comes down to how busy I'll be when the full season rolls around. I go back to work on Wednesday. I'm quite alright with that, truthfully. Been waiting for it for almost two weeks now.
Which more or less means I'm going to be a sort of workaholic in the summer. All while spending as much time with the family - including the small child who's not quite so small anymore and still growing like a weed - and writing. I've got a book to try to finish (actually, if you think about, roughly three, really) and if anything else wants to come my way, well, that'll be welcome, too.
No big plans. Just tryin' to live day to day and sometimes that can be more of a task than planning something huge in the middle of the summer heat.
And, of course, I'll spend some of my summer just doing what I do best - Wandering.
If anybody's got any big summer plans and wants to share, go for it. Here's to the coming good weather and whatever it may bring.
Thank [Insert Appropriate Word Here] it's the freakin' weekend.
If you couldn't tell, it's been a long week in my neck of the woods. It really didn't start...well, yes, okay, maybe it did. Maybe it started to get long on Monday afternoon when our chemistry professor had to go get his son from daycare in the middle of the afternoon - twenty minutes into our lab time - and we got to hang out with an eighteen-month-old gnawing on a graham cracker while trying to get scientific data on dye. (The situation was totally understandable as the daycare provider had an emergency in her family, and therefore, the professor's small child needed to be picked up - we understood this, he asked for flexibility [providing some, too] and we were more than happy to try and get the Little One to smile, giggle, or actually speak to us, as he suddenly turned very shy.) Or maybe it got a little longer on Tuesday when I realized I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail to align whatever I decide to do for my curriculum project with the clusterfuck that is the New York State Education Standards for Physical Science Chemistry, followed by learning that afternoon that my performance of my Shakespeare monologue was on Thursday. Could possibly have happened on Wednesday, too, when, after my usual three classes and one-third lab (because my professor is awesome and broke up the lab into three pieces to follow class time on MWF) my Mama came up and we went to my wisdom teeth consultation. We both like the surgeon, looking at X-rays is always a twisted sort of fun, and we scheduled surgery for next Friday. All four. With a combination of pain, painkillers, and general whatnot - not to mention I think I've gotten steadily paler as the week has gone by - we decided to forgo dinner, and I was in bed and passed out before 11:30. Or maybe it was Thursday with the performance of the monologues after two and a half hours of intro geoscience lab that dealt with volcanic hazards.
The capstone on the week that was steadily going downhill had to be Friday. Four classes (we're counting that one-third lab as a class because, well, it pretty much is), followed by the first group session (Sheila recommended I try group, and, well, it's actually really nice - which I'll talk a little bit more on later), followed by me generally freaking out about my chemistry problem set, the professor understanding everyone has those weeks, followed by my first mineralogy oral exam.
And now, finally, a few hours later in the very, very quiet library, things have finally settled.
In retrospect, it's been a hell of a week. And this is with all four wisdom teeth in the mouth causing general mayhem. Well, what ones like to cause mayhem, at any rate.
The point is, it's been a long week. A really long week. And next week probably is going to be a bit better, but a bit not, as it's a different set of stuff to go wrong. Well, not go wrong, but not exactly go right, either.
Anyway. Right now, however, it's the weekend. All the way until Monday morning. Best make the most of it, eh?
Such a simple statement, but one I don't say as often as I probably should. The question of why I don't say it that often isn't something I really want to look at right now, so I'll just look at what prompted this simple, yet powerful statement.
It shouldn't be the way I'm dressed right now. Plaid pajama bottoms that sit low on the hips I'm starting to fall in love with; white tank top that might be a size too big, complete with bra straps and my tattoo hangin' out; my hair is down.
My curly, slightly tangled, getting-longer-by-the-day-if-really-slowly hair is down around my shoulders. Mostly for this reason do I feel pretty. Pretty enough to have it sort of pervade everything at the moment, make me slightly unreasonably happy (happy enough to look up music from roughly 10-15 years ago, and sing with it) and not give a damn who hears. That kind of happy.
It's been a bit of a rough week - academically and I, for the first time in my rather short journalistic career, had some backlash from an article of mine - and I'm not planning on really going out this weekend. Instead, right here right now, I feel happy. And pretty.
And I can't figure out, for me, which is the better of the two to be feeling.
Starbucks...Knitting...What more could a girl ask for?
I know - Where have I been? I've been a little busy, truthfully. Nothing overly complicated, just the usual four classes, three labs, one seminar, and a student newspaper to print every two weeks. A student newspaper that kicked ass this issue - 24 pages, instead of our usual 20 - and our editor had a hard time defining which article would be the one to set campus on fire, as it was that packed. There's stuff in there on the Sexual Grievances Council (which I didn't even know existed); an article on how the excess fund has gone way down; how the Republicans tried to redefine rape (can they not figure out that no means no, and it really is as simple as that), as well as staff personal ads because Monday is Valentine's Day.
Which, by the way, I'm not looking forward to. We suggest slasher films, but I'm more of an action/adventure type of movie person, not to mention I have four classes and, technically speaking, two labs and while I'll be hoping the guys that have been eying me are going to actually do something about it, I'm not holding my breath. Otherwise I'd pass out and we'd have to call campus EMS.
On that note, I probably need more coffee and, as I ate lunch in our campus center today, I'll most likely be gnawing on a bagel and leftover mac and cheese for dinner tonight in my little room under the stairs.
Which leads me to the conclusion that if I'm here tomorrow when housekeeping comes through, I'm politely going to ask them if they could take it a little easy on the stairs as I can hear the little bits of ceiling and whatnot falling on the floor when they do whatever it is that they do. Also, a general note to my second-floor housemates might not be a bad idea because, while you don't think you're making too much noise in your boots, I beg to differ.
Pardon me now while I go start the coffee pot.
And since I've returned from starting said coffee pot, this sentence is the first I've written in about twenty minutes of sitting back down. I'm good, aren't I?
I'm not sure where to go with this, so I'll start at the top and work my way down.
Quantum Mechanics - It's an interesting concept with an even more interesting professor taught and a very interesting time in the morning (9:05-10:00) and directly follows the physics side of the same topic. We're interested in the chem side. We're interested in the stuff that's cool, but kind of wacky. Like, how one moment someone can be standing on one side of my doorway, and the next moment, they're in my room, and at no time in between have they ever actually gone through the door. (Only, do this with an electron in a vacuum, but I figured if I tried to explain that, I'd lose half my followers out of sheer boredom.) I see my professor in his office hours, I do my reading on a nightly basis, and it's all under control.
Solid Earth - Let me just say my professor painted his toenail today so that we can see (roughly) how long it takes tectonic plates to shift apart a year.
Mineralogy - A whole lotta complicated. Pretty to look at, but kind of complicated.
Shakespearean Performance - Well, when you piss off the professor, that's grounds for him to temporarily treat your THTR 386 course like THTR 178 and, it's been eighteen days, therefore you should have eighteen lines of your monologue memorized. Pick a number, number one now get up there and recite your monologue. Talk about a kick in the ass. (Me? I'm sitting at sixteen lines with a clear understanding of the reasoning behind my monologue because this English stuff? Fascinating.)
Curriculum and Instruction - Is going to drive me crazy. And that's all there is to it.
And, like usual, between moments of clarity, there are moments of a downright spastic nature. These usually involve martini, boys, hair days (good or bad, take your pick), and trying to keep my Adventuring Focus more or less on track. On rare occasions (okay, maybe not so rare), I talk to Henry, the giant spider plant. It's not so much communing with nature, but more like talking to the plant that's been with me since the Academic Opening dinner first year. I'm a bit worried, though, because he's got a lot of brown tips, and I think that's because his water basin isn't big enough for the pot he's now in. Which might require a trip to Wal-Mart.
What I'm going to do over Spring Break just became a valid question.
HWS is really cool in that they offer something called Alternative Spring Break - community service both in and outside of Geneva. We send a group to Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Nicaragua, respectively, and this year, because I don't need to worry about racking up teaching hours this semester, I applied for and was accepted into the Virginia program. My Spring Break will now consist of doing community service for a week in Pocahontas State Park in Virginia. I'm really excited because I like to volunteer, and I like to travel. This gives me both. I'm now going to have to figure out something to do with Henry for the week.
Then again, in true Louise fashion, I just might figure that out when I get there.
In terms of upcoming events and such - Monday is Valentine's Day and, like I said earlier, I'm not holding my breath that something will happen. I'm shit at reading signs (if the signs are even there at all) and, honestly, I'm not overly optimistic about this (which, if you know me, I'm an optimist to my core). What happens happens, that much I know and can't change.
Also coming up? The spring blood drive in which I can actually give, since it's been over a year since my touch ups. I'm very excited.
And I think that's all the rundown you guys needed to catch up on this slightly crazy, always Wandering Sagittarius.
Lights come up on a workshop – icicles and large snowflakes hang from the ceiling; various scissors and shears hang from the walls. Two elves are seated next to each other at a work table.
Leanna: Why is it that every time he needs supporting elves, we never get called? We’ve sat here how many millennia making snowflakes? I think we could use a bit of a holiday.
Matthias: That’s not our course. He’s got a grand scheme of things, he knows what’s best. And why would you want to spend time with the humans? Nasty, the lot of them. Always feeling, and doing, and loving. Enough to make you sick. How Jack’s done it all these years….the sprite should be a saint.
Leanna: Don’t let him hear you say that, he’ll be unbearable for the next thousand years.
Matthias: But it’s true. Admit it. If you had his power and his talent, you’d have done more humans in than Death – and he’s a nasty one, he is. Makes me glad I’m not mortal.
Leanna: And why, of all the things to have, Matthias, would you even contemplate being mortal to begin with?
Jack enters quietly through the shop door, across from their bench.
Matthias:(Embarrassed) I think it would be fun.
Jack: What would be fun?
Leanna: Jokul! How nice to see you. What do you want? (Glances at Matthias)
Jack: I need to speak to him. And what’s fun, Matty?
Matthias: Nothing.
Jack:(Looks between Leanna and Matthias) Right. You, Matthias, still need to grow a spine and, Leanna dear, let your cousin have his own opinions. He has a brain, you know.
Leanna: Wouldn’t think it for what comes out of his mouth.
Matthias: All I said/
Leanna: Shut it, Matthias!
Jack: Silence! (Flatly) I really don’t have time for a family squabble, entertaining as they are, and really do have more pressing things to attend to. However, because I’m in a good mood, I’d like to hear your idea, Matty.
Matthias: Thank you, Jack. As I was saying/
Leanna: Don’t be stupid.
Jack:(Leans across the table into Leanna’s face) I have not had the most pleasant of days, Leanna, and simply to make myself feel better I may take your favorite pair of shears, freeze them, and find a stone to smash them on. And then where would Father Winter’s favorite snowflake maker be? Or, if you’d rather, I’ll freeze you to the bench. (Leans further in and gently touches his lips to hers) Or maybe I’ll freeze your lips together for a few thousand years and Matty can have some silence. (Stands up) Don’t tempt me.
Leanna: You’re a horrible fairy, Jokul Frosti.
Jack: You’re pushing me, Leanna. Back off.
Matthias: Right. I said I thought it would be fun to be mortal.
Leanna drops her head to the work table; Jack cocks his to the side, contemplating.
Jack: Really.
Leanna: He is a fool, Jokul. A flaming fool.
Jack: How many times must I tell you I hate that name, Leanna? Say it again and I’ll freeze your shears.
Matthias: Why doesn’t it work when I threaten her?
Leanna: Because you’re not ruthless enough to go through with what you threaten.
Matthias: And he is?
Jack: Most definitely. I do not suffer fools.
Matthias: How have you put up with Leanna for so long?
Jack: Practice.
Leanna: Funny, Jack. Very funny. Why are you here?
Jack: To see Father Winter.
Leanna: About?
Jack: Nothing that concerns you.
Leanna: What you do concerns us all, Jack. It’s probably something foolish. (Jack looks away) It is. It’s something foolish.
Jack: Why does it matter to you, Leanna? It’s not as though you can leave the workshop. Not as though you have any other purpose than to make middling snow flurries.
Matthias: He’s right.
Leanna: Shut up.
Jack: Now, if you are quite done/
Leanna: He’s not here.
Jack: He’s always here.
Leanna: He’s not/
Jack: Not here here, but around. He is always around.
Leanna: Jokul/
Jack: When did you become his mouthpiece? And do not call me that, Leanna, or I will/
Matthias: Shut up, both of you. (At Jack) He’s here and he’s expecting you. Mother is with him, too.
Jack:(At Leanna) I would hide your shears unless you want to fashion a new pair.
Father Winter:(From offstage) Play nice, Jack.
Jack: You’ve been telling me that for years/
Father Winter: And you still haven’t grasped the concept. Don’t apologize; you’ll just keep on doing what you’ve been doing for millennia. Ah, but chin up. If you had suddenly been nice, I’d have thought the humans had finally done the trick.
Jack: That is what I wish to speak to you about.
Father Winter, Matthias, Leanna: Humans?
Jack: Yes. Father, I met a human/
Father Winter: This one is alive still, I hope.
Jack: Yes. And, well, she made a wager with me. A challenge.
Father Winter: Go on.
Jack: She challenged me that I couldn’t be human.
Leanna, Matthias: She?
Jack: And I wish to prove her wrong. (Looking at the ceiling, where he thinks Father Winter’s voice is coming from)
Father Winter: And how do you wish to do this? I assume you have an idea, Jack.
Jack:(Nervous) I do. I do, Father. I – IwishtobecomehumanforatimesothatImightwin. (Silence) Father?
Father Winter: You…You wish/
Leanna: You disgrace! You – You sorry excuse for a pixie! You’re a/ (Screams behind lips that are frozen together)
Matthias: He did warn you.
Father Winter: Are you sure, Jokul? You will need everything a human does – a home, a living, money. You will need to do everything as a human would. You must leave nothing out.
Jack: Yes, I know, I/
Mother Summer: Jokul.
Jack:(Winces) Mother.
Mother Summer: Are you sure, dear? Being human is not easy. It is quite painful, truthfully.
Jack: I know. (Ignoring Leanna’s outraged, muffled protest) I mean, Mother, that I have witnessed it. I have seen birth, death, and much in between. I have witnessed joy and sadness. I wish to experience this. I wish to win this challenge.
Mother Summer: This human girl has insulted this with you.
Jack: I wish to show her she is wrong. I wish to win.
Mother Summer: Be wary of being too focused on your goal. Being human is more than simply emotion.
Jack: Yes, Mother.
Father Winter: Converse with Matthias while your Mother and I discuss what you have asked.
Jack:(Easing down next to Matthias) Well, at least it’s quieter now.
Matthias: Yes, it is. (Turns to Leanna) Stab me with those and I’ll cut off your hair in your sleep.
Jack:(Chuckling) You are almost as bad as I am, cousin.
Matthias: You don’t live with her. You don’t have to put up with it.
Jack: I think I would go mad. Absolutely mad.
Matthias: Well, yes/
Father Winter: Jokul.
Jack: Yes, Father?
Father Winter: Your Mother and I have decided to grant you your wish. You will be human until the first of the nymphs appears bearing your Mother’s early tidings. Then you and your human challenger will decide who has won.
Jack: Yes, Father.
Father Winter: And you will abide by whatever rules you have set for this challenge, including the correct consequences to the outcome.
Jack: Yes, Father.
Mother Summer: Remember, Jokul. You wished for this.
Jack: Y-Yes, Mother.
Mother Summer: There’s a good boy, Jokul. And as you’re bound to be in some pain in a few moments, you may want to wander back to where you’ve left Mari.
Matthias: Mari/
Jack: Mother – Oh. Ah – Ow. (Quickly exits through the shop door)
Mother Summer: Oh, my dear. You are in for a treat.
Matthias: Mother? Do I/
Mother Summer: She’ll be fine until Jokul is finished with this challenge. Then we’ll let them sort it in their own way.
Matthias: Yes, Mother.
Mother Summer: Be of assistance, Matthias. Leanna will need your help.
Matthias: Yes, Mother. (Turns to Leanna) If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. (Gets up and walks out of the shop door)
Leanna screams behind her frozen lips, pounding the workbench in frustration as the lights fade to black.
