Guys, guys, it is so hot. And it makes me tired and lazy. That is basically my excuse for writing so little in this blog and elsewhere. This is what usually happens during the summer: I think I will get so much done during summer break, I do so for like, two weeks, and then I just devolve into this Reading Machine. I would watch more TV, but I feel guilty just lying around all day like I do, and at least when I'm reading I'm exercising my brain.
The whole process this summer has been further upset by how annoyingly busy last semester was, and then the air conditioner at my house breaking upstairs. I don't think I even went through my traditional two or three week period in May of "trying," I just collapsed. So I've just been sweating and limping (after spraining my ankle like, A WEEK OR MORE ago, it is still embarrassingly and irritatingly sore) around at home with my books. It has been pretty awesome in lots of ways, I'm not going to lie. I have always been a master at escapism, and reading is the one leisure type thing I rarely or never feel guilty about indulging in.
MY POINT, is that I've got loads of blog ideas half formed in Microsoft Word floating around that I SWEAR I'm going to get around to stitching together eventually. I've been reading lots of really intelligent blogs lately that update frequently with intelligent entries, and it would be nice to try build the habit for myself.
FUTURE BLOG SUBJECTS WILL LIKELY INCLUDE:
*The book series that's at least temporarily eaten my brain that everyone knows about because they've read it in middle school, but I didn't, I read it just now, and am now carefully and self-consciously adoring it, so you'll just have to sit through it with me.
*The TV series that I adore whole-heartedly, probably above all others, and against all odds.
*My history of taking writing Too Seriously.
*Music lessons and me
*Letters
*Cheeses I have loved
Yeah, maybe not that last one. I just thought it sounded funny.
My problem is that I take things too seriously and my sleep schedule is all weird right now because of work, so I need to figure out when I write best. This confession will be a considerable relief to my, what, three readers? But anyway, I thought those three would be interested in knowing.
This has basically been a post about whining, hasn't it? It totally has. Blergghhh, I promise there won't be many others.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
(Lame) Summer Secrets
I'm a pretty open person, and don't really like to have important secrets, especially from people I'm close to. But I do like to have several insignificant ones. Ones that wouldn't really even matter to my parents or my sister or my friends, if they found out, because they're seriously not even that interesting. I tend to cultivate them during the summer, since I'm most often by myself at the house, especially during May when I'm out of school and my mom and sister aren't, so few people are at the house during the day, and my friends live far enough away that I have to make specific plans to hang out with them.
For example: I was determined to learn how to play the harmonica a few years ago. I read stuff about it on the Internet, and for a few months when nobody was at the house, I would practice. I was okay at it, but abandoned it because people were at the house more often later in the summer, and I didn't love it all that much anyway.
One summer I decided to try and learn how to cook some things, since the only thing that I'm confident in making well is spaghetti, and that mainly involves heating things up in pans. I did that for about two weeks, making smallish dishes and eating them by myself before cleaning up before anyone got home, then gave up in favor of finishing several novels I'd started. It was during these weeks that I also tried to make supper a few times, but they turned out weird. I think I chose overly involved recipes.
Another common secret, is when I become obsessed with some thing, like a book or whatever, and don't want anyone to know. I guess I don't want anyone to make fun of me, but I've always been uncomfortable being too enthusiastic about something, because I always end up talking nonsense. Basically just babbling happily.
I won't (hopefully) really ever be a person who has a hideous, unspeakable secret, because I will obsess over it far too much. It already takes probably too much energy to handle these little dumb ones.
~*~*~Secrets~*~*~
For example: I was determined to learn how to play the harmonica a few years ago. I read stuff about it on the Internet, and for a few months when nobody was at the house, I would practice. I was okay at it, but abandoned it because people were at the house more often later in the summer, and I didn't love it all that much anyway.
One summer I decided to try and learn how to cook some things, since the only thing that I'm confident in making well is spaghetti, and that mainly involves heating things up in pans. I did that for about two weeks, making smallish dishes and eating them by myself before cleaning up before anyone got home, then gave up in favor of finishing several novels I'd started. It was during these weeks that I also tried to make supper a few times, but they turned out weird. I think I chose overly involved recipes.
Another common secret, is when I become obsessed with some thing, like a book or whatever, and don't want anyone to know. I guess I don't want anyone to make fun of me, but I've always been uncomfortable being too enthusiastic about something, because I always end up talking nonsense. Basically just babbling happily.
I won't (hopefully) really ever be a person who has a hideous, unspeakable secret, because I will obsess over it far too much. It already takes probably too much energy to handle these little dumb ones.
~*~*~Secrets~*~*~
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
A Book Friend Revisited
A few days ago, I was digging around at home in the spare room/library for a few new books to read, when I saw my old copy of All Creatures Great and Small from across the room. I actually clapped my hands in nostalgic delight, and started extracting it from the messy bookcase, when a hardback fell out and onto my foot. I yelped and picked it up and it turned out to be a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I didn't even know I had.
JOHN IS THAT YOU.
(Man, I should just read the flipping stories already. BUT NOT BEFORE JAMES HERRIOT. BUT I WILL READ THEM THIS SUMMER, GOSH, I FEEL LIKE THEY'RE STALKING ME...)
JOHN IS THAT YOU.
(Man, I should just read the flipping stories already. BUT NOT BEFORE JAMES HERRIOT. BUT I WILL READ THEM THIS SUMMER, GOSH, I FEEL LIKE THEY'RE STALKING ME...)
Sunday, May 23, 2010
My Friend Elizabeth
"I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
~E.M. Forster
My experience with Jane Austen is a bit shameful for an English major student who grew up with an English Lit teacher for a mother. It wasn't for lack of trying on my mom's part, you can be sure. She started quietly recommending Pride and Prejudice when I was in middle school, and then pointedly insisting that we would read it together in the summer when we both finished up for the year. (We never quiet got around to this, because we would both be exhausted and just collapse for a few weeks, and forget our plans altogether). She would laugh loudly through the beginning of the book and then ask if I wanted to read her spare copy as she prepared to teach it to her new class in the fall.
My friend Rachael sighed in delight over it when she read it in high school and made me watch the famous BBC mini series with Colin Firth with her. With all that, I only just actually read Pride and Prejudice this past semester for my British Lit class.
It felt a bit like spending the weekend with a cousin that you've visited once a year for as long as you can remember, who's very smart and all-around wonderful according to everyone, but you don't really have a personal opinion on her because you've never really talked to her since she's so much older than you, though you've seen her from afar a lot. Then suddenly, you're both in your twenties, and the age difference doesn't seem so bad now, so you talk and just click. She definitely lives up to the hype, once she becomes a personal friend, and you have woven her into your smallish group of friends.
That is far too insane and personification-y of a metaphor to drag out for so long, but really, that book is such fun, and I quite loved it. I tend to be intimidated by classic literature, which is something I am working at changing. Talking to Janelle the other day, I compared Classics with my parents' friends, who I was very polite, very shy and a bit afraid during interactions with them, but who I'm more confident but still shy around. They are older, more talented, and more respected than me, and that makes me nervous even though I know I can learn from them.
The point is, it was wonderful experiencing the quiet, warm shift into making this Classic, so often placed on so high a pedestal, an approachable personal favorite. It took a while, but I hope it won't be a unique experience.
~E.M. Forster
My experience with Jane Austen is a bit shameful for an English major student who grew up with an English Lit teacher for a mother. It wasn't for lack of trying on my mom's part, you can be sure. She started quietly recommending Pride and Prejudice when I was in middle school, and then pointedly insisting that we would read it together in the summer when we both finished up for the year. (We never quiet got around to this, because we would both be exhausted and just collapse for a few weeks, and forget our plans altogether). She would laugh loudly through the beginning of the book and then ask if I wanted to read her spare copy as she prepared to teach it to her new class in the fall.
My friend Rachael sighed in delight over it when she read it in high school and made me watch the famous BBC mini series with Colin Firth with her. With all that, I only just actually read Pride and Prejudice this past semester for my British Lit class.
It felt a bit like spending the weekend with a cousin that you've visited once a year for as long as you can remember, who's very smart and all-around wonderful according to everyone, but you don't really have a personal opinion on her because you've never really talked to her since she's so much older than you, though you've seen her from afar a lot. Then suddenly, you're both in your twenties, and the age difference doesn't seem so bad now, so you talk and just click. She definitely lives up to the hype, once she becomes a personal friend, and you have woven her into your smallish group of friends.
That is far too insane and personification-y of a metaphor to drag out for so long, but really, that book is such fun, and I quite loved it. I tend to be intimidated by classic literature, which is something I am working at changing. Talking to Janelle the other day, I compared Classics with my parents' friends, who I was very polite, very shy and a bit afraid during interactions with them, but who I'm more confident but still shy around. They are older, more talented, and more respected than me, and that makes me nervous even though I know I can learn from them.
The point is, it was wonderful experiencing the quiet, warm shift into making this Classic, so often placed on so high a pedestal, an approachable personal favorite. It took a while, but I hope it won't be a unique experience.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Boys' Books
For swearing a dislike for the outdoors when I was a kid, I read a lot of books about the outdoors. Books that are often categorized as “Boys’ Books,” because they’re about finding oneself in the wilderness, or struggling against the wilderness, or whatever.
I was all about Jack London books when I was in middle school, White Fang and The Call of the Wild especially. The third book in Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves series, Julie’s Wolf Pack, was also a favorite, even more so than the first book, because it was only about the interactions between the wolf packs in a small region of Alaska, and included few human characters.
Later, I enjoyed what were probably abridged versions of Victorian era sci-fi and adventure, like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, all that business. My grandmother tried to interest me in Little House on the Prairie by giving me a new book in the series for each special occasion, and I would thank her, read one chapter to be polite, and then set it aside to find out once again if Buck the kidnapped half-wolf dog would survive the epic battle with Spitz, the alpha of the sled dog team. My mom would edge Jane Austen novels over the table at me during the summer, and I would nod at her absently as I read of White Fang’s struggle against humanity.
People made me nervous and bored in real life and in books, when I was an adolescent; 12+ish, I mean. I was All About people when I was in preschool and grade school, but that changed really quick when I suddenly changed environments and I discovered my deep loathing of dramatic change. Maybe I’m over exaggerating my shyness at the time, but considering the energy I spent agonizing over strategies of how to win friends, I’m not that sure. Oh man, I had strategies! Anyway, I was a nervous kid, but BOOKS; So great!
I was all about Jack London books when I was in middle school, White Fang and The Call of the Wild especially. The third book in Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves series, Julie’s Wolf Pack, was also a favorite, even more so than the first book, because it was only about the interactions between the wolf packs in a small region of Alaska, and included few human characters.
Later, I enjoyed what were probably abridged versions of Victorian era sci-fi and adventure, like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, all that business. My grandmother tried to interest me in Little House on the Prairie by giving me a new book in the series for each special occasion, and I would thank her, read one chapter to be polite, and then set it aside to find out once again if Buck the kidnapped half-wolf dog would survive the epic battle with Spitz, the alpha of the sled dog team. My mom would edge Jane Austen novels over the table at me during the summer, and I would nod at her absently as I read of White Fang’s struggle against humanity.
People made me nervous and bored in real life and in books, when I was an adolescent; 12+ish, I mean. I was All About people when I was in preschool and grade school, but that changed really quick when I suddenly changed environments and I discovered my deep loathing of dramatic change. Maybe I’m over exaggerating my shyness at the time, but considering the energy I spent agonizing over strategies of how to win friends, I’m not that sure. Oh man, I had strategies! Anyway, I was a nervous kid, but BOOKS; So great!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Early Summer Conversations With Myself
Oh my gosh, my laziness seriously frightens me in its intensity. I am so lazy, I'm too lazy to go to sleep, which doesn't even make sense. This past year just took everything out of me, ambition, hopes and dreams....
Tomorrow I am just going to make lists and clean the house. Maybe get some food that isn't takeout and coleslaw that my dad made with like, a whole jar of mayonnaise. AND I WILL DEFINITELY NOT STAY UP UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING LAUGHING UNTIL I CRY AT STUPID THINGS I FIND ON THE INTERNET. LIKE, A HUGE TUMBLR ACCOUNT DEDICATED TO PHOTOS OF ROBERT DOWNEY JR. WITH MAN PURSES. OR "WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READERS" ON YOUTUBE FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME. OR WHATEVER.
GOD HOW IS THIS MY LIFE. NINE YEAR OLD ME WOULD BE SO DISAPPOINTED.
"NINE YEAR OLD ME, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE PURSES."
"WHYYYYYYYYYYYY"
Tomorrow I am just going to make lists and clean the house. Maybe get some food that isn't takeout and coleslaw that my dad made with like, a whole jar of mayonnaise. AND I WILL DEFINITELY NOT STAY UP UNTIL 3 IN THE MORNING LAUGHING UNTIL I CRY AT STUPID THINGS I FIND ON THE INTERNET. LIKE, A HUGE TUMBLR ACCOUNT DEDICATED TO PHOTOS OF ROBERT DOWNEY JR. WITH MAN PURSES. OR "WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READERS" ON YOUTUBE FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME. OR WHATEVER.
GOD HOW IS THIS MY LIFE. NINE YEAR OLD ME WOULD BE SO DISAPPOINTED.
"NINE YEAR OLD ME, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE PURSES."
"WHYYYYYYYYYYYY"
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Movies of My Youth
I consider myself somewhat of a Night Owl now, but when I was a kid I was an Early Bird. I would kind of pass out around 8:30 or 9 PM, and then wake up at 4. Usually my parents refused to get up, which was lame, so I’d watch movies or read a book downstairs by myself. Usually read a book because I didn’t have that many movies, but the ones I did have I remember pretty vividly.
“The Lion King” was my favorite for ages, and I would roll around on the floor pretending to be a lion, or pose dramatically on the couch. God help my poor cat if he ever ambled by, because he would instantly be snatched up and hoisted into the air, as THE NEW PRINCE OF PRIDE ROCK or whatever. And when Mufasa died it would totally tear me up, I cannot even explain to you.
“Toy Story” was a big deal, too. The computer animation enthralled me, and that part when Woody finds Buzz depressed and dressed as a doll by that evil kid’s sister cracked me up EVERY TIME. “I’M MRS. NESBIT NOW.” It was not a helpful movie for packrats like me, I can tell you that. I even worried about throwing away Happy Meal toys after watching it.
If I was feeling daring, it was “The Great Mouse Detective,” which I loved but also scared the crap out of me, especially that part where they’re creeping around in the toy store (I think it was a toy store?). THAT FREAKING JACK-IN-THE-BOX AND THE PEG-LEGGED BAT, OH MY GOD. Were the toys alive? I vaguely remember that maybe they were alive, oh man. And the end battle, OH GOD DON’T DIEEEEEEEE BASILLLLLLLL WHO WILL SOLVE CRIME IF YOU DO HELP HIM DAWSON YOU FAT INCOMPETENT FOOL. SO STRESSFUL but also SO FIERCE I don’t even know.
I also liked “Fly Away Home,” because I liked to imagine being the leader of geese. We have a lot of Canada geese that live around our pond, so I guess I connected to that.
ALSO "ROCK-A-DOODLE" AND "SCAMPER THE PENGUIN" HOW COULD I FORGET THOSE THEY WERE ALSO MY FAVORITES.
Man, now that I’m thinking about it I had a lot of weird movies, who even gave them to me? I don’t even remember. I have got to get focused on school, and stop daydreaming about movies and books and other things I'd RATHER be doing.
“The Lion King” was my favorite for ages, and I would roll around on the floor pretending to be a lion, or pose dramatically on the couch. God help my poor cat if he ever ambled by, because he would instantly be snatched up and hoisted into the air, as THE NEW PRINCE OF PRIDE ROCK or whatever. And when Mufasa died it would totally tear me up, I cannot even explain to you.
“Toy Story” was a big deal, too. The computer animation enthralled me, and that part when Woody finds Buzz depressed and dressed as a doll by that evil kid’s sister cracked me up EVERY TIME. “I’M MRS. NESBIT NOW.” It was not a helpful movie for packrats like me, I can tell you that. I even worried about throwing away Happy Meal toys after watching it.
If I was feeling daring, it was “The Great Mouse Detective,” which I loved but also scared the crap out of me, especially that part where they’re creeping around in the toy store (I think it was a toy store?). THAT FREAKING JACK-IN-THE-BOX AND THE PEG-LEGGED BAT, OH MY GOD. Were the toys alive? I vaguely remember that maybe they were alive, oh man. And the end battle, OH GOD DON’T DIEEEEEEEE BASILLLLLLLL WHO WILL SOLVE CRIME IF YOU DO HELP HIM DAWSON YOU FAT INCOMPETENT FOOL. SO STRESSFUL but also SO FIERCE I don’t even know.
I also liked “Fly Away Home,” because I liked to imagine being the leader of geese. We have a lot of Canada geese that live around our pond, so I guess I connected to that.
ALSO "ROCK-A-DOODLE" AND "SCAMPER THE PENGUIN" HOW COULD I FORGET THOSE THEY WERE ALSO MY FAVORITES.
Man, now that I’m thinking about it I had a lot of weird movies, who even gave them to me? I don’t even remember. I have got to get focused on school, and stop daydreaming about movies and books and other things I'd RATHER be doing.
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