The Story So Far

Behind the first door we have Bachelor Number One. Alone among the candidates, we started out as friends. In fact I didn't even know he was playing until it was too late. Unfortunately, he was patently inelegable because he didn't love Jesus. I told him so that night after he confessed his crush and never saw him again.

Bachelor Number Two was a mistake. So eager was I to be loved that I admitted him to the game without checking that I actually liked him. He broke his promises and by the time I sorted through the wreckage, he'd taken nine months of my life. He broke up with me over the phone, but we both know I pushed him to it. I haven't seen him since either.

Bachelor Number Three, a crowd favorite, appeared to have everything I could want, enough so to warrant trecking back and forth; enough so as to pledge my life to him. In my eyes it was all but official, just a matter of time. Apparently he disagreed. He murdered the bride-to-be he created and left me alone to bury her. After a week of seasick vascilation, he broke it up over the phone. He didn't even have the common decency to skype me.

Insecurity

This may come as something of a surprise to those of you who know me more than some and less than most, but I am cripplingly beset with a certain madness, a gnawing voice curled up in my ear. From the comfort of its waxy warm home, the little terror loves to whisper half-truths of my folly. In my own voice I hear it; "I can't" and "I'm not". "I won't". "I don't". It pervades me and persuades me and grows fat on my failure. And so I have come to believe all manner of baseless claims: My skin is bad, my hair a mess, and my body disproportionate. My attempts at conversation are stinted and shallow, and anyone who I might claim as Friend would scarcely reciprocate. I can't cook or wear button-down shirts, and my life is crumbling to disorganized dust in my hands. Anything good I might achieve or obtain, I will doubtless ruin before long. My intelligence is less than it ought to be, besides some small skill with words, and what is that when nothing I have to say would be of any lasting worth? I fear the embraces of more caring souls than myself, for I feel I wear only a thin carapace of confidence and competence. It could crack at any second and my true nature would come spilling out like so much sand.

Insecurity, it's called. And it thrives on the likes of me because it hardly has to lie to be believed. I fully acknowledge that I am not what I should be, I don't work as I was designed to. Something in me is broken and no amount of polish can hide the fracture. Now I know the right way to answer to this voice: I am not as much as I could be, but I am chosen. I am crafted. I am loved. I have been made worthy of more than my component pieces would merit. And yet the voice remains, singing its sweet song of deprecation and setting a splinter in my soul to chafe. Even now, as I confront it, it whispers, "Wow, you must be some kind of sucker to fall pray to such an obvious ploy. What is wrong with you?" Heaven help me, for I cannot escape on my own.

Sun, shade and soil

My future is stretched across the sky, changing color with every incremental movement of the sun. Beneath the canopy, blotches of light deface the solemn austerity of a field of tombstones and their long-decayed subterranean inhabitants. Reading from top to bottom, this is my life--sun, shade and soil. Already I feel too ripe to stay so high in the treetop. I grow heavy with juice and the branch bends beneath me. But, my love, if we put down roots side by side and live with branches entangled, I can face becoming something new.

Writers' Workshop

Some of you may know that I am attending a writers' workshop here on the coast, so here I humbly offer a smattering of my handiwork this weekend to you, my loyal readers who have stuck with me through this rather extensive hiatus. The prompts have been edited to make it look as though I stuck to them more closely than may actually be the case, or else that I was more creative than I actually deserve credit for.



Assignment 1: What do you hope to accomplish this weekend?

In all honesty, I don't know why I'm here. I'm not sure that I want to be here. They told us we wouldn't have to share these responses with the group, so I'm not holdng back. I suppose the best reason I can give is that people who know me and love me anyway think I have a way of molding words into vessles, giving an attractive, sometimes alliterative shape to contain my meaning. To extend the metaphor, as is my tendancy, in catching a thought in a jar, the thought conforms to the shape of its container, sometimes flattening into a muddy puddle at the bottom, or, more rarely, taking on a new and more eloquent form.

I am good at words. I feel myself as a Creature with a directive to sub-create. I do this with my body in dance. I do this in a studio full of squirrelly eight-year-olds and putting them in rows and teaching them, in turn, to create lines and paint strokes in the canvas of the stage. I do this by taking a tangled ball of yarn and knitting it into a sweater (if I ever finish that beknighted thing). But I have an untapped medium beneath my fingertips. I feel its breath on my fingers, a living thing beneath the keyboard begging to be given a shape and a name. Language is a curious beast with its own peculiar diet. It eats ideas and spits out words, having ruminated them into something more conducive to its picky palate. I love the softly steaming pile of syntax it produces, but I lack sustenance on which to feed my beloved wordbeast.




Assignment 2: Smells

The air in the church in which I grew up was flavored with stale animal crackers and coffee-stained carafes with just a hint of the brittle glue holding down the horrid mauve carpet.

A hospital waiting room smells of anespetic and apprehension. The air hangs heavy with baited breath, soulless and bleached clean.

There are two kinds of public restroom; those that smell exactly like what goes on in their graffitied stalls and those that have tried to hide their scent by choking out the oxygen with pink deoderizer, discouraging visitors from breathing at all.

One reads of salt-smelling sea air, but what the literature often fails to mention is the seaweed and dead fish semi-preserved in the brine.



Assignment 3: Scene with at least 2 people, complex series of specific actions
Specific, concrete, but not just about action.

Back, side, together. Forward, side, together. For once, the dreadful choice between looking my partner in the eye or staring blankly over his shoulder was peacefully resolved as Kevin grinned at me from point-blank range. The hand on my shoulderblade twitched, gently signaling me to the right. One, two, three, and under the arch of our clasped hands I paraded, stately and elegant. One, two, three steps and my hand alighted on his shoulder and sighed contentedly to be back home as we finished the box step. "Very nice." he observed.
"Well, I just follow your lead, mister." It was true, but I said it to flatter and hopefully press him to laughter. And laugh he did. We lapsed once more into silence, watching the other pairings on the dance floor and repeating the simple one, two, three, one, two, three. The waltz began to croon itself out and he twirled me against the retardando. I curtseyed in mock-seriousness and he inclined his head like a prince obliged to dance with every girl at the ball. Some smokey-voiced singer took over and we listened intently for a moment, probing for a rhythm. "Ooh, a foxtrot."
"Well good. I know way more moves for the foxtrot." He extended his hand to take mine. "Shall we?" We folded back into closed position, his left hand engulfing my right in an embrace. Two steps back, side together. I could tell he was holding his longer stride in check to match mine. The firm twitching of his hand pulled me back toward him and we rocked in place, turning around the corner of the room. My shoes were too big and I had to curl my toes upward to hold them on, but I managed not to leave them behind as I moved with as much grace as I could muster. One, two, three and four. He winked at me as he signaled a promenade. "You're right," I said, " you do know more foxtrot. That's like two moves we've pulled off already." The plural 'we' buzzed on my tongue with both the spice and warm comfort of a homemade curry and I smiled what I hoped was cutely in a self-conscious attempt to inflect the mild jibe with some flirtation. We slipped back into the basic step, encircling the dance floor as we talked in the semi-darkness. The actual topics discussed flatten when retold, but I felt myself shine wittily in his arms, always armed with a clever response or something to make him laugh, when I wasn't laughing myself. Finally the song slowed and he twirled me in close. Too late I realized he was going for a dip and I was not ready for it. As the floor approached and Kevin's grasp on my waist slipped, I hung suspended for a moment, sinking into my own bubbling laughter.



Not an assignment: Undressing Words

I hereby define myself a poetess. No more contrived plotlines to write into the world. No more stilted attempts at composing dialogue between imaginary friends. Everything is like something else, and my job is only to tell you what a I see through my word-shaped lenses. Legions of glorious words already slink shining beneath my skin, just waiting to be prodded and poked into cooperation. The words themselves are characters in the stories they tell. I merely document their exploits. Love, for instance, is feminine in a baroque sort of way. She is squishy, or voluptuous if you prefer, always popular but rarely says anything of any substance. Beneath her powdered wig, however, lies a deep truth and a mirror-bright heart which absorbs nothing for itself, but turns all glory back outward. Lies, however, wears black. He is slender and pale, handsome but hollow, an ashen crust shaped out of shadows' skin. Then there are more exotic cousins; Fortuitous, Lollygaggery, Castigate, and Eczima. Magnanimous is a fat man with white spats and open palms, Inane has an trendy haircut and a constantly open mouth. Even nouns get in on the fun. Beartrap wears a coonskin cap, Tarot has a scarf in her hair and a neck weighed down with jewelry, Phrenology is grey-haired and large-headed. I'd better stop myself before I get carried away any further talking about my dear and varied friends who dwell in dictionaries occasionally venturing out into the wide world to play supporting roles in my great lexical drama.




More to come, in all likelihood. Signing off for now.

A self-deprecating sonnet I wrote

House of Mirrors

A bare bulb flickers, swinging overhead

Outside its light the deep'ning darkness lurks

The floorboards creak and whisper words unsaid

And everywhere distorted mirrors smirk.

At every turn confronted with myself

I'm ugly, twisted, broken in these mirrors

I'm disassembled, lying on a shelf

I only hope I'm not as I appear.

I've built this house of mirrors to divine

My fatal flaws that must be overcome.

But there is no escape from such a shrine

Imprisoned in reflection, I succumb.

My eyes are always inward, self-obsessed

So selfish, it's no wonder I'm a mess.

Once again, the ability to fluidly rhyme eludes me and I devolve into browbeating pseudo-emo loserpants poetry. To summarize: I just get so frustrated by the way I am constantly thinking about myself. Every action I take is filtered through a lens of "will this make me look less like the loser I am?", and as a result, my interpersonal interactions are bogged down in this self-obsession. Ironically, on a meta- sort of level, getting so hung up about my gross self-absorption as to spend all morning writing a self-indulgent sonnet is one of the more self-absorbed things I end up doing over the course of a day. I just can't win. My ego will most likely implode and form a black hole at the center of my being any day now. (I offer this metaphor with apologies to any cosmologists among my readership who actually know how black holes are formed, unlike me.)

Basically I just need to get over myself, but you, dear readers, were probably already of that opinion.

Winter

There is beauty in impermanence. The flower is all the more beautiful because it will not last. The emergence of the first bud and the falling of the last withered petal are just as worthy of contemplation and artistic attentions as the sweet-smelling bloom at its peak. Winter, likewise, has a limited lifespan allotted to her, from a brisk breeze heralding her approach in mid-October, through the frosty days of November, and on into the snowfalls and even blizzards of her prime. But she begins to fade as spring is born. She ends, gracefully melting, softening, and yielding her reign unto her sister.

The power of the witch was in this lie: you can continue. You can prolong your youth indefinitely. No more long slow decline. You can live forever. Winter forgot that she was reborn each year and began to covet first April, then August. In arrogance and fear, she refused to relinquish her hold, but she hadn't the strength to cheat death for long. And so it came to pass that Winter and the Witch struck a deal.

Aslan, upon his return, found Winter, little more than an icy shell who knew nothing but the fear of death, utterly beholden to the witch. In his warm breath she felt herself soften and found a small stirring of peace in her crystalline heart. Liquid water carved rivulets of tears down her face. After all, she would be raised again. What was there to fear? And so Winter surrendered blissfully to the ever-imminent arrival of Spring.

Further adventures on quadrille rule

a fish, more lonely than hungry

Now I'm not sure just how close you lovely people can zoom in on this thing, but it has some words in it if you look closely.

Lonely Squid

Coming Soon

So I have not written anything here for ages and ages. Lest you think I have been sitting in idleness, or, worse still, actually cracking down and getting some learnin' done, I will be putting up some of my latest odd creations for all y'alls to ogle. I like to make things, whether it be with yarn or pen or tip-typing. On occasion I'll even attempt to bust out a song, but I don't know if I'll put that up here since recording it is more work than I'm probably willing to put into it. The big project that you won't see up here anytime soon is a piece of choreography on which I'm collaborating for a friend's senior solo. Come to think of it, there are three other dances I'll be making for my students that'll be performed in May as well. Meanwhile there are hats and boots, pictures of fish and crocheted octopi to be shown and bragged on modestly. I just need to scan and photograph and post stuff.

In this flurry of creative productivity, one thing I have not accomplished; shaved my legs.

Stalkers!

It has come to my attention that, celebrities aside, I am pretty much the most easily stalked person on the interweb. So to any stalkers or secret admirers or whatever you crazy kids are calling yourselves these days, I say; you don't have to be so shy. Come over to my house (you know where it is, I'm sure) and let's play parcheesi make some waffles or something some time. Stop skulking around my internet and be my friend. I'm just a little lonely is all.

If you're really a creeper, though, I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop going through my trash looking for hair from my hairbrushes for your weird voodoo potions. Thanks!

I'm not sure if I'll be more dissatisfied with this post's results if someone turns up with my door with a parcheesi board, a wide smile, and a bloody butcher knife... or if no one turns up at all.

Rebound

Imaginary Boyfriend Jim and I are back together.

That frigging quiz

All you stalkers out there probably remember that ridiculous facebook quiz I made a while back. I've had some complaints, and probably need to revise it, but I thought I might take the opportunity to talk about myself at length here. 'Cause, you know, I don't do that enough. So I present to you the director's cut of my quiz with commentary and three times the gratuitous CG dinosaur action! (technically true, as 3x0=0).


1) .....Eyes?

a) Green
b) Yes
c) Blue
d) Gray
e) Two

Okay, off to a bad start. While I marked only c) blue as a correct answer, b and e are obviously accurate as well. In addition, in some lights or when I wear certain colors, my eyes are basically gray. So I guess a) green is the only one that one couldn't justify as correct. Boo for a poorly constructed multiple-choice question.

2) .....Worst flaw? (my opinion, not yours)

a) Horrific sense of direction
b) Left eye slightly more round than right
c) Weird dancer feet
d) Social ineptitude
e) Stubby little fingers

Well, once again, these are all true statements about myself, though, as dancer feet go, mine are actually fairly pretty. Only a and d really bother me, though, unless I'm putting on mascara. Then my left eye always turns out better.

3) .....Least favorite item of clothing to wear?

a) Sweatshirts
b) Socks
c) Pants
d) Cheap flip-flops that hurt between my toes
e) Silly hats

Okay, upon further reflection, d really causes a lot more discomfort than the "correct" answer, b, but wearing socks without shoes is zero amount of fun when you're not intentionally sliding across a highly-polished floor, and I don't really wear flip-flops often enough to realize how uncomfortable they are. I'm always shocked whenever I slip into a pair to mince out to the mailbox or something.

4) .....If I were to get a tattoo, where would I put it?

a) Foot
b) Shoulder
c) Ankle
d) Neck
e) Tramp stamp!

Lots of people thought I'd put it on my ankle for some reason, but given the unlikely premise of tattoo-getting, I'd put it on the sole of my foot, right on my heel. I don't know what I'd get, though.

5) How long have I been dancing?

a) Nine years
b) Five years
c) Eleven years
d) Seven years
e) Thirteen years

For some reason pretty much everyone assumed I'd been dancing longer than seven years. Come on, guys, just because it subsequently completely took over my life doesn't mean I started when I was six.

6) .....Favorite author (of the moment)?

a) Jane Austin
b) CS Lewis
c) Robert Lewis Stevenson
d) Douglas Adams
e) Charles Dickens

I honestly don't remember which of these I picked for the correct answer. Either CS Lewis or Douglas Adams. I never actually got that into Austen for some reason, which is tantamount to treason for a 19-year-old girl to admit.

7) How hard did I try to make this quiz?

a) Pretty easy.
b) Middlin' easy.
c) Not really easy at all.
d) Kind of ridiculous.

Ah, the meta-quiz question. Self-referentialism at, if not its best, at least its... medium. Of course, if, like my mother, you breezed through all the preceding questions, then you would get this one wrong.

8) .....Favorite food?

a) Steak
b) Chocolate
c) Ginger
d) Oregano
e) Black licorice

Ginger is good! Candied, especially. Mmmm...

9) What is my second favorite author from that other question earlier?

a) Jane Austin
b) CS Lewis
c) Robert Lewis Stevenson
d) Douglas Adams
e) Charles Dickens

Again, Lewis or Adams. Not sure which. Oh, Mark Twain! I forgot about him. He definitely is one of my favorites. Naturally, any list of such favorites I compile varies widely by what I've been reading lately.

10) What is my second favorite color?

a) Dark Gray
b) Aquamarine
c) Teal
d) Orange
e) Cream

Green is my favorite, followed by dark gray, then orange, then purple. Although teal might have snuck in above orange since last I considered making such a list.


Well there you have it. All the mysteries revealed. The veil has lifted and you have seen all the cogs and machinery behind that ridiculous quiz. You whiners who got most of it wrong made me ruin the magic for the rest of everyone. I hope you're happy.

Perspective

Every week when I clean out his bowl, my fish, Sashimi, thinks he's been abducted by aliens.

This is me not being productive during dead week

So. I have a big old time-wasting challenge for you, dear readers. Get from here to here by clicking on ten links. Hint: zombies.

I will post more hints if you guys seem to give a crap about my challenge. Maybe there'll be a prize for the first one to come up with the answer or something. I don't know.

See, that's the trouble with wikipedia. I started out trying to actually do some research on gesture and next thing you know I'm reading up on the Vulcan death grip. That may not seem so strange, as this is a pretty obvious connecting link, but I took a more meandering route via the nazi salute. Go figure.

Anyway, that's a couple hours of my life I'll never get back. All I can do from the bottom of this pit of time-suckery is drag you down with me.

I post this hesitantly...

I once ranted against love and ridiculed what fools it made of girls. I saw only the irrational pursuit of approval from the opposite sex and considered myself above such nonsense. I alone possessed impartiality, I alone saw through the games, I alone would be content alone forever. So I thought, and so I said to all who would listen, but those who listened were few. So I lived without loving, and told myself I was content, denying that I even had a heart, crushing it under the weight of the loneliness to which I had proudly condemned myself. I lay in the dark and watched the silent drama of shadows cast through the windowpane accompanied by the ticking of the clock. In the silence shining between each tick, my heart began to make itself known, growing heavy, wearied by its burden. A single selfish tear escaped under cover of darkness. And so I slept for years, suffocated by this exile I chose. Small wonder I felt unloved-I had made myself so unlovely that it took 18 years for an intrepid soul with a great living beast of a heart to catch a slight, living glimmer beneath the ice, made thin by the summer sun after a long winter alone. Slowly, he ventured close enough to melt the ice and set me free of myself. I love him. I am so deep in love that's all I can think. I wake up and I love him, climb out of bed and I love him, get dressed and I love him, eat breakfast, walk to class, sit down and I love him. My notebook is peppered with it- "Today is the ninth of February and I am in love", "Today is the tenth of February and I am in love". I even looked down and blushed to find that I had scrawled an unfamiliar signature in the margin- not my name, but his. Love has made such a beautiful fool of me, and I would have it no other way.

A Mundane, Newsy Post

Recital week is always crazy. Don't ask why I chose now, of all times, to update this beknighted blog. Dodging work, that's what it is. I have 13 pdfs that need reading opened in other tabs, but, at this rate, opening them is likely as far as I'll get with them before I have to run off to class. I have decided that I'll be living at home again next year. Much as I like the girls here at Trinity, practically, I am only actually here a very very small percentage of my time; in fact, Wednesdays are the only day I don't have to drive over to the studio for a couple hours. Since I am planning on making myself available for Narnia in the fall, (no, I haven't been offered a role yet), it most likely won't be much different next year. Plus, the parentals have said that the cash will make an epic family Europe trip a definite possibility next summer. It'll be sweet. This summer promises to be pretty sweet, too, what with boyfriendery and associated friends with whom to drive around and do fun stuff, when I'm not working and getting cash money. I don't know when I'll be able to fit work in next year. At the mo, I'm working Saturdays, but with Narnia on the weekends, it's a worry. Plenty of time to work that out, though.

Now I'm going to go get me some toasted bagel and maybe start in on that first reading. Yay for productivity.

Flesh

Does anyone else find it odd, living inside a beautifully functional bag of meat and bones and nerves and skin? Hands, fingernails, nostrils, molded by the hand of God. Long bones draped artfully with muscle and tendon, wrapped up tight under skin. This machine through which we experience these four dimensions is a wonderous contraption, whatever you may think of its outward form. For example, my body told me that it was dehydrated the other day by manipulating nerve endings, sending a message which manifested itself as a headache. I drank a couple bottles of water and hey, presto, the alarms stopped jangling and I felt fine. Yesterday I pushed it beyond what was safe, so today all sorts of alarm bells are blaring, discouraging me from taking any more risks while it repairs and reinforces the damaged areas. Working my way from the top down, we have four-inch diameter bruises (from improv) on both shoulders, sore glutes and quads (possibly from fencing), with an extra painful strand of muscle in my right-hand thigh. Sore calves, of course, plus a twisted (or sprained or tweaked or something) left ankle (from pirouettes in ballet). Nothing life-threatening, but not pleasant. On the other hand, the sophistication of this flesh boggles the mind, as I stretch it and tear it and bruise it and mistreat it and fill it with ice cream, train it and dress it, bathe it and ultimately, through all this, I take as my goal to use this wonderous gift for its Maker's glory.

Analyzing the Text

For some reason, I find texting to be the ideal form of communication for my particular brand of social ineptitude roughly 90 percent of the time. It carries the immediacy of a phone call, a gentle prodding ring instantly in the recipient's pocket, and yet it is less demanding, allowing the aforementioned recipient to reply at their leisure. Plus, one can communicate effectively without the whole "conversation" nonsense that you have to go through before you can get to the meat of why you are bothering them in the first place.

A few notes on style: under no circumstances should a word be replaced with a number or intentionally misspelled. 160 characters is more than enough to communicate most ideas, though some creative editing may be necessary at times. The omission of some punctuation may be acceptable if the meaning can still be clearly ascertained. At times, shorter synonyms may have to be substituted and intensifiers dropped altogether, but all but the most complex ideas can easily be communicated in plain English (or whatever language you may be texting in) within the space limitations without stooping to the level of asinine acronyms and numeral abuse. These limitations demand that the author be concise, reducing their message to a haiku-like level of simplicity.

As always, when lacking tonal and gestural cues, great care must be taken when interpreting the intended emotion. Far better to grant a potentially sarcastic comment the benefit of the doubt and assume that its author bears you no ill will than to read too much into a statement and end up feeling insulted. Composing a text that is intended to be read as sarcastic is virtually the only time that the emoticon is an acceptable tool for communication, and even then, a simple :) will suffice, none of this other garglemesh you see around the less sophisticated corners of the internet.

Of course, there are occasions when a text message simply will not do. Things that require an immediate response, more complex cues as to the speaker's tone, and the rare occasions when communication becomes a desirable end in and of itself... these are better dealt with via a phone call.

Tantrum- an Exercise in Personification.

The rain began to slow, the downpour becoming a mere trickle in the corner of the heavens' eye. The sky drew a breath, deep but jagged, as through a throat still constricted with the nearness of tears, and began to feel better. The trees shook in the resulting wind, dripping in imitation of the clouds above which had previously hung so heavy, the clouds whose aloof indifference to gravity's hunger had snapped in a torrential tantrum, beating the earth with soggy fists until the grass began to lose its tight grip on its beloved soil and the streets grew slick with mud. Bitter tears lay cooling, collecting in hollow places, filling uneven sidewalks until they were perfectly level. The more ambitious among them streaked along the pavement together, unmindful of traffic laws, producing rivulets with their own short-lived dreams of riverhood. The clouds were exhausted, with no more tears to sacrifice to the greedy earth, and the sky sulked like a child, having done as it was told, yet unwilling to concede defeat. Another gust of sobbing breath, carrying the threat of more tears, but this February tantrum had run its course. The sky began to collect its solemn gray dignity, breathing deeply, still obstinately unwilling to allow the sun to begin the work of drying up the mess. Frankly, the whole affair was a little embarrassing.