. . . . . entries for 30.11.05 . . . . .
You're Marilyn Monroe!
What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
It had been too long since I'd posted some good old-fashioned blog clutter. xD The quiz is funny as hell anyway, and this particular result makes me roll my eyes more than you may know.
Life is funny.
Bloom will have my SOUL.
. . . . . entries for 29.11.05 . . . . .
I want to write an essay comparing Nietzsche to Thoreau. Possibly with Kafka thrown in somewhere, as well, as an aside.
. . . not that I ever will.
Well, I am not so tired now, but easily distractable from THOREAU, who is painfully THOROUGH with his writings on the economy of transcendentalism. >.o Fucking American lit canon! Graaaah.
Bloom tore into his APUSH class today. We suck. I am ashamed. -.- Meh.
. . . oh, I am *tired.*
. . . . . entries for 28.11.05 . . . . .
. . . when I was young, I looked like Superman with puppy eyes. o.o I want to hug him. I think it would confuse him.
I am very sorry to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I am not Ewan McGregor. Not even a little. Nor am I Daniel Radcliffe. Not at all; not a whit. I could never act anyway. What was I thinking.
I am John C. Calhoun.
More on this later. For now: observe my face as it appeared in a prior life.
Dear God, I was terrifying looking.
. . . I wish I were still terrifying looking.
. . . . . entries for 27.11.05 . . . . .
STRETCH.
VELVET.
So I was supposed to have spent a couple of days recording my schedule for English and I definitely forgot. :P I think I will not bother BSing a schedule. I think the point of the assignment was to forget it anyway. I also have a ton of APUSH reading and a reaction paper to write! Imagine my ecstacy! o.O (Eh. It's due Tuesday.)
A Very Long Engagement is a very good movie - and the "lead male," for lack of a better term to stick to him, is quite a little beauty. I look nothing like him, you will be happy to hear. :P
. . . . . entries for 26.11.05 . . . . .
Just got upstairs from watching Fever Pitch to discover the one and only song from the soundtrack of Damn Yankees playing on ye olde iTunes. I was impressed.
That movie reminded me of the bloody sock. The goddamned bloody sock. Dear god, it was painful to watch but I think everyone who *watched* those games was in tears at some point. Fucking *amazing.* o.O There is something about baseball, and romantic comedy, and romantic baseball comedy. It all. . . meshes. So well.
It sucks that life isn't like a romantic comedy. :P
Everyone at the dungeon got a kick out of my gnome, so I think I shall share her with you. This is her "backstory," as I wrote it, best imagined to be spoken by either myself or Colin Wheeler:
It was a natural thing, more or less.
Elly had always possessed a propensity for making people see things her way. Her appearance, for a member of the gnomish race, was neither unpleasant nor terribly unusual, and she spoke endearingly quietly, every word out of her mouth the suggestion of a lover on Sunday morning: “Maybe you should get up, sweetheart;” “Hush, darling, and think about it for a second;” “Baby, why don’t you just put the dagger away and talk to me about it?”
When people failed to be swayed by her euphonic trickery, she occasionally found herself in tight spots - such as, for example, the wrestling hold of an elder brother. Such situations conditioned her, over time, to be about as slippery as an oiled newt, the lot of which, I assure you, are slippery little buggers indeed.
Even she was forced to recognize that diplomacy was not always the optimal pathway. Some people were just difficult to deal with, and those people tended to need to have some sense knocked into them. She carried a dagger, though she was uncertain as to why; she had never been particularly strong of limb, but her parents advised her to carry it in case “an opportunity came up” - whatever that meant.
The family trade was alchemy, and so she dabbled in it, rapidly discovering that certain compounds, when introduced to the air, burned and spat out white sparks, and others, when dripped on some hapless living thing, seared hair and made flesh magenta and peely. Usually she immediately regretted these discoveries due to the damage they caused, and furthermore became thoroughly dejected when her parents and siblings informed her that the same fantastic stuff which she had produced - or one better - was available at the shop down the way. Nevertheless, Elly would heave a sigh, fold up her super-secret recipe and a vial or three of ingredients, and stow them about her person, just in case she had any need of them.
It was not the case, one must know, that Elly became labeled as a “rogue” because it was her desire to be labeled as such. She was about as reasonable and law-abiding a citizen as any gnome ever was, and whatever favor she received was only due to her sweet, charming nature and a careful, experienced step with using it. It was just that, over time, her circle of friends - tending to consist of magistrates met by chance and other improbably important ladies and gentlemen - caused her to earn the nickname “peoplepicker,” for it was generally assumed that she had some strange and wily method of obtaining their friendship. Gods knew she had never been much good at picking locks, for all her love of the things they tended to conceal; when tacked with her new name, however, she begrudgingly admitted that perhaps, perhaps she was a tad of a rogue about the tongue.
. . . . . entries for 25.11.05 . . . . .
My gnomish rogue could use a backstory. I think I will write her one.
Going home soooooon. I have not watched this many movies in so compressed a length of time. . . ever. o.O Ah well. Remind me not to attempt to desensitize myself to horror films in the future.
I persist in my conviction that I look kind of like a female Daniel Radcliff. :P
. . . . . entries for 23.11.05 . . . . .
It's that time of year again! I am off to Massachusetts for turkey. I'll see y'all on Friday. :P
. . . . . entries for 22.11.05 . . . . .
 | You scored as Natural Causes. Your death will be by natural causes, though not by any diseaese, because that is another option on this test. You will probably just silently pass away in the night from old age, and people you love won't realize until the next morning, when you are all purple and cold and icky. So be happy, you won't be murdered.
How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com |
How boring. :P
SOUTH KOREA'S GOT SEOUL!
Thank you, Elle. <2
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Revised to Account for the Anomalies and Discrepancies in Location and Events of the Tale Originally Found in the Papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker;
Based on a True Story, and also on Mere Speculation
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
JABBERWOCKY.
Upon a turn of a busy road running alongside a lolling, lazy sweep of the Mohawk, somewhere in between the three fair cities which comprise the Capital District of New York State, and where the General Electric executives and engineers make their weary ways to Knolls Atomic Power Labs, and rely upon the security of traffic barriers and reactor-grade ceramic as they drive, walk or recumbent-bike, there lies a town of middling size, which by some is called simply Nisky, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Niskayuna. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the repentant white man as he settled there, from the language of those who once made their livelihood there, the native Iroquois tribes, who called the place Cornfield by the Water, which translated is the name of the suburb of which I now speak. Be that as it may, I do not vouch to the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. On the outskirts of the township, perhaps a mile away from its edge, there is a well-known hill, or rather a brief rise and fall of the road, which in spite of its remote location is frequently very much aflutter with passing cars and the low whirr of lawn mowers. A causeway approaches it from one side, slicing across two ponds once attached to the marshy Mohawk, and the wind passes through the conifers and leafy trees with just whistle enough to lull one to repose; and the frequent gear shift of a passing car, or roar of a jet-plane, is among countless sounds that melt into and enrich the irregular, white-noise calm.
I recollect that, when I was but a whelp, my first attempt at grasshopper-catching was in the sandpit in which my family’s aboveground pool once stood. I eagerly bounded to it in the late morning, when the traffic on the neighboring bike-path and the road to the other side is atypically light, and was delighted by the swish of my own net, as it sliced and sifted through the heavy summer air around, and was mirrored and mocked by the troubled hum of the crickets amongst the saw grass. If ever I should wish for an escape, whither I might flee from this world and its bitter realities, and dream softly away the anxiety of a busy academic life, I know of none more comforting than that tiny garden.
From the warm tranquillity of the place, and the buzzing character of its surroundings, which are filled with a diverse lot of brilliant engineers and their offspring, this petite meadow has recently been known by the name of The Sherman Backyard, and its young ladies are called the Sherman Girls by all who have had the unusual fortune to encounter them. A peculiar, sweetened haze hangs over the land, and in the air within the red-brick house facing the retreat. Some say that the place was pervaded with the scent of maple syrup, during the summer with its countless late-morning breakfast hours; others, that the candles set aflame there have burned into the atmosphere the curious tincture, from the time of its building many decades ago to the present moment, as they even now distribute fragrant smoke into the fabric of the dwelling. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some tempting perfume, that holds a spell over the minds of those who live within, causing them to exist in a state of continual desire for the next opportunity for those cinnamon-spiced affections or nutmeg-lit moments spent perusing heavy, ungainly tomes of classical western thought, sipping, between the lines on yellowed pages, fantastically rich, dark, aromatic hot chocolate, procured from a bazaar of ages past, such that one would be hard-pressed to find in a modern marketplace. They are given to a preposterous belief in the existence of a perfect truth; are subject to whimsical infatuations with men and fiction; and frequently experience incredible revelations where there are none to be had, and hear the memory-cured voices of lost loves, floating plump, succulent and ripe with distance, in the air. The entirety of their home abounds with heavenly reminiscences, warm colors, and impossible artistic fancies; flickering lamps shed light and flowery visions in oil, pastel and who knows what else hang with a greater profusion in these halls than in any others of this town, and the philosoph, with his whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of his deeply, genuinely meaningless ruminations.
The wish that held the greatest sway in the gentle hearts of these enchanted young women was to find, above all things they could perceive with the senses, a romantic and ethereal absolute in their bitterly real, mundane occupations which conducted them with such flitting, disappointing celerity through their school time days and especially their fluorescent plastic starlit nights. They sought it out in novels filled with tales of bygone chivalry; of shadows upon the dripping walls of fire lit caverns; of outrageously distracting presences felt outside a man’s room in his own home, the infernal clattering and great noise created by his family and their repellant activities; of tragic heroes, who give without receiving, and knights of faith, who give without expecting return and are rewarded handsomely for their selflessness; of small Hells, pleasantly furnished with a finely embroidered couch for each inhabitant, in which each of the damned is charged with the task of torturing the others, their mere presence and personalities being quite adequate to drive a sinner to tearful repentance.
Oh, but of all these ephemeral fables of the heart and mind, and of all the contemplative men (and always men) who dreamt them, there was one, just the one, which fascinated the inhabitants of this petite homestead far above and beyond all the others. History and legend have tied names to his figure as one ties meanings to a word, or many-colored ribbons to the tail of a kite; some have called him the Gadfly, after that bothersome insect that refuses to leave one’s ear and eye, and instead hovers about one’s person constantly, apparently with the sole intention of driving the targeted individual to a faithless madness. Others refer to him as the Great Teacher, and after a moment’s thought, the connection between the two terms should be not only straightforward, but with a not remotely dark or unfair insinuation upon the scholar, who seeks to assist others in their quest for knowledge; a constant hiss in one’s ear, insisting that all knowledge be questioned and proven valid before accepted, just as a mosquito lovingly suggests that a vein could perhaps move a hair closer to the skin’s surface, that but a tiny drop of blood might seep from a generous pore to save her the onus of instructing the epidermis in the art of yielding to the caress of her West Nile-bearing proboscis.
The man, of course, is more properly known as Socrates, and he is frequently spoken of as a kind of deity in circles of philosophs throughout the western world. It was to this figure that the young ladies of the Sherman household looked, and his legacy that they ponced upon as they drifted to sleep, as they awoke in the rosy glow of dawn, and every instant in between. They were led to seek the truth by way of inquiry and reason, though they knew not why; questions without answers hovered in their ears, buzzing furiously, begging for sustenance, throughout their young lives.
The one young lady of the Sherman house, Katherine Anne, was not particularly well-known in her schoolhouse or her community at large, but she was known (and o! was she known!) by a select few who wandered where she wandered, and traipsed where she traipsed: the artists and writers, the humanists who sought to enjoy their lives through experimentation and creative pursuits; and the academics, who journeyed to Niskayuna High School each morning not to amuse their parents, but to occupy their own agile minds, lest the slick, silver lumps of thought-conducting cells curled in the hollows of their skulls slip into gray slovenliness with lack of use. Among these people she was as a shining star, the yellow pinprick in the morning sky where the sun’s fair light shone and was reflected by the orb of Venus, her long, blonde hair as the clouds of sulfuric gas surrounding the earthen mass of the galactic egg, threatening suffocation if not monitored carefully; her rosy cheeks and clear blue eyes were softened reflections of the goddess’s image for which that bright planet is named.
Although this shining young woman had been raised in the Sherman family, she had journeyed far and wide in her yet brief life, and had returned to the knoll upon which the red-brick house stood with a different knowledge and pattern of thought than that of her elders, her friends - and of course, her little sister, younger than she by eight years, who was called Erin Elizabeth. For all of this she was looked up to and idolized, mirrored and shadowed by the younger, who yet possessed a somewhat different personality from that of her sister, who had been so painfully shy for a sizable percentage of her young life, but so frank with her emotions.
Erin Elizabeth, on the contrary, was a quiet child, but not afraid to be loud when it suited her; she had never been timid, but had always considered carefully what she should or should not say depending on her company and their possible reactions to her thoughts. Due to this habit, she was something of a recluse in her heart, and kept many things hidden from the world that her sister would have displayed in the open; the cherub Erin was a creature of implications more than a creature of actions, and was never content to judge a boy, girl, man or woman merely by their words or motions. She asked strange and silly things of her fellows and enacted absurd schemes in search of a spyglass into each heart around her, searching out the noble, the endearing, the entertaining, those deserving of her grace and love - to whatever extent this youngling was capable of bestowing such gifts.
A journey, the objective of which was to find a suitable place for Katherine Anne, often affectionately referred to as Cassie, to receive four years of university instruction, was undertaken by the Shermans just a year or two before the end of the third millennium of our common era. It was summertime again in the Northern Hemisphere, and Linda Joanne, James Alan, Katherine Anne and Erin Elizabeth all spent their scorchingly hot minutes, hours and days in the leather-wrapped confines of their family automobile. The youngest had little interest in the places they visited, and mostly observed the curtains hanging in common rooms, with a keen eye for the measure of their merit as hiding places, along with the plant life that haunted each and every illustrious quadrangle of the American Northeast; verily, all she now remembers about the campus of Colgate is the presence of a ginkgo tree with its distinct and anciently designed leaves growing just outside the admissions office. The adults accompanying the prospective scholar and her small sister found themselves frequently coping with the latter’s propensity to wander the campuses, to secret herself away, and to be obtuse in her manners to officers of the academic kingdoms upon which they paid their visits. If ever a sweetly condescending secretary’s voice rang out, requesting that the young lady please remove herself from the draperies, there was not a Sherman who wondered to whom the words were directed, and those within earshot would listen and breathe a fond and accustomed sigh before muttering, “Ay, there is our little Erin causing a ruckus again.”
It was known, in spite of the great scouring of universities, that there was an one, a very particular school, and but one program of studies within that school, which was magnificent beyond all others; it was the fondest wish of Katherine Anne to be accepted to this, the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, which was and remains widely perceived to be considerably more difficult to enter as a college freshman than the guarded gates of Eden. A sight fewer than three hundred new pupils are admitted annually through its coveted gates, and these not only the best qualified - for, upon a thought, Katherine Anne was quite well-qualified - but those who best suited the caprices of the institution, its endearments for the children of alumni and for those schooled privately, especially with a background in the Catholic faith and religion.
In spite of the embittering odds against her, being as she was a public-schooled young lady whose parents had attended Syracuse University, Katherine Anne held out hope of acceptance at this remarkable academy. Being uncertain as to precisely where she wanted to go with her life’s work, she was most haunted with the conviction that she should spend her days, one way or another, helping people; this pursuit had commenced most noticeably in her senior year of high school, in which she spend most of her schooling hours at New York State Senator Hugh Farley’s office in Albany, pressing forward acts which she believed would help the well-being of her fellow citizens. It was this desire to assist humankind which led to her ambitions at Georgetown, though it must fairly be said that a lady of Katherine Anne’s relatively modest bearing may not have been particularly well-suited to the political realm at that point in any case.
It was more on a whim than on any platform of reason or evidence that Cassie suggested, during the lengthy and dull ride between more widely known places of learning, that her clan stop off in the colonial city of Annapolis, home of the United States Naval Academy and, more to Katherine Anne’s interest, St. John’s College. A given class at this small liberal arts school consisted of about 400 students, but this quantity was not due to the exclusive nature of the institution; rather it was owing to the “self-selecting” properties of the program offered there. It was on this small green off College Creek in the Chesapeake Bay that was nestled one of the oldest schools in the country, with one of the oldest curriculums in the world; from the original texts of their respective creators were taught at this place great works of Western literature, mathematics, science, art, and of course, philosophy. Socrates, as much the founder of the college as its more recent proprietor, lived in the hard wooden seminar tables, whispered chalk onto the ancient blackboards, walked the halls of the spacious dormitories and perused the volumes in the campus bookstore, a smile hovering about his terra cotta lips all the while. The professed goal of St. John’s College was not to prepare the student for the real world, let alone a life of service to one’s fellow man; students and tutors here alike chased after but one phantom, and they called it, of all preposterous things, Truth.
Erin Elizabeth rapidly absorbed herself in climbing about the stone benches and railings of the quadrangle, her mother keeping a close eye as she braved these precipices, while her father and sister were led on an impromptu tour of one of the immense brick halls. Too young to care for the pursuit of truth then, she contented herself cloud watching and appraising the immaculate green quality of the grass on the playing field, which was used most frequently for the sport of croquet, with occasional intrusions of cricket and, a favorite of these bizarre young philosophs, spartan madball.
It was many moons later that she would hear the tale of Katherine Anne’s first step into a seminar classroom at this, a last bastion of classical Western thought in the modern Western world. It was spoken that the door was opened by one of two guards, immensely heavyset African men who might have been patrolling the campus were it not for the sudden and unexpected appearance of the Sherman family. The late summer sunlight fell through the window steadily and purposefully to illuminate the halfway petrified wood of the seminar table; the ancient and pockmarked floorboards; the blackboard, with who knows what reasonable conjecture, perhaps of Euclid or Aristotle or a hundred others, scrawled on its surface; and of course, the wooden chairs, those infamous, straight-backed, horrendously uncomfortable chairs which every student of the college suffered during every seminar in their four years of attendance.
Katherine Anne Sherman stepped with a hesitant toe into the room; as the story was told to the younger Sherman girl, she imagined the creak of the beams beneath her sister’s feet, a huge and ominous sound in the silent hall. One thin, tawny-skinned hand reached for the back of a chair and anchored itself there as the more reluctant legs followed after, and after a step, and another step, her other hand lighted on the surface of the table, grain smooth and unexpectedly cold after all the decades of use.
Some say she was overcome then with emotion, and that tears made tremble her weary blue eyes; still others deny the entire event ever happened, and claim that Katherine Anne kept a calm and composed demeanor throughout her tour, her eyes remaining as frozen lakes in winter, emotionless and critical of those fleeting images which would skate across them, mindless of thin ice.
Certain people, however, have a tendency to know of such matters better than others, and there is no creature like a sister to know everything about an one. It was now, Erin Elizabeth will tell you, with a perfectly reasonable and level tone in her somewhat matured voice, that the noble pest of the Gadfly appeared in her sister’s ear, begging for young blood and its attention to his hissing promise of validity, of wisdom, and of truth. Katherine Anne was lost then to the soft dream she had been raised in, warm colors in the furniture and hangings, oil paintings on the pastel wall; she fell in love with the thing buzzing by her shoulder and pledged herself to it, through adversity and contention from the increasingly modern world, which sought all the wrong varieties of success, fitness, and happiness.
Later that year, Katherine Anne received her response from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, which contained unusual and bittersweet news, that being that this talented and radiant girl had been waitlisted, and with such a very small, elite and competitive school as this one, there was little hope of being accepted after such a notice. Many years down the road, Cassie would confide in her younger sister her deep happiness in her decision to attend St. John’s College in Annapolis, and her gladness at having been incapable of going to Georgetown University, at which she was certain she would have been unhappy. This, of course, is mere speculation; perhaps, had one thing or another gone slightly differently, Katherine Anne might now be living a life in the international political sphere, with all its attractions and small vices, one more or less indistinguishable from the next.
A few years later still, Erin Elizabeth followed in her sister’s footsteps as one with a sentimental and zealous desire to help her fellow human being, and sent letters of application to a considerable lot of the same schools - St. John’s College and Georgetown University among them, as was right and proper. Perhaps it was that times had changed, or perhaps the younger sister was truly more inclined to the public realm, but regardless of the reason, she was shortly accepted to the unreachable School of Foreign Service, and proceeded in triumph through the bone colored gates which characterized every substantial and realistic dream she might have sorted out of and preferred to those which issued from the ivory tower, as yet it stood, warm and watchful, over the capitol of fair Maryland at the old city of Annapolis. The shadow of the tallest red-brick, ivy-strung building on the campus of St. John’s College is occasionally said to be seen across a great many miles, across state borders; as if it floated there upon the hurricane winds, the dome of the ivory tower casts its shade in the Sherman backyard, where Linda Joanne and James Alan sit peaceably on the patio, perusing ungainly volumes of Western thought and swatting at the invisible and quick-witted mosquitoes of the Mohawk River Valley, which buzz imperturbably in their wizened ears.
. . . . . entries for 21.11.05 . . . . .
I think I almost had a dream in German during my afternoon-evening nap thing. I woke up and translated the lyrics of a Norah Jones song into German in my head. The words almost rhymed.
I think it'd be pretty sweet to translate Deutsch for the NSA.
It's Sleepy Hollow night. I also have a chapter of Gefährliche Wege to read for German, and a massive Latin test to study for.
. . . there's the science test tomorrow, too, and that damn element thing I am supposed to do. That was due today. Hm.
Maybe that'll get in on Wednesday.
. . . . . entries for 20.11.05 . . . . .
Today was very productive in all the wrong ways. o.O APUSH time. (I can see *exceedingly* well now.)
I guess I have an eye appointment soon, but uh. . . I highly doubt I'll be on time, if I go at all. It is entirely possible that it'd be nice to have some normal scheme of organization about one's family. Maybe I will try it sometime.
. . . . . entries for 19.11.05 . . . . .
Just got back from the concert. Maura O'Connell is my new hero.
And that is all you need to know.
Ah good. I know where I am going now.
Incidentally, I am off to immerse myself in more culture this evening - the ladies from A Woman's Heart are singing somewhere. (The Egg? Proctor's? The Palace? I don't know.) Given the current state of affairs in the Sherman household, I can only say that I am profoundly happy I will be out of the house for a short length of time before this.
Mreh.
Gaaaaah! I am supposed to go to J.P.'s house today, but I do not know where her house is, or when I am supposed to be there!
Gaaaaah!
. . . . . entries for 18.11.05 . . . . .
Death Takes a Holiday was *superb.* Go see the matinee tomorrow, all of you. Except those incapable of doing so, or who have already seen it, of course. To those who will be unable to see it, then you must hound the Allenator for the video once it has been all be-edited and things. It is worth it.
. . . so yes. Natalie and Shannon came over today. I did not think Natalie would be coming over. I could not stop her from getting off the bus at my stop, however. So. She came over. We had cocoa and she played senselessly violent flash games. Good times were had by all.
. . . . . entries for 17.11.05 . . . . .
Reading "Weiter geht's!" in my Deutsch IVH textbook causes me to ponce upon what it would be like to have a national identity. Like, okay, so I'm American - but there is no American ethnicity. It's funny because this was the issue our old buddy Hitler cited as his reason for ethnic cleansing. Ausländer in Deutschland stick out like sore thumbs. They're an actual *issue.*
How weird is that?
I have a sort of routine now. One night working my ass off, the next night slacking like it's my job. It's incredibly bad. I have determined that I am going to do all the math homework I have been neglecting for the past week or so this weekend, so I will not suck at the quiz on Monday. I will become a responsible student again. It will be fantastic. Please try to help me along on this course, if you have some creative means of doing so. o.O
Oh, I am tired. Tonight is slack night. Zzzzz.
The Jefferson paper, she may be bad, but she is done, damn it. I actually rather liked my past paragraph:
The three lines on Jefferson’s tombstone read with his three favorite accomplishments: the Declaration of Independence, the University of Virginia, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. If the court could chisel out a line beneath those, it would read as follows:
An American Gentleman and a Noble Contradiction
The former half of the line, “An American Gentleman,” points out - not unjustly - that Jefferson’s hypocrisies are inherent in every American who is inspired by his words yet lives according to their own beliefs and preferences. That paradox, the allowance of divergent beliefs, was, after all, one of Jefferson’s dearest ideals. The view of Jefferson as a “Gentleman,” as well, is important to understanding his character, so quiet and desperate to avoid conflict; it is from his politeness and gentility that much of his contradictory nature comes. It also lifts him, but gently, down from his pedastal, and makes him into a man, not the American god we sometimes portray him as. Lastly, as presented by James Cox, Jefferson gave us an impossible credo - “all men are created equal” - and yet one never wishes it hadn’t been written. Jefferson, his writings, and his legacy are, in their entirety, a noble contradiction; perplexing and annoying, to say the very least, but still majestic and lasting. Thomas Jefferson’s words put every American into his mindset of dreaming an impossible but beautiful dream; for better or for worse, it will trouble us for many years to come.
. . . . . entries for 16.11.05 . . . . .
JEFFERSON!
Considering writing my paper like a Supreme Court ruling. I am not sure if Mr. Bloom has enough of a sense of humor for this.
. . . eh. It's early in the quarter. If he finds it totally ridiculous, I could always make up for a reflectively unfunny grade in the next few weeks.
I am very tired and have a very major paper to write. Yes indeed.
In other news: B+ in German last quarter, zomg, Erin got a non-A on something. Still got an A in math in spite of a D on the last test. xD Man. I rock me.
. . . . . entries for 15.11.05 . . . . .
Dan Earle delights me. So does the Sleepy Hollow parody assignment.
And that is all I have to say.
. . . . . entries for 14.11.05 . . . . .
I have my computer - my light source - set up such that the display turns off half an hour after I stop using it, i.e., after I have been working on my gloves for half an hour. This is as handy a timekeeping mechanism as I, for one, can imagine.
Playing artist reminds one to savor the little things again.
Reading a softer world drives me to think in that uncanny little modern, astructural haiku that it uses. It is fitting, for the task currently at hand.
. . . and Yakusoku wa Iranai, the opening theme from Escaflowne, I think that needs to get tacked on there somewhere too.
Tonight is for drawing and Jefferson. I actually have *nothing else* to do. (Unless I have math homework I didn't write down and YOU KNOW WHAT! . . . I just *can't* bring myself to give a damn!)
RAVEN EYES
You have Raven
Eyes!
Positive Traits: Intellectual,
Wise, Experienced, Honest,
Trustworthy
Negative Traits: Pompous,
Condescending, Withdrawn, Pessimistic,
Depressed
Your eyes are the windows to your soul. What type of eyes do you have?
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Oh do I *ever* have raven eyes. ::embittered sigh::
Ever just get that feeling you have a theme song? I mean, not a song you like a lot and *want* to identify with strongly - granted, I have one of those too, thanks to our beloved Ted Leo (and, for that matter, thanks to our beloved Dan Earle). But a song which you are forced to admit has played in the background of many events in your life. . . those songs are royal pains in my ass. I have two I can think of at the moment - the one currently in my sidebar (Shoot he Moon by Norah Jones) and, of course, The Scientist by Coldplay.
So my weird-as-fuck dreams are back from their prolonged absence. This time, it started as if I were watching the Daily Show, Jon Stewart and all - reporting, apparently in jest, about another thing that could go wrong in the Middle East, which would be for a chunk of a South American mountain to fly into the Gaza Strip. (You only wish I were kidding right now.)
Then the dream went awry, and the cute, badly-animated visual became a thing of reality - in the dream, anyway. The bit of mountain, instead of hurtling across the Mediterranean at Palestine, took a straight shot across the Atlantic and slammed into the West African coast, where it met with another mountain; one got the impression that they'd been two halves of a bloody huge ash-belching volcano in millenia gone by. Zoom to the people living there, mostly okay but perplexed, and suddenly very strange in appearance - skeletons draped in purple, blue and green skin, vaguely Burtonesque in their sketched-out style. (I partially blame this on a webcomic Dan sent me last night.) And for whatever reason, they were climbing to the top.
And so I was one of them, after this overview, climbing without knowing why, over fallen fences and trees and walls, all having crumbled on impact with the other side of the mountain. I had a camera. I snapped pictures constantly - it didn't at the time, but now that I think about it, it reminds me of the song Sometimes by James. "There're four new colors in the rainbow. An old man's taking Polaroids, but all he captures is endless rain. . ."
It was something like that, but instead of "endless rain" it was the same image over and over again. Nothing like the mountain around, but more like a vinyl block print - I trust most of my readers, who are pseudo-artsy at least, are familiar with this sort of creative styling.
It was a girl, lying in her bed asleep, her long, dark hair tangled spiderlike around the pillow, her shoulders, and the unlit, gourd-shaped lamp on her bedside table; the bed was half-full of books and papers and stuffed animals; there were things hanging on the wall on the other side of the bed.
She looked peaceful, but rather a lot like her hair intended to strangle her.
. . . . . entries for 13.11.05 . . . . .
. . . and also: I think things are pretty all right. Nothing ends, it just changes. <3
Okay, so my mom burst out laughing when she was reading this. I figure that makes it worth posting. You non-philosophy and lit majors may not fully appreciate it, but I think some of you may well have a full understanding of its terrible glory. It is an adaptation of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as one might write it if it pertained not to Tarry Town, but Niskayuna, the "hollow" within being my own home and yard.
Upon a turn of a busy road running alongside a lolling, lazy sweep of the Mohawk, somewhere in between the three fair cities which comprise the Capital District of New York State, and where the General Electric executives and engineers made their weary ways to Knolls Atomic Power Labs, and relied upon the security of traffic barriers and reactor-grade ceramic as they drove, walked or recumbent-biked, there lies a town of middling size, which by some is called simply Nisky, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Niskayuna. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the repentant white man as he settled there, from the language of those who once made their livelihood there, the native Iroquois tribes, who called the place Cornfield by the Water, which translated is the name of the suburb of which I now speak. Be that as it may, I do not vouch to the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. On the outskirts of the township, perhaps a mile away from its edge, there is a well-known hill, or rather a brief rise and fall of the road, which in spite of its remote location is frequently very much aflutter with passing cars and the low whirr of lawn mowers. A causeway approaches it from one side, slicing across two ponds once attached to the marshy Mohawk, and the wind passes through the conifers and leafy trees with just whistle enough to lull one to repose; and the frequent gear shift of a passing car, or roar of a jet-plane, is among countless sounds that melt into and enrich the irregular, white-noise calm.
I recollect that, when I was but a whelp, my first attempt at grasshopper-catching was in the sandpit in which my family’s aboveground pool once stood. I eagerly bounded to it in the late morning, when the traffic on the neighboring bike-path and the road to the other side is atypically light, and was delighted by the swish of my own net, as it sliced and sifted through the heavy summer air around, and was mirrored and mocked by the troubled hum of the crickets amongst the saw grass. If ever I should wish for an escape, whither I might flee from this world and its bitter realities, and dream softly away the anxiety of a busy academic life, I know of none more comforting than that tiny garden.
From the warm tranquillity of the place, and the buzzing character of its surroundings, which are filled with a diverse lot of brilliant engineers and their offspring, this petite meadow has recently been known by the name of The Sherman Backyard, and its young ladies are called the Sherman Girls by all who have had the unusual fortune to encounter them. A peculiar, sweetened air hangs over the land, and in the air within the red-brick house facing the retreat. Some say that the place was pervaded with the scent of maple syrup, during the summer with its countless late-morning breakfast hours; others, that the candles set aflame there have burned into the atmosphere the peculiar tincture, from the time of its building many decades ago to the present moment, as they even now distribute fragrant smoke into the fabric of the dwelling. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some tempting perfume, that holds a spell over the minds of those who live within, causing them to exist in a state of continual desire for the next moment of cinnamon-spiced love and affection or nutmeg-lit lust and passion. They are given to a preposterous belief in romance; are subject to whimsical infatuations; and frequently see a sparkle in man’s eye where there is none, and hear the voices of lost loves in the air. The entirety of their home abounds with sweet reminiscences, warm colors, and impossible artistic fancies; flickering lamps shed light and visions in oil, pastel and who knows what else hang with a greater profusion in these halls than in any others of this town, and the romance, with his whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of his frivolities.
. . . for the record? Not taking the goddamn cute picture down. :P I am stubborn, and we are still friends, at the very least. Some profess having no regrets even as they burn the letters and give back the gifts. I am not one of those people.
Relationship status = pretty damn weird, but better than it was before. To sum up: isn't a more platonic love what a teenaged relationship should shoot for *anyway?* o.O . . . yeah, well. By some definitions, Sir Charles and I have broken up. By mine, we're just on a more. . . realistic footing, given the circumstances. Suffice it to say I am not wearing the ring around my neck or on my finger or anywhere; it's hanging in my room, and I'll probably give it back to Charlie next time I see him. (Yuletide? No Exit? Snowball? Damned if I know.)
Down the road somewhere, I think it not impossible that we may meet again as older and (maybe) marginally less naive young people. For now. . . I guess we're stepping out of our ridiculous little hell-bubble into a closer approximation of reality. For better or for worse.
Speaking of reality - high school is mine. Why, I do not know, as it bears no resemblance whatsoever to *reality* reality. But I must return to schoolwork, lest my parents kill me.
. . . yeah, this stuff *always* happens when I have stuff I need to be doing.
Not entirely sure what my relationship status is at this point. I may get back to you on that one later.
Gah, well, given my sleepiness level of last night, my professed goal of artin' it did not, in fact, come to pass. I figure that, to remedy this, I'll do all the damn APUSH reading I'd otherwise be doing tomorrow night so that I can focus on the shaded gloves when it is dark, and my emo artist-self comes out. (And, uh, so I can get the dramatic lighting right. Secondary, of course. Secondary.)
I occasionally find myself wishing, moodily, that I didn't have a social life at all, outside of being acquainted with my peers in the academic and extracurricular realms. If I were to have no social life, I reason, I would be able to focus on improving *me,* an entity which, verily, is wanting of much improvement.
In any case. I could ramble and ramble and ramble forever about that, because it's pretty much all I ever think about anymore. I am reminded of that "rate my life" thing I took a while ago, and the question that asked if one had any enjoyable hobbies. I'm not sure that I do, unless you count APUSH as a hobby. It's the only class I really *like* on all levels. Midi's easy, sure, and musical, but that frequently. . . you know what, this paragraph was intended to *conclude* my rambling, not beget more of it.
Back to Jefferson.
. . . . . entries for 12.11.05 . . . . .
Haaaa I love Brian Mangan. xD Check it.
Brian: ..
:)
i think
that when you die
whenever that might be, y'know, after a long and joyful life i hope
you should become the new God.
Me: . . . man, you think so? xD
Brian: hell yes.
if i could, i'd give you a big hug right now
but i guess just ::hugs:: will have to do. XP
Me: well thank you, Sir Brian. xD
I don't think I've got enough of a head on my shoulders to be God.
but if I happen to land the position, I'll try my damnedest to not suck at it.
Brian: :)
The act of reading old posts on my blog makes me depressingly aware of how much of a child I was back then, and am now, and will likely continue to be for quite some time to come. Also how little I have changed, in spite of everything. In spite of what I want to change about myself. The right time just never seems to come.
Which is not to say only terrible things come from reading the back-blogs. I found this little treasure, which made me warm and fuzzy and a little bit teary-eyed:
"Late on the eve of the first school day in the New Year, I would like to make a toast: may you know how to love deeply and truly, and if you do not know, may you learn; may your passion never fade, through distance or through time; may neither fog nor static nor ill will cloud the knowledge that you feel this adoration for another, as you were meant to, as you will until the end of your days.
Cheers, happy New Year, and sweet dreams to you all."
-January 2nd, 2005.
I've gotten substantially less sappy. It *sucks.* I liked being sappy. I liked being a jackass, too, though - or rather, an even bigger jackass than I am currently. Maybe I am growing up a bit after all. Mreh.
Back from my illustrious two-of-three-days-of-the-weekend with Charlie Hyland. (Well, I was back last night, too, but I was back rather late and went directly to bed, since I, y'know, got up earlyish this morning.)
So that was fun, and the rest of my weekend is homework homework homework sleep. The last bit is what I shall be doing presently, at least for a little while, because I was drifting off in the car on the way back and it left me with a rather unpleasant crick in my neck. (Crrrack.)
Because people are going to ask: things are fine between Charlie and I, damn it. o.O (Charlie and me? Me and Charlie? I am not sure what is grammatically correct there.) We tend not to get a surplus of time alone together, which is a source of annoyance, certainly, but that is the hell we have given ourselves to. Incidentally, it makes what time we have into a sort of temporary heaven - and one does not think of hell when in heaven.
So don't bloody well remind me. -.-
In other news - appallingly early dinner in Bolton Landing, then I drove back to the highway before mom took over, insisting that it was getting too dark. I guess it was. I still wish I'd driven all the way back. Mreh.
Naptime, then artin' it. Woo.
. . . . . entries for 11.11.05 . . . . .
Charlie Hyland is in the Capital District! Zomg.
Just learned, at very slight inquiry, that my dad ran a radio show when he was in high school. He went to school in Horseheads, a little town in waaaaay-upstate New York. He covered in his broadcast current events at the school, along with trends on the music scene. The show was called Hoofbeats. He emphasized strongly that he had *not* named the show.
My dad is pretty awesome.
. . . . . entries for 10.11.05 . . . . .
NATURAL BEAUTY - You are patient, warm, and kind.
Like nature all around you you are methodical
and wise. Laidback and calm you are not quick
to anger but like nature when your wrath is
invoke you are terrible to behold. You can be
passionate and you can be compassionate.
Primarily you live to see others happy, but you
also seek your own true happiness and
unconditional love.
What type of beauty do you possess? (20 questions + 7 results + pretty pics)
brought to you by Quizilla
Interesting fact: of the people who took that quiz, the fewest got that result. Take that, "mystic beauties." :P
So unlike everyone else, I am not actually done with first quarter. I'm pretty damn close, though. I have a feeling I did pretty damn bad on my math test, but considering that I got an A on everything else all quarter, my grade shouldn't be too bad.
On the itinerary this week:
- draw my damn gloves.
- see Charlie Hyland at X-C states.
- do whatever other hellish homework abounds.
There is another social event afoot this weekend, and under normal circumstances I would be going to that, but I never get to see my stupid boyfriend, so that is what I will be up to. I hope people understand this. o.O
And now I commence the laziness, because it is only Thursday, and I do not feel obligated to do any work yet. Huzzah!
. . . . . entries for 9.11.05 . . . . .
So a web search led me to a more terrible side of the satirical German tune Sumisu. Look up the translated lyrics if you're feeling inspired, and if not, know that they are a mass poking-of-fun at goth and emo kids. . . who listened to the Smiths all the time back in the day.
Rested, anyway, if not well-rested.
Started math test, must finish tomorrow at lunch, have my entire damn art project to do tonight along with the rest of my luminescence paper and whatever other homework I have. Mr. Bloom wanted us to read some of the stuff on Jefferson. Haaaaa. I wish. -.- Man.
After tomorrow, this shit will be over.
. . . . . entries for 8.11.05 . . . . .
. . . so why does crap like this happen at times when I really need to focus on like, schoolwork, or an extracurric or something? o.O
I guess it's just that I don't adore your quirks and respect your obnoxious habits as much as I used to, though it could as easily be that I'm just tired, and take myself too seriously. Either way, it is very easy to pin the blame on myself. I will try to talk myself out of dissatisfaction with other people until the day I die. When it occurs to me to do otherwise, I cry emo. Sometimes in a cute falsetto, but that is beside the point entirely.
For someone so anti-emo, I've been so very emo lately. ::bangs head against the wall:: >.o
Nicole posted sonnets. I've written a couple sonnets in my time, but they were pretty bad. My haikus are better. So here are some recent haikus. (Admittedly not my best work - deal with it. xD) These are just in the order I jotted them down one night.
like faded denim
or my purple right ankle
softer than you think
she ignored the rose
when it was fresh and flawless
and noticed it die
vertical stripes draw
the eye more than mine ever
have or ever will
a nightly haiku
seemed like such a good idea
until the next day
no one has more faith
than he who named himself for
one called the skeptic
the world is burning
my logic feeds a white flame
and I hold the match
through ivory gates
this old electric blanket
throws false warmth and dreams
sleep would be nice but
there's something I need to write
I just don't know what
the lake nurtures life
on her banks but her depths freeze
when the winter comes
I never believed
that this little stone would burn
like I said it would
it's easier to
hate mountains than to forget
what lies across them
it's so typical
to feel misunderstood that
guilt preempts my tears
the sapling that bends
when young grows groundward until
it buries itself
I was feeling emo that evening - can you tell? xD
Charlie is going to be in No Exit one of these days. He sent me "act two," which is *amazing.* Read it immediately.
So Christmas cometh in less than two months. I am reminded of this because my mother keeps on calling me over to her room to look at this or that thing in the Coldwater Creek catalogue (oo alliteration). So I figured I'd post a sort of very general list of things I wouldn't mind getting for Christmas here.
- Charlie Hyland
- A stretch velvet dress or three
- Any book you think I should read
- Any movie/anime/random geeky series you think I should watch
- Any music you think I should listen to
- CD-Rs, so I can burn you things
- Sibelius for Mac (don't take this one too seriously, the damn software is way too expensive)
- Something hand-made. . . like a scarf, or a bracelet, or whatever you happen to be into DYIing at the moment
- Cool socks
- Interesting specimens of necklace-tomfoolery and pendantishness
- Shirts with witty sayings on them
So there are like, three vaguely specific things on there. xD I don't really know what I want for Christmas. If you give me some media-related entertainment thing, expect me to take a while to get around to it, because I never have any time. -.- Alas.
I am being hailed to my mother's room again. (More stretch velvet? <3)
And so it was that, in one burst of academic enthusiasm, the young Erin Sherman consumed the remainder of her chocolate covered espresso beans and set about writing her massive luminescence paper with a great deal of vim and vigor and manic energy.
. . . . . entries for 7.11.05 . . . . .
So tonight, in the name of being capable of finishing all this goddamn makeup work before the marking period's out, I'll be going to bed early (like, way early). That way I will be bright and shiningly alert tomorrow so that I can work my ass off. Mmyes.
It's either brilliant or another terrible, terrible mechanism of procrastination, and possibly a brilliantly terrible (or terribly brilliant?) mechanism of procrastination.
Ah well. Jefferson is more interesting than I can ever hope to be. xD
Jesus H. Christ. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but. . . man. Theologians may have a field day with that one.
In spite of a highly unsatisfactory quality of sleep last night, today went fairly well and I did not die. Woo! I think I am getting better rightly and properly.
Not much else to report, aside from the fact that it is crunch time: last week of the marking period and I intend to finish various terrible assignments. Urg. o.o Wish me luck, if you feel it right to do so.
. . . . . entries for 6.11.05 . . . . .
Mmmmmm thunderstorm.
Have had One Night in Bangkok stuck in my head all day. Favorite lines:
"Get Thai'd! You're talkin' to the tourist
Whose every move is among the purest.
I get my kicks *above* the waistline, sunshine."
It's like, the ultimate random-ass nerd song. Okay, so you're in Thailand, surrounded by this ridiculous Far Eastern nightlife, and you're like. . . fuck that, I'm gonna go play chess now. xD Woo!
When I've been watching I, Claudius a lot, I take up a slight dissymetry of my walk, and start to speak more eloquently and reasonably. (Reasonably, you must realize, is frequently not truthfully or nobly.) It is a *phenomenal* production.
There is only one episode left, and after that I shall be free of it.
In other news: I thoroughly despise luminescence.
. . . . . entries for 5.11.05 . . . . .
If I finish I, Claudius tonight, I reason, I will be incapable of watching it tomorrow, or at any future date. This will be better in the long run.
QUANTUM!
. . . . . entries for 4.11.05 . . . . .
| How You Life Your Life |
 You are honest and direct. You tell it like it is. You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. Your friends tend to be a as quirky as you are - which is saying a lot! You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable. |
. . . I hate how these things are always fucking RIGHT.
I, Claudius rocks my socks, especially because Caligula is perhaps the most sickeningly evil little bastard of a blonde guy ever. o.O Honestly. All the Malfoy fangirls need to watch Queen of Heaven post haste, and transfer their fandom to the *real* creepy son of a bitch.
No. Fucking. Way. Can that possibly be for real?
. . . and yeah, the APUSH test was reasonable.
iPod mark III is home. It is currently loading my music. Also got new earbuds, somewhat less battered than the old ones.
I got way too many compliments on my outfit today, and Kayla asked me how much weight I lost when I had mono - so apparently I look skinny too. o.O I am not entirely sure what is so enchanting about the overwhelming mauve-ness, but apparently *something* is. (Vertical stripes, I tell myself - it's just the vertical stripes.)
Weekeeeeeend. <3
While I feel somewhat better, I still think meine Familia overreacted severely to my sleepyshakyfeverything in Latin class. :P I am coming into school today whenever my dad gets around to bringing me, which shall probably be sometime before 11. Maybe I'll be there long enough during lunch/my drop mod to like. . . make up that stupid Latin quiz. Gasp.
Also: last night I had a really awesome dream - no less weird than the others, but awesome nonetheless. It felt kind of Xenogears-ish. There were nine teams out in a huge desert arena - cracked mud, not sand, mind you - and each was supposed to face off against the others. I was a rookie on one of the teams. The standings were up on these huge boards all around the arena; each team was an icon, and when they lost, the icon turned black. (A blacked out team could still fight teams in the running in an attempt to get back their chance at victory.)
There were these glassy ridges in the ground, too. When I asked some veteran of the sport what they were, she said that they were the trash left behind by the excavators, who I think were looking for fossils.
So we lost pretty early on. But there was this other team who were, like total losers, hiding from the glaring noon sun under an overhang. I think I was the one who got pissed off at them, went over, and proceeded to fight this friggin' huge guy with a python draped around his shoulders. I think I actually brought him down, which was funny, and unrealistic.
Earlier on in the dream, there was some sort of fight with a robot, too.
. . . see, it was totally friggin' awesome. xD
. . . . . entries for 3.11.05 . . . . .
I guess I should not die of mono.
Feeling rather sick again. I was shaking a little by last block today, and feeling kinda feverish. The weekend comes soon; hopefully I'll be able to pull out of it then, because next week will be worse.
Tonight is APUSH night. Most grumble at this, but these days, APUSH is the only homework I genuinely enjoy doing. History neeeeeerd.
Someone find me Nur Ein Wort, damn it. >.o Oh my aching Deutsch brain.
. . . . . entries for 2.11.05 . . . . .
I have had such bizarre dreams lately. o.O So bizarre, so bizarre.
. . . . . entries for 1.11.05 . . . . .
Haaa. I love my latest APUSH book. For a damn good reason why, see my sidebar.
For those who fancy cheerier song, there is a new fantastic Deutsches Lied in my life, und es heisst Nur ein Wort (Only One Word). It's so insufferably catchy.
Also: Alex Williams, the mascot of speech and debate who is exceedingly adorable when napping gave me a pep talk in the hall today, and pretty much demanded that I stay in yon LD-club. I guess I'm easily swayed by adorable underclassmen, but damn, how can I quit now?
| This Is My Life, Rated | |
| Life: |  7 |
| Mind: | 6.6 |
| Body: |  7.7 |
| Spirit: |  6.4 |
| Friends/Family: |  4.6 |
| Love: |  8.5 |
| Finance: |  4.8 |
| Take the Rate My Life Quiz | |
I personally think that, on several counts, this quiz is full of crap - or at least, what it defines as healthy is crap. Like my body score. My body score is *nonsense.* Yes indeed. -.-
Speaking of which. Naptime commences.
Worn around the neck, I feel like a noose.
Worn around the finger, I serve as a reminder.
What am I?
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
.:past:.
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)