28.7.05

The women come and go/Talking of Michaelangelo

I don't have a whole lot of time, but I figured that since it's been a couple days since my last post, I ought to put up something, if only that I don't have a whole lot of time, which really bites. I had a great post idea; it was going to be a long, dramatic telling of the Tale of the Broken Buick, but I don't have a lot of time. So, no epic storytelling tonight. I'll try to get it up in a few days. Until then, this ever-growing post in which I complain about not having a whole lot of time will have to suffice.

21.7.05

I dwell in Possibility--/A fairer House than Prose--

What has been a decent day has just turned very, very sour. Allow me to elaborate.

On 2 August, my dad is returning to Costa Rica, from whence he came. The house in which I currently reside will then be occupied by another family. The dilemma of housing me for the month remaining ere the recommencing of my studies in literature has thus far posed a bit of a problem. While worrisome, what worries more is the possible (and seemingly more likely) solution upon which my parents hit--that is, to have me spend the time remaining in the abyssal wastes of North Dakota.

And no, I'm not kidding.

I have no desire whatsoever to go to North Dakota. My relatives may live there, but I've met them all about 5 times (total, in the entire span of my life) and they're pretty much perfect strangers. Not only that, but I don't like them much. North Dakota's a pretty inbred place, and the longer you stay there, the stranger you become, and I'm not talking strange in a good way, either.
I know no one there, save my relatives, who are all older than my parents; which makes consorting with peers a problem. I would much prefer to stay here, in Muskegon--hell, I'll take just staying in the state--where I have friends and am HAPPY. (While not happy all the time, it's become a rather familiar feeling, and it's one I like. So I want to stay)

So, for those of you reading this who believe in prayer, pray for me. Hard. Very hard. The idea of moving to North Dakota makes me sick. And for those of you reading this who don't believe in prayer, set a plague loose in that godforsaken state so I won't be allowed to go there.

20.7.05

The supplication of a dead man's hand/Under the twinkle of a fading star

I feel compelled to write, although I have nothing to tell. Well, I discovered some very interesting things about Austin and, erm, Sesame Street.

I feel odd about this coming year; I know that it will be very, very different from the last two years. Friends have gone, relationships have ended or changed. I doubt I'll be spending a lot of time with all the same people...I doubt I'll be over at Swallow much, if at all--I have no strong bonds over there anymore. Sorry, Mateo, but let's face it--we're not all that close. Crim, Hock, Cassis are off campus, Jenn has gone; my harem of Bergwall men has been drastically reduced to two. Speaking of the harem, I need a new Italian lover, seeing as Tony's gone, too.

I wish I could fix things for people; but the things that usually need fixing can't be mended by me.

I'm trying to motivate myself to get up off my lazy butt and write a story or three, as I have about a million and a half ideas jammed in my mind right now. Sometimes being a world-class procrastinator sucks the big one.

Oh, and Thellie--call me! We need to figure out the final room thing, and we need to get bathroom stuff, too....722.0572. I'm free Saturday.

17.7.05

I have passed by the watchman on his beat/And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain

Why is it, that the people who know you best, often don't know you at all; and the people who know you least can see straight into your soul, and describe you more accurately that you can yourself? In the past 2 weeks, someone I barely know has defined me in two words; words that I wanted to vehemently deny at first, but they struck such a powerful chord in me that I realised, upon further consideration, that those two words defined me to my core. It scared me--both because I could be described in two little words; and because someone, who scarcely knows me at all, saw through the layers of masks and walls I so carefully constructed to keep the world at a safe distance and perceived who I truly am. Yet, of all my good friends, close friends, wonderful, dear, amazing friends, I don't believe that any of them could ever pin down (let alone believe) the two words that are, above all other words, me. Why is it that strangers know us better than our friends do, better than we, ourselves, do? The only people I can think of who could even dare to see me--the real me--are people I may never see again.

Maybe some day, one day, I'll be able to show my friends who I truly am. Maybe. Some day. One day....


Oh, and as a non-sequitur, I got the new Harry Potter book on Friday night (well, Saturday morning, as it was a little after midnight). :)

13.7.05

The Soul has Bandaged moments--/When too appalled to stir--


Your Slanguage Profile

British Slang: 100%
Prison Slang: 75%
Canadian Slang: 50%
Aussie Slang: 25%
Victorian Slang: 25%
New England Slang: 0%
Southern Slang: 0%

What Slanguage Do You Speak?

That was certainly interesting. Nice knowing that I speak the slang of the country in which I want to live once I finish at Taylor U.

Today was a bandage day--not bad, not good; just okay enough for me to (metaphorically speaking) suture and wrap my wounds. I'm frustrated, doubtful, hesitant, and pessimistic--in short, the same as usual. I'm just hoping that a day will come (ideally, soon) where, just for that one day, I can be me--the happy me. Goodness knows my happy side doesn't make many appearances, and it usually leaves battered and broken. Just one day...

On a brighter note, I made two people smile today. It's a bit comforting, knowing that even in my own gloom, I can still help others feel better.

12.7.05

...Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away

I almost cried today. Not just a quiet little tear, either. I just wanted to sit and let my frustrations pour out of me, carried by a silent stream of tears. I wouldn't, though. I have such a hard time letting myself cry; on the rare occasion that I do cry, it's usually late, I'm tired, and a friend is going through a hard time, and Empathy rears its ugly yet compassionate head and brings forth tears of mourning for that person's pain. Apart from that, you can pretty much forget it.

Question: Am I unknowingly carrying around a sign that states, in big, bright, unmistakeable words, "Please Stand Me Up"? Because 7 times in 2 and 1/2 weeks is a bit much. Once or twice, that's fine, I can handle that. But I'd really like to know what I'm doing that causes it with such frequency. Nobody believes that the world is out to get me until stuff like this happens. Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

I'm tired. I want to sleep. But, quick note of thanks to Dan, because he put up with my crabby, petulant, whiny self this evening.

11.7.05

And time yet for a hundred indecisions/And for a hundred visions and revisions

Alright, fine. Here's the excerpt from the story, which is titled Singin' Aretha.



I’ve always believed that the highest form of blasphemy was white girls who try to sing Aretha.

Notice I use the word “try.” I’ve never met a white girl capable of singing like a black woman—be the black woman in question Aretha or some random member of a church choir.

I grew up in Detroit. Well, not IN Detroit, per-se, but within a mile or so of the actual city limits, and even there white people are most definitely in the minority. Most of my friends from home are black; most of the people at my school were black. Growing up so close to black culture definitely influenced me, and I’ve been told that I was born with the wrong skin color. The mind and soul of a black woman trapped in a white girl’s body.

So coming here to Covenant College was a big change for me. Mostly white and most definitely NOT urban, or “ghetto,” or whatever people want to call it. I spent most of the first month or so in my dorm room doing homework or reading. I’m not used to blending in with the crowd—I’m usually the lone white girl. Here it’s a whole lot harder to pick me out at a distance.

But like I said before, I’ve always found it offensive when white girls try to sing black.

Then I met Lia.

I’m not altogether sure when we met, other than some point before Thanksgiving my freshman year. Nor am I sure why we started hanging out, but we ended up spending a lot of time together; and for whatever bizarre reason, by the end of that semester we were pretty much inseparable.

Lia’s about as different from me as somebody could be—it seemed like it at first, anyway. I’m a short brunette with a middling build, and she’s a tall stick-thin blonde. I’m an English major, and she’s a—this is disgusting, by the way—accounting major! I grew up as “the blackest white girl in D-Town,” as somebody put it, and she’s, well, she’s from what I like to call Suburbia Hell. No, not the dysfunctional Desperate Housewives suburbia; I mean the average, run-of-the-mill subdivided community. The closest she’s ever been to a ghetto is me. Like a lot of white people, black culture fascinates her, but she’s never seen it first hand, so she’s always full of questions, asking about their take on Eminem (laughable) to church (very important) and everything in between. When she’s not pelting me with questions about life in Detroit, we sit in either her room or mine eating chips and salsa and drinking Welch’s fake wine from Wal-Mart while talking about politics, the economy, and wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting Covenant populace. By Christmas break I thought I knew her pretty well, that nothing she could do would surprise me. I was so wrong.

A week or so into spring semester we went on a midnight Wal-Mart run and nothing good was playing on the pre-set radio stations of the car we borrowed, so we were shifting through the frequencies trying to find something inoffensive—that is, not country—to listen to. We come across a random oldies’ station in the middle of playing Bob Seger’s Old Time Rock’n’Roll, and I start to sit back, glad to have finally found something decent to listen to. My good mood didn’t last for long, though, because Lia started singing along and almost gave me a heart attack.

I know what you’re thinking—she’s a pretty good singer, actually. She’s had a couple years of choral music and about six months of opera lessons and can carry a tune pretty well. I hadn’t actually heard her sing before; she’d hum occasionally to whatever music was playing and sing along in church, but that was it. Most of the stuff she liked to listen to was either classical, bagpipes, or heavy metal, and none of that’s really stuff to sing along with, anyway.

No, what scared me was the fact that she—the skinny blonde white girl—sounded like Aretha Franklin’s little sister.

Have you ever heard a white woman sing? A lot of them have power. A lot of them have presence. A lot of them are obviously having fun and just singing their hearts out. None of them have all three. None. That’s the realm of the black women (although not all black women can do it, either). But here Lia was, singing like a Motown pro. Let me tell you, it’s a very good thing I wasn’t driving, because we probably would have run off the road at that point.

I shut off the radio and started yelling at her, demanding where she had learned to sound like that and why the hell hadn’t she told me she could sing like Aretha? She pulled the car over to the side of the road and calmly told me to shut up. I sat there, gaping like a fish, as she proceeded to berate me for yelling at the driver, especially at night; for turning off the radio; and for freaking out over nothing. She then said that if her singing offended me so much—she knew my stance on white women trying to sing black—she wouldn’t do it again in my presence. Then she got back on the road and proceeded to Wal-Mart. I was still gaping.

Under the bludgeonings of chance/My head is bloody but unbowed

At work today, one of the kids, Javier, was being obnoxious, so I began to be obnoxious to him. It startled him, and after a minute or two, he asked me why I hated him. I looked him in the eye, and said, "I don't hate you. I just don't like you much." Oddly enough, he looked ashamed of himself and then proceeded to behave very nicely for the rest of the day.

Not much else to say, other than gas prices are nuts, it's really freaking hot here, and I'm bored. Very bored. But Jenny comes tomorrow! I'm psyched. I know it's only been a couple of months, and I've gone for years without seeing friends, but...I don't know, there's something different about my friendship with her.

Oh, and since someone *cough*Austin*cough* declared that he was interested in seeing "The Published Works" of me, (oh, I like the way that sounds.) I'll probably put up part of a story. Sorry, Austin, but it'll be the same part of the same story you heard me read aloud for that final...it's the only part of the only story I have typed that I'm happy with. So, you'll just have to deal with it.

So, yeah, the good part of my (only) good story will be posted within a day or so.

10.7.05

"Come into my parlour"/Said the spider to the fly

Quickie post.

I've always heard that confession is good for the soul, so, I'm going to confess two of my secrets (or maybe not secrets, depending on how long you've known me).

Number One: I am a closet optimist.

Number Two: I am a closet romantic.

There. I've admitted it. You all now have a slightly better view into my warped mind.

And yet to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust?/Man delights not me

Not a whole lot to say this time, other than the Sox lost to the A's...I feel kinda bad for my friend Dan, because he drove to Chicago today to see the game, but admitting that will ruin my reputation as a tough, compassionless ice queen, or something to that extent. So, no one repeats that, k?

I went to bed last night before 11, and I was out like a light. Well, ok, not so much a light as a banked and dying fire...Oh, that's pretty imagery. I'll have to reuse that. So I ended up sleeping until noon today, and it was fantastic. The stress of the past week has all but disappeared. Not for long, true, but I'll take what I can get.

8.7.05

Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

Ever not dare to hope for something, because you don't think it has a snowflake's chance in hell of happening? Ever had that same not-hoped-for something happen?

As most of you know, my life is subject to the caprice of entropy. It's nice having something positive happen; especially if that something positive comes from an unexpected place.

Yes, I know I'm being enigmatic and vague, but I'm not sure I want to post details...For all my blogging and general openness, I'm still a fairly private person. I also figured out (by a rather brilliant observation made by a friend) that I am, in fact, quite shy. Talkative, but still shy. Face it--I met you either because you talked to me first, or I needed something from you. I don't do very well when meeting new people--I'm usually so nervous I either make a total nuisance of myself or don't say a word and leave as quickly as possible.

Huzzah for the weekend!

7.7.05

How doth the little crocodile/Improve his shining tail

OK, I lied. I wanted to post this quote. (Mad props to anyone who can tell me where it's from)

"Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then, penguins often do."

Let us go then, you and I/When evening is spread out against the sky

Today was the second day I worked at the middle school. A total of 4 white people work there, and 5 white kids attend. Everyone else is black or Hispanic. Oh, and two of the white kids have been suspended for a week for fighting; and another is being sent to military school in a month--it's either that or he does 5-10 for grand theft and a federal offense. (Lovely kids, these)

It's odd, being in the minority race again, but in a way it's somewhat reassuring--although I have no idea why.

During the so-called "translating" part of my day (when all I do is sit around and read or write, because the kids speak English as well as your average American--not that that's saying a whole lot. I mean, their grammar and syntax are abysmal, but again, so is the average American's. But I digress), Pat, the woman I'm working with, asked one of the students what a particular piece of candy was called. The girl in question is not the brightest crayon in the box, and therefore was searching for words when I (not thinking) piped up from my doodling with "it's something like dulce de naranja." Only two of the kids heard me (the two boys), and they both stared at me like I had turned into a cow and started to moo. They gaped like fish for a good thirty seconds, when one finally regained his mind enough to demand to know why I sounded like a Mexican. (Which I took offense to. I do not sound like a Mexican.) I gave them my "watch-out-or-I'll-suspend-your-sorry-butt" look (which I want to copyright, by the way) and told them that I had grown up in South America, which elicited male demands that I speak Spanish, which I refused. When they pressed for a reason, I gave them two: One, there was no good reason for me to do it; and two, because I'm malvada (which, while not directly translatable, means something between wicked, malevolent, and mischeivous); and both comments were given with my standard glower (which I also want to copyright).

Funny part--both found my Spanish enticing, or something, because they suddenly became very friendly and courteous, a sure sign they either have a crush on me or are deathly afraid of me. I'm not sure which one I'm hoping for; namely because both produce good behaviour, cooperation, and diligent work; and that's what I'm hoping to get from them.

Well, it's dinnertime, and I'm hungry. Perhaps more will come later, although I doubt it. I've done enough writing to last me a month (I spent 4 hours today writing in the journal I brought with me, and only stopped because my hand cramped and thereby derailed my train of thought).

6.7.05

This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me

I finally decided to take Mateo's words to heart and switch over to Blogger....gah, Mateo, shame on you. I'm the one who's supposed to influence people; not the other way around.

And yes, the name is rather different from the old one...I had a comment about how disturbing and somewhat upsetting it was, (after numerous similar comments) and I suppose it was the comment that broke the blogger's tenacity, so to speak. (Wow, that was a crummy metaphor. But I'm tired, so I forgive me) So, here's the new one.

Yeah, I know it's still not the most cheerful of names, but I've always loved winter, and the peace it seems to bring with it. It hushes the world, and when snow falls it turns even the barest, plainest tree into something beautiful. I guess I wish winter could do that to me, too.

Hopefully, I'll finally overcome my paranoia of "publishing" my fiction and post some of it up here. Hopefully. Maybe. Perhaps.