Today’s project: enter book collection into database. This represents just the books I could easily carry downstairs. If I didn’t have the VHS Star Wars to watch, this would be really daunting…
Cross posted from http://english-nerd.tumblr.com/
Category Archives: Uncategorized
On being anti-social
The thing no one tells you about growing up is that one day, you’ll look around and realize that all your best friends, the people who have chosen to walk with you through life (unlike family who are stuck with you), will move away (or you’ll move away from them) and begin the process of leaving you to your own devices. People will also neglect to tell you that, while this sucks, it doesn’t have to define your current reality.
Today was that day for me. And I’m writing this post to convince myself of the latter statement. Because I don’t want this sadness of life changing, and everyone moving far away to be the only side of life I focus on. And also, because I’m the one who kind of made it this way.
I tell my friends all the time that I love people. All but the people who know me best or least snicker whenever I say it. Because I don’t like talking to people I don’t know; I don’t like touching people I don’t know; I don’t even particularly enjoy being around large groups of people I don’t know.
Because I’m rather anti-social. Continue reading On being anti-social
First Day of Fall
Today is the first official day of fall, and it makes me happy. It means that school’s started up again, I’ve celebrated Mom’s birthday and my sister’s is around the corner with Halloween waiting in the eaves. It also means that the weather will be cooling off soon. And the trees are on fire.
Literally.
I read about the fall colors in the rest of the country, and I don’t really understand that idea. But then the colors are described in terms of fire, as though the plants are on fire, which is an image I can get behind.
I’ve lived in Southern California my whole life, and when other people are looking out for snow as the year marches through September toward October, I keep the shorts on and an eye out for smoke. Autumn here is marked by the fall of embers instead of leaves, and the birds we see migrating through are the fixed wing and other modified water/retardant dropping aircraft.
And though it’s nerve wracking to watch flames march around where you live, there’s an element of comfort in the consistency of the seasons.
I orginially wrote this on the actual first day of fall, while the Station Fire was still uncontained and fires had started close to my parents’ house. Due to technical difficulties (namely the lack of internet at my grandmother’s house), I could not post it until this date.
How I spent my summer, or What kept me silent
I haven’t written here as much as I’d hoped since I graduated at the end of May. This has been mostly due to the more complicated access to the internet than I anticipated.
I started the summer in the thickest coats I own in Australia. There are some posts from that time, but I’ll probably add more as I work on catching up. 6 weeks house numerous stories I want to share, but am still drafting in my head.
I spent the first part of my actual summer in Louisville, Ky. It was my first trip to that part of the country, and I have even more stories that have yet to be shared here. Expect those when I get to it.
And I spent the last part of the summer helping to care for my grandmother as she prepared to move from her house. While I have many stories, I would be surprised if they end up recorded here.
In my own story-telling way, I will post the stories as I think of them. I will try to make it clear where the stories took place and when, but the details may be a bit fuzzy. I hope that those of you who read this will enjoy the stories and bear with my often random style.
A House Divided
So I am back from Australia. And I had s fantastic time there and I wish I could be headed back there now. This time around Brisbane became my home more than any other time I visited.
Now that I am back here, I am realizing that Brisbane isn’t the first place that’s become home for me, and it probably won’t be the last.
This feeling may be predominate in this moment because I am without a house or even a room of my own.
A couple of months before I finished the MA I had to move out of my apartment. My belongings were packed up and moved into storage. My pets and everyday items were shoved in my car and taken to my very gracious aunt and uncle. I moved a few things in over their categorized and decorated home and lived there for a few months. And it became a home I could go to during an insanely stressful time.
And then I graduated, packed up all of those everyday items and moved them back to my parents’ house. I stayed there the night before we all got into a plane and flew across the ocean where we lived in Brisbane, Australia. And when they left two weeks later to come home here, my sister and I stayed. And during my time in Brisbane it became my home during a restful and formative time.
And then we flew back here. I’ve been home here a week, and I’ve stayed in four different houses in the last week house sitting and catching up with friends and family.
This time has been very good and I wouldn’t change it. And I’m finding that not only is my house divided because I amd sleeping in different places with all my housewares packed and stored away, but my home is divided as well because my heart calls several places around the world home. And though this might be high on my list of difficult and painful experiences, I am not sad at all for having my home divided. Because the division actually makes me work harder to stay connected to the people I love.
So though a divided house might mean the end of a country, I will work hard to make sure it isn’t the end of me.
There will be time
T.S.Eliot writes in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ one of my favorite lines: ‘I have measured out my life in coffee spoons’. I, however much I could measure my life in coffee spoons, measure my life in missed moments.
And it seems that there are so many of them.
Even if there is time for an infinite number of visions and revisions there’s always that moment that could reverse everything. It’s the possibility that one of those missed moments reverses everything makes them stand out in my head.
‘There will be time for you and time for me…’ I hope so.
Creative People
I was thinking today about how I occasionally trust people based on their creative works. I have a lot of friends that are very creative, and I am finding that if I see their work as honest, I trust them more. This happens even when I am just getting to know the person and we’re becoming friends. This is a very funny observation particularly since I tend not to trust the speakers of stories. So even though I don’t necessarily trust the characters speaking in a work, I trust the author as my friend. And I am finding that some of this friendship trust comes from what I can see of them in their works.
I guess I’m just a bundle of contradictions… I’m not that surprised.
A gorgeous story…
So I’ve just finished The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss, which is absolutely beautiful. I recommend it. It’s about connecting with others (what else would I love), and how life, and ourselves, prevent us from that. I think my favorite part shows up about half-way through the narrative. It’s a quote from the fictional novel that centers the story.
“So many words get lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past: IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon’tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglass-I’veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme…
There was a time when it wasn’t uncommon to use a piece of string to guide words that otherwise might falter on the way to their destinations. Shy people carried a little bundle of string in their pockets, but people considered loudmouths had no less need for it, since those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone. The physical distance between two people using a string was often small; sometimes the smaller the distance, the greater the need for the string. …
When the world grew bigger, and there wasn’t enough string to keep the things people wanted to say from disappearing into the vastness, the telephone was invented.
Sometimes no length of string is long enough to say the thing that needs to be said. In such cases all the string can do, in whatever its form, is conduct a person’s silence.”
And the whole story is like this. It has these gorgeous descriptions of love and the way people interact with one another. Ultimately it describes the need to connect with others and the way that it can happen. That statement probably says more about me as the reader than it does about the author and the writing, but it’s what I think. And it’s what I wanted to share. So if you see me with a little ball of string, now you’ll understand why…
This song is fantastic
So I know this cd has been out for a bit, and the video has been up for a bit, so tons of people probably have seen it, but I’ve just recently been introduced by one of my friends to how great Muse is. This song is great not only because they go through a crazy “Small World” style ride, but the words are beautiful and lovely and so encouraging. So I hope that we really can use this chance to turn things around and say that together we’re invincible…
So it’s been awhile…
So I haven’t written in a long time… I’ve been busy, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to use this space for. And then I became concerned. But I think that I will use this space to finish the numerous conversations I have. Which a rather silly statement because I leave this open to more comments and that’s no real way to end anything. It is a great way to continue the conversation though, and I think that’s what I do in my head. So I will use this space to expand my ideas by opening them up to everyone else’s. I find this forum very entertaining and I think I want to be a part of it…
So I’m back. I guess we’ll see what happens this time….