A decade ago, never thought I would be
At twenty-three
On the verge of spontaneous combustion
Woe is me
But I guess that it comes
With the territory
An ominous landscape of
Neverending calamity
I need you to hear, I need you to see
That I have had all I can take
And exploding seems like a definite possibility
To me

Pardon me while I burst
Into flames
I've had enough of the world
And its peoples' mindless games
Pardon me while I burn
And rise above the flames
Pardon me
Pardon me
I'll never be the same

I did, indeed, first listen to this song a decade ago. I find the phoenix terminology particularly apt at this point in my life. I feel as if I'm in a completely liminal space; the company my mother worked for recently shut down so she's out of a job, my sister just graduated and quit the job that she's worked at for 9 years, and I...am stuck. Seemingly. It's taken quite a bit of time for me to get to the mental point where I feel like I can do something about it. It's extremely frustrating, however...as I don't know where my mother or my sister are going to be in the next couple months, I have to continue putting my own plans on hold. Will I still be here come summertime? I hope to move this summer. Of course, getting over my driving phobia (is there a scientific word? I can't find it) is taking a hell of a lot longer than I'd hoped, especially since we've been getting blizzards off and on and the roads are continuously icy.

Two year ago this time, I had just arrived in Italy; two years ago this day was our first day of orientation at the University of Ferrara. A year ago at this time, I was gearing up for my play. It's been, therefore, nigh on a year since I've done theatre. Last Monday, the Guthrie brought a show to Fargo, but I couldn't go because I was working. Of course, if I'm not working, how can I afford anything?

The two friends I was planning on moving with, well...one just got promoted and now makes twice what I do, and the other will probably be here for another two years in a graduate writing program. Which is great for them, but I refuse to be here for another two years, but I'm oh so leery of having to room with someone I don't know.

But I'm ready.

It's like the changing of the guard, but with less pomp.

I assume I'm not the only one who takes it very personally what pictures show up on calendars for her birth month. Strangely, I have two calendars this year: one sent to me for free from Middlebury [in order to weasel money out of me, ha! Nice try.], and one that I randomly got for Xmas that's supposed to be like...the tourist wonders of the world or something. They are both on my wall. So how did they fare?

Middlebury: Somewhat lame-o, but it's better than January's, and the whole calendar's pretty lame-o anyway. But it's a nice shot probably taken somewhere in that trail area leading to Prescott and whatnot, and the title? "Into the Woods." So, name win! And also the inset picture is of someone advertising polar-bearing on a BiHall blackboard, so that amuses me.

Wonders: It's no secret that last week was my two-year anniversary of leaving for Italy, which has caused me some melancholy of late. But I turned to this calendar's February photo, and lo! it was the moon shining over the Colosseum. A+

In other news, I and a friend have been watching the first season of Heroes and tonight we watched the finale. This was my fourth time watching the season all the way through, and whilst she was lamenting the end itself, I was lamenting how I'd made a pact to not watch the other seasons and ruin the magic. Then I was telling her all the reasons why I wasn't going to watch the other seasons, and how this season's ratings are so low, there's talk of cancellation. Conversation on AIM as follows:

me: but now i'm hearing from more than one source that the actors have outgrown the show
her: mmm
her: yeah. cast that good, show's got to grow to keep up
me: i hope they cancel only because i want to see them in other things!
me: it's like with the lotr actors...i will watch anything with them in it
her: haha
her: yeah, 10-4

Not fifteen minutes later, as we're still discussing the finale and how some parts were handled more gracefully than others, I was browsing the net and checking my usual sites for news. And what did I find? THERE IS TO BE GEORGE GERSHWIN BIOPIC, PERHAPS DIRECTED BY SPIELBERG. AND PROBABLY STARRING ZACHARY QUINTO.

Oh movie industry, for once you make me SO HAPPY. As someone who's generally meh on biopics, I'm so excited for this one. I mean, come on! George Gershwin! Who, incidentally, died when 38. I'd no idea he was so young when he died. Which is sad...but think of the music! Think of how this picture will introduce his music to so many more people! And just from an acting perspective, holy shit Zachary Quinto is amazing casting, it is. I'm also very happy for him; for someone who's starred in Heroes and Star Trek, two major sci-fi franchises, he's finally [hopefully] landed a role that will allow him to defy type-casting. Or genre-casting, as it were.

I love when my favorite artists do good. They're like my children. I don't know. For some reason other people having success makes me really happy. Like, one of my friends got promoted at work a couple weeks ago and I totally spazzed.

It's strange that I was coming home today and thinking I would blog about all the inane things I do to keep myself from going insane at work, and instead I'm just too joyful to even think about it much. ART: MY ANTI-...MONOTONY!!

Somewhat relatedly, Netflix, you have failed me. You don't have any version of Porgy and Bess? Not even one? Really?

Yeah...



It's shiny.

I also panicked because I...have a phobia. And I was driving on ice. But I got us both home in one piece, so...huzzah for progress?

Also, I went to a teppanyaki restaurant tonight. They squirted sake into our mouths. This was fun. It was also so delicious that I ate food I usually don't eat. Good quality = good times. Also a large amount of money. BUT NUMMY.

Yeah, I guess that's what this is.

So...I feel like I really made out like a bandit this xmas. I guess I'm just used to getting half my plane ticket home paid for? So perhaps there was a little bit more to spread around. So...my mother and my sister banded together and got me an ipod nano. I...pretty nearly shat myself. I mean, I think it's hilarious because it can't even fit half my music (plus a couple audiobooks), but it is so cool! So incredibly cool. My sister got an engraving put on the back that's an inside joke between us, so now its name is "Federico Rhombus," and it's one of the new ones that has camera and radio and pedometer and a-ton-of-other-shit capability...and I stayed up most of the night on xmas synching it and playing with it and listening to it! ...Even though I had to work the next day.

Which brings me to my next subject! Usually during xmas break, I would enjoy xmas, and spend the next few days chilling out with my small pile of shiny new things and deciding where they would go in my room and poking them and grinning at them and hoarding them close to my heart like a dragon in his golden cave of SHINY! But this year I, like an 'adult,' had to work the next day. And there had been a blizzard so it was hella hard getting across the river in the first place...because I work in a different state like a douche...and then I was depressed all day because I wasn't playing with my ipod.

AND I MISS THE DAYS WHEN THE EXTENDED LOTRs WOULD COME OUT AND THEN I'D SPEND XMAS BREAK WATCHING ALL FOUR DISCS IN A ROW JUST BECAUSE I COULD.

I mean, this year was seriously the first year since I was maybe in high school where I felt a little bit of that old xmas magic from when I believed in Santa and all that jazz. I...really miss that feeling. I'm so very grateful to my mother and sister for allowing me to experience that again. I can't even remember the last time I got a gift I wasn't expecting! I love these kinds of surprises. What I don't like is that there's a small pile consisting of a book and a couple dvds that are staring woefully up at me from my bedroom floor because I haven't touched them since xmas day.

However, I am earning this strange adult phenomenon called "PTO", and so...I'll be earning like a week's vacation per year? Week and a half? I guess. AUGUST, HERE I COME!!

-and this will be the shortest and most spoiler-FREE review I have ever written. Behold:

PLOT: Oh, James Cameron. Why did you go the way of George Lucas? Why oh why, as you sip Dom Perignon in a diamond flute bought from Titanic royalties, could you not have hired brilliant scriptwriters? But nooooooooooooo, you had to write it yourself. The result? LAMEST PLOT EVER. I could tell you the fate of every single character the second they came onscreen. Punkt. No exceptions. And we never quite reached character 3D, did we, Cameron, oh you Cameron? Two-dimensionality, sure. Better than The Tale of Two Cities? Undoubtedly. But shit, son, I can do better than that and I've never written a feature-length script before. For realsies, babe.

ACTING: I was impressed by how the three leads imbued heart into such a lackluster script. I loved Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington was, shall we say, quite worthy, and Zoe Saldana is undoubtedly the BAMFiest BAMF to ever BAMF the BAMF. Seriously, and I rarely get a chance to say this, so I'm going to all-caps it: A WOMAN HAD THE BEST PERFORMANCE IN THE FILM, OH YES, OH YES SHE DID. And motion-capture, at that.

And finally,

THE VISUALS: Um, I came. Metaphorically. I have been visually spoiled for films, forever and ever and ever. And ever. And also, for eveeeerrr. IT'S SO PRETTY. IT WAS THE MOST GORGEOUS THING I'VE EVER SEEN. I'M GOING TO GO TO PANDORA AND HIT THE GLOWING FUNGI AND AND SCARE THE GLOWY-FLY-Y LIZARDS AND RIDE THE GIANT FUCKING DINOSAUR DRAGONS. Because this was a 'sci-fi' film, but really it was a fantasy novel. And I approve of this.

I saw this with some friends, and after we got out of the crushing crowd and into the hallway, we just stood staring at each other. At length the one friend who's about as geeky as me (if not geekier) broke the silence: "This is me. Speechless." I nodded emphatically. It was trufax.

VERDICT: Go see it. Yeah, it's two and a half hours, and yeah, it's predictable from start to finish. But that's not the point. It's a turning point in cinema. When I saw a little kid after the moving walking out with his parents, all I could think was, "They didn't make movies like this when I was little. How absolutely JAZZED must his imagination be right now? What wonderful things will he create in the future because his brain was so inspired?" And see it in 3D, too. It's just...not going to be the same seeing it in any other format....even though 3D televisions will be on the market within a year or two....not the same. Not the same.

Kaleidoscope

 

Fandom: Star Trek XI   
Genre: Vulcans do not ‘angst.’ A character study, of sorts.   
Summary: It’s nighttime on the Enterprise, and Spock attempts to organize his thoughts about the circumstances that brought him there. Also, Kirk makes a surprisingly perceptive query.   
Rating: PG   
Pairings: none   
Spoilers: major events in Star Trek XI   
Warnings: Lots of introspection. It’s my lifeblood, or something.   
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry and Paramount. I’m certainly earning no profit from this.   
A/N: I read the postscript for the first time about a week or so after I wrote this story out in a notebook. It was perfect timing but another instance, alas, of geniuses saying in a few words concepts I’ve always struggled to express. I deemed it fitting to add. :)     ( Kaleidoscope ) 

The new Alice in Wonderland trailer. It looks like across between, well, Alice, and American McGee's Alice, which was my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE game when I was growing up.


Is everybody ready for their singing cue? And a one, and a two, and a- JIZZ - IN - MY - PANTS!

I'd just spent most of the day shopping for little finicky things to try to make the holidays work for me...since I have a bit of money to spend this year...and then I got home and then I went on the computer and bought another gift online and then I was going through my flist when I suddenly felt reall, really hungry. And then I thought, why isn't Stasia home yet? So I picked up the phone...opened it up to start writing a new message...

AND SUDDENLY I GET AN INCOMING TEXT FROM STASIA. It read: "What's for dinner?"

Sometimes all the stars align. And I fucking love it! :)!

So there are typing tests at my job, even after you're hired. I was under the impression that it was every month, but apparently it isn't, because recently they've put up a result sheet for the past few months. I looked under my PIN, and have since looked at it several more times. Why? Because my score was 104 words/minute with 99% accuracy. That's right, bitches!

Of course, I had no idea which call it was that was tested, but someone told me a few weeks ago which it was- and now that the results have been put up, I've been hearing people get the next round every shift. I haven't gotten it again yet, but I know when I do I'm going to be all nervous and make ten billion typos like I do for my surveys.

In more interesting news, I wanted to know who had the best score, so I scanned all the results. And someone, someone got 128 wpm with 100% accuracy. Who the fuck was that?! Seriously. Are they a MACHINE? My only explanation is that they've been working there for years and know the test call by heart. That's seriously all I can think of. I bet I would type more quickly by heart, too. And more accurately.

It might be Tuesday night, but today's my Friday! Woohoo! Weekend!

So...because of my schedule this month, my two days off are Wednesday and Thursday. I do not like this, and not just because Tuesday is effectively my Friday. First of all, it's five days of work in a row, without giving my hands any significant rest. Secondly, after getting used to having a break every couple of days from my previous schedules, I dislike feeling like I have to wait a whole week in order to get anything done. For example, I have a story that was handwritten in the middle of October. It has yet to be typed up and edited. I would now like to point out that it is the middle of November. And so? When I typed out "ELF vs. VULCAN" my hands were sore and shaky for days afterward. I. Do not approve. Of this schedule.

Add to that the fact that today I got yelled at, called a name, and/or called a liar no less than 5 times today. Seriously, I, people. Seriously. Is it so hard to believe that I might need to ask to repeat a number once in a while? Or, you know, use a couple homophones in my typing?

*sigh* I know I shouldn't be complaining. The insurance finally kicked in this month, and I've got to be grateful for that. But it's just so frustrating when I've finally got the creative juices flowing again and I can't tap the barrel and let them pour out. I actually felt like writing poetry today, if that's any indication as to how I was feeling. I got...hmm...I think six and a half stanzas in before I lost the thread of it and got disgusted with myself. THEN I got the urge to draw, which is always a bad sign for my mental health. I did draw...a person...

Now, my drawing style isn't in any way learned or honed, but I can do passable sketches of things. Until you get to the face. Humans, horses, dogs- the species doesn't matter. I cannot draw faces. Then the sketches go from passable to CARTOON, which is awesome if you're going for that, but I'm usually not. So then I had a person on the page, fully formed except for eyes, nose, and mouth...a blank face...non-staring at me...and then I spent the rest of my shift contemplating whether or not that was a metaphor for my difficulty in artistic expression, a difficulty that my professors at school had easily seen and pointed out.

So that was my work day! Now I shall retire, since even after this short bit, my hands and wrists are protesting mightily. Good eve.

I've been reading like a fiend this week! Awesome. Since starting in college, I'd sort of forgotten what it was like being on a roll like that. My appetite is slowly building up again, as it were. I finished The Road after one shift at work. One shift! It was a quick read. And now I'm reading some Gaiman! But let us begin with the beginning; I read Das Parfum first. I will also here add that I'm a bit sick of my own verbosity, so I'll to be a little less longwinded with this. Hopefully. For the sake of my overworked knuckles.

Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind

This book, copyright 1985, is a story about a boy born in 18th century France. This is not just any boy: this boy gives off no kind of scent, but has the best sense of smell that ever there was. His name is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. And he is a megalomaniacal genius.

I'm really not one for what people consider postmodern literature. I'm also sure I'm biased, because I loved reading it in the original German, but this book was really, really good. Truly. It has the benefit of being a historical novel with an omniscient third person narrator from the present, which at times gives some necessary commentary. It also allows to not only enjoy this portrait of an artist, as it were, but a collage of lives and other people that he affects in his self-serving journey; we learn not only that Grenouille meets them, but we learn who they are and why they're there in the first place. It's at times sad, horrifying, hilarious, and mystifying. Indeed, Das Parfum has the dubious honor of being the only book that has ever inspired one of my nightmares. It was obviously therefore weighing heavily on my mind after I finished it. These are the basic categories of thought that I pondered whilst reading it:

1) Scent and Beast; Scent and Man; Scent and Language
2) The Artist and his Work
3) Is Feminism Gonna Hafta Choke a Bitch (Back)?
4) The Postmodern Fairy Tale


( spoilers herein )
Final Verdict: A must read. The film version, with Dustin Hoffman (who I would guess is the Baldini character....?) and Alan Rickman (perhaps the father of the last girl?), is definitely next on my netflix list. But I really, really can't imagine anyone making a good movie out of this book. It's a medium that is exclusively visual and auditory; no real sense of the olfactory at all. Reading allows you to imagine all the senses. Well...that will be a review for another day.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Written in 2006, The Road is about a father and son trying to survive in a grey and desolate post-apocalyptic world. They do not have names, and I actually didn't really notice that until about halfway through the book. They don't need them. They are us and we are them, struggling to keep on keeping on in a world of forgetfulness, grief, and hardship.

This book is almost 300 pages, but as I said before, I read it during my downtime at work. In one shift. So it's a really quick read. That doesn't mean it's an easy read or a light read, simply, a quick one. I...liked it more than I thought I would. I certainly appreciate it more than I thought I would. It's just really not my bag. But the film is coming out soon and I suppose I need to broaden my literary horizons, so I read it. It made me think, though, and that's the best praise you can give any work of art.

This review won't be nearly as long, I promise. Categories:

1) What if?
2) Grammatical Structures
3) Descriptors
4) Everyone is a Philosopher and a Prophet

( spoilers here too )
Final Verdict: Well-executed, but not the best read. If you're into those kinds of "what if" scenarios, then you couldn't really ask for a better example. If you're looking for something that will fufill you, then...no. Though I did really enjoy drinking warm, delicious soup after I finished reading it. That's for sure. Anyway, I look forward to seeing what Viggo does with the piece when the movie comes out...next week is it? Indeed, I shall spend my money on it.

Other comments, having no real review value and mostly on a personal note:

Das Parfum: So, that nightmare it inspired? I was Grenouille. Not literally, I mean, but I was in his position. I, for whatever stupid, pointless, dream-logic reason, was wearing his masterperfume. I was driving in a car, and I was covered in green paint (Reznor's Deep music video, anyone?) and wearing the masterperfume. People started chasing me so I was trying to escape. I turned onto a major road and started gunning it, but then all of the oncoming traffic in the other lane started to slow down and stop. It was night, and their headlights were glaring. Semis, cars, trucks. Shit, I thought. Don't get out of the car. Keep driving. But what the fuck do I do? I park the car in a dark parking lot and get out of the car. Because I'm an idiot. I started running away, and there were some people in the distance behind me. But suddenly, a girl jumps out into my path and starts slashing at me with a knife. I back off a little and we circle each other a bit. Finally, when I think she's going to lunge to get a piece of me, I start to use the perfume and ordered her around. Sort of like...if I got her occupied, she wouldn't try to hurt me. She didn't want to follow my commands, she knew that she was being coerced, but she couldn't help but love me and do it anyway. It was just a really awful situation all around and finally, finally I became lucid and woke myself up. Because no.

The Road: I know this is because I've been much too involved in the Star Trek fandom lately, but I couldn't help but be convinced that the father was like Dr. McCoy. It's never really stated explicitly in the book, but I'm about 95% certain that he was a doctor, or elsewise somehow involved with medicine. Obviously that profession didn't mean all that much anymore, but it helped when he needed to give himself stitches, etc. It's not just the profession, though. Dr. McCoy is an old-fashioned doctor, a sort of family man that was pulled into a dangerous, space-exporing mission that was both his fault, and not his fault. He is undoubtedly the conscience and compassion of the ship. His wife, the few times she's mentioned, is painted as an ambiguous figure at best, and of course he has a child that he cares for (though in this case, from afar). He doesn't believe in the new technology, and he carries a phaser because he must. Likewise the father must carry a pistol, and he sort of...carries the past with him...as best he can....as much as he dares...when everyone else just moves headlong into the next thing. I think it's actually a somewhat nicer characterization than the father deserves, but because I saw him as a gruff-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside sort of man, a man McCoy could become in the same situation...well...it was that much more painful for me to read. (Not to mention my own father is of the older generation of doctors, not the new ones in it for the prestige and the money...god I hate the current generation of doctors...)

The Setting: my great aunt's house on halloween

The Cast: my great aunt, one of my first cousins (once removed), my regular aunt, my mother, and one of my sisters

The Conversation: my first cousin is discussing a previous halloween when there were a few people dressed up as witches, and there was much drinking

she: "So at that point we were all, you know, three pointy hats to the wind."

me: "I guess it was just the ghosts who were three sheets, right?"

*pause*

everyone else: (BELLY LAUGHS)

Seriously, people don't usually find my stupid comments funny, so that made me really, inordinately happy.

At any rate, due to unforseen circumstances last week, I went out of town and did not return until yesterday. This means there was no starting on NaNo. While I might have had the time to complete it had I been able to begin on time, I really don't think I have the time to play catch up for the several days I missed. It's sad, yes, but I'm happy to announce that I have one story completely written, and another that's almost completely written, I just have to squeeze on a bit of a coda. Of course they both must be rewritten and typed up and edited and all that sort of thing, but the point is, the hard part is over. And that hasn't happened for a very, very long time. Getting closer to a year, in fact.

It's nice to be veering back towards the track. :)

So I just came across an article saying that a movie has been made about the Donner party.

Let's get this straight, okay? Maybe cannibalism is just a squick of mine, since I'm really squicky about meat anyway, but it is NOT an acceptable main element of a film.

But what about Silence of the Lambs? you ask, and yeah, yeah I hear ya. The difference between Silence of the Lambs and a historical epic about a bunch of people eating their loved ones is plot. The former is about a serial killer and the agent who's working against him. We have someone to root for, and the hope that the killer will get taken down in the end. He's just a fucked up guy who likes to fuck with people, and some audience members love getting fucked with and squicked out. While this is not me, I get it. I get why people love Silence of the Lambs and its lame-ass sequels.

And yet! A movie about the Donner party cannot be anything like that. Sure we laughed when Robin Williams said, "Donner, party of four!" whilst moving a skeleton's jaw, but that sort of joke falls under the category of "too soon," after it's not "too soon" anymore. We all know the outcome of their fateful trip. How much they suffered. How completely unimaginable for us it must have been. But they lived it. THEY WERE REAL PEOPLE. They froze and died and ate each other because some fucking dumbass duped them into taking a 'shortcut' through the mountains. What the fuck lesson is there to be learned except not to trust people when they say they "totally know" a shortcut? SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT IT? I emphatically do not accept the reasoning that it's for people who love depressing movies or want to be squicked out.

Therefore, since the first five minutes have been officially released online, I decided to watch it. I needed to know how they were treating the subject matter. I was pleased to see that they were treating it with all due seriousness, but that's pretty much the only thing I was pleased about. It began with the opening credits, the names scrawled next to sketches of Independence, MO and various landmarks along the Oregon Trail. It already made me sick thinking of what they had to go through to get that far. Then the movie proper began with a sort of intro typed over a snowy mountain background about how they left Missouri in 1864(?) yadda yadda yadda, and how they were now stuck! And then a dude showed up and started voice-over narrating whilst making a fire! Do you get this? Are you reading this? IT STARTS WITH THEM ALREADY STUCK IN THE GODDAMN MOUNTAINS. It's not like Titanic where they can make a funny or two with their bad scriptwriting before the disaster strikes! Oh no! We're starting in media res, LOVELY.

There were a couple minutes left, but I had to shut it off. I seriously felt like I was going to puke up the food I just ate, even though there was no meat involved in my dinner. Just...no.

And then, they're remaking Short Circuit. I remember that film. It was a favorite of my childhood. Ergo, it is too new to be remade.

Why, movie industry? Why?

"D:" has been my favorite emoticon for a while now. ":(" is just sort of sad or disappointed, and variations on ":o" are more shocked or surprised. But "D:", ever since I first saw it, has perfectly expressed everything on the Horror Spectrum, from dismay, to disgust, to ineffable terror. I loves it, precious. When a couple of enterprising writers titled one of their stories as simply, "D:", I was no little intrigued. And the story lived up to its labelling: I suffer from sometimes-paralyzing secondhand embarrassment, and for most of the story I was torn in two from convulsions of both laughter and horror. Indeed, throughout most of my reading, my countenence was contorted thusly: "D:". Not only did one of the characters regularly get referred to as wearing his, what was dubbed, "D-face," said emoticon also eloquently expressed the "FML" road the protagonist's life was taking. So clearly, "D:" has range.

So I think that story is the eptiome of that emoticon. Little did I know that last night, I would have a dream that was an epitome of that icon. To wit:

I'm not sure how the dream got to this point, but some bad guy was after me or something, and he was all about alligators. I don't think it was magic and they were his animal to call or anything, he was just obsessed with them, I don't know. Anyway, the authorities has procedures for these types of bad guys, because obviously, all bad guys have favorite animals, and so they put me outside near a lake that had a gigantic-ass alligator in it. They assured me that they'd neutralized the alligator somehow, and it wouldn't be able to hurt me. RIGHT. Every time I got in the water, it totally started coming toward me. But I kept trying. The last time, it was chilling on the shore, I jumped in, pushed away from the bank, and started kicking quickly away, sort of like a backstroke without the arms. Immediately I knew it was the wrong thing to have done, because it could totally catch up to me in the water. And indeed, it speedily slipped into the water and made a beeline for me.

D:

At this point I regained some lucidity and redirected the dream (I'm often able to do this when I'm about to get killed). Suddenly, I was inside the grand brick building that was on the same property as the Alligator Lake. It was like a hostel, sort of. But a nice one! Homey and cozy and sort of like tiny restaurants you see in Little Italys around the States. There were definitely traces to the one we often go to in Cleveland. Anyway, I was there along with my mother and on of my sisters. The place was pretty crowded. However, the place, which was sort of more like a hotel, I guess, because there was a wedding party upstairs making a shittonne of racket and demanded all the attention of the owners for the preparation and all the guests and whatnot. This put everybody else in a pissy mood. But that was okay, because I could entertain my family. Because obviously, this was FERRARA, and I am an expert. Indeed, the top floor of the cozy/hotel/hostel/thing was apartments, and my apartment had been one of them. I would take everybody up to see it! Share that important bit of my life! No one cared. They rolled their eyes, because clearly, no idea was more ridiculous on earth.

D:

So I tried to take them around shopping in the district but there were slim pickings because it's sort of a small place. We return to the hotel where my sister laments the pointless trip outside we had just taken. Then I get a brilliant idea! I would take her to Venice! Venice wasn't that far away! It was filled with shiny things like masks with jewels and feathers! She would love it! I voiced my enthusiasm and gave my assurance that it would be awesomesauce. My sister gave me one of those, "Oh, my annoying little sibling" looks, said, "Yeah, maybe," in a manner which clearly meant NO, turned her back, and walked away.

D:

I was at a complete loss. Who wouldn't want to explore the wonders of new places and things? Didn't everybody want to see Venice? My family's dreamed about doing stuff like this forever, and here I was offering it to them on a platter, but they didn't seem to care at all. They didn't appreciate it at all. They didn't want me to share. I returned to our hotel room, which was empty. I stood between the little white beds and looked out the window, directly onto Alligator Lake, lamenting the state of affairs. Then the woman who owned the place with her husband walked in. We knew each other from my time studying in Ferrara. She apologized that all her guests' stays weren't the best because of all the wedding stuff going on. I was so relieved that there was someone else in the world that I knew that appreciated the places and things that were around us, and that spoke Italian, and that was, I don't know, talking to me, that I threw my arms around this woman and cried.

D:

Then my mother came in. My mother is always in a sour mood when things at hotels aren't just so, and this was obviously no exception. Then the owner-woman whipped out the coup de grace: all the dinner reservations for the hotel dining room had just been cancelled because the wedding party had demanded that all of their people should eat in the dining room that eve. Then she left, and I could see my mother getting really angry. But I knew JUST the thing to render this situation awesome! "Don't worry, mother," I told her. "There are a lot of great places to get cappellacci around here. I know just where we can go!" My mother turned and looked down her nose at me disdainfully. "I don't want cappellacci," she spat, in a tone which clearly screamed, PLEBE PICKINGS.

D:

At which point I became lucid, said AH, FUCK NO! and forced myself to wake up fully. Honestly, I get lucid in dreams when really awful things are happening. Like, I'm dying or about to, or people around me are, etc. That was the extent of the mindfuck that was this dream. It was so emotionally violent that I became lucid. It was so turbulent to my state of being that it took me a good half an hour to fall back asleep, even though I was really tired.

My subconscious is always so full of surprises.

It's been a while since I've had a full time job that isn't "being a student." So...I'd sort of forgotten how much time it just eats up...I am so incredibly behind on everything! I need a couple more hours in the day, or something. But when I opened up the envelope with my paystub in it and I saw the amount, I just about cried. I'd forgotten what it felt like to not worry about how many groceries you're buying. I mean, I made more money in two weeks than I've had in my bank account since I returned from Italy. Probably from halfway through my sojourn living in Italy. Of course, I start paying back college loans this month! It's going to take the rest of my life! For joy! For exultation and joy!

I shall share what I've been up to in my offtimes, but first, a couple conversations with my mother:
( Thermostats, Bush, and Animal Body Parts )
Anyway!

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO:

( Books, Bubblewrap, and Impulse Buying )
WHAT I'M ABOUT TO BE DOING:

( Curses and Lit and the Idiot Box )
AWESOME MOVIE AND TV NEWS:

( Grave Robbers, Gucci, and STEPHEN FRY )
And yeah...tha's all for now. See, I am so behind on my friends list and my news sites and my email that after getting home from work and making dinner and not even getting done with the several pages of posts I've missed, it's already after 5am. I am so screwed for getting up in time for lunch.

....But then again, I now have the money to buy myself lunch!

Lastly, I had a strange dream last night. Usually I dream strangely, but this was even more strange because generally my dreams don't include characters and/or famous people. Now, I have never been in the Pirates of the Caribbean fandom. I love the first movie, hate the second, and amusedly tolerate the third. Yet in this dream, a great adventure was taking place, and Will and Captain Jack and Elizabeth were all there among the shenanigans. As I was involved in said adventure, I was watching the dynamic between all of them, and then eventually Will does something stupid and single-minded and heroic per usual, saving Elizabeth's life gallantly, when he glances back toward Sparrow. And then my dreamself got it, in that sort of, "Oh. Oh! Ohhhhhh."-type way. Yeah...so my subconcious ships Will/Jack. Unrequited, even. Angsty. Not being able to go against the status quo. WHY, FREUD, WHY? I don't even find either of them very attractive! I can't even blame it on my libido!

I need sleep.

So....a sequel to the Laramie Project has been written. And it's being performed in LA. And....because it's LA and not NYC, tons of awesome actors that I recognize and respect are going to be in it...from Heroes and NCIS and The Big Bang Theory etc, etc, usw. It's just...ugh. I have always wanted to see the Laramie Project, and now they've got a sequel going on, and I just have this mantra in my head that murmurs soonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoonsoon - SOON I will be somewhere not here, SOON I will be able to enjoy theatre, SOON I will just...have money to be able to go experience things.

I know I'm lucky and have so much more than most people and there's nothing wrong with working and doing nothing else if working all the time is what helps you to survive, but I can't help it. I'm human. I want. I need. (And because of the different volume and type and origin of the calls, I feel like I'm on an emotional  rollercoaster every shift. It wears me the fuck out. Human life is so...predictable and trivial and ultimately sad.)

MAJOR CULTURE WITHDRAWAL.

Getting it through the internet is like...is like mainlining sugar for a high when you're used to crack. 'Sall I'm saying. And the internet can tell me where the venue is and who's going to be there and it will show me a satellite photo of the street if I felt so inclined to search for it, but it can't actually portarmi there.

I will...get there...soon. Wherever 'there' is...soon.

I just...I just saw someone advertising NaNoWriMo. Holy shit it's almost Novermber. I mean, I know October just started, but geez. And yeah...it's getting colder out (fall's always been my favorite, but I must admit it's not the same with out those campus trees).

This of course has gotten me thinking...should I do NaNo this year? I do type at work all day, but...I have been writing during my downtime at work. This means that I've gotten a dozen or so pages written in the past couple days, which is nice, but it is a parody. A musical parody, in fact. So my dozen pages are actually all the songs that I've rewritten (I have two more left in the musical to go). Which could be seen as lame in one sense, but on the other hand- I just opened up iTunes and it started playing the last song from the musical! So perhaps it's a sign. (What are you talking about? iTunes never lies!)

Actually, I've written a lot of parodies. People can't see the tag since I only use it for my fiction, but in my unfinished archive I already have 20 parodies tagged. Natch. Apparently it's an addiction?

Though I must admit that my fingers and wrists do hurt. I'm typing really slowly right now, well, slow for me. I tested at 90-some words per minute to get the job and that was super-nervous and making a lot of mistakes, so. This feels like crawling when it's probably like 60 or something. Still.

NaNo? I could. I've several long stories I need to write. And maybe if I make it a fanfiction I can post it in relative places and therefore have to post it promptly and on schedule? And now I keep ending sentences with a higher pitch? Like Brian's girlfriend? I'd look for the Family Guy clip but I probably couldn't find it quickly? Anyway I can't keep using homework as an excuse? I can't even use theatre as an excuse?

I...should. I need to prove I can finish my long projects when I start them. Because I totally can. I wrote over a hundred pages single-spaced size 10 font in Ents before I petered out. I can finish a long project.

Maybe.

They're making a movie about Facebook. Really, they are. And I'm not talking about those stupid romcoms where people use the internet to find lovers. Oh, no. About Facebook. The website. Not like a documentary detailing how it came about. That would be too...logical.

THERE WILL BE ACTORS PLAYING THE PEOPLE WHO FOUNDED FACEBOOK. AND ONE OF THEM IS JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.

WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? WHAT, I ASK YOU? WHAT?!

*throws head into arms and sobs* There...is so little artistic integrity left...so little...

PS- They're also going to be making a live action Barbie film, but upon reading the above news, well...that just sort of seemed normal.

I was just on the website en.akinator.com , in which you think of a character, and like that 20 questions game (which I own and totally works, if you're thinking of something PG), it guesses who you're thinking of. It can be a real person or a fictional one. I decided I was going to stump this mofo, so I decided to think of the Witch King of Angmar, from The Lord of the Rings.

And it guessed correctly.

Shut. Up. Fucking amazing, yo.

And then I realized, the Witch King is badass and recieved excellent sound editng and mixing in the film for Return of the King. Not to mention armor design. So, I decided to choose someone less badass. Namely Butterbur, the innkeeper at the Prancing Pony.

It guessed "Baron Vladimir Harkonnen" which is confusing on several levels because 1] I don't know who it is and 2] he has a Russian first name and Finnish last name. What?

At any rate it's a win. Or is it? I beat a computer. But...that also means I know a lot of details about a particular fandom. Of course it turns out because it lost, I had to type in who I was thinking of, and it searched its database...and I am not the first person to guess him.

So in the end, I have not tread a path that no geek has tread before. Perhaps there is hope for me yet!

In other news, internet games are addicting. This isn't as addicting as, say, Bookworm or Chuzzles or Peggle...but still. Noooiiice.