in Life's name and for Life's sake

So I haven't updated in a while, mostly because since econ's gotten out, I haven't been doing too much. Now, that's not a bad thing -- but I also haven't been doing some of the things that I wanted to get done. However, I did read Lord of the Flies and I just started Life of Pi this morning.

I can probably cover most of the happenings in my future by simply reading them off of the whiteboard that I keep on my bedroom door. there's al ist in the middle in red, of things I really need to focus on, which reads: college apps, laptop, driver's ed, scholarships.

The Stanford app is now online, so I want to start at least looking it over...since I'm applying early action there, it's gotta be in by November 1st. Also, I'm planning on buying a laptop, but I haven't really sat down to get it done yet. I just finished my online driver's ed course after almost a year of having been signed up, but now I have to wait for the certificate to come so that I can work on getting my permit. And as for scholarships, I got an account on Fastweb and realized how many there are out there, and how many I could potentially get. So I figure the sooner I start applying, the better. Even if it's just me scribbling out an essay in my free time, I write well enough that I've got a shot at most of the essay contests.

Also on the board, scrawled excitedly in blue, is the single word WICKED, underlined several times. It's in Orange County now, at OCPAT, but I hadn't managed to get tickets when they went on sale so I wasn't planning on going. However, it turns out that Rick's grandmother gets season tickets to OCPAT, and she didn't have anyone to drive her to see Wicked since Rick's parents are going out of town this weekend, so she gave us the tickets!!! We're seeing the matinee on Saturday; I'm really excited.

Also, MUN summer sessions have been going on for two weeks now; today's the third session. Tony's teaching, so it should be fun.

I went to Disneyland yesterday with Rick, which was good fun. Hurrah for season passes.

All of this has been interspersed with knitting and watching X-Files. After lunch, it might also involve some reading of fanfiction, purely for entertainment. Hope you all are having good summers.

And lastly, before I leave...



Damn, looks like I'm gonna blow up. Ah, well, can't have everything.

Picture descriptions to be posted later; this is just to let me remember so that I can go back later and write up stuff. At the moment, I don't quite have time for it.

picture 01: in the room where the stegner fellows workshop

picture 02: bill in a toga

picture 03: the elusive black squirrel

picture 04: facepainted paula and the cotton candy

picture 05: facepainted katherine -- eye dots

picture 06: i heart milo

picture 07: luke and katherine looking funny

picture 08: matt reading one of his poems

picture 09: the room where we workshop

picture 10: the view out of that room's window

picture 11: the dragon on my arm

picture 12: the Oath on my arm

picture 13: the maruchan noodles

picture 14: the map

picture 15: grisha

picture 16: valerie

picture 17: stanford shopping center

picture 18: the raccoons

picture 19: whitney

picture 20: moonbean's cafe

picture 21: the treehouse

picture 22: paula's modern art

picture 23: bubbly fountain

picture 24: katherine in front of fountain, back turned

picture 25: gryffindor tie dye

picture 26: dyed hands

picture 27: dyed feet

picture 28: washing off the dye

picture 29: katherine in the mirror

picture 30: the resultant shirt-wad

picture 31: katherine's greek arm

picture 32: terra from the outside

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

✓ I miss somebody right now.  ((Only a few more days!))	✓ I don't watch much TV these days.  (Damn school, I barely have time for the requisite X-Files viewings!)	✓ I own lots of books.  (At least a bajillion and two.)
× I wear glasses or contact lenses.	× I love to play video games.	× I've tried marijuana.
× I've watched porn movies.	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.	✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
✓ I curse sometimes.  (Unfortunately...)	× I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

( it goes on... )

There are many things I don't want to be
in this wide world, but above all I loathe
the idea that I might belong
to the category
of the unpublished. Those aspiring writers
who finish the manuscript, sent it
in and then the reply comes: NO. We don't
want you, or this, not here, not now, NOT.
It's not you, it's us? The poetry
no longer drips from my tongue, my words
have lost their honeyed sweetness. Then
what shall I do now about it, how shall
this fix itself -- shall it?

Sometimes it's best to think and
then to writer, other times to
write and then thing, but
the abitrary pressing of
the "enter" key does not
make a poem out of words sprinkled across the wasteland
of the page. Eliot must have known
that it was hard; I don't know how
he did it. Painful
as Prufrock's last lurching breaths, before
he drowns in a sea of uncertainty
as the sirens sing on the shore.

POETRYPOETRYPOETRYPOETRYPOETRYPOETRYOMGYESIT'SPOETRYPOETRYPOETRYPOETRY

Well, you see, it's kind of like
our molecules for a moment mingle
and we're not two separate people,
there's just the "we."

--But that can't happen, you see;
you are you and I am me and
as much as I'd like to be
with you like that, it's not possible.

Why do you say this, dear? I know
that you're the smart one here,
but I like to think that, in love,
you don't have to be a rocket scientist.

--Yes, my love, I understand,
but please be more precise: you see,
on the basic molecular level, there
can never be zero space between particles.

I beg your pardon, but for all
those years of schooling, you're quite dull
to still believe that science has
anything to do with love.

POETRYPOETRYOMYGOSHICAN'TBELIEVEI'MTHISBOREDOFPOETRYPOETRYPOETRYPOETRY

Once upon a midnight dreary,
little Edgar Allen Poe
must've spouted off the theory
that the world would come to know

As his signature suggestion.
But what still amazes me
is that no one has sought to question
that a raven, flying free

Would drop in on Edgar Allen
in the darkness of the night,
making a show of feather and talon,
only to disappear from sight.

(Things like this show you how much I am SEVERELY LACKING IN GOOD IDEAS!!!)

I am now going to fall over and moan...after I get snack. Maybe I just need to come back to this whole poetry thing later, when my mind has been freed of its cliches.

Somteims, a poem is
best seen without sight, so that
now as Iwrite this I colse my eyes
and open others, so that
I don't have to see the page, the words, and
I can just feel it under my fingers,
like something more tangible, more necessary, more
alive. Something
that moves beneath my feet, something that quivers
like a living sidewalk
and takes me down roads unexpected. But
I wouldn't want to go anywhere old, to go
somewhere I have gone before -- there's
no learning in that, no experience, no
change, and that's what I crave from this life, that's
what most of the time I live for...

The words, the words, they spin away into
the space where lost words go, the ones
I cannot say, not here, not now, not because
I'm afriad at all, not because they are wrong or right, but
just because here they aren't meant to be, and
maybe later
mabye when I know better
they'll pop up and scream out, Use me, Use me! and
then I'll have to oblige. Then, when the words fall to the page
like ink-soaked meteors, when
everything flows and goes and happens as it should,
then and only then will I be satisfied.

I suppose that not all poets work like this,
spinning tales off the tips of their tongues,
throwing words out at the wall
and waiting for the right ones to stick;
producing, producing, producing (the first draft
of anything is shit, you gotta keep at it, you gotta
get past it) until out of a thousand words you find
the right three to say
what you really meant.

Like an archaeologis, I dig out the meaning,
dissecting the pieces
that I find, going over
every last indentation in the skeleton
of the piece,
stripped of flesh,
waiting for someone to come along
and reliably begin
the reconstruction...

!@#$%^&*&^%$#@! --- !@#$%^&*&^%$#@!

(This isn't me.)

The novel I haven't written
is really wonderful, you see -- there are
so many levels to it, such depth,
and I just can't get over
all that there is to it -- you must
understand, when I say I haven't
written it, I mean
that I haven't been able to write it, yet, because
really, it deserves more time than I have
to give it; it deserves my life, it demands
the utmost devotion. But I can guarantee
that once it's out there, man, it'll
blow the market away, I'll have people
begging me for autographs, movie deals,
man, it'll be sweet. You know I can do it, too -- I just
hope that no one'll get jealous, you know
how that can be, you're so great and then
those people you knew, they just can't
handle knowing
something that wonderful, so you get problems with
keeping those close friends, you know? I mean,
I don't want that to happen, but
it's bound to, right? I mean,
you know,
I'm just that good.

!@#$%^&*&^%$#@! --- !@#$%^&*&^%$#@!

Brevity is not
all there is to writing
or to life,
but some things deserve
imagery
and others deserve
silence.

!@#$%^&*&^%$#@! --- !@#$%^&*&^%$#@!

Produce a pound of shit and you're sure
to find at least an ounce of good,
something that's right, a line that's pure.

Sometimes they hide themselves away
and the search goes on and drains your strength --
you waste the best part of your day.

Don't let this be misunderstood --
there are things to be said for length --

But if you are to spill your blood
upon the page in a manic fit,
don't make others sift through your mud.
Please, I beg: CLEAN UP YOUR SHIT!

!@#$%^&*&^%$#@! --- !@#$%^&*&^%$#@!

We've started upon a poetry unit for the writing class, so I just had to "spill some blood" upon the page and see what happened. Well, I have. Now I think I can go and write some real poetry.

So today's field trip was monstruosly better than the last trip. We went to this little beach town near Santa Cruz that was the awesomest thing ever! I really loved the town, it was adorable. There were definitely awesome things about it. I didn't go there to go to the beach, so I hung out with friends and shopped. Which was amazing. Now, for a homework assignment for class, I will proceed to journal the most interesting portions of my trip.

When we got there we ambled around at first looking for a movie theater because we had a vague desire to see Pirates and we knew there was a movie theater somewhere in town. But when we realized we didn't have much time we decided to just walk and have fun instead, which was (from what I hear) a much better choice.

(Just so ya know, "we" refers to me, Paula, Katherine, and at times Luke, Sam, Saalika, and Katie. Not that any of you know those people, but I do.)

Anyway, having pitched the lunches provided by EPGY since we'd discovered last weekend that they were not really food, and merely masquerading as such, we found a place to eat real food. And it was a good place that we found. It was this little pizza place called "Pizza My Heart," and it was all beach themed -- their cups showed a bunch of surfers silhouetted against the sunset, carrying drinks and pizzas! The restaurant was small but the pizza was really good thin crust that came in giant slices and reminded me of Italian pizza. The environment was cool, too -- they had a little stand-up counter at the back where you could eat and watch them make other pizzas. I wanted to buy a shirt they were selling but I didn't, because I knew I didn't need one. It was close enough to the beach that I could smell the salt in the air and I was almost cold due to the breeze.

After pizza, we went shopping. Yes, the magical word! We wandered for a while without finding anything but then we hit the first jackpot store. It had this really cool designer-ish clothing that was quite unique. I really took a liking to this amazing pair of olive green pants. They were cotton and spandex, with fancy embroidery on the pocket and leg that said "Dream your dreams." I tried on a pair and they fit amazingly, but they were $45 and being the spendthrift that I am, I didn't buy them. I also tried on this cute red shirt with white polka dots that would've looked awesome (and which I would've bought) had it come in the right size. But Katherine found a cute sundress, and Paula got a shirt that makes her look like an anime character.

Then we browsed through a couple more stores and we found one that was unimpressive except for the fact that it sold jewelery which had sea glass in it. I really wanted to buy it, but the chains that the charms were on were really puny and I knew that I was mostly paying for the chains. So I didn't buy them, but still...the sea glass, encased in twined silver, hanging pendant against the air...the sea suspended.

That same shop also had pendulums that would draw in the sand if you nudged them, spinning out patterns that all looked the same until they weren't anymore.

Then we went to a small craft store, where I bought two pins: one, which I'm wearing now, says "will work for world peace" and another which I bought for Rick has a picture of the two Bushes and has the line "Dumb & Dumber" inscribed across it. There were some other good slogans. One that sticks out in my mind is "I found Jesus -- he was under the couch cushion the whole time!"

From there we went to a store called Avalon Visions, which in my head I call Avalon rising for some reason. It was really odd, and it was selling all of these things that were vaguely connected to alternative religions of all sorts. There were Tibetan Singing Bowls, which make an oddly eerie but captivating noise if you hit them and then stroke them in the right way -- I didn't try to use one, but Katherine got it on her first try, and Luke made it work eventually. We asked a lot of questions about what things were and what they did, and the people who ran the store were happy to answer questions. For instance, there was this sign over the door that was two entertwined rings, and we wanted to know what it meant. So Paula asked a lady who worked there and she went off onto this explanation that must've taken into account at least three different religious traditions. But I never felt like she was telling us that any single interpretation was correct, or at least that no one was more correct than any other. I think that was the cool thing -- we didn't have to believe in the alternative religious aspects of any of the things she said but she still respected us and answered our questions.

Katherine and I were talking about what we thought of it, and we both agreed that we didn't believe in the things the woman was talking about...but the store was still really fun to browse, and it was a great place to find little trinkets that I'll save up in my mind for when I need to write a story with that certain touch. I dunno exactly why, but I really liked it.

Oh, I forgot to mention that before that we went and got ice cream, and my ice cream was amazing and came in a waffle cone that I watched them make. How cool is that?

After Avalon Visions, we went to another place suggested by Luke -- this kid is good at picking out interesting stores! It was called Rainbow City something-or-other (can't remember the last word) and it was a hippie haven. I definitely saw a bumper sticker that said "War is not good for small children and other living things," just like Vargish had told us about! I really wanted to buy it, but I didn't, because I'd already gotten my hippie pin for the day. I am seriously considering becoming a green bohemian hippie writer. Not that I'll write about being green, bohemian, or a hippie -- writer is just what I want to be. But the drug aspects of hippie culture and the poverty aspects of bohemian culture are altoghter unappealing. But if I can wear tie-dye, be anti-establishment, and save the trees...I think that wouldn't be the worst way to spend some of my time.

When we were done in there we went to walk back to where the bus was going to pick us up, down by a river that flowed into the ocean at that point. The riverbanks were covered in trees and, along one side, houses. An old railroad bridge ran across it, rusty and unreliable looking, but I hear that trains still run across it. We walked down the path by the river for a while, looking at the sights and waiting for an adventure. In those moments that was what I wanted most: something to happen, something to be interesting, something to make me feel like my life mattered. I know now that it does matter whether or not I've been on an adventure but I still wish sometimes that I could do more things with my life. And being by that river, for one reason or another, brought out that side in me. I don't think I could live there...but I do think I could write a novel there.

Speaking of writing...I have things that I need to do, namely, I have a short story that I have to finish. But that description needed to be done. I had a wonderful time in Capitola, and I really want to someday go back.

Oh, so I forgot to say, but I got an e-mail yesterday from Jana Paniccia, who's helping Julie Czerneda with the anthology thing and who's had stories of hers published in some of Julie's anthologies before. So the e-mail basically said that they'd know which stories were going to be in by the middle of this month! I'm really nervous, really anxious, and full of apprehension and anticipation. There's so much that I imagine could happen, if only Julie likes my work and if only I can get published here, now, by her. I've got to start somewhere, and in my head, this particular story really ought to be the start.

Intoxicating is the idea that what starts must then continue...and I think that there is nothing I would love more than to see a continued writing career blossom from this single story.

I haven't been doing much lately, mostly working on my story, going to class, hanging out. I've more or less got it down to a system, though not quite a routine. But I'm having fun. It's so weird to think that I'm already done with more than half of my stay here--it's gone by so fast! But at least I know that I really want to go here; at least I know that, at Stanford, and even more specifically in a workshop environment, I feel like I can thrive. Living with these kids who are mostly as in to writing as I am has been so wonderful--I can only wait to have another similar experience.

Hugs to all back home, and I hope you're doing well.

So I went and saw fireworks. They were pretty neat, I guess, though they started an hour late. Ah, well, it was awesome to watch stuff explode.

I got my AP test scores back...I was really surprised at a bunch of them, but I passed all of the tests (!) so I'm psyched.

I did watercolors today for activity, which was pretty cool.

So I did the run, went to lunch, and then when I'd just gotten back to the dorm a group of kids was walking to the Stanford Mall. So I yelled at them to wait for me, got my wallet, and went with.

It was a pretty cool trip -- I think everyone got something they really liked. Everything I got was ridiculously on sale.

At GAP, I got a lime green polo shirt, and a really pretty white sundress that's kinda lacy around the hem. I was content with myself, because I actually got a dress that I would wear.

And then we went to Express and I saw it: the Dress of the Gods. It was just that pretty. Rumpled brown satin, uneven hem, spaghetti strapped, tight in all the right places, moderately low neckline but comfortable looking.

And also $50.

But my friends convinced me to try it on...and it really was the Dress of the Gods. It fit just as well as it looked like it would--it maybe even fit better than it looked like it would. But it was still $50, and I don't spend money all that much; it's not something I'm comfortable with. However, I called Mom and she talked me into getting it. So did all my friends.

Turns out, when the cashier rang it up, that it was down to $20. The initial price had been $80. That was the most amazing shopping moment I have had in a long time.

Then we went to a few other stores and I helped my friends find cool clothes--I didn't want to exhaust my luck. But I think I'm taking another trip to the shopping center next weekend...

All in all I had a good time, but now I have to write the ending of my story... Wish me luck!

So I don't really have too much to say, and I don't want to take too much time saying it, because I've got a short story to write and some laundry in the wash...

Yes, I am washing laundry for my first time. Go me! I'm afraid it will come out horribly and I'll have to go buy all new clothes...hopefully not!

Yesterday we went on a field trip to the de Young museum...I dunno, it really bored me. Not my kind of place. It was sort of interesting, I guess, but not somewhere where I could spend more than an hour, and we were there for three, so that's a problem.

Meh...haven't done much. I am seriously worrying about the laundry, don't ask me why. It's a silly thing but I'm so afraid that I'll screw it up somehow and then everyone will laugh at me. There are a surprising number of people who came here never having really done their laundry...but I couldn't find any of them to stumble through the process with me. I'm not going to feel okay about the laundry until it's done and I didn't screw it up.

*insert groan here*

I am now going to stop complaining about laundry. But it's really the only thing I have to complain about...I guess that's good.

I am now going to write about a strange character being burned alive in a chalice of Sacred Flame. (Yes that's for my short story.) But at least it will keep my mind off of the laundry!