I see the light is holding up my heart

I've been going through the fiction archives over at Strange Horizons, looking for a particular story, and of course reading a shit-ton of stories in the meanwhile. Today I was struck by just how much talent is on that site. I followed author bio links to really awesome blogs and it feels like the Internet is alive again. Basically this is an excuse for me to post this excerpt from "Up In the Air" by Richard Larson:

"Break-ups are sometimes necessary, and they are painful, and actually they're always entirely unnecessary. They make you feel worthless, like you wasted your time. Break-ups are like big battles in ancient wars where two armies run at each other from opposite ends of a field, waving big wooden weapons. Break-ups are like being hit in the head with a big wooden weapon after running across a field while knowing all along that you are about to get hit in the head with a big wooden weapon."

It is pure genius, and I think it has everything to do with the relationship of the last two sentences. There's that initial letdown of not carrying through with the metaphor of the armies, and then Larson attacks it from a slightly different angle (we last left the armies whilst they were still running, and now we are at the time after that running) that perfectly fills the expectation of using that metaphor. An added bonus is that note of fulitily that reflects the relationship it's representing. Marvelous.

I have a lot of favorite stories at that website. Link droppings!
Tim Pratt: Another End of the Empire - Clever reversal/antithesis of the "typical fantasy story"
Leah Bobet: Bears - Wonderfully bizarre
Alaya Dawn Johnson: Down the Well - The cincher is that small epiphany the narrator has about his education
Kit St. Germain: As He Was - Tragic, but damn
Tina Connolly: On the Eyeball Floor - One of my all-time favorites

I have started classes here in Germany and it's going as well as I was expecting. If everything gets counted as the classes I want, I'll be on my way to graduation and the overwhelming world that lies in wait. I've been playing with the idea of staying longer and picking up a few minors and maybe "cum laude" but then I remind myself to be a realist. I'm going to have an assfuck of student loans to pay off.

My spare time is generally made up of lots of thinking, and these days I'm trying to be more constructive with what my mind meanders through. Lately it's been on the separation of one's actual, inner self, and the presentation of self that various media give. I don't know if any of you whopping 2 people who read this do it, but sometimes I catch myself thinking of my self in terms of some outside source. Then the question becomes, is there a self of my own that exists without these outside sources? I don't have an answer, because the me that is thinking this doesn't exist without influence from an outside source. I have been raised around people, radios, televisions, the internet, and globalization. People are raised by people, with or without all the technology of today. So has there ever been a definite sense of one's own self? If our universe is our interactions with the world, where is one's self in that tangle? I can understand the urge to hermit oneself, to rip one from the "modern" (read: connected) world in a desire to solidify/form that elusive self.

I'm really interested in philosophy, but it seems like such a huge subject to broach. In order to understand modern philosophy, I have to understand the ancient, and somewhere along the lines I just get distracted. Leads to trolling wikipedia a lot. Today I was reading about solipsism and fallibilism. The former is basically the tenant that one's mind is all there is; everything else is out of one's own context and therefore uncertain. Fallibilism, in short summary, states that all knowledge could be wrong, for nothing is objectively knowable. When I was trolling TED.com earlier today, I watched this talk and it echoed some of (what I understand of) fallibilism and all that. Really nice insights. I seem so intelligent today, jeesh.

Another thing about not knowing about philosophy is that I don't know if what I'm mulling over has been mulled over before, and with better results. I need a walking talking philosophy encyclopedia.

Started the bare bones of a story during the trip back from Berlin. It was refreshing, because it's been a while since I've felt comfortable enough to do so? I think a lot of it had to do with having a row of seats to myself (us BCA-ers had the entire top of a train car) and with really inspiring music, by which I mean Elbow. What's funny is that the whole thing erupted out of some mindless doodling, which is really the first time that's happened. What sucks is that I started with a terrible, mindless droning of a prologue before getting to characters, so the world is set up in my head, but not on page as an easily accessible port for a reader. But I was in a German mood so I made a German character which is a shameless blatant ploy to use random German sentences. Mwhahahaha. German German German.

PREACH ON

Extra family members are throwing off my groove. I have to tiptoe around my room after eight due to small child. Umm but I think I am good with kids because my idea of fun can be very simplistic. Maybe that is not the word I'm looking for. A less-conscious-effort-needed sort of fun, like just settling into repetitive roles that everyone's familiar with? God this shit only makes sense in my head. Perhaps I do mean simple and I am just overthinking this all.

Still have not unpacked all my stuff from moving out of Erickson. Tomorrow I vow to make progress however. I need to take my fridge and microwave out 'cause I ain't using them. My closet really needs to be cleaned out, but honestly I don't know if I'm up to that. The pile of crap in there is basically as tall as I am, and probably almost as old. Think I need a new bookshelf too, so I can clean off my dresser and work on my paint/comic/thing more.

Speaking of which, I was brainstorming more stuff for that painty-comic (combining lines of poetry with crappy acrylics) and came across the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. His work is quite interesting. I don't quite know what it means when I can relate so well to deeply religious poetry. I love how he messes with rhythm, and the imagery used is shockingly modern for the time it was written in (mid-late-1800s). Like, there's something so powerful about a well-placed parenthetical exclamation.

I made a delicious dinner! I have this staple now, where I cook some rice, saute some veggies in soy sauce/honey/ginger and heat up one of those pre-cooked chicken patties. I usually season the patty with soy sauce, but today at Wal-Mart I bought some teriyaki glaze and delicious fruit. So I sauted some green beans and mushrooms, and they were chilling while I waited for the rice. The chicken was in the oven getting delicious and I decided "hey dammit I bought canned pineapple and I'mma exploit that ish*" so I dumped about half of them in the pan and got everything heating through. Most of the time I add a quickie-egg on top but I wasn't in the mood. No matter! It turned out so wellllll (well except for the undercooked green beans). The mushrooms were melt-in-your-mouth soft and the pineapple and teriyaki were ridiculous partners of culinary crime. I also bought some peppers, so I might throw them in next time. (Guys yellow peppers are the greatest.)

*verbatim

My bad wrist has been giving me such problems lately. Wednesday, during billiards (an actual course at UMBC!), I (literally) just pressed down on my hand and something seized up and completely sucked that entire day. Not even ibuprofen could help. It was something tendon-y, but it thankfully went away with sleep. Except it's still a little sore. I am sad. This follows the terrible shift-and-I-can't-breathe muscle sprain in my back on Tuesday, and the teeth-edging burning ache of pulled muscles in my shoulders/neck from Thursday. Blargh. I didn't want this kind of grown-up.

Positive note!

LIMITED TIME OFFER!

News flash: I have many coupons scattered about my desk.

So man, I'm for real going to Germany in the fall. Today my program sent me a handbook, sports bag, luggage tags (d'awww) and my International SOS card. I am so done with being nervous; one benefit of overthinking things is a lack of surprise (that is not the word I'm looking for) at new stuff. I suppose I'm confident enough to forge ahead, or, as I think is more likely the case, I'm not emotionally involved.

I've been pondering this to myself for a while now, because pondering is something I'm good at. There are two sides to me, the emotional and the rational, and I am a rational girl. Emotions are nice, but they aren't the driving force in my life. This would be why I appear to have no desires, I suppose. I tend to lean toward the action that gets me direct results. I picked German as my major because it leads to direct results of employment, i.e. translation, etc.

Being so rational makes it really hard to come home, because I've grown to believe that the people there are ruled by emotions. My dad is stubborn and quick to anger, my mom flies into tantrums, and my little sister is a teenager. I just don't really see the point of being angry, though I often am compelled to ire myself. I won't spout out crap reasons like "we have too little time on this earth" because that's not the reason I think that way. I'm really good at distancing myself from a situation and getting a smidgeon of perspective (sometimes that's all you need). I am most often angry when other people can't do this because to me it is so easy.

Blah. In conclusion, I am glad I know myself. I'm pretty happy with what I ken.

Friday is the library picnic! I am currently torn between two recipes, one for pink lemonade cupcakes and the other for blueberry mint lemonade. I had originally wanted to make something with matcha or Earl Grey tea, but then I didn't. I am sorta leaning toward the lemonade because I don't think many other people will be bringing specialty drinks, and I want to stand out. No salad from this enterprising holy shit I'm not a teen I can't use teenager chef.

Slowly starting to write and draw more often. There was a period of time after moving back when everything was still packed up and I was lazy. The latter still holds true, but my itch had to be scratched. I'm considering adding something else to my bookshelf comic, for as of now it consists only of the top half. I've been scouring through random poetry books I have, and I think I have enough stuff to slapdash a continuation together. And I saved all that acrylic paint from the dump-drive, so the materials and inspiration are there. Need the motivation and the lack of clutter. Maybe I'll be completely unpacked by the 4th of July. That is my completely sensible deadline.

Here, some word vomit that has a direct inspiration. It doesn't exactly express what I wanted, and it got away from me a bit at the end there.

When he played with the children, he was always the monster. It awoke something primeval in him, a rush of secretions and hormones that flashed through his brain in wave after wave. The children tried the usual tactics, the valiant sword fights, the yelling and screaming, but just when it appeared the monster had succumbed to their might, he rose again from the blanket-castle. They would learn eventually that not all monsters can be defeated.

HELLO

It is so laborious to blog/keep an online journal. Ugh. I should be in bed trying to sleep but instead I am awake and writing run-on sentences and possibly in a weird mood. I have concocted a bold print "To Do" list and tacked it to my wall. I need to save money for a trip with some girlfriends later in the summer. This will be difficult because I do not have many hours at the library this time around.

My other two major projects that need to be finished ASAP are my bookshelf comic-painting and my Council documentation. The first is almost there, just two panels left. I overestimate my artistic skills because I am surrounded by beautiful art in so many aspects of my life. I see images in my head that I want to recreate but I don't have the skill to live up the expectations my mind forms. I also give up too easily, I have learned and been told. But I am satisfied with the project so far (well ok this latest panel sucks). The idea behind it was to create a story using poem snippets as the text. It came to me one night when I was trolling my poetry books. I have picked lines from Byron, Tennyson, Eliot, Collins, Shearin, and Pound. It gives me an excuse to paint, which gives me an excuse to make pretty colors.

The Council documentation won't be talked about much, because it's too personal to be discussed with any embarrassment. I have just plowed through my sophomore year journals, and things are going well. The basic idea behind this project is to rifle through my high school lit journals and type out all the Council-related material (just think of it as a universe of characters). I don't know how I ever passed my fiction class, or any literary class for that matter. All I typed was adverbs and lacking descriptions. The Council is the greatest proof of the fallacy of living too much in one's head. After I have typed up everything, I have grand plans to create a basic time line of events, but I've had that aspiration for almost six years now.

Lastly, there are two ideas for stories I have wringing through my head. One is a quasi-high school drama with a character who pays too much attention to the wrong things and loses the big picture. I have had this idea for a while, as in maybe half a year. It started out as a mild journal word doodle, playing around with tone and author's license (I can't exactly call it poetic license). It will give me an excuse to use my human anatomy book more.

The second idea is very recent, fueled by my paranoia and the mood of some fiction I've been reading online (at Strange Horizons). See, the other day I had a horrible headache. Heat headache. It was disgusting. Oh, I think I wrote something about it, hold on. The pain was ferocious. It flowed in a thin river across her forehead and echoed into a deep waterfall at the base of her skull. There were puddles of intensity pulsating past her ears and she felt her entire existence would forever be stuck in this heightened state. It woke me up at five in the morning, and I had to go downstairs to find pills and interact with people. Afterwards, I passed out in my bed and slept for another five hours or so. The problem was, I had that phantom headache lingering with me the entire day, like if I was to turn my head the wrong way, the pain from that morning would come and crash down my walls of peace.

Anyway, a few days after that, I woke up dizzy as dizzy could be. It was Thursday, and I was supposed to work. I managed to take a shower somehow, after swaying my way through brushing my teeth and walking down the stairs. Then I started to get nauseous. Usually I walk to work, but I couldn't even walk to the kitchen without stumbling and falling to the side so I called out. The majority of my day was spent sitting down, staying very still, and drinking small sips of water and coke. Somewhere along the day everything got better. Now that phantom headache/dizziness is really infringing my thoughts, so I thought (obviously) brain cancer!

I do not have brain cancer. I thought about a character who had brain cancer and had a hunk of it removed. She wakes with vague clues to what she can only half remember but it's important to her because it used to be a part of her, and sets off on a journey to find whatever it was she lost. I say no more about it.

Well, I can be rather long-winded at times, can't I? One last thought: I recently started playing Etrian Odyssey again (I have an off-on relationship with that game). I am quite convinced it will take me ten years to finish and that it is an amazing game. Not as amazing as Pimp Professor Layton (oh my god so pimp), but up there. Goodnight.

YOU HAS FORGET?

There is a competition and a drawing of matches. He gets the short and takes his place atop the shaky wooden bridge. He knows what he now faces and his eyes water until red and dry. It comes with a burp of air pressure and is nothing like what's expected. The air shimmers and rolls over the arena. This is the finality. He sees it lean toward him, all mottle-skinned and asp-like, and his fears leave him in the final second. He is swallowed in purity. It leaves him convulsing and screaming, raw animal yelps and deep sucking pants. The finality departs and the sun sets.
--

More examples of how I don't include many details and description in my writing. I live too much in my head to successfully transfer the imagery to pen and paper, and a lot of times I can't express what I experience in my mind because I'm untrained at conveying emotion. Or I haven't tried enough. I like writing tiny things for myself, which imply entire worlds. Most of my writing is a stepping stone that allows me to experience the events in my head. I am my characters because there's no way they could exist otherwise because I'm all that there is. My universe is myself and my interactions with other universes.


Her anger comes on too strong and she doesn't let up. The cupboards are rattling at the stiletto of her pace. She rumbles back and forth across the lofty kitchen. The cats are curled in their window perching, flicking ears at every footfall.
--

Well I thought about continuing that, because I've got another page or two in my journal, but it is mostly bad. Some of the phrases in the first paragraph are cute, so I'll share that. It's a fascinating trip to read back through my journal, because I find tiny gems. Tiny as in maybe a sentence or two. I like writing one-liners (see above, stepping stones).

"A great pleasure that is, being renowned for what one does for a living." -- This was a dialogue line that squeaked into my head one morning, probably in January. It had something to do with an older writer man, mostly cynical and dry witted. He was probably talking to a younger person when he said this. Maybe a reporter, or aspiring writer. Something along that feeling. Well, this is about the end.

CRUISE CONTROL

She slept and next remembered perching on a cloud, staring down blindly at the city below. She felt the presence of another beside her but her senses did not encompass it and so there was a blank spot in her mind. She saw the city waking, and at the same time was in the city, riding through morning traffic in a duality only possible in dreams. Images of cars melded with the tiny cumulus clouds that dotted the early sky. She reached out to one of the car/clouds and saw a tiny vial of liquid in the grasp of her fingers. The presence that wasn't beside her pushed her arm down and away from the tiny puff of air; "We do not touch the children."
-

This is an important part of the Beth/clouds story, but I haven't yet figured out why. I do know, however, that I'm leaning more towards YA for this story (or at least, my idea of YA). It's become clear to me now that Anthony is involved with this whole mess somehow more than just being her brother, and I'm working towards making the mother less outright villainous. Which is hard, because it's easy to keep her a bitch. I'm fairly certain Anthony isn't her biological son though. Baby steps.

I love the idea of creating a seamless mythology of creatures/ideas/etc. I sorta did that with the clouds and the shadows, but I'm holding back on publishing anything until things straighten out. It's just so much fun. You should give it a try.

With the sudden onset of summer I'll be reading a shit ton more, and that's exciting. I still have a bundle of Banks books to read from my last BN run, and I've got a cool book about modern German culture that I'm sloughing through. Also recently I checked out this cool book Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, because free time = I get obsessed with post/transhumanism all over again. I wait for the day there's a philosophy class about this, because it's happening now and it's going to change everything. I'm excited.

End of the semester stress has shortened my temper drastically, and tiny things are pissing me off a lot more recently. I don't like losing my temper, at least around other people, so it hasn't caused any issues. Besides, I'm totally ADD when it comes to grudges and hating people. Someone told me once (possibly middle school), "it takes too much effort to hate," and I guess that's my personal motto. I'm glad that I came out the other side of puberty a nice person. Humanity is wonderful and if I ever start sinking I just remind myself how fucking awesome it is that I'm alive and able to accomplish so much. Optimistic sap, mwhahaha. I'm excited to live and I'm excited to die (eventually haha). I don't plan on giving in.