We won't get very far flying circles in a jar

We won't get very far flying circles in a jar

It seems like whenever I want to blog, like I'm not really doing anything but there are words running through my head and they need to be blogged, I'm without a computer.  This week I went to New York City and I wanted to write about how much it doesn't make sense to me that people feel the need to take pictures of every famous and/or large painting they see, even if the painting holds no meaning for them.  I've been thinking about writing and personalities and what I'm doing with my life and the direction(s) I'm heading in.

New York City terrifies me and I don't think I could ever live there, but it's the city where Starry Night lives, and so I wish I could visit it every day.

I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat

I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat

I'm not sure I could handle it if that baby turns out to be Justin Bieber's.  It's like that line from "27 Dresses," about feeling like you just found out that your favorite love song was written about a sandwich. Sometimes life sucks and everyone is cynical and is it really so bad that I want to believe that someone is really what they claim to be?

I have a lot of work this week, a lot of reading and noveling and paper-writing to do, but I like weeks like this, because they make me tired, and I can sleep at night when I'm tired.  When I'm here, I get up in the morning and have real breakfast and sometimes I have to go to bio but I can deal with it because I know that I'll probably be able to sleep at night.

My nano novel is going well, as in it's day 7 and I'm keeping up with the word count, but I don't want to jinx anything.  I have a paper due this weekend, and Thanksgiving's coming up, and a zillion other things are happening, but I really hope I finish.  Mostly just so I can say that I did.

We're only so strong love

We're only so strong love

Today I said goodbye to my tadpoles Van Gogh and Gauguin and they'd sprouted legs in the last few days and had gotten so big and so it was a little bit sad dumping them into the communal tank like that.  It's Reed's Centennial and it's a big deal, which is something I didn't really realize until tonight when the mayor of Portland got up to speak and I began to feel like a belong to something, or belong with something, or am a part of something.  I like that feeling.  What I don't like is the hole that I found in the corner of my room, where the walls meet the ceiling, where I'm pretty sure a nest of Buick-sized spiders is living, waiting for me to leave so they can burry themselves in my shoes.

Making islands where no island should go

Making islands where no island should go

Emma and I just watched "Say Anything" and the scene where Lloyd teaches Diane to drive is one of my favorites because it reminds me of summer, not that that makes any sense.  Today I went to my hum conference leader's office, which is in the basement of the oldest building on campus, in this dark corner with a window that's basically ground level so you can see people's shoes walking by, and right now it's nearly midnight but the guy with the really loud voice who lives on my floor is out in the hall talking to someone and I'm not annoyed so much at how loud he's being but at how he's breaking quiet hour.  Like, go to bed, man.

Early this week I read at Poetry Night and it was terrifying and it made me think about how many writers are out there who are other things first, like doctors or teachers or whatever, and could possibly be geniuses with amazing things to say, but just never get the chance or maybe just never say it.

I just said something to them.  Was that rude?  I'm sorry if that was rude.  But they were talking about physics.  Isn't there a certain point each night where it becomes too late to talk about physics?  But maybe here there isn't.  People never stop talking here.  And most of it's interesting.  But I don't like biology.  I'm trying, really.  But I'm just not sure that I can.  

And on that note I'm going to talk to Michael for a few minutes and go to sleep and then wake up and begin my horrible 9-to-5 Friday.

We are all the same underneath the sycamore

We are all the same underneath the sycamore

I've been thinking about the idea of mind over matter and if you switch your wedding ring to your right finger before you sleep with somebody else, are you still cheating?  I mean, obviously you are.  But what if you convince yourself that you're not cheating, believe it so much that in your eyes it's true?  I guess that doesn't matter though, if you can't convince anyone else.  I've been thinking in theoretical terms a lot lately.  But that's not really new, is it?  I guess I've always done that.

And the other thing that I've been thinking about - changing; college; changing at college.  Letting change come naturally vs. forcing myself so out of my comfort zone in order to change that I don't have any fun at all.  Making friends; how to do that; if I shouldn't force it; if it's bad that I'm yawning at 7 o'clock; if it's bad that I really miss my little sister; if maybe I shouldn't be writing any of this here.  I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow.  Or at the very least, Monday, when classes start and I have more important things to think about.  Or at least other things to think about.  

I really want to talk to my mom right now but I know I shouldn't.  I shouldn't I shouldn't I shouldn't.  I feel like Rory Gilmore during her first night at Yale when she made her mom sleep on the floor of her dorm room.  Something that's going to sound bad no matter how I phrase it:  I know my mom would never do that for me.

Minor chords of major works

Minor chords of major works

Packing is the biggest pain in the ass ever.  Like, if I knew how much of a pain in the ass packing was before I started doing it, I would've decided to go somewhere within driving distance.  There is no way in hell I am going to get everything to fit into these suitcases.  I wish I had a magical expanding bag, like Mary Poppins or Hermione.

I finished The Odyssey today.  I guess that's an accomplishment?  Tomorrow I have to finish packing.  Then, the Taylor Swift concert.  And then Wednesday morning I'm moving to Portland.  How weird is that?

Lost in a maze of a thousand rainy days

Lost in a maze of a thousand rainy days

I've started to think about what books I want to bring to school with me, and I've also been considering the fact that no matter what I bring, I probably won't have time to read it.  And I've been thinking about how British terms are so much better than American terms ("ice lolly" for "popsicle", "jumper" for "sweater") and about details and how some people (like my mother and certain writers) find it necessary to provide too much and how when you're reading you can skim and skip over it, but when someone's talking to me I have to listen to them.  And that's all completely obvious, isn't it?  I think myself in circles sometimes, and forcing myself to blog everyday is really just forcing myself to write it down and try to make sense of it, even though it'll never make any sense.

Right now I'm thinking about cliches in storytelling and how you can break them, or how you can use them and twist them around so they don't seem cliched anymore.  That probably doesn't make any sense.  How does apparition work in the rain?  What if it's snowing?  Sometimes I forget that magic, at least in that sense, isn't real and I start to pick out all of the things that the books never actually explained.  All the little technicalities.  I keep bumping my hip on the counter in my bathroom, and today I nearly knocked over a lamp.  And now I think I've accurately depicted what the thoughts in my head look like.

On the back of a motor bike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight

On the back of a motor bike with your arms outstretched trying to take flight

I've been reading this Dramione fan fiction, which I know sounds completely ridiculous.  I've avoided fan fiction since I first learned it existed, but now here I am, reading it, and I can see that there's something to be said for it.  I love the Harry Potter novels, for all that they've given me and what I've taken from them, but they are about Harry Potter.  Harry Potter is the main character, and all the rest propel the story along, getting it to where it needs to be.  And I can't help but think that maybe that sucks a little bit, because there are characters in the Potterverse that are, in my opinion, much more interesting than Potter himself.

And so as I've been reading this, I've been thinking a lot about character development, and how really effing hard it is.  People are so, so complex, and how can you mimic that with just text on a page?  How can you create someone who seems so real that they blur the line between fiction and reality?  Is this the same thing that I wrote about last night?  I really have no idea.  My mind is circling and circling over all the same thoughts and concepts and questions, and I always come to that same conclusion - I really have no idea.

And the other intriguing thing:  in fan fiction, you're not limited to the world of the Potter books, kids' novels - despite the characters growing up themselves.  You're not forced to ignore that they're human, that they're 17, 18 years old and are living in hell and are constantly cussing.  There's an added layer of reality that I haven't felt before.  Does that make any sense?  And there's also an added layer of not-reality, of alternative-reality, of these-two-characters-aren't-canon-but-it-doesn't-matter.  But it's not really reality at all, because none of it's real.  Sometimes it's really easy to forget that, and I think that's maybe a sign of good writing.  Or at least of good storytelling.

I kind of hate that there's a difference.

Somewhere down down down in the ocean

Somewhere down down down in the ocean

I am typing this from my new macbook pro, which is really nice and all, but also frustrating because I don't have a mouse for it and also because I don't know where the spaces go in its name and I'm not sure which letters to capitalize.  But the keys make a really satisfying clicking sound when I type.  Today I woke up to the lovely banging that meant that our solar panels aren't finished being installed yet, and I had cocoa crispies for breakfast, watched several episodes of "Bones" like I apparently do whenever I have a spare moment, and had lunch with Briana.  I meant to read all day today, but that didn't work out.  I came home from lunch and there was a brand new shiny computer that needed setting up, and then we went out to dinner and came home and watched some tv that Gilly wanted to watch before she leaves for camp tomorrow.

My mom is taking some classes later this week to renew her law license degree whatchamacallit, so I've got the house to myself Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  There is so much I want to do:  finish The Help, work on the grad presents for my friends that I've been not working on in favor of my Wreck this Journal, go through my documents and decide which ones I want to transfer to my laptop, clean my room (including my closet and dresser and overflowing bookshelf), watch the final episode of the "Vampire Diaries", go to the library (which is closed on Thursday), write and write and write, install my sister's webcam, etc., etc., etc.  So why do I feel like I'll probably just sleep late and watch "Bones"?  I have a car and it needs an oil change and I have a credit card and I could go anywhere I want (anywhere that I can get without taking the freeway anyhow) and yet I want to stay home and watch "Bones" and clean.  There is something wrong with me.

This is the first year in a long time that Gillian is going to camp and I haven't hidden notes in all of her socks.  I hope she's not expecting it because there's really no feasible way I could at this point, since her bags are all in her room and I can't really sneak in there while she's sleeping.  And there's no way I'm getting up at 6 tomorrow to hide them while she's in the shower.  Maybe I'll just write her a nice letter and tuck it in the top of one of the bags while she's not looking.  I'm going to miss her next year.  I hope she's going to be okay.  She's so much smarter than me.  I hope she'll be fine.

We are alive

We are alive

I got back from New York City last night.  While I was there, I saw "Arcadia" on Broadway and it was fantastic and I'm really lucky that my mom can afford to take me across the country to see plays and museum exhibits that really are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.  And I went to the Met and I stood face to face with one of Van Gogh's self portraits, and I really do love them.  There's something so familiar about the idea that he didn't have any models but so had to paint, needed to, so he painted himself.  And I saw Starry Night at the MOMA - I didn't even know it was there.  I just turned a corner and there was a big crowd of people and there it was.  The colors are so vibrant even after so many years and standing there looking at it, I totally understood why it's considered his best painting, his masterpiece.  It gets inside you and makes your heart hurt. 

Today I went to Jen's grad party, where I ate way too much even though I wasn't hungry and sat in the sun and it was fun.  Tomorrow I think we're seeing "Super 8" because we've been talking about it for a while, and I think I'm cleaning and I really have no obligations this summer and that's kind of exciting.