Tad Williams,"Otherland" series:
Book 1:
"This Book is dedicated to my father Joseph Hill Evans with love.
Actually Dad doesn’t read fiction, so if someone doesn’t tell him about this, he’ll never know."
Book 2:
"This Book is dedicated to my father Joseph Hill Evans with love.
As I said before, Dad doesn’t read fiction. He still hasn’t noticed that this thing is dedicated to him. This is Volume Two – let’s see how man more until he catches on."
Book 3:
"This is still dedicated to you-know-who, even if he doesn’t.
Maybe we can keep this a secret all the way to the final volume."
Book 4:
"My father still hasn’t actually cracked any of the books – so, no, he still hasn’t noticed. I think I’m just going to have to tell him. Maybe I should break it to him gently.
'Everyone here who hasn’t had a book dedicated to them, take three steps forward. Whoops, Dad, hang on there for a second...' "
This reminds me of that Friends episode. If you're reading this, Chriselle, do you remember which one it was? Or the exact situation? When Emma was conceived? ??
To myself, without whose inspired and tireless efforts this book would not have been possible
-Al Jaffee, Tall Tales(?), dedication
The day I finished the book, I celebrated by phoning Maxine in Hollywood. 'Do you want to hear the dedication?' I asked her. 'Go ahead,' said Maxine. So I read it to her: To all the stagestruck kids who ever have, or ever will, set out to crash the theatre. 'What do you think of it?' I asked. 'It's much too sentimental,' said Maxine. 'Why don't you just dedicate it to me?' So what the hell: This book is for Maxine.
-Helen Hanff, Underfoot in Show Business, dedication
Friday, October 31, 2008
My Fever's Up
Like .3 degrees centigrade. And I was watching Angel to feel better, and they killed my favorite character off. What the heck? That doesn't make me feel better. Now I'm snotty even more from crying!
I'm hoping Feynman's autobio doesn't offer any more sad tidbits- his wife died right before I put it down to read Angel! What the heck?!!?!??! If this continues, I'll have to switch to Disney movies, which are just... predictable. Mostly because I've seen them all eighty-trillion times. Or at least five.
I don't want any more fever writing. I think I think it's more interesting than YOU think it is. But seriously, I rarely have fevers. T.T I am hotter than a hot summer's day according to one website.
Rawr?
Loves.
I'm hoping Feynman's autobio doesn't offer any more sad tidbits- his wife died right before I put it down to read Angel! What the heck?!!?!??! If this continues, I'll have to switch to Disney movies, which are just... predictable. Mostly because I've seen them all eighty-trillion times. Or at least five.
I don't want any more fever writing. I think I think it's more interesting than YOU think it is. But seriously, I rarely have fevers. T.T I am hotter than a hot summer's day according to one website.
Rawr?
Loves.
*Gah! I Have a Fever- for Honest*
I bought some stuff for my ickiness today, including a thermometer, and apparently I DO have a fever. It is not just in my head. Well, it is, 'cause that's where I took the temperature, but um, it must be elsewhere in my body as well, since other people, who are not me, go to areas to get the temperature, and I ain't talkin' armpits.
So I got medicine. I asked the lady at the counter to make sure I read it correctly, and it appears to be cold medicine and throat relief drops. Hoorah for getting the correct thing. And I picked up groceries to keep me fed through the weekend, if need be. And candy. 'Cause it's Halloween, durn it, and it's only comin' back up anyway O.o to paint you a pretty picture.
The lady at the 7-Eleven was really nice. Like, exceptionally nice. She kinda made my otherwise mostly sleep-filled, feverish day. She went through all the active ingredients in the medicines and told me what they would do and told me to please get better soon. It was really sweet, since she could've been mad that I was stocking up on groceries at a CONVENIENCE STORE. It made a small line and they HATE lines. The staff, I mean. They go fast to avoid them. So, it was really nice of her to be so patient.
I didn't really do much today. Five hours to Nanowrimo. So, if I am sick, I can write feverish first chapters tomorrow. Or maybe go to a Tokyo-area meetup. Not sure if I want to though. Oh, and I'd probably get them sick and they'd hate me. Forgot I was sick. How does that even happen? It's like, those rare days when I just forget to eat. Does that happen to anyone else? Mid-way through the evening your like, "what is that pain in my stomach?" and suddenly realize- oops!
Okay, I'm really not a snot. Despite how I talk about the other exchange students, they really do tend to be a-holes. Most people, when I say "hi" or whatnot, do not even respond. There was a guy with an awesome Joker costume/makeup, and I complimented him, and he just rolled his eyes and walked on. What a blanker. Seriously, there are lines of family members tracing back to the Arc that are shaking their heads going, "that thing came from ME?"
And yes, I do kiss my mother with this mouth. But Marc makes me eat soap first. As you may recall from your Christmas Story viewings/readings, it's all ok, save Lifebouy.
A new girl moved in next door. Japanese student, I think. I was really feverish when I ran into her, so I hope I was polite. I feel bad because it was probably a bad first impression. I know I said "nice to meet you" (though before we'd exchanged names @.@ I think hers is Maiko, which I think is the same term for a Geisha apprentice) and "welcome," so I'm probably generally good. Anyway, I thought about putting a "Welcome, let's be friends!" type note in her shoebox with some candy, but maybe they don't do that here and I'd seem like a stalker @.@ It is all confusing. I'll ask Kayoko, probably.
FYI, for those who read the blog I wrote when I was really feverish, that is what my mind really looks like. Alas, you've witnessed my actual stream of consciousness. I am so ADD, it's insane. Or so insane, it's ADD? What? I think that might be offensive, actually, so I take it back.
Someone cut in front of me in line yesterday, by the by, and it still peeves me off. What the hey-ho? Is this elementary school? "What do scissors do?" "Cut?" "BWAHAHAH". Like that, only without dialogue.
OK, I'm going to watch an episode of Angel now. Nearly done with the whole show. Then, I think I'll watch ReBoot again. Because I don't really much need to pay attention to that one, since I've seen it eight trillion and two times plus one to the infinity-th power. I have wicked math skills.
I'll let you know how the medicines work. Loves!
So I got medicine. I asked the lady at the counter to make sure I read it correctly, and it appears to be cold medicine and throat relief drops. Hoorah for getting the correct thing. And I picked up groceries to keep me fed through the weekend, if need be. And candy. 'Cause it's Halloween, durn it, and it's only comin' back up anyway O.o to paint you a pretty picture.
The lady at the 7-Eleven was really nice. Like, exceptionally nice. She kinda made my otherwise mostly sleep-filled, feverish day. She went through all the active ingredients in the medicines and told me what they would do and told me to please get better soon. It was really sweet, since she could've been mad that I was stocking up on groceries at a CONVENIENCE STORE. It made a small line and they HATE lines. The staff, I mean. They go fast to avoid them. So, it was really nice of her to be so patient.
I didn't really do much today. Five hours to Nanowrimo. So, if I am sick, I can write feverish first chapters tomorrow. Or maybe go to a Tokyo-area meetup. Not sure if I want to though. Oh, and I'd probably get them sick and they'd hate me. Forgot I was sick. How does that even happen? It's like, those rare days when I just forget to eat. Does that happen to anyone else? Mid-way through the evening your like, "what is that pain in my stomach?" and suddenly realize- oops!
Okay, I'm really not a snot. Despite how I talk about the other exchange students, they really do tend to be a-holes. Most people, when I say "hi" or whatnot, do not even respond. There was a guy with an awesome Joker costume/makeup, and I complimented him, and he just rolled his eyes and walked on. What a blanker. Seriously, there are lines of family members tracing back to the Arc that are shaking their heads going, "that thing came from ME?"
And yes, I do kiss my mother with this mouth. But Marc makes me eat soap first. As you may recall from your Christmas Story viewings/readings, it's all ok, save Lifebouy.
A new girl moved in next door. Japanese student, I think. I was really feverish when I ran into her, so I hope I was polite. I feel bad because it was probably a bad first impression. I know I said "nice to meet you" (though before we'd exchanged names @.@ I think hers is Maiko, which I think is the same term for a Geisha apprentice) and "welcome," so I'm probably generally good. Anyway, I thought about putting a "Welcome, let's be friends!" type note in her shoebox with some candy, but maybe they don't do that here and I'd seem like a stalker @.@ It is all confusing. I'll ask Kayoko, probably.
FYI, for those who read the blog I wrote when I was really feverish, that is what my mind really looks like. Alas, you've witnessed my actual stream of consciousness. I am so ADD, it's insane. Or so insane, it's ADD? What? I think that might be offensive, actually, so I take it back.
Someone cut in front of me in line yesterday, by the by, and it still peeves me off. What the hey-ho? Is this elementary school? "What do scissors do?" "Cut?" "BWAHAHAH". Like that, only without dialogue.
OK, I'm going to watch an episode of Angel now. Nearly done with the whole show. Then, I think I'll watch ReBoot again. Because I don't really much need to pay attention to that one, since I've seen it eight trillion and two times plus one to the infinity-th power. I have wicked math skills.
I'll let you know how the medicines work. Loves!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wallpapers!
Here are some perty ones. If'n I can get 'em to work. I don't remember who made them, but if, perchance, you did make one, holla and I'll credit it to you. I don't think you have to on blogs though... since they're like... diaries:
Creepy Doll:
Flowers and Faeries:
Strawberries (tile it):
Memories of a Lost Love:
Love and Lanterns:
Geisha's Face:
Leaves, Wind, and a Girl
Sleeping Lion
Running Away
Beautiful Woman
Seagull and Fish
So, those are probably my favorites. I hope you enjoy! Um, I have a Mac so I don't worry about image sizes for wallpapers anymore O.o pretty much any size works. So I'm sorry if it doesn't work on your computer! Not that you even like them... Don't break my heart. :(
Creepy Doll:
Flowers and Faeries:
Strawberries (tile it):
Memories of a Lost Love:
Love and Lanterns:
Geisha's Face:
Leaves, Wind, and a Girl
Sleeping Lion
Running Away
Beautiful Woman
Seagull and Fish
So, those are probably my favorites. I hope you enjoy! Um, I have a Mac so I don't worry about image sizes for wallpapers anymore O.o pretty much any size works. So I'm sorry if it doesn't work on your computer! Not that you even like them... Don't break my heart. :(
I'm Sick, and Probably Going to Perish
Or at least turn into a mushroom. A magical one. That makes you grow to the size of a house or shrink to fit through tiny little doors. Or get extra lives. Or just get hella high.
So, I'm sick, and probably all feverish and writing crap that don't make no sense to no one but the crazies aka me. The drinking kids apparently did not vanish for the weekend 'cause I can hear them (a lotttabit) downstairs making a big to-do about something or another (I'm leaning toward another). Enough of the hallabazoo hallaballoo... how the heck do you even spell that? Maybe it's a secretly made up word anyway, so it doesn't pay me no never mind, anyhow. Oh Frank.
Anyway, I'm terribly ill and my ears are all foggy and my nose runny (snot color tells you you're terribly sick, and probably going to turn end up kicking up daisies by the end of the day- ah euphemisms.). Two periods, ha. I keep sneezing and my throat hurts a lot and everything else too. I always hoped I'd go out fighting! There might still be time... just need to find the closest war. Hrm.
So, those kids downstairs obviously need to go with me. I mean... to Heaven or whatnot (at least Limbo for them, and I ain't referring to that oddly refreshing, yet always tricky party dance/game/torture). I shall have to murder them in their beds. Er, but I'd have to get them to their beds first, and then they might just go to sleep. If I moved them post-humously, the blood splatter would probably be a tell-tale sign that I moved them, and I might not be able to make an insanity plea. But I'd probably get deported at the very least, and that sounds a little harsh, so I'll let them go this time. Maybe I'll just go cough on them.
Anyway, I needed someway to pass the time while my tea cools enough to drink and opens my throat up a little. I guess it's ok if the food hole (ha... esophagus? Trachea?) closes, so long as the windpipe doesn't. Not like I'm eating anything right now. It's four AM. Not an auspicious time of day to consume.
I keep having this dream about this evil old witch trying to get me. I think she wants to straight out kill me, but she must be one lame-o witch, 'cause I just run inside and she can't come in and get me. Vampire witch? Anyway, it's ridiculous, "'cause witches they were persecuted Wicca good , and love the Earth And women power And I'll be over here." No more referencing for me today. I'm cutting you off, mister. er, me. I shall be my own designated driver and bartender, thank you. I am pretty sure I must have a fever, but maybe I'm amusing (or not) so I'll keep going for a little bit. If I can- bwahahahhahah. What? That wasn't even remotely whatchamahoosit. Just lost the word. Forgive me, pets.
I think I can't say "anyway" or "so" anymore either. So, anyway, I obviously overkill on the some words and am a snob shunning others. "Shun the nonbeliever!" I shouldn't make rules. I just do not follow them. Even at all a little bit.
I know I throw extra words into sentences that just are completely unnecessary (thus, extra. Ha, I'm so redundant. Redundant redundant redundant. My Japanese teacher (one of them) didn't know what it meant. I felt all, "at least my English is better than yoahs"ish). You're just jealous, 'cause if you try it, people just don't get you. But I know I'm totally understandable, and those extra words are my right. "Every girl is a princess. It is our right!" and that, right there, is why the movie is better than the book.
That, and the happy ending.
And her dad's "death." He dies because he loses money in the book. Okay, and he thought his friend sorta stole it. But he basically died of a financial/fraternal love broken heart. Which is stupid. 'Cause he had a daughter. And she's awesome. Lame-o daddy-o.
My throat still hurts so bear with me through another cup. Or just stop reading. No complaining, missy pooh! Gah, I think I'm going to pass out or throw up or do something else that means I'm so sick that you oughta feel bad for me and send me candy. But not chocolates, 'cause they'll melt. You should send me those strawberry cream lifesaver brand candies. Mmm. Except not mm, 'cause I'm nauseous and really nothing sounds good save that other up of tea.
And serving my queen in the field of battle.
I need a queen, any takers? I'll make you a paper crown and call you "highness" from time to time. Though I may have to depose you one day via successful Gunpowder Plot. Nothing personal. Maybe I'll have a revolution. Oh, I could use a guillotine. You know the guy who invented it died by it. CRAZY. Oh no, that's not true. It was like the guy that said you have to use guillotines to kill people during the French Revolution. That's not quite so ironic, is it?
We could tell people you are the queen of a small country. "Tiny little country. Rhode Island could beat the crap out of it in a war." "They recently had the whole country carpeted." I am sober, btw. And wise. I can see straight through your armor. Wow, this paragraph needs to end.
So tired. Cool down, tea, or I'll drink you. Or, cool down tea, then I'll drink you. I guess that doesn't give you much incentive to cool down. You're just prolonging the inevitable, Mr. Chamomile.
If I didn't have spellcheck that underlines things in red as I type along, there'd be tons of mispellings, galore. It always says I mispell misspell, no matter how I spell it. Oh, except that time. Misspell, apparently. Whatever, you know the game. And I'm merely the referee. Worship me. Bribe me. Call me nasty little names and get thrown out of the game. Whatever makes your laundry California fresh.
Just burned the life out of my tongue by trying to drink the tea too soon. It's so sleepy, being awake. I feel like I should go to the airport or something. There's not much other reason to get up this early. Unless it's Christmas and you're one of THOSE kids. You know who I mean. I wasn't ever one of those, I think. I'm too lazy to be excited enough to get up early to open presents. 'Cept maybe the once. Must've been some hella good present. Hella's a funny word. Pretend I put it in quotes.
What else? "What else IS there?" "You lost your queen, Derrick." "That's TWICE in ONE day!" Poor Derrick. I think he's kinda full of it though. But then, Odette's two-dimensional as well, so maybe they belong together. The animals are obviously the best characters. And the villain. He's way cooler. And he is a bass. Which just makes his songs that much more interesting. And he can turn into a DRAGON. Wow. He's not even THAT evil. Just political, really. Lots of people depose monarchs by means of killing them. If you're my queen, I may do it to you one day.
My fingers can't come up with much else. I'm too sleepy to think, even nonsensically. So, this is what I think of when I think of "nonsense" writing. Albee's "absurd." I don't get the difference, save that Albee doesn't write like this. I don't think I got Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. They like, made up a son. And then killed him and got upset. But what the heck was up with Honey? Why did she keep getting sick and never have kids? One of the other characters figured it out, but I didn't. I am so slow on the uptake.
But then it was written in the 60's, which was just a confusing era, for us all. Or none of us. I don't really know. All my history's all a mumbled when I try to think it out. Gah, I'm too sick to think.
Good night. Rather abrupt. Sorry.
Loves.
So, I'm sick, and probably all feverish and writing crap that don't make no sense to no one but the crazies aka me. The drinking kids apparently did not vanish for the weekend 'cause I can hear them (a lotttabit) downstairs making a big to-do about something or another (I'm leaning toward another). Enough of the hallabazoo hallaballoo... how the heck do you even spell that? Maybe it's a secretly made up word anyway, so it doesn't pay me no never mind, anyhow. Oh Frank.
Anyway, I'm terribly ill and my ears are all foggy and my nose runny (snot color tells you you're terribly sick, and probably going to turn end up kicking up daisies by the end of the day- ah euphemisms.). Two periods, ha. I keep sneezing and my throat hurts a lot and everything else too. I always hoped I'd go out fighting! There might still be time... just need to find the closest war. Hrm.
So, those kids downstairs obviously need to go with me. I mean... to Heaven or whatnot (at least Limbo for them, and I ain't referring to that oddly refreshing, yet always tricky party dance/game/torture). I shall have to murder them in their beds. Er, but I'd have to get them to their beds first, and then they might just go to sleep. If I moved them post-humously, the blood splatter would probably be a tell-tale sign that I moved them, and I might not be able to make an insanity plea. But I'd probably get deported at the very least, and that sounds a little harsh, so I'll let them go this time. Maybe I'll just go cough on them.
Anyway, I needed someway to pass the time while my tea cools enough to drink and opens my throat up a little. I guess it's ok if the food hole (ha... esophagus? Trachea?) closes, so long as the windpipe doesn't. Not like I'm eating anything right now. It's four AM. Not an auspicious time of day to consume.
I keep having this dream about this evil old witch trying to get me. I think she wants to straight out kill me, but she must be one lame-o witch, 'cause I just run inside and she can't come in and get me. Vampire witch? Anyway, it's ridiculous, "'cause witches they were persecuted Wicca good , and love the Earth And women power And I'll be over here." No more referencing for me today. I'm cutting you off, mister. er, me. I shall be my own designated driver and bartender, thank you. I am pretty sure I must have a fever, but maybe I'm amusing (or not) so I'll keep going for a little bit. If I can- bwahahahhahah. What? That wasn't even remotely whatchamahoosit. Just lost the word. Forgive me, pets.
I think I can't say "anyway" or "so" anymore either. So, anyway, I obviously overkill on the some words and am a snob shunning others. "Shun the nonbeliever!" I shouldn't make rules. I just do not follow them. Even at all a little bit.
I know I throw extra words into sentences that just are completely unnecessary (thus, extra. Ha, I'm so redundant. Redundant redundant redundant. My Japanese teacher (one of them) didn't know what it meant. I felt all, "at least my English is better than yoahs"ish). You're just jealous, 'cause if you try it, people just don't get you. But I know I'm totally understandable, and those extra words are my right. "Every girl is a princess. It is our right!" and that, right there, is why the movie is better than the book.
That, and the happy ending.
And her dad's "death." He dies because he loses money in the book. Okay, and he thought his friend sorta stole it. But he basically died of a financial/fraternal love broken heart. Which is stupid. 'Cause he had a daughter. And she's awesome. Lame-o daddy-o.
My throat still hurts so bear with me through another cup. Or just stop reading. No complaining, missy pooh! Gah, I think I'm going to pass out or throw up or do something else that means I'm so sick that you oughta feel bad for me and send me candy. But not chocolates, 'cause they'll melt. You should send me those strawberry cream lifesaver brand candies. Mmm. Except not mm, 'cause I'm nauseous and really nothing sounds good save that other up of tea.
And serving my queen in the field of battle.
I need a queen, any takers? I'll make you a paper crown and call you "highness" from time to time. Though I may have to depose you one day via successful Gunpowder Plot. Nothing personal. Maybe I'll have a revolution. Oh, I could use a guillotine. You know the guy who invented it died by it. CRAZY. Oh no, that's not true. It was like the guy that said you have to use guillotines to kill people during the French Revolution. That's not quite so ironic, is it?
We could tell people you are the queen of a small country. "Tiny little country. Rhode Island could beat the crap out of it in a war." "They recently had the whole country carpeted." I am sober, btw. And wise. I can see straight through your armor. Wow, this paragraph needs to end.
So tired. Cool down, tea, or I'll drink you. Or, cool down tea, then I'll drink you. I guess that doesn't give you much incentive to cool down. You're just prolonging the inevitable, Mr. Chamomile.
If I didn't have spellcheck that underlines things in red as I type along, there'd be tons of mispellings, galore. It always says I mispell misspell, no matter how I spell it. Oh, except that time. Misspell, apparently. Whatever, you know the game. And I'm merely the referee. Worship me. Bribe me. Call me nasty little names and get thrown out of the game. Whatever makes your laundry California fresh.
Just burned the life out of my tongue by trying to drink the tea too soon. It's so sleepy, being awake. I feel like I should go to the airport or something. There's not much other reason to get up this early. Unless it's Christmas and you're one of THOSE kids. You know who I mean. I wasn't ever one of those, I think. I'm too lazy to be excited enough to get up early to open presents. 'Cept maybe the once. Must've been some hella good present. Hella's a funny word. Pretend I put it in quotes.
What else? "What else IS there?" "You lost your queen, Derrick." "That's TWICE in ONE day!" Poor Derrick. I think he's kinda full of it though. But then, Odette's two-dimensional as well, so maybe they belong together. The animals are obviously the best characters. And the villain. He's way cooler. And he is a bass. Which just makes his songs that much more interesting. And he can turn into a DRAGON. Wow. He's not even THAT evil. Just political, really. Lots of people depose monarchs by means of killing them. If you're my queen, I may do it to you one day.
My fingers can't come up with much else. I'm too sleepy to think, even nonsensically. So, this is what I think of when I think of "nonsense" writing. Albee's "absurd." I don't get the difference, save that Albee doesn't write like this. I don't think I got Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. They like, made up a son. And then killed him and got upset. But what the heck was up with Honey? Why did she keep getting sick and never have kids? One of the other characters figured it out, but I didn't. I am so slow on the uptake.
But then it was written in the 60's, which was just a confusing era, for us all. Or none of us. I don't really know. All my history's all a mumbled when I try to think it out. Gah, I'm too sick to think.
Good night. Rather abrupt. Sorry.
Loves.
Holla- I Beat One Minute!
On Cryptoquote. I made my goal. I knew the quote, so I could figure it out quickly. Yay for knowledge of Austen!
kattie 0:57
That's a copy and paste of my amazing score.
kattie 0:57
That's a copy and paste of my amazing score.
So I'm Trying to Stay Awake
So that I can talk to my mommy before I go to sleeeeeeep! But everyone's left town for the weekend, so I'm all alone. Here are all the songs with the word "alone" in them on my computer:
Alone in the Universe
I'm All Alone
The Mercenary Rides Alone
Tired of Being Alone
Not that many.... How about "one"?
All For One
One Jump Ahead
Everybody is Someone
Everyone's a Hero
No One Else
No One Like You
No One's Aware
One
One Day More
One Jump Ahead (I have it twice...)
One More Angel in Heaven
One More Dream
One More Hour
One Night Arabia
One Night Only (Disco Version)
One Night Only
One Prayer
One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula
One Week
Only One Reason
Part One
Plus Ones
That's a lot. How about "lonely" or "loneliness"?
Learn to be Lonely
Loneliness
Lonely Christmas Eve
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Not So Lonely
About the Loneliness of Love
Now, aren't you sad too? Except I'm happy to be alone here, I'll finally be able to sleeeeep! Um, so this list was more to pass the time.... Ha...?
Alone in the Universe
I'm All Alone
The Mercenary Rides Alone
Tired of Being Alone
Not that many.... How about "one"?
All For One
One Jump Ahead
Everybody is Someone
Everyone's a Hero
No One Else
No One Like You
No One's Aware
One
One Day More
One Jump Ahead (I have it twice...)
One More Angel in Heaven
One More Dream
One More Hour
One Night Arabia
One Night Only (Disco Version)
One Night Only
One Prayer
One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula
One Week
Only One Reason
Part One
Plus Ones
That's a lot. How about "lonely" or "loneliness"?
Learn to be Lonely
Loneliness
Lonely Christmas Eve
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Not So Lonely
About the Loneliness of Love
Now, aren't you sad too? Except I'm happy to be alone here, I'll finally be able to sleeeeep! Um, so this list was more to pass the time.... Ha...?
I am a Roller Coaster Today*
I should've written this an hour ago, on one of the ups. Now it's coming back down. I was in a terrible mood this morning; didn't sleep much last night. Anyway, apparently sleepiness gives me gumption/bitchiness, so I basically nearly took my Japanese partner's head off. He rather deserved it, I think, being the mook that he was. I really hope that mook isn't secretly derogatory, though my spell check says it's not even a word. In any event, language buddy fellow thing kept trying to tell me that I was wrong. Not sure why he felt this was the way to act- kept correcting me about dumb things. Like that a certain verb tense couldn't be used in the first person. That doesn't even make sense! And he got angry when I disagreed. I'm a very light disagreer usually, but I was peevish today, so I was a bit stronger. Anyway, it got pretty tense for a while. I think he must've been in a bad mood too.
Had lunch with Kayoko today. Kind of spur of the moment, but it was very nice. We spoke in Japanese the entire time. I only needed to look up a word once. Couldn't well describe setting up the festival this weekend without some support from my friends at Oxford. Not that I'm going to. I was saying that I'm not going to help. Like I said, I'm a bit bitchy/gumptiony today, and I don't feel like helping. I'm sick and tired and I'm sleeping in tomorrow. T'ain't nothin' they can do about it.
Mid-term-ish test in Japanese Lit. It went a lot better than I thought it would. Basically, if you came to class and did the readings, it went smoothly. If I don't get an A, the teacher's on crack. And if he's on crack, I can totally get any bad grade he gives me wiped off my transcript. I just need to somehow secretly get a urine sample and send it to the lab. What lab? I don't have a lab, durn. I need an evil lair, complete with lab. Anyone willing to be my minion? Or crony? Henchman? Sidekick? You know you want to be the tiny mutanty spider to my Spider Man.
I got ice cream from a vending machine and it was crazy good. And cheap. And from a VENDING MACHINE. Whoa. Perfect size and tasty clamasty. Gah, but I ran into the creepyish guy who asked me "out" (more like "down"... use your dirty skills to make that euphemism more interpretable), so I had to eat on the run, because I said I was in a hurry. Anyway, men are creepy. Seriously. Sometimes. Well, not all! Whatever, I'm sexist. Deal with it. O.o
I'm sick, btw. I mentioned it a few paragraphs ago, but it's for reals. I'm all "have a cold and nose running and throat hurts and coughing and sneezing"-y. Think I'm going to pass out. Which, in this sense, will be very much like sleeping. How did I get sick, anyway? Was it being jammed in six different tight, fast-moving environments a day for six weeks? Couldn't be! Or maybe my influed language partner (other, not the one who peeved me today)? Never! Or the million library books I touched whilest finding "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"? Shan't be, shan't! That's not even the correct tense.
I got mail today, in a non-Aohell way. I got a letter from Becca, who doesn't read this blog, I think. Maybe she does O.O Thanks for the letter, if you read this! Like, an actual letter. Not just a postcard or anything. It was very nice. I need to send out letter/postcards/one package next week. Oh the mail piles up and I still don't go to the post office. I am a lazy maroon. Maroon's a color...
Also, I got a mini-package from my mommy with a t-shirt and foodstuffs and some books and a Chihuly postcard in it. Oh, and "page clips", which I think are like mini-bookmarks. There's a how-to pic that I'll have to examine. They are too intense for me to figure out without serious support. Maybe they give a number for a helpline... Why are they monkeys? Is this some kind of thinly veiled insult? Hrml...
I think my Japanese teacher for second period (we have two periods that compose the 3 hour block) forgot to give us homework. We also get homework from both and generally a lot the second period, but he didn't give us any. Wahahahha! But he's really really really good looking and nice and funny (and unmarried, not that I looked) and I'd feel bad if he felt bad. So I hope they just decided not to give us any homework. Seriously though, he has Richard Geere's body but he's probably in his early thirties. Rawr. Sorry if you're closely related to me and that comment made you all shivery. Whatever, you're used to that feeling. Probably feels like a gentle massage about now.
Lame entry. Seriously, I am just not writing very prettily/interestingly today. I shall break my fingers in protest! Did I say that yesterday? I still haven't done it. I need my fingers. "My digits!" Ha, if you know what I'm referring to, I love you forever. But none of you do. Probably. Do you?
?
Loves!
P.S. Do you like the reformatting of the blog? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead! (I'm such a nerd. Honestly, I need to like... take pills or something. Maybe commit myself... to the war on drugs. What?!)
Had lunch with Kayoko today. Kind of spur of the moment, but it was very nice. We spoke in Japanese the entire time. I only needed to look up a word once. Couldn't well describe setting up the festival this weekend without some support from my friends at Oxford. Not that I'm going to. I was saying that I'm not going to help. Like I said, I'm a bit bitchy/gumptiony today, and I don't feel like helping. I'm sick and tired and I'm sleeping in tomorrow. T'ain't nothin' they can do about it.
Mid-term-ish test in Japanese Lit. It went a lot better than I thought it would. Basically, if you came to class and did the readings, it went smoothly. If I don't get an A, the teacher's on crack. And if he's on crack, I can totally get any bad grade he gives me wiped off my transcript. I just need to somehow secretly get a urine sample and send it to the lab. What lab? I don't have a lab, durn. I need an evil lair, complete with lab. Anyone willing to be my minion? Or crony? Henchman? Sidekick? You know you want to be the tiny mutanty spider to my Spider Man.
I got ice cream from a vending machine and it was crazy good. And cheap. And from a VENDING MACHINE. Whoa. Perfect size and tasty clamasty. Gah, but I ran into the creepyish guy who asked me "out" (more like "down"... use your dirty skills to make that euphemism more interpretable), so I had to eat on the run, because I said I was in a hurry. Anyway, men are creepy. Seriously. Sometimes. Well, not all! Whatever, I'm sexist. Deal with it. O.o
I'm sick, btw. I mentioned it a few paragraphs ago, but it's for reals. I'm all "have a cold and nose running and throat hurts and coughing and sneezing"-y. Think I'm going to pass out. Which, in this sense, will be very much like sleeping. How did I get sick, anyway? Was it being jammed in six different tight, fast-moving environments a day for six weeks? Couldn't be! Or maybe my influed language partner (other, not the one who peeved me today)? Never! Or the million library books I touched whilest finding "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"? Shan't be, shan't! That's not even the correct tense.
I got mail today, in a non-Aohell way. I got a letter from Becca, who doesn't read this blog, I think. Maybe she does O.O Thanks for the letter, if you read this! Like, an actual letter. Not just a postcard or anything. It was very nice. I need to send out letter/postcards/one package next week. Oh the mail piles up and I still don't go to the post office. I am a lazy maroon. Maroon's a color...
Also, I got a mini-package from my mommy with a t-shirt and foodstuffs and some books and a Chihuly postcard in it. Oh, and "page clips", which I think are like mini-bookmarks. There's a how-to pic that I'll have to examine. They are too intense for me to figure out without serious support. Maybe they give a number for a helpline... Why are they monkeys? Is this some kind of thinly veiled insult? Hrml...
I think my Japanese teacher for second period (we have two periods that compose the 3 hour block) forgot to give us homework. We also get homework from both and generally a lot the second period, but he didn't give us any. Wahahahha! But he's really really really good looking and nice and funny (and unmarried, not that I looked) and I'd feel bad if he felt bad. So I hope they just decided not to give us any homework. Seriously though, he has Richard Geere's body but he's probably in his early thirties. Rawr. Sorry if you're closely related to me and that comment made you all shivery. Whatever, you're used to that feeling. Probably feels like a gentle massage about now.
Lame entry. Seriously, I am just not writing very prettily/interestingly today. I shall break my fingers in protest! Did I say that yesterday? I still haven't done it. I need my fingers. "My digits!" Ha, if you know what I'm referring to, I love you forever. But none of you do. Probably. Do you?
?
Loves!
P.S. Do you like the reformatting of the blog? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead! (I'm such a nerd. Honestly, I need to like... take pills or something. Maybe commit myself... to the war on drugs. What?!)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Boats and Birds
Been haunted by this song today. By Gregory and the Hawk
Lyrics:
If you be my star
I'll be your sky
you can hide underneath me and come out at night
when I turn jet black and you show off your light
I live to let you shine
I live to let you shine
but you can skyrocket away from me
and never come back if you find another galaxy
far from here with more room to fly
just leave me your stardust to remember you by
if you be my boat
I'll be your sea
a depth of pure blue just to probe curiosity
ebbing and flowing and pushed by a breeze
I live to make you free
I live to make you free
but you can set sail to the west if you want to
and past the horizon till I can't even see you
far from here where the beaches are wide
just leave me your wake to remember you by
if you be my star
I'll be your sky
you can hide underneath me and come out at night
when I turn jet black and you show off your light
I live to let you shine
I live to let you shine
but you can skyrocket away from me
and never come back if you find another galaxy
far from here with more room to fly
just leave me your stardust to remember you by
stardust to remember you by
Lyrics:
If you be my star
I'll be your sky
you can hide underneath me and come out at night
when I turn jet black and you show off your light
I live to let you shine
I live to let you shine
but you can skyrocket away from me
and never come back if you find another galaxy
far from here with more room to fly
just leave me your stardust to remember you by
if you be my boat
I'll be your sea
a depth of pure blue just to probe curiosity
ebbing and flowing and pushed by a breeze
I live to make you free
I live to make you free
but you can set sail to the west if you want to
and past the horizon till I can't even see you
far from here where the beaches are wide
just leave me your wake to remember you by
if you be my star
I'll be your sky
you can hide underneath me and come out at night
when I turn jet black and you show off your light
I live to let you shine
I live to let you shine
but you can skyrocket away from me
and never come back if you find another galaxy
far from here with more room to fly
just leave me your stardust to remember you by
stardust to remember you by
What it Feels Like
It always reminds me of one of those horror movies at first, where the monster gets under the victim's skin and plays around for a bit. Like the scarabs in The Mummy, or the alien that bursts from the handsome guy's chest in Aliens, or, even, the serial killer in Silence of the Lambs who makes a suit for himself out of dead women's skin. I feel like someone or something is trying me on for a bit, stretching me out to the point of bursting, messing around with my bones and arteries and everything else in there, affecting my every nerve.
The beast climbs up and down, mostly hanging out toward my center, massaging my shoulders too roughly, slithering down my spine with tiny bites that cut like class shards and bleed. It stretches upward and downward, and my center feels like a single wearied muscle.
Maybe wings will sprout. The creature is something come to make me new. The contracting of my muscles, the aching of my bones is to bring forth a new part, and all of this will pass.
But the wings are too heavy, too big, and I can't bear them. They weigh me down, so that I lean back against my will. They'll grow, I think, so much that they'll touch the ground, and will drag to relieve me. But they stop growing a few centimeters short, and I continue leaning for a very long time, wishing they'd just rip from my body already. One brief moment of agony, and then the gradual lessening.
Or maybe the wings pull but will not separate, and I feel myself pulled over and down, and I keep going down through the earth. I continue downward, six feet, and think I'll stop. My wings and I sleeping enveloped in worms and ants and little sproutlings forever, together but painless in our rest. Yet, still it drags me onward.
I leave the earth's crust as I continue to descend, hitting the mantle, which is like a wall, and I'm sure I can't break through. But we manage it, somehow, and still I am attached. We pass through fossils of creatures no one knows ever existed and I wish my mind were more prepared to take in the sights. But this isn't a tour, it's a descent.
I continue down with my wings, my burden, through the outer core, and am engulfed in flames. The weight and the flames are all I feel now, my senses otherwise dismantled. Everything now is felt, if it exists for me at all. And still, we continue, and I don't burn up. Vaguely, I wonder why, but then thoughts too are lost.
We hit the inner core, the center of the earth, and it is nothing like Verne thought. It is hell. I have arrived. And in hell, you descend interminably. And there is no end. And your thoughts return, regretful and angry. Those thoughts and your feelings are all you have, and it always increases. Ever worsens.
I stretch and crack and massage, but it only continues, this sensation. I try to force my thoughts elsewhere. I try to count to a million. It seems a large number, but I'm there so quickly, and am not distracted at all. It seems more like a measure of the increasing hurt. And I give up.
I give up, and I swallow a Vicodin. And everything's floaty and happy, and those wings are chopped off while I'm too numbed to care, and I float upward, back through the layers, to the sunny day, regardless of the weather or whether it be night. I lose sight of what's real. I just don't give a damn, and it's a positive experience. I don't know any better. And I am made a pleasant woman. I smile, I laugh, and I float along. And I don't remember a thing.
My back hurts today.
The beast climbs up and down, mostly hanging out toward my center, massaging my shoulders too roughly, slithering down my spine with tiny bites that cut like class shards and bleed. It stretches upward and downward, and my center feels like a single wearied muscle.
Maybe wings will sprout. The creature is something come to make me new. The contracting of my muscles, the aching of my bones is to bring forth a new part, and all of this will pass.
But the wings are too heavy, too big, and I can't bear them. They weigh me down, so that I lean back against my will. They'll grow, I think, so much that they'll touch the ground, and will drag to relieve me. But they stop growing a few centimeters short, and I continue leaning for a very long time, wishing they'd just rip from my body already. One brief moment of agony, and then the gradual lessening.
Or maybe the wings pull but will not separate, and I feel myself pulled over and down, and I keep going down through the earth. I continue downward, six feet, and think I'll stop. My wings and I sleeping enveloped in worms and ants and little sproutlings forever, together but painless in our rest. Yet, still it drags me onward.
I leave the earth's crust as I continue to descend, hitting the mantle, which is like a wall, and I'm sure I can't break through. But we manage it, somehow, and still I am attached. We pass through fossils of creatures no one knows ever existed and I wish my mind were more prepared to take in the sights. But this isn't a tour, it's a descent.
I continue down with my wings, my burden, through the outer core, and am engulfed in flames. The weight and the flames are all I feel now, my senses otherwise dismantled. Everything now is felt, if it exists for me at all. And still, we continue, and I don't burn up. Vaguely, I wonder why, but then thoughts too are lost.
We hit the inner core, the center of the earth, and it is nothing like Verne thought. It is hell. I have arrived. And in hell, you descend interminably. And there is no end. And your thoughts return, regretful and angry. Those thoughts and your feelings are all you have, and it always increases. Ever worsens.
I stretch and crack and massage, but it only continues, this sensation. I try to force my thoughts elsewhere. I try to count to a million. It seems a large number, but I'm there so quickly, and am not distracted at all. It seems more like a measure of the increasing hurt. And I give up.
I give up, and I swallow a Vicodin. And everything's floaty and happy, and those wings are chopped off while I'm too numbed to care, and I float upward, back through the layers, to the sunny day, regardless of the weather or whether it be night. I lose sight of what's real. I just don't give a damn, and it's a positive experience. I don't know any better. And I am made a pleasant woman. I smile, I laugh, and I float along. And I don't remember a thing.
My back hurts today.
I'm Too Tired*
To study for the test I have tomorrow. Maybe I'll just get an A as a gift from the divine others. Gah, or maybe I'll suck it up and actually study, durn it. But I'm not going to like it. So there.
Sometimes I wish that I was Godzilla or King Kong or the Blob (the Blob, really?) so that I could just crush everything to smithereens with my hulking limbs and not care, because I'd be too evil to care. Or too... animal/blobby. I used to play that game Rampage, where you were a giant monster, and you ate people and destroyed things and stuff. Good times. But then, things do tend to end poorly for those monster-beasts, canonically-speaking. So, maybe not.
Halloween. I really really really really really want to dress up and go to a party, but there really aren't any here that aren't based on booze. Or in shady areas. I'm seeing a play, which I'm excited about, but I'll be missing my favorite holiday. I'm ridiculously jealous of everyone back home, so make pumpkins and dress up, or I'll haunt you as the ghost of Halloweens past! You know, the girl ghost. She always reminded me of First Communion dolls. Er, the Muppet Version girl, I mean. Which is more true to the original story than you might think, Marleys vs. Marley aside.
Albee's insane. I've been reading The Goat, and everything's just way beyond my comfort level. I've also started and will need to finish Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which has similar concepts, despite it being like 40 years younger. Anyway, he's crazy and a genius. Is it too much for me to ask to become a genius without going crazy? Or maybe just a little crazy? I think I can become crazy, but the genius bit seems to get a bit muddled away in the transformation. Silly silly mind.
I found a tea that doesn't taste like crap. That's not really a compliment, is it? Anyway, it's a fusion green tea made by Coca Cola, and while I won't say it tastes good, it isn't as "OMG, I think I'll burn my tongue out to save its non-physical pain." That wasn't even remotely cogent, was it? Anyway, the tea's not god-awful, so I've been drinking it instead. I'm a little sadistic, I think.
Went to Harajuku to pay my cell phone bill. Forty-bucks, including my insurance, which is about half. I"m pretty happy it's so cheap, especially considering a few calls back home ought've bumped it up a little. Hoorah for that. Took forever, though, which in Mandyland means about an hour. The fellow helping me was handsome though, but he kept going away to, you know, actually get my business taken care of. The things we do for productivity. Le sigh.
Lazarus/Hector/Zeno is missing still. I think he's run away. Or maybe he's been kidnapped? Then I can pay the ransom and get my roomie back. Figure he's what, 1/1000 (math skills, don't fail me now!) the size of a human, so he out to be 1/1000th the price. Which means, I'm willing to pay $10 O.O Don't get kidnapped, my pretties, for I am rather cheap. Exceedingly cheap. Dirt cheap? Wait a tick...
Nanowrimo's start is Saturday. Gah! Gah! I don't think I'll succeed this year. Pooh on me, for failing before the game begins, by having a negative attitude like that. I should just write a nonsense novel. Nonsense can't lose because if you just type randomness it's all nonsensically sensible. Hoorah. I'm too tired to write anything else. Best get to homework, which is something everyone should do when out of their minds.
Cheerio, loves!
Sometimes I wish that I was Godzilla or King Kong or the Blob (the Blob, really?) so that I could just crush everything to smithereens with my hulking limbs and not care, because I'd be too evil to care. Or too... animal/blobby. I used to play that game Rampage, where you were a giant monster, and you ate people and destroyed things and stuff. Good times. But then, things do tend to end poorly for those monster-beasts, canonically-speaking. So, maybe not.
Halloween. I really really really really really want to dress up and go to a party, but there really aren't any here that aren't based on booze. Or in shady areas. I'm seeing a play, which I'm excited about, but I'll be missing my favorite holiday. I'm ridiculously jealous of everyone back home, so make pumpkins and dress up, or I'll haunt you as the ghost of Halloweens past! You know, the girl ghost. She always reminded me of First Communion dolls. Er, the Muppet Version girl, I mean. Which is more true to the original story than you might think, Marleys vs. Marley aside.
Albee's insane. I've been reading The Goat, and everything's just way beyond my comfort level. I've also started and will need to finish Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which has similar concepts, despite it being like 40 years younger. Anyway, he's crazy and a genius. Is it too much for me to ask to become a genius without going crazy? Or maybe just a little crazy? I think I can become crazy, but the genius bit seems to get a bit muddled away in the transformation. Silly silly mind.
I found a tea that doesn't taste like crap. That's not really a compliment, is it? Anyway, it's a fusion green tea made by Coca Cola, and while I won't say it tastes good, it isn't as "OMG, I think I'll burn my tongue out to save its non-physical pain." That wasn't even remotely cogent, was it? Anyway, the tea's not god-awful, so I've been drinking it instead. I'm a little sadistic, I think.
Went to Harajuku to pay my cell phone bill. Forty-bucks, including my insurance, which is about half. I"m pretty happy it's so cheap, especially considering a few calls back home ought've bumped it up a little. Hoorah for that. Took forever, though, which in Mandyland means about an hour. The fellow helping me was handsome though, but he kept going away to, you know, actually get my business taken care of. The things we do for productivity. Le sigh.
Lazarus/Hector/Zeno is missing still. I think he's run away. Or maybe he's been kidnapped? Then I can pay the ransom and get my roomie back. Figure he's what, 1/1000 (math skills, don't fail me now!) the size of a human, so he out to be 1/1000th the price. Which means, I'm willing to pay $10 O.O Don't get kidnapped, my pretties, for I am rather cheap. Exceedingly cheap. Dirt cheap? Wait a tick...
Nanowrimo's start is Saturday. Gah! Gah! I don't think I'll succeed this year. Pooh on me, for failing before the game begins, by having a negative attitude like that. I should just write a nonsense novel. Nonsense can't lose because if you just type randomness it's all nonsensically sensible. Hoorah. I'm too tired to write anything else. Best get to homework, which is something everyone should do when out of their minds.
Cheerio, loves!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Maybe I'll Get a Fish
Apartments don't have restrictions against fish, do they? But what will I do when I go home? Release it into the lake? Would it be okay there? And is this just a meek attempt to replace my spider? Or maybe an aftereffect of Ponyo viewing?
Or am I just making up questions and putting them to blog in an attempt to keep from having to study more? I think my brain's bleeding. Does your brain always bleed? Like, blood's going through your veins all the time; isn't that like bleeding? Science is tricky.
From "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
Testing Bloodhounds
When I was at Los Alamos and would get a little time off, I would often go visit my wife, who was in a hospital in Albuquerque, a few hours away. One time I went to visit her and couldn't go in right away, so I went to the hospital library to read.
I read an article in Science about bloodhounds, and how they could smell so very well. The authors described the various experiments that they did -- the bloodhounds could identify which items had been touched by people, and so on -- and I began to think: It is very remarkable how good bloodhounds are at smelling, being able to follow trails of people, and so forth, but how good are we, actually?
When the time came that I could visit my wife, I went to see her, and I said, "We're gonna do an experiment. Those Coke bottles over there (she had a six-pack of empty Coke bottles that she was saving to send out) -- now you haven't touched them in a couple of days, right?"
"That's right."
I took the six-pack over to her without touching the bottles, and said, "OK. Now I'll go out, and you take out one of the bottles, handle it for about two minutes, and then put it back. Then I'll come in, and try to tell which bottle it was."
So I went out, and she took out one of the bottles and handled it for quite a while -- lots of time, because I'm no bloodhound! According to the article, they could tell if you just touched it.
Then I came back, and it was absolutely obvious! I didn't even have to smell the damn thing, because, of course, the temperature was different. And it was also obvious from the smell. As soon as you put it up near your face, you could smell it was dampish and warmer. So that experiment didn't work because it was too obvious.
Then I looked at the bookshelf and said, "Those books you haven't looked at for a while, right? This time, when I go out, take one book off the shelf, and just open it -- that's all -- and close it again; then put it back."
So I went out again, she took a book, opened it and closed it, and put it back. I came in -- and nothing to it! It was easy. You just smell the books. It's hard to explain, because we're not used to saying things about it. You put each book up to your nose and sniff a few times, and you can tell. It's very different. A book that's been standing there a while has a
dry, uninteresting kind of smell. But when a hand has touched it, there's a dampness and a smell that's very distinct.
We did a few more experiments, and I discovered that while bloodhounds are indeed quite capable, humans are not as incapable as they think they are: it's just that they carry their nose so high off the ground!
(I've noticed that my dog can correctly tell which way I've gone in the house, especially if I'm barefoot, by smelling my footprints. So I tried to do that: I crawled around the rug on my hands and knees, sniffing, to see if I could tell the difference between where I walked and where I didn't, and I found it impossible. So the dog is much better than I am.)
Many years later, when I was first at Caltech, there was a party at Professor Bacher's house, and there were a lot of people from Caltech. I don't know how it came up, but I was telling them this story about smelling the bottles and the books. They didn't believe a word, naturally, because they always thought I was a faker. I had to demonstrate it.
We carefully took eight or nine books off the shelf without touching them directly with our hands, and then I went out. Three different people touched three different books: they picked one up, opened it, closed it, and put it back.
Then I came back, and smelled everybody's hands, and smelled all the books -- I don't remember which I did first -- and found all three books correctly; I got one person wrong.
They still didn't believe me; they thought it was some sort of magic trick. They kept trying to figure out how I did it. There's a famous trick of this kind, where you have a confederate in the group who gives you signals as to what it is, and they were trying to figure out who the confederate was. Since then I've often thought that it would be a good card trick to take a deck of cards and tell someone to pick a card and put it back, while you're in the other room. You say, "Now I'm going to tell you which card it is, because I'm a bloodhound: I'm going to smell all these cards and tell you which card you picked." Of course, with that kind of patter, people wouldn't believe for a minute that that's what you were actually doing!
People's hands smell very different -- that's why dogs can identify people; you have to try it! All hands have a sort of moist smell, and a person who smokes has a very different smell on his hands from a person who doesn't; ladies often have different kinds of perfumes, and so on. If somebody happened to have some coins in his pocket and happened to be handling them, you can smell that.
Or am I just making up questions and putting them to blog in an attempt to keep from having to study more? I think my brain's bleeding. Does your brain always bleed? Like, blood's going through your veins all the time; isn't that like bleeding? Science is tricky.
From "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
Testing Bloodhounds
When I was at Los Alamos and would get a little time off, I would often go visit my wife, who was in a hospital in Albuquerque, a few hours away. One time I went to visit her and couldn't go in right away, so I went to the hospital library to read.
I read an article in Science about bloodhounds, and how they could smell so very well. The authors described the various experiments that they did -- the bloodhounds could identify which items had been touched by people, and so on -- and I began to think: It is very remarkable how good bloodhounds are at smelling, being able to follow trails of people, and so forth, but how good are we, actually?
When the time came that I could visit my wife, I went to see her, and I said, "We're gonna do an experiment. Those Coke bottles over there (she had a six-pack of empty Coke bottles that she was saving to send out) -- now you haven't touched them in a couple of days, right?"
"That's right."
I took the six-pack over to her without touching the bottles, and said, "OK. Now I'll go out, and you take out one of the bottles, handle it for about two minutes, and then put it back. Then I'll come in, and try to tell which bottle it was."
So I went out, and she took out one of the bottles and handled it for quite a while -- lots of time, because I'm no bloodhound! According to the article, they could tell if you just touched it.
Then I came back, and it was absolutely obvious! I didn't even have to smell the damn thing, because, of course, the temperature was different. And it was also obvious from the smell. As soon as you put it up near your face, you could smell it was dampish and warmer. So that experiment didn't work because it was too obvious.
Then I looked at the bookshelf and said, "Those books you haven't looked at for a while, right? This time, when I go out, take one book off the shelf, and just open it -- that's all -- and close it again; then put it back."
So I went out again, she took a book, opened it and closed it, and put it back. I came in -- and nothing to it! It was easy. You just smell the books. It's hard to explain, because we're not used to saying things about it. You put each book up to your nose and sniff a few times, and you can tell. It's very different. A book that's been standing there a while has a
dry, uninteresting kind of smell. But when a hand has touched it, there's a dampness and a smell that's very distinct.
We did a few more experiments, and I discovered that while bloodhounds are indeed quite capable, humans are not as incapable as they think they are: it's just that they carry their nose so high off the ground!
(I've noticed that my dog can correctly tell which way I've gone in the house, especially if I'm barefoot, by smelling my footprints. So I tried to do that: I crawled around the rug on my hands and knees, sniffing, to see if I could tell the difference between where I walked and where I didn't, and I found it impossible. So the dog is much better than I am.)
Many years later, when I was first at Caltech, there was a party at Professor Bacher's house, and there were a lot of people from Caltech. I don't know how it came up, but I was telling them this story about smelling the bottles and the books. They didn't believe a word, naturally, because they always thought I was a faker. I had to demonstrate it.
We carefully took eight or nine books off the shelf without touching them directly with our hands, and then I went out. Three different people touched three different books: they picked one up, opened it, closed it, and put it back.
Then I came back, and smelled everybody's hands, and smelled all the books -- I don't remember which I did first -- and found all three books correctly; I got one person wrong.
They still didn't believe me; they thought it was some sort of magic trick. They kept trying to figure out how I did it. There's a famous trick of this kind, where you have a confederate in the group who gives you signals as to what it is, and they were trying to figure out who the confederate was. Since then I've often thought that it would be a good card trick to take a deck of cards and tell someone to pick a card and put it back, while you're in the other room. You say, "Now I'm going to tell you which card it is, because I'm a bloodhound: I'm going to smell all these cards and tell you which card you picked." Of course, with that kind of patter, people wouldn't believe for a minute that that's what you were actually doing!
People's hands smell very different -- that's why dogs can identify people; you have to try it! All hands have a sort of moist smell, and a person who smokes has a very different smell on his hands from a person who doesn't; ladies often have different kinds of perfumes, and so on. If somebody happened to have some coins in his pocket and happened to be handling them, you can smell that.
My Spider is Missing
I can't find him anywhere, and it is most distressing. I'm hoping he just went out to mate, and will be back. My hopes are quite sinful, perhaps. It is getting cold- I hope he's okay out there!
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
--Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web" E.B. White
Sob!
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
--Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web" E.B. White
Sob!
I am rich*
With love! No, not really. Er, I mean I am, but I'm the other rich as well. Or at least it feels that way, because my cash card is working now, and I withdrew moneys. Ahh. And I hid like $200ish in a very sneaky place. (Um, not really). There's no such thing as a sneaky place.
I thought about under my matress, but that's obvious AND cliched. Thought about the tank in the toilet, but we haven't any on the many in the restroom. They're all, MODERN, and stuff (like the button to push to hear the sound of water, making it easier to.. you know...). "Well," thought I, "Susan, this is a fine mess you are in" (http://www.mairakalman.com/elements.html- the dog. I always like that bag). And I thought and I thought and I thought.
And I put it somewhere else obvious. Less obvious? No, but elsewhere. Not in my Bible but not in my vase, neither. 'Cause there're flowers in it, and they deserve better!
I'm supposed to help out setting up for the Sophia Festival all day Friday with the Piano Club. I'm not sure what we've a need to set up. There's the piano, which kinda stays where it is, and flyers, which kinda take two minutes. Are we meant to help other groups? Are they assuming that we're that nice? Am I the only mean one who thinks about with with the words "Hells Uh-no" floating through her brain?
Anyway, "whatever it is, I'm not going to do it! I'm still a young [wo]man, you know. I've got prospects!"
Going to Harajuku tomorrow to pay my cell phone bill and ... oh, to pay my cell phone bill. OH, AND (ha) change the billing to take automatically from my Citibank account. Er.. CitiBank account. Maybe, I shall get a Starbucks whilest I'm there. Maybe I can prepare my study materials TONIGHT and study AT the Starbucks. That would just be too Seattle-ish, maybe. I'm too snobby for that backwardsness, having lived in (an hour away O.O) from the biggest metropolitan area in the world for two (one and a half) months now. P-shaw.
Anyway, Machiko, one of the freshman girls in piano club, wants to go to Tokyo Tower together. Yay! Maybe she doesn't think I'm creepy and I'm just INSANE. Which would justify her thinking me creepy, if she had. Oh, dear.
Wow, I just realized I didn't do my Japanese homework yet, since I was doing errands. Hecks. That kinda harshes my mellow. I need a banana to help it. Then you can call me mellow yellow. Quite rightly.
Anyway, better get to the homeworkings. See y'all laters. And I mean that in a non-literal way. Unless, by laters, I mean way laters. Which I do. So, in the end, I'm practically perfect in every way, like the Powerpuff Girls. Or ... someone else...
Loves!
I thought about under my matress, but that's obvious AND cliched. Thought about the tank in the toilet, but we haven't any on the many in the restroom. They're all, MODERN, and stuff (like the button to push to hear the sound of water, making it easier to.. you know...). "Well," thought I, "Susan, this is a fine mess you are in" (http://www.mairakalman.com/elements.html- the dog. I always like that bag). And I thought and I thought and I thought.
And I put it somewhere else obvious. Less obvious? No, but elsewhere. Not in my Bible but not in my vase, neither. 'Cause there're flowers in it, and they deserve better!
I'm supposed to help out setting up for the Sophia Festival all day Friday with the Piano Club. I'm not sure what we've a need to set up. There's the piano, which kinda stays where it is, and flyers, which kinda take two minutes. Are we meant to help other groups? Are they assuming that we're that nice? Am I the only mean one who thinks about with with the words "Hells Uh-no" floating through her brain?
Anyway, "whatever it is, I'm not going to do it! I'm still a young [wo]man, you know. I've got prospects!"
Going to Harajuku tomorrow to pay my cell phone bill and ... oh, to pay my cell phone bill. OH, AND (ha) change the billing to take automatically from my Citibank account. Er.. CitiBank account. Maybe, I shall get a Starbucks whilest I'm there. Maybe I can prepare my study materials TONIGHT and study AT the Starbucks. That would just be too Seattle-ish, maybe. I'm too snobby for that backwardsness, having lived in (an hour away O.O) from the biggest metropolitan area in the world for two (one and a half) months now. P-shaw.
Anyway, Machiko, one of the freshman girls in piano club, wants to go to Tokyo Tower together. Yay! Maybe she doesn't think I'm creepy and I'm just INSANE. Which would justify her thinking me creepy, if she had. Oh, dear.
Wow, I just realized I didn't do my Japanese homework yet, since I was doing errands. Hecks. That kinda harshes my mellow. I need a banana to help it. Then you can call me mellow yellow. Quite rightly.
Anyway, better get to the homeworkings. See y'all laters. And I mean that in a non-literal way. Unless, by laters, I mean way laters. Which I do. So, in the end, I'm practically perfect in every way, like the Powerpuff Girls. Or ... someone else...
Loves!
Monday, October 27, 2008
All Work and No Play*
Every time I hear that, I think of The Shining. I'm not sure if it's from the book or the movie, or both, perhaps? Anyway, I just gave myself the shivers. Shivered me own timbers?
As you probably do not know, since I think I've not written about it, I have been pretty much spending my entire break between classes doing homework, for the past few weeks. To give myself more time for work-finishing, I've been eating in the school's cafeteria, which is probably five minutes closer than the restaurant I ate at before, and less juice-having. However, there are distinct disadvantages to studying/doing homework in the cafeteria.
For starters, college students are crazy and loud (and crazy loud?). I don't much remember it being this loud back home, but then I haven't ever eaten at the school cafeteria at Seattle U. It's seriously insane though. Last week, this girl was chasing this boy around the room, which is rather large, and through the food lines. They were screaming and really going at it. This is not abnormal.
Generally speaking, someone or another is always screaming. I'm not sure why. Perhaps, there is a general lack of roller coasters in the area, and the suppression of screams leads to them bursting forth every so often, without any warning. They must hold them in for a long time, though, because these screams tend to be sustained and very high pitched. How, I wonder, does any eating get done?
Probably an hour into my break, the cafeteria workers (all women, hm...) start tidying a bit, and turn on the radio very loud. They listen to what I believe is the equivalent of 106.9 in Seattle, aka "easy listening". Lots of Celine Dion. And this too, is very loud.
However, it is very cheap and juiceless. Healthier, probably, as I'm getting meat in. Also, apparently the specific cafeteria I go to isn't very popular with exchange students, so it's basically just me and these other two girls. Which means what? I don't know.
At any rate, I've a quiz tomorrow and the next and the next and a test on Thursday for another class, so I'd best get cracking. Sorry for the general boringness of this entry; nothing much exciting went down today. I bought bread? Shrug?
Loves.
As you probably do not know, since I think I've not written about it, I have been pretty much spending my entire break between classes doing homework, for the past few weeks. To give myself more time for work-finishing, I've been eating in the school's cafeteria, which is probably five minutes closer than the restaurant I ate at before, and less juice-having. However, there are distinct disadvantages to studying/doing homework in the cafeteria.
For starters, college students are crazy and loud (and crazy loud?). I don't much remember it being this loud back home, but then I haven't ever eaten at the school cafeteria at Seattle U. It's seriously insane though. Last week, this girl was chasing this boy around the room, which is rather large, and through the food lines. They were screaming and really going at it. This is not abnormal.
Generally speaking, someone or another is always screaming. I'm not sure why. Perhaps, there is a general lack of roller coasters in the area, and the suppression of screams leads to them bursting forth every so often, without any warning. They must hold them in for a long time, though, because these screams tend to be sustained and very high pitched. How, I wonder, does any eating get done?
Probably an hour into my break, the cafeteria workers (all women, hm...) start tidying a bit, and turn on the radio very loud. They listen to what I believe is the equivalent of 106.9 in Seattle, aka "easy listening". Lots of Celine Dion. And this too, is very loud.
However, it is very cheap and juiceless. Healthier, probably, as I'm getting meat in. Also, apparently the specific cafeteria I go to isn't very popular with exchange students, so it's basically just me and these other two girls. Which means what? I don't know.
At any rate, I've a quiz tomorrow and the next and the next and a test on Thursday for another class, so I'd best get cracking. Sorry for the general boringness of this entry; nothing much exciting went down today. I bought bread? Shrug?
Loves.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Ponyo!*
Ooh, I've got a power headache. I'm going to take a shower after this, and it's going to go away though. No worries!
In case you didn't see it earlier the * denotes the entry being a "diary entry" or account of my day. So, here goes!
I talked to mom on the computer for over an hour O.O (hoorah for base rates vs. minute rates). I joined some online social groups (reading group, movie watching group) in Tokyo that meet up once a month in very public places so that I might meet more people. It's been a little bit lonely lately (littlebit= code for alottabit). Also, I found this club for Americans in Tokyo that do all sorts of things, so I think I might try to join that too ($40 a month). We'll see how these go.
I saw Ponyo today. It was seriously cute, though I didn't understand everything. I got the basic gist of it- pretty much followed the plot of Disney-version Little Mermaid, except without anyone evil. Like the "baddy" was her daddy (ha) who just wanted what was best for her, which she didn't think was best for her. It's really a beautiful movie- every scene obviously created with a great deal of care. So, when I get back and it comes out in theatres in the U.S., we shall go. Okay? (This is where you pounce on it and say- "HELL'S YEAH"! or something less vulgar, perhaps...).
I went to Kawaguchi to see the film, which is one stop away on the train line. I'm pretty happy that I didn't get lost, since I was going off of a hand drawn map I made from an image on the internet. But, it was pretty easy to get too, and Starbucks in Kawaguchi as well. So, okay:
Movie theatres in Japan are AMAZING. Like, it was $15 for the movie ticket, but it was crazy worth it. For one, you actually have an assigned seat, like at a play. I was H10. Oh, and the $15 was a discounted rate for students O.O BTW. Anyway, they have the trailers for all the movies playing at the theater on this big screen in the middle of the lobby, so you can figure out which movie you want to see (brilliant), and a store that sells programs for each movie playing (I bought a Ponyo program). Also, before the movie started, an employee came to the front of the theatre and asked us to please be quiet throughout the show and to enjoy it. ALSO, there were these crazy trays if you got food/drink that link into the drink holder so it's attached. Whoa.
The theatre was in this humongous shopping mall. Like, giguntic. It felt like Bellevue Square. There was a clown performing on the ground floor, so I took a picture from afar:
And zooooomed:
I actually had to move to the side because I asked a security gentleman if it was okay to take a picture, and he explained that if I took it from the front and it flashed, it could mess up the performer. So, that's why the pictures are from the side. And there you have it.
Planning on going to a play with Mary and her husband on Friday (really excited). I guess it's a play based on Helen Keller's life called "The Miracle Worker". I've read her autobiography, so this should be very fun. And next weekend's the Sophia festival, so I should be going to some events with friends (I hope O.O). This week is really busy because of that, with big tests and a midterm (mid-term? The semester's over in FEBRUARY, what the hey-ho?!), then a presentation just after I get back (on The Goat, by Albee, which seems pretty hilarious).
Wish me luck! And thanks for the mini-list of books... Chriselle solely.... what the heck, ya'll? I'm beginning to think you don't love me half so much as you think you do.
Loves!
In case you didn't see it earlier the * denotes the entry being a "diary entry" or account of my day. So, here goes!
I talked to mom on the computer for over an hour O.O (hoorah for base rates vs. minute rates). I joined some online social groups (reading group, movie watching group) in Tokyo that meet up once a month in very public places so that I might meet more people. It's been a little bit lonely lately (littlebit= code for alottabit). Also, I found this club for Americans in Tokyo that do all sorts of things, so I think I might try to join that too ($40 a month). We'll see how these go.
I saw Ponyo today. It was seriously cute, though I didn't understand everything. I got the basic gist of it- pretty much followed the plot of Disney-version Little Mermaid, except without anyone evil. Like the "baddy" was her daddy (ha) who just wanted what was best for her, which she didn't think was best for her. It's really a beautiful movie- every scene obviously created with a great deal of care. So, when I get back and it comes out in theatres in the U.S., we shall go. Okay? (This is where you pounce on it and say- "HELL'S YEAH"! or something less vulgar, perhaps...).
I went to Kawaguchi to see the film, which is one stop away on the train line. I'm pretty happy that I didn't get lost, since I was going off of a hand drawn map I made from an image on the internet. But, it was pretty easy to get too, and Starbucks in Kawaguchi as well. So, okay:
Movie theatres in Japan are AMAZING. Like, it was $15 for the movie ticket, but it was crazy worth it. For one, you actually have an assigned seat, like at a play. I was H10. Oh, and the $15 was a discounted rate for students O.O BTW. Anyway, they have the trailers for all the movies playing at the theater on this big screen in the middle of the lobby, so you can figure out which movie you want to see (brilliant), and a store that sells programs for each movie playing (I bought a Ponyo program). Also, before the movie started, an employee came to the front of the theatre and asked us to please be quiet throughout the show and to enjoy it. ALSO, there were these crazy trays if you got food/drink that link into the drink holder so it's attached. Whoa.
The theatre was in this humongous shopping mall. Like, giguntic. It felt like Bellevue Square. There was a clown performing on the ground floor, so I took a picture from afar:
And zooooomed:
I actually had to move to the side because I asked a security gentleman if it was okay to take a picture, and he explained that if I took it from the front and it flashed, it could mess up the performer. So, that's why the pictures are from the side. And there you have it.
Planning on going to a play with Mary and her husband on Friday (really excited). I guess it's a play based on Helen Keller's life called "The Miracle Worker". I've read her autobiography, so this should be very fun. And next weekend's the Sophia festival, so I should be going to some events with friends (I hope O.O). This week is really busy because of that, with big tests and a midterm (mid-term? The semester's over in FEBRUARY, what the hey-ho?!), then a presentation just after I get back (on The Goat, by Albee, which seems pretty hilarious).
Wish me luck! And thanks for the mini-list of books... Chriselle solely.... what the heck, ya'll? I'm beginning to think you don't love me half so much as you think you do.
Loves!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
*So, Give me Some Books
Take a few minutes, and recommend me three books as a comment to this post. I fixed the problem, so anyone can post, even if they don't have a blog (unless I didn't fix it and am crazy.) Seriously though, I'm making a list for when I get back.
Here's what I like:
*really dark books with beautiful descriptions of violence (Book of Lost Things, In the Cut, The Exquisite, White Oleander)- these are pretty much the only books where I consistently accept a female protagonist
*funny books, generally autobiographical, and by men (Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, Alan Alda- zip it, you!)
*children's books- I'm a connoisseur
What I don't like (sorry):
*Romance novels (I try I try, they just don't stick. If the focus of the book is a romance, 9 times out of 8, I won't like it)
*Series (unless it's children's fantasy or sci fi.)
So, let's have them. ... Please?
Anyway, I went to the post office today and got my debit card. I don't know how to activate it though. Could it already be activated? That doesn't seem safe. Especially since they made me go all the way to the post office because my apartment wasn't deemed safe for receiving it. Well, what the heck?
That's pretty much my day. I studied, I did homework, I took some clips for a future vid-thingy. Kinda unimpressive.
Loves
Here's what I like:
*really dark books with beautiful descriptions of violence (Book of Lost Things, In the Cut, The Exquisite, White Oleander)- these are pretty much the only books where I consistently accept a female protagonist
*funny books, generally autobiographical, and by men (Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, Alan Alda- zip it, you!)
*children's books- I'm a connoisseur
What I don't like (sorry):
*Romance novels (I try I try, they just don't stick. If the focus of the book is a romance, 9 times out of 8, I won't like it)
*Series (unless it's children's fantasy or sci fi.)
So, let's have them. ... Please?
Anyway, I went to the post office today and got my debit card. I don't know how to activate it though. Could it already be activated? That doesn't seem safe. Especially since they made me go all the way to the post office because my apartment wasn't deemed safe for receiving it. Well, what the heck?
That's pretty much my day. I studied, I did homework, I took some clips for a future vid-thingy. Kinda unimpressive.
Loves
Speeches
I like them, btw. Anyway, I'm posting them here more for me than for you. From now on, posts with an asterisk by them are the description of the day, everything else is something random. O.O I think you should like random, because I do. Anyways... I'll post them as I remember them. Pooh on you, if I only came up with two. To begin with... that rhymed.
HAWKEYE [after losing his sight, temporarily as it turned out]
One part of the world closed down for me, but another part opened up. Sure, I’ve been seeing myself sitting on a corner with a tin cup selling thermometers. But things are happening that take me away from that. This morning I spent two incredible hours listening to a rainstorm. I didn’t just hear it, I was part of it. I’ll bet you never realized that the sound of rain hitting the ground makes the same noise as steaks when they barbeque, or that thunder seems to echo forever. And you can’t believe how funny it is to hear someone slip and fall in the mud. Had to be Burns. Beej, it’s full of trapdoors, but I think I’m using this thing to my advantage. I’ve never spent a more conscious day in my life.
-MASH
Xander - Potential [after Dawn finds out she's not going to be a slayer, er or isn't a Potential Slayer]
I saw what you did last night. You thought you were all special. Miss Sunnydale 2003. And the minute you found out you weren't, you handed the crown to Amanda without a moment's pause. You gave her your power. They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary.
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer
HAWKEYE [after losing his sight, temporarily as it turned out]
One part of the world closed down for me, but another part opened up. Sure, I’ve been seeing myself sitting on a corner with a tin cup selling thermometers. But things are happening that take me away from that. This morning I spent two incredible hours listening to a rainstorm. I didn’t just hear it, I was part of it. I’ll bet you never realized that the sound of rain hitting the ground makes the same noise as steaks when they barbeque, or that thunder seems to echo forever. And you can’t believe how funny it is to hear someone slip and fall in the mud. Had to be Burns. Beej, it’s full of trapdoors, but I think I’m using this thing to my advantage. I’ve never spent a more conscious day in my life.
-MASH
Xander - Potential [after Dawn finds out she's not going to be a slayer, er or isn't a Potential Slayer]
I saw what you did last night. You thought you were all special. Miss Sunnydale 2003. And the minute you found out you weren't, you handed the crown to Amanda without a moment's pause. You gave her your power. They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary.
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Friday, October 24, 2008
April in Paris- David Sedaris
Anyway, in the semi-recent (recentest...) David Sedaris book When You Are Engulfed in Flames, there is a chapter devoted to his love of spiders. Among other things, because he is kinda ADD in his writing, unlike I, who am refined and nearly always on topic and grammatically correct. Don't give me that look. I'll flog you with an egg beater.
So, Lazarus/Hector/Guiseppe has been here at least a week, probably two, and I'm worried that he may be nearing the end of his natural life, and I really don't want a ghost spider living in my flat. Ha, I said "flat." Anyway, spiders are a little bit creepy in and of themselves, though this one seems to behave himself apart from potential biting me the once (I told him I'd bite him back if it happened again. I think he believed me. Ew), and a ghost spider would be infinitely more creepy. Though, it might get me on the television, in some form. We could be stars! Except, too creepy to risk.
Thusly, I went and looked up the lifespan of the zebra spider. Instead, I got the lifespan of a zebra- they live an average of 30 years. Interesting, but I haven't a zebra and think all the one's that've got one probably have some PhD or MA (MA? MS... Microsoft?) after their name denoting they've studied the durned beasts half their natural lives and know the zebra life span. At any rate, then I got a Chilean Zebra Spider, which doesn't seem to be much like mine. It was like the sort of bug one has for a pet. And Lazarus is too small to be a good pet (sorry Laz), and far too independent. Probably thinks I'm his pet. Honestly, the only creature who's pet I'll be is Spike's, because he says it in that sexy British slangy accent that melts my windpipe away.
In any event, I haven't any idear how long my spidey will survive. I hope he doesn't die. The Chilean Zebra Spider lives 4 years-ish, so hopefully my fellow will wait at least until March to perish. I'm not sure if that came out as Disney movie as I'd hoped. Huh...
Anyway, David Sedaris' writing on spiders:
"April in Paris" (I think...)- David Sedaris
While watching TV one recent evening, I stumbled upon a nature program devoted to the subject of making nature programs. The cameraman's job was to catch a bird of paradise in full display, so he dug himself a hole, covered it with branches, and sat inside it for three weeks. This was in New Guinea, where the people used to wear sexy loincloths but now stand around in T-shirts reading "I survived the 2002 IPC Corporate Challenge Weekend." A villager might wear a pair of gym shorts and then add a fanny pack or a sun visor with the name of a riverboat casino stitched onto the brim. I suppose that these things came from a relief organization. Either that or a cruise ship went down and this was what had washed up onshore.
I'll wager that quite a few sun visors found their way to Southeast Asia after the tsunami. One brutal news story after another, and it went on for weeks. The phone numbers of aid organizations would skitter across the bottom of the TV screen, and I recall thinking that if they wanted serious donations they ought to show a puppy. People I know, people who had never before contributed to charity, emptied their pockets when a cocker spaniel was shown standing on a rooftop after Hurricane Katrina hit, eight months later. "What choice did I have?" they asked. "That poor little thing looked into the camera and penetrated my very soul."
The eyes of the stranded grandmother, I noted, were not half as piercing. There she was, clinging to a chimney with her bra strap showing, and all anyone did was wonder if she had a dog. "I'd hate to think there's a Scotty in her house, maybe trapped on the first floor. What's the number of that canine-rescue agency?"
Saying that this was everyone's reaction is, of course, an exaggeration. There were cat people, too, and those whose hearts went out to the abandoned reptiles. The sight of an iguana sailing down the street on top of a refrigerator sent a herpetologist friend over the edge. "She seems to be saying, 'Where's my master?' " he speculated. " 'Here it is, time for our daily cuddle and I'm stuck on the S.S. Whirlpool!!' "
I've often heard that anthropomorphizing an animal is the worst injustice you can do to it. That said, I'm as guilty of it as anyone. In childhood stories, the snail might grab her purse and dash out the door to put money in the meter. The rabbit cries when the blue jay makes fun of her buckteeth. The mouse loves his sister but not that way. They're just like us! we think.
Certain nature shows only add to this misconception, but that, to me, is why they're so addictive. Take "Growing Up Camel," a program my friend Ronnie and I watched one evening. It was set in a small, privately owned zoo somewhere in Massachusetts. The camel in question was named Patsy, and the narrator reminded us several times that she had been born on Super Bowl Sunday. While still an infant (the football stadium probably not even cleared yet), she was taken from her mother. Now she was practically grown, and the narrator announced a reunion: "Today Patsy has reached what may be the biggest milestone in her life--moving back in with her mom."
In the next segment, the two were reintroduced, and the grumpy old mother chased her daughter around the pen. When the opportunity arose, she bit Patsy on the backside, and pretty hard, it seemed to me. This was the camels not getting along and it wasn't too terribly different from the way they acted when they did get along.
When the next break approached, the narrator hooked us with "When we continue, a heartbreaking event that will change Patsy's life forever."
I'd have put my money on an amputated leg, but it turned out to be nothing that dramatic. What happened was that the mother got bone cancer and died. The veterinarian took it hard, but Patsy didn't seem to care one way or another, and why would she, really? All her mom ever did was browbeat her and steal her food, so wasn't she better off on her own?
The zookeepers worried that if Patsy were left alone she would forget how to be a camel, and so they imported some company, a male named Josh and his girlfriend, Josie, who were shipped in from Texas. The final shot was of the three of them, standing in the sunshine and serenely ignoring one another. Ronnie cleared her throat and said, "So that's what became of the little camel who was born on Super Bowl Sunday." She turned on the light and looked me in the face. "Are you crying?"
I told her I had an ash in my eye.
Growing Up Camel" had its merits, but I think I prefer the more serious kind of nature show, the kind that follows its subject through the wild. This could be a forest, a puddle, or a human intestinal tract, it makes no difference. Show me a tiger or show me a tapeworm, and I'll watch with equal intensity. In this sort of program we see the creature's world reduced to its basic components: food, safety, and reproduction. It's a constant chain of desperation and heartache, the gist being that life is hard, and then it ends violently. I know I should watch these things with an air of detachment, but time and again I forget myself. The show will run its course, and afterward I'll lie on the sofa, shattered by the death of a doda or a guib, one of those four-letter antelope-type things which are forever turning up in my crossword puzzles.
Apart from leaving me spent and depressed, such programs remind me that I am rarely, if ever, alone. If there's not an insect killing time on the ceiling, there's surely a mite staring out from the bath towel, or a parasite resting on the banks of my bloodstream. I'm reminded, too, that, however repellent, each of these creatures is fascinating, and worthy of a miniseries.
This was a lesson I learned a few summers back, in Normandy. I was at my desk one afternoon writing a letter when I heard a faint buzzing sound, like a tiny car switching into a higher gear. Curious, I went to the window, and there, in a web, I saw what looked like an angry raisin. It was a trapped fly, and as I bent forward to get a closer look a spider rushed forth, and carried it screaming to a little woven encampment situated between the wall and the window casing. It was like watching someone you hate getting mugged: three seconds of hardcore violence, and when it was over you just wanted it to happen again.
It's hard to recall having no working knowledge of the Tegenaria duellica, but that's what I was back then--a greenhorn with a third-rate field guide. All I knew was that this was a spider, a big one, the shape of an unshelled peanut. In color it ranged from russet to dark brown, the shades alternating to form a mottled pattern on the abdomen. I later learned that the Tegenaria can live for up to two years, and that this was an adult female. At that moment, though, as I stood at the window with my mouth hanging open, all I recognized was a profound sense of wonder.
How had I spent so much time in that house and never realized what was going on around me? If the Tegenaria barked or went after my food, I might have picked up on them earlier, but, as it was, they were as quiet and unobtrusive as Amish farmers. Outside mating season, they pretty much stayed put, a far cry from the Carolina wolf spiders I grew up with. Those had been hunters rather than trappers. Big shaggy things the size of a baby's hand, they roamed the basement of my parents' house, and evoked from my sisters the prolonged, spine-tingling screams called for in movies when the mummy invades the delicate lady's dressing room. "Kill it!" they'd yell, and then I'd hear a half-dozen shoes hitting the linoleum, followed by a world atlas or maybe a piano stool--whatever was heavy and close at hand.
I was put off by the wolf spiders as well, but never thought that they were out to get me. For starters, they didn't seem that organized. Then, too, I figured they had their own lives to lead. This was an attitude I picked up from my father, who squashed nothing that was not directly related to him. "You girls," he'd say, and no matter how big the thing was he'd scoot it onto a newspaper and release it outside. Come bedtime, I'd knock on my sisters' door and predict that the spider was now crawling to the top of the house, where he'd take a short breather before heading down the chimney. "I read in the encyclopedia that this particular breed is known for its tracking ability, and that once they've pegged their victims almost nothing will stop them. Anyway, good night."
My sisters would have been horrified by the house in Normandy, as would most people, probably. Even before I joined the American Arachnological Society, the place looked haunted, cobwebs sagging like campaign bunting from the rafters and curtain rods. If one was in my way, I'd knock it down. But that all changed when I discovered that first Tegenaria--April, I called her. After writing her name on an index card and taping it to the wall, I found my interest spreading to her neighbors. The window they lived in was like a tenement building, one household atop another, on either side of the frame. Above April was Marty, and then Curtis and Paula. Across the way were Linda, Russell, Big Chief Tommy, and a sexless little speck of a thing I decided to call Leslie. And this was just one window.
Seeing as I'd already broken the No. 1 rule of a good nature documentary--not to give names to your subjects--I went ahead and broke the next one, which was not to get involved in their lives. "Manipulating," my boyfriend, Hugh, would call it, but, to my mind, that was a bit too mad scientist. Manipulating is cross-breeding, or setting up death matches with centipedes. What I was doing was simply called feeding.
No Tegenaria, or at least none that I've observed, wants anything to do with a dead insect, even a freshly dead one. A spider's food needs to be alive and struggling, and because our house was overrun, and I had some time on my hands, I decided to help out. In my opinion, the best place to catch flies is against a windowpane. Something about the glass seems to confuse them, and they get even dopier when you come at them with an open jar. Once one was in, I'd screw on the lid and act like I was shaking a cocktail. The little body would slam against the sides, and, as Hugh went progressively Gandhi on me, I'd remind him that these were pests, disease carriers who feasted upon the dead, and then came indoors to dance on our silverware. "I mean, come on," I said. "You can't feel sorry for everything."
The Tegenaria build what I soon learned to call "horizontal sheet webs"-- dense trampoline-like structures that are most often triangular, and range in size from that of a folded handkerchief to that of a placemat. Once my prey was good and woozy, I'd unscrew the lid, and tip the jar toward the waiting spider. The fly would drop, and, after lying still for a moment or two, it would begin to twitch and rouse itself, a cartoon drunk coming to after a long night. "What the fuck . . . ?" I imagined it saying. Then it would notice the wings and foreheads of earlier victims. "I've got to get out of here." A whisper of footsteps off in the distance, and just as the fly tasted futility, the monster was upon it.
"And cut!" I would yell.
Watching this spectacle became addictive, and so, in turn, did catching flies. There were days when I'd throw a good three dozen of them to their deaths--this at the expense of everything else I was supposed to be doing. As the spiders moved from healthy to obese, their feet tore holes in their webs. Running became a chore, and I think their legs started chafing. By this point, there was no denying my emotional attachment. There were nights that first summer when I'd get out of bed at 3 A.M. and wander into my office with a flashlight. Everyone would be wide awake, but it was always April that I singled out. If I thought about her a hundred times a day, it seemed only fair that she thought about me as well. My name, my face: I didn't expect these things to register, but, in the way that a body feels the warmth of the sun, I fully imagined that she sensed my presence, and missed it when I was away.
"That's all right," I'd tell her. "It's only me." Often, I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.
Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute. It slayed me that she had eight eyes, and that none of them seemed to do her any good. They were more like decoration, really, a splay of beads crowded above her chelicerae. These were what she used to grip her prey, and if you looked at her the right way you could see them as a pair of enormous buckteeth. This made her appear goofy rather than scary, though I'd never have said so in her presence. For a Tegenaria, she was quite attractive, and I was glad to see that Principal Hodges shared my view. He was a freshly molted adult male who travelled from the other side of the room and spent six days inside her inner sanctum. Why Marty or Curtis or Big Chief Tommy didn't mate with April is a mystery, and I put it on a list beside other nagging questions, such as "What was Jesus like as a teen-ager?" and "Why is it you never see a baby squirrel?"
As the summer progressed, so did the mysteries. Spiders relocated, both male and female, and I started noticing a lot of spare parts--a forsaken leg or palp lying in a web that used to belong to Paula or Philip or the Right Reverend Karen. Someone new would move in, and, as soon as I tacked up a fresh name card, he or she would vacate without notice. What had once seemed like a fine neighborhood quickly became a dangerous one, the tenants all thuggish and transitory. Maybe April was more respected than anyone else in her window unit. Maybe her enemies knew that she was being watched, but, for whatever reason, she was one of the few Tegenaria that managed to stay put and survive. In mid-September, Hugh and I returned to the city and, at the last minute, I decided to buy a plastic terrarium and to take her with me. The "April in Paris" business didn't occur to me until we were on the train, and I held her container against the window, saying, "Look, the Eiffel Tower!"
Funny the details that slip your notice until it's too late. The fact, for instance, that we don't really have flies in Paris, at least not in our apartment. Back in Normandy, catching prey had been a breeze. I could do it barefoot and in my pajamas, but now I was forced to go outside and lurk around the trash cans in the Luxembourg Gardens. Someone would toss in a disposable diaper and I'd stand a few feet from the bin, and wait for the scent to be picked up. Then there'd be the sneak attack, the clattering jar, the little spell of cursing and foot stomping. Had the flies been gathered on a windowpane, I would have enjoyed the last laugh, but out in the open, and with an audience of French people noting my every failure, my beautiful hobby became a chore.
I'd been telling myself for months that April needed me, though of course she didn't. An adequate amount of prey stumbled into her web and she caught it quite capably on her own--in Normandy, anyway. Now, though, trapped inside a terrarium in a fourth-floor apartment, she honestly did need me, and the responsibility weighed a ton. Tegenaria can go without eating for three months, but whenever I returned home empty-handed I could feel her little spider judgment seeping from the plastic box. The face that had once seemed goofy was now haughty and expectant. "Hmm," I imagined her saying. "I guess I had you figured all wrong."
In early October, the weather turned cool. Then the rains came and, overnight, every fly in Paris packed up and left town. April hadn't eaten in more than a week when, just by chance, I happened upon a pet store and learned that it sold live crickets, blunt little black ones that looked like bolts with legs. I bought a chirping boxful and felt very proud of myself until the next morning, when I learned something that no nature show ever told me: crickets stink. They reek. Rather than dirty diapers or spoiled meat--something definite you can put your finger on--they smell like an inclination: cruelty, maybe, or hatred.
No amount of incense or air freshener could diminish the stench. Any attempt only made it worse, and it was this more than anything that led me back to Normandy. April and I took the train in late October, and I released her into her old home. I guess I thought that she would move back in, but in our absence her web had fallen to ruin. One corner had come unmoored and its ragged, fly-speckled edge drooped like a filthy petticoat onto the window ledge. "I'm pretty sure it can be fixed," I told her, but before I could elaborate, or even say goodbye, she took off running. And I never saw her again.
There have been other Tegenaria since then, a new population every summer, and though I still feed them and monitor their comings and goings, it's with a growing but not unpleasant distance, an understanding that spiders, unlike mammals, do only what they're supposed to do. Whatever drives the likes of April is private and severe, and my attempts to humanize it only moved me further from its majesty. I still can't resist the fly catching, but in terms of naming and relocating I've backed off considerably, though Hugh would say not enough.
I suppose there's a place in everyone's heart that's reserved for another species. My own is covered in cobwebs rather than dog or cat hair, and, because of this, people assume it doesn't exist. It does, though, and I felt it ache when Katrina hit. The TV was on, the grandmother signalled from her rooftop, and I found myself wondering, with something akin to panic, if there were any spiders in her house.
So, Lazarus/Hector/Guiseppe has been here at least a week, probably two, and I'm worried that he may be nearing the end of his natural life, and I really don't want a ghost spider living in my flat. Ha, I said "flat." Anyway, spiders are a little bit creepy in and of themselves, though this one seems to behave himself apart from potential biting me the once (I told him I'd bite him back if it happened again. I think he believed me. Ew), and a ghost spider would be infinitely more creepy. Though, it might get me on the television, in some form. We could be stars! Except, too creepy to risk.
Thusly, I went and looked up the lifespan of the zebra spider. Instead, I got the lifespan of a zebra- they live an average of 30 years. Interesting, but I haven't a zebra and think all the one's that've got one probably have some PhD or MA (MA? MS... Microsoft?) after their name denoting they've studied the durned beasts half their natural lives and know the zebra life span. At any rate, then I got a Chilean Zebra Spider, which doesn't seem to be much like mine. It was like the sort of bug one has for a pet. And Lazarus is too small to be a good pet (sorry Laz), and far too independent. Probably thinks I'm his pet. Honestly, the only creature who's pet I'll be is Spike's, because he says it in that sexy British slangy accent that melts my windpipe away.
In any event, I haven't any idear how long my spidey will survive. I hope he doesn't die. The Chilean Zebra Spider lives 4 years-ish, so hopefully my fellow will wait at least until March to perish. I'm not sure if that came out as Disney movie as I'd hoped. Huh...
Anyway, David Sedaris' writing on spiders:
"April in Paris" (I think...)- David Sedaris
While watching TV one recent evening, I stumbled upon a nature program devoted to the subject of making nature programs. The cameraman's job was to catch a bird of paradise in full display, so he dug himself a hole, covered it with branches, and sat inside it for three weeks. This was in New Guinea, where the people used to wear sexy loincloths but now stand around in T-shirts reading "I survived the 2002 IPC Corporate Challenge Weekend." A villager might wear a pair of gym shorts and then add a fanny pack or a sun visor with the name of a riverboat casino stitched onto the brim. I suppose that these things came from a relief organization. Either that or a cruise ship went down and this was what had washed up onshore.
I'll wager that quite a few sun visors found their way to Southeast Asia after the tsunami. One brutal news story after another, and it went on for weeks. The phone numbers of aid organizations would skitter across the bottom of the TV screen, and I recall thinking that if they wanted serious donations they ought to show a puppy. People I know, people who had never before contributed to charity, emptied their pockets when a cocker spaniel was shown standing on a rooftop after Hurricane Katrina hit, eight months later. "What choice did I have?" they asked. "That poor little thing looked into the camera and penetrated my very soul."
The eyes of the stranded grandmother, I noted, were not half as piercing. There she was, clinging to a chimney with her bra strap showing, and all anyone did was wonder if she had a dog. "I'd hate to think there's a Scotty in her house, maybe trapped on the first floor. What's the number of that canine-rescue agency?"
Saying that this was everyone's reaction is, of course, an exaggeration. There were cat people, too, and those whose hearts went out to the abandoned reptiles. The sight of an iguana sailing down the street on top of a refrigerator sent a herpetologist friend over the edge. "She seems to be saying, 'Where's my master?' " he speculated. " 'Here it is, time for our daily cuddle and I'm stuck on the S.S. Whirlpool!!' "
I've often heard that anthropomorphizing an animal is the worst injustice you can do to it. That said, I'm as guilty of it as anyone. In childhood stories, the snail might grab her purse and dash out the door to put money in the meter. The rabbit cries when the blue jay makes fun of her buckteeth. The mouse loves his sister but not that way. They're just like us! we think.
Certain nature shows only add to this misconception, but that, to me, is why they're so addictive. Take "Growing Up Camel," a program my friend Ronnie and I watched one evening. It was set in a small, privately owned zoo somewhere in Massachusetts. The camel in question was named Patsy, and the narrator reminded us several times that she had been born on Super Bowl Sunday. While still an infant (the football stadium probably not even cleared yet), she was taken from her mother. Now she was practically grown, and the narrator announced a reunion: "Today Patsy has reached what may be the biggest milestone in her life--moving back in with her mom."
In the next segment, the two were reintroduced, and the grumpy old mother chased her daughter around the pen. When the opportunity arose, she bit Patsy on the backside, and pretty hard, it seemed to me. This was the camels not getting along and it wasn't too terribly different from the way they acted when they did get along.
When the next break approached, the narrator hooked us with "When we continue, a heartbreaking event that will change Patsy's life forever."
I'd have put my money on an amputated leg, but it turned out to be nothing that dramatic. What happened was that the mother got bone cancer and died. The veterinarian took it hard, but Patsy didn't seem to care one way or another, and why would she, really? All her mom ever did was browbeat her and steal her food, so wasn't she better off on her own?
The zookeepers worried that if Patsy were left alone she would forget how to be a camel, and so they imported some company, a male named Josh and his girlfriend, Josie, who were shipped in from Texas. The final shot was of the three of them, standing in the sunshine and serenely ignoring one another. Ronnie cleared her throat and said, "So that's what became of the little camel who was born on Super Bowl Sunday." She turned on the light and looked me in the face. "Are you crying?"
I told her I had an ash in my eye.
Growing Up Camel" had its merits, but I think I prefer the more serious kind of nature show, the kind that follows its subject through the wild. This could be a forest, a puddle, or a human intestinal tract, it makes no difference. Show me a tiger or show me a tapeworm, and I'll watch with equal intensity. In this sort of program we see the creature's world reduced to its basic components: food, safety, and reproduction. It's a constant chain of desperation and heartache, the gist being that life is hard, and then it ends violently. I know I should watch these things with an air of detachment, but time and again I forget myself. The show will run its course, and afterward I'll lie on the sofa, shattered by the death of a doda or a guib, one of those four-letter antelope-type things which are forever turning up in my crossword puzzles.
Apart from leaving me spent and depressed, such programs remind me that I am rarely, if ever, alone. If there's not an insect killing time on the ceiling, there's surely a mite staring out from the bath towel, or a parasite resting on the banks of my bloodstream. I'm reminded, too, that, however repellent, each of these creatures is fascinating, and worthy of a miniseries.
This was a lesson I learned a few summers back, in Normandy. I was at my desk one afternoon writing a letter when I heard a faint buzzing sound, like a tiny car switching into a higher gear. Curious, I went to the window, and there, in a web, I saw what looked like an angry raisin. It was a trapped fly, and as I bent forward to get a closer look a spider rushed forth, and carried it screaming to a little woven encampment situated between the wall and the window casing. It was like watching someone you hate getting mugged: three seconds of hardcore violence, and when it was over you just wanted it to happen again.
It's hard to recall having no working knowledge of the Tegenaria duellica, but that's what I was back then--a greenhorn with a third-rate field guide. All I knew was that this was a spider, a big one, the shape of an unshelled peanut. In color it ranged from russet to dark brown, the shades alternating to form a mottled pattern on the abdomen. I later learned that the Tegenaria can live for up to two years, and that this was an adult female. At that moment, though, as I stood at the window with my mouth hanging open, all I recognized was a profound sense of wonder.
How had I spent so much time in that house and never realized what was going on around me? If the Tegenaria barked or went after my food, I might have picked up on them earlier, but, as it was, they were as quiet and unobtrusive as Amish farmers. Outside mating season, they pretty much stayed put, a far cry from the Carolina wolf spiders I grew up with. Those had been hunters rather than trappers. Big shaggy things the size of a baby's hand, they roamed the basement of my parents' house, and evoked from my sisters the prolonged, spine-tingling screams called for in movies when the mummy invades the delicate lady's dressing room. "Kill it!" they'd yell, and then I'd hear a half-dozen shoes hitting the linoleum, followed by a world atlas or maybe a piano stool--whatever was heavy and close at hand.
I was put off by the wolf spiders as well, but never thought that they were out to get me. For starters, they didn't seem that organized. Then, too, I figured they had their own lives to lead. This was an attitude I picked up from my father, who squashed nothing that was not directly related to him. "You girls," he'd say, and no matter how big the thing was he'd scoot it onto a newspaper and release it outside. Come bedtime, I'd knock on my sisters' door and predict that the spider was now crawling to the top of the house, where he'd take a short breather before heading down the chimney. "I read in the encyclopedia that this particular breed is known for its tracking ability, and that once they've pegged their victims almost nothing will stop them. Anyway, good night."
My sisters would have been horrified by the house in Normandy, as would most people, probably. Even before I joined the American Arachnological Society, the place looked haunted, cobwebs sagging like campaign bunting from the rafters and curtain rods. If one was in my way, I'd knock it down. But that all changed when I discovered that first Tegenaria--April, I called her. After writing her name on an index card and taping it to the wall, I found my interest spreading to her neighbors. The window they lived in was like a tenement building, one household atop another, on either side of the frame. Above April was Marty, and then Curtis and Paula. Across the way were Linda, Russell, Big Chief Tommy, and a sexless little speck of a thing I decided to call Leslie. And this was just one window.
Seeing as I'd already broken the No. 1 rule of a good nature documentary--not to give names to your subjects--I went ahead and broke the next one, which was not to get involved in their lives. "Manipulating," my boyfriend, Hugh, would call it, but, to my mind, that was a bit too mad scientist. Manipulating is cross-breeding, or setting up death matches with centipedes. What I was doing was simply called feeding.
No Tegenaria, or at least none that I've observed, wants anything to do with a dead insect, even a freshly dead one. A spider's food needs to be alive and struggling, and because our house was overrun, and I had some time on my hands, I decided to help out. In my opinion, the best place to catch flies is against a windowpane. Something about the glass seems to confuse them, and they get even dopier when you come at them with an open jar. Once one was in, I'd screw on the lid and act like I was shaking a cocktail. The little body would slam against the sides, and, as Hugh went progressively Gandhi on me, I'd remind him that these were pests, disease carriers who feasted upon the dead, and then came indoors to dance on our silverware. "I mean, come on," I said. "You can't feel sorry for everything."
The Tegenaria build what I soon learned to call "horizontal sheet webs"-- dense trampoline-like structures that are most often triangular, and range in size from that of a folded handkerchief to that of a placemat. Once my prey was good and woozy, I'd unscrew the lid, and tip the jar toward the waiting spider. The fly would drop, and, after lying still for a moment or two, it would begin to twitch and rouse itself, a cartoon drunk coming to after a long night. "What the fuck . . . ?" I imagined it saying. Then it would notice the wings and foreheads of earlier victims. "I've got to get out of here." A whisper of footsteps off in the distance, and just as the fly tasted futility, the monster was upon it.
"And cut!" I would yell.
Watching this spectacle became addictive, and so, in turn, did catching flies. There were days when I'd throw a good three dozen of them to their deaths--this at the expense of everything else I was supposed to be doing. As the spiders moved from healthy to obese, their feet tore holes in their webs. Running became a chore, and I think their legs started chafing. By this point, there was no denying my emotional attachment. There were nights that first summer when I'd get out of bed at 3 A.M. and wander into my office with a flashlight. Everyone would be wide awake, but it was always April that I singled out. If I thought about her a hundred times a day, it seemed only fair that she thought about me as well. My name, my face: I didn't expect these things to register, but, in the way that a body feels the warmth of the sun, I fully imagined that she sensed my presence, and missed it when I was away.
"That's all right," I'd tell her. "It's only me." Often, I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.
Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute. It slayed me that she had eight eyes, and that none of them seemed to do her any good. They were more like decoration, really, a splay of beads crowded above her chelicerae. These were what she used to grip her prey, and if you looked at her the right way you could see them as a pair of enormous buckteeth. This made her appear goofy rather than scary, though I'd never have said so in her presence. For a Tegenaria, she was quite attractive, and I was glad to see that Principal Hodges shared my view. He was a freshly molted adult male who travelled from the other side of the room and spent six days inside her inner sanctum. Why Marty or Curtis or Big Chief Tommy didn't mate with April is a mystery, and I put it on a list beside other nagging questions, such as "What was Jesus like as a teen-ager?" and "Why is it you never see a baby squirrel?"
As the summer progressed, so did the mysteries. Spiders relocated, both male and female, and I started noticing a lot of spare parts--a forsaken leg or palp lying in a web that used to belong to Paula or Philip or the Right Reverend Karen. Someone new would move in, and, as soon as I tacked up a fresh name card, he or she would vacate without notice. What had once seemed like a fine neighborhood quickly became a dangerous one, the tenants all thuggish and transitory. Maybe April was more respected than anyone else in her window unit. Maybe her enemies knew that she was being watched, but, for whatever reason, she was one of the few Tegenaria that managed to stay put and survive. In mid-September, Hugh and I returned to the city and, at the last minute, I decided to buy a plastic terrarium and to take her with me. The "April in Paris" business didn't occur to me until we were on the train, and I held her container against the window, saying, "Look, the Eiffel Tower!"
Funny the details that slip your notice until it's too late. The fact, for instance, that we don't really have flies in Paris, at least not in our apartment. Back in Normandy, catching prey had been a breeze. I could do it barefoot and in my pajamas, but now I was forced to go outside and lurk around the trash cans in the Luxembourg Gardens. Someone would toss in a disposable diaper and I'd stand a few feet from the bin, and wait for the scent to be picked up. Then there'd be the sneak attack, the clattering jar, the little spell of cursing and foot stomping. Had the flies been gathered on a windowpane, I would have enjoyed the last laugh, but out in the open, and with an audience of French people noting my every failure, my beautiful hobby became a chore.
I'd been telling myself for months that April needed me, though of course she didn't. An adequate amount of prey stumbled into her web and she caught it quite capably on her own--in Normandy, anyway. Now, though, trapped inside a terrarium in a fourth-floor apartment, she honestly did need me, and the responsibility weighed a ton. Tegenaria can go without eating for three months, but whenever I returned home empty-handed I could feel her little spider judgment seeping from the plastic box. The face that had once seemed goofy was now haughty and expectant. "Hmm," I imagined her saying. "I guess I had you figured all wrong."
In early October, the weather turned cool. Then the rains came and, overnight, every fly in Paris packed up and left town. April hadn't eaten in more than a week when, just by chance, I happened upon a pet store and learned that it sold live crickets, blunt little black ones that looked like bolts with legs. I bought a chirping boxful and felt very proud of myself until the next morning, when I learned something that no nature show ever told me: crickets stink. They reek. Rather than dirty diapers or spoiled meat--something definite you can put your finger on--they smell like an inclination: cruelty, maybe, or hatred.
No amount of incense or air freshener could diminish the stench. Any attempt only made it worse, and it was this more than anything that led me back to Normandy. April and I took the train in late October, and I released her into her old home. I guess I thought that she would move back in, but in our absence her web had fallen to ruin. One corner had come unmoored and its ragged, fly-speckled edge drooped like a filthy petticoat onto the window ledge. "I'm pretty sure it can be fixed," I told her, but before I could elaborate, or even say goodbye, she took off running. And I never saw her again.
There have been other Tegenaria since then, a new population every summer, and though I still feed them and monitor their comings and goings, it's with a growing but not unpleasant distance, an understanding that spiders, unlike mammals, do only what they're supposed to do. Whatever drives the likes of April is private and severe, and my attempts to humanize it only moved me further from its majesty. I still can't resist the fly catching, but in terms of naming and relocating I've backed off considerably, though Hugh would say not enough.
I suppose there's a place in everyone's heart that's reserved for another species. My own is covered in cobwebs rather than dog or cat hair, and, because of this, people assume it doesn't exist. It does, though, and I felt it ache when Katrina hit. The TV was on, the grandmother signalled from her rooftop, and I found myself wondering, with something akin to panic, if there were any spiders in her house.
I Wasn't Lying
Here's an e-mail I received today:
Dear Exchange Students living in DK House Warabi:
Recently we were reported from DK House Warabi that there are some Sophia exchange students who make a lot of noise over drink, and the manager received some serious complaints from the neighbors and other residents about the noise caused by some Sophia students. According to the complaints, some students talked loudly over drink in their room or on the roof of the residence in the deep of night, particularly at the weekend.
Needless to say, such behaviors are totally unacceptable especially in the middle of the residential district where DK House is located, as it obviously disturbs the neighbors and the other residents' sleep and as a consequence, their daily life.
If you are onto something about this warning, please stop the nuisance right away. We would like you to note that a good relationship with DK House, its neighbors and other residents is very important so that the students from Sophia be accepted to live there. If the above circumstance is not improved, we are afraid it is possible that the students from Sophia can be excluded from now on, which will damage a lot our Exchange Program as DK House is one of our principal housings.
In view of the importance of the matter, if there are any student who continue to ignore the manager's warnings, we will take strict measures such as requesting the leave of the residence or even cancellation of the exchange program.
We sincerely hope that each of you will be aware of it seriously, trying to follow appropriately the regulation of the residence.
This is for the sake of you all.
Your understandings and cooperation is strongly requested,
Overseas Liaison Center
*******************************************
Sophia University
Overseas Liaison Center
7-1, Kioi-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 102-8554
tel:+81-3-3238-3521
fax:+81-3-3238-3554
overseas@cl.sophia.ac.jp
*******************************************
See!!! They are soooo loud! Gah, somehow it's gonna end up with me getting blamed. Wow, that was negative...
Anyway...
OK, so I can't post four posts (ha) in one day, so I'm also attaching the e-mail I sent to my Japanese teacher. Um, yeah. Why? Because it took forevuhs. At least ten minutes. Admire it's beauty. Whoa. This is why I take forever to respond to him >.<
先生。。。
多分渡しの心をこわした！主末沢山しゅくだいがあって月曜日大切なしけんがあるので友達とかぶきに行けません。そして、２０１０年、ぎんざのかぶきざはいつも閉店します。かなしいと思います。でも、授業が好きです。しけんだけ大きらいです！！！
今日、雨が多かった。かさがあるんですが、まだびっしょりぬれました！道の上の水を見たら、風を見えます。多分、雨が降る時、人は不親切になると思います。学校で男性はかみをおとしましたあとで、私はかみをひろて男と「すみません！すみません！」と言いました。でも、やめませんでした。聞こえると思うのでどうしたやめませんでした？私はかなしくなりました。でも、友達によって、かみは大切じゃないです。ラッキですね！
しんぱいしないで下さい。毎日三時半は日本語を勉強しています。＠。＠ でも、あたまがいっぱいと思います！！！
＜３マンデイ
It's too small to read, I think >.< LOVE!
Dear Exchange Students living in DK House Warabi:
Recently we were reported from DK House Warabi that there are some Sophia exchange students who make a lot of noise over drink, and the manager received some serious complaints from the neighbors and other residents about the noise caused by some Sophia students. According to the complaints, some students talked loudly over drink in their room or on the roof of the residence in the deep of night, particularly at the weekend.
Needless to say, such behaviors are totally unacceptable especially in the middle of the residential district where DK House is located, as it obviously disturbs the neighbors and the other residents' sleep and as a consequence, their daily life.
If you are onto something about this warning, please stop the nuisance right away. We would like you to note that a good relationship with DK House, its neighbors and other residents is very important so that the students from Sophia be accepted to live there. If the above circumstance is not improved, we are afraid it is possible that the students from Sophia can be excluded from now on, which will damage a lot our Exchange Program as DK House is one of our principal housings.
In view of the importance of the matter, if there are any student who continue to ignore the manager's warnings, we will take strict measures such as requesting the leave of the residence or even cancellation of the exchange program.
We sincerely hope that each of you will be aware of it seriously, trying to follow appropriately the regulation of the residence.
This is for the sake of you all.
Your understandings and cooperation is strongly requested,
Overseas Liaison Center
*******************************************
Sophia University
Overseas Liaison Center
7-1, Kioi-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 102-8554
tel:+81-3-3238-3521
fax:+81-3-3238-3554
overseas@cl.sophia.ac.jp
*******************************************
See!!! They are soooo loud! Gah, somehow it's gonna end up with me getting blamed. Wow, that was negative...
Anyway...
OK, so I can't post four posts (ha) in one day, so I'm also attaching the e-mail I sent to my Japanese teacher. Um, yeah. Why? Because it took forevuhs. At least ten minutes. Admire it's beauty. Whoa. This is why I take forever to respond to him >.<
先生。。。
多分渡しの心をこわした！主末沢山しゅくだいがあって月曜日大切なしけんがあるので友達とかぶきに行けません。そして、２０１０年、ぎんざのかぶきざはいつも閉店します。かなしいと思います。でも、授業が好きです。しけんだけ大きらいです！！！
今日、雨が多かった。かさがあるんですが、まだびっしょりぬれました！道の上の水を見たら、風を見えます。多分、雨が降る時、人は不親切になると思います。学校で男性はかみをおとしましたあとで、私はかみをひろて男と「すみません！すみません！」と言いました。でも、やめませんでした。聞こえると思うのでどうしたやめませんでした？私はかなしくなりました。でも、友達によって、かみは大切じゃないです。ラッキですね！
しんぱいしないで下さい。毎日三時半は日本語を勉強しています。＠。＠ でも、あたまがいっぱいと思います！！！
＜３マンデイ
It's too small to read, I think >.< LOVE!
Nanowrimo
Oh, my ciphering lovelies, you shan't break my code.
Dedication
Coming
1. To House 1-P (2) (Rebecca)
2. Intros? 1-P (1?) Not blind. (Regular voice)
3. Story #1 dialogue (Kiss of the Spider Woman) (Woman in Mirror)
4. Letters to/from? Mother (2)
5. Lists, counseling transcript?
6. “Once upon a time…” (Scrubs)
7. Story #2 (Rainbow)
Becoming
8. Silence? Stream of action?
9. House history (“Are You Now or Have You Ever Been”)
10. Story #3 (Greatest Death)
11. Insanity 1-P (1)
12. Various connected parties (“Lower Decks”)
13. Verse- foreshadowing galore
14. Story #4 (Different than others…)
15. Episodic- rewind 1-P (2) then 1-P (1)
16. Hint of romance. Storm. 2-P (future friend? “When she related it to me” esque)
Regression
17. Story #5 (dark) 3-P, with description or vague 1-P (Ghost Story?)
18. Past revealed 3-P
19. Murder 1-P (2)- circle of events
20. New transcriber 1-P (3)
That's the plan. Except some of the "code" (it's not really a code, just how I remind myself of things) is really obvious (aka, I made sense).
Dedication
Coming
1. To House 1-P (2) (Rebecca)
2. Intros? 1-P (1?) Not blind. (Regular voice)
3. Story #1 dialogue (Kiss of the Spider Woman) (Woman in Mirror)
4. Letters to/from? Mother (2)
5. Lists, counseling transcript?
6. “Once upon a time…” (Scrubs)
7. Story #2 (Rainbow)
Becoming
8. Silence? Stream of action?
9. House history (“Are You Now or Have You Ever Been”)
10. Story #3 (Greatest Death)
11. Insanity 1-P (1)
12. Various connected parties (“Lower Decks”)
13. Verse- foreshadowing galore
14. Story #4 (Different than others…)
15. Episodic- rewind 1-P (2) then 1-P (1)
16. Hint of romance. Storm. 2-P (future friend? “When she related it to me” esque)
Regression
17. Story #5 (dark) 3-P, with description or vague 1-P (Ghost Story?)
18. Past revealed 3-P
19. Murder 1-P (2)- circle of events
20. New transcriber 1-P (3)
That's the plan. Except some of the "code" (it's not really a code, just how I remind myself of things) is really obvious (aka, I made sense).
I am the Eggman-No, I take it back! I am the Walrus!
Coo Coo Kachoo?
Sorry, it seemed really funny in my head, but apparently isn't at all. What am I going to do about that? I think it may be because I was assigned to Mr. Albee and his insane (I haven't read it yet, just a summary, so this is basically me being judgmental without provocation) "The Goat." Seems to be about a man who falls in love with a goat, and worships it. Um, I guess it's kinda a spoof of Greek tragedy. Except, I don't think Sophocles lived quite long enough to see Albee mock him. And there you have it.
Before I forget, I finally thought of something that must be as difficult for Japanese people to learn, in English, as the durned counters are for us Japanese language learners (that was possibly the most awkward sentence ever... no, not really. I don't even have that- sigh!). So, ordinals (if that's what they're called, I'm just throwing this term out there). Like 6th, 7th, 8th, the ths, but then it is so inconsistent:
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
11-19th
20th
21ST
22nd
23rd
etc.
That must be a pain in the patootey to learn. Among other things, like silent letters and diphthongs. And other stuff. Which was kinda already covered by the "other things" comment.
I finished Pride and Prejudice. Whoa! Probably everyone knows the story, but I shan't ruin it (no, not even if you threaten me with lollipop rain. Ow. And yet... yum). Now, I am on to "Surely You're Joking, Dr. Feynman"- yay! Um, it's more "yay" because of Alan Alda's whole connection with the play QED about Feynman, based on this book in part, than excitement about the book itself O.O I should've packed the Alda autobios. They are great. I love him. Why, for the love of strawberries, cannot one find someone much like Alan Alda in the "real world". I don't mean MTV. Get your head out of the waves. Anyway, I've actually met Mr. Alda, which you probably know, because I've most likely told/bragged to you at least 39482 times. He is even more attractive in person (as a person). Even though he is probably at least 3 times my age. Oh my goodness, more. Nearly four times. Just goes to show how youthful I am. Practically glowing, don't you know?
That may have been a run-on paragraph.
Today was, in actuality, an awful day. I confess, as a result, I allowed myself a peach juice (the ones I think I told you yesterday-ish that I am banning from my bladder), and the sugar content has gone to my head (soon to go to bladder as well, in violation of my moratorium O.O that the right word, even?). Thus, I'm much hypier than I am happy. Don't be deceived, gentle reader!!!
I think perhaps there was a tropical storm today. Or rather, not tropical, as I'm not in the tropics, but a terrible storm! Let's see if we made the news.... Oh, apparently they do call it a tropical storm. Anyway, as I've not given you a link, it has not made news. But it was insane- as though God were peeing on us and he REALLY had to go. That was a bit vulgar. I got soaked. Ew....
Oh, and "Tokyo Storm" in a search engine gets you a comic series and an Elvis Costello song, but not Tokyo's weather, so you needn't bother! Unless... you like comic books and Elvis Costello? I'm not opposed to the idea...
Did terribly on my Japanese test yesterday. I studied for nearly ever. For-nearly-ever? Nearly forever. At any rate, I'm not going to think about it right now. It pains me. Swoon, in a bad way. Thank goodness I'm seated.
Oh, the crux of my terrible day came with this blankety blank blanker (censored?) who dropped something, written all over with kanji that I could not interpret. As I did not know what it was, I chased him, repeating "excuse me," "please wait," "you dropped something," etc. whilst following. I tapped him on the shoulder twice. I spoke to his companion. They did not turn, but ignored me. The paper turned out to be a coupon for a cheap drink at a nearby bar. I asked a girl in my drama class. Nonetheless, blanker might've stopped and told me that. It was blanking rude of him. He can go to blank for all I blanking care. I'm sorry, but false cursing just doesn't relieve the pent up RAGE! Grar!
Well, I was about to write that Lazarus aka Hector (It makes me feel powerful and godlike to be able to change his name at the drop of a hat) is missing again, 'cept he showed up in the nick of time (with his red curls flying? Wow, that reference is just obscure, honestly.)
Here is the poem I referenced, because I really like it:
Magnificat
(for Sian, after thirteen years)
oh this man
what a meal he made of me
how he chewed and gobbled and sucked
in the end he spat me all out
you arrived on the dot, in the nick
of time, with your red curls flying
I was about to slip down the sink like grease
I nearly collapsed, I almost
wiped myself out like a stain
I called for you, and you came, you voyaged
fierce as a small archangel with swords and breasts...
you commanded me to sing of my redemption
oh, my friend, how
you were mother for me, and how
I could let myself lean on you
comfortable as an old cloth
familiar as enamel saucepans
I was a child again, pyjama'ed
in winceyette, my hair plaited and you
listened, you soothed me like cake and milk...
when we met, I tell you
it was a birthday party, a funeral
it was a holy communion
between women, a Visitation
it was two old she-goats butting
and nuzzling each other in the smelly fold
Michele Roberts
Here is a picture of my niece:
Obviously her blurry but distinguished fair looks derive from my side of the family. Or, Kaleena's side, to which I belong. Wouldn't it be funny if she ended up with red hair, or something fun like that, because of a sleeping gene, or whatever you call it? Or not a gene, but whatever. You know what I mean. I have green eyes and neither of my parents do. That sort of thing. Maybe she'll have green eyes like me! I'm soooo excited. There are babies all over and I just want to kiss them and play with them, but I can't, because I'd get arrested. I can peek-a-boo with them (why does everything I type sound erotic T.T). (Why do I think everything I type sounds erotic O.O)?
Nanowrimo is coming up ... so ... soon. (And with that, I've hit my "..." quota for the day). I have an outline. I might post it. Maybe not. I feel like Hemingway. Not because of the book. Rather, the fragments. Oh, a comma. Ooh, two! Ooh, three! Gah!
Loves to you all!
Edit: So, the picture obviously didn't work. I don't know why, but here is the link to the Photobucket place I set it online at (because Blogger wasn't behaving). Link to see the full:
http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n165/mandycandyland/?action=view¤t=AmeliaMarisaSmith.jpg
Sorry, it seemed really funny in my head, but apparently isn't at all. What am I going to do about that? I think it may be because I was assigned to Mr. Albee and his insane (I haven't read it yet, just a summary, so this is basically me being judgmental without provocation) "The Goat." Seems to be about a man who falls in love with a goat, and worships it. Um, I guess it's kinda a spoof of Greek tragedy. Except, I don't think Sophocles lived quite long enough to see Albee mock him. And there you have it.
Before I forget, I finally thought of something that must be as difficult for Japanese people to learn, in English, as the durned counters are for us Japanese language learners (that was possibly the most awkward sentence ever... no, not really. I don't even have that- sigh!). So, ordinals (if that's what they're called, I'm just throwing this term out there). Like 6th, 7th, 8th, the ths, but then it is so inconsistent:
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
11-19th
20th
21ST
22nd
23rd
etc.
That must be a pain in the patootey to learn. Among other things, like silent letters and diphthongs. And other stuff. Which was kinda already covered by the "other things" comment.
I finished Pride and Prejudice. Whoa! Probably everyone knows the story, but I shan't ruin it (no, not even if you threaten me with lollipop rain. Ow. And yet... yum). Now, I am on to "Surely You're Joking, Dr. Feynman"- yay! Um, it's more "yay" because of Alan Alda's whole connection with the play QED about Feynman, based on this book in part, than excitement about the book itself O.O I should've packed the Alda autobios. They are great. I love him. Why, for the love of strawberries, cannot one find someone much like Alan Alda in the "real world". I don't mean MTV. Get your head out of the waves. Anyway, I've actually met Mr. Alda, which you probably know, because I've most likely told/bragged to you at least 39482 times. He is even more attractive in person (as a person). Even though he is probably at least 3 times my age. Oh my goodness, more. Nearly four times. Just goes to show how youthful I am. Practically glowing, don't you know?
That may have been a run-on paragraph.
Today was, in actuality, an awful day. I confess, as a result, I allowed myself a peach juice (the ones I think I told you yesterday-ish that I am banning from my bladder), and the sugar content has gone to my head (soon to go to bladder as well, in violation of my moratorium O.O that the right word, even?). Thus, I'm much hypier than I am happy. Don't be deceived, gentle reader!!!
I think perhaps there was a tropical storm today. Or rather, not tropical, as I'm not in the tropics, but a terrible storm! Let's see if we made the news.... Oh, apparently they do call it a tropical storm. Anyway, as I've not given you a link, it has not made news. But it was insane- as though God were peeing on us and he REALLY had to go. That was a bit vulgar. I got soaked. Ew....
Oh, and "Tokyo Storm" in a search engine gets you a comic series and an Elvis Costello song, but not Tokyo's weather, so you needn't bother! Unless... you like comic books and Elvis Costello? I'm not opposed to the idea...
Did terribly on my Japanese test yesterday. I studied for nearly ever. For-nearly-ever? Nearly forever. At any rate, I'm not going to think about it right now. It pains me. Swoon, in a bad way. Thank goodness I'm seated.
Oh, the crux of my terrible day came with this blankety blank blanker (censored?) who dropped something, written all over with kanji that I could not interpret. As I did not know what it was, I chased him, repeating "excuse me," "please wait," "you dropped something," etc. whilst following. I tapped him on the shoulder twice. I spoke to his companion. They did not turn, but ignored me. The paper turned out to be a coupon for a cheap drink at a nearby bar. I asked a girl in my drama class. Nonetheless, blanker might've stopped and told me that. It was blanking rude of him. He can go to blank for all I blanking care. I'm sorry, but false cursing just doesn't relieve the pent up RAGE! Grar!
Well, I was about to write that Lazarus aka Hector (It makes me feel powerful and godlike to be able to change his name at the drop of a hat) is missing again, 'cept he showed up in the nick of time (with his red curls flying? Wow, that reference is just obscure, honestly.)
Here is the poem I referenced, because I really like it:
Magnificat
(for Sian, after thirteen years)
oh this man
what a meal he made of me
how he chewed and gobbled and sucked
in the end he spat me all out
you arrived on the dot, in the nick
of time, with your red curls flying
I was about to slip down the sink like grease
I nearly collapsed, I almost
wiped myself out like a stain
I called for you, and you came, you voyaged
fierce as a small archangel with swords and breasts...
you commanded me to sing of my redemption
oh, my friend, how
you were mother for me, and how
I could let myself lean on you
comfortable as an old cloth
familiar as enamel saucepans
I was a child again, pyjama'ed
in winceyette, my hair plaited and you
listened, you soothed me like cake and milk...
when we met, I tell you
it was a birthday party, a funeral
it was a holy communion
between women, a Visitation
it was two old she-goats butting
and nuzzling each other in the smelly fold
Michele Roberts
Here is a picture of my niece:
Obviously her blurry but distinguished fair looks derive from my side of the family. Or, Kaleena's side, to which I belong. Wouldn't it be funny if she ended up with red hair, or something fun like that, because of a sleeping gene, or whatever you call it? Or not a gene, but whatever. You know what I mean. I have green eyes and neither of my parents do. That sort of thing. Maybe she'll have green eyes like me! I'm soooo excited. There are babies all over and I just want to kiss them and play with them, but I can't, because I'd get arrested. I can peek-a-boo with them (why does everything I type sound erotic T.T). (Why do I think everything I type sounds erotic O.O)?
Nanowrimo is coming up ... so ... soon. (And with that, I've hit my "..." quota for the day). I have an outline. I might post it. Maybe not. I feel like Hemingway. Not because of the book. Rather, the fragments. Oh, a comma. Ooh, two! Ooh, three! Gah!
Loves to you all!
Edit: So, the picture obviously didn't work. I don't know why, but here is the link to the Photobucket place I set it online at (because Blogger wasn't behaving). Link to see the full:
http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n165/mandycandyland/?action=view¤t=AmeliaMarisaSmith.jpg
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Going to go Insane
The fluorescent lightbulb in my apartment is flickering. All the time. I tried tapping it and tightening it, but to no avail. I think it's giving me a headache. Or I think it should give me a headache, so I psyched myself into getting one. Gah! I am not going to be able to find a fluorescent lightbulb here! They're huge and impossible to find back home! Except maybe Home Depot or something. Can I just take it out? Will the empty socket become menacing? I think it's ok, but I really don't know... Gah!!! Stop flickering!
AAND Cryptoquote (http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/go_daily_game.pl?game_id=Cryptoquote&id=0) is no longer letting me put in my name when I complete a puzzle. Why? How will I know what time I got? I might've beaten 1:00 today, and there's no way of knowing!!! It is my personal goal, and now I'll never know if I already did it!
So, here is a second post, of a complainy nature.
gr.
Love..
Edit: I did Cryptoquote again and got it to take my name, but I didn't really beat 1:00 minute, even though it says it took 57 seconds (Since I already knew it O.O) It STILL almost took a minute-gah! Um, my name on Cryptoquote is "Kattie" so you can see my time every day... stalker!
AAND Cryptoquote (http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/go_daily_game.pl?game_id=Cryptoquote&id=0) is no longer letting me put in my name when I complete a puzzle. Why? How will I know what time I got? I might've beaten 1:00 today, and there's no way of knowing!!! It is my personal goal, and now I'll never know if I already did it!
So, here is a second post, of a complainy nature.
gr.
Love..
Edit: I did Cryptoquote again and got it to take my name, but I didn't really beat 1:00 minute, even though it says it took 57 seconds (Since I already knew it O.O) It STILL almost took a minute-gah! Um, my name on Cryptoquote is "Kattie" so you can see my time every day... stalker!
The Gift of Nothing!
I tried to find this book online, and I probably could if I'd spent more than 3 1/2 minutes, but I did find this video intro:
Anyway, if you didn't know, Mutts is pretty much my favorite comic. I also really liked the early Red and Rover (I think it's not as good nowadays as it used to be, sigh). So, I went to the official site, and apparently you can get it sent to your e-mail every day. So, I don't have to go without it. So, yay! It is the cutest comic strip ev-uh! (Ok, there might be cuter. You may have me there... )
OK, so the ones featuring the Little Pink Sock tend to be my favorite. I shall, below, post a few:
Or one... I couldn't find that many others, and this was the only one I liked well enough to share with you. <3
Anyway, the role play test today went HORRIBLY. TERRIBLY. I cannot exaggerate enough! Well, maybe a little too much. What else would I do with this excess dramatic energy? My partner didn't study, like, at all. And she was sick to boot. I almost feel sorry for her being sick, except that she didn't study, even when they gave us time to practice, she just went and talked with her friend. That was two sentences miraculous merged into one incoherent one. So, when we got up to perform, OBVIOUSLY she forgot her lines. I had mine down, durn it, AND hers. So I whispered hers to her, but I'm sure they could tell >.< Anyway, I am sick of having lame-o partners. And I'm not going to be even a tinge nice about it. Grrrr.. (eyes ablaze).
That aside... I finally got up the nerve to look at the sugar content in the amazingly tasty peach juice they have around here and alas! No more peach juice for me! I knew it would come to that if I looked, so I didn't (by "look," I mean "translate"). So now it's iced tea (which tastes nasty, btw) that has zero cals (and zero sugars, and zero happiness) but also has some sort of magical weight loss property.
Speaking of magic, I think the store I got the jewelry at was a jewelry/magic shop because all the things I got list their properties, spiritually and such. Maybe that's why the old lady was following me and yelling at me on the street? Maybe I didn't tell you about that episode at all? It just randomly didn't bother me, which is weird, because I'm easily aroused (to... anger... d'oh) so I didn't mention it. The earrings are rose quartz, which acc. to Chriselle has healing properties. Sweet. I should rub them on my poor toesies.
Things are heating up in P+P. Whoa, scandal! For reals. But no Mr. Darcy diving in to the lake/pond and getting all wet and sexy. Probably because Austen didn't have Colin Firth as her muse. Though, I think Kaleena said that there was some mini line to the effect that he at some point swam somewhere, so I'll just have to use my fancy to conjure up Colin Firth. Or...
And there we have it.
Loves!
Anyway, if you didn't know, Mutts is pretty much my favorite comic. I also really liked the early Red and Rover (I think it's not as good nowadays as it used to be, sigh). So, I went to the official site, and apparently you can get it sent to your e-mail every day. So, I don't have to go without it. So, yay! It is the cutest comic strip ev-uh! (Ok, there might be cuter. You may have me there... )
OK, so the ones featuring the Little Pink Sock tend to be my favorite. I shall, below, post a few:
Or one... I couldn't find that many others, and this was the only one I liked well enough to share with you. <3
Anyway, the role play test today went HORRIBLY. TERRIBLY. I cannot exaggerate enough! Well, maybe a little too much. What else would I do with this excess dramatic energy? My partner didn't study, like, at all. And she was sick to boot. I almost feel sorry for her being sick, except that she didn't study, even when they gave us time to practice, she just went and talked with her friend. That was two sentences miraculous merged into one incoherent one. So, when we got up to perform, OBVIOUSLY she forgot her lines. I had mine down, durn it, AND hers. So I whispered hers to her, but I'm sure they could tell >.< Anyway, I am sick of having lame-o partners. And I'm not going to be even a tinge nice about it. Grrrr.. (eyes ablaze).
That aside... I finally got up the nerve to look at the sugar content in the amazingly tasty peach juice they have around here and alas! No more peach juice for me! I knew it would come to that if I looked, so I didn't (by "look," I mean "translate"). So now it's iced tea (which tastes nasty, btw) that has zero cals (and zero sugars, and zero happiness) but also has some sort of magical weight loss property.
Speaking of magic, I think the store I got the jewelry at was a jewelry/magic shop because all the things I got list their properties, spiritually and such. Maybe that's why the old lady was following me and yelling at me on the street? Maybe I didn't tell you about that episode at all? It just randomly didn't bother me, which is weird, because I'm easily aroused (to... anger... d'oh) so I didn't mention it. The earrings are rose quartz, which acc. to Chriselle has healing properties. Sweet. I should rub them on my poor toesies.
Things are heating up in P+P. Whoa, scandal! For reals. But no Mr. Darcy diving in to the lake/pond and getting all wet and sexy. Probably because Austen didn't have Colin Firth as her muse. Though, I think Kaleena said that there was some mini line to the effect that he at some point swam somewhere, so I'll just have to use my fancy to conjure up Colin Firth. Or...
And there we have it.
Loves!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Post 100- OMG!
I need to stop using sarcasm when I write these, because you really can't tell that I am. O.o For example, when I say "OMG" it is because I am making fun of people who say "OMG," but, by doing this via the web, I merely appear to be one of the people I am mocking. So, not only am I mean, but I appear to be a dork, instead of a jerk, which is just misleading. Other examples of things I say sarcastically include, but are not limited to, "hella" ("hecka," I think, is even more amusing), "for reals," "for honests," and "loves." Or if I say "e-" before anything, for example "e-bff" because it is just ridiculous.
Anyway, I didn't really post anything yesterday. I kept my Japanese paper up, though it's now edited twice into something much unlike what you may have read O.o I was sick yesterday, so you'll have to forgive me. Like, honestly. As in, if you don't, you'll have to answer to Ol' Bessie. I'll try to get a video of that reference, if I can.
Wow, I just ran out of steam. I'll post more to this later, so if you've been reading this O.O sorry. It'll continue after I eat.
Edit: Continuing on, I made a video. I'll actually write more O.o later....
Edit: Continuing:
I watched Ella Enchanted while I was studying. I study a great deal these days, so watching movies/tv kinda goes along with it. So long as I'm not reading a paper or something, I seem able to multitask well ^.^ hoorah. Anyway, mom sent me the video in one of the packages. I think it would have been better if they'd aimed at a little bit older audience (it still could be PG, easily), I think it's aimed at the tweens. Still, it was pretty funny and Anne Hathaway's a cutie patootie. Her hair looks really good after being locked in a dungeon though... >.<
Also, I finished Angel, Season Four, which wasn't the best of seasons. I think Chriselle described it as "bad fanfiction", and I completely agree! Drama drama drama. But there was an awesome set up for season five (I'll probably start tonight, I've got a lot more studying to go >.< Kanji, gah! I saved it 'til last!).
POTENTIAL SPOILER FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE TO FOLLOW: (I tell you this in big letters because I just had a huge part of Angel, season five, ruined for me by a Wikipedia entry for an early episode O.o why would they do that?!)
Still reading Pride and Prejudice. Whoa, I did not remember Mr. Darcy proposing to Elizabeth Bennet so early! I was like "h-wha?" and checking to see how many pages were left. Though, I knew she would say "no," I really didn't remember him asking at all. What the heck? His feelings all open and stuff. Maybe then she kinda falls for him while he falls out and then it's all Anne of a Thousand Days, with that one day in the middle, maybe, where they loved each other T.T That kinda makes my heart hurt. Except... I've seen the durned movie, and I know that they end up together. Heck, EVERYONE does. Er... that was a bit non-PC. Most people in English-speaking society of Europe and the Americas do?
Big test tomorrow. Wish me luck. That's that.
I got some satsumas. Um, out of topics, I think. Not much going on. I don't like my role play test partner. She didn't even do her part of the assignment, and she was criticizing mine. Gr. And just to rant and be mean some more, Isabel's room reeks. Seriously, you pass it in the hall, and you're hit by this awful odor. What the heck? Clean your room!
Sorry for the ill will. I hope I didn't infect your day with ugliness. Um, I bought a bouquet. So, like, it's all pretty again, and rainbowy, and shiney. Happy? Glorious?
Love!
Anyway, I didn't really post anything yesterday. I kept my Japanese paper up, though it's now edited twice into something much unlike what you may have read O.o I was sick yesterday, so you'll have to forgive me. Like, honestly. As in, if you don't, you'll have to answer to Ol' Bessie. I'll try to get a video of that reference, if I can.
Wow, I just ran out of steam. I'll post more to this later, so if you've been reading this O.O sorry. It'll continue after I eat.
Edit: Continuing on, I made a video. I'll actually write more O.o later....
Edit: Continuing:
I watched Ella Enchanted while I was studying. I study a great deal these days, so watching movies/tv kinda goes along with it. So long as I'm not reading a paper or something, I seem able to multitask well ^.^ hoorah. Anyway, mom sent me the video in one of the packages. I think it would have been better if they'd aimed at a little bit older audience (it still could be PG, easily), I think it's aimed at the tweens. Still, it was pretty funny and Anne Hathaway's a cutie patootie. Her hair looks really good after being locked in a dungeon though... >.<
Also, I finished Angel, Season Four, which wasn't the best of seasons. I think Chriselle described it as "bad fanfiction", and I completely agree! Drama drama drama. But there was an awesome set up for season five (I'll probably start tonight, I've got a lot more studying to go >.< Kanji, gah! I saved it 'til last!).
POTENTIAL SPOILER FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE TO FOLLOW: (I tell you this in big letters because I just had a huge part of Angel, season five, ruined for me by a Wikipedia entry for an early episode O.o why would they do that?!)
Still reading Pride and Prejudice. Whoa, I did not remember Mr. Darcy proposing to Elizabeth Bennet so early! I was like "h-wha?" and checking to see how many pages were left. Though, I knew she would say "no," I really didn't remember him asking at all. What the heck? His feelings all open and stuff. Maybe then she kinda falls for him while he falls out and then it's all Anne of a Thousand Days, with that one day in the middle, maybe, where they loved each other T.T That kinda makes my heart hurt. Except... I've seen the durned movie, and I know that they end up together. Heck, EVERYONE does. Er... that was a bit non-PC. Most people in English-speaking society of Europe and the Americas do?
Big test tomorrow. Wish me luck. That's that.
I got some satsumas. Um, out of topics, I think. Not much going on. I don't like my role play test partner. She didn't even do her part of the assignment, and she was criticizing mine. Gr. And just to rant and be mean some more, Isabel's room reeks. Seriously, you pass it in the hall, and you're hit by this awful odor. What the heck? Clean your room!
Sorry for the ill will. I hope I didn't infect your day with ugliness. Um, I bought a bouquet. So, like, it's all pretty again, and rainbowy, and shiney. Happy? Glorious?
Love!
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