Madness to my Method

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:30:10 GMT

If the boy across the hall does not cease playing rap music with his door open, I swear to all things holy I will blast Mahler so loudly the walls will shake.

Capite?

Sì, capisco.

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 03:43:47 GMT

My roommate just brought me hot apple cider.

I didn't ask her to, she had no obligation to do so.

She is just about the nicest, sweetest, most down-to-earth person I've met, and I love her in a completely non-romantic, non-Platonic (now that I actually know what Platonic love's really about I can't actually say I love someone Platonically because... um... no) way.

See, this was going to be another spewing-of-acid-from-the-lips-of-Tabi on the subject of people who pretend to be interested in you when they aren't really, but now I'm feeling all fluffy. If I was an animal, I'd be a little cartoon kitten, probably with little stars drawn in the place of my pupils.

I need to write more of The Alchemy of Flesh, because JRB is going to kill me. Or he's going to stare at me and raise his eyebrows in a way that does not quite suggest infinite disappointment yet encompasses it utterly, and that is infinitely worse than mere death.

All of this whole writing-thing would be much, much easier if I had an actual fell inside me. Sure, it'd burst out of my chest a la Alien after a month or so, but in the meantime I'd get unlimited creative energy.
Then again, if the fell were real, the Ascended Corpse would be real. I'm all for sadomasochistic goddesses, but I draw the line when decomposition is involved, and the Corpse lives up to her name. Plus she'd (rightfully) blame me for her torture-and-ascension, and then...bad things. Very bad things for the Tabi.
And somehow I doubt the Wirehands would intercede on my behalf. The Boneman or Edgewise maybe, but not Wirehands or Silwerire, and that is a Crying Shame, yes indeedy it is. (I will edit to add that this is mostly because they are attractive, even if Erlin's face really is a mask hiding a shifting mass of quicksilver, and Durian electrocutes people whenever she concentrates on them too hard.)
If the Merlefrost interceded I might very well take the Corpse, because at least she's somewhat attractive, even half-rotted, and I might talk her into some sort of bargain involving the Earth reduced to ashes and blood. Merle would take quite a bit of pleasure in the opportunity to eat a mortal limb by limb and just freeze my lips off if I got too loud for his liking.

...I'm gonna have nightmares about that now. Spiffy.

I am overusing ellipses and dashes. Woe is me.

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:40:09 GMT

I don't normally post these things, but paired with my previous post I had to.

I also made a NaNo journal over here. Why? I don't know. I wanted to, and it's free, so I did.
Well, that's a lie. I did it because the Gods of Procrastination inevitably finds something to distract me with when I should be reading Galileo for my class in three hours. (It's only seventy pages. I can do that in an hour, tops. Faster if I skim and/or skip the introduction.)
That's a lie, too. I distract myself quite well without the help of any deities.

What is this PC you speak of?

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:30:47 GMT

Screw being politically correct:

I am pro-abortion.

In my ideal dictatorship, the vast majority of pregnancies would be terminated before the first trimester.
Actually, in my ideal dictatorship the entire population would be sterilized as soon as they hit puberty. If someone wanted to become a parent, they would need to pass a battery of tests to assure their mental, emotional, and physical fitness for bearing and/or raising a child. They would have to explain to a jury of psychologists, child health care specialists, and various other Unspecified People exactly what they expected when they became a parent, and how they thought a child would impact their lives. The prospective parent would have other parents describe in detail how parenthood changed them, the sacrifices in time, money, and all around being their own person they had to make, and then a finance manager would discuss their budget for the next ten years. After this, they'd have to spend a minimum of six months taking care of others' children, from infant-aged up through high school. If they passed all of that, the prospective parent (if female) would be given the option to have an egg harvested and fertilized, then grown outside of her body in lieu of an uterine pregnancy.
Adoption would be only slightly easier.
Sexual orientation, religion (provided the child would be ensured their own choice and informed in an unbiased manner about other religions), the presence of a long-term partner, race, physical appearance, and gender would not matter.
I predict instances of child abuse would go down drastically, and we could maybe solve this whole "overpopulation killing the Earth" problem within a generation or two.

Fantasies of world domination aside, I'm willing to accept that for some incomprehensible reason some women actually want to have children.
Okay, fine, I guess it's their choice to pop 'em out. I'll reluctantly accept a pro-choice stance, provided that my right to terminate any unwanted parasites is preserved.
I am absolutely serious when I say I'd rather kill myself than play host to a fetus. There is no way, short of immobilizing me and drugging me into compliance for the entire nine months, that I would not find some way to end my life or induce a miscarriage. And after those nine months are over? Remember, kids, Rippy the Razor says "It's down the block, not across the street."
I will not bring another life into this world. Fuck the whole "but you're a womaaaaan, you haaaaaaave to want the baaaaaaaaaaabies."

No, the fetus has no more rights than a tapeworm. It is a parasite to be removed. Yes, I am just as psychotic in my way as the Christian fundie anti-abortionists (they are not pro-life, since they stop caring about the fetus once it's popped out, but that's a whole 'nother rant). No, I'm not going to change my mind. No, posting pictures of "cute innocent widdle baybees" in my blog will not make me repent and run off to find someone to impregnate me. Children horrify me. Babies make me want to run away (remember that not-so-subliminal urge to kill toddlers?). Screaming babies do not inspire any empathy or desire to help, they make me want to find a chainsaw and really give them something to scream about.

Right. This outpouring of bile brought to you by Tabi's frustration with Xtian attempts to outlaw abortion. You can find the link yourselves.

Human Responsibility

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:12:14 GMT

I eavesdrop on conversations shamelessly. I never butt in, but I do listen and take mental notes, because damn do people talk about some crazy stuff when they don't think anyone can hear them.*

And then there are days like today, when I hear things that tempt me to walk over and slap someone, and the only reason I stop myself is because a) I'm a meek little wimp, and b) I don't know the whole story, no matter how much I've heard.
Picture me sitting all by my lonesome at the cafeteria, munching on a bagel, waiting for my tea to attain the consistency and color of tar, and absently turning over possible novel titles in my head.
The gaggle of girls behind me burst into screamy laughter, and my ever-vigilant ears tune themselves in.
They're talking about "scary" things they've seen, and I'm getting ready to start ignoring them again when one girl says:
"Like, the strangest thing I saw yesterday was when this man fell down."
More laughter. This is a good bagel, think I.
"No, really. He was this old man, and he was running, and then, like, he just toppled forward and his face hit the ground and rubbed against it, and his feet went over his head. Like, y'know? He looked like he'd fallen asleep, only his face was in the ground, and me and [name] just stood there and looked at him. Y'know? And then we went to the movie theatre, cuz we didn't want to miss-"
The bagel no longer tastes very good.
What kind of fucking excuse for a human being are you if you don't go over to help someone in trouble? It shouldn't even require thought, you should just react.
Example:
On my orchestra tour in Spain, one of the chaperons spent some of her time in a wheelchair, I'm not sure of the exact reason why. One time she fell out, and I saw her. I ran to help, and so did everyone else around me. Nobody went on walking, nobody looked to see that others were helping and decided they didn't have to.
How can we claim to be above animals in any way if we lose our empathy for each other?
I could have understood, maybe, if the girl was alone and thought that the man might have set a trap that played on a human's desire to help, but by her account she was in a group of three.
The Bard community claims it's all for helping others, for social rights, for liberty, for all that good stuff that makes us humans rather than animals. Yet in the few weeks I've been here I've seen so many instances of this thoughtless cruelty, often paired in the same breath with mindless platitudes about justice and helping others.

Fuck. I don't know what else to say. I feel heartsick, and want nothing more than to curl up and go back to sleep.

* Unlike my amazing Schnozz o'Doom, I'm pretty sure that my hearing is fairly normal, so I'm a bit surprised at why people actually talk about some of the things they talk about within my earshot. Do I pay attention to my surroundings more than other people? Do people really not care if strangers hear them comparing their boyfriends' penis sizes? Do I just have a radar for catching bizarre or traumatizing statements?

A count down of sorts

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:15:50 GMT

Number of stories screaming in my head like someone with a gut wound: 7
Hours of sleep: 6
Number of people I want to kill: 5 and rising
Cups of tea consumed: 4
Days the migraine from hell has lasted: 3
Meals eaten: 2
I got nuthin for one, though.

No, really, she's one nasty piece of work. She starts off mortal in the time of a drought that's slowly killing the land. The current government decides they need to send a messenger up to the gods to convince them to send rain/turn down the sun a bit, and the only way they can do this is by killing someone so their soul can rise into the gods' dimension and act as a messenger. The woman makes a convenient target because she's been wandering around saying the gods aren't listening, don't care, and might not even exist. Blasphemy is not taken lightly in this world.
So. The priests start to torture her to death, since they figure it'll take a lot of passion to make the gods pay attention. Only part way along, she starts twisting the agony to her own purposes and puts herself through even more pain. The priests bind her to a stake on the edge of a desert, but she tears herself free and crosses the desert, while naked, after voluntarily offering her eyes up to vultures.
Long story short, she dies after inflicting a lot of hurt on herself.
Her spirit rises with such burning passion and fury that it ascends immediately to the gods' plane and promptly reduces most of the pantheon to ashes, overpowers the current master deity (sun god), and drives the surviving gods into hiding. Then she goes back to the earth, reenters her rotting body, and proceeds to kill everybody. The sun goes out, the land descends into utter chaos, and all the creatures commonly associated with corruption, cruelty and death (sharks, hyenas, vultures, vipers, and eels off the top of my head) rise with her to kill and eat.
Finally, the remainder of the old pantheon decide that Something Must Be Done. They can't kill the Ascended Corpse, so they make a bargain with her. The sister and co-ruler of the former head god, a star-goddess (there is no moon, for whatever reason), goes down to earth and after a long period of negotiation during which everything continues going to hell, they come up with an uneasy truce:
The Ascended Corpse will rule the heavens and control the fate of souls after their death, but she will not personally go about massacring people while they're alive.
She agrees, and when people complain about the lack of sun, she cuts out her heart, puts it in the former sun god's skull, and sticks that in the sky.

Um. Yeah. She's psycho, and I have a bunch more junk about her wandering around in my head, but I'm too lazy to type it out. And with this ineloquent ending, I shall leave to go and write more of The Alchemy of Flesh, which features scary creativity demons who literally eat people from the inside out. (And I swear, I did not realize how disgustingly crass a metaphor that was until after it'd bounced around in my head for nearly a week.)

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:55:54 GMT

So. I always tell myself I won't do memes, and then I do, and then I feel stupid because I have to post and annoy other people with them, and.

Right.

1. I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.

In other news, Bard has eaten my soul, and it tells me that I do not, in fact, taste anything like chicken. My FYSEM prof is one of those people who both looks and sees, my Italian professor climbs on chairs and tables, one of the big, black, dread-locked guys living across the hall is terrified of spiders to the point of throwing girly screaming fits, and my roommate was talking about Medieval Japanese woodcut porn last night.

Good times, good times.

Sat, 10 Sep 2005 20:37:29 GMT

I need to study for my Italian test on Monday, read Plato's Symposium, also for Monday, think about the section of my FYSEM class I'm teaching next Monday, and most importantly make reeds for the concert tomorrow (ohgodI'mgonnadie).

Why then, is there a story yammering in my head involving gorecrows who inspire people to such extents they go insane, and decidedly non-angsty snake shapeshifters?
I say "I am not going to write you now."
And the damn thing plops itself down and says OH YES YOU WILL.
Just like that. All in caps.

I am MAKING REEDS. Yes indeedy I am. I am not thinking about the possible ways artists might use gorecrows. Or scientists. Or politicians.

Stupid story.

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 02:16:00 GMT

You know, I wouldn't mind the person in the room next to me singing along with her recordings if she wasn't consistently out of tune and tempo with said recordings.
It makes me shudder, literally. A completely visceral reaction that I can't help and disrupts my thought process completely because my ear insists that it's WRONGWRONGWRONGOMGKILLITNOW.

That wasn't what I was going to write about.

I was going to write about the completely and utterly amazing tea I had today. The label said it was "Aromatic Earl Grey", and it was absofuckinglutely amazing. If I wasn't morally opposed to exclamation points, there'd be an obscene number tacked onto the end of that last sentence.
No, really. We're talking orgasm-inducing tea here. Slightly spicy with mellow, almost fruity undertones and only a hint of bitterness, the latter mostly due to my steeping it for close to 15 minutes (I usually steep black teas for 5-10). More than that, five or so minutes after drinking it I thought "Hmm, I feel awake."
Five minutes later, "Whoa, I'm awake!"
Not the nasty jittery-must-act overalertness I get from coffee, but a nice, sustainable sense of energy and attention.
I need more of this tea. Now.

The other amazing taste-sensation I've had here involves the apples. Bard is right next to a bunch of orchards, and out of curiosity I tried one of the apples brought in from a local grower.
It was the perfect apple. I can say without hesitation that it was one of the most amazing sensations I've ever had, and gets onto my top five flavors.
I had another. It was just as good.
rauduskoivu, you have to try the local apples. The ones I had were the rounded red-and-green ones, not the darker red type.

So. Good.

Dammit I want more tea, but all I have left is two bags of peppermint, and then I'm back to the swill they offer at Kline.
But I ordered more tea from online, including a "wintermint" blend, some sort of fruit-black mix, and some good ol' green. Loose tea rather than bagged for the most part, and I splurged and bought a new strainer-and-mug combination to go with it, since I don't want to cut up a stocking again, and I left my old ghetto strainer at home.

Hee. Tea makes me happy.

Oh yes, and why the hell is it that people think I don't swear? I said "asshole", which isn't even a proper insult, much less profanity, in front of one of the other conservatory kids and they stopped, stared, and said "Wow, I never thought I'd hear you swear."
I have known these people for all of a month. What is it about me that makes it seem like I wouldn't swear? I'll admit to preferring more creative insults (off the top of my head: you have all the intellectual and social appeal of the slime between the toes of a leprous ape), but I still use the tried-and-true when I feel the situation calls for it.

Haikus and Hair. Haikus about Hair

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 03:21:40 GMT

My hair is dead weight,
It crushes my skull; my brain
Is suffocating.

I've wanted to shave my head for around a year now.
My parents have always talked me out of it.

My parents aren't here now.

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:44:29 GMT

Repression, according to modern psychology, is supposed to be a myth.
So why can I not remember anything of my life before I moved to Chicago at age 12? We start laying down permanent memories sometime after age two, so it's not that I was too young. The ten years of elementary school are one big blank, with the occasional random flash. I remember certain facts, like the names of my teachers, but anything beyond that just isn't there.
My parents tell me that I was bullied constantly, and that they "worried for my sanity" (though it can't have been that bad, since they never pulled me from school), but I can't recall any of it. What I do remember tells me that I was an utter brat, though my parents deny that - probably because they're my parents.
I don't know. I'm confused.
Is my past part of the reason I have so much trouble trusting people now? Or is it just because I'm a natural misanthrope? I don't want to go around blaming all of my current psychological problems on events that I can't remember. That makes it too easy to ignore my own responsibility towards my future, no matter what's happened before.

I'm babbling. Ignore me.

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:24:23 GMT

All right, so I lied about being incommunicado. Wednesdays are less busy than the others, and I'm postponing my homework to get some of my thoughts down.
In list format. Because I like lists.

Things I Like About Bard, in No Particular Order:

Going to Blum, the music building, and practicing when nobody else is there

My roommate, who is wonderfully nice and shares a similar view towards quiet-while-studying, and is not afraid to tell the kids across the hall to shut up when I'm being all non-confrontational

The campus, which is gorgeous and big and forces me to exercise through the simple act of walking between class, dorm, and practice room

The other Bardians, who all seem like terribly nice people, even if some of them do smoke

My L&T professor, an utterly adorable French woman who teaches Art History and gets really excited over essays

Reading essays that contain words like "telos"

Not knowing what to call the Dean of the conservatory, so that talking about him goes something like "Doctor-Martin-Professor-Dean-Bob"

We're getting a gouging machine for the college (really expensive machine used to prepare the cane used to make oboe reeds). And an English horn!

Everybody is excited almost to the point of mania about the new conservatory program

The Fischer Concert Hall. It looks like a gust of wind made visible

The swingset outside that sounds like seagulls crying when people are on it. I really hope they don't oil it any time soon

Things I Do Not Like About Bard:

There are ticks with lyme disease apparently all over

There are also apparently rabid skunks wandering around

There were some very brutal rapes on campus a few years back, and that anyone can just come on campus and do anything

Three quarters of the people on campus seem to smoke. Ew

My cats are not here

I don't have enough time to do everything I want to

I've been getting five hours of sleep a night and still can't fit everything in

Everybody seems so much better at writing than I am

Having to read everything we write aloud, usually a few minutes after we've written it

I'll think of more things later. Or maybe not.

I need to do my homework.

One day, once all of the hectic moving in and settling down stuff is done, I'm going to take a day to go exploring the campus. No practicing, no homework, just walking around, probably alone since I like being alone, and seeing the sights I've heard other students talk about but haven't had a chance to see for myself.

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 17:39:37 GMT

Hi, I'm not dead (though I almost feel like it), just at college, I promise. I've been in Spain on an orchestra tour for the past two weeks, and now I'm at my very-early-and-intense orientation. I won't be updating much for the next few weeks, not until I've settled in at least. I'll still be checking my e-mail, and I might or might not still be reading your blog, but I probably won't reply to anything besides a dire suicide-threat emergency.

Um. Yeah. See/Read you in a few weeks?

Mon, 13 Jun 2005 02:35:25 GMT

Played a concert at Ravinia today, for all the little kiddies (you might have usher-ed it, Connie). Not that they appreciate the classical music, or have any idea of proper behavior. Howler monkeys on crack would have been a better audience, I swear.

Anyway. Since we had our dress rehearsal right before the concert I ended up just packing concert clothes to change into, since there's very little more uncomfortable than playing a concert in clothes already sticky with sweat. We were (nearly) outside, it was humid, and you sweat a lot playing under stage lights.
Seeing as I have an entire wardrobe in black just for concerts, I simply grabbed a top, a pair of pants, and socks, threw it in a bag, and was ready to go.
Dress rehearsal goes well, it's all fun and happy. And then I go to change.
"Hey," I think, somewhere between bemused and aghast. "I don't remember this neckline being quite so... deep."
And lo, I stared into the void and it did stare back at me.
I swear I could hear my neckline shouting "Mayday! Mayday! We're too low! Pull up, pull up!"
I COULD SEE CLEAVAGE, people, and it SCARED ME.

This is why the Tabicetas does not often wear v-necks.
The trauma is not worth the feeling pretty.

The Chipmunk that Knew No Fear

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:16:52 GMT

Remind me to never complain about boredom. All too often the universe takes upon itself the task of amusing me, and the results are always freaky and sometimes tragic.

I’m sitting at the table downstairs experimenting with a fountain pen* when I hear a frantic squeaking sound, as if someone was sliding their feet on the wooden floor in the hall.
I am the only person in the house, all the doors are locked, I haven’t heard a window breaking, and if someone did break into my house, I don’t see why they’d do it just to slide on the floors.
This sound is followed by one that I know well: the pattering of excited running cats in swift pursuit. I assume that they’re fighting and go to observe, since even the lure of fountain pens palls at the prospect of seeing declawed cats try and tear tufts of fur out of one another.**
No, oh no. Both are tearing flat-footed down the hall towards me, and running before them is a dark little blob that I hesitantly identify as a small rodent before it ran into the bathroom.
The cats pursued, and while it cowered in a corner they stared at it, bewildered and confused as to what was supposed to come next. These are the same cats who, when they manage to escape outside, will take a few steps and then freeze in terror at OMG!smells and OMG!noises and OMG!sights until someone comes and picks them up. The epitome of the fierce hunter my cats are not.
While they’re gawking at the thingy I inch a bit closer and realize that it is not a mouse, as I’d assumed, but a chipmunk. I have no idea how it got into the house, but that is of secondary concern. My primary operative at the moment is getting it back outside.
With visions of sharp little chipmunk teeth digging into my fingers, giving me rabies, and leading me into a horrible foaming death, I run to get an oven mitt. I told the cats to watch it and keep it from moving. Do cats ever listen?
I am alerted to the chipmunks change in position by the stampeding cats, as they pursue it at a safe distance into the dining room.
Great, I think. My family is going to love rodent turds on the carpet.
Wearily, I pursue, armed with an oven mitt on each hand.
I tracked it down to behind one of the cabinets, where it was crouching. It stared up at what no doubt appeared to be a giant, lumbering creature with a proboscis the size of its body and giant, striped claws for hands.
I attempt to move the cabinet so that there’s only one end available for it to run out. When I try to station one of my cats at the closed end, the cat runs away to watch from the other side of the room.
Typical.
I try to lever the cabinet a bit further, and my grip must have been wrong because there was a horrible crunch, followed by a panicked squeak.
“Oh no,”*** I said.
After I’d moved the cabinet back as far as possible, I could see the chipmunk lying on its side. It was still making those wheezy squeaks. Hesitantly, I picked it up in one mitted hand. The squeaks intensified, and it struggled a bit.
Accompanied by my incoherent babbling (“Oh come on, I just want to get you outside, hold on, it’s okay – what am I saying it’s not okay – don’t worry, why did I do that… etc etc.”) I took it outside and put it down under a bush where I know there are chipmunk burrows.
For a few minutes it lay there, twitching occasionally. I sat there crying and generally feeling like an incredibly callous, bad person.
Then, to my disbelief, it got up and started limping around. It gnawed on twigs, for whatever reason I do not know. That stupid tongue-twister about “How much wood can a woodchuck chuck” ran through my head incessantly.
I went in and got some bread, then came back out and crumbled a few pieces by it. It ignored them to continue chewing on its sticks. It also ignored me, which seemed more than a mite unusual. Chipmunks and most other small rodents (Tasmanian devils and wolverines excepted) are frightened of everything.
After another few minutes it actually started walking. So far as I could tell it was using all four limbs, had its eyes open, and wasn’t leaking anything. But it was walking around in circles, and it still ignored me. It tried to go into the open garage (“Ah-hah,” my mind said, “it must have forced its way under the opening in the door from the garage to the house”), and when I blocked it with my glove it just climbed over the glove.
Um. Okay. Perhaps it lacked a proper fear because of its extraordinary regenerative powers?
I let it crawl on the mitt and deposited it back under the bush.
Once half an hour had gone by and I could see no other improvement or worsening, I went inside and took a shower, because at that point I was still in my pajamas. It didn’t seem like there was much else I could do.
I came back out, now fully dressed and smelling like soap, to find that it was digging frantically under the bush.
“Holy [censored],” I thought. “Driven by some innate urge it must have roused itself from its deathlike stupor only to dig its grave.”
I promptly felt bad for thinking moderately amusing thoughts about a creature’s death throes.
In penance, I sat and watched it some more. I could only see its tail and hindquarters by now, and every time it stopped kicking its legs I was certain it had suffocated, or died due to the injuries I gave it. Yet every time I went to poke it with a handy stick, it started kicking again before I could touch it.
Another half an hour passed, and I finally went in to clean up the mess left by my experimentations with fountain pens.
When I came back out, the chipmunk was till there, and it had stopped moving. It twitched when I (gently) worked a stick under its midsection and pulled it out of its hole. It curled up once I released it, though, in what I recognize as the “I’m dying so fuck off” position assumed by most creatures when… uh… dying.
Cue me feeling really, really bad again.
Since I didn’t think I could do anything more, I went inside to go finish cleaning. When I came back out five minutes later it was gone.
“Yay!” I thought. “The amazing Regenerative Chipmunk lives to invade our house (only hopefully not) another day!”
And then I realized that it was probably just carried off by a predator, most likely a cat who actually knew what to do with small rodents besides chase them.
And I felt really bad.

* When the Internet is down and there’s naught else to do, I like to try archaic things, including but not limited to: calligraphy, paper-making, origami, constructing furniture out of twigs and hot glue, and book-binding
** It is perfectly natural for cats to fight for dominance in any one territory – e.i. house – where there is more than one. They maintain their hierarchy through these regular fights. It’s not like I’m encouraging gladiatorial battles to the death, here.
*** Well, ‘oh no’ was the general gist of what I said. You may imagine for yourself the correct substitute.

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 02:27:33 GMT

I have decided that I shall be better about keeping this journal-thing.
Or perhaps not.
So I haven't really decided anything, but making statements is fun.

And since kelles said earlier that she wanted to see some of my writing, I oblige.
I'm such an obliging person.
Ha! Another statement.
I win at life, except for when I don't.

As a warning to the unwary, I would simply like to say that I cannot actually write, I just pretend I can. Don't actually go expecting anything of quality from me.

He let her rant herself out until she stopped screaming at him and only stood glaring and panting.
“I don’t think it was lying,” he said. He kept his voice soft, so that she had to strain to hear him.
She frowned at him in silence as the River rushed by. He admired the way her eyebrows drew down when she was feeling petulant, as now.
“Lying about what?” she asked at last.
“The universe being destroyed,” Kimena put in.
“Be quiet,” Dellor shot back over her shoulder.
More silence. Feldrin enjoyed the play of light across her cheekbones.
She gave in. “Why would you think that?”
“It’s nervous.” He ignored Kimena’s indignant denial. “It never changes so rapidly, not in the drim.”
“So it’s nervous,” Dellor said. “It knows we – or at least I” she glared “– don’t want another assignment.”
“Why would that make it nervous unless it would suffer in some way if we did not take its offer? Surely by now it has other thugs, as you so charmingly label us.”
“I am right here, you know,” Kimena pointed out.
“We could never forget,” Feldrin said.
“You stink far too badly,” Dellor added.
Oh she was daring, his Dellor. Kimena might be an annoyance, but it was far too powerful to speak to so casually. He shook his head at her in remonstration, but she ignored him.
“Our apologies,” he said to Kimena. “We would enjoy it very much if you would elaborate on the coming end of the universe.”
There, now let it decide if he was in earnest or not. He ignored Dellor’s frantic head-shaking with a certain amount of vindication.
“I will not stand here and—” she started to say, but he broke in before she could start ranting again.
“At the very least it will be amusing,” he pointed out. “Come, Dellor. For me.”
For once, she went along with him, though her scowl didn’t fade until he smiled at her. He forgot how much she liked those small emotional gestures.
Kimena watched them wordlessly until they both turned their attention back to it. Its frantic motion slowed somewhat, though it didn’t stop fidgeting. It never did.
“I need someone killed,” it said abruptly.
That would explain its anxiety. Killing was Dellor’s specialty, not Feldrin’s.
“Don’t you have other thugs by now?” she snapped.
“That word again, so ugly.” Kimena twisted its head halfway around, so that it regarded them upside down. “Don’t you prefer the term ‘assassin’?”
Feldrin closed his eyes and fought down his exacerbation. Not this again.
“If we are going to argue syntax may we do it somewhere else?” he asked, gesturing to rushing drim around them. His legs had gone entirely numb, his throat ached, and his palm stung badly where the dalir had burned it. Raking through the embers of old arguments could wait until he wasn’t in pain, at the very least.
“I want to get this over with,” Dellor told him. She folded her arms and kept looking at Kimena. “So tell us why you need the service of your two thugs.”
She added a sullen ‘my lord’ when Feldrin coughed pointedly.

I have also decided that I need to stop starting sentences with 'and' and using so many parentheses. My fondness for both borders on madness or, worse, grammatical incorectness. What folly, to be dragged down by punctuation and a coordinating conjuction.

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 01:08:58 GMT

So apparently I graduated high school.

Also apparently the oboe section from the orchestra screamed for me when I walked up to get my pseudo-diploma (they don't give us our real ones on the stage). I did not hear, as I was concentrating frantically on not tripping and breaking my neck or my dignity. Not only did my mother force me into high heels, the whole 'walking without dying' thing was horribly complicated by the addition of a skirt. Why must I wear dresses simply because I don't have the proper set of sexual equipment? I have legs, and they want their freedom.

In other news, I was digging through my old drawers (cabinets, not underwear) today and came across some of my old writing stuff.
Hi-LARIOUS. Comedic gold, I'm telling you.
I'd have to kill anyone else who looked at them. (spikedrumpunch, you are a far braver person than I to display your early literary efforts.)
My characters back then were just as psychotic as they are now, though I only remember coming up with one of them. Lessee... we have a schizophrenic, anthropomorphic catlord who lives in a spaceship, talks to himself, conquers planets for fun, somehow gets his power from plates of amber installed in kneeplates (don't ask me how, I evidently didn't get around to explaining it to myself). Then we have the gryphon shapeshifter who wants to kill her parents and is somehow related to a race of vampiric, hermaphroditic spiders. Second-to-last is the psychic who controls her talent by drinking and drugging herself into a stupor, occasionally turning random strangers into mindless vegetables so that she could steal their money and further melt her brain (I cannot believe I was making this shit up in seventh grade). And after that we get the only character I remember creating, an assassin born without nails on her left hand, who got them replaced with steel hooks.
There was also a paragraph I wrote sophomore year, forgettable except for the ending line and the use of "wolf-breath" to describe the smell of tension. And what looks suspiciously like lyrics to a pop song, although I probably was under the (very much mistaken) impression that it was a poem.
My handwriting hasn't gotten much neater since then, sadly.

I had lots to say earlier, but I kept on putting off updating this thing in favor of practicing and writing about people killing other people by spinning metal wires out of their fingertips and mucking with other people's memories. Useful stuff like that.

You know why being an oboist is great? Because they let us have knives. Knives sharp enough that you cut yourself by touching the edge. In fact, they tell us that we have to have these knives, and that we have to keep them this sharp, otherwise we're failures as oboists.
Makes air-travel a bitch, though. I always have to pack a bag.

I ramble. Whee!

Further proof that I have no life

Thu, 26 May 2005 03:12:40 GMT

I'm 603 cranes towards my next thousand.

I can fit all of them in the palm of one hand.

Of course, the smallest crane in the world was made from a piece of foil one millimeter (or was it centimeter? I forget) on each side. It was folded under a microscope with a surgical needle by a physician who was trying to learn how to sew individual blood vessels.
I don't think I can beat that.

Yet.

Amazing how quickly one's mood can change

Wed, 25 May 2005 23:33:24 GMT

"You and mom are the kind of people who make problems; dad and I fix them."

My brother said this to me before slamming the garage door on his way to a 6:30 dress rehearsal he forgot about up until half an hour ago.

I was left gaping. I felt like I'd been slapped - first the shock, then the pain.
Spent the last five minutes crying and screaming. Throat's quite raw by now.

How dare he? How the fuck dare he, that maggot-brained little brat?
I cannot stand being compared to my mother, but ignoring that, how does he dare open the hypocritical shithole he calls a mouth and say that I am the type of person who makes problems?
Is it my fucking fault that he didn't know how he was getting to his dress rehearsal, that he simply assumed that someone would be there to take him? Did I personally ensure that there wasn't a car in the garage? Or do I make problems because I brought up flaws in his plan to ride his bike to the concert - that he couldn't ride in concert clothes, and that his bassoon would upset his balance? Does this mean that I'm a 'problem maker' rather than a solver simply because I try to think through a plan before implementing it?
And if I'm a problem maker, then why do I have four awards to my name, two mentions in the Trib, straight A's in all my classes, and a place at a good college? You'd think people would see my inherent flaws and run screaming.

Fuck. It's childish of me to bring up external 'proof'.

I'm terrified that he's right.

Wed, 25 May 2005 22:57:29 GMT

Why is it that my life goes along in an altogether dreary fashion, and then a cornucopia of bizarre things happen right on top of one another? All of these things happened this past week.

My orchestra had breakfast at a nearby restaurant to celebrate our last day as a full orchestra. One of the waiters was an older African-American man, who I swear to the Holy Kumquat was really an android. He said nothing but "Millll-ukk!" and "Eye-raaaange-joo-iss", and looked absolutely baffled when my conductor asked for water.

In English we were presenting the creative projects we'd done after our last essay. One girl made a music video on the subject of father-daughter relationships. It featured her throwing herself around like an epileptic seizuring, her staring at the camera while bending her knees, and a montage of a girl playing on the beach. Very, very scary. Words do not do its scariness justice.

In French we did an absolutely random 'scavenger hunt', apropos of nothing. It involved such scavenges as finding a teacher, covering their eyes, and turning them around three times.

I started considering the possibility of the dalin spinning thin metal wires out from their fingertips to strangle people with, which is perhaps more nifty than weird.

I have concluded that I know too many people, and that I'm going to have to kill some of them. Why do all of these people I barely know want me to sign their yearbook? Listen, if I haven't seen you since freshman year, don't expect me to write something deeply personal and filled with inside jokes.

I signed one yearbook entry "drunk and pregnant, [my name]". I don't think I've ever had a weirder inside joke. Orchestra kids are insane.

In my yearbook three people mentioned paper cranes, two mentioned my not-so-subliminal urge to kill toddlers, and one contains l33t used mockingly.

... in addition, one student called me "Ms. [my last name]". I don't know what he thinks I've been up to that would make me a "Ms.", but I swear I haven't. No. Really. And before you start to make that joke, my scissors do not look like a pregnancy test, Connie.

Done with high school! Yay! Gratuitous exclamation point abuse!

Oh yes, updated the Netherplane. Have some of Nulmiril's pretty pictures up in the Fauna section.

I sound so horribly corny but I can't help it

Fri, 20 May 2005 02:39:32 GMT

There's something I love about playing Mozart, particularly the oboe concerto. It's so honestly, unreservedly happy. I finished my practice breathless and laughing, and I felt like I was flying.

This is music.
This is what I want every day of my life, this sound so vibrant that it takes on color and form and becomes something living.

There are little black notes on a page, and that is music in the strictest sense, and then there is this passion that twists and burns within the soul, or the core, or whatever it is that makes me me, and makes me a musician rather than an instrumentalist.

I'm expressing myself badly. Apologies for my incoherency.

Be Warned: Childish Ranting and Invective Ahead

Thu, 19 May 2005 03:59:51 GMT

I have to laugh because if I don't I'm going to start reaching for a knife.

Connie, I would not suggest you read this. I'm going to spew vitriol here, and it won't be very complimentary for you or your year. In addition, if you disregard this and I hear any of what I'm saying in this post get back to me via Natalie, Claire, or someone else, you will get the almost unique experience of seeing me angry. Defriending will be the least of it.

The orchestra I'm playing in apparently won an award, and as a reward for the award, they get to go down to New York next year and play in Carnegie Hall.
Notice how I said 'they'.
Despite the fact that it was my year's orchestra that gave them this chance, I, and every other senior in the orchestra, won't be able to do this. We're the ones who put in the effort, played the music, won the award, and we don't get the recognition for it.
And you know what?
Next year's orchestra isn't going to be nearly as strong, especially in the wind section. It won't be so bad in the strings, though the first stand of cellos is graduating. But in the winds we're losing our principal trumpet, half the trombones, half the clarinets, both of our kickass bassoons, and me as principal oboe.
I'm arrogant enough to know and say that I'm the best damn oboist the school has, and I'm angry enough right now not to be sorry for saying it. The other two aren't as serious about it, or as good as I am. If Rosh chooses a piece with an extended oboe solo he's not going to be happy. He's used to oboists coming from my teacher who want to go into music, oboists who actually understand how to produce a tone that doesn't sound like nails on a chalkboard, oboists who can play music, not just notes.
Add in the graduation of the bassoons, who are utterly amazing, and the double reed representation is going to be pitiful next year.
Good luck playing anything on the level of Scheherazade with that group.

Rosh is going to get a little call when this rolls around next year. How fortunate that the school I'm going to is in New York as well.

In conclusion, I'm cursing everybody from the class of 2006 and down. May your pads fall out, your instruments go out of adjustment before concerts, water get in your keys. May you lose your swabs, your music, your extra strings, your instrument, and your way to the concert. May your wood warp, your reeds break, your keys fall off, your bridges break, your strings snap, and your bow-hair fall out.

Mon, 16 May 2005 03:44:47 GMT

I am handing in a paper tomorrow titled:
An Examination of Social Mores in Alien Cultures
Or, less pretentiously, Rachel Gets Her ~~Funk~~ Fantasy On

Yes, it really says that. Yes, I have every intention of handing it in.

The writing of the last two pages of said piece took exactly as long as the first CD of Phantom of the Opera.

That will be all, thank you.

I like pie!

Addendum: How exactly does one pronounce 'mores'? Does it rhyme with 'bores' or 'forays'? If the latter, then I'm getting these horrible images of eels arguing over morals and getting into tizzies when young lady-eels bare too much skin.
Addendum to the addendum: My writing style is getting unbearably pretentious. If I ever descend to the point of typing something like "Mightily did the sun rise in a blaze of lusty vermillion and amber to lance glistening rays along the shimmering shores of the Faradway Sea" then all y'all have my permission to slit my worthless throat and cut off my fingers, that I may plague the world no more with my pseudo-intellectual wordsmithing. Ag. There I go again. Ready your knives, people. (Metaphorically, that is, not literally. I might deserve it, but I'd hate for one of you lovely people to end up in jail on my account.)

Fri, 13 May 2005 04:43:14 GMT

I was going to rant about my Consumer Ed. teacher, and her unevenly plucked eyebrows, and the self-titled 'weird' kid who sits next to me and thinks she's so terribly cool and rebelious for drawing an ankh on her arm. She didn't even know who Sekhmet was, when I tried to discuss the Egyptian gods with her. Admittedly, Consumer always makes me feel bitchy and ready to be a know-it-all and show it off, which is my way favoured way of demonstrating irritation with the mentally challenged around me, and is not at all nice or fair of me. I'm as bad in my way as she is in hers; worse, because I can analyze my behavior and know it's stupid of me.

But!

My parents are both doctors, and for the past week or so they've been telling my brother and me about this benefit the hospital's giving, and about how we would have to attend tonight. My brother and I put up with it, agree to go, all that fun stuff.
The first clue we get that our parents might not have played entirely straight with us is that when we get to the place for the benefit, there are people dressed as jedi and stormtroopers walking around. At first I thought that there were just two different things going on in the building, but that, as it turned out, was not so.
Apparently George Lucas picked ten hospitals in major cities around the country in which to give an early premier of Episode III, and the hospital my parents work at was one of them.
I just saw the third episode.
Special effects were amazing. Dialogue sucked.
I don't think that counts as spoiling anything.

I still feel slightly guilty about it, since there's at least one of my friends who's a huge fan of the series and deserved it a lot more than I did. I'll probably end up assuaging my conscience by giving her the stuff from the goody bags they gave us.

Tue, 10 May 2005 23:19:43 GMT

Note to the bus driver who stole my right of way:

Just because you are carrying a busload of kiddies does not give you the right to flaunt ze Rules of ze Road, as espoused by that nifty free handbook we all get in Driver's Ed. Yes, I understand the precious ickle snotfarms' shrill cries must be driving you near the point of insanity at this point, that you may in fact have been trying a rather indirect approach to suicide, but you made me slam on my brakes to stop in time so that said darling crotchdroppings didn't get their brains dashed all over the road. I did not appreciate said slamming-on-of-breaks, as you would have been able to tell by my angry snarling had you been able to hear it.
In fact, if I didn't have my (so far pristine) driving record to consider, it would have given me that much more pleasure to continue on my course and ram my (parents') car into your side as you make your illegal left turn.

No love,
A very pissy Tabicetas