Book meme.

Because poor Caz cannot comment, and this was much better than the post I was going to make. Trust me. Please bear in mind that I am desperately ill and that's why this won't come out like I want it to.


Here's how it works: I list six book-related things about myself, then I tag six people, and they do the same. If they want to, of course.

1. I haven't read very many books. Sometimes I feel like a fraud for saying that I'm "reader" because ... I actually haven't read that many books. Or at any rate, I haven't read as many books as I think I should. When I was younger, I read books all the time. It's been years since I read like that, though. So the problem is, the amount I had read was really impressive when I was younger, but as my Age has gone up, the Number Of Books Read has leveled out a bit.

2. I'm more likely to read a book that I've already read than read a new book. I think the first and second item on this list might be related. Do you? I have this same problem with music. I want to find new things, but more often than not, I'll stick with something I already have and know. Most of the books I've read I've read more than once. Some books I've read ten times or more. I think this might have something to do with the fact that I have certain mannerisms from childhood that I've never grown out of. I'm still a picky eater. I still do that weird humming thing when I need to concentrate. I still like reading the same book over and over and over.

3. I really wish I could get some of my childhood books back. This is somewhat difficult because I don't remember what some of them were called. Like that one about the witches that I had my parents or my sister read to me even though I knew all the words and could read it myself. Pretty much all of them are out of print. The ones I'd like to find the most are "Aloysius Sebastian Mozart Mouse", "I Am A Mouse" (I liked books about mice, apparently), that gorgeous edition of "Heidi", and that big blue book of Greek and Roman Myths for Children.

4. I have different editions of the same books. I don't know why. Not even books I'm particularly fond of. I just seem to acquire books that I already have somewhere.

5. I don't read modern literature. Generally, because I break this rule all the time, I read books that are at least 30 years old. I figure that life is short, and there's a lot of books out there, so it's better to read one that's been tested by time and lots of student papers: There's a greater chance I'll like it. Plus, left to guess, I wind up reading things like "Twilight". And look what happened there.

6. My father told me this story about my grandmother. My grandmother had a lot of books. Shelves and shelves of books from "The Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam" to the Complete Works of Dickens to "To The Actor" to Shirley MacLaine's autobiography. Most of these books were thrown out by my mother when we moved. I've probably mentioned this before because I still haven't gotten over it and probably never will. Anyway, my father used to have conversations with my grandmother about some of the books she'd read. Then one day my mother told him ... she'd never actually read any of them. She would just read the first page and the last page, and the synopsis if there was one. And the hilarious thing is, I've totally done that, before I'd heard this story. I've totally had conversations about books I've never read.

I've heard this one doesn't suck.

But I don't actually know, so don't hold me to that. If you know, fill me in.

Some random (though generally entertaining and enjoyable) people on the internet have recommended the Gemma Doyle series of books. I've heard of that before, but I'm not terribly familiar. Apparently it's about a boarding school for witches. A movie is in the works (of course). I've been assured that the quality is ridiculously superior that Those Works Which We Do Not Name.

I kind of want to read it.

My desire stems mostly from wanting to see how close it is to the Story I've Never Written. Which ... I realize isn't very specific. At present I have between 5-10 stories I've never written at various stages of brewing inside my head. But this one is different.

When I was about 6-10 I had a series of dreams that were, basically, about a boarding school for witches. It was in one part clearly based on my experiences in summer camp, in another part clearly based on watching The Worst Witch too many times, and in a final part composed of my subconscious's unknowable fathoms. (If I've ever blessed you with one of my dream transcripts, you know.)

Anyway, I had a whole bunch of dreams about this. I don't usually have repeat or sequel dreams, and I've never had a dream series go on for as long. A story developed and scenes happened and it was generally kind of awesome.

But, um. A boarding school where you learn witchcraft? Not exactly a novel novel concept. Even though my story was totally nothing like Harry Potter. It may be like this series, though. I don't know! We'll see. Maybe.

It's why my speaking English is so good.

Why not? Filched from Annika.

I'll do a modified rules version:
1. Bold what you've read
2. Italicize what you plan on reading.

If you see an entry that's neither, feel free to tell me why I should read it.

This Particular List Of Books

1. Pride And Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord Of The Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
4. The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - Anonymous (I had a book of Bible stories for children when I was younger, and I've used it to look up answers to crossword puzzles, but that's about it.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (Then I can have a discussion on whether it sucks or not!)
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (On the shelf.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (Lost to the Book Holocaust.)
14. The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (Yay! Task complete.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I have the Complete Works of Dickens, so I plan to read them all at one point.)
24. War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I want to buy it, but I'm abysmally poor right now.)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime And Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. The Chronicles Of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs Of A Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie The Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (I didn't try to read this, but I tried to try.)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years Of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer For Owen Meaney - John Irving (On the shelf. Might as well.)
45. The Woman In White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne Of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (Caz says it's good.)
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life Of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (Kirk says it's good.)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense And Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count Of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude The Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Sir Salman Rushdie (I did read The Satanic Verses, though.)
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I also want to read Billy Budd. Shout out to Mr. Holtzman!)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows And Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Émile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (I love this freaking book.)
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains Of The Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Lost in the Book Holocaust.)
92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy Of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I can't bitch about the movie until I've read the book. Probably.)
100. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo


Yes, I corrected the list for capitalization, completeness, and uniformity of style.

"When it's my time, then I will let you know."

Good news, everyone! I'm not a zombie anymore!

In case you missed the memo, the world ended, again, yesterday. I didn't do so well this year. Neither did the poor SPISH! Oh well. I think of it as being like, we were the stars from the original apocalypse, and we got called back for the sequel to lend it some gravitas, and then we got killed off for shock value, but it's okay because you know the third outing would totally blow and we'd feel lucky to not be involved with that mess anyway.

Anyway, in addition to BLITE, O(t)W! yesterday's post was also brought you by my listening to "The Pedestrian" by the Foxboro Hot Tubs on repeat, and by my playing five straight hours of Snood. Yeah, that game! Still! I have an unregistered version ($19.99? Pfft! I'm not made of money!) but for the day they were letting people try out all the registered features, so I finally got to die at Hexagon City. Good times.

Oh right, that song. I love that song! It's whence this entry's title comes as well as, incidentally, yesterday's. Yes, that was "It's my time to go." put through Babelfish in Zombie. I should point out that the title, and, like, five other words are the only things that I was intentionally trying to write. Any other things that turned into actual words, and the fact that I managed to name-drop God and Jaws is completely coincidental.

It was actually my hope that I would get more actual words in there. But unconsciously, you know? Like a Ouija board? Didn't really happen. But Pat paid me the best compliment ever. Finnegan's Wake as written by zombies was exactly what I was going for. I mean, it was clearly a lazier effort than last year, but there was some amount of story behind it.

Anyway, after the zombie invasion, I got my weekly dose of aliens and robots, and then I read some more crappy vampire fanfiction, so the panoply of monsters got fully rounded out.

I really wanted to make a post about the latest episode of Robots, but the output probably would have been nearly as insensate as my last post. It was so awesome. I was so impressed that I proselytized to several people afterwards. Really. Do you watch Robots? Have you seen Robots? You should. Do it. Yeah, those unfortunate developments from last year still happened, but ... it's good anyway.

I've been in a blogging mood lately, so hold your breath* for a slew of upcoming exciting** posts. ... Unless my mood changes, ... which it very well might.

*don't
**non-

Here are some observations about insignificant and unentertaining minutiae.

So, yesterday I engaged in some foreign activities. I listened to the radio. While I was driving. On the Parkway. I can't even tell you about the time I passed someone utilizing the left lane. COULD YOU HANDLE IT?

The radio station I was listening to was 101.9, which you may remember me mentioning was a hated smooth jazz station. But wait! It has changed, and is now WRXP: The Rock Experience. See what they did there? It's actually pretty good. As I was driving in my car (!) listening to the radio (!) I heard a song on this station that I've totally never heard before. (!) I was intrigued because it lifted a lyric from a Fleetwood Mac song: "When I talk to God I knew he'd understand/He said stick by me and I'll be your guiding hand." (The new rhythm of the line caused me to realize that I'd been mondegreening that as "I'll be your God in hand" - which, come on, that's a lot better.) Then, as I was listening, it suddenly occurred to me, "Wait a minute! Is this The Clash??"

Well, sort of. Turns out the song was "Why Do Men Fight?" a new single by Carbon/Silicon, a band comprised of Mick Jones of The Clash, and Tony James of Generation X. It's not bad. I bought it off iTunes.

In tangentially related news, I'd like to show you the Best Shirt Ever.

Speaking of new and exciting things: I just went through a drive-thru for the first time ever. Well, as a driver. Naturally. I mean, this is America. I've been to a few drive-up ATMs, so I figured I was ready for this bold next step. I went to McDonald's to get a big-ass thing of their new sweet tea. Sweet tea is exactly my brand of heroin [/hates Twilight]. And, just as I'd planned, they asked me if I wanted anything else, other than a beverage, and I was totally like, "Nope!" Just the tea, thanks! I managed it well, even gave exact change, but I still don't like anything that involves me reaching out of my car for things. I don't think it'd be so bad if it weren't for my congenital shortness.

And now, here are some vignettes of domestic envy:
- My Swiss neighbors have a Dyson. Not the purple one, the yellow one, but, a Dyson nonetheless. I still don't have one, and I still want one.
- My next-door neighbor has been going to the gym, and I think she's definitely skinnier than I am now. Also, her husband looks just like the Chief.

Oh, and apropos of having to go get that picture from IMDb, I've always thought Prince Caspian was a douchebag. Always.

Guys, I haven't decided what I'll be having for lunch yet, but I'll totally let you know!

At least it was technically free.

This is one of at least three blog posts that I plan on writing today. Right now. With only breaks to get more apple juice and maybe dinner, depending on how late this goes.

Okay, so, what this post is about is, see, I recently picked up and read Twilight, the first in the eponymous book series by author Stephenie Meyer. I would like to talk about that.

Fair warning, if you have any interest in reading this series, you probably shouldn't read any more, because I really don't know if I can be bothered to use spoiler tags. Maybe, though! We'll see.

Twilight has recently been heavily pimped by the Harry Potter podcasts I listen to. Prior to that, I don't think I'd heard of it. The Potter geeks are interested because a movie version is in the process of being made, and the male lead is to be played by Robert "at least three 't's HOTTT" Pattinson, better known to most of us as the late, lamented, Cedric Diggory. After some cursory research, I found that the film will also include a few more people whom I register on the neutral/positive spectrum: Kristen Stewart, whom I greatly enjoyed in Panic Room, wherein she played a character who was essentially Lauren (though I've so far not managed to see her in anything else), and Michael Welch, who was wonderful as Amber Tamblyn's brother on "Joan Of Arcadia."

Variety of title style is getting a workout in this entry.

So, anyway, after they'd mentioned this a few times, I decided to try it out. I was promised sexy times, action adventure, and vampires. Seriously, odds are it was up my alley.

I went to the library to try to snag it there, but for the third time in a row, the book was listed as being in the library, but it was not on the shelf. So, either my public library has a large problem with theft, or they can't catalogue for shit. I wound up picking it up at the Barnes & Noble because I found a gift card I had for $30. I also finally picked up the last Ted Leo album.

The book is about 500 pages, and I finished it in less than 24 hours, gross time, even with doing other actual activities. This book bothered me greatly. Why, you may ask? It is a resplendent example of why I'm scared to write a novel: because I worry that this is the sort of story I would produce. Now, don't misunderstand. I'm not saying I didn't like it. I did, after all, just pay it the high compliment of saying that I could see myself writing it.[/hubris] I'm saying that it wasn't any good.

I checked out the author's website, and I read some of her background on her writing. (This is her first novel.) Among the things that quirked my lip corners: She got the idea for this story from a dream. Also, she obsesses mainly over the details of the characters. And she looks a lot like Charisma Carpenter. That last point is just for color.

She takes an awful amount of pages to say not very much. There's no plot to speak of, except towards the end where the characters passively happen to fall into a weak and contrived scenario. There's no active decision making that I can remember at all. The writing is painfully repetitive. The human girl's vampire boyfriend is very pretty. The author mentions this in every sentence in which he is described. Which happens 5-10 times for every scene that he's in. ... Which is pretty much every scene. Also, the human girlfriend is clumsy. Vampires are pale. She loves her vampire boyfriend. Her breath catches. Her heart beats erratically. Et cetera. Also, the vampire boyfriend has some sort of issue where he'll go from laughing to scowling and angry to smiling every other sentence. In a few years, if you're ever flipping through the premium channels and you catch Mr. Pattinson and he's doing this - he's not insane. He's in character.

The secondary vampire characters are all fairly ridiculous and not worth mentioning. They attend high school for Chrissakes. Listen, if you were a hundred years old, would you go back to high school? On purpose? Even if people left you alone and you aced all your tests and occasionally got a human girlfriend? No. You would not. There are a variety of subplots that wind up never having anything to do with anything. And of course there's the usual dilemma. You know, the vampire boyfriend totally loves the human girlfriend and they want to be with each other forever, but of course he doesn't want to make her a vampire. Except, see, in the mythology created by this book, and in the context of this story, this makes no effing sense. Seriously. As written, every single objection is discounted or can be worked around. So the dilemma comes across as preposterously artificial, and I was instantly tired with the whole thing as soon as we got there. Because I've read this before. Innumerable times. And it's been done. Better.

Of course, they don't really address the question of whether or not vampires have souls. I'm going to have to come down on the side of "no" though, because of one exchange. The vampire boyfriend claims that he likes music from the 50s and the 80s, but not the 60s or the 70s. And I can't. freaking. understand that! He must be evil, because that's a completely soulless thing to say. Furthermore, it doesn't make any sense. Most of the music in the 80s was a direct derivative of the music they were playing in the 70s, except for the teeny pop, which was based on the music of the early 60s. THAT SHIT MAKES NO SENSE. Get me a flow chart. What is he saying? That he would rather hear Tiffany than the Jackson 5? He would rather listen to Billy Joel than Bob Dylan? Poison is better than the Zep? Is he seriously saying that he prefers WHAM! to the Beatles? Human girlfriend: dump his stupid evil ass.

Of course, the author listed some of her musical preferences on her website, and she's got shit taste, too, so this perhaps explains it.

So, wait, what was my point? Oh yes. I worry that I would write something like this. I mean, obviously, my taste in music is better, and I would like to believe that my writing skills are better, but about the meandering plotless vacuum with excessive focus on character thing. About vampires or something like that. What's baffling, though, is that this series seems to have a large cult following. It's mostly teenage girls OMGing about romance and hot boys, but still. It was a NY Times bestseller. It's gotten all sorts of good reviews from various sources. Is it me? Are people just not that discriminating anymore? And ... I don't know, could that conceivably work to my advantage?

I'm not as keyed up about it as the entry probably sounds, though I have all these issues. Again, I didn't dislike it. I'm a sucker for vamp angst. It's like chicken. Even if it's not the greatest, I'll probably eat it. It's one of the few things I enjoy. But I definitely won't be getting the follow-up books. Especially as I'm given to understand that a werewolf storyline gets introduced, and man, I just don't have the time. The book collectively took less than 6 hours of my life, but I just do not have the time for that.

I'm pretending to be a writer today.

I had a little burst of inspiration last night that got me thinking about some of the stories that I would, in theory, like to write some day. I pulled out Robert McKee's Story and everything and am now reading the first chapter.

I'd like to write one of the stories in a particular way. I feel no fear in talking about this because I have zero plot, and therefore nothing to steal. I'd like to write a story wherein the main character is not the protagonist. What I mean is, I'd like to have the bulk of the events happen to, and for most of the action to come from, a character who is not the focus of the story. Not in a Nick Carraway kind of capacity, necessarily, but more that the main character doesn't really understand or get involved with the events of the story at all.

Can I do that? Has that been done before? I mean, I assume that it has, but I'm wondering if there are examples that could be brought to my attention.

And another thing.

I decided to start reading "The Stand" again. This conclusion was pretty inevitable, given the progression of things. As I've been revisiting this story, I've been reflecting on a certain aspect of it. This is something I've been thinking off and on about lately, but something that I had never thought of before.

The miniseries adaptation is pretty good as far as those things go. There's one aspect that it misses, though, something that's a lot clearer in the book. You don't really get a sense of how young these characters are. Seriously, most of the main characters are pretty young: Larry is 24. Nick is 22. Fran is 21. Harold is 16. They are so young.

Of course, when I first read the book, I was 10, and none of this made any impact on me. It wouldn't have mattered if they were 20 or 30 or 40. They were vastly older than I. It was so vague and distant and in-the-realm-of-fiction that I wouldn't have been surprised to see them do anything at all.

At Christmas this year, my sister's goddaughter (whom I will therefore call my niece), who is nine, proclaimed that I was still cool. This, she said, because, "it's not like [I'm] 27 or anything." The only response I could come up with was "Well. That is very true!" It is! It is indeed not like I'm 27 or anything. So I guess that's something.

It's just that this gives me a profoundly different perspective that I never could have imagined beforehand. I'm now reading about these characters, with less life experience than my own, going about doing these activities and having these things happen to them. They're not even as old as I am! They're so young.

And the weird thing is, there was no solid mark where I began feeling this way. There was no point at which I was able to know that I was on one side and these other people, these young people, were on the other. Actually, here's a good way of putting it. A little while ago, I was reading another book that I also, coincidentally, read for the first time in 1994: "The Vampire Lestat." Yes, I know. Shut up. (This was one of the books I replaced because it was falling apart. I'm not sure why; it wasn't that old. I had picked it up in the airport bookseller's before flying out to Mexico.) Anyway, in the book, Lestat becomes a vampire. Obviously. He is pretty immediately able to embrace the mindset that he is no longer human. He is what he is, and they have all suddenly become They. Nothing that dramatic happened for me.

Of course, Lestat was only 21 when that happened. So he was really young.

Is it St. Stephen's Day already? "'Tis," replied Aunt Helga!

I know that's not the line, but I'm rolling with it.

So, on the day before the day before Christmas (which in my reckoning is actually "the day before Christmas" - don't ask), I was watching most of Stephen King's "The Stand" on the Sci Fi Channel. Which apparently came out in 1994! So that's one mystery solved. I remember I watched it because my sister had read the book and wanted to see the miniseries, but she was going to be out and about. ... Every night. So she wanted me to tape it for her, which I did. It should have only taken four tapes, but I wound up utilizing five, because one tape malfunctioned right in the middle of Part 2, and I had to flounder around and jam in a new one. So my home-made set is missing most of Nadine's breakup message to Larry. It was weird getting to hear it again. I totally don't remember that part! At the end of the miniseries, I bound all the tapes together with masking tape, and decorated it like a box set. I gave it to my sister when she moved out, and I think she lost it.

Then I read the book: unabridged. My sister gave me her copy, which was alarmingly tattered. It was missing both the front and back cover. To this day, I don't know how the story ended, because the top right corner of the very last page is ripped off. Very disappointing! Even though I'm pretty sure I got the gist. One of these days, I will have to get a new copy of that book. I have a few books that are in various states of disrepair and lacking in a handful of pages that I am endeavoring to replace. This is both good and bad. Good because I can, you know, actually read the books if I want to without fear that they will fall apart, but bad because I ... don't like the new editions. I feel the need to explain my having the books, even if no one sees me read them. I used to have a much older version! Don't think I just got this recently! I mean! I did, but ... oh the hell with it.

Anyway, in "The Stand" there is a plague that kills 99.4% of the population. That sounds like it would be pretty much everyone, but if such a thing were to happen now, where the global human population is hovering somewhere around 7 billion, that would still leave some 42 million people milling about. For reference, this was about the size of the world's population about 5 thousand years ago, perhaps when the Greeks were beginning to get their shit together.

There's no point to this observation. Just a "... Huh." moment I felt like sharing with the internet.

No joke.

I first started to plan and script my own film version of The Hobbit when I was ten years old. If New Line Cinema can't get their act together, don't worry about it. I'll get around to it eventually.

I'm totally serious.

In related news, it seems that I have geek-reverted to LOTR.

Um. It wasn't really the zombie apocalypse.

Good thing, too, because I didn't have any gas in my car that day. Isn't that always the way? You think, "Oh, I'll be fine for a few days. I can get gas tomorrow." Well, what if tomorrow is the zombie apocalypse? You see what I mean.

I could have sworn I was here to actually make an entry about something. Oops! I am listening to the Decemberists. As one does. I recently learned that Colin Meloy wrote "Red Right Ankle" for his girlfriend, which means that I can't entertain thoughts of marrying him anymore. That's just so sweet.

Oh, also, because I have a significant other already. Did you know that? I realized after the last entry that I never write about him. But I totally still have one! About that, actually, my boyfriend kind of looks like a blonder Colin Meloy. Sort of. I like him much more, though. One of the reasons that I don't ever talk about my relationship is, seriously, you people are mushy and gross and boring and boring when you do that, and I honestly don't trust myself to be any better. I mean, sometimes! Not all the time. I mean it in a good way. Other reasons include "I hate being candid" and "It's none of your business."

One of my workmates pointed out that I have gray hair today. Seriously. About both the fact that I have gray hair and that he pointed it out. He's a dick. I have no idea why I haven't quit yet. I'm not even sure I like money this much, to be honest.

HOLY CRAP, what is this entry about? If I may, I would like to blame the whole thing on the fact that I have been very very tired for the past week or so. I take long naps and then sleep through the night anyway. And wake up sleepy. It hasn't even been that hot. I really hope I'm not developing some crazy illness. I have quite enough of those.

20 days until Order of the Phoenix! I'm much more excited for this than I was for any other movie, first because OotP is my favorite book in the series, and secondly because I've been following the production updates since they were casting. That's over a year and a half! And then there's the book, which I am so disproportionally excited about I can't even get into it right now. I've been feeling the urge lately to get depressed and read Anne Rice books. I can't though! There's no time! POTTER!

Eeeeeeeeeee!!!

You're Anne of Green Gables!

by L.M. Montgomery

Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage
cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash,
honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt
your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with
kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters.
You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

This post will contain words that I have never used before.

But this is not to say that my lovely readers will be unfamiliar with them. Many of you won't be!

So ... guess what I've been doing!

If you answered "Knitting?" you get the prize! ... of self-satisfaction. I have totally been knitting. I had planned to attempt knitting for a while now. For Christmas of 2005  , my mother bought me Stitch N' Bitch and a gift certificate to my Local Yarn Store. A year and a week later, I decided to pack it to read on the train. A little under a week later, I spent 6 hours reading it through and thinking, "Well this doesn't sound so bad!" In my head, I was already designing my first project. A SCARF. Hooray!

Once I was home again, I turned to the internet to help me get some more information. On Saturday, I headed to my LYS. It was very exciting! I didn't hit a single light, I got a spot right in the front of the municipal parking lot, and there were 53 minutes on the meter. This boded well. Now, going in, I wasn't sure what my plan of attack was going to be. I strongly considered immediately finding the store owners and explaining that I had no idea what I was doing and could they please help me? Once I got to the store, I scratched that plan. It was smaller than I had anticipated. The ladies that I assumed were the owners were sitting in the back, stitching away, and saying things that until then I'd only read in blogs. I felt tiny and intimidated. Knowing what I was coming in for made me feel more confident and at ease. I was able to locate the yarn - I went with Blue Sky Alpaca, which I totally found on Annika's blog. Naturally, I got the amethyst. My ball of yarn looks just like that! Actually, better. But we'll get to that later. At this point in the story I'm still in the store and looking for needles. I was looking for US size 5. Yes, bitches, that's right. I had no idea how to knit and I was totally going for sport weight on size 5 needles. Average is for pussies. Ahem. There was a small display on the opposite side of the room of some very pretty, ridiculously expensive needles. ($25! What the hell! Not that I had any idea how much things cost. That was something of a problem.) Finally I ambled a little back and caught the eye of one of the owner ladies. Did I need help with something? Oh boy did I! I asked if she had any other needles than the ones displayed. She sure did! Turns out that underneath the display there were drawers, and those drawers were full of knitting needles. What size was I looking for? I was looking for size 5. "Oh!" I said. "That's the brand I was looking for." And it totally was. (They get their wood from renewable growing ... patches. Or something like that.) Did I want the shorter ones or the longer ones? I totally wanted the 14" ones.

At this point, I had made my selection, and the items fell neatly within the cushion of my gift certificate. An entirely cost-free excursion! Awesome! Now I had everything I needed and the only component missing was me actually knowing how to knit. Which I did not at all.

Then I went to the movies. My mother and I saw "Children Of Men." It was, in a word, ass. Then we went out to dinner. Later that evening, I set to winding my skein of yarn into a center-pull ball of yarn. I promptly got the whole thing tangled. So I called the boy and sat on my bed and I tried to undo the mess I'd created. Eventually, I did. Then I pressed my luck (it was about 1 o'clock at this time) by trying to figure out how to cast on. I found out that Stitch N' Bitch, while a fine book in many ways, is actually a terrible guide for learning how to knit. The instructions were basically: "Make a slip knot. Great! Now that you've got your entire first row of stitches ... " What! I went to sleep.

The next day, I learned how to knit from the internet. Um. FYI, if you know how to knit, and I know you know how to knit, someday I may have to ask you to tell me how to knit something. Just fair warning. I think I've done pretty well on my own, though! I cast on by knitting on. The loops are a little tight around the needle to start with, but I like the way it turns out. I practiced knitting and purling and binding off, and then I figured I was ready to go. I started making my SCARF. By the time I was on the third row, I had acquired two extra stitches. So I took it all out and started over. One extra stitch. Start over. Now, I realize that there's probably a way to fix having too many stitches, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. I have no idea what I'm doing, remember. I'm doing the border of my SCARF in seed stitch (it is   attractive, guys!), but it turns out I was actually making 1x1 ribbing. Heh. Start over. At least now I'm making stitches faster.

I think I've worked out all the kinks at this point. If I wind up with anything half-way decent, I'll take a picture and post it. WHETHER YOU CARE OR NOT.

I feel all full of new knowledge now. Aside from finally being able to decipher some of my friends' blog posts, I've only just now discovered how much of the material I wear is knitted. I never noticed before!

Just so we're clear, I have no interest in joining a knitting society or anything. I still dislike most forms of socializing. That has not changed. I just want to make things. I like making things. I hope I'm good at it.

We will return to regularly scheduled subjects whenever I get around to blogging again.

But is it art?

I often say that I have always wanted to be an actress. To be honest with you, this is not an entirely accurate representation. The first thing I ever wanted to be, and ever told people that I wanted to be, was an "artist." Always forward thinking I, I left it vague. While performance was always swirling around at the top, I also had ambitions to be a singer, a painter, a ballerina, a sculptor, a musician, a photographer, a writer, or what have you. If it fell under the "art" then I wanted to do it. This is still, for the most part, true.

Now, my li'l ol' heart's desire is to be an actress. This is clear. However, it's become apparent to me that performing arts differ from other types of arts in a key, maddening, way: you don't actually get to do much art. Acting doesn't often get recognized as being an art these days, and that makes me sad. Writing or music, I think, has an advantage in that you do your thing first, and then your challenge is to get someone to recognize it. With acting, you need to jump through all manner of hoops before you even get to do your thing. Expressively yourself creatively is like a prize that you have to fight and claw for. Depressing.

Not that the goal is any less attractive for this realization. But. As I've been sitting around lately, all melancholy and at-loose-ends, I've realized that I might pursue other artistic avenues. You know, add some pretentious slashes to my career goals. Also, over the past year I've ... gotten fat. I'm working on it! I'm eating much better and I plan on actually doing something physical with my body sometime soon. But no one is going to hire me when I'm fat. This must be what it is, since I rock in precisely all other capacities. I need something to do in the meantime, though.

But what! I don't know. I'm good at many things. [/HUMILITY ALERT] But I don't really have a driving passion for any of them. I make figurines out of clay, like the kind I could sell at art fairs for primo buckos, but we got rid of our wooden kitchen table when we moved, and I haven't done anything since because that was my work station. In a similar vein, I rock at embroidery. At an art fair like mentioned above, I saw these embroidery works by this Asian lady that she was selling for hundreds of dollars. I believe it. Unfortunately, I know how hard she had to work for that price tag. "I could do that," I pompously thought, but the truth is I don't have the time. I don't have the time! Plus, art fairs? Eh .

I could take up painting, I guess? When I was in 7th grade and taking natural sciences, we had an assignment to draw pictures of the various types of clouds. Instead of doing that I busted out with an OIL PAINTING of clouds, Bob Ross-stylee. (I did random and crazy shit like this all the time, do not be alarmed.)

I could always write, as many people have told me. Not that you can tell from reading anything I say on the internet, I actually have a fair amount of skill at writing. Unfortunately, I have no skill whatsoever at storytelling. (I apologize if this sounds familiar to some readers, as I have totally discussed this with people before.) The first time anyone told me I was good at writing, I was 10 and in 6th grade. We were commissioned to write short stories for Halloween and I kicked it out of the park and my teacher actually discussed my mad skill with my parents. What they didn't know, however, is that I really had to work to come up with actual events for my story. In the end I wound up opting for a generic kids-investigate-haunted-house type thing. I have at least 3 ideas for major works that have lived in my head for a while. But no storylines. Just a gaggle of well developed characters with complex relationships and lives and thoughts who do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. (Talk about "write what you know," right? Shit.) I guess this is why I like acting. The story's already written for you, you just have to fill in the details. (Ooh! Ooh! That reminds me. You remember my friend Jen? Jen was a kick-ass artist in the field of drawing. She used to draw pictures, and I would color them in with colored pencils, totally re-inventing Chiaroscuro all by myself. No, seriously, they looked awesome. But I only ever liked the shading. I never could have done anything if she didn't draw the picture for me first. I have no idea why I'm saying this here, but it does fit with the theme.)

I've even taken a class (no, wait, two) in storytelling, and I'm still not any good at it. I've read "Story" by Robert McKee, and I'm still not any good at it! I don't know. I shouldn't really make it seem like I'm bad at it, because the truth is, I don't actually try. I feel something akin to social anxiety when I need to make actual plot decisions. I took a class in screenwriting, and as a final I wrote a short-film. My professor told me that mine was very good, but he didn't understand why the main character made the decision that lead to the action of the story. Not a big deal, but it still took me two years to realize and admit to myself that he was right.

I'm starting to not have a point. Upshot: I don't know if writing is the path for me. I'd be willing to give it a shot, because I may be wrong. I could also write stories based on my dreams. [/another post entirely]

Finally, I could be a musician of some sort. Problem with that is, of course, I don't really play any instruments. At least until I teach myself bass. I could sing, but people hate singers who do nothing else (people = I). Also, music requires a.) writing songs, which combines my issues with writing fiction AND my issues with writing poetry, b.) the ability to read music (probably) which I never learned, and c.) meeting and dealing with other people, if you want to be in a band. I hate people. Other than this, I'd probably love it.

Speaking of which (sort of), here's an anecdote designed solely to present my life as more interesting and glamorous than it actually is:

My father's friend owns an honest-to-goodness literal castle that used to house his law firm. Also, in the 70s it housed a cult until the leader was extradited to India after he tried to poison people with salmonella. They've been trying to sell the joint for about four years now.

The company that I work for sells insurance. Today we were speaking with a woman who put in an offer for the place that she feels was well-received (I called my father for the skinny). Currently, this woman runs a bed-and-breakfast that doubles as her headquarters for her personal management service for death metal rock bands.

AWESOME. Of course, there is every possibility that she will not wind up getting the house because, due to the historical significance of the property, she has to go through a hearing wherein she is reviewed by two towns and the county and they will probably freak the fuck out about her business. My father said he'd take me if they hold it. And also, my company will probably not wind up insuring her in any event, because they're really a tiny family-run operation and this is kind of out of their depth. But! Wouldn't that be neat? If I started my hypothetical band, perhaps she'd hypothetically represent me! She is looking to expand to other genres.

T minus frame of reference.

In one week's time, it will be my birthday. This will be a big one for me. No, not 21. No, not 25. I will be twenty-three years old. As far as milestones go, it's hard to explain why this is one. It's not conventional: it's not a multiple of five and there's no legal or social barricade for me to cross. It's not personal: it's not the age that anyone died or the anniversary of any particular event. Although I guess that's not true. River Phoenix died when he was 23, didn't he? And this will be ten years since my grandfather died and I broke my knee while afloat on the Nile. But this isn't about any of those things.

It's a significant year because at some point, I decided it should be. Back in the day, I was a withdrawn and maudlin teenager with a dead sister and a vivid imagination. And I read a lot of Anne Rice. I love Anne Rice, as I've probably mentioned. It's okay if you don't; it's not your fantasy. It's mine, though. I'd love to be able to talk about her stuff the way I can about Buffy, or Harry Potter, or Veronica Mars, or what have you, but there's a real dearth of kindred spirits available, especially if you're not willing to talk to teenagers or crazy people. It's vampires and/or wizards: that's my stuff. Her books basically fetishize youth and indolence and grief and (O!) The Self. But that's what I like about 'em.   I have 'Things Fall Apart' if I want to read something real.

So, I'm me, 8-13 years back in time, being a youth in turmoil and reading about vampires. And in thinking about things, the way I do, it occurs to me that there's probably an ideal age to be. And I hit on it: 23. Why? I have no idea. That's just the number that came to me. It's young, but not too young that it sounds young. Definitely an adult, and not a child. But it's not too old, either. Respectably prior to the existential crisis of the mid-twenties, although what would I know about that? You're still at that point where potential exceeds presumed accomplishment, but you're not ALL potential, either. 23, I decided, would be the perfect age at which to get married (HA!), have a baby (HA!), live forever (maybe!), or die (fingers crossed?).

And that's it. Even in my own mind, this is not, explicitly, a "get your shit together by" date. But something in me declared that at this time, I should be ready to declare my life complete if needs be. Or to at least say, "Good enough." And that's as much a commentary about acceptance as it is about accomplishment. Of course, the glaring thing about this is: what does a preteen know about being twenty-three ?   That's right, nothing. It's impossible to know about the road ten years down. I wouldn't presume right now to predict what I should be doing in my thirties. I don't know who I will be then, or what I will need. Consider the following. Every night, I set my alarm to a certain time. In the morning, I wake up when it goes off, or, usually, before it goes off. I set it to 15 minutes later, almost invariably. I set a goal, but then, as I approach that goal, I take stock of where I am and how I feel, and I adjust the goals accordingly, with the shrewd discretion granted me by time. This might sometimes be known as "being lazy," but I'm pretty sure it's saved my life a few times. This is why I've never tried to write a novel in a month, and why I never make New Year's resolutions.

So why make a thing about this? I don't know. Perhaps it's because I've felt as if I've been living in a flashback these past few months. I've been mired in a depressive funk, withdrawing into myself more and more, forsaking all others. I've stopped having meaningful conversations with anyone. I have them with myself if I need to. I find myself thinking and dreaming and wondering a lot more, and expressing a lot less than I used to. I've wondered if it's really practical to say anything about it. You can't ask for permission to be a hermit, it really defeats the point. I feel like I'm stuck. The inside of my head hurts and every day I get up and do things I don't want to do and some days I forget what my real goals even are and I'm desperate for a fantasy world to lull myself to sleep thinking about. On the whole? 23 is starting to feel a lot like 13 did. It's like a fold in time made a straight line from here to there. What's the difference? In some ways I missed this. Sometimes I believe that I'm best suited to being alone.

It would be terrific if I didn't feel like I was wasting time. That's the beauty of being immortal, you know: you can be as self-obsessed as you want for as long as you want, until you decide you're ready to do things again. You can actually take a break from life, and show up again later completely intact. You've lost nothing. That's my fantasy. Of course, that doesn't happen. Time moves forward, I get older, and every now and then a panic sets in, right in the chest, that I should be doing something. I should have done something. I should be about to do something. And I'm not. I haven't. I don't think I'm going to be. I'm losing ground. I'm losing time. At times like these I seem very close to deciding to shut down. I don't want to die, but I'm not making any bold strides towards living, either. I'm a character in an Anne Rice book. And I'm about to hit my ideal age.

As for what happens after that, I don't know. I guess I'll make the best of it. I'll see what happens down the road and adjust. This is not me all the time. But this part of me, the part that keeps her hair long and her nails trimmed (just in case), is freaking out. I once wanted to present the Best Picture Award at the Oscars of 1999. That didn't happen, either.

Those who know me are probably keenly aware that I'm infatuated with even numbers, 4 and its multiples in particular. It still baffles me why I would opt to be stuck at an odd number for all time. Of course, as my grandfather would have helpfully pointed out (the one who died a decade ago), I'm about to enter my twenty-fourth year. Fingers have been crossed.

This was hard for me to write. I desperately hate being candid.

Strong baritone!

"He is brash, defiant, and bold. He breaks all the rules and never gives up. Makes his own way in the world and has a strong sense of morality. Should be tall and striking. A rock or movie star presence. Strong baritone."

Holy crap. I can't believe this show is really getting made. It's so crazy.


In news that is very unrelated ... today is my Aunt Rose's birthday. She is 92 years old.

It was delayed in customs.

Man, I hate having a job. I feel like there's no time for all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing. Because, hilariously, I don't seem to think of an office job that pays me money as something I'm *supposed* to be doing. No, what I'm supposed to be doing is checking my email, writing a review, calling a theatre, mailing out some headshots, making a sandwich and taking a nap. And reading a very important book.

So, should I even be writting this right now? I feel like I'm in a good writing place. Things have been coming out of me lately that sound like how I wanted them to sound. And I figure I probably shouldn't waste the opportunity.

This entry is not about Harry Potter (sorry Steph) but it has something vaguely to do with it, and the fact that the internet is insane.

If you look around this fair 'net of ours, well, maybe, if you look a few days back, you will see people marking their completion of the sixth Harry Potter book. Usually totalled in hours. Like a badge of honor. The same thing happened the when the last one came out. That one that was something like a thousand pages. I can't even remember. I read it over the course of the weekend it came out on. Saturday and Sunday. Midday around each. With a pause for sleep. Maybe somewhere around 16 hours total reading time. And I was drained by the end of it, and then I still had to see people talk about how they finished it in four hours or less.

It's weird to describe how I feel about this. I'm not against reading fast. I'm not against speed reading. I can read fairly fast. If I have to. I read faster than I type, anyway. Yet I don't really like reading fast. Why I did it with Order of the Phoenix I think was a combination of peer emulation and fear of being spoiled. And I wanted to stay with the crowd. Everyone's talking about it, I want to talk about it. I don't want to be filled with the desire to converse and discuss when everyone else has been over it already for a week. It's not like an episode of a television show, where everyone gets that same one hour, and then you're all on the same page. No, this requires some endurance and stamina. Some concentration and motivation. Some willpower and some goals.

And to be honest, I don't want any of that shit when I read. I know I'm not alone.

When I went out to California this spring, I went over to Kirk and Mary-Jane's and we watched Veronica Mars. The boy wasn't into that, and instead opted to borrow from Kirk's library and read. LIKE A GEEEEEEEEEEK! Ahem. Anyway, after the hour was over he had all but finished 'I Am Legend' or whatever it was he had picked up. I mean, nothing substantial, but at least a few hundred pages. I was moderately in awe at the speed of his reading. Our hosts may remember that there was an ensuant discussion about the speed of reading. Kirk agreed with me that it was weird to read that fast. He wasn't down. I find I'm like Kirk about things like that. We don't like spoilers, and our significant others are all about them. Kirk doesn't read fast. Neither do I.

And, as I've said, it's not that I can't. It's that I don't want to. Flying through a story is not what reading is for me. I like to read. I always have. And I mean, I really like it. I like words. I like reading words. I like looking at words. I like seeing them connect and follow, and I like thinking about them. I like reading a powerful or interesting passage and then closing my eyes and holding the book to my chest for moment. And then I read the passage again. I say the words out loud inside my head. I smile at sentences. I enjoy the hell out of a good book.

When I read Order of the Phoenix, I did not do this. I sped through it, as best I could while still reading every word. (I *read* every word, by the way.) And when I was done ... I did not feel so great. I actually felt a little physically uncomfortable, like I had eaten too much in one sitting. My brain was struggling to catch up with all the information that I'd put into it. All the emotion and all the events and everything was just there and gone so freaking fast. I felt unsatisfied. I felt like I wanted more to read, only of course there was no more, because I'd finished it all. I wanted to stay in the spell. The mood. The moment. But it was already gone. It was over. And that made me a little sad.

It's not just about finding out what happens. I was reading my favorite book this week. I've read it at least ten times over the past few years. It's less than five hundred pages. I'm only through half of it. It would probably take me until the end of the week to finish it, and I'm not going to, because I want to start on Harry. But I'm sure as hell not going to be done with it tomorrow. Or the next day. I'm actually not even projecting an end date for this. I'm not doing that this time.

This time, like I usually do, I'm going to savor my book, instead of gobbling it. I'll see you in a couple days.

"But he bore a brown scar to the end of his days."

[Begin Spoiler for Lost - the whole first season of the bitch. WARNING: Also talks about VERONICA MARS Season 1. — Highlight to view]

Whatever else you can say about this show (and I can, and probably will, say a lot) you must say this: A man was blown up with dynamite, and a wound was cauterized with gunpowder. That's fucking awesome.

So, okay. Now   everyone can talk about how disappointed or not they were by the season. I was honestly getting a little tired of hearing people complain about how nothing ever got explained. The season was not over. Now it is. Have at it. Here's me, though: At 8 miutes to go in this episode, during the last commercial break, I was having a vehement argument with my mother about the fact that there was no way anything was going to get wrapped up in the time they had left. By the time the episode was over? I was cool.

This season had definite problems. That I will say. However, a few episodes back I had decided that this show was a lot like Veronica Mars. Not in subject matter, but in terms of suspense and mystery, and all that. And at that point, I was convinced that Veronica Mars was way better at this style of storytelling than Lost was. However, at this point, I think I was mistaken. I don't think the two shows have the same type of storytelling.

Because in this episode? No, no big mysteries were laid bare. Not really. But that's okay. Because here's the alternative: They wrap everything up at breakneck speed. Everything you wanted to know, you know, there's a huge catharsis, and then ... what? First of all, that would make the planning and pacing of the show super crappy, which is actually what I was afraid was going to happen. Veronica Mars laid out most of its mystery in the very first episode. Then, it gave out revelations and a little more mystery, until finally in the end, everything was revealed. Or, almost everything. The major things. Now, when the new season starts, they will have to start afresh with a whole new mystery, even a new tone for the show.

Lost can't do that. Or, it can, but it would grow stale very quickly. We have here a weird island of mystery. This is the premise of the show. So far, we can guess that this island has at least 250 years ... of mystery. This cannot be solved in 40 days (the time period of the first season). If they solved all the mystery they found, then next year they'd have to miraculous discover new mystery, and solve that all by the season's end. Sorta like Buffy. And that gets cheesy.

I am now, honestly, restored in the faith I had with this show when the season started. I think they are telling a story, and (for the most part) I think they know what they're doing. They need to work on the fine tuning. But overall... I don't know. It works somehow. Somehow in that last five minutes, I was only slightly wiser, but I didn't feel angry or cheated. We'll find out more in the fall. And I will tune in. And ... I can handle that.

Plus, I like the fact that a quick, definitive answer was brought to nothing. Now people have something to talk about and theorize and debate about all summer. And they should, because I do believe there's something there.

Like, Walt! Use your freaky weird child powers! The people in the boat, they're the Others, right? I think we can assume this. Is the girl who threw the molotov cocktail Alex? How long have these people been waiting for a freaky weird child? How many freaky weird children have they collected? Is young Aaron still a freaky weird child like the psychic predicted, and if so, did Walt just decoy for him? Is Sawyer dead? Is everybody else on the raft dead?

Also, the monster. Do we know what it is? No. But apparently it's invisible. Okay! The hatch. Do we know what's in it? No. But apparently it's a big long staircase into the center of the earth. Okay! Is there destiny, or do we make our own? Yes. Okay!

Incidentally, as per that. Remember I had that theory that the island has been bumping off the people who weren't supposed to be on the plane? I'm now wondering, what determines whether or not they were supposed to be on the plane? The dead Joanna "wasn't even supposed to be on the plane" but she got sick, so she was. You could say from this episode that Hurley was not supposed to be on the plane. The blackout, the elevator, the car, the flight attendant, everything seemed to be conspiring to keep him off it. But he kept trying. Did he thwart fate? But then, that guy gave him the scooter. That stewardess and the pilot were nice to him and bent the rules. Those people moved out of the way. Was that fate? Should he have been on the plane, or not? And Locke. They didn't have the special slim wheelchair. (Which, incidentally, I've been in! Woo!) Does that mean he shouldn't have been on the plane? But then the flight attendant offered to carry him on. Since that wasn't Locke's doing, does that mean it's fate? Circumstances not under his control? What about Sayid? He was on the flight a day later because he chose to be. What about Claire? Someone bought the tickets for her and told her to go, and then the pens didn't work, but ultimately she's the one who decided to put herself on that plane. Boone and Shannon were supposed to be in first class. Is their getting bumped back fate, or were they supposed to die in the crash?

Furthermore, it became clear in this episode that the island may not actually like Locke as much as he thinks it does. Or does he?

Anyway, here's what was wrong with this season. As I see it.
1. I know I've harped on this, but the Claire thing. Holy fuck did this bother me. It really, really bothered me. I don't mind that Claire was kidnapped, and I don't even mind that she had "amnesia" and very annoyingly couldn't remember anything. I don't even mind that Charlie weirdly came back to life and also didn't remember anything. What I do mind is that Claire was missing for a week, and everyone carried about their stupid business. Including Charlie who was in love with her, and Jack who has a hang up about saving people. Here's what could have been different: Her abduction time should have been shorter. Nothing they can do in a week that they can't also do in four days. They should have had people show actual concern for her. Like, asking where is she? What do you think's happening to her? How are we going to get her back? There should have been some actual attempt to get her back, or a plan to get her back. The plans could have been thwarted, if we really needed to draw it out, or if we really needed this for any reason. But at the very least, Charlie should have cooked up some hair-brained scheme to rush into the jungle and rescue her, and Sayid and Jack should have restrained him and explained that it was too dangerous. They should have explained TO THE AUDIENCE why it was too dangerous to get Claire. They should have made some attempt to give some sort of explanation as to WHY NO ONE WAS LOOKING FOR CLAIRE! God! Seriously! This was such a major downfall of this season. It really ... gah. Fucking show.

Another major problem: there are too many survivors. In this episode, we have Mr. Arzt telling us that the extras have important stories too. Then he gets blown up. First of all: no they don't. I remember reading an article about Lost where one of the writers pointed out that 47 was the most randomly occurring number. In ... everything. Even though the meaning of life is 42. Whatever. Some number in the forties. Anyway though, this really indicated to me that the reason for that number was simply because it was clever. And they wanted to do something clever.

Now, of course all these people who show up in the background and don't get lines are all due to SAG and money issues. That said? It's fucking retarded. There are all these people that we don't know, never hear about, and can't care about. When the commercials made a big deal about Ethan killing one of the castaways, it turned out to be one of those faceless extras who got a line once and a hundred bucks. And because they had some stupid bit about how supposedly peopel confused him with this other guy ... we're supposed to care. But it doesn't work like that. I can't give a shit about these people that I never see who can't talk. Plus, there are too many people on the island as it is. What would be better? If they had had maybe 20-25 people, and paid them all appropriately. If we learned all their names and stories, and saw them interacting with each other. Not on the level of the regulars, they probably wouldn't get their own flashback episodes, but some recognition of who these people are. Some familiarity with their faces and lives, so that we actually care about all the people on this island, and not just a third of them. Because seriously? There was not one point in this season where they needed all those people. Not when they had to find food, not when they needed to build the raft fast. There was nothing in the story that could not have been improve by having fewer people.

Another thing: the castaways need to stop being so FUCKING STUPID. Like this evening. Charlie starts yelling at Rousseau about how there were never any others. Um. Remember when Charlie was abducted and hanged, and came back blacked out but muttering about "they"? WHAT THE FUCK, WRITERS? There are just too many instances of these people not asking questions, not being smart, not remembering shit they should remember. This is bad writing. It needs to stops. Also, the contrived shit. In this episode, we realized that Arzt was a bit of a dick, and maybe that's why no one wanted to listen to him. Not that we'd know, SINCE WE'D NEVER SEEN THE GUY BEFORE. But when he gave them that snotty line about how they should have left "yesterday"? WELL THEN WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T HE TELL THEM YESTERDAY  ! God! That is so fucking stupid! No one in real life would take half the bullshit stupidity that the people on this island give each other. They need to act more fucking realistically. They need to act smarter.

There are also other things that I'll have months to remember and rant about. No one is still reading at this point, anyway. Are you! I look forward to reading months of wild internet speculation. Good night.

Oh, PS. The hatch? Contains love.

[End Spoiler]

Why did no one tell me!

Note: this still   has nothing to do with that other entry. Jesus!

They're making The Chronicles Of Narnia into a series of movies?

Seriously. My sister told me about this yesterday morning, as we were doing festivities for Mother's Day. How! This is the absolute first I'd heard about it. How did my sister know and I did not know! She also mentioned specifically that it would be live-action, not a cartoon. And that ruffled my feathers because, of course, there already is a live-action Chronicles of Narnia: the miniseries put out by the BBC in the 80s. Which I totally loved.

I should note that I am nearly as enormous a geek for the Narnia stories as I am for Middle Earth stories. Yes, I'm a girl and girls like fantasy. What to the EV to E - R!

I suppose this movie (s?) are making themselves out to be the definitive cinematic production, in the way that the Lord of the Rings movies were. But is this production going to feature Warwick Davis, Mark of Quality? I somehow doubt it.

Also, the poster, which I saw via AOL, features a young man (Peter, or maybe Prince Caspian?) who looked disturbingly like Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Disturbingly.

Again!

American Idol Review! Because nothing else is on. I'm pretty sure I know most of the people by name now. And if I don't, I'm not going to look them up, because that means they have yet to impress me in any way.

Overall impression: the judges were really lenient. Randy and Paula anyway, and Simon seemed like he was too overwhelmed by all the positive vibing around him to get into any actual, solid critiques, though you could tell he wanted to. Also, I was universally disappointed in all the people I liked last week.

First up, Anthony Fedorov. Or however you spell it. Crystal. OH MY GOD. You are so right! What is up with that thing? That's not a normal body ... having. WHAT IS THAT? Was he shot in the neck, or something? Also, he was really boring. Also, is he foreign or something? I noticed that when he talked he had slight trouble saying "th" and a few other sounds. Maybe! I don't know.

Carrie blondegirl. Underwood? Anyway. I like her. I do. TWoP doesn't like her, but I like her. I can see how people probably think she's boring, and I can respect that, but ... eh. I don't know. She just seems very sweet and likeable to me. And so I like her! And I think she did an effective job not being "country" tonight, though she really should understand that it isn't *what* she sings that makes her sound country, it's *how* she sings. And when she started, she still had a twang, and I was all set to roll my eyes, but she got it under control. I didn't think she was that great, though. She didn't sell the song. I kind of didn't care, though, because (and now I have to make The Boy weep bitterly - I'm sorry dear) Heart makes me rock out. The pick could only have been better if she'd chosen "What About Love." Hooray! But she wasn't as good as the judges seemed to think she was.

That Scott guy? He sings really well. But he's not going to win. Seriously.

Nikko? Still a girl's name. He sounded okay, but he sounded ... how to put this ... like about a dozen other guys who are *just like that.* And he didn't even sound like the best of those guys. He sounded maybe in the middle. We don't need any more of those guys.

I realize that I'm no longer going in order.

Vonzell. I have the reverse problem with her name that I have with Nikko. First: what? Second: even though I've never heard this "name" before, it sounds like a boy's name. Doesn't it? It sounds like a name that would be given to a boy. Anyway, she was better this week, but I disagree with Simon, I think she's still forgettable. Even her looks. As soon as I saw her, I decided that she was boringly pretty. You know what I mean? Do you know those people? Where they're pretty, very pretty even, and it's not really even a debate, but they're just ... boring looking? Like, even though you recognize that they're pretty, they're pretty in a boring, generic, uninteresting way? She doesn't look at all interesting. And she seems sweet, but like she doesn't have any real personality to speak of.

On the other hand: Nadia. First, my disappointment. Who the fuck forgets the words to "Time After Time"? Nadia, you are out of the club. I don't even know what club it is, but I know you're out of it. Who forgets the words to "Time After Time"?? But she was okay. Better, I think, than the judges gave her credit for. I thought she actually had a good balance between "performing" the song and singing it. She performed it, but at the same time, you could still hear her singing, and it was good. And goddamn, I want her hair. I wish I had her hair just for like, a day. And I also like the fact that she claimed that most of the songs she likes never made it on a Number Ones list. I believe her, y'all. She's still my favorite.

Anwar: is like the female Vonzell, only even more boring. Far more boring, actually, because I think he might actually be attractive in an interesting way if he had an actual personality. Which I don't think he does.

Constantine. First of all, your name is stupid and makes me laugh. I still think you're kind of cute though. But apparently the good people at TWoP think he's awkward and creepy. And, I have to tell you, not that I'm letting my opinion be swayed (not really) but ... they have a point. Much of what they said about him had me dying, because I immediately recognized their innate truth. Some gems: "He's dressed all sixties, I guess, but more like a record-store owner who really wants to get the band back together." And "This also causes Constantine to devolve into an explosively impressive suicide girl mess, fake eye-fucking and lip-pursing and tongue-moving and all kinds of tics and shady glances and hair-acting and posing and posture experiments." And ""

Anyway. His performance? Kinda creepy. And angry. And it was "I Think I Love You." But I find him entertaining, actually. And he's still kind of cute when he's not making any expressions.

You know who totally is cute, though? Bo Bice. And he's got one of those names that makes me need to say both his first and last name. Bo Bice. His hair was so much better today. He's got nice hair. And blue, blue eyes. And I really am that easy, apparently. Bo Bice also sings really well, and I think we should be friends. And as his friend, I would have to tell him something extremely important. Something that I noticed. About his physical appearance. Bo Bice. Has. A CREASE. No!!!! Bo Bice! I'm so sorry! I know your pain! Listen. Listen to me, Bo Bice. This is important. You have to stop scrunching your eyebrows. I know, I know. I know it's hard, and Lord knows it's not easy for me, but if you stop scrunching your eyebrows, so will I. Let's beat this thing together, Bo Bice.

Let's see. Who's next? Oh yes, Girl Whose Name I Cannot Remember. I can't remember her name. But I have to say to her: Who the fuck forgets the words to Total Eclipse Of The Heart!! Jesus! You're out of my club too. Out. Get out. But her singing was okay. But boring. Not as good as the judges thought she did. But nice. But boring. But she seems like she probably does have a cute personality, though. But she won't win. BECAUSE I CANNNOT REMEMBER HER NAME.

And last I will mention Mikalah. Because she deserves to be last. Because she can't sing. All the other people in the competition at this point can actually sing competently. They can actually all sing *well*, if boringly. Mikalah can not. Mikalah needs to go home.


I HAVE CEASED TO TALK ABOUT AMERICAN IDOL AT THIS POINT.

So it turns out that I didn't have tonsilitis. I probably have an ear infection. But I took lots of vitamins and soup and I slept a lot, and I think it's better now. The pain seems to have gone.

I also watched Veronica Mars again! It's new next week! So I'll probably recap it for the benefit of Kirk and Beth. You know what, though? Kristen Bell has a crease, too. It's epidemic. Sigh. She also had forehead lines, though. And I don't have those, thank goodness. You know, there is nothing that signifies that an actor is not actually a teenager so much as forehead lines. Because teenagers do not have that. Teenagers don't have creases, either. Probably. Because you don't get those unless you're old. Old like I am. [weeps]

In completely unrelated news, I cleaned my keyboard today. HOLY CRAP IT NEEDED IT.

In yet more unrelated news, I have been reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. And, this may be solely because I am a huge geek, but, I find it so sexy. It's awesome and great! And it occurs to me that this is the first new book I have read in months. MONTHS. I don't even know how long it's been since I've read a new book. I mean, I've still been reading fairly steadily, but the last maybe ten books that I've read? Were all books that I've read before. And I'm not even sure this should count, because it still has many of the same characters and takes place in the same world as books I've already read. I haven't read anything wholly *new* in a long time. I don't like change. And I don't know what I can read that I haven't already that I'll like.

Gah.