This Should be Common Sense

Seeing as how procrastination is an issue close to my heart, that has led me to spend a lot of time addressing the root causes of my own procrastination tendencies (which I think I've gotten a lot better at, except when it comes to cleaning), I was especially amused by these lines of "wisdom" from Cracked.com:

[P]rocrastination can happen for a lot of reasons--you drank too much the night before, or you're feeling uninspired, or it's your first time doing gay porn and you're having second thoughts--but one of the most common reasons we procrastinate is fear that the end result won't live up to the "perfect" idea in our heads. Think about the writer friend of yours who has never actually written anything, because they're "waiting for the right idea" for a book to come along.

Cosmo Women and 14 Year Old Bbboys

I'm watching High Fidelity for the first time and wondering why I like this movie so much, wondering why so many of my favorite "rom coms" are written from the male perspective. Almost all movies about love seem to find themselves falling back on gender stereotypes, painting each character with broad generalizing strokes in an effort to gain some sort of understanding and insight into why people do the things they do when they do (and don't) love each other. Perhaps rom coms written from the male perspective help to give me insight into which paint buckets the opposite sex uses in its attempts to understand women. (The results usually aren't that shocking.)

With no further ado, my 5.5 (current) favorite movies about adult relationships (adult meaning not about teenagers, as opposed to, you now, adult as in all about the sexy sex):

5.5 L'ultimo bacio
5. The Last Kiss
4. I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks)
3. High Fidelity
2. Me and You and Everyone We Know
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

As with anything that's my favorite, this list is bound to no longer be true within minutes. But I'm definitely interested in any suggestions, any passionate disagreements. (I also just realized that *SPOILER* most of these movies have happyish endings.)

Stop Child Trafficking

Jay Kim's Fundraising Page for NYC Walk

But don't diss my Twilight

"So let's let twygones be twygones, people: the world is a rather unsparkly place if you can't laugh a little at the things you claim to love." -hortense

Scene from Runaway Bride

       MAGGIE
  I'm going to kill myself.

       PEGGY
  Why?

       MAGGIE
  Because you think I'm all like... "Hey 
  man, check me out".

       PEGGY
   (friendly)
  No, I don't think you're like, "I'm 
  charming and mysterious in a way that 
  even I don't understand and something 
  about me is crying out for protection 
  from a big man like you".  Very hard 
  to compete with.  Especially to us 
  married women who have lost our mystery.

       MAGGIE
  But you haven't lost your mystery!  
  You're very mysterious!

       PEGGY
  No.  I'm weird.  Weird and mysterious 
  are two different things.

       MAGGIE
  But I'm weird.

       PEGGY
  No.  You're quirky.  Quirky and weird 
  are two different things.

John Hughes is dead and we can't stop talking about how wonderful or flawed his work was

kimberly: am I the only one who hates that Some Kind of Wonderful movie?
me: Yes
LOL
I never liked it when I was younger but now I might like it even more than Pretty in Pink I think b\c I've become less of an Andie and more of a Watts according to the Facebook quiz I just took, at least And I totes just bought it the other day
If it makes you feel better, I hate 16 Candles, Weird Science, and Ferris Beuler
Or however you spell his name
kimberly: hahaha
that doesn't make me feel better, no
me: Damn. I tried. Hahaha
kimberly: I don't know if it's partly because I didn't see Some Kind of Wonderful until I was older like late high school or college so I was already area of what complete bullshit it was but yeah, it sorta grosses me out it's dumb that he spends his college money on earrings for a girl and it's gross that that's what's supposed to impress her and I don't get why watts would like him he treats her as a chauffeur!
me: I think that's why I hated it as a kid
kimberly: haha
so why do you like it now?
'cause of watts?
me: b\c I'm more of a dreamer now And I know that love really does suck
kimberly: LOL
I'm not sure that's one of those things you're supposed to "know"
me: http://methodsofmediocrity.blogspot.com/2008/05/pretty-unconvinced.html
Hahaha
I wrote that last year I haven't reread it but like, I always liked that Andy ended up with Blane...b\c it makes sense but their whole relationship was them talking about their relationship
Where Watts and what's-his-face were actually friends
And like, the grown up me knows that Blane and Andie won't actually last But the grown up me also knows that what's-his-face is only settling for Watts And that's what really happens in life and that's what works
Wow. That sounded way more jaded and depressing than I meant it to
kimberly: (just finished reading it...it's very well-thought out)
haha yeah, I was sorta with you until the settling part
so like regarding Pretty in Pink it's interesting 'cause when I was younger like 12 or whatever it was my favorite of the Big Three movies I really wanted to love Breakfast Club, but I was extremely disappointed, to be honest, don't love it all that much
16 Candles was okay but Pretty in Pink was like...at the time, I loooooved Andrew McCarthy and I thought the thing between him and Andie was so hot
BUT
me: Sometimes I adore breakfast club, sometimes it makes me go "Meh". I'm with hortense on always being bothered that the geek is the only one that got no ass
(Also, I always thought Andrew McCarthy was fug until I saw him as an adult in Joy Luck Club...now I think he's hot shit.)
kimberly: I agree with you, like, I remember being surprised that she was originally supposed to end up with Duckie because although I've totally been into other "in love with the best friend" narratives, I didn't feel anything between her and Duckie...Like he had this crush on her, yes, but even that was sorta the painful, not based on any real chemistry crush of people
Really? I was all over Andrew McCarthy
BUT AGAIN
then when I watched it when I was older it's like probably my least favorite....of course, the ending never made sense, even when I was younger...the whole "you didn't believe in yourself" thing but watching it when I was older it was even more like
me: Hahahahahaha
Worst."speech".ever.
kimberly: yeahhh...he's a coward and the fact that he was so easily manipulated and a snob is ridiculous
For real!
AND
me: But they're also just kids. We have to remember that
kimberly: I thought he looked so hot the whole movie except the last scene which was obviously shot later 'cause his hair is a totally different color!
they're 18...I'm pretty sure "love the person you love whether or not they own a mercedes" is a lesson even Michelle would get in season 3 of full house
me: Yeah...they had to reshoot that last scene, b\c in the original ending, it's her and Ducky. So, he'd shaved his head for another movie and they had to give him this shitty wig

Favorite Movie Battles

Here's a list of my favorite battles (with a couple of borderline fight) scenes from film. I have never been a fan of modern war films, perhaps they are too real for me? So there are many that I haven't seen, though I am sure they are as amazing as people think. This list is about my favorites, not necessarily the best and you will see that most (haha, out of 5) are of the speculative fiction variety.

5. The Battle of Klendathu from Starship Troopers
4. The Gladiators Work Together from Gladiator
3. The Battle for Zion from The Matrix Revolutions
2. William Wallace Final Battle from Braveheart
1. The Battle of Helms Deep from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Actually, I do want you to be my friend

That was then

Try it with catsup today

("Why go out for burgers when you have steak at home...again.")

Dance Dance

A close friend of mine, Kimberly, recently took over the New York chapter of Dance Dance Party Party (DDPP), a dance party where women can go and well, dance, without interference from men, booze, or dance instructors. Doll Mag just conducted an interview with my friend and a couple of her colleagues. It was a great article all around, but one of the best parts was being introduced to Tecktonik.

Zadie Smith

Kiss of a Vampire

Like many people, it seems, I've been watching season 1 of Buffy for the first time since it aired on TV. I'm amazed at how the whole Bella and Edward in the bedroom thing was already done on Buffy...*sigh*

Remember

Text:

Remember when we were all going to be wealthy designers.
Who made the world a beautiful experience
We were going to live in Future London
With millions of flashing lights and electronic music
That made us smarter by listening to it.
We were going to smoke fashionable cigarettes and
Get drunk on fluorescent drinks that would
Make us healthy.
But that didn't happen. The Twin Towers came down
And every one got laid off.
No one went to live in Future London.
Everyone moved to Brooklyn and embraced
The aesthetic of crumbling concrete
And dirty asbestos shingles.
We did somethings wrong. But we didn't screw up.
Right?

Be Free

It's all about the benjamins

*Image found on Gawker who found it here.

A Prayer from Sojourners:

Prayer of the Day: Gift of Tears

05-19-2009

May God bless us with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

Source: Four-fold Franciscan Blessing

Categories: Prayer of the Day, Verse and Voice

Something ridiculous this way comes...

New Moon Movie Poster and New Moon Movie News

Depression

Sitting here at my desk, I was suddenly hit with the memory that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been canceled. It's like waking up and remembering you got dumped the day before. You wonder for a moment if it was all a dream, but reality quickly takes credit for the situation, kicking you in the ass once again.

Rihanna

A Bible Verse Anyone (Christian or Not) Can Appreciate

Proverbs 18:2 (New International Version)

2 A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.

Patience

This hit the mark so directly in my life, I had to share it somewhere: A Woman's Walk - Week of May 10: "Understanding"

The Great Divorce

Just Read:The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

My sentence free summary and review: Heaven and Hell, real love, redemption, forgiveness, stubbornness, pride

My one sentence review: Lewis deftly and fascinatingly challenges the reader's preconceived notions about Heaven and Hell and creatively addresses the different ways in which people search for meaning and self-importance.

Over-Easy

Sometimes, you have to put all of your eggs in one basket. Just be sure not to go counting your chickens before those eggs have hatched.

I don't mind when people think I'm pregnant because they may give me their seat on the train

Nobody's More Bitter Than Ex-Gymnasts
Young girl: How old are you?
22 year-old girl: I'm 22.
Young girl: And you're pregnant!
22 year-old girl: No I'm not.
Young girl: Why do you have a big belly then?
22 year-old girl: Well you know, when you're my age, hormonal and stuff, you'll get fat. People will think you're pregnant when you're not, and you'll cry. So you'll eat tons of salads to make the belly disappear but it won't work and you'll be sad. That's all life's about. Don't grow up.

--A Train

Overheard by: Violette
via Overheard in New York, Apr 23, 2009

Janelle Monae

Tick, tock

"Paul Gauguin was a depressed, suicidal stockbroker before he moved to Tahiti at the age of 43 and became a painter. Henri Rousseau was a tax collector until the age of 49; now his paintings hang in the Museum of Modern Art. Gabriel Garcia Marquez didn't write One Hundred Years Of Solitude until he was 40. I do believe it's never too late."
-Dodai Stewart

Drew Barrymore

When the moment is too much

"I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to look back or look forward."
-Londo Mollari in Babylon 5

Shingai Shoniwa

Termination

I keep plugging Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles...but unfortunately, one can not live on love alone. Many fans are waiting for the ax to all. The season finale is next week and yet there is no word yet as to whether or not there will be a third season. This is why I hate getting into television shows that aren't Law and Order: I could wake up one day and the show will be over.

The first time I remember this happening was with Models, Inc.. It was not a good show; a night soap. But this soap drew me in and the first season ended with a dramatic cliff hanger - only to never see the light of a second season.

So I protect my heart by trying to only watch shows once they are already off of the air. I bemoan the fact that there is only one season of Firefly, one of the best shows I have ever seen, but am infinitely glad that I did not have to witness its death. I didn't see it in all of its awesome glory until it was already gone. And I can say, perhaps it's good that it didn't go on. How very rock and roll to die young.

The fall of kings

The immeasurably wealthy commit suicide upon losing their (b/m)illions. How can they suddenly live a life so unfamiliar? Go through the pain of losing it all? (And being like the rest of world.)

I wonder how Michael Vick will take to construction work. What is it like to think yourself a god, only to wake up a mortal?

There are millions in the world who live on considerably less than what most consider my humble salary. But could I live a life of peace and contentment if I woke up tomorrow to find myself suddenly with less than I have? Less money. Less respect. Less carefree.

Prostitutes are people too

Ok, I admit it: I had a crush on Vince, the ShamWow guy. While visiting my parents, spending hours in front of their television, I would get inwardly super excited whenever the ShamWow or SlapChop commercials came on.

Needless to say, I was pretty upset when he got arrested for beating up a prostitute. My crush on him is officially dead. The thing is, I still want him to advance in his career (as long as it doesn't include making more movies.) I want him to keep schilling his stuff on TV. But why am I so quick to forgive?

Another woman beater, Chris Brown, has been pretty much blacklisted in my heart. And so, I wonder why the difference in my opinion.

Chris Brown	Vince "Offer" Shlomi
beat longterm girlfriend to a bloody pulp	beat prostitute he'd just met to a bloody pulp
suffered a couple of cuts	got beaten to almost a bloody pulp as well
*rumored* to have been angered/hit by angry, jealous girlfriend	alleges that he had to beat the prostitute because she bit his tongue and wouldn't let go

It's obvious that these were two very different situations, but here are two things to remember:

1. Prostitutes are people too.
2. The act of self-defense should not turn into an offensive attack beyond necessary restraint. Excessive force is not okay unless your life is in danger.

I've drawn no conclusions. I'm going to wait and see what time has to say.

Taylor Momsen

*I've never, and have no intention of ever watching Gossip Girl but in this photo, Taylor pretty much looks like the most awesome person in the world to the 12 year old in my brain.

I'm sorry, I have to get this off of my chest...

I can barely read Jezebel anymore, because sometimes, reading the comments make me want to puke pink.

I'm not even going to pretend that I bring anything to the comment table, but after spending so much time defending it, and getting irritated at people who have ridiculed it, I have to admit that the comments are super predictable. The posts themselves have clearly become formulaic, which I blame on the staff cuts...so now, all I need to do is read the headline to know exactly what the article will say and exactly how the commenters will respond. It's really sad.

She's Crafty

MovieWeb - Movie Photos, Videos & More

What you work for

When my friends are doing well in their careers, I find myself not so much jealous of their success, but envious of the fact that they are doing the things necessary to accomplish their goals. I won't accomplish what they have and will accomplish but they are role models for me and inspire me to keep working to achieve my dreams.

I worked on a show fall of 2008 with a man named Matthew Lewis who gave me great advice on a daily basis. He told me once that I could only have my own career, and that others would keep theirs whether I thought I deserved them or not.
-Matt roi Berger

Life leads us each down different roads

A brief interruption

I will not apologize for my appreciation of low art. If you therefore feel compelled to think me stupid, base, or simply tasteless, I heretofore and hereafter find it to be your right to feel as much. But I personally refuse to feel stupid, base, or tasteless, regardless of whether or not I am these (undeniably subjective) things.

That Night

Before she was slaying vampires with Buffy, cheering with Kirsten, or playing a more acceptable version of a futuristic, brainwashable prostitute, Eliza Dushku was an awkward little girl, battling Katherine Heigl and trying to be Juliette Lewis in That Night, the Romeo and Juliet for the born-in-the-80s, latchkey-kid sect. A summer HBO staple, this movie was the stuff of fantasy for a number of young women. For me, it's sort of strange looking back on this admittedly rather mediocre film and recognizing some of these now-famous faces...because I want this movie to exist in the sort of capsule of naive magic it made me believe in as a young girl.

The solution to the problem

Hear Boys! (Talk)

The new Licks album, "Hear Boys Talk," is almost complete.

Check out some of the prereleased tracks on The Galaxist.

Linda Hamilton

A cookie is worth a thousand words

Also Why Girl Scouts Rarely Get Harassed by the Homeless
Hobo: Hey! Is them cookies good? Is they good?
Commuter, holding bag of cookies: I'll give you a cookie.
Hobo: Thanks, man. What kind of cookies is these?
Commuter: Coconut.
Hobo: Thanks. Hey, can you do me a favor?
Commuter: I gave you a cookie.
Hobo: Yeah...you got me.

--Penn Station
via Overheard in New York, Feb 22, 2009

More NYU Madness

Updated story from Gothamist: NYU Student Occupation Continues: They're "Not Gonna Take It"

The Handmaid's Tale

Just Read: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

My sentence free summary and review: suppression of women, scary, misinterpreting scripture, religious oppression, future, unreliable narrator (maybe), technology, sexy, unsexy, subconscious sexism

My one sentence review: The narrator's voice and the fact that the author indicts everyone while not taking potshots at any particular group, are really what breathe life and credibility into this well-crafted parable.

When college students do stupid things and think it's profound

Conversation in Response to: Day 2: NYU Students’ Occupation of Kimmel

Alexander: When will the capitalist pigs give the vegan food and cigarette breaks the masses crave! me: Right
Mmmhmm
Alexander: I am currently occupying my desk
Viva le Alex!
I will sit here until the school meets my demands of a salary!
And then I will sit here some more!
me: Hahahaha
The question is, do you have boobies?
I only care about the demands of topless feminists
Alexander: Unfortunately not. Nor a vagina.
me: Damn
Alexander: I can draw boobies
I just need a protractor
And I can grab boobies
Does either skill help?
me: No
Alexander: So, what do you think about the Kimmel 60
me: Boobies
I think this is stupid
Alexander: It just seems so silly
me: It is
Like, if I were 19, it would be awesome
and if their demands made sense, it would be awesome
Their general stance, which calls for more budget transparency and more student involvement in larger decisions is fine and worth fighting for...
...but tacking on the Gaza stuff and the Coke stuff and the TA stuff to this particular protest just pretty much strikes any legitimacy they may have
...as do the naked "feminists"
Alexander: There are naked feminists?
me: YES!
Alexander: I didn't know you were being specific to this
me: The BOOBIES!
Alexander: I thought you were just talking about an IDEAL protest
me: nsfw, unless your work is like my work: http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2009/02/19/flashy-protesting
No...THIS protest
Alexander: forehead slap
me: Yes
Yes
Alexander: Ok, this is just retarded
It's like....you know what's it's like
It's like when movie producers want to make a genre teen comedy
And they find every cliche element possible and throw it together to make a bland, pointless mess
That's what this protest is like
It's doing a lot of things, none of them well, and it has no actual point other than to get people to look at it
me: Yes!
Yes!
Argh!
Alexander: And it's so tediously unoriginal
And wtf, make the library open to the public?
That's just dumb
There's a public library!
It's called, The Public Library!
And guess what, it's better than Bobst
The problem is since ANYBODY can take out the books they aren't always waiting for NYU students
Hence, Universities have their own libraries

Further Reading:

• From Gawker:
  1. Revolution Strikes the NYU Food Court!
  2. Vegan Lunch Dilemma Brings NYU Revolutionaries to Brink of Explosion
  3. Let Us Consider The NYU Twerps
• From The New York Times: Live on the Web, the N.Y.U. Occupation
• From Gothamist: NYU Students Occupying Kimmel Center Cafeteria

Jennifer Government

Just read: Jennifer Government by Max Barry

My sentence-free summary and review: capitalizm, humour, dystopia, privatization, family, awkward love, police, heroine, tie-in browser game, USA, Nike, Wal-Mart?

My one sentence review: It's no 1984, but it's still smart, funny, fun, and a worthwhile, quick read.

Madeleine L'Engle

Self-forgetting

"Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting."
-Eric Hoffer

Moving on with life

The More Loving One
by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Maple

Perhaps it is subconsciously due to the upcoming Valentine's Day, despite the fact that I think it's more related to events currently happening in my and others' lives, that I have been in a particularly sappy mood. It is also partially due to all of the flack the movie He's Just Not That Into You is currently receiving for being a shitty movie, which is unfortunate, because romantic comedies don't have to be trite, sexist displays of patheticness. Anyway, I'm in a romcom mood.

Edit: I originally included a clip from Notting Hill, but since I'm actually watching My Best Friend's Wedding (or just finished watching it) and because I find it more pertinent to singles than Notting Hill, I've included the final scene below, that pretty much almost changed my life in high school, for putting words to something that had been scratching in my consciousness. Spoiler alert, obvs.

Success

Jenny Lewis

"Jesus Loved the Outcasts...He Loved the Ones the World Just Loved to Hate"

Court says private school can expel lesbians

"A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled."

I have no problem with the court ruling. My issues are not legal. My question, as a Christian, is for the institute: what have you accomplished?

I spent a healthy portion of my childhood in private, Christian schools in which the rules were of a much more specifically moral nature. I remember being flabbergasted when I read a rule book for the school I attended from K5 - 2nd grade, in which the punishments for wearing a skirt above mid-calf could be harsher than the punishments for stealing and where they could expel you from the school if you went to a concert of secular music (on your own time).

I am not immediately trying to address what is right or wrong, in these situations. I am simply trying to address how they are loving their neighbor by being puritanical. These two, young women might have been lesbians. If the school had a problem with the way these women were presenting themselves, I can't see how kicking them out of the school was an effective way of ministering to them.

They could argue that they were protecting the other students from being influenced by the sin of the two "transgressors," but by shielding these other students, they are making them ill-equipped to ever love the way Jesus loved: He immersed himself in the world of the corrupt. He fellowshipped with them, got to know them, welcomed them into his kingdom. He did not send them away.

We have similar grasps on history

Aristotle's Really More Of an American Eagle Dude
Girl #1, leaving the mall: Go to Aero... Ari... Aristotle.
Girl #2: Aristotle is not the same thing as Aeropostale.
Girl #1: Then where did I...?
Girl #2 (interrupting): History. You learned about Aristotle in history.
Overheard by: Ashley

via Overheard Everywhere, Jan 26, 2009

Kurt Vonnegut

The Sacred

Jordan (I)
by George Herbert

Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?

Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
Must all be veil'd, while he that reads, divines,
Catching the sense at two removes?

Shepherds are honest people; let them sing;
Riddle who list, for me, and pull for prime;
I envy no man's nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,
Who plainly say, my God, my King.

Me and you...

"I don't want to have to do this living. I just walk around. I want to be swept off my feet, you know? I want my children to have magical powers. I am prepared for amazing things to happen. I can handle it."
-Richard Swersey in Me and You and Everyone We Know

Shannyn Sossamon

Fading Out

I have this miraculous way of missing important trends. One of the biggest things I missed out on was the Amy Winehouse craze. I mean, you know, her music, not her going crazy. I caught that part. Of course, pop music can be so ubiquitous, that a lot of it I absorb simply through osmosis (or you know, I'll hear it in a store, or blaring from car radios). I'll find myself humming songs not knowing where I've heard it, who it's by, only to discover that it's been the number one song on the charts for weeks and weeks. "Rehab" and "Back to Black" were two songs like this. I vaguely knew them, could utter a couple of words of the choruses, but knew nothing about them for quite some time.

On the tail of spending a couple of days listening to Nina Simone, Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, and a few other soulful greats, I found myself itching to listen to "Back to Black" again. There's really something extraordinarily special about this...her voice, the words. I don't know if it's possible for anyone who does not feel some deep sense of authentic pain could sing this song the way she does.

Pink

Reach out and touch somebody's hand

The other day I was involved in a group discussion during which a married mother made mention of the fact that many people, especially single people in New York City, receive very little physical touch. It was not something I had ever really thought about in that way...I mean, sure, I'd heard about all of the benefits of physical contact, but had never thought about it in relation to my own life.

Yesterday, the only people I touched were the people squeezed next to me on the subway and the two people in my taekwondo class I had to spar with. In my office, I have a slip of paper in which one of my old student workers wrote a prescription for "one high five at least daily." It amused me greatly when I got it and I've kept it for the past couple of years, and tried to live by it for a while. It forced me to seek out a bond with others, even if it was just a silly, 5 second high-five.

I think it's time for me to renew my prescription, and I challenge anyone reading this to do the same. And once you're feeling bold, maybe you should up the prescription to one hug, at least daily.

Grace Jones

Tension

I have been reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand in an effort to draw my own conclusions about it. (It is difficult because I am already biased, based on what I know of her philosophy of Objectivism and based on the opinions of many others who deride her work.) I noticed, more than once, her use of a question mark in the middle of a sentence. This is one of my favorite literary "devices" so to speak, and she did it well. My heart fluttered.

Today, I came across a word in the book which I vaguely knew the definition of, but which I decided to look-up, to have a deeper, more full understanding of it. On a whim, I went to my bookshelf to pull down my Random House Webster's College Dictionary instead of looking the word up online as I usually do. As I flipped through the pages of the dictionary, I found my heart fluttering once again. I'd forgotten how much pleasure I'd once received from actually touching the thin pages, highlighting words, seeing the other words around the one which drew me to the book.

Since I'd long fancied owning one of those large dictionaries that one finds chained to podiums in libraries, my reuniting with my dictionary inspired me to go online to read more of dictionaries. I found myself at this article: Searching for the best dictionary. The author, YiLing Chen-Josephson, compares a number of different dictionaries, grading each one based on stock, definitions, usage guidance, etymologies, and enjoyment. I found myself following along in my own dictionary, and the fluttering in my heart began to expand throughout my entire body. I got light-headed...my limbs tingled. These were not symptoms of a heart-attack, or some other physical ailment. It was like holding hands for the first time with a longstanding crush. It was like the moments before a first kiss.

When I went to look up "nonplussed," a word specifically mentioned in the article, I found myself staring at the word "orgasm" across from the page on which the "N/O" label is located. How appropriate, I thought as my heart raced faster. After I finished reading the article, I proceeded to look up "orgasm" on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. I found myself titillated, not by the thought of sexual excitement, but by the differences between the ways the word was presented in each dictionary. The pronunciation guides are different. The etymology is written out differently. The numbered definition list versus unnumbered, separate entry for "orgasmic" verses a non-separate entry. And where is the verb form in the Merriam-Webster definition...?

I have nothing more to say. This story has no point. Consider this the anticlimax. From Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Juan Antonio: Maria Elena used to say that only unfulfilled love can be romantic.

Perhaps the point is that there can be no completion to this excitement I derive from these things. In grade school, I used to read the dictionary for fun, but now I use words clumsily and foolishly. I love them but they don't love me back. And that is what makes it so exciting.

The Horror

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower