this is what my brother bought me.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
birthday loot
my gorgeous new kettle, courtesy of my best fwend mai-chi, and a tummy full of delicious pulled pork, courtesy of kristen m <3
Friday, October 28, 2011
Hyperbole and a Half is back after 6 months with an explanatory comic about her bout of depression. It's pretty incredible stuff. That girl is pure genius sometimes.
I am sooo excited for NaNoWriMo to begin I can barely contain myself! I know I say this every year, but THIS is going to be the year that I complete my goal, no matter now disillusioned with my novel I become. My problem is that I always find my writing unbearably boring a few pages in, so I think I will simply have to stick with it until the end and then decide what I need to change/fix after the full manuscript is in front of me.
In other news, I am reading Fringe-ology right now and loving it. I know that many people don't believe in the paranormal/other aspects of the "unexplainable" but I personally love all that kind of stuff. Maybe less of the UFO theories and more of the ghost stories/near death experience research, but still. It's the kind of stuff that both spooks me & gets me excited.
In other news, I am reading Fringe-ology right now and loving it. I know that many people don't believe in the paranormal/other aspects of the "unexplainable" but I personally love all that kind of stuff. Maybe less of the UFO theories and more of the ghost stories/near death experience research, but still. It's the kind of stuff that both spooks me & gets me excited.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
One of the drawbacks to having a public blog is that it takes away my desire to journal. Though I do love blogging (as silly and inconsequential as my posts tend to be), there is a remarkable lack of penned introspection in my life these days. Not that I wish to be self-indulgent and focus on the "me" aspect of thought and perspective; I don't think any diary entries of mine would be worthwhile to hang onto.
I suppose it's just perturbing that I spend so little time processing my thoughts and experiences via the written word these days. When I do, it's filtered through fictional characters and ambiguous poetry.
Anyway, though, maybe this is a natural progression. I don't feel the need to journal, and so I won't. Maybe I'll just focus my energies on NaNoWriMo and perfecting press releases for now.
I suppose it's just perturbing that I spend so little time processing my thoughts and experiences via the written word these days. When I do, it's filtered through fictional characters and ambiguous poetry.
Anyway, though, maybe this is a natural progression. I don't feel the need to journal, and so I won't. Maybe I'll just focus my energies on NaNoWriMo and perfecting press releases for now.
Monday, October 24, 2011
How is it already almost 5? I have about a million things left on my to-do list. Sigh, that's Monday for you, I suppose. This week promises to be a busy busy bee kind of week, but at least the tasks at hand are somewhat more interesting than usual!
Also, I turn 23 this week... I'm inching toward the quarter century, AAH!
Also, I turn 23 this week... I'm inching toward the quarter century, AAH!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
free cupcakes from sprinkles are the best
One of my favorite plebeian activities is now going to the Stanford Shopping Center to score a free cupcake via the secret word that they announce on FB. Thanks for the tip, Annie!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
CURRENT GUILTY PLEASURE
Oh hai 1/2 of my favorite teenage popstar power couple.
I, I LOVE YOU LIKE A LOVE SONG BABY.
I, I LOVE YOU LIKE A LOVE SONG BABY.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
tryin' the flash fiction thing...
The Discarded
I threw away your things, our things. I threw them into the
trash. I threw them into the Goodwill bin. I threw them into the fire, where
the edges of our photographs curled and filled my tiny, hollow living room with
smoke. Into the river I threw the bottles of sand we’d collected from our
travels, from Mexico, from India, from
the East Coast. I threw away your sweater, the one I wore to bed on frostbitten
winter nights when the rain drummed a cacophony against our windows.
I threw away the discord, the words both furiously scribbled
and hissed, the look in your eyes like a dying animal, the way you said my
name, the way I said your name, the excess of it all.
Looking out the window as the night crept over the horizon,
I tore through your letters without reading them. I let them fall into
the carpet, your words reduced to paper fluff, which I would later vacuum.
The sun had blazed today, collecting sweat in crevices,
directed bright heat into a dull thud behind my eyes. It retreated and I stood
there with the afterglow, the dusk, the settling dust, and the dirt of our
former life underneath my fingernails.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
NANOWRIMO IS NEXT MONTH.
Freaking out a little. I need novel ideas. So far points of interest include:
Freaking out a little. I need novel ideas. So far points of interest include:
- ghost ships
- dead girls
- adolescent girls
- school girls
- Victorian mummy unwrapping parties
- death in a tree
- animal thoughts
- people who look like animals
- evil stepmothers
- claustrophobic spaces
- precocious children
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
I started something new... Let me know what you think, friends! I call this my, "I have finished all my work, but still need to be sitting here because they changed our 'official' hours to be longer" project. I'm going to chip away at it regularly whenever I have some spare time, or happen to be sitting at my desk during lunch :).
----------
A swanlike girl sits at the skirt of the lawn, her long neck pale and exposed. My sister Elsa and I are at the inn on summer vacation with our parents, who spend most of their day poolside with their good friends, the Martinsons. As Mr. and Mrs. Martinson have no children, Elsa and I are acutely bored with only each other for company and eagle-eyed about spotting the sparse number of children who arrive over the course of the week and a half we have been there.
“She will be my friend,” Elsa crows out triumphantly.
I cannot argue with her, for we operate under the unspoken rule of children which states that boys will associate with boys, and girls with girls. Scowling, I hope that the girl has a brother. Looking at her, she must be two or three years older than me – around Elsa’s age – with the straight, elegant torso of a barely adolescent girl.
We march over to the girl, Elsa’s gingham skirt flouncing, her head thrust back in an assertion of confidence. “Hello,” she says when we have reached the border of the lawn, where the girl sits placidly, sunbathing or thinking. “We are Elsa and Jordan Kells, and we’re staying at the inn. Who are you?”
I have always admired my sister’s forthright nature. Even now, she is the one in our family who sends her food back to the kitchen in restaurants, who argues with petitioners outside of stores unapologetically. I am meeker; the kind of person who fears calls from telemarketers and door to door salesmen, the kind who apologizes for everything. I fear offending the unknown. Especially after that summer, and everything that happened.
The girl looks up, her eyes a milky blue. She has thin lips that disappear into her pale skin, and her almost white hair is tied up into a bun that makes her seem older than she is.
“Pleased to meet you,” she says, remaining seated. “My name is Mary.”
I can already see that this girl is not my sister’s ideal playmate, but her previous companions, the Claremont sisters, have left two days ago. She lets out a long suffering sigh and plops down on the grass next to the girl. I, on the other hand, am thrilled by the tremulous, long-limbed creature beside me. I shyly crouch down on her other side, my foot a mere six inches from her bare knee.
She glances at me briefly, and then averts her gaze back to her hands, which rest atop her white cotton skirt.
“Are you staying at the inn too?” Elsa persists. Today, her cheeks are pink from the heat, and her hair – which she has begun putting into curlers – hangs limp around her face. I think she looks wonderful, though I would never say it. I think this other girl looks wonderful too, though I would not say so aloud either.
She is tall and quiet and thoughtful. I am staring at her hands too, which form half moons in her lap.
“I am not staying at the inn,” she says. Her voice is deeper than Elsa’s, who still adopts a high, shrieking laugh when she thinks something is hilarious or charming. “My family is staying down the road, with relatives. I walked here.”
“Oh,” Elsa says, biting her lip. The road that leads back to town is five miles long, with nothing but meadowland on either side. Elsa and I tried walking it one day when we were desperate for something to do, but by the time we made it we were both sweaty and crabby from the summer heat. Mary though, is pristine despite her journey down the dust-choked road.
“Well,” Elsa continues, her voice warbling. “Now that you’ve made it all the way here, do you want to play with us? We were going to explore the gardens.”
The inn has beautiful gardens, filled with ivy and roses and even a hedge maze that Elsa and I have been dizzyingly lost in. Every few yards, something interesting appears – a fountain, or a strange plant, or a nest of wasps.
Mary shrugs her delicate shoulders. Through her thin cotton dress they protrude like the angular legs of a preying mantis.
Elsa stands up and brushes herself off before marching back toward the inn, small clouds of dust forming with each step she takes. Mary follows and I am last, walking behind them as their backs eclipse the afternoon sun.
And so begins The Summer, the one that Elsa and I will speak of for years to come, though only in cryptic and vague terms. Always, we skirt around the details, the exactitude of what happened.
In that way, we are survivors, Elsa and I. We need not speak to remember the particulars. They are seared in our collective memory, after all.
----------
A swanlike girl sits at the skirt of the lawn, her long neck pale and exposed. My sister Elsa and I are at the inn on summer vacation with our parents, who spend most of their day poolside with their good friends, the Martinsons. As Mr. and Mrs. Martinson have no children, Elsa and I are acutely bored with only each other for company and eagle-eyed about spotting the sparse number of children who arrive over the course of the week and a half we have been there.
“She will be my friend,” Elsa crows out triumphantly.
I cannot argue with her, for we operate under the unspoken rule of children which states that boys will associate with boys, and girls with girls. Scowling, I hope that the girl has a brother. Looking at her, she must be two or three years older than me – around Elsa’s age – with the straight, elegant torso of a barely adolescent girl.
We march over to the girl, Elsa’s gingham skirt flouncing, her head thrust back in an assertion of confidence. “Hello,” she says when we have reached the border of the lawn, where the girl sits placidly, sunbathing or thinking. “We are Elsa and Jordan Kells, and we’re staying at the inn. Who are you?”
I have always admired my sister’s forthright nature. Even now, she is the one in our family who sends her food back to the kitchen in restaurants, who argues with petitioners outside of stores unapologetically. I am meeker; the kind of person who fears calls from telemarketers and door to door salesmen, the kind who apologizes for everything. I fear offending the unknown. Especially after that summer, and everything that happened.
The girl looks up, her eyes a milky blue. She has thin lips that disappear into her pale skin, and her almost white hair is tied up into a bun that makes her seem older than she is.
“Pleased to meet you,” she says, remaining seated. “My name is Mary.”
I can already see that this girl is not my sister’s ideal playmate, but her previous companions, the Claremont sisters, have left two days ago. She lets out a long suffering sigh and plops down on the grass next to the girl. I, on the other hand, am thrilled by the tremulous, long-limbed creature beside me. I shyly crouch down on her other side, my foot a mere six inches from her bare knee.
She glances at me briefly, and then averts her gaze back to her hands, which rest atop her white cotton skirt.
“Are you staying at the inn too?” Elsa persists. Today, her cheeks are pink from the heat, and her hair – which she has begun putting into curlers – hangs limp around her face. I think she looks wonderful, though I would never say it. I think this other girl looks wonderful too, though I would not say so aloud either.
She is tall and quiet and thoughtful. I am staring at her hands too, which form half moons in her lap.
“I am not staying at the inn,” she says. Her voice is deeper than Elsa’s, who still adopts a high, shrieking laugh when she thinks something is hilarious or charming. “My family is staying down the road, with relatives. I walked here.”
“Oh,” Elsa says, biting her lip. The road that leads back to town is five miles long, with nothing but meadowland on either side. Elsa and I tried walking it one day when we were desperate for something to do, but by the time we made it we were both sweaty and crabby from the summer heat. Mary though, is pristine despite her journey down the dust-choked road.
“Well,” Elsa continues, her voice warbling. “Now that you’ve made it all the way here, do you want to play with us? We were going to explore the gardens.”
The inn has beautiful gardens, filled with ivy and roses and even a hedge maze that Elsa and I have been dizzyingly lost in. Every few yards, something interesting appears – a fountain, or a strange plant, or a nest of wasps.
Mary shrugs her delicate shoulders. Through her thin cotton dress they protrude like the angular legs of a preying mantis.
Elsa stands up and brushes herself off before marching back toward the inn, small clouds of dust forming with each step she takes. Mary follows and I am last, walking behind them as their backs eclipse the afternoon sun.
And so begins The Summer, the one that Elsa and I will speak of for years to come, though only in cryptic and vague terms. Always, we skirt around the details, the exactitude of what happened.
In that way, we are survivors, Elsa and I. We need not speak to remember the particulars. They are seared in our collective memory, after all.
Monday, October 3, 2011
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