Happy Valentines. I Wrote You a Poem.

I had to write a Spencerian sonnet last night. I don't know how much you know about sonnets, much less Spencerian ones, but let this suffice: They're really, really, really hard to write. They're supposed to use iambic pentameter (and hexameter) and rhyme all over the place.

I can't rhyme. Can't. So, like the sport I am, I whined about it for a few hours. Then I sat my roommate down and informed her we were writing a poem.

This is what we came up with:

I once fell down the stairs and hit my head

            And then my dog became a giant rat.

            My heart grew cold in one moment of dread

            Behind, I heard my cat yell out “Oh drat!”

And from my bag I pulled a wooden bat,

            With which I knew I could defend my Sam

            (And Sam, of course, he was my noble cat).

            I stood and faced the beast and shouted, “Scram!”

The rat, he swelled, he grew big as a tram.

As I thought of my ancestors of lore,

 I knew this was a test, or an exam,

            A quest to test the greatness of my core.

And as I stood and thought I knew that I was doomed,

            So quickly I ditched Sam, and off away I zoomed.

We wrote it at eleven last night, at which point the entire thing was hysterical.

I felt even better about when I wrote my short analysis that ended thusly:

The theme of the poem is the discovery of one's flaws, in this case, cowardice. Even in his dream, the narrator is unable to face his fears or defend the things he cares about. 

Here's hoping my professor has a sense of humor. And no particular commitment to poetic aesthetic.

Happy Valentines.

(http://www.hangupurban.com/valentines-specials)

A Few of My Favorite Things. Again. I Have Lots.

There's this one building on campus where people are always talking about the newest fantasy story they're writing. Or about whether or not '?!' is acceptable (general consensus--no, but we're probably going to use it anyway). They're talking about BBC TV shows. And The Last Airbender. And foreign films.

They're such nerds, guys. Really. Nerds. And the first time I really stopped and listened to them I thought, I've found my people!

Anyway, upstairs in this building there is a board where they ask questions and leave sticky notes, and you get to answer them. This week it was What Is Your New Years Resolution?

These were my favorites:

       Be less creepy.

               Get into Hogwarts.

          Floss everyday.

                       Live like an art project. 

   Be even more awesome (will be hard).

                 Find a cure for the zombie apocalypse. YOU OWE ME!

Steal a snowman.

                Crash a wedding.

       Overcome my depression. (Accompanied by scribbled, encouraging notes.)

Stop the apocalypse (get the salt!!!)

             Don't kill ANY moths.

Don't you kind of love people?

In case that didn't do it for you, try this. (He's a local photographer, and I love him. He makes them look interesting.)

                  

Ah! And this. (It's a New Yorker story. And it makes me laugh, really hard. There is swearing, as a heads up.)

And this. (I'm totally not crying.)

Hey, guys, how do you think you steal a snowman?

(From http://www.vintageseattle.org/2008/02/22/seattles-great-storm-of-1916/)

Welcome to Winter, Leave Your Sanity by The Door

You know, they say this is Utah's coldest winter in twenty years. I think this means that Id is having a laugh at me. Me and everyone else in Utah from anywhere semitropical.

So you can see why I was a little upset when last night's weather report said it would snow today.

I checked it again before I went out this morning. I check weather reports the way normal college students check FaceBook. (What? Having a chronic fear of frostbite will pay off one of these days.)

When I went out this morning the weather guy said it would be "freezing rain." And I thought, oh, the rain will be cold. So I pulled out my umbrella and a scarf and walked out.

It turns out that the “freezing” is less of an adjective. "Freezing rain" is noun phrase.

What I mean is, the sidewalk was a skating rink, and not in the fun, I might get to hold a guy’s hand, maybe I'll buy a churro way. More in the I may break several major bones, no way am I getting to class on time way.

Like this, 

(frozen sidewalk by kabturek at Flickr)

but not as pretty, and more life threatening.

I passed two ambulances and a fire truck on the way to campus.

I saw cars sliding. Cars. Sliding. (Youtube it.)

I also fell down. Several times.

I have several interesting bruises developing on my thighs. And everywhere else.

The worst part? It would all be really funny if I didn't have to do it again tomorrow.

Anxiously Engaged

So I tried a new thing with New Years Resolutions this year. The new thing is that I actually have one.

This year I want to be "anxiously engaged."  I think this may be a Mormon term--I mean that I want to be active, out, doing things, interacting, participating.

It kind of terrifies me.

I have this ridiculously long list of things that I should be doing. Know what I should be doing?

Trying to stop the last of my Chinese from slipping through my fingers and into the abyss from which it will never be recovered.

Regularly going to the meetings for a school journal I joined last semester.

Talking to all of my teachers from last semester and letting them know that I think they're fantastic and I want them to hire me. For anything. Like, maybe dusting.

Volunteering at my school's radio station, so that I can muster up the courage to apply for a This American Life internship. Because even just applying for that would make me cooler.

Doing yoga. Writing consistently. Spending at least two hours on every one hour in class. Actually going to the majority of the church activities. Going to the swing club on Saturday nights. Getting my printer fixed. Publishing a paper in a school journal. Possibly sending that paper to a conference. Publishing something (yes, anything) in an online magazine. Learning how to whistle with my fingers and play the guitar and the harmonica. Getting a job. Talking to my professors. Talking to people.

I look at this list, sometimes even one thing on this list (hello, This American Life application. And Chinese), and I want to crawl under my comforter and hibernate through the Winter. And possibly the rest of my college experience. Resign myself to mediocrity (or whatever is right below that), and just let it go. Read a few good books, listen to some bad pop music.

Yesterday I called my mom. I hadn't realized it before I talked to her, but I was freaking out.

She suggested I drop the "anxiously" from my goal.

Insomnia and Divine Intervention

I am now at the end of the semester. Please, hold the applause. It was nothing. I was hardly involved.

In all seriousness, though, friends. I'm sitting on my aunt's couch, done with finals and not feeling particularly sick. And I'm really not sure how I got here.

Because, here's the thing. Dinner last night was the first decent meal I've had in two weeks. I've been emptying out my fridge and, for the last few days, I've been living off cheese, tortillas, and oranges. Also, one ill-advised pie shake.

But, because that isn't bad enough, I haven't really been doing well in the sleep area either.

I go to bed. And then I lie there. And think about filial piety. The morality of white lies. Unicorns. British poets. (Byron was a creeper, guys.)

I have tried every trick in the book. I count backwards from a thousand. (Sometimes in Chinese, because maybe that helps? Somehow?) I listen to soothing music. I listen to really boring documentaries, which invariably turn out to be really interesting. I count sheep. I twist my brain around itself while trying to figure out eternity's lack of a beginning. (Tried so hard to understand the Big Bang. Failed.) I write apocalyptic short stories in my head.

It doesn't work.

What works for me, as it turns out, is crying. If I can cry, then I can go to sleep. Maybe it's a chemical thing?

So I lie there at two o'clock in the morning trying to make myself cry. Be sad. Be sad. Usually I can talk myself into it, but two nights ago I ended up rereading the death of one of my favorite characters ever and then watching Bible videos.

A couple times I head to the living room to nurse my insomnia without disturbing my roommate. And almost whenever I do another one of my roommates is out there. Teaching themselves a Jack Johnson song on the guitar. Watching a Korean drama. And I end up reading to them, or we talk about things (I can never remember what) while I force myself to yawn. Is insomnia contagious? It think my apartment caught it.

All this to say, what with my lack of my sleep and actual food, the fact that I got through finals without a break down means two things: There must be a God, and He must love me.

Oh, and guys.

I'm going home!

Unicorns are Totally Real

Sometimes I just crave adults. I realize that I am now twenty, which makes that last sentence a little suspect, but true nonetheless. I certainly don’t feel twenty. Twenty(s) is when people get married. They start being mature. They get jobs. They talk about politics.

Friends, I still blow bubbles regularly. I’m about a hundred times more likely to read a food blog than a political article. And a few nights ago, when I couldn’t sleep, I spent a half hour coming up with ten reasons why unicorns could totally be real.

Let’s not be hasty in our application of the term “adult,” huh?

Anyway, as much as I adore being at college, being surrounded by people who are in this thing they call the prime of our life, I sometimes feel like walking up to my teachers and begging them to talk to me. Not about essays, or tests, or anything that has anything to do with whatever it is I study in their class.

No, I don’t want help with the assignment. I want wisdom. I want someone to tell me a story that comes from experience. Preferably someone who has had more than twenty years of experience. I want my English teachers to show me things they wrote when they were my age, and invite me over for dinner. I want them to tell me about their lives and ask me about mine.  I want to go up to them and say, “If you knew me, and knew what was going on with me right now, not only would you not assign this essay, you’d take me out for ice cream and lend me a few really good books.”

But I don’t. I don’t annoy my teachers with my craving for the influence of people—but especially women—older and wiser than me. And thus far I haven’t gone in to talk to any of the school councilors. This is partly because I don’t think craving adult supervision qualifies as therapy worthy, and partly because if it does, I don’t really want to know about it.

So instead I blow bubbles, read food blogs, and wonder about unicorns.

I don’t need therapy.

http://lair2000.net/Unicorn_Dreams/Unicorn_History/modern_unicorns.html

The Irony Department

Have you ever watched any Inside the Actor's Studio? (Youtube it.) It's this collection of interviews with actors. They tell their lives story and talk about movies that they've worked on. At the end of the interview they're always asked the same questions. Stuff like, what's your favorite word? What's your favorite curse word? One of the questions is, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? George Clooney said, "I'd like him to say-- Come on in, Rosemary's singing, Nat Cole is playing piano... they're singing Always."

Now I've thought about this and come up with several answers. First of all, I'd really like a hug. Seriously, if I make it to heaven, I feel like a hug will be in order. I'd also really like to hear, "The library is this way." But recently I've been thinking that, before the library, I'm going to need to go see the Irony Department.

There are irony offices in heaven. Officially they're called the Irony Department, or ID, or (because they just think they're so clever) Id. There are probably different divisions in the office. You know. Like maybe they have one for dramatic irony, one for situational irony. I'm not sure. But I am pretty sure that the offices are largely populated by writers. Because you can't really be a writer without taking thismuch pleasure in other people's pain. (Or THISMUCH. That works too.)

Betcha that Jane Austen is there. And Jonathan Swift. Every snarky writer that ever lived, they all get together and plot about how to make the world poetically miserable.

These are the people who sit up in the clouds on their swivel chairs and say, "You don't like that person? Really? Then you should run into them every single place you go." Or there'll be an intern who'll say, "Hm. Marissa just studied six hours for her test. You know what we're going to do? We're going to have her know everything on the test--but she isn't going to read the directions right, so she'll get a B anyway." And then the guy in the cubicle over says, "Hey, why limit yourself? Might as well have that happen on two tests on the same day, right?" And then they both rub their hands together and cackle evilly. You have to have an evil laugh to work there.

They like to tell themselves that they're in charge of God's sense of humor.

I hate them. I want to work there when I die. But I hate them.

Maybe they already know that I want to work there, and all this stuff, all the irony that keeps popping up, is hazing. They mess with me a ton now, and then when I die, when I charge into the office, and demand to know who thought that was funny, they'll tell me very innocently that all that was just training. You know. So I'd have some idea of what it is that they do there.

I've been thinking about it recently, though, and I'm pretty sure I've found the person who got it worst from Id. Lot's wife is the grand winner. Not just because getting turned into salt sort of stinks, but because the irony wasn't even clear until the Sermon on the Mount. Because, you see, now Lot's wife literally is the salt of the earth.

...Ba-dum ching.

I'm going to go work on my evil laugh now.