I'll Admit It

Sometimes I go to bed with my eye makeup on in the hopes that I'll look moviestar perfect while I sleep and when I wake up.

That's innocent enough, isn't it?

Homesick

I was on the internet today. Research for a creative writing assignment led to Google maps, and before I knew it I waslooking up Manson Place and I became very, very homesick for London. So for your viewing pleasure, here are some screen shots of my reminiscences.

The Tesco down the street, complete with the bum who lives there.

One of those windows was my window.

That's my flat!

(this one's a picture I took one rainy afternoon)

I'm going to go back there some day.

Joke EXPLAINED! 'D!

I was doing something productive, which means I was up using the internet way too late, when I found this poem by G.K. Chesterton.
Hilarious.

Maybe I just think it's funny 'cause we're doing the poetry thang in my creative writing class. Maybe my favorite part is the Walt Whitman section 'cause we had to read "Song of Myself" that one time.

Maybe.

Maybe it's just funny anyway.

of martyrs and angels and deep divine grief

Fantine never knew she'd die a martyr
but her story could tell, with its calico
patches, its daughter forsaken, its hope dead and gone,
that this woman was destined for deep, divine grief.
Hell has a way of giving mortals to angels,
who know better the value of each wretched life.

The poor can't go to the end of their lives
without stooping and breaking, and breaking the laws of The Martyr.
They hope for forgiveness -- the embrace of angels --
and a truer life, no longer held to the limitations of calico
bodies and patched, ragged souls. But grief
is no respecter of persons -- she preys on the hopeful and the far gone.

When Fantine gave in to misery, she became poor -- gone
were the riches of love and virtue and life.
At the back of her mind, with terrible radiance, grief
took hold, and slowly she was transfigured. A martyr,
at first, emanates softly the tired beauty of calico.
Her broken heart was the beacon that recalled reluctant angels

to their promise. She would soon join the angels.
When the light of earth had gone
from her face, and she had been remade of calico,
she would be -- she will soon be -- rid of her wretched life.
The light of Heaven filled Fantine who became the martyr
for those who are still haunted by grief,

consumed and transfigured by deep, divine grief.
This is how we become angels --
first by forsaking the hope of the martyr,
then by grieving until every trace of Hell is gone
and we know better the valley of the wretched life.
I see this happiness near me, but I can't let go

of the light of earth. It shifts through calico
patches and illuminates the terror of my grief.
It is harder than Hell to cast aside life.
But my own broken heart beckons to angels
who show me the joy that it is to be gone
and the Heaven set aside for each martyr.

My heart of calico,
torn by the movements of grief, now mended by angels,
is all that remains of my wretched life.

Wed Nes Day

So I spent the last hour that I was gonna spend on homework talking to my sister on the phone. Sometimes these things just can't be helped.

A few things:

I can see why and how hunger makes people crazy. For some reason, I have been unbelievably really hungry all the time these last couple weeks. I mean, I eat breakfast, and I usually eat lunch, but if I don't then I eat dinner at 4 or 5 and then I go to rehearsal and I eat a snack after rehearsal. So I shouldn't be ravenous; I should at least be okay. But for reasons I think I'll never know, I feel like I'm starving to death. And then I go crazy thinking about when I'm gonna eat, and what I could possibly eat to satiate this gargantuan monster that is my bottomless stomach. It's really weird.

I might could possibly maybe a little bit almost very nearly kind of maybe almost hope to have a prayer to pass my classes this semester. Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, I don't expect to get a 4.0 again (2 semesters ago- I only took 3 classes, and 2 of them were participation-based), but at least I might (might) not fail.

I wrote a poem yesterday. It was hard, but it was also fun. It is a strict formal poem that uses the same 6 words as the last word in each line of 6 stanzas (a sestina, for those of you who care), so it was kind of like solving a complicated word puzzle, which I love. I think I'll put it up here later. It isn't great, but I'm falling in love with it. :)

Today I worked on (and almost finished) an exercise that riffed off of the sestina (take all of the nouns, adjectives, and verbs and replace them with the entry from the dictionary 7 entries above. Try it!). Here are some of the silliest sentences that emerged:

• "...sharp became pontoon -- gone were the ribs of the loudspeaker Virginia reel and lie."
• "When the lifer of earmuf had gone from henchman Fabian, and sharp could no longer love the tete-a-tete of caldron..."
• "Henchman at last hypothesize see this hap near mayflower..."
• "...torn by the moustaches of grew and repaired by anemometers..."
• "She worst soon jocular the angels."
• "...and she cottontail no longer loudspeaker the texture of calico..."

And in the middle of a sentence, the word "giraffe".

I just found a hole in the thigh of my only pair of jeans. :/ This is distressing. I like these jeans, nay, I. LOVE. these jeans. I got them at Target in November. I'm sad that a $25 pair of jeans only lasted 5 months... actually... I did wear them almost every day for 5 months. That means my cost-per-wear (thank you, Clinton and Stacy!) was, like, .028 cents. But I still need to buy new jeans. Caaaaan't afford thaaaat.

I watched Pooh's Grand Adventure yesterday, and I am happy to report that it is as good as I remember. "Come out, moon; come out, wishing star; come out, come out, wherever you are!" Megan and I used to watch that movie and cry together. Good times.




I got to spend a couple of hours today playing with some really great people and my puppety counterpart. I think her name is Dot or Dottie. She doesn't have pupils yet, so she's still a bit creepy, but it's really nice to get to get used to the real deal puppet instead of Cuddlebum, my rehearsal puppet. I made him out of a teddy bear, two coat hangers, a mitten, and an apron. Anyway, the point is that Dot or Dottie is a lot cooler (and a lot heavier) than Cuddlebum.



So that's m'week so far. Tomorrow is temple and therapy Thursday. I am also attending the BYU Mask Club production of Parade. Shh! Don't tell anyone! And I will be finishing two creative writing assignments AT LEAST. And I'm gonna reserve me some comp tickets. Whoo! Productivity!

P.S.
I have fallen in love with "Paean to Place" by Lorine Niedecker. Ready?
"O my floating life
Do not save love
for things
Throw things
to the flood

ruined
by the flood
Leave the new unbought--
all one in the end--
water"

HOLY crap. It's 6 1/2 pages long. LOVE it.

("He could not
--like water bugs--
stride surface tension
He netted
loneliness")