Word Salad with a Side of Soap

Again, I have been remiss in my posting, but by way of explanation, I will here include my travel log of late.

Dec. 5th-Return from Australia
Dec. 9th-Off to Houghton
Dec. 13th-Return to Houston
Dec. 19th-Leave for Plano (via road trip)
Dec. 21st-Return from Plano/Pick up Alicia
Dec. 22nd-Alicia departs
Dec. 25th-Christmas Day
Dec. 27th-Leave for Omaha
Dec. 30th-Aunt Erinn comes to Houston
Jan. 3rd-Return from Omaha
Jan. 7th-Aunt Erinn departs
Jan. 9th-Return to Houghton to begin another delightful, whirlwind semester

So, as you can see, I haven't had much leisure time since break began. I think I'm still waiting for break to begin, still trying to prepare for Christmas, a holiday which has already passed, in case I'm not the only one who might have missed it. This, I think, is also a vindication of my continuing pilgrim status, as you can see there has been little of the quiet pleasures of hearth and home for me lately. And Kathryn, I promise that I have not tried to avoid you, I have not seen any "301" numbers on my phone. In fact, our new phone in the kitchen doesn't even have a screen for call waiting, so I have had to resort to the unthinkable...actually answering the phone when it rings!!! (*gasp!*). When I'm home, that is, which as you can see isn't often.

At any rate, in addition to alerting you all to my impending "out-of-town" status, I also wanted to continue a little reflection with which I was trying to inspire my sister earlier this evening. We are watching the movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame tonight, a movie which my sister does not particularly care for because it is not an especially happy movie, even for a Disney version. I responded by asking her if the only purpose of stories is to entertain us. She knows that that is not the case, but I don't think she quite understands why.

This all goes back to some conversations we had in Oz Lit class in which my much esteemed professor Maurie Nestor said that he thought that there should be a saying; "Don't trust anyone under 30" in reference to the changes that our culture has been going through in recent decades in regards to the way that we understand stories. One of the things that we have done is to cultivate a culture of forgetfulness in which we have a widespread ignorance about the stories which are most important to us, most fundamental to our knowledge as a culture. Now perhaps, too many of us see stories as entertainment alone, nothing more than to occupy our free time.

Now, it's not stories that I am attacking here, I am an avowed lover of stories in all forms, not least because of the many capacities they are capable of operating in and the many functions they are capable of fulfilling beyond just mindless entertainment. Our stories are our teachers, first and foremost, the way we transmit our values, our ideas, our way of looking at the world. This you can tell most obviously by the fact that stories are what we use to teach the young, and the most effective method of teaching the young, I might add (just ask Lyotard). Or at least, we used to, at any rate. Now I don't think we see our stories as anything besides a play-pretty, a bauble for babies to gawk at, with no real meaning. Oddly enough, we are still often telling the stories that we've told for hundreds of years, in their original or more modern (often watered-down) forms, but I think that what has changed more than the stories that we tell is the way we are taught to look at them. There is no more critical thinking, we do not look at the stories as our teachers, but as our court jesters. This is why I think Maurie Nestor says, "Don't trust anyone under 30," because they are bankrupt of the kind of knowledge which was always previously thought to be fundamental.

Don't misjudge me here, I'm not saying that we have to interpret the stories the same ways that we always have, but we must think critically about the stories we tell, and we must tell stories about which coherent and depthful thought is possible. Our stories must convey aspects of the culture from which we tell them, there is no other way to give them life. Think about it, out of the phenomenon of postmodernity we begin telling stories from "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" to the new movie, Hoodwinked, stories which look at things from a new perspective. We love turning stories, like everything else in postmodernity, on their heads so we can marvel at the new point of view. We don't just babble to amuse ourselves, we as a culture must tell and re-tell our stories with conviction, knowing that we have something to say. Maybe I'm just on a rant b/c I have an analytical personality, so I see meaning in just about all stories, even though it's not always a meaning I agree with. But I still can't help but think that people like me are vital for distilling those values and wisdom into something that just about everybody can stomach, and understand on some level, even if its not quite as conscious as one might wish. And hence, I think this is why I have become a writing major, because I want to tell the very most important kind of stories in a way that is just as bright and as vibrant as something that is meant solely for entertainment. I want to tell the old stories in new ways, so that they become fresh and lovely again, and I want to tell my stories as well, for my own benefit as well as for the potential benefit of others.

I am not, I do not think, by any means an exceptional story teller, but I am an avid one and I hold on to the hope in this, as in so many other things, that passion will serve me where talent and aptitude fail. Once a friend asked me if I could ever stop being a writer, a novel question and one which intrigued me. I know that there could be a time in my life in which I put away laptops and keyboards and pens and papers and pencils and any formal accoutrements of the writing process with no regrets. But there are two things which I know that I will never be able to stop doing: stringing wonderful words together to enjoy their beautiful sounds and meanings or to form a brilliant, tiny gem that I think of as a proto-poem, and telling people stories. These things I know I will be doing long after my wrists become defective from carpal tunnel syndrome and my fingers are too cramped from arthritis to type. Even when I am senile and shoved into the dark corners of a nursing home, I will still mumble the events of the Odessey, of Oedipus Rex, of Shakespeare, of the Brothers Grimm, of Tolstoy, of Bronte, of Tolkien, of Faulkner, these are the characters, the lives, the doings that I will blather incoherently in my gumless glory through my mushy applesauce till they lie me cold and dead in the ground...

Ahem, excuse me, allow me to step off of my soapbox and collect myself. It is here, friends and readers, that my rant must sadly end, as the night is late and furthermore, it is now time for me to go and read my sister her bedtime story...

Ho, Ho, Ho

So tonight I believe I am going to at least attempt to not be quite so vacuous as I was last night. Really shouldn't be much of a struggle to top that post, but hey, what can I say, a girl's gotta start somewhere. I think the trouble w/ me is that I really haven't been doing much of anything since the Great Houghton Heist (okay, it wasn't really a heist at all, but c'mon, that is a really catchy name!) For those of you who don't actually live in Houghton, I should probably be a bit more explicit. This semester in Australia, I was pining away for certain persons who live in the fair town of Houghton and lamenting the fact that I would not be able to see them for a whole year in the form of odes and ballads and other forms of poetry which I accompanied on my lyre. After a while, I got fed up with all this lamenting, so I raised up my MIGHTY right arm and brought in down w/ one of my soverign judgements: "I will go to Houghton this semester before these good souls leave the continent," said I, "or I will die in the attempt!" Well, from there it was a very simple matter of arranging passage for myself as a cabin boy (don't ask) on an ocean liner across the Big Pond (the Pacific, for those of you who are not adept at geography). After landing on American soil, the only obstacle left to overcome was the girth of the landmass of our 48 states, which I navigated across by earning my passage on various stagecoaches riding shotgun (literally) and protecting the shipments of gold from robbers, injuns, vagabonds, saloon girls, card sharks and other brigands. The last few miles were so snowy that I had to switch to sled dog and mush my way over the Appalacian Mountains surviving off of nothing more than fruitcake, melted snow and my cheery disposition. But I finally rolled in to town on the evening of the 9th, exactly a week ago as of today to be precise. Well, there was no small ruckus (that's called a litotes, means there was a big ol' ruckus) when it was generally known that I was about, especially since I came bearing gifts; all the riches of Australia were packed along those rugged trails to bring holiday joy to those that I hold dear. It was a fine visit, all in all, w/ plenty of catching up and other such vital business which will hopefully eventually serve to allow me to let my dears go off all around the world next semeter without my protection. It is indeed a dangerous business, stepping outside your door...

Well, since then, life's been pretty quiet. I've been frantically trying to wrap things up for my independent study, though on reflection tonight I realized that I don't actually know when I have to get everything in by. I was hoping to find Thryn online tonight to ask her, but so far, no such luck. I am trying actually to not set myself too many things to try to accomplish over break. I usu. try to be so ambitious and just end up disappointed, so maybe if I am not so lofty minded about what can be done in my alloted space of time, I won't be let down. The time is already flying by too quickly. I feel like Christmas is coming up much too fast, not because I still have tons of shopping or wrapping to do, but because I don't feel Christmas yet. Sadly enough, I still usually find myself trapped in the frighteningly subjective world of emotions to determine what is going on exactly in my life, so for me Christmas is not a day, it is a feeling. I had that feeling for a bit in Australia, it was lost somewhere in the crossing, I fear. I actually think it's probably been years since I've felt like it was Christmas at Christmas time. I think that is the terror that seizes me every year, that I will not find it in time for that day of days in which everything is supposed to be so pristinely like a Hallmark card. I hate to be a Scrooge about this, but I usually find Christmas to be so disappointing, it is like going to a play in which the scene is well-laid out and beautifully represented, the players all in place, the music and the aromas are even staged to set the mood, but at the most climatic scene, the star of the show just doesn't come out on stage. After a few moments, the audience starts to shift nervously in their seats, people begin coughing, and flickers of conversation begin to quietly crop up all over the room. Then finally, after an anxious minute more, the curtain is hastily dropped and the audience is ushered back out onto the chilly streets of reality, the show is considered a flop and all the critics tear it to pieces the next day in their columns. Tragic, isn't it?

This is even worse for me because, as a Christian, I think there is even more pressure to get excited about Christmas. This isn't just about cookies, parties, a pile of presents and a chubby guy in a red suit. This is about the savior of the world, God himself coming down to earth in bodily form to dwell among his creations, the ultimate in humiliation and the ultimate in love. Isn't that something that should just send warm fuzzies coursing through your whole body? Unfortunately excitement and gratitude isn't something I can flip on with a switch, even with such a worthy impetus as that. I know with my head that this is big news, but it's hard for my heart to capture the kind of wonder that such an event should inspire.

So what to do, what to do? I could just drop the whole thing, learn to expect disappointment and admit that the magic of Christmas must only be for children and fools. Or I could slog away and ignore the sputterings and grindings of my emotional generator that clearly indicate that there's a glitch in the system and keep on keeping on trying to ignite some life in the old thing; bake the cookies, play the music, read all the right verses of my Bible and pray that my defunct inner child comes out to play. Hmmm...another wholesale personality overhaul to be completed by December 25th? And I thought this was going to be my less ambitious holiday...

Hmmmm...

So, I am realizing that it's been awhile since I have made a quality post. And, more unfortunately, tonight is not going to the night that redeems me. Maybe I'll just gradually let the blog tank so you all gradually drift away from my readership...or maybe the next post will be better. I don't know, wait and see. For now, I will make meaningless observations about what is on the television.

Oh hey, my sister just came back out. I guess she can't sleep. I should help...

Okay, I'm back. You know, television is so vapid. Seinfeld is very, very bad. Like boring. I think I think I've even seen this episode before. Ooh, I wish I had a milkshake.

Perhaps I should call this a stream-of-conciousness, ego-draining, chakra purge. It would look very avant-garde on my resume. Maybe not. Now Jerry has to walk home through some park where he's afraid a serial (cereal?) killer is going to come along and saw his head off. I think I'm getting dumber...

Oh hey, there's a really old movie version of Othello on TV. Little do the TV people know that I just saw that show in my own little college. I do not really like this play, and I really, really do not like the guy who is playing Othello in this movie, he is so creepy looking. Denzel Washington would do a better job. He probably was not alive that point. Too bad. I am only waiting at this point to see who is playing Desdemona. Ugh, she's not very pretty at all! And she's wearing like the world's ugliest dress, some silver thing w/ some sickening salmon-colored fabric draped over it. Whoa, I think it's the lady who plays Wendy (very old Wendy) in Hook. She's not very good either. This movie sucks. I'm changing the channel.

Shoot, I'm still hungry. I think I will go read my novel, Cloudstreet, in an attempt to revive my intellect.

Oooh, a preview for Narnia just came on...I want french toast...

The Prodigal returns...

Well, I have been receiving a few comments of late as to my recent absenteeism in posting. I must agree, it is most disgraceful, this long absence of mine. However, I have been having trouble adjusting to your so-called "American" ways of life. This is indeed a strange country, you drive on the wrong side of the road, light switches are no longer on the door frames, you do not sell any decent chocolate or Tim-Tams, I can never seem to get to sleep when the rest of you deem it to be sleep time and I seem to have near collisions w/ people on sidewalks every time I step out the door. It has been hard, among such alien life-forms, to get back on my feet. But soon, my gentle Yahoos, soon I will return to you and divulge my soul, or at the very least the manifold duplicities I executed in order to pull off this latest trip to Houghton (ha ha...I chortle to myself w/ glee to think of it). But at the moment, it is 20 minutes after 4 in the morning, and you Americanites all seem to think that now is a time for sleeping (isn't jet lag just a gorgeous thing?) so I will attempt to join you in your strange custom of "night time." We shall see if this is really all it's cracked up to be...

The grand finale...

As of today...classes are over. No, let me try to say that again, more convincingly this time.

As of today, classes are over. Nope, still no good, I just can't believe myself on this one. How can this be?? Wasn't I just pulling onto the runway, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready for anything? More reflections on the leaving pending...

(As of today, classes are over...shoot, still not working...)