Halloween events

I dressed up as Skull Kid today. Not that elaborate, given my rock-bottom budget. Really, it was just the mask and some red-and-yellow clothing, but whatever. Vince, being a Legend of Zelda fan, liked it a lot. Other notable costumes included Captain Jack Sparrow, Yoshi, Indiana Jones, and two separate ninjas. Backflip even brought a real sword, although he had to put it back in his car.

Zeus spent the first half of class giving us a lecture on the origins of Halloween before returning to Dante.

The junior class put up a haunted house in the Commons. Theme: The Devil's Dollhouse. I went through, and they had some very nice ideas. I came up with a few more, though. One involved a doll, a noose, and a looping tape of "Jesus Loves Me." Yeah, I'm sick.

Cuckoo's Nest opens in a week and a day, and I swear I will murder McMurphy and Harding if they don't have that "pecking party" dialogue memorized by Friday! Memo tests were weeks ago!

Humanitas wasn't today, but this week is notable was we have begun the meditation exercises that were half the reason I signed up for Humanitas in the first place. Shutting off the flow of words was easier than expected. Shutting off the flow of images was less so. The most common one was a supine, hollow replica of myself made of sand. When I exhaled, a crevice would open down the torso and the sand would waterfall inward.

Back to reflection

Lately I've been thinking about my identity. Who I am, who I've been, and who I may not want to be anymore. For instance, the Behind-the-Commons Crew. Now that Bedlam, Musical, and Spade have graduated, it's a very different place. We've lost the "intellectual hippie" side and gone over to the "computer geek sophomores" side. I've spent the first two months of school there still, but I can't ignore that it's no longer...for lack of a better adjective, it's no longer Venetian. And it's not just the others. When I'm with the Venetians/Riotous Knights, I'm Peter the Progress, but behind the Commons I feel as though I'm still Peter the Disconcerting. It's not a good feeling. Which is the more "real" me? Have I tried to move on while remaining hooked in my old self through force of habit, or am I still the same person as I've been for ages and only pretend to have changed?

Who am I!? A couple of weeks ago, Spivey arrived just behind me at rehearsal. Our conversation was as follows:

Me: Hello.
Spivey: Oh, shoot, are we supposed to be in character already?
Me: No. Did I convey that impression?
Spivey: Yes.
Me: How? I didn't even stutter.
Spivey: Oh, sorry. I think it has something to do with the fact that even when you're not on stage, half the time you're acting anyway.

This has been gnawing at me since.

Even before this exchange, the possibility has crossed my mind that I'm acting more often than I want. So I deny it. My emotions do seem to have freer rein when the stage is involved. If I do wear the theatre mask too much in real life, it becomes a simple matter to jump to the possibility that I use people. (Lantern: ...and that doesn't mean riding roughshod over other people. You're not Richard III.) Was that what she was talking about?

Oh, let me not be mad.

Which reminds me: impulses. When you see something, you you're doing something, your brain will inevitably point out a potential course of action which is absurd at best (You know, you could stand up and shout, "Hey, Romeo! DIE ALREADY!" Nobody would be able to stop you.) and psychotic at worst (The way his leg is stretched out right now, I bet you could stomp on it hard enough to break it). This happens to everyone, I'm sure, but the part of my brain that comes up with these seems to be on overdrive. Time and time again I have to respond, "I could, but I have no cause!" Or find a way to shut it up for as long as I can. There certainly remains a line between thinking and doing, but it can be tempting to feel out that line. To get as clooooose to it as possible without crossing.

*exits DSR*

I've said it before...

...and I'll say it again.

I.

Hate.

Writing.

Consclusions.

I've made my point. I've explained how and why the ninth circle of Hell should be reorganized. Why can't I just end my essay here?

Braces off in five weeks

So spake the orthodontist today.

Poetry contest: round 2

The school creative writing contest is back this year. This time it appears to be poetry specific, with three categories for haiku, form (excluding haiku, obviously), and free-form. I plan to submit to all three. I'm not sure what I'll send in for form, but here are my haiku and free-form submissions.

Bright enough for shade
Cities never get this chance
To read by the moon

I wouldn't want to be one of the haiku judges: It feels odd to know that a branch of the contest is between poems of no more than seventeen syllables.

This one loses something in reading, since I wrote it with performance in mind, but I like it anyway. It was very fun to write.

I’m an action star.
I am Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan, and Harrison Ford all
Bundled into one thunderous package of property damage.
I am Ahnold. I am Bruce Willis. I am Clint Eastwood.
I am Bond, James Bond.
That’s Sean Connery, Roger Moore, AND Daniel Craig
For you smart-alecks out there,
But Pierce Brosnan only wishes he was part of me.
Oh, yes:
I am even Chuck Norris.
I can kick through a brick wall,
Wrap the bad guys in a lamp post,
And bag twenty buxom babes, all before breakfast.
I am so badass
I can’t even SPIT without the world going into bullet time.
I have more guns than fingers,
And if I think for an instant
You might be a mook
I’ll empty instantaneously half my infinite ammunition into your abdomen
EXCEPT on Sundays.
On Sundays I use a katana.
I consider myself a failure if I don’t
Blast a half dozen homes daily to smithereens, and
The more expensive
The better.
No insurance company will take me,
And the rental car agencies soil themselves when they see me coming.
They think,
“Oh no here comes the action star
There goes a car
There goes our stock
SWEET JESUS WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO
Oh what luck he’s riding a motorcycle today”
But I don’t care about what they think,
Because I’m an action star
And I WILL save the world
No matter how many Nazis,
No matter how many explosions,
No matter how many innocent bystanders,
No matter how many scantily clad double agents, and
No matter how many millions of dollars in checks to Industrial Light and Magic stand in my way!

Dreams and prophecies

"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything to say?"
I hear the judge inquire at trial upon the break of day.
But he knows my case already, for the gavel man is me,
And jury, and, in time, my executioner I'll be.
In vain do I protest I had no power o'er my crime,
For few can rule the happenings within the dreaming time.
"The crime is yours, and no one else could ever take the blame;
I must condemn the perpetrator: you and he the same.
And yet your crime do you regret and fully understand:
I therefore choose to sentence you to death by your own hand."
I leave the court condemned, but I wear no chains because
Without them I'm a prisoner as much as e'er I was.

*****

When nature lovers drown in leaves
And every dog its master grieves
When artists from their scaffolds fall
And birthday cakes are poisoned all
When models' throats are slit by mirrors
And laughing children choke on tears
Then shall knowledge of a smile
Turn to something dim and vile
When families burn on Christmas morn
And flowers have their petals shorn
When houses all are made of smoke
And every book a fire doth stoke
When words of love live not in tongues
And judges blind themselves to wrongs
Then ends the time when, if in pain
The world could have begun again

Ironic quote of the day

"You wouldn't know subtlety if it punched you in the face."

Anniversaries

As of today I have maintained this blog for exactly one year. *tosses confetti*

As of Saturday I will have lived in this house for exactly six years. *sets timer on confetti bomb*

(insert topic title here)

I returned from college visits last night, including Reed (spent the night there), Sarah Lawrence (didn't see Bedlam or Atlas there, sadly), Lewis & Clark, and Occidental. All of them continue to look superb from the educational standpoint, so where I go will most likely come down to where I can most easily live. SL takes a hit for the food quality.

On a downward note, on Sunday I came down with the Mordor Mystery Malady that has plagued me twice before. This time may have been the worst ever; it took a long time for the shot to kick in, and at one point I started shaking uncontrollably. Fortunately I had recovered by the next morning, and Sunday was the only day we had no obligations. So it could have gone a lot worse.

It rained lightly today. Vince, seeing me in a T-shirt and exhibiting no sings of freezing, maintains his theory that I can feel no discomfort, in support of which he cites a day in Physics I have forgotten wherein I spent notable amounts of time conducting electrical current without bothing to ground myself. I do not remember this, but I do remember hogging the mini-Tesla coil. One of my classmates asked me to step away so he could have a turn at it, and as he did so, he reached for my arm. *BZZT...smolder*

Lesson learned: You don't touch anyone who has been gathering electricity for more than a minute running.

I have homework to do, poems to finish.

1-minute post

My life over the last couple days in sound bites.

College visits. Reed. Excellent. Fire dancing. Lewis & Clark. Applying to both. Seeing relatives in mere seconds. Computer about to restart. Bye.

*head scratch*

Why do I always seems to wear my tuna-papaya shirt on a Tuesday?

*forehead wipe*

Five essays turned in over two school days. YEESH.

Oh, and why do we still celebrate Colombus Day? I thought genocidals were generally frowned upon. Is there a good reason to celebrate Colombus over Leif Erikson or Sir Francis Drake?

I didn't think so.

Class dismissed.

Excerpt from Divine Comedy

Zeus: ...so it appears that the universal inclination is "to be."

Me: What about the suicidal?

Zeus: Consider the language used by the suicidal: "I'd be better off dead." In this case, death is a means, not an end.

Me: To be or not to be.

Zeus: That is the question.

Student: Damn you both.

Line blanking makes me feel like this:

Apparently it also makes me look like that. "Your neck had a vein standing out that I didn't even know was there."

Charlie said I still got an A on the memo test, but I don't--like--forgetting my lines, especially when I was running them through my head TWO MINUTES AGO! *heavy breathing*

Okay, I'm calm.

Yum.

Peaches are good. Everybody should eat peaches. Barbossa wasted who-knows-how-many years of his life on them apples when he could have been stuffing his face with peaches.

I have returned.

The Ashland field trip was very enjoyable, as Ashland is wont to be. We saw a Depression-set As You Like It the first afternoon, although I didn't get much out of the first act due to fighting of sleep. That night we saw Taming of the Shrew, which was very well done, in the outdoor theater. Over dinner Red, Tech, and I developed a preposition-scrambling language which eventually mutated into an intelligible monstrosity to all around us (and even ourselves in the last few minutes). The next day we took sometime to stroll about Ashland and swap riddles, and I ran into Song! What are the odds, I ask you!?

It was raining during Romeo and Juliet, but I was in the last row to receive full shelter. Juliet must have been freezing. I believe R&J was my favorite of the three plays (this may have changed had I better remained alert during AYLI).

The van rides each way were very long, as rides to Oregon are wont to be. I wrote a couple of poems during the field trip, one of which I'll share below, and Red and Tech agreed with me that my classical element is Earth.

I returned to school just in time for part 1 of Cuckoo's Nest memo tests. Methinks I got a A.

And here I digitally stand before you.

Speaking of Shakespeare, I plan to see Cal Shakes' version of King Lear this Friday. PLEEEASE be better than last year's The Travesty of Venice!

Oh, right: poem. This one I wrote on the ride north. It got started and then wandered where it would. Morbid and strange.

Shadows spin
Crack a grin
Sun is shining red
Opal steam
Broken beam
Masks of newly dead
Clouds are low
Charcoal glow
Ripples cross the land
Suicide
Side by side
Lying hand in hand
No more fears
No more tears
No more worldly mess
Now we laugh
Half and half
Damning as we bless
Mirror souls
Cooling coals
Land embraces sky
Blooming pain
No one slain
Only we could die