karatetentacles

Today was sufficiently less book-filled than days prior.

I made a video in which I vlog like Romeo, of "and Juliet" fame.

I used that joke on three separate occasions today. I just think I'm so clever. Speaking of reveling-in-my-own-cleverness, I started editing my NaNo novel from last November, and god damn it's like... GOOD. (As in, I have some pretty good theme/symbolism going on!) I feel like with a LOT of polishing, including a LOT of outside help, it could actually be a somewhat decent novel! Not publishable... not until a few years being cut up into tiny pieces and reassembled into something awesome, at least.

There's a quote from Vonnegut's Timequake I feel would work well right about now, but I can't find it... ugh. This is disappointing. IT WAS SO WELL WORDED AND WOULD WORK SO NICELY AND IT'S NOT ON THE INTERNET. Uggggggh.

Oh. Found it.

How the hell did I do that?

Oh Vonnegut. You make me so happy.

I should not be awake right now. I'm going out with Darci all day tomorrow. But I have to finish this journalism thing and just... sort of don't want to. :P So here I am, blogging. And the thing is, I'm actually tired. Sigh. And I keep effing playing Dynomite. Uggggggh.

In other news. I get my braces off on Monday. SO MUCH ECSTASY! (:

Sigh.

I love books.
I love the feel of them,
I love turning back the pages, watching my progress as I go and go and go...

I love immersing myself in them, completely and honestly, becoming the character's guarding them, seeing how they act, wondering what they'll screw up next...

I love finding the nuggets of genius, laughing at something no one else around me "gets," love the similes and the metaphors and looking for themes.

I hate talking about specific books.
I think that's a thing for classes.
I think that's something for trained professionals.

I mean, I can understand them well enough, and I feel confident with my own evaluations of the books, but people often... ask me about books.

I mean... what is there to say?
"I just finished my book."
"Was it good?"
"Yeah, I liked it well enough..."
"What's it about?"

... I don't like that question. I hardly like the "Was it good?" question. I mean... the "good"ness of a book is... irrelevant. How well I liked it is irrelevant. The book itself is a triumph of human energy and potential and amazingness - to have something published, to see your name on the spine... I don't want anything to be boiled down to "Was it good? Did you like it?" Because that's not what reading is about!

Not to me, anyway.

Books are not tools of enjoyment. They are tools to broaden one's mind, to expose you to thinks you would otherwise be unexposed to. They are the epitome of the human experience -- of human joy and human suffering and human growth and revival and romance and bromance and of life. Books are living things on their own.

Now, yes, some books are better than others. There's the mindfluff, the chick lit; there's Twilight, but even it has merit, even it has a theme. A theme I don't agree with, but it's there.

I just want to go to school, talk about books with intellects (not just like-minded people, of course), discuss the subtleties. I just want to read the raw copy of a book, improve it, make it great, make it something libraries and bookstores can't keep on the shelves, teachers rave over; something that gets taught, or at least discussed, something that people can understand and something that will expand minds and change hearts.

Alright. There's my blog. I'm gonna go read now.

booklist:
1. everything is illuminated
2. the average american male
3. inferno
4. life of pi
5. othello
6. all quiet
7. slaughterhouse-5
8. a separate peace
9. wizards (collection of short stories)
10. cat's cradle
11. with the old breed
12. one flew over the cuckoo's nest
13. 13 little blue envelopes
14. extremely loud and incredibly close
15. youtube: an insider's guide to climbing the charts
16. timequake
17. how we are hungry
[18. liberation]
[19. mcsweeney's book of lists]

Almost done with Liberation and the Book of Lists.

I had a dream about a book. Elmo was on the cover, in a Spiderman-like pose... it was weird, and it was called... "The Wellness of..." something. I don't remember. Such is what happens when one takes two hour naps. It actually sounded like a good book... in my mind... since I came up with it...

hehe.

/// edit:

booklist:
1. everything is illuminated
2. the average american male
3. inferno
4. life of pi
5. othello
6. all quiet
7. slaughterhouse-5
8. a separate peace
9. wizards (collection of short stories)
10. cat's cradle
11. with the old breed
12. one flew over the cuckoo's nest
13. 13 little blue envelopes
14. extremely loud and incredibly close
15. youtube: an insider's guide to climbing the charts
16. timequake
17. how we are hungry
18. liberation
19. mcsweeney's book of lists
20. the bermudez triangle

I really wish my phone got service in my basement. I like to feel secluded, but sometimes someone *coughcough* will text me, and I enjoy that.

Also it would make receiving phone calls easier.

Earlier today:

-phone rings, unidentified number-
Me: Hello?
Them: -static-
Me: I can't hear you, one sec.
Them: -static-
Me: -goes upstairs- Hello?
Them: -static-
Me: Fffffff what is wrong with this house?! I get service NOWHERE!
Them: -static-

I called back five minutes later. Wrong number. Fffffffff.

Anyway. It's almost midnight. I'm gonna watch Ratatouille. I think I'll go up to my room and watch it on Darth, and hopefully have cell phone service. Also I have to go to Target tomorrow to get some shorts and a lock. My mom keeps bugging my ass about my lack of social life. I'm sorry, mom, I don't like hanging out with people. People bother me. I like hanging out in small groups, maybe one or two other people with me, not huge groups like everyone else, so it makes things awkward when I pull a certain person out of said group to enjoy a nice afternoon of just hanging out.

It's not my fault I'm socially retarded and seclude myself from every event. I like it better that way. Also I dislike being wet, so swimming is a no.

So I'm reading How We Are Hungry* by Dave Eggers. It's a gorgeous book, prose-wise, and it's so... depressing, almost. I don't want to spoil anything, but there's this one story (it's a collection of short(ish) stories) about this woman who goes on vacation. The really, really sad thing is that she goes on vacation to "get away," yet is able to perfectly predict everything that is going to happen. It's so sad.

And you know what I fucking hate? When people say I read into books/movies too much. Trust me, it's there to "read into." Authors are deep, they don't just throw shit on the page and sell it. Ffffff people are stupid and need to realize that just because you're not reading in/for a class doesn't mean the book is just an assortment of words on a page, and that there are still tones and themes and diction and metaphors and symbols to look at.

Anyway. I really love this book, despite it's sadness. I'm gonna try and finish it soon, less than 100 pages to go! (I think it's somewhere around 70 pages.)

Soooo off to Ratatouille. Sorry for this incredibly random/somewhat long blog post.

*Speaking of hungry... I'm gonna make some cheesecake soon. ... and I'm about to watch a movie about a rat chef. WTF METAPHORICAL HUNGER. LEAVE ME ALONE!

booklist:
1. everything is illuminated
2. the average american male
3. inferno
4. life of pi
5. othello
6. all quiet
7. slaughterhouse-5
8. a separate peace
9. wizards (collection of short stories)
10. cat's cradle
11. with the old breed
12. one flew over the cuckoo's nest
13. 13 little blue envelopes
14. extremely loud and incredibly close
[15. youtube: an insider's guide to climbing the charts]

books I now own:
A Separate Peace
Timequake
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Youtube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts
Spaceman Blues: a love song

soon to own:
How We Are Hungry
You Shall Know Our Velocity
Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007

up next on the booklist:
Timequake
[soon to own list]
running with scissors
the vampire armand

Figure I might as well blog.

I realize I haven't written about my NEW JOB, and that it's only come up in passing. I'm currently employed at Cinemark, a movie theater. Just left an extremely angsty comment on [someone]'s blog about an experience from my first day. The hour I am currently killing ( *stab stab stab!* ) is in preparation for working later today. I got a call earlier today asking me to work at 2, and I was like "Uhh yeah right."

False, I was more like "Oh gosh, I'm sorry, but I can't! Sorry!" Because I apologize a lot to seem more polite? I don't know, I'm like a different person at work. And a different person on the internet. And a different person in my house, or at school, or while reading... Holden would call me a phony. I'm not a phony, I just... don't know who I am.

Hey, angst, leave me alone for once.

You're reading Catcher in the Rye; I really can't help myself.

Well, I finished Catcher, so leave me the hell alone already.

Doesn't mean you're going to stop thinking about it!

Dammit, angst is right. I'm not going to stop thinking about it. Or Cuckoo, or A Separate Peace. Stupid literature, influencing my decisions and stuff. I'm thinking about running away... you know, packing my laptop and some clean underwear and just going to New York. I really want to.

But I'm not going to.

Look for me in the insane asylum, because I'm either gonna pull a Finny or end up like Holden. I don't think I'm strong enough to be Chief.

(Separate Peace, Catcher, and Cuckoo. Suggested reading.)

Hey what's up yo?

Oh nothin' much. Except a lot.

Wanna talk about it?

Nah, not really.

You sure?

Well fine. It's pretty simple, though.

Oh?

Yeah.

Go for it.

Job, boys, phone, bank, money, friends, school, Catcher in the Rye, endings, beginnings, television, books, blogs, internet, FreeLancer, StuCo, lack of sleep, food, nanowrimo...

Sound pretty familiar.

It helps that you're me. Also that I've talked about it all before.

Yeah.

---

Kaitlin asked what I thought about Average American Male.

It made me dislike guys a lot. I question it's truthfulness. It was disgusting and similar to what everyone has told me about guys. Then I see things like vloglovers and talk to people who are totally different... and I desperately, desperately hope I don't become one of the girls in that book. The main character resembles the Average American Sitcom-Style Male; you know, the typical sex-driven, must-make-sexually-degrading-comments-about-every-girl-in-the-bar type of guys.

So yeah. That's what I thought about Average American Male.

You know how I said I was tired of always blogging about P-Nelli?

Whatever, more anecdotes.

Finished Cuckoo's Nest, it was AMAZING. Loved it. So much. Awesome. I wanna see the movie. :)

Started Catcher in the Rye. zomg I love this book. My copy is signed by John Green, Printz-and-Edgar Allan Poe-Award-Winning-and-New-York-Time's-bestselling author. :D

P-Nelli also loves this book. He sympathizes (or more appropriately empathizes) so much with Holden; it's cute. He said, "There are few things in life I know, and this book is one of them." I'm so excited for this book.

He talked about JD Salinger and how he became a recluse after his book got really popular. He lives on the outskirts in a hut in a small town/village thing in Pennsylvania or something, and the people in the "city" part protect him from "rabid fans." There are zero movies made and it's illegal to make an audio recording of the novel. He said he didn't want to spoil anyone's view of Holden in the book. Also he's done zero interviews with any newspapers like the New York Times and stuff like that. He used to, however, do interviews with school newspapers. He loves kids, not in a creepy way, but in a damn-they-aren't-fucked-up-like-adults-are way, so he'd do little interviews like that and that was about it. But once, these two kids from a local high school came to do an interview, then went and sold it to the New York Times. What a HORRIBLE thing to do to a guy; completely shatter all his faith in humanity. I mean, it's not like he has social issues enough. Obviously, now he doesn't do any interviews of any kind. It's really sad.

Also, P-Nelli told us a story that is probably only funny for me and I really don't feel like retelling it. But guys reading this blog: READ CATCHER IN THE RYE. Copies are not hard to find at all. John Green loves it. Just saying, read the book. Please?

(Seriously, if my "love" for my English teacher is beginning to freak anyone out... I'm sorry.

Also, READ CATCHER IN THE RYE.

Also, since I already read it, this won't be on my 50-books-in-a-year-booklist. However, soon 13 Little Blue Envelopes will be done, and I'll be caught up with Sierra again! BWAHAHAHA. <3)

Hey kiddos. This has been a helluva ride, no? BEDA = awesome. Thanks, Maureen!

I have my first ever real-big-kid-stuff job interview tonight.

I feel pretty sick, so I'm gonna take a shower and have a little siesta to be prepared for my job-zilla interview.

Something of interest: Today in English (we're reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for those who aren't in the know), P-Nelli was talking about David Thoreau. The guy is a transcendentalist, which basically means he, and other transcendentalists, wanted to be "different." His most famous work is Walden, published in 1854.

History of Walden:
Thoreau decided one day that he was sick of material goods and the material world. So he went out into the woods, built himself a cabin, and lived there for a year, making a journal about how life was different then than it was in the "real world."

I haven't read it, but there's an allusion to it Cuckoo, so we just discussed it for a while. About how people are "individuals," and how we work in this "system" of life, which Kesey (author of Cuckoo) calls the Combine. P-Nelli asked us why we sat in school all day, if we were such "individuals," and why we fell into our roles in the Combine. We talked about how people, including ourselves, were afraid of academic/disciplinary consequences, how we were scared of what our parents would say if we just walked out of class one day and stopped going to school. And then a funny thing happened.

Pulsinelli walks over to the door, opens it, and says "If you walk out right now, I will not write you up. I swear."

No one moved. There was just a silence over the room. I didn't get up, oh gosh no. But why? Would you, reader, have gotten up?

God, everyone should read this book. It's incredible. Will probably finish it tonight or tomorrow night. Let me know if you read it in class. Please?

BEDA 30: PWNED.
BEDA: PWNED.

okay I love you bye bye!

I was on the Nerdfighter Ning this morning, and one of the discussion topics was "Life Changing books." So I started writing mine.

This whole year in my English class has been a life-changing experience when it comes to literature, but I'll list some that have really affected me throughout my life.

1. Harry Potter, JK Rowling. It wasn't my "spark" to reading, really, but the series and the aura around them is so amazing and it got me into the internet/nerdfighters/wrock/my friends.

2. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger. We're gonna read this book in English class later, so I'll be much more aware of the deeper themes/etc, but I absolutely adored this book. I felt so bad for Holden, and it sort of changed the way I portrayed myself, and how I handle personal relationships.

3. Inferno, Dante. This book taught me that absolutely nothing an author does is unintentional. Everything has a meaning, a deeper theme, a crackpot reason for existing. Plus, it helped me reevaluate the meaning of "morals" and Hell and Christianity. Love it.

4. A Separate Peace, John Knowles. Love it. Love it. Love it. It's so... I can't even explain it. If you've read it (and properly understand the symbolism), then you'll understand why it makes me cry, even before the second accident. /vague, but I don't want to spoil it. It also changed the way I thought about literature, as less of a collection of interesting idiosyncrasies of characters and plot and storytelling, but about what all of it means.

Aside from that, specifically about the book, personally about my life, it's made me reevaluate my own childhood, my own fleeting innocence, my Finnys and my Lepers and my Brinkers and me. My Bookworms will vouch that I was completely convinced I was Gene for about ten seconds in a skype call. It's like Gene is a ghost on my back, something I need to be aware of all the time. I need to look for my adulthood, because if I don't... well... it'll kill me.

5. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain. At first, I hated this book. It was a summer-reading assignment, so of course I was spiteful, and didn't do a good job reading it. But then, I got to class and we talked about it. It reevaluated, like A Separate peace how I thought about literature. Of course, it did introduce me to the idea that characters run a story rather than themes, but obviously that's worked out now. Thanks, John Knowles! I think I'm going to read this one again fairly soon.

6. Twilight, Stephanie Meyer. Yeah, I hate it. We all know this. (And if you don't... well. Now you know.) But through it's horribleness, it helped me determine why I read. What I expect to get out of books. And Twilight didn't deliver that for me.

I think that about sums it up... funny how in 12 years of reading, only 7 have a lasting memory on me, and more than half have been read within the last few years. I guess I'm close to really "finding" myself, to making my judgments about literature as a whole. Close, but not quite.

And now, the booklist.

1. everything is illuminated
2. the average american male
3. inferno
4. life of pi
5. othello
6. all quiet
7. slaughterhouse-5
8. a separate peace
9. wizards (collection of short stories)
[10. cat's cradle]
[11. with the old breed]

Also, some exciting news:
@aplusk, aka Ashton Kutcher, is now following @realjohngreen, aka The One And Only John Green, on twitter. Awesome. *nerdfighters!*

I'm tired. I don't want to go to school. I didn't read my homework.

Dante's Inferno. Yeah. I had to read three cantos [chapters]... four cantos... and I only read one. Cccrraaaaappppp. P-nelli's gonna hate me!! OH NO! I *must* remedy this ASAP! P-nelli must not hate me! He must adore me, praise me, love me more than any of his other students! I must be his favorite! He must not glare at me!!

I'm so scared.

Oh, P-nelli... forgive me...

*reads like the devil*