All the fun’s in how you say a thing.

Today at work someone called and asked, “How do you spell camaraderie?” So I told them, and they said “Thanks!” and hung up. What does it all mean??

The word “equip” looks so very odd. Why have I never noticed that before? Who lets these words into the language? That’s what I want to know.

I’ve started a new livejournal for art and fandom and things that I am in general too embarrassed to be seen posting here. I will now undo whatever good may have come of that secrecy by posting the link to it here, because I just posted an epic picspam on the blood aesthetic which I spent far too much time on to leave in the relative obscurity of the other journal.

I was thinking the other day, I’m kind of glad that I have so many tangible reminders of my time at college – otherwise the whole thing would seem so much like a glorious dream that I would doubt its reality. As it is, I have plenty of reminders just on myself. My left foot is scarred in two places from tripping while running barefoot through the graveyard during the last week of school. I have a strange bump on my left shin from, I think, climbing a tree. I have an ever-so-slight permanent bruise on my left hand from where I banged it sliding down the railing at the convocation center last December. My right ankle still clicks oddly from when I slipped off the cliff at Raven Rock and landed on it awkwardly. I almost hope they don’t heal (and it looks as if most of them are permanent), or I’ll think none of it ever happened…

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, or One of the Most Delightful Things I’ve Ever Read. Updated every Monday!
The art of Curlin Reed Sullivan.
The illustrations of Kate Slater, who has a great name, suitable for a stagecoach robber in the Old West.

I realized I’ve been really, really terrible about doing massive journal entries and not putting them behind an lj cut, for which I apologize profusely. To rectify!

I have grown up under other stars.

It occurred to me the other day that there is no smell in the world that is comparable to that of filing fingernails. There is no previous referent! It’s such an odd, odd smell. (Why yes, I do think about these things.)

Incredible paper castle.
I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, the fan in me gets all excited, but then the rest of me says that this can’t be anything except truly horrid.
Somehow I managed to live 22 years of my life without hearing about the Scottish Wildcat, apparently known for being untameable, even when reared in captivity. AWESOME.
Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell. You should be scared.
I refound this link when introducing a friend to Kafka. It’s part of the introduction of a movie called The Trial, narrated by the inimitable Orson Welles, and it’s from a short story of by Franz Kafka called “Before the Law.”

Bookwise, finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (heavenly!) and read Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards, which was a sodden, sentimental, dreary, shallow thing which somehow became a bestseller. Then again, I suppose those adjectives could be applied to many bestsellers. Ugh. My coworkers are very sweet and often lend me books. Sometimes, they’re fantastic. Other times…less so. Yet I always feel compelled to read them all the way through! Why, why?? After that I started Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini. You may recall the Errol Flynn movie by the same name. Turns out the movie, which I adored when I first saw it, is based on this book! It’s rollicking good seagoing fun, and I’m enjoying it immensely. Horatio Hornblower still wins at sea stories, but then C.S. Forester is the very last word on maritime adventures, so it’s only fair he should reign unchallenged in the genre.

I learned something interesting the other day. The O in Irish names (O’Malley, O’Brien, etc.) is an Anglicization of “ua”, meaning grandson in Irish Gaelic. I find that fascinating.

The face of all the world is changed.

There’s a woman at work who calls me Shug (Sug?). I think that’s short for sugar, but I’m too afraid to ask, just in case it’s not, in which case I’d rather not know…

Everyone, stop whatever it is that you are doing. Go out and beg, borrow, or steal a book entitled The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. I thought the title sounded somewhat like what a middle-aged housewife would read (no offense to middle-aged housewives!), all cliche and sap, BUT this is very very untrue. It is the most glorious book I have read this year, and I’m not sure when I’ve ever fallen in love with a book so quickly. READ IT NOW.

I read Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss today, and it was also delightful! I highly recommend it to any English majors, lovers of the English language, and grammarians who may be reading this blog. (And if you are, why on earth haven’t you introduced yourself yet?) The book is all about the love of properly used punctuation. As an illustration, look at how much punctuation matters in the following two letters:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?
Jill

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill

Identical words in identical order, but what a difference punctuation makes! This book has revitalized my love of those lovely dots and dashes, I must say. I’m not terribly careful of my grammar on here, I’ve realized. Probably because I type my entries in a hurry and don’t bother proofreading. More shame to me!

I confess, The Portrait of a Lady was not enthralling. I enjoyed it more towards the end, but I just could not get inside James’ world. I loved The Turn of the Screw when I read it, so I don’t really understand myself. Maybe I’ll try some more of his works someday and see if Lady was just a fluke. After that, I read Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which had some very nice lines but was overall rather too sappy. I can only handle that sort of thing in very small doses.

I just finished Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse yesterday, a book that had originally been on our reading list for Love and Death last semester. I’m sorry now that we didn’t read it for class after all because I would have loved to have discussed it as a group! I’m still sorting out what I think of it (I sort of wolfed it down, if you’ll pardon the pun, and my thoughts aren’t quite coherent yet), but I thought it was fascinating. Among other ideas, it occurred to me that this reminded me a lot of the fairy tales class. Just as in Little Red Riding Hood the wolf is the Other, the outcast who has no place in society, Steppenwolf is unable to live in the society to which he was born; in Little Red, this makes the wolf a danger to be warned against. Steppenwolf is a danger to society because he is a non-participant, even an aggressor, against that which society is based, yet he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the very thing that he hates. He will always be unhappy because of this. I also found one of the questions that he and Hermine discussed terrifying in an intriguing way: is it only now that man feels this way, caught between two ways of life and two eras? Or has man always felt this way, regardless of the time period in which he lived? That question in particular would have been great fun to wrestle with in class. Gagh, I miss school already.

It is still my never-ending delight to have this magnificent inner world of books and questions and ideas and deep thoughts in my head at the same time that I’m answering phones. Every time I pick up the phone and help someone with a mundane, usually-inane request, I smile a tiny smile because no one suspects the wonders in my head. I love secrets (the good ones like this, that is). I love the not-telling of them. Except now I’ve told you, of course, but that doesn’t really count, since my thoughts are still my own. You only know that I think them. Shh…

She is too fond of books, and it has turned her head.

I really hate it when you burn the roof of your mouth and there are those weird little shreds of mouth-skin hanging down later and it just feels awful. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about!

Something I was reading the other day reminded me of this. I was fascinated by the rainbow slicks that showed up in parking lots sometimes. I thought it was some sort of very reasonable magic, and I was so confused and crushed when I learned that it was just spilled oil on the pavement. Not only was it not magic, it was also pollution, and not at all the beautiful thing I thought it was. OR WAS IT? There’s a frighteningly deep metaphor for something in there somewhere, I just don’t know what it is…

Oh, hey, so I have a career type thing now! I flew down to Florida for the job interview, and the guy said that so long as my references didn’t tell him I was an axe-murderer or something, the job was mine! So here’s hoping nobody mentions those bodies down in Mexico. *crosses fingers*

I jest, obviously. But really, this is pretty great, I think I’m really going to enjoy it. And it only took me 181 resumes/applications. *sigh* I’ll be moving down to Florida in about 5 weeks, it looks like. I’m not crazy about the area, but I am excited about moving out on my own to a new place. I’m glad I don’t know anyone there yet; I find it exhilarating when there’s no one else to rely on but myself.

Many hilarious things happened on my trip!