"What have you learned?"
That's a question I've started asking myself every time I finish watching a movie. Many movies have nothing to teach, and only seek to provide a momentary diversion on the road to the grave. That's all well and good, but I'm interested in more than trite diversion -- I like movies that give me something to chew on for years.
I've recently become acquainted, too late in life but still early enough, with the cinematic works of Wes Anderson. I've only seen about half of his films so far: The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Moonrise Kingdom, and now The Grand Budapest Hotel.
I can tell you what I learned from the first three.
The Royal Tenenbaums taught me that you can't escape from the influence of home, family, and childhood on your life, no matter how much you might try to convince yourself that you've left it in the past, so you might as well embrace the truth of it.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou taught me that living in reaction to others ("others" including our past selves) is the most selfish path of all those we might take in life.
Moonrise Kingdom taught me that, as long as we pursue our desires, we can never be lost.
But The Grand Budapest Hotel...oh, where to begin.
Magical realism, as a genre, has always held great appeal for me (and not just Mexican magical realism). But The Grand Budapest Hotel is minimally magical, restraining its most wondrous elements with a subtle framing device that recasts them into mere whims of imaginative fancy. In the genre of magical realism, anything can happen for almost any reason. That is not the case in The Grand Budapest Hotel, where things happen for very concrete and specific reasons, and every event follows logically from each preceding it, but somehow it still feels like anything could happen. I guess what's so exciting and surprising is that "anything" does not happen, and it's bracing, fresh, and wonderful all the same.
But then...going in, I knew I'd like this movie. I knew that it was by Wes Anderson, so it'd be funny and quirky and moving. I knew that it was filled to the brim with stars I love. I knew that the cast and critics were equally in awe of it. I knew from the trailers that I'd find its visual style entrancing. I knew it, and it turned out to be true -- what's left to say?
Well, there is something left to be said, but I have no idea how to say it. There is a grand, unmoving object hovering behind the thing of the movie in my head, a silent spectre that's barely visible, but aches to be more fully known. I want to express my feelings on the movie in the clearest possible terms, but somehow, "I love it" is insufficient!
What a pickle.
I'm listening to the soundtrack as I write this, and it's becoming clear that the score itself has an agenda that may actually be at odds with the on-screen revelations. That's not to say the music doesn't suit the movie -- it does, almost too perfectly -- but it goes beyond. There are secrets hidden in these tracks that might send you down different paths than those of the trains, funiculars, and cable cars the characters travel on.
How can I be nostalgic for something I saw yesterday?
Of course, the movie itself fosters a particular brand of nostalgia, but delights in shattering those feelings almost as soon as they arise. The fog of memory, the reality of history, the freedom of accepting things as they were or were not -- it all comes together to give us a subtle sensation that the past is not quite past.
Enough has been said about the three aspect ratios the movie uses to represent each of its time periods, each meant to evoke a particular period in our shared cinematic consciousness. And this movie is so self-consciously a thing of movies, a Frankenstein's beauty pieced together from the most lovely film moments that Eastern European cinema has ever produced, that it caromes between the associations in our brain and nestles down, quietly and softly, a creature born of nothing and memestuff, to live in our heads and hearts forever.
That's the reason this movie is so special -- I won't be the first to compare it to Nabokov's work, but I'm coming to this point from a different direction. For Nabokov, Lolita was his "love letter to the English language." The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson's love letter to the cinema, and all that cinema can do for us. It contains a little bit of every spice in the cabinet of life, and it proportions them just so, and you can't help but feel a sense of loss when it draws to a close and leaves you wishing you had time for just one more taste.
It is one of the finest things in life to see a master at work, and be left speechless. I have nothing more to say.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
graduating to gratuity
It has been over four months since my last blog post.
In that time, I attempted to write one -- a New Year's Day post. The thesis of that post would have been that 2013 was the best year of my life so far. But two months into 2014, it's already better, so that post is obsolete.
One of my primary goals with this blog has been to develop a stronger understanding of my own motivations, instincts, feelings, and ways of engaging with the world. Impatient for progress, and believing that personal growth occurs most dramatically through adversity, I deliberately put myself in quite a few stressful situations over the past year. I tested my self-control to its limits, and I learned a lot about myself.
I put everything I'd learned together, and came to the conclusion that I had "found" myself, as much as I can ever hope to. The realization was both troubling and freeing.
I reached this epiphany a few days after I wrote my New Year's Day post. I didn't post it right away because I wanted to add a quote from one of my high school yearbooks, and didn't have the book with me when I wrote the post. The quote was a message I had written to myself, in my own yearbook, exhorting me to never lose sight of the things that are important in life.
When I found the yearbook and read that quote late in December, I was moved by its earnestness and positivity. I tried to capture that feeling in the post, and expressed a sincere desire to reattain that attitude. I even wrote that the entire past year's worth of blog posts had been an effort to regain that sort of "joie de vivre." A few days later, I reconsidered, and utterly rejected that conclusion. That is why you never saw that post.
I recognize that I am a fantastically lucky person. With one major exception, I have been given every single advantage a person can have in this place and time. With a little effort, I can acquire, do, or become nearly anything I desire. Nothing is scarce; faced with limitless options, I'm unable to settle on anything. A year ago, that indecision was the root of my discontent. Today, I do not see it as a problem at all.
Up until now, I have been writing in the hopes of unlocking this mystery. Now that I've succeeded, I'm not sure what I will write about. Fascinating as the topic of myself is, I don't have anything else to learn about it. I don't mean to give the impression that I'm less narcissistic than before -- probably the opposite is true -- but I no longer need to ask those questions. I am satisfied.
You probably aren't. This has been a pretty vague post, and though I'm not sorry, I understand if you're frustrated or annoyed. I can't share with you all of the details of my journey into self-knowledge. I could share with you the meaning of life, but if you don't already know it, it would only make you unhappy.
Last year, I had a vision as I went on a walk. A grand vision, with multiple futures laid out for me on various paths, some shining, some murky, all of them long and most of them fascinating. It was a beautiful, romantic image, and it was completely ridiculous. There are no more visions. But neither are there any more walks. One thing is scarce, and that is my time. I won't walk. I will run. Try to keep up!
In that time, I attempted to write one -- a New Year's Day post. The thesis of that post would have been that 2013 was the best year of my life so far. But two months into 2014, it's already better, so that post is obsolete.
One of my primary goals with this blog has been to develop a stronger understanding of my own motivations, instincts, feelings, and ways of engaging with the world. Impatient for progress, and believing that personal growth occurs most dramatically through adversity, I deliberately put myself in quite a few stressful situations over the past year. I tested my self-control to its limits, and I learned a lot about myself.
I put everything I'd learned together, and came to the conclusion that I had "found" myself, as much as I can ever hope to. The realization was both troubling and freeing.
I reached this epiphany a few days after I wrote my New Year's Day post. I didn't post it right away because I wanted to add a quote from one of my high school yearbooks, and didn't have the book with me when I wrote the post. The quote was a message I had written to myself, in my own yearbook, exhorting me to never lose sight of the things that are important in life.
When I found the yearbook and read that quote late in December, I was moved by its earnestness and positivity. I tried to capture that feeling in the post, and expressed a sincere desire to reattain that attitude. I even wrote that the entire past year's worth of blog posts had been an effort to regain that sort of "joie de vivre." A few days later, I reconsidered, and utterly rejected that conclusion. That is why you never saw that post.
I recognize that I am a fantastically lucky person. With one major exception, I have been given every single advantage a person can have in this place and time. With a little effort, I can acquire, do, or become nearly anything I desire. Nothing is scarce; faced with limitless options, I'm unable to settle on anything. A year ago, that indecision was the root of my discontent. Today, I do not see it as a problem at all.
Up until now, I have been writing in the hopes of unlocking this mystery. Now that I've succeeded, I'm not sure what I will write about. Fascinating as the topic of myself is, I don't have anything else to learn about it. I don't mean to give the impression that I'm less narcissistic than before -- probably the opposite is true -- but I no longer need to ask those questions. I am satisfied.
You probably aren't. This has been a pretty vague post, and though I'm not sorry, I understand if you're frustrated or annoyed. I can't share with you all of the details of my journey into self-knowledge. I could share with you the meaning of life, but if you don't already know it, it would only make you unhappy.
Last year, I had a vision as I went on a walk. A grand vision, with multiple futures laid out for me on various paths, some shining, some murky, all of them long and most of them fascinating. It was a beautiful, romantic image, and it was completely ridiculous. There are no more visions. But neither are there any more walks. One thing is scarce, and that is my time. I won't walk. I will run. Try to keep up!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
fealty to the greater you
Happy Halloween, everybody.
I hate to do this to you, but as soon as I return, I go away for a time. You see, tomorrow marks the start of National Novel Writing Month 2013. You might recall that I wrote a book last year (which should be published very soon, I promise). Well, tomorrow I start on my second full-length novel, Tithonus. You can track my progress here.
I'm going to be very busy writing in November -- I've set a goal for myself to finish 50,000 words within the first two weeks of the month. That's probably an impossible objective, but I'm going to try, and that means I probably won't have too much time to blog on the side. What a change, right?
I haven't been blogging at all this month because I haven't been inspired to blog about anything. In fact, I think I've been especially introspective...so much so that I've been unwilling to share my thoughts with just about anyone. That's no way to live, so I'm making a conscious effort to be more out there with my feelings in this space.
I've also been kept really busy between work, working out, and getting through a daunting backlog of TV shows. It's all too easy, with all this on my mind, to let the blog go fallow. I hope I can keep you a little more informed, especially as I think my writing process this coming month is going to be much, much better focused than last year's.
Last year, I deliberately avoided any planning of my novel at all, outside the basic premise, before November. This meant I hit the ground running, and wasted a ton of time that could have been used writing trying to figure out what to write. This year, I've got a strong outline prepared in advance, so I know exactly what should happen at every point in my story. I have a feeling this is going to make the whole process go a lot smoother. And, really, I'm more excited about the book. The things I enjoyed the most about my first book were somewhat incidental to the story -- with the second, I'm deeply involved with the story itself. Heck, I've even caught myself thinking about the themes I want to examine in the book, which is pretty exciting.
If you look at the progress, you'll notice I've chosen to categorize this year's novel as Horror/Supernatural. I don't think that's a perfect fit for my plot at all, but I had no idea what else to do. It's set in the near future, but it's not sci-fi. It has elements of spirituality, but it's not a spiritual book. It's pretty thrilling, but it's not a thriller. And so on...no genre explains it sufficiently for me to really feel comfortable applying a label. Since the book definitely has supernatural elements, I went with that, but...it's not quite right.
Being impossible to categorize, however, is something that I have always sought to attain in my own life. I'm pretty happy to be achieving that with my writing, too. Keep a close eye on me! If I don't get 50,000 words by the end of November, then you must shame me mercilessly. Many of you will do that anyway. As for the rest of you, here's your chance.
I hate to do this to you, but as soon as I return, I go away for a time. You see, tomorrow marks the start of National Novel Writing Month 2013. You might recall that I wrote a book last year (which should be published very soon, I promise). Well, tomorrow I start on my second full-length novel, Tithonus. You can track my progress here.
I'm going to be very busy writing in November -- I've set a goal for myself to finish 50,000 words within the first two weeks of the month. That's probably an impossible objective, but I'm going to try, and that means I probably won't have too much time to blog on the side. What a change, right?
I haven't been blogging at all this month because I haven't been inspired to blog about anything. In fact, I think I've been especially introspective...so much so that I've been unwilling to share my thoughts with just about anyone. That's no way to live, so I'm making a conscious effort to be more out there with my feelings in this space.
I've also been kept really busy between work, working out, and getting through a daunting backlog of TV shows. It's all too easy, with all this on my mind, to let the blog go fallow. I hope I can keep you a little more informed, especially as I think my writing process this coming month is going to be much, much better focused than last year's.
Last year, I deliberately avoided any planning of my novel at all, outside the basic premise, before November. This meant I hit the ground running, and wasted a ton of time that could have been used writing trying to figure out what to write. This year, I've got a strong outline prepared in advance, so I know exactly what should happen at every point in my story. I have a feeling this is going to make the whole process go a lot smoother. And, really, I'm more excited about the book. The things I enjoyed the most about my first book were somewhat incidental to the story -- with the second, I'm deeply involved with the story itself. Heck, I've even caught myself thinking about the themes I want to examine in the book, which is pretty exciting.
If you look at the progress, you'll notice I've chosen to categorize this year's novel as Horror/Supernatural. I don't think that's a perfect fit for my plot at all, but I had no idea what else to do. It's set in the near future, but it's not sci-fi. It has elements of spirituality, but it's not a spiritual book. It's pretty thrilling, but it's not a thriller. And so on...no genre explains it sufficiently for me to really feel comfortable applying a label. Since the book definitely has supernatural elements, I went with that, but...it's not quite right.
Being impossible to categorize, however, is something that I have always sought to attain in my own life. I'm pretty happy to be achieving that with my writing, too. Keep a close eye on me! If I don't get 50,000 words by the end of November, then you must shame me mercilessly. Many of you will do that anyway. As for the rest of you, here's your chance.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
retrospection in a calculator
In case you didn't notice, I succeeded in my goal of writing a blog post every day in September. That's thirty posts in those thirty days, and I only had one post that went up after midnight. So I'd like to very heartily pat myself on the back, as well as thank you poor souls who stuck with it.
Mainly I did this to challenge myself to break through my own laziness, but I also thought it'd be interesting to see how it would affect my subjects and readership. Not that I'll be incorporating any of these findings into how I write from now on -- this blog is about what I want to write, right? -- but it'll at least serve as a warning to the rest of you.
If you're interested, you can download the raw statistics of post day/view count/time here.
To begin, here's a chart showing how the month went:
As the chart shows, there seems to be such a thing as oversaturation, It could be that my writing deteriorated, or people just got sick of seeing my links show up on Facebook. Or it could be a coincidence, or there could be some external factors at work. But there's a clear downward trend in views, even though we have that nice spike in the middle.
There were a total of 2,056 views in the past month; this is compared to an overall total of about 7,000 views since I began the blog. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a "view" is considered every page that a visitor looks at; in this case, each post counts as a page. So there are opportunities for the same page being viewed twice to be counted in these scores, and although Blogger does include an option to not track the author's views, I had not turned it on. I usually load each post at least once, just to be sure it looks good, so consider that.
So that's about 29% of my total views in one month, which sounds pretty good by itself; however, my blog has a total of 64 posts (not counting this one). So that's 29% of views in 47% of the posts, which is...not great. In fact, none of my September posts made it into my top-ten most viewed posts (#1 is my first post about my trip to Germany, which currently stands at 96 views). My #10 most viewed post is my third post about Germany, which has 55 views currently.
My most viewed post from September is at 49 views right now; the least viewed post only has 17, and is, in fact, my lowest-viewed post ever. I guess you guys don't like poetry as much as I thought, and like video games a whole lot.
Interestingly, there seems to be no connection between the likes I received on Facebook for a given post and the number of views I received: the top most viewed received the most likes, but no comments, and the second top most viewed received the most comments, but only one like. This isn't to say that no other posts had comments or likes; several did, but the correlation was low.
I only considered likes, rather than +1s, because Facebook is the traffic source of about half my traffic, which is as much as all other sources put together.
And here's a list of where in the world my traffic is coming from, sorted by number of views in September:
I think I'll do another blog-every-day next September, for maximum control in the experiment. It'll be awesome to compare the statistics next year! Let me know if there's any analysis I missed, or if there's more information you'd like me to gather for analysis! My blog turns six months old in ten days, and it's been a wonderful ride so far.
Mainly I did this to challenge myself to break through my own laziness, but I also thought it'd be interesting to see how it would affect my subjects and readership. Not that I'll be incorporating any of these findings into how I write from now on -- this blog is about what I want to write, right? -- but it'll at least serve as a warning to the rest of you.
If you're interested, you can download the raw statistics of post day/view count/time here.
To begin, here's a chart showing how the month went:
As the chart shows, there seems to be such a thing as oversaturation, It could be that my writing deteriorated, or people just got sick of seeing my links show up on Facebook. Or it could be a coincidence, or there could be some external factors at work. But there's a clear downward trend in views, even though we have that nice spike in the middle.
There were a total of 2,056 views in the past month; this is compared to an overall total of about 7,000 views since I began the blog. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a "view" is considered every page that a visitor looks at; in this case, each post counts as a page. So there are opportunities for the same page being viewed twice to be counted in these scores, and although Blogger does include an option to not track the author's views, I had not turned it on. I usually load each post at least once, just to be sure it looks good, so consider that.
So that's about 29% of my total views in one month, which sounds pretty good by itself; however, my blog has a total of 64 posts (not counting this one). So that's 29% of views in 47% of the posts, which is...not great. In fact, none of my September posts made it into my top-ten most viewed posts (#1 is my first post about my trip to Germany, which currently stands at 96 views). My #10 most viewed post is my third post about Germany, which has 55 views currently.
My most viewed post from September is at 49 views right now; the least viewed post only has 17, and is, in fact, my lowest-viewed post ever. I guess you guys don't like poetry as much as I thought, and like video games a whole lot.
Interestingly, there seems to be no connection between the likes I received on Facebook for a given post and the number of views I received: the top most viewed received the most likes, but no comments, and the second top most viewed received the most comments, but only one like. This isn't to say that no other posts had comments or likes; several did, but the correlation was low.
I only considered likes, rather than +1s, because Facebook is the traffic source of about half my traffic, which is as much as all other sources put together.
And here's a list of where in the world my traffic is coming from, sorted by number of views in September:
I can guess who my readers are except for France, Serbia, Russia, and Thailand. Who are you guys?
I think I'll do another blog-every-day next September, for maximum control in the experiment. It'll be awesome to compare the statistics next year! Let me know if there's any analysis I missed, or if there's more information you'd like me to gather for analysis! My blog turns six months old in ten days, and it's been a wonderful ride so far.
Monday, September 30, 2013
a path to many selfs
For pretty much the last time, I finished my book today.
This was the third draft, and I'm calling it the final draft. I anticipate I'll be announcing the official (self-)publication soon. Then I'll be ready to do it all over again.
It's been a fun ride. My writing process is pretty free-form, in that I just write whatever the heck I feel like. When I'm feeling inspired, the results can be excellent. But if I stop feeling inspired partway through...well, the results tend to be unfinished. This book represents the greatest sustained outpouring of creative effort that I've ever accomplished, and I'm extremely pleased with that, no matter the reception.
Often when I start writing a blog post, I identify a central theme or idea, but usually it's something I want to work towards in the post. I start somewhere a little smaller, and try to build it up to the really fun concept. Half the time, I never even get there; I either lost interest or get distracted by something I find even more fascinating. Theoretically, you get to reap the benefits of that.
But when I'm writing a book, I can't just do whatever I want. My decisions need to fit within the structure and context of the overall story, which is frustratingly limiting. Last year, I wasted entire days trying to force myself to focus on the book's plot, rather than whatever happened to be interesting me at the moment. And I find so many different things interesting..my attention span is pretty long, but writing a book is much, much longer.
I'm reaching a point in my life where I can see having children as something closer than "eventually." It's real, and really approaching, and I feel like I'm frantically running around trying to cram in all the fun stuff I'm sure I won't have time for once I'm fully responsible for another human being. I can tell, on some level, this is a futile effort; I'll never be able to satisfy all of my interests, and most of these things probably won't even interest me that much once I have a kid. But on another level, I know that the tremendous changes in my life that a child will effect will alter who I am, deeply. I won't be a different person, but so many of the things that matter to me now will stop mattering. In a sense, I think I'm struggling to prove that my life has meaning now. I'm building a case about purpose to be delivered to a future self, when I try to think back and justify the actions I take on a daily basis right now.
Was I just wasting my time? I will come back and read this post, and decide then whether my frantic cries for meaning meant anything. But I sincerely hope that I never come to think of this struggle as anything but desperately important; if I do, that means something I currently regard as fundamental to who I am will be gone, and who will I be then?
It's like a bread crumb trail leading back to my identity. I just have to hope that nobody eats it, and that I'll always have a taste for bread. That's all you can do.
This was the third draft, and I'm calling it the final draft. I anticipate I'll be announcing the official (self-)publication soon. Then I'll be ready to do it all over again.
It's been a fun ride. My writing process is pretty free-form, in that I just write whatever the heck I feel like. When I'm feeling inspired, the results can be excellent. But if I stop feeling inspired partway through...well, the results tend to be unfinished. This book represents the greatest sustained outpouring of creative effort that I've ever accomplished, and I'm extremely pleased with that, no matter the reception.
Often when I start writing a blog post, I identify a central theme or idea, but usually it's something I want to work towards in the post. I start somewhere a little smaller, and try to build it up to the really fun concept. Half the time, I never even get there; I either lost interest or get distracted by something I find even more fascinating. Theoretically, you get to reap the benefits of that.
But when I'm writing a book, I can't just do whatever I want. My decisions need to fit within the structure and context of the overall story, which is frustratingly limiting. Last year, I wasted entire days trying to force myself to focus on the book's plot, rather than whatever happened to be interesting me at the moment. And I find so many different things interesting..my attention span is pretty long, but writing a book is much, much longer.
I'm reaching a point in my life where I can see having children as something closer than "eventually." It's real, and really approaching, and I feel like I'm frantically running around trying to cram in all the fun stuff I'm sure I won't have time for once I'm fully responsible for another human being. I can tell, on some level, this is a futile effort; I'll never be able to satisfy all of my interests, and most of these things probably won't even interest me that much once I have a kid. But on another level, I know that the tremendous changes in my life that a child will effect will alter who I am, deeply. I won't be a different person, but so many of the things that matter to me now will stop mattering. In a sense, I think I'm struggling to prove that my life has meaning now. I'm building a case about purpose to be delivered to a future self, when I try to think back and justify the actions I take on a daily basis right now.
Was I just wasting my time? I will come back and read this post, and decide then whether my frantic cries for meaning meant anything. But I sincerely hope that I never come to think of this struggle as anything but desperately important; if I do, that means something I currently regard as fundamental to who I am will be gone, and who will I be then?
It's like a bread crumb trail leading back to my identity. I just have to hope that nobody eats it, and that I'll always have a taste for bread. That's all you can do.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
definitely not foreshadowing
"The blood that soaks the ground, and leaves me weary on the floor."
I don't have any idea what that sentence fragment means. It was a piece of a poem that I thought of long, long ago; the most I remember is that the poem was about a friend of mine, but I really don't have a clue what that line has to do with anything. It was just a spare piece of inspiration that hit me and stuck, but I could never figure out how to work it into the poem, and the rest of that potential poem is lost to time. This piece, though, remains.
How stubbornly it persists, refusing all attempts to use it, release it, or forget it. How inconveniently it springs to mind at the most random times, interrupting my thought patterns and sending me scattering to understand it. How frustrated I become, with this useless piece of nonsense verse careening through my mind like an alpha particle.
I've tried to insert it into any old poem, but it just doesn't go. I've even tried to write entire poems around this specific line, in the hopes of removing it from my consciousness, yet it remains. I suspect the problem is that the "me" who first thought this line up was a very different "me" from the one I've become, and our appreciation for and understanding of what makes a good poem have diverged wildly. I suppose I could write a bad poem, but...that's not really what I do.
This is hardly the only meaningless phrase that springs from my brain, uninvited, on a regular basis. I seem to slowly be developing my own nonsense language, meaningless phonemes jammed together by my capricious mind into a semblance of communication. Some of it sounds like Japanese, which isn't too bizarre, but it is not Japanese; the rest is some weird mixture of what I think Russian sounds like and what I think Italian sounds like, and none of it is very pleasing to the ear at all. And yet, the wife has taken to responding to my exclamations in this patchwork tongue with something bordering on comprehension. It's advanced beyond the level of simply reacting to my tone; she seems to be able to glean some actual meaning out of these ululations of madness.
Sometimes, when we play games that require a level of psychological understanding of another (for example, Apples to Apples), it can border on the eerie how good we are at knowing the other's mind. "Married person telepathy" is how it's come to be known by some of our friends, and I think that's an example of what's happening here. Spend enough time with somebody, and you begin to be able to second-guess everything in his or her head.
All of which is to say that my brain's contents are too hush-hush to be unveiled to just any random person who happens to be married to me. Something will have to be done about this, and soon. I'll keep you apprised.
I don't have any idea what that sentence fragment means. It was a piece of a poem that I thought of long, long ago; the most I remember is that the poem was about a friend of mine, but I really don't have a clue what that line has to do with anything. It was just a spare piece of inspiration that hit me and stuck, but I could never figure out how to work it into the poem, and the rest of that potential poem is lost to time. This piece, though, remains.
How stubbornly it persists, refusing all attempts to use it, release it, or forget it. How inconveniently it springs to mind at the most random times, interrupting my thought patterns and sending me scattering to understand it. How frustrated I become, with this useless piece of nonsense verse careening through my mind like an alpha particle.
I've tried to insert it into any old poem, but it just doesn't go. I've even tried to write entire poems around this specific line, in the hopes of removing it from my consciousness, yet it remains. I suspect the problem is that the "me" who first thought this line up was a very different "me" from the one I've become, and our appreciation for and understanding of what makes a good poem have diverged wildly. I suppose I could write a bad poem, but...that's not really what I do.
This is hardly the only meaningless phrase that springs from my brain, uninvited, on a regular basis. I seem to slowly be developing my own nonsense language, meaningless phonemes jammed together by my capricious mind into a semblance of communication. Some of it sounds like Japanese, which isn't too bizarre, but it is not Japanese; the rest is some weird mixture of what I think Russian sounds like and what I think Italian sounds like, and none of it is very pleasing to the ear at all. And yet, the wife has taken to responding to my exclamations in this patchwork tongue with something bordering on comprehension. It's advanced beyond the level of simply reacting to my tone; she seems to be able to glean some actual meaning out of these ululations of madness.
Sometimes, when we play games that require a level of psychological understanding of another (for example, Apples to Apples), it can border on the eerie how good we are at knowing the other's mind. "Married person telepathy" is how it's come to be known by some of our friends, and I think that's an example of what's happening here. Spend enough time with somebody, and you begin to be able to second-guess everything in his or her head.
All of which is to say that my brain's contents are too hush-hush to be unveiled to just any random person who happens to be married to me. Something will have to be done about this, and soon. I'll keep you apprised.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
pre-hangover cure
Today, I went to a party held by one of my coworkers. It was an Oktoberfest-themed party, and it took the notion semi-seriously; there was a lot of sausage to eat. Not being much of a beer drinker myself, I was nonetheless happy enough to concoct a poor man's whiskey sour out of whiskey and Fresca, so I enjoyed myself immensely.
It wasn't a young-people's-party as much as it was a general-access party; the host invited many members of his family and their kids as well as coworkers and friends, so there were plenty of little scamps running underfoot. I was walking around the backyard while two girls, ages 10 and 11, were tossing a tennis ball back and forth to each other. They spotted me and started trying to toss their tennis ball into my drink, because that is what kids do. I played along, holding the cup up high and daring them to sink the ball from across the yard. I was fully confident that they wouldn't be able to come close, and gaily took a sip with every embarrassing miss.
They soon got tired of utterly failing; one of them distracted me with questions about robots while the other reached up and dropped the tennis ball directly into the cup. I pulled the ball out and took another sip, and that is when things went nuts.
You see, this particular tennis ball had recently been in the mouth of a dog that had vomited up some half-eaten sausage about fifteen minutes earlier; in the minds of these girls, that meant the tennis ball was essentially made out of dog vomit (although it looked perfectly clean, and they were happily tossing it around). They were absolutely appalled that I would drink from my alcoholic beverage after it had made contact with such a ball, even after I explained that alcohol is an excellent antibacterial agent (it helped that I played it up, saying stuff like "this tastes weird now"). Not just appalled, though -- they were impressed.
The girls immediately began running around trying to think of other gross things for me to do. Then one made the fatal error of offering to pay me $20 if I would lick the tennis ball on camera. She had just received that money from her uncle, the host, for her birthday, and I felt kind of bad taking it for such a silly stunt. However, her dad was there, and he told her that it was her money and she could do what she wanted with it. That stated, we set to negotiating terms.
She was trying to make it as gross as possible, and kept asking if she could smear the tennis ball in the vomit or some other unsavory things she'd discovered. Ultimately I decided that it was getting a little too foul even for my tastes, and it looked like she'd be able to keep her money. She and her friend decided that they would simply call me a chicken for the rest of my life, but I was unfazed. Then they said they would tell everybody at school what a chicken I was, and I was sorely tempted to avoid such a disastrous blow to my reputation. In the end, reason won out. Almost.
After we shelved the tennis ball idea, one of the girls had an even better thought: they would mix up a drink for me with whatever strange ingredients they could find in the kitchen, and if I could drink the whole thing, they'd give me $10. I agreed, on the condition that I'd be able approve whatever they put into the drink before it went in. I was feeling very sportsmanlike, so I promised only to veto things that would kill me.
A lot of people begged me not to do it. They said I was crazy. The dad asked if I was sure they weren't bothering me. But no, I was having a great time! Here's the final list of ingredients that went into my cocktail:
It wasn't a young-people's-party as much as it was a general-access party; the host invited many members of his family and their kids as well as coworkers and friends, so there were plenty of little scamps running underfoot. I was walking around the backyard while two girls, ages 10 and 11, were tossing a tennis ball back and forth to each other. They spotted me and started trying to toss their tennis ball into my drink, because that is what kids do. I played along, holding the cup up high and daring them to sink the ball from across the yard. I was fully confident that they wouldn't be able to come close, and gaily took a sip with every embarrassing miss.
They soon got tired of utterly failing; one of them distracted me with questions about robots while the other reached up and dropped the tennis ball directly into the cup. I pulled the ball out and took another sip, and that is when things went nuts.
You see, this particular tennis ball had recently been in the mouth of a dog that had vomited up some half-eaten sausage about fifteen minutes earlier; in the minds of these girls, that meant the tennis ball was essentially made out of dog vomit (although it looked perfectly clean, and they were happily tossing it around). They were absolutely appalled that I would drink from my alcoholic beverage after it had made contact with such a ball, even after I explained that alcohol is an excellent antibacterial agent (it helped that I played it up, saying stuff like "this tastes weird now"). Not just appalled, though -- they were impressed.
The girls immediately began running around trying to think of other gross things for me to do. Then one made the fatal error of offering to pay me $20 if I would lick the tennis ball on camera. She had just received that money from her uncle, the host, for her birthday, and I felt kind of bad taking it for such a silly stunt. However, her dad was there, and he told her that it was her money and she could do what she wanted with it. That stated, we set to negotiating terms.
She was trying to make it as gross as possible, and kept asking if she could smear the tennis ball in the vomit or some other unsavory things she'd discovered. Ultimately I decided that it was getting a little too foul even for my tastes, and it looked like she'd be able to keep her money. She and her friend decided that they would simply call me a chicken for the rest of my life, but I was unfazed. Then they said they would tell everybody at school what a chicken I was, and I was sorely tempted to avoid such a disastrous blow to my reputation. In the end, reason won out. Almost.
After we shelved the tennis ball idea, one of the girls had an even better thought: they would mix up a drink for me with whatever strange ingredients they could find in the kitchen, and if I could drink the whole thing, they'd give me $10. I agreed, on the condition that I'd be able approve whatever they put into the drink before it went in. I was feeling very sportsmanlike, so I promised only to veto things that would kill me.
A lot of people begged me not to do it. They said I was crazy. The dad asked if I was sure they weren't bothering me. But no, I was having a great time! Here's the final list of ingredients that went into my cocktail:
- Seltzer water
- V8 Splash
- Fresca
- Diet Coke
- Sprite Zero
- Vinegar
- Hot Sauce
- Chili Sauce
- Mustard
- Italian dressing
- Ranch dressing
- Almond milk
I wandered around the party with the drink in my hand, telling everybody what was in it and why I was doing it. Most of the guests were disgusted, and were certain I'd just throw it up all over the place. They even made me stand in the backyard to drink it.
I looked down into the cup; it looked like soupy, reddish ginger ale. I made sure the cameras were rolling. I asked for a countdown. And I drained the thing in a single gulp.
It tasted like oil, hot sauce, vinegar, and sugar water. It was completely delicious. Vinegar and hot sauce are two of my favorite flavors! I was basically in heaven. I immediately chased it down with a delicious piece of strawberry cake, and my $10 was in the bag.
Everyone kept asking me if I felt OK after that. People, I have never felt better. This is the magic elixir we've been looking for. These girls are going to save the world some day, and I'm glad to have been their first experiment along the way.
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