Self Constructed by Words

I've been thinking a lot lately about song lyrics. I'm writing this paper for one of my classes. Don't ask. I don't even know what it's really about yet. For this paper, though, I've been rolling around in my head all these thoughts about music and song lyrics and the way that technology allows us to be constantly enveloped in this particular literature.

I realized pretty early on that my fascination with this topic has a lot more to do with the words involved than it does with the music in which the words are couched. It should be fairly obvious why I'm more concerned with words than music. So here I am with all these thoughts bumping around up there in my brain, and something suddenly occurred to me: words affect me profoundly.

There was a moment the other day when I was walking home from school, feeling down in the dumps, fearful as I often am that I was teetering on the brink of failure. Then, suddenly, the lyrics of a favorite song popped into my head. I can't remember now which song or which lyrics, but the moment those words appeared in my mind, I began to carefully apply them like a verbal salve on my wounded self. Within a matter of moments, these words had helped me reconstruct myself as a person who could succeed, who could get done what she needed to do. I realized almost immediately what I had done, and that was the instant in which I realized this truth about myself: words affect me profoundly.

It began to dawn on me how much of what I perceived to be myself was built out of certain words, certain phrases. These were things I had read, things I had been told by others, things I had told myself or had written. This is amazing to me. Am I really so literarily inclined that I am truly a self constructed of words? Or do lots of people feel this way, people who don't have the same investment in language that I do?

Theme Song

People should always have theme songs. I heard my friend M tell my friend S this the other night, and I heartily agree. It's OK if your theme song changes depending on your mood or current life situation. Just make sure you have one.

My current theme song: "Your House" by Jimmy Eat World. If you have a theme song, let me know.

It's the Reason for the Season

Food, family and football. Thankfulness and turkey. All great things as far as they go, but now that they're over with, it's time to discuss what Thanksgiving is really all about: Christmas.

Oh, you know it's true. I mean, more than half the Thanksgiving hype is really just about the day after Thanksgiving, which is, of course, the day that we all go out and start buying Christmas gifts! (By the way, everyone in my family likes to stick it to the man by staying home and putting up the Christmas decorations on Black Friday instead of shopping. Well...baby steps.) And, really, how important of a holiday can Thanksgiving truly be when the Christmas commercials start not only before Thanksgiving itself but even before Columbus Day? (Here's my take on Columbus Day: Just another excuse for elementary school kids to do crafts and put on cute song and dance shows). Thanksgiving gets sucked into the Christmas commercial vacuum almost as much as all the other fall holidays. I mean, does Thanksgiving get any commercials of its own? Well, there are all those commercials for Black Friday sales, and as we know those really just lead back to Christmas....

So here's what I think the real purpose of Thanksgiving is: it's a buffer. It's like Christmas' somewhat lax babysitter. As long as Thanksgiving is there about a month before Christmas, there will be a limit on how early Christmas celebrations can begin. We can have Christmas parties on December 1st, but November 30th? Are you crazy? We just got done with Thanksgiving!

The Furred One

She's been with me since I was about six years old. Sixteen years it's been now, and she's stuck with me through it all. Maybe she's even more needy than I am. Maybe she isn't so great at conversation. And maybe she doesn't have great control over her bodily functions, but I love her anyway.

I think back over all these years of my life, and I can hardly remember a time before her. It's harder to imagine the future without her, but I know she can't stick around for much longer. It's just the way of her species. The saddest part is probably that now, with me living in Abilene and not allowed to have pets in my house, I only see her a few times every year. She's so excited to see me every time I come to Victoria: curls up on my lap, purring softly. She'll come and sleep with me all night (of course, she also wakes me at about 6:00 AM because it's time for her to be fed).

She's inspired me to pages and pages worth of poetry and song. Here's a good example of something I composed for her in high school:

Oh, Sheba, so purr-y, so soft and so furry,
You lick yourself clean each day.
Oh, Sheba, so grayish, so sweet and so playish,
You've stolen my heart away.

I know most of my friends aren't cat people. They have their reasons. But I always assure them, I have my reasons too. Bathsheba is the one creature in my life who's always been there for me, loving me unconditionally and expecting only my complete adoration in return. There's hardly an important time in my life I can remember without her furry little presence there in the background. When she's gone, I'll weep immoderately. And when she's gone, it's going to feel like the end of something for me: of childhood, of my life in Victoria, of all the people I've been since the age of six...I'm not sure which, if any of these. But life will feel different without her: colder, sadder, lonelier...emptier.

Race and Genetics and Smarts, Oh my!

Here's something interesting. Check it out.

So, if you get a chance to read that, please pass on your thoughts. I have a few of my own. For instance, racial "admixture," as it is termed in this article is only touched upon. In this instance, he only speaks of people with one black parent and one white parent. What kind of results does miscegenation (as I like to call it :P) among other groups lead to? Do the same differences obtain in those situations?

Either way, this is both a frightening and a fascinating line of inquiry. It may be a can of worms we'll wish we'd never touched. Then again, the author alludes to much older "scientific" studies along the same lines. The truth is, this is really only the latest chapter in our on-going obsession with race and racial differences.

Postscript - Another question I have concerns the "bigger brain" principle discussed in the article. I mean, the same principle explains why humans are capable of much more complex thought than, say, roaches, but it appears to only be true up to a point. That's because, if a bigger brain is always better, then what are we to make of animals like elephants and whales? Are they so much smarter than we are that they've chosen a much simpler societal system? As far as we can tell, these animals that have bigger brains than we do aren't capable of more complex thought than we are. Then again, maybe we're just too limited to comprehend the scope of their intelligence. Riiiiiight.

Facebook = Good?

This afternoon, shortly after I returned home from work, I was cruising facebook, checking up on all the usual things: new feed, notifications, status updates. Then something caught my attention and held it: my uncle's status had been updated two hours before to : "praying for his sister's step-son and daughter-in-law because of a family tragedy." "Huh?" I thought. That was my aunt and cousins he was talking about! What did he mean? I immediately picked up my cell phone and called my mom.

"Hey, Mom," I asked urgently, "has anything happened to Jason or Michael (my aunt's two step-sons)?"

"No," she answered cautiously. "Not that I know of, at least. Why?" I explained about the facebook thing.

"Let me call your aunt and find out," she said, and we hung up. A few minutes later, my mom called me back with the news.

"Apparently Jennifer (Jason's wife) was dropping off their children and her mother's house. She thought they were all inside, but apparently their youngest daughter, Caroline (who's about 18 months) wasn't. She was behind the car, and Jennifer hit her when she was trying to leave."

"Oh my God!" I said.

"She's still alive, but she has some pretty bad injuries. They've sent her to San Antonio to be under the care of a pediatric neurosurgeon."

So, that's how I found out today that my cousin had accidentally hit her baby daughter with a car. And it was all because of facebook. I doubt i would have found that out until tomorrow if not for that little status update by my uncle.

It's kinda weird how a simple web tool like facebook has the power to connect us like that. Is it good? Today, sure. All the time, though? It's actually a little unsettling to think about how much information we give to other people completely unintentionally. Anyway, today I was really glad that my old fogey family members decided to join facebook. It's good to be in the know.

Purpose vs. Crap Revisited! Plus, Sex Scenes?

I am conflicted. As it is nearing the end of the semester, the homework I ought to be working on is beginning to pile up. There are two significant papers, two newsletters and a whole lotta reading that have been simmering on the back burner for several weeks now. You may be wondering why. I'll tell you why. I don't know. (Name that movie!) OK, I actually do know. The reason is two-pronged:

1. I always procrastinate. I am in the habit of doing all my work the night before.

2. I have something else I'd rather be doing. This is where the conflictedness comes in. I really ought to be doing schoolwork, but somehow it's just not as appealing as writing stories. On the one hand, I've committed myself to fulfilling the requirements of three classes, and I am not in the habit of letting that commitment slide. On the other hand, I haven't been so inspired to write in years. I mean, this is what I live for! Don't I have an equal commitment to fulfill the purpose for which I was created?

Tough questions. I ain't got no answers. How 'bout you?

So, on to the sex scenes. As I believe I have mentioned many, many times in this blog, I am currently in the midst of writing a novel. One of the most-difficult-to-resolve questions I have about this work is: Can I write sex scenes in it? I mean, there's the fact that I have very little personal experience on which to base them. Then there's the question of whether or not they fit into the context of the story (which I generally feel that they do). Then there's the "Oh my God, what will everyone think when they read this?" aspect. Plus, I'm not entirely decided on my audience. Hrm.

All right, someone give me an opinion!

Wherein Acronyms Save My life

INAM badly. I am so SF, it's not even funny. The whole problem is compounded by the self-imposed interdiction of PT with JR. Ack! I'm about to turn into a CRNWF if I don't track down some ML soon.

OK, for everyone not yet thoroughly confused, TTYL.

Playing My Nerd Card

This morning, being Sunday morning, I was waiting for my roommate to come out of her room so I could ask her for a ride to church. As I sat and waited, I noticed sitting on the end table to my left my roommate K's textbooks for her Intro. to Ethnic and Women's Studies class.

Let me pause for a moment here to point out that, though I am currently an English graduate student, in my former, undergraduate life I was an International Studies and Spanish major. Back to Sunday morning:

The books intrigued me. I suddenly felt a strong urge to pick them up and read them. So I did. I picked up the top one, which was A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki. I opened to the beginning. I started reading. I was immediately hooked by this textbook on diversity in the United States.

I realized as I was reading that I should go to my roommate's room and ask her for a ride before her boyfriend came to pick her up. But I couldn't put the book down. I was so engrossed by a textbook that I didn't want to stop reading it or even get up from my seat for a few seconds to go ask my roommate a quick question.

Oh, nerd-dom! Shall I ever escape thee?

Here's to You!

Because I imagined someone someday asking for it, I bring you:

The Date Updater

5:10 I start primping, etc...
5:35 He calls to say he'll pick me up at 6:30 instead of 6:00.
5:45 Start watching the middle of some lame movie with my roommates.
6:40 He pulls up. There is an exchange of a yellow rose.
6:42 He tells me where we're going, finally.
7:00 We are lost. We pull into the parking lot of K-Mart. He makes a phone call.
7:02 We turn around.
7:12 We arrive at the appointed destination. We are still lost.
7:18 Still lost.
7:23 We find it.
7:24 We view some interesting paintings made by his co-worker.
7:29 We chat with said co-worker.
7:35 Eat cheese cubes and sip Pinot Grigio.
7:38 Back in the minivan.
7:45 On the way to the restaurant.
7:47 Restaurant is dark, appears to be closed. He thinks there might be another location.
7:48 I suggest we look it up in a phone book.
7:48 We enter the liquor store next door to the restaurant and ask for the phone book.
7:49 The address was correct.
7:50 The liquor store clerk informs us that the restaurant closed permanently a week before.
7:52 Back in the minivan. We discuss alternate food options.
7:54 We decide to go to a restaurant we see down the road.
7:58 Joke that a nearby store open late is full of people playing hide and seek.
8:01 We are seated at said restaurant.
8:14 We both order girly drinks.
8:26 The drinks are quite tasty.
8:55 We leave the restaurant.
9:13 Arrive at his house. I stop by the loo.
9:16 We play WiiPlay.
9:32 Other people show up.
9:57 I'm too tired to stay and talk about the possibility of true altruism.
10:01 Back in the minivan.
10:11 Back home, safe and sound.

Now don't ask me how it went. You already know for yourself that it was fun. I had fun. He had fun. We had fun. It was a fun date. OK, peace out

Faking Your Own Happy Endings

When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I wrote this little story that began with the words, "It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out!" Sadly, the maid had been killed by a bullet. The family she works for is understandably tearful. However, at the end of the story, when you turn the last page, you see the maid and her family standing up and smiling. Below them are the words, "But not really!" At the end, the terrible event is completely erased, and everyone is happy and healthy just as they were meant to be.

But Goddammit, life just doesn't give you happy endings like that! In real life, the maid gets shot and stays dead. The family stays sad. No one is happy or healthy, and they just have to deal with it.

I have a hard time accepting that. And I think that has a lot to do with why I love to write stories so much.

When I compose and write a story, I get to control what kind of ending my characters get. I can give them the happy ending, if I think they need one. And if they end up getting an unhappy ending, I can live with it because I know I've made them strong enough to accept it. And I know why their unhappy ending came about...I know how it happened and I know why I allowed it to happen to them.

In other words, I get to control the universe of my stories. I get to reward those who deserve rewarding, punish those who have earned punishment, and see people grow from the adversity they experience. I get to decide.

Urination Meditation

It started this summer with an insidiously innocent bathroom remodeling. All that was happening, they told us, was an adjustment of the size of one wall and the replacement of some installations (aka-stalls). Lies! It was all lies!

I cannot legally copy and paste the words of the e-mail they sent us on October 4. Allow me to paraphrase:

"Dear Denizens of the Administration Building,

We're taking your bathroom doors and there's nothing you can do about it! Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Sincerely,

The Building Manager"

Within a week and half, the doors were gone. We arrived one morning to find merely empty doorways leading into the Women's and Men's restrooms: disturbingly empty doorways, for their emptiness had become a conduit to let loose a flood of previously private moments.

Oh, there was no fear of being seen while "getting the job done." That aforementioned wall was cleverly placed to obscure the vision of any brazen passersby. No, that furtive thing which had now been laid open to all was the sound!

It is with extreme trepidation that I venture near those bathrooms now, for all along the hallway, from one end to the other, reverberate the horrid sounds of tinkling. And flushing. And worst of all, as though one were overhearing the very emanations of hell itself, the gaseous excretions of the buttocks of the damned, the sound of farting.

But my office is mere feet from these abysses of pestilence, and to tell the truth, a bladder overflowing from the consumption of two full cups of coffee is the best antidote to the clawing fear of having one's own most private moments heard by any and all. I confess, I have used the door-less restrooms. It's best to go on Wednesdays between 11:00 and 11:10. That is the exact time when the attendees of Spanish chapel are belting out Castillian-language hymns, a tintinnabulous noise well-designed to mask the secretive sounds of urination. When I cannot hold it in until then, I hum.

It's a shameful existence I lead now, carefully checking the halls before dashing to the bathroom to ensure that no one is around to actually link my face with the sounds they subsequently hear spilling forth from the restroom.

But don't mock me. I'm not the worst. My co-workers will walk the entire length of our office building just to find a bathroom with its door yet intact. Yes, it's sad but true: we are so weak and fearful. Alas.

Say it with Fiction...

This post is going to be like a part 2 for my last post.

I was thinking, then, about why I feel so strongly about writing, other than the fact that I feel it is my life's purpose. I realized that writing is really how I express my opinions. No matter what I may say, I don't feel like it's what I really believe until I write it. This is why I get really angry with teachers who don't return papers (I'm looking at you, Dr. Deb) or worse, teachers who return papers with little to no comments on the content. It's like they're denying my one chance to get a response to what I really think about whatever I've written about.

This is also why I hate class discussion so much and why I'm so bad at it. The truth is, I think slow, I read slow, and I write slow (Yeah, the bad grammar is intentional). When I'm talking to someone, they don't want to wait the extra several seconds or minutes it may take me to come up with what I really want to say. Besides, when I talk, I get all tongue-tied and flustered and confused anyway. It's so much easier to come up with what I really think if I have time to mull it over and re-word it and try it from several different angles before I have to share it.

From there, I started thinking about why I like fiction so much more than non-fiction, if this whole writing thing is truly about giving my opinions. I think I've decided that I just say it better with fiction. Or rather, it's easier for me to really make the points I want to make by telling stories about them. Then again, maybe I just have a lot of imagination that needs an outlet somewhere.

My Life's Purpose vs. The Crap They Force Me to Write

Recently, I've been writing every chance I get. It's not just that I have a story. There's something else to it. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I've just felt particularly inspired as of late.

It's made me realize just how much I love to write. Few things can consistently exhilarate me the way that writing can. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I do not mean academic writing. I was thinking about this the other day, about how writing for school and writing creatively are different for me. I realized that I'd rather be doing creative writing more than almost anything else in the world, including things that I really enjoy, like reading or hanging out with my best friends.

On the other hand, while I would rather be writing academically than, say, hammering nails through my thumbs, there are plenty of things that rank above it on my fun list. This may seem weird to you non-writers (maybe even to you non-creative writers), but the two types of writing are worlds apart in my book.

Therefore, I say, "Judge not a book by its cover (rather, judge the graphic designer by the book's cover), and (more emphatically) judge not a creative writer by the BS she churns out for school papers.