The sporadic ramblings of Emily C. A. Snyder - devoted to God, theatre, writing, and much randominity.
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All I Want is a Room Somewhere
Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
Ow, wouldn't it be loverly?
...Someone's 'ead resting on my knee
Warm and tender as 'e can be
Who takes good care of me
Ow, wouldn't it be loverly?
I am freezing. Cold cold cold. We has put on a long shirt, we has put on warm jeans, we has put on a sweater and turned up the heat. (And turned on the heating pad, but that doesn't fit the rhyme scheme.) It's is chilly, precious. Not the least of which in my heart. That's a bit overdramatic, but I'm feeling a tad overdramatic! Let me present the life and times a la movie script formatting.
FADE IN:
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 6:30 P.M.
Emily rushes out of her house and into her dinky car, after having chewed her guts for half an hour, completely afraid that her incompetence as a director will become evident at the Pirates meeting that begins at seven. She brings with her the shield of her Pirates binder, all pages in order, tabs demarking every new song (even songs within a song) and cheerfully color coded thanks to Office Max repeelable flags. Likewise, she brings an arsenal of pens, but in a moment of desperation forgets the White-Out. She remembers the phone, returns the super-duper replacement three-hole punch to its proper place, decides that she looks presentable enough to appear chic and casual all in one - or at least not frumpy - disdains the hat as "too rebel" despite a lank hair day, and heads off, praying that she remembers the way to the house and that they do indeed have the promised pumpkin lights on.
EXT. - THE MEETING HOUSE - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 6:55 P.M.
After rushing past said house, and turning around, second guessing the empty driveway and overshooting again and then deciding that there really is no need to park in the cul-de-sac but the driveway is meant to be used, and it's alright to be five minutes early, Emily disembarks from the T-Wing Fighter Car. Fortunately, just as she double-checks that her lights are really, really, really off, the Tech Director who is Very Cool and Laid Back and Loves Swashbuckling drives up - much to Emily's surprise (she hadn't thought the TD would be at this particular meeting). Together they go in to the house itself.
INT. - THE MEETING HOUSE - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 7:00 P.M.
Once inside, Emily's insides do a little flip-flop of spasmodic joy to see a model represenation of the stage, complete with miniature Pirate ship, crumbling wall with statue, and General's turret with working door. Things go amazingly well (duh) afterwards, albeit with much hemming and hawing and "whataboutthisway"-ing re: platforms and gangplanks and heights of things, and trapdoors and stained glass and whatnots. By the end of the evening, it is declared that the set is not impossible and will most likely come in on or under budget (which makes the Costume Designer, the Set Designer's sister, very glad - and me too!), and conversation turns to sillyness regarding what to christen the Pirates' Ship. Some form of Les Enfants is suggested: perhaps either Perdu or Terrible following. Some question as to whether the Pirates, being pirates would be U.S.S. or being noblemen gone wrong H.M.S. Conversation turns to cats and dogs and oggling men's boots and reminiscing about Kevin Klein as the Pirate King and eventually....
EXT. - THE MEETING HOUSE - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 10:40 P.M.
Emily finally begs to go home and perhaps get some sleep before teaching. She returns home quite contented, and feeling much more comfortable working with the Savoyards than ever before. There is concreteness in the world.
EXT. - WENDY'S - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 11:15 P.M.
A suspicious looking woman in a white mini-car pulls up next to the Wendy's and orders a spicy chicken sandwich to the accompaniament of growling stomach. She leaves as quietly as she came.
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 11:20 P.M.
Emily reenters her room, sits down in front of the computer just to see how the low-resolution version of the tango looks and finds that...
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 12:10 P.M.
...she has managed to get suckered into playing with the editing again. She makes another low resolution version and sneers at the transitions and convinces herself that sleep is a necessity. With a great show of will, she turns off the computer. But not before checking again...and again...and again...various sites hoping that empty hope that somehow, somewhere, somesite, someone would have...what? Shouted out:
Sadly, reading journal entries only lead one to realize one must make phonecalls to check up on folk and see how they're doing, and reading one's e-mail includes a request for Pirates budget information. This is no surprise, and yet - what is sadly also not surprising - this ritual of searching for approval in some form, or rather contact, or rather relation, or rather humanity, or rather escape, or rather anything one supposes - acknowlegement even if not for oneself but for what one has done - is conducted nearly every day. Approval and acknowlegement from pixels? From a keyboard and an LCD screen? For what? From what? How Metropolis have I become, Borg-like, that I seek recognition for existence from that which has no soul? And for what purpose do I seek such recognition? Were I to leave this prison of plastic and wires and the socket abyss, what should I find outside. And therein lies the rub - should I find the outside?
I am in the shadow cave, searching for touch with shadows. Shall I turn and face the light and climb out to blind myself for a time and then return to lead others also to the light? I do in some respect. In The Light, perhaps - but in the smaller everydayisms? I need a human savior of my own. I have The, again - but methinks the remedy lies also in His agencies. And His agencies I dread.
Lord, let me not become a Galatea, creating a perfect world of nothingness, controlling all that I create, building a fortress of paper and smiles. Bring a Paul into my life, I need a Damascus moment - and yet, be careful what one asks for! Slowly, You and I, we're getting me to let people "touch me back." To touch, and then to drift away, sometimes in the very act of pursuit.
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY MORNING, 12:55 P.M.
After melancholic philosophising, and reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, which while vastly amusing has its theology thoroughly wrong, but told in such a charming way that one begins to find one's thinking warping, Emily falls into slumber.
INT. - MY ROOM - THIS MORNING, 6:30 A.M.
A HAND
reaches up and decimates a harmless alarm clock that meeps in terror.
INT. - MY ROOM - THIS MORNING, 7:00 A.M.
Teresa, Emily's guardian angel, kicks Emily awake. Forgoing her goodness, Emily mutters something about excrement and rushes about madly to get ready for the day, remembering somewhere between breakfast and brushing her hair that she forgot to make up the quiz on Shadowlands for the Seniors. Fortunately, she has homeroom to cram together a quiz. Some things rarely change.
EXT. - RTE. 85 - THIS MORNING, 7:35 A.M.
A white car with tell-tale bumper stickers whirls towards Hudson Catholic. Within some determined praying is happening.
EXT. - HUDSON CATHOLIC - THIS MORNING 7:40 A.M.
Emily pulls up her car into a space and emerges as Miss Snyder, a friendly teacher who's going to Make You Throw Out Your Gum. She does the homeroom thing. She makes up the quiz. She gives the quiz.
She teaches about confession in the Old Testament and tries not to throw non-existant pillows at a few students who take the idea of sacrificing animals as tantamount to serial killing. She attempts to explain to said wide-eyed class what the pagan customs of atonement were - aka the Aztecs or the Greeks - and the number of hearts ripped out in the former from humans. She attempts to explain to said students that the human brain is the most inert object on earth and therefore it's taken God quite a while to get us to realize Who the perfect and ultimate sacrifice would be. In a bout of oblivious irony, the class doesn't understand. (Although some of the boys are fascinated about the Aztecs slaughtering conquered tribes. Always mention gore - it shuts the boys up and makes the girls stop passing notes. And it sticks in their brains. Perhaps teaching a la Playstation would work....)
Study rolls around and between explaining to one student industriously doing his homework due for me at the end of the day who Minos was and why he's in the Inferno. Elsewise, she devours Good Omens.
Seventh period, the hour period, sidles up - but alas, it is not free. With good will, Miss Snyder covers for another teacher. Fortunately, the class is cooperative, they do their work, and Emily can get on with reading Good Omens. She is also happily gratified that everyone in the class wants to sing the Salve Regina for their prayer - including the students from last year who complained the most. What was that about mental inertia?
Lunch, also not free. Lunch duty. Drank my water while meaningfully keeping a redundant and watchful eye on the world's most wonderful students. Agreed to help proof a student's paper for another teacher. Felt proud of oneself for not buying a Coke but drinking water. Dismissed the students, and remembered to ask one about how her Mom's doing. (Note to self: encourage her to put a petition card on the board for her Mom.) At the end of lunch, cornered by another teacher about a particular student and how he's doing in my class. Agreed that we're both pretty sure we'll be giving him opportunity for extra credit, oral exams, etc.
Period one and three of the twenty-three students completely bomb the Salve Regina quiz. Must corrale them and offer extra credit. Concerned re: their unwillingness to participate in morning prayer, which - were they at least able to pass the quiz - would be fine. But if it's less intelletual rebellion while one searches and just plain pig-headedness which then bites you in the GPA bum.... Also distressing is the stealing of Miss Snyder's white board markers. One suspects a certain Latin Teacher of unintentionally but quite systematically depleting Miss Snyder's store of teacherly products.
Period four: Shadowlands quiz redux. Good Omens read whilst students attempted to find in their notes anyplace where they wrote down the names of main characters.
Period five and a boatload of: "May I go to the bathrooms?" whelms in. Conversation turns to Incorruptibles with much, "Excuse me"-ing, and "Gentlemen! Please,"-ing, and various devices for playing teacherly Whack-a-Mole. But since it is the end of the day, this is simply par for the course. We manage to at least get something garbled out re: Incorruptibles, check outlines of Canto V of The Inferno, and actually talk about the circle of the lustful. I kiss the feet of Sayers and her wonderful, wonderful notes.
The end of the day has arrived, with, alas, no end in sight. We has detentions, yes we does, precious - which is rather garbled in its organization. It looked like I was meant to have loads and loads of detentionees...and ended up having one. But that one industriously scrubbed my boards and picked gum of the desks and erased the cheery "God bless the Red Sox!" on one desk and the not so cheery "F--- You!!!" on another. Another student who had completely botched the Salve Regina quiz second period took the opportunity to retake the test (extenuating circumstances), and two other students walked in wondering how their grades were doing. Miss Snyder, inbetween, read Good Omens.
EXT. - RTE. 85 - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:05 P.M.
A white car whizzes along, toodling towards home.
EXT. - SPRING STREET - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:10 P.M.
In a moment of cosmic exhileration, the white car does not turn onto Frye but continues on Spring, and from thence to Lincoln (with pauses for various turns and traffic lights and oversized trucks which Can Not Park), and to Jenny Craig...which the driver of the white car had nearly forgotten.
EXT. - THE BACK ROAD TO VICTORY - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:30 P.M.
Rejoicing in learning that one's weight has not altered since last week, a trip to Wendy's is made again - the last one in a long time. Along the road, which has been marvellously repaved and which made the driver of the whtie car feel much more benevolent towards the road-shifters than she has in a while, Miss Snyder (now restored to Emily) ponders the following:
INT. - MY ROOM - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:45 P.M.
Emily walks into her room, like she's done a million times before, flipping on and off lights as she goes, turning on her computer, muttering a hello to her dad, climbing the stairs, saying hi to Mom and Peter, putting away the groceries, and then going back downstairs to seek solace in pixels once more. The room is freezing, and more than the room, herself. She searches in her clothes for something younger, less professional, yet still warm. She puts those items on. Shivers and turns on the heat. Diligently, she looks for and finds Nicholas Nickolby, music by Rachel Portman, in her school bag. She retrieves it and puts it on her CD player. The music starts up, the heating pad is flicked on to Medium, and she looks to the Symposium, decides to forgo that, looks to journals finds nothing new, looks to e-mail thinking that the alter-ego of Emily C. A. Snyder, choose-your-art-person is now back in command and finds...
...an e-mail. At the top of the list. From an address that she knows will bounce back if she tries to reply. And maybe sometimes God uses us through these soulless pixels after all. Thank you, Jill.
FADE OUT
Mood: A little better.
Music: Nicholas Nickolby
And now: To walk, perchance to exercise
Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
Ow, wouldn't it be loverly?
...Someone's 'ead resting on my knee
Warm and tender as 'e can be
Who takes good care of me
Ow, wouldn't it be loverly?
I am freezing. Cold cold cold. We has put on a long shirt, we has put on warm jeans, we has put on a sweater and turned up the heat. (And turned on the heating pad, but that doesn't fit the rhyme scheme.) It's is chilly, precious. Not the least of which in my heart. That's a bit overdramatic, but I'm feeling a tad overdramatic! Let me present the life and times a la movie script formatting.
FADE IN:
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 6:30 P.M.
Emily rushes out of her house and into her dinky car, after having chewed her guts for half an hour, completely afraid that her incompetence as a director will become evident at the Pirates meeting that begins at seven. She brings with her the shield of her Pirates binder, all pages in order, tabs demarking every new song (even songs within a song) and cheerfully color coded thanks to Office Max repeelable flags. Likewise, she brings an arsenal of pens, but in a moment of desperation forgets the White-Out. She remembers the phone, returns the super-duper replacement three-hole punch to its proper place, decides that she looks presentable enough to appear chic and casual all in one - or at least not frumpy - disdains the hat as "too rebel" despite a lank hair day, and heads off, praying that she remembers the way to the house and that they do indeed have the promised pumpkin lights on.
EXT. - THE MEETING HOUSE - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 6:55 P.M.
After rushing past said house, and turning around, second guessing the empty driveway and overshooting again and then deciding that there really is no need to park in the cul-de-sac but the driveway is meant to be used, and it's alright to be five minutes early, Emily disembarks from the T-Wing Fighter Car. Fortunately, just as she double-checks that her lights are really, really, really off, the Tech Director who is Very Cool and Laid Back and Loves Swashbuckling drives up - much to Emily's surprise (she hadn't thought the TD would be at this particular meeting). Together they go in to the house itself.
INT. - THE MEETING HOUSE - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 7:00 P.M.
Once inside, Emily's insides do a little flip-flop of spasmodic joy to see a model represenation of the stage, complete with miniature Pirate ship, crumbling wall with statue, and General's turret with working door. Things go amazingly well (duh) afterwards, albeit with much hemming and hawing and "whataboutthisway"-ing re: platforms and gangplanks and heights of things, and trapdoors and stained glass and whatnots. By the end of the evening, it is declared that the set is not impossible and will most likely come in on or under budget (which makes the Costume Designer, the Set Designer's sister, very glad - and me too!), and conversation turns to sillyness regarding what to christen the Pirates' Ship. Some form of Les Enfants is suggested: perhaps either Perdu or Terrible following. Some question as to whether the Pirates, being pirates would be U.S.S. or being noblemen gone wrong H.M.S. Conversation turns to cats and dogs and oggling men's boots and reminiscing about Kevin Klein as the Pirate King and eventually....
EXT. - THE MEETING HOUSE - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 10:40 P.M.
Emily finally begs to go home and perhaps get some sleep before teaching. She returns home quite contented, and feeling much more comfortable working with the Savoyards than ever before. There is concreteness in the world.
EXT. - WENDY'S - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 11:15 P.M.
A suspicious looking woman in a white mini-car pulls up next to the Wendy's and orders a spicy chicken sandwich to the accompaniament of growling stomach. She leaves as quietly as she came.
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 11:20 P.M.
Emily reenters her room, sits down in front of the computer just to see how the low-resolution version of the tango looks and finds that...
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY NIGHT, 12:10 P.M.
...she has managed to get suckered into playing with the editing again. She makes another low resolution version and sneers at the transitions and convinces herself that sleep is a necessity. With a great show of will, she turns off the computer. But not before checking again...and again...and again...various sites hoping that empty hope that somehow, somewhere, somesite, someone would have...what? Shouted out:
RANDOM SITE
I love you, Emily! You're the best thing since sliced bread!
Sadly, reading journal entries only lead one to realize one must make phonecalls to check up on folk and see how they're doing, and reading one's e-mail includes a request for Pirates budget information. This is no surprise, and yet - what is sadly also not surprising - this ritual of searching for approval in some form, or rather contact, or rather relation, or rather humanity, or rather escape, or rather anything one supposes - acknowlegement even if not for oneself but for what one has done - is conducted nearly every day. Approval and acknowlegement from pixels? From a keyboard and an LCD screen? For what? From what? How Metropolis have I become, Borg-like, that I seek recognition for existence from that which has no soul? And for what purpose do I seek such recognition? Were I to leave this prison of plastic and wires and the socket abyss, what should I find outside. And therein lies the rub - should I find the outside?
I am in the shadow cave, searching for touch with shadows. Shall I turn and face the light and climb out to blind myself for a time and then return to lead others also to the light? I do in some respect. In The Light, perhaps - but in the smaller everydayisms? I need a human savior of my own. I have The, again - but methinks the remedy lies also in His agencies. And His agencies I dread.
Lord, let me not become a Galatea, creating a perfect world of nothingness, controlling all that I create, building a fortress of paper and smiles. Bring a Paul into my life, I need a Damascus moment - and yet, be careful what one asks for! Slowly, You and I, we're getting me to let people "touch me back." To touch, and then to drift away, sometimes in the very act of pursuit.
INT. - MY ROOM - YESTERDAY MORNING, 12:55 P.M.
After melancholic philosophising, and reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, which while vastly amusing has its theology thoroughly wrong, but told in such a charming way that one begins to find one's thinking warping, Emily falls into slumber.
INT. - MY ROOM - THIS MORNING, 6:30 A.M.
A HAND
reaches up and decimates a harmless alarm clock that meeps in terror.
INT. - MY ROOM - THIS MORNING, 7:00 A.M.
Teresa, Emily's guardian angel, kicks Emily awake. Forgoing her goodness, Emily mutters something about excrement and rushes about madly to get ready for the day, remembering somewhere between breakfast and brushing her hair that she forgot to make up the quiz on Shadowlands for the Seniors. Fortunately, she has homeroom to cram together a quiz. Some things rarely change.
EXT. - RTE. 85 - THIS MORNING, 7:35 A.M.
A white car with tell-tale bumper stickers whirls towards Hudson Catholic. Within some determined praying is happening.
EXT. - HUDSON CATHOLIC - THIS MORNING 7:40 A.M.
Emily pulls up her car into a space and emerges as Miss Snyder, a friendly teacher who's going to Make You Throw Out Your Gum. She does the homeroom thing. She makes up the quiz. She gives the quiz.
She teaches about confession in the Old Testament and tries not to throw non-existant pillows at a few students who take the idea of sacrificing animals as tantamount to serial killing. She attempts to explain to said wide-eyed class what the pagan customs of atonement were - aka the Aztecs or the Greeks - and the number of hearts ripped out in the former from humans. She attempts to explain to said students that the human brain is the most inert object on earth and therefore it's taken God quite a while to get us to realize Who the perfect and ultimate sacrifice would be. In a bout of oblivious irony, the class doesn't understand. (Although some of the boys are fascinated about the Aztecs slaughtering conquered tribes. Always mention gore - it shuts the boys up and makes the girls stop passing notes. And it sticks in their brains. Perhaps teaching a la Playstation would work....)
Study rolls around and between explaining to one student industriously doing his homework due for me at the end of the day who Minos was and why he's in the Inferno. Elsewise, she devours Good Omens.
Seventh period, the hour period, sidles up - but alas, it is not free. With good will, Miss Snyder covers for another teacher. Fortunately, the class is cooperative, they do their work, and Emily can get on with reading Good Omens. She is also happily gratified that everyone in the class wants to sing the Salve Regina for their prayer - including the students from last year who complained the most. What was that about mental inertia?
Lunch, also not free. Lunch duty. Drank my water while meaningfully keeping a redundant and watchful eye on the world's most wonderful students. Agreed to help proof a student's paper for another teacher. Felt proud of oneself for not buying a Coke but drinking water. Dismissed the students, and remembered to ask one about how her Mom's doing. (Note to self: encourage her to put a petition card on the board for her Mom.) At the end of lunch, cornered by another teacher about a particular student and how he's doing in my class. Agreed that we're both pretty sure we'll be giving him opportunity for extra credit, oral exams, etc.
Period one and three of the twenty-three students completely bomb the Salve Regina quiz. Must corrale them and offer extra credit. Concerned re: their unwillingness to participate in morning prayer, which - were they at least able to pass the quiz - would be fine. But if it's less intelletual rebellion while one searches and just plain pig-headedness which then bites you in the GPA bum.... Also distressing is the stealing of Miss Snyder's white board markers. One suspects a certain Latin Teacher of unintentionally but quite systematically depleting Miss Snyder's store of teacherly products.
Period four: Shadowlands quiz redux. Good Omens read whilst students attempted to find in their notes anyplace where they wrote down the names of main characters.
Period five and a boatload of: "May I go to the bathrooms?" whelms in. Conversation turns to Incorruptibles with much, "Excuse me"-ing, and "Gentlemen! Please,"-ing, and various devices for playing teacherly Whack-a-Mole. But since it is the end of the day, this is simply par for the course. We manage to at least get something garbled out re: Incorruptibles, check outlines of Canto V of The Inferno, and actually talk about the circle of the lustful. I kiss the feet of Sayers and her wonderful, wonderful notes.
The end of the day has arrived, with, alas, no end in sight. We has detentions, yes we does, precious - which is rather garbled in its organization. It looked like I was meant to have loads and loads of detentionees...and ended up having one. But that one industriously scrubbed my boards and picked gum of the desks and erased the cheery "God bless the Red Sox!" on one desk and the not so cheery "F--- You!!!" on another. Another student who had completely botched the Salve Regina quiz second period took the opportunity to retake the test (extenuating circumstances), and two other students walked in wondering how their grades were doing. Miss Snyder, inbetween, read Good Omens.
EXT. - RTE. 85 - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:05 P.M.
A white car whizzes along, toodling towards home.
EXT. - SPRING STREET - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:10 P.M.
In a moment of cosmic exhileration, the white car does not turn onto Frye but continues on Spring, and from thence to Lincoln (with pauses for various turns and traffic lights and oversized trucks which Can Not Park), and to Jenny Craig...which the driver of the white car had nearly forgotten.
EXT. - THE BACK ROAD TO VICTORY - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:30 P.M.
Rejoicing in learning that one's weight has not altered since last week, a trip to Wendy's is made again - the last one in a long time. Along the road, which has been marvellously repaved and which made the driver of the whtie car feel much more benevolent towards the road-shifters than she has in a while, Miss Snyder (now restored to Emily) ponders the following:
EMILY (V.O.)
How many times have I done this, gone this very road, looked at these trees, ignored that sign, tapped my fingers on the while whilst turning? How would it look to God's eye to overlap all the "me's" - how many years of my life have I spent driving on the local roads, sleepwalking (or driving, as it were), repeating who I was and am and will be? Routine is good, we are a ritual people - but perhaps this is not a road but a rut.
INT. - MY ROOM - TODAY AFTERNOON, 3:45 P.M.
Emily walks into her room, like she's done a million times before, flipping on and off lights as she goes, turning on her computer, muttering a hello to her dad, climbing the stairs, saying hi to Mom and Peter, putting away the groceries, and then going back downstairs to seek solace in pixels once more. The room is freezing, and more than the room, herself. She searches in her clothes for something younger, less professional, yet still warm. She puts those items on. Shivers and turns on the heat. Diligently, she looks for and finds Nicholas Nickolby, music by Rachel Portman, in her school bag. She retrieves it and puts it on her CD player. The music starts up, the heating pad is flicked on to Medium, and she looks to the Symposium, decides to forgo that, looks to journals finds nothing new, looks to e-mail thinking that the alter-ego of Emily C. A. Snyder, choose-your-art-person is now back in command and finds...
...an e-mail. At the top of the list. From an address that she knows will bounce back if she tries to reply. And maybe sometimes God uses us through these soulless pixels after all. Thank you, Jill.
FADE OUT
Mood: A little better.
Music: Nicholas Nickolby
And now: To walk, perchance to exercise
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