Off to dinner, but

You have got to take a look at this. I'm absolutely blown away! Akiane: Child Prodigy. Oh, and this looks like a good site: Catechism Class. Six hours readying my classroom. Yeah, baby! Whilst listening to Les Mis (10th anniversary edition), Phantom and The Producers on CD! Hoopla! Thank You, God!

Mood: Elated, peaceable - emotions which don't come often enough!
Music: Secret Garden original cast recording
Upstairs: Are hamburgers. Auf weidersehen!

Oh! For romance!

Or rather, for a completely mind-numbing romantic comedy. Where is Cherished? Anywho, apparently, it's only thrillers out at the movies. Not that I'm opposed to thrillers - I'd like to see The Village and The Manchurian Candidate at some point, but not right now. Alas, that the ability to take a break does not coincide with what's playing in the theatres right now! But huzzah for costume thingies, aka Vanity Fair coming out on Wednesday. Hoopla! Bollywood in the Regency!

Mood: Odd. At odds.
Music: I'm With You, although it's been Begin the Beguine all day
Thought: Adoration is wonderful. Everything's in His hands. Now, if only I could remember that for more than two minutes.

More Thoughts on Power

(And no, really, I'm not an evil ovenhead...just keep repeating that and all will be well!)

After considering what I wrote below, I suppose it could be summed up thusly: power is power. It's not an attribute that originates in gender, race, creed or any other arbitrary division. Power comes from the soul, from how one is created, from personality. Like charisma, "it's" an attribute. The mother in the kitchen, the cool kid in the sandlot, the good teacher, the unofficial head of friends, the motivator in the board room - and yes, even among slaves, among the oppressed - perhaps even moreso among them, for those who are born to lead become stronger when the stakes are higher. To demand the "right" to a personality attribute is pointless. What I'd like to know is when we're going to start loving each person for the individual that he is, and encouraging him (or feminazi her ;P) to be whom God created him to be. That is a worthy goal: to make each man king of himself.

Mood: The washer's going and so I can't record aaaaaaaaaaaaugh!
Music: You, Wonderful You once I can re*huffhuff*cord.
Plans Include: I'm a-goin' to Noreastcon/SF Worldcon! Yeah, baby, yeah!

Just a note to say:

Ella Enchanted is silly, fun - and painful in parts - but still the scenes between the leads crackle...even if they strayed from the book almost entirely. *grumble* Curious to see the packaging that Disney put on it though.



Curious, as well, to realize that this has been the year of Cinderella stories: Ella Enchanted, The Prince and Me, A Cinderella Story and did Lindsay Lohan (sp?) have one, too? I suppose Mean Girls counts. One wonders if it's Hollywood's rite of passage for young tween queens - a sad thing, since it's really one of the most asinine of all the fairy tales. Give me Thousandfurs! Give me the Twelve Dancing Princesses! The Seven Swans! The Snow Queen! The darker tales, the richer tales - or the fuller tales: Aladdin and The Little Mermaid uncut for once! Oy.

The director said something to the effect that "in all fairy tales the girl is helpless" (or unempowered - gag. I'm the first one to sit on another woman who's moping about and not doing, but I'll join the army against militant "empowerment" nonsense first, if given an option. Empowerment, my foot). Anywho, when he said that, I nearly leapt out of my chair at the screen. Heavens! Who does he think made up half the fairy tales that the Grimms brothers at best recorded? Snow White powerless? Dumb, maybe - but that's one tough chick who can run through the forest, survive an evil stepmother, and whip seven dwarves into shape! It's the guy in that story who's the pointless prize that the women who told that story gave to Snow White. Or in the original version of Sleeping Beauty, when she wakes up, she discovers that she's been raped and had twins and then the guy who did that to her comes and takes her to live with him as a servant and then his wife wants to kill her kids and put them in the stew and who comes to the rescue? Yup! Sleeping Beauty! That's who! Or, there's a great story, can't remember all the details now, basically your Evil Stepmother-Spunky Daughter story, where the girl's been locked up in the tower and the Stepmother's trying to get her to come out so she can kill her, and the girl ends up getting the best of the Stepmother by driving a poisoned dagger through the keyhole. And who saves the day in Hansel and Gretel? I thought so. You want female "empowerment," take a look at the Seven Swans - girl takes up a vow of muteness until she can make seven shirts out of brambles, is forced into a marriage since she can't say "no," is nearly burnt at the stake, manages to save her brothers, denounce the evil steward, and retain her guy. Yup. Snow Queen: demon and titular character manage to steal away guy and more or less brainwash him, who comes to the rescue? The girl. Who's nearly diverted by a band of gypsies, by the Summer Queen, and then by the guy's own brainwashed coldness. Or the girl in Bearskin who's the only virtuous character in the whole thing? Or the girl in any of those stories where one is given the gift of flowers and jewels coming out of her mouth and then her sister (or half sister), who is not polite to the old woman is cursed with toads, et al coming out of her mouth. The princess in The Frog Prince had to put up with a lot - and a lot on faith, too. The Little Mermaid gave up her own happiness for the prince's. Thumbelina was brave in the face of everyone trying to manipulate her. And don't forget all those giantesses who help all those wandering heroes when the giant fathers dole out impossible tasks. Who sleeps? The guy (granted, he's been through the ringer already). Who works? The girl.

Now all the above sounds like some sort of "empowerment" diatribe, but it isn't. Rather it's a diatribe against those who would deny the already inherent power of women. I resent these candyfloss "girl-power" movies that do not deal fairly with either sex. I resent someone telling me that to gain power, I must do the man's job. No! I needn't fear to bow to the king, because in so doing, I demand that he show me equal if not greater respect. I needn't spout a pointless polemics about a woman's absolute need for independence, when I know that she becomes herself not when she divorces herself from the world, but embraces it. Power - that is, true power, good power, not tyranny - comes from doing the right thing at the right time to the right extent. Not rushing about doing everything oneself.

I am making no sense of this. Let me consider. What is it about these "empowerment" movies that bother me so? What is it about this "empowerment" feminazi rhetoric that induces me to hurl corsets at de-habited nuns and leather-faced flower children?

First, as has been oft said, I find it reprehensible that anyone should, in the name of "liberation" seek not to find justice but to rather destroy another party. Levelling the field is no inducement to greatness.

Second, I find it insulting to be told that as a woman I am free to make up my mind about anything, so long as I make up my mind "independently" to embrace abortion, divorce, lesbianism, free sex, contraception, male-bashing, and the expungence of the use of "he" or "man" as the indefinite pronoun.

Third, I find it revolting that these tweeny movies propound the "virtue gone wild" of being, somewhat abstractly, "true to your heart" - because what that boils down to is "follow your emotions and throw logic out the window." This - this weeping and sighing and drama, this tendency towards hysteria is perhaps the one thing that I have the most difficulty with in regards to our sex. Certainly, there is a place for great emotion. And certainly, emotion is not itself a thing to be despised. However, if the heart is ungoverned by the mind, then one will make all sorts of wrong judgements and worse, one will be completely opposed to hearing any sort of reason! (Regard any of the so-called "arguments" for homosexuality, abortion, divorce - well, see the above list.)

Naturally, I do not advocate the mind divorced from the heart, for cold reason begat the Nazi genocide, and continues to today's stem cell research, wanton experiments in cloning, and who knows what other insanity. To lose either the mind or the heart is to be a hollow man. To have both, but lack in soul is to be a half-man - one of Kierkegaard's examples in Sickness unto Death.

I cannot, I will not, accept the tyranny of my sex merely by accident of my sex. I cannot, I will not, accept the tyranny of the desires over the reason of the mind. I cannot and I will not accept the tyranny of the soulless, who throw shadows on the wall and call it life.

Mood: Joan of Arc!
Music: Alas, the "True to your Heart" cover by Raven, running about my mind in leather stillettos. Aaaaaaaaaaaugh! Out, out, damn song!
Thought: What? At this hour? Yeah. Thrushbeard. Thnicka.

It was you all along

I love it when I get to a certain point in writing a musical when the music itself gets caught up in my head and I go about humming it rather stupidly in the most inappropriate places (aka, Bearskin in Walmart). I have the finale "Do Not Turn From Me" from Thrushbeard in my head now - all the swelling music, the ecstatic harmony, the image of the characters and the lighting and the set and hopefully the tears on people's faces (good tears, good tears). Heavens, though, I am Bazish today! Good thing, I suppose?

So, as I was attempting to cajole myself to sleep last night/this morning (yes, yes, I know - but it wasn't TOO late!), I was pondering (with the Brain?) whether Thrushbeard is according to the guy I linked to below a "musical" or an "opera." (I put them in quotes because I don't fully buy his distinction based on worldview more than obvious music (& style)/book length proportion.) Thrushbeard would be accounted by him a musical because it has a certain jaded, worldweariness, it has class consciousness and an obvious sympathy with the middle class more than members of the opulent oligarchy, it has the requisite secondary parallel plot of members of social inferiority.... But, operatically, its villain is a really bad villain (doing double duty as Frederick's evil half/devil on my shoulder/sinister voice of doubt inside/etc.), the stakes are heroic and high, they do end up as King and Queen at the end, everything for our heroes is higher and nobler. Can it be that this is a hybrid of the two? That it begins as a musical and ends as an opera? At least, according to this fellow's standards. By sheer proportion of music to book, it's a musical, hands-down. It even has (mostly) hummable tunes. But then, so does Puccini.... Anywho, it's an interesting academic exercize, even if it's not conducive to sleeping immediately.

Now off to voice lessons and to make my school room more habitable! Good Heavens, is it Friday already?

Mood: Wet. And itchy. Yes, that's a mood.
Music: What else? The ubiquitous playlist!
Thought: I like the word ubiquitous....

What Cheers One Up

Uncle Ed is a saint.

Hugh Jackman having a grand old time singing Oklahoma!

Blessed three hours' nap!

Waking up to chicken salad, popsicle, grapes, milk and Diet Coke. Kat fud!

Waking up to the best of John Candy's SCTV sketches. So many so funny!

Did I mention taking a nap?

Che sera sera-ism.

Mood: Infinitely more cheerful now that I've been somewhat nice to my body
Music: "The Surry With the Fringe on the Top" - sing it to me, Hugh!
Thought: I'm running out of journal pages. To buy a new journal or to use an old journal, that is the question...!
Edited to add: this fascinating article about the nature of musicals. He makes some interesting points, although I think he's rather like those folks back in the 60's who said the theatre was dead. It's difficult to completely kill an art form. It can be more or less dominant, but it still exists in some form, somewhere. His question of a) what the difference between musicals and operas essentially is and b) whether, therefore, the modern Western world can produce or enjoy musicals at this particular time requires much thought. Thought which he's not going to get at this particular moment. I'm off to finish up those last six scenes of my own musical!
Edited edited to add: Making the Grade a three minute short movie (quicktime format, med res) starring Hugh Jackman. *singing* Hey, jealousy!
Edited to the third degree to add: an interview with Trevor Nunn who directed, among other things, Les Miserables, Sunset Boulevard, and my ubiquitous Oklahoma!. Needless to say, reading his thoughts is rather euphoric and more than a little yearning-inspiring.

Ich bin sehr kaput!

Alles mich. Kaputkinze. Who's been up since 12:20 noonish yesterday. Moi. Now granted, that's because I was basically steamrolled with inspiration and got through to intermission by 5:45ish, and then got myself together for 7:30 mass, and then went over to Barnes and Noble and wrote the next four scenes up through "Do Not Love Me" leaving just tying up scenes after that 'til about 11:40 and then back home and then I *was* going to nap, but I just wanted to get this stuff OUT and so I've been up instead and .wav files are larger than I realized and I am ACHEY and sleepy - but more achey than sleepy which makes sleeping difficult and now that it's nearly 3 p.m. taking a nap wouldn't solve ANYTHING so I'm going to be up for approx. 39 hours before I can let myself drift off into slumber and voice lessons tomorrow! Aie!

Ist gut. Ist kaput. Ist gut kaput? Nein. Ist sehr schlecht, aber ehr ist doooooooooone!

Mood: Oh, the aches and pains so that I hardly know what to do, Mr. Bennet!
Music: The newest mellow playlist on my computer
Thought: Why. Why, O Muse, do you pick the most inconvenient hours to pay a visit? WARUM?

AH-HAHAHAHHAHHAHAH!!!

I am the evil ovenhead! Or at least I am an Evil Genius, according to this quiz. Apparently, that means that I'm single minded and am never distracted...which is why I blog...when I'm not...being...dis.... Hey! A butterfly!

I got the link from this guy who apparently read my site which meant that I found myself linked from him...you know the whole surfing/six degrees thing. Anywho, this article of his is well worth reading.

Off to plot world domination...!

Mood: PARAFUE!
Music: Aruanjez!
Sigh for: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeearskiiiiiiiiiin!

Ich habe multicoloured locks!

And shortened locks. Shortened to my shoulder and streaked blond and auburn in places. And oh so very artsy chic. And I am grateful to be living in a country where I can go and be waited on like a queen (for a queenly sum, granted). Perhaps this is the American dream? So long as one has the money, one can be waited upon? Curioser and curioser.

So, I'm officially chair for the Religion Department. Exciting and...curioser and curioser. I'm glad, however. I hope to put some organization into place - maybe, oh, have things set in advance rather than waiting around until the last minute? Yeah, that'd be nice. I cajoled K. into printing out the list of the Freshmen for me, for whom I prayed at yesterday's adoration. So glad for adoration. Praise God for adoration! (Indeed, is that redundant?)

He is so good. I'm still discerning, but I'm creeping closer and closer to simply desiring to jump into such a consecration. So, it's a good thing there's a waiting period in place for any sort of consecration in the Church. Keeps one from rushing in in the heat of spiritual ecstacy (or at least, spiritual ebullience - I don't claim ecstacy for myself!). He's been particularly court-y, woo-y. Gallant? Romantic? But I must say that it's frustrating to think of never being kissed, of perhaps never dancing...here on earth. It's silly of me, I know. And when I'm before Him, I can see how silly it is. But I am young, and I am silly. And indeed there will be time...there will be time?...there will be time. Oh, la, for Prufrock! No, that is not what I meant at all!

I've mellowing, existential, introspective music on. Not at all conducive to getting one's energy up at such an hour! The burdens of a worrywart perfectionist - I really have to learn to let things go earlier. They're better than I think they are. They're good enough for all practical purposes. (I have, of course, changed the subject drastically. You will pardon me for not using my linguistic blinker.) Perhaps I shall sleep. But I've Hugh Jackman's performance from Oklahoma! running through my head (watched it last night - fuh-WAH), and bits from A Walk to Remember (not seen again, but rather I was listening to two of the songs on the current playlist and remembering a certain part), and generally attempting to find a template for C&F's fictional romance. As has been mentioned before, thank Heavens for N&R&L - the comedic trio!

Whilst in and round and about HCH yesterday, I happened to overhear more Immaculate Conception/"Traditionalist" Catholicism/Priest bashing. Smiling bashing. Laughing with hidden claws bashing. Poisoned talons bashing. Ignorant bashing. Post-feminazist bashing. Summer of Love induced bashing. AUGH! "Had I a man's office...unsex me now...!" These women are Shakespeare's very women! They are seeking for power, they are presuming power where only powerlessness exists, they are speaking out of their ambition and their selfishness and their ignorance and there is no speaking reason with them!!! I know Cardinal Ratzinger and Fr. Jonathan and other priests have blamed themselves for allowing this second form of lay investiture/lay power-weilding (which has led to pretty much every single trouble the Church has ever found herself in - when the lay people aren't being IDIOTS, the Church is in good health. Once they overstep their bounds, they harm [although never destroy; we can never destroy!] the Church from within! - they are a very Medea...ooooh. Yes. A very good metaphor), and I will allow the priests their blame. Certainly, they've managed to teach us badly or rather not at all these past thirty years. But there's blame a-plenty to go around. And we, the Church, the Bride of Christ, must meekly bend to His will and to His ministers - and seek out, not blindly but with open eyes and eager hearts, His will. We need to desire knowledge of Him, or else we will never understand what He truly desires.

I don't blame my kids for caring less about God - they have never met Him because all of us have failed to introduce them to Him. But I hardly know Him well enough - I am one really rather stupid person - and I need these women to stop behaving like Eves and take on Mary's mantle! Oh, Mary, conceived without sin! Pray for us who have recourse to thee!

To put it in another one of Shakespeare's woman's (paraphrased) words:

I am ashamed that Catholics are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway
When they are bound to honor, love, and obey.

Christian, hold your temper! And meekly put
Your hand 'neath the palm of your savior's foot
In token of which duty, if He please
My hand is ready, ready!
May it do Him ease.

Mood: Rassinfrassin....
Music: E Horo...and I'm off on wings of memory
Thought: Oh, I am tired and not tired and confuuuuuuuuuuzzled!
Thought Redux: Good thoughts on the unpredictability of writing. It's quite true - my sister often laughs when I say, "guess what I discovered!" when ostensibly I'm the one writing so I'm in control...right...right? Ha. Then again, these characters become so real, that Annie had a card game with them.... ;) But as He said to me yesterday, "Emily, you know how you love the characters you create? How they are real to you? How you wish they were real so that you could meet them in truth? That is how I love you." (Only more. Only more.)

Whilst dutifully searching through

My regular sites and rhyming dictionaries for the final verse or two of the latest reprise, I came across this: JIMMY AKIN.ORG: The Defensor Fidei Blog:Inventions I Want: The Song Longer. Amen to that, brother! Now if only there were something that would plug directly to the cranium which would translate all the firing synapses into text, images, music, etc. How to get what's in the brain out into the real world! I can hear symphonies, see movies, behold pictures (and entire worlds and people!), and of course follow along to the point of believability stories...but to get them out of my brain in tact? C'mon, inventor-y type people! (Of course, the ironic Catch-22 is that to develop such a thing, one does not have access to said invention.)

Mood: Yaaay for Peters who help sisters figure out where to cut dialogue!
Music: "The Cowman and the Farmer Should Be Friends" from Oklahoma!
Going to: Turn this off to figure out what the gossips can sing altogether that would really insult Cassandra.
Problem: I'm writing a romance between a couple in a forced marriage. Where's my template?
Another great link: For those who are trying to solve the Snicket mysteries! Regard cette site

Voila!

Mesdames et monsieurs - la video de la photographie pour "A Midsummer Night's Dream"! Low resolutionish - for Windows Media Player. Click here.

Remainders: Not much different from below except that I've put on Oklahoma!

Joie sur la terre!

The Saviour's born! (Can't remember my franglais....)

Absolutely gorgeous day outside. Managed to move the scenes along so that we're now at another split-stage (I swear, Thrushbeard will translate REALLY well onto the screen eventually) when Cassandra's hearing the local gossip about how great Thrushbeard is and how much the citizens generally hate her for turning him down, whilst at the same time, Thrushbeard's checking in with his much-disliked steward, Brosche, and makes the - literally - fatal choice not to inform said steward of his (Thrushbeard's) marriage. Whoever acts these scenes will need to dig deep - exciting, daunting, more exciting than anything.

Now to trick myself into working more today/tonight. The thing is that I need a 24/7 coffee shop. Alas, there's only the Starbucks at Barnes and Noble over in Framingham that comes close, and that's open only until 11. Sigh! Ah, the vagaries of life! Should ever I open a coffee shop, I should call it something like "The Frustrated Author" or "Insomniac Ambiance." Yeah. Betcha it'd do a lot of business...in London or the Village or something. Alas!

Foot's giving me trouble. Concerned about it. Ought to get it looked at. Will do soon. One week - aie! Well, a week and a half, but I'll be in there this week, so...there. 98.5 is actually playing non-rap music. (Alanis on right now, in fact.) Hrumph - laundry in. Ought to do sort other laundry. Which do I desire to do less? Laundry or beat my head out against some reprise lyrics? Laundry. However, if I leave the area as it is, I'll be constantly looking over at the unfinished laundry and therefore will waste time that could be spent on banging head against said LCD. Oh, the dilemma! DI-LEM-MA! ;P Nineteen days until another year older...can it be? Took Jules and parental units out to Chinese lunch - much discussion of finances, etc. A reminder that I'm doing what I'm doing not so much for the parental units as for Peter. Puts things in a new perspective, but also reminds me why I cannot move out. I don't resent - as Mom was concerned - helping to support the family. But, well, it's not particularly easy, either. "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Soooooo true!

And on that random paragraph, enlightening to none but myself.... I remain, your obedient,

Elspeth

Been a while since I've used that nom de plume! I do so like that name. And...here's to poss. Les Mis...and whatever else life brings...!

Mood: Laundry or lyrics? Lyrics or laundry? Wheat...death...wheat...death...wheat...DEATH! (Ah, good ole Woody.)
Music: Whatever 90's music is on 98.5 - yaaay!
Goodness is: Two near pairs of shoes which have thick soles but are stylish - perfect for school; an evening spent conversing with Sh.; mass; Emma and Alex; the rosary.

Masculine Beauty
And other thoughts:

Mankind is so backwards. In the animal world, the male is the creature of beauty, and the female is frequently rather drab. (E.g., the robin or the peacock.) As humans, we tend to place the full burden of beauty upon the woman (especially in Hollywood-oppressed America), and either diminish masculine beauty or twist it around to become feminine. Neither is natural. Masculine beauty doesn't come from a "feminization" of man (just as much as women don't attain power through "masculinization," but rather through using our own complimentary abilities, natural to our gender), but rather masculine beauty comes from a man at ease with himself and with his gender. And just as feminine beauty is multifarious - no one eye/skin/hair colour is the sole source of beauty, nor one body type, nor one personality - so too masculine beauty. There is simply something wonderful about a strong jaw with sensitive lips, about the prominence of certain bones (cheekbones, clavicles, wrists and elbows come to mind), about the graceful line of the back and the ribs, the strength of the tendons. One desires to cry out with the bard, "Oh! What a piece of work is man!" (Of course, in relationship the same sentiment may be used to quite different connotation....)

We lost our power for about four hours (I'm Poe's internal rhyme!) today, from 6:30ish to 10:30 ish. However, the great candle hoarders, Julie and I, came to the rescue and managed to stink up our house with a dozen conflicting smells. It's a curious thing to spend a night only by candlelight. One is constantly aware of the light - and of where the shadows lie. One feels nearly lost, almost swimming, when one looks for a simple object such as a pen, or is trying to decipher a chord notation on a piece of music. Candlelight quiets the house. It prove conducive to introspection and to mystery. It certainly proved helpful for writing more Thrushbeard scenes out! I was saddened when the electricity returned...mainly because it all seemed so glaring and loud all of a sudden. There was no where to escape to, there was no reason to huddle together. Without fully desiring an Amish life - I begin to understand the attraction.

Last night...this morning...I put together a picture slideshow for Midsummer Night's Dream. After much futzing (hours of futzing, in fact), I discovered that the pictures fit beautifully well with Avril Lavigne's "I'm With You" (a song that I'll admit I really like. Call me a sap - I know). I'm proud of that show - and looking forward to doing this year's show. I talked with Tom Prunera about possible venues (going to check out St. Matthias next) and about sound and other good stuff like that. Lord - halp! But, as I mentioned, I worked more on the dialogue - so that I've actually found a good segue from "I Am a Minstrel True"-y mood to "Who Is the Lord"-y mood. Now I just have to finish OFF that scene, and then continue on with the scene between Lucy, Nigel & Raoul - wherein I'm channeling much Monty Python.

It's constantly curious to me, as I write scenes - either for plays or for novels - that a scene might go anywhere. Before it's written, while the words are just forming themselves, as one plays countless games of Freecell trying to figure out the next line, the next movement, the next tone - the scene is truly in potentia. What makes it more curious is this: once the scene is more or less set, it feels as though the way it went - the changes of mind, of objective, of tactic, of intention - are the only course. There is no evidence - if written correctly - of the author's initial indecision. Odd. (And now I must hide before the International Author's Mafia, hubristically anacronymed "IAM," comes to kill me with poisoned quills and/or lock me up with a Raven for giving away guild secrets.)

Mood: Zippydoodah! Zippidyay! My oh my I finished a scene today!
Music: Various Thrushbeard-y bits, as well as "I'm With You"
Thought: I think I shall do a quick .mpg version of the MSND slideshow so that I can post it here. Poetry is awesome.

In brief,

Your noble son is mad! Really, really, I'm kicking myself off this dumb machine. However, who can pass up Auden?

The More Loving One -- W. H. Auden.

Or who isn't made happy by Ogden Nash? (Just his name makes me laugh!) Note: read it aloud. That's best. The Sniffle -- Ogden Nash

And since brevity is the soul of wit.... Juliet -- Hilaire Belloc

Remainders: Much as below
PICTURE!!! Because sometimes there's too much text. From Juste's journal. Click on the image to enlarge.

I am not a fan

Of this blogger bar at the top. The "next blog" is simply a random blog and like any sort of mindless surf, it can lead to places one didn't really mean/want to go. Now, granted, blogger.com isn't making me go to the "next blog" - that's completely a thing of my own free will. But they are giving me a choice - a choice that wasn't readily available before. Rather like that whole Eden thing. *sigh*

In other non-complain-y news, I've managed to get in a Holy Hour each day for the past three days, which is something of an achievement for me. Although, it's not been easy whatsoever. The temptation towards mind-numbing nothingness is perhaps the greatest temptation; I wonder what failings are borne more from boredom and lassitude than purpose? (Sorry! I didn't mean to dwell on sin again.... Of course, I'm reading The Bible and the Koran to prepare myself for teaching the Juniors this year, so maybe that's part of it.)

I found and put together and read all my printed versions of Elspeth. Then I made the dreadful mistake of reading the OLDEST version - the one that was written approximately from the years 1993-1996, when I was, what...15-18? Something like. I could easily tell the difference between the 15-16 year old stuff and the 17-18 year old revisions. (I wonder whatever happened to the 14-15 year old stuff...? That was truly dreadful and ponderous as I recall. *shudder* Having that whole bit of breaking into the castle. Ugh! Ah well, at least it was excised VERY early on!) So, some thoughts on rereading really, really old stuff:

1) It's encouraging to see the little glimmers of good writing; it's frankly surprising to see some decent writing with $10 words; it's hilarious to come across certain $10 words (vivisepulchre comes to mind) and remember looking them up to write them; it's strange to realize that some part of your mind has memorized word for word the good bits that you've been working on forever...

and most of all, it's interesting and encouraging to see how much more one knows about the world than one did (not just this world, but that one, I mean).

2) It's also discouraging to see that one ever thought this was fabulous. Ah ca.

I don't regret any of the time I spent, or the sheets upon sheets upon sheets of paper that I've used, figuring out her world. The work I've done on it over all these years, when I truly didn't know anything about what I was doing, what the tone was, what the rules were, etc. - is starting to pay off now. Golly - I've been with this world for...eleven years! No wonder it's just a teeeensy bit more fleshed out now than it was when I was a Sophomore in high school! So that's encouraging. Even if my first attempts at writing in that world are painfully out of place. It's rather like a first year French student attempting to translate Hugo during her second week of classes. Ha. But we grow and learn and hopefully keep learning.

So few days left 'til school. Strangely surrealistic. It always is. And then one adjusts within the first half-hour back...and then it becomes surrealistic again around 2:30 when you go home...and then the next day the students arrive and it's business as usual. It's awfully tempting, since I'll have all the Freshmen, to do something to really psych them out on the first day of classes...but, alas, no. I simply can't find my Groucho Marx glasses.

Still praying over that special intention. However, I'm growing more and more excited about the prospect so...who knows? Well, obviously, God does - hence the praying. His will, not mine. And I'm more concerned that I may be romanticizing the whole idea, which I don't want. It wouldn't be fruitful in the discernment process. ("I've been thinking about "Discerning" - I [don't] think we should do it." Curious how things come around and thwack you upside the head, but not in either direction one was expecting. God: The Lord of Surprises.)

Und now ve tanz! I know I've been ending a lot on that - but it seems to sum up a lot. As in, "OK. I've no clue what I'm doing. But I'll just do the next thing in front of me. I'm not God; I've no control over the world, but I can make my little corner of it brighter or darker. What shall I do? I'll dance!" David before the Ark, non?

Diet Coke time. Time to try another approach to something either literary or musical. Mustn't waste what precious time I have being something other than creative. However, as much as I enjoy the Triplets of Bellevue CD, the second half is rather weird and I think I'm going to turn it off and find something a bit more neo-Classical. Hmmm...what Handel CD's do I have hanging around?

Mood: Odd. It's a weird day outside - not quite sunny, not quite rainy - and I can't see most of it anyway. I think I'd best betake myself and longhand it outside so that I'm not tempted to the internet or freecell (darn you, 66% score!).
Music: Regarde en haute
Thought: Ich habe piano musick zum "De-Lovely"! BOO-yeah!

Worldbuilding Gone Haywire

The next scene for Thrushbeard is not coming and not coming and so I've sat my patootie down in my chair and have printed out what I have for TSV and am going through it and writing myself a "File for my Sanity" (aka cheat sheet) so that I can know what street names I have, what people names I've used so far, etc. etc.

For character names, I have approx. 18 crucial main players, and then I have 18 other fairly important characters (although there will probably end up being more in this category), and then I have the amazing 97 (NINETY-SEVEN)-ish names that I've dropped here and there for worldbuilding purposes (people's names!!!)...which is only what I have so far. (I still have to comb through the remaining 25 pages or so and this is only in the first 50 pages.)

However, I will say this in my defense: most of the names are absolute throw-aways. And I think it comes across that way. But more than anything, I'm astounded that I was able to come up with so many names! Good Heavens!

Oh, and I have a little less than 60 streets or landmarks named...just in the capital city. Good Heavens. I'm just a leeetle trepidatious about making the map for this city. And I'm kicking myself because apparently I didn't label the countries I'd named on the Southern Continent on the map itself. The clues I've left myself make it easy to remember which one is which, but it really a rather curious reverse engineering project. Fun, though!

Mood: I ought to go to sleep.
Music: HP3
Thought: Spiritual direction tomorrow! Yaaay!

Ja, ja, ich weiss

That I just posted. I'm making up for lost time and not doing what I set down to do - which is to write, specifically (what else this week?) Thrushbeard. But I've Les Mis on ("Little Fall of Rain" now) and I'm definitely in a more Arianja-y mood, except that I look at those monster books and say, "AhHAHAHHAH...right. No way am I writing in a monster book tonight! Not when I've got things with deadlines a-comin' up!" But then that little part of me says, "Yeah...but you like that world. You've neglected that world. And most importantly: you want to know what happens next." (Who's been reading Goldman? ;P)

So, what shall I do? I'm tempted to simply print out The Sable Valentine (a copy for my own records) and perhaps work on that. Even a little. Granted, the best bits are the newspaper clippings - the Reverended press makes me giggle the most, it's so over-the-top silly - and I'm feeling that really the whole thing needs to be the equivalent of a graphic novel to be done right.

OK - I'm a little hesitant to write here because of the forum however...well, I shall write in code. Tuesday, Emily, Tuesday. And one day...one day. Of course, the thought of hours upon hours, technically unstructured is itself quite daunting, and even more nervewracking is the fear that I'll never have hours upon hours because I know what theatre life is like. But, honestly, I'm not sure how long the current situation can/will/should last. It's not a bad situation - it meets survival needs barely - it's a good thing and I enjoy it (although anticipation to an event is never pleasurable) - but it is not, I think, lifelong. Or at least, lifelong in this particular forum (not literally but metaphysically or rather removed physically speaking and the Dowager Dutchess raises her head and shakes it at me!).

Silly, Emily. All thing work for the best. You're learning, too. And hindsight is 20/20. Better to do, not to fret in advance. Do or do not?

And on that suitably gnomish sentiment, I remain:

Mood: Confuzzled
Music: Suitably, once again, "It's a World Where the Dogs Eat the Dogs" from Les Mis
Thought: Handwriting, peut-etre?
Quick Randominity:

Garden State didn't do it for me as a whole. It was a hymn to mediocrity. Many amusing parts, good performances, some lovely writing, a few good visuals (most of them are spoiled in the excellent trailer), but ultimately a hymn to mediocrity. And I can't get behind that, emotionally. And then a Hollywood ending on an indie film. Urg?

LOTR exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science was lovely. Not large enough and very crowded, but lovely. I wanted to simply stay and stare at each bit of embroidery and embossing and gold leafing on the various weapons and belts and costumes. Ah ca - for a time when we knew that Time was gift to be used, not one to be spent as hastily as possible. Ah ca for true individuality. Ah ca for beauty even in the ordinary. Ah ca for goodness. (Beats head disconsolately upon the plastic keyboard.)

Boston itself lovely. Hadn't walked about for a long time. Good to walk, even if legs hurt by end. Alas and alack, Spielberg (sp?) was at Tanglewood - but we listened to it on 102.5 and caught "The Blue Danube" live on the Common. However, I am not a city person. As Jules put it: you felt clausterphobic after a while. I found myself wanting to take longer and longer steps just to push people out of my way, to gain a little space.

Thought: I'm running Norton Antivirus on my computer and it says there are so many this or thats that need to be fixed, you press a button and presto the screen pops up to say, we fixed it! But...how do we know? We take so much for granted except, perhaps, obvious things such as how nature works. Oh! The humanity! (Hmmm, this is a central question of TSV, iddn't it?)

Yeah. Who's already thinking again of how to block Les Mis...were I to do it...ever...in the future...maybe...we'll see...tempting tempting...!

Und now ve tanz!

Go go go Steven!

Yay! Steven Greydanus gives reasonable answers in his: JIMMY AKIN.ORG: The Defensor Fidei Blog: Notes on the gay "marriage" debate. Hoopla! As always, so well expressed. I'm constantly amazed at man's ability to want to deny logic - that it's wonderful to read someone who embraces logic. (Honestly, what DO they teach children these days?)

And in related news (because I've no coherency myself, but they do), Jimmy Akin on "The Death of the West Revisited".

Mood: Sleepy.
Music: Ironically, "Master of the House" from Les Miserables
Activity du semaine: Reading reading reading: The Nanny Diaries, Maskerade and Hogfather by Pratchett, Adventurs in the Screen Trade by William Goldman (of Princess Bride fame), the AFI's Directors on Directing...and inbetween time writing Thrushbeard. And probably tonight's reading will be the textbook for the Juniors. Yup.

Loveliness is:

Mark Shea's latest: A Poem As Much As a Story. Yeah, and now to Thrushbeard....

Mood: Scratchy skirt
Music: Need to rifle through collection for something Thrushbeardy.
Thought: Hmmm, wonder if there's any rice left upstairs?

Oh, Hell

(Sung to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum")

Oh Hell Week, Oh Hell Week?
When will I get some sle-ep?
Oh Hell Week, Oh Hell Week
When the cast and crew's not me-ek!

We rant and rave, we're all upset
But oh alas, too soon forget
We'll do another play as well
And hope that next last week isn't Hell.

Mood: Did I just pull out all that hair?
Music: The printer printing run-through notes
Thoughts: See dining room table