Serial

She was genuinely horrified, was the weird thing.

I mean, yeah. There are bullies at school. Anyone who thinks about it has to know. It's like abusive parents. If you think for two seconds, you realize that someone at your school of a few hundred has to have a problem with them, because they're always there. And yet, somehow, people always act like it's some big shock. I guess it's the same as death. We get to a point where we realize everyone is going to die. But we don't feel it for a long while after. So it happens, we see it happen, and then we get it. And it's terrifying. So you can react a couple ways. One way is to blame the victim: Oh no, it couldn't happen to me. JUSTIFICATION DRIVE ACTIVATED: Because I'm not stupid/mean/stuck-up enough to provoke them. Another is to not quite believe what you're hearing.

So she hadn't believed me when I told her I was being bullied. Or she hadn't done anything, or it hadn't done any good, all of which comes down to the same set of apparents from my point of view, and any question that could clarify is insulting, so there I am. The other student tells on me and we get called into her office. I'm honest, the other student exaggerates, she reacts to the worst in both our stories so I get called a tattler--I'm unpopular in that crowd, mind--and the other student and I both serve a detention. The message gets across pretty clearly: It's not quite useless, but you have to be willing to hurt a little too, and bullying/fighting/freaking without consent isn't that big a deal.

Which all adds up to some words tumbling out of my mouth before I can think to stop them, and so sincere because of that that she can't help but believe they're a true question:

"You care about that stuff?"

See line one. From what I've seen, the woman is not an amazing actor. She can smile and hide her feelings, but any of us learn that, and she uses the same smile I do. The bright, brittle smile that communicates deeper dislike than a glare.

So when she gave me a look that could have been on a poster titled "SHOCK AND HORROR, TONIGHT ONLY, NO WOMEN OR CHILDREN ALLOWED", I knew she honestly cared. Which...well, at first only surprised me, then pissed me off a little. What on earth? The rules as written allow her to give worse punishments for fighting. Why would she be so shocked that I thought she didn't care?

"Of course I care." Again, just so bald-faced honest.

I glanced at Nina, who was sitting next to me and had a layered effect that both Ms. Robin and I had ditched in favor of clarity. Outer, probably what Ms. Robin was picking up, attentive and slightly bemused; inner, mildly annoyed at me. She'd already figured out Ms. Robin cared.

I turned back to Ms. Robin and decided that, in the absence of any useful precedent telling me otherwise, I might as well be honest. "We're in high school, ma'am. We're going to fight. Every day. The only difference is that we touched each other."

"You should keep your arguments verbal."

"Why?"

"Because you could hurt each other."

I paused at that, trying to find some crack in her sincerity. It wasn't there. "Ms. Robin," I said softly, "we hurt each other more if we don't solve it. If we fight physically, I can tell when it ends. I've been in verbal fights that extended several years past their end because one person got over it and the other thought she was just being given the silent treatment. As long as we stay behind the threshold of long-term to permanent damage or weapons, how is this any worse?"

Had it been another day, or a different environment, Ms. Robin might have been secure enough in her worldview to give a long speech that boiled down to, "Because physical violence is always worse than verbal violence." But we had been honest with each other. She knew me to be bright, she knew me to be kind, and she knew me to be, at least for now, honest. She paused, perhaps checking me for sincerity, perhaps the sentence for truth.

Finally, Ms. Robin said something that made me respect her more than I'd ever respected a teacher at that school.

"I don't know."

Faith and Trust

Just for the record, I do not plan to look up either of these in the dictionary while writing this post, and I do not recall ever having done so in the past. I may look both faith and trust up at the end, and put down the official definitions at the end of this post. However, even if they are there, I will change nothing earlier. That is why this part does not establish whether I will do it, even though you, the reader who is reading through the time it took me to write this, can scroll down a few inches and see.

Inspired by a Simpsons quote (paraphrased),

Wiggum: You have that much faith in me?
Homer: No, faith is what you have in things that don't exist. Your awesomeness is real.

I will be writing as if I am referring to people, though you can have faith in or trust something as much as someone.

In the most basic terms: Faith is believing that someone will aid you. No reason to really, no guarantee, no need. Just you believe this. Pretty much the exact opposite of the scientific method*. It doesn't have to be absolutely certainty--though that is what absolute faith is. Even without evidence, the bedrock-solid knowledge that this fact is true.

Flip side, used less: Knowing that it will all go wrong fits equally well. Knowing that the person with the wrong scar over the right eye is going to stab you in the back. You don't know the person. You just see the face.

Laconic: This I believe.

Trust is different. You might have faith in some people after not seeing them for years, but trust has to be kept up. Help you up; stand by you when no one else would; just be there when you need them to be and you trust them. You have seen how they acted in the past, and it leads you to believe they are good people. You know they'll help you and yours.

Flip side, used less: Pretty obvious at this point. Push you down; run when someone else stood with you; leave when you need them most. Worse, do that and then expect you to help them. Maybe even worse than that. Because you will, and tomorrow they're back to this knife-twisting trust, you know they'll hurt you. But you choose. Do you turn you back on you own ideals? Do you stick to them, cruel people or no?

Or do you change your ideals for a new situation?

*I am not belittling the scientific method or faith. The scientific method does require setting one's faiths aside for the sake of seeing reality as it is--but not everything is scientifically provable. And stuff that isn't scientifically proven may well still be true.

Dictionary, closest to mine posted:
Faith: b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
Trust: a : assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something

Musing: "Because of You"

Yep, the song by Kelly Clarkson. You may want to listen to at least the beginning before reading this blog post, it'll make more sense.

Both my mom and I have a certain amount of dislike for this song--though mine is less "Turn that OFF" than hers is, and I do enjoy it sometimes. I think I figured out why. Kelly Clarkson sings it like it's sad, and depressive, and a complete mope of a song.

It's not.

Okay, yes, this requires Death of the Author thinking, but that's just not how it reads to me. Especially when you factor in that she swears in the middle. Swearing means A) not thinking about the words (BAD) B) angry or C) completely broken down, which isn't how she plays it either. She doesn't seem like she's crying, she doesn't seem like she's so broken she can't even express her feelings anymore, she just feels like...she wanted to swear there.

The line I'm referring to:

And now I cry in the middle of the night for the same damn things!

As something of an experiment, I tried singing it angry. First of all, it was easy. It seemed the natural way to sing the song. Second, yep, my mom felt it sounded better.

I think it's because otherwise, the song feels manipulative. An actor doesn't just say, "I'm broken," because there aren't very many realistic characters who would. The part to play is avoiding eye contact, wincing, leaping into or out of danger because everything is off-kilter.

And so yes, the song should have moments where the singer collapses. But they should be moments, not the majority of the song.

In addition, the whole thing falls under telling. "Because of you I am afraid." ...Lovely. And I suppose you're going to tell us some of the story...dude cried in the other room. Um. Anything...anything else you want to share? About this giant, life-shattering experience you decided to share with millions in song?

...Just gonna say you're heart's shattered and you stay on the safe side of everything. Well, it's lovely you were able to share all--

Oh. Wow. Actually, that's pretty clever if it's two characters deep. Take it, not as playing the hurt girl who's thinking this to herself, but the artist writing this song. She wants to share more, but she can't. She can bring herself to tell how hurt she is, but not really what happened. Because it was life-shattering.

And that may not make sense with Kelly Clarkson--her other music and the mere fact that she is where she is suggest some level of bravery--but it does make sense as a character who is a songwriter played by a songwriter.

This is why I muse.

Junior Achievement Innovation Camp

I'm not the best in the world at giving context, so if you want a little more information, read here.

The following post is a summary of my notes, which were taken directly from thoughts. Coherency is not likely. Times are rough--I have more specifics, but I simply wrote the time down whenever I glanced at my watch, so it's more consistent to just write down the estimates.

8AM We were all ushered into a room after finding the building--which wasn't the easiest task, but once you found the right building via a one-block-ish radius of trial and error, there was a great big Junior Achievement sign in green. Breakfast included much fresh fruit, many pastries, and fruit juice. I was rather nervous about meeting the people at my table, but a young man--whom I'll call V due to lacking permission to use his name--started a conversation with me, and it got better from there.

9AM
This was the first Innovation Camp at HP, so that was cool. The music was rather random; it sounded like someone had looked through the top songs on iTunes with some unknown rules in mind.

They asked for some people to interview about the event, and encouraged us to talk about the event to our friends, and make posts on facebook/twitter/our blogs (hi).

Then they went over the main activity of the day. We would have to make a business plan, write a concept paper (what you might hand off to someone who needed to take over the project temporarily) and a Powerpoint, along with a three minute presentation to go along with it (our sell). The former was due rough at 11:30 and final at 2:00; the rough Powerpoint was due at 11:30 as well and the final at 3:00, along with our final presentation.

After came the icebreakers. We tore our elephant faces without opening our eyes. I tried to make eyes but ran out of time since we only had thirty seconds, a few others did, too, but not many succeeded.

We found our groups, which were assigned by the animal stickers on our ID holders. I was an anteater, and V was in my group, along with another person, and two more who would show up after the icebreakers. We made a tower out of only paper. That means no tape, no glue, no pins. Another team won by a hair--not over us, they were a level and an eighth over us, but only an eighth over another.

10AM
We were pointed to a facebook page for JA, and started brainstorming ideas for the prompt given. The prompt, by the way, was intentionally vague:

If you are given a chance to start a social enterprise to address a societal challenge, what would you do?

Explain: the product or service you would offer, the challenge it would tackle and how technology would help you achieve your goal.

The challenges we came up with were class divisions, drug abuse, crime, obesity, health care and (teenage) stress. We thought of a few different center-type projects, an settled on a teen center/rec center/"growth and wellness center" (I couldn't think of a good name, all right?). The idea was that teens would be working with teens, so the focus would be on teens teaching each other sports, peer tutoring, teaching each other to work in the garden, etc. There would be a library/study room, a cafeteria, a garden, a sports room, a learning center (tutoring), and a fun room. We decided on the T.Y.G.E.R. center, though didn't quite settle on what that stood for until a while later.

11AM
We split into groups to finish what we had left, since we only had thirty minutes left. I gravitated toward the most down-to-earth stuff--what do we need, why do we need it, etc. Not that I was the only one, or that that was all I did; it's just what I preferred. Our professional in the field that was going to help us showed up at 11:28, when we were mainly typing, and so was more help on the cleanup than the rough draft--which makes sense.

There was a countdown from 10 during the last 10 seconds, probably to avoid conflicting watches.

Lunch was served at 11:30, and was heavy. Good thing, too, considering most of us were twisting our heads around new ideas and quite a few of us were working on little sleep. If you can't get energy from A, B's not a terrible bet. I had a clif mojo bar and turkey wrap (as opposed to sandwich), which came with pasta salad and peanut butter cookie.

The table was quiet, so I people watched. Everyone looked thoughtful, and was comparing ideas, moving from place to place, or off in their own head.

A young woman I'll call L struck up a conversation about nothing much.

11:59
Speech time! A man from Dreamworks came over and spoke about Megamind, which one girl shouted out was, "Friggin' awesome!" so that was fun.

12AM
A new speaker, who was a self-professed geek and talked bout how he had been in movies/audio stuff a long time, and been with Dreamworks specifically about three years. He went over how 3D movies are made, and the difference between 3D and stereoscopic 3D. For those curious, 3D means the animators are working with 3D models, stereoscopic 3D is what most people call 3D, where the images appear to come near you. He went into a lot of technicals I found interesting but that would take too long to go into.

Random bits: Storyboards are still drawn by hand, by the way. The technology is specifically designed to facilitate that. And in How to Train Your Dragon, every dragon's flame was unique. C++ is still common. Animators look at how the voice actors act when animating, for realism and to see how person X got Y emotion.

Oh, and he said that literally everyone at Dreamworks is working on a script on the side, so you get readings all the time.

We met our advisers, and took a group photo.

1PM Back to work.
We went over how to get ideas communicated--basic, but good to hear aloud. If you talk a lot, step back, if you talk little, step up. We pressed the idea of it being a safe haven, and tried to figure out who would invest. Also figured that a 3-minute presentation, 180 seconds, needs to be planned down to the second.

We ended up going back and editing the acronym several times, but what we settled on was Technology Youth Growth Empowerment Rejuvenation. It occurs that growth was a pun--the teens and the garden.

Advertising seemed to be a pretty good point to push, especially since a sufficiently popular center would have infinite advertising potential, especially to a group like HP which advertises to just about anyone who could want a computer--a lower and higher age with each year.

Then it was 2PM

Then we took a break and went back to the room where we'd had breakfast and lunch, and would give our speeches. I shared with one rather nervous girl who would have to close the presentation the great secret of public speaking: "Thank you for your time."*

TECHNO (another acronym, didn't catch it) which had a pay-per-bid system I thought was interesting. You pay, not just when you win, but for each bid you make. This tends to improve profit margins.

Us.

SmartVision talked about connecting teachers in first and third world countries via smartboards.

The next group started out with a picture from 2012, and designed a virtual reality which reflects how the world will be if one keeps using this much energy, and gives you points--leaderboards. There was a nice contrast, one group member was upbeat and attention-grabbing, the rest were calm to the point of shyness.

The next group talked about putting touchscreens in desks. This would put all the textbooks there, and make the classroom paperless.

Zzz Band (pronounced Zz-zz band) talked about their band, which would tell one one's heart rate, cholesterol, all that good stuff. It would have a customizable design, and be marketed to teens.

Helping Hands was about teen pregnancy and would be on facebook and twitter. Incidentally, we almost called ourselves Helping Hands, that would've been awkward.

Education.reThought talked about eco-desks and Tablets would allow school without physical presence (if sick).

BAM was a social network.

Inspired would focus on cyberbullying, phoneline.

Nutrivend was about a vending machine that would give you a customizable salad in a sealed and cool vending machine. Not pre-packaged nor with preservatives, as a salad bar would be.

Change the Cycle--helping bullied and stopping bullies from occurring.

5:30 PM Dinner
I had chicken, rice, a roll s'mores pie, and a green bean, then a sour green apple fruit snack.

Awards Ceremony
Announced that we were 73 kids from 19 schools. The top five were: the 2012 group (which emphasized our relative intelligence in comparison to the rest of the world), TECHNO (the soft money payback in advertising), Zzz Bands--which was the only group to finish on-time, Nutrivend, and Education.reThought.

Rich Friedrich came up and spoke about how our generation has some novel stuff, and we need to know we're the first globally connected generation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have run out of money. It is time to start thinking." --Sir Ernest Rutherford.

Third place: Nutrivend (HP backpacks)
Second place: TECHNO (HP backpacks, I think they had something but I couldn't see)
First place: Zzz Band (HP backpacks, mugs filled with candy, and netbooks)

We all got door prizes/goodie bags filled with: a water bottle, a "UFO logo"--it floats, illusively--a lanyard, a pencil, a USB stick, two vouchers for The Tech Museum of Innovation, and 50 free prints from Snapfish.

Then I went home, finished my homework, and fell asleep with a thud muted by the mattress.

*I came up with two more later, by the way: "Hello, my name is," and roll with it.

This post written in an hour and a half.

Portfolio 12 Short Story: Convection

I don’t know how long it’s been.

There are people I’ve met who will use that phrase flippantly. “Oh, I haven’t been out in I don’t know how long,” and laugh. I’ve stopped. I don’t know how long it’d been since I stopped using such terms so easily, but it happened. How many days, how many years, how many bodies, how many ages… I closed my eyes.

We’ll tell you a lot, if you ask. Any fallen angel will tell you the most horrible pain they’ve ever felt is the fall. None of them will ever say it was losing their wings—partially because we never speak of it, mostly because, no matter what the movies show, that’s not it. Demons don’t lose their wings, and if anything that is their curse.

The pain is the separation. When you’re there, you are a part of everything, you are connected to literally everything, by threads and cords and ropes and wires. And it is the most amazing thing I have ever felt. It is being a part of everything that is. Humans don’t notice it much, because they’re only connected by the one little strand that connects with a few other people. The nexuses, the ones that connect at least two people—and usually many, many more—are what goes up.

Is it really up? I wondered, not for the first time. I know that, technically speaking, it’s everywhere. But every time I go to earth, I feel like I fall. And I do remember having wings in that brief period that stretches for so long in my head, because I know really feeling my wings means I’m about to fall or rise again.

I opened my eyes and stared out at the crowd, sipping at a cup of coffee. The first few times, I’d avoided anything that could be considered even a little sinful. The absolute minimum food, always stuff I didn’t much like; the least comfortable clothes that didn’t call attention to my penance; and absolutely nothing that could be considered a drug. I’d gotten over it. Separation was punishment enough.

I rise, I fall. I wrote in my journal. It’s not the first time I’ve written it. Of course, the first time it wasn’t English. English didn’t exist yet, not really. Oh, I suppose you could say that the first time I’d gotten enough money together for a journal—because a journal helped, and I wasn’t sure if that was okay for the longest time—was technically in very old Old English, but that’s so far from modern English it makes about as much sense to call it German.

I rise; I fall. I corrected. No matter how long I’ve lived here, I still forget the semicolon. I’ve written this so many times; you’d think I’d remember, but when I started stuff like spelling and punctuation were optional. Anyway, it’s a journal.

You got cast out of heaven for any of the seven deadly sins. I’m not entirely sure if that goes for humans. They might just be floating in that rapturous tangle of thread and cord and rope so close and thick and not quite tangible that it’s more of a cloud. It’s still here, down here. The first few times, I couldn’t see it or feel it, but I’ve learned to sense it. That’s my special little self-made curse. Because, yes, I know how it feels. And, no, I can’t feel it.

Angels get to fall. We come down here and pay our penance, and pay extra for any other sins we commit while here. I wonder, sometimes, if the little sins add up, too. I wonder if I’ll ever get to stay. When you sin so many times, can you truly be forgiven?

I gripped the cup tighter. No. No. Not that cruel. Impossible.

I finished my coffee and picked up my jacket to go. It was a nice little place. You could sit in a dark corner or in the open air, you paid first, and it almost made me forget the little upside-down split V scar down my back.

Portfolios 22 and 23 Poetry: The Dark and Lit Twin

Written as a pair, originally "The Dark Twin" and "The Lit Twin".

The night is closing in.
But it isn’t. Not really. Not ‘closing in’.
That is far too harsh a term.
As the crepuscular time closes and full night comes, she beckons softly.
She wraps you, not in warmth, but in experience.
In the chilled air.
In those little smells that only come at night.
Maybe someone’s barbequing.
Maybe you can smell night blooming flowers.
But always she comes softly, leading you to a new land like a mother guiding your first steps.
A lover holding your hand through tough times.
Some only appreciate those warm summer nights, where the moon is full;
As if her job is to be a quieter day.
She does not work to become like him. She simply is.
She fills the sky with deep velvet, indigo, blue, black; her diamonds spread across,
Winking an eye, showing a flash of armor, twinkling like lightning.

Have you ever cried at the sunset or the stars just because they were?
Have you ever really looked?
Or do you walk only in the light, shunning the dark, shunning the crisp chill, shunning the void of black between stars?



Day breaks.
So much hope, so much love, in each new sunrise.
And then…
“Ugh.”
“Five more minutes.”
“I hate Mondays.”
And just like that, you’ve missed the day.
As surely as you had slept through it.
Just as we miss his twin, we miss him.
Not because we sleep, not because we’re scared:
Because we take him for granted or go out teeth bared.
Because we think of day as less sacred than night—
Just because of a little light.

Portfolio 19 Autobiography: First of the Night

This was a school assignment from last year. We wrote one entry a week. Here's one of the better ones. This was written to be performed aloud, and I sang the appropriate line.

I’m backstage. The world is fading in and out of focus, but it’s there enough for me to hear John: “I’m so nervous.”

I give a shaky laugh, “You’re nervous.”

I can’t imagine him being nervous. How long had he spent on this? A few months? It can’t’ve been more than three. It was impossible for him to be as nervous as he seemed, shaking a little from stress and excitement. If he messed up, then he’s messed up once, and he’s lost a few months. A few months out of your whole life is nothing really, even at fourteen. If I mess up…

If I screw this up, I’ve wasted fourteen years.

This swims through my head, and John turns to me, surprised. “You’re nervous?” Something calls him away.

It takes half a second for that to sink in. I grin. He can’t imagine me being nervous. I have nothing to be nervous about. Him? He’s spent a couple months, tops, preparing for this. He might mess this up. He’s still learning, barely even started. Me? I have spent fourteen years of my life moving toward this moment. This is my time. I get to show everyone why I sought for so many years, why I have practiced and pushed and tried for so many after that, no matter what. I get to show them why it matters.

And, I can admit now that I’m out of it, I got to show them-—every friend, every acquaintance, every stranger, every bully, and especially every bully-—that I counted. That no matter what else may happen, this I can do. This I can be. Tell me there isn’t a person in this world who truly cares for me, tell me I’m worthless, tell me I’m not even human. I may even believe you. But no matter; I sing.

I stride out onto the stage, spirit high and smiling. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I know now why that song felt like mine, and why it was so important to sing that song to them. It was my story. It is my story.

It’s the story of a woman who learned to fly.

My cue hits: “Something has changed within me.” Everything. My world may twist and twirl and stagnate into whatever it may be, but I know that this has changed me.

And as I sing, I come to her—-our realization. You don’t need to work for that one. You never did. You need to work for you. You may leave some old friends behind, but you’ll be flying free. You will find all you need.

The audience cheers mid-song and I grin. The music swells and I soar. I am the song, and I am glorious. I am triumphant.

One day in eighth grade, in my little red dress, I changed my world. I wrote lines of fire across our souls. And even if the marks fade on some, the memories burn bright.

And I got the first standing ovation of the night.



A case where the story inspired the trope (TV Tropes is addictive): I Am Becoming Song

Something New, Old, Wonderful

Unrealistic? Probably. I don't ever remember seeing this in real life.

I start by falling to that realm in my head, back/left/center that holds right. For a moment, I'm floating; it's dark, senseless. Not in a bad way, not insane, not anything. Truly. No sensations.

Then, slowly, it spreads. My head floats on my shoulders. My feet grounded, my body whole. No checking for where the connection between grounded and floating is. That twists, grounds.

Shhh... There. Unbothered, unsensed, thoughts floating, whirling, drifting, whispering... Almost asleep. Dreaming.

This time, the dark turns black. Alone for just a moment. Bells chime; white comes. Lovely, soft spots of cheery, chilly white. Almost spherical, all of them. All with natural sides, more freshly turned earth than bubbles. Lovely, they drift down. Or up. To me.

Oh, beautiful. They come into focus. The edges still not smooth, for they are what they are, and only closer for being in focus. One touches. And we're the same temperature. Whether I am chill or they warm, who knows. No way to tell. A little pressure, lighter than a feather, and consistent, runs across. Down a cheek. A hand. A leg. Not the same everywhere. But each run keeps the same weight.

And do they melt? Or do they simply stay as they are, part water? I'd need other instruments to answer that. Sight. Beyond what I guess of feel. Or another temperature, comparison. I could be cold.

What I can see, I know. Looking up. White, soft, drifting like fine sugar.

Snow. Wonderful snow.

Laughter

Laughter is a full-body experience. The sound, the throat, yes, but also the chest, the belly, the twinkle in the eye. The way you move your feet to balance better, even if you're sitting. The way your entire face lights up with that little twinkle that some say is only from your eyes. The way that aura turns everything around pink for miles.

Laughter, on its own, is good. Bright, pink, happy, joyous, lovely. Undeniably so.

And then context sets in. Perhaps it is so, or becomes more so. Beautiful laughter, musical, bell-like, chiming, lovely, wonderful, infectious--one of the few times that word is used in a good sense. Such is the power of laughter.

But that makes it dark when it twists, doesn't it? Malevolent, maniacal, dark chuckle, like a curse. Can come before or after. The sound darkens from an infant's blanket's pink to deep blood red, not the scarlet of a thin set or the almost brown-black of dried blood, even twisted laughter is very much alive. That deep, dark, scarlet-black of fresh blood pooled deep. Still shining. Still alive. But oh so dangerous.

Yet, still, even as the bottom drops out of your stomach, you may find your nostrils flaring, or a smile in kind tugging your lips. An old feeling in your heart. Fresh blood is hunter's scarlet. It taps right into your instincts. Maybe you're prey this time. Chase or run, predator or prey...or maybe fight. Or maybe hit the deck. And don't ever think there's only one way to do any of those.

And then comes the bell-like laughter, chiming merrily through. Silver, striking. Not a child's color, not an infant's color, so very distant. Exotic is attractive. But a flash of silver, that's deadly. Context, context, context.

Laugh with me. See that little twinkle, feel your heart rise. And don't worry about the different kinds of laughter. I can pet my dog or kick my dog. They are both movements; that alone doesn't relate the two. Not in any way worth noting.

And even if you should note it, it doesn't take the shared joy from the pet, the pain from the blow. Everything relates, one way or another. The close ones are the ones people call opposites. If you remember things are opposites, they are truly entangled. Fire, water, firewater. Up, down, roller coaster. Air, earth, tornadoes. Clear, obscure, transparent. Can you see none of me or all of me? I can hide just as well being transparent as obscure. Better. You don't even know I'm there.

Well color me surprised.

Painting and Whitewashing

EDIT for those who don't share my lexicon of idioms: There's a saying that goes, "Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash." That means the person/group being described cannot do something properly and therefore refuses to do it at all, even if there is another alternative available. A family can't afford to paint their house with white paint, and is too proud to use whitewash instead, even if it would look better than leaving the place to wear down.

I'll admit it; I have a certain amount of respect for someone who, when faced with the prospect of whitewashing, absolutely refuses to do anything but paint, and then proceeds to make that work. I have respect for that level of determination.

-That, by the way, is my line between determination and stubbornness: can you make it work?-

But what really makes me smile, and something that I'd want in an ally as much as a friend, is when someone looks at all the options, notes that it would be most efficient to whitewash, and then proceeds to whitewash without another word. No complaints, no seeing if this will work when painting would be harder or whitewashing better or even, just doing it.

Pride is a deadly little vice. It says, "Look, you could do this...but you could do so much better." Of course, given that this is the verbal embodiment of pride, it's probably doing something like purring or smiling or laughing. Because what good's a voice representing pride if it doesn't have a bit of cockiness behind it?

What got me thinking about this was the following exchange, which I found on the Ain't Too Proud To Beg page on TV Tropes, which is, you guessed it, going to suck your time away into the shiny vortex that is Wiki Walk.

From Farscape
Crichton: Beg.
Scorpius: [instantly] I beg you.
Crichton: That's not good enough. Say please.
Scorpius: Please.
Crichton: Pretty please.
Scorpius: Pretty please.
Crichton: With a cherry on top.
Scorpius: [only one word behind] With a cherry on top.
Crichton: [Beat] Happy Birthday. Now, get out of my sight.

That just makes me smile. And think of an Eleanor Roosevelt quote, "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." The idea behind making someone beg in that situation is--and forgive me if I miss some of the context, I don't watch the show--either power for the person demanding, or embarrassment for the person begging, which is really just a specific fashion to gain the former.

And then...he decides it's worth it, and proceeds to do it. It doesn't hurt him, because he doesn't let it. Anyone who trots out the sticks and stones line is so naive as to be thoughtless, but the thing about words is that they don't need to hurt any more than hits do. One can dodge, one can block, one can turn the other people's momentum against them and suddenly have the upper hand. It's all in how one decides to deal with it.

Of course, wailing on the other person is a perfectly acceptable method if it works.

What? I said I had a great deal of respect for people who could whitewash, I didn't say anything about preferring it myself. Nor even being able to do it, really... It would be a nice skill. I'm trying.

Incidentally, this has been in my head for a while, and what finally got me to finish was this Harry Potter fanfiction, specifically this chapter (search "I have changed today's lesson plan in the light of recent events", and read to the bottom of the page.)

Words Start

Confidence is my chin jutting up slightly, muscles moving so slightly you don't see the muscles anymore, you don't see me do what feels like a smirk and a grin unless you know to watch my mouth. You just see the gleam in my eye, the welcome of the challenge.

Regret goes the other way, my head jumping back along my neck, my lips and cheeks turning into an invisible genuinely remorseful frown, my eyes tensing back in their sockets. But all you see is I draw back, my eyes turn hurt at my own ill actions.

Resolute is my teeth coming together and making the world's quietest clack, not even as loud as my bones cracking, my my abdominal muscles clenching without any feeling in my stomach, my body twitching closer to itself, tensing to spring or to strike. You see a line in my jaw; you see my hands clench into fists and my lips and chin turn down, if you are attentive you see my footing change.

Flirt is a smile, a little twist to my body, a genuine laugh and interest. You see my eyes sparkle with interest, you see my clothes shift, you see my hands move in a gesture even I don't notice.

Bittersweet is a twist at the mouth, a smile that reaches the eyes but doesn't touch them as a smile should, just turning them too sad, feeling something being lost as something else is gained. You see regret and knowledge, recognizing growth.

Hope is a true smile, everything goes up, my head, the corners of my lips, my cheeks, my body, my heart. You see my sparkle, from toes to scalp.

Despair is everything hope rises falling. I slump, I stop smiling, my shoulders drop, I look down. You see the air leak out of me.

Daydream is everything at angles, head this way, chest that way, arms bent at odd angles, on leg stretched and one bent, or both, or neither. You see me leave my body.

I feel; you see. You react; I see. I react; we continue.

Christmas is pine and fresh boxes, new plastic smell and metal touch, blue electricity that you find when you don't look, home and family.

Halloween is pumpkin pie and jack-o'-lanterns, mixing with the smells of home as everyone in the family gets wrist-to-elbow deep.

New Year's is laughter at the oddest things, traditions and traditions of starting new ones, staying up too late and making as much noise as you can with clackers and whistlers and bubblewraps we've saved through the years.

Thanksgiving is gravy, turkey, pumpkin pie, orange and brown and little accents of black that always show up for one reason or another. A napkin, a dress, a decoration, some early Halloween or something else.

Holiday was holy day, and sacred still.

I am myself, a singer and a writer and procrastinating and staying up too late and losing myself and finding her again. I remember not knowing I was a singer, and feeling so lost. I remember figuring out I was. I remember the talent show, when the night was mine, the day after, with Mr. H and the whiteboard, and getting out of running. I remember requests of boys and getting me, I remember getting told to go away, encouragements, and getting no reactions at all. I remember love inside my head and out. I remember figuring out the words for myself, after finding out the idea, long after. I remember my first shot at really writing, I remember the escape, I remember figuring out why I chose the name. Caydo was love and home, he was Cadence, coming to a place I knew the music fit. I remember finding those who were so different we couldn't get along, so different we had to, so similar we tried and bounced away and sprang back, so similar we even had the same plane and slope, no more than an inch apart but never touched. I remember the wadded-up pieces of paper and the tennis balls, and laughter at or with. I remember the insults, and finding out which ones were false. I remember figuring out which colors go with which, and still not knowing for sure with shoes, or socks. I remember learning to read because of a teacher's insult, her challenge. I remember when I've really cried, and when I've set myself free. I remember being passive, and I remember feigning it. I remember. So much. Kindergarten, exceptionally good but I didn't know it yet. First grade, exceptionally bad but I didn't know that either after a while, so many knew how good kindergarten was. Fourth and fifth, getting my challenge. Sixth, honor choir, school. Seventh, history with Ms. W, but math with Ms. DeW. Ninth, district. Tenth, district, state, regional. Eleventh. Sixteen going on seventeen. Fifteen going on twenty-five, always mistaken for five years or a decade older. Just being myself, not my age. Who I am, what I am, what I know, what I knew, connections I remember, hope, always, always hope. Even in the middle of tears, hope. Without hope was without tears, was just unbearably passive. Pushed around. Building up my skin to keep the anger inside, keep the knives in and out, then learning to let those shields down when I wanted to.

Life. Piece by piece, step by step. Running, jumping, dancing to somewhere where I can taste the air getting sweet and feel the shivers run through my spine.

Absence

When civilizations fade and even your last lingering ideals have turned to dust, you will look at the world and ask, "What did I ever do?" For everything will be gone, and it is only human to wish to see what you have done. To wish to see something with your name on it, your mark.

And the little girl will take your hand. She will take you to the chatting, smiling crowd. And she will say, "This."

You'll understand. "But happiness is fleeting. I can't have done any more than just made them feel better for a few seconds." Even if you have cured cancer, you will feel like this, if only for a moment.

The little girl will smile. "Silly. Happiness echoes. And people just keep adding noise!"

Then she'll skip off to another, while you stand in the smiling crowd until you go to someone or someone comes to you. It'll only take a moment. After all, after everything's gone, what else is there to do but get to know each other?

And you'll smile, and maybe you'll walk off. And maybe you'll become one of the little ones, going out and finding those who have been alone too long, learning how to see when someone just needs a moment. Or maybe not. In a truly infinite world...

First Anniversary

What, really? You're still reading? I'm still writing? Aw, shucks.

I set this to go up automatically on the anniversary, so it is quite possible that this is as much of a surprise to me as it is to you. I don't really have anything special planned, but you never know when inspiration might strike.

EDIT: I, indeed, did not notice. Happy anniversary to my readers and me!

Sick and Tired

Some of the best speeches are bluffs.

Eyes shut, as one coming upon a great, but not entirely happy, truth. "If I leave, now, I'm going to survive. I'm going to have a long, happy life. I'm going to live to a nice old age. I'm going to smile at my grandchildren, and have those nice little wrinkles at the corners of my eyes that happy people get when they've been happy for a good, long time. I'm going to look at my kids, and their kids, the way my parents and their parents looked at me." Eyes open. "So I should leave. I should take off running, right now, and not look back for a second. The only reason I shouldn't be sprinting, right now, is to save energy, so I can run longer.

"Assuming I am as weak as you think I am, I should be doing that. Assuming I'm as stupid as you think I am, I shouldn't even have though about how I shouldn't sprint. Assuming I'm as afraid, lost, little, weak, helpless, useless."

The space of a breath passed.

"Assuming, assuming, assuming. Oh, I absolutely love that word. Because it means I can be so many things at once. I can be a brat, and a hero, and the smartest person in the room, and that kid no one should care about, and I don't even have to lie. In fact, I'm more likely to find people believing the truth if I don't lie. If I insist I'm not this, insist I'm not that, then I find people refusing to believe me. Because of course I'd say that. I'm too modest. I'm saving my own skin. I'm trying to puff myself up, little thing in front of the big guy.

"And then,"--smile--"oh, and I can see it now. That understanding. That I was telling the truth. Every single time. And that's the lovely bit. I have never lied, even by omission. I told you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

"So, run. Because I'm sick of running, and perhaps I'm too sick to chase. Just...run."

Some of the best speeches are bluffs. The poor thing could barely stand, much less run. Much less fight. But the strength to stand and the will to speak, only speak...that can spin the world off its axis, and right back on again.

Trope of note: Tired Of Running

Travel Log: Grand Canyon

I never really got around to this, so it will not be as specific as my other logs. All of this happened back in the beginning of summer (2010).

Basically, I went to Vegas. There were too many lights. When a bookstore with flashing lights around the sign does not stick out, something has gone weird. Not necessarily bad, just weird.

We went to the Grand Canyon. One day down, one day rest, one day up. It was beautiful. It was also very dry, and very hot. Don't bother wringing out your clothes, just hang them on the clothesline. It'll take them minutes, a little more if you hang them in the shade. 110 in she shade'll do that.

We woke up really early--really, really early, the sun hadn't blinked, much less risen--and it was warmer than I'm used to at noon. We climbed, and then had ice cream. --Note to those climbing the Grand Canyon: There was a point, both going down and going up, where it looked like we only had a few more yards. DON'T BE FOOLED.--

We went to Bryce and Zion, both pretty. Perhaps a little more picturesque, but I mean that--they made good pictures. The Grand Canyon just swallowed you up. There was significantly less walking involved here, though we could have done more had we so wished.

We went back to Vegas. My main vice ended up being whole milk, because I dislike the smell of alcohol and am underage, so that was doubly out, lacked the funds and interest for gambling, and sex wasn't really a big pull. Dunno why.

Then we got back home. I didn't realize it until then, but the air in Vegas had been choking me. I don't have the slightest what it would be like were it farther from the coast.

Power

A lot of words have power. Here are some of the ones I know, and why I think they do.

I am-A declaration of self. On its own, it is fairly powerful, simply because it is saying that the person is. That's one thing another person can't stop, not completely. Someone can kill you, make it into, I was, but in thoughts, in help, in joy, in inspiration, the ripples move out. With a description after it, it becomes more powerful, because it is not just saying, This person is real, it is giving a way to describe. I am a scientist. I am a singer. I am a child. I am a woman. To reinforce both, I am human, I am a person.

I believe-As intimate as I am, but to do with the outside world. This doesn't need logic, nor its absence. It is just a belief. And that'll move mountains.

Especially powerful in, This I believe. The archaic diction gives the phrase some power in itself. Things that have survived this long have survived for a reason. That reason does not always apply in the here and now, but it was there. That sort of belief is why religions claim to predate x or be able to trace this ritual back to y. It's also why stores say Since 1948, or 1904, or 1827. There's power in old things, even if it is only the power people give them.

I know-Alone, it can fall in the same category as, I trust you, or be dismissing another person, or be a, Go on, I understand. If it's, I know myself, it means the person has a strong sense of self. If it's, I know you then it means the person has a connection, and knows what the person will or won't do. How do you know I won't? I know you, Kelsey. And then, the simplest meanings, I am familiar with this, I believe this strongly enough that thinking it false does not (regularly) occur to me.

I love you-Ah, yes. Gotta love the classics. These can be the most important words ever spoken, ever heard. Or they can fall completely flat. The problem with these words is that everyone who is even vaguely familiar with the culture will know how powerful they are. But...they're words. What matters with words is the communication of an idea. When something is so well-known already, it can look like the words are just there to have something there. Can get especially glaring when it's a response. Hm? Oh, yeah, I love you, too. Even Han's response is more traditionally romantic than that, because no etiquette class will teach you to respond to, I love you, with, I know. So he thought about it.

To go back to what originally made it powerful, the phrase can also be someone saying what one or both already knew, if not on the level of the mind that deals with words. Add a finally in there as necessary.

I think-Similar to I believe, though less firm. But this flexibility is a power in itself. I think this true, but I am not challenging you. I am telling you what I think. What do you think. I think so, emphasizes opinion, I think so, lack of certainty, I think so, certainty. Simple words with strong tone, cutting through any random jumble.

Names-There's a mythology in every culture I have run across about true names. It may not be of importance to humans, but there's someone or something out there, and if you know the true name, then you have power. This holds true in the turning-ones-life-upside down fashion with ID cards, social security numbers, etc. But there is a power in just using someone's name, even if it's common. If your parents say, JOHN SMITH! then even though that name is common and has been worn by many for ages, it still has power if it is yours. In the right tone, a whispered, John, would speak volumes.

Any words to add?

The Attentive Lady and the Tiger

(Edited because I didn't think to when I posted this at eleven.)

I walked in. The first thing most people would have noticed about the room would be the utter lack of furniture. All told, four walls, ceiling, one one-way mirror, lights currently set so that the other side was visible, and equally bare. That was it.

The first thing I noticed was the man looking into the mirror. If he hadn't been using a little 'nothing to see here' thing, most people would have seen him first.

He was old, in his fifties (physically), I knew. But in addition to the world-walker look, he had also aged very gracefully. Small laugh lines, but other than that, flawless skin. Grey hair, but it was closer to silver, and very neat. He wasn't facing me, but I knew that if he turned, his eyes would have that same silvery look.

A shiver should have run up my spine. If I weren't already so tired from being woken up twenty minutes after going to bed, and being awake for the next thirty and counting, it would have.

"Funny."

"What." The question was mostly reflex. I didn't expect him to answer.

He turned. Colored contacts, baby blue. "You. Not ha-ha funny. Just off. Odd."

I ran through my resources. I hadn't know where I was going, so I had armed. The guards had patted me down, of course. And, of course-of course, I still had a few weapons. Wrists, hair, breasts, and ankle. The blade at my ankle was actually a decoy, I was stunned no one had caught it.

Topic at hand. "Oh, tell me this isn't going to be a speech that could be boiled down to 'Evil Cannot Comprehend Good.' You are so much better than that."

He smiled at me. "Why thank you. I didn't know you cared."

I shrugged. "You're not stupid."

"Why thank you," he repeated dryly.

"What's funny, and please avoid the mathematician's answer."

"I try and arrange a meeting with you. A thousand different ways; inviting you, pressuring, 'bumping into you'. Then, I send out a guy you know works for me. You must have known where he was taking you. But you couldn't be quite sure. I'd been trying to figure out a way to make it a little less clear where you were going, but all I needed was to put that little grain of doubt in your mind. Isn't that fascinating?" He smiled. If I hadn't seen the face behind the mask, there would have been butterflies in my stomach.

"Riveting. But there's the whole bit where you've been keeping away from me whenever I wanted to see you."

"Well." He shrugged. "Who wants to meet on someone else's terms?"

I sighed. I'd call him on how stupid that was if it wouldn't have been so hypocritical of me. "Let's get on with this. I figured out my stuff without you, thank you so very much, so I hope this is important."

"No. Not at all."

It was an effort of will to keep from growling at him. I turned on my heel.

"Just some news on your sister."

Just like that, nailed to the spot. And I'd stopped suddenly, so he knew how much I cared. Drama is a cruel mistress. At least there was nothing left to hide. I turned back to him. "Oh?"

He smiled. Shivers ran up my spine. "Let's talk."

Breathe in; breathe out.

Slow, soft, gentle, calm.

Nothing here, no qualms, no qualm.

Quick, fast, clever, you know.

And they'll never think you're slow.

Take a deep breath and relax yourself. Unfocus your eyes, relax your self. Just a little time, just for your health.

And here's the little secret, dear:

To not just let go of, but recognize your fear.

Letter, Spirit, Reason

Law as written: All demonic influences are to be removed as quickly and thoroughly as is possible.

Letter: Utterly destroy anything that has been touched by a demon.

Spirit: Exorcise demons as efficiently and with as little death as is possible.

Reason: Protect the people.

Let's say we have a situation where there is a demon rampaging around town, possessing people, etc. By the letter of the law, one should utterly destroy the town. By the spirit or the reason, one should evacuate the town and fight the demon down. There are probably some other things you could do; I'm hitting extremes; just go with it.

Let's say a demon is repeatedly possessing the same person. By the letter, kill the person. By the spirit, exorcise the demon and watch and protect the person. By reason, set a priest to watch over the person, one who can perform exorcisms. The priest need not follow the person everywhere, it is just supposed to be the priest's main duty, so someone is always on deck. If the demon gives up long enough, then the priest can go on to something else. But there should be someone present who can do this, even if it isn't the primary job.

Let's say there's a good demon. Go with me on this. By the letter of the law, kill the demon anyway. It doesn't matter whether harm is being done, a demon is a demon. By spirit, get the demon out of town, one way or another. If following the spirit well, then this can even be done without bloodshed. Following the reason: Let the demon be. This demon is not dangerous.

People will talk about how a law should be upheld because it is the law. In situations where one requires a knee-jerk or immediate response, this is probably the best one can do. But if one ignores the reason of the law, that can be worse than ignoring the spirit. At least people who violate the spirit in favor of the letter are easier to expose. For people who follow the spirit instead of the reason, there's not even anything on the books.

This post written under the influence of painkillers (see previous post).

Wisdom Teeth

I just got my wisdom teeth pulled, and also got a bone graft and a sinus lift. In other words: A lot of stuff happened with my jaw area today. Also, I'm still on Vicodin while writing this, so some errors may occur.

Here's what it was like from my perspective:

Notes
In order to put everything together, there had to be quite a bit of back-and-forth between the oral surgeon who was doing the pulling, the graft, and the lift, and the orthodontist who does my braces. I'll only be using the first letter of both their names, since I haven't gotten permission to use their names. Dr. S is my orthodontist--has been since third grade--and Dr. F was my oral surgeon.

Background
A while back, I got a tooth pulled. I don't know what it's called, but if I touch my right canine, then go back two, there's a gap there where the tooth used to be. It was pulled because it was a milk tooth with no adult tooth behind it, and so was going to grind down too much. I knew that, eventually, that would have to be replaced.

Unknown to me, the bone did not fully heal. This is normal. If there's no tooth there, there's no reason for the bone to completely heal, it just heals the hole back together, but the bone is too thin for an implant (needed the graft and lift to put it in).

My lower wisdom teeth, meantime, were growing in slanted. If this isn't taken care of, that causes something called impacted teeth. I don't know much about this, but I believe it means the bones get crushed and then you get teeth that are damaged and other teeth that are hard to pull and that just doesn't work for anyone. So, better to do it before any of that stuff happens.

Set-up
Dr. S told us that I'd need an implant** and needed to get my wisdom teeth looked at. He recommended Dr. F. We went to Dr. F a couple times to set up exactly what the procedure would be, and it ended up making the most sense to do everything we could do at once.* That meant getting both wisdom teeth pulled, and doing the lift and graft. So technically the title of this post should be longer, but so it goes.

I got some drugs to take the morning of. One was a Valium pull, to ease me into the general anesthesia they'd be administering, and the other four were some antibacterial pills that were white and pink/red. The white side had A 45 marked in red. I was told to take all of these at 9:00 AM the morning of the surgery.

I was not supposed to eat or drink anything but the meds and a little water to wash them down after midnight (general anesthesia).

A little later, I was worried something in my braces might mess up the operation. Dad said that probably nothing would, but called anyway. The receptionist said Dr. S would probably have noticed something like that, but she would ask anyway. I don't know if anything happened on our end after that.

The Night Before
I had a late dinner, and ended up finishing quarter of nine.

It's summer, so my sleep schedule was completely out of whack. Despite knowing I had to get up at 8:30, and accordingly planning to get 9-10 hours, I didn't get in bed until 11:03, and I couldn't sleep until I finally gave up and tried reading my biology book. I got to sleep around 1:00.

The Morning Of
I got up at 8:30 and showered. After reading the paper for a little while, it was 9:00, so I took the four antibiotics. I confirmed I could take two at a time, but I found that out by taking one, so I ended up taking one, then two, then the last one.

The Vicodin, however, had crushed into a powder. Luckily, it was in an envelope, but I still had to tap it into my mouth, which meant that I tasted it. Bleaugh.

There wasn't much effect, and then I sat up and felt rather lightheaded. It didn't really affect my head, just made it a little difficult to go down the stairs at my house and get in the car. I was thinking a little differently, but just as clearly as is usual. Make of that what you will.

Then we got to the waiting room. We were about five minutes early, and I think we waited about ten.

The Surgery
They put me in a blue chair. It was pretty much a normal dentist's chair, except a little more cushioned and with straps on the arms. They put an IV sedation in me. I looked away from the needle, because I have no problem with needles unless I have to watch them go into my skin, in which case I jerk my hand away. Don't ask me why; it doesn't even scare me; it just happens.

I remember thinking I should probably let myself fall asleep, then hearing the doctors talk about how to set everything up, and then I don't remember anything until waking up.

(Though I was not awake for this part, I was told after the fact a little of what happened. Dr. F had to snip through some rubber bands on my braces in order to do the sinus lift--so I was right about my braces causing an issue, though I didn't guess exactly what. I also found out later that my molars were fairly easy to take out, all things considered. I'm a good patient even asleep :D.)

I woke up to Dr. F asking me to open my mouth wider, and I was a little cold. I thought there was something on top of me, but I wasn't sure. I was still a little out of it for a while, but from what I heard and saw, he was putting the stitches in.

The string he was using was bloody, as were his gloves. I thought, Hm, that's my blood. That should probably bother me, but it doesn't. Ooh, I wonder if this is how hemophobiacs feel under anesthesia!

He finished with the stitches, and someone took off the blue paper they must have covered me with at some point. So I was right about there being something on top of me. After that, someone else took the IV out. My legs were cold, and just as I was about to finalize my plan of how to communicate that without using my gauze-filled mouth, someone brought me a blanket.

They wanted to move me, so I tried to sit up on my own. Someone next to me said to lean back a moment longer, and sat me up with the chair. She gave me an ice pack. And even if you think you don't know what I'm talking about, you do. Those little while, wrap-around-the-head-like-a-headband deal. Then she got me over to a bed that was about five steps from the chair, and told me I'd probably have to rest for about half and hour. It was five of twelve, by my watch (which is five minutes fast). My tongue and my right cheek, right lips, and lower lips and chin were numb.

About ten minutes after that, whoever had gotten me to the bed found/figured out that I had gotten the drugs that would make me dizzy early on in the operation, and they would probably have mostly worn off by that time. She got me in a wheelchair and wheeled me out to my parents, who had been waiting in the waiting room about three hours by this point.

Dr. F had apparently gone over wit them when and how I could take the various drugs I'd been given--X every four hours normally, but can go every two if the pain's intense, Y as labeled, and the antibiotics with dinner. None of the drugs have bad interactions, so we didn't need to worry about that.

The woman who had helped me along wheeled me out to our car. Dad offered to bring it around, but since it was in the lot she said she'd just wheel me out.

End Wound Count
Stitches over where both my wisdom teeth, the back part (near the hinge) of the right side of my jaw, and on the right side of my mouth, under my upper lip.

Recovery
I got home and my tongue was no longer numb, and the rest of the numbness was receding. I felt pretty good, too. That may just have been the drugs, but besides a little ache in the back right of my jaw, it hasn't gotten much worse, Vicodin or no. I got a bit of a bloody nose, but Mom said Dr. F says that's normal. Makes sense--he basically cut a hole in my sinuses. I went out to see a friend whose party I could not attend (no points for guessing why), and he said my smile was creepy. Mwahaha.

Dr. F called a little while later (c. 5, 5:30) to tell me I should use the meds ahead of the pain, and so I took a Vicodin around then, at my mother's request/behest.

Then I started the blog entry and oh I've gone recursive.

TBC: Obviously I'm still recovering. Dr. F said the pain should peak at around Sunday (two days), so I'll at least keep this posted until then.

Continued
The numbness faded completely around 7:30 PM. I went off the Vicodin at about 9:45--in that that's when it was supposed to stop affecting me. At about 10:00, my mom thought I looked pretty tired and pale, and told me to try to get some rest.

I got into bed and burst into tears. No pain, I was just crashing from (a) drug(s) in my system. Sadly, I had a bloody nose and the sheets got bloody... My mom replaced the sheets and set up a spot for me on the couch so I could wind down some more. I did that until my brother called to be picked up from a sleepover, at about midnight. I went to bed at 12:30.

8/7/10
I woke up at 8:00 and proceeded to put the ice pack on, eat breakfast (clam chowder, yum), take my antibiotics, brush my teeth (ow), and take the antibacterial rinse, in that order.

I had my first thing I really had to chew at 5:40. Pulled pork sandwich, courtesy of Mom. It was delicious.

8/8/10
The swelling and pain were the worst, but that was the warning I got. On the bright side, I could chew without much change in pain, it just hurt more overall. So whatever, I guess. Started calcium supplements--regrowing a lot of bone.

8/9/10
Swelling worse, pain better. I sneezed and it hurt a lot. Really. It had no right to hurt that much.

8/10/10
Swelling better, pain better. I tried to go off the pain meds though and...too soon. Sharp pains with the aches.

8/11/10
Finished the antibiotics with lunch, finished the antibacterial rinse in the evening. I could actually go off the pain medication and go out, though I don't think they'd worked their way out of my system yet. Swelling better, pain better.

8/12/10
Swelling almost entirely gone, and I can actually sing for short periods. The pain lessens, and I could chew grilled cheese on sourdough.

8/23/10
It pretty much continued like this. I went off the calcium supplements a few days after.

* We couldn't put the implant in until after the bone from the bone graft had settled in, which would take ~9 months.
** EDIT: Or a bridge. But the doctors suggested the implant, and it's what we chose.

Water

“Do you mind telling me why she sent you?”

“She found out what I was. If she can, others can, etc.”

“Do you mind telling me what you remember of how she did?”

“No.”

“All right, then. Whatever you can.”

I nodded and started.

“I was at the stream in the park. I stared at the water a moment, trying to make myself see. Something didn’t fit. I knew it was clear as day; I just couldn’t see it.

“ ‘Day,’ I said aloud. ‘Day, day, bright, sun, yellow—‘

“For a moment, I just stood there. I had just said the important bit, but for some reason it wasn’t clicking. Nothing was ever quite real for me until I spoke it aloud. If I wanted to think, I had to talk. And that got very distressing with company, or in public. The crazy old lady who talks to herself is bad enough, but what I’ve got means I can’t screen out. None of that secret stuff you don’t say because it’ll insult somebody, if I want to know it, I’ve got to say it.

“ ‘The water’s yellow.’ I started a little with the realization. With that said, I could realize that not only was it yellow, it was not a natural yellow. Natural would be autumn leaves. This was sickly, diseased, chemical…

“ ‘Wrong,’ I said aloud.

“ ‘Quite.’

“I frowned, sighing a little. I’d finally gotten a place where no one went, so I could think. Naturally the first thing to happen would be someone finding it.

“Turn. Autopilot. My thoughts went to a near standstill, but normal etiquette takes very little thought ever since I caught the rhythm.

“ ‘Hello,’ badge, blue uniform ‘officer.’

“ ‘Hello, miss. Any particular reason you’re here?’

“ ‘I just like a spot to think. This was a nice one.’

“The officer nodded at that. ‘The water’s turned rather sickly.’

“I nodded. If there was something more the officer wanted, it had to be something obvious, since she wasn’t saying. ‘I’m Annabelle.’

“Officer Brown. I would have thought you’d’ve noticed how the water was before getting this far along.”

“I shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem important.’ Which was true. It had been hammering at my head, but that was a familiar enough sensation that I could describe it without going through the motions of talking. It hadn’t seemed important.

“ ‘The water’s yellower than some poisonous insects I’ve seen. It didn’t seem dangerous?’

“I wrinkled my brow, trying to look dull. This was getting beyond what I was used to. Whatever bought me time. ‘No.’ Why not, I muttered under my breath. ‘Because it didn’t smell wrong.’ Smell. That I got. Smell, taste, touch, that was fine. Hearing was almost always fine. It’s just abstracts, and sight. They aren’t…real.

“ ‘I’m sorry, what did you say? Between no and because.’

“ ‘Just ordering my thoughts. Sorry, I’ve been in my own head for a while now.’

“Officer Brown nodded. ‘Of course.’ That surprised me. Most people tend not to like that sort of answer, especially people trying to figure me out. And, I hope you don’t mind me sayin’, that seems to be the better part of a cop’s job.”

He gave me a little gesture that meant, ‘No offense taken,’ with a hint of what might’ve been, ‘You’re right.’

“She looked at the stream a moment.”

" 'It's just paint, isn't it?'

" 'Yeah.'"

I hesitated. Force of habit, hiding. He already knew.

“ ‘You don’t have to hide.’

“ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I said it without missing a beat, which probably gave me away more quickly than anything else could have. After hesitating over everything, screening it without really thinking, giving that automatically…it meant I was used to it.”

“You seem used to this.” I could have said it along with him.

“I knew you wanted to talk to me. I’ve been practicing the stuff to say, I’ve got an outline for everything already in my head. And it's a lot easier once I get going.”

He seemed to accept that, and made no mention of my admission that I had specifically done what allowed me to lie to him. He might not have noticed; he might just have planned on surprising me. Who knows? Maybe he just thought he’d be able to tell.

“Anyway, she called me on what I just described. I winced. ‘Got me.’

“ ‘Lupomorph?’”

He looked at me.

“It’s the PC way of saying werewolf.”

He nodded.

That was a lie. Werewolves are carefully hidden, or hide themselves. They go rabid at full moons. Morphs don’t do that unless they don’t shift for a moon cycle. Since we’d done such a good job of hiding weres from the general populace, most of them called us werewhatevers.

“I shook my head. ‘Ursamorph.’

“She paused a moment, then nodded. ‘Bear. Wouldn’t’ve guessed.’”

I don’t think it really needed explaining why. I’m not exactly imposing. Until a few weeks before that, I was still seeing ribs in the mirror; I’ve never kept weight on well. Just naturally waif-y, I guess.

"May I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"How you see...how does that work? Is stuff out-of focus?"

“No…it’s not that we have bad eyesight. Bears have pretty good eyesight—not a lot of people know that, but it’s true. It wasn’t that I couldn’t see; I don’t need glasses or anything like that. I just…it’s like I have to force myself to pay attention, unless I've linked some sight to a reflex. I don’t think it has anything to do with being an ursamorph, or any kind of morph. Though it might be a disorder limited to us. I haven’t studied.

“But still, it’s usually enough to tip people off. That’s why I find my private places.”

“Why not just try and work around it?”

Expected or not, my lips twitched in something approaching a snarl before I stopped them.

“It’s like thinking through molasses. I—it is an unpleasant feeling.

“She told me that she wasn’t the only one who’d spotted me. Like I said, even though it’s not really limited to me, my type of issue has some fairly clear symptoms, once you're looking. I end up looking like an idiot in front of just about everyone, and then I get really deep around people I know well. It’s not like I’m stupid; I do well on tests so long as they don’t throw me out for cheating, and if I can mutter to myself I’ll win just about any debate. That’s common, with us. At least, it is from what I can tell. I suppose that if I weren’t bright to begin with, this thing I have wouldn’t be nearly so obvious.

“Then she took me in, and took me here. I heard that it’s suggested we tell you what we are.”

“Not necessary, but yes. We can’t tell when someone’s a morph, and it’s another possible pattern to take into account if there is a string of robberies or something.”

A sudden burst of sparkling clarity hit me like a diamond hammer to the side of the head. It was, roughly: My goodness, you used the right term. You’re faking,.

“May I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“Do they ask officers applying?”

“No, why?” He didn’t miss a beat.

“You just said, ‘morph.’ Before, you looked like you had no idea what lupomorph meant, but you just used it like you’re used to it.”

Now he paused. “Neither of us will be sharing this.”

“Of course. But…well…I’m sorry; I’m not rehearsed anymore; are you an ursamorph?”

“Why?”

“I’ve never…met one.”

His emotions were entirely clear for the first time in the conversation, if only for a moment. I'd shocked him. “Your parents, surely.”

I shook my head. “It’s a recessive. Both of ’em were carriers, not bearers. No pun intended.”

“Who taught you about shifting?”

“Grandma. She died when I was six, but I’d figured most of it out by then. Find a good forest; find a place to put a spare set of clothes; keep track of the moon. And find a friend, but that was more grandmother to granddaughter than teacher to student.”

He stared at me. Something was flickering in his face, but it was too fast and too complex for me to figure out.

“I’m so going to regret this,” he sighed, so quietly I barely made it out. His movements might have been resigned as he took out his card. “If you ever need a hand with anything, this is my personal stuff. And yes, I am an ursamorph, and no one living save my dear old mother knows that, so keep your mouth shut about it.”

“Will do.” I stared at the card. “You do realize the fact that you gave this to me means I’m going to need it within the next week, right?”

“I was thinking something along those lines, Annabelle. Considering how we would meet, I sincerely hope I won’t see you; considering how we’re going to meet, I hope I see you before you get into too much trouble.”

Very softly, I said, “Genre-savvy, ursamorph cop and poor little girl with little to no family who could begin to understand her life. Here we go.” I got up to go.

Over my shoulder, louder, I called, “Chapter one.”

Joseph knew the kiddy morph saying. “Just begun.”

Grammar: Prepositions

It's that time again!

Ending sentences in a preposition. Ah, of course you know this one, good reader! That's incorrect!

All right, can you tell me why?

*crickets, crickets*

...Right. The best explanation I have ever heard is one for the clarity of the sentence in question. This being clear, obviously a sentence changed around to avoid putting a preposition at the end when this makes it more difficult to understand is something up with which one should not put.*

The explanation that I believe is that some scholars thought that Latin was superior to language because...because it is! It's older, and it's the scholarly language!

But English has Germanic roots. Trying to make it look like Latin is going to end up being silly, confusing, or both.

The point of language is, and always has been, communication. The idea of knowing proper grammar is that this allows one to use it. There are instances where grammatical inaccuracies are meaningless, and therefore we can assume them to mean the closest correct thing. There are places where they mean something else, and what a reader/listener should be able to assume is that the statement being made is the one the writer/speaker intends.

On these grounds, I would say that clarity should be valued above accuracy. This does not mean accuracy is valueless. Accuracy feeds into clarity. If both the person communicating and the person understanding agree on what is correct, it will make communication and clarity much easier.

On these grounds, I would say that both

"What did you step on?"

and

"On what did you step?"

Are perfectly fine. The former might be slightly easier to understand, but both should be understandable to a fluent English speaker.

Unnecessary prepositions are improper regardless of their placement. For instance:

"I fell off of my bike,"

can simply be

"I fell of my bike."

Even though the preposition is in the middle of the sentence, that preposition is still sloppy, because it is an additional syllable that gives no additional information. The one exception to this would be when and author is establishing an accent. Then it is still wrong, just not sloppy. It adds information.

Incidentally, there is one type of sentence where the preposition at the end burns me. Dad, if you're reading this, you're going to wince.

"On what did you step on?"

Just...gah. The person is trying to correct the sentence--because there is no accent I know of that would start the sentence with, "On what," like that, I will assume this--and then goes on to make the 'mistake' that person was trying to avoid.

Beginning, end, middle, just don't sandwich.

* I am perfectly aware that the original quote could have been rendered, "I will not put up with that sort of pedantry." But this raises the question of why that is any more correct than, "That is the sort of pedantry I will not put up with," in the first place.

Glimmers in the Den

The stories that get told from bad times can be dark indeed. But sometimes the most memorable are the flashes of wisdom, hope...


We weren’t happy. Who would be? Forced here, where we were basically food. If we got lucky, we died or became one of them. And what if becoming one of them meant a shift in thought so huge that we became…well, like them?

I touched the stones in my pocket. As I went through the day I saw a girl yelling at the guards. I handed her the varied brown one that said wisdom. Her lips twitched and she nodded; fell back. She tucked the stone in her pocket.

A few days later, a little boy was hiding in the corner. He was sobbing his clear, too-old gray eyes out. I took his hand and pressed the pale green stone into it. He looked at it, then at me. He clung to me and we held each other until he stopped crying. I convinced him to start washing and eating again.

Barely a few hours after that, I was flipping the last one over and over. It was black, and polished very smooth. I think it had been like that since the start. I might just have come to it for comfort enough.

A woman was praying. Before, I had heard her saying she wouldn’t pray anymore. It didn’t surprise me that she was. We were all going back to old comforts, and until she said she’d stop a few days after coming here, she’d prayed every evening. She said she had since she was six.

The topic didn’t really surprise me either. It wasn’t even covered in pretty language anymore. “I’m trying. I’m trying. But I don’t understand why.”
I looked around, checking for anyone obvious. The fact that I couldn’t see them wasn’t really pertinent. When they wanted to be seen, we obeyed every rule perfectly because they were cementing their power. Most, though, just wanted to make sure none of us were trying anything too dire—-like escaping—-and get on with it.

No one I could see. It crept down off my bunk and over to hers. By the time I got there her prayers had stopped, she was just crying. It hurt—I mean it physically hurt—to see someone so broken. I hoped the outburst would help her, but I was worried she’d just fall farther.

“Miss?”

She jerked up and looked at me. “What?” she asked sharply. Then she closed her eyes and softened. “Sorry. Yes?”

I took a breath. This was my last, but it was worth it. But it was my last, so I better make it count. “I’m Amelia.”

“Jean.”

“When I was little, I got these stones. They’ve got words on them, and they help me remember what I want to do, or be.”

She nodded. “I’ve seen you giving them out. How many have you got left?”

“Just the one.” I held the small oval of polished black out. In the dark, it was nearly invisible, though it reflected a lot of light.

A few phrases ran through my head. ‘(I think) It’ll do you more good than me.’ ‘You need it more than I do.’ But that wasn’t what I wanted to say.

“I want you to have it.”

She took it, solid black indent up. “What’s it say?”

“Turn it over.”

She looked at me; then turned it over.

“If you ever need me, just ask.”

She stared at the stone for a moment. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she smiled a little now. “Thank you.” Her eyes went to mine. “The same goes for you.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

That last one said trust.

Some Fall

Falling from grace
He keeps apace
Silently watching the drift.

Falling to low
Has to go slow
But good from the bad he can't sift.

Perhaps here is the wonder
Perhaps the song
We've sought for so long
So long.

And here we go
Murmuring too low
In the quiet of the riot
In the eye of the storm.
One false step, one left torn.
That's the bargain, now don't feel what you've borne.

Slowly wheedling at your core
Now wait, just a second more.
Here, you see? Here you fell
But here now, it is not your Hell.

Oh, no, don't watch me so
You asked and then you paid in full.
I heard you beg; I heard you plead
From the oven-baked to the dough you knead
You want it back, then that's your way.
You've given; I never said I'd taken away.

Storyteller!

The sun shone. The sky was that beautiful blue one gets on perfectly clear days: only there on the rarest of days, and all the better for it. It made the straw into spun gold, the grass greener than any emerald, even the roads were bright.

"Storyteller! Storyteller!"

I smiled at the girl who ran towards me, straw shoes smacking on paving stones, hair messily tied back, dress undyed and wrinkled. Her eyes were bright as the sky, and her hair matched the hay. There were ink stains on her fingers, still sharp black against sunburned skin. And, of course, scrolls spilled out of her arms.

"Yes, Prema?"

"I--I got a commission!" She beamed at me. Prema had had some trouble around that. Never cleaning up will lose you quite a few jobs, no matter how well you write or tell.

"Wonderful, little one." I ruffled her hair, to the extent that was possible. "Who's the lucky patron?"

She gave some impressive title that rolled off her tongue as well as one of her first stories told around the campfire did now. My lips twitched. She'd been practicing her patron's name. "And what does she want you to write?"

Prema's eyes were still as bright, but their character changed. "Um, tell, actually." Now she shifted the scrolls to one arm and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "And...it has to be something new." She shifted her weight and licked her lips, suddenly huddling in on herself. "She--she saw some stuff I wrote, and she wanted me to write something for her, then tell it, for her guests at the party."

"And you're getting...?"

"A good outfit, a night around potential clients, dinner and a few silver pieces." She flushed a little at the last, as if accepting food and fine clothing for one of her stories was perfectly acceptable, but money unthinkable.

I nodded and smiled. "Good, for a first commission." Premmy relaxed a little. "And what have you got there to look at?"

"Oh! Well, everything."

"Everything?"

She laughed. "All right, not everything. Everything I've ever written. Unless a muse decides to come around and smack my head with a new idea, I don't have time to come up with a whole new story from scratch and memorize it in time."

"Oh? When's the party?"

She grinned sheepishly at me. "...A week? I know; I know!" was all she said to my look, "but I've got fittings, and...well, I'd get so nervous."

I laughed. "As you wish. So you need to pick one to finish."

"Yes! I've got all of these memorized as far as they go, they just don't end."

"Well, which one did your lovely patron like?"

"Oh...well, this one." She juggled the papers around until she had the right one on top.

"You know, you could put those on the bench." I nodded over and we sat together, keeping all the scrolls between us. When she handed me the scroll I'd asked after, she looked away. It didn't take me long to figure out why. The characters were a little exaggerated at times, and it skipped over some things I wouldn't've skipped, but...

"I didn't know you were writing an autobiography."

She squirmed a little. "I--I mean--I'm sorry! I know I should've asked you before I showed it to anyone, but she wanted to see something and I forgot to take it off the shelf! I--" By then her eyes were starting to fill.

"Prema?"

She flinched. "Yes?"

How to say it... "You wrote beautifully. This is your story. I happen to be in it, but this, as it is written, is your story. As far as I am concerned, you never have to worry about showing this to anyone. If I had been hurt by this, it would have been because you believed something bad of me, not because you had written of it." I squeezed her shoulders and took in the air, tinted with the soft smell of hay and the warm smell of life, in general. "Not everyone will feel that way. But I'm your teacher too, and I'm honored I was there so much."

She looked at me. For a moment, she waited, as if she thought I would tell her it was some joke. Then she wiped her eyes, hugged me, and gathered everything up.

As she dashed away, she called over her shoulder, "I've got an ending!"

I smiled and walked around town. Nothing ever ends. But she'd found an ending, at least, and that would be enough for her patron. Knowing her, it would be fantastic. She wouldn't stop until it was.

Theft, Inspiration and Muses

The moon, a statuette, a loved one, sudden surge of hope, adrenaline rush, sunlight pattering on leaves, dappling, the sunset, fire.

Music. Amusing. Musings...there are doubtless more.

The fun bit in muses is half the effect they have here, now. Then the effect that work has. The Muses themselves inspire words, and the idea of them continues to inspire--is this the Muse yet speaking, or her echoes? Does it matter?

And there is that other piece, where it is no the work inspired that acts a a muse, a font of inspiration, not directly. Think of how often the sunrise or sunset has been described as fire. Who was the first? Who knows? But now it permeates, and describing it as another requires another step in thinking. The sun is fire, far away; the sun at the horizon is fire and fiery.

Some muse, some cue in our collective consciousness says that now. The sky is air; blue is water. Brown is earth, as surely as that warm, damp life with a sprig of green is. Wind whips through our hair, fire warms. Fire kills. Water refreshes; drowns. Earth is home, or have we moved past that?

That gives the tumbling, whirling, downright weird world of Muses, muses, inspiration. What would we be without them? We don't know. We can't, our language relies so thoroughly on being present in this culture that has had them for millenia, at least. Were there someone who could tell us, how would we even begin to communicate? Where did that idea come from?



And we're running into this issue, especially with the advent of the internet. Stealing another person's idea is wrong. But what constitutes stealing? For instance, we can no longer say that saying the sunset is like fire is stealing, because there is no one to steal the idea from. If anyone living tries to claim the idea, then there would be too many quotes to count that anyone could come up with--internet--that predate that author's line by at least a century. It would take a while to sift through all the not-quites, but it doesn't even take a handful to make one's point.

BUt copyright solves that, right? Well...legally, yes. But morally? Trot over to DeviantArt or YouTube. Are those things copyrighted, trademarked...? Well, no (not exclusive). Is it right to take them and claim them as one's own? Well, no.

That, we can probably agree upon. Of course, it is difficult to draw the line. Copying outright is wrong, I guess. But what if you use a similar juxtaposition of scenes to a video you saw? You're not copying, and it's not like this person drew the work in the first place--of course, if the creator did, that's just a whole 'nother can of worms. So, is using a similar way of putting clips together really wrong?

Nnnnno? Or does it depend on how long? Doing it for two minutes, thirty seconds of a three-minute video is probably wrong--it really depends on how similar 'similar' is. Doing it for five seconds is probably better, but what if the 2:30 is using similar clips in a completely different fashion, and the five seconds is outright copying?

That's the difference, to me, between inspiration and thievery. Granted, it's not clear cut in practice. But I'd say it's where someone takes the complete piece and steals part of it. This naturally gets difficult in the contexts of AMVs. After all, one is taking another's work. But it is no more stealing than a karaoke night is. Using another's work for profit, that's where it turns darker gray; claiming you made it is outright theft. These people have editing, acting, drawing, whichever, as a job.

ADDENDUM: For the record, I am not trying to imply that AMV-making is not a true art by comparing it to karaoke. This is so for two reasons: 1) I think the term 'true art' is so subjective as to be useless and 2) ...Wow that's a complex question.

Fire and Ice

Be still; be quiet; be calm.

But--

Be still; be quiet; be calm.

But I need to dance. I need to move or I'm going to--

Be still; be quiet; be calm.

Are you even listening?

Be still; be quiet; be calm.

You're melting, aren't you.

Be still; be quiet; be calm.

That's what you're so worried about. Listen, Ice, you don't need to worry. You can flow. It doesn't have to be so--

Be still; be quiet; be calm.

Listen to me. Please. I know this has worked for you. But it's not working for me. Please, just listen.

There was quiet. Which was about as close to assent as Fire was going to get.

You're cold. I know. I know it's worked for you. But it's not working for me. I can't just sit here; I can't just watch everyone go by and just--stand here. I need to move, to spread, to grow.

You haven't tried.

Yes, I have. I've tried; believe me. I have tried stopping myself, but it's not working. Do you remember when I really got to burn, so bright I was almost blinding, so hot I burned? I have never felt better. Never.

You burned.

Yes. Yes I did. But it didn't hurt anyone.

It scared me.

And it scares me when you're so...cold. But I get it. It's how you work.

Ice trembled. That surprised Fire, truth be told. Ice moved, but Ice moved like...well, a glacier. Ice didn't tremble, any more than Fire truly went still.

I'm melting.

I could move.

No. From the inside out. If something taps me, I'm going to shatter. I'm melting.

Fire paused. Fire knew, on some level, that Ice was melting. But Fire hadn't known how close Ice was to the tipping point. Fire had assumed the heat was melting Ice, and so the melting would be from the outside in. Visible. Showy. The idea of melting from the inside out...

You're burning.

Heating up. Yes.

Fire was, for once, at a loss. Whatever the emotion, Fire could adjust. That was the strength. Fire moved, danced, adapted, and, if it came to it, burned through. But what to do for someone who was so afraid of doing just that...

Try it.

What?

Melting. Flowing. Try it.

What if I can't get back?

Then wouldn't you rather do it now, on your terms?

Poem 4

The little voice in the back of your head stops talking and you realize how lost you are without it.
I love you.
What is this?
Is this apathy? Truly just not...
Caring?

There's that feeling of...

A lack of a feeling?

Wait, what?
Did you say something?
Oh. Must've been my imagination.

But it's not there
Here.
Everywhere.

Goodness. Light. Virginity. Whatever.
Dark. Home, warm. Soft, gentle, loving.
A familiar little sense runs through me.

I tilt my head back like feeling the rain. Home.
I'm home.

I turn to see the one who spoke. And yes, you spoke, aloud or not.
I love you.

I jump through the hoops...

...in the hope that someday I might dance through them.

Should I go to college?

Show of hands, who just said or thought, "Yes," automatically?

Okay, now: I am given the chance to do something I have dreamed of doing since I was in third grade. Throughout that entire time, my interest in it has never wavered, only deepened. Let's take musical theater, since that is something I truly enjoy. I get, not a major role, but a credited one. But, in order to take it, I would have to skip out on college, and I might never have the time to go to a real college or university, because I'll have a career. Should I go to college?

Now, hands up again if the missing out on college schooling sounded like a bad thing.
----
This is the odd mindset I'm running into quite a bit. It's treating school as an end in and of itself, instead of a means to an end. The idea that homework is there, not to reinforce learning, but as an end. That classes are there, not to teach, but to explain again and again. In other words, the idea of spending time on learning something, not to learn it, but to spend time on it.

And that's just a...well, weak way of going through life. Believing that the point of school is learning is one thing, believing that the point of school is school is another. School is a place where one goes out and finds bits and pieces of everything, and then, hopefully, decides on something. Or multiple somethings. Polymaths rock.

I am working to get a career in music. If I got offered a job that helped that, at the sacrifice of some school time...how does it make sense to turn it down? Dropping out of school altogether can be argued against, but say I would need to drop Choir because I'm going out to tour and sing.

Well...that's why I'm taking choir. It would be like asking me to re-take basic algebra when I was offered the chance to learn calculus--and have the skills to survive that course, naturally. I understand algebra. I might gain something from the course, but it makes no sense. If schooling sets you back, it's doing the exact opposite of what it's supposed to. Even if someone were to make the case that it looked good that I stuck with the class, which looks better? Choir in school all four years or going out on tour?

I jump through these hoops today. "Alright, ladies, hop to it! Three, eight, quarter spin, in formation now!"

I jump so that someday, when I have learned how to do that, I can leap, twirl, act and dance through them. So that I can take someone's breath away, or make 'em laugh, cry.

If I get the chance to learn how to dance through them, or the opportunity to do so, I don't see why I should say no simply because there are people still teaching others how to jump. I know how to jump. I also know how to leap and soar. Why shouldn't I?

Read also: Harrison Bergeron