"Be moved, be inspired, be appalled, but be silent."

I found this happy little quote from a literature professor discussing analysis of poetry.

oh the irony of me not being silent.

and the guy who is paid to teach others how to analyze literature saying that you shouldn't analyze literature.

But what really scares me is if I took about thirty seconds to think about it, I could tell you the critical technique that he is using.

...and that would be putting my expensive education to use.

I am equally appalled and inspired by the quote, depending on what subject matter it is applied to. (ending a sentence with a preposition! gasp! horror!)
 
Literature? the guy is a idiot, although perfectly entitled to his preference of criticism. (a form of reader response, by the way. Turns out I can't make my brain not think about these things)  

Religion? Print it up on bumper stickers, baby.

about a month and a half ago or so, i spent some time at some friends house. i needed to run away for a bit and they gave me a safe place to land for a few days.

during that time, there was an hour or so when i was able  to disconnect from my everyday life. in a way, it was a very good hour for me, and emotionally hard to come back from.

I'm glad i did it though and now each day i wish i could go back to that hour. i could live like that for a whole day, week, month...maybe a year...and i don't know if that would be enough.

i don't  know that anything will ever be enough.

i could live like that forever.

I just got home from driving Guido to the emergency room. and the 24hour pharmacy. and McDonalds, because he was hungry and it was the only place open at 1am on a sunday. As we were waiting in the parking lot for his prescriptions to be filled I said "it's these late nights eating burgers with her dad all hyped up on morphine that really stick in a girls memory."  

Presently the rain began to
fall in slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began
to collect under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out
hopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then wet
umbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and mud. What the mud had
been doing with itself, or where it came from, who could say?

it's been a long day.

it started over breakfast at the 14th ave Waffle Shop. The waffle shop is a tiny little pepto bismal pink building that seats 32 people when every seat at every orange formica table (and the counter) is full. you can get two eggs, toast and sausage for three dollars and a bottomless cup of coffee is eighty five cents. We sat for an hour and I talked and talked about the play I haven't written on in over a month. i'm so stuck, and dispite a couple of conversations about it, all I seem able to do is better discuss why i'm stuck, and have made absolutely no progess figuring out how to get unstuck.

After breakfast I continued on the Great Seat Cusion search. This sounds just about as exciting as it really is. I need a couch cusion for the next play, and well, making  a new one has involved numerous trips to a multitude of stores. But now I have the right fabric, and have returned the wrong fabric. (and washed the right fabric) I have aquired the foam and formulated a plan to maximize the stability  of the cusion while spending the least amount possible.

In my travels I also found an adorable pair of shoes for Little Miss Olivia, who absolutely had to have cute shoes to wear with her easter dress. She's about a year and a half years old, and nothing beats those little pastel dresses and cute little shoes at easter time. Nothing.

Then, because I could, I went tropping through the woods indulging in a hobby that I almost thought I had lost interest in. apparently not, as I had a fabulous time, and got to stick my hands inside some very scary places. Also, it's really muddy around here right now. Really Muddy. But it was a gorgeous afternoon, and sometimes it's good to play in mud and leaves and sticks.  

And then things got crazy. Cute Little Miss olivia got easter pictures taken tonight, but first we needed to take her to ihop for pancakes so she didn't melt down during the picture taking process. After dinner we had to get her into the mall, sneak her past the play area, change her into her pretty dress and cute shoes, and then find a place that was actually open that could take the pictures. We ended up at Sears of all places, but had to keep her occupied while they set up, and then wrangle through the picture taking process. Note to self: look into plot that will ban the multicolored duster things from kids photo places. or at least required that they get new ones every now and then. GROSS!

After pictures she needed to get changed back into her real clothes, distracted while they loaded the pictures for mom to see, and taken to the before mentioned play area  to run off some energy while Mom picked out the pictures. Then there was the part where she fell and hit her head and the screaming started, all before we herded the child back into the car (after getting a drink and making a potty stop) Sound like a lot of crazy running around? yeah, but I left out he part wear she has a three year old brother who was along for every step of the crazy. so take everything and square it.

The kids fell asleep in the car.

Thank god I'm barren.

The Donna is having a Really Bad Day.

The Unholy Trinity (as they shall now be known as forever more) sent me an email asking me to do things that i did a week ago. oh, the micro-managing. One day they might just realize that i know what i'm doing. but probably not.

but mostly my issue is my inability to run away. if I had a place to go, and a way to get there, and a way to sustain myself once I was at where ever there might be, i'd be on my way right now. but Here is bad, and I have no  real escape plan.

and no back up plan.

I'm going to take just a moment and tell you all about one of the reasons I like LJ and, besides being connected with my friends who are also on LJ, why I prefer this place over some other misc. free bloggy site.

at the bottom of a post, it says "Leave a comment."

and then, when someone says something, it changes to "1 comment."

and then after another person says something, it changes to "2 comments."

no shit there I was reading tim's blog and it said at the bottom "1comments."

1= singular. comments= plural.

one of the voices in my head demanded that I click over to LJ and make sure they didn't embrace the same stupidity or I was going to have to delete my account. (Like I'd actually do that!)

Note to self: please leave the house and interact with other humans. you're starting to lose you mind.

(ok, so you didn't see that , but originally I  typed "it," as in "losing it." We all know what "it" implies, but my brain said "stop right there, little missy, you can't use a pronoun without a clear noun for it to modify."

Somebody stop me.

 

I learned how to be a friend and made some of the best relationships of my life.

I lost a parent, gave one up, and gained another.

I joined the SCA, an organization that has become my second family.

I fell in and out of love.

I got good grades and awards in school, and learned I was happier with a challenge and less good grades.

I went to work and devoloped a work ethic Im still proud of today.

I saw a night launch of the space shuttle, probaly still the single most soectacular thing I've seen.

I celebrated the cycles of life attending countless birthdays, weddings, and funerals.

I learend to drive, roll the windows down, turn the radio up, and sing with abandon.

I laughed, I cried, I fell down. I danced.

thank you.

i'm so happy that you answered your phone and we were able to talk for a bit. Our conversation did exactly what I needed and got me right out of my spiral of self obsession. It also reminded me that I have a writing project I should be working on instead of stressing about other things. I'll let you read it when it's done.

It's good to have friends, and I'm so glad you are one of them.

(and if you're not the person I called last night, i'm glad you're my friend, too! )  

if facebook and I were dating, facebook would totally not be getting laid for the next few days. I'm not breaking up with facebook, I love the little bugger and I can't imagine how I lived my life before we met. I'm not talking marriage or lifelong commitmet here 'cuz there's a million new technologies in the sea and sometimes a girl and the internwebs grow apart. (Myspace still drunk emails me late at night everynow and then.)

I'm not blind to facebook's faults. We had a rough time there when Facebook announced things were "new" and it was never going to go back to the old facebook that I had first fallen for. It was hard, but we made it through. Our relationship grew up a bit. It was no longer about having fun and playing a bunch of random games, and blossommed into what we have now.

I still get annoyed with it, especially when it thinks I want to hear from people from high school, or when it tried to tell me how many people are smarter than me. yeah, like I'm fallen for that. But we all say stupid things sometimes, and I love hoe facebook doesn't mock me when I make a typo. Facebook knows I'm only human and we've accepted each other.

And then this morning Facebook betrayed my trust. I know it wasn't entirely facebook's fault and That I shouldn't shoot the messenger, but 'COME ON, facebook. Don't we know each other by now? I'm hurt and angry and it's all facebooks fault. I have so many things to worry about today, and I can't believe Facebbok would dump on me first thing in the morning. I haven't even had cofee.

Sure the actual content is upsetting and I have no idea how I'm going to handle that, but I've been with Facebook for a while now and would expect that Facebook would understand me and handle things differently. The what is upsetting enough, I don't need the how to complicate things. I am so dissappointed.

Facebook, if your reading this, I still love you, but it's going to take me a little while before I can forgive you.
I just remembered that Valentine's day is tomorrow. Let's talk later tonight. I don't want to fight on Valentines day.

the fine folks at LJ tell me it's been three weeks since I posted an update. Three weeks? How did that happen? I've got heaps of spare time, and I haven't managed to spare 30 minutes to randomly ramble about my pathetic life? Surely there can't be that many interesting shows on tv.

sooo... here's what's been going on. 

I tried to watch Wall-E yesterday. I made it through about six minutes and then napped until the final credits rolled. It was a good nap, but I wish I had gotten the good blanket.

I'm working on lights for a show at a new theatre. it's interesting, but things aren't going particularly well. I don't have keys to the building because I was supposed to get the set from the set builder, but she blew past her deadline and still needs the keys. So I have to make arrangements to get in when someone else can get there to unlock the place, which generally is not during the day when I have the vast tracks of time. SO that sucks.

And the guy who is supposed to be helping me with learning the computer program and being my friendly native guide is not friendly or much of a guide. His availability sucks, and frankly, I think he's a little snarked that He's not getting my paycheck. (it's a job he's done in the past, so he's got some reason to e upset, but then if he had been doing a good job before the director wouldn't have asked me to do it instead of him this time around)
 
I went to Maidens. It was nice, but hard to tell who was there. The site was very compartmentalized...not ideal. Finding sites sucks, especially with what people want to charge these days. I managed to be useful in a couple of ways during the day which felt nice, especially considering how out of touch I've felt the last year.

Oh, Oh,Oh, the local group had an event on Saturday. I didn't go. Guido tried to make a deal out of it. Nice try, but I feel no guilt about not participating with the locals. I might be described as giddy to not be participating.

The weekend before Maidens I went to Des Moines to see my favoritest musical. I was concerned because I never really got all that excited, and I was really worried they were going to mess with my fond fond moments with the music. It was wonderful and had we not had a three hour drive home in front of us, I would have liked to stay and try to get tickets to the evening show (we went to the matinee.) I now have a new favorite song (Touch Me, track six, Vargas.) you loose it in the CD, but live the one guy comes downstage onto the top step and just rocks it. They have an option where you can buy seat onstage and I heart the idea of being that close to the action, but I don't think I would be happy sitting behind him and the force of that song. My Junk was even better than on the CD, and I nearly peed myself between the motorboating and the porn spanking. My one real dissappointment was Left Behind. Tears were still shed but the moment felt really forced and overdone. All in all, a great show and Karen has already mentioned that it's coming to Chicago and that she'd be more than happy to see it again. So would I. If only the job fairies would visit so I could afford to go. 

then there's my friends. A couple of friends had their baby, another sold her house, three different people lost their jobs, and a bunch went back to another semester of school. Friends dogs have been sick, cat's have infected teeth and one needs to be put down. A divorce approaches at a slow and painful pace, and Andy is dating again. She also renewed her teaching licsence and wants to have lunch this week. Travis is managing to maintain both a girlfriend and a pet skunk, a combo I would swear is bound to fail, but seems to be working. Jesse broke his hip, and Jerry's not going to move any time soon, if at all.

The world carries on.

I'm sitting at home on purpose today, waiting for the window installers to put in the trim around the new window. They came by about two hours ago to take some measurements and one of the guys smells FANTASTIC. I kind of wanted to lock his friend in the closet while I jumped the nice smelling one, but I decided against adding imprisonment and sexual assult to my rap sheet. 

 

i texted and called but i got a "this is not a working number" message. what's with that?

i found my email regarding the tickets, but now I need to hotel info. and by info, I mean how much it costs. (the email I have from you  regarding the hotel is about where it's at and if I get waffles in the morning.)

by the way, totally bored. wanna go to park place?

crap, just got your text. any gestimations?

because I suck at learning new things  correction:Having the patience to learn new things. I'm actually pretty damn smart. I'm just cold and want to post this and run away some place warmer. like under a cozy blanket with a cup of cocoa and a decent book. but I digress

So instead I give you this link to a parody of hey there delilah. oh sure the  plain white tees wrote a cute little song that I actually like if I'm in the right mood, but there's no wrong mood for this parody. but as it's called "Hey there Vagina" I don't recommmend listening to it at work or in front of kids who are good at picking up new words.

Oh,yes, there was laughing, but don't think this is were the fun ends. because you tube is great for sucking you life away three minutes at a time, stick around after the song to follow the linky linkies to "Hey there Clamydia" More laughing will ensue. but again, not the kind of laughing you sould do at work. And the economy sucks, so you don't want to be looking for a new job. you've been warned!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyf_3gizO2w

ok, it's official. Tomorrow I'm getting in a car and heading south. I'll be in New Orleans for New Years. Enjoy the cold and snow, suckers!