Broken Glass In The Frozen Grass

THIS is actually cooler than being published, in my mind.

Take a look.

http://vimeo.com/blog:63

I'm not writing this for LJ people (because really, I can count the number of you who read me on one hand) but rather for myself and my Tumblog.

I got this book in the mail...yesterday? It's a book I'm apparently featured in - well, not apparently.

My story is the first story. Not sure if they stacked it that way so they'd have people reading the best first, or worst first - but the last two stories in the book were horrific.

It's here: http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=3286

Don't bother buying the book unless someone makes you - if you really want to read the story I can send it to you, just ask. Not like I got paid for my submission or anything. I might actually post it on my website...if I don't make it known so much.

Today I borrowed Harry Potter 7, and am reading it. After three hours: page 254 (HERMIONE NEEDS TO STFU - I'll paste what I wrote to Caroline on AIM, since it made ME laugh, at least. "HARRY STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR SCAR. OCCLUMENCY! OCCLUMENCY!" "HARRY STOP TELLING REMUS HE'S A COWARDLY SCUMBAG!" "BE NICE TO KREACHER HARRY!" "HARRY STOP WATCHING VOLDEMORT KILL PEOPLE IN YOUR HEAD! I THOUGHT YOU COULD HELP IT! DUMBLEDORE DUMBLEDORE DUMBLEDORE!!!" - hehe.)

This weekend I'm going camping! w00t!!!11

Remind me to finish my CollegeHumor intern app tomorrow - I made the second round, I just need to answer some essays or some beeznass.

I'm going to be in Chicago for the next few days, so I won't really be available.

That's ok, right?

Have a good weekend everyone.

Oh, and here is the cross country Lip Dub Caroline and I did. It can be found and liked on the regular Vimeo too, but it's Caroline's file and is actually here.



Nothing Better (duet!) Lip Dub

I want to tell a story.

If you read down a few posts, you'll find the post where I posted a post of a response to a book I never read for a class I wasn't trying especially hard in.

After turning this posted item in to my professor, I forgot all about it and went about my daily college life as usual.

Then, one day about a week and a half later, our professor walks in and says, "I'd like to read you something one of your classmates wrote."

As much as I wanted to believe it wasn't me, as much as I wanted to believe there was no way she'd fallen for my bullshit, I knew in the pit of my stomach whose paper she wanted to read. And my hairs stood up and they were telling me to sink into my chair or get up and make a run for the hall, but I did not. I still clung faintly to the hope that it wasn't mine, and when she said "It's Mr. Holwerda's. So." I tightened every part of my face, not looking at anyone as they craned around to look at me. Poker face. Poker face in English class.

And she read it, aloud, not making a single mistake, and my pretentious writer ego asshole thing that lives inside my brain said "Wow, that sounds really good. Do you even remember writing it that well?" I did not, but my pride was outweighed by something deeper.

A guilt, a shame. I had cheated my way into the spotlight. I hadn't even read the book, and here she was telling the class that my paper was what SHE HAD BEEN LOOKING FOR. The one student who UNDERSTOOD, who you could really tell did all of his READING and LEARNING without just looking on the back cover for the summary of the book and re-dubbing it into five paragraphs.

I wanted to stand up and tell her to stop reading, that it was not good, that I was a cheat, but of course I did not want that. I did not want that, I wanted her to keep reading, to tell everyone how great I was, and portray me as the example student I'm sure she thought she had. There's guilt in that, too. Guilt in being guilty but enjoying it.

The rest of the day all I could think about was how I knew that I knew it was mine. How?

I hope I'm someone's hero, because I'm not mine.  More and more I wish I was Simon Frankson, because he's a goddamned genius and I feel like just a kid.

I want to start a new story involving the following aspects:

    -Streetlights that turn on/off when you go under them.
    -Glasses that when you put them on make you see only the ghosted images of things that might have been.
    -A machine that makes you forget something, so you can have the experience of doing something for the first time over and over and over.
    -A character who comes to terms with his own rusty life while discovering these things.

However, I can't start that story until I finish another story. You might think that's ridiculous, but it's so not. I NEED to finish something else before I start something new because otherwise I just have another open project I can't finish and once a bunch of them pile up I can't finish ANY OF THEM and starting new things makes me FEEL QUEASY with the anticipation of FAIL and not excited with the prospect of success - which is what should happen.

I am very happy to have made some very new and close friends recently. Simon and Caroline are freaking awesome. There are other people who chat on Stickam but I think we can tell there's a core triangle of "Just Us" going on. To the point where we ignore most other users. Which is sad. I also think it's odd that I haven't said anything about them to Libby, or to my parents or sister. How do you explain that you met really cool people online but that it's not weird? Just that whole stigma of "THE INTERNET" which seems to keep me from doing it - not my stigma, but my perception of everyone else's stigma.

I attempted to make a video blog today, and I talked about my numb back muscle and about Simon's TO THE USERS OF VIMEO speech, but the lighting sucked and I realized that because I'd just gotten out of the shower my hair was all over the place. Just contacts only, right, so why should I care, right? Well, that's the thing. I actually seem to care MORE about how I look in the presence of people I care about. Ah well, I"m going to edit it and post it anyway, even though there was so much more I wanted to talk about but didn't. When I get in that chair and look at the camera my mind goes blank and I end up talking about god-knows-what. I'm hereby not ever capitalizing god again. Unless it needs to be.

I told Jay I'd draw him a UPS Store comic, but I'm really afraid I can't do it anymore. I've been drawing a lot, but what if I try and nothing comes out? What if it just sucks? Easier to just not, and vow to do it tomorrow.

Also, I want to start blogging more often, since I think it's a good way for me to get my feelings and thoughts out of my head, which is where they stay and recycle and die if I don't do anything about them. So if I'm slacking off, tell me. And that means you, Sara. And Caroline, and Simon. Tell me to get on my fucking horse.

Also, I"m going to update this version of LJ to the kind with advertisements. What do I care, I'm not going to see them.

This kind of thing confuses me as much as it angers me. I know it's been going around for a while but it shouldn't be old news until it stops.

Huh?

So I'm in Chicago. Or some shit.

The train sucked because I was all trying to sleep then these bitches came and sat down in front of me, beside me, and behind me. There were a lot of them. And they were loud and nasally and snobby and kept saying stuff like "Oh ma Gawd, I just love to be movin' all 'round the train all the time. Let's change seats every five minutes!" and "Jezus, when ah pee, ah always check to see if it's bloody. I don't unnastand women who just flush without lookin," and "Every time ah walk more than twenty feet ah get a humungo blister right on the unnerside of my footy. And then it pops and all this gross pus comes out and gets all over mah carpet. Then mah dog licks it."

I SCREAMED INTO MY HANDS SILENTLY FOR TWENTY MINUTES. Silent screaming. It's like ice cream that's warm or American Chinese food. You know what would be cooler? If my hands screamed silently for twenty minutes. Like little mouths opened up in my palms and just SCREAMED!!! Silently.

So I moved at the next stop, Kalamazoo. Trouble is, that's when everyfreakingone got on the train. I went to the back, where the seats faced away from the direction of travel and I thought I could be alone but lo and behold, everyone sat around me. I was not alone. However, these were a nicer bunch, and I'm sure as soon as they realized I was sleeping they shut the eff up.

Because I slept, successfully, without having to yell at anyone for not shutting the eff up.

Then I got to Chicago and now I have to go to sleep so that tomorrow I can remember to feed myself. And do something creative.

Here's a video of Sara fellatiating a tulip. More videos from Chicago coming soooon. (Never.)

There's only like sixteen hours left before I'm done with this place. I can't freaking wait.

Then it's home for a day and to Chicago for the weekend/half of next week.

I just blue myself.

Yeah.   What's up. You like my new icon? It was fun to make. I want to make more.

I'm staying up all night. Woo!

EDIT: Well, maybe not all night. Shut up.

Here's a one page typed response to a book I never even opened. I kind of like it. Let's hope she doesn't Google it, find this, and then accuse me of plagiarizing myself. That would almost be bad, but not really. Remember kids, while you should NEVER plagiarize, it's not illegal to make shit up. Stephen Carter, the most published nonfiction article writer of ALL TIME, even he swore by it. Don't believe me? Look at his blog! (http://www.stephencarterblog.com/post/jan_2_03.html)

            When Richard Rodriguez says in his book, Brown: The Last Discovery of America, that “The future is brown,” he means that nothing, nothing will ever remain pure. That purity is a myth and that things that are considered “impure” or “ugly” will cease to be considered so. That even the idea of what whites and blacks are will be blended, blurred, and become an indeterminable space, a “brown” space. That the idea of  brown will even become obsolete.

            While not to be understood by everyone (as not every word – or paragraph even – is chosen for comprehension – many are chosen for elegance instead) Brown does end up evoking what I imagine all of Rodriguez’s intended reactions were. The reader is taken on a very real, personal, and yet whimsical journey through the author’s life – many of the stories disjointed and rambling, but all pertaining to a single thesis. As he writes in his Preface, “I eulogize a literature that is suffused with brown, with allusion, irony, paradox-ah!-pleasure. I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America.” In essence, Rodriguez admits that he’s writing to “eulogize” much of Chicano literature, which he considers brown, but not the brown he’s talking about. It’s a brown he sees affirming the very ideas he believes brown should never be. Saying essentially that brown is not brown, another one of his paradoxes. Much like the way he says there is a brown and at the same time that brown should not (and will not) even exist, in that quotation regarding race.

            The idea of brown to the many readers of this book might seem abstract, superfluous, perhaps even too paradoxical and wrong to even consider, but we see that Rodriguez himself has the idea of brown in his head in such a clear manner that his attempts to commit that idea to the page often succeed so wonderfully that the reader has, for an instant, a look through the window into Rodriguez’s mind. A look that, on first glance, might uncover a simple cluttered room - but with an extra second’s attention becomes a piece of art – beautiful, horrible and real.

            The future becomes brown when all ideas of brown, of white, of black, of impurity and purity and prejudice and racism and sexism become obsolete. And if Rodriguez himself were here at this moment, perhaps he would tell you this himself:

            The future becomes brown when there is no longer a brown for the future to become.

           

            Paradox-ah!-pleasure.

Oh, and by the way, Stephen Carter doesn't exist. I made him up. You gullible Gillies...

COMICS ON MY LEG! What a crazy idea!

I feel like I'm posting more to get even with the time I said "Fuck you, LiveJournal. I fucking hate you."

And is it too much to ask to just be able to say "fuck" once in a while on the internet, as yourself, without people who might know you in the future being so gosh-darned offended?

I mean, I say gosh-darned, or freak, but you know what the fuck I'm saying.  (And isn't it weird that I can't even write God     -     damn without it being seperated like that? I mean, I don't have a problem saying God or damn...just can't complete the expletive, if you will. It's maybe not weird, but weird that I'm so comfortable with fuck and uncomfortable with the Religious one...I'm not Religious, though. I'm not even religious - (smallr r) I'm something more like areligious. I'm all for ancient stories that tell you to be good and stuff, but screw institutions that teach us everyone else is wrong. Way to go, Religious leaders that aren't Jesus or Mohammad or Moses. Way to make us all hate each other, but love you! Wait, isn't that something the devil...no, I'd better not say it, I might be smoten. No, that's no right. Smited? Smitten? Shitten.)

Chuck Furch. Now exchanging Ch and F. Now exhaling, with a subtly pleasant "Ahhh..."

You know what else sucks? I wasn't even going to write this post about this. I was going to write it about my alphabet comic book. Favorite two letters so far: E and F.

Observe:

E is for the EEP let out, the runtling’s only shrieking shout, as Billy’s arrow leaves his hand, and flies to greet the runtling and –

Finds a tree instead, a tree. Inches from the runtling’s knee. And from the depths of Billy’s mouth, a FUCK flies forth, a FUCK so forced, so coarse, that Billy’s vocal chords change course and henceforth he is rendered hoarse.

Man it's going to be good. Thanks to Jared Von Hindman (headinjurytheater.com) for (partially) the idea.

One last thing. This new show?

Daddy likes. And Daddy ain't even a Daddy. That's how much he likes.

Time for the sleepage.

Dude so it's like 1 in the morning, right? And I'm totally chillin' watching some Grey's Anatomy on the ABC website, when I get this knocking feeling on my tum tum! That's right, the hunger pang thang.

Anywho, it was too late to go to the 24/7 across the street, so I thunk up what it was I might have had in my room that I might have been able to chow for some nourishments. Also I was thirsty also. Don't be forgettin' that.

So like I couldn't think of anything until I remembered I had stored a dimebag of oranges in the bottom shelf of the fridgerathing. So I pulled one out real quietlike so's not to wake the roomie, and cut it open with my knife so's I could start the peelin.

Well, I tell you, that taste was so sweet, that orange was so crisp....

After I finished one I went right ahead and had another.

SHIT. Now I'm watching October Road, the ABC show about the writer who disappears for 10 years and then comes back and all his friends hate him? Kinda a secret fantasy of mine...or something.

Of course I'd have to take some people with me...Don't all go climbing in the boat at once.

Demons.

OMG OMG OMG OMG.


300.


OMG OMG OMG OMG.

I got a story published in Michigan State's Literary Journal, The Offbeat!

It's the only story I've ever sent out to be published, so that's nice.

Sweet though, isn't it?

Back from Florida!

Now to shitty Michigan State.

Ok, I'm writing this at home with now internet connection, so whenever you see it will just be depending on when I can get a moment to connect. I don't know what I really wanted to talk about, other than that I'm going to Florida on Sunday (this is Friday night, btw) to visit my grandparents and my dad who's down there for a gamut of art shows.

News? The Tigers have won 3 straight in spring training games versus other MLB teams (not counting the 14-0 win they had against Florida Southern three days ago). While yeah, it's just spring training and these games *don't* matter, it's nice to see the Tigers winning again. And it's nice to see the White Sox losing (they're 0-4).

Sorry, Chicago fans, but the White Sox piss me off.

30 days left till opening day!

Oh, and I was looking for places to watch free movies online, and I found peekvid.com - sure, it's probably immoral and fairly shady to watch bootleg tapes of current films on a website, but it sure as hell isn't illegal. For anyone who tries to tell you it is, ask them how far anyone would get trying to sue you for going to a website. I mean it's basically a right by now - Right to Free Surfage of the Internets. I'd like to see you try and take it away, George Bush!

Eff yah!