till dawn comes and finds me never in my bed
Yesterday while I was sorting colored construction paper in my mother's classroom, I blurted out, "Mom, what was I doing when I was ten?" and I don't think I've ever startled her so badly in my life. I explained when she asked that I thought it would give me career guidance: it seems that people tend do what they've always done. She wasn't very helpful, not recalling much more than that I read a lot. But I never read excessively, or even extensively, and besides, there are limited opportunities to read for a living. Most of them involve editing in some capacity, which I guess isn't the worst thing in the world.
The pattern holds true, I suppose: I never had any direction and I still don't. I did a lot of art when I was even younger, nothing spectacular, with markers and paints, etc.; I drew on the walls for a while and my parents kept taking my supplies away, until one day they found me on the floor with talcum powder, a glass of water, and a paintbrush, painting in the hardwood tiles. They gave everything back after that. For a long time I had to use every color in the crayon or marker or colored-pencil box at least once, taking them all out and lining them up, putting them back after I'd used them. There were a lot of rainbows. For a little while my mother worried about OCD, but I never developed anything crippling. I've been watching and reading about real and fictional characters with brains the size of small planets, and it eats at me that I'm bright but not brilliant. I'm not terribly proud of having a jealous personality, but it's a pretty big part of me and I'm well aware of it. It's almost time to move on to the next thing. I can only hope that this restlessness builds up enough and enough to drive me not only out of here, but toward something.
Today, however, was not a day for doing things. My dad got me up for brunch with my mom at 11:30, much too soon after I'd gone to bed that morning. The sun wasn't out (the rain and wind are apparently the direct result of Tropical Storm Arlene, chugging through the Gulf of Mexico and on course for Alabama, Louisiana, etc.) so I didn't even bother with my contact lenses. We ate at Einstein's and afterwards my mother and I did more work in her room. I climbed carefully on a ladder and pulled down bulletin boards, finished sorting FCAT practice packets, wished for a nap. We cut out at a little after three. My mother tried out her first day of Pilates (verdict: inconclusive) and I watched and commented helpfully. I'd woken up with tight hamstrings and over the course of the day other muscles made themselves known, especially my shoulder blades and the long slabs of my back, down either side of my spine, aching faintly when I shifted and sore to the touch. I had a mid-afternoon meal and went to sleep at four-thirty. My mother let me sleep until dinner three hours later. Afterward we all watched two episodes of Dead Like Me. Great character development, and I'm still in love with Mason, but "Reapercussions" (1.04?) was a little scattered. It did further the canon though, and the plot arcs and the relationships. I am still a fan.
I've downloaded about a dozen songs tonight, all fantastic, because the kids who run the music blogs, they know what they're doing. You can get I Found Love at Stereogun, where Matthew from Fluxblog is filling in for the weekend. He describes the track thusly: "This is a selection from The Now Sound Redesigned, a collection of remixes of songs by the twee-est band of the '60s, The Free Design. Styrofoam and former Velocity Girl singer Sarah Shannon don't quite remix "I Found Love" so much as cover it, recasting the tune as a syrupy alt-pop ballad for a post-Postal Service world." It's lush and light and liquid, and the lyrics are almost unbearably happy-slappy, but her voice pulls it out and there's enough going on in the musiccrackling, booping layers along with, um, something drum-like yet electronic? yeahthat it's all okay. I'm listening to it on headphones too, which I recommend. Is absolutely everything better with headphones?
Check out also The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, recommended over at Said the Gramophone, the blog that introduced me to Andrew Bird's "Fake Palindromes."
I haven't read more than fifteen pages of a book at a time in the last few days, and I miss it. There are more filled requests to be picked up at the library tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow too I'll be whole enough to put myself through my paces at the gym.
The pattern holds true, I suppose: I never had any direction and I still don't. I did a lot of art when I was even younger, nothing spectacular, with markers and paints, etc.; I drew on the walls for a while and my parents kept taking my supplies away, until one day they found me on the floor with talcum powder, a glass of water, and a paintbrush, painting in the hardwood tiles. They gave everything back after that. For a long time I had to use every color in the crayon or marker or colored-pencil box at least once, taking them all out and lining them up, putting them back after I'd used them. There were a lot of rainbows. For a little while my mother worried about OCD, but I never developed anything crippling. I've been watching and reading about real and fictional characters with brains the size of small planets, and it eats at me that I'm bright but not brilliant. I'm not terribly proud of having a jealous personality, but it's a pretty big part of me and I'm well aware of it. It's almost time to move on to the next thing. I can only hope that this restlessness builds up enough and enough to drive me not only out of here, but toward something.
Today, however, was not a day for doing things. My dad got me up for brunch with my mom at 11:30, much too soon after I'd gone to bed that morning. The sun wasn't out (the rain and wind are apparently the direct result of Tropical Storm Arlene, chugging through the Gulf of Mexico and on course for Alabama, Louisiana, etc.) so I didn't even bother with my contact lenses. We ate at Einstein's and afterwards my mother and I did more work in her room. I climbed carefully on a ladder and pulled down bulletin boards, finished sorting FCAT practice packets, wished for a nap. We cut out at a little after three. My mother tried out her first day of Pilates (verdict: inconclusive) and I watched and commented helpfully. I'd woken up with tight hamstrings and over the course of the day other muscles made themselves known, especially my shoulder blades and the long slabs of my back, down either side of my spine, aching faintly when I shifted and sore to the touch. I had a mid-afternoon meal and went to sleep at four-thirty. My mother let me sleep until dinner three hours later. Afterward we all watched two episodes of Dead Like Me. Great character development, and I'm still in love with Mason, but "Reapercussions" (1.04?) was a little scattered. It did further the canon though, and the plot arcs and the relationships. I am still a fan.
I've downloaded about a dozen songs tonight, all fantastic, because the kids who run the music blogs, they know what they're doing. You can get I Found Love at Stereogun, where Matthew from Fluxblog is filling in for the weekend. He describes the track thusly: "This is a selection from The Now Sound Redesigned, a collection of remixes of songs by the twee-est band of the '60s, The Free Design. Styrofoam and former Velocity Girl singer Sarah Shannon don't quite remix "I Found Love" so much as cover it, recasting the tune as a syrupy alt-pop ballad for a post-Postal Service world." It's lush and light and liquid, and the lyrics are almost unbearably happy-slappy, but her voice pulls it out and there's enough going on in the musiccrackling, booping layers along with, um, something drum-like yet electronic? yeahthat it's all okay. I'm listening to it on headphones too, which I recommend. Is absolutely everything better with headphones?
Check out also The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, recommended over at Said the Gramophone, the blog that introduced me to Andrew Bird's "Fake Palindromes."
I haven't read more than fifteen pages of a book at a time in the last few days, and I miss it. There are more filled requests to be picked up at the library tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow too I'll be whole enough to put myself through my paces at the gym.