Tuesday, October 17, 2006

From the recesses of approximately 1300 grams of gray matter.

Barksdale-Pumpkin-Baby

Hey all! Time for a new blog entry. Of late, my blogs have been sort of specifically written by topic, but I think tonight's will be a stream-of-consciousness entry.

I'm actually sort of enjoying the change in seasons right now. In a non-pessimistic way, that will probably last about a week. Either because I dislike fall in general, or because that's only about as long as the season will last around here. But I would like all to know that I am thoroughly enjoying life right now, and eagerly await the adventures that lie just around the corner. My show opens tomorrow night, my roomates are wonderful, I just bought groceries, and the happiest hours of my day are spent with an incredible boy who is dear to me and who I love dating.

Tonight was invited dress rehearsal for "The Spitfire Grill," in which I play Effy Krayneck, town gossip and busy body. And postmistress. I can honestly say that tonight was one of the worst performances of my life in this particular show. I just felt off-kilter. The show was off musically a lot, my own emotional journey was rocky and disconnected, and my old age makeup was too dark. But I think I've got it all out of my system. The lameness of my performance tonight somehow seems to ensure a good run for me.

Do you think "off-kilter day-ness" can be contagious? V's day was like that...just lots and lots of klutzy, silly, ridiculous, brainless things happening. It's like Willie said long ago, but which I've never forgotten...days like this can be compared to getting into your car after someone else has been driving it. Nothing is permanently wrong, but nothing really seems to fit. The seat's too far forward, the mirrors need adjusting, the steering wheel's too high. It can be fixed, but sometimes it takes a while, and it takes a few tries to get everything back to normal. Some days you just have to sort of muscle through until you can crash into bed at the end of it and be grateful for the next day, when you can experience some semblence of order and sense again. Today was a day of "metaphorically re-aligning mirrors."

I really wish I could have found that quote from Willie. He was much more eloquent about the whole concept.

V's day being off-kilter probably has to do with the fact that he couldn't sleep last night. He's so funny and cute when he's sleepy...he sort of reverts back into childhood a little bit. He just becomes this cuddly, pouty, adorable little boy who just wants to be fed, and hugged, and loved and tucked in. I can't resist coddling him when he's like that. =) Of course, I love being with him all the more when he's whacky and awake and intelligent and all that too. I just like being with him in general. Come this Saturday, we'll have been dating for one month. I can't decide if it feels longer than that, or shorter. More often it feels like its been much longer.

So it's only 1 in the morning (I know..."only"?) but it feels so much later. Insomniac that I am, I don't really FEEL like going to bed. Once I'm asleep and am required to get up again, I really appreciate sleep and enjoy it a great deal. But when I'm fully awake, the idea of sleep seems so boring and such a waste of time. There are a handful of things in this world that I find tedious and irritating just because no matter how many times you do them, they must be done again eventually. I get no lasting sense of accomplishment from going to bed...I'm going to be there again tomorrow night. Showering? That drives me nuts, I'm just going to get dirty again. Dishes? I avoid doing those at all costs, the pile refuses to be diminished.

Maybe I'll do some online research on current mental health issues. A new, enlightening late-night habit I've developed. I hope you are all loving life, and learning lots, and eating some sort of food that includes pumpkin, because it's autumn.

Quote of the day to conclude with:
"In the heat of composition I find that I have inadvertently allowed myself to assume the form of a large centipede." --The Screwtape Letters

Don't let it happen to you! =)

PS: Isn't this child the most enchantingly lawn-gnomish little character? I'm so baby-hungry right now.
pumpkin-stand

Monday, October 9, 2006

We're young, poor, and full of sugar! Let's go crazy, Broadway-style!

light sabers
The Great Battle of College Avenue! It started with 4 light-sabers, but by the end of it, a giant cardboard roll, several sticks, the Sting, and a broom also entered the fray, along with several other people. This is Tim, Beckah, Garrett, and Brad. Notice everyone's intense looks, with the exception of cheerful Tim. Also note the parallel between Garrett's shirt and his own stance. Great pic, no? Please also take a moment to check out Beckah's pictures of the Pregnancy Night, along with some descriptions of more of our adventures, including that of "Tad the Cuddler," on her blog.

By way of update, thought I'd share a little about life here on College Avenue. This cute little house is definitely my favorite PLACE I've lived in Rexburg so far, but the whole experience is growing on me too. I live with some fun, whacky wonderful people, and our home is frequented by even more of the same. I'm inescapably a theatre geek, so allow me to introduce you to life around here using a little theatrical vocabulary.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

The "Hawmps family"...

Liz (AKA me): Father figure and stay-at-home mom in one, nudist, and quote-book editor.

Beckah: One of the "little girls," word-of-the-day editor, and initiator of chaos!

Nellie: Another one of the "little girls," the token Idahoan, and stutter-er extraordinaire.

Jenny Mae: The last of the "little girls," fellow Oregonian, and the other silly redhead.

Kimri: The wise and righteous Grandmother figure, the quietest and the oldest, and the one who sits and takes us all in with a smile and loving questions about our sanity and salvation

Eileen: The Mom, cook and cosmetologist, and the friendliest hostess who you can't help but love.

Additional Hawmps members that don't actually sleep here, at least not after curfew, include but aren't limited to...

V: "Big Brother" (literally to Eileen), MY BOYFRIEND (I don't think I mentioned that detail about my life in my blog yet), owner of the famous and often-seen-on-college-avenue car The Oracle, and general provider and partaker of the excellent times that we have here. Also an excellent kisser.

Tim: From across the street. The gentlemanly ape-ish fellow that is Eileen's significant other, who is generally pretty mellow but who every now and then says or does something that is made all the more hysterical by his mellow manner.

Brad: Also across the street. A friend of Jenny's from home who comes to woo us with his guitar and his Dave Matthews impression. Brad...the object of many lusty thoughts.

Davey: Jenny's brother, seemingly quiet, who joins in the chaos with his guitar-playing skills and Tony Hawk Playstation...ing.

Allowiscious: The cat whose origons and actual home is unknown, who occasionally comes by to purr in our laps and startle us as we turn a corner. We gave it it's name.

THE SETTING:
131 College Avenue. Turkish prayer flags hang above the porch. On the front door is taped a sign, with a picture of a camel and the words "Welcome to the Hawmps" and as a post-script "It's very small. And nicely cramped...so that there's hardly any room between one adventure and the next." Enter an old house with walls too thin, containing an impressive library, a dozen or so Jones soda bottle, and a Pez collection on the wall opposite the front door. A guitar sits in the corner, rescued from the flooded Playmill men's dressing room, bearing the autographs of everyone who's played it since its entered the house. The white-board outside the kitchen has various items of business, including the Question of the Day ("Are there pineapples/beaches in Spirit Prison?") and the Word of the Day, normally taken from the Balderdash cards ("Snurp: verb. To shrivel up."). Next to the white-board is the chores chart and the Official Constitution, and on a shelf above it, The Shrine. The Shrine consists of numerous objects that have stories behind them or are in some way connected to one or more of the members of the household. On the shelf sit a newspaper rose in a vase, a green stuffed bunny named Dave, a Mr. Potato figure, the shards of Sting, 3 railroad pikes (one of them bearing a magnet saying "Vaughn"), a Catholic "Santa Barbara" candle, a collection of Volkswagon Bug model cars, and 2 Balderdash cards, one describing the movie "Hawmps" and one bearing the word "Dunkle" (to dint or crumple). In the kitchen is a pile of dishes that V will eventually do if they're Liz's responsibility, otherwise they'll pile up for a few more days until we run out of clean ones. Covering the walls are the paper hearts that were put up for Eileen weeks ago when she was having a bad day, but which now serve as a good reminder of appreciation.

THE DIALOGUE:

"I've always wanted to ski through fire." --Nellie

"I hate our ceiling. It looks like nasty kisses." -Beckah

"Eileen, the oven scared me so I turned it off. Sorry if I hurt your food." --Jenny

"I wouldn't trush him with my eggs." --Brad

"It would be really embarrassing if my brother was a bad kisser." --Eileen

"Wow, if her skin was darker, she'd look black." --V

"I can't figure out if that's a sombrero or a tank." --Beckah

"My gosh, Kimri knows more guys than Santa Claus!" --Jenny

"Brad busted the hand off of Jesus." --Eileen

"I think I'm sort of cute. And I like the way I move." --Brad

"I was going to go to bed early tonight until we decided to get pregnant." --Nellie

"What's the possibility of all of us getting pregnant at the same time? We'd have to call eachother up and be like 'Let's conceive.'" --Beckah

"Nothing says 'Garrett' like hobo." --Jenny

Beckah: I'm glad Moroni's on the top of the temple.
Nellie: Yeah, what if it was like, Gabriel or some other angel?
Beckah: Yeah, or Micheal. Gross!

"You'll have plenty to do while I'm gone; I've had a sudden urge to consume waffles." --Perry Mason

I think that is sufficient introduction to the adventurous existence that is life at the Hawmps!

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. --Bill Watterson

painful stupidity
As a Christian woman, I should not be posting this blog. But I feel no remorse. (As of yet.) Anyone this idiotic of a writer who managed to get themselves into a private university deserves to be mocked.
Vaughn is a TA for a literature class, and as part of that job, he occasionally gets stacks of papers to read and grade on a Pass/Fail scale. The papers are to be 2 pages in length, making some sort of specific connection to or analysis of any of the readings in the class. Lately, we've been reading these papers together, partly so that we can spend more time together, and partly because some of the papers are so astoundingly bad that we can't help laughing at them.
I sincerely hope that the authors of the following two papers never find out about my posting these, and that if they do, they know that I do not judge them based on their lack of intelligent writing alone. I have no idea how these people could have gotten as far as a 250 level English class with these writing skills (or lack thereof). Both of these papers blatantly failed. Enjoy the following literary jewels, even if you are a little saddened by the enormous lack of writing ability at this college.

"Gratitude" by Anonymous Female
The poem called "The Red Wheelbarrow" is written by William Williams. He works as a pediatrician. Williams draws his experience with working with people as a doctor to influence his writing for poems and plays. Williams has the skill of making his poetry short but with deep meaning. Why in is the poem structured in such a simplistic way? How does this poem affect our generation? What is the value and the purpose of the poem?
Why did Williams style his poetry in such a unique fashion for his generation? In his experience with people he creates a simplistic style to represent everyday speech of the average American. He writes for the majority of America and adapts their language, culture, and beliefs. As Williams writes using the different adaptations he units America because he utilizes their culture. He shows the different culture that makes up America by having the poem's sentence structure split up, but he brings the cultures together by unifying them into a poem.
The purpose of the poem is to show the wheel barrow as a symbol to gain gratitude and to unite America culturally. Every American has a wheel barrow that affects their lifestyle in some way. Farmers use it for transporting hay or droppings from animals. The suburban family would use it for transporting tree or grass clippings. For the city dwellers the wheel barrow may be seen on the street at a construction site, which is used to build skyscrapers for the businessmen of America. The wheel barrow is a symbol of things that are unappreciated because it is left in the rain and seen as a mundane object when it obviously has many purposes in everyday life as stated before. The wheel barrow symbolizes the things which we are ungrateful for, such as freedom, technology and the daily blessings we receive. In fact, we could take out wheel barrow and place any thing that seems to be underappreciated.
In our generation many do not comprehend the full impact that the "wheel barrow," as a symbol, has in our lives. For us the unifying wheel barrow is the radio, television, and the internet. Each of these electronic devices keeps us in contact, not only in America but with the rest of the world. We can find out about cultures and lifestyles of a tribe in South America using the mechanical devices. We can keep other cultures alive by watching the Discovery Channel or doing research on the internet. Do we appreciate these modern advances? At points,some people do show their gratitude, like Williams in writing this poem. He not only shows his own gratitude but influences others to see the "wheel barrow" in their lives.
Does this poem have value and would someone want to read it? The poem has value because it has a good message. The message is the unifying of cultures and the showing of gratitude by Williams. "The Red Wheelbarrow" is very simple to read, so there is no excuse as to why someone would not want to read it. In conclusion, the message is worth learning and applying to our lives. Also the poem can be applicable to any generation and any culture.

"My Purpose" by Anonymous Male
I chose to read the poem, "War is Kind" by Stephen Crane. The reason I read it was because I have read some of his books before, and I wanted to try his poetry and see how it compared.
The question I am going to address is, what does this piece have to do with me? I love history, and I love learning wars. Some of my favorite books and movies are about war. In this poem, it is talking about men in war. We always think about the terrible things revolved around wars, and you hear sayings like "War is Hell" all the time. This is similar, but it has a different twist to it. Sure the dead bodies are disgusting, and your friends die, but that is where men belong. Yes the trenches are bad and the bullets are frightening, but men need to be where they are. In my opinion, Stephen Crane was trying to say that despite all the negativity that comes with war, it makes men feel like they have a purpose. "The men were born to drill and die". Women are supposed to have children, men are supposed to fight and defend those children.
Really, there is nothing in war that is good at all. There is death, families are ruined, and are very costly in terms of money. Crane, I think, was just trying to make it not sound as bad from a male point of view. War is kind, in the sense that it lets men do their jobs. In a world and society full of anger, revenge, and sorrow, we need to look at the positives of things more often as Stephen Crane did in this poem.

Heaven help us.