Look to the books, men! (and always carry a pen!)

The library called me yesterday! The library right by my house! The one I can walk to! The one that I just took a test at! And the test was like this:

Me: OK, everything is going to be fine. Deep breaths. I can take my time on this, check my answers–
Testing Lady: “Although we don’t value speed over accuracy, if your scores tie with someone else’s, your time will be taken into account.”
Me: Oh crap. Then my pulse started racing, and I realized the pencil I was holding was adorned with the logo for the city’s sewage department and that seemed like a bad sign. 

I finished the test (came in third on the race to finish) and I thought I did well, but at the same time I was sure I’d flunked it. But then the library called me! Well, actually they called the house and I was gone, with Dad, who was driving the scenic route to Lowe’s. Mom called us and told me to get a pen but there was no pen in the car (even though Dad usually has two pens and one good pencil in his shirt pocket– of course he didn’t this time) and long story short we scraped into Lowe’s just before time ran out, I borrowed a pen from the girl at the customer service thing, and called the library back whilst hiding behind stacks of neon plastic lawn chairs.   

Apparently I did “very well” on the test, and I am getting an interview next Saturday! In a cold room at ten o’ clock in the morning, according to the lady. Whose name is Cynthia. (These facts are what I had to write down with the pen.)

So, I’m very excited! As if you couldn’t tell. I ran around in the garden center and did a treble jig in the lumber department. Now I just have to worry about what questions they’re going to ask me….

 

birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name

For Easter, I got Matched and so I’ve been reading it again. I forgot how good it was. Even though I know the story now, I still feel tense as I read… and I’m once again inspired to memorize as much poetry as possible. (I know the “do not go gentle” poem is the important one in that book, but I LOVE the birthday poem. It’s a possible addition to my memorization list.) Although I was already partly inspired to do this when I checked out a book of Tennyson’s poems from the library. I loved “The Splendor Falls” because of the blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying / blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
And our echoes roll from soul to soul
And basically the whole thing.
I’m going to memorize that one first.

And then I went for a walk and it rained and when I got home we had recieved our new trash cans. The same ones the DHFs have had for ages already, the same ones that Bug hates, and which disturb me for various reasons. (Namely because it’s just a clever, clever idea to eliminate more jobs. Congratulations on being a dang genius, whoever came up with this.)
Mom: “The dystopia has arrived!”
Me: “Welcome to Mapletree Borough.”

I find it ironic that this happens on the day I have spent reading Matched and listening to The Suburbs (this town’s so strange / they built it to change and we used to write / we used to write letters, we used to sign our names… but by the time we met / by the time we met, the times had already changed and pretty much all the songs make me think of dystopias like Matched and Fahrenheit 451 and oh wait the one we currently live in.)

In other news, I think one of the names I should have been named is May. Because:
1. It has the letter y in it and y is my favorite letter. Especially in lowercase form.
2. It’s classic.
3. People think of the month of May as springy and feminine and flowery and bright. But it also has the potential to be strong and unpredictable and stormy. Which I would like to think of as a metaphor for myself, as I think that due to my appearance (and, indeed, my generally pleasant disposition) people assume I am the flowery, feminine, spring-like sort. Which I often am. But I also like to think that I am also unpredictable. That I can create a storm. That my words can fork lightning (to quote Matched and Dylan Thomas).
4. The other meaning of May, besides the month. Not the “Mother May I” meaning, as in permission, but the may as in maybe, perhaps. Will she do this? Will she become that? She may. She may. She may not. I like the uncertainty, like no one is ever really sure which way I’m going, and neither am I. I’m never going to stop being a “perhaps” sort of person, I think. I think I’ll never be finished, polished, done, solidified. Static.
5. I’d like to always be changing, growing, springlike and new. All these things come to mind when I think of the word “May” and that’s why it’s the first name I’ve ever truly felt would really fit me. (There are a lot of names I like, just none that are mine.) (But May actually might be.) (May be.)

But obviously, as I was born in January, my parents would never have thought to name me that.
Sigh again.
Sometimes people need to think outside the box.

~Pen

PS: Whoever caught all the (too many) Matched refrences in this post deserves appaluse. :)

 

FIYAH!

Mom, Poncho, and I went to the Easter Vigil Mass and I don’t really want to talk about it (Father Bill wore shoes– main sign that something was wrong.) (Of course there were other things, but like I said I don’t want to go there and anyway, Jesus is risen even with Disney Princess music, as the DHFs called it.) except for the good parts.

We got there really early because a) Mom and b) it’s usually crowded. Poncho was very anxious to see the fire being lit outside (they light a fire to light the Paschal Candle to light all the other candles etc etc etc) so he asked me about it a million times. Along with, “when does it start?” because his Ninjago watch apparently didn’t get to accessorize his Easter outfit. He also made our candles sword-fight each other. (I admit that I made mine sword-fight back. Also, jousting. With very quiet hoofbeat sound-effects from Ponch.)

Then finally I had a sneeze attack (luckily I know how to sneeze silently) (I learned to do this because of church but also because of how in movies whenever they’re hiding from the evil person someone always sneezes and I don’t want that to be me.) and we sent Poncho to get me some tissues from the bathroom, and also to look out the back door and see if the fire was lit. He came back empty-handed, and informed me that the fire was “lame”.
Me: “If you become a priest, you can light a bigger one.”
Him: “Can I make a bonfire if I’m Pope?”
Me: “Uhh. Okay. Sure.”

Then Mass finally started, in darkness. Poncho saw the Paschal Candle being carried in through the church, turned to me, and shout-whispered “FIYAH!!!” as we all got our candles lit.
Poncho: (whispering to me) “Hey. Hey. Hey.”  
Me: “Shh. Stop. They’re doing the reading.”
Poncho: “Hey. Hey.”
Me: “What?”
Poncho: “Put our candles together so it makes a bigger flame.”
Me: “No.”
Poncho: “Please?”
So I did it for one second and tried not to laugh. A few minutes went by, and then out of the corner of my eye I saw Poncho’s candle sneaking over to mine. I drew mine away. Then he proceeded to turn his candle sideways and swish it around to make it smoke, and in an attempt to cause the wax to drip.

More readings…

And I heard Poncho whisper, “yes!” as a drip fell at last from his candle.

Later…
Poncho: “Hey. Psst. Hey.”
Me: “What now?”
Poncho: “Do you… want to… trade candles with me? Oh, no, of course not. Of course you don’t. Your candle is much better than mine.”
Me: ??? “Later. Pay attention.”

Of course this is all classic Poncho. A boy who always has to play with fire…

 

Coupon Shopping and Other Forms of Torture

Mom has decided to become a coupon shopper. She has a binder full of clear plastic slots just for organizing her (wait for it) “coups”.

Me: “Did you just say ‘coups’? What, is this crazy coupon lady jargon now?”
Mom: “Heh… No. I made it up.”
Me: “Greaaaaat.”

Well, we went to Target. And everything was really. Really. Slow. Because instead of whipping in, grabbing a cart of stuff (cough junk food cough) and getting the heck out of there, you have to actually, you know, shop. Like look at prices, and sales, and make comparisons. And dig through the Binder. (Yes, I feel it should be capitalized. It’s That Important.)

Candy Aisle:
Me: “Peeps! Look, they’re so sad.”
Mom: “You’re looking at marshmallow birds while you should be helping me! Don’t get distracted.”
Me: “Look at their beady, sad little eyes!”
Mom: *drags me away*

Hair Products Aisle:
Mom: ”I have a coup for this hair spray… Oh look! It’s on sale! Wait, wait. Buy one, get one of these other things free…”
Me: ”Great. Fabulous. OK. Let’s go.”
Mom: “Wait, wait. Where’s the free things? Buy one get these free… I don’t see them…”
Me: “They’re all gone.”
Mom: “But I don’t see them.”
Me: “Because they’re gone.”
Mom: “But… wait… what are the free things?”
Me: “You won’t see them because they are gone.”
Mom: “Where?”
Me: “GAH!” *sits on lower shelf*
Mom: “Ohh. There they are. Wait, they’re gone.”
Me: ………………
Mom: “Oh. That’s what you were saying.”
Me: ………………..
Mom: “OK. Moving on.”

The above conversation is an example of what we children of the family call a “Unicorn Moment”. So named because one day, Dodge and I were watching The Two Towers (Lord of the Rings movie, in case you have gone through your life deprived of epicness and have never heard of this thing) and Mom was in the room, asleep on the couch. She was half-waking up when Shadowfax (a white horse) came on the screen. Dodge sarcastically exclaimed,  “Look, a unicorn!” Mom opened her eyes all startled and said, “What? He’s riding a unicorn?”

And the quote lives on forever in infamy… Now, whenever Mom has a “duh” moment, we say, “What? He’s riding a unicorn?” and then she laughs and tell us to shut up.

So finally the coupon shopping experience was over. We did end up saving a decent amount of money, but not enough to pay for Braille lessons after I yanked my eyes out and threw them against the wall in frustration.
Obviously I didn’t actually do that.
But it could happen. Just saying. I’m on the brink already, people! If not my eyes, someone else’s. Another three minutes in that aisle, breathing in the sweet, sickly chemical scent… Beware, innocent bystanders!

~Pen

PS: Written per Mom’s request, as she wanted to be tagged… :)

 

Thoughts on the Hunger Games movie. Because I can’t think of any non-obvious titles.

Well, I should post a blog. But it’s kind of like when people ask what you’ve been up to and you can’t think of anything to say until like two hours later when a million things pop into your head. Like on Wednesday, a bunch of people who hadn’t seen me in a month asked what I’d been up to. And I was like, “meh. Writing. Saw Hunger Games. Being alive. Same old.” But then later I thought, Wait– a month? Saint Patrick’s Day! Duh!

So that’s where my March went.

Anyway. Speaking of Hunger Games. It was… interesting. It wasn’t bad (expect for the faces Peeta kept making– I kept wanting to laugh at all kinds of serious moments due to his overeager facial expressions) and it wasn’t brilliant (except for a few scenes which I’m getting to) and I don’t know what I think of it in general. I guess I can say I’m disappointed because I expected to be on the edge of my seat in a sobbing mess while my brain silently applauded. What actually happened was I felt-like-everyone-was-trying-so-hard-but-it-was-not-working. Like, I kept looking at the actors and thinking “That is supposed to be a shocked face, but he looks about to drool” ”That is supposed to be really sad/scary/etc” but the emotions just couldn’t break out of the screen.

Part of it may have been that the style of filming, all first-person and shaky and dizzying. I felt like I couldn’t see a thing.

Not that I wanted to see a lot of gore. I went in thinking I would have to close my eyes at parts, but I didn’t. And maybe that was the other thing that dulled the emotions– the fact that they softened the violence so that you saw nothing, or if you did see something it didn’t give you that sick feeling. Again, I didn’t want to see gore, but… I think there are various ways to not-show it, and they didn’t necessarily choose the best one. I didn’t get that sickening someone-just-died-horribly feeling that I got from the books. And I should have. When that kind of violence happens, people should feel at least a little sick.

There were some scenes, though, that did ring with me. When Haymitch sees the Capitol kids chasing each other with toy swords. Cato’s final speech. Seneca looking at the bowl of berries. District Twelve saluting instead of applauding.

Notice how almost none of these are in the book.
Notice how almost none of these have words in them.
Movies are so lucky. They can have little five-second-no-words scenes that rock you. Like in A Man For All Seasons, when he walks past the ballroom and the colors and the one guy watching… Like, books can’t do stuff like that. That’s right, movies, put it to good use! If I was making a movie I’d put in tons of those fleeting-yet-impactful glimpses.    

People have suggested that the film is made as though the viewer is, well, a viewer– one of the people watching the Games on television. Which makes me want to watch the movie again with that mindset. I wanted so badly to feel something! Even if it was “this sucks”.

But maybe, if you look at it as being the viewers in the story, feeling nothing at all might be sort of significant, too. Because I’m sure people in the Capitol, and in the Districts, also watched and felt nothing at all.

And that might be more sinister than anything Snow could cook up…

PS: Or. The answer is that Books are Always Better.
But you knew that already. ;)

 

we need a hero

Dodge and I were talking about superhero movies…

Dodge: “Spiderman is lame.”
Me: “Don’t insult Spiderman!”
Dodge: “Psh. Ohhhkay.”
Me: “Fine. Well, I like Captain America better anyway.”
Dodge: “Does he have a gun?”
Me: “He’s in the army, so yeah, obviously. And a shield. Which makes him better than Spiderman because Spiderman doesn’t have any cool weapons.”
Dodge: “He shoots a web, oooh! He flies between the buildings! What if he had to fight someone on a farm in the middle of nowhere?”
Me: “That’s why he doesn’t live in Kansas.”
Dodge: “Like, the superhero of Kansas would have to be a tractor or something. Tractor Man! Half man, half tractor! You know, he tried to make a supertractor and then there was a radiation leak–”

Hah. Speaking of sci-fi accidents, I demand to speak with whoever made the weather go crazy. Seriously, 80 degrees in March? The summer is going to be hot as H-E-double-hockey-sticks. And about as fun.

Oh wait. I’m going to the beach. With the DHFs.
Never mind!
This summer is going to rock! Yeah!

Plus, at least our new backyard will be shaded, and at least there are a million birds out there (seriously, Dodge and Dad saw a turkey back there yesterday. A TURKEY. Sitting there in a suburban backyard. Then it flapped off. I didn’t see it, and I still kind of don’t believe they actually saw it and are just trying to see how gullible I am). As a summer project I want to learn to identify which songs belong to which birds. I’d also like to actually go bird-watching, with binoculars and all. And go to the park on a regular basis, in order to keep some kind of hold on my fleeting sanity. Plus I really, really feel like reading a ton. All the Lord of the Rings books, of course! Finally. I think I might at last be able to manage it.

But I’m also enjoying spring… For what I think is the first time, it doesn’t feel like a wimpy season. I suddenly feel like running a lot and planting a million flowers and blooming trees. I went to the home improvement store the other day to get my compost bin, and I saw these purple and white columbine flowers… and then I pretended I didn’t desperately want to get them to plant in our yard. I can’t believe this! I’m turning into a flower sort of girl! How… How… something. At least it was columbine and not gerbera daisies or something, though. I haven’t completely changed!

Yet I am changing. I feel this is going to be a year of transformation.
As long as said transformation doesn’t include rabid tractors or radiation leaks… ;)

~Pen

(When the sirens wail, we need a hero here! And when the air conditioner drones on and on.)

 

It’s the only thing that matters! It’s the only thing that lasts!

(Did I mention I watched Gone With the Wind with the DHFs in Kentucky? Because I did. And it permanently warped my brain so that now whenever someone says anything about land I basically re-enact that scene where all the voices in her head go “TARA” and it scares me a little.)

Ahem.
Anyway.

Today was a great day to dig. It was warm and sunny and extremely windy. I dug my garden at Grandma Vegas’ house and I spent like two hours hunched over gathering rocks and sticks for my herb garden and a basket experiment, respectively. Dad told me (as I was tearing dead branches apart and getting a million scratches all over my hands) that my great-grandaddy Enoch used to make baskets.

I think I am growing into my ancestry. Farmers, mostly. People who grew things and made things and knew things. People who lived on the land.

And that was when I had the whole TARA! moment and only snapped out of it when the dog barked in my face.

But I still thought about land. Mom asked me if it felt good to be “working in the earth” today.

It felt very good.

And Dad, whilst I was doing these things, was working on a bench he is building out of the wood from our old backyard fort. He tore it down when we moved and brought the wood over with this plan in mind. Of course, the sun was already going down when he decided to drag out his tools after an afternoon of yard work and neighbor-meeting. I found it interesting that he picked up sticks during daylight hours, but decided to start doing things that involved, you know, sawing in the half-light.

Then I got home from dance just now and he also set up a turntable in the basement.
More on this later.

For now, I’ve got to go to bed… (Hopefully I won’t have another horribly realistic nightmare like I had last night– it was that I got a phone call from the library telling me that I’d been rejected!)

Yours till the night lights,
Pen

 

Should I check my watch, my calendar, or phases of the moon?

A week ago today I went to take a test as part of the “application process” to become a page at the library. This is the first time I’ve ever applied for a job– and gotten called in as part of Round Two Eliminations (sometimes I feel like my life is one big long game show that I can’t escape…). And it’s the first job that I’ve really wanted.

After I took the test (which was basically four pages of putting numbers and letters in order, and one page of answering questions about how often I could work), the library lady said I would get a phone call whether I was going to make it to Round Three: Interview or not, and since then I’ve been waiting.

And waiting.

And also, more waiting.

I mean, she said she would be done grading the tests at the end of the week. Well, the week’s over and we’re clear into the next one. And I’m still waiting.

And I’m thinking:

I bet I’m not getting the library job. Because they still haven’t called. And I bet they called the finalists ages ago but they’re stalling on calling people to say no because who wants to do that?

But, she promised. So maybe they haven’t called anyone yet.

Besides, based on how often I said I could work how could they not hire me? Especially when I am pretty sure I did at least average on the test, if not superb.

Maybe I should have sent a thank-you note. Maybe they all sent thank you notes and I looked like the stupidest jerk ever in the whole universe.

Although I did thank her in person. I was very friendly. Doesn’t that count for something?

And doesn’t it count for something that I can basically work every single day?

Didn’t my last page scream HIRE ME I HAVE NO LIFE I WILL BE YOUR MINIMUM-WAGE SLAVE HIRE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Maybe they’re ageist. And schoolist. And meanest. So I wouldn’t want to work there, anyway.

I mean, right? How could anyone not want to hire a hard-working, flexible-scheduled homeschooler? Whose purse is adorned with an image of a book fishing below the tagline “I’m Hooked on Books”. (Yes, that button thing has been on my purse for half a decade. And yes, I took said purse to the test in the hopes that it would give off some subliminal messages or something.)

Dear Library, I LOVE books! I love reading! I love wearing a watch and a pair of glasses on a chain! I will even pretend to love your overcrowded teen section, your dimly-lit study area, your nose-picking nerd patrons who swear profusely! I will dutifully and cheerfully report to work and go about my tasks– well, I would say skipping and whistling, but of course a library is a hallowed, quiet place of learning and literary pursuits!

Just…. HIRE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

 

Fat Tuesday musing…

I’ve been thinking about sacrifices and things, and I’ve come to realize that *news flash* nearly all food is delicious. I mean, one would practically have to live on bread and water– but bread is actually quite good. Come to think of it, I really like water, too. (It’s so refreshing!) And sweets… Tea is sweet, juice is sweet, fruit and cooked carrots and sweet potaotes are sweet. And Eliza’s broccoli might as well be dessert!

And fish? First, if it’s a dead animal, how is it not meat; second, unless you eat them like Smeagol, they’re delicious; thirdly, no one can even pretend eating anything fried is a sacrifice. Then there’s, what? Pierogies? Potatoes and cheese and onions swathed in soft, buttery noodles is considered fasting?

Has sainthood ever been more attainable?

…
PS: I guess I could just live on ham and grape juice… But then I probably wouldn’t. Live, I mean.

 

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea

but I know what heather looks like / and what a wave must be…

Actually, I do know what heather looks like, but I don’t know how it smells or how tall it would be if I stood in it or how it looks when it’s dead and snowed on or does it even get snowed on at all and if it’s soft and what noise it makes when wind or footsteps go over it. 

I have a little better knowledge of waves, as I have visited a particular Great Lake on several occasions, but it’s not the sea and it doesn’t smell like salt. It kind of smells like sweaty water and whatever fishing bait is being used nearby. Besides, it’s hard to smell when you’re being blinded by the glare of the sun off the lake and the concret you’re sitting on, and you’re distracted by herons that your brother is feeding heat-stroked minnows to.

It’s hard to reasearch things on this disorganized network of inaccurate information we fondly call the internet. And I keep having to look up things for White Funeral, like different types of sailboats and rowboats and docks and tides and… The list goes on.

But there are things I do know. I know the twenty-nine different types of snow, the feel of cold wind down the back of my neck,  months where the difference between day and night is just the sky changing shades of gray. The moon being so huge and orange and low on the horizon that it seems to be asking for someone to try and climb onto it. (Which is how it looked last night, and I wished I was out in an open field so I could chase after it, or just stare and stare without streetlights polluting my view).  

 Well, speaking of things never seen, I am leaving this weekend for… Kentucky! I will be surrounded by wilderness, and I will see mountains, and (best part) I’m going with the DHFs! I think it will be awesome as long as it doesn’t turn out like a cliche TV show, where the one character gets invited to go camping or something and they show up in a pretty dress with some technological device in hand. (Not that I don’t know how to pack; Eliza has given me a helpful list, and I’ve gone camping plenty of times. It’s just a weird phobia I have, I guess.)

In other news, today was like a giant time-warp because I had to go to the dentist and get my hair cut. And then it was like oh wait, the day is completely over. Sigh. I never want to sit in another waiting-room chair for as long as I live. (Unfortunately, some dreams really are unattainable.) Now I have to get some writer’s group stuff together, and go to bed. (Instead, I’m half-watching The Voice and writing this. I justify blogging because it’s already been some time since my last post and I assume I will not be back here until I’m home from Kentucky. How do I justify watching some lame singing show? Yeah. There’s really no excuse.)