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31 December 2016

:: 16 things this year taught me ::

YAY 2016: the first year I was solidly in my 20s.
(because 20 doesn't really count, to me. it's like orientation for the next decade and doesn't do too much.) I'M OFFICIALLY ...growing ...up ...

2016 is basically done. I get real sappy at the end of every year I'm weird cause I hate goodbyes / got misty eyes as they said farewell, but frankly this is not a hard year to say goodbye to. it's easy to remember a lot of bummers and be all, "2016 sucked, man," but when I start thinking of everything lovely that also happened, that's when the sap starts to run. so I suppose it was a bittersweet year.

which, as maryrose wood interprets, means we should all go eat bittersweet chocolate, which "does nothing to unmix one's feelings, but it does serve as a tasty reminder that bittersweet is a perfectly good flavor and can be enjoyed on its own merits."

so what did 2016 teach me? (a slightly redundant list)

schedules are good.

2 it doesn't matter what people think.
like, get over yourself: they're not watching. they don't care. so stop acting like they're fans of Your Show, and/or stop worrying that anyone cares about you as much as you care about you. just live your life.

3 the 20s are crazy:
   >  emotionally. up, down, over, under, crazy high and everything's peachy, down in the depths of desponding despair for all the goodness in the world is gone. forever. oh look, a cookie! youth is overrated, and quite exhausting. 
   >  life-wise. what to do?? how to get there?? HELLLPPP (see above). 
   >  on the bright side... 
     to some degree, my emotions are fuel. my riotous joy or my utter depressive panic can sometimes motivate me to go do: am I stressed about how I'll ever get a dual citizenship, if I were to want one, and I don't know how to cope with all the adult responsibilities coming at me? I'll spend 15 minutes researching, realize it's not that big of a deal at all, really and calm myself. 
-- and that's learning I won't need or have the energy for in 20 years, so it all evens out in the end.

4 learning is good. 
don't worry about losing your smartest-person-in-the-room rep (see #2); that's just a burden that actually keeps you stupid. don't be afraid of things you don't know. ...that should really be its own point.

5 don't be afraid of things you don't know.
facing my fears, here, and pursuing knowledge (instead of just trying to hide my ignorance) has seriously taught me more this year than anything else. not just about those things: but about courage in humility. I'm learning to be humble, and that's more important. 

(does saying that take away all my points? I'm not saying I'm there yet :))  

6 ask for help. 
see #s 2 and 4.

7 make a schedule. 
oh, you've heard this before? yeah. I mean it. 
a schedule : productivity as a budget : staying within a budget. 
...?? so I suppose rather "a budget : spending your money well". like, it's up to you to stick to it, but the structure totally helps. 

8 focus on real life. 
it's so easy these days to get distracted and sidetracked by phones and laptops -- social media and texting and just the internet in general. don't start living a fake life to the detriment of your real. but more than that, books and music and really anything that you can get lost in... be careful with it. be balanced. (and remember: having 10,000 hours worth of experience with instagram will not get you a job the way 10,000 hours of wrestling with photoshop will. mm?) 

9 try. harder.
I know I don't work hard enough. I'll do the minimum and convince myself it was exhausting -- but do I really need to break so early? no. just think: how much could I accomplish if I actually gave it work? if I stuck it out? more than I do when I quit at 3 pm because I "just don't get it" and "deserve an instagram break." (see #s 1, 4, 6, 8 and 7 for good measure.)

10 try new things.

11 disagree. (or, learning how to.)
2016 has taught me a lot about speaking for myself. not "up for myself" as much as being able to express my opinion. I hate when someone says "I love grape juice! don't you??" and I'm like, well, no, but how do I say that in the face of such enthusiasm? and I end up saying, "mm, heh heh, right," which always leaves me feeling guilty and silenced. (petty, yes. almost exclusive to me, yes. but let me have my small victories.) beyond that, I also am learning how to disagree when bigger issues come up. what if we disagree over how someone behaved? "wow, what a jerk" and I'm going "slay queen" -- can I express that opinion in a calm way that lets my opponent know it's not actually a war to be won? I've got it by no means nailed down, but I'm practicing.  

12 you don't have to have it all figured out. but why not do your best?
super tired of the "can't adult today" and "I'm 30 and I don't have anything figured out lolol" memes over here. they used to be encouraging, but I've gotten sick of them. no, my childish idea that 'when I'm grown I'll understand it all' is completely inaccurate, but I can't make difficulty -- or the impossibility of perfection -- an excuse for willful ignorance. but maybe that's me adulting too hard? I should stop and -- WINE

13 be crazy & go for it.
why discourage myself without trying? what's the worst that could happen? (see #10)

14 deserve your responsibility.
it means I also deserve the reward for all the hard work (#s 9, 12, and 13). and it is so much more rewarding to rise to the occasion -- to earn something, instead of having it handed to me or going without.

15 do what's in front of you, here. now. stop fantasizing.
yeah, this one is tough, and relates to 8 and 14 in particular. I slack and get lazy and -- gosh, I daydream. I can spend 45 minutes in the morning literally lying in bed, thinking. not grand and high thoughts for the betterment of humanity, oh no, but wondering about playgrounds built in grownup scale and how amazing it would be to take a road trip along the alcan highway with all its attendant adventures and what's the most smashing outfit I could wear to the party on friday. that's 45 minutes and no playground built, you know? I've accomplished nothing. ...although I seriously had that playground thought last week and it won't go away. could I be on to something?  

16 fantasizing does not equal dreaming!
this one is related to essentially all that comes before. I like to plan things so I can get it all done, but you can't live your life just getting things done: have an ultimate goal. multiple ultimate goals (like saying that 5 times fast). fantasizing is a pipe dream that wastes time. dreaming is only one step away from planning -- for me. that's where I'm learning to draw the line. could I, do I want to make this happen? if I do, go for it. worst-case, I fail, but at least I tried. if I'm not interested, I can't waste any more of this intoxicating decade of irresponsibility (JUST KIDDING REMEMBER #12) imagining impossibilities all theoretically and ish. 

nah, I don't have it all figured out, but I'm trying to sort through my life and at least do what I can to understand it. 2016 was rough in some of those cases, because growing is never painless; but trials "yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness" and I've definitely learned a lot. 

here's to 2017 and ever-higher ground.

27 December 2016

:: letters ::

literally and literally: letters > words > letters again. this is from elizabeth barrett to robert browning, on march 5, 1845, three months into their friendship and about a year before their marriage.

"But to go back to the view of Life with the blind Hopes; you are not to think—whatever I may have written or implied—that I lean either to the philosophy or affectation which beholds the world through darkness instead of light, and speaks of it wailingly. Now, may God forbid that it should be so with me. I am not desponding by nature, and after a course of bitter mental discipline and long bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons (as I sometimes say and oftener feel),—the wisdom of cheerfulness—and the duty of social intercourse. Anguish has instructed me in joy, and solitude in society; it has been a wholesome and not unnatural reaction. And altogether, I may say that the earth looks the brighter to me in proportion to my own deprivations. The laburnum trees and rose trees are plucked up by the roots—but the sunshine is in their places, and the root of the sunshine is above the storms. What we call Life is a condition of the soul, and the soul must improve in happiness and wisdom, except by its own fault. These tears in our eyes, these faintings of the flesh, will not hinder such improvement."

01 December 2016

:: it's the most wonderful time ::

...of the semester. *eyebrow wiggle*

not exactly: we're coming up real fast on finals, and that's not the most joy-filled period of holiday cheer. but I have four days of classes left (counting today!!!) and that thought fills me with more happiness than I've felt in, gosh, three months? yeah, it's been rough.

class starts in ten minutes, so like this isn't exactly an update. I was just randomly thinking about middlemarch and thought I'd share an important life lesson in the form of Book Summary of A Classic. 

- - -

M I D D L E M A R C H

this girl thinks she's an intellectual, but finds she's happier with the poet.

- - -
...apply that to your life as you will.

17 September 2016

:: hiatus ::

since school started, I've made it through about six chapters of w&p, and I've only kept posting because I wrote four posts in early august. but I've run out, and I don't have time to write another right now. that said, I've taken notes on the few chapters I have read, so once I get to the next break (both school- and book-wise) I should be able to start posting again. until then, don't watch for me.

we are more than halfway through the book, though! we can do this! (and seriously, who wouldn't want to. aren't you just dying to find out what happens to everyone?? I'm super excited to finish, because there's so much I don't remember.)

I do this thing every semester, where I drop a huge bucket of words detailing all the work I'm doing in each class. I'm not going to do that this time. for my bookforms class (hereinafter referred to as "574") I have to do a weekly process post on tumblr, so if you're really curious what I'm up to, check out derynjoyulhitebf.tumblr.com. (that's at the request of my teacher: "ul hite" because I'm at the university of louisville's hite art institute; and I assume the "bf" is for bachelor of fine arts, but then it should really be "bfa" so I'm not sure exactly what's going on. whatever. just type it in, you'll be fine.)

linguistics is great: I'm spelling everything in IPA these days because it's good practice and I get a kick out of it. it's a bummer to have to go to school on fridays, but oh well -- it's worth it for this class, which is only 50 minutes anyway.

music history. well well well. it's easy, but inconvenient. more on that as the semester progresses, probably. right now we're gearing up for test one, which shouldn't be tough since all we've covered is irish music (spec. uilleann pipes), spanish music (by which he means gypsy music, but really, flamenco dancing), cape breton fiddling, and cajun + zydeco (spec. button accordions). much tough. very difficult. so sarcasm.

english -- which turns out to be cross listed with WGST gahhhh -- has actually been manageable. it's "women in literature," which of course means we talk about feminist issues and cetera, but mostly how women are portrayed in literature. which I can deal with (I just so hate confrontation...). the first book we read was jane eyre and that was delightful, of course :) it's easier to be prepared for class when you can already quote paragraphs from memory.


and packaging ("575"). just peachy. I have to go make a mockup of my pizza cutter packaging right now, though. so bye.

05 September 2016

:: growth ::

I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and all the character development, and report back here. also there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning. 

- - -

BOOK 3 PART 1
Consciously man lives for himself, but unconsciously he serves as an instrument for the accomplishment of the historical, social ends of mandating. An act committed is irrevocable, and that action coinciding in time with the actions of millions of other men acquired historical significance. The higher a man stands on the social scale, the more connections he has with people and the more power he has over them, the more manifest is the predetermination of his ever act.
   'The hearts of kings are in the hand of God.'
   A king is the slave of history.
   History -- that is, the unconscious, common, swarm life of mankind -- uses every moment of the life of kings as an instrument for its own ends.
diverting from his usual narrative course, tolstoy spends the first chapter of part three laying out mankind and why war is fought -- or rather, he asks the question, but doesn't answer it. he just points out that every person with a role in fighting, from the people in charge to the people on the ground, justifies their part in it (right or not).
   which seems all insightful and wise, but then he immediately switches into narrative about our boys there on the field and it becomes personal and microscopic. no longer philosophizing, real life becomes much more complex: I'm not thinking, "hey nikolai, why don't you clue in and go out for world peace?" I'm completely caught up in his moment, which is almost myopic in its here-and-now-ness. nikolai (and the reader; at least me) isn't stepping back and looking at the ginormous picture of human history -- he's focusing on his life and the next decisions he has to make based on the ones he's just made. we all do this. and I don't think tolstoy is judging him for it.
   a thing may be senseless, he says, but we still do it; and sometimes when you're caught up in something all you can do is be swept along and make the best of it.

"swept along" is apt in this case: in a disturbing turn of events, napoleon is on the riverbank and a group of uhlans (eastern european cavalry) choose to swim across the swollen river, instead of fording further up, to prove their devotion to him -- self-sacrifice that literally drowns about forty men. napoleon is annoyed by the noisy crossing and leaves before they're partway across (they never make it and have to swim back). and yet the next day, he sends to award a medal to the man who led the charge. the chapter ends with "quos vult perdere -- dementat": those whom [god] destroys he first drives mad.

andrei, the restless, now the broken-hearted, is sick of inaction. he chooses to give up a place of power, near the emperor, for field duty, because he comes to realize that "the success of a military action depends not on [the leaders and their theories], but on the man in the ranks who shouts: 'We are lost!' or 'Hurrah!'" after having seen the disorganized, chaotic, divided military meeting, andrei forfeits power for action: "Only in the ranks can one serve with the assurance of being useful."

incredible tolstoy switches to nikolai who proves this. his regiment is paused above the action when he realizes it's a pivotal moment in the battle. without waiting for a command, "touched up his horse and galloped to the head of the squadron, and before he had time to give the command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, started after him." here's nikolai, influencing the war just as andrei understood it; the way one man's actions become historical in the context of all the others' happening simultaneously.

back on the homefront, natasha finds comfort (similarly to marya) in abandoning herself to God: "a sense of the possibility of redemption from sin, of a new, pure life, and of happiness." pierre, too, believes in living for something outside of himself; andrei hopes for "God and a future life"...as the characters each stop dwelling on themselves and their grief -- do something, and usually to someone else's benefit -- their depression fades and they can continue with joy. I wonder, is there a certain amount of self-forgiveness involved? do they have to find a hope for redemption before they can actually be redeemed?

natasha and pierre have grown closer in her time of trouble. pierre, the only one attached to essentially all parties in the story (and certainly all parts in the andrei-natasha-anatol fiasco), has really been there for her and this selfless care has quieted his questioning. she gives him a certain fulfillment of spirit and he's more at peace; even though, as he acknowledges, she'll never know how much he cares for her and he is still married to helene.
   pierre is very humble. he's content to wait and watch. maybe from being shy and not especially good-looking he's learned to be kind and non-judgmental. but at the same time, he just is kind; he may be more accepting, having faced rejection, but his kindness is a part of who he is. there is something likable about the bumbling pierre, in a way andrei is never liked. andrei is admired, sometimes feared, always respected, and has an official fan club started by me, but never reaches the level of loved- or loving-ness that pierre experiences. there's something a little too cynical and wary about him. he who gives much loves much :)
   he's changed a little, though: he's not being led so much. he's beginning to think about what he thinks and starting to stand up for himself (funny, I'm seeing that in several places). he's all for sacrifice, he says to the fanatical die-for-the-emperor group, but he wants to "know the state of affairs in order to be able to improve on it." this is growth even from his attempted estate overhaul; he blindly jumped into that, and it worked out not at all. now he's preaching less fanaticism and more knowledge -- a tempering of the emotional pierre that speaks volumes to his character. yay pierre. we hope good things for you.

relationship tracker:
IN LOVE
nikolai + sonya
pierre + natasha

IN MARRIAGE
pierre + helene
vera + berg
boris + julie

up-to-now SUNK SHIPS
andrei + lise
marya + anatol
nikolai + sonya (later unsunk)
helene + pierre (unsunk, sunk, etc.)
dolokhov + sonya
denisov + natasha
andrei + natasha
anatol + natasha (hmm...pattern?)

soundtrack - the void, andy black*

*as long as you hear andrei sighing along with a wrinkled brow of pain

03 September 2016

:: things fall apart ::

for a long time now I've been reading tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and what I think the characters should be doing, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - -

BOOK 2 PART 5

pierre has become what he once despised: "the same type of gentleman-in-waiting" as so many he saw when he was younger, who hang genteelly around their society wives' parlors and have about no personality at all, smiling blandly while the younger men flirt with the hostess. pierre comforts himself with the thought that he's this type only temporarily, before he goes on to actually accomplish something, be something in his own right -- when he considers maybe those same gentlemen thought they were also temporarily there. in a humbly gracious turn of thought, he refuses to judge them for their apathy and lack of ambition.
He had the unfortunate faculty common to many men, especially Russians, of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsity of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part in it. ...And so he abandoned himself to the first distraction that offered itself in order to forget them.
...and thinking never comes, of course, because he's in moscow, in the city, and busy. doing nothing.

nikolai andreyvich (the grandfather, not the son: andrei's dad) exemplifies his urge to CONTROL someone -- anyone -- must -- control -- -- once again. gosh, I can't even say how much I hate this guy. he makes me so angry.

speaking of makes me angry... after a whole section on nikolai, we're back to boris, who's waffling between marya and julie because they're both so beautiful I mean kind and funny oops into him NOPE GUESS AGAIN. starts with weal- ends with -thy, rhymes with healthy, and is synonymous with rich.
   GO FIGURE. guys, it's boris. we could expect nothing less of mama's little diplomatic pumpkin.

his courtship of julie kuragin (he ends up going with her because he likes her estates better. no, "estates" is not a euphemism. he really does like her estates better than marya's. minds out of the gutter, yo. boris is basically a robot at this point, none of that!) -- this courtship is so fake, it's actually hilarious. you really need to read the whole melancholy description: "Meeting at large gatherings Julie and Boris gazed at each other like kindred souls in a sea of prosaic people." they write sad poems in one another's albums (or, boris does in julie's) and say beautiful, sad things to one another (or, boris does to julie) until julie becomes less melancholy and just irritated that he hasn't proposed yet. frankly, it's because he can't stand it every time he looks at her. when competition shows up in the shape of anatol kuragin (not related, although I wouldn't put it past him) boris has to jump on it, though. can't let a different self-absorbed, good-looking fortune-hunter get there first, right?
   boris is a smidge easier to handle than anatol, though -- at least for me. boris is in it for himself, sure, but it's power. which is at least cold and impersonal. anatol is like the embodiment of lust and narcissism, which just destroys everyone he touches. at least boris has to watch out for his career and pretend to be civil and decorous, however little he may feel it. anatol feels no such compunction and -- JUST GROSS MAN. leave my precious bolkonskys alone. (unfortunately, I remember too much for my mind to be completely at rest.)
   one last thing on boris: he's more practical (if money-grubbing is practical) than nikolai, but ultimately he's more unhappy, because to get what he wants he always has to put on a front.

on to the opera. the ultimate place for people to be seen. the ultimate platform haha pun for displaying oneself and for putting on a show totally on a roll here for other people to admire, envy, or be deceived by. or any combination of those three, really.
   natasha goes. this is the girl who can't speak french well; the girl whose innocence and wholehearted love for living and vibrant personality captivated prince andrei; so it makes sense that when she arrives she's confused by everyone's intentness on the show -- it's incomprehensible to her, language-wise, unnatural and unreal.
   between the acts, she's introduced to helene -- the kuragin, the coarse, the depraved, but the deceptively beautiful -- who begins to insidiously pull natasha into this falseness. "Countess Bezukhova fully deserved her reputation of being a fascinating woman. She could say what she did not think, particularly if it was flattering, with perfect simplicity and naturalness." amused by anatol's admiration of natasha, she does her best to throw them together.

anatol basically stalks the poor girl, pursuing her everywhere (encouraged by helene and also dolokhov, for whom, like andrei's father, "the very process of dominating another's will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a necessity").
   under the kuragins' influence, natasha loses hold of that grounding innocence and her innate sense of right and wrong. flattered by his attentions, she spends most of her time at helene's -- where all is false and repulsive. in a symbolic scene, a home performance that centers around incest (...this is the kuragins after all...) is praised to the skies by the watching audience and natasha is blindly led along: to "a world in which it was impossible to know what was good or bad."

long story long, anatol, the disgusting creepy lech writes a note to natasha stating the time and circumstances of their now-planned elopement. --well, actually, the note was dictated by by dolokhov. because what is life if one isn't ruining someone else's.

my note for chapter 18:

NATASHA YOU STUPID

I don't think I need to elaborate. we know how I feel about all parties involved.
pierre steps up to protect and punish -- a true friend. maybe he can redeem himself from this gentleman-in-waiting period of life.

it breaks my heart and brings me to tears reading about andrei's response. he is so crushed by the broken engagement. I can't even discuss it, honestly. I ache.
I ache.

but things seem to be changing for pierre. in working self-sacrificially for natasha he's found an odd joy.
Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark, starry sky. Only as he gazed up at the sky did Pierre feel the humiliating pettiness of all earthly things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark, starry sky appeared before his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechistensky Boulevard, surrounded and spangled on all sides by stars, but distinct from them by its nearness to the earth, with its white light and its long upturned tail, shone the huge, brilliant comet of the year 1812 -- the comet that was said to portend all kinds of horrors and the end of the world.
pierre is in awe of the comet, though, and to him it seems a private wonder: of all places, it has paused here, where he can see it and be amazed in the midst of his new awakening -- looking to the sky, just as andrei once did, and the peace-promising heavens.
It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully harmonized with what was in his own mollified and uplifted soul, now blossoming into new life.  
relationship tracker:
IN LOVE
nikolai + sonya

IN MARRIAGE
pierre + helene (now patched up)
boris + julie

SUNK SHIPS
natasha + andrei

soundtrack 
heartbreak, drew holcomb & the neighbors
gold dust, BANNERS
the day we never met, daniel powter
grand romantic, nate ruess  

- end of book 2 -

27 August 2016

:: drubetskoy vs. rostov ::

quick review -- I'm reading tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and very foreshadowing (credit: doge), and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - -

BOOK 2 PART 4

okay, for the record: nikolai and natasha are the best sibling couple. I think I should add them to my list of favorite friendships. srsly. love those two. I could so be related to them.

not much happened in this section, at least that stood out to me. I'm guessing more will make sense as the book continues -- I mostly had postulations and questions for this part. it focuses a lot on the rostovs and nikolai; mostly nikolai, and his character continues to develop. he's come back from fighting, and despite his longing to be led, he's now stepping up a little and making his own decisions.

actually, he makes a huge decision: he's going to marry sonya. and when his mother is unhappy ("she's a penniless orphan!") he stands by her in the face of his parents' wishes -- not praising him either way, except that he's not being led anymore. nikolai is deciding for himself.

it's another contrast between nikolai and boris, actually. countess rostova talked to boris, too, after he was somewhat infatuated with natasha (again, years later renewing a childhood interest), but boris took that to heart and immediately stopped coming to the rostovs'...and we'll find out how he went about pursuing marriage in the next part. sorry, I already read it, so I already know. ha. ...okay, little hint: his marriage is going to be a total ambition move for him.
   but like I said, complete opposite of nikolai, who's being swayed by his emotions again. boris is totally calculated -- and pretty unlikable because of that. nikolai may be inclined to romanticize things, but he's at least a sweet guy.

relationship tracker:
LURVE
nikolai + sonya
andrei + natasha
"vera + berg" (quotes, because their only goal is to look just like everyone else. there is zero reality here. SO IMITATION VANILLA Y'ALL)

ACHY-BREAKY HEARTS
pierre (over natasha. ?!?! < yeah, sorry, more foreshadowing. I happen to remember this part.)
helene (over pierre. and by "pierre" she means "pre-separation social status".)
natasha (over andrei. she misses himmmmmm)
boris (over natasha. he feels a little tear starting-- oh wait, it's gone.)

soundtrack - rutting moon, rogue valley; lightning tent, wildlife

20 August 2016

:: hope, at least, springs eternal ::

if you're wondering what this is all about -- I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and how to get a life partner, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - -

BOOK 2, PART 3

"Meanwhile life -- real everyday life, with its essential concerns of health and sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual preoccupations with thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, passions -- went on as usual, independent of and apart from all potential reforms."

real life is made up of a lot of confusing layers of things, the top layer commonly being a compulsion to appear, to act, to say what everyone else is or approves of or wants to see. this section (parts 3 - 5, really), set so much in peacetime society, are full of hypocrisy and living for others' eyes. it's pretty hard to read.

pierre, for one, is still searching for good and true and right and finds only hypocrisy even among the masons, his latest hope. presenting, in his energetic zeal for good, an exhortation to his fellow practicers to return to sanctified freemason living -- actually adhering to what they claim to believe -- gets him on the outs with pretty much everyone. because nobody really wants to give their money away and stop drinking (they're rich and russian, duh, pierre). but even presenting what he thinks they already agree on, he is surprised by "the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever appearing the same to any two persons."
   pierre, meet disillusionment. it won't be the last time.

vera and berg, together again, want their lives to be as blandly identical to everyone else as possible. like, if there were an average, they would be it. excuse me while I gag in the other room.

once more becoming interested in living, realizing his life isn't, doesn't have to be over, andrei begins to look for happiness. he goes to the city to become an active participant again, and gets caught up in the social and political scene: both socially political and politically social (if that makes any sense).
   andrei, interested, intellectual, enterprising, efficient, yet so swayed by emotions and afraid of being loved, is idealistically looking for the perfect person and thinks for a while he's found it in the 'genius' speransky. well, spoilers, but speransky is a traitor; which our clueless prince should have caught on to earlier, because the guy even leaves the room "à la française." andrei also meets with disillusionment in speransky here, and becomes ashamed of all his "work" done during his season in town. it's talking, not doing; practicing, not preaching. he wants reality.
   in petersburg, he "did nothing, did not even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked well, of what he had had time to think about in the country. He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for whole days together that he had no time to think about the fact that he was doing nothing."
   well, who is full of life and love and happiness? who makes mistakes when speaking french? who is fully herself, naive, honest, ecstatically throwing her whole being into the moment?
   natasha is love. natasha is life.
   andrei is bowled over.
   sigh.

"The less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be," says andrei. natasha is not technically beautiful, but certainly striking. is this foreshadowing???

relationship tracker:
SUNKETY SUNK
natasha + boris

IN LOOOOVE
vera + berg
NEW andrei + natasha

soundtrack - raging, kygo feat. kodaline

13 August 2016

:: russian metaphysical angst ::

to catch you up: I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and SERIOUSLY ANDREI BOLKONSKY, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - -

BOOK 2, PART 2

part two picks up with all the things that were broken in the last book: first, pierre, traveling by train to petersburg, running from helene and his guilt and confusion. finally he concludes that "All we can know is that we know nothing. And that is the acme of human wisdom."
   oddly enough, this echoes andrei's frustration from the last book: "There is nothing certain, nothing except the nothingness of everything that is incomprehensible to me, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important!"
   as he thinks about his wealth and the ultimate uselessness of owning things (really, what's the point) a begging peasant woman catches pierre's attention. "And what does [the peasant woman] want money for? As if that money could increase by so much as a hairsbreadth her happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less subject to evil and death? Death, which ends all and must come today or tomorrow -- at any rate in an instant as compared with eternity?"
   again, this is something andrei struggled with but seemed to accept more easily. "All is vanity, all delusion, compared to those infinite heavens. There is nothing but that. And even that does not exist; there is nothing but stillness, peace."

though andrei regrets his inactivity (as bilibin writes him -- in french -- about the infighting among the russian contingents) he's caught up in little nikolai (<3) and perhaps some self-pitying depression, though he's kinder to marya now.
"Prince Andrei looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the canopy her luminous eyes shone more brilliantly than usual, filled as they were with tears of joy. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly catching the curtains of the crib. Each made the other a warning sign and stood still in the dim light beneath the canopy, as if unwilling to leave that seclusion where they three were alone, shut off from all the world." 
pierre is naive and misguided but wants to do good. andrei is smart but still focused on himself and maintains a cynical arrogance about the world -- because of lise's death. when pierre comes to visit, their differing beliefs are necessarily discussed.
"'What convinces is when you see a being dear to you, whose life is bound up with yours, to whom you have done a wrong you hoped to expiate' (Prince Andrei's voice trembled and he turned away) 'and all at once this being is suffering, in agony, and ceases to exist....Why? There must be an answer.'
...'If there is a God and a future life, there is truth and there is goodness, and a man's highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe not only that we live today on this scrap of earth, but that we have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,' said Pierre, pointing to the sky.
   Prince Andrei stood leaning on the railing of the raft, listening to Pierre, his gaze fixed on the red reflection of the sun on the blue waters. Pierre fell silent. All was still. The raft had long since reached the shore and the only sound was the gentle ripple of the current against it below. It seemed to Prince Andrei that the lapping of the water kept up a refrain to Pierre's words: 'It is the truth, believe it.'
   Prince Andrei sighed, and with a radiant, childlike, tender look, glanced at Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, though still shyly sensible of his friend's superiority.
   'Yes, if only it were so,' said Prince Andrei. 'However, let's get into the carriage,' he added, and stepping off the ferry he looked up at the sky to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw those lofty, eternal heavens he had seen while lying on the battlefield; and something that had long been slumbering in him, something that was best in him, suddenly awoke, joyous and youthful, in his soul. As soon as he returned to the ordinary conditions of life it vanished, but he was aware that this feeling, which he did not know how to develop, existed within him. Pierre's visit marked an epoch in Prince Andrei's life; though outwardly he continued to live in the same way, inwardly a new life began for him."
pierre's belief in a hereafter moves andrei. somehow, as the weak follower honestly explains his belief to the intelligent, scornful leader, that very simplicity is to a degree winsome. how interesting that two men, having lost their wives, both confused and searching, are granted a measure of peace when they begin to believe in something outside of themselves.

for pierre, this is specifically the masonic gospel, "and he experienced a joyous feeling of solace, regeneration, and return to life." despite his philosophizing, pierre is easily swayed by feelings. still weak, he likes to be led.
   so does nikolai. he wants the black and white rules and regulations of the army, the structure and straightforwardness -- no social rules to navigate and situations to manipulate. he's thrown into confusion by the inhumane hospital and the denisov incident, wanting mercy but having to go through a non-intuitive bureaucratic process, just to be thwarted by a peace treaty being forged between the russians and french. nikolai finds, in this peace, a new social confusion -- was the war useless? with peace, what do the sacrificial deaths of the soldiers mean? and now, without a war, his structure goes away. he wants to be able to unquestioningly follow and not have to think.
   unlike boris!

boris has learned to courteously, hypocritically look out for himself while sounding interested in others. he's mastered sly manipulation to gain good opinions and social advancement. and he scorns the rostovs (why? in nikolai: genuine, isn't ambitious, willing to be led, merciful. boris also seems to be into justice, or at least when it's convenient for him).

"Boris, without undue haste and in pure and elegant French, told them a great many interesting things about the armies and the court, carefully refraining from any expression of his won pinion in regard to the facts he was relating."
   emphasis mine -- we pause for a moment as I relish my little moment of having called it.
   okay, all done.

"Boris smiled circumspectly..."
OOH SUCH THE DISCREET ARTIFICE OF DIPLOMAT

so far, andrei, pierre, and nikolai have struggled with confusion as they encounter circumstances that don't jive with their previous belief systems -- and they have to sort it all out for themselves. I'm interested in all the characters' coping mechanisms with change and with confusion. pierre turns to ecstatic, blind religious fervor; andrei shrinks inward and resolves to care only for 'extensions of himself' and close himself off from the rest of the world; nikolai gets drunk and vows his own blind obedience to the emperor.
   will boris ever be confused, or continue in artificial hypocrisy? will natasha struggle? can marya's beliefs uphold her when things get difficult?

relationship tracker:
UNREQUITED
nikolai > emperor aleksandr x)
denisov > natasha

death count: 2

soundtrack - give us the wind, future islands

08 August 2016

:: turmoil ::

vas happenin boys: I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and everyone's favorite prince andrei, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - -

BOOK 2, PART 1

things kick up a notch.

nikolai returns home, "again entered into the world of childhood and family" which includes his boyish...crush? on sonya. he thinks it's love, but it seems more like part of his younger identity, of a child playing the grownup. though they're both convinced they love one another, he's not bothered when natasha confides that sonya wants to set him free (a "noble sacrifice") and they drift apart.
   which actually may not be wise, because sonya is a gentle, loyal constant. he may regret this later.

rumors about dolokhov having compromised helene torture pierre. he has no proof for this suspicion except his dislike of the guy and D's past record as something of a rake. D does provoke pierre into a duel, which throws pierre into a mountain of remorse and navel-gazing. ultimately, he realizes his disgust with his depraved wife -- she looks cool and regal, but "then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her ideas, the vulgar expressions that came naturally to her". remember, this is the woman rumored to have had an affair with her own brother (incidentally, the marya-seeking anatol kuragin. does depravity run in the family).
   pierre still feels guilty over her wrongdoing, because he is the one who married her. there was no love, that's why "I felt that I was wrong," he reasons with himself, "that I had no right to do it."
 
but then he wonders if it should really bother him. "Is it worth tormenting myself when one only has a moment to live in comparison with eternity?" tolstoy points out that pierre, thought weak, doesn't require a confidant: he wrestles things out on his own. I don't know if this is a good wrestling-out, though -- pierre is so easily led, so easily confused, as he thinks these thoughts like a screw that goes around and around, not coming out, not going in. just spinning. in circles. indefinitely.
   hopefully we see character growth here, and I mean that seriously. I don't remember a whole lot on this thread (no pun intended) from my first read-through, though what I remember gives me hope :)
   possibly to expiate this sin, pierre gives very much of his property to helene and skips town for petersburg.

dolokhov was severely wounded in the duel, and his friend nikolai rostov takes him home, surprised to find that the "bullying, brawling Dolokhov lived in Moscow with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate of sons and brothers." as D convalesces, NR -- as is usual -- comes to admire his high-flown sentiments and romanticize this friend. (nikolai has a habit of this. see his whole worship of emperor aleksandr.) D tells NR that he wants a woman of "angelic purity and devotion" and no other woman will do, and then promptly falls in love with sonya.
   NR tells her this is a great opportunity for her -- as a penniless orphan, this is true; but she assures nikolai she only loves him. he says he loves her, too (he's pretty sure), but doesn't want to lead her on.
   they part, mutually deluded.

dolokhov does his best to ruin nikolai at cards, in one of his freak, adrenaline-rush-seeking, near-psychotic moods. NR has to apply to his father for 43,000 rubles, breaking his word and his father's bank, but gets a little high on the music natasha sings that night -- intoxicated by sentiment as dolokhov is by danger and cruelty. I don't know that one is necessarily better than the other.

natasha has not only fallen out of love with boris, she's now in love with dancing and singing and declares she'll never marry (although she has a short romance with nikolai's friend denisov. but that ends fast).

remember how pierre feels he's mistreated helene by not being all he was supposed to be as a husband?
   andrei comes home one winter evening, recovered and different. they thought he was dead. he arrives to find lise giving birth, and marya notices a change in his face for the sweeter. he kisses lise on the forehead -- she doesn't recognize him -- he waits, she gives birth -- he comes back in to find her dead.
   in not treasuring lise like he should have (they parted in some irritation), like pierre, andrei feels his own remorse. but unlike helene, lise is gone forever.
   he names the baby nikolai andreyevich after his father.

relationship tracker:
SUNK SHIPS
marya + anatol
natasha + denisov
nikolai + sonya
pierre + helene
andrei + lise

death count: 2

so much sad. did I not warn you.

soundtrack - autumn leaves, ed sheeran

03 August 2016

:: the benevolent sky ::

so I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and our love-to-hate anatol kuragin, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - -

BOOK 1, PART 3

even in peace there's not much of it. the war may not touch the secluded home in bald hills, may not directly effect princess marya or her father or lise, but that doesn't mean everything is happy and unified. marya is timid around her father who seems to dislike her, keeping her around for selfish reasons of his own; lise is unhappy, pregnant and lonely; nikolai bolkonsky, beyond being crabby and selfish, is angry when vasily kuragin and anatol come to visit. why? because prince kuragin wants to marry anatol to marya, and prince nikolai wants none of it (she takes care of the house, also that's the way it's always been. good reasons like that. never mind what marya wants).

this section gives a great picture of princess marya (the plain one with beautiful eyes). she wants nothing more than to be married and have children, but believes that her plainness excludes her from ever having this. she's terrified and hopeful when the kuragins come courting; she doesn't know, like we do, that anatol is not only a debauched libertine, he only wants her money. and her french companion, as it turns out.

the night before he proposes -- or rather, his father proposes. to hers -- princess marya submits her will to God's and feels this response: "Desire nothing for thyself; seek not, be not anxious or envious. Man's future and thine own fate must remain hidden from thee; but live so thou might be prepared for anything."
   over the course of the evening, all three women -- marya, lise, and amelie -- fall to some degree in love with anatol. his pride is gratified, but he couldn't care less about them. interestingly enough, each woman's interpretation of him is a projection of their own wishes. they see him as what they want him to be, what he symbolizes; not what he actually is.
   lise: "-- his presence vividly reminding her of a time when she was not in this condition, when everything was light and gay." she comes closest to labeling him the fake he is, because he reminds her of the society that's all about putting up a façade (which he is totally doing).
   amelie: "...had long been waiting for a Russian prince, who, able to appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed, awkward princess, would fall in love with her and carry her off; and now, at last, that Russian prince had come!" nope, what anatol tries to do is seduce her.
   marya: (at first) "It seemed to her that he was kind, brave, resolute, manly, and magnanimous. She was convinced of this. Thousands of dreams of a future married life kept rising in her imagination. She tried to put them out of her mind, to suppress them."
   but that night, marya of the clear spiritual vision thinks again. "'Kind...that is the chief thing,' thought Princess Marya, and a terror she had almost never felt before came over her. She was afraid to look around; it seemed to her that there was someone standing in the dark corner behind the screen. And this someone was he -- the devil -- and was also that man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips."

the next morning marya, coming upon anatol making out with amelie in a back hallway, is thankful her decision has been clearly made for her, and refuses the kuragin proposal -- to her father's selfish delight. ugh. just because it's ultimately the better choice doesn't mean he had her best in mind when he prompted her to make it.

back to the war!
nikolai writes a letter that reaches the family, who kiss it and cry over it. his mother remembers his babyhood, "...so now she could not believe that this same little creature could be that strong, brave officer, that paragon of sons and men, which, judging by his letter, he now was." the sarcasm is strong with this one.

nikolai and boris reconnect. N still has a strong drive to be different; B is concerned with being the same -- but better.
   "'Why "what the devil"?' said Boris, picking up the letter and reading the address. 'This letter might be very useful to you. [N refuses to be placed in a position so clearly beneath him.] ...You're still the same dreamer.' 'And you're the same diplomat.'"
   boris is totally a diplomat. as he looks to advance himself, boris watches people closely and begins to recognize a "more fundamental subordination" than that of pure rank or title, first when andrei makes a general wait as he "talks to lieutenant drubetskoy for his own pleasure." he immediately resolves to act on this unwritten code from now on.
   this, in combination with the repeated references to him as a natural diplomat, and his shrewd, people-reading sense, makes me think that boris will be very good at speaking french.

andrei has a near-death experience here: shot and severely wounded, he's knocked unconscious.
Above him there was nothing but the sky, the lofty heavens, not clear, yet immeasurably lofty, with grey clouds slowly drifting across them. "How quiet, solemn, and serene, not at all as it was when I was running," thought Prince Andrei, "not like our running, shouting, fighting; not like the gunner and the Frenchman with their distraught and infuriated faces, struggling for the rod; how differently do those clouds float over the lofty, infinite heavens. How is it that I did not see this sky before? How happy I am to have discovered it at last! Yes, all is vanity, all is delusion, except those infinite heavens. There is nothing but that. And even that does not exist; there is nothing but stillness, peace. Thank God...."
as he wakes to consciousness, he's taken prisoner by the french army, but that sky sticks with him. even when he meets napoleon, "so petty did his hero himself, with his paltry vanity and joy in victory, appear, compared with that lofty, equitable, benevolent sky which he had seen and understood, that he could not answer him." almost dying has brought a lot of things into perspective.
   "Looking into Napoleon's eyes, Prince Andrei thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life, which no one could understand, and of the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no living person could understand."
   there's been a change here. from "lov[ing] and valu[ing] nothing but triumph over all of them," andrei is realizing there's more to life than living, and more than just focusing on himself. is this symbolic of a resurrection? has he undergone some sort of death-to-life salvation experience?
 
and here again is the great russian theme of suffering. andrei's confused mind is tortured by doubt. "There is nothing certain, nothing except the nothingness of everything that is incomprehensible to me, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important!"
   everybody's favorite prince still has a long way to go, "...and only the heavens promised peace."

relationship tracker:
IN LOVE
nikolai + sonya

IN MARRIAGE
andrei + lise
pierre + helene

SUNK SHIPS
marya + anatol

death count: 1

soundtrack - I found my way, jesse taylor

01 August 2016

:: french, russian, and andrei ::

whassup: I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and looooooooove, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

- - - 

BOOK 1, PART 2

part two of war and peace switches from glittering society to the war front, following mostly prince andrei and nikolai rostov (with a few appearances of dolokhov and some minor characters, like captain tushin and “the handsome artillery soldier”. tolstoy’s name, not mine).

the marked emphasis on french vs. russian really stood out to me, and not just in the context of battles. I still don’t have it pinned down, but I’ve noticed some interesting things.

after general mack brings news of austria’s defeat, an officer named zherkov makes a joke about it that angers prince andrei, who snaps at their mutual friend nevitsky, “‘40,000 men massacred, our ally’s army destroyed, and you find this a cause for jesting,’ he said, reverting to French, as if to give force to his opinion.” he adds an insult in russian, but having noticed zherkov could still hear him, he “pronounced the words with a French accent.”

“He went on this way, speaking French, and saying in Russian only those words to which he wanted to give a scornful emphasis.” ouch.

when andrei goes to brunn to report to the emperor about schmidt’s death and the russian victory, he meets with the russian diplomat, bilibin. there he is “glad to speak, if not Russian (they were speaking French), at least with a Russian who would, he presumed, share the general Russian antipathy…to the Austrians.”

I noticed french is always associated with society and people of status. tolstoy specifically says that bilibin is a good diplomat, beyond needing “only to speak French and to avoid certain things.” in connection with diplomacy, this implied to me a certain level of artifice or posturing; of shrewdly working something for your own ends, and evidenced in the russians consistently pulling through by sheer bluff.

for example, when tushin’s group is firing their four cannons at the french, they aren’t overrun “only because the French could not conceive of the temerity of anyone continuing to fire from completely unprotected cannons.”

this also drew my attention to some interesting things about andrei. when he is angry with zherkov, he shows what he thinks of the seriousness of war and the respect due those fighting it. he has ideals: gallant and honorable ideals, even if they’re somewhat impossible.

bagration thinks he is “one of those ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a cross”—perhaps because andrei is well-educated, well-dressed, well-looking. he has a momentary foil in his tour guide: “a handsome, foppishly dressed man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who spoke French readily but very badly.” he’s kind of an andrei wannabe (…aren’t we all).
            of course, though, we know there’s more to him than a staff dandy looking for the little participation badge and getting out early. when tushin’s group is bravely struggling in the face of defeat—and one staff officer is too scared to stay—andrei goes above and beyond the requirements of his position. he delivers his message (requirement) and stays (above and beyond). he isn’t a respecter of persons; he is brave; he is faithful in his execution of duty. when bagration later questions tushin’s obedience, andrei sharply stands up for him—because that’s who he is, and because he has those ideas and ideals for what war should be.
andrei doesn’t accept tushin’s thanks. he walks away without saying anything, “distressed and sad. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had expected.”

this is almost all that part 2 covers. a few small things—in particular rostov's character—I believe are being developed, but I'll recap if I need to. school starts in three short weeks and I don't want to drag this out.

relationship tracker:
IN LOVE
boris + natasha
nikolai + sonya
vera + berg

IN PROCESS
marya + anatole

IN MARRIAGE
andrei + lise
NEW pierre + helene

SUNK SHIPS
0

death count: still 1. wait for it.

25 July 2016

:: growing up ::

meet my oak tree. 



once upon a time, I left the place where I grew up. there were new things to see, new places to go, new people to meet; it was exciting. it was an adventure. I took my memories, and thought that I could always come back, because it would always be waiting for me. as if here stays the same: as if I can be 8 again and there will be the garden -- the railroad tracks -- grace & allie & eva & john & andrew -- fresh strawberries, pine needles, games of pretend. 

I didn't understand time. I didn't understand change. (I still don't. for the record.)

of the few definitive mental snapshots of my childhood, this oak tree is near the top. I played house with jessa in the tall spring grass, crushing rooms and passages in wavy mazes. we chased crickets when the dry grass got mowed in the fall. we explored the dirt piles and picked morning glories and sat in the shade on the bedroom porch (to the right of this tree; not in the picture). and one grey morning, we stood outside under the oak tree, just where the shadow falls, and mama cried as daddy read isaiah 40.8: "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever." and it started to rain. 

I think of that baby sometimes. 

I didn't understand a lot when I was little: like why mama cried on my best friend's mom's shoulder that afternoon. I didn't understand why, a few short years later, that best friend decided she didn't like me anymore. I didn't understand why I cried the day we drove down this driveway for the last time, because I didn't understand that "people change, darling," as do things -- and places -- and I. 

this trip has been an incredible one, but like travel always goes, it involves more than physical moving. I find myself growing and changing and learning. the painful thing is in being gone for so long and coming back to find that I don't fit anymore, don't fit in the place I've always held in my mind as The Place I Can Always Come Home To. it's like I thought that it would wait for me; or that I would wait for it; or that I could slip back to when I was a kid and ignorance was bliss, because I thought I had it all figured out. 

news flash. I don't have it all figured it out. 

I've cried here, remembering and missing and regretting. it's been almost harder to come back than to have not come at all. nothing is the same. I'm not the same. somehow it makes me feel adrift and lost.
   sure, I'm 21: still young. I still have time to discover and make a home of somewhere new. I have homes and homes ahead of me! but it makes me ache to come back and have everything unfamiliar, with a thin veneer of "but you do remember this" glazed over top. uncanny valley of memories. 
   it feels like a different life to me -- I wasn't at all the same person then that I am now. and that lack of continuity makes me feel so alone.

so I went outside last night and lay in the short grass underneath my oak tree, looking up at the stars.

starmaker
standing high above
wrapped in life and crowned in love
dark shaker
it trembles at your name
and here with you we are amazed

what else can I say
but sing in adoration
you are holy

high above the earth
creator
what mysteries you hold
your words worth more than wells of gold
soul waker

it was so peaceful. and I thought of the oak tree again. why? 
the oak tree is the only thing that really seems the same. it always looks like the tree I remember, and it's so solid. so eternal and unchanging. (...sound familiar?) 

some constant, that's what I'm looking for, what I've been chasing all my life. ironically, it's been right here in front of me, in the love of my Savior, but it took coming "home" to realize the place I no longer recognize doesn't have to break my heart. I won't ever find that place on earth, and I know that now. I still have changing to do, but my old oak tree will stay with me as a symbol of change and stability: life happens around it, but I have a constant in my life. 

I also have years of homes ahead of me. I haven't gotten to some places yet that years further in the future I'll remember with fondness, places yet to mold and shape me. But if this trip is teaching me anything, it's to better treasure where you are -- for all I know, this (eternal) time in kentucky will become its own life, too, and I'll visit louisville just as tearfully in 15 years. (...okay, I doubt it.) the bad things are so quickly forgotten, though, and so many good things that I may not even realize are good will shine through in hindsight. 

so many times this trip I've wished to be young young young again -- if only I could go back to that very moment, or that one, or that one. but in a few years, THIS moment is the one I'll wish I could revisit, so I'd better enjoy it; make it worth remembering. like that old TtWS song: "there is nothing but the moment // don't you waste it on regret." 

buck up, girl. homes to come. nothing is as good as you remember it being. this too shall pass. with the homes will come heartbreak and I have heartbreaks to come as well. 
oh life. 
california delta breeze, blow back my hair as I march on. 

when I die my body will say goodbye
to the things that held me down
to the fear that kept my hands tied

when I'm gone my heart will carry on
past the valleys I called my home
where my questions and concerns will piece together

until then
I'll ride the wind like a feather toward home

22 July 2016

:: to2c thoughts, from abroad ::

"Dickens clearly sees the Manette household, presided over by Lucie, as a repository of value, a private sanctuary from public spying, madness, and violence. To some readers, however, it has seemed frail, and in any case, more a product of the author's values than his observation of reality."
- discussion question excerpt from the back of kelsey's BN copy of a tale of two cities

when I'm at friends' houses, I always check out their reading material. my lovely friend kelsey (whom I've mentioned before) hosted me for a few days during this california trip and one evening I was sitting next to this, one of my all-time-favorite books, and I couldn't resist picking it up and reading the final paragraphs. gosh, it gets me every time.

this discussion question in the back caught my attention (I am a sucker for good discussion questions. I read the forewords, afterwords, prefaces, epilogues, introductions, and questions like they're dessert). read it again: dickens sees the manette household as a private sanctuary, but to some it has seemed frail, a product merely of the author's values.

absolutely yes.

this is striking. it might be why I have never really liked charles darnay, this aspect of him and of the manette household (that he really becomes one of, not vice versa). he's passive, and so naive. charles and lucie both are childlike in their trusting openness and it really bothers me. sydney carton, with all his cynical outlook, at least knows what he's getting into.

I definitely think that's what dickens valued -- he has so, so many stories with a fallen, weak, or struggling man who is loved and supported (or longs to be loved and supported) by a sweet, good woman despite that. I'm sure he wanted that himself.
   in a way, the darnays are doomed when carton dies: they will always need someone to get them out of their naive difficulties, and through the book they really rely on carton just to be there. now that he's gone, the hidden strength he provided in their relationship, or at least the promise of "anything I can do for you, ever" (lucie relied on him more than she realized, I think), is gone. and it's not that the darnays will fall apart, but they'll be battered.
   sydney + lucie would have been mismatched -- but she would've been taken better care of. charles + lucie are pure optimism (optoomuchstic, as maryrose wood puts it), and they won't get far with that. at least with sydney's pessimistic, cynical, worldly understanding they were sheltered (in a small way).
 
but then dickens apparently thinks they'll be okay, as he speaks through carton's prophetic 'vision' -- like louisa's gazing into the fire. "such things were to be." ...or maybe that's carton's wishful thinking: that his sacrifice will be worthwhile. it at least shows his own growth. growth? development. he's now putting her before himself. but also, he's leaving his first distrustful mindset.
   for better or worse.

04 July 2016

:: big bite, little chew ::

(HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY EVERYBODY!!!! I love so many things about this country. the foods, the people, the laws that give us freedom; I love having the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am so grateful for the men and women who have fought over the last 250 years for our freedom, and so blessed to be in a nation where the star-spangled banner yet waves o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. here's to 240 more years of standing united for truth and justice. I love you, america!!!)
- - -

here's my dilemma. apparently I've bitten off a little more than I can chew in my original timeframe.

recap: I'm trying to read war and peace. to break the sad news to you, I've only reached part two of the first of the first of the firstest books today (about 25 chapters in). life has been so busy and there have been other priorities in my life, and

I mean seriously there are literally 15 books that are real-book length in this thing, so. what can you even expect. (but it's just as good as I remember it :') )

anyway, that's part of my dilemma. the other part(s), as follows: I leave for california on the 7th, and I'm pretty occupied with straightening that packing and planning out--between the several people commitments and car rentals and spotify playlists I have a lot going on and reading for pleasure just can't make the top of my list. (you should be proud of me for getting this far, haha.)

while in the socal and the norcal and all the cals (puuuuumped) I'll be spending time with people and basking in the driest of dry sunshines (puuuuuuumped) and won't have time to read and probably less to write--I still have online classes happening and lettering to do, too, and I'm feeling more pressure as summer comes to a close.

this is not supposed to be a complaint-fest. this summer's been great. internship, scholarships, kitty hawk, california, michigan (in august), and then school--productive in so many ways and I've learned a ton and grown in all directions (but also worked out, so hopefully that stalled a few directions)--but I need to focus on real life and not on self-imposed "commitments". I will totally do this, just maybe not all this summer.

I do have a few notes so far, though. ka-pow. (that was fireworks. we have to have fireworks, it's the fourth.)
- - - -

mostly questions, which I'm recording and keeping in mind as I read.

by chapter 25: already so many examples of war and peace -- between nations, but also between and within families.

relationship tracker: 
boris + natasha
nikolai + sonya
andrei + lise
vera + berg?
marya + anatole are being set up
single: pierre, helene, dolokhov

death count: 1

themes/things I'm watching for*
- love. young vs. old. how is portrayed when it lasts vs. doesn't? who is 'worthy'? who grows to worthiness? how is platonic love portrayed?
- social strata, politeness, rules. french vs. russian. fates of the rich vs. poor vs. illegitimate (aka just pierre).
- personal beauty. how does it affect those who have it or those who explicitly don't: andrei, lise, helene, vera, nikolai, boris, dolokhov even, vs. natasha, marya, pierre? better, worse, or is it a variable? how does it play into their stories?

and then I noticed eyes. for example: pierre wears glasses and is searching. marya is explicitly plain, but with beautiful eyes; or eyes so expressive, so indicative of her inner beauty, that they frequently "make her beautiful"--and she has a(n overly simplified) spiritual outlook. m & p both find their one true love (not each other!!) (if I'm remembering correctly) and both are plain. do they have what the more beautiful miss? ...and what counts as beauty, what counts as worth and value, as exemplified in the book?

*not totally fair. having read w&p before, I have a fuzzy notion of what to look out for (though my memory is far from perfect, so I could be wrong about watching for some of this). I'm afraid I'll be routinely giving stuff away if you've never read this book before; all the more reason to go read it. now.

wheeeeeeeee BANG sparkle sparkle
...more fireworks. eat some watermelon! happy 4th!

17 June 2016

:: reading & other summer things ::

work and productivity and swimming are all things taking up my summer time at the moment: my design internship is three days a week, swimming is basically at least an hour every afternoon, and then I fit everything else in the cracks between.

"everything else":
- free online classes through harvard
(YES. go take some. they are spectacular, especially professor kelly's first nights series -- I just finished monteverdi's l'orfeo and it was magnificent. both the opera and the course.)

- lettering practice + videos through sean mccabe's learn lettering series
(which I unreservedly recommend as well)

- reading out loud to brother and sisters
(the brother is 8, the sisters are 6 and 10. a third, almost 3, sometimes accompanies. we've made it through the first two peter and the starcatchers books and are almost done with book one of the incorrigible children of ashton place. I need to find #s3 and 4 of peter and finish that before plunging into maryrose wood's utterly delightful saga. love that simon harley-dickinson. ahem.)

- memorizing all of "I've been everywhere" by johnny cash
(first verse, check. second verse... we'll get there someday.

haha.)

- planning my TRIP TO CALIFORNIA
(yes, but that's as per usual and I'll mention it a lot in the future, so just know I'm going for almost the month of july and planning on enjoying myself hugely. except trips aren't so fun when you're on your own; but I'll make it work. heh.)

- reading in my head, to myself. for fun.
(what is that.)

this is where my list really comes to the point. I've checked quite a lot of books out of our online library woo and actually read -- get this -- thirty books in may. yes, three-zero. I've been practically inhaling them, but you have to remember it's been a long time since I had this time or this opportunity. june's been a lot more busy, and I'm not going to read nearly that many for the rest of the year; especially since I just started leo tolstoy's war and peace this morning.

I'll obviously be reading war and peace for a while -- I swear, a single "book" that is divided into fifteen poly-chaptered books should not have the need for a second epilogue -- and I'm going to do my best to record my live-streaming thoughts this time around. last time I started in probably book 12 or 13 and wrote down all my shipping as the plot line progressed (still have that paper; pretty hilarious), and I've decided to start at the beginning this time and write slightly more of-content thoughts -- although what's a good russian novel without some hearty love interests, amirite. especially since like everyone ends up with the wrong person and then half of them die and they reshuffle so you get to pair 25% of them around like three times. whee. fun.

those russians, goshdarn and bless their hearts.

yeah. so the result may end up slightly muddled and circular and inconclusive like my night train to lisbon series, but I'm aiming for something more like my oliver twist thing, only hopefully more sophisticated. but not much because w&p is still way way over my head. still, I love it, love it, and hopefully I'll keep understanding better as I grow with it. (those are the best books, that grow with you.) and really, tolstoy is the master. -- my dad was a russian lit major in college for about a year, and he must have handed something down to me. I remember reading one of our pushkin anthologies when I was 9; pushkin and me, we go way back.

enough about russian novels. takeaway: w&p will be read and commented upon, so stay tuned for the upcoming tears (AHH FORGIVENESS and REDEMPTION), guilty boredom and tears (AAH MORE WAR DESCRIPTION I don't undersTAND), and gushing and tears (AN. DREI. BOL. KON. SKY. JUST STAHP).

I'm afraid you're in for a lot of all-caps and tears. I'll try to tone it down. (but seriously: TOLSTOY!!

I clutch my heart and die dramatic russian death)

28 May 2016

:: what do you read, my lord ::

words, words, words! it's been about three years since I've posted one to make you sound more pretentiously literate; and so I said, "the time is ripe / to send one shooting [down] the pipe!"

read.
memorize.
use obnoxiously.

diapason: full, swelling, harmonious sound.
(or to do with pipe organs and pitch. but who needs that clinical of a definition.) 
      n., from greek through latin: dia pason (khordon) - 'through all (the notes)', the whole octave

pronounced: (die-uh-pay-sun)

"And yet this great wink of eternity,
Of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings,
Samite sheeted and processioned where
Her undinal vast belly moonward bends,
Laughing the wrapt inflections of our love;

Take this Sea, whose diapason knells
On scrolls of silver snowy sentences,
The sceptered terror of whose sessions rends
As her demeanors motion well or ill,
All but the pieties of lovers' hands."
- hart crane

19 May 2016

:: the fault in our extremely loud wallflowers ::

I read stephen chbosky's perks of being a wallflower on tuesday.

it really bugs me how every time I write a blog post I almost invariably start with "I" (meaning the pronoun, not the letter, or it would even more almost invariably be "i" --see the beginning of this paragraph). I suppose this is my blog, and I'm basically the only one who reads it, but still. it's like I owe it to the universe to focus a little less on me.

^not my point.

so, chbosky.

there's this one part in the book where protagonist charlie is given rand's the fountainhead by his english teacher, who tells him to read it "as a filter, not a sponge", which our genius gifted mangenue charlie doesn't understand, despite being ~16 and theoretically grasping hamlet and a separate peace. but okay. fortunately, charlie's reader ((YOU)) is at least as intellectual as he is, because the reader gets it. YEAH, charlie. DUH. go you, reader. give yourself a little pat on the back. much intellect. very insight. wow.

yeah, so the book bugged me. bugged me like extremely loud and incredibly close bugged me (although that, not nearly so much), and other similar books that I know I've read but have fortunately forgotten.
   in these books, there's always a character -- usually the first-person protagonist narrator -- who is rather young and, while somewhat naive and innocent, is simultaneously wise beyond their years (in an inexplicable, 100% unrealistic way). they accept tragedy and trauma and love and life and facts about all these things with an unshakeable, pragmatic calmness (as part of their childish wisdom and maturity) and say things that produce strong reactions from adults, though for the life of them the precocious prodigies can't figure out why -- why the laugh or cry or stare? just tellin' it like it is, right?

charlie in particular uses childishly simple language (which chbosky/charlie attempts to justify by saying basically, why use complex words for the sake of complex words? --which I agree with, but he misses completely that complex words are for complex thoughts, and if our charlie is so intellectually and emotionally gifted, he'll not only know and understand the words, he'll be able to use them appropriately and easily in a sentence).
   this language thing especially bothered me, not just because the writing itself was rough and badly modulated and...not well-done; but because charlie is supposed to seriously turn 16 during the book, and I kept thinking of him as about 11 or 12. it was honestly, truly confusing when it mentioned him driving ("but he's only 12! oh, right"), while his not-dating sam made complete sense ("she's like 18 and he's like 12, so this is a hero-worship sort of crush. ...they're making out?! oh. right"). I attribute that confusion to the language, because charlie just sounds so young it really made the book hard to get into. jonathan foer was at least interesting and easy to read.
   plus, charlie's attributes as explained by charlie -- whose paper musings the reader can of course interpret but that confuse poor charlie's innocently straightforward brain -- are really not that spectacular and unusual. plenty of people enjoy reading & thinking, which is basically what sets charlie apart in this book. that, and the fact that he is so loving and accepting of gay people and their serially-dating sisters. charlie should just go date hazel grace (oh, there's another one. which did I hate more: chbosky or john green? hard call. at least john green is actually clever and well-read).
 
these are books written to make the reader feel educated and intellectual and high-and-lonely-destiny, but really these are things we all feel, all identify with, all literary references we recognize. which is why these books are famous. people aren't so insensitive and uncultured as people like to think. so I read wallflower, or TFIOS, or extremely loud, or maybe even tell the wolves I'm home, and (am supposed to) go, "wow, charlie is just like me what similarity I'm lonely too oh this book moved me 'in that moment we were infinite' such insight *small tear*" but I think it makes everyone feel that way.
   (go back to john green: remember the unfinished book that is hazel's driving force for the whole amsterdam trip? that book is represented like these books are supposed to feel: a hidden treasure, belonging only to the reader -- practically undiscovered by the rat-racing public, its depths plumbed only by YOU and related to on a deeper level because of the Personal Trials and Heartbreaks you in particular have experienced. like that boy you liked in 6th grade who ended up moving away before you screwed up enough courage to talk to him, and you now live every day with regret. you could never have cried so much over poor gus if you hadn't felt hazel's heartrending pain in your own life.)
   to rephrase: the emotional bond the general You feel with the book seems personal and intimate. 'I had such an experience reading this book; it's my book; it changed my life.' but you don't realize that it's calculated to make literally everyone who reads it feel just as connected, and really your experience is only a fluffy emotive tear-jerky fakeness that has given you no new ideas about the world, just played off of your warm fuzzy feels.
 
who am I to say what the author is trying to do, of course. and again, this is my personal feeling, which is not-universal in exactly the way I've been criticizing; also, my personal feeling is usually to be/do/say/think the opposite of anyone and anything I feel is scorn-worthy and beneath me. oh look, see how different I am from the masses. I didn't like this bestseller. whoop, whoop, what discernment.  but that's how I feel about these types of books, and my immediate reaction is NOPE, NOT GONNA FEEL IT. TRY TO MAKE ME.
   chbosky did have a few interesting sentences in there, but for me it was more along the lines of, "well, I get what he's trying to say & I hear that; but I think it's..." oversimplified. trying too hard. saccharine. trite.

I guess that's what I feel about a lot of "literature" written recently. it's trite. it tries too hard. too many people want to do something new and revolutionary -- why can't you do something old, well? a lot of the really good books that people still love and read and write about and assign for school were quietly good. they weren't trying to make! a! statement! (or revolutionize present-tense writing, a trend that is quite aggravating to my english-speaking ears. STOP IT MORGENSTERN ONLY REMARQUE CAN DO THIS). they just stated. and I don't mean just dickens and austen, necessarily -- although austen was incredible in pointing out societal concerns and issues in her societal-microcosms-as-polite-drawing-rooms. hey, include greats from the past 100 years: everyone's favorite fitzgerald. jane smiley. toni morrison. kathryn stockett. they don't have to bash you over the head with their message (...although they can be heavy-handed, yes); for the most part, they just point to it and let you figure it out for yourself.

really, it's worse when the book's message itself doesn't resonate with me, either. these amazing, revelatory, brilliant ideas and questions and thoughts the kids come up with all sound exactly the same, just in different vague, sort-of-poetic ways. like the author -- each author -- thought of an idea and muddled it with fancy words to make it sound deep, but really be easily understandable, so that whoever is reading feels like they have a depth just like the main character. oh, I'm so alone, so misunderstood, so different, so unique and special. but this author/character/book gets me, speaks to me, knows what I'm going through.
   dude. everyone feels alone, misunderstood, different, and special. why do you think the social media are so successful??

I wish I were more articulate and took better notes. upshot: modern lit just doesn't do it for me. I need to read more non-fiction and stop taking myself so seriously.

10 May 2016

:: list at midnight ::

(that title. did you read that title??! I think it could be a really good poem if someone who wrote really good poems wrote one and called it that.

ahem. the list.)

1. the semester is over
SO, YAY. let that sink in for a moment.

2. I have much things to do
like perfect those grammar skillz.

3. make lists of those things
*check*

4. go to bed and finish this in the morning
but it's okay, I'm doing the procrastination part tomorrow.

all right, real talk! school's been out for a week, but we took a vacation in north carolina (OBX FTW)(which I've said at least once before), and I took all that time away from electronics. except for my computer, because I wanted to read a bunch of books. (so by "away from electronics" I really actually mean my phone, which means texting and social media. which is just instagram right now. so it's not like I was an electronic virgin the whole time, but I didn't want to face my friends after a whole semester of neglect, just yet. I did check my email though BECAUSE MY BEST FRIEND WAS HAVING A BABY CONGRATS I'M NOW AN HONORARY AUNTIE!!!! (congrats to her, not to me. although I definitely take congrats if you have some extras you'd like to hand out).)

sand and surf are good for the soul. it was great.

but I have a lot of things I need to get on top of, now that I'm back: personal projects as well as a couple freelance jobs I'm juggling (business logo, wedding programs), and I am behind on my emails. I meant to catch up during that vacation, but see: when given the choice between
sit inside staring at a retina display
vs.
go outside to get soaked and literally cold feet and maybe a sunburn and totally tangled hair that no disney movie could ever begin to speak to and definitely sand in every possible orifice and salt everywhere else
--I mean, really. which would you choose?
rhetorical question!!!! which here means, DUH. getting slapped in the face with a great big salty wave is my kind of paradise. don't know what planet you sprung from.

ookay. it's past midnight and I get weird past midnight. I am also tired, so I will now shuffle off to buffalo, and worry tomorrow about wrapping up my semester and probably some books (ugghhhh my book to-review list is killing me with guilt) in overdue tome-length posts that include material on whatever happens to strike my fancy. who knows, maybe I'll cover the calculated existential angst to be discovered in a bowl of breakfast cereal.

life is full of surprises.