Shallow Things

My last two posts (or maybe just my last one, I don't remember) have been long, drawn out, expressions of my thoughts. This post will not be.

I got blood drawn yesterday (two days ago, actually, but since I have not gone to bed yet I will refer to everything as though it were still Friday) and now I have a red spot on the inside of my right elbow. I have a freckle on the inside of my left elbow, so now I'm symmetrical.

I finished reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth! Great book (it's full of pain and heartache though, so don't read it if you get too empathetic for characters). Definitely reading the second one. Also! In the "About the Author" bit at the end, I found out that the author is from Greenville! (For those of you unfamiliar with Northern South Carolinian Political Geography, that's just a short drive from Spartanburg and is, in fact, where I'm going to college)

I'm going to college. I'm moving out in a week.

Things are about to get krazy.

Post Scriptum
The "k" in "krazy" indicates extra craziness.
Source.

Escapism

Lots of people read to escape their lives. I don't. I don't read to get away, or even because I like it (I'm horribly slow at it). I read for two reasons: Firstly, I want to know. Whenever people reference Faust or The Divine Comedy or any other thing, I want to know what they are talking about. But more than that, I want to know it to such a degree that no one (at least, no one I will come in contact with) will be able to say they know more about it than I do. It's weird, but I hate it. So I read old stuff that people mention, but no one ever reads so that I can say "I've read that" and show people up by expanding that one point of the conversation to an area that I feel superior in.

What was I talking about?

Oh, secondly, I read because there's something that interests me in the topic or story. Really I guess I also will read something if I simply love the story, but that's rare (except with Narnia <3)
Don't get me wrong, I love stories and their messages and books, but the actual act of reading is hard for me.

Uhm...

Right, Escapism. Some people use reading as a form of escapism. It makes me think too much. I think too much about my writings when I read. I don't play adventure games or RPGs to escape either. Again, I think too much about writings when I play those, usually because of the action and wonderful stories.

What do I do to escape? I play Harvest Moon.
I have a weird relationship with the Harvest Moon series of games. I love them so, so much. But they make me sad. Melancholy, I suppose is the better word. Not so much now as they used to, but I still feel weird when I play.

For those of you who don't know, Harvest Moon is a game series where you run a farm. You grow crops, raise animals, befriend the villagers, expand your house and marry any one of several possible mates which are available for courtship. It's kind of like Farm Sim meets Dating Game.

I can sit down and blow hours watering, harvesting, caring for cows, mining ore, giving presents to the girl I like. I never get tired of it. Once while I was on vacation, I sat down one morning and beat the first game of the series in 13 hours, only stopping to get food. I was sick at the time though.

I'm very weird about my preferences in women. Part of me is quiet and shy and wants a girl that is active and loud and will get me to do things. Another part of me is confident and in control and wants a girl that's quiet, so that I can take her hand bring her out into the world.

In Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town (which I am currently playing again) I married Karen my first time playing. Karen is a loud, dominant red-head who likes to get drunk from time to time. I think maybe since I was new to the game, I wanted someone more controlling.

On this time playing, however, I went the opposite way. I am currently courting Mary, the librarian, who's awkward and shy, but very cute. Maybe it's because I know this game inside and out and am feeling more confident?

The weirdest thing is that I have a girlfriend, :devbasilfaery: and she doesn't fit either category at all, but I'm perfectly happy. When I played when I was younger I dreamed of growing up, moving to the country and living happily with a cute, shy little wife (I was really weird in middle school), but now, I don't think about that at all. I like where I'm going in life, and I can't wait to get there.

Off-Topic

I realised today that since I am now cross-posting my blog to my deviantART journal that A) My journal updates will be much more frequent than the average person's, and B) A lot of what I write will be extremely off-topic for a deviantART journal. Like this:

As mentioned previously, I've been out of town for almost two weeks now. Last week I was at my Grandparents' house in Tennessee, spending my nights in their furnished basement. I'm a very nostalgic person (strange for someone so young, eh?) and one of my favourite memories is two years ago, at my Grandparents' house in the Summer, when I watched all 50 (or is it 52?) episodes of Gundam Seed in one week. Something about that time in my life just gives me this weird, unexplainable feeling. Thinking back, it seems like in that period of my life, it was as if when I was in that basement nothing else existed outside of its walls and time stretched out into the infinite so that I could lay, and think and write and watch all that I needed. (that last sentence sounds strange because I combined two sentences to make it and am too lazy to fix it)
That entire story was to set up this much shorter one: Because I am always wishing to re-live that time, I stay up late while in Tennessee. Normally, I re-adjust my schedule quickly upon returning home. Since this time I did not go straight home, I'm having trouble re-adjusting. So I'm still staying up late (just to 2:00 at latest, not 3:00-4:00) and waking up early (7:00-8:00) to eat breakfast with everyone. This results in me being very tired.

I'm tearing through The Forest of Hands and Teeth (fun fact: when I copy and past this into deviantART, the tags that make that title Italics will not show up when it is published and won't do anything) I'm like, 60% done with it. I find it enthralling and I'm not sure why. It starts out interesting, then gets dull, then gets interesting, and then gets dull/romantic. Holy cow, is this how teen girls really think? I feel a bit like Piro reading Bishojo to figure out how girls think (shout out to :devfredrin: and his wonderful webcomic, Megatokyo) anyway, Mary (the main character) is very dramatic and gets on my nerves occasionally, but it's very exciting, even if she does make me want to smack her and tell her to pull herself together. Gosh.

I had something else to say, but I've completely forgotten it now.

I forgot to grab a fresh razor when I stopped by the house on my way here so my razor is crazy dull.

July 13, 2010

I couldn't think of a title for this one, so I will simply date it. I fell behind a little on updating my blog (it's been almost a month) and I've fallen extremely behind on updating my deviantART journal (this will be the first one in at least a year). My blog suffers from a severe lack of readers so I'm going to start cross-posting. So hello, my adoring fans!

Anyway, I am currently on vacation to Kiawah island with my family for our traditional semi-annual trip. I spent the week just before this one at my grandparents' house, so I have not slept in a bed in ten days (I've been on couches). I've also begun studying Esperanto (ĝi estas tre facila).

I've spent a lot of time lately looking through Wikipedia's "List of dystopian literature" page and reading the summaries. While doing so, I came across a story called The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, a writer who I've heard of before. It became the first book I ever purchased for my Kindle and it's very well written, though it's obviously written for teenage girls -__- nevertheless, it is a good book and shows a lot of promise. I just wish it had a little less girl-loves-boy-romance-drama.

My most recent writing project is tentatively entitled Alice and Death (an allusion to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland's shortened name, Alice in Wonderland). The story goes thusly: Late Victorian London (or perhaps somewhere near London), a young girl named Alice lived a normal life (for the only daughter of a rich family) until the day came when she was to die. Death (you know, the Grim Reaper), however, has fallen in love with her after watching her over the past year and on the spur of the moment saves her from the event that was to cause her death rather than collecting her soul once she has died.
Now, as standard punishment for his crime (as listed in his book of rules) he must reveal himself to Alice and take her life before midnight seven days after her fated death. If he fails to do so he will be turned to dust and she will live forever, never aging, never sleeping, never eating, like a living corpse.
Because he loves her, he gives in to her request that he wait until the last day to take her and to let her accompany him in the meantime. Will Alice see past Death's frightening exterior and understand his feelings? When the time comes, will Death be able to take the life of the girl he loves, even if she falls in love with him? I sure hope so :3

Dangit, I just realised I forgot to shave today.

Dates

Last Tuesday I received my Kindle 2 in the mail. It's absolutely fantastic. I haven't bought anything in the store, just downloaded things from Project Gutenberg and put on some PDFs I've got. Wonderful piece of technology. Named her Toroko (keeping with my Cave Story theme).

I've been reading The Nibelungenlied and I got to thinking about writing great heroes in the distant past of my stories. Winter will have none of that now, I'm doing my best to keep it entirely self-contained (seems best for the story). So my other option is The East which lends itself much better to ancient heroes. But the problem arose when I got to thinking about when to set the heroic exploits. Previously, I had Uruz' story happening in something like the 4,000th year since the elves entered the world (Early drafts listed it as the 7,000th). I now feel this is much to early, what with elves living so long. Even with my elves living mostly only to 600 (at oldest), that is still only a very short time. I am now beginning to think that the year should be shifted more towards 10,000. Maybe 8,000. I like that much better as a number, but I don't know if it will do as a date.

So many problems with things. Right now, though, I feel I must concern myself with Winter as I am currently filled with ideas for it which have not yet been put down to words. But no writing at this time of night, I must to bed.

Another Dream

Last night I had the most extraordinary dream. Unlike most dreams, I was not a character in it, nor was anybody that I knew. It started with something that reminded me of Finding Nemo, but only a little. A young clown fish was kicked out of his house on his sixteenth birthday as was tradition.

I don't know why it was tradition, or exactly what happened next, but that's the way it went. Anyway, it began moving seamlessly between that story, Death Note and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. In fact, they were all fused into one. The fish who was kicked out played the role of Light (complete with some sort of killing). There was either a jump forward in time or I simply forgot some bits (I think it skipped, it did that in a couple places), but either way he started living together with a character who acted as Misa, but also a character who was something like Misa's older sister (I know, weird.) there were some other characters with them, but I don't remember those.

Either way, I have a distinct memory of Light (they were all human at this point) leaving the building (it wasn't really a house) and thinking something that made it apparent that he was in fact evil. There was some sort of villain, very non-descript. I can't think anything about him except that he was adult, male and not really that bad. Maybe a detective or something. But at one point I saw Light, Misa and (note: this Misa character didn't act or look much like Misa, but she was blonde and that's how I remember her) and the villain standing in a a weird, mirrored revolving door thing. It didn't actually happen and acted only for the narrator to say some bits. It's then that he first mentioned the villain.

I think that there was something about school. Also, I remember seeing a bookshelf with volumes 1-9 (of 10) of this story on it. They looked like thick, leather books, not like manga. Right after that I saw the clown fish talking to a flounder about how hard his life was, having been kicked out of the house. The flounder said that he, too, had been kicked out of the house at sixteen (this was some years in the future from then) and that his life had been hard too. The clown fish realised that his hard life had been nothing special, and he went back to be with his group of friends.

Now, during the dream I had learned spoilers of it: The clown fish (as Light) had a child with Misa, and then another some time later with her sister. The first was named Lucky, and the second one's name was said, but I've forgotten it. This was done to aid his evil intentions, not out of love. Either way, it was the second child who helped him succeed.

But then the strangest thing happened, as the clown fish/Light returned home I saw an image of the older sister reading a magazine out in a field by lantern light (I think she was keeping watch), then that faded, and I thought I heard the narrator say something. But what I thought was the narrator for my dream was the narrator for an infomercial saying the standard line at the beginning about the following being paid programming. I was awake, in my bed, sweating, and more tired that I was the night before. The rest of the dream never played out, it just seamlessly faded into reality.

Now, there are a few bits that I left out either accidentally or because I couldn't reconcile with the rest chronologically. A part with the Clown Fish bowling with his mother and then time-lapsing into his future self, a part at school with Matsuda and the rest of the Kira Investigation group driving in a car, a part in a prison where the guards were evil and someone (possibly me and my brother) were trying to question an armed inmate in a large room with tables, and some of the narrator's lines about how much the flounder had missed his mother (mirroring his lines about how much Light had missed his).

Hello Again

I don't really know what I was going to say, but I had something. I haven't slept well these last few days, but I think I will be fine tonight. Oh drat, I forgot my medicine, I just realised. Well, nothing to do for it now.

I've been writing a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons and honestly can't wait to run it.

Had some great writing ideas. Need to go do those now before I forget.

Oh! I ordered a Kindle. Should be in Tuesday, but I'm really hoping for tomorrow.

Also, I'm thinking about changing my Handle to Paracelsus. It's not quite as neat as Icarus, but it is far less common and therefore more likely to be open. I hope TinierMe will allow for name changes in the future.