Oops.

Alas and alack, I have been shockingly remiss about blogging on here. And I'm not sure that I currently have a whole lot to say. Mostly I just feel behind on things, and about to embark on a four-day journey home which will prevent me from getting further ahead on any of them. It felt good to go back to my novel today, though it was bad  that it took me so long to write the few words I did, and I am so so far behind. It's not as if I went gallivanting off on particularly exciting adventures in the days that I neither wrote nor blogged. I went on one boat trip, ate delicious food and the most heavenly sorbetto of my life, talked to my best friends for over four hours, and drank a lot of tea. I read quite a bit too. Some Alan Bennett and Tolstoy and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and I finished the annoying, yet sometimes good book by Marisha Pessl. I went to a chamber music concert on Sunday and this evening. They played the Bartok String Quartet No. 5, and a Mendelssohn piece, "Das ist wahr?" I believe, that was really beautiful. I looked at war memorials here from the first and second world wars. Many of the names were the same. I love that sort of continuity. I sort of wish I had that-- that I lived in a town where everyone knew each other and your family had lived there for generations. Today we went to look at the goats my aunt has been keeping. They made me consider a life in which I tended goats. But in both of these lives, I doubt that I could spend as much time on the computer, or read Ovid, or go on to possibly study Akkadian. I think it is a reminder that it is difficult to know how much your life fits you until it is suddenly gone. On that slightly dark note, I will end this for tonight. Once again, BEDA has been not particularly successful, but I've had a much better time when not doing it than I had in April.

The Hour fills my thoughts.

I've watched it a lot in the past few days. Given the power to watch something over and over again, I do, until I've beaten the newness out of it and entered it more fully in my head. Or something--I don't know why I do it, but I do. Freddie remains utterly charming. The attention to detail makes me wish I lived then in a way that period dramas don't. It is somehow written as a love story to that era, somehow, even if it simultaneously abuses it for its prejudices. The prejudices don't quite balance out the appeal of the lipstick and dressing up and men in suits (how I adore men in suits) and the telephones, even if they are anachronistic. I wish someone would recite e. e. cummings (and my favorite poem at that--one I was thinking about earlier that day, completely unrelatedly) and tell me I was exquisite, and snatch newspaper from my hands and take my face in his hands and kiss me. (Ugh, what a sentimentalist I sound.)

Went for a bike ride today. Have yet to work on my novel. Ate delicious pizza. I remain slovenly.

Yesterday's post.

Written around 2:30 in the morning, so slightly scatterbrained, but what was meant for yesterday, and  it reflects the thoughts of yesterday.

It’s 2:33 am. My novel’s in a lamentable state; I haven’t touched it for days. I’ve stayed up because of the way the BBC’s The Hour just compels me to keep watching. I absorbed Episodes 2 and 3 today. Is that supposed to be the archetypal choice—Freddie or Hector? I’d of course choose Freddie, but I think Bel honestly would pick Hector. Freddie’s been around for years—why should anything happen now. But I shall attempt to watch Episode 4 tomorrow (or later this morning, as I suppose it really is.) I forgot to blog, so this will have to do for the 10^th. Today I read Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell, though I didn’t finish it till after lunch. It was quite good—hysterical at moments, and of course I adore Denis. It was odd for anyone to be in unrequited love though—well, at least, unrequited or doomed love that wasn’t purely amusing. Then I went for a walk to Dyce’s Head and thought about poetry and the Awakening and other much more stolid subjects. I must go to sleep earlier tomorrow. And write. And go for a long walk. And watch Episode 4 if possible since I must see my great love celebrate his birthday. He is so cute. I never was someone who had celebrity crushes, and now I have two tv-related ones. What is happening to me?

Baudelaire and an idea for a novel.

Today both my father and I bought copies of Les Fleurs de Mal by Baudelaire at the same bookstore at the same time, without realizing that the other one was. It was actually quite funny.

And I thought up the idea for my next novel, which I think will truly be a novella. It will take place on a jetty because of how it is a metaphor with the journey out and the journey back (the novella can be split into two halves) and the way it is a breakwater and it seems shorter than it actually is, and it is made by a bunch of interlocking, slightly geometrical pieces. And how there were three sets of pairs walking along (Mom and George, then Melissa and me, then Roger and Dad) and the greyness, and what a wonderful spot it was. I must think further about this idea as I quite like it.

But now to bed! To sleep, perchance to dream, as I have yet to shake this mortal coil.

Blargh! Only ten minutes left to blog!

Today I woke up late, but then I read Ulysses and climbed a mountain and went swimming and made pudding so it turned into a productive day.

That book is so seriously amazing. Every time I open it I get sucked into its magicalness, which is only a good thing. I love it because there is so much that I understand, but I also know that there is stuff I'll only understand later on, and then I open any type of commentary and realize there is so much more. So many layers! And apparently being meta is a postmodern thing, and Joyce was modern, so he was ahead of his time! I discussed literary things with George as we were walking up the mountain, and didn't feel annoyed. And we quoted Beyond the Fringe a lot, and then discussed Marx Brothers movies, which reminded me that we really are the other person that each other knows who has had the most mutual experiences, and that does matter. We have been raised on the same humor, and we're the only people who've experienced both St. Stephen's and FCS, and being a child of our parents, and stuff like that. And then after dinner my family had another lovely conversation. And then my dad got a bit annoying, and I remembered that sometimes I'm not utterly upset to be leaving in about a month.

And tomorrow we see Roger and Melissa! Yay!

Oh, and George and I discussed how annoying it is that even the stupid or petty people Stephen is friends with in Ulysses are much more cultured, educated, literate and witty than we are. They talk about sex, but also about God and Hamlet and life. Why don't I know boys like that?

Brief Thoughts of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.

Here is a quote I particularly appreciate:

"I have nothing to declare except my genius."
--Oscar Wilde

He was such an excellent man.

Thinking of Oscar Wilde makes me think of Dublin and his weird monument in Merrion Square and St. Stephen's Green and how I much prefer it to Central Park, actually. I'm in the 14th episode of Ulysses--Cattle of the Sun. I can envisage that area perfectly. That trip was so totally awesome. Nausicaa proved how good James Joyce is (as if we needed more proof, which we don't.) Arguably his ability to be in Stephen's and Leopold's heads comes from a similarity to them, and the fact that they are each slightly based on one of his selves, but there's no reason he'd be able to capture so well the feeling of being a teenaged girl unless he was terribly perceptive and brilliant.

Shaw is also awesome. Yay Irish writers!

Today it rained all day. It was very pretty. I didn't go outside once, so I think I will step outside now just so I can say to myself that I have.

Nothing much to say.

Today I wandered around the woods for two hours, singing Darren Criss songs to myself. I also woke up really late because I'd stayed up late working on my novel. Writing the novel is strange because it sounds really pretentious to talk about, but mostly it involves sitting in front of my computer staring off into space. And then what I do write is petty and boy crazy and not rooted in any kind of philosophical or literary idea. I don't think it's a particularly worthwhile book, but I think it's good, and I don't really understand this.

I've started watching The Hour. Ben Whishaw is so fricking attractive, it shouldn't be allowed. But I'm glad it is.

The day was short. Nothing springs to mind to talk about, and I don't want to ramble uninterestingly more than I already do, so I will close here.

The world seems strange most of the time, when I actually think.

I went to a two-hour concert today by a 96-year-old concert pianist. I particularly liked the Liszt. As always, it made me wish I was more educated about music, or was able to apply what I know better.

It's actually how I feel about a lot of what I learn. I feel like it's supposed to inform my life, but then when I'm out there in the world and life is happening, I don't think in the mindsets that I've been taught. I like to say that my education has given me ways to look at the world, and the discerning eye to choose between them, but I spend so much of my life looking dully out at it.

And it's always a little troubling to be the only teenager at an artistic occasion. This happens to me frequently. I can't tell if it's all going to die out or if when we grow up, we will suddenly develop an interest in these things, along with a taste for brussel sprouts and other such things.

I guess the gist of this is that no matter how mature or connected to the world I feel, grown ups and other people still confuse me.

Rain, Writing, and Connectedness to Strangers.

Today I went for a walk in the rain. I got completely soaked, but it didn't matter, which was nice. And then I bought some books. It was a good day.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my novel, but not very much writing. I can't seem to sit down and get the words out, which is frustrating since it's all there in my head. I shall attempt to persevere though.

I've been thinking about the idea of the panopticon lately because I recently re-read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Today, I was dancing in an empty supermarket aisle when a woman walked in and saw me. She said, "I saw that." And then I blushed, but she went on to say that she'd recently been talking about how it's odd that we're so intimidated around each other. What are we scared of, she asked. I wanted to burst out "The Panopticon!" but she didn't have very many teeth so instead I just said, "I guess of each other." grabbed my raspberry jam, and left.

I want to be a person of epic proportions.

I want to be a person of epic proportions. After today, I know this for certain, though I know with the same amount of certainty that that is just not in my personality. I do not live large. I'm too subdued, too interested in other people's lives, whether fictional or otherwise. Too modern, I sometimes think. Like Minniver Cheevey, born too late.

Today I went with my mother and great aunt and uncle to visit my great-aunt's oldest friend, Allen. She has a summer cottage that is one room with bunks, perched on the rocks above the water. It is beautiful and quaint and enchanting and old-worldy in the best possible way. And so is she. There is a lot of lore about Allen. I'd like to be the sort of person about whom there is a lot of lore. She is always planning to come up to Maine, but never actually does, so I couldn't quite believe it when my mother came home and told me that she was going to tea with Allen, and would I like to come. I, of course, wanted to meet this mythic figure, and the actual person was not disappointing given the stories. I do not mean that she is seven feet tall and breathes fire, nor was she dressed particularly glamourously. She was dressed in her "Gloria Vanderbilt" jeans as she called them (with a reference to how whenever she sees Anderson Cooper, she thinks 'I'm wearing his mother's jeans.' She then proceeded to say "I met Gloria Vanderbilt once."), a shirt with rips in it and no bra over which she then put an old sweater, and no shoes. While she can be described as witty and exciting and fun, it could also be said that she is an old woman with an over-fondness for cats and her slightly skewed memory of her dead husband Max. She is delightfully real, while simultaneously being more interesting than I could ever hope to be.

We sat in the cabin as she and my Great Aunt Penny recounted marvelous food-related experiences they had including escaping Harvard boyfriends and fleeing to a cabin where they made pineapple upside-down cake over a fire and camped in france where they ate delicious french food out of a can and drank bourbon. Why isn't this my life?

They also discussed a trip to the Soviet Union they took in the 70s when they would steal food from their hotel and shove it into their purses so that they could picnic for lunch and not sit in restaurants for hours waiting for non-existent food. When the trains were beautiful and there were stores selling one tomato and that was it, and they brought tang because it was the only way to get vitamin C and mixed it with Vodka. Where there were restaurants with names that translated into English were things like 'The Garden of Fireplaces' and people were always trying to separate them so that Allen and Max got to look at the Old City in Tallinn and Aunt Penny wasn't allowed to leading her to sit on a curb and sob. They would have picnics in fields full of wildflowers and gaze at beautiful churches.

Glamourous Allen married glamourous Max and they lived in Greenwich Village, and then in various amazing flats in London and Paris and a rented chalet in Switzerland near Montreux. They drove around in a little car, and my mother always had a fantastically fun time whenever she visited them. She speaks wittily and writes wittily and lives wittily. They never had money, but they house sat or stayed in friends' places, and they always were the most amazing places. There just are people like that. And I want to be one of them. I have for a while, but today just solidified that. It almost feels like the world is too full of people for life like that to happen now. And we can't just repeat ourselves--I need to find a different way to be fascinating. But that is what I want--not humdrum today. Maybe in fifty years nowadays will seem as charming as her life does to me now. Things always look better in retrospect, not because you realize mistakes, but just because they do.

It's like a conversation I had recently with my friend Beah in which we discussed how we'd like to be enigmatic. But we decided that we aren't aloof enough. We like talking and emotions too much. Allen somehow manages to be both real and larger-than-life, and that's what I want. But I think I read too much. I spend too much time in other worlds. And I don't have that personality. Neither do my great aunt nor my mother, but they spent time with her, and had entirely other lives as well, and that sounds pretty good as well.

Um, hello again!

So, today, August 2nd, I went to check the blogs I read after being off the internet for the last few days, and realized that they're all doing BEDA, and I once tried and failed at that. It felt so recent, but in fact was four months ago. So strange. But I'm going to try again, and yes I do realize  that I've already sort of failed, and that I'm not doing anything that interesting this month, but still. I'm going to try. I'm also going to try to write blog posts that are less shit, frankly. Like, stop rambling.

Since April, I have:

--Chosen my institution of higher learning of choice
--Questioned that decision
--Read excellent and difficult literature, but always slightly behind schedule
--Learned about a profession I knew nothing about (research librarian)
--Did valuable and rewarding community service for the first time in my life
--Went to Ireland and learned more about my family
--Went to Ireland and had amazing and near-indescribable book-related experiences
--Gave a speech of gratitude about someone I dislike and for whom I am not grateful
--Had lunch with a teacher from high school outside of a school setting for the first time in my life
--graduated from high school
--learned about my friends' insecurities
--celebrated Bloomsday
--listened as friends talked openly about subjects I cannot discuss
--seen Midnight in Paris, The Perfect Score, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Captain America, Burlesque, High School Musical 3, V for Vendetta, and Labyrinth with my friends.
--baked a cake sort of for a teachers' birthday
--met an important but non-boyfriend boy of one of my best friends
--saw a friend I hadn't seen in four years
--went to a Gatsby-ian family reunion.

In a month and a half, I begin college. This month is for reading, instructive and not, thinking, working on my novel, being productive in some way, and perhaps blogging. A lot has happened in four months. I don't know if I've grown up considerably, but I've experienced many things, many of which were more complicated than what I had experienced before.