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FEEDBACK!!!!!! (Please)
1 min read
The title really says it, but I'll elaborate; I would really like some feedback. Really. So long as it is actually constructive. (i.e. If you think I suck, that's fine; but, if you're going to make that your comment then you have to say what needs improving, how, and why.) I love to draw, and am game to try new media, but any suggestions on how to do things more smoothly or effectively would be grand. Most of the time I really feel like I have no idea what the heck I'm doing. If you've read this and give criticisms, then thank you.
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This will all be funny later, right?
2 min read
More street theatre occurred as someone pulled the fire alarm in our building at 2am, Sunday morning. If it had been Monday, I think the residents would have formed a lynch mob. Most of them looked like they were ready to consider it anyway. I'm reasonably certain there was no fire despite the presence of the big, flashing fire truck, as the firemen were in no apparent hurry and an incredibly inebriated woman--drunk or high, I don't know--was being "escorted" to a nearby police vehicle while yelling and attempting repeatedly to kick her escorts. This may have had nothing to do with the fire alarm, but as there was an unused fire extinguisher on the pavement beside where she was previously standing, I doubt it.
One thing amazed me: the number of people who stood on their balconies, looking at the fire truck instead of getting out of the building. There wasn't a fire, but they had no way of knowing that when the alarm went off. Given how fast a fire can spread, I'd rather look like an idiot standing on the pavement than being an idiot wondering if I should possibly get out of the building.
Another bit of irony: this is the most rigidly, almost paranoiacally, secure building I have ever lived in, but it is the one in which I have had the most incidents. The other was being stuck in an elevator with an angry, screaming, drunken, severely bleeding man who had clearly come out the wrong end of a fight. There was blood everywhere: floor, door, walls, even ceiling. From what I gathered, he'd protected a girl who was attacked at a party and was consequently jumped by several party-goers. While this meant he was probably less likely to hurt a girl (though I don't ever discount violence from irrational people), it does mean that there are a group of violent guys living in the building and I don't know who they are. That's disconcerting. I've probably ranted about this before.
It's been a bit crazy.
One thing amazed me: the number of people who stood on their balconies, looking at the fire truck instead of getting out of the building. There wasn't a fire, but they had no way of knowing that when the alarm went off. Given how fast a fire can spread, I'd rather look like an idiot standing on the pavement than being an idiot wondering if I should possibly get out of the building.
Another bit of irony: this is the most rigidly, almost paranoiacally, secure building I have ever lived in, but it is the one in which I have had the most incidents. The other was being stuck in an elevator with an angry, screaming, drunken, severely bleeding man who had clearly come out the wrong end of a fight. There was blood everywhere: floor, door, walls, even ceiling. From what I gathered, he'd protected a girl who was attacked at a party and was consequently jumped by several party-goers. While this meant he was probably less likely to hurt a girl (though I don't ever discount violence from irrational people), it does mean that there are a group of violent guys living in the building and I don't know who they are. That's disconcerting. I've probably ranted about this before.
It's been a bit crazy.
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Quotes. Just Quotes...Mostly.
6 min read
I like to read. Anyone who knows me also knows that this is an understatement. I read a lot. In doing so, I have collected a number of quotes; but, I didn't get them from reading alone: things people say in passing, in-jokes, T.V. shows, movies. They've accumulated quickly. Some are funny, some are beautiful, some are weird, and some of them make me think.
"Men plan. Fate laughs." --Jim Butcher
"Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade,--all of the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design." --Kakuzo Okakura (Yes. I understand the irony of reading this in a translation.)
"Interesting. You're afraid of insects and women. Ladybugs must render you catatonic."--The Big Bang Theory
"We cross out bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and a presumption that once our eyes watered." --Tom Stoppard
"There are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know that we don't know."--Don Rumsfield
Dear Optimist, Pessimist, and Realist,
While you guys were busy arguing about the glass of water, I drank it.
Sincerely,
The Opportunist
--? I have no idea who wrote that.
"Myths, according to Freud's view, are of the psychological order of dream. Myths, so to say, are public dreams; dreams are private myths."--Joseph Campbell
"All that is valuable in human society depends on the opportunity for development accorded the individual."--Albert Einstein
"Their books are also different. Works of fiction contain a single plot with all its imaginable permutations. Those of a philosophical nature invariably include both the thesis and the antithesis, the rigorous pro and con of a doctrine. A book which does not contain its counterbook is considered incomplete."--Jorge Luis Borges (from "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")
"Books are where things are explained to you, life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives that they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own." --Julian Barnes (from Flaubert's Parrot)
"'Well,' continued Miss Pedlington, 'Margot has her heart's desire at last. I wonder if she is really happy--I wonder if any of us are really happy when we obtain our heart's desire.'
'I don't think one aught to want anything too much,' I remarked, 'for fear of getting it.' The idea came to me quite suddenly, looking at Graham.
'Oh, please say that again!' cried Miss Pedlington. 'I must have it for my commonplace-book. Is that a quotation? To want a thing too much is to be sure of getting it! Too true!'"
--Sara Jeanette Duncan (from Cousin Cinderella)
"We should rank our beliefs not by plausibility but by the harm they may cause."--Nicholas Taleb
"Under cherry trees there are no strangers."--Japanese proverb
"It is fatal to bring too much imagination into matters of sentiment--they are imaginative enough in themselves."--Sara Jeanette Duncan (from Cousin Cinderella)
"You can only talk to everybody you know; that's what keeping a secret is all about." --can't give the name here, but it's out of the mouth of a four-year-old I know.
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal."--Firefly
"Neither modern science nor ancient religion believes in complete free thought."--G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind." --G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"What you do blurs over what you did before." --John Fowles (from The Collector)
"No one who does not have a white cane, or a seeing eye dog will admit to blindness. Yet there is no blindness or deafness as strong as that which takes place within the emotional self. --Anais Nin (from Stella)
"[...]those that love the world serve it in action[...]" --W.B. Yeats (from "Ego Dominus Tuus")
"Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainly means one of two things--pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people."--G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered it was orthodoxy."--G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
--Alfred Lord Tennyson (from "Ulysses")
"The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason."--G. K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"I'd be unstoppable if not for law enforcement and physics."--?
"I do have a recurring dream. It has to do with exploring this endless succession of rooms that are empty; and, going from one to the next then feeling hopelessly abandoned, and lonely, and unable to find anyone else. That's a pretty good description of death. Death is supposed to be a finality but it's actually a loss of everyone you care about. I do have fantasies sometimes about dying, about what people must feel like when they're dying or what I would feel like if I were dying; and, it's such a profoundly sad, lonely feeling that I really can't bear it and so I go back to thinking about how I'm not going to die."--Ray Kuzweil (from the documentary Transcendent Man)
"Get us out of here before they start to realize you're not God, you're just an American."--Biggle's Adventures in Time
This last one has inappropriate language content. Fair warning for the easily offended or the under-aged:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, in order to reach an R-rating today, a motion picture must contain full frontal nudity, graphic violence, or an explicit reference to the sex act. Since this film has none of those, and since research has proven that R-rated films are by far the most popular with the movie-going public, the producers of this motion picture have asked me to take this opportunity to say, 'Fuck you.'" --Student Bodies
"Men plan. Fate laughs." --Jim Butcher
"Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade,--all of the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design." --Kakuzo Okakura (Yes. I understand the irony of reading this in a translation.)
"Interesting. You're afraid of insects and women. Ladybugs must render you catatonic."--The Big Bang Theory
"We cross out bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and a presumption that once our eyes watered." --Tom Stoppard
"There are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know that we don't know."--Don Rumsfield
Dear Optimist, Pessimist, and Realist,
While you guys were busy arguing about the glass of water, I drank it.
Sincerely,
The Opportunist
--? I have no idea who wrote that.
"Myths, according to Freud's view, are of the psychological order of dream. Myths, so to say, are public dreams; dreams are private myths."--Joseph Campbell
"All that is valuable in human society depends on the opportunity for development accorded the individual."--Albert Einstein
"Their books are also different. Works of fiction contain a single plot with all its imaginable permutations. Those of a philosophical nature invariably include both the thesis and the antithesis, the rigorous pro and con of a doctrine. A book which does not contain its counterbook is considered incomplete."--Jorge Luis Borges (from "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")
"Books are where things are explained to you, life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives that they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own." --Julian Barnes (from Flaubert's Parrot)
"'Well,' continued Miss Pedlington, 'Margot has her heart's desire at last. I wonder if she is really happy--I wonder if any of us are really happy when we obtain our heart's desire.'
'I don't think one aught to want anything too much,' I remarked, 'for fear of getting it.' The idea came to me quite suddenly, looking at Graham.
'Oh, please say that again!' cried Miss Pedlington. 'I must have it for my commonplace-book. Is that a quotation? To want a thing too much is to be sure of getting it! Too true!'"
--Sara Jeanette Duncan (from Cousin Cinderella)
"We should rank our beliefs not by plausibility but by the harm they may cause."--Nicholas Taleb
"Under cherry trees there are no strangers."--Japanese proverb
"It is fatal to bring too much imagination into matters of sentiment--they are imaginative enough in themselves."--Sara Jeanette Duncan (from Cousin Cinderella)
"You can only talk to everybody you know; that's what keeping a secret is all about." --can't give the name here, but it's out of the mouth of a four-year-old I know.
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal."--Firefly
"Neither modern science nor ancient religion believes in complete free thought."--G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind." --G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"What you do blurs over what you did before." --John Fowles (from The Collector)
"No one who does not have a white cane, or a seeing eye dog will admit to blindness. Yet there is no blindness or deafness as strong as that which takes place within the emotional self. --Anais Nin (from Stella)
"[...]those that love the world serve it in action[...]" --W.B. Yeats (from "Ego Dominus Tuus")
"Charity is a paradox, like modesty and courage. Stated baldly, charity certainly means one of two things--pardoning unpardonable acts, or loving unlovable people."--G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered it was orthodoxy."--G.K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
--Alfred Lord Tennyson (from "Ulysses")
"The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason."--G. K. Chesterton (from Orthodoxy)
"I'd be unstoppable if not for law enforcement and physics."--?
"I do have a recurring dream. It has to do with exploring this endless succession of rooms that are empty; and, going from one to the next then feeling hopelessly abandoned, and lonely, and unable to find anyone else. That's a pretty good description of death. Death is supposed to be a finality but it's actually a loss of everyone you care about. I do have fantasies sometimes about dying, about what people must feel like when they're dying or what I would feel like if I were dying; and, it's such a profoundly sad, lonely feeling that I really can't bear it and so I go back to thinking about how I'm not going to die."--Ray Kuzweil (from the documentary Transcendent Man)
"Get us out of here before they start to realize you're not God, you're just an American."--Biggle's Adventures in Time
This last one has inappropriate language content. Fair warning for the easily offended or the under-aged:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, in order to reach an R-rating today, a motion picture must contain full frontal nudity, graphic violence, or an explicit reference to the sex act. Since this film has none of those, and since research has proven that R-rated films are by far the most popular with the movie-going public, the producers of this motion picture have asked me to take this opportunity to say, 'Fuck you.'" --Student Bodies
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I remember when my friends and I used to collect large cardboard boxes to make monster forts. Every large box was an rare, exciting find. This all feels mildly ironic considering my husband and I are still living out of boxes despite having moved in over a month ago; and, I am wondering when, and how we are going to get rid of all of them. Space, I am learning, is an unaffordable premium. We are beginning to get inventive about where and how things are stored; and, every item is scrutinized as we wearily ask each other if we really need it; or, what the hell is in that box anyway? There are boxes in the kitchen, the closets, the bedroom, the bathrooms, in the living room, the office, under the sink. I think they replicate like tribbles. At least tribbles were cute. Even Spock wasn't immune.
Our new place is nice, higher up than the last one. I get vertigo when I look down off of the balcony, not that it stops me from repeatedly doing it. We have a nice mountain view. 180 degree panorama. Other than the unpacking conundrum, there has been a lot of highs and lows. On the upside: graduation. On the downside: graduation. I'm simultaneously elated and scared shitless. Everything is in that flux stage between waiting to hear back from the university whether or not they are clearing me for graduation, and trying to look for a job and figure out what exactly I need to do to kick-start the next stage of my life. And, what exactly can you do with an English Major anyway?
Our new place is nice, higher up than the last one. I get vertigo when I look down off of the balcony, not that it stops me from repeatedly doing it. We have a nice mountain view. 180 degree panorama. Other than the unpacking conundrum, there has been a lot of highs and lows. On the upside: graduation. On the downside: graduation. I'm simultaneously elated and scared shitless. Everything is in that flux stage between waiting to hear back from the university whether or not they are clearing me for graduation, and trying to look for a job and figure out what exactly I need to do to kick-start the next stage of my life. And, what exactly can you do with an English Major anyway?
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...No, no I don't...
1 min read
In answer to earlier query: no, no I don't have a life. I have no life, an immune system that is about as affective as a load-bearing wall made of tissue paper, chronic migraines, depression, and the suspicion that any day now my head may explode from sheer stress.
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