Into the Lens

but I wanted to thank you. I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about. We barely spoke for five minutes today. Our interactions were of more the silent, making faces through the "Secure Zone" glass. However, I've seen you in passing, and I know you've seen me. I honestly don't even know your name, but I wanted to thank you. There's something in those five minutes of discussing Transformers, and those hours of making faces that makes the fact that I said "I'm getting it for my roommate," instead of "my ex," that makes all the difference in the world. There's something in that laughing smile of yours, that makes me know that I'm going to be okay. I knew, mentally, that I was going to be okay; but you made me feel like I was going to be okay. I honestly don't even know your name, but I wanted to thank you. You showed me that even after three years I haven't forgotten how to be a flirt with those wonderful geeks that I like so much. You showed me that someone else will, and does, pay attention to me even when there are more convenient people to laugh with. You really did show me that I'm going to be okay.

I honestly don't even know your name, but I wanted to thank you.

Before


Between


End Result

Current Mood: thrilled

... I forgot to post this.

The next day has not officially begun until I have gone to sleep, or the sun has risen.

It has been a long time since this rule has been in effect, but today, it's back. For the first time in years, I saw the sun rise and it wasn't from the comfort of my couch, or even drunk and vomiting. The first time in years I get to witness the sun rising, it comes to me over the cha-ching of a cash register.

Black Friday is a hell hole.

Seriously, thank the Gods for my manager. See the nice man with the walkie, pointing over the crowd? Yeah, that's him. He was out there opening the doors at midnight to one of the only toy stores left in the area, and he stuck around to be sure that only 50 people at a time, with 30 second intervals were let into the store. He, the rest of management, and nighttime stocking had barricaded the cash registers with merchandise displays so that members of management could control how many people were in line, in direct contact with the cashiers at a time.

The numbers varied. Channel 8 said four hundred people stood outside the store I work in. Management estimated closer to one thousand. People began lining up on Thanksgiving night as early as seven thirty. The bulk of the waiters didn't appear until nine or ten, but the line was ridiculous. Cops were driving by every few minutes, and we actually called 911 to be sure we had crowd control when the store opened.

X Marks the Deals

See that craziness? There were people lined up from our store (the X), past the Wegmans, all the way past the furniture store. That's like .... half the plaza. I have something to say about the people that waited there for three, four, hours in that scary line:

Are you fucking insane?

... and now I'm too wired to sleep.
greeeeeat.

Current Mood: tired

Except for the dull blue glow radiating from his computer desk, the room was dark. Except for The Mars Volta playing from Winamp, the room was silent. He lay on the bed, face down, on top of the blankets his arms up over his head. The cat lay next to him, mooching off his body heat. They both heard me come in, and turned to face me blinking to adjust their eyes to the darkness. He smiled as I sat on the edge of the bed and Zelda stood up to greet me. I lay down with the cat wedged between our two bodies, my head on his arm. Zelda, beyond ecstatic that both her humans were cuddling with her was pacing in the small space between us, headbutting us intermittently. She finally settled on a spot to sleep, right in the middle of his back. He smiled at her, and before long all three of us were fast asleep.

We awoke, only fifteen minutes later, cold and shivering. Zelda moved to the blanket as I threw it over us. We didn't sleep any longer, but we continued to lie, side by side and talk in hushed tones. He held my hand, and I grasped his thumb under the pillow between us.

Current Mood: depressed

Through My Lens:

The Holocaust is a very popular theme to write about, as it's such an emotional part of the world's history. Every nation, every family, was touched by it in some way. However, when I picked up this book, I didn't even know that that was what it was about. I picked up this book because I read the first page and was immediately hooked:

"I'm awake.
Like flicking on a switch and flooding a room with light.
Snapping out of sleep, clicking into wakefulness, a perfectly functioning mind and body, six years old and a genius, first thought every morning when I wake up.
My brain floods into the world, the world floods into my brain,
I control and own every part of it.
Palm Sunday early G.G. here visiting Mom&Dad still asleep
A sunny Sunday sun sun sun sun king Sol Solly Solomon
I'm like sunlight, all-powerful, instantaneous and invisible, flowing effortlessly into the darkest corners of the universe


capable at six of seeing illuminating understanding everything"

This novel follows a family, backwards in time, through the eyes of the youngest member at the time, always six years old. Sol, in 2004: Randall, in 1982: Sadie, in 1962: Kristina between 1944 and 1945. Each child has a distinctive personality, and distinctive perspective on what goes on in their parent's lives and the world climate. One is incredibly disturbed, with a God complex. One is just a good, average kind of child. One is always feeling unclean and unworthy of anyone's love. One is learning a deep dark secret about the life being lived. All four generations are affected by the secret that Kristina learns in the last section of the novel, the fallout of her discovery is seen by the children with incredible clarity.

Whether Huston actually captures what goes on in a six year old's head is entirely up for debate because of the range of different personalities and how few of us remember what actually went on in our heads when we were that young. It doesn't matter. The novel is brilliantly written.

"It bothers me when during grace he asks God to protect Papa and Lothar from the enemy because there must be families in Russia asking God to protect their men from the enemy, too, only when they say the enemy they mean us, and in church when the priest tells us to pray for Hilter I think how people in Russian churches must be praying for their Guide, and I can just imagine God sitting up there in the clouds and seizing His head in both hands and trying to figure out how to make everyone happy and realising that unfortunately it's just not possible."

It's been years since a novel made me cry. This novel made me sob like a small child when the realizations of Kristina's life truly hit home. I may have figured it out earlier in the novel, but Kristina's emotions being ripped in many directions at once is truly heart wrenching. Her sense of loss is more than any six or seven year old child should ever be forced to endure.

The New York Times
The author who tells a story backward is taking a risk. After the reader has already pieced together its turning points and traumas, the emotional payoff may not be there at the end. Novice writers can use such gimmicks to bolster a shaky narrative, but happily that's not the case here. The events of Huston's novel…are strong enough to work just as well, if not better, when arranged chronologically, and the book rewards rereading.

Publishers Weekly
Winner of France's Prix Femina and shortlisted for the Orange Prize, Huston's 12th novel captures four generations of a family and examines the decades-long fallout of a dark family secret. The novel proceeds in reverse chronological order from 2004 to 1944 and begins with six-year-old Sol, who is sheltered and coddled by his mother as he immerses himself in all the perversities the Internet can offer. After surgery to remove Sol's congenital birthmark turns out poorly, the extended family takes a trip to great-grandmother Erra's childhood home in Munich. A turbulent history underlies the visit, and after Sol witnesses a tussle between his great-grandmother and great-aunt, the novel skips backwards in time through the childhood of Sol's father, Randall; grandmother Sadie; and finally Erra. Huston's brilliance is in how she gradually lets the reader in on the secret and draws out the revelation so carefully that by the time the reader arrives at the heart of the matter in Munich 1944, the discovery hits with blunt force. Huston masterfully links the 20th century's misery to 21st-century discomfort in razor-sharp portraits of children as they lose their innocence.

Library Journal
Huston (The Mark of an Angel), a Canadian by birth though she lives in Paris and writes in French, is perhaps at her most ambitious in this new novel. An award winner and best seller in France here translated by Huston herself, the book is divided into four sections, each narrated by a precocious six-year-old child from a different generation of the same Jewish family. The book begins in contemporary California and works its way back to World War II-era Germany. Each movement backward brings the reader closer to the ultimate family secret that unites the past with the present while demonstrating how the implications of one war directly inform the family's thinking about and participation in another-Iraq. At times the point of view is less than convincing, but in the end the multiple viewpoints are well handled and show how children are so often more aware of the poor behavior of adults than adults themselves. Recommended for all fiction collections.

When you hear about someone else's heartbreak it seems so easy. So simple. Hatred is something they should feel.

of course

I only pray for simplicity.
It'd be so easy.

Even friendship is so simple.
Easy. Fucking easy.
This isn't friendship.

This isn't love.

This isn't hatred.

So tell me, fucking tell me.
What the fuck is this?

---

photo taken by xMelissa

So here's the deal, for those of you that don't know. I moved out of my parent's house, in New Jersey, three years ago. I moved to New York. On December 28th, I'm moving back. I never received New York residency, because my father was still claiming me on his taxes. I was okay with that, he financially supported me for 19 years, and there's only one year left where he still can legally claim me.

Yesterday, my parents got a summons for me, for Jury Duty on January 19th. Seeing as how I'm trying to keep my Jersey residency so that I can get in state tuition when I return to school down there - I'm not sure I'll be able to get out of it. I may be able to claim hardship, being that I only moved back to the state three weeks prior and that I have no car, so I'd have to rely on my parents to shuttle me to and from the courthouse and there's no way of knowing how long I'd be there each time. Honestly, though I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of it. Fuck, I'll be lucky if I get the form in time to resend it down there!

FUCK. My mother just called. She spoke to the people on the Questions line and they told her that if I want to keep my residency I need to go in.

I decided to walk to class yesterday. I can usually find a ride, but seeing as how I had Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, I was feeling kind of gross. I turned on my ipod classic, and the battery was completely dead. Fuck. So I started to charge it. A half hour later, the screen hadn't changed at all, so I unplugged it and the screen stayed the same. Frozen. Fuck. Restart the ipod. Plug it back into the computer. "Please Restore your ipod." The ipod itself was charging from a screen that I had never seen before. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 40GB of music - completely wiped. Thank the Gods it all came from my computer. I got a few artists re-uploaded to the ipod before I had to leave, at least.

On my way to class I stopped because there was a car wrapped around a tree and three college-aged boys standing around looking confused. I was almost late for my class in which I had an exam. Of course, the exam was postponed, even though I'd turned down an offer to go out because I needed to study.

So, my dad sent me this website today, notalwaysright.com. It's about bad customer service experiences where the customer was being ridiculous. It's pretty funny, actually.

Anywho. This website made me think of a particularly entertaining phone call I answered yesterday at work.

Through My Lens:

I found this novel in the book outlet. I love that store because it's all publisher overstock, so sometimes you find amazing novels that were just never heard of, and sometimes you find novels that at some point in time were huge sellers, but now have fizzled out and the publishers haven't adjusted yet. (Plus, every book is 70% off the cover price, all the time. How badass is that?) I picked up Get a Life, because it advertises right at the top that Gordimer had won the Nobel Prize for literature. I've read things by a few other winners, and really enjoyed them so I assumed it would be a worthwhile buy.

The language of the first few chapters is provocative and drew me in immediately. Unfortunately, I didn't find the rest of the novel to be quite as drawing. The language and the writing style throughout is undeniably beautiful, and Gordimer is a unique writer.

However, I found the story severely lacking. The premise is interesting. Paul, undergoes radiation treatment for cancer, and must be confined at home for weeks afterwards because he is a danger for those that would come in contact with him. The back cover makes it sound like these weeks would be cause for an interesting dissection of humanity, illness, and who we ultimately are. Love, children, parents, the face we show the world, are all discussed in the novel. When all was said and done, it just felt awkward. The language was beautiful, but the story felt forced upon the language.

From the Publisher
Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer follows the inner lives of characters confronted by unforeseen circumstances. Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa, believes he understands the trajectory of his life, with the usual markers of vocation and marriage. But when he's diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery, prescribed treatment that will leave him radioactive—and for a period a danger to others—he begins to question, as Auden wrote, "what Authority gives / existence its surprise." As Paul recuperates in the garden of his childhood home, he enters an unthinkable existence and another kind of illumination—a process that will irrevocably change not only his life but the lives of his wife and parents. BACKCOVER: "More profound, more searching, more accomplished than what she was writing earlier in her long and distinguished career."
—Los Angeles Times

"Nadine Gordimer's work is endowed with an emotional genius so palpable one experiences it like a finger pressing steadily upon the prose."
—The Village Voice

"A timely novel and a provocative one: a novel to enjoy and ponder, as its characters all do, the dizzying complications inherent in human choice."
—The Washington Times

"I will always be grateful for the presence in the world of Nadine Gordimer, who has delivered in literature a South Africa most of us could not have known without her."
—Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe

Kirkus Review
The 1991 Nobel winner's 14th novel is one of her most provocative books: an unsparing analysis of the permutations-and ramifications-of commitment and fidelity, endangerment and survival. Its initial crisis is the personal one afflicting 30ish white South African Paul Bannerman, an ecologist dedicated to protecting the pristine African environment from commercial overdevelopment. Diagnosed with malignant thyroid cancer, Bannerman is treated with a "destructive [chemical] substance" that renders him temporarily radioactive, removing him from contact with his wife Berenice ("Benni") and young son and placing him under a kind of benign house arrest in the home of his still-nurturing parents Lyndsay and Adrian. Gordimer employs this confinement as a stage for revelations of her major characters' contrasted and intertwined professional and personal lives. Benni is a successful advertising copywriter, whose clients include commercial enterprises her husband opposes. Paul's father Adrian is a retired businessman with a passion for archaeology left unrequited during the early years of his long marriage to Lyndsay, who is still, in her 60s, a busy civil-rights lawyer. Gordimer has a tendency to tip her hand, and spell out themes (e.g., Benni's lament "why must her man take on the survival of the whole bloody world, and now himself a threatened species?"). But her terse, slashing prose compels attention, and she shares Saul Bellow's ability to make discursive commentary vividly dramatic. And as the novel's initially simple plot cunningly exfoliates, Paul's re-entry into the world of family and work encounters ironic complications, as does his parents' seemingly rock-like marriage, which enduresseparation, failed communication and-in an irony worthy of Sophocles-Lyndsay's accession to a judgeship. Yes, this is a talky novel, but if the conscience of South Africa hasn't earned the right to have her say, who has?One of our great writers at her challenging, blistering best. Mandatory reading.

I froze, halfway down the Thomas the Tank Engine isle. I knew that voice, if only I could place it. I spun on my heels to face that voice. Towering over me was a boy, darker, maybe Hispanic, with just the trace of a mustache on his upper lip. I grinned and pointed, as I placed him. "Angel!" His mother turned, startled that someone other than she was calling her son's name. "I was at camp with you this summer!" I was beyond thrilled to see him. Regardless of the fact that he had been something of a problem camper, anything that reminds me of Sunshine Camp is a welcome distraction from the day to day. He was looking at me, with his mouth half open. I think I was scaring him a little. "You have no idea who I am, do you?" At least his mother lightened up, as soon as I said 'camp.' He shook his head and backed away. "Alright, dude. I'll see you next year hopefully."

Six children, four boys and two girls, somewhere between two years of age and eleven years stormed the register. Their hair was a shade or two off from red, except the youngest girl who was a full blooded ginger. They were being herded by a woman who was perhaps only four foot six, and a rather tall man whose cheek was slashed with scars. The giggles and shrieks of his children surrounded him, and though he was a quiet man, his children played around and with him while he bought their cousins Christmas gifts. As he surrendered his cash, and revealed his hand, I couldn't help but giggle. A very faded tattoo was on his right hand, covering his knuckles. It read "PAIN."

He tottled up to the register, a transformers wallet clutched in his left hand and a FisherPrice Transformers toy in his right. "Escuse me?" He waited patiently for me to finish speaking to the man whose gift card wasn't cooperating. "Escuse me? Can you tell me how much this is? How many of these do you need?" He opened his wallet and threw a handful of money onto the counter.

Current Mood: exhausted

"Do you want to dance?"

"Sure." We had taken 'classes' in our gym classes to prelude the first school dance of our middle school career. I was amazed that this kid had asked. We'd never really gotten along, but we'd never not gotten along either.

"Just kidding!"

[[okay, I haven't changed that much]]

Unlike a lot of the stories I've been reading on Xanga, I did have friends - the some of the best fucking friends I've ever had in fact (that went up in smoke during high school, but that's another story). The problem was that they were just as awkward and outcasted as I was. I remember being voted leader of my straggly group in the seventh grade. Basically, I was queen of the losers.

[[ah, the good times at the lunch table]]

---

"How far have you gotten?"

"What do you mean?" We were supposed to be participating in a 'get to know you' activity in our language class.

He burst into laughter. "Hey, dude. Listen to this!" He turned back towards me, "How far have you gotten?"

I turned bright red as I realized what he was saying to me.

---

I've blocked out a majority of the incidents of bullying. It's not always good for me to pull those things out of my brain. I don't want to remember the more intense incidents. The momentary ones are bad enough. They still make me feel ashamed of being me.

My height, my weight, my inexperience (sexually, and otherwise), my clothes, my face, my smile - none of it was exempt from comment from my peers. I was an assumed anorexic, but whenever anyone saw me eat I was considered a fat slob. I didn't have a boyfriend until I turned 18, that was cause for ridicule. I wore sweat pants and despised jeans, so I was homeless and my mother dressed me every morning.

---

"You three are Satan and his minions!"

I was so proud of that exclamation, of that reputation. It was how I protected myself. It was how I kept the insults from penetrating my shell. Most of the bullies that bothered me were male. I learned very quickly that I could hurt them physically far more than they could hurt me mentally. I took to wearing combat boots; my mother thought I was just going 'goth.' A good sharp kick would leave them writhing on the floor in the middle of the library and give me the satisfaction of being able to keep my head held high while I stalked away.

It wasn't until years later that I realized that by being bullied, my coping mechanism was to become one myself. By the time I reached high school no one bothered me any longer. The boys were too afraid of being kicked and the girls, well, they never really bothered me to begin with and with dwindling interest from the men, the girls lost interest too.

For a long time I thought I had conquered my bullies. I think I actually became worse than they were.

I think I missed bully awareness week,
but I figured I'd share my story.

His face lit up with an innocent joy as he placed the Webkinz Fox and Bakugan cards on the counter. He meticulously counted out his quarters and nickels with a silly grin on his face. His ancient Pokemon shirt was threadbare and his jeans were torn from tumbles taken on his bicycle. He wore a sticker that read, 'Hello, my name is Joe.'

As the machine beeped, reading the barcode on the fox, his grin widened and he reached for the stuffed animal. "I'll take that now, please." Tucking the creature into his armpit, he continued to count out his quarters. The machine beeped again, adding the cards to his purchase. His math was impeccable. Before the computer even gave him the total, he knew what it was - tax and all.

"Have a nice day, Joe." His face, dirty from a long day of work at some minimum wage job seemed to split with the effort of smiling even wider than he already was smiling. He left, clutching the Webkinz in a suffocating embrace.

Through My Lens:

Tristam is basically a natural scientist. When he is asked to court to find out why a mysterious herb being used to keep the King alive is no longer producing seeds, he is drawn into a political battle that seems to revolve around himself. Of course, he has no idea what either side of this battle actually want from him, or what this herb does - though it seems to have addictive properties. It is a world without magic, however, Tristam seems to attract strange happenings where ever it is that he goes.

Fluff, fluff, and more fluff. This book was about 600 pages, and for every six pages there was only one that actually advanced the plot. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for detailed descriptions but when it's overbearing and the writing style isn't good enough to support it, it becomes boring. When one spends the entire novel wanting to cross out entire sections because it doesn't look like an Editor actually even glanced at the transcript, it doesn't bode well.

I was hoping for some more fantastical elements. The entire novel revolves around this strange political struggle that is not explained fully. It's hard to read, overly stuffed with useless information, and confusing. All in all, not a good novel - though it had some potential.

I will most certainly not be reading the rest of this series.

Publisher's Weekly
The compelling first volume in a series titled Moontide and Magic Rise bodes well for the ones to follow. Russell (The Initiate Brother) introduces Farrland, a world similar to our own but caught in a struggle between magic and science. The story follows the adventures of Tristam Flattery, who epitomizes this conflict and holds the key to Farrland's destiny. A young man well known as a botanist and naturalist, Tristam constantly endeavors to free himself from any affiliation with magic. This is fruitless, considering that he was raised by his great uncle Erasmus, the last of the great mages. Summoned by Roderick Palle to help the king, Tristam discovers Kingsfoil, a plant that can cure disease and prolong life; unfortunately, the plant itself is ailing. Roderick, the king, and the Duchess of Morland believe that Tristam's physic powers will revitalize the plant. When this fails, Tristam, the duchess and a band of wily sailors start out for Varua, the home of Kingsfoil. What follows is an incredible adventure at sea during which Tristam's special powers become increasingly evident, saving the wayfarers' lives and leading them to archeological treasures. A spectacular beginning of what is sure to be a successful fantasy series.

The soft fabric digs at my chewed at fingertips.  The scent of mothballs, dried sweat, and stale closet air wafts through my nose.  Stacks of clothing surround me, each piece with it's own set of memories.

Yes, we chase our tail inside a mutilated laundry basket.

Well, I typed up the first 8 or 9 pages of my unofficial Nanowrimo.  It brings me to about 2,000 words, give or take.  I certainly won't hit 50,000 words before November is over, but I'll be excited if I last after the first week.  I usually don't.  Of course, still no editing, except when I come across a sentence that just really makes no sense.  I'll edit later - get rid of the fluff and fix the 8 billion tense problems.

[[Snippet]]
"She stepped onto the narrow platform, placing her hand on the cold metal barrier. The door swung quietly closed behind her.  The scent of old chlorine still penetrated through the room. The pool had been covered by concrete years before, but if one closed their eyes, they could still imagine the huge score board full of the names, times, and ranks of the best swimmers on the team. She closed her eyes. Leaving one hand on the railing, she reached her other hand back behind her, towards the pale blue tiles on the wall behind her. Leaning her back against the chilly tiles, she slid all the way down until she was sitting on the floor, knees touched her chin and she grasped at her ankles."

[[Snippet]]
"Grabbing her cellphone and the keys to the room, she closed the door and went down the hall towards the stairs. She had to go quietly and quickly, peering in at Kay and willing her not to look up. She didn't want to answer any questions about where she'd been or where she was going. She knew Kay wouldn't approve of either answer.

She walked down the stairs thinking that one of these nights she was going to choose the wrong night to come down here and he was going to be with another woman. I just hope it's not tonight, she prayed. She knocked softly on door, which swung open at her light touch. Well, that's probably a good sign that he's alone or that his roommate is home tonight. His roommate being home amounted to the same thing. He'd be alone. She inhaled deeply the scent of dried Axe deodorant and unwashed clothing. There was something comforting about how constant that scent was, in every straight boys' dorm room, she had ever visited. Soft snoring came from his roommate's bed. Granted, that was usually during the day, and not at four thirty in the morning. She smiled to herself at the sound of the snoring, remembering the morning she had woken up after Devin had left for class and teased … Oh, what's his name? … about his snoring."