We were with Tidbit.
"She was at the edge of the bed, about to jump off."
"She ought to be whipped." I said. "Flayed. Filleted. Pressed. Stretched. Scavenger's Daughtered. Drawn and Quartered. Boiled in Oil." Euthanized.
"You've been reading too many books."
"Alright, Tidbit. Go night night."
That's what we said to Tootsie, as we walked away.
"Go night night..."
"It'll get easier."
"I know."
"It's barely been a day."
"I know."
"I know you love deep."
Yes, I think that's so. I think I love too easily and too hard, too fast. It makes me vulnerable. It's by god's grace alone that I haven't seen more tragedy on so broad a field.
Perhaps for some people the heart is closer to the surface. Their shadows can escape.
Or maybe I'm just being vain.
May 31, 2006
Rest In Peace
I realize that I still have little to be sad about, compared with people who have lost so much. But the truth of the matter is that I used to have nothing to be sad about, and that this monthe began and ended with the first two heartbreaks of my life, and now I just want the crying and the hurt to be over.
Yesterday I had to put down I had to put my 8 year old Miniature Dachshund, Tootsie. I said goodbye to her and left; she's long gone by now. I won't bog you down with all the details, but she was fragile almost from birth, and her back gave out last fall. After surgery, she did alright for awhile, but had gone downhill lately, passed her recovery time. She was a good, sweet little dog, and we'll all miss her.
It hurts, but right now I just hope she's in a better place, although calling it without it being a black or white issue (like if she had really been in pain or paralyzed) was hard. And I'm glad to still have Tidbit; Tootsie was really my dad's dog, Tidbit's my baby.
It was a long goodbye, but telling them to end it was still hard.
Rest in Peace, Tootsie Roll Metheny.
Yesterday I had to put down I had to put my 8 year old Miniature Dachshund, Tootsie. I said goodbye to her and left; she's long gone by now. I won't bog you down with all the details, but she was fragile almost from birth, and her back gave out last fall. After surgery, she did alright for awhile, but had gone downhill lately, passed her recovery time. She was a good, sweet little dog, and we'll all miss her.
It hurts, but right now I just hope she's in a better place, although calling it without it being a black or white issue (like if she had really been in pain or paralyzed) was hard. And I'm glad to still have Tidbit; Tootsie was really my dad's dog, Tidbit's my baby.
It was a long goodbye, but telling them to end it was still hard.
Rest in Peace, Tootsie Roll Metheny.
Tootsie with Cousin Brian (Christmas 2004)
May 30, 2006
Love and Grief
Think not over much upon your fondness of anything; possession, creature, or human – for if you do you will begin to cling to it, and your eyes fill with tears for imagined hurts and sorrows, and your love will turn to grief in your heart.
Whoa... It's Summer...
Where'd school go? It just sort of vanished without a trace... there was no worrying about finals this years, for instance. No borderline grades! 3 good, solid B's that would take either a miracle or a disaster to change, 1 Golden and Shining H, and 3 A's to sort of round things out. Last year I got one more A (Damn the change in History teacher...), but I also got a C (Thank god I switched Math teachers). So, that's how it goes. The only grade I'm really dissappointed by is Biology. 89.3... that burns. It does. But, I really don't think I deserved an A. Well, I'm not sure. I just didn't expect one, at all. Thats what I mean. Ah! Confusing! I wish I had just known it was a B, no more questions...
Anyhow, for better or for worse, it's over... Sophomore year's behind me, and I'm feeling like a walking talking paradox. I feel at once empowered and enslaved; I'm free from school, and this is my last summer without working. At the same time, I still live with my parents, and... bah. Things all seem too close and too far away. Then every once in a while I still feel young and naive and pathetic, but that's fading, and I've been feeling old! Bah, I must have some sort of complex, I think. But I'll be an upperclassman in the fall... and just the other day I was a Freshman...
The mood today was not really rejoicing like in past years, nor was it full denial... it was kind of shock, like "Hwoah... It's summer... We're upperclassmen..." I asked Andrew how we got so old, and he said, "I Blame Wendy!" So, I guess we're still younger than I thought. I mean, after all we had riots on the bus about taking pictures. Crazy kids. And the Freshmen... they were bad enough at the bottom, but now they'll be Sophomores and think they're all that, and the upcoming Freshman are the famous Siphilis Sixth Graders. We'll be clinging to the... my god, they'll be Seniors now. And then they'll leave early, that'll be rough. I'm seeing my life flash in front of me here!
Good Morning Summer! Tomorrow I'll clean my room from top to bottom, make some apple cider, and go sit on the hammock, and maybe write. Goal 1, after all, is to Tame the Seven Headed Dragon... Yeah, I'll need to start on that.
Anyhow, for better or for worse, it's over... Sophomore year's behind me, and I'm feeling like a walking talking paradox. I feel at once empowered and enslaved; I'm free from school, and this is my last summer without working. At the same time, I still live with my parents, and... bah. Things all seem too close and too far away. Then every once in a while I still feel young and naive and pathetic, but that's fading, and I've been feeling old! Bah, I must have some sort of complex, I think. But I'll be an upperclassman in the fall... and just the other day I was a Freshman...
The mood today was not really rejoicing like in past years, nor was it full denial... it was kind of shock, like "Hwoah... It's summer... We're upperclassmen..." I asked Andrew how we got so old, and he said, "I Blame Wendy!" So, I guess we're still younger than I thought. I mean, after all we had riots on the bus about taking pictures. Crazy kids. And the Freshmen... they were bad enough at the bottom, but now they'll be Sophomores and think they're all that, and the upcoming Freshman are the famous Siphilis Sixth Graders. We'll be clinging to the... my god, they'll be Seniors now. And then they'll leave early, that'll be rough. I'm seeing my life flash in front of me here!
Good Morning Summer! Tomorrow I'll clean my room from top to bottom, make some apple cider, and go sit on the hammock, and maybe write. Goal 1, after all, is to Tame the Seven Headed Dragon... Yeah, I'll need to start on that.
May 29, 2006
May 22, 2006
An Evening at Tuckaho
A lot happens in a single evening at Tuckaho.
Time slows down. The things that so bothered you before are still present, but distant and faded. A wasp nest on the porch, a spider by your bed, it's no big deal. Move slowly. Do what you must for the day. Get up with the sunshine. Change exposed to the cool morning air. Feel the temperature move through you like you might as well not be there.
Off colour and cold bagels with peanut butter suddenly taste delicious, they taste fine.
There's a little field right outside the woods, with ivy and trees framing a glimpse of it. The grass is pale green and covered in dew, and there are several beautiful, pale gold bales of hay. When the morning mist goes through, it looks like a painting.
The trees are every colour of green. They arc above you like a Cathedral's great hall. I remember from Köln and Notre Dame, but suddenly that's long ago and far away. Suddenly I love my Missouri.
We sat at a picnic table and listened to the birds and the cicadas and crickets as the baton was slowly passed from spring unto summer. There's a glob of grape jelly on the mildewed wood. As we watch, a daddy longleg creeps towards it, watching us with shy and clustered eyes. We merely laugh as it advances towards the jelly. He's got a little sucker thing; it shoots out and sips up the jelly nanobit by nanobit. Entertainment for an hour. Roughly. However you reckon an hour.
We're sleeping in covered wagons. Four narrow bunks and an aisle in between. They're road worthy, believe it or not. Not just an oddly themed campsite. 25 years ago, a few of the older adults remember (as campers) the wagons being led in by real horses. Then they were laid out in a row for a few years, and you could run from one to another without touching the ground if you were good on your feet. Now they're traditionally placed around a campfire.
That's the closest to history we have, but wha'cha'gonna do? Antiquity isn't everything. Neither is the future. We think ten minutes ahead and ten seconds behind. I love camp.
Time slows down. The things that so bothered you before are still present, but distant and faded. A wasp nest on the porch, a spider by your bed, it's no big deal. Move slowly. Do what you must for the day. Get up with the sunshine. Change exposed to the cool morning air. Feel the temperature move through you like you might as well not be there.
Off colour and cold bagels with peanut butter suddenly taste delicious, they taste fine.
There's a little field right outside the woods, with ivy and trees framing a glimpse of it. The grass is pale green and covered in dew, and there are several beautiful, pale gold bales of hay. When the morning mist goes through, it looks like a painting.
The trees are every colour of green. They arc above you like a Cathedral's great hall. I remember from Köln and Notre Dame, but suddenly that's long ago and far away. Suddenly I love my Missouri.
We sat at a picnic table and listened to the birds and the cicadas and crickets as the baton was slowly passed from spring unto summer. There's a glob of grape jelly on the mildewed wood. As we watch, a daddy longleg creeps towards it, watching us with shy and clustered eyes. We merely laugh as it advances towards the jelly. He's got a little sucker thing; it shoots out and sips up the jelly nanobit by nanobit. Entertainment for an hour. Roughly. However you reckon an hour.
We're sleeping in covered wagons. Four narrow bunks and an aisle in between. They're road worthy, believe it or not. Not just an oddly themed campsite. 25 years ago, a few of the older adults remember (as campers) the wagons being led in by real horses. Then they were laid out in a row for a few years, and you could run from one to another without touching the ground if you were good on your feet. Now they're traditionally placed around a campfire.
That's the closest to history we have, but wha'cha'gonna do? Antiquity isn't everything. Neither is the future. We think ten minutes ahead and ten seconds behind. I love camp.
May 21, 2006
Indio
哀しい歌をふいに思い出した
夏の毛布にもぐり込んだ夜なのに
冷たい雨に足を速めても
失くしたものに届かないと泣いていた 君の歌
家に帰る道では指を離ずに
遠い電車の音 優しい海鳴りに変えた
二人で
子供の頃に読んだIndioの南え
船の出る時間を二人ではら、書いたノート
乾いた風に翳り無い大陽
幻の大地を私だけが彷徨ってる 今も
君のくれたもの忘れたくなくて
遠い海鳴りに耳を澄ます
一人で
(Suddenly, I remembered a sad song
Though it was night, I went underwater in the blanket of summer
Even if I had quicken my pace in the cold rain,
I would cry if I didn't find something I lost... your song.
In the way back home, without releasing your fingers in my mind,
The sound of the distant train changed into a gentle sea rumbling, Together with us.
I called out for you when I was a child, toward Indio's south
We were together before the ship left, then I wrote on my notebook
The sun was not clouded, in that dry wind.
Only I am wandering through the illusionary land, even now
I don't wanna forget what you haven given me,
And I'll listen carefully to the sea rumbling far away
On my own)
Vocabulary Change
"In some languages of the Pacific, using the name of a deceased chief is taboo. Amongst Australian Aboriginal people, it was forbidden to ever use the name or image of the deceased, so that today the Australian Broadcasting Commission publishes an apology to indigenous people for using names or images of people who have recently died. Since people are often named after everyday things, this leads to the swift development of euphemisms. These languages have a very high rate of vocabulary change. (Dyen, Isidore, A. T. James & J. W. L. Cole. 1967. Language divergence and estimated word retention rate. Language 43/1: 150-171.)"
- Wikipedia
- Wikipedia
Somebody to Love You
We go out to fold up the pool cover for the summer. It's sunny and hot. Not sunny and hot enough to do fun things like swim, just enough to make you uncomfortable and squinty and wish you had sunscreen. I'm kneeling bare legged in the grass and the itchies are crawling up their smooth shaved surfaces and making me want to scratch like crazy. The parents are playing music.
You need a job so you can make some moneyMy dad's working with the hose and it goes through the fence and pins me against the ivy covered hill in my attempt to stay dry. Mom sits there in her swimsuit drinking drink of the day and she's in a good mood. "It's summer!" She yells. Thanks for noticing.
You need a nice warm place to stay
A sense of humor cuz life is funny
A big stick to keep the wolves away
You need a car with good tires on it
And a right place to eat bar-b-que
A heavy duty set of jumper cables
No holes in your walkin shoes
The main thing you going to find you need
A fertile place to plant the seed
You got to find somebody to love youShe's been a pill lately. Asking me why I couldn't have grown a few more inches. Telling me I might have to go to plus sizes in the children section if we can't find more size zeroes. The irony of a 90 pound plus size should amuse me, but she treats it like something to be ashamed of, like a punishment.
Someone who’ll be there for you night and day
Someone to share it with, and be part of you
Love ain’t no good until you give it away
You’ve got to give it away
I recommend you get some life insuranceShe tells me I have no good friends, never will. She says she wonders why I'm thin and pretty and funny and not even as selfish as I used to be and yet I have no friends. Well, I have lots of friends. Just no real close ones. No friends like the type she had in high school, that she still hops down to Memphis with occasionally. Then she tells me I have to dumb down if I want friends.
Be prepared to dial 911
Pay close attention to your high blood pressure
Stay away from the man with the gun
You need a reason to get up in the morning
Be sure your clocks got a snooze control
Be sure you got a place to run for cover now
Over night things can sure get cold
You going to find out sooner or later
You need a common denominator
You got to find somebody to love youI'm forced to consider the fact that her insults may be no sharper than before; it may simply be that I was once too strong to let them get to me. But that leaves me weak and vulnerable, and it's so self perpetuating. Stian, Tootsie, Mom, Finals. All in a deadly row. I keep trying to get on top of it. I know that someday, maybe in college, I'll find a place I belong. A place where I'm not only accepted, but wanted. But it seems a long way off sometimes.
Someone who’ll be there for you night and day
Someone to share it with, and be part of you
Love ain’t no good until you give it away
You’ve got to give it away
I feel like playing Grab Bag
Alright, so I have 33 language CD's, and I feel like taking out some of them. Now, I'm divided. Should I reinforce something I'm already learning, work on something useful, or go crazy and pick something random like Tibetan or Taglog or Zulu? Now, I'll warn you right now that this package includes most languages you would think of except Xhosa, Manx, Danish, Hawaiian, Papiamentu, Urdu, Icelandic and Welsh. And it doesn't have any Native American language either. So, tell me if you have a better idea than swinging my finger around and picking one!
Go on Strongly
I can finally put words to how much I love you. I love you more than I love us, and in the end, no matter how it hurts me, I want you to be happy. I want you to feel so good, even if it means I get the raw end of the deal - nothing. I want you to be as happy as you were with me, and thats more important than how you get there. So whether it's me after all (who knows, fate may bring us together again, in our college years) or someone entirely different (someone tall and beautiful and perfect for you), I'm confident that you'll find your place in the world. You're too amazing not to - the most amazing person I've ever known.
I don't know who's stronger anymore. Is it me for being stubborn and immovable, and holding against out little 'test of patience' with everything I had, or you for realizing that maybe not every test is worth passing, and that some things are hard to live without, but harder to live with?
We're young, so we should be wild and free. You don't deserve to be tied to a computer all summer with half the girls at your school beating a path to your door. So go on, go on strongly. But don't forget me, forget me or ever stop loving me for what I gave you, if half the things you said we're true. First love, confidence, courage, faith... you even claimed, once or twice, that I may have saved your life. You came out of this a stronger person, and I, perhaps, a weaker o ne. I can't think of a pillar of my life that hasn't been shaken since we ended our time together. But even so, I'm glad. So go on strongly.
I don't know who's stronger anymore. Is it me for being stubborn and immovable, and holding against out little 'test of patience' with everything I had, or you for realizing that maybe not every test is worth passing, and that some things are hard to live without, but harder to live with?
We're young, so we should be wild and free. You don't deserve to be tied to a computer all summer with half the girls at your school beating a path to your door. So go on, go on strongly. But don't forget me, forget me or ever stop loving me for what I gave you, if half the things you said we're true. First love, confidence, courage, faith... you even claimed, once or twice, that I may have saved your life. You came out of this a stronger person, and I, perhaps, a weaker o ne. I can't think of a pillar of my life that hasn't been shaken since we ended our time together. But even so, I'm glad. So go on strongly.
May 18, 2006
A Visit From the Sun
The sun woke me up yesterday morning. The birds sang as the sunbeams sifted through the window. They reached my eyelids a few minutes before the day met my ears, and I woke up happily, naturaly. I've learned a few things. Sometimes the sun doesn't stay for long. So I savoured it's visit.
May 15, 2006
Maternal Flip Out
Yesterday was Mother's Day. Mom came home with ice cream, we all ate it and played Tripoly and had a great time. Then she flipped out. Since then, she's been dictating every aspect of my life, and really going into hysterics if I try to debate anything. She's been saying that I've decided I can do "Whatever the hell I want" and that I "Don't do anything she asks me to do."
Example: Today she called me downstairs and told me to check the laundry to see if it was dry. I did so, it was still pretty damp, so she told me to put it on high and give it more time. 15 minutes later, she checks it and it's dry. She decides this means I was lying to avoid work, because it obviously couldn't have been wet fifteen minutes ago. So she decides I have to fold half of it, and my sister has to fold half of it. Fine. We start to fold. I've folded 2 out of the 3 pairs of Jeans when she yells at us to start folding in another room. No reason. We have to go in the living room where she's watching some sort of horrible horror thing I really do not feel up to. Then she really gets weird, yelling at me as my sister folds the last pair of jeans that I'm somehow making her do all the 'real' work. Then she tells Melissa to dump all the laundry out of the bucket and onto the ground. Melissa asks why, and she's just like "BECAUSE I SAID SO". I ask her why she's controlling every move we make, since it's actually getting to the point where it's impeding our progress. She tells me if I open my mouth again I'll lose my (self bought and paid for) cell phone for a monthe.
What am I supposed to do with her? Hopefully this will pass soon, but she's really gotten uncontrollable. I didn't even want to come home from school today, to be honest. o.O Normally, there's at least some sort of underlying reason that she's ticked at me or at life in general. I really don't know what that would be, I can only hope there is one, that she's not going as batty as her own mother is. (For reference, I have never been taken to meet her, and never will be.)
Example: Today she called me downstairs and told me to check the laundry to see if it was dry. I did so, it was still pretty damp, so she told me to put it on high and give it more time. 15 minutes later, she checks it and it's dry. She decides this means I was lying to avoid work, because it obviously couldn't have been wet fifteen minutes ago. So she decides I have to fold half of it, and my sister has to fold half of it. Fine. We start to fold. I've folded 2 out of the 3 pairs of Jeans when she yells at us to start folding in another room. No reason. We have to go in the living room where she's watching some sort of horrible horror thing I really do not feel up to. Then she really gets weird, yelling at me as my sister folds the last pair of jeans that I'm somehow making her do all the 'real' work. Then she tells Melissa to dump all the laundry out of the bucket and onto the ground. Melissa asks why, and she's just like "BECAUSE I SAID SO". I ask her why she's controlling every move we make, since it's actually getting to the point where it's impeding our progress. She tells me if I open my mouth again I'll lose my (self bought and paid for) cell phone for a monthe.
What am I supposed to do with her? Hopefully this will pass soon, but she's really gotten uncontrollable. I didn't even want to come home from school today, to be honest. o.O Normally, there's at least some sort of underlying reason that she's ticked at me or at life in general. I really don't know what that would be, I can only hope there is one, that she's not going as batty as her own mother is. (For reference, I have never been taken to meet her, and never will be.)
Normal? :P
Every once in a while, I feel like the path is hidden from me. The sun goes out and I cant find the way. But then it shines again, and I just try to keep going when the fog moves in. So what am I now? Not emo anymore, but not the sunny, indomitable Miranda of yesteryear. Am I normal? :P
May 14, 2006
And So it Came to Pass
And so it came to pass that Miranda's Emo Week subsided into her pit of eternal memory. I can't say I'm pleased with how things turned out, but I've come to terms with them. Two years, after all, is a long time when you are only sixteen. And I'm happy, because what I had can never be taken away; it was and always will be. I'll never forget my first love.
May 12, 2006
Happy Miranda Baby
Because I needed a happy post, and Smiling Babies = Happy. Normal me returns tomorrow, but I needed this as a bookend to my emo-ness. Yay for coherance and grammar. Ciao
! (In Sisterly combos, I am the one on the left.)
May 11, 2006
The Process of Elimination
The way I see it, there are three ways to live your life. You can live your life for the past, you can life your life for the present, or you can live your life for the future.
Living life for the past is clearly the worst option, looking objectively, but it is resiliently seductive. It's lame. It's like the poor Spanish woman that cries to go home and the has-been always searching for what he'll never be again. It doesn't make sense, but that robs it of none of it's potency. There are times we all live in the past. I'm as guilty of it as anyone. More so, even.
Living life for the future seems the most noble cause. But what future are you living for? Fame? Fortune? Family? Bettering the world, okay, but what will really stand the test of time? A thousand years from now, who will remember your goals, your ambitions, your desires? There are a select few of us, probably already hand picked by fate, who the world may remember. For the rest of us, forget our emotions; the world will have long forgotten our names, our faces, and our prescence.
So I'll live my life for the present. It's not selfish or shallow or even shortsighted, it's just the process of elimination. And I recall a quote from Spanglish:
"I live my life for myself. You live your life for your daughter. None of it works."
Living life for the past is clearly the worst option, looking objectively, but it is resiliently seductive. It's lame. It's like the poor Spanish woman that cries to go home and the has-been always searching for what he'll never be again. It doesn't make sense, but that robs it of none of it's potency. There are times we all live in the past. I'm as guilty of it as anyone. More so, even.
Living life for the future seems the most noble cause. But what future are you living for? Fame? Fortune? Family? Bettering the world, okay, but what will really stand the test of time? A thousand years from now, who will remember your goals, your ambitions, your desires? There are a select few of us, probably already hand picked by fate, who the world may remember. For the rest of us, forget our emotions; the world will have long forgotten our names, our faces, and our prescence.
So I'll live my life for the present. It's not selfish or shallow or even shortsighted, it's just the process of elimination. And I recall a quote from Spanglish:
"I live my life for myself. You live your life for your daughter. None of it works."
Seventh Grade Rain
Before we had lost anything. Before we had anything to lose. That’s when we played in the rain. That’s when the rain started coming down hard one day at Blue Mountain, and I wanted to write and one girl wanted to draw and all the rest of them went out in droves. That was the year we all had beaver sticks; smooth staves with the bark all chipped off. A little sixth grader with short skirts and shirts that reveal too much of nothing stood on the dam with hers in hand, the water splashing off her bare skin. You can see the rain moving over the lake like a wave. They revel in it because they can. Cao’s shirt says, “Flavour of the Month”, and is soaked through beneath her exuberant face. Christy screams at me how her shorts are sopping and her shirt is nearly dry. The rain ends as quickly as it began, and those who don’t already have enough wet wallow shamelessly in the puddles and the fat drip-drops coming off the roof. I allow a small smile, and that takes over. Then a part of me remembers, or else a part of me forgets.
May 10, 2006
Were You Right?
You were right. It’s not something you choose. To be happy or sad. To remember or to forget. There’s no choice here; no simple diffusion, disintegration, radiation. The thoughts and dreams I always trusted on are nothing now but endorphins, a chemical keeping the hurt at bay. But the pain is nothing if not patience. And it waits. It waits until it finds a hole and it creeps inside of you, burning and acidic, and you’re too tired to fight it again, and again. You let it take you.
I thought I knew things. I thought I knew a lot of things. Do I know nothing at all? I’m the strange one, with a soul that doesn’t let go and the ghosts of a thousand memories hanging around me. Everything from the silly maybe make-believes to the highly coloured hardships. Am I holding onto them, or are they haunting me? Were you right? A thousand dreams deferred… do they really explode? Or do they hang around, the shape of fog and mist, holding everything down to the safety of earth like the silver threads of a spider’s silk?
I want to let go. I don’t want to remember. But you were right.
You were right about joy. You were right about sorrow. You were right about love. There are no rules for love. It doesn’t go away when it isn’t wanted; it doesn’t come when it is called. So were you right about the rest? Were you right about fear, and longing, and worthlessness?
I want to run, not walk. I want to sing, not talk. I want to dance, I want to fly, I want to be a reed in the wind. I want to trust like I've never been betrayed; I want to love like I've never been hurt. I want to do all the things I can only do once; I want to do them hard, and fully, and truly, and deeply, like I'm too stupid to know better. Or were you right?
Fiesta!
There was a Fiesta today. An end of the year party merged with Cinco De Mayo. We had homemade cookies that were like the soft sugar cookies with sweet, no semi, chocolate chunks. We had two quesadilla makers going and pumping out crisp pockets of melted cheese onto glass platters. We had mint chocolate chip ice cream, melting as fast as we could eat it off paper plates with plastic forks. We had spicy queso with tortilla chips.
I sat with Natalia Solis and Jenny Runk and Inandra Harris. I disdainfully informed them that I wouldn't have any spicy queso, because I liked to eat healthy. They began to object before I rolled my eyes and pointed down to my heaping bowl of ice cream; then they knew it was okay. We told stupid stories and jokes. Stupid lines from Xenon on the Disney Channel, mysteriously telling people not to get on the plane at an airport, new meanings of Acabar and Bacalao, and the drawbacks to mispronouncing "Comparto tu pena."
Then the Piñata. Dangerous to have inside, with high school male atheletes no less. One year Sra. tied it to the delicate ceiling panels and brought down half the roof. She's smarter now. Once, secretly, she climbed up into the ceiling, to the rafters, and tied a thick cord around a steel beam. Now we reach up with a yard stick and shift the panel. The bungee slithers down, and we attach the Piñata to it. This one's no weak necked burro. Es una estrella grande y magnifica.
First a few girls swing at it. They are sweet looking, blonde girls who helped organize the party. We let them take lot's of swings; none of them do too much. The one holding the Piñata rope raises it higher and then lower. He taunts them by poking them gently in the face with a ray of the star, then sending it flying to earth and they strike out at it. More often than not, they hit only rope.
But the class only lasts so long. We call in the heavyweights, the atheletes. Sra. tells them that they are not to let go of the bat, no matter what. She's taking a risk doing this, don't make her regret it. She has to tie the scarf around their eyes, spin them around and make them dizzy. She's five foot tall, like I am. They go down on their knees so she can reach.
They kneel with the baseball bat as though she's knighting them. It's quite a picture as Sra. stands on the toes of her size 5 shoes to make the knot. Someone laughs that theyre the same height with the boys on their knees. She yells at them in Spanish, and we all laugh, no matter whether or not we heard the joke. We love her, and we love each other, or at least don't like each other in a way that's so well understood it's close enough to love. We laugh, and I'm happy. Not for the first time, I wonder if these aren't the happiest days of my life after all.
Chocolate begins to fall as they swing. It's sweet, no semi.
I sat with Natalia Solis and Jenny Runk and Inandra Harris. I disdainfully informed them that I wouldn't have any spicy queso, because I liked to eat healthy. They began to object before I rolled my eyes and pointed down to my heaping bowl of ice cream; then they knew it was okay. We told stupid stories and jokes. Stupid lines from Xenon on the Disney Channel, mysteriously telling people not to get on the plane at an airport, new meanings of Acabar and Bacalao, and the drawbacks to mispronouncing "Comparto tu pena."
Then the Piñata. Dangerous to have inside, with high school male atheletes no less. One year Sra. tied it to the delicate ceiling panels and brought down half the roof. She's smarter now. Once, secretly, she climbed up into the ceiling, to the rafters, and tied a thick cord around a steel beam. Now we reach up with a yard stick and shift the panel. The bungee slithers down, and we attach the Piñata to it. This one's no weak necked burro. Es una estrella grande y magnifica.
First a few girls swing at it. They are sweet looking, blonde girls who helped organize the party. We let them take lot's of swings; none of them do too much. The one holding the Piñata rope raises it higher and then lower. He taunts them by poking them gently in the face with a ray of the star, then sending it flying to earth and they strike out at it. More often than not, they hit only rope.
But the class only lasts so long. We call in the heavyweights, the atheletes. Sra. tells them that they are not to let go of the bat, no matter what. She's taking a risk doing this, don't make her regret it. She has to tie the scarf around their eyes, spin them around and make them dizzy. She's five foot tall, like I am. They go down on their knees so she can reach.
They kneel with the baseball bat as though she's knighting them. It's quite a picture as Sra. stands on the toes of her size 5 shoes to make the knot. Someone laughs that theyre the same height with the boys on their knees. She yells at them in Spanish, and we all laugh, no matter whether or not we heard the joke. We love her, and we love each other, or at least don't like each other in a way that's so well understood it's close enough to love. We laugh, and I'm happy. Not for the first time, I wonder if these aren't the happiest days of my life after all.
Chocolate begins to fall as they swing. It's sweet, no semi.
Wo Bist Du?
Ich liebe dich...
Ich liebe dich nicht...
Ich liebe dich nicht mehr...
Ich liebe dich nicht mehr oder weniger als du...
Als du mich geliebt hast...
Als du mich noch geliebt hast...
Die schönen Mädchen sind nicht schön,
Die warmen Hände sind so kalt,
Alle Uhren bleiben stehen,
Lachen ist nicht mehr gesund und bald,
Such ich dich hinter dem Licht
Wo bist du?
So allein will ich nicht sein
Wo bist du?
- Rammstein
Ne Hospes Plane Veniam
Quare, etsi, cum tu haec leges, ego iam annuum munus confecero, tamen obvisae mihi velim sint tuae litterae, quae me erudiant de omni re publica, ne hospes plane veniam. Hoc melius quam tu facere nemo potest....
Why, by the time you read this, I will have already finished my years duty, however I want your letters to be accessible to me, that they might inform me of all public things, that I might not come, clearly a guest. No one can do this better than you.
We spent all hour today translating a short passage of five lines. "Home" The City, Cicero. At his wit's end, our teacher made a decision. We'd work through it as best we could, with the harder words, the one's he didn't know, circled; with helpful hints below, with certain passages underlined and rephrased for breaking so many rules it was hard to expect us to keep them straight.
Fourth Years, now, and we don't feel like it. I'm ten times as confident a German speaker in my first year, and I'm rapidly approaching a similar reading level. My vocabulary is, admittedly, at a decent level, but all we read is scholars and poets, and they use words that render all of our knowlege to nothing. They eschew all the words one has already learned, each poet, we learn, having his own vocabulary suited to his needs. We learn that in any decent Latin dictionary, they will tell you who uses each word, and how often. It's quite a common word that gets used by more than 2 or 3 people more than so many times. Something like one of the forms of "and" might aspire to this achievement, but none others. Then it is that when you look up a word, there are a thousand translations to choose from. A passage originally translated (with confusion) as "Atrocious Blind Origin" turns out to mean, "From light beginnings, a savage murder arose."
So now these hints, and lines written out in proper word order, because only the Romans could keep straight 7 cases (Nominative, Vocative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and Locative) * 5 declensions * 3 genders for a total of 105 hardly unique but utterly patternless noun endings and make sense of sentances in their original, convoluted order. So where hoc melius quam tu facere nemo potest was written, pencilled in above is nemo potest hoc facere quam tu.
The nasty peice of work turns out to mean (quite obviously in the reworked version), No one can do this better than you. Thanks for the subliminal encouragement, Cicero. But really. I don't want to need hints to read a language I'm supposed to be becoming proficient in. But I do, and it kills me.
"Sed Quamobrem!?" I want to ask. But I dare not. They will guess what I have said, and fail, and it will hurt worse than not saying anything in this language at all. So instead I say, "But Why? What can the purpose be of putting the sentance on it's head like this?"
And so the teacher tries to explain, or maybe tries to understand, but he fails at one if not the other as he tries to say that it makes the line more interesting, that in one word at the beginning he connects to the sentance before, that the compliment must come afterwards, and everything else flops down, exhausted, at the end. It makes a compelling story, but I almost have to wonder if it's not just an excuse.
Maybe I'm stupid, maybe we're all stupid and that's why we fail. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I didn't see, for a moment, that searching look in the teachers eyes as he tries to make sense of it all for one of us. Was he searching? Was he searching for a student to understand? Or for himself? For how he got into all of this, and where he lost the way?
Ne Hospes Plane Veniam... But we are all guests, even the guide.
Why, by the time you read this, I will have already finished my years duty, however I want your letters to be accessible to me, that they might inform me of all public things, that I might not come, clearly a guest. No one can do this better than you.
We spent all hour today translating a short passage of five lines. "Home" The City, Cicero. At his wit's end, our teacher made a decision. We'd work through it as best we could, with the harder words, the one's he didn't know, circled; with helpful hints below, with certain passages underlined and rephrased for breaking so many rules it was hard to expect us to keep them straight.
Fourth Years, now, and we don't feel like it. I'm ten times as confident a German speaker in my first year, and I'm rapidly approaching a similar reading level. My vocabulary is, admittedly, at a decent level, but all we read is scholars and poets, and they use words that render all of our knowlege to nothing. They eschew all the words one has already learned, each poet, we learn, having his own vocabulary suited to his needs. We learn that in any decent Latin dictionary, they will tell you who uses each word, and how often. It's quite a common word that gets used by more than 2 or 3 people more than so many times. Something like one of the forms of "and" might aspire to this achievement, but none others. Then it is that when you look up a word, there are a thousand translations to choose from. A passage originally translated (with confusion) as "Atrocious Blind Origin" turns out to mean, "From light beginnings, a savage murder arose."
So now these hints, and lines written out in proper word order, because only the Romans could keep straight 7 cases (Nominative, Vocative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, and Locative) * 5 declensions * 3 genders for a total of 105 hardly unique but utterly patternless noun endings and make sense of sentances in their original, convoluted order. So where hoc melius quam tu facere nemo potest was written, pencilled in above is nemo potest hoc facere quam tu.
The nasty peice of work turns out to mean (quite obviously in the reworked version), No one can do this better than you. Thanks for the subliminal encouragement, Cicero. But really. I don't want to need hints to read a language I'm supposed to be becoming proficient in. But I do, and it kills me.
"Sed Quamobrem!?" I want to ask. But I dare not. They will guess what I have said, and fail, and it will hurt worse than not saying anything in this language at all. So instead I say, "But Why? What can the purpose be of putting the sentance on it's head like this?"
And so the teacher tries to explain, or maybe tries to understand, but he fails at one if not the other as he tries to say that it makes the line more interesting, that in one word at the beginning he connects to the sentance before, that the compliment must come afterwards, and everything else flops down, exhausted, at the end. It makes a compelling story, but I almost have to wonder if it's not just an excuse.
Maybe I'm stupid, maybe we're all stupid and that's why we fail. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I didn't see, for a moment, that searching look in the teachers eyes as he tries to make sense of it all for one of us. Was he searching? Was he searching for a student to understand? Or for himself? For how he got into all of this, and where he lost the way?
Ne Hospes Plane Veniam... But we are all guests, even the guide.
A Break in the Rain
We looked out through a break in the rain and some idiot asked, "Why is the waterfall falling so fast?"
"Because it's been raining for a month now straight," Mrs. Dean says. She's not far off. It's been stormy lately; thunder and lightning if we're lucky, tornado's if we're not. Off and on, but unrelenting, since that day we hurried home from the lake with the twisters on our tail.
Before that it was nice, though. We had a sunny early spring. The flowers came out one by one, and I noticed them all for the first time this year. I watched the leaves explode into broad or skinny and shapely bunches from tiny buds and bare branches before.
But though the branches were bare, the winter was mild too. The warmest January on record, with only a few days showing their teeth at 8 degrees. We even had a day so warm we walked around in shorts and stuck our feet in the lake.
And I noticed all the colours last fall, too. Before that stretched a lazy summer. A year of my life. Brief, in such terms. So what does that make this break in the rain?
"Because it's been raining for a month now straight," Mrs. Dean says. She's not far off. It's been stormy lately; thunder and lightning if we're lucky, tornado's if we're not. Off and on, but unrelenting, since that day we hurried home from the lake with the twisters on our tail.
Before that it was nice, though. We had a sunny early spring. The flowers came out one by one, and I noticed them all for the first time this year. I watched the leaves explode into broad or skinny and shapely bunches from tiny buds and bare branches before.
But though the branches were bare, the winter was mild too. The warmest January on record, with only a few days showing their teeth at 8 degrees. We even had a day so warm we walked around in shorts and stuck our feet in the lake.
And I noticed all the colours last fall, too. Before that stretched a lazy summer. A year of my life. Brief, in such terms. So what does that make this break in the rain?
May 07, 2006
Independancy
I almost hesitate to write this for fear that I'll wake up tomorrow a wreck again, but I think I've found myself and might cut my emo week short. I developed a dependancy, see, and it was wrested away for better or for worse. It's nice to have something to lean on, I'm not saying it's not, and for them to lean back on you can be the most amazing thing in the world. But these things have to work two ways or theyre not something Miranda does. Living with the sun itself is amazing, but part of you always fears that the sun might go away. There was something in living for someone, and having someone live for me, but as I start being self contained once again, theres a peace of mind in that, too. :D
Miranda's Emo Week
This coming week, I will be more emo than I have ever been in my life, and ever hope to be after. Those of you following closely will kindly regard April 23, 2006 as part of this week and not a seperate instance of pathetic teen angst, as this event had already started then, but I was kindly lied to and told to ignore it.
The River
But I remember us riding in my brother’s car,
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir.
At night on them banks I’d lie awake,
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take.
Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse.
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?
Or is it something worse, that sends me
Down to the river, though I know the river is dry,
That sends me down to the river tonight?
- Bruce Springsteen, The River
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir.
At night on them banks I’d lie awake,
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take.
Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse.
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?
Or is it something worse, that sends me
Down to the river, though I know the river is dry,
That sends me down to the river tonight?
- Bruce Springsteen, The River
Toda la culpa
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:14 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Yesterday I went hungry all day until 8 pm | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:19 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | Aiaiai | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:20 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | That's bad | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:28 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Yeah, and most of it was your fault :P | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:39 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Sí | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:40 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | I deny my guilt | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:48 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Tu tienes toda la culpa | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:51 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Tu sabes es cierto | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:52 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Bueno | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:54 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Ha det! | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:19:55 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | ^^ | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:20:08 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | Jeg elsker deg | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:20:13 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Jeg elsker deg også | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:20:24 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Jeg skal savne deg? | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:20:32 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | Ja, det skal du faen meg! | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:20:41 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | :P | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:20:54 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | I'll miss the happy shirt | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:21:01 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Its not for that long | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:21:04 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | ;) | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:21:05 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | And the tongue action | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:21:07 AM | Elindomiel (*) | Aryndil | Ha det | ||||
| 4/21/2006 | 8:21:15 AM | Aryndil | Elindomiel (*) | Ha det, kjæreste |
May 05, 2006
My Name
My last name is unpleasant. It comes from French, which is disturbing, because I am not French. Well, I probably have one line of Frenchness that happened to go straight through a male line. It’s intriguing when you stop to consider exactly what must have happened to get you a certain last name. One single female is enough to break the chain. Females are the weakest link. However, it is largely due to the females that I do not have hairy legs today. Other than being French for a fancy estate that my family of hobos, hillbillies, and horse thieves could not have owned, Metheny is unpleasant because the spell check continues trying to change it to the word Methane. Even with its constant self assured righteousness, it might not know how right it is. I will not expand further.
Miranda is a better name. Miranda comes from the gerundive of the Latin verb Mirari, to wonder at. This is the same root that brings us Miraculous and Milagros (which would be my name if I was a real Mexican because it is more ethnic). Baby name books fondly translate my name as Strange but Wonderful. Others have suggested the term “Easily impressed.” When you consider, however, the fact that I will swoon over anyone who can speak Serbo-Croatian, this would tend to lend force to the second argument. Tracing Miranda through Hebrew, a daunting task, brings the definition “Bitter”. Again, another name shares this root. This time it is the name Miriam.
I like the way my name is said in Spanish. The r is nice and pretty, the mi is nice and soft, and the anda combination, so troublesome in English, stays out of everyone’s way. In English, the r makes a growling sound, the a is heartily diphthongs, and loud obnoxious people say “aynduh”. This annoys me to no end. Of course, the Norwegians pronounce my name the same way as the Spanish. I have not tested my name on Germans or on African clicky people. In Japanese it is okay, even if it sounds like Milanda half the time.
May 03, 2006
The Colour Red
When I was out walking today, I noticed several beautiful trees whose leaves were a deep, blood red. I stared at the first one I saw for a few moments, marvelling at the colour itself. I continued walking only to find three or four more, each a slightly different shade. Most were small and delicate, but one was as tall at an average oak. The shades of colour simply captivated me, and I think that I am rediscovering red in the same way I rediscovered green early in the springtime.
May 02, 2006
A Proper May Day
This is better; the first day of May was a rainy dissappointment, but it's doing better now. Today was a proper may day. The sky was blue and the leaves were green, and it was hot. Not hot like it gets down here in the middle of summer, of course. Not killing people hot, but hot enough that in a T-shirt I could feel the heat. It's always a little uncomfortable at first, late spring, just as the wet coolness of late fall can be. But soon, I know, it will fade into days of being wet and free and laughing down at the pool or by the lake, feeling absolutely drenched in sunlight. :D Spring's been great, but now that school is promising a withdrawel, On with summer!
Hope and Tissues
I cleaned up the mountain of tissues by the side of my bed yesterday. I thought it was a rather hopeful action; if I thought I'd add another layer of limestone or sedimentary that night, I'd do no such thing. I uncovered several books and a ponytail holder in the monumental undertaking, and by the end my nose was itching at all the dust I had stirred up. So I had no real reason to be hopeful, but if I did, would it really be hope?
April Showers... May Flowers?
We certainly had our share of the rainy season, now where are our posies? :P First of May yesterday, and it rained on all day, culminating with thunder and lightening later so I couldn't shower until this morning. I fear my perfect 4 season, 12 monthe state has lost it's touch...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)