One more video, now that I know how

Here's one more video by Ok Go. You've probably already seen it, but it's worth seeing again. If only I had this much interest in treadmills, I might fit back in my old jeans.

Also, the sentiments of both songs coincide with my feelings about starting my next English paper, which I am about to do.

Yay, I'm posting a video!

I finally realized how to post videos, and to properly appreciate You Tube (thanks Aislinn, Kelli, and Chelsea)! This is not literary, but it is an example of what I find interesting in the world. I thought of it after watching Kelli's dance video, I'm not sure why. They are both technical, but in very different ways.

Note on a quote I have been pondering

Recently, I have been re-reading Munro’s book through a Gothic lens in relation to research for my portfolio project. It eerily reminds me of the really awful book I wrote fifteen years ago. There are so many similarities it’s almost creepy, but my story was very poorly written (I see now) whereas Munro’s is essentially perfect. Anyway, Munro’s book reminds me a lot of my own life growing up as well. So if her book reminds me of my life, and her book is like my own book, then I must have subconsciously been writing about my own life, in some way, those fifteen years ago.

Which brings me to a quote I recently found while doing research for my modernist essay. It is by a scholar named Aaron Jaffe, who writes: “writers frequently tell more about their true selves and convictions under the guise of fiction than they will confess publicly.” I didn’t mean for my book to be about me, but looking back on it now I can see where my true self was in there. A teacher friend of mine read it to her grade 6/7 class a few years ago and she said she could hear me in it. But I didn’t intend to present at all in my recent story about the “conversation house.” Yet, a friend of mine who read that story said that he could sense so much of me in it. That sort of disturbed me and I can’t exactly say why. But I think that’s why fiction resonates so well, because it is an expression of the author’s convictions and that makes it socially relevant. So when my husband asks why I want to read stories that aren’t even real, I guess it’s because all fiction, to some degree, has this element of ‘real’ to it, the real expression of the author’s take on the world.

Today, I am happy...

...because Jann Arden has written her memoir! I LOVE this woman. Then, I read in the inside cover that she has previously published two other books, so I went on the Chapters website and put them in my cart. Oh, happy day! I will begin reading it immediately after my last final exam on December 15 and report the next day on how amazing it is. I am especially intrigued by her father's quote on the back cover: "There isn't a goddamn morsel of any goddamn sense to be made of any of this goddamn book." How great is that?!

I feel so special...

I got a letter from Alexander MacLeod in the mail today. He wants me to renew my subscription to The New Quarterly. Oh, Alexander, anything for you!

Why I am not entitled to be an adult

In far too many ways, I have wholeheartedly embraced being a full-fledged adult. Yet, in other ways, I cannot stop being a child. Take, for instance, my Jasmine Becket-Griffith fairy collection that I keep next to my computer.

This montage changes regularly because I have about forty of them. It is so much more fun, and less lonely, to write stories and essays with these little creatures (a.k.a. inanimate objects) sitting next to me. It all began with this one:

She's called "Once Upon a Midnight Dreary" and is holding a teeny-tiny copy of Poe's "The Raven." I was only going to get this one, but clearly these figurines quickly became a crack-like addiction for me, albeit with less debilitating repercussions. But I figure that since I'm already such a prematurely old fart in so many ways, they help to balance me out by bringing out a bit of the kid in me that has been repressed by those evil things called 'responsibilities'. Also, I find them oddly inspiring for some reason.

This is a bittersweet moment

At this moment, I feel like an old person that I love, who had a great, long life, is about to pass on. I feel happy and sad at the same time. Yes, I am about to press play on the final installment of the Harry Potter series. I have been putting off seeing it because I don't want it to be over. Now, the time has come. Deep breath. Here goes.

Pictures, if you are interested

I have finally posted the pictures my daughter drew to go with my assignment #3. If you are interested, scroll down and take a look. You won't be disappointed (but remember, I am partial).

Just having a pity party. You don't have to come if you don't want to

Okay, so I don’t handle stress well at the best of times. But this semester is particularly bad. (Chelsea, Kelly, and Aislinn, please feel free to skip this post as you have already heard all of this three – or maybe four – times a week for the past few weeks). Lately, I feel like I’m having a constant out of body experience and looking down on myself in wonder and horrified awe as I struggle through assignments. My brain feels like a brewing storm on open water, a turbulent, rolling, heavy sloshing of incoherent thoughts.

My portfolio assignment is like a stubborn, disobedient toddler that refuses to give in and be written. No amount of threats or pleading is working. I have been struggling with it for four weeks and still have nothing. I can only hope that the pressure of being down to seven days sparks something, even something insipid, but at least something. Also, it appears that some modernist literature, to me, is like a car motor, or plumbing, or most of our current technology: sure, I could learn how it works if I wanted to, if I were willing to put in the effort it would take to figure it out, but I’m just not interested enough to expend that kind of energy. This is not true of all modernist literature; some of it I find very interesting – mostly the stuff that critics denounce as not being entirely modernist.

I told my husband yesterday that something amazing has happened, something I never thought would happen to me: I am finally sick of reading. He told me that’s not good, because one of us has to be able to do it. What a guy, he knows just the right thing to say!

My response to my own most recent post

I am still thinking about my last post. I heard/read a few days ago that “parenthood is a continual process of letting go.” That’s what I think writing is, too. The things we write are our progeny, of a sort. We create them from nothing, grow them, birth them, nurture them, then give them to the world where they take on a life of their own. I think it’s easy to want to be prescriptive with our creations, to determine what they are and how they should be perceived. With my daughters, I want to believe I can choose who they are. I say “Avary is this” and “Olivia is that,” but as soon as I say they are one thing, they change and become something else. And when I am away, they will often behave in ways (and give people opinions of them) that are incompatible with my perceptions of them. I can only believe that this is going to continue to happen to a distressing degree (for me, at least) potentially for the rest of their lives (or at least mine). I think the same thing goes for texts. Writers are their biological parents, but they will be influenced by their environment, by time, by social attitudes, by individual readers’ backgrounds, etc.

A professor once wrote on one of my papers that I seemed to imply that the writer was trying to put a message into their fictional text, and he said that writers do not put messages into their texts and that if they wanted to do that they would write an essay instead. I’m not sure I entirely agree. I know, as a writer, that I do usually try to have a general idea of what I’m trying to get across in a story. But sometimes in a workshop I realize that I have not succeeded or that it is being read in a different way than I intended. Sometimes this makes me alter my story, but sometimes I find the other readings interesting and leave it as it is. Recently, I have been doing genre research and came across this quote by John Frow: “Complex aesthetic texts...are rarely contained by the limits of a single genre.” This suggests that a multiplicity of readings is a good thing, that it speaks to the complexity of the text. I agree. I tend to think that if something can be read in many ways, it is more interesting than if it can only be read one way.