you're losing your touch

[one] my faith in the publishing world has begun to fade a bit. are inconsistencies the new thing? do editors actively try to leave in as many of them as possible to make sure the reader is paying attention and/or to annoy the reader to death? does the author add them in at the end, a finishing touch like the chef's parsley on a plate? to be honest, i think i prefer those scenarios to the more likely truth that they are just not getting the editing attention that they need or the editors/authors are not giving each book their all. it bugs me a bit to think that i'm supposed to invest my time and money (most of the time) in something that they didn't care enough about to fix. and then there is the possibility that i have just become the pickiest of all readers lately. i'm starting to think that i may be more suited for the role of editor than the role of author.

[two] a couple of years ago, my youngest brother got very into dragons. (sidenote: while reading over this i somehow read that he got very into drugs and had a "wait! what?" moment) an interest i fully supported, having had my own obsession with them during my childhood and still liking them quite a bit. the interest has only grown, and the other day my grandma bought him an encyclopedia of dragons. it had information on different breeds and their locations, why some of them died out, how long it takes an egg to hatch, the skeletal/digestive/circulatory systems of dragons, etc. as he was excitedly going through the book, making excited comments like "did you know that a dragon can spot treasure from 60,000 feet away? wow!" my sister and i started making whispered comments to each other like, "wait... does he think dragons are real?" later, my grandmother told us that she was wondering the same thing. i mean, the way he talks about them, it really seems like he believes in them, and none of us want to ask him because if he does, well, we're a family that doesn't like to squash the imagination. maybe he thinks that they're like the dinosaurs, real but extinct. either way, you can't prove a negative so for all we know, they might be. 

[three] i was listening to the radio yesterday and some guy was talking about mosquitoes and said that mosquitoes are attracted to dirty socks. basically, the dirtier your socks are, the more likely you are going to be bitten. i'm not sure how much i believe that, but instead of double-checking and getting my facts straight, i'm just going to share it as a piece of interesting and disgusting news. 

*The Diver - Stellastar*

and nothing ever happens 'round here

i have several issues with cassandra clare and her writing, but after finally finishing the fifth book (and last one that's out) of the mortal instruments, i am a little sad that i will be saying goodbye to her poorly developed characters and inconsistent descriptions, at least for a while. and i understand why her books are number one new york times' bestsellers. (i would like to point out that just because i understand something does not mean that i necessarily agree with it. it also doesn't mean that i put any stock in the idea that a bestseller is a good book. case in point: i understand why 50 shades is a bestseller, but the fact still makes me want to pull my hair out and stick a spork in my eye. the fact that it became the most sold paperback ever in no way makes me think that it is a good book.) i mean, i'm not running out to buy the fanfiction that she's published of her work and passing off as original series and short stories, but you know, i think i'm going to miss them.

before i start her actual fanfiction, i won an advanced reader copy of chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger that i need to read and review. and do you not think that that title is awesome? i am the absolute worst at thinking up titles, and these witty title makers make me jealous. but in a good way.

i have no idea what i have actually posted these past few days and what i have drafted as a work in progress, but a basic review of my life since semester ended: well, the semester ended. i got my grades, and no rants are necessary. my grandmother came down from connecticut. we all went to my husband's graduation which was much smaller and way more personal than mason graduations. it was also the first graduation that wasn't mine since my younger sister graduated high school in oh-eight. there has been a lot of family time sitting around doing nothing, family book shopping, and family lunches out. there has been a lot of me carrying around books but not actually reading them for days at a time, and then there was me staying up way too late last night to finish the city of lost souls. aaaand that's about it. i obviously live a very thrilling life that everyone is extremely jealous of, i know.

*Nothing Ever Happens Around Here - Chris de Burgh

well, i'm ready

i spent all day yesterday holed up in a campus library study group with a study partner (at times we were a trio), a bag of krispy kreme crullers, and my beauty and the beast lunchbox thermos filled with black tea with mint. and by all day i mean from ten in the morning to eight:thirty when we had to call it a night because our brains were so exhausted that they could barely remember how to walk to our cars. don't even ask how i drove home because my body went on auto-pilot and i do not remember. if i do not get the highest of all a's in tonight's final, well... let's just say that you should probably prepare yourself for some angry grade ranting. (which you may get anyway for the final i had on wednesday that i got an 82 on. an 82! and my grade may or may not have dropped to a b because of it. the last time i got a b was my second year of undergrad. if this is not some kind of mistake (i got hundreds on all four assignments and an a on the midterm. so not fair) then i will be here ranting about what i just told you.) admittedly, the last time i studied really hard for anything (remember the security qualifying exam that i swore never to speak of again? yeah, that.), i ended up having to leave three fifths of the test completely blank because i did not even know enough to bs some answers. that was fun. yes, i passed it, but still. not the best experience of my life.

but back to this test. i was really not planning to study this much for it, but then one thing led to another and now i have far too much invested in a final. i will no longer be content with any a for this grade. if there is a minus someone will die. if there is no plus, someone will have to deal with an hour long rant. things just got serious.

on a different note, more jane austen goodies came in the mail last night from my grandma. (it's always fun when packages come from someone who is now fifteen minutes away from you.) there is a jane austen quote necklacce thing which is pretty, and the jane austen handbook: proper life skills for regency england. i am excited for when i actually have time to read through this. there are sections on how to ride sidesaddle and what to wear for morning dress, evening dress, and undergarments. i will also learn how to pay a morning call and how to avoid dancing with an undesirable partner at a ball. i'll let you know what i learn.

*So Much - The Spill Canvas

let's waste time

finals week. and i do not want to study. so obviously it becomes imperative to find time to blog because blogging is super important and neglecting my blog is just awful. blogging is so important, in fact, that it is my number one priority. really. who cares if i pass another batch of classes if my poor blog goes unupdated? (let's pretend that once a week updates has not become the norm here. let's pretend that these are the days when i would update daily. or better yet, the days that i would post multiple times a day.)

so my grandma is in town again, and that is always fun. of course, it would be more fun if it was not finals week, but that's what next week is for. familial gathering and enjoyment of the schoollessness of summer. (except that i have to figure out a bunch of school related stuff this summer and get my act together, but that can wait until the week after next week.) my grandma is awesome, and we share some sort of telepathic connection, i swear. for example, remember way back when when i said i wanted those novel posters that reproduced the text of a work into some design? well, the delivery man just delivered the pride and prejudice one to my house. it was a gift from my grandma, and i never even told her that i wanted it. this isn't the first time that she's done this, either. one of the teapots she got me when i got married was one that i was drooling over online for months.

i am still reading cassandra clare, and she and her editor should be stoned. there is not much that i can not tolerate in writing, but inconsistencies make me suddenly want to do strange things like drive my fist through a wall and egg people's houses. i'm not talking about those inconsistencies like when your super clumsy protagonist suddenly moves with all the grace of a ballerina when the need arises. i'm talking about when you make a big deal about a character's bright yellow pajamas and then somehow forget that he's wearing yellow pajamas and describe him as wearing striped pajamas in the next scene. or when you spend a paragraph talking about how a character was not wearing makeup and how she looked younger and her eyes looked bigger and blah blah blah, but somehow in the process of her moving from the window to the bed, her eyes become smudged with mascara making her look like a french model slash actress. things like that distract me. they pull me out of the story and ruin any momentum that you were building. i don't like it, and someone should catch them before the book becomes a best-seller. there are other things that have started to annoy me about clare, but if i started with those i would never stop typing. and i do eventually need to get to a final exam. maybe even study for it.

also, reading all the stuff about the harry potter fandom has made me really want to read fanfiction, and i am adding hours of fanfiction reading to my summer to-do list. another thing, netflix kind of really sucks. a bunch of the titles that i was planning on watching over summer were suddenly taken down in their recent "let's lose 1800 titles" thing. i mean, i know that it is less netflix's fault and more the fault of the stupid copyright holders who want to start their own streaming services and charge us directly to watch their titles so that eventually we'll be paying for twelve different streaming services or watching everything illegally, but it's easier to blame netflix. so netflix sucks.

*Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

what did you do today? i did nothing

so my to-do list for today included things like "finally clean the freaking apartment because it's getting gross" and "finish the stupid schoolwork that i've been putting off" and "start washing the mountain of laundry in the bedroom because i need clean clothes." but my sister called and invited me to lunch with a friend at eleven and then we hung out pretty much all day because, well, sister or cleaning? not a difficult decision. i did take a shower, though, and finally got around to checking out the library by my apartment (which i fell in love with) so i mean, i'm writing it off as a pretty productive afternoon.

now that i am on my own again, the responsible thing for me to do would be to finish the last project i have for this semester and then at least do some preliminary cleaning so that tomorrow i can study for my quiz without feeling like the mess is going to attack me, but i finally have the fifth book of the mortal instruments series and i think i should finish it because commitment and stuff. also, however many years ago 1998 was today, the Battle of Hogwarts happened and Voldemort was killed and not in some deserted area but in the middle of the Great Hall and he didn't turn into ash and fly away because that was just awkward and stupid and people getting too excited with their CGI nonsense when someone should have told them to stop it already, and the end of evil should definitely be celebrated by blog posts and run-on sentences because why not? we should also be sad that remus died because he was pretty awesome. also, he was a werewolf, and i've kind of always had a thing for werewolves. and in this story that my friend and i wrote in high school, i ended up married to remus so we're pretty much family and you should mourn the death of family.

also, i really do not want to do any schoolwork. i am ready for this semester to be over. this semester should be over. can we just call it summer break  already?

*Never Miss a Beat - Keiser Cheifs

i am utterly disgusted with the path you trek

instead of finishing up the last of my semester work over the weekend, i read through the history (or, part of the history) of the early harry potter fandom, and let me just tell you, that was some crazy stuff. i'm not going to get into all of it here because it was really long and had a million characters and if you're really interested (though i think most people have more of a life than i do and don't have time to read about the shenanigans of online harry potter fans in the year 2001) you can find comprehensive biographies written out by people who "don't want the history to disappear." suffice it to say that there was major bullying, stalking, getting people thrown out of colleges, fake harassers, hacking, and lots of threats to sue. what sent me on a semi-educational search for fandom history that happened before i was using the computer for more than playing oregon trail? (like, seriously, this was even before my sisters and i each got fifteen minutes a day on the computer to check email. this was back when yahoo lists were where fans got together.) cassandra clare. remember when i first said i wanted to read the mortal instruments? a friend had told me about clare's fanfiction plagiarism debacle and how the series was pretty much the fanfiction minus the plagiarism. since i finished the fourth book of the series and didn't get the fifth one yet because the world seems very confused about when it came/comes out in paperback (i need to get to a library), i went to read up more about that and try to find her original fanfiction trilogy. (which i downloaded and will start reading as soon as i finish the fifth in the tmi series.)

i am very against fanfiction being published as original fiction. (see all my rants on fifty shades of grey). people have said that although she recycled a couple of scenes and can't seem to write original characters (which is admittedly hard when you've been working with the same set for six years so i'm willing to forgive her a little there), tmi is not the draco trilogy repurposed. i think i need to see for myself, though. (there were quite a few parallels to harry potter that i found in the book.)

regardless of that, what i don't get is clare's choice of name. cassandra clare is a pen name derived from cassandra claire, which was her name in the harry potter fandom. i get that using the same name that made you famous with harry potter and lord of the rings fanfiction is securing you a reader base, but still. the name also connects her with some really bad cyberbullying (which she allegedly still does), plagiarism, and just overall childish pettiness. (she was one of those harry/hermione shippers who was ready to kill fans that thought harry and ginny should end up together around the time of the third book.) personally, i would want to distance myself from all of that, but what do i know? i'm not a new york time's best selling author. 

oh, and also, i find it ironically hilarious that clare's group of friends in the fandom were referred to as the Inner Circle and in her book, the evil death eater equivalents are called the Circle. it makes me chuckle. 

(so the title is a little harsh, but that's the song that came to mind... so yeah.)

***UPDATE***
in case you, too, want to read about cassandra clare and early hp fandom psychosis, check out the following links (the first and third are super long, with chapters and everything):

the cassandra clare plagiarism debacle (also includes basic fandom pettiness)
cassandra clare is a massive bully this is the other side of the cc trying to kick a girl out of college story, and in this case i'm going to have to side against the girl accusing clare.
cassandra clare, ms scribe, and the sock puppets
the problem with cassandra clare's writing

*Dutch Courage - The Spill Canvas

here comes the sun, and i say it's all right

there's just something about spring. despite the fact that i am swamped with end of semester work (since i did that independent study in a week, though, i've developed some sense that i am amazing and above schoolwork and can procrastinate everything and still put out work worthy of being posted to the department's site. it's very bad for the productive student that blossomed within me during that time. she has withered and died.), despite the fact that human ignorance makes me sad, despite the fact that i have no idea what to do with my life after this summer and that i do not know how to edit and that i simply cannot lose weight, there's just something about spring.

i went out to wait for the bus earlier than usual yesterday. like, way earlier. like, a had a little over an hour before it would come. and the weather was beautiful. right next to my apartment (and coincidentally where the bus picks me up) is this little... town center? shopping center? community place thing? i dunno what it's called, but it's one of those places that has stores and restaurants and a movie theater and a few offices and places to sit and enjoy life. in the sitting area they have this fountain thing in the ground (i am just all over the explanations today) that works from spring to early autumn (in the winter they put the christmas tree in its spot). anyway, it's meant for kids to play in, and kids are always playing in it (surprise, surprise). some come prepared with swimsuits and towels, others take off their shirts and shoes and run right in, and still others just go in fully dressed. (the other day a mom took off her kid's sneakers but left his socks on. i just did not understand. i mean, not only did it make it more slippery for him to walk in the water, but also, how is he going to wear his sneakers now? and wet socks are so uncomfortable. how could he have any fun?)

it might just be me, but kids are cuter in the spring. my biological clock starts ticking really loud the minute the weather turns nice and kids that are magically well-behaved all the time start surrounding me. maybe it's that spring clothes are adorable. maybe it's that they've been cooped up all winter and are just so happy to be outside that they forget to cry about not getting to eat cookies for lunch or having to wear a sweater. then again, maybe it's something in the fountain water that makes kids share toys with their siblings without being asked as their parents watch on in shock, not wanting to make any loud noises or quick movements in case they interrupt this once in a lifetime moment, and invite random strangers to join their games. i dunno what it is, but springtime is really bad for my decision that i don't want kids yet. always has been. (i've been around kids my entire life, and what with little brothers and nephews and cousins and whatnot i know better than to believe this spring illusion. i do love kids, though, in case i'm coming off as a child hater.)

but back to the point. while i was waiting for the bus i got a scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (that and mint chocolate chip are my two favorite flavors) in a sugar cone and sat in the sun listening to kids laughing and reading my book. (i am on book four of the mortal instruments and though i finished the first two in a day each and this one is a lot shorter than those, i'm dragging it out because i haven't gotten a chance to get the fifth one yet. everywhere i see it has it in hardcover, but i want the paperback to match the rest of mine.) and the combination of amazing weather, good ice cream, cute kids, and young adult fiction was just so perfect. no matter how bad things get, a perfect spring day can take your mind off of it.

there's just something about spring.

*Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

i started out clean, but i'm jaded

the prevalent belief that arabs and muslims are terrorists stopped being "funny" to me a while ago. i wrote about that on here. (i can't find the post i wanted, but take those three instead.) i had had enough of laughing things off that said that i, an anti-social twenty-something that reads too much young adult fiction and watches nickelodeon shows all day, was a terrorist just because of the language my family speaks and the scarf that i wear on my head. i had had enough of brushing off the times that people pulled their kids away from me with a look of fear or shouted some racist comment or another at me for doing something as outrageous as buying a snickers bar from CVS. because it was becoming clear to me that this was no longer the ignorant thoughts of a few, these were the ignorant thoughts of the many. an ignorance that is so ingrained in who people are, that people i know for years could talk to me every week as a friend and yet still truly believe that the one thing that every terrorist has in common is that they own a copy of the quran. this was no longer rare occurrences and brushes with the minority, this was the undercurrent of a society-wide brainwashing. this was a belief so deeply rooted in these people, that they did not even realize that they were being racist and religionist and ignorant. these were no longer thoughts and opinions. these had become fact. the sky is blue. the sun rises in the east. the muslims are terrorists. case closed.

i've been learning computer forensics for years now. and though writing and books will always be my first love, i genuinely do like it. i find it fascinating. i love the fact that a computer is basically a book of your life, and i am given the tools and authority to read it. there is nothing i like more than stories and characters, and computer forensics is getting into the heads of characters that no one could write as well as themselves. it's like a choose your own adventure story and depending on which path i take, i could end up finding the happy family man, the perverted child pornographer, or the angry terrorist. it gave me a chance to put on a cape and save the world from people who could blend in seamlessly with society, but molest children in the dark privacy of their own home. i could help people, and despite my ramblings about how much i hate the human race, i really wanted to do that. i didn't want to be the computer forensic examiner going after intellectual property theft, i wanted to put the bad guys behind bars.

the general reaction to the boston bombing broke something in me, though. the little bit of hope i had that things would change, the faith that humanity can't really be that narrow-minded, was shattered. and i realized that things won't change. at least not in the foreseeable future. at least not when they'll make any difference to me. sure, not everyone is incurably infected with fear and hatred, but enough people are. too many people are.

and i got to wondering about what i was even doing. i've been blindly grasping onto the assurances given by professors who have spent their whole lives working for the fbi and other government agencies that the law really does protect the innocent, despite the twinges of disbelief that were my mind telling me that i was being deluded. i've looked past the fact that every hypothetical terrorist had an arab name and muslim faith. it didn't matter what the people around me thought, because i was going to help people. i was going to get the bad guys. i was. i can't go after the bad guy, though, when the bad guys are my people. and no i'm not saying that i wouldn't go after a terrorist that was muslim. i'm saying that when every muslim is suddenly a terrorist, when the fear people have of the different poisons their rationality and compassion and humanity, how could i possibly help them? and why would i be trying to get a phd in a field where every wanted poster has my face staring back at me?

i dunno. maybe i just need a break. maybe the summer will refresh me, renew the hope that despite all my efforts has never died out without regenerating before. all i do know is that i'm tired. of this, of everything. a tiredness that cannot be fixed with hours of sleep. a tiredness that is different than the resigned tiredness of depression, the frantic tiredness of exhaustion, the burning tiredness of anger. my soul is tired, and i don't know how to fix that.

*Bent - Matchbox 20

well i feel like something's gonna give

i've had occasion-cake in my fridge since early march. it's a little ridiculous, to be honest. what is occasion cake, you may ask. well, cake made for an occasion of course. i made a cupcake rose bouquet for the going away dinner for my neighbors early last month. the cupcakes that did not make it into the bouquet made it into my fridge instead. a couple days after that, and before the cupcakes were finished, i made birthday cupcakes for my husband. a week or so later, with the cupcakes my husband told me to save for him growing stale (because, let's be honest, if it was me those cupcakes would be eaten before they even started to think about getting stale) i made the butterbeer cake for my youngest brother's birthday. with half of my family on a diet, my dad sent half of the leftover cake back home with me and it ended up in my fridge. then my sister got me a birthday cake and leftovers went into the fridge. then my husband got me a birthday cake and most of that went into the fridge. then my other sister sent me chocolate covered strawberries (which aren't technically cake but still count) and half of those went into the fridge. then i made black bean brownies for my younger sister's birthday (side note: she turned twenty-three yesterday and had her party at chuck e cheese's. it was awesome.) and, you guessed it, some of those joined the party in the fridge. i'm slowly working my way through everything (except for the stale cupcakes that are still sitting there looking sad) but oh my goodness is there a lot.

anyway.

i've been doing a lot of thinking lately about stuff and things. vague, i know, but a lot of it is still just feelings trying to work themselves into thoughts, and i couldn't really express them right now even if i tried. part of it, though, is this expectant feeling that something is going to happen. something good. something big. i'm crossing my fingers that it has to do with writingslashediting (i've been reading things very critically this year, noting what works and what doesn't, what i do well and what i need to improve upon, and i'm hoping that this will prove helpful once this semester is over and i pull my editing hat out from under the piles of dirty laundry i will finally get around to doing) but i'm not so sure. 

(i also kind of think that i've been subconsciously sabotaging my phd attempt. like, i'm doing the bare minimum to scrape by, but not putting in any effort to really move forward. i'm making a show of putting in effort, but i know deep down that if i really wanted to, i could have found myself a committee by now. i have always had a default defense mechanism where, if i'm not 100% sure that i won't fail, i won't give it my all so that i'll have an excuse when failure does come around, but i don't think that's entirely it this time. i think part of me is digging in my proverbial heels because it wants a different future, and until i make up my mind one way or the other i'm not going to be able to do anything. this summer will include some major soul searching (in between movie marathons and reading sprees), because i really need to figure some stuff out already.)

*Push - Matchbox 20

twenty-five years have come and gone and that story's still unfolding

twenty-five. it feels like a big one. like one of those birthdays that should mean something. a nice, round number that marks that i've been alive for a quarter of a century. how did that even happen? it is also the last year before my lapyear which is kind of really weird.

lapyear
n. the age at which you become older than your parents were when you were born, which signals that your leg of the relay race has already begun, having coasted in their slipstream as they tackled the mountain stages of life, leaving you strong, energetic and deeply mortified by their loud yellow jerseys. (Dictionary of obscure sorrows)

there's no big compilation of all of the things that happened this year, because honestly, i just did not have the time. but it was a good year for me, even if i did think i was twenty-three for most of it. a year of firsts. my first car, my first bunny, my first book published (and hopefully not the last)...

i had a surprise birthday dinner with friends on monday, was sick with a 24 hour feel like crap with a fever type thing on tuesday (when i made the huge mistake of starting a new book series (remember years ago when i posted on here that i wanted to read the mortal instruments? yeah i finally got started on them. took me long enough.) instead of just finishing persuasion. now i can't get any work done because just one. more. chapter.), did the whole student thing on wednesday, and went out to breakfast with my dad this morning.

birthdays always remind me of the amazing people that i have in my life. i have a tendency to default to depressed hermit, but that doesn't mean that i don't appreciate the fact that i'm surrounded (or at least can be surrounded) by truly awesome people. my social circle has slowly shrunk, like most people's do as they move through life, and i could not be happier with the ones who remain in it. (even if we do go months with no contact sometimes.)

anyway, here's to another year of friends, family, and dreams. and now i have a paper to write. blah.

*Twenty-five Years - Paul Simon