The Remains of a Poet

I am disturbed by the number of emails I recieve offering to give me free trials of products designed to enlarge my male anatomy.

I AM A GIRL!

Just had to get that off my chest.

Carry on.

Jerry the Frog Spoof Line of the Moment: I’m surprisingly bright and happy for a person just coming out of a place where inhuman specters suck out your soul! ~ Hagrid

Deep Thought of the Day: Sometimes you have to be careful when selecting a new name for yourself.  For instance, let’s say you have chosen the nickname “Fly Head.”  Normally you would think that “Fly Head” would mean a person who has beautiful swept-back features, as if flying through the air.  But think again.  Couldn’t it also mean, “having a head like a fly”?  I’m afraid some people might actually think that. ~ Jack Handy

Adults who do not understand modern technology should not “help” me with computer check-in.

Neither should lawyers who think they know my father.

Jerry the Frog Spoof Line of the Moment: Jar Jar: De gungans go marching two by two, hoorah... hoorah...
Fans: Kill us now.

Deep Thought of the Day: It makes me mad when I go through all the trouble of having Marta cook up about a hundred drumsticks, and then the guy at Marine Land says, “You can’t throw chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish.” Sure they eat fish, if that’s all you give them. Man, wise up! ~ Jack Handy

When I first began writing stories at the tender age of ten, I saved everything I wrote on floppy discs.  Why? you might ask.  Because in those days we only had one computer, and the disc protected my stories from being read by anyone else in my family (unless they put the disc into the computer, which they easily could have done, because I left it on a shelf right next to the computer.  But I was young, and it gave me a sense of security, so there you go).  I had several floppy discs, but one in particular was special to me, because it had my favorite story on it.  It was the first story I ever wrote, and it was called People Change, and I was really, really attached to it.  But one day I put this disc into my computer so I could open up People Change and something horrible happened: The disc was blank!  All the stuff on it was gone, that's it, disappeared, nowhere to be found.  Over a year's worth of writing had vanished without a trace.  Naturally, I was upset.  But eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to see People Change again, and I began a new disc.  Over the next two years I went through five more discs, and at some point all five of these discs got erased!  Eventually I got a brain and stopped saving stuff onto discs and started saving them onto my hard drive, which was a lot safer, especially after I learned how to password protect documents.  But I still got bummed occasionally when I thought about those three years worth of writings I had lost.

So last night I was sitting at my computer.  And I was looking around the desk for something, and I saw my six old discs.  And I thought, I wonder if they still don't work.  So I picked them up and put the first one in my computer and pulled up the page that said if it had anything on it and there was People Change!  It was a very exciting moment for me.  I immediately saved all the files on that disc onto my hard drive and put in another disc.  Of the six discs I tried five of them worked.  I saved all their files onto my hard drive (in case the discs broke again in the middle of the night), and then I went to bed.

Now today I opened these files and began to read, and it made me really depressed.
Why would it make her depressed? you are asking yourself. She hasn't seen some of these for five years.
And of course you would be correct.  But you see, what is so depressing is that I was an absolutely horrible writer when I was ten.  And also when I was eleven.  And definitely when I was twelve.  And I wasn't all that great when I was thirteen.
Well, you're probably thinking, of course you weren't as good as you are now, but you were probably good for your age.
And this is what I thought at first too.  But then a horrible thought occurred to me:

When I was writing these, I thought they were good.  And I think what I'm writing now is good.  But what if, in three years, I read what I'm writing now and realize that it wasn't good?  What if I'm really horrible, but I only think I'm good, and in a few years I'll realize I'm not good?

This is a very depressing thought.  The other depressing thing about all this is that I realized that my sisters are liars!  They are liars because they told me when I was writing these things that they were good, but now I know they were lying.  This makes me really depressed.  Whom can I trust now?  Can I even trust my own abilities?  I'm bummed.  I'll just leave it at that.

Jerry the Frog Spoof Line of the Moment: Padme: What's with all this abnormally aggressive depression?
Anakin: It's all Obi-Wan's fault I'm a mass-murdering basket case!
Fans: Now we know where Luke got his whining from.

Deep Thought of the Day: Sometimes, when I reflect back on all the beer I drink, I start to feel real ashamed.  But then I look into the glass and think of all the workers in the brewery and all their hopes and dreams.  If I didn't drink this beer they might be out of worked and their dreams would be shattered!  Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true, than to be selfish and worry about my liver." ~ Jack Handy

I have not given an update on my actual life in a few weeks, and as today is my first free Saturday since August, I feel this is the perfect opprotunity to do so.

Choir Retreat: A weekend Miss Lori designed to torture us.  No, seriously, it is a weekend filled with 8 1/2 hours of practice, and nothing else.  Now I love the people in my choir, I do.  I love singing with them.  I hate living with them.  Ah well, such is life.  The good news is, we did not get snowed in this year, like last year.  (Though there were some déjà vu moments where I was like, "No. Way." ... But they turned out to be false alarms.)

School: Why am I giving an update on school?  I have nothing to say about school.  (This is probably why I haven't given an update on my actual life in a few weeks... because I haven't had an actual life in a few weeks.)  Government - not even gonna go there.  Brit Lit - now there's something!  I wrote a new thesis statement (because my teacher didn't like my original one, remember?).  It is: 

          The epic poem Beowulf exemplifies the horrible literary techniques of over-repetition and unbelievable plot, coupled with the addition of unnecessary cultural customs. 

Jazz was editing it and she was like, "So basically your thesis is 'Beowulf sucked!'"
"Yeah," I said, "basically."
She looked approving, as well she should have been.  Beowulf was worse than both A Tale of Two Cities and Anna Karenina.  Now that's saying something!

Other than that, not much is going on.  I have almost no homework this weekend, I don't have a second job anymore, and my mother bought me Starbucks yesterday.  Life is good.

Random Icon I Made That I Really Like (lyrics from the song Stanley Climbfall by Lifehouse):

Jerry the Frog Spoof Line of the Moment: Sam: Aragorn's dark and brooding.
Frodo: Just like me, only taller.

Deep Thought of the Day: The land that had nourished him and had borne him fruit now turned against him and called him a fruit.  Man, I hate land like that! ~ Jack Handy

I'm taking fencing in November, now that I have more time since I only have one job!

Yay!

Deep Thought of the Day: If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes Mr. Brave Man, I guess I am a coward. ~ Jack Handy

I wasn't going to write this here.  I really wasn't.  But after today... well, let's just say I've gotta get these off my chest.

Trinity and the No Good, Dirty Rotten, Horrible, Very Bad Saturday: I work every Saturday morning from 8-2.  It's at my second job, which I hate.  I keep trying to talk my mom into letting me quit, but she says not until I find a different second job.  Um, hello, I already have another job!  That's why this is my second job!  But getting back to my horrible day.  So on Friday my mom tells me that she's not going to take me to work tomorrow.
"It's only two miles away," she tells me. "You can ride your bike."
"But Mom," I say, in a very reasoning tone of voice, "I can practice my driving.  Besides, I don't want to ride my bike!"
"But think of the money we'll save on gas," she says brightly.
"I'll give you three bucks," I say desperately.
"Nope," my mom shakes her head. "You're riding your bike."
"But I'm on my feet all day at work, and I'll be tired," I try.
"Tell you what," my mom says. "If it's a truly horrible experience, I won't make you do it ever again."
Which is, of course, a crappy promise, because she and I both know it won't be horrible.  So the next morning I rise half-an-hour earlier than normal to allow plenty of time to do all my stuff.  At about 7:35 I go out to my backyard, where the bikes are kept, to make a horrible discovery.  I have no locks.  We have two bike locks in my family, one with a key, one with a combo.  The key belongs to Camryn, the combo to Hannah.  I, however, don't know the combo, and have no idea what Camryn did with the key before she went to Poland.  So basically, I'm screwed.  Finally I'm like, "Forget it!" and take the key lock (because it's open), and decide I'll just fake lock the bike when I get there (I wouldn't be so paranoid, but Hannah's bike just got stolen a few months ago).  So I take my bike out of my backyard and down to the sidewalk where I make another discovery: the seat is too high.  At this point I'm like, "Screw it, I have to go or I'm gonna be late for work!  I'll just deal!"  So I start to ride down my street and turn onto my greenbelt.  It is on the greenbelt that I make the most important discovery of all - a discover one would prefer to make before one was well on one's way: my bike has no brakes.  This, of course, would not be such a problem, because one would assume one could stop by dragging one's feet along the ground except, oh yes!, ha ha, I can't because the seat is too high.  As I'm realizing all this I can see the street coming closer and closer, and I can't slow down, and I end up going flying off the curb and getting thrown forward and backward on the bike.  With a big bruise on my butt, and certain that I've damaged some of my reproductive organs, I continue on, because I really have no choice, I have to get to work.  I finally make it out of my track and into the next neighborhood over, which is just a straight shot, and then the center where I work.  The problem is there are about a million stop signs in it.  Stop signs I obviously can't stop at.  So I'm going through the neighborhood in terror that a policman is lurking in one of the sidestreets waiting to ticket anyone who doesn't stop at the stop signs (as the policemen in Irvine are wont to do, since Irvine is the safest city in California and there is literally nothing else for them to do).  Fortunately there was nothing of the kind, and I made it to the center without further incident.  However, at the center, as I was fake locking my bike, I realized something was missing.  What was it? I asked myself.  Oh yes!  I don't have a helmet!  Which is, of course, illegal, as I am not yet eighteen.  Yes, I think it is a very good thing I wasn't spotted by any policemen.  Then my boss was ten minutes late, which made me really mad, because I had risked physical and financial harm to get there on time.  I wasn't able to call my mom to tell her what had happened until 1:30, but she wasn't there, so I had to leave a message.  When I got off half-an-hour later I had to walk the bike home (because I didn't have a helmet, but even if I'd had one I wouldn't have ridden the bike, because it had no brakes).  The only good thing about the whole thing was that my mom said I never have to do it again, since it was such a horrible experience.  Yay!

Trinity and the No Good, Dirty Rotten, Horrible, Very Bad Tuesday: Picture day at school today.  I had to - no wait!  First let me tell you the classic line from government today (I apologize in advance for being such an academic snob):
Mrs Mullen (reading from The Declaration of Independence): "'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'  Weston, what do you think that means, 'certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'?"
Weston: What does 'unalienable' mean?"
Um... excuse me?  Call me a snob, but how can you be seventeen years old and not know what 'unalienable' means?  And even if, by some strange chance, you don't, can't you get it from the context???  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal... endowed... with certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  I mean, doesn't that give you even some small clue as to the meaning of the word?  A few weeks ago one Camryn's friends figured out I was a year ahead in school and observed, "She must be really smart."  "No," Camryn corrected, "it's just that everyone at her school is really dumb."  Um, yeah, that sounds about right.
But getting back to picture day.... I had to sit, with the rest of my class, in the sanctuary the entire lunch hour while a bajillion people got their pictures taken.  I ended up being late to Brit Lit!  And the guy taking the picture was a total jerk!  He was just... I can't even describe it, it was horrible!  Then I went to Brit Lit (late) hungry and mad, and we had a quiz.  I couldn't even think.  My teacher, Miss Behne, was totally nice about it too, and was like, "You can go buy something at the snack bar and come back and eat it here," but I didn't have any money.  Then my mom was late picking me up.  She pulled up and started to get out so I could drive.
"I don't want to drive!" I snarled.
"Okay," she said, for once not pushing it.  But, after I got home, and had some food and a good cry, and then went to the bank and got some money, my day improved considerably.  And after I went to choir and sang "Widmung" and then went to Henry's and got a sandwich and some muffins, things looked really bright.  So I suppose it wasn't such a horrible day after all....

Deep Thought of the Day: I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate.  And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. ~ Jack Handy

My dear MNFF readers,

     A few weeks ago I sat down to write the ending of Canis Majoris.  Not because I had finished the story.  On the contrary, I’m nowhere near finished with it.  And the ending I was writing will go through several edits before you ever see it.  I simply sat down to write it as an incentive to keep writing the story.  An Okay, I’m eventually going to get to this point kind of thing.  But as I began typing, something horrible occurred: I wrote the real ending of the story.  What is so horrible about this, you might ask.  What is so horrible is that the real ending to the story and the ending I was planning are two very different things.  The ending I was planning centered on Lily and James; The ending I wrote centered on Sirius and Jocelyn.  And it was then that I had a terrible revelation: My story wasn’t a Lily/James fic!  Probably, many of you figured this out long before I did (actually, I know my dear reader Hallia did… as well as the ever honest Liz_n_Elly).  But please understand: I really meant for it to be a Lily/James story.  I didn’t put it in the Lily/James section so I could get more readers by marketing it as something it wasn’t.  I always intended it to be Lily/James.  My dear reader xoTom told me, “Your plot is very well thought out (or appears to be so)”.  And yes, my plot is thought out.  But you see, the Sirius/Jocelyn part of it (which was very well planned) was only meant to be an interesting subplot, while the Lily/James part (also well planned) was meant to be the main focus.  But, as you authors will understand, many times your story will take you places you never expected to go.  The more I wrote, the more the focus of the story shifted, until Sirius and Jocelyn became the main focus and Lily and James were reduced to a very important subplot.  So you see, the plot never changed, just the focus did.

     Truthfully, as I wrote more and more of it, I began to find the Lily/James aspect, well, frankly, boring.  You see, for me, writing (or even reading, when it comes to it) Lily/James is boring because there is this terrible element of inevitability.  It’s like when you first see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  There’s been this huge buildup in the first two episodes of all Anakin’s anger and resentment and annoying self-pity, and you know that this third one is supposed to take you on this roller coaster of emotions to the point where, as Darth Sidius begs for mercy, you’re gripping the edge of your seat mentally begging Anakin to make the right choice and turn to the good side.  But the reality is that you’re simply bored.  Not just because the script is terrible and acting stiff (and you can disagree with me all you want in the comments, but trust me, I know bad acting when I see it, and in Revenge I saw it), but because you already know what Anakin’s decision is going to be and that, were you to watch all the Star Wars movies without stopping, he is destined to be killed in about seven hours screen time by the life-sucking action of throwing the Emperor off a balcony to keep him from torturing his son Luke to death.  And so there is this horrible element of inevitability that keeps you from working up the energy to even mentally scream, “Don’t do it, Anakin!”

     That’s what Lily/James is like to me.  There’s supposed to be all this buildup, and all this emotional struggle, but it’s boring because you already know that they get together and have a son who is destined to save the wizarding world and who is, let’s face it, the reason we’re reading/writing this story in the first place.  But with Sirius/Jocelyn it’s different.  I don’t know why.  After all, there’s inevitability there too.  There’s the inevitability that they won’t get together.  But somehow, it’s not the same.

     Now here’s the part where I tell you why I made you come here and read this in the first place.  Due to the revelation that the focus had shifted, the current location of Canis Majoris on MNFF will be moved from Lily/James to the Other Pairing section on September 24, 2005.  I really hope this doesn’t inconvenience anyone.  If you can’t find it use the search part of MNFF, or come back here for links.  Thanks everyone, and sorry about the inadvertent false advertising for the fic.

~ Trinsy

P.S. If you leave me a comment here and you’ve reviewed on my fic at any time, please tell me your MNFF penname.  I know who you all are, love you all to death, and like to know when one of you comments here.  Thanks!

Deep Thought of the Day: Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself.  Mankind.  Basically, it’s made up of two separate words, “mank” and “ind”.  What do these words mean?  It’s a mystery and that’s why so is mankind. ~ Jack Handy

Christi and I went to lunch today, very excited that we wouldn't get in trouble as we're seniors now.  When we came back to school we got called in to the principle, along with Allison, Catharine, and Andrea (who had gone out together).  Apparently you're not allowed to leave campus without a note from your parent... even if you're a senior.  How lame is that?

Choir from 4:30-6:30.  Highlight of my week.  Always has been.  Always will.  I love my director, Miss Lori, even if she does scare the crap out of me.  First rehersal of the season today.  My two favorite guys graduated and are gone.  Sad times, sad times.  But my least favorite person is no longer there, for which I am very grateful.  All the new kids kept shoving tape recorders in my friend Kara's and my faces.  Kara said we should just get used to it, as we'll be famous one day.

Most importantly to all of you, however... drumroll please...

I have now posted all the chapters I've written of Canis Majoris at Beyond the Veil.  To veiw chapters 17-22 click here and scroll down.  Have fun with those!

~ Trinsy

Deep Thought of the Day: The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe.  But the stupid man will just lie down on some seaweed and roll around until he’s completely draped in it.  Then he’ll stand up and go, “Hey, I’m Vine Man.” ~ Jack Handy

Okay, first day of school yesterday.  Quick rundown of my day:

·    10:20-10:30 – I arrived at school at 10:20 AM, ten minutes before class began.  Of course, everyone else was still in class, so I wandered aimlessly around for seven minutes.  Ran into my old pal Amanda (Bethany’s older sis), as well as Judie.  Amanda told me I looked cute, while Judie informed me that she didn’t have a backpack, as her sister had taken it to Europe.

·    10:30-11:25 AM – Went to my Government class.  Okay, so I already told you on Wednesday that I had the two most perfect students in the school in this class with me.  I forgot to mention Paul.  He’s the other junior in this otherwise strictly senior class.  Paul is one of those kids who has Homeschooler stamped on his forehead in large, bold, capital letters.  But, seeing as he doesn’t have a life and all, he has plenty of time to work on school projects, making him another one of the “best” students in the school.  And, of course, there’s Jazz, who somehow innately knows everything.  I’d forgotten that about her.  Government has a reputation as being the hardest class in the school, and let me tell you, it has thoroughly earned it.  As Christi said about halfway through class: “Why do I feel like I’ve never been to school before?”  This essentially summed up Government.

·   11:30-11:45 AM – Lunch.

·   11:45-12:30 PM – Chapel.  The lights kept shining in my eyes, which was extremely annoying.  Mostly a time to make all the new people introduce themselves.  All the new girls fell in love with Jeremy, a very cool, very funny senior guy who was sort of running things.  Then Mr. Brown talked about stuff, but I don’t really remember what he said, so it can’t have been that important.

·    12:30-1:30 PM – Brit Lit.  Unlike Government, Brit Lit made me feel very smart because, aside from Jazz (who innately knows everything), I am apparently the only person in that class who possesses a brain.  We were supposed to be taking notes on the Middle Ages of Britain (because we’re reading literature written in that time period, or some such nonsense).  However, this seemingly simple task proved to be nearly impossible for my classmates.  Andrea was lost within the first ten minutes, and spent the majority of the class trying to remember what urban legends were called (Andrea: “It’s these weird things, and people believe in them… you know!” The rest of us: “No, we don’t.” Andrea:  “It was the title of a movie recently!” Christi: “Really, what was it called?” Andrea: *rolls eyes* “Well that would help!”).  Catharine and Johannah kept mixing up the dates and European tribes (“But I thought the Danes were from Norway!” “No, that was the Norsemen. The Danes were from Sweden.” “But I thought the Saxons were from Sweden.” “No, they were from Germany, and they were before that.” “Hey yeah, when exactly were they, anyway?”).  Christi simply gave up trying to understand what was going on altogether (“This is making my brain hurt!”).  Jazz kept adding commentary (“The Jutes, Anglos, and Saxons were from Germany, which was originally called…”).  The worst, however, was Weston.  Weston kept trying to tie everything back to the movie King Arthur.  Every time Miss Behne would move to a different date or different group of people Weston would ask if that was like in King Arthur.

“So is that like in King Arthur? … Were those the blue people in King Arthur? … Was that around the time of King Arthur?”

     Finally Jazz got so frustrated she turned to him and was like, “Weston, are you going to ask that every ten historical years?”

     “Yes,” he responded, “until I’m right!”

     A few minutes later, when we moved to another date Jazz asked, “So is that like in King Arthur?”  Weston told her she shouldn’t mock him when he’s the only guy in the class.

     Luckily for me, the class was only an hour long, and after that I got to go home.  Hurrah!

I had to work this morning at six.  My manger overslept and didn’t get there until 6:30, so I had to sit outside the store for half an hour.  Half an hour that I could have been sleeping.  So not cool.  The next five and a half hours were spent moving stuff onto different shelves, and then for two hours after that I was on register.  Then I came home and took a shower.  Guy, I’m tired.

Deep Thought of the Day: Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.  That way, you’ll be a mile from them, and you’ll have their shoes. ~ Jack Handy

One more week of freedom.

Life sucks.

Deep Thought of the Day: I hope life isn’t one big joke, because I don’t get it. ~ Jack Handy