Nursing Home Church

Hello again!

I know it's soon to return to the computer, but I'm procrastinating my Sunday to make it last as long as possible. You see, Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It's an entire day set aside for relaxing. I can spend the entire afternoon in my room and not be considered antisocial. Just contemplative or religious. But I'm not really religious. I just like my quiet time and the opportunity to give life to a new blog while listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack. It just makes me feel like writing, although typing on a mac keyboard isn't quite the same as putting quill to an ink well and then to a bit of parchment. It's much easier. Maybe that's why people were more elegant and refined in ages past. Not only could only the educated upper class have opportunity to write leisurely, but also, it took forever to get a single word on a page. In the movie Becoming Jane, it shows Anne Hathaway/Jane literally cutting out the words from the page. It was cutting and pasting without the control (or command) x and v. The labor intensive words gave the writer more time to think about if she really wanted to write that word down. Well, since many writers like Wordsworth and Dickens were paid by the word, maybe not so much. It didn't encourage them to be stingier with precious words, but rather to use longer words that blended together in one pen stroke of cursive.

I just exploit words beyond their proper stretchiness and lessen their value each time I use a word. I apologize to the dictionary. Words have power, and I am using them to no purpose but the betterment of my own mind. How selfish of me.

Enough Pride and Prejudice. It's making me feel guilty of my own inadequacy.

Oh right! The title of my blog!

I love Sundays. I had the most fantastic morning. I was feeling rather blargh this morning when I got up. I ran out of shampoo in the shower, and I had skipped a shower yesterday, so I was in desperate need of clean hair, so I poured all the water in my bottle of Pert. The dregs worked and my hair is relatively oil and dirt free. Okay, so imagine, scrambling Janna, barely awake, can't find clothes. I end up putting on two dresses on top of each other and these tights that make my belly pooch out in an awkward fashion because I accidentally got a size too small. I didn't realize until afterwards that the dress underneath made a huge poofy skirt that belongs to an age where bustles and big butts were the height of fashion.

I arrive at the nursing home with dripping wet (not sure if it's clean yet or not) hair that goes to my nose because I haven't cut my bangs since summer. I just sit in the parking lot for about two minutes just staring forward at the ladybug on my windshield. Why am I here? Am I awake or in a dream? My dream had frankly been disturbing. I can't remember half of it, but it made me feel extremely awkward. Eventually, I get the gumption to stumble out of the car to grab my violin and wire stand. I walk in while Lisa is already playing the piano. Oh, I'm late. Those two minutes of nothingness perhaps weren't the smartest idea. But we fall right into routine. I unpack my violin and set up my stand and start along with some hymns. It took me a few phrases to realize I was in the wrong key on the first hymn. But eventually, I settle in. And we get to play "His Eye is On the Sparrow!" It's one of my faves. I'm a sucker for old hymns. We're doing part writing with root position bass in music theory right now, and it's fascinating to see it in action for centuries in hymnals. It distracts me from the sermon sometime. Anywho, my mind finally clears, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself playing music that didn't require sitting on the edge of my seat to see if I have the same bowings as the concertmaster or counting like I'm the count from sesame street. After the church service with sermon and communion, everyone was a dear as always. Mr. Mass gave me a pack of gum. He wouldn't let me give it back, so as Dr. Harvey told me, I thanked him profusely and treasured it in my case. I'm chewing some right now. Thank you, Mr. Mass if somehow you're out there. Another lady gave me a peck on the cheek thanking me for playing. Those are the people for whom I want to play. That was an awkward avoidance of ending a sentence with a preposition. Next time I'll just quote Winston Churchill and say this about such a silly rule: "This is the sort of errant pedantry up with which I will not put."

Case in point: old people are awesome. I love how they always make my day even though they have had much tougher lives than I have. The people at Ridgecrest are so sweet and make me feel like the greatest violinist ever. But they just enjoy the old hymns just as much as I do. So, we can share a moment of mutual appreciation.

I can't wait to be an awesome old person. I mean, I can wait. I will live my life and enjoy each moment, but I'll enjoy the moments when I'm old, too. Having grey hair sounds like it would be fun. And I could do pretty much whatever and no one would care because I would be an elder to be respected. I would be so much wiser. My wrinkles would immediately tell people if I were a happy or sad person. Hopefully, I'll have laugh wrinkles. And I could tell crazy stories about I walked to school uphill both ways, even if in reality my mom never let me walk to school no matter how much I begged.

But I can still be crazy now and no one scoffs too much at my hooliganism. I had no idea that was a real word, but spellcheck just verified its existence. Hoozah!

Hooligans and old people reminds me of the sigur ros video for Hoppipolla. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EyI4p0yjDQ

Such a wonderful video.

Something I had never realized: they're all play fighting in a graveyard. Morbid much? Is it playing around imminent death? Mocking the power of death with the binding force of love and teamwork? Or maybe we're all to be reminded that death is nearby as we live our lives, so might as well carpe diem and defeat all of our enemies that we're afraid, to jump in all the puddles we can, and love as much as we can. I like that last idea. I always extrapolate beyond the meaning of the actual work, so it's probably not right.

You know how in Spanish literature everyone always dies in the end? I refused to believe this in my junior spanish class. I would translate the stories rather loosely without looking up words, and in my translations, the characters would always have a happy ending, but the rest of the table would quickly put me down saying that the main character had died a brutal death by murder of his exwife or something like that. So, extrapolating is not always good.

Like in xkcd.

http://xkcd.com/605/

hehe.

I love fallacial logic.

Okay, and my favorite joke today in Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals.

So, Fassel is trying to explain the Bonk School (which mocks Freud) to Miss Healstether.

"They are the ones who go on about what happens if ladies don't get enough mutton, and they say cigars are --"

"That is a fallacy!"

hehe.

I love dirty puns. Thank you Terry Pratchett for continuing to write despite your early onset alzheimers. You rock.

Okay, I'm done procrastinating for now.

But it's Sunday. And it's raining. Therefore, I am perfectly justified in curling up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea.

Enjoy your Sunday evening, world!

Introduction

Hello new world!
This may seem a bit corny, but I really don't care. This is a fresh page. You know that delicious scent that a new leather journal has as soon as you open to the middle and thrust your nose in so you can fully drink in the opportunity to make some wrinkly pages? Well, this may not be encased in all five senses, but I hope I can fully relate the nakedness of my sentiments as I can on paper that hides beneath my bed. As of now, there is no point, no telos to this blog other than to rid my soul of the worries that cling to it so parasitically. I must admit that I am a bit selfish to want to toss my nuisances into the outer reaches of interblag! But I hope that I will not destroy too many lives or desires.
Let me rid this page of some white space by being self-deprecating and egotistical at the same time. I deserve nothing. I have been spoon fed everything from the very moment of my birth. I never even talked until I was three when I was given speech therapy because my family could read my thoughts and got me everything I had a vague inclination of wanting. I have never had a real job or any moment when I truly had to worry about where my next meal would come from. I have never had to overexert myself in any classes or teams. Other than some horrible disability at obeying social norms, everything is relatively easy as long as I have had enough sleep.
As a college freshman, however, I do not get enough sleep. Who can say no to a tea party until three o'clock in the morning to write papers and take the occasional break watching the censored count from sesame street? Or procrastinating the writing of said paper in order to investigate who is trying to kill you in the Assassins game by interrogating the entire boys dormitory next door.
So, time management is not one of my strengths.
Nor is tact.
I managed to make numerous bad puns at a visitation service for my best friends' grandmother (the friends are triplets).

"Let's get out of here, it's too hot with so many bodies."

"Where should I put my purse?"
"Anywhere! As long as you don't put it in the casket. Granny might run away with it."

"Why did they put so much make-up on her?"
"At least they didn't load on the fake eyelashes and bimbo lipstick. It would be a pity to be called a slut among such a crowd."

And these are not funny! It is just my horrible way with dealing with death. I can't cry at serious things. I just laugh and belittle the sincere mourning and grief of others. I only cry when I haven't had enough sleep or I make some silly error like forgetting to turn on the grill.

I like to diagnose myself with silly psychoses. I have always wanted to get psychotherapy. Lying down on a couch and telling some old man with a funny beard all of my problems sounds like heaven. Perhaps I just like to rant and talk. There's probably nothing wrong with me, but I have always hoped that I am special in a special way.

I even wanted braces. But my teeth were too perfect. I know I would have hated them if I ever had to wear them, but there was always a slight twinge of jealousy of my friends that got to change the color of their teeth from green to a beautiful iridescent pink. It was a whole new way to change your look!

I also wanted glasses. Then, I read Harry Potter in the dark with a flashlight every night in fourth grade until two in the morning. I got my glasses eventually. Then I lost them every day in seventh grade from total embarrassment. I would carry them in a case on top of all my books and only put them on when I had to for class. I could never recognize anyone's face, so I kept my head down to save any embarrassment of snubbing the few friends I had. I always managed to drop them amongst the sea of scary faceless tweenagers, so every day, I would go the office and ask for my glasses which had always managed to be found. Dang it. I could never lose those things. They're still in my bathroom drawer.

Middle school was one of those places that make hell seem like a pleasant visit.
Our cafeteria had three levels. The top level was for the popular kids, the middle for the cliquish kids who had managed to find a close group of friends, and the bottom level was for the nerds, geeks, emos, and the kids that just didn't care about the social pyramid. I spent most of my time on the bottom level. We had a close group we called the Triangle. I would go to the library (which conveniently was also a shortcut that bypassed the lunch crowd) on the way to lunch each day and pick up a new book. I won't pretend to be awesome. It was mainly Redwall, Tamora Pierce, and some The Cat Who . . . sniffed glue or something like that. We would read our books while we ate. We donated our leftover dimes towards a community pot where we could collect our change and buy something exciting like a honey bun and share it. The Triangle was a sophisticated politea. In 8th grade when Jessica Simpson's cousin moved away and I occupied her vacant chair on the middle level for a month. Man, that was true power hunger.

Enough about middle school.

If you have managed to read thus far in the post, I am quite impressed and slightly confused by your disturbing persistence. I am making no coherent argument, nor am I typing with any form in mind.

Hmm, I guess everything has a form, even if it is free form. I am following most rules of grammar and sentence structure. Okay, so it is not the greatest, but at least it is not Stephanie Meyers. Sorry Twilight fans. She has no concept of the subjunctive tense. Tell me if I forgot to use it, but I am not a published writer! Please, woman, have some standards for the tweenager to live up to!

Ooh, this is fun. We can have a stereotypical rant about Twilight. Somehow, this does fit into my autobiographical narrative.

I have a confession. I went through a Twilight phase. My cousin had a friend who made thousands of dollars off of her Twilight fan site. Thus, he became a fan. And he lent me the first two books which I devoured in two nights. As a sixteen year old thirsty for emotional fulfillment, it is easy to fall into the ploy of the madlib that the characterless Bella was. Or perhaps as a stupid sixteen year old that had never been kissed. I heard someone describe Twilight as emotional porn. And that's exactly what it is. Middle aged men who have never gotten any watch real porn, while sappy tweenage/teenage girls who have never had a real boyfriend read Twilight. It's a filler that replaces something missing in their life. Later that year, I got a boyfriend who turned out to be nothing like Edward Cullen and I broke up with him after three months. I still nursed a soft spot for Twilight and idealistic vampires until I reread the books in a different light. Freed from the constraints of immature emotional needs, I saw how silly I was to fall under the spell of such a shoddily constructed novel preaching abstinence and meaninglessness without boys. Argh. That's a really low blow, Stephanie Meyer. Teaching young girls to need emotionally messed up boys and yet never to have sex with them. Nasty. Low. Blow.

Then I saw the movie, laughed my head off, and put it all in the past. Through my stupidity I have grown stronger.

Where does this put us in the autobiographical narrative? Oh yeah, senioritis in high school. I finally did not care about societal norms, boys, or fashion sense anymore. I began to rock the summer dresses, argyle socks, and poofy hair while all the girls around me wore jeans, school shirts, and blonde, straightened hair. I even began to eat lunch outside and do a bit of lightsaber fighting and hackey sacking. I ruled the UIL Academic tournaments and thoroughly enjoyed my AP classes. Senior year was not too bad.

My strange nerd persona has done fairly well in college so far. At least, as long as I stay in the honors college and music school circles. More honors. I think I freak out the music school kids every so often with my really bad jokes and sorely lacking knowledge of classical musicians.

But hey, images aren't supposed to matter that much, are they?

But they do. We watched High Fidelity last night. John Cusak's character Rob Gourdon expounded upon how it doesn't matter what you're like, but what you like. I came into college liking xkcd, the ocarina of time, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. I can make conversation fairly easily in the guys' honors dorm. I'm practically male in my taste in nerdiness with my two brothers' upbringing. Thank you, brothers. You may not have prepared me for middle school, but college I can handle.

I guess you're fairly brought up to speed on my life thus far. In late entries, I'll try to stick to more form and deeper ideas. But that's my life (social and intellectual) in a nutshell...er...blog entry...

Peace out!