I infinitely prefer creepy stories in print.  I will share with you a few of my favorite creepy quotes from my favorite scary novels and short stories, because I’m a nerd. 

 “To think that the spectre you see is an illusion does not rob him of
his terrors: it simply adds the further terror of madness itself — and
then on top of that the horrible surmise that those whom the rest call
mad have, all along, been the only people who see the world as it
really is.”  – Perelandra – C.S. Lewis

—-

“As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the lie of the rooms, that the windows of the Count’s own rooms would look.  The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone mullioned, and through weatherworn, was still complete, but it was evidently many a day since the case had been there.  I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out. 

What I saw was the Count’s head coming out from the window.  I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms.  In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying.  I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner.  But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.  At first I could not believe my eyes.  I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion.  I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. 

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man?  I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear – in awful fear – and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of…”    – From the journal of Jonathan Hawker – Dracula, by Bram Stoker

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‘               “Is the playhouse still there?”  asked Martyn

                “I don’t know.”  admitted the storyteller.

                “Well,” said martin, as we reached the Tottenham Court Road and headed for the night bus stop, “I for one do not believe a word of it.” 

                There were four of us, not three, out on the street long after closing time.  I should have mentioned that before.  There was still one of us who had not spoken, the elderly man with the leather elbow patches, who had left the club with the three of us.  And now he spoke for the first time. 

                “I believe it,”  he said mildly.  His voice was frail, almost apologetic.  “ I cannot explain it, but I believe it.  Jamie died, you know, not long after father did.  It was Douglas who wouldn’t go back, who sold the old place.  He wanted them to tear it all down.  But they kept the house itself, the Swallows.  They weren’t going to knock that down.  I imagine that everything else must be gone by now.”

                It was a cold night, and the rain still spat occasional drizzle.  I shivered, but only because I was cold. 

                “Those cages you mentioned,” he said.  “By the driveway.  I haven’t thought of them in fifty years.  When we were bad he’d lock us up in them.  We must have been bad a great deal, eh?  Very naughty, naughty boys. 

                He was looking up and down the Tottenham Court Road, as if he were looking for something.  Then he said, “Douglas killed himself, of course.  Ten years ago, when I was still in the bin.  So my memory’s not as good.  Not as good as it was.  But that was Jamie all right, to the lift.  He’d never let us forget that he was the oldest.  And you know, we weren’t ever allowed in the playhouse.  Father didn’t build it for us.” His voice quavered, and for a moment I could imagine this pall old man as a boy again.  “Father had his own games.”"

- Closing Time, from the short story collection Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Have I told you how Briscoe hates skateboarders? It might be one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while. I think it is the noise that scares her. The dog needs a haircut like whoa. She’s going to get her hair did tomorrow, and I expect to have a little lamb by tomorrow night instead of the bear that is currently sleeping in my kitchen.  For some reason she has developed this ridiculous habit of spilling her food all over the floor.  It is like she picks up her bowl with her teeth and dumps it out, although I’m not sure that is actually possible.  But once the food it on the ground, she won’t eat it.  For a while, when I would come home to her spilled food, I would pick all the pieces up and put them back in the bowl.  Then I realized, wait, she’s a dog, if she wants to spill her food on the floor, she should eat the food off the flood.  So, I stopped cleaning it up, other than to turn the bowl back upright.  Sure enough, after leaving the food on the ground until late into the night, the dog finally decided she would eat it off the floor.  So, she’s started cleaning up the mess herself, but she’s still spilling the food. 

Something about summertime makes me want to lose myself in a story, preferably a long drawn out saga. Happily, HBO has provided that for me with The Game of Thrones, and even more happily, I am able to read the novels instead of waiting to see what happens in HBO time (which is painfully slow in my opinion). I enjoy the story, the show (and the novels for that matter) are quite gruesome and violent. I find reading about violent and gruesome things is easier than watching them play out on my unnecessarily large television. But I’m totally engrossed in the novels, each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, and the author has mastered the ability to speak in each character’s voice in a way that is seemless but also adds a depth to the writing and storyline that is not immediately apparent. I would not recommend the books or the television series to everyone, there is a base element to it that not all will find endearing, crass talk of sexual encounters and horrible things happen to almost all of the characters. But even the villainous characters have redeeming qualities (well, some of them do) and the heros have flaws, and there is nothing I love more than a good story with round characters.

I spent the last two weeks of May in Washington, D.C., training for work. Let me tell you, two weeks is a LONG TIME to be in a hotel. I learned a lot, got to spend time with some old friends (sadly, the Bizzy was out of town the entire time I was there), and enjoyed some fabulous food and beautiful sights, but I was very happy to come home to my apartment and my dog. I did meet some super cool new friends though. My mom and my aunt Jan came to visit me in Charleston this past weekend, and boy did we have a good time. I wish I could tell you we did lots of productive things, but really more than anything, we simply enjoyed Charleston and each other. We wandered, we enjoyed drinks on the rooftop under the shade with a breeze, we ate phenomenal food, (as a side note, a merinague will always add to a dessert), we peered through hedges, gates and walls into the fabulous gardens and side yards of people we didn’t know but wish we did, we sweated, we watched little children play in fountains, and Kate and Jan rearranged the furniture in my apartment. We did not shop at all, other than a short trip to the grocery, and we spent most of our time outside. It was great.

Oh! So I want y’all to check out my cousin Heather’s blog - she has MS, and has an amazingly honest and refreshing perspective, including my favorite – Wheelchair Etiquette.

As I was pulling out of the rental car lot at 12:30 am in the torrential downpour, my mom called.  “Hey, where are you?”  “Flight canceled, had to rent a car, driving to Charleston.”  “By yourself?!”   Pause.  “No. With Friends!”  Pause.  “Friends.  Like friends you just met at the airport, or friends you’ve known for a long time.”  Seriously, why would she assume I’d just met them, even if I did?  “Friends I just met but we know all the same people and I checked them out and I’m going to be okay let me call you later!”  Eventually I gave her their names and our connections and it was fine.  In the end, we split the $200 cost of the rental car four ways, and made it to Charleston around 3 am.  One of my new friends did not have a checkbook or cash, and he promised to mail me a check as soon as he got back to New York.  He worked in publishing, and also promised to send me books.  The promise of books alone was extremely exciting, and he was nice enough to ask me all about what sort of books I enjoyed and who my favorite authors were. 

As Monday was a holiday, the first business day after our Friday night trek was the following Tuesday.  On Wednesday afternoon, I returned home from work to find a large box on my doorstep.  True to his word, my New York friend had overnighted me a check for $50, and an impressive array of books.  Y’all, seriously, this was probably one of the most exciting presents I have received in recent memory.  I ripped into the box, and spent a long time sorting through my newly acquired treasures, which included coffee table books, cook books, hardback short stories, paper backs, including books that were already in print and not yet published.  I was struck by the obvious thoughtfulness that went into the book selection.  I told him I enjoyed classics, loved Fitzgerald, and above all, enjoyed a good story, specifically novels and short stories.  I’ve been meaning to tell you all about the books he sent me, and which ones I would recommend, but it has taken me months to read them all.  I have included the covers that I found particularly engaging, but you can’t always judge a book by its cover, I just didn’t want y’all to miss the pretty cover artwork.   

My favorite of all the covers and the books in general was the short story collection – Stories.  This collection was put together by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantoni, and includes stories by all sorts of amazing writers, some you will recognize, some you might not.  In the introduction, Neil relates a discussion concerning short story anthologies in which he and Al came to the conclusion that the only thing they really cared about, when it came down to it, were the stories.  That good writing was important, but the stories were where the real magic happened.  The reason he reads comes down to four words.  “…and then what happened?”  This entire short story collection was built on those four words.  The dedication says it all – For all the storytellers and tale spinners who entertained the public and kept themselves alive, for Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens, for Mark Twain and Baroness Orczy and the rest, and most of all, for Scheherazade, who was the storyteller and the story told.  I could talk about this book forever, and I was going to tell you which stories were my favorites, but I realized I’d basically need to copy the table of contents for that to happen. 

I’m realizing it could take me days to get through all my thoughts about these books, so I’m going to have to come back to this discussion.  In other news, it has been raining pretty consistently for about the past week, I’m still eating lots of oysters, Briscoe looks like a muppet dog because she hasn’t had a hair cut in so long (someone called her Benji the other day), and we had a fire drill at work this morning.

On a sad note, someone stole part of my herb garden.  I had three pots – one with mint (it was a BIG pot), one with Lavender (it was a MEDIUM size pot), and one with oregano (it is a LITTLE pot).  I had these three pots on the side of my yard so they could get enough sun.  Well, while I was gone, some one stole the two big pots.  Which is weird if only because the BIG pot – I can barely pick up and carry ten feet.  And I’m strong.  And the other pot is heavy too.  Plus the little pot was the actual thrown pottery pot of value, and the only one portable enough to carry off in your arms.  And if they pulled a truck up and threw the big pots in the vehicle, why not take the little one?  I don’t get it.  But now I’m fresh out of mint and lavender and my life is less complete.  Sigh.

But on a happier note, I had an awesome new friend that I met during a period of logistical difficulty this past weekend send me a super awesome package that I got yesterday.  It was amazing, and hopefully I will tell you more about the contents of the package in the future, if I can stop neglecting this blog.

I also got some fun mail on Tuesday, but I’ll wait to tell you about that later.  Suffice it to say, as cool as email and bbm and gchat can be, there is nothing better than pulling up to your house after work and seeing something interesting sticking out of your mailbox.

Yesterday and today have been the first truly hot and humid days we’ve had this summer.  When I got in my car after work this afternoon, my sunglassess fogged up completely.  I had to roll down the windows to unfog them.

This time every year I have to relearn my jogging routes that involve shade.  My winter routes involve sunshine, so it’s always an adjustment.

I had dinner tonight with Robin Anne – tomorrow is her birthday!  HOORAY!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBIN ANNE!  We had so much fun, it was a perfect evening.

YAWN!  So happy tomorrow is Friday.  Sweet dream friends.

For your viewing pleasure –

One More –

When I’m being lazy at night, I try to pretend that using Listerine is as good as flossing.  I know it isn’t, but it is just so much easier. 

I started reading Midnight’s Children, as Ana was reading it, but I got distracted and picked up The Other Boleyn Girl.  I think it is safe to say that Midnight’s Children probably has a lot more to offer to my literary education than The Other Boleyn Girl.  I mean, it was sort of a different kind of trashy than most trashy summer reads.  I can’t really put my finger on exactly what I mean by that.  But I definitely don’t feel better about myself for having read it.  I sort of feel worse.  I love historical fiction, and obviously nothing in the book was a huge shock, since I was aware of the actual history, but, but, hmmm.  I’m not sure I recommend it.  It was a page turner.  I was engrossed in it.  But it was more like watching a train wreck from which you couldn’t look away.   

And I never told y’all what I ended up thinking of His Dark Materials – the golden compass trilogy.  So I read the whole thing.  Then I didn’t read the last ten pages.  How lame is that? I hope that gives you a good idea of what I thought about the book.  The heroine – Lyra – she is basically adored by all other characters.  Most of the other characters had qualities about them that made me like them, made me feel invested, like I cared if something happened to them.  But not Lyra.  I didn’t end up caring about her in the end.  I wasn’t captivated by her.  In all honesty, I think I liked most of the other characters a lot more than her.  The last part about her and Will, it just didn’t ring true to me and it sort of cheapened the whole experience. 

The only other comment I have for the book – is that when I reread The Three Musketeers – I realized that Milady – who is the villain and a beautiful blond woman who is evil, and wields great power through her beauty and charm – has a pet monkey.  So now I feel like Mrs. Coulter is a knock off of Milady.

Basically I just overall wasn’t impressed.  Sigh.  Oh well. 

In other news, I got an ipod Nano yesterday.  I’m in love. 

I’m running in another 5k this weekend in Columbia.  It is suppose to storm tomorrow so hopefully it won’t ruin the whole day!

Oh, and whatever has happened to Lily Graypure?  She has disappeared and I am sad!

Lastly, I will leave you with a quote I read last night that I liked –

"Maturity is the capacity to endure uncertainty."  -  John Finley 

Britt:  WHOA!  That is a huge book!

Me:  Yep, I like big books.  This is a children’s novel.

Britt:  What is it?

Me:  His Dark Materials, you know, the Golden Compass. 

Britt:  Wait, I think I read something in a church bulletin that said you shouldn’t read that book or let your kids go see the movie.  Something about it being satanic.  Is it satanic?

Me:  That’s what I’m trying to figure out.  As far as I can tell, it is a children’s novel set in a fictional world, where an entity similarly structured as the church is evil.  Personally, I would compare it to 1984, where the government is evil.  I mean, it was written by an atheist.  But there seem to be some good moral themes.  It obviously is going to come down to good vs. evil.  We’ll see. 

____

Dan over at the Pasty Quail has been covering the Golden Compass debate, and I think it is really interesting.  I really like what he has to say here.  I strongly disagree with any organization that wants to tell me what I can and can’t read, or what I should and shouldn’t watch.  Why don’t churches worry about movies full of violence and hate and the kind of evilness that really and truly does exist in this world, instead of waging war against a STORY about an IMAGINARY place?

I haven’t read the whole thing.  So maybe I’ll feel differently about it when I get finished.  But I somehow doubt that a lot of people who are against this book and movie have read it.  I personally have more faith in my own faith than to be threatened by a novel.  Especially not a novel who heroes and heroines refuse to break their sworn promises, and who fight for the innocent, and whose actions are compassionate and heartfelt.  Because that is what I have gotten out of the book so far. 

But, you know, maybe it becomes satanic later on.  I would like to be a part of a church that encouraged children to read the book, or see the movie, and then initiate a discussion about how the "church" or the "god" in the book is different from the Church and the God that we believe in.  My mom said that some people don’t like the idea that people can be moralistic even if they aren’t religious.  But that is just a fact of life, right? 

I’m not sure why this whole thing bothers me so much, but I really don’t like the whole controversy.  I think part of it stems from the fact that it irritates me when people talk about Harry Potter being evil, and even some people think Lord of the Rings is negative, which is really amazing to me. 

There are over 500 facebook groups about the Golden Compass as of today.  Most of them are titled – DO NOT GO SEE THE GOLDEN COMPASS, or BOYCOTT THE GOLDEN COMPASS or THE GOLDEN COMPASS AND IT’S ATTACK ON CHRISTIANITY (wtf?) 

I particularly like – BOYCOTT THE GOLDEN COMPASS AND IT’S ATHEIST MESSAGE.  Really, I would say there appears to be more hate in these groups than in the book that I’ve been reading. 

I want to join the group – YOU KNOW WHAT YOU RELIGIOUS BIGOTS?  I JUST MIGHT GO SEE THE GOLDEN COMPASS.   or maybe – READING THE GOLDEN COMPASS DID NOT MAKE ME AN ATHEIST.

Really, I could spend hours going through these facebook groups.  But I don’t have time.  I need to go finish my novel.  I’m intrigued, and entertained, and challenged by it. 

Illusions, by Richard Bach – The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah.  This is a book Todd sent me a long time ago, that kept getting lost in the shuffle of other books.  I really enjoyed it, I’m not even sure exactly how to explain it.  But what I walked away with from this book is that the way we think and perceive the world can either limit our abilities and experiences or can magnify and increase our abilities and experiences.  That reality is fluid and dreams are important.  It isn’t a very long book, and the writing isn’t complex.  But there is something weighty and heavy about it, something that caused me, while reading it, to put it down for a few days and think before picking it back up again.  Bach also wrote Johnathan Livingston Seagull, which I would also recommend.  If you are going to read them both, read Seagull first. 

The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad. 

This isn’t really a book so much as a story.  The book I have also included Heart of Darkness, which is something I always planned on reading and haven’t.  But I really enjoyed the Secret Sharer, it is the story of a young Sea Captain, his first voyage as a captain, and the boat has been at sea for months with the same crew when he takes over.  The Captain rescues a man who has escaped from a passing ship where he has been accused of murder.  It is a story of finding your identity and how strongly empathy can touch you once you see yourself in another person. 

The Grand Tour – by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Steverman.

As it turns out, I like to read children’s novels.  This book is by two authors I used to read as a child – they write books about magicians, and dragons.  This book is about two young socialite girls from england who have just married and are traveling around Europe enjoying high Paris fashion at the turn of the 20th century.  The best way I can describe it is to say it is a Harry Potter crossed with the Davinci Code.  The two girls and their husbands get caught up in a plot involving ancient artifacts from across Europe and a pagan rite to create a ruler to unite all of Europe.  I know it sounds silly, but the history is well researched, and the ruins and places they visit are real.  Seriously, if Harry and his crew were the main characters in the DaVinci code.  I really liked it. 

The Midnight Disease – The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block and the Creative Brain  – by Alice Weaver Flaherty

This is a book I borrowed from Ivy.  I haven’t read the whole thing, I don’t have the psych background to really grasp a lot of it, but it is about hypergraphia – which is when you have the uncontrollable desire to write, and essentially the opposite to writer’s block.  The book also talks about writer’s block and a lot about creativity.  I found the definition for creative that the book gives to be interesting, two requirements – it must be novel and valuable.  If you have a novelty that isn’t valuable, it isn’t creative, and if you have something valuable but not novel, it isn’t creative either. 

The book also talks about motivation and your vocation.  One part I liked was the word Workaholic – and how some people assume that workaholics are driven by anxiety and that the workaholic works to relieve the anxiety and not because he enjoys his work or is trying to reach a goal.  But that it is almost impossible if you have a true vocation and your work is part of who you are, to always work for pleasure or for a goal – that terror and anxiety are going to be your motivation from time to time.  There is a lot more in the book – in just this one chapter I’ve been quoting from, about hobbies (which are often just work for fun) that are a release for people, and how paying a writer for his work can sometimes kill his motivation, or make him sloppy.  The book examines the ebb and flow of a writer’s words, seasons, hormones, age, fatigue, depression, illness, alcohol, drugs, music, deadlines, procrastination, etc.  It even talks about how the graduate student is likely to have writer’s block and hypergraphia at the same time – being completely blocked on an important paper while writing heavily in the realms of email and blogging.  Wow.  Sounds familiar. 

Anyway, the book is full of quotes from famous writers, and written by a neurologist who teaches at Harvard Medical school and who seems sincerely interested in the topic.  Most of it is over my head, but I felt like I learned something.  Writing is a mysterious past time. 

I have been listening to Amos Lee’s new album – Supply and Demand.  I like Amos Lee a lot.  I was first introduced to his music by Betsy – who tried to make me listen to him for a long time before I finally stopped being stubborn and realized that he is awesome.  I prefer his more upbeat songs, but a couple of his slower songs are great as well.  Betsy really likes Southern Girl – which I also support.  I think my favorite song is Sympathize.  There are a couple of songs available on Myspace – HERE.

OHH, and my friends Charles and David have started a band called Lady Antebellum, and I was listening to their new music on myspace and I am impressed.  These boys are so talented and sweet and awesome, I’m really proud of them for chasing their dreams.  I don’t think they have an album out yet – but they have quite a few songs available on myspace.  They have my stamp of approval.    Go LISTEN.

The only other thing I’m worried about today is what kind of halloween cookies I want to make.  Sugar cookies of course, but what shape?  Punkins?  I’m thinking Punkins.  Dipped orange with green butter cream icing stems.  GAH.  Decisions are so tough, cause, ghosts can be so cute too.  Or should I make cupcakes?  Cookies are probably easier to transport.  Hmmmm…..