eve

I feel the court beneath my feet and I remember.

My hair is short again, like it was back then. My body has whittled back down to a number on the scale I haven't seen since those years. My feet bounce with muscle memory, and I can hear my Barricades squeak against the hard court. There are a lot of things that are coming back to me all at once, but suddenly I remember what it'd been like to play on that center court by the bleachers. I remember what it'd been like when everyone who walked past on their way to the football field and track would turn to stare, as if you were a magnificent tiger on display. I remember how a classmate told me I'd scared her, because she'd never imagined someone like me could growl and scream with such ferocity.

I lacked self-confidence then. I wasn't the smartest, and there were scores of prettier, cuter, extroverted girls out there. But on that court, I had something none of them had. With the racket in my hand, I could almost believe I could fly.

Inamorata

Months ago, I'd downloaded Inamorata by Megan Chance--a free book that I'd completely forgotten about. As I looked through my Kindle for a book to read on the plane, I had no recollection of the book summary--or even what had compelled me to download the book in the first place.

I haven't gone back to read the Amazon summary that must have initially hooked my interest, but Inamorata possesses certain qualities that I can easily see would have drawn my attention. For starters, it has a darker paranormal element--not the sort that triggered the Twilight paranormal romance craze years ago, but more menacing and nightmarish. Moreover, the story takes place in late 1800s Venice and centers around the artist/writer/musician culture in Europe at that time--including allusions to famous artists and writers of the past.

I don't want to get too specific about what this book is about, but as I tend to write these book report posts to digest what I've read, there are certain elements I want to stew over.

The aspect of this book that really struck me (and may not impact others the same way) was its premise that many of the "greats"--Schumann, Byron, Canaletto--traded their souls to a succubus for fame. The succubus would become a powerful muse, and these men would produce their greatest masterpiece--the magnum opus that would immortalize their legacy, that people would remember them for in years to come--and then succumb to madness in turn.

Anyone who creates probably shares the same desire to some extent--to be immortalized in their work. The question that the book raises is, how far would you go to achieve that end? Would you make that pact with the succubus, knowing that you will produce your greatest work and then waste away in madness after?

By the time I finished the book, the sky had already begun to darken outside. The clouds over the Las Vegas desert were streaked a brilliant, bloody red as the last vestiges of daylight slinked away for cover behind the mountains. For a long time, I gazed out the airplane window and absently admired the colors. I don't know what I would do if faced with the temptation of immortalized fame, but I do know one thing. I know the madness that only a muse can induce. I still remember what happens when your creativity proliferates uncontrollably under the fever of inspiration, infected by the singular source of all your greatest highs and lows.

The year is coming to an end, and my bones can already feel the changes looming in the horizon. December has always been a time of retrospection. I've lost track of how many years have passed since the genesis of Heart & Crossbones, and I couldn't be bothered to calculate them now. But the sun is setting now. I haven't felt the same cancerous madness in years, and a part of me believes that I will never experience it again. But there are others in my life now--perhaps ones who will eventually inspire my words. As I stand on the precipice, I wonder if it is time to fall. I wonder if the sun has finally set on You.

I Don't Know What Progress Report I'm On Anymore

A little more than a week until I go back to California.

I can't wait.

I have come to the conclusion that in my world, school breaks are bad news. I'm sure there are people who come back from these breaks fully recharged, but ever since Thanksgiving Break, I have been suffering from a severe case of DGAF and motivating myself to study has been a Herculean task.

A couple of things to stew over:

During one of my procrastination moments, I compiled all of the chapters of the revised EP draft I'd written so far and put them into one PDF document, so I could read it on my phone at any odd moments. Probably not the brightest idea, given my rule for not going back to revise anything until after a full draft is complete.....

....because ughhhhh, so much work to be done. On one hand, I was impressed by how much I'd churned out in the past year (over 70,000 words, over 250 pages in a PDF). On the other hand, some parts were really bad. Maybe not Fifty Shades level of atrocity, but... still nothing I'd want anyone else to read. The first half of Act I was really obviously a case of holy-pomelo-i-haven't-written-anything-in-YEARS-what-do-i-dooooooo flailing, and the first half of Act II is majorly saggy in terms of pacing. Which might be good, because this draft is gonna need major liposuction to trim down the word count anyways. Also, Act I will need a ton of reworking, because I need to nail down a lot of the details from Rory's side of things in order to revise how much detail I want to reveal in each of the interviews.

But before I can get around to doing any of the above, I need to finish Act III.

And before I can get around to that, I need to slog through this cardiovascular block and make it to winter break alive....bahhhh.

The second thing I was going to bring up.... basically, a classmate of mine asked me out to dinner. It took me by surprise, because 1) the text came out of nowhere, 2) I don't think I'm misunderstanding the implications behind his request, but my initial reaction was pretty much..... huh? You mean me?

I'd rather not get into the details of this whole situation, but basically I left that text hanging there for an hour because I didn't quite know how to respond. On one hand, I've been around this person enough to observe his behavior, and from what I've been able to discern, he is a good person -- well-mannered, polite, hard-working, selfless, and just very nice. On the other hand... I hadn't really been looking at that person in that way.

I read some article the other day about how the so-called "spark" or "chemistry" or whatever doesn't actually mean anything in the long-run; that it's just neuronal responses that wear off over time and don't actually predict how well two people will fare together. But regardless, I'd never felt that "spark" or whatever with this person--our conversations are almost diplomatic, as if we'd never made it out of the small-talk stage (a stage that I am very uncomfortable in, fyi). And unfortunately, I can't help but compare this situation to other ones where I did feel that spark -- usually people with whom I would engage in good-natured teasing or banter.

In the end, I took a friend's advice and said I was busy on the day he suggested, but that I was open to figuring something out after our exam (essentially after winter break, which gives me almost a month to sort my thoughts). I mean, why not, right? One dinner doesn't mean anything. It's not a binding contract for anything, you skittish ninny. But we all know that I have a tendency to protect myself preemptively.

Once, I was talking to M about how much I love being independent, and the thought of having to chain my life to someone else's makes me skittish. Her response was along the lines of, "Eventually, you're gonna meet someone whom you'll want to be chained to."

At this moment, this is not someone I am willing to give up my independence for. But whatever, I have three weeks to not think about this. We'll just have to see what happens in January.

Things I Did During Thanksgiving Break

1. Lazed around and took photos in City Garden all morning. See previous post.
2. Watched 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street back-to-back at a friend's house and realized just how many of the jokes I missed when I watched 22 Jump Street earlier this year without ever having seen 21 Jump Street.
3. Skyped three friends for almost a total of five hours. Essentially caught up on all the drama going on in other people's lives. Per usual, I didn't really have anything exciting to contribute.
4. Made three dozen Portuguese egg tarts for a potluck. Caught up on Jane the Virgin while doing so. (By the way, the show's premise seems really ridiculous BUT TRUST ME... IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY FUNNY. And it features a Latina heroine, so yay for diversity!)
5. Played two rounds of Mafia at the aforementioned potluck. I screwed myself over in the first round when I inadvertently revealed that I was the cop, but made an epic victory when I was one of four mafia in the following round. Though the Godfather was killed off, he'd chosen an excellent team: Asian Jesus was the loud-talker who was put out a great performance as one of the civilians; E was the soothing voice of reason secretly diverting the conversation; I was the silent one who, should Asian Jesus or E attract too much attention and draw suspicion, would remain unnoticed and slowly pick off the victims as I outlived the others.
6.  By the way, the egg tarts were a hit.
7. Finally watched Season 2 of Legend of Korra. Will likely not watch Season 3 and 4 until they are free on Amazon Prime, because I am too lazy to look up that stuff elsewhere.
8. Visited Abita Brewery with some classmates. Favorite part of that trip was probably driving across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. I'm not sure if it is still the longest bridge in the world, but driving across it feels like you're zipping across the ocean.
9. Finished writing Chapter 17 and 19 of EP. (I went out of order and wrote Chapter 18 a while back.) Chapter 20 is a short one, so I am essentially almost done with Act II. Act III will be a tricky one, because it'll mainly be about Rory's fall -- which I haven't completely fleshed out in my head -- but at this point I'm gonna pants it and see where that takes me.
10. Got a head-start on schoolwork on my "Lazy Sunday," which also involved trying out a potato soup recipe with my leftover heavy cream from the egg tarts and watching If I Stay, which I'd been meaning to watch since August. If I Stay, by the way, was good but not great -- the film didn't quite tug at me the same way The Fault in Our Stars movie did, even though I was bigger fan of the book If I Stay than the book The Fault in Our Stars. But it did remind me of how much I loved reading If I Stay and Where She Went.
11. Last but not least, I got to watch this lady perform live:

This was the first small-venue concert I ever went to, so I don't have much to compare this experience to... but I thought FKA Twigs was amazing.

In typical Sophelia fashion, I was starting to feel antsy before the show because I was worried about parking and, well, pretty much everything. The show was at the Republic, this nightclub in downtown. I Googled all sorts of things about how early you're supposed to get to a show, where to park near the Republic, what you should wear, etc. The doors opened at 8 and the show started at 9. My roommate said that since I was going alone, I should probably just go at 8:30. But I was way too antsy to be hanging around the house, so I ended up leaving my house at 7:30. Parking was a bitch, like I'd been expecting, but in the end I got there early enough to get pretty close to the stage.

I was on the left side of the stage, near a group of tall kids whom I would have guessed were 18-year-olds. They smoked like crazy. I'm pretty sure I smelled of cigarette smoke after the concert. I also smelled the scent of pot later in the night, and it made me want to gag. I essentially people-listened/watched for almost an hour and admired the room. The Republic has two floors, and I would have liked watching from the balcony, except I decided that I wanted to experience being on the floor "for research purposes."

Boots was the opener for the show. He wasn't bad, but in retrospect he didn't leave much of an impression on me once FKA Twigs took the stage.

The show started with "Preface," a chorale-influenced piece in which she chants over and over again: "I love another, and thus I hate myself." Her entrance gave me the chills. She was wearing this gold cloaklet with the hood drawn over her head and a long flowing skirt with two slits and black spandex underneath, and in the darkness, her hooded figure lent to the whole cathedral-esque feel.

FKA Twigs, I think, is one of those artists you can't fully appreciate until you see her live. She's famous for her dancing, which I've seen described in online reviews as "skeletal." It's mesmerizing to watch her move. But you can't discount her voice either. It's surprisingly high and ethereal. She didn't impress me as much with "Two Weeks" -- which is one of my favorite songs of hers to listen to -- but  "Give Up," "Hide," and "Pendulum" were great, from what I recall.

In many ways this concert was for "research purposes" -- and I did get plenty of that. But it was also an interesting experience going to a small concert by myself and getting lost in the crowd. Hanging around in downtown New Orleans at night isn't exactly the safest thing to do, but it was worth the risk.

All in all, I'd been dying to get out of the city for Thanksgiving Break -- even went so far as contemplated spending 300 dollars to fly to Miami -- but in the end, it was a good decision to stay in NOLA for the break. I spent a lot of downtime catching up with myself, which I think I needed more than anything.