I had this dream last night that Graydyl and S were over at my house, catching up like we usually do every winter. I was telling them about how a classmate asked me out, and how nothing has happened since then because neither of us have brought it up despite seeing each other quite a few times in the last two weeks, and how I'm not even sure about what I want in the first place.
Instead of being sympathetic or understanding like I was expecting, Graydyl became FURIOUS while S suddenly burst into tears. Completely flummoxed by their reactions, I asked Graydyl something along the lines of "y u mad bro" to which S responded, wailing through blubbering tears, "But Sophelia.... do you really want to die alone??"
Well, that little comment rankled my fury, and as I turned to snap a retort, Graydyl stood up and stormed out the door. I followed, trying to ask her to stop and talk to me, but she refused to even look in my direction and sped off in her car without another word.
I have no idea what my subconscious is trying to tell me, but holy kleenex batman that was a terrifying dream.
Showing posts with label Morbid Dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morbid Dreams. Show all posts
January 18, 2015
January 6, 2015
Willow
The conscious says what it will in daylight, until the subconscious rears its head in the night.
There was a book. The cover was white with the word "Willow" stretched across in crisply elegant black font. I was shocked to see the familiar name across the bottom. I rifled through the pages and it suddenly dawned on me that you'd written enough words to fit in a book. Those words told me about everything that had happened since--poems and vignettes about the people you'd met, and the places you'd been, and the things that had happened to you. I saw one about me. It was short and sparse, infused with nostalgia and a sprinkling of barely discernible regret. The pebble to the meteor.
What I felt was envy. That you'd accomplished something I'd dreamed of doing for as long as I can remember. But then I realized something else in that liminal space of lucid dreaming. It doesn't exist in a physical bound shape, but mine exists. It's here.
There was a book. The cover was white with the word "Willow" stretched across in crisply elegant black font. I was shocked to see the familiar name across the bottom. I rifled through the pages and it suddenly dawned on me that you'd written enough words to fit in a book. Those words told me about everything that had happened since--poems and vignettes about the people you'd met, and the places you'd been, and the things that had happened to you. I saw one about me. It was short and sparse, infused with nostalgia and a sprinkling of barely discernible regret. The pebble to the meteor.
What I felt was envy. That you'd accomplished something I'd dreamed of doing for as long as I can remember. But then I realized something else in that liminal space of lucid dreaming. It doesn't exist in a physical bound shape, but mine exists. It's here.
October 28, 2014
this is the last song you will hear
Though I shouldn't be procrastinating, there were some things on my mind that I felt the need to jot down for a bit.
Halloween is around the corner. I don't normally dress up (and haven't really made much an effort in years), but in New Orleans it seems Halloween is a big deal. My friends have come up with all sorts of elaborate costume ideas. Mine is a bit more nebulous.
You see, I've always had a fascination with identity. And one of the fantasies I've always had is being able to walk around in a different skin, so to speak. To appear so unrecognizable that you are no longer shackled to your "identity" or what people expect from you. As long as you wear this "separate skin" you can do whatever want, be anything you want.
Sound familiar? Yeah, because it's the whole principle behind Charlotte and the mask of the Ecstasian Phantom.
In an impulsive move, I bought a wig. I made sure I found one that didn't look too cheap but didn't make me feel guilty about the price. Long, curly blonde hair. I'd always wondered how I'd look with blonde hair, but for practical reasons I'd never dyed my hair. I haven't decided what I'll wear with the wig, but all I really care about is being unrecognizable.
The first time I put on that wig, I was sort of appalled. What was this weird hair color doing around my face? It looked awful. But after some adjusting, including adding a cap, the weird thing is that I started getting used to the look. Not only that, the vibe I give off with curly blonde hair is completely different from my normal appearance. Sassy, wild, fun-loving... things NOT typically ascribed to me.
We'll see what happens on Friday.
The other thing I wanted to mull over...
For a good chunk of my life, I wondered why most of my friends were girls. It sounds like a strange question, but given my personality, it seemed a bit odd. The stereotypical adjectives people use to describe dudes -- chill, no drama, cool -- have often been ascribed to me. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I naturally gravitated towards girls, because my self-defense mechanism didn't want to deal with the potential pitfalls of navigating the romantic aspect with boys I had no interest in.
Interestingly enough, my anatomy lab group here turned out to be a majority of boys. There are six of us, four boys and two girls. Funnily enough, all four boys have blonde hair and blue eyes. What surprised me the most -- just how well we all get along together. We behave very much like a pack of siblings with very different personalities. And to support my earlier theory, it probably also helps that three of the four guys have long-distance long-term girlfriends and the fourth guy is gay. I adore my group much in the way that I imagine Blue Sargent loves her Raven Boys. (Though, unlike Blue, I have the added benefit of having another girl in my group who can stand in female solidarity.)
It got me thinking, though, about the core of friendship I'd been trying to sketch out in detail for the past year. Yes, I'm going to ramble about EP again, so close the window if you're done here.
I'd always had some problems characterizing the central male friendships in EP, namely because I didn't have much experience in my own life I could draw from. There's three aspects to the dynamic that I had to consider: (1) how the boys (Rhys, Patrick, Leo) were before Rory ever joined the band; (2) how the dynamic changes once it became three boys + Rory (especially if Rory started dating Rhys); and (3) how the dynamic changes again post-Rory and Charlotte enters the picture, two years later.
I'm not necessarily going to base my characters off of my friends, but in my current writing drought, I've been doing a lot of real-life observation and fishing for material, and I've thought a lot about what kind of personalities can coexist so harmoniously together. The only other time in my life I can think of where a group of friends has gelled together so well was the summer after I graduated from high school, when I was teaching English in Taiwan. To this day, I'm still in touch with most of them.
Anyways, back to my anatomy group. I do have to say... one thing I didn't realize was just how raunchy slang I am oblivious to. You know, the kind of stuff you have to look up on Urban Dictionary to figure out... This is something you pick up on real fast when you hang out with a bunch of boys.
And on a final note... I had another morbid dream a few days ago. I dreamed that I was dying, and as my breaths were growing shallower, I had to pick the last song I would listen to in my life. I picked "Wading" by Jhene Aiko. I still don't know exactly why I picked that song.
Halloween is around the corner. I don't normally dress up (and haven't really made much an effort in years), but in New Orleans it seems Halloween is a big deal. My friends have come up with all sorts of elaborate costume ideas. Mine is a bit more nebulous.
You see, I've always had a fascination with identity. And one of the fantasies I've always had is being able to walk around in a different skin, so to speak. To appear so unrecognizable that you are no longer shackled to your "identity" or what people expect from you. As long as you wear this "separate skin" you can do whatever want, be anything you want.
Sound familiar? Yeah, because it's the whole principle behind Charlotte and the mask of the Ecstasian Phantom.
In an impulsive move, I bought a wig. I made sure I found one that didn't look too cheap but didn't make me feel guilty about the price. Long, curly blonde hair. I'd always wondered how I'd look with blonde hair, but for practical reasons I'd never dyed my hair. I haven't decided what I'll wear with the wig, but all I really care about is being unrecognizable.
The first time I put on that wig, I was sort of appalled. What was this weird hair color doing around my face? It looked awful. But after some adjusting, including adding a cap, the weird thing is that I started getting used to the look. Not only that, the vibe I give off with curly blonde hair is completely different from my normal appearance. Sassy, wild, fun-loving... things NOT typically ascribed to me.
We'll see what happens on Friday.
The other thing I wanted to mull over...
For a good chunk of my life, I wondered why most of my friends were girls. It sounds like a strange question, but given my personality, it seemed a bit odd. The stereotypical adjectives people use to describe dudes -- chill, no drama, cool -- have often been ascribed to me. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I naturally gravitated towards girls, because my self-defense mechanism didn't want to deal with the potential pitfalls of navigating the romantic aspect with boys I had no interest in.
Interestingly enough, my anatomy lab group here turned out to be a majority of boys. There are six of us, four boys and two girls. Funnily enough, all four boys have blonde hair and blue eyes. What surprised me the most -- just how well we all get along together. We behave very much like a pack of siblings with very different personalities. And to support my earlier theory, it probably also helps that three of the four guys have long-distance long-term girlfriends and the fourth guy is gay. I adore my group much in the way that I imagine Blue Sargent loves her Raven Boys. (Though, unlike Blue, I have the added benefit of having another girl in my group who can stand in female solidarity.)
It got me thinking, though, about the core of friendship I'd been trying to sketch out in detail for the past year. Yes, I'm going to ramble about EP again, so close the window if you're done here.
I'd always had some problems characterizing the central male friendships in EP, namely because I didn't have much experience in my own life I could draw from. There's three aspects to the dynamic that I had to consider: (1) how the boys (Rhys, Patrick, Leo) were before Rory ever joined the band; (2) how the dynamic changes once it became three boys + Rory (especially if Rory started dating Rhys); and (3) how the dynamic changes again post-Rory and Charlotte enters the picture, two years later.
I'm not necessarily going to base my characters off of my friends, but in my current writing drought, I've been doing a lot of real-life observation and fishing for material, and I've thought a lot about what kind of personalities can coexist so harmoniously together. The only other time in my life I can think of where a group of friends has gelled together so well was the summer after I graduated from high school, when I was teaching English in Taiwan. To this day, I'm still in touch with most of them.
Anyways, back to my anatomy group. I do have to say... one thing I didn't realize was just how raunchy slang I am oblivious to. You know, the kind of stuff you have to look up on Urban Dictionary to figure out... This is something you pick up on real fast when you hang out with a bunch of boys.
And on a final note... I had another morbid dream a few days ago. I dreamed that I was dying, and as my breaths were growing shallower, I had to pick the last song I would listen to in my life. I picked "Wading" by Jhene Aiko. I still don't know exactly why I picked that song.
July 28, 2014
Delirium and Death
I've slowly been settling into my new place. On Tuesday, I will finally have a mattress to sleep on! In the meantime, I've been sleeping on the couch in the living room. Which is okay in the sense that I can sleep pretty much anywhere, but the couch is right next to the front door, which means that I notice whenever my male roommate runs off to his rotations early in the morning.
I have a tendency to wake up earlier if I'm expecting something. So for some inane reason, I naturally woke up at like 5:30 am because I was expecting him to be up rummaging around in the kitchen. And then I realized I was hallucinating sounds, so I tried to go back to sleep, but then he came out of his room at like 6:30 am, and then I feigned sleep until he left. Then I drifted in and out of sleep for like the next three hours as my female roommate came in and out of the kitchen.
All this in-and-out sleep confused my poor brain.
The Anathema has appeared in the night numerous times, but last night was the first time I'd ever dreamed that he was dead. How he died, I can't remember. The only thing I distinctly recall was a conversation with his grief-stricken mother, who was collecting copies of every edition of The Fault in Our Stars in his honor, including some special edition narrated from Hazel's father's point of view (shut up--it made complete sense in my subconsciousness). I should have recognized this was a dream as soon as this ludicrous conversation appeared, but in the midst of it all, I felt a lot of strange, real emotions about this revelation that the Anathema was dead. When I finally woke up, I realized the truth: nothing would change, because in a way, the Anathema is already dead to me.
I lay there on the couch at 5 in the morning, pondering about this. I'm not a fervent believer in the occult, but I do harbor an amused fondness for "weird" things like dream symbolism and tarot cards. I'd told Rogue just a few days ago about the time I visited a witch's house in Durham, and how my professor had drawn the Death Card when we did tarot readings. The Death card is not necessarily a bad card. It symbolizes rebirth, transition, and the start of something new. And in light of the fact that I've just moved to a new place and will start classes in a week...
But the most striking to me is that the Anathema was the one who died. Because on my last day in California, my mother told me that even my father--of all people--had told my mother, "Tell our daughter to hurry up and find a boyfriend. Can't you teach her how to get a man or something?"
God, now even my father is concerned about the fact that I've been single all my life? I was mortified.
People have asked before why I didn't find anyone in college. As if I could control someone's feelings in return. The boat runs two ways. There were interested people I didn't feel anything for, and when I started seeing the signs, I kept my distance. There were others I had a shallow interest in, but not enough for me to do much about it, especially when these people usually had their sights set elsewhere. My answer was always that I didn't find anyone interesting, but I've come to the conclusion that my brain has been culpable.
The Anathema is not a real person. The Anathema is a concept that I became so emotionally invested in, that in the aftermath, I became afraid of feeling something that intense ever again. In reaction to four years of anger, sadness, self-loathing, and small bits of euphoria, I essentially numbed myself for four years after.
Is this the end of the Anathema's reign? Who knows. Thanks to the delirium of drifting in-and-out of sleep, for a while I became very confused about whether or not the Anathema had actually died in real life and even logged onto Facebook to check. In short, I need some caffeine.
December 11, 2013
december nightmare
the black widow spider could not be pried from my tongue. the red hourglass gleamed from the mirror's reflection, the mark of bloodied time skulking in a cavernous mouth. they prodded with metal instruments until finally half of the body was excised, while the other half remained stubbornly affixed--a blackened lump with thin protruding legs, shuddering as if they were crawling upon my tongue. i felt the venom swell in my tongue, lips, my throat as i sank to the floor, listening to the air whistle through my narrowing windpipe as i watched you delivered a wordless speech at the front of the classroom. you showed no notice of the dying animal before you, just stood there with your glazed eyes staring straight at nothing at all as your mouth emitted empty puffs of carbon dioxide. breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, bre
June 3, 2013
Burn Altese
I often have dreams where paralysis strikes me, always in a very specific manner. It begins with the muscles in my jaw suddenly locking, making it very painful and near impossible to open my mouth. Breathing becomes more and more difficult. On rare occasions, the tightness spreads to the rest of my body, and I end up crouched on the ground, unable to move.
I dreamt I was back at school again. The Bryan Center renovations had been completed, leaving the place nearly unrecognizable. I was with Hachi, my friend and ex-roommate from two years ago. We were chatting, when my jaw muscles began to lock. Straining to open my mouth, I had to speak through my clenched teeth to tell Hachi that something was wrong. One of our mutual friends (more Hachi's friend than mine) happened to pass by. By that point, I was crouched on the ground barely able to breathe. He ran off to find help after Hachi told him what had happened.
When he came back, he said there was nobody who could come over to help, but they told him my problem had a name. Burn Altese Syndrome. And the first thing I needed to do was to breathe. He crouched down in front of me and, with one hand on my back, began to coach my breathing.
I realized as I began to take deep breaths that I had been hyperventilating. As my breathing rate slowed, the paralysis in my legs began to dissipate. In time, I was able to stand up, and my friends walked me to the student health center.
It's not often that I awake with a dream retained with such startling clarity. Out of curiosity, I Googled lockjaw, and it appears that some of the symptoms I dream about are related to tetanus.
But not that last part about breathing. Simply taking deeper breaths does not alleviate muscle tension in tetanus.
In truth, this person had flickered across my mind not too long ago. In those moments of daydream when I think about the stories I want to tell, I thought about a blog post I had read once that said the difference between writing about a romance in YA versus adult literature is that for the teenagers, every little action is monumental. Eye contact across a hall, a hand on the shoulder, bodies pressed side by side on a crowded bus.
I never truly liked this person in that way. But there was a time he ran into me at the library one morning when I was trying to finish creating the figures for our thesis class later that day. I told him about how tired I was, and he patted my shoulder in sympathy. I still remember that moment even now, because his touch surprised me.
My friends all know that I don't like to be touched. But that's not entirely accurate. It's true that I don't particularly hug people when I greet them, and I can get annoyed when people cling on my arms too much. But there is something undeniably reassuring about the human touch when used sparingly. This was one of things I learned in college. When my friend broke up with her boyfriend of five years, or when my friend's expensive camera was stolen in Vietnam, I knew that even if I didn't know what to say, the best I could do was a hand on their back, an arm around the shoulder, something to let me know them know that I was physically there for them.
On another note, the dream dictionary that G gave me years ago cautions that dreaming of lockjaw is a warning not to say too much. Since indiscretion is a vice I have continuously struggled with, I supposed I'd best keep my mouth shut today.
I dreamt I was back at school again. The Bryan Center renovations had been completed, leaving the place nearly unrecognizable. I was with Hachi, my friend and ex-roommate from two years ago. We were chatting, when my jaw muscles began to lock. Straining to open my mouth, I had to speak through my clenched teeth to tell Hachi that something was wrong. One of our mutual friends (more Hachi's friend than mine) happened to pass by. By that point, I was crouched on the ground barely able to breathe. He ran off to find help after Hachi told him what had happened.
When he came back, he said there was nobody who could come over to help, but they told him my problem had a name. Burn Altese Syndrome. And the first thing I needed to do was to breathe. He crouched down in front of me and, with one hand on my back, began to coach my breathing.
I realized as I began to take deep breaths that I had been hyperventilating. As my breathing rate slowed, the paralysis in my legs began to dissipate. In time, I was able to stand up, and my friends walked me to the student health center.
It's not often that I awake with a dream retained with such startling clarity. Out of curiosity, I Googled lockjaw, and it appears that some of the symptoms I dream about are related to tetanus.
But not that last part about breathing. Simply taking deeper breaths does not alleviate muscle tension in tetanus.
In truth, this person had flickered across my mind not too long ago. In those moments of daydream when I think about the stories I want to tell, I thought about a blog post I had read once that said the difference between writing about a romance in YA versus adult literature is that for the teenagers, every little action is monumental. Eye contact across a hall, a hand on the shoulder, bodies pressed side by side on a crowded bus.
I never truly liked this person in that way. But there was a time he ran into me at the library one morning when I was trying to finish creating the figures for our thesis class later that day. I told him about how tired I was, and he patted my shoulder in sympathy. I still remember that moment even now, because his touch surprised me.
My friends all know that I don't like to be touched. But that's not entirely accurate. It's true that I don't particularly hug people when I greet them, and I can get annoyed when people cling on my arms too much. But there is something undeniably reassuring about the human touch when used sparingly. This was one of things I learned in college. When my friend broke up with her boyfriend of five years, or when my friend's expensive camera was stolen in Vietnam, I knew that even if I didn't know what to say, the best I could do was a hand on their back, an arm around the shoulder, something to let me know them know that I was physically there for them.
On another note, the dream dictionary that G gave me years ago cautions that dreaming of lockjaw is a warning not to say too much. Since indiscretion is a vice I have continuously struggled with, I supposed I'd best keep my mouth shut today.
January 15, 2011
heartbreak warfare
Lightning strikes
Inside my chest to keep me up at night
Dream of ways
To make you understand my pain
Inside my chest to keep me up at night
Dream of ways
To make you understand my pain
-- "Heartbreak Warfare" by John Mayer
she thinks you're gay, you know. you came up in one of our late-night conversations last semester -- the ones when we're about to doze off to sleep and we start sharing all our secrets. i didn't affirm or refute her conjecture -- after all, 1) my gaydar sucks; 2) i only know you by name and an assortment of rumors/gossip and have no right to make that sort of judgment; 3) you look no more feminine than the male k-pop stars she adores. she'd always told me that she liked "pretty boys", so when she pointed you out at the party last night, mentioning again how "gay" you look, i ignored her.
i actually think you're her type. tall. skinny. dark hair. cute smile -- the kind when your eyes smile too.
and i secretly don't agree with her. she bagged on your gray muffler, but a scarf does not a gay man make.
and if i had any doubts last semester that you don't recognize me by sight, i have had little doubt in the past three days since classes began again. it's one of those awkward situations when we know we have mutual friends but we don't quite know how to start the conversation with each other.
we made eye contact once last night. it may have been twice -- there was once where i looked up and you were crouched ahead of me on the carpet amidst the crowd of bacchanalian revelers, picking up one of the pong balls tossed astray. but there was once -- that moment where i looked up and found that we were both staring at each other -- when the lightning struck my chest and i immediately tore my eyes away.
and if that weren't enough, it was as if the lightning strike had ignited something within my chest, caused something within me to germinate and take hold as I slept last night, until i was ensnared in my own mind's castle, surrounded by a maze of hedges and thorns.
i'll tell you what happened -- i had the most vivid, most complete dream i have had in a long time. i dreamt that we were dating -- with you in your gray muffler, me in my purple one. i don't know how my brain could conjure such a detailed dream about being a relationship -- as i have been single all my life -- but those emotions were real.
astrid once told me, "all i really wanted was someone who made me feel safe, so that when the situation slashes my gut like snowden and all my brutal, ugly vulnerabilities tumble out, i experience the warm relief of release rather than the cold nakedness of shame." that's what it felt like -- with you, i was safe. whether it was your arms around my waist or your lips grazing my face, there was a warmth i had never felt in all my 19 years.
and then you dumped me. the extent of my defenselessness, dependency, and addiction unfolded before me, and i went mad. i never groveled -- i was too proud for that -- but i found myself chasing after you, begging you to give me a reason why you would do this to me. but you wouldn't turn around to face me. you gave me some vague non-answer and walked away from my life, but the damage had already been done.
you might actually be gay, though my past experiences with fashionable guy friends tells me otherwise. (just because they dress better does not automatically mean they are homosexual.) but it won't make much of a difference, because i already know this essential truth about me -- that every boy i have ever met has fallen short of the ideal that my mind has created. i am not so much enamored by you than by the image of you that my brain has spun.
the unhealthy truth is, i use you to project what i wish to see. that is why i keep getting myself caught in these traps of observing the boys i've never spoken to before. that is why ever since i saw you for the first time last spring, i can't seem to keep my eyes off of you.
i actually think you're her type. tall. skinny. dark hair. cute smile -- the kind when your eyes smile too.
and i secretly don't agree with her. she bagged on your gray muffler, but a scarf does not a gay man make.
and if i had any doubts last semester that you don't recognize me by sight, i have had little doubt in the past three days since classes began again. it's one of those awkward situations when we know we have mutual friends but we don't quite know how to start the conversation with each other.
we made eye contact once last night. it may have been twice -- there was once where i looked up and you were crouched ahead of me on the carpet amidst the crowd of bacchanalian revelers, picking up one of the pong balls tossed astray. but there was once -- that moment where i looked up and found that we were both staring at each other -- when the lightning struck my chest and i immediately tore my eyes away.
and if that weren't enough, it was as if the lightning strike had ignited something within my chest, caused something within me to germinate and take hold as I slept last night, until i was ensnared in my own mind's castle, surrounded by a maze of hedges and thorns.
i'll tell you what happened -- i had the most vivid, most complete dream i have had in a long time. i dreamt that we were dating -- with you in your gray muffler, me in my purple one. i don't know how my brain could conjure such a detailed dream about being a relationship -- as i have been single all my life -- but those emotions were real.
astrid once told me, "all i really wanted was someone who made me feel safe, so that when the situation slashes my gut like snowden and all my brutal, ugly vulnerabilities tumble out, i experience the warm relief of release rather than the cold nakedness of shame." that's what it felt like -- with you, i was safe. whether it was your arms around my waist or your lips grazing my face, there was a warmth i had never felt in all my 19 years.
and then you dumped me. the extent of my defenselessness, dependency, and addiction unfolded before me, and i went mad. i never groveled -- i was too proud for that -- but i found myself chasing after you, begging you to give me a reason why you would do this to me. but you wouldn't turn around to face me. you gave me some vague non-answer and walked away from my life, but the damage had already been done.
you might actually be gay, though my past experiences with fashionable guy friends tells me otherwise. (just because they dress better does not automatically mean they are homosexual.) but it won't make much of a difference, because i already know this essential truth about me -- that every boy i have ever met has fallen short of the ideal that my mind has created. i am not so much enamored by you than by the image of you that my brain has spun.
the unhealthy truth is, i use you to project what i wish to see. that is why i keep getting myself caught in these traps of observing the boys i've never spoken to before. that is why ever since i saw you for the first time last spring, i can't seem to keep my eyes off of you.
December 15, 2010
Hell Week
I've already had two dreams about going home, and it's the only the third day of finals week. In the first dream, I went home and discovered that my family had bought a new puppy. I played with it for awhile, then glanced at the carry-bag and asked where Matisse was. My mother responded that Matisse had fallen ill, collapsed, and died. It's not the first time I've had this dream, and once again I woke up crying. In the second dream, I went home to discover that my family had gotten incredibly thin and were starving themselves to pay for my college tuition. Soon, I was seriously considering applying to transfer to one of the UCs.
I turned in my first paper yesterday, and crunch time begins tomorrow -- I have exams on Thursday and Friday and a ten-page paper due Saturday that I haven't started. I can't wait to go home.
I turned in my first paper yesterday, and crunch time begins tomorrow -- I have exams on Thursday and Friday and a ten-page paper due Saturday that I haven't started. I can't wait to go home.
December 26, 2009
Disturbia
I've been having recurring dreams. Ones that are more violent than usual.The dreams keep taking place at the same place -- at a steampunk version of my high school, with stone walls covered in nets of ivy. Some students travel to and from school in horse-drawn coaches, and yet there is still a parking lot packed with cars -- perhaps it's at a point in time when gasoline has become a rare, expensive commodity.
I keep seeing death in these dreams. Every morning, there are cries that more bodies are hanging in the courtyard. Something about how the stress at school got to them, that's why the rumors say. I don't know.
The first night, I dreamt I had to complete an obstacle course akin to the dungeon puzzles in the Zelda video games. I was working alongside S, who was completely decked out in steampunk attire -- top hat, vest, watch-chain, coat. I don't even remember what we were trying to achieve. At one point, we had to climb a flight of stairs inside a stone tower, and at the top we had to shoot arrows at a silver eye switch to unlock a door. As much as I can remember, I woke up before we managed to reach whatever goal we had been striving for.
The second night, I remember the bodies more clearly. I still remember recognizing who was hanging there. It scared the shit out of me. I quickly left the courtyard and headed towards the parking lot with Gov. J. There was a black Mercedes with tinted windows lurking in circles inside the parking lot. It reminded me of a shark. I darted in and out of the rows of cars, trying not to stay within its view. Gov. J didn't do the same. In one quick instant, the car suddenly turned and purposely slammed into her. I couldn't see the driver's face; the headlights were too blinding. I could hear bones breaking. I remember trying to scream but nothing came out.
For now, I will just assume that these dreams are the effect of having watched too many violent films recently. I'd much rather not analyze this too deeply, because otherwise, you'd probably come to the conclusion that there is something very wrong with me. Then again, according to the dream dictionary that G gave me last year, seeing others being hanged is a sign that money is going to be tight for awhile -- which really is no surprise at all.
... yeah. Maybe I should just watch chick flicks from now on.
May 23, 2009
Oneirology
I had the strangest dream last night. It involved these two fine people:
Emma Watson
Lucas Till
I was at the local amusement park with Emma. Technically, I was supposed to be interviewing her for the school newspaper, but we were chatting along like buddies. She was the epitome of perfection -- impeccable fashion sense, artistic gift, charisma, athleticism -- and what you'd call "beauty & brains."
For some reason, I was running beside her through this very strange, colorful obstacle course. It was very early in the morning; our breath floated from our mouths in small whimsical puffs. Apparently, she was at the amusement park because she was playing the leading role in some play that would be performed there that afternoon. Her co-star was Lucas Till, whom she described to me as "not at all bad to look at, but you can't have a single intelligent conversation with him." Unlike the hundreds of fangirls waiting at the park gates, she was not at all smitten by him.
We sprinted around the obstacle course, and then headed over to one of the theaters that was playing a documentary on FGM, where we had a very deep discussion about the oppression of women in modern society.
This dream affirms two things:
1) I've watched the video for Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" one too many times.
2) Emma Watson is the bomb.
Emma Watson
Lucas TillI was at the local amusement park with Emma. Technically, I was supposed to be interviewing her for the school newspaper, but we were chatting along like buddies. She was the epitome of perfection -- impeccable fashion sense, artistic gift, charisma, athleticism -- and what you'd call "beauty & brains."
For some reason, I was running beside her through this very strange, colorful obstacle course. It was very early in the morning; our breath floated from our mouths in small whimsical puffs. Apparently, she was at the amusement park because she was playing the leading role in some play that would be performed there that afternoon. Her co-star was Lucas Till, whom she described to me as "not at all bad to look at, but you can't have a single intelligent conversation with him." Unlike the hundreds of fangirls waiting at the park gates, she was not at all smitten by him.
We sprinted around the obstacle course, and then headed over to one of the theaters that was playing a documentary on FGM, where we had a very deep discussion about the oppression of women in modern society.
This dream affirms two things:
1) I've watched the video for Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" one too many times.
2) Emma Watson is the bomb.
April 16, 2009
Morpheus
I am haunted by dreams of people who don't even exist.Or even if they exist, we have never met.
He was from Paris, dressed impeccably in European cuts and matched colors -- none of the American gung-ho sloppiness. I could discern a hint of Italian in his features, though I have never been a cartographer of the face, possessing no skill in mapping out the ethnic origins of an arch of the nose or curve of the eyes.
When he transferred to my high school, he for some reason was drawn to our side of the quad. A surprise, really, considering how in France, he had been drinking since he was 12 -- he probably would have fit right in with the catty drunkenness of the jocks and cheerleaders. Instead, he became friends with me.
I never understood why. He was too perfect to befriend someone like me. He was loyal, approachable, the kind of person who would always take the time to say hello if he saw you in the hall, rather than cast his eyes downward and avoid eye contact. He became the friend I told everything to, for I never had to worry that my secrets would be spread.
So when I woke up this morning, a feeling of gloom settled in for two reasons. The first is one that everyone has experienced when they awake from a dream that is too good to be true. The second? I realized that I have met this person's physical replica, but the personality inside could not have been any more opposite. My subconscious mind had twisted him into the person I wanted him to be. And that, I think, is even more unhealty than having visions about somebody who is completely and fully a figment of your imagination.
March 15, 2009
Apocalypse
These days, I feel like a death row inmate enjoying her last meal before execution.
Thus far, I have received 3 acceptances and 1 rejection (which happened back in December -- and for the record, I have completely gotten over it). Still waiting on 7 more schools -- 3 of which are pretty much lottery tickets that I doubt I'll cash in on, 2 private schools on the East Coast that I really hope to attend, and 2 UCs that I would not mind attending.
Recently, I've gotten into the habit of reading the forums on College Confidential. I don't think it's the healthiest habit to do, but I can't help it. In truth, I am getting very worried about UCLA. G has been getting all these letters and e-mails from UCLA and I have not received anything other than a phone call from months ago telling me to apply for the alumni scholarship. I've heard that there were plenty of people last year who got into Cal but not UCLA -- but that's hardly any consolation, because UCLA decisions come out before Cal. I doubt I'd feel very good about my chances at Cal if I am rejected at UCLA.
And it's not really that I am dying to go to UCLA or Cal. I really want to get into Cal because my father really wants me to go to that school and I have a lot of friends there -- but if I get into my east coast schools, chances are I'm heading east.
I hate all this waiting. It just gives me weird dreams.
Two nights ago, I had a dream I had to go to a Harvard interview. They had sent me an e-mail, but I ignored it for a about a week before deciding to go visit the interviewer because I was bored. Instead of meeting at some strictly business location like Microsoft, I was given the address to a really luxurious mansion with an ivy-covered iron gate and Greek marble columns. The gate opened for me and I walked inside the reception room, which resembled a hospital waiting room. There were a ton of people in there, all very beautiful and model-like with unproportionally long legs and slim torsos. For some reason, I knew exactly where I was going. I walked the gigantic spiral staircase and down one of the halls on the third floor. The whole place seemed eerily glamorous, with beautiful people dressed in exotic garments everywhere I looked. Finally, I reached one room with double doors, and without even knocking, I opened the door and walked into a master bedroom. I started admiring all of the artful decor that breathed of luxury until an elderly yet youthfully childlike woman greeted me and asked why I was here. I explained the circumstances, and then she started shaking the sleeping figure in the bed awake. The sleeping figure roared and threw off the sheets before suddenly transforming from an elderly man to someone I would not be surprised to see gracing a Dior Homme advertisement in my mother's fashion magazines. He yelled at me for not responding to his e-mails and then shoved me down the stairs and out the door before slamming the gates.
Good sign? I think not.
Thus far, I have received 3 acceptances and 1 rejection (which happened back in December -- and for the record, I have completely gotten over it). Still waiting on 7 more schools -- 3 of which are pretty much lottery tickets that I doubt I'll cash in on, 2 private schools on the East Coast that I really hope to attend, and 2 UCs that I would not mind attending.
Recently, I've gotten into the habit of reading the forums on College Confidential. I don't think it's the healthiest habit to do, but I can't help it. In truth, I am getting very worried about UCLA. G has been getting all these letters and e-mails from UCLA and I have not received anything other than a phone call from months ago telling me to apply for the alumni scholarship. I've heard that there were plenty of people last year who got into Cal but not UCLA -- but that's hardly any consolation, because UCLA decisions come out before Cal. I doubt I'd feel very good about my chances at Cal if I am rejected at UCLA.
And it's not really that I am dying to go to UCLA or Cal. I really want to get into Cal because my father really wants me to go to that school and I have a lot of friends there -- but if I get into my east coast schools, chances are I'm heading east.
I hate all this waiting. It just gives me weird dreams.
Two nights ago, I had a dream I had to go to a Harvard interview. They had sent me an e-mail, but I ignored it for a about a week before deciding to go visit the interviewer because I was bored. Instead of meeting at some strictly business location like Microsoft, I was given the address to a really luxurious mansion with an ivy-covered iron gate and Greek marble columns. The gate opened for me and I walked inside the reception room, which resembled a hospital waiting room. There were a ton of people in there, all very beautiful and model-like with unproportionally long legs and slim torsos. For some reason, I knew exactly where I was going. I walked the gigantic spiral staircase and down one of the halls on the third floor. The whole place seemed eerily glamorous, with beautiful people dressed in exotic garments everywhere I looked. Finally, I reached one room with double doors, and without even knocking, I opened the door and walked into a master bedroom. I started admiring all of the artful decor that breathed of luxury until an elderly yet youthfully childlike woman greeted me and asked why I was here. I explained the circumstances, and then she started shaking the sleeping figure in the bed awake. The sleeping figure roared and threw off the sheets before suddenly transforming from an elderly man to someone I would not be surprised to see gracing a Dior Homme advertisement in my mother's fashion magazines. He yelled at me for not responding to his e-mails and then shoved me down the stairs and out the door before slamming the gates.
Good sign? I think not.
March 8, 2009
Nightshade
It was in the middle of April. I already knew which college I would be attending, and it felt as if my future had already been laid out before me. And then, out of nowhere, I discovered I was pregnant. I looked at the calendar on my wall and estimated that whatever was inside me was a month old. Fear strangled my throat so tightly that I could not even breathe. I had already gotten into my dream school -- was I supposed to give up everything I had worked for my entire life? Immediately, I started contemplating all the options. Offhandedly, I wondered if the disgusting Chinese medicine my mother was making me drink every day would be able to abort the child.
In retrospect, I should have been dubious of the fact that: 1) I had no recollection of who fucked me in March -- which has very frightening implications, perhaps suggesting I am one of those boozed-up sluts who get hammered in the basement at college frat parties -- which I am NOT, thank you very much, and 2) the only reasons that led me to believe I had conceived were that the bloody curse had not come on schedule and the skeptical "I felt different" excuse. But nevertheless, the fear I felt was so excruciatingly real. The relief I felt when I woke up from such a ridiculous yet realistic dream was shockingly revealing.
Recently, "A Concerned Mother" wrote a childishly angry letter to our school newspaper, ranting about how tasteless the editors were for publishing two Top Tens that joked about pregnancy. My reaction to the whole debacle was rather complicated. I agreed that the offending line of "Top Ten Ways to Woo Your Valentine" -- which stated, "Impregnate them" -- was hardly funny. But I thought the other one listed under "Top Ten Valentine's Gifts" -- which stated "Honey, I'm pregnant!" -- was actually funny in a twisted, ironic sort of way. If these had been the only two complaints from "A Concerned Mom", I probably would have acknowledged our wrongs and apologized genuinely.
But what really made me livid was the condescending, hypocritical tone in which the woman wrote to us. She held us to the double standard of being immature (accusing us of being irresponsible students) while asking us what kind of message we were sending to our "young, impressionable children" -- completely neglecting the fact that we are the same "young" and "impressionable" demographic she targets. In addition, she was outraged by what one of the columnists wrote (an article about not liking boring people) -- but instead of articulating what she did not like about the column, she instead inserted a shameless plug about Project Cornerstone.
To be fair, our staff needed some criticism. A true class on journalism is not complete without learning how to deal with those who disagree about the content of a writer's article.
While we ended up writing a very professional and respectable apology letter, in truth I still felt bitter about the woman's letter and did not feel apologetic at all. In reality, I wanted to meet this woman in person and argue with her myself. I wrote an angry letter as a way to vent my irritation, which I obviously did not publish. Our adviser, who was understandably very shaken up by the whole business, became very paranoid about offending others. In fact, in the most recent issue, she was upset by how Francis Drake's column about freedom of expression was printed on the same page as the letter to the editor. Frankly, I saw that as a non-issue because Francis Drake's level of writing is leagues above the offended mother's -- what the hell would she say in response without sounding immature?
Essentially, I was just annoyed. Annoyed by all the disgusting crack-licking we had to do just because one mother was offended enough by a joke to e-mail her complaint not only to us -- but to the principal, the district superintendent, and the president of the county education board. Annoyed that we were being treated by a double standard. Annoyed that we were basically forbidden to stand up for ourselves and fight back.
Though now that this dream has come to me completely out of the blue, I am beginning to wonder if the whole conflict between the journalism staff and the concerned mother has completely gone off target.
In retrospect, I should have been dubious of the fact that: 1) I had no recollection of who fucked me in March -- which has very frightening implications, perhaps suggesting I am one of those boozed-up sluts who get hammered in the basement at college frat parties -- which I am NOT, thank you very much, and 2) the only reasons that led me to believe I had conceived were that the bloody curse had not come on schedule and the skeptical "I felt different" excuse. But nevertheless, the fear I felt was so excruciatingly real. The relief I felt when I woke up from such a ridiculous yet realistic dream was shockingly revealing.
Recently, "A Concerned Mother" wrote a childishly angry letter to our school newspaper, ranting about how tasteless the editors were for publishing two Top Tens that joked about pregnancy. My reaction to the whole debacle was rather complicated. I agreed that the offending line of "Top Ten Ways to Woo Your Valentine" -- which stated, "Impregnate them" -- was hardly funny. But I thought the other one listed under "Top Ten Valentine's Gifts" -- which stated "Honey, I'm pregnant!" -- was actually funny in a twisted, ironic sort of way. If these had been the only two complaints from "A Concerned Mom", I probably would have acknowledged our wrongs and apologized genuinely.
But what really made me livid was the condescending, hypocritical tone in which the woman wrote to us. She held us to the double standard of being immature (accusing us of being irresponsible students) while asking us what kind of message we were sending to our "young, impressionable children" -- completely neglecting the fact that we are the same "young" and "impressionable" demographic she targets. In addition, she was outraged by what one of the columnists wrote (an article about not liking boring people) -- but instead of articulating what she did not like about the column, she instead inserted a shameless plug about Project Cornerstone.
To be fair, our staff needed some criticism. A true class on journalism is not complete without learning how to deal with those who disagree about the content of a writer's article.
While we ended up writing a very professional and respectable apology letter, in truth I still felt bitter about the woman's letter and did not feel apologetic at all. In reality, I wanted to meet this woman in person and argue with her myself. I wrote an angry letter as a way to vent my irritation, which I obviously did not publish. Our adviser, who was understandably very shaken up by the whole business, became very paranoid about offending others. In fact, in the most recent issue, she was upset by how Francis Drake's column about freedom of expression was printed on the same page as the letter to the editor. Frankly, I saw that as a non-issue because Francis Drake's level of writing is leagues above the offended mother's -- what the hell would she say in response without sounding immature?
Essentially, I was just annoyed. Annoyed by all the disgusting crack-licking we had to do just because one mother was offended enough by a joke to e-mail her complaint not only to us -- but to the principal, the district superintendent, and the president of the county education board. Annoyed that we were being treated by a double standard. Annoyed that we were basically forbidden to stand up for ourselves and fight back.
Though now that this dream has come to me completely out of the blue, I am beginning to wonder if the whole conflict between the journalism staff and the concerned mother has completely gone off target.
January 19, 2009
Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition I
Guess who's back?
Back again?
Sophelia's back.
Tell a friend.
WHOOOOOOOO
Sophelia's back.
Tell a friend.
WHOOOOOOOO
So it's been more than a week since I last wrote on here. Eight days to be precise. Yes, I finally stuck my nose to the grindstone, or whatever the silly saying is, and updated EP. Personally, it was a rather boring chapter in my opinion, but at least it's taken care of.
So what else have I done in my absence? Other than realize just how addicted I am to blogging, I have discovered many wonders in this world. Allow me to present...
Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition I
(I think this might become a weekly thing from now on. But we shall see.)
1. Are some people doomed to never get the girl/guy?
Yeah yeah, I know people like to believe that there's a soulmate out there for everybody. But the cynical side of me has the feeling that there's always going to be somebody who for whatever reason keeps watching them get away. Is it because they have a horrible personality? Or because they just look like one?
Why did I suddenly start thinking about this? Well, I watched The Notebook for the first time last Saturday night. It's not a bad movie, I'll at least give it that. But guess who I saw?
Why, it's Lon Hammond Jr! The poor dashing Southern aristocrat who gets dumped for a farm boy! But wait a second... doesn't he look a little familiar?
Richard White of Superman Returns
Prince Edward of Enchanted
Hold on a second. How come in every movie I've seen with James Marsden in it, HE NEVER GETS THE GIRL? He's not ugly. It's not like a girl would wake up one morning and scream at the sight of his face. Granted, I haven't watched very many movies, but don't you think three movies is kinda telling? In the first place, the only reason Lon probably lost out to Noah was a case of bad timing. Hey, if Noah's picture had never made the newspaper, who knows what would have happened?
Oh, and don't bother trying to argue that Richard White gets the girl (aka Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane) in Superman Returns. Richard White's story is even more sad than Lon Hammond's. Think about. You're engaged to a girl who's still in love with a freaking alien! And not just any tentacled slimy thing. This is Superman, the guy whose hair remains curled even after he nearly drowns in the ocean! And just how the heck are you supposed live up to the expectations of your alien-human-hybrid stepson?
Anyways. If it weren't for the fact that James Marsden is in real life happily married with two children, he probably would have achieved idol status among the rest of us who spend Valentine's drowning out the sorrows of a single lifestyle with a pint of Ben & Jerry's and television reruns.
2. What's the appropriate age difference for sharing a kiss?
As you'll probably discover, I've spent a lot of my time recently catching up on movies. So what's the next film in line? NO. IT CAN'T BE!!
Yes, I admit. I watched Another Cinderella Story last night on ABC Family. About two hours of cheesy goodness. Forget about Cheez-its. This is "The Big Cheese."
Now, I don't know if you have heard (because it didn't even occur to me until I started reading comments on Youtube videos), but apparently there have been people protesting the age difference between Selena Gomez and Drew Seeley. Because supposedly, Selena Gomez is sixteen and Drew Seeley is twenty-six.
Wait a second. What the hell is the problem? Does Drew Seeley even look any older than twenty-five to you? This guy filled in for Zac Efron in all those High School Musical live performances... and Efron's what, twenty-one? If Seeley is believable as a high school champion basketball player (cue long loud laugh), wouldn't he be ten times more believable as a young showbiz star who can sing and dance?
Oh, I see. People are getting all squeamish because Gomez and Seeley share a kiss at the end of the movie. You can hardly even call it a kiss, since the camera immediately pans over to another side of the stage the instant their lips connect.
So what's the appropriate age difference for kissing? The way I see it, age doesn't matter until I start wincing and have to fight the urge to burrow my head into a pillow. I mean really, why are people making a commotion about a ten year age difference that probably looks only half that amount? What about the lip lock between Ben Kingsley (then aged 63) and Mary-Kate Olsen (then aged 21) in The Wackness? Or how about Sienna Miller (then aged 26) and Steve Buscemi (then aged 50, but looked at least 60) in Interview? Pick your battles, people.
Well, maybe I'm so unbothered by the pairing of Selena and Drew because I loved this scene:
3. Is this what it feels like if you're sitting in a movie theater and suddenly realize that somebody made a movie about your life... and they don't even know you?
So once upon a time, there was a girl named Sophelia. Long story short, she wrote a blog with the half-hearted hope of having the right person stumbling upon her posts. Well, just a week ago she shut the book cover to that story and effectively ended all hope of having her half-hearted dream come true.
Coincidentally, she decided to look at J'nette's blogroll, and guess what she found? A blog titled I Wrote This For You with a title description below stating, "I need you to understand something. I wrote this for you. I wrote this for you and only you. Everyone else who reads this, doesn't get it. They may think they get it, but they don't. This is the sign you've been looking for. You were meant to read these words."
First she stared. Then she reread again just to make sure she hadn't been hallucinating. Then she read the posts. Reading them made her feel a little happy and sad at the same time -- happy because each post was so succinctly beautiful, sad because she felt completely inferior to the genius author who had basically described her Internet life with 567 posts.
Seriously, go check it out. It is amazing.
4. Episode 1 of Dr. Subconscience
So as I have mentioned before, G bought me an illustrated dream dictionary for Christmas, probably so I would stop harrassing her with all my crazy accounts of my morbid subconscious storytelling. Well, as an experiment, today I will divulge the latest morbid installment from Sophelia's subconscience and then analyze it with my handy dandy dictionary. It's showtime!
Dr. Subconscience: Allo everyun! Velcome to my show! So, Sopheliah, tell me. Vat new un crazy dream do you have for me today?
Sophelia: I can only remember parts of it, but I remember I was hiding in a small cramped shack in the shady part of some downtown area. A group of us were trying to escape from some evil group -- I don't even remember why we were running away from them, but all I know is that they were the bad guys. I was hiding under a wooden bench with another guy dressed up in a strange orange Big Bird costume, when two of the bad guys came in and caught us hiding under the bench. They forced us out and one of them had to hold Big Bird down. The other had to report to their headquarters about the catch, but that meant he could no longer hold me down.
So as as soon as I had the opportunity, I bolted out of the shack and into another building not too far from the shack. I knew instinctively that somebody was chasing me, but I didn't dare look back. I darted into random doors everywhere, somehow managing to make it to the top floor. There, strangely enough, was a gift shop with a view of the city, selling regular tourist junk and some stuffed animals. The clerk, who was apparently on our side, told me I would be safe here for awhile. Eventually, G, Gov. J, C, S, J, and Rogue somehow managed to meet up with me at the gift shop, and they quickly informed me that a team of the bad guys were getting very close to our location. The clerk pointed at a hallway near the gift shop and told us we should be fine if we hide in the very last room down the hall.
So my friends and I hid inside what turned out to be an extremely messy bedroom. I guess we thought we were safe because whenever we played hide-and-seek when we were young, the parents' bedrooms were always off-limits. Anyways, so we could barely find a place to hide when the door busted open and a team of twelve-year-old boys leapt into the room and started yelling out threats while waving their tiny guns around. Alas, they were too stupid to simply lift off the bedsheet and find all seven of us hiding underneath, so as soon as we heard their feral cries echoing down the hall, we snuck out of the room and darted to the next room, which turned out to be a giant aquatics center. Only it felt more like an empty aquarium than an aquatics center. We leapt into the drained water polo pool, which literally was just a gigantic empty aquarium. Thinking nobody was going to find us there, we sat inside and tried coming up with escape plans.
But for some strange reason, our location had been discovered again, and we heard the thundering noises of the bad guys as they stampeded up the stairs to the highest floor of our building. Thinking fast, we built a human pyramid so that I could reach the window right above us. I pulled down the window but soon realized that none of us would be able to fit through the frame. So instead, I forced the window to open upwards and then ripped apart the window screen with my hands and teeth. Yeah, it hurt my teeth. For some reason, the water polo players had left some towels and pieces of cloth in the "pool", so my friends and I each grabbed a cloth and leapt out of the building as if we were using parachutes. For some strange reason, we were still be able to drift downwards like dandelion seeds despite the fact that gliding down with such dinky pieces of cloth would have been aerodynamically impossible.
And I don't remember very much after that, only that thanks to our stunning escape from the water polo pool, we were able to avoid the bad guys and continue running away.
Dr. Subconscience: Vell, Sopheliah. Good news: a comfortable old age is forecast for you if you are chased in a dream. The fact that your dream took place in a big city shows you have big ideals. The old dilapidated building -- the shack -- is a sign to start saving for the rainy days ahead, and the color orange you saw at the beginning of your dream is an omen of unusually great success. The strange bedroom is a sign of a change for the better. The toothache you developed after ripping apart the screen with your teeth suggests that you are not happy about a certain situation. Freefalling with the parachute, since it vas used successfully in your dream, is a sign that your love life will run smoothly. Seeing others falling is also a sign that you can count on promotion at work. Oh, and those boys you saw chasing you with guns? It's a sure sign that you're not really in love with your partner.
Sophelia: ... But this is all so vague. All you've told me is that I'm not happy with my current situation, and good times are coming soon, but I have to make sure to save for a rainy day? And how is my love life supposed to be running smoothly if I'm not really in love with my non-existent partner to begin with?
Dr. Subconscience: Ah, only the future can tell. Go to sleep and come visit me again tomorrow.
5. Anyone else have the urge to watch the "classic" Star Wars episodes (IV, V, VI)?
I happened to watch Episode IV and half of Episode V on the television last week. I was probably way too young the last time I watched them, because I felt as if I had never watched the films before in my life. Personally, Han Solo beats Luke Skywalker any day in my book. Harrison Ford was fiiiinne back in the day. I'm not surprised Harrison Ford become a superstar and now hardly anybody knows who Mark Hamill is.
Seriously. If he didn't end up with Leia at the end of the trilogy, I probably would have destroyed something.
And as a parting note, I have included two last Youtube clips of the lovely Leia and Han pairing. Haha they crack me up.
And that's all for Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition I!
(I think this might become a weekly thing from now on. But we shall see.)
1. Are some people doomed to never get the girl/guy?
Yeah yeah, I know people like to believe that there's a soulmate out there for everybody. But the cynical side of me has the feeling that there's always going to be somebody who for whatever reason keeps watching them get away. Is it because they have a horrible personality? Or because they just look like one?
Why did I suddenly start thinking about this? Well, I watched The Notebook for the first time last Saturday night. It's not a bad movie, I'll at least give it that. But guess who I saw?
Why, it's Lon Hammond Jr! The poor dashing Southern aristocrat who gets dumped for a farm boy! But wait a second... doesn't he look a little familiar?
Richard White of Superman Returns
Prince Edward of EnchantedHold on a second. How come in every movie I've seen with James Marsden in it, HE NEVER GETS THE GIRL? He's not ugly. It's not like a girl would wake up one morning and scream at the sight of his face. Granted, I haven't watched very many movies, but don't you think three movies is kinda telling? In the first place, the only reason Lon probably lost out to Noah was a case of bad timing. Hey, if Noah's picture had never made the newspaper, who knows what would have happened?
Oh, and don't bother trying to argue that Richard White gets the girl (aka Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane) in Superman Returns. Richard White's story is even more sad than Lon Hammond's. Think about. You're engaged to a girl who's still in love with a freaking alien! And not just any tentacled slimy thing. This is Superman, the guy whose hair remains curled even after he nearly drowns in the ocean! And just how the heck are you supposed live up to the expectations of your alien-human-hybrid stepson?
Anyways. If it weren't for the fact that James Marsden is in real life happily married with two children, he probably would have achieved idol status among the rest of us who spend Valentine's drowning out the sorrows of a single lifestyle with a pint of Ben & Jerry's and television reruns.
2. What's the appropriate age difference for sharing a kiss?
As you'll probably discover, I've spent a lot of my time recently catching up on movies. So what's the next film in line? NO. IT CAN'T BE!!
Yes, I admit. I watched Another Cinderella Story last night on ABC Family. About two hours of cheesy goodness. Forget about Cheez-its. This is "The Big Cheese."
Now, I don't know if you have heard (because it didn't even occur to me until I started reading comments on Youtube videos), but apparently there have been people protesting the age difference between Selena Gomez and Drew Seeley. Because supposedly, Selena Gomez is sixteen and Drew Seeley is twenty-six.
Wait a second. What the hell is the problem? Does Drew Seeley even look any older than twenty-five to you? This guy filled in for Zac Efron in all those High School Musical live performances... and Efron's what, twenty-one? If Seeley is believable as a high school champion basketball player (cue long loud laugh), wouldn't he be ten times more believable as a young showbiz star who can sing and dance?
Oh, I see. People are getting all squeamish because Gomez and Seeley share a kiss at the end of the movie. You can hardly even call it a kiss, since the camera immediately pans over to another side of the stage the instant their lips connect.
So what's the appropriate age difference for kissing? The way I see it, age doesn't matter until I start wincing and have to fight the urge to burrow my head into a pillow. I mean really, why are people making a commotion about a ten year age difference that probably looks only half that amount? What about the lip lock between Ben Kingsley (then aged 63) and Mary-Kate Olsen (then aged 21) in The Wackness? Or how about Sienna Miller (then aged 26) and Steve Buscemi (then aged 50, but looked at least 60) in Interview? Pick your battles, people.
Well, maybe I'm so unbothered by the pairing of Selena and Drew because I loved this scene:
3. Is this what it feels like if you're sitting in a movie theater and suddenly realize that somebody made a movie about your life... and they don't even know you?
So once upon a time, there was a girl named Sophelia. Long story short, she wrote a blog with the half-hearted hope of having the right person stumbling upon her posts. Well, just a week ago she shut the book cover to that story and effectively ended all hope of having her half-hearted dream come true.
Coincidentally, she decided to look at J'nette's blogroll, and guess what she found? A blog titled I Wrote This For You with a title description below stating, "I need you to understand something. I wrote this for you. I wrote this for you and only you. Everyone else who reads this, doesn't get it. They may think they get it, but they don't. This is the sign you've been looking for. You were meant to read these words."
First she stared. Then she reread again just to make sure she hadn't been hallucinating. Then she read the posts. Reading them made her feel a little happy and sad at the same time -- happy because each post was so succinctly beautiful, sad because she felt completely inferior to the genius author who had basically described her Internet life with 567 posts.
Seriously, go check it out. It is amazing.
4. Episode 1 of Dr. Subconscience
So as I have mentioned before, G bought me an illustrated dream dictionary for Christmas, probably so I would stop harrassing her with all my crazy accounts of my morbid subconscious storytelling. Well, as an experiment, today I will divulge the latest morbid installment from Sophelia's subconscience and then analyze it with my handy dandy dictionary. It's showtime!
Dr. Subconscience: Allo everyun! Velcome to my show! So, Sopheliah, tell me. Vat new un crazy dream do you have for me today?
Sophelia: I can only remember parts of it, but I remember I was hiding in a small cramped shack in the shady part of some downtown area. A group of us were trying to escape from some evil group -- I don't even remember why we were running away from them, but all I know is that they were the bad guys. I was hiding under a wooden bench with another guy dressed up in a strange orange Big Bird costume, when two of the bad guys came in and caught us hiding under the bench. They forced us out and one of them had to hold Big Bird down. The other had to report to their headquarters about the catch, but that meant he could no longer hold me down.
So as as soon as I had the opportunity, I bolted out of the shack and into another building not too far from the shack. I knew instinctively that somebody was chasing me, but I didn't dare look back. I darted into random doors everywhere, somehow managing to make it to the top floor. There, strangely enough, was a gift shop with a view of the city, selling regular tourist junk and some stuffed animals. The clerk, who was apparently on our side, told me I would be safe here for awhile. Eventually, G, Gov. J, C, S, J, and Rogue somehow managed to meet up with me at the gift shop, and they quickly informed me that a team of the bad guys were getting very close to our location. The clerk pointed at a hallway near the gift shop and told us we should be fine if we hide in the very last room down the hall.
So my friends and I hid inside what turned out to be an extremely messy bedroom. I guess we thought we were safe because whenever we played hide-and-seek when we were young, the parents' bedrooms were always off-limits. Anyways, so we could barely find a place to hide when the door busted open and a team of twelve-year-old boys leapt into the room and started yelling out threats while waving their tiny guns around. Alas, they were too stupid to simply lift off the bedsheet and find all seven of us hiding underneath, so as soon as we heard their feral cries echoing down the hall, we snuck out of the room and darted to the next room, which turned out to be a giant aquatics center. Only it felt more like an empty aquarium than an aquatics center. We leapt into the drained water polo pool, which literally was just a gigantic empty aquarium. Thinking nobody was going to find us there, we sat inside and tried coming up with escape plans.
But for some strange reason, our location had been discovered again, and we heard the thundering noises of the bad guys as they stampeded up the stairs to the highest floor of our building. Thinking fast, we built a human pyramid so that I could reach the window right above us. I pulled down the window but soon realized that none of us would be able to fit through the frame. So instead, I forced the window to open upwards and then ripped apart the window screen with my hands and teeth. Yeah, it hurt my teeth. For some reason, the water polo players had left some towels and pieces of cloth in the "pool", so my friends and I each grabbed a cloth and leapt out of the building as if we were using parachutes. For some strange reason, we were still be able to drift downwards like dandelion seeds despite the fact that gliding down with such dinky pieces of cloth would have been aerodynamically impossible.
And I don't remember very much after that, only that thanks to our stunning escape from the water polo pool, we were able to avoid the bad guys and continue running away.
Dr. Subconscience: Vell, Sopheliah. Good news: a comfortable old age is forecast for you if you are chased in a dream. The fact that your dream took place in a big city shows you have big ideals. The old dilapidated building -- the shack -- is a sign to start saving for the rainy days ahead, and the color orange you saw at the beginning of your dream is an omen of unusually great success. The strange bedroom is a sign of a change for the better. The toothache you developed after ripping apart the screen with your teeth suggests that you are not happy about a certain situation. Freefalling with the parachute, since it vas used successfully in your dream, is a sign that your love life will run smoothly. Seeing others falling is also a sign that you can count on promotion at work. Oh, and those boys you saw chasing you with guns? It's a sure sign that you're not really in love with your partner.
Sophelia: ... But this is all so vague. All you've told me is that I'm not happy with my current situation, and good times are coming soon, but I have to make sure to save for a rainy day? And how is my love life supposed to be running smoothly if I'm not really in love with my non-existent partner to begin with?
Dr. Subconscience: Ah, only the future can tell. Go to sleep and come visit me again tomorrow.
5. Anyone else have the urge to watch the "classic" Star Wars episodes (IV, V, VI)?
I happened to watch Episode IV and half of Episode V on the television last week. I was probably way too young the last time I watched them, because I felt as if I had never watched the films before in my life. Personally, Han Solo beats Luke Skywalker any day in my book. Harrison Ford was fiiiinne back in the day. I'm not surprised Harrison Ford become a superstar and now hardly anybody knows who Mark Hamill is.
Seriously. If he didn't end up with Leia at the end of the trilogy, I probably would have destroyed something.
And as a parting note, I have included two last Youtube clips of the lovely Leia and Han pairing. Haha they crack me up.
And that's all for Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition I!
December 18, 2008
Shiva
"Don't you ever have those moments where you have the perfect retaliation, the perfect comeback inside your head?" I ask G as we take a break from studying for finals. The steam from the bowls of wonton soup before us rise into the air and slowly dissipate into the air. Nothingness. "You can imagine it all in your head. But then in reality, you don't do anything. You just look at them dumbly because you don't want to face the consequences if you lose control."
----------
For some reason, our "tennis team" decided to have team vacation. I say team with quotations because technically, it was not the team -- Gov. J was with me and she hasn't even picked up a racket since freshman year. We were hovering over a body of large body of water in our private jet -- which is quite surprising considering how poorly the athletics programs at our school are funded.
Coach announced that we could get off the plane if we wished. There would be a landing platform that rose from the ocean where we could get off and perhaps rent a boat to sail around in. It was late afternoon. The sky was the color of autumn. The water looked like ripples of gold.
I left the plane with Gov. J, and we walked down the creaky wooden stairs of the top tier of the platform down to the bottom where the wooden dock jutted into the water. Downstairs, there were two tables and a line of people waiting for booths -- a voting station. The inspector of the station asked us if we would like to partake in democracy and vote. We said sure, but they later kicked us out because we forgot to bring ID. (Which makes no sense in the first place because you are not supposed to vote in another precinct and even if it is your precinct, you usually do not need ID.)
We left the dock with a group of other girls down to the port where there were a line of seaside restaurants. We settled for the noodle restaurant from Kung Fu Panda, complete with Po as our waiter and the duck as the cook. I ordered a bowl of wonton soup; Gov. J ordered udon. We sat under the open sky on one of the rickety picnic tables and waited until the food came. I was about to drink a spoonful of soup when a sleek black convertible rolled into the parking lot at the front of the dining patio.
A group of punks staggered out of the car. One sported a surging pink mohawk; another's face was riddled with piercings. The apparent leader was not quite as flashy, with dark cropped hair and uncharacteristically well-bred clothes for a troublemaker -- black denim pants, navy blue button-up shirt.
The leader strode up to the picnic tables with a dangerous look on his face. He zeroed in on a scrawny Asian man in his twenties and said almost idly, "Where the hell is my payment, you bastard," before he knocked the shit out of the guy. From there, he began making his way down each of the aisles, throwing racial insults and suggestive comments at some of the restaurant customers. At times, he would take their food -- the tempura, for instance -- and eat it himself. His actions were completely arbitrary -- he would harrass one table and then completely ignore the next.
Gov. J and I continued to watch as he slowly made his way towards our table. I remember distinctly hoping he would avoid us, but at the same time, I recall secretly thinking that I wanted him to do something so I would have an excuse to fight.
As he came by, he completely ignored Gov. J before looking disdainfully down at my bowl. "What the fuck is that?" he said and shoved the bowl so that all the contents spilled onto my lap and soiled my jeans. "Maybe you should learn to be potty-trained." He had turned to walk back towards the parking lot when I leapt off of the bench and thundered towards him.
"Die, you fucking asshole!" All the momentum from sprinting carried into my attack. I remember praying that my fists would make contact as I leapt onto his back and started punching his head. The force knocked him off his feet and we crashed onto the lawn.
In the past, whenever I faced discrimination, I never fought back, verbally or physically. But in that instant, all those years of enduring harrassment silently cracked, erupting into anger and wrath. I was uncontrollable. I was Shiva, the destroyer, with all four arms clawing out to tear the flesh from the bone. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I will take those words of yours and shove them down your filthy throat.
----------------------
Yes, it was just another dream.
----------
For some reason, our "tennis team" decided to have team vacation. I say team with quotations because technically, it was not the team -- Gov. J was with me and she hasn't even picked up a racket since freshman year. We were hovering over a body of large body of water in our private jet -- which is quite surprising considering how poorly the athletics programs at our school are funded.
Coach announced that we could get off the plane if we wished. There would be a landing platform that rose from the ocean where we could get off and perhaps rent a boat to sail around in. It was late afternoon. The sky was the color of autumn. The water looked like ripples of gold.
I left the plane with Gov. J, and we walked down the creaky wooden stairs of the top tier of the platform down to the bottom where the wooden dock jutted into the water. Downstairs, there were two tables and a line of people waiting for booths -- a voting station. The inspector of the station asked us if we would like to partake in democracy and vote. We said sure, but they later kicked us out because we forgot to bring ID. (Which makes no sense in the first place because you are not supposed to vote in another precinct and even if it is your precinct, you usually do not need ID.)
We left the dock with a group of other girls down to the port where there were a line of seaside restaurants. We settled for the noodle restaurant from Kung Fu Panda, complete with Po as our waiter and the duck as the cook. I ordered a bowl of wonton soup; Gov. J ordered udon. We sat under the open sky on one of the rickety picnic tables and waited until the food came. I was about to drink a spoonful of soup when a sleek black convertible rolled into the parking lot at the front of the dining patio.
A group of punks staggered out of the car. One sported a surging pink mohawk; another's face was riddled with piercings. The apparent leader was not quite as flashy, with dark cropped hair and uncharacteristically well-bred clothes for a troublemaker -- black denim pants, navy blue button-up shirt.
The leader strode up to the picnic tables with a dangerous look on his face. He zeroed in on a scrawny Asian man in his twenties and said almost idly, "Where the hell is my payment, you bastard," before he knocked the shit out of the guy. From there, he began making his way down each of the aisles, throwing racial insults and suggestive comments at some of the restaurant customers. At times, he would take their food -- the tempura, for instance -- and eat it himself. His actions were completely arbitrary -- he would harrass one table and then completely ignore the next.
Gov. J and I continued to watch as he slowly made his way towards our table. I remember distinctly hoping he would avoid us, but at the same time, I recall secretly thinking that I wanted him to do something so I would have an excuse to fight.
As he came by, he completely ignored Gov. J before looking disdainfully down at my bowl. "What the fuck is that?" he said and shoved the bowl so that all the contents spilled onto my lap and soiled my jeans. "Maybe you should learn to be potty-trained." He had turned to walk back towards the parking lot when I leapt off of the bench and thundered towards him.
"Die, you fucking asshole!" All the momentum from sprinting carried into my attack. I remember praying that my fists would make contact as I leapt onto his back and started punching his head. The force knocked him off his feet and we crashed onto the lawn.
In the past, whenever I faced discrimination, I never fought back, verbally or physically. But in that instant, all those years of enduring harrassment silently cracked, erupting into anger and wrath. I was uncontrollable. I was Shiva, the destroyer, with all four arms clawing out to tear the flesh from the bone. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I will take those words of yours and shove them down your filthy throat.
----------------------
Yes, it was just another dream.
November 22, 2008
The Truth
I don't think I have crazier dreams than anyone else. I think I just remember them better after I wake up than most people.
We were at Normandy. I have never set foot across the Atlantic in my life, but I suppose it would be as beautiful as I imagined. The ocean, the ocean. The beach of blood. A friend of Mme. M owned a chateau that overlooked the sea, and so Mme. brought us to the white sand castle to stay as honored guests. Nearly all the walls were built from panels of glass. It felt as if we were walking through crystals, living inside a glass prism. We were in one of the sun-drenched rooms with a view of the ocean, sprawled across the white sandy carpet with our books and papers.
I wish(ed) you would look at me. But I don't think you ever did.
Oh, did I wake up yet? I don't think this is only a dream.
We were at Normandy. I have never set foot across the Atlantic in my life, but I suppose it would be as beautiful as I imagined. The ocean, the ocean. The beach of blood. A friend of Mme. M owned a chateau that overlooked the sea, and so Mme. brought us to the white sand castle to stay as honored guests. Nearly all the walls were built from panels of glass. It felt as if we were walking through crystals, living inside a glass prism. We were in one of the sun-drenched rooms with a view of the ocean, sprawled across the white sandy carpet with our books and papers.
I wish(ed) you would look at me. But I don't think you ever did.
Oh, did I wake up yet? I don't think this is only a dream.
March 29, 2008
Reverie
There is an interesting phenomenon that occurs everytime I have a vacation from school. Naturally, I sleep more during vacation, but the strange thing is that I dream much more vividly. Another strange thing is that I am the only person I know who regularly has epic dreams - the kind you would see in a movie theater. Maybe it is because my runaway imagination is untameable? Some people look for meaning in their dreams, but frankly, I've given up on any of that. Otherwise, I would spend the entire day waiting to witness a dramatic car chase or murder.
And I feel like writing something morbid today, so pardon the violence.
And yes, I actually did dream this.
--------------------------------------------
The lines are endless. Sophelia sighs (though she is in no hurry) and waits by the door with her brother. Outside the grocery store, the darkness of the sky smothers the air like smoke. The lights of the parking lot are a sickly gutted yellow. It is a dead night.
A girl stands by the rack beside the cash register, her lips pursed. (Is she amused? Frustrated?) She is tall but waifish, with dull brown hair and dark indigo eyeshadow that drowns her eyes. Her fingers rifle through the junk by the checkout line, and she picks up a single yellow package. (Why does the store sell that kind of feminine hygienic product by the checkout line? And why are those being sold individually?)
Sophelia and her brother follow their parents past the jawlike sliding doors and into the parking lot, with the wobbling shopping cart squealing excruciatingly. The trunk of the minivan opens, a looming mouth fed with plastic-wrapped groceries and cardboard packages.
A distant scream approaches in a crescendo. The waif shrieks as she runs past, chased by a lithe beautiful blonde. The blonde's eyes are glassy and emotionless, like two lifeless diamonds. A sociopathic Chesire smile gleams on her face, not unlike the glint of the knife in her hand.
The waif screams for help, her cheeks streaked with wet indigo drips. A nearby man turns to chase after them, but the blonde only giggles and intensifies her hunt. The knife is hidden under the dark flap of her black winter coat, barely visible to even the sharpest observer. The man gives up his pursuit (possibly from fatigue, or perhaps he does not see the knife and thinks it is only a demented game of tag) and stalks off towards the direction of the grocery store.
The predator and the prey continue the chase around the parking lot. Sophelia climbs into the car and her father shifts the gear to reverse.
"Shouldn't we do something to help her?" Sophelia feels compelled, not because of any attachment towards the waif, but because it seems to be the morally right thing to do.
"How can we fight somebody with a knife? What can we do at this point?" Her parents shrug. "It's only a matter of time before one of them will give up. But which one?"
A blood-curdling scream echoes in the distance.
And I feel like writing something morbid today, so pardon the violence.
And yes, I actually did dream this.
--------------------------------------------
The lines are endless. Sophelia sighs (though she is in no hurry) and waits by the door with her brother. Outside the grocery store, the darkness of the sky smothers the air like smoke. The lights of the parking lot are a sickly gutted yellow. It is a dead night.
A girl stands by the rack beside the cash register, her lips pursed. (Is she amused? Frustrated?) She is tall but waifish, with dull brown hair and dark indigo eyeshadow that drowns her eyes. Her fingers rifle through the junk by the checkout line, and she picks up a single yellow package. (Why does the store sell that kind of feminine hygienic product by the checkout line? And why are those being sold individually?)
Sophelia and her brother follow their parents past the jawlike sliding doors and into the parking lot, with the wobbling shopping cart squealing excruciatingly. The trunk of the minivan opens, a looming mouth fed with plastic-wrapped groceries and cardboard packages.
A distant scream approaches in a crescendo. The waif shrieks as she runs past, chased by a lithe beautiful blonde. The blonde's eyes are glassy and emotionless, like two lifeless diamonds. A sociopathic Chesire smile gleams on her face, not unlike the glint of the knife in her hand.
The waif screams for help, her cheeks streaked with wet indigo drips. A nearby man turns to chase after them, but the blonde only giggles and intensifies her hunt. The knife is hidden under the dark flap of her black winter coat, barely visible to even the sharpest observer. The man gives up his pursuit (possibly from fatigue, or perhaps he does not see the knife and thinks it is only a demented game of tag) and stalks off towards the direction of the grocery store.
The predator and the prey continue the chase around the parking lot. Sophelia climbs into the car and her father shifts the gear to reverse.
"Shouldn't we do something to help her?" Sophelia feels compelled, not because of any attachment towards the waif, but because it seems to be the morally right thing to do.
"How can we fight somebody with a knife? What can we do at this point?" Her parents shrug. "It's only a matter of time before one of them will give up. But which one?"
A blood-curdling scream echoes in the distance.
March 16, 2008
Tournesol
I've always found it strange that I always seem to be the one with crazy dreams. I think the only difference may be that I remember dreams better than most people. I will write about one part of the dream I had yesterday, and because I would rather not reveal who appeared in my dream, the names will be completely changed.
--------------------------
Ivy holds a bouqet of sunflowers, a glow of yellow petals
Brown eyes and green eyelashes
A blushing ingenue.
Howl tells her to make the first move
Win this game of lover's chess
Capture and checkmate, make Ash
Her King.
Meters away Ash stands alone
Hands in pockets as if waiting
For a cryptic love letter
Written in the sky
But when Ivy looms over like
The effervescent sunrise
He slides past her, snubbing
An ashen sunset
I laugh.
I am rude. Poor Ivy.
But I find it terribly funny.
I am terrible.
But why is Ash walking in my direction?
Stop stop stop. Go. away away awaY.
I attempt the slide, the snub,
But you can't fool the master.
Caught like a gasping fish
Wrist ensnared in his fingers
A struggle a fight, let me
Go, but he says,
"I forgive you"
Simply, and walks away.
----------------------------
What annoys me is that I have not done anything that requires Ash's forgiveness. In fact, Ash should be the one seeking my forgiveness. And I don't care if this was incredibly vague (compared to the last two times I wrote about my dreams, with Murderess and Adam is a Jerk) - if it was too obvious I might as well shoot myself in the foot.
I found a certain someone's blog on blogspot. If you know who Curious Georgette is, then you know who I am referring to. There was one rant on that blog in particular that I would have loved to comment on. But I would rather not let Curious Georgette know about this blog.
June 3, 2007
Murderess: a waltz in 3/4 time
Intro (1/4)
Complete strangers fascinate me. There's something about watching their movements from the quad at lunch hour that keeps the schoolday from becoming dull.
There is a girl and a boy. I've noticed them around school from time to time. He is lean and very tall, with dark brown hair and almond eyes. She is small, yet I imagine that she has a fierce personality. There's a look on her face that says she'll be sweet when she wants to be.
At first, I thought they were a mismatched pair. He looks like a jock; with the nose piercing, she looks like a punk. I would see them on my way to English - she stands on the bench by the trees, arms around his shoulders. This is how they see eye-to-eye. Without the bench, she doesn't even reach his shoulders.
But if you watch for awhile, you can tell they genuinely love each other. They always look like they're joking with each other - none of the awkward tension I've seen too many times between couples that have no communication. Those girls and boys resort to physical affection to ease their discomfort.
Rhys is based on him, as Rory is based on her. I've had fun imagining how they first met.
But in this dream, it didn't matter.
Part I (2/4)
The journo room was packed today. Faces I had never seen before were laughing, crying, and whining everywhere. There were people screwing around the computers - others were just plain socializing.
I walked through the doorway into the room, brushing by Rhys who was in deep conversation with Roseanna. I suddenly remembered - I hadn't seen Rory and Rhys on their bench during the passing period today. They had simply walked off in seperate directions without a single glance.
"No, I don't want to," Roseanna said, though the expression on her face said otherwise.
He read the right lines right off of her face. "Come on, Roseanna," the corners of his mouth tilted upwards. "You know you want to. Just this once, alright?"
She draped her arms coyly around neck. The temptress. The nymph. Disgusted, I turned and walked to the row of computers on the otherside of the room.
Connie was talking to a group of our friends when I approached. "Guess what I found out? That 'hot' cellist actually saw you guys taking pictures of him."
Ariel, Jessica, and G exchanged glances before bursting out in laughter.
"Yeah," Connie continued. "And apparently he likes the one named Lily. The light-skinned one."
"What the fuck? Which one of us is Lily?"
"Haha probably Jessica. Guess what? Now you've got a Stalker #5!"
"Oh shut up!"
I ignored them and turned on the computer next to Jennifer. We were the only page editors working in the room. Connie sat down beside me when I noticed Roseanna and Rhys making out in the chair not too far from where we sat.
"Oh god, can they please get a room?" I muttered. I thought even the Nymph had some decency not to work it in a classroom.
Connie turned to look. "Oooh he's cute," she said. "I'd totally go out with him." (very out of character for C)
"Are you nuts?! If you start something with him, it'll be serious. Let's just say, it's obvious he's definitely not a virgin."
To my dismay, she rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm gonna go say hi."
As she stood up, I groaned and turned to Jennifer. "I can't believe she's actually going to do it."
Jennifer glanced over to the chair. "Don't look now. The Nymph is practically giving him a blow job."
I winced. "Someone just shoot me now..." Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and found myself staring straight into Rory's face.
She was not dressed in her usual clothes. She wore a blue track jacket, lime green tank top, black jeans, and leather ankle-high boots. The usual eyeshadow and eyeliner caked on her face was gone.
"He's here, isn't he?" It was more of a statement than a question. She looked cold, the way her eyes seemed to be frosted with ice. I couldn't see any emotion in those mirrors.
Quietly, I pointed over to the chair. He was multi-tasking, talking to Connie without even keeping his eyes off of the Nymph. Rory turned to look and said softly, "Of course. He'd go to Roseanna first." Suddenly, I noticed the gleam of a handle hidden in her jacket pocket. Whether it was a knife, a gun, a stapler, I felt a chill down my neck.
"Rory, please don't do anything stupid," I felt ridiculous, trying to lecture this girl who didn't even know me. I didn't even know why she had come to talk to me. But I tried pleading anyway, because I could see all the fault-lines running across her face. It was only a matter of time before she cracked. "He's in pain too. It's not just you. That's why he would resort to the Nymph. Rory-"
She pressed the handgun against my head. "Sorry, but it's too late now. Don't get in my way." She stood up, distanced herself carefully to get a clear shot at him. I watched in panicked silence. Connie was standing in Rory's path to Rhys.
"Wait a second!" I whispered fiercely. She whirled around and pointed the gun at me. "No no no, but you can't shoot Connie!"
She simply nodded and refocused her attention. I watched in dreaded silence as she walked closer to the chair, closer to Rhys. Jennifer was in complete harmony with her surroundings as I grew agitated.
"I can't just let her kill him!" Jennifer looked at me seriously. "There's not much you can do now," she said quietly. "She's reached the point of no return."
Time seemed to trickle during those last moments. I forced myself not to look, bracing myself for the gunshot, for the scream. Anything.
Part II (3/4)
They were only a few yards apart now. The Nymph's back was facing her. She didn't see what was coming.
Rhys finally saw her, as she stood there watching him emptily. His eyes opened wide. She read the hurt and the helplessness in his eyes. They were mirrors, him and her.
But she couldn't forgive her reflection.
The Nymph screamed as the blood sprayed from his forehead. Gray matter and crimson ribbons of blood flew across the air. The entire room scrambled, screaming in panic towards the door. Rory calmly tucked the handgun inside her jacket pocket and walked towards the door.
Only Jennifer and I remained sitting in there, in complete shock and remorse. '
An administrative official walked around confusedly and fearfully in the room, unsure of whether to run for her life or to tend to the bleeding body sprawled across the floors. "Who did this?" she asked numbly.
"I did." Rory turned around in the doorframe, waving, unafraid of any consequence to come.
Her eyes met mine. She blew a kiss and smiled. It was the first genuine smile I had seen on her face this entire day.
------------------------------------------------------
I can't remember the last time I had such a graphic violent dream. I wonder why those two got tangled into this story.
Complete strangers fascinate me. There's something about watching their movements from the quad at lunch hour that keeps the schoolday from becoming dull.
There is a girl and a boy. I've noticed them around school from time to time. He is lean and very tall, with dark brown hair and almond eyes. She is small, yet I imagine that she has a fierce personality. There's a look on her face that says she'll be sweet when she wants to be.
At first, I thought they were a mismatched pair. He looks like a jock; with the nose piercing, she looks like a punk. I would see them on my way to English - she stands on the bench by the trees, arms around his shoulders. This is how they see eye-to-eye. Without the bench, she doesn't even reach his shoulders.
But if you watch for awhile, you can tell they genuinely love each other. They always look like they're joking with each other - none of the awkward tension I've seen too many times between couples that have no communication. Those girls and boys resort to physical affection to ease their discomfort.
Rhys is based on him, as Rory is based on her. I've had fun imagining how they first met.
But in this dream, it didn't matter.
Part I (2/4)
The journo room was packed today. Faces I had never seen before were laughing, crying, and whining everywhere. There were people screwing around the computers - others were just plain socializing.
I walked through the doorway into the room, brushing by Rhys who was in deep conversation with Roseanna. I suddenly remembered - I hadn't seen Rory and Rhys on their bench during the passing period today. They had simply walked off in seperate directions without a single glance.
"No, I don't want to," Roseanna said, though the expression on her face said otherwise.
He read the right lines right off of her face. "Come on, Roseanna," the corners of his mouth tilted upwards. "You know you want to. Just this once, alright?"
She draped her arms coyly around neck. The temptress. The nymph. Disgusted, I turned and walked to the row of computers on the otherside of the room.
Connie was talking to a group of our friends when I approached. "Guess what I found out? That 'hot' cellist actually saw you guys taking pictures of him."
Ariel, Jessica, and G exchanged glances before bursting out in laughter.
"Yeah," Connie continued. "And apparently he likes the one named Lily. The light-skinned one."
"What the fuck? Which one of us is Lily?"
"Haha probably Jessica. Guess what? Now you've got a Stalker #5!"
"Oh shut up!"
I ignored them and turned on the computer next to Jennifer. We were the only page editors working in the room. Connie sat down beside me when I noticed Roseanna and Rhys making out in the chair not too far from where we sat.
"Oh god, can they please get a room?" I muttered. I thought even the Nymph had some decency not to work it in a classroom.
Connie turned to look. "Oooh he's cute," she said. "I'd totally go out with him." (very out of character for C)
"Are you nuts?! If you start something with him, it'll be serious. Let's just say, it's obvious he's definitely not a virgin."
To my dismay, she rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm gonna go say hi."
As she stood up, I groaned and turned to Jennifer. "I can't believe she's actually going to do it."
Jennifer glanced over to the chair. "Don't look now. The Nymph is practically giving him a blow job."
I winced. "Someone just shoot me now..." Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and found myself staring straight into Rory's face.
She was not dressed in her usual clothes. She wore a blue track jacket, lime green tank top, black jeans, and leather ankle-high boots. The usual eyeshadow and eyeliner caked on her face was gone.
"He's here, isn't he?" It was more of a statement than a question. She looked cold, the way her eyes seemed to be frosted with ice. I couldn't see any emotion in those mirrors.
Quietly, I pointed over to the chair. He was multi-tasking, talking to Connie without even keeping his eyes off of the Nymph. Rory turned to look and said softly, "Of course. He'd go to Roseanna first." Suddenly, I noticed the gleam of a handle hidden in her jacket pocket. Whether it was a knife, a gun, a stapler, I felt a chill down my neck.
"Rory, please don't do anything stupid," I felt ridiculous, trying to lecture this girl who didn't even know me. I didn't even know why she had come to talk to me. But I tried pleading anyway, because I could see all the fault-lines running across her face. It was only a matter of time before she cracked. "He's in pain too. It's not just you. That's why he would resort to the Nymph. Rory-"
She pressed the handgun against my head. "Sorry, but it's too late now. Don't get in my way." She stood up, distanced herself carefully to get a clear shot at him. I watched in panicked silence. Connie was standing in Rory's path to Rhys.
"Wait a second!" I whispered fiercely. She whirled around and pointed the gun at me. "No no no, but you can't shoot Connie!"
She simply nodded and refocused her attention. I watched in dreaded silence as she walked closer to the chair, closer to Rhys. Jennifer was in complete harmony with her surroundings as I grew agitated.
"I can't just let her kill him!" Jennifer looked at me seriously. "There's not much you can do now," she said quietly. "She's reached the point of no return."
Time seemed to trickle during those last moments. I forced myself not to look, bracing myself for the gunshot, for the scream. Anything.
Part II (3/4)
They were only a few yards apart now. The Nymph's back was facing her. She didn't see what was coming.
Rhys finally saw her, as she stood there watching him emptily. His eyes opened wide. She read the hurt and the helplessness in his eyes. They were mirrors, him and her.
But she couldn't forgive her reflection.
The Nymph screamed as the blood sprayed from his forehead. Gray matter and crimson ribbons of blood flew across the air. The entire room scrambled, screaming in panic towards the door. Rory calmly tucked the handgun inside her jacket pocket and walked towards the door.
Only Jennifer and I remained sitting in there, in complete shock and remorse. '
An administrative official walked around confusedly and fearfully in the room, unsure of whether to run for her life or to tend to the bleeding body sprawled across the floors. "Who did this?" she asked numbly.
"I did." Rory turned around in the doorframe, waving, unafraid of any consequence to come.
Her eyes met mine. She blew a kiss and smiled. It was the first genuine smile I had seen on her face this entire day.
------------------------------------------------------
I can't remember the last time I had such a graphic violent dream. I wonder why those two got tangled into this story.
April 16, 2007
6:54 AM: Adam is a Jerk
Dreams are funny business. Funny as in strange. I don't usually have humorous dreams. I'm usually subconsciously aware that I'm dreaming, but last night was one of those where you're jolted awake and the surprise and disappointment that it was all imagination kicks you in the gut.
Dreams are also very choppy, as in they make perfect sense until you rationalize it through and realize just how stupid it was. So here it goes.
-------------------------------
I don't know much about Adam Brody. Sure, he was a star on the O.C., but I never watched TV. It would be safe to assume that everything I knew about this actor was from reading the article about him featured in this week's Time Magazine. But that didn't explain why Ariel's parents were suddenly very close friends with this guy. For some absurd reason, this eyecandy actor needed a place to stay in Norcal, and my parents had offered him my brother's room to stay in.
My brother remains absent throughout the rest of this story.
Ariel, Allison, and I were loitering around the airport parking lot, chatting about nothing in particular. Ariel had the complete rocker-chick vibe going, dolled up in vintage t-shirts and multiple studs and rings pierced through her ears. Allison and I, however, remained unchanged.
The car clicked twice, signaling that my father had unlocked the doors. As we climbed in, Ariel described Adam Brody's situation. As we buckled up in the back seat of my family's minivan, I was telling them about how according to the article, Adam Brody felt pigeon-holed by his role as Seth Cohen, when Mr. Adam Brody himself stepped into the car and told me to stop talking about him.
I had never really seen this guy before, save photographs poking here and there in various magazines. The actor I found myself face to face with was tall and lithe with dark hair. He probably would have been handsome if he had not been glaring at me so viciously. He then said to me, "You really should stretch and exercise more if you don't want to be so fat."
Though I was steamed by this comment, I was still stunned by the fact that this piece of paprazzi meat was sitting in my (techinically, my family's) minivan. He took a seat in the middle passenger seat directly in front of me and sat there quietly, looking extremely tired and frustrated.
Later along the road, we took a right turn that jolted the car, causing my leg to jerk upwards and kick the back of his chair. Then he turned around and his eyes shot daggers at me, but I had been listening to "On the Other Side of the Crash" by Thursday on my iPod and ignored him.
Ariel's parents were already waiting for us in our driveway, and they greeted this rude and unfriendly Hollywood star. Peeved by his attitude, I climbed up the stairs and headed towards my room. Looking in, I realized that my room was a humongous mess. For some reason, I inherently knew that the guy was a neat freak. Not looking forward to another insult, I slammed the door shut and walked over to my parents' room, where my mother was folding laundry.
I began to unload my frustration, beginning with my immediate dislike for the jerk. My mother merely nodded. Allison, on the otherhand, whole-heartedly agreed. She could even quote his insults word for word. Royally peeved, I headed downstairs to the kitchen to get a drink. As I looked around, I noticed that neither the jerk nor Ariel's parents were in the house. They were gone.
I spoke to my father, who was sitting in the living room with the TV chattering on about the war. I asked him where Adam Brody had gone. He explained without looking up that Adam Brody had to catch a train to Japan. Dubious, I said, "How the hell are you supposed to take a train to Japan?" My father completely ignored my question. As I trudged up the stairs, I asked one more question. "Why did he even bother showing up here in the first place?" My father replied, "He needed a break from Hollywood, somewhere they aren't likely to find him."
I walked into my room. Ariel was standing by my dresser, apparently trying on different earrings as she gazed in her reflection in my window. "Well, thank god he's gone," I announced as I sank into the bed, exhausted from all the drama that had happened. She shrugged and said, "He'll be back in a few weeks. At least you guys met with a BAM, though it was a pretty nasty way to meet. Almost seemed Hollywood style." I snorted and replied, "Sure, how often does a person call a complete stranger fat? He's been around too many waifish models and actresses; I'm not even that fat."
An electronic Disney song rang as Ariel answered her cell phone. "Hey, what's up?" she said. I gave up trying to follow her conversation and waited for her to finish. She laughed. "Sure. Get me some earrings in Japan, alright?" Her cell phone closed with a snap.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
- I read the Time magazine article on Adam Brody that afternoon.
- I read Ariel's emails that day.
- I saw Allison running at the track that evening.
- When we passed by the Light Rail that morning, my brother and I talked about Japan' Bullet Train.
- I have been listening to Thursday's CD recently.
- I have been worrying about gaining too much weight.
Dreams are also very choppy, as in they make perfect sense until you rationalize it through and realize just how stupid it was. So here it goes.
-------------------------------
I don't know much about Adam Brody. Sure, he was a star on the O.C., but I never watched TV. It would be safe to assume that everything I knew about this actor was from reading the article about him featured in this week's Time Magazine. But that didn't explain why Ariel's parents were suddenly very close friends with this guy. For some absurd reason, this eyecandy actor needed a place to stay in Norcal, and my parents had offered him my brother's room to stay in.
My brother remains absent throughout the rest of this story.
Ariel, Allison, and I were loitering around the airport parking lot, chatting about nothing in particular. Ariel had the complete rocker-chick vibe going, dolled up in vintage t-shirts and multiple studs and rings pierced through her ears. Allison and I, however, remained unchanged.
The car clicked twice, signaling that my father had unlocked the doors. As we climbed in, Ariel described Adam Brody's situation. As we buckled up in the back seat of my family's minivan, I was telling them about how according to the article, Adam Brody felt pigeon-holed by his role as Seth Cohen, when Mr. Adam Brody himself stepped into the car and told me to stop talking about him.
I had never really seen this guy before, save photographs poking here and there in various magazines. The actor I found myself face to face with was tall and lithe with dark hair. He probably would have been handsome if he had not been glaring at me so viciously. He then said to me, "You really should stretch and exercise more if you don't want to be so fat."
Though I was steamed by this comment, I was still stunned by the fact that this piece of paprazzi meat was sitting in my (techinically, my family's) minivan. He took a seat in the middle passenger seat directly in front of me and sat there quietly, looking extremely tired and frustrated.
Later along the road, we took a right turn that jolted the car, causing my leg to jerk upwards and kick the back of his chair. Then he turned around and his eyes shot daggers at me, but I had been listening to "On the Other Side of the Crash" by Thursday on my iPod and ignored him.
Ariel's parents were already waiting for us in our driveway, and they greeted this rude and unfriendly Hollywood star. Peeved by his attitude, I climbed up the stairs and headed towards my room. Looking in, I realized that my room was a humongous mess. For some reason, I inherently knew that the guy was a neat freak. Not looking forward to another insult, I slammed the door shut and walked over to my parents' room, where my mother was folding laundry.
I began to unload my frustration, beginning with my immediate dislike for the jerk. My mother merely nodded. Allison, on the otherhand, whole-heartedly agreed. She could even quote his insults word for word. Royally peeved, I headed downstairs to the kitchen to get a drink. As I looked around, I noticed that neither the jerk nor Ariel's parents were in the house. They were gone.
I spoke to my father, who was sitting in the living room with the TV chattering on about the war. I asked him where Adam Brody had gone. He explained without looking up that Adam Brody had to catch a train to Japan. Dubious, I said, "How the hell are you supposed to take a train to Japan?" My father completely ignored my question. As I trudged up the stairs, I asked one more question. "Why did he even bother showing up here in the first place?" My father replied, "He needed a break from Hollywood, somewhere they aren't likely to find him."
I walked into my room. Ariel was standing by my dresser, apparently trying on different earrings as she gazed in her reflection in my window. "Well, thank god he's gone," I announced as I sank into the bed, exhausted from all the drama that had happened. She shrugged and said, "He'll be back in a few weeks. At least you guys met with a BAM, though it was a pretty nasty way to meet. Almost seemed Hollywood style." I snorted and replied, "Sure, how often does a person call a complete stranger fat? He's been around too many waifish models and actresses; I'm not even that fat."
An electronic Disney song rang as Ariel answered her cell phone. "Hey, what's up?" she said. I gave up trying to follow her conversation and waited for her to finish. She laughed. "Sure. Get me some earrings in Japan, alright?" Her cell phone closed with a snap.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
- I read the Time magazine article on Adam Brody that afternoon.
- I read Ariel's emails that day.
- I saw Allison running at the track that evening.
- When we passed by the Light Rail that morning, my brother and I talked about Japan' Bullet Train.
- I have been listening to Thursday's CD recently.
- I have been worrying about gaining too much weight.
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