New York and Two Nights of Dreams

So, I've recently returned from New York City, which I visited with my dad, Heather, and Hope for the first time (my dad was the only one who had ever been before). We left late on Wednesday night and arrived at JFK Airport around midnight. A friendly cab driver named Carlos drove us to our Sugar Hill/Harlem Bed and Breakfast in a fancy car that begins with an "M" that I cannot remember the name of right now. Our first view of the city was of the buildings all lit up at night and an empty black sky above, as though all of the life throbbing in the city below had devoured the starlight. It was cold in New York City, but not much colder than it was in Winston-Salem - if anything, the wind was a bit sharper (I wore a scarf the entire time we were there, which is strange for me because I don't like to feel fabric around my neck). Carlos dropped us off in front of our brick residence, which could be accessed by climbing a set of about five stairs bordered by an iron rail. Beneath these stairs, not easily seen from the sidewalk, was an iron door, through which one could access the key to the rooms inside if you had the combination given by the owner of the Bed and Breakfast in an email, which thankfully, Heather had. Grabbing the keys and some suitcases, we opened the heavy wooden door and entered the tiny antechamber of the building. We passed the living room and hurried upstairs to our room, which I think was called "Nina's Room." Each of the rooms was dedicated to famous jazz performers - for example, one room was "Ella's Room." I'm not sure who Nina is - Alexis probably knows. Our door was the first at the top of the stairs, and within it, there were two beds, a King and a twin, with a bed beneath the twin which could be pulled out and set up. The twin bed rested against the wall and the window, and directly opposite this bed was a blue, intense painting of Miles Davis where his eyes were very wide. My dad immediately noticed this, being a fan of Miles Davis, and remarked that he would be staring at me as I slept (I would be taking the twin bed). Apart from the bedroom, there was also a bathroom. Downstairs was a "common" area, which consisted of a living room/computer room, and a den. On the basement level, there was a kitchen area, and the remainder of the floors contained bedrooms. So, after exploring the premises with Hope, we put on our pajamas and went to bed, expecting to be woken around 8:00 in the morning for breakfast in the main house of the Bed and Breakfast, which was about five blocks away from where we were staying. So, in the morning, we all showered and headed over so that we could meet the owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Jeremy Archer, in person. He was a pleasant, middle-aged, thin, bald man with a British accent and low voice. The main room that we saw in the main house was the dining room/den, in which there was a table/chairs and couches, respectively. Up on the mantle were variously colored and shaped vases, and interesting paintings hung about. A variety of music was always playing in the background, and on the table was a glass container of philosophy - there were little sheets of paper with quotes on them. The one that I remember read, "I'm not afraid of death; I'm afraid of eternal life." I do not know the speaker of the quote. Jeremy made really delicious scones; they were sort of cheesy and had a bit of spice to them. He also had a gray cat, named Smokey, about whose gender Hope and I quarreled that first day. I kept referring to the cat as a "him," while she constantly corrected me, saying, "It could be a girl," at which point I asserted myself, saying, "Nah, I think that there's something decidedly masculine about this cat." When Jeremy returned from the kitchen after the fifth time that this happened, I asked him the gender of the cat and he replied nonchalantly that Smokey was a female. The decidedly-male cat had tricked me! That same morning, we were joined at the breakfast table by an elderly but sprightly couple whom we initially guessed were also from England. They told us that they were, but that they had moved to Toronto, and that this was their first time visiting the city as well. Their names were Diana and Derrick, and Derrick reminded me of the butler from "The Dark Knight," while Diana was super-nice and friendly. I desperately wanted to ask them, upon their mention of Toronto, if they had gone to the museum and seen the chair there and all that, but I restrained my inner dork, intending to bring it up the next time that we talked to them. Unfortunately, the next time that we saw them was the last time, as we were going out the door of the main building on our last day there.
Anyways, after breakfast that morning, we purchased metro cards and traveled on the D train to the middle of town with the intent of visiting the biggest toy store in the world, FAO Schwartz. Hope was particularly excited about this trip, and had been talking about it for weeks - she had $100 to spend, and I knew that it was burning a hole in her pocket. Halfway there, we passed a gorgeous cathedral that was open to the public, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and so we stopped inside to take a look. All around the perimeter of the cathedral were exhibits dedicated to various saints. After that, we finally made it to FAO Schwartz, which was packed with parents and children. Hope and Heather went scouting in the doll section, while my dad and I wandered around the first floor for a while, looking for potential toys for Kalyn. I eyed some of my favorites, decided to keep them in mind for later, and headed upstairs in search of the Big Piano which is featured in the movie "Big." Sure enough, after meandering through action figures and bath toys and Barbies, I caught a glimpse of a sign at the end of the hallway which read, "Big Piano," and I could see kids hopping across the floor. I led my dad over there and was immensely excited to get onto the piano and perhaps try to play some Beethoven. I was finally let in with about eight little kids (I was the only one there over the age of ten, I'll bet), and as I tried to pick out a tune, I found myself unable to hear the black notes very well over the racket of eight people jumping on the piano simultaneously (the black keys didn't light up like the others, and so you couldn't even pretend to hear them). After a couple minutes of feeling silly, I grabbed my shoes and left the piano. My dad and I were about to leave to meet up with Hope and Heather when the two supervisors, a tall blond man named Robert and a rosy-faced girl named Melissa, cleared the piano floor and announced that they were going to do a mini-concert. They performed the two songs that were played in "Big," as well as a couple of other songs which were pretty amazing to watch. Their grand finale, which they made us shout "Encore!" for, ended up being an arrangement of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," which was absolutely amazing, particularly how they accomplished it with their feet. After this, we found the others; Hope had purchased a $56 doll named Tess, who was equipped with two ballerina outfits. We moved back downstairs and I decided to get Kalyn a microplush elephant hand puppet, who was quickly named Murray Perahia after Murray Perahia the pianist, who was born in the Bronx and who had the same eyes and facial expression as the elephant. We went across the street to a restaurant called "Pop Burger," and then met up with my dad's friend Dave outside of the toy store. The last time I had seen Dave was when I was eight years old - I had no memory of his appearance, though he seemed to become familiar as I watched his mannerisms. I remarked later in the trip that he reminded me of Disney's depiction of Dickens' ghost of Christmas present, for the sole reason that he was always laughing about something or other, seemed always to be filled with mirth. He led us around for a while, sight-seeing, and Hope hung on him the entire time and seemed to be completely enamored of him. That night, I believe, we went to Grand Central Station, which was filled with booths where people sold things to tourists. That day began my quest for a reasonably-priced flapper hat, because I had encountered just such a hat earlier that day that I had haggled down to $25, but I felt like I could do better than that. However, as I found that night at Grand Central, $25 is quite a reasonable price in New York City. I found what I was looking for on the last day, at a booth in Brian Park - $25. A violinist played partitas, Christmas music, and such outside of the booths, and I gave him $2. Once you ventured into the big central space of the station, where you could branch out to different hallways depending on your purpose for being there, it was as though the sky opened - because on the ceiling, there was painted a depiction of the night sky above, with the constellations and everything, and a couple of pictures of angels dotted among the stars. The first thing that I thought of upon seeing this ceiling was the ceiling of the Great Hall in the Harry Potter series. It was a beautiful thing to behold. For dinner that night, we ate at a sushi place and the affair of dining lasted for about 2 hours. Hope passed out next to her mother in the booth, and my dad and Dave reminisced (not so fondly) about their college days at Wake Forest. My dad played the psychologist and talked about Dave's anger issues that he dealt with back in college and their connections with drinking and such. Heather mainly listened and occasionally said, "And this, Robyn, is how not to be in college." After dinner, Hope was roused by the mentioning of Pop Tart World, which was near to our location in Times Square. We walked over there and made delicious custom Pop Tarts with our choice of icing and decorations on them (I had a strawberry milkshake pop tart with vanilla icing and chocolate chips). After this, we returned to our room and slept. The next morning, though we were tired, we had slept in, and therefore did not have time to dine with Jeremy and the other tenants (I was disappointed about this because of the conversation that I wanted to have with Derrick and Diana). Instead, we had our breakfast at the Dunkin' Donuts that was near our subway entrance. I had my first bagel in New York that day and it was scrumptious. After that, we took the subway to Macy's, where we traveled to the eighth floor with the intention of visiting Santa Claus. We were initially going to abandon this exploit because of the sheer length of the line, which curved multiple times about a strange train which ended up being a hallway to the North-Pole designed room that wound around to the room with Santa Claus in it, however I am glad that we did not because the wait was certainly worth it (and the line moved relatively fast owing to the fact that there were clones of Santa on duty as well, or so I would guess). After finally reaching the room with Santa Claus, I joined Hope on his lap as was promised after she gave him a huge hug. When he asked her what she wanted, she said a whole list of things, "A baby doll, a telescope, a Ken doll, a scooter. . ." He nodded and said, "I'll see what I can do." And then he turned to me and asked me what I wanted. I said, "May I please have the Glenn Gould recording of Beethoven's 12th and 13th Sonatas?" and he said, "I'll definitely have to see about that one!" Then, some of the elves took pictures, and we were free to exit and collect our photos. We then met Dave near Wall Street, which he guided us through, telling us interesting things about each of the buildings (he knew a lot about the area because his residence is located there). We took a picture of my father near the statue of the bull which is supposed to represent a strong market, and we walked over to a small water-side park from which we could gaze at the Statue of Liberty. While we were there, Hope invested in a Matroyshka doll, and either shortly before or after that, we dined at a little Italian place where I tasted New York pizza for the first time. It was tasty. That day, Dave said something that has made me think a little bit. I said something about how I prefer jogging to team sports and he said, "You know, Robyn, I was reading an astrology book - and it classified all of the weeks of the year by a title, and I found the the title for our week of the year was very accurrate. Our week is called 'The Week of the Loner.'" I was initially unsure of whether this was a good thing or not, but then I decided that it was rather accurrate, considering that I am often content to do things alone. In fact, things are less awkward that way. That night, we dined at a very fancy Italian place, seated at Katie Couric's table, no less, and went to the NYCB's production of the "Nutcracker" immediately afterward over at the Lincoln Center. It was absolutely amazing - I thought that the choreography, especially at the beginning during the family scenes, was brilliant, and I remarked several times throughout the show that George Ballanchine is the bomb.com. Unfortunately, the poor candy-cane man with the hula hoop didn't make it through the hoop the last time and we felt very sad for him. The next day, we dined with Jeremy again, though we didn't see Derrick and Diana until we were going out of the door. We went ice skating at Brian Park (and I found my brown flapper hat), where they played excellent music (Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Buble). I wondered why they didn't play this music at the Annex when they have ice skating there. After ice skating, we dined at a place called Sarabeth's, where I had a pleasant conversation with a man and his daughter Genevieve while we were waiting to be seated. This restaurant was right across the street from Central Park, and so after lunch, we went riding through the park on a horse-drawn carriage while our Irish horse-driver told us things about the park that I couldn't understand because of his accent and his distance from me. Our horse was named Oscar and he was gray and dappled. After the ride, we walked a good distance to the Museum of Natural History, which we walked through for about an hour. My dad and Heather had quarreled, and so he was unable to focus through the whole museum; we spent the most time in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which I found to be the most interesting part by far. We spent the rest of that night in the room at the Bed and Breakfast, where Hope and I played with Murray and Tess, read some Junie B. Jones, and watched Elf. Downstairs, a wild bridal party was being thrown by the co-owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Bernadette. This distressed my dad and Heather, because we were to wake up at 3 in the morning so that we could board our return flight at 6:00. This wild party did not end until 10:45, at which point we had been trying to sleep for about an hour. We were very grumpy people the following morning, though, luckily, we were able to find a cab to drive us to the airport as opposed to taking a series of subway trains. There were two flights to get home, but we finally did, and it was a sweet experience to return, even though it was still very cold outside.
Whew. My fingers are twitching now.
To the dreams! The first one I had was from two nights ago, our last night in the Bed and Breakfast. I dreamt that I was giving these large gaudy roses to my teachers for presents. I dropped one in Mr. James' office and happened to run into Dr. Moss outside of the Arts Building, where I presented him with his rose. Then, I was in Ms. Freitag's room, and I had decided to give her a glass mosaic-y sort of bowl instead of a rose. She scolded and made fun of me halfway through class for having it on my person - and told the class that it was distracting me from math, and this was why I was having issues in her class. At the end of the class, I informed her that it was her present and stormed from the classroom without waiting to see her response.
The next interesting dream that I had was from last night, and it contained two parts. The first part seemed to consist of a disturbing, detailed accound of a lynching, which we had to write a report about for school. In the next part of the dream, my friend Aaron invited me over to his house for dinner, and his mother had prepared this lasagna with pears in it. I could tell, in the dream, that a large part of her impression of me depended on my response to her cuisine, and I dreaded eating the lasagna because I already knew that I wouldn't like it. That was the end of my dreams from that night.

CD-318 in a Discussion of the Platonic Ideal, Book Endings, and a Dream,

Last night, I went with Shannon, Aaron, Rhaynely, and Chloe to watch "Inception" for the second time (it was their first time, except for Chloe; the two of us were able to laugh at the 0-gravity scenes this time, since we had a pretty good grasp of the plot). I didn't fully appreciate the film until the second time around, partially because I fell asleep the first time I saw it, and consequently missed about five minutes of crucial plot. One thing that I was able to appreciate a lot more this time was the involvement of the "creative" man on the team, Eves (or however his name was spelled). I did not even realize, the first time around, that he took on so many disguises, first as Fischer's godfather, then as the pretty girl that he talks to in the hotel. It was also mainly his job to decide what events will occur in the dream to make inception possible, like the finding of the little pinwheel found inside the vault in the father's hospital room. The end of the movie is eerie, because while there seems to be resolution in the fact that Leonardo Dicaprio has returned to his kids, the screen flicks to the credits before the totem topples to the table. It is still spinning, which may suggest that Leonardo Dicaprio has not yet returned to reality. It was a very interesting ending, because it could have gone either way, like the end of the book The Giver, in which it is impossible to tell if the main character makes it to safety or dies. In any case, "Inception" is a good movie (I'd even go so far as to say that it is great, after seeing it the second time), and if you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it.
Just the other day, my mother and I were discussing the various ways that authors end books. It seems that there are a couple of different general styles that are utilized when ending books; I meditated on these all day at school, and finally hashed them out with my mother when I returned home that day. There is the "fireworks" method, there is the "life-goes-on" method, there is a combination of the two, and then there is Steinbeck. I'm sure that there are probably others, but I suppose that I am not well-read enough to list them in their entirety.
I call the first method the "fireworks" method because books which utilize this style tend to end with a bang, no pun intended, or like a fireworks show. Throughout the show, there are lulls in the excitement and climaxes, but there is nothing quite like the clustered lights of the finale, which is what makes the whole show worth it. Much in the same way, authors who utilize this method will throw in a last page or paragraph of what is supposed to be a profound conclusion - and this conclusion is meant to unite all of the previous events of the book while also driving home a strong point to the reader. Sometimes this point is a theme that has subtly existed throughout the entire book, but which is now made blatantly clear - or sometimes this point (when reading a narrative in the first-person restricted perspective) is meant to convey what the main character has been trying to say the whole time. I can think of a couple of books which use this strategy: Looking For Alaska, Notes From Underground, and even the Harry Potter series in a way, because Rowling spends the last paragraph instilling a deep sense of peace and catharsis in the reader. However, the example that I shall present is from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground: (It will not let me put the quote, so here is the link. It starts at "But hadn't I better end my 'Notes' here?")http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DosNote.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div2
The first thing about this monologue is that it is very quotable. There are so many things to think about within this quote. . .like, what would human beings really do without stories, without books? That is, indeed, where we learn most of our morals, is it not? Dostoyevsky challenges us in this statement. I tell you, this book is not an easy read, for the sole reason that the main character is difficult to like - not only is he cynical, but he does a very cold and cruel thing toward the end of the book, just when you feel like he might be redeemed. But then, he turns his cruelty around, telling us that he merely carried his actions to one extreme, and if we base our morality in fiction, who are we to dictate how cruel or not cruel he is? (He still isn't a very likeable character and is still an anti-hero, but he makes a good point). I was ready to come away from this book with a general feeling of disappointment, but this final monologue, this finale to the fireworks show, if you will, was successful in that it redeemed the entire story for me and made it worth it.
Now, the life-goes-on method consists of an open ending in which the characters go about their daily lives and the reader is supposed to infer that things are continuing according to the norm established near the end of the book. The two best examples of this that I can think of at the moment are in The House of Sand and Fog and A Spot of Bother. I believe that in the former, on of the main characters, who has been recently incarcerated, sits down at a table with some other inmates, and lights a cigarette. That is it. And then, in the latter, the middle-aged man who has spent the entire book battling insanity in the face of potential (but imagined) cancer sits down at the kitchen table and drinks a cup of coffee. It is a simpler but powerful approach, because it leaves the reader with a general sense of hope that things may not be perfect, but they are continuing. Life goes on.
While these two ending styles seem very distinct, some authors decide to combine the two. This must be a Southern thing, I've decided, because the two books which immediately come to my mind are of the Southern Gothic genre: To Kill a Mockingbird and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. In both books, one of the characters has a revelation which gives new meaning to all events which happen earlier in the book, but then that character (or all the characters involved) does a simple action which indicates that life goes on. In Mockingbird, of course, we have Scout's inner monologue when she's standing on the Radley porch - when I first read the book, I thought that it would end right there. However, she returns home to where Atticus is sitting with the unconscious Jem. "Atticus would be there all night," and would be there "when Jem waked up in the morning." The end. It is a simple action, but it implies that life continues. It is a similar type of thing in The Heart, but it is late and I am running out of time.
Then there is Steinbeck. He's a different ball game entirely, or whatever people say. From what I've read of Steinbeck, I get the feeling that he took joy in messing with people's heads. I imagine him sitting down, writing his novels and cackling to himself, "Let's see, now, they want realistic fiction? Well, they'll have it, all right - " (snicker) "Yep, let's develop our characters, make 'em nice and round. It's coming up on the end now, so I'll throw in A GIANT RABBIT! What do you think of that?" I do not think that any of us who have read Of Mice and Men expected that one of the main characters would, at any point, have a conversation with a giant rabbit, even if that rabbit was a hallucination. And then, I will remember this until the day I die: my mom and I were eating pizza one day at the Mario's over by Target, and we were discussing the Grapes of Wrath, because I had a desire to read it. My mom, reminiscing about it, revealed the ending to me. I was horrified. Then she said, "Wait, maybe that's not the way it ends. It's been a while since I've read it." To which I replied, "If you made that up, then you are sick in the head." She did not make it up - I will not reveal the ending on here, because I believe that most of my followers have not read it yet and I don't want to ruin it - It somehow has the same effect as the life-goes-on ending, because it gives the reader a feeling of hope, even though the situation is desperate and strange. It is a strange catharsis, this ending. I think that I'm going to re-read this book; I've been thinking about it lately.
In any case, I babble. The CD-318, I discovered today, is apparently the Platonic Ideal for a Baroque piano. It is a Steinway model, and it is the favorite of Glenn Gould, who apparently spent years searching for the perfect piano. I didn't know this until today, but it ties into my dream from last night, because it involved Glenn Gould and his Steinway piano.
I slept in the guest bedroom last night because Heather is in the process of moving back in, and so there was a television in the middle of my bed. I took my purse, my gloves, and a Bible into the guest bedroom with me, and they sat on the bedside table (I had the Bible because I'm trying to find a Psalm to set to choral music). In the beginning of the dream, my dad and I were in what seemed to be half of an amphitheater. It was a semi-circle of ascending seats, and down at the bottom there was a wide stage. My dad and I had decent seats in the center. Glenn Gould was performing on the stage. Just after he finished, he said something to the audience that I could not catch because everyone was applauding. Just after he finished speaking, flocks of people made an eager beeline for the stage. I was excited. Turning to my dad, I asked, "Is he taking requests for songs?" I realized, even in the dream, that this was a silly question - it was not as though classical performers responded to yells of "Fur Elise!" like a cover band might respond to a cry for "Freebird!" My dad, shaking his head, replied, "No, he's letting people come down to play his Steinway. You should go," he added, gesturing down at the stage. I scrambled from my seat down to the stage, eager to see if the action on the keys was heavy or light, and eager to meet the pianist himself. The crowd disappeared as I made my way down to the stage, and then the stage itself became an enclosed, brightly-lit room with a desk, a mirror, and the piano against the wall. The famous chair was there as well, and I remember feeling the temptation to sit on it or touch it through the entire scene in the room, but I restrained myself for fear of being kicked out of the room. "So, there is the piano," said Glenn. "What are you going to play on it?" I sat down on another chair and thought for a moment. "Probably the second movement of Beethoven's 'Tempest,'" I said. He nodded and stood in the center of the floor, listening as I played it. After I played the piece, he rambled for a few minutes about how he wished that all concerts were performed on an individual basis because individuals interpreted music so differently throughout a crowd. Because of this, he claimed, it was harder to play for an audience who would perceive everything a different way. The speech was something to this effect. After he had finished, I began to play the hymn "All Creatures of Our God and King" because I was reluctant to leave. I sang along as well, and my voice sounded full and nice in the dream. I was surprised when Glenn also began to sing along just before the chorus of "O praise Him! Alleluia!" After a moment, I stood up and the music continued even though no one played the piano. Spontaneously, we began to waltz to it, even though it is in 3/2, so I don't even remember how that worked. In any case, we were waltzing and singing, because we both miraculously remembered the words. It was very strange. Then the next part of the dream was stressful, because I was home alone, and there was a creepy guy who lived next to us. All that I remember of this part of the dream is that I left the house to do something, and found myself being pursued by this creepy guy, who had the intention of killing me or gravely injuring me in some way. In the last part of the dream, I was back at the amphitheater without my dad, and I was wandering through the hallway which encircled the seating area. I walked out into one row and found it to be full of little kids wearing Halloween costumes. I remember in particular that there was a little girl with her face painted green and she wore a pointed hat. She was supposed to be a witch. The children were sitting down in the rows and were being chaperoned by two college age people wearing red, like the employees at the YMCA. Down on the stage was Conor Oberst. He had grown a mountain-man beard. I found this strange and oddly embarrassing, and so I left the room, and subsequently awoke.

Thanksgiving, "Creation," and "The Butter Battle Book"

So, today is Thanksgiving. We had a full turkey dinner made by my grandmother. Those partaking in the dinner were myself, Hope, Heather, my grandparents, and my father. As of a few months ago, my dad and Heather are officially back on, and are in fact, engaged. The wedding is due to be in May of next year, and it will be held at a beautiful mountain house, of which I have seen pictures. A few days ago, on Tuesday, my dad, Aaron Sebright, his father, and I went to the Symphony performance of Haydn's "Creation." The music was absolutely gorgeous. The first thing that I remember thinking, in the opening notes of the oratorio, was that it is very easy to see how Haydn influenced Beethoven when he was the latter's teacher. The music was like an ocean. Each day of Creation was begun with a somber, quiet vocal recital accompanied by minimal strings and the harpsichord. The bass man was the first and most often to sing during these recital parts. Then, after each aspect of whatever day was described in great detail, one would sense the approaching climax. This usually came in the form of, "And then the holy choir said. . ." And then, BOOM! The chorale singers sitting in the back of the stage would explode in exhorting song and the man playing the timpani would pound at it like an agitated heart. It was absolutely fantastic and heart-wrenching simultaneously. One of my favorite parts of the performance was getting a chance to see them professionally perform "The Heavens are Telling," which was the first piece that I performed with the choir, incidentally. After seeing it performed professionally, I can make the conclusion that we did a pretty good job! I wore the black sparkly dress that I usually only wear to dances. After the concert, we all went across the street to Wolfies' for gelato. They did not have my favorite kind, lemon-flavored gelato, and so I experimented with the cotton candy flavor. At the table outside, we discussed, among other things, Dr. Seuss and his phenomenal allegory for the Cold War, that is, The Butter Battle Book. I don't know if I've mentioned this book in an earlier post, but it is most obviously about the Cold War, even if he does not explicitly say so. On either side of a wall are two civilizations, one which spreads butter on the top side of the toast and the other which spreads the butter on the bottom side of the toast. These civilizations are constantly at war with each other, and the main character of the book is always going to the military scientists to retrieve the new weapon that they have created. Each time he goes to visit them, he receives the assurance that the weapon that the scientists cooked up could not possibly be matched on the other side. However, as soon as the main character meets the enemy's representative at the wall with his weapon, it is only to find that the other civilization's military equipment is just as sophisticated. Then, each character has to go back to retrieve new, stronger weaponry. Finally, at the end of the book, there is no resolution - the protagonist and antagonist are each standing on the wall, holding a bomb over the side and threatening to drop it into the territory of his enemy. The grandson of the main character, who is witnessing all of this, cries, "Oh grandfather, who will drop the bomb first, you or him?"
And the grandfather says, "We'll see, won't we? We'll see." or something to that effect. That is the end of the story; Dr. Seuss decided not to gift-wrap this story in pleasantness for his young audience.
In any case, our fathers laughed at us for discussing Dr. Seuss so seriously. It was a fun night, all in all.

Homecoming and Reynolds' Echec Epique

Any die-hard Reynolds fans who came to the game tonight hoping for a win to accompany our homecoming night were sorely disappointed. Not only did we lose to the Davie War Eagles, but we did not score a single point the whole game. It was, as noted above, an echec epique, which translates literally to "epic failure." However, there were a few interesting things which occured today. I was stressed out initially, because the marching band went to a marching band festival at Glenn High School on Thursday, which left no time to do homework or study for the multiple tests that I had the following day, which included an Iliad quiz, a math test, a French test on art and Versailles, and a chemistry test. The schedule was also to be shortened today to make room for the pep rally, which always concludes our school's spirit week. I hate pep rallies at our school for two reasons, and one is that everyone is so loud that the man speaking into the microphone cannot be heard, and the other is that any music (besides marching band music) that they play is awful. This combination of things makes one feel as though one's ears are bleeding by the time that they leave the gym. In any case, today at lunch, a man with a guitar came to perform for us. He had a very nice voice which was good for singing Thom Yorke. He played "Fake Plastic Trees" from Radiohead's album "The Bends," some Tom Petty, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom I don't care for. Chloe and I sat on a bench and watched him, and she sang the harmony of everything he played and criticized his range. Around 5:30 that night, we arrived at the parking lot of the stadium that we share with Parkland, where numerous tables had been set up and sheltered areas where hot dogs, hamburgers, brownies, and pasta salad were being distributed. At the very edge of this area were several rows of seats which faced another solo guitarist, who sang similar repertoire (a few of his songs included another Tom Petty song, "More than a Feeling," "Sweet Home Alabama," etc.). He serenaded everyone at the tailgate party all through dinner, which was free. After one of his songs, a group of people which included Evan and Niko approached him and made a request, which was taken ("Sweet Home Alabama,"). After that, the guitarist encouraged requests, so I walked over and requested some Bob Dylan, because it seemed as though he had a good raspy-esque voice for Bob Dylan. He gladly obliged, seeming to be shocked that I would request Bob Dylan - the way he looked, he must have guessed that I would request something along the lines of Lady Gaga, or another pop artist typical of my demographic. He played a song that I wasn't wholly familiar with, but it was classic Bob nonetheless. Later on, as we lined up in our pre-National-Anthem lines outside of the gate, I saw the guitarist sitting in the open trunk of his car with what must have been his wife/girlfriend and their little girl. She watched our puny marching band with wonder, and I found something about that scene rather moving. Once inside, nothing too terribly interesting happened; Nikki was not crowned homecoming queen, which was sad. Speaking of Nikki, she did an amusing thing at the festival yesterday. Up at the press box, one could make announcements to other people in the crowd, and so she had the commentator read a proposal to Mr. James, written under the pseudonym of Nancy. It was very cute. In any case, that's about it for tonight.

Strange Dream in Ohio, September 24

One week ago now, the Friday night before my mom, Wesley, and I went to Cedar Point, I had a very strange dream that I will finally report in English, due to its detail that I would not be able to capture in the little bit of French that I do know.

The setting of the dream was a mixture of my school and Hogwarts on Christmas Eve night. To explain that statement, the exterior of the school was like Reynolds, and the picnic area and auditorium were exactly as they are in real life, but the main building had multiple stories and was decorated lavishly with marble and other things characteristic of the Hogwarts described in the Harry Potter series. There was also a hospital wing on the top floor of one of the towers, and this part of the building was of special concern in the dream, given the fact that Albus Dumbledore was in the process of giving birth in the hospital wing through the entire dream. The oddity of this did not occur to my slumbering self, or I might have woken up a lot sooner than I did. In any case, everyone was very excited about this and multitudes of visiters came to the school from all around to pay Dumbledore a visit and wish him well in his labor. Mostly, they seemed to appreciate the religious irony of a baby being born on Christmas Eve, as I heard variations of, "How fitting! A baby born on Christmas Eve!" multiple times throughout the dream as I passed by excited people dashing up to the hospital wing. In any case, while I was excited for Dumbledore, I was more excited about the Christmas Eve concert scheduled to take place in the auditorium that night. Various groups, including students, would be performing Christmas music. So, after I had dressed myself to the nines in a black dress and matching coat, I walked down the marble steps (past groups of people headed for the hospital wing), exited the main building, walked around to the audience entrance of the auditorium, climbed a lot of steps, and found a nice seat by the railing of the balcony, from which I had a clear view of everything on the stage. I gripped the smooth railing and peered over, watching each of the performers step on and off the stage between acts.
I vaguely remember enjoying each of the acts, though I remember nothing in particular until the very last act, when two pianos were pushed to opposite corners of the stage, one a beautiful, glossy Steinway and the other a beaten-up school upright. Then, to tumultuous applause, Katlyn, a girl from the color guard and the drama club, stepped onto the stage and bowed. She was wearing a strange costume which consisted of black leggings and accessories and an extravagant, blood-red dress. Her face was decorated with an obnoxious amount of blush and varying hues of red, and she wore gigantic, reflective red disks in her ears for earrings. She had dyed her hair red for the performance as well - the crowd was going absolutely wild over her costume. Then, almost unnoticed, Glenn Gould stepped onto the stage. I nearly fell over the railing in shock - however, it didn't occur to me until I awoke that he is dead; this isn't what shocked me - I was merely shocked in the same way that one would be shocked to see, say, President Obama out walking his dog. I also realized that this was strange, given that the following day (that is, the 25th) is his birthday. He appeared to be in his late 20's, and was wearing his habitual winter wear, down to his gloves. He carried his chair under his arm, which he placed behind the Steinway piano. What followed was a strange song/dance, in which either Katlyn or Gould would be dancing while the other played something on one of the pianos, and then they would switch. Katlyn wore tap dancing shoes, and was tap-dancing to Bach at one point in the performance. At the end of this ordeal, everyone madly applauded and I was jealous about the whole thing. So, as everyone was filing out of the auditorium (it was the last act of the concert), I walked back down a lot of steps, pushed past the crowd into the aisle on the first floor, and approached the stage, where Katlyn sat with her legs dangling over the edge, entertaining a group of fans.
"So, Katlyn," I said, "How did you manage to set up an act for a school concert with Glenn Gould?"
"Oh, it was Mr. Hicks' idea." she said, "Apparently there's some concert they're doing in honor of his original works tomorrow. Renee Fleming is going to sing 'So You Want to Write a Fugue.' So he thought it'd be a good idea to invite him to perform with the school."
"Ah." I said. "Well, your act was very good."
She shrugged. "I screwed up a lot. I might not have been so terrible if he had showed up on time for the rehearsal yesterday."
I left her grumbling about this and returned to the main building, where many of the performers had congregated and were just hearing the news about Dumbledore from a group of people who had returned from the hospital wing. I decided to help all of those who didn't attend Reynolds up to the hospital wing. We took a shiny, mirrored elevator, and climbed innumerable floors until we reached a very white hallway like ones typically seen in a hospital setting. In one of the walls was set a glass window, though which you could see but could not be seen. I led the group of people, including Gould, up to this window, through which Dumbledore could be seen, lying on his back on an operating table with surgeons around him. He was about to deliver his baby through a Caesarian Section. Though many of the performers were eager to catch a glimpse of Dumbledore through the window, it seemed that no one really wanted to go in and wish him well, as I received a bunch of mumbled, "Don't want to interrupt the proceedings" when I offered to lead them inside the ward. My job finished, I wandered back toward the elevator, followed idly by Glenn Gould and a few stragglers. During the long trip down to the first floor, I complimented his act from earlier that night and he accepted it awkwardly. Then, I asked him if he was going to go to his tribute concert the next night, and he seemed bewildered. "There's a concert and they're playing something I wrote?" he asked incredulously, as we emerged from the elevator. "That is to say, what made them think of choosing something of mine? Which piece?"
"Well," I said, "Considering that they're going to have a world-class soprano singing with them, it makes sense that they'll do 'So You Want to Write a Fugue,' which is also a great piece, by the way."
He waved his hand awkwardly to express his gratitude and smiled. "Wow," he said, "How strange." He talked a little more after that, but mainly seemed to be flattered at the thought of someone doing a concert in his honor.
During this entire conversation, we were passing the picnic tables in front of the school. A piano was set up on the Gfeller stage and a young girl who looked like Anita (and who was supposed to be her younger sister in the dream) was playing Mozart on it. It was beautifully-done, and she was dancing to it as if it had been choreographed by the pianist Mitsuko Uchida herself. After she was finished, I approached the stage with the intent of playing Bach's Invention 14 (for kudos points) followed up by the "Adagio" of Beethoven's "Tempest." However, once I had reached the stage, I saw that the nice piano which had been there moments before was replaced with a crappy keyboard which sounded nasally when played and which didn't have nearly enough keys on it to play Bach, let alone Beethoven. While I struggled with this keyboard, I heard my mother call from nearby, and I was aware that she was preparing dinner in our house, which had suddenly spawned from the far end of the picnic tables. Telling her that I'd be over for dinner in a second, I continued to struggle with the plastic keys, watching all of the performers from the hospital wing gather around the dining room table. I eventually gave up and went over to join them, and was immediately enveloped by the warmth of celebrating people around a Christmas dinner.

Une autre reve bizarre (sans les accents correctes)

Hier soir, j'ai reve de deux choses. Dans la premiere reve, je parlais avec un homme sur l'Internet, et apres deux semaines, nos parents ont decide que nous devrions nous marier, en depit du fait que nous n'avons jamais rencontre. Quand nous avons rencontre, le soir avant le mariage, je ne l'aime pas du tout. Apres les noces, ses parents, mes parents, et moi nous asseyions sur des canapes au salon. C'etait maladroit. Puis, ma mere m'a passe un livre qui decrivait ce que est fait sur le soir d'un mariage. Dois-je dire plus? Ensuite, mon mari m'a invite a notre chambre, et je n'y voulais pas aller. C'etait la fin de cette reve.
Dans la deuxieme reve, je me promenais a mon vieil ecole, Brunson, avec des amis de la fanfare. Nous avons traverse la rue d'Hawthorne, et nous sommes montes la colline qui est au bord de la fleuve. Il n'y avait pas d'autre personne de-hors, mais nous avions l'air d'attendre quelquechose. Je pensais ca, quand, tout a coup, les eleves de l'ecole sont venus de-hors. Le voix de M. Lester-Niles a sonne au dessus des gens, et il a dit qu'il y aurait un match d'un sport (je ne souvenis pas quel sport). Tout le monde applaudissait et, soudain, j'ai entendu la musique exquise de la Sonate "Pathetique" de Beethoven. La musique etait de l'autre cote de la champ, et j'etais la seule personne qui pouvait l'entendre. J'ai tourne a mes amis pour les dire autour de la musique, mais quand j'ai tourne, j'ai recu une suprise: mes amis etaient plus jeunes, vers 9 ans, comme les autres eleves de Brunson. Ils avaient l'air d'avoir 7 or 8 ans. Ils courissaient sur la colline, mais un enfant, le garcon des cheveux roux, n'a pas marche. Les enfants, mais surtout cet garcon, etaient comme des petits anges. Le soleil se couchait et il y avait la musique qui etait la-bas toujours, avant qu'elle a ete ecrite - avant tous les choses.

Reynolds vs. East Forsyth et Une Reve en Francais

So, it has been a very long time since I've last written, but I decided to come on here and summarize a bit of the goings-on since August.
I've just returned from the most violent game of football that I've attended - it was a home game against East Forsyth, and there were two major injuries - that is, two which involved the use of stretchers and which made a trip to the hospital necessary. I told Mr. James about my mother's philosophy on football - that high schoolers should only play flag-football. He agreed.
A dapper young man from my English class was also at the game, but he did not greet me and chose to spend his time with the obnoxious group of Rowdies, who took up the entire section to our left tonight.
As far as marching the show goes, this was our second night of marching the first segment of the show at a game. Our first competition is in about two weeks, so Mr. James is wanting to rush us through the "Carry On, My Wayward Son" portion of the song so that we can have the whole show prepared for this event. I look forward to Appalachian's competition, though I know enough this year to dress warmly, in case it snows again. In creative writing club the other day, I showed Molly and Chloe (the latter of which I have been sitting with at lunch most days) a scene from the play that I tried to write last year - the scene which highlighted the events of the App. Competition last year - and they both seemed to like it, despite its inevitable cheesiness.
I still like all of my teachers. Mr. Allen is hilarious, Mr. Bragg is brilliant, and Ms. Freitag is a sweet lady, and I'm fairly confident about my performance in each of their classes, respectively. However, we took a math test today, and I'm super worried that on top of making a bunch of careless errors, I most certainly missed an entire question that I wasn't sure about involving the graphing of an absolute value equation - or rather, the writing of an absolute value equation, when given the graph. Madame Matisko, of course, is awesome as usual and so is French class. Speaking of that, I'm going to relate an odd dream that I had last night in French, partially because I'd like to practice and partially just because I feel like it.
Hier soir, j'ai eu une reve bizarre. J'etais au terrain de stationnement pres de la salle de la fanfare au Batiment des Arts. Je montais la colline pour aller au Batiment des Arts et parlais avec Elisabeth quand nous sommes passees par un groupe des gens. Ces gens etaient de la fanfare aussi, et ils allaient trouver leurs instruments au terrain de staionnement. Dans le groupe etait un garcon avec les cheveux roux qui j'aimais dans la reve (mais je ne le connais pas bien dans la vie vraiment). Elisabeth a vu que je regardais cette personne pendant que nous nous les passions par, et elle a souri avant qu'elle a dit quelquechose comme, "Hmmm, tu regardes quoi, Robyn? Ou devrais-moi dire, tu regardes qui?" Et j'ai repondu, "Fermez la bouche, Elisabeth." C'est seulement une reve, mais je me demande, quelquefois, si les reves ont un peu de verite.

Reynolds vs. Atkins and First Week of School

I just returned home from my first football game of the year against Atkins (the marching band's first game was last week, but I was in Florida at the time - perhaps this is why Reynolds lost). Our team won gloriously, ending the score with 35 to compare with Atkins' 6. We did not go onto the field to perform the half-time show, though we played the first third of it in the stands during half-time, the part which includes the "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Bicycle" themes. At one point, a girl named Alexi, who plays the flute, announced to no one in particular, "It's hotter than Satan's toenails," which was partially true and a beautiful way to put it.
School started this past Wednesday, and I really like my new teachers so far. My first paper for English on archetypes was due today - we had to choose a modern story which contained as many archetypes as we could possibly think of, and so I chose to write about Fahrenheit 451. This assignment kept me up until the wee hours of the morning, but that was also partially because my dad and I went out driving in Old Bessie, which is the new name for his Toyota Camry. This, I know, is not a suitable name, given that I've already named our school's green xylophone Old Bessie, but both objects (that is, the car and the xylophone) fit the name too well for me to consider changing it. I received my permit about a week ago, and so I've been going out in my mom's stick shift P. T. Cruiser to practice. At this point, I am tired, and so I shall be retiring; only three days of school have passed and I'm already exhausted.

"Dead Poets' Society" and the Confusing Nature of Sadness

So, I just finished watching "Dead Poets' Society," as it happened to be on television. I still have not seen the very beginning, because when I walked in, the movie just happened to be at the part that Mrs. Allman reserved for the day in class that we watched it, just before the students are instructed to rip out the introductions of their poetry textbooks.
But in any case: Wow. Not only was the soundtrack amazing (two Beethoven pieces - can't go wrong with that!), but I was sucked into the character development to the extent that I had forgotten my mother's vague mention of the movie as we passed it one day in the movie store: "Now, there's a depressing movie." I suppose when she said it, I must have thought that the movie would end with the death (in old age) of Robin Williams' character, with all of the boys he had inspired gathered loyally around his deathbed. But no, I suppose that would have been far too cheerful. (Spoiler:) They take the boy's ringleader, the spirited character and martyred actor Neil, and combine his boyish impulsiveness with his father's obstinate close-mindedness to produce the grounds for the boy's suicide in the middle of the movie, just after he celebrates his success in the role of Puck for the school's production of "Midsummer Night's Dream."
Something about the way that entire scene is executed is devastating, even more so because of the setting (Neil's parents' house with pictures of himself as a little boy randomly placed) which accentuates his youth. His father has just announced that he will be placing Neil in military school, withdrawing him not only from his dreams of acting, but from his friends, and from the only legitimate role model in his life, Mr. Keating. After this sentence, Neil commences to make the speech he was advised to make by Mr. Keating (and which he should have made, as advised, before he actually performed in the play) about how acting is important to him, etc. But he is beaten into submission with a glare from his father and a dismissive, "You can just forget about acting." His mother then urges him to get some sleep, and he sits with a determined expression, at which point the audience becomes uneasy; one initially wonders, given the boys' innovation thus far, about how he plans to escape his house that night and make it back to the school and to his friends, and what his plans are from there on. However, this vague hopefulness is replaced with dread when Neil goes to stand before the open window with part of his costume from the night's play on, a peacefully determined and vacant expression on his face. Slowly, laboriously, he wanders downstairs to a desk, produces a small key (the audience furtively hopes, "Oh! This must be a car key, or something!" though they know this is false), and withdraws his father's gun from a desk drawer. When he is found by his parents, they fall into hysterics and the scene is complete.
What was so devastating about this climax in the movie, I guess, was probably the fact that the initial conflict was almost miniscule in comparison with other conflicts that the audience suspects will develop in a much greater magnitude than this mere disagreement with Neil's father over Neil's extracurricular activities. But, as noted above, it is this conflict which spirals out of control, while the others (the principal's suspicion of Mr. Keating, the discovery of the Dead Poets' Society, one of the other boy's pursuit of a girl, among others) are either resolved or affected directly by Neil's suicide. One example of the latter is how the principal takes the oppurtunity of Neil's death to lay the blame on Mr. Keating for "encouraging" the activities of the Dead Poets' Society along with Neil's acting dreams, hence the elimination of Mr. Keating's tenure as teacher by the end of the movie.
Of course, as one is already tearful for the remaining half of the movie (because of everyone's reaction to the death and because it is easy to hate the principal with a tearful passion), they decide to end the movie with one of those scenes which is meant to be a subtle, small, but yet beautiful triumph over the evil that seems to dominate (this evil being the principal, who has fired Mr. Keating and taken over his job temporarily as English teacher). As Mr. Keating is about to exit his classroom with his personal belongings, one of his faithful students stands on his desk and addresses him by the nickname he told them to use at the beginning of the semester: "Oh Captain, my Captain." Other students follow suit, saluting their former teacher, and ignoring the principal as he snaps at each of them to sit down. Mr. Keating beholds the reverent farewell that he is receiving, thanks the boys, and turns to depart. Then the credits roll.
So, my mother was right; the movie was depressing, and Robin Williams lived through the whole thing. Perhaps it was so depressing because the spiraling of the conflict was such an unexpected thing (that is, until just before Neil does the deed). But it was a well-done tragedy, much in the same way that Looking for Alaska was a well-done tragedy, and the book My Sister's Keeper. In each of these, the tragedy is a shock to the reader, and the "left-over" characters' reactions are very real and heart-wrenching.
So, as far as the nature of sadness goes, I just wanted to comment on a feeling I have shared with many others (from what I am told) that often, when tears seem to be called for in real life, it is hard to summon them, while when we immerse ourselves in tragic fiction, they come easily and at the right time. Why is this? Is it because when we read or watch fiction, we're not only crying for the tragedy, but also for the sheer art of it, for the poetic language or graceful movements - whereas, real life lacks that glamor and tragedy is often like a canvas stabbed through with a knife with nothing about the piece that can be glorified? Or does it have something to do with this quote of Dostoyevsky's from Notes from Underground: "Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once...We are oppressed at being men -- men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man." Is it that we use fiction as our means to know what we are to do with tragedy, how it should be dealt with, how one should go about their mourning - but that when we find ourselves in that potent reality, we are "oppressed" by our mortality, by our clinging to fiction as a way to cope with reality? Are we simply put into shock by how very real and beyond-control tragedy is? Are we so out of touch with what living "is, and what it is called" that we forget that we ourselves are characters in this huge plot woven by God which is impossible for the "generalised man" that we have created of ourselves to comprehend? Isn't it impossible for anyone to comprehend, for that matter? In any case, one can conclude that real tragedy is a jolt of faith in which one inches out on the branch of a tree to ponder the depths of a chasm which is said to have a soft landing place that cannot be seen from above, and the tip of the branch breaks off and falls within, followed by the fearful eyes of the living.
So, I will quit rambling now and retire.

Two Neighborhood Dreams

Right now I am listening to my newfound discovery and life-long goal (as far as being able to play music), which is Beethoven's "Eroica" Variations, which I assume are variations on his 3rd Symphony, also entitled "Eroica," and initially dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, that is, before Napoleon came to a position of power. Upon hearing this news from a close friend, Beethoven viciously erased Bonaparte's name from the front of the score, declaring that "he, too, is but a mortal man," or something along those lines. In any case, I'm listening to a Glenn Gould interpretation (who else would one listen to?), and it is this part of my random start-of-post anecdote which directly relates back to one of the two dreams that I have had this past week involving my dad's neighborhood.
The first dream was a very cute one. In the dream, my mother, my cousins, my uncle, and I were lounging in the living room of my father's house (he wasn't there at the time). It was around 3:00 in the afternoon, slightly overcast outside; we were trying to think of something to do, when we heard a commotion just outside the house. I strode over to the window beside the front door, and peering out of it, I could see a crowd mostly consisting of small children and their parents congregating out in front of the stone house next door. They were all approaching the front door of the house cautiously but excitedly; parents were restraining their kids from running full-on up to the stone steps. I still could not see the source of their excitement, and so I stepped out onto the porch without my shoes on. Turning to the left to face the porch of that house, I beheld a giraffe. Given that it was a rather small giraffe, its neck still managed to tower about ten feet above the crowd it was so adored by. One by one, the children were led up to the animal by their parents, at which point this giraffe would lower its neck and allow each child to pet its brown-spotted skin. I rushed back inside, put on my shoes, told my family to do the same, and dashed back outside with intentions of petting the giraffe myself. I had never pet a giraffe before. Unfortunately for us, the giraffe chose this moment to depart, amid disappointed sighs from its devoted audience. In two strides, it managed to step over the crowd and reach the mercifully-empty street. It began a slow, thunderous journey toward Brunson Elementary; we watched it from the porch, and I woke up shortly thereafter.
The next dream was weird (well, not really any weirder than the giraffe dream). The setting was my neighborhood in the summertime, though I had an addition of two neighbors. In the stone house next door (which was the site of the giraffe in the previous dream) lived Emily Dickinson, the long-dead, reclusive poet. My favorite aspect about her was manifested in the dream - after a certain point in her life, when she was reluctant to leave her house, the most contact that she would make with society was the occasional lowering of a basket of cookies from an upper-floor window, for the children to eat. This happened shortly after I exited the house one day, and much like in the giraffe dream, all the little kids came running from the playground down the street to eat Ms. Dickinson's cookies. A few doors down lived Glenn Gould, a prolific (but also dead) pianist. In his life, he was not as reclusive as Emily Dickinson, but was known to be a very "eccentric" man, even beyond his piano mannerisms. In the dream, he spent most of his time in the house, and I would hear music drifting through his window when I took Lancelot (my dog) outside. My goal in the dream was to somehow find him when he exited the house and convince him to teach me free piano lessons. I never got a chance to do this, though I did eat one of Emily Dickinson's cookies, and they tasted like the sugar cookies at Harris Teeter (which I like a lot : )). Oh, and a fun fact for my avid readers: in the third grade, when we were assigned to dress up as some sort of historical figure for a 1st person autobiographical speech (about aforementioned historical figure), I dressed up as Emily Dickinson (in my white flower-girl dress; she apparently had an obsession with wedding attire, or so I remember from my project) and delivered a speech partially about her writing but mostly about her peculiarities. Two years later, we had a similar assignment, in which I dressed up in the likeness of Andy Warhol. So it goes.

Family Visit, Obscure Time Travel Theories Discussed over Dinner, and Luciano

So, because of my neglect of this wonderful website, I have many things to report today in the wee hours of the morning. For the past week or so, my uncle and three cousins from my mom's side have been visiting with us here. They arrived in the early hours of Wednesday morning last week (so not two days ago but the week before) and they just left this Thursday after a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, eggs, and Wesley's famous bacon.
As always, their stay was fun and very easygoing - I always pick up conversations with my cousins as though they had never been gone (which says something, as I am bad about using the telephone and we only correspond occasionally on Facebook). If something negative were to be said about it, it would only be that when you are our age (high school age) it seems that there are fewer things to do as a group than when you are all in elementary school or younger. It is harder for an adolescent to use boredom constructively and create a game from whatever resources abound in the current environment. So, when I had a random desire to play Charades, for instance, I was left to "wish in one hand and sh!^ in the other and see which one filled up faster," or however the saying goes. Haha.
In any case, one of the things of the most event that we did while they were here was to drive out to Durham to visit my grandfather at the Super 8 Motel which he inhabits and where he is employed. We had gotten excited a few days before when we were at the hot guy movie store, and we had mistakenly rented three movies, of which we only watched two. The leftover movie was "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," and I was the only person in the group who hadn't yet seen this movie. So, we stopped by the movie store before departing for Durham, renewed the movie, and drove to the Super 8 with our DVD player and intentions of watching the film at some point while we were there. Upon our arrival, we were given two keys for our own rooms - we took the ground floor room and the cousins and Uncle Alan took the room which happened to be directly above ours. We dawdled around my grandfather's room for a while, admiring the absurdly-obese bird which lives in a cage beside his bed; this bird's name is Lita, and it apparently lives on a diet of chicken and Coca-Cola - the last time that we were visiting my grandfather, my mom engaged him in a discussion about the moral implications of a bird eating a fellow bird. My grandfather insisted, "She likes it! Don't you, Lita?" Lita said nothing.
After hanging out for a while and taking a few pictures of everyone with the baby, we all packed into cars again and traveled to the Golden Corral, where we always eat when we congregate with my grandfather - it has become an odd sort of tradition, despite the fact that no one especially loves it or anything. My grandpa, however, does know just about the entire staff there, and so there is no fear of having our food spat upon. That is always a plus.
Dinner was great, and we left the restaurant feeling a little too full (as one always does when one leaves a Golden Corral). We dawdled some more around our rooms and then finally gathered in Grandpa's room, hooked up the DVD player, and played the movie.
After we were finished watching the movie, I could see why everyone was perfectly willing to watch it a second time for me - it was "excellent," to say the least. It was definitely a stereotypical 80's movie, sure - but it had historical context (I know that you learn doodley-squat from the actors about history, but they sneak in clever little references none the less). One thing that I particularly enjoyed, even if it is not realistic, was the reactions of the various "historical figures" upon being kidnapped for their use in the end-of-year History project - like when they are able to lead Socrates happily from his seminar because Keanu Reeves "philosophises" with him. And when they simply lift Beethoven from his piano bench in the middle of a performance of "Fur Elise." Napoleon might have been my favorite character, though it is hard to say. . .I liked how childishly he reacted to everything, from the ice cream to the water slides. They took a notorious dictator and turned him into something ridiculous, which was wrong but amusing at the same time.
In any case, this movie prompted a very interesting discussion about time travel over our dinner at Tequila a few days after the movie. The scene that was the source of the discussion was the scene in which Bill and Ted are standing outside of the Circle K and are confronted with future representations of themselves, who give them advice about their upcoming "adventure," and then move on to the near future. When you think about it, this moment is trippy in more ways than one: the first reason is, obviously, because they are talking to themselves, but the second is that the way in which they talk to themselves (and when they do it again later in the movie, coming back from the past) implies that this meeting of themselves in front of the Circle K is an infinite ordeal and will keep happening and happening and happening to satisfy the return of the future Bill and Ted from the past. That was probably gibberish. What I mean is that the Bill and Ted who are receiving the advice will inevitably give the advice to the next round of Bill and Ted, who will in turn give the advice to the next Bill and Ted in front of the Circle K, and so on forever. This means that, if this sort of time travel were really possible, the Tralfamadorian perspective on time expressed in Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s book Slaughterhouse Five would be correct; even if one were dead, one would still be alive at some point in time, because that moment always has, always did, and always will exist. It is a cycle.
Most of what we were talking about, however, were various theories on what time travel would be if it did exist - the Ray Bradbury "if-you-crush-a-butterfly-in-the-past-you-dramatically-affect-the-future" perspective versus the "nothing-would-happen-because-the-butterfly-was-crushed-and-always-will-be-crushed" perspective. And then we listed the counter example that disproved both theories, which was this: If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you never would have been able to go back in time in the first place, because you don't exist!
So, our conversation was very interesting and nerdy.
Now for Luciano, who is my most recent bit of news (despite the news that today I have finished learning Bach's "Invention 14," which means that I know 2 Bach pieces and I shall eventually progress to Goldberg Variation 15, which I dreamt of playing on a certain Steinway). The other day, my mom, Kalyn, and I were sitting on my mom's bed, about to read a story. I opened up the book that I had recently brought back over from my dad's house. The book was The Rainy Day Picnic and it was a Minnie Mouse book - just inside the front cover was a little printed thing which said, "This book belongs to Minnie's best friend:" with a space for Minnie's best friend. In the space was scrawled the name "Luciano," in untidy handwriting, and just above it, barely legible, was written a phone number. The five in the number was written backwards.
I was somehow moved by that backwards five. I wondered if, somehow and unknowingly, when I was little, I had taken this book from a boy who thought that he was Minnie Mouse's best friend. I would very much like to call the number, despite the fact that the book is old and Luciano might be in his fifties now - and despite the fact that he probably lives elsewhere and doesn't care. I've never spoken to anyone named Luciano before; I think that this is also a motivating factor. But I suppose that I probably won't call him - I'll keep his treasured book forever, or until Kalyn donates it to another kid who will wonder who Luciano is. I suppose not all moments can be like that scene in "Amelie" where she returns the treasure chest of sorts to an aged-forty-years Bretodeau. A Minnie Mouse book isn't quite so significant as that. By the way, I got my cousins to watch "Amelie," and they enjoyed it a lot, though they found the characters (particularly Amelie) to be creepy. I think that, at most, they are awkward and shy, which makes them all the more likeable and human. That's how all characters in movies should be - likeable and human. Is that too much to ask, Hollywood?

"Breakfast of Champions" or "Goodbye Blue Monday" - a Review

So many moons have passed since I've devoted an entire entry on here to a book review, but the book that I have just read demands such attention. This book, which is labelled by both of the titles listed above, is written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., one of America's most famous satirists, and was written later in his life, as opposed to his earlier novel Slaughterhouse Five, which deals with the bombing of Dresden, Germany and for which he is praised the most.
As far as the synopsis of the book goes, it centers around the pivotal meeting of its two main characters, Dwayne Hoover (who is a "fabulously well-to-do" Buick salesman) and Kilgore Trout (who is a poor science fiction writer with an "iron will to live"). At the time of their meeting, Hoover is well into a mysterious madness, inflicted by "bad chemicals" in his brain - as is explained by the author, Hoover's meeting with Trout and visual ingestion of one of his books provide him with the "bad ideas" that, mingling with the chemicals, provoke Hoover to go completely off of his rocker. The entire book builds up to this point, and discusses the consequences many times (no, there is no vague foreshadowing at all in this book).
Through the development of Trout's character (and through the synopses of the character's published works), Vonnegut takes satirical stabs at the degradation of America and the world through industrialization, pollution, and human greed. In the very first chapter of the book, Vonnegut discusses the "dying planet" on which Trout and Hoover live. At one point in the book, Trout crosses a river by foot, which has been polluted by runoff from a nearby factory - as he steps from the water, an odd type of plastic substance solidifies on his feet.
Vonnegut also uses Trout to convey that ideas can be very dangerous, the example in the book being the idea expressed in one of Trout's stories that all human beings are really "fully-automated robots," which is the idea that eventually sends Hoover over the edge and into his madman frenzy.
It is an interesting and very valid theory, particularly because it applies to why I read the book in the first place.
My mother's friend, who recommended the book to me, falsely informed me that Conor Oberst, a singer from a band that I used to love (and still like, but not with as much. . .intensity), played the character of Bunny Hoover, Dwayne Hoover's son, in the film adaption of the novel. Intrigued, I walked over to the computer and watched the Youtube video of the trailer that he had pulled up for my viewing entertainment. Luckily for him, the image of Bunny was so fleeting that I was fooled into thinking that it actually was Conor Oberst. Vaguely interested by the outline of the plot presented in the commercial, I picked up the book, sat down, opened it, and finished it in two days - which is a record for me. It wasn't until the day after I finished the book that I discovered that my mom's friend had lied - so I suppose that if it hadn't been for Conor Oberst, I would never have read the book in the first place!
Though the two main characters are what would be ordained polar opposites in normal terms, I think that the author tries to unite them in their "Awareness" of the world and in their perception of the roles that they play. Trout, for example, is the victim of poverty and scorn - his books are mangled by the publishers to the point that they almost never sell - and he is very aware of the tragic state of the world that he lives in. At one point, talking to his pet parakeet, Bill, Trout inquires about his purpose, about how he wonders if he were put onto the Earth as some sort of test of Man's endurance. Then there is Dwayne Hoover who, despite being fabulously well-to-do, has gone insane. His wife has committed suicide, his son detests him, and he is constantly paranoid that those around him are intent on manipulating him for his money (which happens a few times in the book). In turn, Hoover relates to his mistress, Francine Pefko, an anecdote about his trip to a car factory - and the room entirely devoted to the "destructive testing" of automobiles - and he also wonders aloud if his purpose on Earth is for God to see how much a man can take before he breaks.
As for the development of minor characters, Vonnegut utilizes a very interesting, innovative degrees-of-separation technique, where he will digress from the main plot to fill in the personalities of surrounding, supposedly-minor characters, like the waitress, Fanny (I think that's her name) at Burger Chef, who is only in the plot long enough to wait on Dwayne, and who yet has her entire life story told for the enlightenment of the reader. In this manner, Vonnegut makes the fictional town of Midland City that much more plausible because of the roundness of all of its inhabitants as characters.
Now, for my favorite thing about the book: its form of narration. The perspective is third-person omniscient, though while most books told in the third-person omniscient have narrators which aren't characters, Vonnegut uses this perspective to serve his role as his own deus ex machina in the climax of the book. Though he implies frequently that there is a Creator of the Universe higher than him, he takes full credit for being the Creator of the literary universe of Midland City, which is a really neat concept. For almost half of the book, it is like any other third-person omniscient narrative, but then it changes drastically as the action escalates - Vonnegut places himself, disguised, in the same room as his characters as they are about to come together, to witness the event that he had decided in advance would occur. In the end, he confronts one of his characters (won't say which one) to inform him of what is happening. I can't get over how awesome this is.
Like most film adaptions of things, the film was awful, with the exclusion of one ridiculous line that made it quite hilarious: "I think my daddy loves me!" - I won't describe the circumstances of the quote - read the book and watch the movie for yourself! Taylor Lautner is in it! (Just kidding)
So in any case, out of five stars, I'd give this book 12 - if they are for nothing else, they are for the innovation of the narration and character development, though I love the plot also and how trivial it might have been, had it been written by anyone other than the master of satire himself.

Cobbler Comparison and Dream: Yellow legal pad + Uttering of French words = Supernatural Communication

So, I had a crazy dream last night, which left me feeling inexplicably guilty the following morning. I think that the dream stemmed from my recent involvement with a site which promotes international communication - I initially created my profile on it so that I could practice French in a practical environment.
In any case, the dream began with my arrival at my mom's house, presumably coming from my father's house. As I walked up onto the porch, I saw my mother clutching what seemed to be a yellow legal pad, completely absorbed in its contents. Gary stared open-mouthed over her shoulder, and as I took all of this in, I saw Wesley through the window of the front door as he approached with a can of Coke. He opened the door, walked onto the porch, and greeted me, rousing everyone from their yellow-legal-pad-induced reverie.
"What are you guys looking at?" I asked curiously.
"Well," my mom began cautiously, "it seems we've somehow come into contact with a deceased person through this yellow legal pad," at which point she turned the legal pad, where I could see about half a page written in a cursive-like scrawl which was unfamiliar to all of us. It was also around this time that I noticed my French-English dictionary, which I had been given at a book sale, sitting next to her on the porch bench.
"Why is that there?" I inquired, pointing to the heavy book.
Gary answered this time, "Oh, we've found that the 'ghost,' 'phantom,' what-have-you - it seems that it will only respond when we question it in French, but when it responds on the pad, it responds in English."
"That's weird," I said, though curious now to undertake this challenge of French speaking skills. "Let me try for a minute." I took the legal pad and walked to the opposite side of the porch, where I read and absorbed the contents of the ghost's answers. It seemed like my mother had been questioning the ghost mainly about the circumstances surrounding its death, which had, or so I read, something to do with the deceased's father. My mother proceeded to ask something along the lines of "Did you and your father always have problems?" because the answer scrawled after the first one involved an abusive childhood dominated by the austere presence of a belligerent, drunken-father. I pondered what a good follow-up question might be to this.
"Apres que vous avez demenage de la maison de votre pere, est-ce qu'avez-vous passe une vie contente?" (which translates to "After you moved from your father's house, did you have a happier life?"). I thought that this question would work, owing to the fact that it wasn't nearly as personal as my mother's two previous questions - it left him room to fabricate, if he needed to - and it dealt with his joy rather than his sorrow. Standing with the pad on the wooden banister of the porch, I asked the question aloud in French. I felt silly, and I decided that I would only stand waiting like an idiot for a minute before giving the pad back to my mother. However, just when I was about to rejoin my mom, Wesley, and Gary on the other side of the porch, the cursive-style writing began to appear, and as I squinted my eyes to discern the beginning of the sentence, I woke up, feeling at first extremely exasperated that I didn't get to read the message, and then oddly guilty, what with my unconscious mind straying toward these strange depictions of the occult, which is never a good thing to mess with. In any case, it was an interesting dream.
I finally spoke aloud a riddle-type thing that I have been composing in my mind for a while now, which I have entitled the cobbler comparison, due to its ability to extend to just about anyone's general unsatisfaction with relationships, from common friendships to those which may be far more complex. My audience was Wesley and my mom, as we were walking Kalyn and Bear in the neighborhood tonight, and they offered an interesting commentary (the reason I started to ramble about it in the first place was because Wesley had a falling-out with one of his friends and was starting to vent about it, and so I figured the cobbler comparison would fit into the conversation quite nicely, which, surprisingly, it did). Anyways, here is a rough written version.
So, there's a poor cobbler who lives on the outskirts of a fairly-large city; he's taken up the family job, which is obviously cobbling, and he's good at it, and mostly content with his life. Now that his parents have passed away, the only thing that he lacks in his life is a wife with whom he can settle down and start a family - so he whittles away his days, making shoes and selling to the occasional customer, wondering when the love of his life might walk in.
One day, an unexpected woman, a resident of one of the more lavish apartments of downtown, wanders in curiously after taking the wrong bus. Charmed by some je-ne-sais-quoi which dominates the atmosphere of the shoe store, she shops around for a while, assisted by the eager cobbler, who is just as interested in her as she is in the store's atmosphere. She finds the nicest pair of women's shoes in the store and decides to buy them; while ringing up the shoes, the cobbler promises that if she returns at least once a month, he will continually update his women's stock, making finer shoes even than the ones that she purchased. Pleased with her purchase and entertained by the cobbler, she promises - and indeed returns.
Each month he supplies her with new shoes (each pair with a considerable discount that she knows nothing about) and as the months progress, their small-talk between purchases transforms into the chatting of friends. They go out to coffee a few times, and the cobbler begins to wonder if he has found the girl that he has been looking for. However, after six months of good fortune, things begin to go downhill - one month passes without the girl coming back as she had promised; he sadly stores away the shoes on the very last hour of the last day of the month. When she comes back half a month later and the cobbler asks for an explanation, she explains briskly that she had received a promotion, which made her life twice as busy as it was before - meaning also that she didn't have time to go out to coffee with the cobbler that night; in fact, she chooses to add, she has a date with one of her colleagues. She doesn't go out and say that it is a date, but as the cobbler rings up the shoes, he can discern what she expects of it from the light in her eyes. He closes shop up early that night, sad and unsure of what he should do; yet, he is convinced by this point that Fate has intervened in his existence - this girl has so radically changed his life from how it was before that she must - she must - still have some part to play. He decides that it is his turn to act.
From beneath his bed he pulls his secret stash of the finest shoe-making materials available to any cobbler - using all of the skills taught to him by his father, he begins to piece together the most beautiful shoes he can imagine, crafted, of course, for the beautiful woman whom he wants to make his bride. He determines that if he puts three months of work into the shoes, they'll be ready by Christmas - then, he plans to declare his love to the woman.
The months pass, and the woman doesn't break her promise again; however, her visits are short and aloof - occasionally she talks on her cell phone the whole time that she is in the store, and she never goes out for coffee anymore. This distance only makes the cobbler work harder on the gift he is secretly crafting for her.
One morning in November, he goes into work to find that his stash of fine leather has been raided in the night - furious, he stomps back into the security room to watch the footage from the cameras. Around 3 in the morning, he sees a car which is unmistakably his beloved's car pull up outside of his store; from the passenger seat emerges a strange man whom he has never seen before - it is this man that steals the materials, and his beloved who drives the getaway car. Hoping that he is mistaken, he waits a whole month for his beloved to come to his store - when she doesn't, he contacts one of her colleagues and inquires about her whereabouts.
"Oh, she didn't tell you?" the colleague says into the phone. "She moved up to Ontario and married some cobbler - his father had a store up there, and now he makes tons of money off of his fine Italian leather shoes. As for her, she's got it made." The cobbler hangs up the phone. He wonders how the girl of his dreams could have allowed another man to steal his materials for the former's benefit. Most of all, and this is the question - If you were the cobbler, would you destroy the shoes that you had made (assuming that they were crafted specifically for this woman and could never be the gift of another) or would you somehow get them to the girl in Ontario, owing to the fact that the shoes, through the beauty of the cobbler's selfless art, represent a person's purest ideal form - and the fact that the person that the girl once had been must still reside in her somewhere - (and in any case, the shoes would be of no other use) - ? Which one?

Hobbit Hill, Macy Gray, and Driver's Ed.

I have several things to report today, as I have been neglecting my blogging duties for over a week now. I'll start with the first dream, entitled "Hobbit Hill" for reasons on which I'll elaborate momentarily. In any case, the dream didn't start on Hobbit Hill; my dad, my mom, Wesley, Gary (my mom's roommate), and I were driving through rolling hills in the countryside. It was nearing nightfall, and my dad, driving, called back to us, "We're almost there." As the sun set behind the furthest hill, retracting its red tendrils from the translucent stars, we heard the grumble of gravel beneath the tires, indicating that we had pulled into a driveway. There, before us, was Heather's parents' house (which is in Colorado). As awkward as this would be in real life (given the fact that Heather and my dad separated a while back and that she never got to know my mom that well), it ran very smoothly in the dream. We all unloaded our suitcases from the trunk (I suppose we planned to stay for an extended period of time), trudged toward the lit windows of the house, and were accepted warmly inside by Heather's parents, who were happy to see all of us. After we set our things down in the corner of an upstairs bedroom, we congregated downstairs in front of the television, where we were all chatting pleasantly about the drive and a recent blizzard which had inundated Colorado with snow. This went on for a while, until we heard a loud knocking on the door; when Mrs. Gosnell (Heather's mom) opened the door, we could see her daughter's face in the space produced between door and wall. Heather came inside and began to have a serious-sounding discussion with my father, who was sitting on the couch and looking up sheepishly every now and then. Meanwhile, my mom, Wesley, Gary, and I escaped through the back door and into the car, leaving my dad to face whatever doom awaited. We drove back through the rolling hills, though it was now early in the day and the sun bounced jovially between the hills and reflected itself in streams running along the road. We saw an exceptionally large hill looming in the distance, on which was constructed a building that looked remarkably like Reynolds, my high school. My mom pulled the car into a little gravelly parking lot at the base of the hill, looking up at the building curiously. A sign was posted nearby, with an arrow pointing up to the building, which read "Youth Symphony Auditions: Go to Auditorium." I happened to have the trumpet in the back seat with me, and so I decided, "Why not audition?" given the fact that even if I didn't make it, I might run into Jeremy or Anita, as they regularly audition for these things due to their "ninja" musical abilities. My mom said that she'd park the car and wait at the bottom of the hill until my audition was finished, so I left the car and began the steep climb to the peak of the hill. I entered the building through the front door, and was surprised to find that the interior of the building was very similar to the layout of Brunson Elementary's interior, with a long hallway branching off in rooms on either side. I walked across the imitation-marble floor, turning left into the auditorium, where a group of kids around my age sat in a group in the middle of the floor, clutching their instruments. The weirdest thing was the silence; no one was practicing while they waited for their name to be called. I sat down cautiously, slightly away from the group. A huddle of adults stood at the front of the room, speaking quietly together; when they broke away, I waved at a man whom I recognized to be the director of the Youth Symphony. He walked over, and I asked him how long it would be until the auditions were over.
"What's your last name?" he asked, pulling out a clipboard from the inside of his jacket.
"Witt." I told him, and he wrote it at the bottom of the list. Looking up, he replied, "It could be about half an hour or longer; we're still waiting for a few of the judges to arrive."
"Oh," I said, "then I'll just go and tell my mom how long it'll be." With a wave, he dismissed me and I left the room clutching the handle of the trumpet, nearly running smack into the director of the legit Symphony, who was talking feverishly into a cell phone. I scooted out of the way as he entered the room, did a minor double-take, and exited the building once more. I tottered down the steep hill (it was my gesticulating, at this point in the story as I related it to my father, that caused him to christen this hill "Hobbit Hill," because he seemed to think that my poor visual representation of tottering down a hill was very hobbit-like) to where the car was parked at the base. My mom rolled down her window and I informed her that the audition would probably take half an hour or more, and that it would probably be best for her to go and rescue my dad and buy him some lunch before coming back to pick me up. She agreed, and drove off in another rumble of gravel. As I turned to climb back up the hill, I saw more Symphony members clambering up from all sides; inferring that the judges had finally arrived, I dashed up the steep, laborious slope, re-entered the building, and sat cross-legged with all of the other conversing students. Ms. Rheder was there, and she and the Youth Symphony director continued to pace nervously at the front of the room, while the legit Symphony director paced in the hallway outside the door, his cell phone like an extension of his ear. Students were called one-by-one out of the room for their audition. I was eventually called in for mine, which was supervised by Ms. Rheder and the two respective symphony directors. There was a montage, and then I was tottering back down Hobbit Hill with no recollection of my audition at all, except for the fact that I was told afterwards to report back to the auditorium the next day to find out if I made the Youth Symphony. My mom was already parked at the bottom of the hill, and my dad exited the car to help me load the trumpet in the trunk. Shortly after here I woke up as I was straining to remember my audition.
I had the next dream at my friend Shannon's house. I've forgotten a large chunk of it, but the setting of the part that I remember was a Kohl's or a Marshall's clothing store. My mom, Wesley, Gary, and I were wandering down the main aisle of the store, looking at the clothing racks on either side of the aisle for potential purchases. Suddenly, over the radio came the opening chords of a Macy Gray song that I now know to be called "I Try." Let me take a moment to explain that, though until a few days ago I didn't know the name of any Macy Gray song (I'd still heard them and heard of Macy Gray), the sound of her music has always been like comfort food to me for some reason. I suppose it's probably because when I was around 5 or 6, the radio stations at little stores like Marshall's and Kohl's would play her music a lot, and so now it has that nostalgic air about it. So, in the dream, when the song began playing, I started to groove to it a little bit, dancing in the aisle. Everyone laughed at me and my mom asked, "Are you rocking out to Macy Gray?"
I replied, "Yes. I love when they play her songs. They're just so easy to listen to!"
Gary rolled his eyes and said, "You are so white, Robyn; the whitest person I know, in fact."
This is exactly like something he would say, and so I felt a tinge of irritation as I inquired, "What about enjoying Macy Gray makes one 'white' with that negative connotation that you just applied to it?"
The argument continued from here, until the song was over and I was frustrated that I had missed the whole thing while arguing the validity of my appreciation for Macy Gray. This was the end of that dream.
Today was important for two reasons; most importantly, it was my mom's birthday, and we celebrated this by going out to Pancho Villas for lunch, where I bestowed upon her the gift of Kahlil Gibran (Tears and Laughter) and my own bilingual prose poem/poeme en prose, written after the style of a Baudelaire poeme en prose. She cried, even though I advised her in her card-type-thing not to, since it was her birthday. After lunch, she dropped me off for the second-most-important thing today: my last day of in-car driver's ed. I think, after my six hours of behind-the-wheel instruction, that I'm a fairly decent driver of an automatic. I only ran off the road once (today), and that was because I was distracted by a gigantic cemetary to the side of a road which intersects Reynolda Road near Golden India. Otherwise, I aced turning, reversing, the 3-point-turn, and even U-turns (which we also practiced today, on Silas Creek Parkway). My only other big mistake of event occured on the day when I was pulling into an aisle in a parking lot and I banged the back tire against the median curb when taking a sharp right. I didn't hurt the tire, thank goodness, but there was a loud, rather frightening noise that accompanied my error, which caused Stormy (who was doing the in-car portion with me) to gasp in the backseat. Throughout my three days of driver's ed, not only have I learned many of the crucial practical driving skills, I've also learned quite a bit about Winston-Salem as a city and Forsyth County. We drove all over the place, from Bethania to Yadkinville, covering almost all the country roads (and traffic circles) in Forsyth County. As far as traffic circles go, we ordained Stormy as the unofficial Queen of traffic circles in Forsyth County today. It just seemed that in her drives, she happened to run across them everywhere she went. I happened to know our instructor personally from a long time ago, back when my dad was a friend of his family - I suppose, like with most relationships, they just grew busy and traveled apart figuratively. But it was neat having him as an instructor, and I asked him to tell his family "Hello" from us. That is about everything interesting that has happened recently, except that my dad and I just returned from a Winston-Salem Dash game, which we lost spectacularly to the opposing team; the game was still fun, however, as we spent the night talking with Phil and Julie, who are friends of my dad from his meetings. They told us that our friendly neighborhood piano prodigy, Dr. Ruskin Cooper, is currently touring in Germany. They played a recording he had done of a Liszt piece (which was cool because I'd never heard him play Liszt before, nor have I heard much Liszt in the first place) on the way to the game in the car. I can't remember if I wrote about it on here, but I am still left flabbergasted (in a good way) by his performance at his house that we were fortunate enough to witness. He plays with passion and precision comparable to Glenn Gould (though not really comparable, since Glenn likes to play with a Baroque style and the pieces that I've heard Dr. Cooper play are Romantic). Whether or not they are comparable, they are both awesome. In any case, I shall now sign out for the night, retire to my bedroom, and read some more from the Jodi Picoult book that Ms. Jones lent me.

Boo Radley, Captive, and Church Dreams

I don't know why, but summer has brought almost-nightly dreams. The last three that I've had (on the past three days respectively) have been quite interesting, enough so that I decided to come on here and report them.

The first dream, which I had three nights ago while sleeping over at Elisabeth's house, largely involved Boo Radley. This is not the first time that I have had To Kill a Mockingbird-related dreams. I generally have at least one or two of these within weeks of finishing the book, and typically, the characters of Jem, Scout, and Dill are replaced by myself and my three cousins on my mom's side, and we are trying to persuade Boo Radley to leave his house, using the tactics that the three children employ in the book. The one difference with the dream that I had last night was that instead of representing myself, I was Scout in the dream, accompanied by the Dill and Jem from the film version of the book. The scene that we were re-enacting was the nighttime scene before Dill's departure for Meridian, when the two boys decide to attempt to peek in the windows of the Radley house. Scout, though reluctant at first, follows along, and the three children enter the lot from the rear fence, which is adjacent to the schoolyard. The events then unfolded as they do in the book (and which I won't reveal in their entirety for those of you who haven't had the good fortune to read the book yet).

The following night, back at my mom's house, I had very disturbing dreams. At the beginning of the dream, I was dawdling in the front yard of my mom's house, bored, when Wesley wheeled the bikes around to the front of the house (we had stored them in the basement through the winter, for lack of other place to put them in the house, and I was afraid to go and retrieve one to ride because there is a mob of crickets in the basement). He let me take my mom's bike for a quick ride around the neighborhood. I hopped on, cruised up to Country Club Road, turned right, and traveled all the way down to Five Points, where I took another right onto Stratford, eventually pulling into the parking lot of the Thruway shopping center. For the latter part of the journey, I had had to ride the bike on the road, which was extremely stressful for someone who is accustomed to riding exclusively on the sidewalks. Really, the only reason that I had pulled into the shopping center in the first place was to escape the traffic of Stratford Road. However, as I parked the bike near Borders, I saw my mom emerge from a nearby shop with her arms full of bags. I asked her where she was going.

"I'm just heading home," she said, "but your dad and I are going to meet you back here at Borders in about 20 minutes; then, we'll all go out for lunch."
I told her that her plan sounded good, and she continued on to her car and drove back the way I had come. I entered the cafe of the bookstore and took a seat at one of the tables in the center of the room. It wasn't busy at all that day; in fact, there was only one group of around five people in the room besides myself, and they were all congregated near the squashy armchairs near the window. Even the employees weren't stationed at their usual spots behind the counter. I sat uneasily, wondering what was going on. Eventually, the group over by the armchairs approached my table, and the surly man who looked to be in charge started questioning me about where I lived and other things; I told him that it was none of his business, and he responded by drawing out a knife. I was presently tied up by the man and his company, gagged with a piece of cloth, carried out to the parking lot, and thrown in the back of a truck. The truck drove around for a very long time, until, when I was finally pulled from the truck, I could tell that we were in the mountains or somewhere else far out in the wilderness. I was tied to a chair in this decadent shack, and then my kidnappers left the room. I was terrified, because I knew that there was probably no chance that my parents would find me - and my purse had been left at the bookstore, so there was no way of calling the police (there was no telephone in the shack either). However, after what may have been several hours or several days, I heard a commotion outside, and suddenly, my dad stormed into the shack, untied me, ungagged me, and pulled me to my feet, on which I was unsteady, having been tied to a chair for a long period of time. I was just about to ask my dad how he had found me when he shushed me, saying, "We have to hurry; the people outside scattered when I showed up, and I don't know where they are." As we ran back outside to his car, my dad called the police from his cell phone and informed them of our situation, describing each of the kidnappers in detail. It was night, and we quickly hopped in the car and began to drive away through rolling hills and on dirt roads which winded through forests. Though we were escaping, the anxiety of the dream had not been lifted - for the criminals could, at any time, emerge from the trees on either side of the road and sabotage our vehicle, and they had more people in their group than we did, and more weapons. It was about at this point that I woke up.
The last dream, which I had the night after the dream described above, was very short. I dreamt that my dad and I were driving to church one morning, and as we pulled up outside of the Sanctuary, we saw advertised on the plaque by the door that an intern pastor would be preaching that morning. My dad, upon seeing this, veered immediately from the parking lot and drove off. He said that he didn't want to go unless our senior pastor was preaching. Owing to the fact that I also prefer the senior pastor's sermons and to the fact that I was in the passenger seat, I didn't argue. As we pulled into the parking lot of Mr. Waffle, our weekly after-church lunch venue, we were approached by a middle-aged man from our congregation, who inquired about why we left the church without going to the sermon - at which point I took it upon myself to inform him that two conditions largely dictated our church-going: our ability to go to the Sanctuary service (we like the traditional music better than the contemporary music) and whoever is preaching at that time. As I was explaining this, I woke up.