council to the overzealous

dear overzealous friends,

one of these days you may feel tempted while out running to push a little harder, go a few extra miles, go up a few extra hills - well, ok, you may be tempted to push a lot harder. my advice is to take out that temptation and drown it, then burn it, then gather up the remaining ashes and burn them. and then put them in snack-sized ziplock bags, put your snack bags in a treasure chest which is chained to an anvil, and drop it into the middle of the most unknown ocean you can find. after this you may even want to gather up every map which could lead someone to that ocean and shred them. and then destroy google maps. you get the general idea. from whence springs this knowledge of mine? yesterday i decided i would run twice as far as i usually do, and today my legs hurt so much that concentration on anything but the strange sensation that my muscles have a mind of their own, and that mind is bent on my destruction is impossible. even the slightest motion is oowwww! yeoowww.

so heed my advice, fair innocent overzealous friends. and as to my prescribed methods for destroying that temptation, be creative. if you have alternate ideas for how to destroy it, please do tell me. you never know, your comment could save legs all over the world.

Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

- from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There

an M.N.E.

(for those who are wondering, "an MNE" is not merely a fancy way of saying anemone, it means "much needed explaination")

in my last post i mentioned a certain fellow named cecil alexander. i feel it only right to introduce you. so here he is, cecil alexander beatley, esteemed and most beloved gnome, keeper of my desk, maker surer that nobody pilfers my office supplies or (horrors!) my secret sour patch kids stash (well i guess its not so secret now, but dont think i'm telling you where it is!), and the most unabashed mocker i have ever met. seriously, you may not be able to tell from looking at him, but whenever i do something slightly silly, stupid, dumbo, or even just exuberant he gives me this withering "you humans make me weary" look. upon which happening i simply tell him to not be such a whiny whinerson and then turn him to face the wall. so here he is:


don't tell him i mentioned it, but i suspect that he does some subterfugial laundry folding for me while i'm not at home.

so you are probably wondering how such an unlikely friendship was formed. i'm not being a gnomeist or anything, its just logically not that probable for cecil and i to be friends. well, i shall tell you the story soon, as the first of the tales of the unlikely adventures of cecil alexander and beatrice.

10 things i am doing right now

1- loading my cds to itunes. i really should load them as i get them, but whatever. i like my cds. they are good. i really need to return all these borrowed ones to dan though. whoops.

2- listening to feist by accident. i didn't mean to listen to it, but it started to upload and i went all add and "oh look a song i like! woohoo" and just started listening to it, and i am now feeling a bit sad as a result. and a little dickensian. that one has nothing to do with feist, i just feel like talking cockney for some reason.

3- doing spanish 1 homework. for some reason i never do anything but my vocab cards until the night before class. i think that makes me a ... dumbo. yes, indeed. a dumbo.

4- wishing my feet weren't asleep. because here in a minute its gonna HURT! yeoowwwwwcch! (expressive word there. i think i made it up.) do you know why it hurts when your feet start waking up? i do. and i think i shall tell you. when your feet go to sleep, what happens is your circulation is cut off so no blood goes to the nerves in your feet, so they don't send sense or pain signals to your brain. also, the blood flow to your feet is almost completely cut off, so the blood vessels contract (get smaller. just felt like clarifying. ;)) hey look he has a double chin! haha anyway, so the blood vessels get smaller cause theres nothing holding them out, and when the blood finally starts going back through them, they have to stretch out again, which hurts. thats the tingly painful feeling. feel smarter?

5- talking to mj! hey!! yer awesome!!! i miss you! you're about to read this too, so halloooo. her message to you: "i don't understand how someone could possibly lose their meatball because somebody sneezed." ah the cutting intellect, ah the stunning hypotheses' she and i reach in our conversations. i postulate that not even the wind created by the sneeze of even a large-lunged person such as pavoratti (rip. whoop did somethin tear? hope it wasnt my socks, cause i like those. no, really, we miss his voice.) could budge such an illustrious food article as a meatball from its seat atop the spagetti (and cheese). no indeed, perish the thought.

6- writing an essay about george washington's effect on the american character. its due friday. woohoo! i wrote the date down wrong and thought i have five more days than i do. i really liked those five days.

7- wishing i could hit a pause button so i could organise my room, learn a couple languages, and get all my schoolwork for the next year and a half done so that for the next year and a half i can just do crazy stuff like make costumes and dresses and learn to draw and go visit people and ooh maybe i could make a cd! i dont know of what, but of something. and i'd write that photography book i've been wanting to do, and i dont know what else. that would be fun.

8- taking a brief pause in all the above to think about how amazing post-it notes are. they really are great. i love them. i would live in a house made of them if that was structurally sound. but it isn't and imagine what would happen if it rained!

9- when i get a piano, i want it to be cherry apple red. because that would be pretty. and it should have cherry blossoms painted on it. because those are pretty too. i want to go to washington dc in the spring to see them. and maybe have some pizza while i'm there.

10- beginning to think about how i have to go run in the morning because i told myself i would, but i dont especially want to. but now i feel like i have to, cause i'll hate myself if i dont, and cecil alexander will mock me. again. hes gotten awfully cocky recently for someone who wears a pointy red wooden hat.

A Christmas Carol, by G.K. Chesterton

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down

how insulting!

A friend of mine sent me a link to a strange and interesting gadget by MyHeritage, called the face recognition system. You upload a picture to the program, it scans for faces, and compares the faces in the picture to pictures of celebrities. Today I thought I'd give it a try.

I really hope that its just a fluke, and all I did wrong was upload the wrong picture (i could only find 2 pictures of myself on my computer, and in the one i used i was talking and i had on daddy's old eighties glasses. the kind that almost cover your whole face. ). or maybe i'm just in denial. anyway, here are my results:

Johnny Depp

Robbie Williams

Vin Diesel

John Williams (surely this one is just because of the glasses?)


Do you blame me for being bothered by this?

i can see the beauty
people, colours, and tin cans
rusted in a heap
brighter berries than before

only you see something
else - nobody else saw
some small beauty
in me

written last year

i would paint you a world
that i could love you in
without the distraction of me

but my talent goes only
to watercolour trees
and smudged pencil trees

i would sketch a self portrait
to make you think i'm perfect
and then maybe you could love me

but i can only do so much

what do you do in your spare time?

when the dog bites, when the bee stings

these are a few of my favorite things:

1: my new beautiful set of mark twain books

2: feist

3: pencil drawings of birds. not necessarily birds themselves. the beak thing scares me a little.

4: manalive, by G.K. Chesterton- it's amazing! please read it.

5: spud! (from bob the builder) he's a super spud, man of straw!

6: cinderella blue! there is no possible way to watch cinderella and not be happy by the end!

7: greece. i'm going to bicycle across greece someday.

8: twinkle lights.

9: raisin bran. it's so happy!

10: cowboy boots. mine have flowers and purple butterflies on them!