Highlights

If you've been wondering "Where's Miss Rex?" the answer actually ISN'T school this time. I mean, I've BEEN at school, but I haven't been without free time. I'm only taking twelve credits this semester. Granted, I'm balancing an internship, my job at the writing center, a fiction writing class, the communication theory class from hell, and a relationship, but I am not without free time.

I am just choosing to spend it away from the dear old blog.

All of my creative energy right now is funneling into one place: My novel. I am determined to finish a FULL draft by graduation in May, or maybe even by Christmas now that I've had this conversation with my supervisor at Skipping Stone Media:

Eramer: You should definitely see [movie I shamefully hadn't seen]. It's directed by [director whose name I didn't know].
Me: *Blank stare*
Eramer: It's got [actor whose name I'd heard but whose face I would never recognize].
Me: All right, I don't know my directors or actors at all. Sorry. I've always been a book person.
Eramer: Hah. I'm a movie guy. I don't read books.
Me: (Thinking: but you run a publishing company...) Out loud: Well you should. Would you read a book if I wrote it?
Eramer: Sure. Of course I would. But I would rather publish it.

So you see? I've got myself a deal now. It's practically in writing and everything. Now all I need is the manuscript.

Actually, I have many a tale from the internship, so I guess that's what this post is going to be about now.

My first day, I spent the morning brainstorming ideas for the website. Alone. I am the only intern on site from 9-1 on Tuesdays. Then Eramer comes in and drops a stack of green paper about two inches thick on my desk. "I know you really want to read this, so... just go ahead. Have fun."

It's the script for the new Narnia movie. I practically pee my pants with excitement. I'm told I will be guillotined if I leave a page lying around anywhere but the office. There's a fake title page, just to throw people off in case I don't heed the guillotine threat and leave the thing lying around on some table in a food court somewhere.

I'm pretty sure that would be about the same as leaving the Hope Diamond on a food court table somewhere.

On to the next story. What, you think I'm going to tell you about the script? I value my neck, thanks. So on to the next story.

I showed up the next Tuesday about twenty minutes before Eramer or anyone else. When he got there, he let us in and started unpacking at his desk while I got the TVs in the lobby going. Then Eramer started laughing. "Hey, can I share a moment with you?" he said, poking his head out of his "office." "Look at what my daughter did." He showed me his briefcase. It was full of his little daughter's Mickey Mouse and Cookie Monster toys.

Someday I will have a kid that cute.

Nothing especially funny happened today, except that I got chastised for being the only intern not wearing purple. This is ironic because, as a general rule, I am more likely to wear purple than the average person. I may show up in my purple jeans on Thursday... that will show them.

Peace, love and GaGa,
Miss Rex

P.S. Claymore Drink of the Week coming soon! I'm waiting for the baristas to get their shit together. Right now Kenya's the only one who seems to know what's what, and I don't drink coffee at the hours he works.

Now I know what Mom went through

If you ever want to know what your mother went through when you were a teenager, try losing your roommate.

As crazy as she is, Taz is a creature of habit. She goes to bed early, gets up early. She hangs out with boys but won't let them touch her. She's random, but not reckless. JW, Jo Yo and I invited her to come see Adam Ezra Group with us tonight, but she declined on the grounds that her sleeping pattern had had a rough week and she wanted to get to bed early.

She made plans to watch an Adam Sandler movie with Abs, one of JW's apartment mates who she might be crushing on a little bit. Last I saw her she was vacuuming our living room in anticipation of his arrival, which was not at all extravagant for her - she goes all out for her boys. She will make a wonderful girlfriend when she finds the right dude.

Fast forward.

Went to the show. Paid three times more than we should've for parking because there was an event at the Agganis Arena next door. Lost tickets, found Rob (bassist), got new tickets for free. Got deafened and danced upon. Didn't stick around for drinks because the show went so long that last call was already over by the time we got out. Came home at 2:10AM to an empty room.

I was just going to go to sleep when it struck me how very odd it was that Taz was still out. It would have been less odd if she hadn't specifically said she wanted to go to bed early... but it still would have worried me. So I did what my mother always taught me I should do at at time like this.

I panicked.

Cue frantic phone calls, texts to JW asking if Abs was in the apartment (his light was off and JW was worried he'd wake up the roomie, so we never did find out), midnight wake-up call for Mnomanoms, and (half an hour later) a last-ditch effort sprint to the dining hall. I expected Lane to be closed at such an hour, but it was the last place Taz had told anyone she would be and the last place I could get into without a key to search for her.

It was open. This was the first time I've ever looked at our dining hall as a beacon of hope, and will most likely be the last. Sure enough I found Taz and Abs sitting on a couch downstairs, just talking. Taz was quick to point out that my fly was down. I was quick to point out that I'd been halfway into my PJs before the notion struck me that she was probably floating face down in Coy Pond and I had better go find her.

So, Mom, this post is for you. For the random times I didn't make it home when I said I would, or somehow failed to communicate what time I would actually be home, and for all the times I was over friends' houses with no cell phone reception (which was usually, because everyone I know lives in dead zones)... I'm sorry.

Peace, love, and undead roomies,
Miss Rex

Cheap thrills

I've always loved carnivals, especially at night. I love the atmosphere, with its chatter and sparkle; I love the smell, between the fried dough, fried potatoes, and fried sugar (also known as cotton candy); I love the competitive spirit drawn out by the games and the wide array of people you find there and the romance of it all. I know it's not all magic and innocence, but if you pay no attention to the carnies behind the curtain, you can imagine it is...

Best of all I've always loved the rides, from the little dragon roller coaster, spinning swings, and Crazy Bus I rode as a kid to the flying pirate ship and the circling hang glider I grew to love as a teen. Really the only one I DIDN'T love was the Ferris wheel, and that was only because I never had a boy to kiss at the top.

But there were a few things I'd never tried. I remember passing on rides like the Zipper and the Kamikaze because none of my friends wanted to try them or blaming it on the long lines. I think I was secretly just a wimp.


JW and I spent most of last weekend at the fair in his hometown and I decided there was no time like the present to give those crazy rides a spin (pun intended). After all, soon I'll be grown up and then I will be boring and get motion sickness from carnival rides and have to miss out on all the fun.

We warmed up with the hang gliders. It was worth how dizzy we felt afterward for those few minutes of soaring. There is nothing I would love more than the ability to fly.

Once the spins went away, we tried the Zero Gravity ride, which is the one that spins around so fast that centripetal force pins you to the wall. You'd think we would have passed on this one after getting dizzy from the glider, but our sense of logic isn't as strong as our adventurelust.

And so I found myself standing in a little cubicle the width of my shoulders with a little cloth harness buckled loosely in front of me, as if I would need that once the centripetal force kicked in.

It was the strangest predicament, being unable to move my head at all. When the ride stopped, I didn't feel all that dizzy... just like my brain was all squished toward the back of my skull.

After that we tried the Orbiter. It has six arms protruding from a center point (imagine a Daddy long legs). At the end of each leg is a group of seats arranged in an X. When the ride starts, the X spins around the end of the leg and the legs spin around the center point. It felt so odd that I couldn't help laughing throughout the ride, but I wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere when it was over. That one made me dizzy.


After that, we called it quits on the rides for the night (though not, of course, without the obligatory top-of-the-Ferris-wheel kiss ^_^).

But we came back the next day. With a vengeance. There was one ride we had yet to tackle: The Air Force 1 (also known as the Fireball, Afterburner, or Freak Out).


Like the Orbiter, the Air Force 1 has a spinning segment at the end of a long leg, but in this case there's only one leg and it swings back and forth like a pendulum. At the climax, you're nearly upside down.

This was by far the best ride we tried all weekend. Neither of us felt sick or dizzy afterward - just exhilarated. Now I feel brave enough to tackle the scariest rides of all... even the Zipper or the Kamikaze.

What's your favorite carnival ride? Which one are you afraid to try?

Peace, love and cheap thrills,
Miss Rex

Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry

On my way back from chapel this morning, I caught JW on his way to class and said hi. Like any good girlfriend I gave him a hug and a kiss and said I'd see him later.

Not two minutes went by and I got a text saying, "Put on chapstick. I just took half a stick from you :)"

I smiled; JW always notices and pokes fun at me when I'm wearing Chapstick. Secretly, I sometimes use the mentholated kind on purpose because he's so cute when he can't figure out why his lips are tingling. But it made me wonder - what is it with me and Chapstick? I've had this crazy obsession with it for as long as I can remember. I keep three sticks of it in my purse at all times.

And I'm not even as bad as I used to be. I used to refuse to go to sleep without putting some on because (in the words of the monstrously over-quoted Napoleon Dynamite) "my lips hurt real bad."

Which has led to some interesting developments. Ravin and TPO will remember the first time Ex slept at my house, which was before we were together - in fact, it was the first time we'd even really hung out. The four of us were going to stay up all night but Ex and I got tired and decided to go to sleep. My lips were dry, so I put on lip balm, and BAM! Make-out sesh.

I really did want to sleep that night, too.

I think that was when I learned that you shouldn't put nice-tasting things on your lips if you don't want someone else trying to taste it, no matter how bad your lips hurt. Dammit, Ex. This is why we can't have nice things.

Even before that, at the beginning of college, I did a twelve-day orientation/survival stint in the woods sans soap, shampoo, and deodorant. I brought mentholated lip balm and all week long I just kept saying that it was the only luxury I had in the world. I would put it on and smack my lips and go "mmmm...."

I've thought about it all day, and I've come to the conclusion that Relient K is to blame for everything. Their 2003 album "Two Lefts Don't Make a Right (but Three Do)" was the first album I remember falling in love with. And track number one was all about - you guessed it - Chapstick.

They're also to blame for my subsequent obsessions with mood rings (track two), the 80's (track five), speaking in gibberish (track 13), Canadians (their lead singer hails from the great white north), and boys in plaid (said lead singer also wears plaid 95% of the time).

It's good to know that the things you love as a teen will affect you for the rest of your life.

Peace, love, and good-night sleep-tight don't-let-the-bedbugs-bite,
Miss Rex

Threehundredthpostapalooza!

Today my blog turns Old. It's the big three-oh-oh for A Silvertongued Serenade. If the Internet could eat a cake, Silvertongue's would probably look like this:



But the Internet can't eat cake, so instead I made my very first video blog ever! Come take a virtual tour of my apartment, a.k.a. The Fishbowl II (fondly named after the Fishbowl we lived in last year).



Fan-freaking-tabulous it is not, but it is very orange and blue, which surely counts for something.

Peace, love and vinyl,
Miss Rex

"You're waiting for a train...."

Last night JW and I were talking about my book, which led to the topic of dreams, which led to the topic of lucid dreaming. I've done it a little bit but I've never used any of the techniques they say can make it work other than doing reality checks. We both decided to try it.

I was trying a technique called Nap Induced Lucid Dreaming. You wake up after 6 hours of sleep, stay up for about an hour, and then go back to sleep. I also did a dozen reality checks when I went to sleep and again when I woke up, and a third time right before the nap. But then I couldn't fall back asleep.

I was about to give up, especially because some asshole outside of my window kept yelling shit. I thought that I swore, got up and was leaning on the bedpost, looking out the window to see who it was while complaining to Taz about him being a jerk. But this was in fact a dream.

Then I was lying in bed again without any transition between the two, but it didn't strike me as strange that I had gotten back into bed without moving and I still thought I was awake.

The asshole yelled outside again and I decided to get my really noisy fan and station it next to my head to drown him out, but I couldn't move at all. It was a familiar feeling: I'm lying there with no power to move, and this icky tingling spreads all through my body, and I hate it. It used to happen all the time and I thought demons were besetting me.

Now I know it's just sleep paralysis and there's nothing to fear (although considering I was already dreaming, who knows if this was real paralysis or dreamed paralysis?).

So I talked myself through it. I said, you're finally falling asleep, and you already know it - you're not even dreaming yet. It's just sleep paralysis. You're all right. It's just paralysis. Be calm.

And I was. The tingling was the most unpleasant on my neck so I tried to move my chin and ended up wiggling my tongue, breaking the paralysis.

There was nothing in my dream when I got there. I remembered picking a dream destination but couldn't recall what it had been. The moon? I read about someone going there, but it wasn't where I was going. Then I remembered: rough stone walls. I thought about it last night and drooled at the prospect of going back to Italy in full lucid-dream detail.

At once I was hovering over the castle-capped hill that is Assisi. I had done it! I believed myself to be in a very light, very fragile sleep and decided the world around me needed more detail to suck me deeper in, away from the yelling asshole.

As I drifted over the hill, I could hear myself narrating. It was nighttime and there was a car parked at the top of the hill near the castle. I knew who was in it. It was me and the guy I had a fling with while I was there in real life.

There was daylight on the other side of the hill. The narrating faded away now that I had truly placed myself in the setting. But everything was sideways, and this was when I became aware that I was floating rather than watching a movie in IMAX. For some reason I'd fallen into the dream sideways.

I righted myself and surveyed the scene. It was not as green as I wanted. In fact, it was kind of industrial and dreary. Lots of dingy brown. In the distance was a stack of red numbers that said 10:26 sideways (with the 1 on bottom). It occurred to me that it might be my alarm clock and again I felt the fragile nature of the dream. I remembered reading about spinning to keep yourself engaged in a dream, so I did a barrel roll. It worked... for a second.

Then the asshole outside yelled again, and it all melted away. I realized that the numbers HAD been my alarm clock - it was now 10:27 - and the dreary colors were the side of my desk and the radiator; I'd had my eyes open the whole time. The reason the dream looked sideways at first was because it WAS sideways; I was lying down.

I wanted to go back to Italy, but I was wide awake. So I cursed the yeller for real this time and got up, and here I am. If I find out who that was, I'm going completely menstrual on him.

Peace, love, and track meets on the quad even though we HAVE a track that is far, far away from my window,
Miss Rex

Might as well jump

I confess I don't usually pay attention when other people post playlists in their blogs. Whether it's because I'm at work with no headphones or my music wish list has grown unmanageably long or I've never heard of any of the artists, I just don't.

But I'm posting one anyway. Why, you ask?

I'm not posting this to make you listen to or download these songs (although all come highly recommended). I'm posting it because it's funny. Lady GaGa next to UnderOath next to Van Halen. That's funny. Gosh darn I love my musical ADD.



However, if you're battening down the hatches in wait for Hurricane Earl and need some tunes to keep you company, might I point you toward "Oh, It Is Love" by Hellogoodbye and "Lisztomania" by Phoenix. Might I also point out that it does not matter where you park, because even if a falling tree doesn't hit your car, a cow probably will (words of wisdom from Poppa Rex).

Peace, love, and like a rhino,
Miss Rex

Reasons to love Facebook

1. Advertisements.

I try to ignore advertisements on most websites, but every so often I stumble across a Facebook ad that is pure gold.


I'm not sure what I posted that made them think I needed help being a parent, but I can assure you that baby Rex will not be coming along for a while yet.


I understand WHY I got this ad. I just don't understand who thought they could attract writers with that kind of grammar and unprofessional formatting.

2. Translation.
Ever since I got back from Italy, my Facebook has been in Italian. For a while it was because I wanted to learn the language. Now it's just because I'm too lazy to switch it back. Plus, I enjoy seeing other people's confusion when I check my Facebook on their computers and leave the log-in page in another language.


Translation fail.

3. Glitches.


Virtual anarchy: If the system messes with us, we'll mess with the system!

4. Every so often, someone amazing posts something life-changing, like this picture Ravin took of a real-life Caterpie:



Compare to:


POKÉMON DO EXIST!!!

Peace, love, and sleeping until lunchtime,
Miss Rex

Wrecking Ball

Stealing is bad... except when you're a writer.

For my fiction writing class, I had to develop a story from a stolen first line. Mine came from Ursula K. Le Guin.

"Wrecking Ball"

Worms shot like subway trains through the dirt of gardens, among the writhing roots of roses, while swallows shot like fighter jets through the dazzling digits of daylight and while minnows shot like brown bullets through the plishing plashing pool and while a tiny gray rodent shot like a wine cork through the undergrowth, not quite invisible to the hawk that shot like a wrecking ball through the canopy.

But there were no subway trains.

At that time there were no fighter jets, no bullets, no corks or wine, no wrecking balls. The worms simply did as worms did, which was all that worms knew how to do, and centuries later when subway cars came along one of them had the bright idea to impersonate a worm.

And one day when there was a war to be fought, someone thought it might be useful if people could shoot around the sky like swallows and they armed themselves with bullets that cut right through the sky like airborne minnows.

When someone learned that the nectar of grapes could be fermented and was good for making the head spin, they bottled it up and decided to stopper it with a little round porous thing that would shoot out of the bottleneck like a doomed rodent.

But at that time there was nothing like a wrecking ball. There were humans, but back then it wasn’t the same thing. Besides, there were only two of them, and they were at peace with the worms and the swallows and the minnows and the mice, and even the thrashing, crashing, swooping, scooping hawk.

They were like twin towers, the man and the woman, tall and sparkling side by side for each other and for the world and for God.

------------------------

I'm coming up on my 300th post here at Blogger! How to celebrate? I'd love to bake you all a fabulous yellow loaf of banana bread, but since I can't figure out how to upload baked goods I'll have to come up with something else. How would you, my readers (if you are still out there, you non-commenting worm-toed ninnymuffins, you), like to celebrate Post #300?

Peace, love, and Claymore (which tragically refuses to open),
Miss Rex
 
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