A Festival of Lights

Merry Christmas.


I've been reading Hyperbole and a Half, and I've decided that my boring life stories need to be illustrated so as to be more captivating to you, my beloved and mostly-imaginary audience. I'm not sure yet what style I want to draw in - should I go with very crude stick figures, like H&1/2's Allie, or do something more like what you see here (which is actually easier for me, believe it or not)?

This picture is meant to be one of a series, but it was all I could get done tonight, A) Because I'm tired and not sure exactly what I even want it to look like, B) Because my only means of getting drawings on my computer is via crappy webcam or crappy camera phone, and C) Because I apparently broke Photoshop for life by making an enormous poster with 50 layers on my last day at Skipping Stone.

Now it's time to go to bed and wait for Santa Claus!

UPDATE: Apparently I also broke Blogger with my picture last night. But never fear, for I now have a card reader and can upload pictures of pictures that don't suck! Thank you Santa =)

Peace on earth and good will toward men,
Miss Rex

The End is Near

As evidenced by the dwindling number of stress-induced zits marring my face, the much be-groaned finals week has come to an end! Which means (drum roll, please... or rather, victorious trumpet fanfare) I'm on to my LAST SEMESTER OF SCHOOL for the foreseeable future!

I have eight more credits to complete before earning my undergraduate degree. Next semester, between advanced creative writing and my senior project, will be all about finishing a FULL DRAFT of my novel so that I can start sending out queries over the summer... with the promised guidance of Skipping Stone! Many great things lie ahead, and I can't wait to get started - but not before I've indulged in the annual Christmastime month of hibernation and, of course, the chaos known as holiday shopping, which promises to be even more chaotic than usual.

I had the great misfortune of leaving my debit card in an ATM and, consequently, having it shredded, just a few weeks before the biggest gift-giving extravaganza of the year. I finally got a new one this week, which I have been unable to take advantage of due to final projects, papers, and portfolios (although, thankfully, no formal exams). So now, with a week to go until Christmas, I have to purchase stuff for just about everyone I know and find time to hand-make gifts for the rest of the people I know.

The homemade gifts are actually the easy part. It's the grandmas I can never figure out. One of my grandmas I hardly even see except when she turns up on birthdays and Christmas to hand out $25 Macy's gift cards. The best thing I ever bought with one was a toaster oven. As great a purchase as that was (and I truly mean that; I use it every day in my apartment), I am always tempted to buy her a gift card she will find equally useless - to, say, Newbury Comics, which is my favorite store - and then offer to trade. But I suppose that would be rude.

Peace, love and white elephants,
Miss Rex

Fall Back

There was frost on the quad the other morning. En route to an early meeting*, I noticed the tree outside the library was shedding leaves so fast that they had pooled around him, leaving a yellow ring at his feet. I had to wonder what the hurry was.


I always think of Robert Frost at this time of year. But it's never the poem you'd expect. I took the road not taken years ago and I walk it every day. Instead, "To Earthward" comes to mind.

On the last warm day we had in October, I took my shoes off to wade in Gull Pond and stretched out to dry on the rough sand, thinking of the poem's ending:

"When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length."

Or I think of "The Mending Wall" as I wander the bike trails with JW. Stone walls criss-cross through the woods as they crumble into the realm of the forgotten. They once told someone what land was his and what was not; they may have been the one and only tie between two farmers. I think of Frost and his neighbor, who never spoke except to repair the wall between them, saying "Good walls make good neighbors."

The bleak hour is nigh! Winter doesn't officially start until December 21st, but he's already lurking like a peeping Tom. In a few days, we'll change the clocks and night will fall at 4:00. My epic tan lines have faded, even the ones I got from wearing the same Tevas to camp all season (though I don't think the white bikini outline will ever go away). My allergies are getting worse. My acne is getting worse. Even my goddamn vision is getting worse - I had to switch back to my older, stronger prescription when I realized I couldn't read the slides in chapel anymore.

The time has passed for wading and sunbathing and skinnydipping. There will be no more bare feet and no more hippie dresses. It's a sad prospect.

But at least there's Christmas to look forward to! Now if only I can remember to stay away from shopping malls this year...

Peace, love, and hazelnut mocha,
Miss Rex

*I discovered moments later that the meeting had been canceled... to think I could have continued my 80s-cartoon dream about the Star Princess! Alas and alack!

Short Story Long... pt. 1

I don't know about anyone else, but I am immensely relieved to bid the holidays adieu. This season usually holds a lot of magic for me, but for some reason it just didn't click this year. It was December 26th before I even realized that, in spite of partaking in all the usual traditions, I had completely missed Christmas. And I was okay with that.

In fact, I'm really glad it's over. Soon we'll be able to drive places without getting stuck in shopper traffic (which will be fab since my closest friends live half an hour away from me... in opposite directions). We'll be able to bum around at the mall without getting stampeded. Of course, all the gyms will be packed with New Years Resolutionists in a week's time and working out will suck for the next month, but at least things are starting to get back to normal.

I've slept a lot this break and have been complaining perpetually of my boredom, but it's actually been a pretty eventful vacation thus far. I shall attempt to summarize, but you know this is going to become an epic game of Short Story Long.

Episode One:

Last Saturday I was sick of my family and needed to get out of the house (I'd been home for a day and half so far) so I called Wanda, who was still at school in the city, and said to get ready for an adventure; Adam Ezra was playing a show all afternoon and we were going. I had just decided. Well, no, I decided in November that I wanted to go; I just failed at planning to do so until the thing had already started.

So we get to this thing. It's upstairs in a brewery I saw Adam at once before with my roomies and Jo-Yo. But that time it had been late at night and there had been lots of drunken grown-ups dancing like horny teenagers. One woman lassoing men with her scarf particularly stands out in my memory. We kept a tally of how many people she danced with, giving her extra points for dancing with multiple guys at the same time. We didn't know what else to do with her. Oh and a creepy old guy may or may not have hit on Mnomanoms.

That night, Adam played two of my requests, Another Sunshine and Desperate Plea from the Heart of a Shit-head. The second one is not really a noisy brewery kind of song and the rest of his band didn't know how to play it, so Adam played it solo acoustic. I felt so special. Then after the show I talked him into sending me an mp3 of it even though he's only got a rough copy so far. This has not happened yet, and I suspect it's because he's been drunk both times I've actually spoken to him about said mp3.

Which brings me back to the original story of last weekend with Wanda. Adam had already been playing for a while when we got there and took an intermission just a few songs later. When I went to say hello, he remembered me and that he owed me an mp3. I was impressed. We didn't talk for long, but after the second half of his set I went over to say goodbye and ended up writing a reminder on his hand in bright orange Sharpie. Wanda was disappointed later on when I told her I wasn't giving him my phone number. She thinks we should get together. Aaand I might have a little crush on him, as well... ^_^

But I didn't have much hope of seeing the mp3 because once again, Adam had had a bit to drink. I can tell because he does what I do when I've had a bit to drink - i.e., he gets rather cozy with everyone regardless of how well he actually knows them. I got about five hugs from him before leaving that day (and he told me the way I spell "Mandii" is cute ^_^).

Wanda and I both made it home before a foot and a half of snow swamped the entire state. And that concludes adventure number one. Lest this post become so long that no one wants to read it, I shall leave off there. Stay tuned for episode two, in which I and everyone I know had our minds blown by Avatar.

Peace, love and The Half-Blood Prince,
Miss Rex

Dinner with Dasher and Dancer

I was perusing my recent posts and noticed it's been too long since I posted anything not titled "Excavations of Claymore: bla bla bla" or "Scatterday." The reason for this was a little thing we call school - more specifically, finals. The fact I posted anything at all over the past month and a half is a small miracle. The great thing about having scheduled posts is that it forces you to write something. Anything. When school's got you down and you can think of a million better things to do, knowing you've got some semblance of a schedule to keep on your blog at least creates a little consistency, don't you think?

But now it's time for a little fun! I miss the normal blogging thing, to be honest. So even though I have two jobs right now that I should be doing instead of blogging, I'm gonna take a minute and share one of my favorite Christmas memories. I've had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year in spite of the foot of snow we got this weekend, but I can't help smiling at this memory.

I must have been about nine or ten. Though it was one of the last years I believed in Santa, for the time I believed whole-heartedly; I defended the jolly toymaker to my classmates and took baking his cookies very seriously. The week of Christmas, my dad came home from work with little plastic bags of reindeer food (i.e. dry oatmeal with glitter mixed in) that my sister and I were to leave out for the reindeer to munch while Santa was unloading our loot.

Of course we couldn't get the food up to the roof where the reindeer would logically be, but lucky for us my dad had just finished building a patio out back. Cleared of the summer furniture, it was a wide, flat space that made a perfect landing strip for a flying sleigh. That was where we would leave the reindeer food.

On Christmas eve, there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. My sister and I put on our winter coats and boots over our pajamas and crunched through the snow, sprinkling oats all around the patio. We added a few carrots for good measure (and good eyesight; if anyone needs to see where they're going, it's a team of flying reindeer) and turned in for the night.

In bed, I lay on my back. It was not comfortable, but I wanted both of my ears free to hear when Santa landed. I lay with my head close to the window so I could peek out and see him when I heard the bells, but I was asleep before Saint Nick could make a sound.

My sister was the first one awake. I was quick to follow. We hurried downstairs to find the living room transformed into a maze of presents (more presents than any kid should ever receive at any time of year). But the thing I wanted to see the most was the patio. Had the reindeer eaten their food, or would we find the snow still sprinkled with glitter and marred only by our own frenzied footprints from the night before?

I pressed my nose to the glass slider. The reindeer had been there all right. There were sleigh tracks and everything!

I have no memory of what was in all those boxes under the tree, but I'll remember those sleigh tracks forever. What about you? What Christmas memory will stick with you forever?

Can Barack Obama save Christmas?

Time flies like an arrow (but fruit flies like a banana). I can't believe it's been a week and a half since I posted anything. It's that time of year: deadlines are crouching tigers/hidden dragons licking their chops at the prospect of a nice juicy comm arts major, the quad is a minefield of goose poop, and free time is harder to come by than a holographic Charizard card.

And it's getting cold.

Not THAT cold, mind you; most native New Englanders are gushing over how mild it's been. But I'm loading up on quilts; I can't make it through the day without oatmeal for breakfast, soup for lunch and Claymore Drink of the Week for dinner. I am positively dreading winter and it hasn't even snowed yet. It hasn't even been close to cold enough to snow. I'm usually not this miserable until February.

I wish I could say looking forward to Christmas is making things better, but I'm already sick of Christmas. I started finding holiday decor in stores well over a month ago while searching for my Cruella De Vil costume, and they've been playing the music in stores way too much for my liking.

Me getting sick of Christmas shouldn't be possible, period - especially not before Thanksgiving even gets here. It is my favorite season. You know I get all gaga over the lights and I become this uber-cheery version of my already-cheerful self and do nice things just because it's nice to be nice, and I throw on some Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand (Relient K) in the car so I can sing along or just laugh because Relient K is oh so silly.

It's just so wrong that we must celebrate this holiday for two whole months. It diminishes the magic of December to stock the shelves with red and green lights in the middle of October.

America should have a mass screening of Elmo Saves Christmas. Never seen it? Elmo loves Christmas so much that he wishes every day could be Christmas, but when his wish comes true, he sees that the holiday is nothing special when it happens every day.

THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING TO AMERICA, PEOPLE. Our demand for instant gratification has gotten so bad we can't even wait 365 days for a holiday to happen again. THIS IS WHY OUR COUNTRY IS GOING DOWN THE TUBES. There needs to be a law against this insanity. You hear me, Barack? You can do it, yes you can.

If you don't........

...........the magic of Christmas will be lost forever!

Randomathon

I have quite a few things to share this morning, none of them of any great import except for this: I'm coming up on my 200th post. As in, the next thing I post will be #200. Time has flown, my friends - and yes, I do think of my fellow bloggers as such.

In honor of the big 200, I'd like to do a fun little Q&A session. Can you believe I've never done one before? I figure, after 200 posts, people have got to be bursting with profound questions they wish they could ask me - they're just waiting for the right opportunity to bring them up!

Here's your chance. Leave a comment with a question (or three), and I will answer it as truthfully as I can!

And now, commence the Randomathon!

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Derry the punchbuggy got a lung transplant and is at my house recovering until I can go fetch him this weekend. I hope this operation solves the problem, as it was not little Derry's first new lung and those breathing apparatuses cost Poppa Derry an arm and a leg.

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I was scrolling through the millions of notes I have saved on my cell phone and I found one I'd typed at 5 one morning (the spelling was atrocious). It was about a dream I'd apparently had that night, in which I was illegally keeping a giant in the basement and placating him with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Gotta love my brain.

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This morning I opened my mailbox to find a jury duty summons. Your civic duty. Your privilege.

Duty schmooty. I got a summons last spring; it's not my fault they cancelled on me before I even made it to the court.

Then I noticed the addressee.

It wasn't me. (She graduated last year.)

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Would you believe this captcha came from an educational website?



It's ALMOST as good as some Shakespearean insults I used to throw around with my equally-dorky friends in high school. You know the type. "That gleeking, clay-brained dewberry!" and "thou mammering, milk-livered lout!" were common outbursts at our widely-skirted lunch table, and for that matter, in our AP English classroom. Even though we were supposedly doing college-level work, things got pretty boring because our class was full of pribbling, idle-headed barnacles. So we took it upon ourselves to keep things interesting.

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Excavations of Claymore: Meg's Apple Cider

In honor of the fall equinox, I would like to share with you The Quintessential Autumn Beverage. Warning: You may mistake the substance in your cup for liquefied apple pie, pureed right of the oven and served to you piping hot. But never fear; Meg's is not a treat for the toothless! At least not exclusively....

This delightfully warm concoction of chai tea and apple cider will warm your heart on those chilly autumn eves after walking across the quad, or during crisp afternoons cheering in the stands while the Fighting Scots play football (the European kind, that is; we don't have an American football team at my school.)

The cinnamon and spice undertones will put you in mind of Thankschristmakwanzachanukah. Good vibes all around, dude.

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Don't forget to post your questions!!
Peace, love, and apple pie,
Miss Rex

I'm a pirate, doncha know?

Last night instead of sleigh bells, all I heard on my roof was RAIN, washing my beautiful white Christmas down the drain. ='(

I know y'all want to hear about the booty. I had a pretty good haul this morning. My dad bought me an iPod even though I told him not to; and I mean, it'll be great to not have to deal with the defective select button on the ol' video iPod anymore, but as long as the thing played music I wasn't going to replace it. I got loads of socks and I'm thrilled because I've gotten holes in all my favorite pairs this month. I got all kinds of shampoo and other useful things that every college girl needs, like a toothbrush and chewing gum. I got a few books, too. I should read more often. I miss it.

I think I need to issue a list of approved stores to my grandparents, though. They always buy me gift cards, and it's good that they want me to pick out my own gift so I'll be sure to like it, but there's only so much you can pick out at a store you don't really want to shop at. I could use a gift card for Hot Topic, Pac Sun, Journeys, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Forever 21, the Apple store (which my uncle was shrewd enough to get), or the whole gosh darn mall if you really wanna play it safe, but they ALWAYS get them for Macy's or Kohl's and... I just don't really buy stuff at those places anymore. Last time I used it on a toaster oven, which I'm not actually even allowed to have at school....

Kudos to whichever grandparent picked out the Panera card, though. When in doubt, food is always a good gift. Just look at all the banana bread I baked this year.


My dad's new robot toy is talking really loudly downstairs. Harold, our miniature schnauzer, is a riot about it; he keeps going over to sniff it, then the thing says something and the poor dog runs away in terror. I won't lie. I've walked by it a couple times, thinking it was off, only to have it make some remark. I screamed and practically fell over on my way upstairs to make this post.

I know I promised an excerpt from my story. Until I have time to get that up, enjoy these lovely pictures:

This is what remains.

"I Celebrate the Day"
Relient K

With this Christmas wish is missed
the point I could convey
if only I could find the words to say to let you know
how much you've touched my life, because
here is where you're finding me -
in the exact same place as New Year's Eve -
and from a lack of my persistency,
we're less than half as close as I want to be.

And the first time that you opened your eyes,
did you realize that you would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left your lips
did you know that it would change this world forever?

So this Christmas I'll compare
the things I've felt in prior years
to what this midnight made so clear:
that you have come to meet me here.

To look back and think that
this baby would one day save me
In the hope that what you did,
that you were born so I might really live
To look back and think that
this baby would one day save me...

And the first time that you opened your eyes,
did you realize that you would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left your lips,
did you know that it would change this world forever?

And I
I celebrate the day
that you were born to die
so I could one day pray for you to save my life.

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Every Christmas, I come back to this song as a work of profoundly childlike thought, heartfelt truth, and artistic beauty. We tend to forget that when the last dollar is spent, the last ribbon curled, the last present unwrapped and the last cookie crumbled, THIS is what's left. A baby. A Savior. A celebration, a promise, and a hope. A song sung in every tongue that can never be silenced, although at times it fades. I won't pretend it hasn't faded for me this year, but amidst the raging currents of life, there will never come a time when I don't believe this is true: that God sent his only son to take on flesh - I mean, FLESH; think about the implications of a deity wrapping himself in FLESH - so I could one day pray for him to save my life.

Merry Christmas.

Snowy with a high of 32

"It's funny how you find you enjoy your life when you're happy to be alive."

Reasons I am happy to be alive:

- I had a fantastic time on my date last night. For the record, though, Twilight is a pretty awful movie. Awful acting, plus some of the camera work really aggravated me/made me dizzy. And as Not-Yet-Boyfriend pointed out, the special effects left a lot to be desired. Anyway, let's get back to reasons I'm happy.

- Driving around, all the houses have Christmas lights twinkling on the trees. And I'm sure that I've not seen the Christmas lights this bright before.

- I woke up this morning and the skylight was blanketed with snow! I call it the white window test. It's how I know the snow is sticking. It's always nice to look out the window and see those very first few flakes of snow. Later on, we can go outside and create the impression of an angel that just fell from the sky.

- The bare trees don't look so naked now in their robes of white.

- Now that it's snowed and we have a beautiful evergreen sparkling in our living room, I feel that it is totally acceptable for me to blast my holiday playlist in the car.

- The only thing that makes me happier than Relient K's old-skool punk-rock Christmas album, "Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand," is their cover of "Sleigh Ride." When Megs and I saw them last year, they played that song and some random guys we'd befriended and started a mosh pit with insisted that we "slow mosh" to it. Soooo imagine a slow-motion mosh pit to this:


- I also feel that it is totally acceptable for me to laugh my head off listening to "Sleigh Ride" alone in my car while all the drivers around me wonder if I'm completely nuts. The answer is yes; yes I am.

And you know what?

I am okay with that. ^_^

Deck the halls

We put up the Christmas tree today. It was a little sad because my dad had to be at work and wasn't here to help us pick one out, or to put up his golfer ornament after everything else was finished, which is the tradition. Generally he gets the tree standing and leaves the decorating to the rest of us. But we girls got the tree inside and standing up just fine, thank you, and it looks lovely and cheerful and smells delightfully of Christmastime. And we have mistletoe.... ^_~



For the record, I really want to go WASSAILING this year. But I don't think people really do that nowadays. I also am fairly certain that wassail has rum or something in it so yeah. I just really like the word. XD

Stuck in a Moment

Happy Friday! I'm stoked it's finally here. I'm heading out for home as soon as I finish babysitting, so probably around four-ish, to see my beautiful, talented little sister in her high school play. Tomorrow we're putting up the Christmas tree. I love Christmastime! Yesterday I made cookies with some girls on my floor and ate way more than was probably healthy. Then my roomie and I decorated for the season.







I'm on a random U2 kick today. I don't know what sparked it. I've always thought U2 was great morning music, but it's clearly not morning anymore and I'm still listening, so.... *shrug*



Expect that prose thingy tomorrow. I think this post is long enough.

...and I like keeping y'alls in suspense. ^_^