I'm Surprised People Even Talk To Me

In case you haven't already guessed because I hide it so well, I am a fantasy geek. Every now and then I'll slip some sci-fi or children's lit in there to spice things up, but I am primarily addicted to swordplay, horses, and vaguely British accents. When I was younger, all my reading had convinced me that I could find a portal to another world, so of course I spent hours clawing at thin air to break through. Nothing happened.

I then surmised that it was something I would have to be patient for, something that would come to me on victorious wings of salvation when I had proved myself worthy. In the meantime, I would have to learn the ins and outs of fantasy world life so that I would be prepared. This meant not only digesting the classics, like Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, but also looking for those insignificant details in other fantasy novels that would SURELY BE USEFUL AT SOME POINT. (Note that I am deliberately not including at what age I came to these conclusions.)

This meant memorizing that the magic of a halfblood is stronger than the magic of either the elven or human parent (according to The Halfblood Chronicles, of course), or that the trouble usually comes from the East. Adventure lies to the North, don't be surprised if an animal starts speaking to you, and if you must undertake an epic journey, you're gonna need the right sword--but don't worry, it'll come to you in some form or another.

A certain friend of mine might advise me at this point to "keep the geek contained," but I prefer to give it some air. After all, at some point we all must embrace our true identity--how else would Aragorn have become King of Gondor???

I admit that I still read fantasy novels religiously, but more out of an appreciation for the imaginative genre and less out of a certainty that I am studying for my future. Just to switch it up, though, I recently decided to read a real book (and by "real," I mean one that could feasibly take place in the real world as it exists, without the added benefit of dragons or whatever). Now that I've graduated college, best get with the program and start paying more regular visits to Responsibility Town, right?

I chose to read "One Day" by David Nicholls, a book that had already passed through the eager clutches of my sister and mother. Though my sister had prepared me for a certain amount of identification with the main character, I was not expecting to feel like this:

Since reading this one book, I have gained a lot of insight into my habits and the personalities of other people in my life. Not to say that I am a generally clueless person who has never read another book, but it got me thinking about the importance of balance.

To put it in Star Wars terms, I realized you must bring balance to the Force. If you are your own personal galaxy (and believe me, some of the people I know fully subscribe to that notion), you must allow both Jedi and Sith to exist. Otherwise there wouldn't be a never-ending franchise. Feed your passions but also subject yourself to some situations you don't typically enjoy: practice your lightsaber technique and be there to cradle your dying mother in your arms. The tension of opposites can produce quite inspiring results (unless you're Anakin).

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>:C

Moral of the story: don't be Anakin. He's a punk. Either go whole-hog Vader or don't even bother.

Even Darth Vader reads his Jane Austen.

How Fluorescent Lights Almost Ruined My Day

I'm not a particularly sensitive person when it comes to bright lights--I can challenge the sun to a two-second staring contest without sunglasses, if need be. But if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is fluorescent lighting. It's not content to overwhelm your sense of sight alone, oh no. It takes over your entire brain until there is nothing nor has there ever been anything but fluorescent light. If it had a personality, it would be the hyperactive nephew at family gatherings that you conspired to knock out with spiked juice. Fluorescent. Lights. Ruin. Everything.

Allow me to explain: I got up at an ungodly hour yesterday morning for a dentist appointment. That was merely the first in a projected series of errands throughout the day which included clothes-shopping and a faraway doctor's appointment. I did not complain, I did not even grumble despite the severe lack of sleep I had gotten the night before. I was the paradigm of tooth responsibility. I grabbed my keys and kissed my parents goodbye as I hopped off to the dentist like a real adult.

But then, I remembered that I had no gas in my car. "Never fear," I told myself, "You can still make it in time! You're responsible. And a fast driver." So I nipped on over to the local Chevron and ignored the palpitations in my already struggling heart as I spied the price of gas. "Being an adult means paying for your own gas. YOU CAN DO THIS." So I grabbed my purse and high-tailed it into the store to pay for my pump. Thus began Encounter Number One.

The dramatic change in light from the gloomy day outside to the fluorescent pandemonium inside made me bitter and disoriented. As I blinked to let my eyes adjust, I noticed there was no one at the counter. "Where are they? I am in need of assistance!" The fluorescent lights began to send tiny little hate atoms into my brain, and I found myself despising whoever was so lax that they couldn't bother to stand behind a gas station counter at the exact moment I needed them there. Not a lot to ask. Finally, I heard footsteps and whipped around to see a uniformed woman shuffling toward me from the bathroom. She smiled cheerfully (clearly immune to the fluorescence), apologized for the delay, and was thankfully quick to take my money. As I returned to the natural morning gloom outside, I settled into a minor stew of self-loathing. I was vulnerable to this intangible thing. It made me irrational and snappy with its false brightness, its poser sunlight. I would not falter again.

I got to my dentist right on time, an unexpected treat that lifted my spirits slightly until I was brought into the back to be greeted by...fluorescent lights (Encounter Number Two). "No problem!" I assured myself, "You can watch TV!!!" But those pernicious lights cast a glare on the TV that could not be ignored...and nothing good was on, anyway. Still, I resolved to stare at that TV come hell or high water. That's when my dentist came in and tipped my chair back so far that I swear my feet were higher than my head. What was there left to look at from this angle but--you guessed it--the fluorescent lights. I closed my eyes and started breathing deeply.

I was at the dentist to get my tooth sealed, a process which apparently required one half of my face to be numbed. Upon seeing that his patient had closed her eyes and was attempting to suck in the entire room's air supply at once, my dentist made the logical conclusion that I was very nervous. What did this mean? More novocaine! This was something I figured out later, as I sat in my room and dribbled down the left side of my body. At the time, I didn't realize what he was thinking because my eyes were closed and I was in a yogic trance. The procedure was short and left a vaguely sour taste in my mouth, which I was completely unable to rinse out because I no longer possessed the capacity to spit. I shuffled out of the brightly lit office a defeated person.

My ambitious plan to spend a solid 3-hour chunk shopping for professional clothes (lest my shabby wardrobe relegate me to the ranks of The Unemployed forever) was foiled. I could not go anywhere looking like a twenty-something stroke victim, least of all to a chic outlet store. I resolved to sit at home and wait it out. When the gnawing hunger in my stomach could no longer be ignored, I attempted to slurp down a peach. It did not go well. Closing my mouth had become a complicated process akin to drawing the strings of a pouch together, without the strings. I wiped myself off and sat alone in the dark silence.

At 12:15 p.m. I decided to bite the bullet (if only figuratively) and go shopping before my doctor's appointment. There was still a telltale snarl to my upper lip when I tried to smile, but the novocaine had mostly worn off. I would just have to be brave, and never find a reason to smile. I arrived at the store with little more than an hour to buy a smashing outfit, a time limit that set me flurrying through the displays like an F5 tornado. When I had gone, the people in the surrounding area looked something like this:

I hurried to the dressing rooms and was met by a rather awkward (but smiley) attendant to whom I attempted to seem inscrutable and dissatisfied--the secret of my paralyzed face must not be revealed. Once I was securely in the dressing room, I was unsurprised (and furious) to see that my own private fashion show would be lit by none other than a fluorescent light. Encounter Number Three had begun. I steeled myself for all the doubt and self-loathing that would inevitably ensue as I tried on clothes in lighting that was practically designed to accentuate one's less attractive features. I probably got the right sizes the first time around, but the fluorescent lights made me second guess how I looked, which was: frumpy, ill, and radioactive. I would have to venture into the land of people again. My inability to canvas the store thoroughly in one go meant that I returned to the same dressing room with the same attendant a grand total of THREE times, a harrying go-round that elicited several apologetic smile-growls from me. Once I had found the right attire, I blindly dumped the rejects in the attendant's outstretched hands, muttering "I won't be back, don't worry," while attempting to hide my face. I bought my clothes quickly and left. 

Somehow, I was right on time to the doctor as well. This appointment was not with my usual doctor, so I had to drive a whopping 45 minutes just to get strange bumps on my wrists checked out. As I waited in the doctor's office for his arrival, two very important things happened at once: first, I realized with glee that the novocaine had FINALLY worn off and I no longer had to growl at people by default; second, I registered with the hopeless acceptance of a shark attack victim that I was being bathed in fluorescent light. Encounter Number Four...

The doctor took a long look at my wrists (a longer process than normal because I'm sure the fluorescent lights made the bumps look possessed and cancerous). Finally, he leaned back in his chair with the satisfied sigh of one who has just beaten his long-time rival at chess. I just had a bone spur. It was nothing to worry about. I probably didn't even need to see him. Come back if it gets bigger. I almost cried. I had braved the throng of people to shop for clothes because the doctor's appointment had put me on a tight schedule. I had resolved to keep this appointment despite my stubbornly slack face because I wanted to be a responsible adult. I had subjected myself to fluorescent light for the fourth time that day because I wanted to give my wrists a fighting chance. And now I find out they were fine all along??? YOU'RE TEARING ME APAHT, DOCTAH!!!!

I stumbled home in a haze. How could my day have unraveled like this? I felt like my entire being had been poked and prodded by some invisible little shit that delighted in my misery. I shut myself in my room and rocked back and forth for a while. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I switched my desk lamp on and off to make sure it hadn't suddenly switched to fluorescence behind my back. I emerged from my hidey-hole for dinner and conversation with the parents, and I forgot about my traumatic day. For a while. 

When I returned to my room to get ready for bed, I saw my new clothes on my chair and remembered how much I liked them. When I was brushing my teeth, I noticed that my tooth didn't hurt anymore. When I pulled up my covers, I did so with a flick of the wrist that was no longer condemned. And I had gas in my car! Against the odds, despite the best efforts of those heinous lights, I had succeeded in acting like a responsible adult! Fluorescent lights had no power over me! I had been victorious!!! 

I fell asleep with a self-satisfied, fully functional smirk.

Serendipity

The movie Serendipity is on right now, and it could not have aired at a more serendipitous moment. I love the poetry of life. Anyway, I am having a Dickens of a time trying to write my four papers due in the two weeks before the semester ends, so what do I do to relieve my stress? Watch TV whilst I blog.

This is exactly what I shouldn't be doing right now. The imaginary weight of my unwritten papers should be bearing down upon my very real conscience, but instead, iBlog. If there were a time during this semester that I should be the most stressed out, it is now. With four papers rustling their empty pages in the corners of my mind, the knowledge that my beloved seniors are graduating, and the regret that I haven't had the time to say proper goodbyes, I should be hysterical! But instead, I indulge myself in the exact way that I shouldn't, which is ironically what the movie "Serendipity" is about. If you haven't seen the movie, it's about a man who is so intrigued by a woman he met years ago that he goes on a hunting spree for her, despite the fact that he is soon to be married. Before I learned more about myself and the facts of life, I judged this type of person harshly. How could you be so indecisive, so willing to screw up a good thing? Couldn't you simply trust the path you were on? Watching this movie again, I am much more forgiving. It is so easy to get stuck, and even easier to seize any opportunity to either validate or escape your chosen lifestyle.
I know too many people who are stuck. I suppose to some extent everyone is "stuck," but I have developed a healthy respect for and fear of immobility. Were I to become an object rather than an instigator of my own life, I imagine that I too would become a self-professed "jackass" and radically depart from whatever path my life was on. So, are these people guilty of anything other than an attempt to reclaim their lives?



Trust in one's judgment is so much harder to maintain than I had previously understood. Until I entered college, morality seemed more or less black and white to me. Sure, there were grey areas, but for the most part it should be relatively simple to discern right and wrong. Since entering college, I have been confronted with truly difficult decisions, ones that are not a choice between right and wrong but between right and right. That is the most confusing and tricky decision to make of all. I have lately realized that my perspective on morality hasn't changed drastically--I've always tried to consider another's point of view. I just never had to make truly difficult decisions before. For some reason or another, life has gotten much harder recently.

And that brings me back to the idea of serendipity. Why is it at this particular time in my life that everything seems to be falling apart? My grandparents, my godmother, even my dog are all rapidly declining, and it was an especially cruel twist that on Easter Sunday all these potential crises were actualized in some form or another. But the worst aspect is my inability to make any decision. These situations do not call for my action or judgment...just my audience. I am stuck watching my loved ones suffer. My surprising reaction has been to ignore these problems when I can. Perhaps it's not so surprising after all, but the only way I can conceive of reclaiming my life is to cut these people out of it (yes, I consider my dog a person, and you would too if you met him). But I suppose I have a choice after all--to ignore the sometimes utterly devastating facts of life, or to face them. Whether it be bravely, hesitantly, or heartbrokenly, I can choose to face them. Without trying to sound melodramatic, I think this is the hardest choice I have had to make in my life. I don't typically face reality when I find it so agonizing.

Serendipity is over. The movie, I mean. That is just as well, since the prospect of following fortunate coincidences as a way of life did not make much sense to me. I am finished doing what I "shouldn't" be doing, a phrase that applies to a multitude of sins: ignoring people, abandoning homework, etc. But I also "shouldn't" be blogging, and had it not been for the serendipitous confluence of movie-watching and blogging, I would not have realized the pattern by which I have been living lately. Serendipity might help me un-stick myself after all.