Stess's Journal

I celebrate Christmas, and I celebrate the birth of Christ, but they are not the same thing.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:40:58 GMT

I love Christmas.

I buy in completely to the commercial, generalized consumer holiday. I decorate like a crazy person, hanging lights everywhere - trees at home and at work, stickers on my car. I matched my stockings to the ornaments and the wrapping paper matches too. I shamelessly buy the Martha Stewart holiday magazines for ideas on how to be the craftiest host of the Christmas Party I will never have. If the word "peppermint" is on a type of food, I will probably taste it. I will sing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs in the privacy of my own car, and watch Muppet Christmas Carol and recite every one of Gonzo's lines.

I can't say I don't own a nativity set, because I do, the biggest piece of which is a little over an inch tall, made of wood, and purchased in Mexico for about $5.

But I don't put it up, because Christmas isn't about the birth of Christ.

I celebrate Christmas, and I celebrate the birth of Christ. But they are not the same thing.

I get so tired of hearing Christians talk about the "real story of Christmas" and the "true meaning of Christmas", because frankly, that's just not true. As far as I know, there is absolutely not any shred of proof that Christ was born on December the 24th, which means that the story of Christ's birth has nothing to do with the modern holiday of Christmas. THAT story - the birth story - IS important, but one that should be celebrated and remembered all year round.

Instead, we tried to repurpose a pagan holiday just so we could make it 'acceptable'. Sound familiar? (cougheastercough) A lot of traditional Christmas practices come from early pagan traditions, part of midwinter and yule celebrations, such as the decorating of a pine tree, mistletoe, presents and stockings, and more.

I had intended, before I wrote this (which I've been planning to do for weeks, by the way) to do some educated research on the history of christmas, where the traditions come from. I know enough to be dangerous, but I can't be sure my information is accurate. So bear with me, maybe I'll Wikipedia it later and put in some links or something.

So often I hear about Christians who denounce the modern celebration of christmas because of how...UNreligious it has become. I'm not trying to say bad things about things like www.adventconspiracy.org/, which has a good purpose, but has the message wrong.

"So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists....What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?"

I disagree entirely with this statement, because christmas wasn't always about Jesus, and maybe instead of trying to push religion onto a world that doesn't like to be pushed, what if we instead tried to infuse more of the OTHER kind of christmas spirit into a world that desperately wants it.

I'm talking about love. The spirit of giving, unconditionally, without expectation or need for repayment. The kind of love that is so prevalent at christmas, but sometimes gets lost, because we're so concerned with remembering the "real story" that we forget what the world needs now.

(is love sweet love)

The champion of this REAL christmas spirit? The spirit of giving and loving? The figure that the entire nation can understand and adore, regardless of religion or creed?

Maybe he wasn't always a fat man in a red coat. But St. Nicholas was a real figure, and the celebration of this saintly figure became combined with the Dutch Sinterklaas into what we know now as Santa Clause.

Why is it so bad for children to believe in Santa Clause? Why do some Christians discourage it?

Our church put on a production of Miracle on 34th Street recently, and there was one line that stuck out in my brain. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's because of this line that Grace decided to do this as the christmas play.

FRED: If you believe in me and have faith in me...everything will... You don't have any faith in me, do you?
DORIS: It's not about faith.It's just common sense.
FRED: Faith is believing in things...when common sense tells you not to.It's not just Kris that's on trial. It's everything he stands for. It's kindness, joy, love, and all other intangibles.

Belief in Santa Clause is the belief in something bigger than ourselves. Something intangible and unseen, something amazing and wonderous and magical. Sounds a lot like believing in someone else. If we can encourage our children to believe in Santa Clause, then maybe they will understand what it means to believe in God too. It's not so different, really. And yeah, Santa isn't real.

Or is he? He certainly was, or Saint Nicholas was. So what does that make Santa? For me, he's the Spirit of Christmas. And I believe in that wholeheartedly. I can look a child in the face and tell them, "Yes, I believe in Santa Clause" and not lie. I'll let a different Kris Kringle explain it, in my favorite quote from the OTHER version of Miracle on 34th Street.

KRIS: I'm not just a whimsical figure who wears a charming suit and affects a jolly demeanor. You know, I... I... I'm a symbol. I'm a symbol of the human ability to be able to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives. If... you can't believe, if you can't accept anything on faith, then you're doomed for a life dominated by doubt.

(somewhere between finding these quotes and researching christmas I feel like I'm writing a college essay) If you've seen the 1994 version of Miracle, you also know that in the end, the judge ruled that if the USA can believe in God enough to put his name on a dollar bill, then the state of New York can believe in Santa.

I'm not trying to take Christ out of christmas, (because then it would just be Mas and what kind of silly holiday name is that?) what I'm saying is that we need to stop acting like Christ is the ONLY thing about Christmas. Because there is so, so much more.

Christmas has the ability to do what the church has been trying to do for centuries - reach out to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, and touch their hearts. If we stop making it about religion and just make it about goodwill and and giving and LOVE, how many more people's lives can we change? And when we live by that kind of love an example, people want to know what drives you - this is my big soapbox here - It's the "I'll have what she's having" type of mentality. When you are genuine and caring and motivated to be kind and loving to others people want to know why, and THAT is where Christ comes into it. We need to be sharing our faith by sharing in the spirit of the season, rather than the other way around.

Yes, in some respects, Christmas means huge lines at the shopping mall, crazy traffic, and the stress of dealing with all of that. Patience goes a loooong way though, in things like that. Remember why you're standing in that line. Why you're braving rush hour traffic on a Saturday. To bring joy to someone else, and if that isn't worth it, then I'm not sure what would be.

I'm interested (albeit a little afraid) to hear your thoughts. Am I wrong to want Christmas to be a universal, nondenominational or even non-religious holiday? Or am I not alone?

(I had to reformat this whole entry twice - that's what I get for writing it from two separate computers over the course of several hours)

Secretly, I am still seven years old and obsessed with cartoons.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:50:03 GMT

I think I've made it a goal to own every movie I ever loved as a child. This includes *almost* every Disney movie, of course, but there's one or two I don't particularly care for (I have no desire to own Pinocchio, Dumbo, Fox and the Hound, or Oliver and Co, to name a few).

It strikes me that, at this point, I probably have more "kids" movies than I do regular movies. This thought hit me as I sat here watching the "Tom and Jerry Movie", which I found at Walmart for $5, and has one of my all-time favorite songs from an animated movie.

Here's a few I have that you might not find on most movie shelves:
The Tom & Jerry Movie
A Goofy Movie (EYE-2-EYE!)
The Chipmunk Adventure (I seriously never get tired of this movie)
An American Tale and An American Tale: Fievel Goes West
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Mary Poppins
DuckTales (Seasons 1 & 2) (yes really)
Fraggle Rock - The Beginning (it was a used disc, it has maybe two episodes?)
Heavyweights
The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under
The Great Mouse Detective
Fantasia 2000 (If anyone ever finds the original Fantasia on DVD I will love you forever)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (I loved the misfit toys. Who wouldn't love a pink polka dot elephant?)

Not to mention a pretty extensive collection of Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks movies. And a lot of "family" movies.

(I probably have at least 500 movies, by the way. Y'all, I am sad)

The Littlest Witch

stessringold@hotmail.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:55:24 GMT

So, my mother and I had to change plans on a fun evening the other night, and ended up just walking around Barnes and Noble for a while. We somehow ended up in the children's section looking at all the christmas and halloween books and reminiscing. I mentioned my favorite Halloween book from my childhood called The Littlest Witch. We looked to see if they had it, but no luck.

So, on a whim the next day I searched for The Littlest Witch on Amazon. And what do you suppose I discovered?

The book is a collectors item. The listings on Amazon go anywhere from $50 - $250 for the book. It was published in 1959.

Of course, I remembered that if we even slightly enjoyed the book, my mother kept it. And as they are out of town, there was no one to stop me from digging through the (3) boxes of books in our crawlspace to find it. (How I managed to get that door unscrewed and then back in by myself is anyone's guess, my dad usually has to get help. I was determined, ok?)

I found it. And once I opened it, I realized, "OH my GOSH. I CANNOT SELL THIS."

In case you can't read that, it was to my father, from his grandmother, uncle and aunt. In 1960. He was seven. My dad's aunt is my great-aunt Laela, who I was named after (Stephanie Page from Laela Page) and who was for all purposes my third grandmother.

Not to mention the fact that I adore the book. It's this cute story about the littlest witch's first Hallowe'en, and how she sacrifices her chance to win the race to the moon by helping out a stray cat, and a pumpkin, and a little boy. And in the end, the other witches realize that she's a good witch, and even though she didn't win the race, she still gets the best prize, and she's happy because she knows she's a good witch, not a bad one!

So that's my exciting story for the weekend. Still deciding what to be for Halloween. I WAS going to be Tracy Turnblad. But lack of time and funds means not being able to get a decent wig and/or skirt. I found my graduation robe while going through my boxes at home, so I think I'll just see if either my brother or my dad has a good ol' striped tie and go as a Hogwarts student. I'm working at the 'Buster on Halloween night, so I need to think of something cool, and fast! (I'd go as Delores Umbridge, but I guarantee only so many people would get it, plus I totally gave away my pink boucle jacket to goodwill when I moved)

self-intervention

stessringold@hotmail.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:47:27 GMT

It's not a diet. It's a change of lifestyle.

If I think of it that way, I think I can be more serious about continuing and sticking with it.

I don't want to diet. I don't want to eat healthy until I reach a goal and then fall back into old habits, or feel like I'm denying myself food that I want, or cheating if I go out to dinner or have a soda at work.

I also don't want to have to micromanage my days. I don't want to live by numbers - counting calories or carbs until my head explodes. I don't want to obsess over portions and servings and calories and carbs and sugars and so on.

I want to live healthier, and by extension be healthier. I do want to lose weight, but I don't want obsess over how much weight I'm losing over how much time. I have a goal, but I'd rather be healthy and lose weight at a rate that is not detrimental to my body than lose the weight I want to quickly.

I know how to do all of these things, but for years I've put off doing them. But not anymore. I need to do this, because I've rapidly become the one thing that I said I'd never be - grossly overweight. It's affecting more than just my ability to wear cute clothes. It's affecting my health - my sleep, my stamina, my strength, my face...and more. And if I don't change this now, I may never change.

So that's the goal. We'll see how successful I can be. The winter/holiday season probably isn't the best time to start this - but if I can do it successfully then maybe I really can change my life.

y'all, I woke up laughing. This is that kind of dream

stessringold@hotmail.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:19:03 GMT

Welcome to this edition of "Stess has the most hilarious dreams of all time. Ever." !

There was a first part to it that was like, on a Saturday before, at the mall? And we saw this group singing, and there were these high school kids. And I don't remember their names now, so I'm making some up. There was this blonde girl who's name was like, Carol Ann or Bobbi Jo or something really Southern like that, and this guy named Cody maybe, and another guy named Trevor, and then a bunch of other kids. And Cody totally was in looooove with Carol Ann and wanted to ask her to the big dance, but we knew that Trevor had already asked her and she said she would go with him if he bought her a CD. She was one of THOSE types, that every guy likes and she'll go with the highest bidder. She was pretty and blonde, and inexplicably also wearing this totally 50's southern button up flowered dress and had ribbons and - yeah, she was hilarious. Anyway, Cody wanted to ask her to the dance and my friends and I tried to dissuade him and he was determined, and said he was going to do it.

Then there was this whole bizarre bit where my father and I were at the mall and going down the weirdest escalator ever, which was more like a slide (I'm installing a slide escalator in my next mall, let me tell you, this thing looked awesome). He took the stairs, but I hopped on the slide-scelator and went almost all the way down, but there was this woman partway down who was blocking the way, and i was like, hey, can I get past you? and then I looked and somehow she had gotten her finger caught under the plastic belt of the escalatorslide, and nobody could get past, if she moved her hand would get crushed as the thing tried to feed back through to the top. She freed herself, though, without even breaking a nail.

So, the next day we were at church. And it was seemingly a small church, but there was a lot of people there. And me and my friends were sitting there (and, rather unusually, none of my friends were people I actually know), and then they started doing announcements. And the group from the fair before gets up and starts singing this terrible little song, and apparently it was actually meant to advertise some fundraiser thing for a conference they wanted to go to, by raising money they were selling a CD of this awful little song? I was amused by it. And then, Cody goes up to the pulpit. I forget what happened, there was some confusion and he ended up saying something else, and people started to leave and then he goes "WAIT! I have to say this!" and my friends and I look at each other and are like, Oh he isn't really going to do this HERE.

Cody steels all his courage in his little high-school face and says "Carol-Ann, I think you are the prettiest most amazing girl that ever lived. Will you go to the dance with me? If you do, you win this lollipop!" (no lie, he hands her a lollipop, and like, a balloon) She smiles all sweet and takes the lollipop and considers him for a moment and then goes, "Gosh, Cody you sure are sweet. But I'm afraid I've already said I'd go with someone else. That is, if he buys me the CD." And then she hands him back the lollipop, and Cody looks like he would really just like to murder that person, and who comes up to the microphone? It's Trevor, here to defend his lady love. He says, "I got you the CD Carol Ann, right here! (he holds it up, and it is some random country music singer) You like <so and so> right?" And Carol Ann does an amazing turn-with-blonde-curls-bobbing and says, very snidely. "No, I wanted Coldplay," His face falls. "Dumbass" she adds under her breath. And I swear, at least four other guys stand up and have this look on their face, "Coldplay? Sweet! Now I know what to get you."

Trevor is still standing at the microphone looking dumbstruck and Cody laughes. And Trevor, who, let me remind you, is standing at the pulpit microphone in a church. On Sunday. Looks at him and goes. "You! You and me, jerk. You wanna have a fu....fu...." (everyone stares, open mouthed in horror at him) "Fuc....Fo....Folk..ing. Folk....Folk-dancing...Fight? Right now, outside!" Tears of laughter are now streaming down my face, and Cody is all like, "YEAH!" and all of the other guys who stood up are like, "YEAH!" and they all run outside to have a rumble. Folk-dancing style.

And my friends and I, who cannot possibly hold our laughter any longer, dive out the back door and start racing down corridors laughing SO VERY HARD until we just fall over. And I guess they were like, running behind me and kind of pushing each other as they ran and laughing and I just lost it, and said something to the effect of "What, are you two fighting over who gets to be my best friend? Are you going to have a folk-dancing fight too?" Only it was like, "Are....are you...two...going to...going..." because I was laughing so very, very hard that I could barely talk, and we were on the floor, crying, screaming with laughter, and I woke up and laughed out loud.

Folk-dancing hilarious. I love my dreams, seriously.

Actual conversation after this initial post:
Katy: I am so going to folkdance fight you the next time I see you :D:D

Stess: omg i know

Katy: and this is great cause there is this "Skip to my Lou" move I have been dying to try

Stess: oh WHATEVER, bring it ON. Hell, i'll SQUAREDANCE Fight you. Elvira, beeetch. Elivira. WHAT NOW.

Katy: you wanna promenade with THIS? BRING IT! I will do-si-do your face!

Stess: Yeah, well, I'll SWING YOUR PARTNER ROUND-AND-ROUND, HA.

Katy: yea, well you better bow to this corner partner or I will end you...DIXIE STYLE!

Stess: You don't scare me none, I will TWO STEP on your GRAVE once I am done with you!

Adventures in Apartment Rentership, Redux Edition.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:15:07 GMT

It has been a crazy week and a half! I have been a barrel of stress for about six days, but now that we are settled into our new apartment, I can finally relax.

Of course, given everything else that has already happened on the road to this move, I should have known that nothing would really go as planned.

I had to chase my brother down for weeks just to get him to answer a text message asking for his help with moving. Until about a week ago, I didn't know what I was going to do as far as getting my furniture from one place to another. And then some of our guy friends offered to help on the day that I had booked the Uhaul, so I thought we were set.

I was also supposed to be off of work from Tues - Thurs. However, we got a bunch of hot jobs in on Friday and Monday, and we realized I would need to come in a half day on Tuesday. And then my boss told us that his wife (who is our office manager) was diagnosed with breast cancer, and would be going in for surgery on Thursday. Aside from being totally shocked and concerned and all that, it meant that they would both be gone all day, so I decided I would go in for a half day on Thursday as well.

Not to mention that between two jobs, RenFaire rehearsal, and you know, life in general, I did not have nearly enough time to pack all my stuff.

I have a lot of stuff.

The first thing that happened was when we went to Ashley Place to ask what we owed for the thirteen days we would still be in the apartment into August. We knew there would be a higher rate, but when she told me on the phone on Monday that it would be $735, I flipped. That's almost double the rate we were paying. I was at work when I called, so I texted Sarah, who woke up, threw on clothes, and proceeded to (apparently) go completely awesome on the woman in the leasing office. She explained (again) everything else that has already happened and after a quick call the manager, got the price straightened out to something much more reasonable. Sarah was my hero that day.

Tuesday arrives. My mother informs me that my brother was either working or going to Kentucky, but would not be able to help me. At this point, I still thought I had people, but I was pretty mad. She also decides that if I am going to paint one of my bedroom walls, we should do it now before the furniture goes in. So we do that. By the time I get off work and get to the apartment(s), Sarah is about 90% moved. We paint the primer, go back to the old apartment and pack/clean as much as we can. My mom got food poisoning from something she ate earlier in the day, and spent a good hour in the bathroom, but she was fine after that. She packed the whole kitchen. Sarah proceeds to inform me that the two people who were going to help have either changed their mind, or not responded back to her. So now, I have no help. Great.

I proceeded to freak the hell out. I have apologized several dozen times already to my mother and to Sarah, but for a good 48 hours I was a complete jerk to both of them, even though they were both so awesomely helpful and I wasn't mad at them. I had a couple of meltdowns.

But, by some miracle of grace, Mark was able to come on Wednesday. Not only that, but Ian came as well, and with the two of them together I was able to get moved without much difficulty. We loaded the truck with all the furniture and then brought it over. I got a call from work that we had finally gotten everything we needed for a rush order, so I went in for half an hour to get some files together to send to a vendor for production. By the time I got back, even though I told them to take a break and relax, my family and friends had finished packing up all the crap in my room, and loaded into the truck.

They are awesome.

Thursday went more smoothly. Especially because while I was at work, my mother and Sarah cleaned the whole apartment. Did I mention they are awesome? Because they are. Totally. Sarah and I decided to go ahead and paint the living room as well, so we did that Thursday evening. It looks so cool.

Needless to say, it has been a crazy week. I have been up and down the emotional rollercoaster of being so angry I could scream, to so upset I sat down in my closet and cried so nobody would see me, to excited, to realizing that I have some pretty awesome friends, and the greatest Mom ever.

So now, it's just a matter of unpacking and organizing. Which will probably take me like, a week, but you know, at least we're in. And now, back to our regularly scheduled life.

Pictures of the new place will come eventually, when we get more settled in :)

Nobody said the narrow roads had to be so hard

stessringold@hotmail.com — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:17:33 GMT

"There is no wide road which leads to the muses." - Prospertius

I've spent my whole life wanting to be a writer.

I wrote a book when I was six about a clown named Bubbles who was kidnapped and saved by her cat, Sprinkles.

I would get ridiculously excited when we had creative writing assignments in school, and never failed to get an "A" on them.

When I was in the 10th grade, I discovered Fantasy. Not that I hadn't always known about princess stories and fairy tales - but I discovered that I could find ways to still love it as adult. And through the world of text-based roleplaying games, my eyes were opened to a new genre that reached me on a level that nothing had before. And I started to write, and the words flowed more smoothly and more quickly than anything else had.

I wrote The Guardian Quest over the course of the next three years. My writing style was disjoined, contradictory and unpolished. But I loved those characters. When I finished it, I knew how terrible it was, but I loved it in it's own special way. I wrote The Cristal Keepers after that, as a sequel, involving the second generation of the characters from the first book. It was better - I had learned some about how to write and how to outline and plot and develop a character. But it wasn't very good yet, either.

I wrote The Glass Window over the period of the last two years of college and the first year here in Indiana. It was the first thing I had written that I was really proud of. I love my characters, because the story was one I had borrowed from my time roleplaying - Aria was my alter-ego then, and this was her story, the story about someone who had to leave the place she knew, and come back to start over with the people she loved. It grew from that story into something so much more. And while I know there is still a lot I can do to improve it, I feel very strongly about its potential, and I am really truly proud of it.

And now, I have so many ideas - so many stories that I want to write. My documents folder is filled with stories I began and never came back to. I have a writing program that is basically a virtual three-ring binder, I can create separate documents for outlines and character descriptions and notes, as well as chapters and scenes. I can scan in sketches and keep them there as well. I have three of these "binders" on my computer: One for my version of the Princess and the Pea (which is decent, but will probably be deleted before long). One for a neat story idea I had for NaNoWriMo a few years ago that I'm still working on, about two teenage girls who live in a small Indiana town - Foley can hear ghosts and Geraldine is a witch, and they have to find an old spellbook that belonged to a witch who died 50 years ago and hid it somewhere in the town before the bad guys do. And then, there's the Element Magic series.

Five books. Five plots. At least two dozen fully fleshed out characters, and a dozen more secondary characters in my head. I know them all, and what's more - I know intimately the world they inhabit. The 8 kingdoms - I've planned and plotted out each of their histories, their governments. I have notes about magic and the kinds of ways it gets used by the different people who can wield it. Not to mention notes about class structures and predjudices, about the mythical creatures who are still in the world although they choose to live separate from people. It is truly an epic undertaking, and I am completely excited about the idea of this series.

But I can't write it. I can't put my fingers to the keyboard and make words come out of it. It just...isn't happening. And I get frustrated, and so I go away from it for a while. I come back to it, refamiliarize myself with my idea and come up with so much more - but it never gets put into actual story. It's all just ideas. And ideas are great - but I've been working on the IDEA for this series for over a year and a half now.

This is not about me having writer's block - I can deal with writer's block. It's more than a frustration with the lack of words happening. Because I know I can make them happen. I don't want to make them, necessarily, I'd rather not force it - but I AM capable of it.

"So what brings this on now?" You say.

Sarah.

Sarah, I know, because this will get crossposted to facebook, that you will read this. Please, in no way, take this personal, or as an attack, or anything in any way against you.

Sarah has written more, in the last three weeks, than I have in a year and a half. And yeah, her writing is choppy and unformatted and rushed and sometimes a little disjointed - and she knows that, but she's writing, and going back and refining it. She started in one place and ended up somewhere totally different, and has come up with a story that is as coherent and interesting as anything I could have come up with, and she's just making it up as she goes.

Why does this frustrate me so much?

Why does it frustrate me that people like Sarah, like Stefanie Meyer or even J.K. Rowling to some degree can sit down at a keyboard and make magic happen when they have never done it before - never tried to do it, never intended to do it, and I can't - and I want it so bad. I want to be able to write like that - to just sit down and click away - but it just isn't there - and I hate it. I used to be like that - it used to just...flow. And I think that taking more time to process the idea before I start writing has helped the quality of the writing itself, but it sure isn't helping the quantity. I don't want to resent how far Sarah has come in what she's doing, but I do and I hate that I do.

What's more - she's getting her friends, her family - to read her story. I have been trying for three years to get my mother to read mine. She has had it in her nightstand. She's read...a few pages. I have asked people to read it, and they have not. I have emailed copies to people and never heard back. One friend, one person from high school as read it and given me a critique. Sarah even has a copy. I can write - I can write well, and I know that, but I...I got rejected from a frickin fanfiction website for crying out loud, because of "characterization" or something like that when I know I wrote the Harry Potter characters well because I almost wrote EXACTLY some of the same scenarios that ended up in the ACTUAL seventh Harry Potter book! And I'm sorry if I don't write "Harry Potter plays Truth or Dare with Mary Sue" fanfiction, I just wanted something fun to do to take my mind of writer's block and excuse me if I still tried to do it well.

It's like - it's like someone who's taken guitar lessons their whole life, who isn't great but he's good, and he plays a show every night of the week. And his friends all think it's really cool that he's playing and asks him what songs he does and all this stuff, but never come see him play. But then, one day, one of his friends comes up to him and says, "Hey, Johnny just learned how to play guitar, and he's playing a show tomorrow! We're all going, want to come?" It doesn't matter if he plays better than Johnny or not, the point is that his friends will go see Johnny when they won't see him.

It is just. So. Frustrating. because I don't WANT to be petty about this, I want to be excited for Sarah that she is doing this, because I think it is awesome, I do! We'll sit here and bounce ideas back and forth, talk about her story, talk about my story, discuss her plot holes and what she should do differently and whether she's going too Buffy and the Mortal Instruments and whether I'm going too the X-Men go to Hogwarts...and I love that she has found so much enjoyment in something that I love so much. But I'm not going to lie, it hurts that her sister will call her the next day after Sarah sends her unfinished rough draft-version story to find out what happens next, and my own mother hasn't read the first chapter of the story I gave her three years ago.

There.

(as a side note, I started this note at...5:00 this afternoon. I am posting it at 10:15 pm. Also, i would like to apologize to LJ for the heinously long post, but I don't feel like cutting it.)

More thoughts on that movie, and others.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:49:53 GMT

busy busy busy

I had a few more thoughts to share regarding Harry Potter, and a few other movie-related thoughts as well.

First, it's funny. I felt really disappointed in HBP the moment I walked out of the theater, but the more I've been talking about it, the more I've let it sort of sit and sink in and percolate a bit, I feel more inclined to enjoy it for what it is. I think I was just so overwhelmed by what was NOT there I didn't really take the time to enjoy what was.

On a purely technical standpoint, I loved that they showed what apparition felt like. That was a nice suprise. I wish that more of the "background characters" had actually had like, PARTS, but I like that they worked them in as much as they could in scenes.

In regards to the soundtrack - I'm really kind of sad that Nick Hooper has confirmed he won't return for the final movies. Frankly, I have thought for a long time that John Williams is overrated - he's done great work in the past but it has a distinctive sound - and I think that Hooper's style is better fit to the feel of these movies than what William's was. It made the first two movies he scored seemed...too epic, too unrelatable. Now, if Williams does return, he might be able to do the last 2 films justice since they are pretty much just one really long, epic quest/battle sequence. But I love the emotion that Hooper has added to the score - the Order of the Phoenix soundtrack is actually really strong - and the Half-Blood Prince is a nice continuation. It has a much more mature sound than the previous movies - which is totally appropriate. And it is more...muted. Less epic, but very emotional. The "When Ginny Kissed Harry" track is pretty amazing, but very soft and delicate. I'm sorry, but even the like, soft "love" themes from Star Wars or Indy or even E.T. don't have that kind of emotional quality - and there is SO MUCH depth in Deathly Hallows and I'm afraid that Williams can't get us there with music. He is great at epic, but not so much at the more commonplace and emotional.

Yes, I'm a soundtrack nerd, what of it.

Other movie news of note:
I am obsessed with Coraline. I watched it twice last week (once in 3D!) and then again last night. I can't get over the sheer awesomeness of it. I mentioned it a little when I saw it in theaters, how fantastically creepy it was. It really is a fantastic story, and the animation is just awesome. I got the 2-disc special edition and watched some of the behind the scenes stuff. There is just so much talent involved in that. Is it sad that I think the voice of Mother/Other Mother/Your Friendly Neighborhood SpiderMother is some of the best acting I've seen Teri Hatcher do in a long time? I talked this guy at work into watching it, and he is like, serious macho-dude-man who hates kiddy movies and he told me the next time I saw him how awesome it was and how he watched it in 3D on his big screen and it was amazing. So yeah, watch it. It's awesome. It's like those old Goosebumps books - they are kind of creepy in a fun way.

Other movies of note, mostly because I've been watching trailers lately. 9 looks absolutely fantastic, like, seriously. Even if it didn't have that song by Coheed and Cambria in the trailer, I would be excited, but it does and I LOVE that song. Speaking of Tim Burton, I am also gearing up for Alice in Wonderland because really, I can't not get excited about Johnny Depp in the creepiest Mad Hatter makeup ever. I'm also stoked for Where the Wild Things Are which just looks so sweet, although I hardly remember the book at all.

There are others, but it is time for Stessie to go to lunch! Yay!

So, about that movie. Yeah, you know the one I mean.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:54:47 GMT

Thanks to Transformers, the new Harry Potter doesn't release in IMAX for another week and a half, so Sarah and I opted to go ahead and see it while we can, since both of knew there was no way we were waiting that long to see the thing.

Overall, it was good. Good, but not great. I was somewhat disappointed at first, but after some discussion and thought, I'd give it a rating somewhere between 6-7/10.

I knew I wouldn't love it, mostly because HBP is my favorite book. There is so much that happens, and through it all we get so much character development from everyone. The Harry that left the Ministry at the end of OotP is not the same Harry that walks away from Dumbledore's funeral, and the same could be said for all - and I do mean pretty much all - of the characters. And so much of that was left out of the movie. Understandably, because really, how many people want three chapters worth of Harry angsting over Ginny. However, I still feel like they could have done more.

What I did NOT like:
The Death Eaters. Just waltzing out of Hogwarts. Hello? Anyone? Giant badass battle sequence? Yeah, that happened there. WHY IS THIS NOT IN THE MOVIE.
Harry/Ginny. I 150% support this relationship, but I didn't feel like they did Ginny's character justice. Except for the whole running like a madwoman after Harry (who was running like a madman after Death Eaters) in the scene-that-should-not-have-been-added, the whole secretive kiss thing in the Room of Requirement is SO not Ginny, who is, basically, the slightly more sane female version of the Twins. It happened in front of the entirety of Gryffindor, and THAT is why she is Ginny. Also, Spiderman ending anyone? She should have been there with them in the tower scene at the end. Pretty much just MOAR GINNY.
Ron. To quote the fabulous cleolinda, who shares my opinions: "Ron's all in the background like, "Remember that last movie, when I actually got to say things? Good times" Rupert Grint proved to me in GOF that he is, without question, a better actor than Emma Watson. MOAR RON. The scenes he was in were hilarious, especially (omg so especially) the love potion. Hermione's best scene was with Harry after Ron & Lav's first kiss, that was VERY well acted, but otherwise, I'm sorry, but she's passable at best. She does a good standard Hermione, but when it comes to the more emotional scenes she's weak. Ron is better.

I think I pretty much just love any character who is part of the immediate Weasley family. MOAR WEASLEYS.

What I DID Like:
Little Riddles: REALLY fantastic. Especially Littlest Riddle.
Ron. Did I mention I loved the love potion thing?
Draco Malfoy Of ALL the actors involved, I think Tom Felton has shown the greatest improvement in ability as of this movie. Daniel Radliffe we always knew was good, and Rupert Grint was decent from the start as well, but Malfoy has gone from a snippy little git to a really developed character over the last couple of movies. There wasn't nearly enough of him in OotP, but this more than makes up for it. I am SO GLAD they left in the Sectumsempra sequence, because Tom Felton's acting was PHENOMENAL in that, going from just despair to rage in the split second, and the scene at the tower, how close to breaking he was - oh he did just so good. And this is one of the reasons why I love HBP, because Draco suddenly becomes a character with emotions and not just some evil jerkface.
Luna. Dear lord I love Luna. The Lion Hat (which did NOT ROAR WHYYYY!), the spectrespecs, the dress...oh man. They needed more of her AT the party though. Talking to Rita Skeeter about vampires.
Lucky Potion. Whoever decided that Harry Potter taking Felix Felices was equivalent to Harry Potter on CRACK is GENIUS. FUNNIEST. EVER. That was another sequence that was pretty spot on, with Slughorn and Hagrid and oh god they sang "Odo the Hero" and I nearly fell of my chair. The goldfish story was...strange and unnecessary, but it set up a nice segue for getting back to Lily Potter.
Slughorn. Was a chair. I love Jim Broadbent.
Dumbledore's Death. Being that this was, really, the biggest scene in the movie, it was well done. And the aftermath, the lighting the wands thing. I cried. I did. But again, where was the battle?

I could go on, I'm sure, but really, I think everyone else pretty much agrees with me. It was poorly paced. Yes, there really isn't much "action" that happens until the later parts of the book, and I know that's why they showed the bridge and made up the attack on the Burrow, but there doesn't have to be "action" if you really make the story interesting, and they didn't. And then when there WAS good action, they left it out. As far as the movies go, Order of the Phoenix is still my favorite, if nothing else than for the sheer awesome that is Imelda Staunton as Umbridge, but because it managed to remain true to the story while still being able to juggle the various character stories and make it all interesting, even if we didn't get as much from it as we wanted.

On a related note, the soundtrack is pretty good. I kind of don't want them to bring John Williams back for the last movies...I like what Nick Hooper has done with the last two... but we'll see.

long weekends

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:48:41 GMT

It was kind of nice, to have a three-day weekend with no obligations. My folks went out of town with one of my dad's coworkers, so we didn't have any 4th of July plans. I was off work on Friday, spent the day sleeping in and playing games. Saturday I went to the Apple Store and (after waiting in a ten minute line for help) talked to someone about how to fix the crazy popups and stuff on my computer. Yay for a solution that worked without needing $70 virus software! I will probably invest in the $20 adware, but that's manageable.

Sarah and I had some interesting conversations this weekend. She has started reading more, and talking about books led to talking about writing, talking about fanfiction and ideas. We sat in the living room for two hours last night and came up with what started as a fanfiction for a series she had read, and turned into something totally different. It was pretty fun. And I'm starting to get excited about writing again. I've been trying for ages - trying to force myself into wanting to write, I do want to, I just wasn't...wasn't into it anymore. I'd lost sight of the characters and the stories that I loved about them and now I'm getting back to it. I want to remember why I was so excited in the beginning, and I want to create new ideas and new stories for the characters who's personas weren't fully fleshed out. I'm not going to set some unachievable goal, like writing every day, but I'm going to push myself to write more, and write often. Even if it's just a sentence, I'm at least going to *read* what I have as often as I can, so that I don't forget what I've already put down on paper.

July should be an interesting month. I'll be packing and getting ready to move to the new apartment. Always fun times. We'll see how things go.

with my headphones on

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:53:16 GMT

So, I was all proud of myself for the deal I got on my cellphone, turns out there was SO a reason for it being cheap. Terrible, awful phone. So, I took it to the store with my mom (since I am not a registered user on the account, go figure) and exchanged it. Suprisingly, she actually encouraged me to get what I wanted, which was an iPhone, since they dropped the price to $99. So I have an iPhone now, and I have spent the last two days making it mine. It now has a pink sleeve (so that I don't destroy it) and the ringtone is either "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, "Syndicate" by the Fray, or "Flying" from the Peter Pan soundtrack (also used in some recent Disney vacation commercials). :)

In the course of this, I discovered somewhere along the way that Jars of Clay had a new album out. In April? How did I not know this!

It is AWESOME.

Go buy it. The Long Fall Back to Earth. Favorite JoC album so far. Entirely. (I still need to actually own Good Monsters)

Adventures in Apartment Rentership, part Deux.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:02:59 GMT

So, y'all remember the story from a few months ago about the apartment that gave us the shaft, basically, going back on their price because we didn't respond in the time frame even though we totally did.

Yeah, it happened again.

We had decided to move to a smaller apartment nearby, and when Sarah went to tell the leasing office we were moving, they made her an offer basically for the same apartment we have now, just downstairs and further in the complex for like, more than $150 less per month. We, of course, jumped on this. She talked to them Friday. Saturday she went back and talked to a different person, but was still under the impression that the price was the same. Monday they called her and said the price had changed but did we still want to?

Wait what?

Yeah, they neither a. gave us a timeline, b. gave us a firm price, apparently, or c. told us we had to put the deposit down immediately to get said price. On top of that, they said they'd give us a deal on the washer/dryer too, and when I went in Tuesday to speak to the manager she said they weren't authorized to do that. I had a nice chat with her but basically said this is the second time a J.C. Hart property has screwed us over royally, and We. are Not. Amused.

So, long story short, we're moving to a smaller apartment in a different complex come early August.

Life is ok otherwise. Money situation got sorted, work is going pretty well. We're a little slow at the moment but that's unfortunately to be expected...still, we're hanging in there. Almost gotten motivated to write again, I'm coming back to old ideas rather than getting stuck on new ones, so that's good. Sarah's in Cali for the week so I have the apartment to myself. Not that it will be any different than usual, since we never see each other, it just means I can leave the kitchen light on all night and she won't yell at me. (kidding!)

this has not been a good week.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:09:58 GMT

Suffice it to say that this will go down as one of the worst weeks I've had in a long time. Monday started out terrible, I was *really* late to work because I overslept, and I felt like an idiot and a jerk. But I talked to my boss and everything was ok. I still felt bad, and when I feel bad I do things that make me feel better, and that usually involves buying stuff. Which I did. And I bought something I wanted, or thought I wanted, and ended up overdrawing my account.

So then I had to borrow money from my parents, which involved telling them exactly what happened, and that's never a fun conversation. The guy at the bank was really nice, and really helpful, and he helped me think of some solutions and even helped me apply for a credit card, and this time I was approved. But the good news is I'll be able to pay my folks back and pay all my bills when I get paid this week, and then I can start over from ground zero and do this right for once.

OH and I almost forgot. On Thursday our new sales guy quit. Left us in kind of a fix, so we're dealing with that.

So by Friday, my week was on the up, I wasn't feeling like a complete loser. And then I spent all night Friday and Saturday talking to my boss at Blockbuster, who had two kids going to the prom last night. And since we were being all reminiscent, it made me think of my prom. Whenever I remember prom I try to remember the after-prom - going to Lake Conroe and staying up all night, playing spoons at 2am, and swimming at 4am, watching the sunrise - because that was awesome fun. But the dance itself...remembering that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, because it makes me think of Jonathan and how excited I was to be there with him, and what a let down it was. He left me on the dance floor during the first dance...he didn't dance with me again until the very end. I still had fun, when I wasn't in the bathroom with Jessie who felt awful, but...yeah. Thinking about Jonathon doesn't help my really crappy week at all.

weird dreams, redux edition

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:59:24 GMT

Time for more adventures in bizarre dreams! Yay!

So, I'm not exactly sure why we were A. In the Amazon and B. In the Amazon chasing the Wicked Witch of the West, but we totally were. And someone else was dressed up like the Witch too (maybe me?) as a way to...lure her? I don't know. Anyway, I forget what happened, we cornered her on the edge of this obscenely high cliff overlooking the jungle, and there was one of those stereotypical rickety old rope bridges there (even though there was literally nothing but air on the other side. The bridge like, disappeared into the clouds. It was a really long bridge I guess). And we cornered her, and then destroyed her by pushing her off the obscenely high cliff into the jungle. (dramatic music plays)

So then, I guess, we decided we needed a place to stay for the night. Guess what! The Wicked Witch of the West had a really awesome house (in the jungle?)! Let's stay there! We toured the house. It had like, six bedrooms, all furnished, even though she lived alone. And a huge kitchen. Two huge kitchens, I think, right next to each other (maybe witches need dual kitchens?) So my mom goes and falls asleep in the biggest bedroom, which had a bathroom entirely made of green marble. My brother was on the couch watching TV while I debated which bedroom I wanted. Mark wanted to make sure he had a bedroom where he could get out easily, since he was leaving for Ohio in the morning and didn't want our cousins to wait for him at Bob Evans? So I told him he could have the bedroom that was right above the stairway to kitchen A. He was excited.

We watched TV a bit longer while my dad was outside, because my dad apparently smoked in my dream. And I decided it was bed time, so I got up and was going to take the blanket I had with me, since it was my brother's awesome fluffy one. He was like, nooo I want the awesome fluffy one even though he was already wrapped up in every blanket we own (he had at least five or six). So I wrapped him up even more in the fluffy one, which was still warm from me, but then he couldn't move at all, and ended up falling off the couch, completely pinned by the blankets, and I was crying from laughing so hard because he was face down on the floor, his head the only thing visible in a blanket burrito.

Seriously, y'all, I cannot make this stuff up. My subconscious is weird (not to mention the rest of me).

OPERATION EASTER BUNNY IS GO

stessringold@hotmail.com — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:47:56 GMT

I totally just snuck into my parent's house at 1:30AM and left three Easter baskets on the dining room table. Win.

Tonight has been a little insane though, I spent two hours playing a game online and getting increasingly irritated at the person leading the voyage. Then I went to Wal-mart because I forgot to get a basket for my brother, and the Easter stuff had been cleaned. out. Like, there were entire shelves just empty. And this woman walks up behind me while I'm looking at some of the leftover candy and leans over to me and goes, "I don't know where you live, but the one over in Noblesville has SO much more stuff left." I kind of laughed and said I didn't really need much. And she walks over to her husband and all sniffily said, "This is ridiculous, let's just go to the other one by our house. Absolutely ridiculous." Lady, it is 1 o'clock in the morning on EASTER SUNDAY. Wal-mart is the ONLY thing still open besides the grocery store. What did you expect? Maybe you should have done your Easter shopping three days ago LIKE I DID.

And then, to top it off, I went to grab some cokes and milk, and the manager is hoarding some teenagers carrying like, three things apiece of toilet paper out of the food isles, saying something along the lines of "You guys are in here, making a mess, and running around, and disrupting my store, I will not have it. You need to leave now." So they leave, and then I hear the manager on the intercom calling all employees to the front, and as I'm walking to the checkout he's giving them a peptalk about the teenagers who have apparently ransacked like, the entire wal-mart and they now have to go around and pick up everything these kids knocked off the shelves and stuff.

SERIOUSLY IS IT A FULL MOON WHAT IS UP WITH PEOPLE TODAY.

rollercoasters

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:45:11 GMT

So, on Monday Sarah and I went to look at another apartment. I was looking online and found a really nice one for about $175 cheaper than what we are paying now, so we went to check it out. Of course, it was a special deal, but turns out the apartment was managed by the same company who owns the place we have now. They had an apartment available in early May, which would have been three months before our lease was up, but even with transfer fees and deposit, we'd end up saving what we paid in a couple months.

So we decide to go ahead and do it. The apartment was a little smaller and a little further away than ours is now, but it was a good deal. Between the two of us working, however, neither of us was able to get back over to the leasing office during the week. We had 48 hours to respond to the offer, so on Wednesday Sarah called and left a message saying yes, we did want to transfer. Thurday I called back to confirm we wanted to transfer. Both times we left messages, because nobody in the office answered the phone.

Friday I get a call from the leasing office there. "Hey, just calling to see if you guys were still interested in the transfer. The price has gone up, but we'd be happy to give you a new quote, just let us know!" I proceeded to leave a very irritated message saying I'd be in on Saturday or Sunday, and that I was not. Happy. I had communicated with one leasing person first through email, and then a different one when we went in, and the first girl emailed me Saturday, saying she didn't really know what was going on, she'd given the other girl our messages, but she would be there over the weekend and would be happy to talk to me. I sent a very irritated, slightly awesome email about how I was not pleased about having to get a new quote, how we had responded within the time frame but because they weren't there to answer the phone we were being forced to get a new price, etc.

Sunday afternoon. I went over to the complex and spoke with the girl who had emailed me. She had talked to the manager, and even though the price had gone up by over $60 dollars/month, they were willing to "split the difference" and give the apartment to us at $30/mo more than our original quote, but still less than the current price. Sarah and I were both so fed up at this point that we decided you know what, it's not worth it. The apartment is smaller, the drive is further and inconvenient, the only reason we were going to do it was because of the deal, and even though it's still a lot less, we're both totally pissed off at the leasing staff, and that's never a good way to start in a new apartment.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

general updatings

stessringold@hotmail.com — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:34:34 GMT

I just want you to know, I am still alive. I just haven't updated LJ in a while. I've started like, seven different entries, but never got around to finishing them.

Life is ok. Mom is doing great, she's back at almost her usual self, just a little more conscious of those things that caused the stroke to happen. I was a little sick too, week before last, but I'm ok now. Work and everything else pretty much progress as normal. I went to Kentucky with my brother for a weekend, got to see all my cousins and spend some time with family, which was fun. And this last weekend I started up RenFaire rehearsals again, so I'll be doing that for a while.

Overall life is kinda uneventful, still trying to work out how to pay taxes along with everything else, but maybe I'll make it work. I'm writing again, which is a good feeling. I'm going to try to push myself to do more.

So, um...Happy March?

today

stessringold@hotmail.com — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:40:51 GMT

So, my mother had a stroke. A small...mild I guess, stroke, on the right side of her brain. She woke up this morning and had no feeling at all in her left arm. She's a nurse, though, so when it didn't go away like what happens when your arm falls asleep or something, she knew she needed to go to the ER. She had a bunch of different tests done, a catscan, an MRI, and something else they tested to make sure that there weren't any side effects or any major things that could have caused it. She's just fine, they didn't find anything wrong. Her arm is still a little weak, but she's ok. She's being held overnight, but she is okay.

Needless to say, this...was....scary. To say the least. It was scary enough with my dad - when he had all those problems - it was a scare, and I thought then how lucky I was that I still had them both. But...then...it was so random. It wasn't like...like this. This is totally something that...that really could have... ...

So...yeah. Some things in our lives are changing. And we'll see how life goes from here. But this scared me, a lot. This...well it has not been my week, so far. And it's only Tuesday.

step 1: smash head into wall. step 2: repeat.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:39:49 GMT

So, what was a relatively unexciting, boring, not-at-all interesting weekend turned very sour very quickly. And by that I mean, I did my taxes on Sunday and apparently I owe the guvm'nt quite a bit, actually. I guess they haven't been taking enough out of my paychecks, which, hey, you know, I can't really complain that much. But now I have to save money like whoa so I don't get you know, arrested. Or something. Not fun.

Once I got over the sticker shock, as it were, I realized you know, maybe this is a good thing. I need to break these spending habits, and obviously the "owing my mother over $400 thing" wasn't really doing it. Maybe the "owing the government over $1200 thing" will. I CAN do this, it will just require a lot of willpower. oh lord help me.

So, in an attempt at something of a "last hurrah of random spending" I dragged Sarah to go see Coraline at the movie theaters. You could tell that people weren't paying for movies anymore - on a Sunday evening there weren't very many cars in the lot and only two other people in our theater. That movie is awesome and creepy as hell. And very beautifully animated. And creepy. With some suprisingly good voice work by Teri Hatcher and Dakota Fanning, really neat characters and interesting music. Also, it was totally creepy. Did I mention that already? Yes.

Creepy in a good way though. It's truly a horror movie for kids. It's the kind of thing that would have given me SO MANY NIGHTMARES OMG but at the same time is totally awesome. I likened it to a more kid friendly version of Pan's Labyrinth - you sort of think you're in this harmless but slightly eerie fantasy story until everything goes so very very wrong. I highly recommend it to anyone over the age of 12.

Creepiest part of the story for me? Silent Whybie. THAT was the point that I started going "BAD! NO! SHE IS BAD CORALINE GET AWAY!" "I thought you might like him better this way, so I fixed him." AAAHH. AND THEN. SHE SEWS HIS FACE INTO A SMILE AND I THINK PART OF ME JUST DIED. That was way freakier to me than anything else.

And, I dunno about you - if you've seen it yet - maybe it was the music? Or the way they panned out at the end? I know they showed the cat at the end and not the door like I was SO SURE they were going to, but I didn't feel safe AT ALL. Like, I felt like you had to know that eventually the Other Mother would get that key, somehow. Coraline didn't destroy it, just threw it down the well. The door is still there, and therefore the threat still exists. I...I don't think I could have lived in that house after that.

Anyway, we'll see how the next few weeks pan out. I know I'm not the only one with financial worries, but I thank God every day that I still have a job I love, and a nice apartment and a cool roommate (who will go see creepy kids movies with me), great friends, and a loving family. As long as I have all that, I think I'll be ok.

so cold

stessringold@hotmail.com — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:47:41 GMT

So very, very cold.

I have a new lj layout! I like it a lot. Yay for free iStock photos and boredom. I'm supposed to be putting away laundry, but that was a way more fun way to waste an hour.

Looks like I'm going to go to Kentucky in two weeks with my brother for the weekend! Road trip! Except he's totally going to drive, and I am going to DIE. My aunt is getting all the cousins together, since we haven't all seen each other since like, four Christmases ago. Should be fun!

We got crazy snow today too, more than 3 inches in less than 2 hours. Riiight at the end of rush hour. GREAT TIMING THERE, ZEUS. There were some nasty wrecks (one closed an entire highway, and involved more than 30 vehicles), but my office all survived in one piece. It took me almost half an hour to get to work though, and I live less than ten minutes away. It was fun times.

I really, really want to turn up the heat, but Sarah will be home in twenty minutes and she will yell at me :P electric bill schmectric bill

I'm just rambling now for an excuse to keep posting an entry instead of being productive. /end ramble.

this is all your fault, world. all of you.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:10:52 GMT

Oh Twilight. I have been sucked in. I don't even really LIKE the books, and I have been sucked in. Worst part is, I inadvertently got my roommate addicted to them as well. (like, she drove twenty minutes away because our Wal-mart did not have Eclipse to buy, woe. And now I don't have to buy them because she did.) See, someone loaned her the first book, and then I finally got convinced (after several people tried) to read the book, so I borrowed the borrowed copy from her. But then, in a truly ironic incident, I gave myself a papercut, and bled all over a page of my friend's book about vampires. :P So i bought him a new book, which I promptly returned to Sarah, and in the process of telling her how incredibly...teenage they were, she was convinced to read it, and the rest, y'all, is history.

And when I say teenage, I truly mean that. That is what they are - they are every teenage girl's fantasy. I refer again to the hilarious cleolinda , who has recapped all the books and the movie, finds them utterly hilarious but loves them like cake. Her assessment of the series is so correct, why people love them so much. I understand why some people absolutely hate them. To be honest, the writing is average, the characters are predictable and stereotypical most of the time, and a lot of the interaction is unoriginal. But I think that this is exactly why these books are so appealling to so many. Stephenie Meyer was not a writer - she was just someone who had an idea and decided to write about it. She wasn't trying to BE a writer - this is a crucial distinction for me.

See, I try to BE a writer. I want to write something that people will read and think, "Wow, that's really well written." I've been trying for...oh...ten years to be at the level that I feel like I can be considered a writer. And I have gotten better. If I had published (or tried) what I wrote when I was in high school/early college, it would have been just as terrible as far as characters, plot, and interactions - probably worse, because I was trying to acheive a standard - I was trying, in essence, to be a writer except I wasn't.

Meyer succeeds where I wouldn't have, and that's that she is not writing for the...writerly crowd. She's writing for every teenage girl who's had a dream about the bad boy that they just want to change. They aren't...literary. At all. She references things like Wuthering Heights and other literary works, and you can see where the inspiration came from - but they aren't written to be like that. Not only that, they are written in first person (which I inherently detest, by the way), so now you not only have books written by a normal person FOR normal people, but you then have it in the perspective of a (at least mostly) normal teenage girl. THIS is why they are so relatable, why it is so easy to get caught up in the story and the moment - because you can allow yourself to believe (if you are a girl, i suppose) for a moment that you ARE Bella Swan, because she is so very normal. She's not another race, or religion, or species, or from another time or planet. She's a normal high school girl, and if this was a normal high school book about normal high school people, it still wouldn't be that special. But because it is all those things AND has that element of fantasy and myth, it IS easy to get sucked into, because suddenly it is NOT normal, it is surreal, and that escapism from the normalcy of what would have been Bella Swan's completely average and uninteresting life story is where the draw is.

Edward is not an interesting character. He is creepy, stalkery, kind of devoid of any emotions except obsession and jealousy. Well okay, that just made him sound interesting, but not in a good way. It's only because of Bella that the reader finds him at all attractive because of the fact that the book is told through first person. I am convinced that if it was not, if it was in third person or from another point of view that Edward would be entirely detestable, and the whole WORLD would be on Team Jacob. (For the record, katyvendetti , I am suprisingly not on Team Jacob. Nor am I on Team Edward, suprisingly. I might have been on Team Mike Newton, although I'm not sure if I have a team.)

I could weigh in more thoughts, but I have been surreptitiously adding to this post kind of all day, and it is time now to go spend time with my family and celebrate my dad's very belated birthday. Perhaps I will write more when I finish Breaking Dawn. (I haven't read that one yet, but I know what happens, and I laughed so hard last night when Sarah comes in my room going WHAT THE HELL. SHE IS ___")

He said, She said...

stessringold@hotmail.com — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:52:42 GMT

I went to church this morning, I didn't know if my folks would be there, but I didn't go last week either and I wanted to go. Turns out my parents are in Columbus. I called them after service and told them they needed to download the podcasts for the last two weeks. I'm listening to last week's now.

They're doing a series on Song of Songs. This is a very large church - and I have never been to a church that dared to do a series on this book in such a public format - not in a small group, or class setting. Dave Rodriguez is not a man to be afraid of talking about tough stuff, and being real about it though. I sat in the back of the auditorium, in the very top row. I could see almost everyone in the room. It was one of the most amazing sermons I've ever listened to. We were talking about Chapter 2 of Song of Solomon - it was outstanding.

Even as a perpetually single woman, I was still touched by the message - seeing every couple in the room looking at each other and laughing, or putting arms around another as Dave Rod. talked - it was so neat. He talked about the line where the "beloved" or woman says "His banner over me is love", and talked about how it was a military term - how men would carry the names of the god they were fighting for on a standard or banner into battle, and how it meant that the lover was fighting for the woman - fighting for their relationship, fighting for her. Despite the fact that I inevitably ended up with "Carrying the Banner" from Newsies stuck in my head - I just thought it was an amazing visual. How we need to carry the banner of our loved one into battle when we face things like pornography, or temptation. Carry the banner. It was great.

They had a panel of couples, one that had been married for 7 years, one for probably 10-20, and then another that had been together for 43 years. After the message, Dave asked them what they were thinking. The younger couple talked about how hard it was to focus on each other with kids around, but they still thought each other were totally hot (which made everyone laugh). Then the man from the oldest couple said something about what Dave had mentioned about touching and kissing, and how it was a good reminder to ourselves and everyone that we're still in love. And he said "After 43 years, it's still a thrill." What a great line. There was a couple in front of me with their teenage daughter, and she was blushing so hard, but her parents were laughing, and I thought, I hope she knows how lucky she is. I do. My parents still love each other so much, they still FALL in love with each other all the time. I have never, not ever been grossed out about the idea of my parents being intimate because I love the fact that they still are, even after 30-odd years of marriage. Heh, it was funny too - Dave talked about telling each other constantly why you fell in love with that person, and why you're still in love with them. And he goes , "Try it today. You never know where that might go!" LOL! My preacher is giving people tips on how to get lucky with their spouse. IN CHURCH. I LOVE IT.

Seriously though, it was one of the most amazing, touching, and powerful messages about love I've ever sat through, and this is week 2 of 4 on this series. I'm not missing next week, even though he said it would be "kinda awkward, and DON'T BRING YOUR KIDS!". I'm guessing this is the "your breasts are like young does" section. Heee. If you are interested, you can listen to the podcasts on the website - they don't have this week up yet, of course, but they have last week's.

i hate winterrrrr

stessringold@hotmail.com — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:43:46 GMT

I really, really need to move somewhere where I don't have to scrape more than 2 inches of snow off my car...twice. In one day.

That is all.

My songs

stessringold@hotmail.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:35:43 GMT

I have found my song.

I have had a lot through the years. They change as I change. But this one, I think, I might be something I hold on to, at least for a while. It's how I live. Plus I like the song, and the singer. I've had the CD for awhile now, I just really realized that this song is me.

I Stand - Idina Menzel

When you ask me who I am,
What is my vision, do I have a plan,
Where is my strength, have I nothing to say?
I hear the words in my head and I push them away.

Because I stand for the power to change,
I live for the perfect day.
I love 'til it hurts like crazy,
I hope for a hero to save me.
I stand for the strange and lonely
I believe there's a better place,
I don't know if the sky is heaven,
But I pray anyway.

And I don't know what tomorrow brings,
The road less traveled, will it set us free?
'Cause we're taking it slow, with these tiny legacies,
If I don't try to change the world,
Then what would you make of me.

'Cause I stand for the power to change,
I live for the perfect day.
I love 'til it hurts like crazy,
I hope for a hero to save me.
I stand for the strange and lonely,
I believe there's a better place.
I don't know if the sky is heaven,
But I pray anyway.

Honorable mentions can go to a couple other songs, with equally powerful and appropriate words. Since I'm in a sharing sort of mood, here they are:

Unwritten - Natasha Beddingfield

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you, Open up the dirty window,
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it, Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you, Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Brave - Idina Menzel (I seriously love her)

Don't know just where I'm going
And tomorrow, it's a little overwhelming
And the air is cold, And I'm not the same anymore
I've been running in your direction
For to long now
I've lost my own reflection
And I can't look down
If you're not there to catch me when I fall.

If this is the moment I stand here on my own
If this is my rite of passage that somehow leads me home
I might be afraid, but it's my turn to be brave
If this is the last chance before we say goodbye
At least it's the first day of the rest of my life
I can't be afraid, cause it's my turn to be brave

All along all I ever wanted, was to be the light
When your life was daunting
But I can't see mine When I feel as though you're pushing me away
Well who's to blame, are we making the right choices
Cause we can't be sure if we're hearing our own voices
As we close the door even though we are so desperate to stay

If this is the moment I stand here on my own
If this is my rite of passage that somehow leads me home
I might be afraid, But it's my turn to be brave
If this is the last chance before we say goodbye
At least it's the first day of the rest of my life
I can't be afraid, Cause it's my turn to be brave

And I might still cry
And I might still bleed
These thorns in my side
This heart on my sleeve
And lightening may strike
This ground at my feet
And I might still crash
But I still believe

This is the moment I stand here all alone
With everything I have inside, everything I own
I might be afraid, But it's my turn to be brave
If this is the last time before we say goodbye
At least it's the first day of the rest of my life
I can't be afraid, Cause it's my turn to be brave

Other honorable mentions:
"Defying Gravity" and "For Good" - from Wicked

This one may go down as one of my weirdest and yet, most introspective dream ever.

stessringold@hotmail.com — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:05:10 GMT

I am not entirely sure if this is the correct order of the dream, but iin the retelling this makes the most logical sense. I don't remember it all, there are bits and pieces of it that I have forgotten in the last hour of being awake. It is also possible that this was two dreams, if I woke up when my alarm went off and then went back to sleep, so the complete disconnect between the first and second parts might be because of that.

So, I guess I had either gone back in time, or something? Because I was in this college, a major one, obviously, because there were some really famous people there. First of all, I kept trying to get to the third floor, but none of the elevators seemed to either want to let me on, or stop there. The buttons were malfunctioning. So I had to take the stairs, which were really crowded. Since I only wanted to go down two floors, I hopped over and swung down on the banisters. Nobody seemed to notice, but I thought I was the only one who did that until I met another guy who was too. We went to class together. I was taking "Applied Mathematics", and for the first day of class we did a set of activities that involved three different rooms, mostly edible activities that we weren't allowed to eat yet, and was taught by Oliver Platt, and someone else famous who I can't remember. It might have been Tim Gunn. I got the activity of putting a wall-clock together. Then there was something involving a frying pan full of Hamburger. There were other people in my group, but Harrison Ford (a much younger Harrison Ford, which is why I think I went back in time) kept eating everything, and me and Steve Carrell kept laughing at him. The next room involved strawberries, and Harrison got in trouble for eating them. :(

There may have been a transition I don't remember, or this might be when i woke up and went back to sleep, but regardless, the dream changed. We were in some sort of futuristic, almost apocalyptic world where everyone was building this giant building, and most of the people had devolved to where they looked kind of like gummies. These were the people that had lost all hope, but some of us still looked normal, but were paler than normal. But whomever the "ruler" of our little world was, was really cruel, and would kill people off in big groups for no reason. I guess I was killed for being normal, I don't really remember what I did. But in my group was two other normal people, one who was a really charming guy but a pickpocket, and the other was a really scared girl, and then there was a gummy mom with like, twenty kids. We would be killed in this giant, moustrap like thing that would snap us into a bunch of pointy spears. Rather primitive, but that was what these people were like. But then, there was someone else in our group. Someone who could still stand up tall, and wasn't pale and hopeless looking. I knew right away who he was, and felt stronger. I faced my death, knowing that I was dying right beside the Jesus of that world.

I actually did die, in the dream too. but it was more like a movie thing, they release the spear-trap and suddenly we wake up in this brightly lit, welcoming room. The girl didn't really understand what had happened, she was going around looking at everything. The mom and kids kind of vanished, if they were even there, I don't remember. The guy went off with Jesus, and the girl and I started walking around. It was like a big resort, with tons of restaurants and bars and a big pool, and a huge outdoor area with a forest and a lake, and all sorts of fun things. There were people eating at the tables, and then there were waiters, but when the people were done they would switch places, like everyone was helping everyone else and nobody got left out. There was an information desk inside where they sold tickets to things like waterslides, and mountain rides, and random crazy stuff, and we found we had money, so we bought tickets to everything. I looked at the girl, she looked so amazed, and I said, "Haven't you figured out where we are yet?" Then her eyes got really wide and I think she understood. Then the charming guy who had been with us walked over looking kind of upset. I asked what was wrong and he said he might be going back. "It's not my time," he said. "I guess I just get to go back and sit on a beach being a drunk, since that was what I was before. But he said he might have something for me to do." I was sad that anyone would get to come here and then have to leave. But I told him he'd get to come back, but he didn't seem convinced. He left.

This part I can't remember exactly where it fell in the dream, but I know it must have been after we arrived in Heaven. I was outside, walking around on a sort of cloudy area (as in, most of it was made of clouds), and I saw these great raised platforms full of different people. They looked very impressive, and as I walked past one I saw a group of people that I knew instantly. I was suprised, really suprised to find them here in heaven, but I walked up to them and bowed a little. They all welcomed me. "You're - you're the Greek gods, aren't you?" Hera and Zeus nodded. They motioned for me to come and join them. I said hi to everyone, knowing who they were at once. Hera was beautiful in all white and gold, so was Zeus, who didn't look as old as he was often depicted. Aphrodite was waving down at people as they passed, occasionally looking hurt that people didn't fawn or wave back at her. I wanted to sit by Athena, but she was sitting up on a pedestal, looking all stoic and wise, but she smiled at me. I ended up sitting down beside Artemis, who looked about 12 years old, and I think Demeter, her dress all covered in flowers. Apollo was sitting across from us, and he took a liking to me right away and started having a furious tickle fight with me. Everyone was laughing. I think at some point I asked them how they ended up in heaven, since they were gods. Zeus explained that they realized they weren't the most powerful gods at all, and that they believed in our God too, so he let them come and live with him there. They didn't use their powers anymore, just enjoyed the benefits of being in heaven and meeting the people who had loved their stories. We were waiting for something to happen, something big. It might have been some kind of parade, or procession. We sat there on the pedestal for a whie, laughing and talking, and I think I woke up before what ever it was happened. But I think now I understand what we were waiting for.

It's weird though, to wake up and realized you dreamed about dying and going to heaven, realizing exactly how you imagine heaven in your own mind, and finding the sort of people you think, or wish, would be there too. The weirdest part was being led to my death, I think, but watching the man in front of me the whole time, knowing who he was. Knowing what was happening. I died in the dream with my head up and a smile on my face. I think that says something about me, at least I hope it does.

But that I'd imagine myself sitting with the ancient Greek gods, having tickle fights with Apollo and discussing all sorts of things about the world and knowledge and music with them all, while we wait for the final judgement, for everyone to join us, was really bizarre. I always assumed I woud find my family first, but I didn't see any of them. I typically don't try to read into my dreams, but this one I feel like I have to. I didn't find any friends, any famiy, just these figures out of legend that I've studied and read about and seen paintings and sculptures of. It was weird. I don't know what it's supposed to mean, if it does anything. I don't believe that I will meet the ancient Greek gods in heaven, believe me. It's just odd that I did, instead of the others I could have dreamed there.

Happy New Year everybody! I hope 2009 will be a great year! I know it is going to be an important year for America, with our new President, with everything going on in the economy and the world. I'm not clairvoyant or an optimist, but I have a good feeling about this year, and high hopes for what it may bring. I wish the same for all of you.