Dorienne's Log

From kaitco.wordpress.com:

I’ve been using the Lift.do app for much of the past eighteen months. In addition to helping me make flossing, bible reading, and some form of exercise daily activities, it has also given me a graphical display of my writing activities over the last year.

Towards the beginning of the year, I seemed to be writing almost daily, but from August through the remainder of the year, I’ve been declining month over month. It’s one thing to have an inkling that one hasn’t been writing much, but seeing it forces acknowledgement. Of all things I aim to correct in 2015, one of the most poignant will be to correct the above graph.

My lack of writing, however, has given rise to an incredible epiphany about myself.

Lately I’ve been growing a bit concerned about the dark and violent nature of my imagination. When left to simply create out of nothing, my imagination always defaults to something dark and dreary. I noticed it with my NaNoWriMo attempt this year where I decided to write about pedophile serial killer seeking help for his deeds. Last year’s NaNoWriMo was hardly better as I simply started with “Once upon a time…” and 5K words in found myself writing a story about a young boy escaping into his dreams as he is being abandoned by his family. I’m still unsure why my imagination, when left on its own, falls into these dark places and that’s something I’ll have to ponder and pray about at another time. This could arguably be to blame for my reduced writing in the latter part of this year, but I know outright laziness when I see it.

I’ve also been having these very detailed recurring dreams which I almost never have. I hate dreaming entirely because I never dream about horses or flying or living a happy life in my elder years. My dreams are almost always just as dark and horrible as my default imagination, but they often include very realistic circumstances involving people I love.

I had one dream several years ago where my mother and I were walking across campus and she suddenly collapsed. I tried picking her up and dragging her to find help and then I noticed that Death was following us. I then proceeded to drag my comatose mother all across campus, in and out of dorms and classroom buildings, trying to run away from Death. I had another dream about a dear friend of mine, who had just been married and was pregnant at the time. I dreamt that I arrived at work and my co-workers surrounded me to comfort me as they told me my dear friend had been killed in a motorcycle accident. That one was so horrible that I actually woke myself up screaming and I had jumped out of the bed and stood around my bedroom for a few minutes before I understood that I’d just been dreaming. These are just a couple examples of the ones that have stood with me over time, so needless to say, I hate dreaming.

My recurring dream, like most of them, can be easily interpreted. I was in college at the time I had the dream about my mother and losing her would have been incredibly difficult for me, at any time really. My dream about my friend occurred because usually when things are going perfectly for too long, I expect something horrible to happen. My recurring dream includes a mixture of current racial tensions in the country and my own frustrations about my life’s limitations. The end doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me yet, but I’m hoping to forget the dream sooner rather than later.

Despite having a mild understanding of what my recurring dream meant, I started searching online for a dream interpretation forum; something, anything, to help rid me of this recurring dream. In my searching, however, I started to think about what was really bothering me. It’s not the dreams themselves, because I know what they mean, but it’s the fact that I’ve been having these horrible dreams far more frequently than I’ve ever had and they’re recurring.

So, I posed myself some questions. Why was I dreaming so much?? What’s going on in my life that’s causing this? Is it a change in diet? Exercise? Music? Television? What?!?

No answer came to me immediately, so I focused on other things, namely my writing habits as I saw them in the Lift app and then it finally dawned on me: Reduced writing has given my brain no other storytelling outlet and thus, has left all the creative thoughts that used to be spent on a writing project with nowhere else left to go, but into dreams.

It sounds fanciful at first, but I came upon this realization in a slightly empirical manner. As I hadn’t been writing as much I should have been, I initially aimed to fix it by enacting what I called “No Write, No Reddit.” I procrastinate way too much on Reddit and so, I figured that preventing myself from viewing Reddit unless I’d written at least 100 words would kick start my writing and this actually worked. I started writing for a few days and, though it hadn’t occurred to me at the time, I had no dreams during this time. Unfortunately, after a few days, I started to get busy and I stopped writing and Redditing altogether. Then, the dreams started again and then they started to recur and the dreams even included a few slight deviations…almost as if my brain was trying to perfect or edit the dream.

After recognizing the correlation between writing and dreams, I tried to make sure I didn’t go more than 48 hours without some kind of creative storytelling and, Lo! the dreams have stopped. If were really a scientist, I’d test myself further by ceasing all creative activities again, while maintaining consistent diet, exercise, sleep, etc., and then see how long it took for the dreams to restart (and, I still may as that sounds very intriguing), but like I said, I hate dreaming and a simple hypothesis works well enough for me.

I’ve asked God recently about my writing endeavours and had considered giving up the craft altogether to focus on other ambitions, but I think I might have received my answer.

I’m a storytelling through and through. Whether I tell these stories aloud or commit them to the page, they will form and with nowhere else to go, they will internalize and haunt me either way. So, on I’ll continue.

Whether I publish or not, I’m still a storyteller and, if for no other reason than my mental well-being, I’ll continue to tell my stories until the end.

Re-posted from my WordPress.com blog:

Every Sunday for the past three or four years, I’ve had a personal ritual that took me close to a year to recognize. Each Sunday following church, I require a three to five-hour nap. The nap by itself is nothing remarkable as many people take naps on weekends because the time is available, but I am not a nap person. The only time I end up sleeping during the day is when I’ve gone the last 28 hours without sleep and I have to go to sleep; I don’t nap. Every Sunday, however, I require a nap following church.

This Sunday nap only occurs on Sundays when I go to church. After going the entire month of July without setting foot in my church, I’ve tested this empirically and came to a conclusion I suspected long ago, but never had the opportunity to truly examine.

What’s fascinating is that I’m not doing anything that would require sleep on a Sunday afternoon. I usually get a full-night’s sleep Saturday evenings, the drive to the church doesn’t take any longer than the drive to first-job , I don’t wake any earlier than I do during the week and most weeks I don’t do much more than clap a little, sing with the choir a bit and take notes from the sermon. Logically, there’s no need for this Sunday nap, but when I sit down and really consider what is happening to me each Sunday morning, it makes perfect sense.

My current schedule with first-job makes it virtually impossible to visit my church throughout the week, so the only time when I have an opportunity to enter God’s house with the specific purpose of praise is Sunday morning. Every Sunday, however, I run into a gamut of emotions and “whisperings” in my ear that would prevent me from attending church.

First comes sheer laziness, as my bed is never as warm and comfortable as it is when I have to leave it to go to church in the morning. Adding onto that laziness comes procrastination which comes in the form of everything from checking all my e-mail accounts to perusing every single Facebook update from the past sixteen hours, even those I’d read the previous day, and on occasion even finding my way to StumbleUpon or Twitter to really waste the morning.

On Sundays when I make it to church, I must actually battle through all the negative, lazy thoughts and the onslaught of procrastination thrown in my direction just to get myself to the shower. Even after that, I’ve got the slow haul of getting dressed and putting on my makeup and, in that time, all these thoughts of “Wow, you’re already going to be late. You probably should just give up for now.” flow through my head. Some weeks, I give in to this line of thinking and don’t get to church, but when I pray about it the previous night and I set my mind to it, I can usually push through all of this and can get out the door.

Once out the door, a hunger, that I never usually meet so early in the morning, can often set in and all these desires to make pit stops along the way to church come to mind. Perhaps a stop at McDonald’s first? Maybe I’ll just stop at the Walgreen’s real quick to get something? Still, if I focus on the task at hand, I can get to the highway and finally get to the neighborhood where my church is.

My church’s neighborhood is not in the best of places, but that is where God put me and despite my best efforts to go elsewhere…that is where He put me. That said, when I come close to that neighborhood, thoughts of safety sometimes spark. “It’s really not safe for me to be out here” is most common, but even within three minutes of the church I can still get thoughts of all the million other things I’ve got to do that day and given that I’m already late…well, perhaps I can just get there next week when I’ll be on time?

After I push through all of this, I get to the church parking lot and on most days, I’m usually fine once I can see the finish line, but even there, I can still be tempted. Some weeks, I’m almost an hour late for service and the desire to not appear to be one of “those” Christians is deep and on one disastrous occasion, even caused me to just drive home, even though I was already there! With that memory in the back of my mind, thoughts of “You’ve done it before” and “You can always go next week” continually filter into my mind. God is good though and it is rare that I’ll turn away once I get within thirty seconds of the church doors, but still…it takes quite a bit of effort just to get out of the car.

Phew…

All I do on a Sunday morning is get up, get dressed and go to church, but the act of doing all of this is a battle. It’s a weekly battle that gets no easier as time continues; in fact, it gets more difficult the longer I try to walk in line with Christ and, after a morning of stepping around the mental boxing ring with the devil, by Sunday afternoon, I’m completely exhausted and I just need a nap.

I wrote 714 words today (window popped on the screen from “himebrit”) and, while I had to battle to write them, that fight is nothing compared to the one I’ll face next when it’s time to go to church again.

From http://blogs.starwars.com/kaitco:

In the past three months, in between working a little, mentoring a little, and editing Wookieepedia a little, I had been pondering on what, if any, Star Wars items I could see myself collecting.

At first, everything I saw looked completely overwhelming to the point that I could not see anywhere to dip my feet into the collecting pool or even where the best place to simply take a great plunge was. There were key chains and figurines and 10-inch R2’s just waiting to be chosen as well as beautiful prints, hats, busts, Obi-Wan Kenobi boots and those ever-covetous Anakin Skywalker lightsabers. Zounds! The options!

Simply put, I had no idea where to begin (though my ‘lil Vader hoodie is en route as I type).

Even my fail safe love of books left me at a loss when I took a good look at the lengthy list at Wookieepedia that shows all the different novels that made up the EU. I know I counted at least a hundred, without even including the youth novels and non-fiction works out there as well, and quite a few of these were out of print.

All this notwithstanding, I have loved literature since I was a kid and, if my own sense of self-satisfaction cannot be met through the unlikely goal of obtaining every single novel of the expanded universe, I can certainly satiate my pseudo-collecting desires by at least attempting to read as many of those said books as possible.

I now battle my long held stigmas of science fiction literature to learn about the Rule of Two and Yuuzhan Vong, about Naga Sadow and Admiral Thrawn, and to finally learn what happened just before the end of the Clone Wars and just after Anakin Skywalker redeemed himself.

The written word has always fascinated me and so I see the books of the EU a fitting method of cementing Star Wars into my life, (fanfiction will probably follow suit as I have started making notes on my very first one).

I had begun reading A New Hope about a month ago since it preceded even the first film and I will continue with the Splinter of the Mind’s Eye since it was the very first foray into the EU. From there, I will delve into the Lost Tribe of Sith series since those books are already itching to be read on my Kindle, but the remaining 85 will move in, more or less, this order:

Episode IV: A New Hope – Review!
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye – Review!
Lost Tribe of the Sith: Precipice – Review for all 4!
Lost Tribe of the Sith: Skyborn
Lost Tribe of the Sith: Paragon
Lost Tribe of the Sith: Savior

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
Darth Bane: Rule of Two
Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil
Darth Maul: Saboteur
Cloak of Deception
Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Rogue Planet
Outbound Flight
The Approaching Storm
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Republic Commando: Hard Contact
Shatterpoint
The Cestus Deception
The Hive
Republic Commando: Triple Zero
Republic Commando: True Colors
MedStar I: Battle Surgeons
MedStar II: Jedi Healer
Jedi Trial
Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
Labyrinth of Evil
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – I am anticipating this one more than any other novel as I have heard amazing reviews of the book from both Star Wars fans and otherwise.

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
The Paradise Snare
The Hutt Gambit
Rebel Dawn
Death Star
Allegiance
Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – Both anticipating and dreading this one. Novelizations can be almost tedious in comparison to their respective films and, with this being one of my favorite films of all time, I am not sure the novelization will live up to my standards.

Shadows of the Empire
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
The Mandalorian Armor
Slave Ship
Hard Merchandise
The Truce at Bakura
The Courtship of Princess Leia
Tatooine Ghost
Heir to the Empire – I am intrigued by the Thrawn Triology as these books began what started the river of EU books that followed in the past two decades. That said, a part of me thinks that there is no way these can live up to the hype I have placed on them.

Dark Force Rising
The Last Command
Jedi Search
Dark Apprentice
Champions of the Force
Children of the Jedi
Darksaber
Planet of Twilight
Before the Storm
Shield of Lies
Tyrant’s Test
Specter of the Past
Vision of the Future
Survivor’s Quest
Vector Prime – I have been shaking with anticipation to start the New Jedi Order series since I first caught an article about the Vong on Wookieepedia. Out of the whole mix, I think I may enjoy these the most.

Dark Tide I: Onslaught
Dark Tide II: Ruin
Agents of Chaos I: Hero’s Trial
Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
Balance Point
Edge of Victory I: Conquest
Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
Star by Star
Dark Journey
Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
Traitor
Destiny’s Way
Force Heretic I: Remnant
Force Heretic II: Refugee
Force Heretic III: Reunion
The Final Prophecy
The Unifying Force
Dark Nest I: The Joiner King
Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen
Dark Nest III: The Swarm War
Betrayal
Bloodlines
Tempest
Exile
Sacrifice
Inferno
Fury
Revelation
Invincible

Anyone who perused the list may notice that there were whole series I decided to skip and this was intentional. I spent hours skimming through summaries to choose what I thought would interest me the most. I am not sure if this master list is even doable, but that is why I called this a Challenge! instead of my Life-Long Reading List. That said, I am sure there are a few gems I might have missed based on summary since poor summaries can be made about fantastic books, but this is the challenge I have presented to myself and I am going to run through this list heartily.

The goal is also review each one I complete, but I will satisfied if I can just get through the list. I suppose delving into the comics will be the next step in my mental collection, but that is a topic for another day.

Wish me luck! 🙂

From http://blogs.starwars.com/kaitco:

A small, but morbid Star Wars geek has been a part of my psyche since I was ten years old. This is my story:

I remember quite clearly, how the Easter basket that lay on our dining room table picked up the light from the nearby window as its topmost gift shined across the room. I cannot remember what else my mother had got for me that year as an Easter gift and, likewise, I cannot remember much of 1996, but I can remember watching A New Hope on VHS for the very first time.

My mother had thought it incredulous that her only child had not viewed one of the most classic films of all time and had bought it for me “just because.” Her single gift began the flame that flickered and kindled until it roared to life in the early 2000s.

The music was what first caught my attention. Looking back, it seemed that I had already known the music, but was finally able to put it in context. I was then annoyed at the film because I was not able to read all of the beginning story (VHS = no wide screen), but afterward, my mouth hung open for two hours.

Threepio’s movements and accent, R2’s likability and near-human qualities, Darth Vader’s echoed breathing, Princess Leia’s crescent rolls,
the way Luke looked as he stared at the triple sunset…I could go on forever. I was completely enamored with everything I saw.

After my first viewing of ANH, I began to watch it once a week. I adored Princess Leia, was in love with Luke Skywalker and was scheming to get my own R2-D2 as my weekly viewings turned into daily viewings. By my eleventh birthday, I obtained Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and with the “full story” before me, I was poised to make a full leap into the Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, there was need for hesitation.

Star Wars was (and, really, still is) for the nerdy kids and, if that was not bad enough, The X-Files was taking up all the obsessive love I had to give. With adolescence’s cliques and challenges standing before me, there was no way I could hide both X-Files and Star Wars fandom from that table. So, as much as I loved my beautiful VHS trilogy, my love of Star Wars was put on hold.

The year 1999 brought high school and The Phantom Menace simultaneously. While I was indubitably excited about having the chance to see a Star Wars film on the big screen and there was some noise being made about the new film amongst my peers, my desire to remain a part of my clique won over my desire to see TPM and I let the opening weekend pass without a flutter.

Poor critiques of the film, most regarding “that kid” and some apparently annoying character called “Jar-Jar” kept me from seeing TPM on my own and, as the film went out of the theatres, my desires for Star Wars seemed to fade as well.

By chance, however, my neighbors, always keen to be the first to have every new technology and every new film, obtained TPM on DVD and, one night while babysitting their kid, I enticed the youngster to watch the film with me. To be honest, there were moments I forgot my temporary ward was there.

I loved everything I saw. From the opening, to the new worlds, to Amidala’s wardrobe and especially to Liam Neeson. With dozens of people and all the media “telling” me Jar-Jar was irritating, I was truly expecting Carrot Top on speed, but was pleasantly surprised that Jar-Jar did not live up to my worst expectations; young anakin also was not that bad (at least, for the first viewing). The podrace, the music, the species and the battles all enthralled me and re-kindled that old Star Wars fire that had lain dormant, unloved and unwanted, for years and…I wanted more.

Thankfully, Attack of the Clones was just around the corner and I had grown old enough to know how I wanted to be viewed as a person. The bore of high school was nearly complete and I had left its cliques and nonsense when I started half-days, opting to begin collegiate work sooner rather than later. Overall, I was a completely different person than I was when TPM was shown and, when AotC came to theatres, I made certain that I saw it that opening weekend.

As expected, I was floored. Watching Star Wars on the big screen was everything I thought it could be and much, much more. And, I admit it…I fell for Anakin, hard. I went back to see it on my own the next week and the week after that as well. In all, I saw AotC seven times in the theatres, the most for any film (runners up are Harry Potter and Chambers of Secrets and Revenge of the Sith, both at 6 times). The best part was that I did not care whether anyone knew I was going to see Star Wars, again, and that, more than anything made watching the film even better.

After AotC, I began my first dips into the Star Wars community and entered the realm of fan fiction. I just needed more. I wanted more of the story, more Anakin, more Padme, more Obi-Wan. More, more, more! I bought posters and read stories and bought music and read the stories while I listened to the music with posters in the background. At one point, I even began making notes to my own fic. The more I read, the more I learned and the more I learned the more I loved, but like years earlier, another obsession moved Star Wars out of favor: the aforementioned Harry Potter.

Potter took hold and, once again, there was no room for Star Wars, but Potter unfettered the deep nerd within me. For once, I was no longer afraid of what others would think if I were found reading fantasy or visiting science fiction forums and, for the first time, I felt like myself.

By the time Revenge of the Sith was released, however, my Potter love had faded and I was primed for Star Wars. Wearing my very own cloak, I dragged my best friend to a midnight showing of RotS where I was ashamedly underdressed as far fans went and was again, floored by what I saw.

To this day, I still do not care what others may say: RotS is one of the best of the films. In fact my “order” goes Episodes 5, 3, 4, 6, 2, 1; 4 and 6 sometimes trade places, but that is almost always the order. Needless to say, I loved Episode 3. I went on to see it five other times, bringing friends some times and going alone to sit in the second row where I always loved to sit, other times; I bought the soundtrack immediately after Viewing #3.

To say that RotS revamped my Star Wars love is a bit of an understatement. All that went on with AotC was just a drop in the bucket in comparison. I spent so much time reveling in the Star Wars universe, watching the films, visiting forums, reading fan fiction, etc., that others began to take notice and tried to drag me away from it. My friends even threatened intervention if they found me with a Star Wars book and so I lessened the time I spent with the universe, allowing the love to fade…slightly.

Since RotS, I took steps into the working world, walked across a baccalaureate stage and found Jesus, all the while, my adoration of Star Wars was at the back of my mind, pulling me towards “old” websites and occasionally reading things I had told my friends I had given up for the time being.

In the past year, I found Wookieepedia and with it, the desire to finally know everything there is to know about Star Wars. I find myself wanting to read the novels, not just because a film of similar name is in theatres, but because I honestly want to know what happens between and beyond the films. Editing Wookieepedia here and there, entails hours of reading and learning about the expanded universe and makes me want to learn even more through reading the books and comics that make up the entirety of the expanded universe.

I have a very long way to go (I just started reading Episode 1 and, as of this writing, Luke and Obi-Wan had just met Han Solo), but this time around, I doubt my adoration will be fading much.

I know many fans believe that the prequel films were the worst thing that has ever happened to any series, at any point in time, but I beg to differ. The prequels brought an entirely new generation to Star Wars in a manner that could never have happened without new faces and new stories. I know that had I not seen a young Obi-Wan, the “real” Anakin Skywalker and Yoda battle with a lightsaber, I would never have bothered to learn more about Star Wars and the expanded universe.

In all, I love the story. I love the idea of the Jedi, the Sith and the Force, and I love the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker.

My goals here are simple. I am not a rabid, super-fan of Star Wars and I doubt I will ever be. I am not a toy collector (except for Darth Tater because it was just so cute!) and I am just not that into comics. I just want to let loose a little and take hold of that which has had such a hold on me, since I was a child.

Cheers!

In the spirit of doing things because “everyone else is doing it,” and since I have been tagged several times with this, I have created one of these lists:

1.) I am a computer nerd. I love everything about programming and teaching myself new things through trial and error just gets me all a-tingle. I also love the idea that making one mistake can cause the remaining code to implode on itself. It takes the love of striving for perfection to a new level.

2.) I am a grammar nerd, too. There is something about the written word that fascinates me to no end. Watching languages evolve (eg: the use of chatspeak, WTF? OMFG! or lolcat phrases, I can haz new wordz nao! in everyday language) through new technology stimulates me and plays very well with the computer nerd that comprises me.

3.) I love musicians. Anyone who can sing or play any instrument captivates me. There is something about music and it’s ability to cross cultures and withstand time that makes me love those who create it. It is almost like a language of its own…a language I can discover more interesting things about on my computer…

4.) I find half the fun of writing stories in doing hours of research into the most minute of details. For example, in my fanfic novel, Flight, I have Olivia playing the cello because I love musicians, however, I don’t play the cello nor have I ever seen one in real life. The DAYS of research I put on my computer into learning minor cellist lingo gave me more joy than actually writing the two sentences that involved the detail.

5.) I flip flop between a desire to have children or not, often. There are days when I pray that someday I will be a godmother and only a godmother, but then I have these moments when I really, REALLY want two boys and a girl. Or just two boys. Or just one boy. Or maybe just one godson…

6.) I am a Christian, but I often feel more comfortable amongst atheists and agnostics. It is almost as if being surrounded by them reaffirms my faith. I wish I could understand the logic behind it.

7.) I detest things I cannot explain or understand. I think that is why being a Christian, ironically, works best for me. Without Christ’s blessings, I would never be able to have the slightest comprehension of death and would fear it right up until my last breath.

8.) I believe organized religion has done more to corrupt Christ’s work and teachings than any unbeliever ever could or would. I am very much a Christian, so I’m not sure if that makes a whole lot of sense, but it is how I view the church on whole.

9.) The imperfection of my human body disgusts me. I don’t mean it in a sense that my weight is not where I want it to be or I lack any control over my hair outside of braids. I mean it just irritates me that this body has to sleep or the mind just begins to deteriorate. The idea that I have to eat or else I get headaches that tell me, “Yo! Time for food!” or that I have to use the bathroom or take shower (gross, I know.) or, again, sleep, when there are so many other things I could be doing during at the same time is just very frustrating.

10.) The shows I “heart” most are the ones I scrutinize hardest. SVU is the only show I watch on television right now. In fact, this past summer, when SVU was on reruns, I only turned on the television once to see what was happening to the weather as a part of Ike hit Ohio. Since I love SVU as much as I do, it literally pains me when I watch an episode that is boring or just doesn’t make sense. It must be perfect. The acting, the writing, the cinematography; everything MUST be on point or else it is total FAIL.

11.) I admire intelligence before appearance. It took me a while to realize this. I found myself having these teen-like crushes on men who were three times my age with no hair and age spots just because I could see glimpses of how brilliant their minds were.

12.) I carry a chapstick on a “chapstick lanyard” on my keys at all times. That way, there is no chance that I will ever be somewhere and chapstick is not available to me. THAT would surely result in psychoses of epic proportion.

13.) I wake up every morning and tell myself the same thing. “You are the most intelligent and most beautiful person in the world. Now, go show everyone else.”

14.) I’m incapable of maintaining long-lasting relationships. If I haven’t called, e-mailed, texted, PM’d or poked or responded to you in a while, it’s not that I don’t care. It’s just not in my nature to carry on “knowing” people once I no longer see them on a day-to-day basis. Sad, I know, but such is Dorienne.

15.) As tech savvy as I am, I own a VCR. WTF, you say? I no longer have cable, so I if need to tape SVU, I’ll need TAPE SVU. Plus, I’ve acquired about 25 8-hour tapes of nothing but the mothership Law & Order and I need to watch them on something.

16.) @15 – I cried when Jerry Orbach passed away. For a very long time.

17.) I have a set of characters in a series that I have been writing since I was ten years old. I have literally grown up writing these characters. Creepy, no?

18.) There are some days when I forgot how young/old I am. I feel much, much older. Like I am actually about 43 years old instead. It gets kind of depressing when I feel like I’ve passed the 40th birthday milestone, but have accomplished so little in my life.

19.) Since I watched The X-Files religiously from age 10 to age 18, I can honestly say that show shaped me into the person I am today. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? 😉

20.) I abhor everything about Micro$oft, which is why I spell it with a dollar sign. They are just crap and, while I use Firefox and had tried using OpenOffice (it just can’t keep up), it still bothers me that I have to use anything made them.

21.) I am currently going through this phase where I am totally “in to” webcomics. Right now I am reading Questionable Content, xkcd, Wasted Talent, Pictures for Sad Children and Jay Naylor’s Better Days. Google them! They are all kinds of awesome.

22.) @17 – I play my sims in The Sims 2 as one large neighborhood that evolves at the same time. I’ve been playing the game for four years and I am still working on the first generation. I’ve “known” some of my sims longer than I’ve known some of my friends.

23.) I don’t like fancy crosses. I have several crosses in my house and I wear one around my neck that I never remove. ALL of them share a common trait in that they are very, very simple. The cross on which Christ died for our sins was rugged, bare and simple in its own right, so crosses that are interlaced with diamonds or are so ornate that they qualify as “bling” just confuse me.

24.) There are currently 487 discs in my Netflix queue. If I have a new disc sent to me every single day for the next year, I will STILL not have watched everything I have queued. It is well worth it, though. Their service is full of win and I like just watching random movies or TV shows on DVD throughout my week.

25.) It took me a week and a half to find 25 random things to say about myself…sigh…

I’m not even quite sure how I found her blog either. I suppose I could search a bit and…remember that I’ve been branching out from the BBC recently just to see what the “others” have been printing in their news. I can’t say why, but I just can’t trust US-based newspapers anymore. Not to say that the BBC can be trusted either, far from it, but getting that independent view of the country far outweighs the leftist subtleties in American papers. Anyway…

So, I’ve found Michelle Malkin‘s blog and have had to literally (and I don’t actually mean ‘figuratively’ and am just using ‘literally’ because I’m ignorant either) pull myself away from the computer to keep from spending the entire night reading posts and desiring for the ability to comment. I love what is said in most conservative blogs. I think it is just a breath of fresh air after being bombarded with liberal sentiments at nearly every turn I make just because people see my skin colour and know I think the way they do, but I always approach anything wholly conservative with raised eyebrow and heavy skepticism.

Unfortunately, when it comes to conservatives, the radical racists love to associate as well and ruin just about everything they touch. It reminds of a Facebook group in the Ohio State network that was up a year or so ago where a bunch of kids started a “white kids” group and it, of course, was ruined by a bunch of bigots posting crap about Oprah and white power and blah, blah, blah. On face value, it was no different (well, it actually it was, but I’m trying to get to my point sooner rather than later) than the “OSU Black People” or the “I should’ve gone to a blacker college” groups of which I am members on Facebook. The only problem is that bigots latch onto anything that sounds conservative or geared towards whites and destroy it. With this in mind, I delved into Malkin’s articles assuming she looked something like Suze Orman, but could make a lot of sense to young, conservative black woman in a way that intelligent conservatives tend to do.

Right when I completely fell for her lack of any sense of political correctness, I started clicking around on the site and saw that she was of Filipino descent. Now, I’m almost ashamed to admit that the fact that she wasn’t just “another” white Conservative I agreed with and would look like I can’t relate to my race for finding her articles worthwhile was what caused me to not just Bookmark her, but also RSS her site, yet…when I really think about the person I am and the people I find “heroic” or simply admire, it doesn’t seem so shameful.

There is Oprah, of course, (I don’t care how much she spends endorsing Obama, she’s still a Republican since few billionaires aren’t and even if she somehow isn’t – on paper – I learned through some people that you can’t put faith in any icon or hero except for Jesus, but that’s a post in its own right.) who I admire simply because of who she is and also the fact that she is black, being who she is, and I know there’s no chance I’ll ever put Dr. Rice on the back burner just because she’s got a long-needed rest coming, so there’s no denying that I feel an immediate affinity for successful black women because they embody what I’d like to become and, though Malkin’s not black (if she were, I’d be quoting her posts like other people quote Scripture) seeing that she’s not white, but still thinks in somewhere near the same lines as me, another non-white conservative, just makes me like her all the more. There is something so comforting in seeing a conservative being a conservative simply because she can, regardless of race…

I love being a conservative just how I like busting liberals who think that because I’m an American who is black, I automatically have to fit their racist liberal mindset of me and I love “discovering” the fact that I’m not the only person in the world who thinks the way I do.

To quote her from a little something I found through Wikipedia:

I’m not Asian, I’m American, for goodness’ sake.

…and, to phrase it in the urban vernacular to which people who share my skin colour associate: You go, girl!

The greatest thing happened today!

It comes after two of the most endearing and tearful weeks of my life and it takes a special resolve to keep my composure now. This past week might have been the most difficult of all. At times I would seem fine and at peace, but then something would happen to bring out the tears once more.

The funeral…The Homegoing was very nice. I nearly forgot. We don’t have funerals for saved people. We have Homegoings to send them on home to their Father. Her homegoing was just very, very nice.

I got there early to help my cousin set up her video and I was completely unnerved because when I first walked in the church, one of the other members looked at me and said I looked just like her as I walked through the door, and I took it as a complete compliment, but I was still rather unsettled at what the sight of me was doing to her. It was a compliment, however. To be compared with someone who was in tune with her Lord…always a compliment.

So, I’m helping my cousin and another member comes into the sanctuary and she pauses as she stares at me because I’m standing right next to the pulpit. At first, I thought she was going to say something because of what I was wearing (I hardly ever wear a skirt and I was wearing white because I kept telling myself that this wasn’t a funeral, so there was no need to wear black), but then she too told me that she thought I was Edrith standing there. She started crying as she sat down afterward and I had no idea what to do even as I kept rubbing her shoulders and telling her that we all knew where Edrith was. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord…

At that point, the funeral home had not brought her there yet and my cousin and I kept trying to make the video work, but it simply would not function and as I’m handing her my cell phone so she can call my other cousin, her husband, for more direction, the church doors opened and then they came in with her. The casket was a shade darker than Tiffany Blue and I froze. I stood on the pulpit with my cousin who was working with the video equipment just behind it and I stared anywhere except at the casket. I simply was not ready. I had been trying all week long to get ready, but I simply wasn’t.

The Sunday directly after we had first received the news was the most tearful service I have ever experienced. Everyone was so affected and it really hit home when we didn’t see her there. I remember driving up to the stop sign just in front of the church, as it sits on the corner, and I just sat there in my car for a full minute just staring at the church. My hands were shaking and the tears were beginning to come again because I knew what was about to happen. I knew that I was going to walk through the church doors and instead of getting a quick hug from her and a little “happy dance” that I had made on time for Sunday School for the third third week in a row, she would not be there. I eventually gained my composure and got to the church, and you could just see it in everyone’s eyes.

I tried to keep my lesson light-hearted and my other students and I tried to laugh about how Esau must of have looked being covered in red hair and how simple he seemed to give up his birthright for a bowl of soup, but even toward the end of the lesson, I began to feel it again. When we concluded Sunday School, our secretary only had this year’s records because her mind was clearly elsewhere and the atmosphere was very subdued. It only occurred to me then, that our Sunday School director had forgotten to come around and even collect the offerings for my Young Adult class. I also hadn’t realized how much I’d taken for granted seeing her standing next to Deacon Jordan as they concluded. I nearly lost it at first when we consecrated before Sunday School and she was not the one to lead the prayer. I had grown so accustomed to how she would pray: “Oh Heavenly Father, we come to you…” She would continue to say it throughout her prayers: Oh Heavenly Father, this and Oh Heavenly Father that. It was so Edrith and her style of praying and I miss it dearly.

The devotional service was subdued as well. Normally, it is filled with upbeat songs to get everyone in the spirit, but the songs were slow and moving throughout the service. You could just see it on the face of everyone in the church. Hugs lasted longer as you could feel others shake as they tried to hold back tears and I had held it together until I saw our choir director, her best friend. She was surrounded by others who just kept telling her that we all knew where Edrith is, but the tears just kept coming and when I hugged her I broke down with her. I don’t normally cry in public if I can help it, but I broke down as we cried together for our lost sister.

The rest of the service went along, though also greatly subdued, and I kept trying to keep my eyes dry as I stood at the door and greeted people as an usher, but I kept running for the tissues and simply had to leave for the restroom at one point. I normally take a collection plate down the aisles during the missionary offering, but I could not and asked to just hold the door during the offering. I was not ready to see all the faces yet because I knew what was coming.

The announcements went as normal and I nearly lost it altogether when I followed along in our bulletin. A project she had been heading was still on schedule and her name was still there as someone to speak to about the project. Our announcer, also the same member who broke down after thinking I was Edrith standing at the pulpit, had paused as she read the reminder for the event and thankfully read the other name as the event leader, my cousin, but we all saw it and the other ushers came out with several news boxes of tissues.

Pastor said a lot about her and I was okay at first until he started to tear up at the pulpit. Dear Jesus…everyone was crying at that point. It was just so sad because we knew where she went, yet our hearts still wretched for her and still do. The youth was began singing and with each song, I grew more tearful even though I tried so desperately to keep my composure. One of our lead ushers kept asking me if I was okay and I kept saying yes, wanting to believe the words, but during altar call prayer, I held hands with him and another usher as one of the ministers lead the prayer and I started shaking violently because I was trying to hold it together, but the tears kept coming and eventually, he just pulled me into a hug and allowed me weep openly on his shoulder. By the time, the altar call prayer was over, I knew others were crying just as much and even harder than me, but the tears would not stop and I crossed the church to where my mother sat and just fell into her arms as I cried. She pulled me into the hall continually saying “I know baby. I know.” as I just wailed in the hallway. The hardest thing about it was that…as old as I am; I am 23 years old, I live on my own, I have a job, I go to school and I have my own insurance. I am, for all intents and purposes, an adult, but all my grown self wanted, no needed in that moment was my mother. As I crossed the church, I just kept saying to myself “I just want my mommy.” I had never experienced grief before and I’ve found that as grown as I pretend to be, at the end, I just needed my mother.

She eventually took my outside because a short while after we left the sanctuary, Edrith’s goddaughter, also the daughter of her best friend, was having a fit not unlike mine in the arms of her mother and it made me cry even harder. Outside, my mother just kept telling me that these should not be tears that I would never see Edrith again. She said, that we knew where she was and we know that she is praising Jesus right next to the father; she said to me the same thing I had been trying to tell others all morning, but I just needed to hear someone say the same to me as well. We were joined by other friends who had come to check in on me and my one friend began to cry slightly. She said, “I don’t remember who got on me most about coming to church and Sunday School. Edrith or Dorienne.” and it made me laugh because that was just the kind of person Edrith was.

After a while, I was okay and I haven’t had screaming tears like that since, though the silent ones have slipped every now and again and did so immensely at the Homegoing. Throughout the rest of the week, I was so unnerved by the fact that I could be shaken to my knees with grief and be brought to the point that I needed to just hug my mother and cry. I kept having to tell people what happened and write e-mails to my professors to explain what was going on in my life. I had to turn in a paper a week late because I had had every intention on beginning it Sunday night, but it did not cross my mind again until the class I was able to attend that week. Even now, I am still trying to play catch-up, but it is slowly coming along. My employer has been oddly understanding. I had a vacation day scheduled for last Wednesday, but was able to get it moved to last Monday so that I wouldn’t have to just call in “sick” to go to the Homegoing. They let me work “mail” a lot because somehow, listening to someone gripe about why they had to pay a $4.38 finance charge on their credit after I had just lost a dear friend was just bound to cause problems.

Previously, I had never been involved with the plans of a Homegoing. It never occurred to me that the programs that were passed out during the service had to made. Things had to be written for them, they had to be printed and put together. That first week was probably the most stressful week of my life. I offered help where I could and even then I still felt inadequate. That Saturday, nine days after it had happened, I had called our choir director, Edrith’s best friend, and the director of the choir in which Edrith sang, to see if we were going to have a practice/getting together in remembrance of her and she told me that we weren’t and that they were just looking at the site for her grave that day. I went to work that day able to keep it together unlike the previous week, where I was okay until someone asked me what was wrong, after seeing the look on my face and probably noting that I was still in glasses and had on no makeup. My friends from work tried their best to console me and I pulled it together quickly, but I was in no mood to deal with customers regardless.

Last Sunday was the first time we had to sing without her. It was…very difficult. At one point, right before we began another song, Caprica, our director, looked to Edrith’s seat in the choir stand and this look came over her face. She had to keep leaving the sanctuary after each song and I knew she left to weep away from the eyes of the rest of the congregation. We could just sense it as we sang up there. She was with us, but she wasn’t with us and that’s what made me cry hardest during altar call prayer. It was not as drastic as the previous week, but I still cried hard because I knew that at no point again in this life would I look two seats down to the soprano section and see her smiling face.

After service, we had to put the pieces for her programs together and we had this fun assembly line going as we kept the conversation light-hearted via my other cousin, who I had poked and prodded about the staples not being on the pre-made creases from the assembly line until she sat back and let me do it. It took close to three hours, but I stapled together all 200+ programs…directly on the crease. 🙂 We had pizza together before afternoon service, and we joked and laughed and just talked like women do when we get together and every once in a while we’d talk about how pretty her picture was on the programs and who was doing her hair and such. It was a very bonding moment for all of us and I got to show my sarcastic side more than I had previously.

All of this was going through my head when the men from the funeral home came in the sanctuary with the casket and when they had opened up the casket and I could just make out her hair between the top of the closed part and where I stood, I handed my phone to my cousin and I ran away into the side hall. I had tried to keep it together, but I really wasn’t ready. I came back quickly, though, to help her and when it looked like she got a good handle on making the video work again, I left again to sit just in the hall. I hugged those I knew who had come through the doors and at one point I stood just to the side of the casket’s opening and could see the white of the pillows around her face before I left again. My other cousin just kept repeating that we were not having a funeral. We were just sending her home.

With everything set up, we filed up to see her and I was holding the hands of two of my cousins as we walked toward the casket. I began to shake again as we approached and I thought I was going to lose it again and I felt my cousin squeeze my hand just as tightly as I squeezed hers as we finally got there.

Her hair done exactly like she always had it, even with the little flip across her forehead and as my other cousin said as we stared at her, she really looked at piece with all the white around her. My memory of what I saw is very blurry because the tears were coming down my face so readily that it blurred my vision, but that’s okay because that’s not how I plan on remembering her anyway. All of my memories of her are happy, not sad at all.

Our choir, with my two cousins included, took the choir stands, but as we sat waiting for the service to begin we noticed how full the sanctuary was and by the time service was about to begin, some of the actual church members were sitting in the choir stands with us to make room for all those who had come to pay their respects for her. It was just so full. The doors of the sanctuary remained open and they had set up more seats out in the hall to account for all the people. We actually ran out of programs and someone had to quickly run out and have some xeroxed to accommodate everyone who was there. What is amazing is that there were so many people and yet, lots of people had already left during the wake and even more had left because there just wasn’t anywhere else to sit. So loved…

I kept it together for the most part once we were in the choir stands and we sang twice before they showed her video. Tears were streaming down my face throughout most of it and I was trying so hard to pull things together because I knew what the last song we were going to sing was and it was always one of my absolute favorites.

As this was a Homegoing and not a funeral, the songs we sang were bright and uplifting and that is how we sing “Pass Me Not.” I think I’ll post of video of us singing it a couple months ago in this post…but my favorite part of “Pass Me Not” is when we break the harmony and the different parts sing alone. Edrith was a soprano and though she was not some Whitney Houston-type singer, she could carry the soprano part all by herself and even before October 5th, it was one of my favorite parts of the song; how Caprica would point to Edrith and the other sopranos and we would just continue with the song from that point. I knew the song was coming and I glanced at where she should have been sitting. We had lain this shimmering throw over one of the seats in the soprano section, right where she should have been, and tears fell down my face before we even started the song because I knew whose voice I would not be hearing as I tried to maintain my own alto part.

Right when we broke into the soprano, alto and tenor parts like normal, the tears began to flow even harder, but I sang Edrith home as loud as I could. Afterward the music was playing and Pastor was yelling about how great God is and how we’re just singing our sister on home and I had a little moment of my own. I’ve never been one to be so moved during service that I dance and so on, but I had this moment where I was sort of bouncing in my seat a bit as I cried tears of mixed joy and sorrow. Something like that for a person like me is akin to jumping up and screaming and taking laps around the sanctuary as I screamed “Jesus!” I really can’t explain that moment, but it brought me peace afterward and throughout the rest of the service.

I rode in the car with my cousins and some other friends to the grave sight and we had a nice talk on the way there. We sang along with some of gospel songs that had come on the radio and jokingly suggested what we wanted for our own Homegoings. No one really wants to think that kind of thing, but it’s good to get it out early on so that when tragedy strikes, everyone knows what you wanted. Caprica had said to us that Edrith hadn’t wanted a sad funeral. She wanted it to be joyous and she wanted everyone to be happy. That kind of conversation had probably taken place months or years earlier, but at least we knew what she wanted.

I should ask my cousin what the exact number of her marker is because with all the twists and turns we had done in the cemetery, I know I’ll never find it again on my own. She rests by several large trees and it is so peaceful out there…

We had dinner at the church afterward and I had to explain my choices for vegetarianism multiple times and endure several calls of “I’ve never heard of a black person who didn’t eat chicken.” before I was able to sit. I sat next across from friends and between Pastor and one of the ministers I just call “Paw-Paw” even though we’re not related. I laughed a lot when talk with Paw-Paw turned to me ever getting married, since Pastor had talked about how Edrith was not willing to settle for anyone, but waiting on a good man. I had never given it a lot of thought, but I really do want Paw-Paw to dance at my wedding someday, so I should probably get on with that, too.

This past week had gone by in interesting spurts where I was upbeat having sang her home to points when I wanted to watch one of our church DVDs, but knew I couldn’t because I knew most of the services I have are ones where our choir sang and I wasn’t ready to see her just yet and the thought of that kind of brought me down a bit. Most interesting is that I don’t see myself ever trying to sleep in on Saturdays anymore. I don’t know because I know getting up at eight on Saturdays when I don’t have to probably won’t keep anyone else from passing, but I still don’t see myself doing that anymore.

But…today, the greatest thing happened.

I had been so crazed this week trying to just push through things that I hadn’t got to the lesson until I was literally driving myself to the church. I won’t be allowing that to happen again because there’s just no excuse for it. I know I should be prepared to teach the adult class on any given week and it would have been due justice if Deacon Jordan had looked at me and asked and I would have had to tell him that I simply wasn’t ready, but we got through the lesson and had a rather fine discussion as a whole group as Sunday School concluded, though it was very small with the fewest people I’d seen there yet.

As I stood my post at the door later on, greeting people and handing out the bulletins, I saw her mother and hugged her as she came through the door, though I had never hugged her previously even though she was a church member. Some people I hug, some people I don’t because we just don’t know each other like that, but she I hugged and probably will continue to hug each Sunday. What was so great though, is that directly behind her was a face that had only become familiar to me last Monday. One of Edrith’s sisters had come to our church.

I remember Caprica telling us after it had happened that Edrith was the only one of siblings who was saved and seeing her sister this morning nearly brought tears to my eyes. Throughout the entire service I kept praying and praying that the Word would touch her and that she would see reason to join and “give her life to Christ” today and like always, my Lord Jesus answered my prayer when I prayed so earnestly. She probably had made up her mind to do it when she got up this morning, but I prayed for her anyway. I was so sad for her when I saw her at the Homegoing because I knew she wasn’t saved and that was probably the hardest thing to deal with, but there she was and when Pastor Emeritus opened the doors to the church this morning, she stepped out in the aisle and I nearly burst into tears.

She joined the church today. She’s older than Edrith was, but she’d never been baptized and I’m just so happy and I burst forth with happy tears. Anytime I see someone join the church, it is cause for me to smile, but she in particular was most moving.

It’s done! It’s done! It’s finally done! It’s a good two weeks after I had intended on having it done and an hour and forty-three minutes outside of the final deadline I had given myself, but…IT’S DONE!

Flight, a novel is finally complete. It’s weird though…I think I was more excited as I wrote the very last section of it, than I was when I wrote “El Fin” and added a timestamp at the bottom of the book. It’s current, unedited state it stands at 371,393 words and 707 pages in M$ Word. It was completed Thursday September 27, 2007 at 1:43AM EST. Looking over it now, I see it’ll be a couple day’s worth of editing before it’s ready to be viewed by the world, but…I’ve done it. I finished a novel. How many people can say they’ve done that?

Edit (9/30/07): I completed my first “edit” of the book and feel that it is finally ready for others to read. The new word count is 372,036, but still 707 pages. 🙂

I have had this Dante’s Inferno test as a bookmark for ages, almost as long as I have had my own computer. Here is the result I got when I took it today:

The Dante’s Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Level | Score
Purgatory | Very High
Level 1 – Limbo | High
Level 2 | Low
Level 3 | Moderate
Level 4 | Very Low
Level 5 | Very Low
Level 6 – The City of Dis | Very Low
Level 7 | Low
Level 8- the Malebolge | Low
Level 9 – Cocytus | Very Low

Level descriptions: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-information.html
Take the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

The first time I took this test was probably in 2003ish and I remember feeling slightly uneased by the fact that I got Eighth Level of Hell as a result. I laughed off the test (it is something someone came up with on Tickle), but I was still troubled by what I saw. I did not think I was living a “bad” life, but there it was, spelled out for me: The Eighth Level of Hell. I had taken the test several times in these past years, but today was the first time I’d taken it in at least a year and I got purgatory. Even if I lied on the answers in the past, I never got purgatory, yet, out of the blue I was going through the links in my Bookmarks and decided to take the test again.

I am not overly enthused by this new result, but I am somewhat proud of it. I’ve been feeling like a new person in Christ for the past year, and every once in a while, I receive yet another confirmation like this one. I am not the same person I was at 20, and while the fact seems simple and plain, it is a truth of which I’ve grown quite fond of remembering.

**Sigh***
Finally! Back where I belong and everything’s falling into place. For the first time in months, my outlook does not look so bleak. I’m doing what I should be doing and at the end of this quarter, I’ll be taking a long-awaited and long-deserved break. Of course, I’ll still be working, but at least I won’t be working and in school at the same time for a week.

I feel like this over-bearing weight is every-so-lightly lifting off my shoulders day by day, and I really do think that everything will be all right. I attribute 90% of this to going to church this week and making it to Sunday School on time. Everyone was so surprised to see me there, not racing in just before consecration. I start teaching on my own this Sunday and I’m really excited about it. I hope it’s not boring for everybody. I suppose if it doesn’t work out, they’ll either move me somewhere else or fire me altogether, but I’m hoping I don’t let anyone down on this. There’s a Wednesday night service tomorrow and I really can’t wait. I’m half mad since I didn’t get to put my tithes in on Sunday because I completely forgot about it. Usually I just have Mother throw it in for me, but she was busy with her own things and wasn’t there. I’ll have to find someone I trust to put it in on days when she can’t be there.

The written word is in the air and it’s loving me! I’ve been writing everyday and I feel like the well of words just keeps flowing. I’ve never been this in tune with a piece before. I feel like since I’ve completely laid out the plot, writing the details is all the more exciting. I love looking back on my old work and see how I’ve progressed as a writer. I wish this book was 100% my original with all my own characters and such, but all I can keep saying to myself is that this is just my way of proving to myself that I can write; that I can create and stay on target. God Lord! The day I actually finish it, I’ll be singing from the rooftops. I sort of want to delve into some of my other works, but I know I mustn’t. I must stick to this and finish it out; must keep the ADHD at bay! It’s what always kills me in the end. I finally have an idea on what must be done with A Ten-Minute Speech and I’m so excited to start, really start, writing the Luka books, I could just burst into flame. It’s all I want to do and all I want to think about. Sometime last week I found myself daydreaming about my own characters. My characters! That never happens and I keep wondering what it really means. With this fanfic novel, I’ve finally conquered my PC-writing demons. For years, I haven’t been able to writing creatively on a computer, forcing me write everything longhand and spend the next year deciphering my longhand as I type the entire thing. It’s a good thing that I’ve learned this now, because I’ve realized I have the tendency to be quite verbose. I’ve only just finished the first chapter of Flight and the book’s 10,928 words and 20 M$ Word pages. I’m wondering just how long it’ll take me to break my goal of 100K. The first chapter’s just on one day and there’s nineteen days in the first part of the book. I doubt every day will be 11K long, but still…my writing just gets flowery and I while I try my hardest not to ramble, I can’t help but delve into the characters a bit more. I don’t want to just write an episode; I want to create something unique that reads like an actual book and could be taken seriously, were it not actually fanfiction.

So, Dreamgirls…Yay! Jennifer Hudson won her Oscar and I feel oddly proud of her. I guess I just love seeing black women win Oscars, but anyway I’m horribly addicted to the Dreamgirls’ soundtrack. Of course, I’m playing One Night Only to death, but honestly, it’s the reason I bought the darn CD and I’m going to play it until my iPod breaks. I’m also slowly beginning to fall for Beyonce’s Listen, which I really don’t think was worthy of the Oscar nod, but whatever. One Night Only (Hudson’s version, of course), was a far better song, but maybe that’s just me. I’m probably not the most objective person to consider the two songs since One Night Only is currently stuck in my head, but so on and so forth…Obsessions: just the writing and One Night Only. SVU’s even starting to subside, but I think it may have more to do with my not wanting to be unduly influenced by the show as I write. I still need like a crackhead, but I missed last week’s new episode and I haven’t had a break down…yet. Thank goodness for USA network. Keeping SVU fanatics in good health, around the globe.

Adventures in Vegetarianism #2
I’ve been a full-fledged vegetarian now for more than a week and the Wendy’s #6 Spicy Chicken cravings have subsided substantially. I spoke with another vegetarian in one of my classes and she told me I’d probably start feeling weak after a bit, but I’ll stick it out a bit longer before taking a multi-vitamin, especially after that nonsense on the BBC news about vitamins actually shaving off the years instead of adding to them. Oh well. I suppose we’ll all go when we do. But, I’m really enjoying this not-eating-meat thing. Tonight, I made a grilled cheese sandwich with olive oil instead of butter. I’m well on my way to becoming a vegan…except for the fact that I love cheese and yogurt and would sooner cut of my own foot and feed it to my enemies than give up cheese and yogurt. But, the point is, I’m not eating any meat. I wish I could say that I give a crap about cows and pigs and such, but I honestly can’t make myself really care about animals. I just don’t want to like the taste of them anymore and I want to just live healthier. I just can’t see any positives to eating meat, especially since I read something about average humans eating something like six times the amount of animal meat we need to survive. That just seems utterly crazy to me.
Anyway, I haven’t lost any weight to this vegetarian diet, but that’s probably due to the fact that I polished off this entire macaroni and cheese dish by myself as I practiced for the pot luck we’re having at work this Friday. It’ll be Dorienne’s time to shine! I also randomly made a bunch of cookies and frosted them myself. I don’t know where the crazy cravings come from, but they are bizarre. But, cheers to me for not even wanting to eat any meat! And a special cheers to me for at least trying to get back on eating like a normal person should…