The Writing Desk of Jakebe Rabbit

This is a link stolen shamelessly from ladyperegrine's journal, but it's too awesome not to share.

The Legend of Stupid Bunny. It's also too awesome not to do. Anyone have children that need a buttload of weird presents sent to them next Easter? I'm your rabbit.

Today has gone well, all things considered. :) I've been reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which posits that every fad or 'sudden' craze that sweeps among a community owes its life to three basic rules: a certain type of person who can be counted on to pass along the message; the message itself being presented in a way that people remember and act upon; and how seemingly little things in an environment can make someone more receptive to the message. It's a fascinating thing to think that the difference between actually being listened to or dismissed comes down to something as inconsequential as an inflection of tone, a gesture, a smile. It really makes you want to take pause over the way you communicate.

It's almost never so much what you say as how you say it. And it goes to show you that every little thing you do matters; we're a lot more receptive than we'd ever know to give ourselves credit for. People know when other people are upset, or bored, or hiding something, in pain or angry. Maybe not consciously, but there are always dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of cues that make up a nebulous 'vibe' that we give off or receive but can never explain in tangible words. The power of non-verbal communication is tremendous, untapped and rarely talked about. What's so great about Gladwell's books is he presents this idea in a fairly logical, easily identifiable way. It's fascinating stuff. :)

In other news, Fiona Apple's "Paper Bag" is stuck in my head. It's a wonder I don't own this song, so I could play it over and over until it's out of my head once and for all. :)

I'm reading The Road by Cormac MCarthy. The story so far:

Two people, a father and his son, wander south for weeks trying to escape the cold. The entire world has been blasted into a wasteland for years; all the useful supplies and food scavenged and picked over long ago. The boy has had to endure watching his father shoot a man for touching him, seeing a man struck by lightning, burned beyond recognition, die in front of his eyes, running away from a small band of people that have resorted to cannibalism, with amputated, withered people locked away in a basement. Hunger, freezing, exhaustion. Thieves and violence. The boy understands little; the father is haunted by illness and memories of the old world the boy has never known.

Finally they come to a ruined house. Something makes the father stop in the backyard. He starts digging. The boy is terrified; he's seen enough of locked doors and underground rooms, an endless parade of corpses and other horrors even worse. The father is persistent. We're starving, he says. There's nowhere else to go.

The door is exposed, then opened. Down inside, a fully stocked shelter the owners never had the chance to use. A cornucopia of canned fruits, meats, supplies, gas and power. The father is delirious with relief. The boy only vaguely understands this is a good thing. My relief, like the father's, washes over in an overwhelming wave.

I step off the bus, nearly brought to tears again. The sun is shining. The leaves are so green. The world is a beautiful place.

There are a lot of things I really need to get my head on straight about.

Haven't been the very best about controlling money flow, and with the move being as dangerously close as it is that straight up needs to end. I think that even if I play it mildly smart I'll be just fine...I think the main expense is going to be the move itself and I'm almost positive I'll have *some* kind of job within 30 days of being on the Left Coast, but I would still like to keep at least $500 in the bank even after I'm all settled in and managing to pay any and all bills in a timely fashion.

I had the realization sometime last week that I was actually pushing friends away before I moved to make the eventual disconnection easier, and since then I've been taking steps to...you know, reverse that. Despite all of the problems and differences we might have, folks here are the family I've never had up until this point, and as such my family has been responsible, directly and indirectly, for my development up to this point. I wouldn't be where I am today without them, and I aim to make sure they know I appreciate it by the time I'm packing up the U-Haul and waving goodbye until I can't see them any more.

Life has been pretty much a blur these past several weeks. Lots of work stuff going down; I keep waffling between determination to make sure my sections and duplicates are in functioning order so I can hand off the baton to my replacement as smoothly as possible and hopless resignation that such an idealized goal is nothing short of impossible. We've entered the busy season, where departing college students and vacationing townies want to unload all of their books for some extra spending cash, so the aisle that houses Poetry and Local Interest and Bindings (guess what? all my sections!) are so cluttered with boxes that I can barely shelve anything, much less straighten the sections. Afternoons especially are hopelessly busy, and almost everyone working has to drop what they're doing to manage the flow of books coming in (lots) and going out (little). It's not a bad life, especially on the good days when you take it all in stride, but these days I have to be powered mostly on caffeine just to make it through. :)

I haven't been meditating, exercising, or yoga-ing. Most days I roll out of bed, freshen up a bit, check mail and LJ, make lunch and head on out. I have taken to reciting the Sutra on Loving Kindness before I leave, though, and...man, it does wonders, let me tell you. :) I'm a lot less angry and disappointed with people in general, and it feels good to be able to let go of a lot of that.

I haven't been writing, either, which means there's this ball of guilt that's been sitting in the bottom of my stomach all the time and making it difficult to eat a whole lot (seriously). I really want to, but I don't have the time; between social engagements and RPGs and fleshing out the world for a limited-run campaign I'm eyeing there hasn't even been much time for sleep, much less stories and poetry. I wish I had a bit more time to slow down and be contemplative, but that would mean shutting people out at some point and there's no way to do that without feelings being hurt. I'll just have to take time as I can get it.

Oh! Went up to KC and hung out with a bunch of very cool people last weekend, and that helped tons. :D Re-acquainted myself with Roxikat, who is insanely cool (and an actor?! my heart flutters!), caught up with Seph and Geemo and Kamber and Gideon and Sylvan and Rozberk, fell in love with Hammy the Squirrel (though only one squirrel *really* has my heart), and hurt myself pretending to be Muhammed Ali at Dave and Buster's. Oh! And I had buffalo for the first time. Not bad meat. :9 Thanks guys for being awesome, and especially to Aubrin for letting me carpool with him.

Finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, and it made me think about how...unfashionable it is to really, properly grieve, and how most people find unabashed sadness and mourning very uncomfortable. She talks about the trend towards burying grief and how that's supported by society at large these days just a little bit, but now I'm wondering if anyone's written about grieving from a purely sociological/anthropological/mythological standpoint. Any suggestions out there?

Anyway, it's a really great book, and Didion does a really great job of laying bare her mental process for the year after her husband's death. What grief is, what it *does* to you, how it changes and diminishes you, changes you forever. Somehow she manages to make the whole experience...clinical, though. It's messy and loopy and weird, but it's not personal, at least as she's written it. That's a very curious thing to me. Maybe it's just her treatment of her experience, the way she addresses her thoughts...are they 'too intellectual' for me to connect with on an emotional basis? Mmm, quite possibly.

Next up, I'm going to revisit Godel, Escher, Bach and try to balance it out with some Terry Pratchett in between chapters. :)

Oh! There's an actually really-real local theatre company in Fayetteville finally. :D I'm going to see if anyone wants to go support them in their first production.

And finally...now that there's only a little over two months (maybe more) between me and The Big Move, I thought now might be a good time to establish the itinerary. arlekin and I will be travelling together from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Sunnyvale, California, and we were wondering if a few kind furs wouldn't mind putting us up for a night or two along the way. I definitely want to swing in to Austin at least, and maybe hit Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Southern California and other places along the way. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Now, time to shut things down. Almost time for dinner with Odis, and then Cy's game.

Hop to It: A Guide to Training Your Pet Rabbit by Samantha Hunter. I figure this'll be invaluable for when I'm settled in to my future CA home and the time has come for me to claim a little bunny for my very own. :) What's interesting is the book is written by just some woman who owns a rabbit (I think she knows an editor over at Barron's), so there's very little in the way of scientific research but chock-full of her personal experience owning a rabbit. Obviously I'll want to get another book on the subject (she recommends a few, which is really good of her), but this is a very nice 'field' supplement.

The Bookstore Mouse by Peggy Christian. Spied this while on the phone with lazarusrat at work; I don't *quite* know what it's about, but it's a children's book with the most adorable art ever. Also, it's about a mouse(!) who lives in a bookstore(!!) and uses words to get himself out of all manner of sticky situations(!!!). For instance, he writes down impenetrable and foreboding words to build a WALL to keep himself safe. Oh my God, it's so cute I might die. :D Chances are I'll have to mail it to Master Ratty when I'm done with it, because literary diabetes is the kind of thing you share. :)

And finally...

Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, edited by Diane K. Osbon. This was a surprise present from invisiblewolf that I just got minutes ago!! Oh wow. :D :D I apologize in advance if I flood my journal with a plethora of Campbell quotes over the next few weeks. :)

I've resolved to limit/goad myself into buying three books a week. My quota for this week is filled, so I don't get the pleasure of splurging on payday (I buy books with the money I budget for 'food'), but I came out with a really, *really* good haul anyway. Thanks so much, invisiblewolf, this rocks. :D

Now, on to eating, cleaning, and writing...hopefully in that order.

New trailer for the Darren Aronofsky film. While there's not a shot of an elderly woman undergoing EZT or a math genius giving himself a home lobotomy with a power drill, the visuals *do* look stunning. Where Aronofsky goes, I will follow.

Went to see Billy Collins give a reading yesterday. He was the Poet Laureate for the United States from 2001 - 2003 if that means anaything to anyone; one of his books, "Nine Horses," was selected for Today's Book Club (is that even still around?). He's been a pretty big deal for quite some time, though most people, I suspect, still have never heard of him.

Anyway, the reading was to celebrate the U of A Press' 25th anniversary (which I didn't know) and reprinting of Collins' first book of poems, "The Apple That Astonished Paris." Isn't that a great title? It was published by the U of A and edited by Miller Williams, father of Lucinda Williams and local Big Poet. :) There, now that I'm done with all the name-dropping...

Ever since toob turned me on to him, the most impressive thing about Collins is his remarkable simplicity. The language and the concepts of his poems are funny and relatable, but they point to such complex themes. He name-checks people like Laurence Ferlinghetti and William Carlos Williams and Cezanne but they're absolutely inconsequential for enjoying the poem. However, if you want to do a little digging to find out about the way that very specific allusion affects the mood of the poem, you can. He works on so many levels, which is cliched praise I know, but absolutely true. People who don't like poetry can really get into him because he's so funny and engaging.

The reading was quite awesome. He picked a subject -- dogs was his fist -- and read two or three poems along the theme. So many of his poems open inconspicuously enough, and while amusing they're...easy-going. Somewhere along the way, though, the metaphor turns surprisingly sharp or sexual or fantastic (which is one of my favorite words), plucking you from the comfort of easy, amusing ideas into a much more exciting tangle of "what the fuck were you on when you wrote this?" His delivery of his poems, it turns out, are a key of understanding them; if you read them with his droning, Steinian voice in your head, the humor itself just opens up. All the stresses are in the right places, so something hilarious turns pointed, then resigned, then...dryly witty.

Billy Collins is the poet I want to be when I grow up. :)

In my own writing, one of the things I think is missing is...well, humor. I'm not a terribly funny writer, even when I'm dealing with stuff that isn't...family-oriented, which tends to bring with it a matching luggage set of pathos. (His influence is working on me already.) I feel like M. Night Shyamalan on his way to making "Signs," that moment where he realizes that everything would be much more engaging, that his characters would be so much more human if there was humor. And everything falls into place right then and there. I hope my next rash of poems is flawed but funny enough that they're given the benefit of the doubt , and the willful suspension of disbelief is stretched a little further. People are always the most charitable to things that amuse them.

I felt really bad for Billy at the signing. He didn't even have time to drink his water and take a few breaths, or to talk to Miller Williams before he was ushered out to a lonely table with this crushing throng of hopeful and smiling faces all shoving books in front of him. That must be the weirdest part of these public appearances; all these people, pressing in on each other, subconsciously elbowing each other to get to him first before he decides that his arm is too tired to sign another piece of paper. And they're all going crazy and dropping their dignity all over his feet just because he's there. He doesn't seem like he's a particularly vain guy (his hair was vastly uncombed when he walked onto the stage, which, for some reason, just made me instantly like him), so...it just had to be weird for him. As bad as I felt, though, I was one of those jostling people, my head swimming with all kinds of witty things to say that might improve his mood just a little, to help him through the rest of the evening. When I got there, I just said "To so and so" and he signed, and I said "Thank you very much." He said "You're welcome" while taking someone else's book.

That was the extent of our conversation, and while I didn't quite do that thing, you know how it is...get around someone you admire and you're so very likely to choke. The way around this is to admire no one. And that's easier said than done.

daroneasa, my poetry buddy, and I ate dinner at A Taste of Thai before the reading. I had yellow chicken curry which was amazing, and we talked about my D+D game, and rice, and K.A. Applegate. It turns out Daro was the biggest Animorphs fan growing up, and I turned her on to Remnants, which is a fantastic series that most parents would absolutely lose their shit over if they actually read anything between the pages. There's death and manipulation and weirdness and a Marine with a mutated baby fused to her abdomen. It's easily one of the best children's books I've read in quite some time. I've spazzed about it before, I'm sure, but...it bears repeating. Remnants is awesome, and it would make a killer show on the Sci-Fi Channel. You could pair it with Battlestar Galactica even!

I'll be picking up "Cooking for Dummies" today, since chipotle recommended it and we happened to have it. Rice is also on my list of things to come to know intimately; there are so many different kinds that you can use for so many different things, and the textures can get damned specific. There's white rice and brown rice and wild rice, all with their different flavors and uses. When you get right down to it, rice is almost as versatile and essential as herbs are for good cooking. I really like little things that you can twist and use to completely change something. One of the reasons 'fantastic' is such a great word.

Tonight, my game; I have an idea of what's wrong with it and how to fix it. I've always shied away from combat because, really, it's the most system-heavy part of the game and the one thing that requires the most preparation. And, to be honest, it's my least favorite part of game prep. But, my players are clamoring to rip something apart with their bare hands, so it's the least I could do. Mwahah. Mwahahahah.

Really, I wish I could be scratching Tube's itchy back and rubbing calamine lotion to all of the places he can't reach.

*sigh* Now, work.