The Nightcap

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Just in case you didn't want to get to sleep tonight. The music is just about perfect for the video, though there's also a Benny Hill version that's pretty damned good too. :D I found this floating around in a few friend's pages, and I thought it was too terrifying not to share.

Oddly enough, most of the people I've talked to about this simply seem to shrug. "We all have to die sometime." This is true, but there's a world of difference between dying peacefully in your sleep and being vaporized by a cataclysmic event that takes all life on earth with it. It's OK to pee your pants about this one.

Anyway, I've started reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck for my English composition class, and I'm really enjoying it so far. This is the first book I've read with a pen, making annotations in the margins, circling words I don't know, highlighting passages that I really love. I see why people make a habit of it now. :)

The novel follows two families: the Hamiltons, a huge, poor but lively clan, and the Trasks, a small, tragic, wealthy group. The Trasks, in chapter three, re-enact the story of Cain and Abel in such a fascinating way. From the very first page the novel rings with the dichotomy of the beloved and the rejected, and all the reasons people decide to give their love to this one and not that one, the ways in which they do it, the consequences of their actions. It's really fascinating.

I'm really digging English comp in general, by the way. We've done a few little piddly writing exercises, but nothing worth showing here. I only hope by the end of the class I can string sentences together a bit better than I do now.