So instead, I leave you with a picture of pure happiness.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Hmmm
No one really seems to be checking this so much anymore - I'll admit that even I've started to slack off a bit. Well, it's ok I guess. It definitely didn't last long as what it was intended to do. So I might as well give up about the improvement of letter writing or the idea that in the future someone might look back and say, you know the wilkins kids wrote thousands of blog posts to each other, if only we could improve the state of correspondence today...Instead we're basically like any other blog except maybe even less focused than most. Yet, Bethy said not to quit, so I'm not quiting just yet. I'm just reconciling to the fact that this was never really the letter improvement service that I imagined it would be.
So instead, I leave you with a picture of pure happiness.
So instead, I leave you with a picture of pure happiness.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Story Outline...sort of
So, this is kind of a story outline. It's more me trying to nail down my thoughts about a story that I have been thinking about on and off for a couple months, but never seem to get straight in my head. Jack, it's the same fantasy story that we talked about a night that you were home, only now it's not a fantasy story anymore. I wanted to try and make it more Dostoyevskian about faith and human nature. Only I'm not sure if that makes a better story. I think it's a story worth telling, but I'm just not sure exactly how to procede. Let me know what you think.
Two Brothers Story Outline
This is the story that I had originially pictured as a fantasy comicbook, but I think I'm going to try my hand at fiction again. It'll be an historical fiction story, set not in an imaginary world based off of the Holy Roman Empire, but the Holy Roman Empire itself. I want it to be a time of convictions, as well as a time of extreme strife and confusion – there isn't a better time in European history than the 30 years war.
The main two characters are two brothers, the only sons of a free knight. As you know free knights technically owe allegiance to the Emperor alone and not to the more local Princes. However, it is an institution that is dying out by this time, I believe. I should probably check up on that. Anyway, this is about 100 years after Luther and Germany is in chaos with conflict between Catholic and Protestant. I really want to show the conflict at it's worse. Religious conflicts between fundamentalists (and the ignorant people that follow them) very quickly become neighbor against neighbor conflicts, with extreme violence at the local level.
So the younger of these kids is kind of like Dimitri and Alyosha combined. He's athletic, attractive, likes the ladies, fun loving, and yet at the same time he's fundamentally good. He's not afraid of a fight, but he's the first to counsel peace and the first to offer mercy. Mercy is probably his primary characteristic. He believes that people are generally good, and therefore when they do him wrong, he believes it to be a temporary error on their part. He can't imagine that people wouldn't like him because he likes everybody. He idolizes his older brother.
Damn it I can't figure out the exact dynamic that I want between the two brothers. I want one to be pure in the beginning and the other to be obviously less so – more of an ends justify the means kind of guy. Then I want something to happen so that the guy who was pure flips his shit completely and becomes full of hate and revenge. I guess I wanted to explore the close relationship between extreme love and extreme hate – how the extremes of emotion are actually very close to one another. Then again, I don't want to make the passionless guy the hero of the story.
Anyway, so the two brothers go off to war together, joining the protestant cause because I would find it difficult to write from the catholic perspective. At some point they meet a woman of the opposite persuasion with whom they both fall in love, though the older brother tries to deny his feelings because he knows it would not serve his designs. They have a falling out when the younger brother decides to quit the field and marry the woman. Then shit happens to both of them while they are apart. First, the woman is killed by a roving band of thugs claiming to be catholic but really just looting and killing people while the younger brother is away. He therefore flips his shit and decides to go on a rampage. He brings some minor characters, cousins and such perhaps, to his side and begins to lead a small scale war. He doesn't go so far as to murder innocents, but his previously merciful nature is gone and now he offers no quarter to the enemy. Meanwhile the older brother is forced at some point to put his mercenary nature to the test – facing some kind of decision that goes against his upbringing or religion but would advance him politically. He finds that he can't do it. Perhaps he truly finds God at this point and finds that he is not a God of hate and violence but these people have both corrupted him for their ends. Then he sets his sights on his brother's retribution. Maybe I should make the story more about faith. The older brother doesn't become a monster because he finds his faith, the younger brother becomes one because his faith was in goodness not in God.
Ultimately, I've got to figure out a way for it to end well. I think tomorrow I'll just start scening it out and we'll see how far I get. I should do some reading on the time period and pick some names as well.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Where the Hell is Matt outtakes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT8jA_pps3o
This is really fun. Hope this brightens your day!
Bboo
This is really fun. Hope this brightens your day!
Bboo
Thursday, March 8, 2007
From the Valley
Jack and Warnie,
I have been neglecting my post since I arrived home, merely because I haven't wanted to look at a computer screen since school ended. Most of what I am referring too you wrote about awhile ago but I wanted to contribute all the same. I too have felt "the black dog" on me the last couple of weeks and usually I try to run away from it by throwing myself even farther into my work which only makes it worse. Being at school never helps. I truly believe that Mary Washington is over a vent of hell. It seems that at any point when I am finally starting to relax and feel like I can enjoy myself there, all my confidence is sucked out and I become my worst self. The one that scares me the most.
I was talking to our President the other day and he was talking about the college bus transport system. He was saying how on other campuses he had been on the bus was a lively place full of music and students. "Its just dead," he said looking at me. And of course, without thinking I looked at him and said "You could say that about our entire campus Sir." He looked at me a little surprised and said "Can I keep you around? You seem to tell it like it is." And then he went on to say that he was trying to fix that. But the whole point of that story is to say that that is how I feel in the winter at Mary Washington...dead.
I think that is why I love the valley so much. There is something about this place, a presence of God, that no matter what is going on, I never feel alone. I know that these feelings of loneliness are a result of stress, fatigue, winter being generally gross, some demented form of SAD, and my lack of church going lately (every church I have been to in fredericksburg lately I've gotten so angry that I can't take communion). And at the same time I know that they are utterly necessary. I believe in a lot of what Jack said in his post. Its hard though. This semester has also been a huge lesson in mental strength. There are times when my mind wanders and I know that I do not have the strength to think about those things, but I do it anyway...and i shouldn't. So I have been working on that. Anytime I find myself slipping, I try to refocus on thinking about God or, if I'm being particularly stubborn, at least something happy.
I love this time of year in the Valley though. I am not a spring person, you both know that I am a girl of the sun but there is anticipation here. Everything, the birds,t he trees, and the mountains themselves are quivering with the anticipation of spring...and that makes me happy. Soon it will be time for rebirth, for celebration of Christ rising again, and a time for our spirits, our hearts, and our minds to be cleansed and made anew.
love,
Bboo
I have been neglecting my post since I arrived home, merely because I haven't wanted to look at a computer screen since school ended. Most of what I am referring too you wrote about awhile ago but I wanted to contribute all the same. I too have felt "the black dog" on me the last couple of weeks and usually I try to run away from it by throwing myself even farther into my work which only makes it worse. Being at school never helps. I truly believe that Mary Washington is over a vent of hell. It seems that at any point when I am finally starting to relax and feel like I can enjoy myself there, all my confidence is sucked out and I become my worst self. The one that scares me the most.
I was talking to our President the other day and he was talking about the college bus transport system. He was saying how on other campuses he had been on the bus was a lively place full of music and students. "Its just dead," he said looking at me. And of course, without thinking I looked at him and said "You could say that about our entire campus Sir." He looked at me a little surprised and said "Can I keep you around? You seem to tell it like it is." And then he went on to say that he was trying to fix that. But the whole point of that story is to say that that is how I feel in the winter at Mary Washington...dead.
I think that is why I love the valley so much. There is something about this place, a presence of God, that no matter what is going on, I never feel alone. I know that these feelings of loneliness are a result of stress, fatigue, winter being generally gross, some demented form of SAD, and my lack of church going lately (every church I have been to in fredericksburg lately I've gotten so angry that I can't take communion). And at the same time I know that they are utterly necessary. I believe in a lot of what Jack said in his post. Its hard though. This semester has also been a huge lesson in mental strength. There are times when my mind wanders and I know that I do not have the strength to think about those things, but I do it anyway...and i shouldn't. So I have been working on that. Anytime I find myself slipping, I try to refocus on thinking about God or, if I'm being particularly stubborn, at least something happy.
I love this time of year in the Valley though. I am not a spring person, you both know that I am a girl of the sun but there is anticipation here. Everything, the birds,t he trees, and the mountains themselves are quivering with the anticipation of spring...and that makes me happy. Soon it will be time for rebirth, for celebration of Christ rising again, and a time for our spirits, our hearts, and our minds to be cleansed and made anew.
love,
Bboo
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Window is Astonished
The above is from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoons. It's pretty freakin hilarious. Also, you should check out this video. I think my favorite is England.
Love,
Warnie
Mortality
Now, brother and sister, let us turn in the lectionary to--
existential despair.
This will not be an amusing post for most folks, dear readers, so avert your eyes and view something funny if you will not be frozen in place by the cold that is the human soul.
Actually, I just wished that everyone could hear the voice that is constantly narrating in my head. It would make things a lot easier, and I wouldn't need to explain nearly as much. Experiments in allowing myself to narrate have resulted, mostly, in social dysfunction. So I avoid it.
I understand, Warnie, your emptiness. I think we all do. My situation currently isn't one related to love, but what Winston Churchill called "the black dog" comes down on me fairly frequently as well. It happens more now that I'm writing more--this is not a result of writing, but of forcing myself to more honestly investigate my feelings. As Alan Moore says, to "Be ruthless about this, and submit yourself to as much emotional pain as is necessary...". It brings it out. That's the difficulty with, for lack of a better term, mortality.
The wife (Pockets) and I were taking a spin around with her cousin the other day when I became inexplicably depressed. I was looking at the shoddy construction of the academic buildings here in the frozen north, and longing for marble/granite/stone in the construction, even real brick buildings, not merely brick facade. And suddenly, I saw corruption in everything. Everything was going to wash away and fade, everything was going to die. All the trees were dying as we speak, all the people in their cars were going to die in their stupid little boxes, even I was going to die, and what would I have written on my stone afterwards? I couldn't think of much, but more than that, I saw the fruitlessness of that construction as well. Books burn, buildings crumble, we don't even print on anything that will last more than 60 years without damage anymore.
(If I'd had the ability to look outside myself at the moment, I would have realized that this is a traditional Anglo-Saxon motif in poetry, and that might have pointed me in the right direction for solace--but I couldn't. The whirlpool of the emotion was too strong.)
So, long story short, I was a real mopey jackass for a while there. I snapped out of it enough to be civil for a while, but it wasn't until I went to church on Sunday that I really was able to be lifted out of it. The communal confession started off with, "Forgive us, Lord, as we easily despair." That was a real kick in the gut.
But I got to thinking, of course we do. Of course we despair, because we're right to if we limit ourselves to thinking, well, mortally. And I don't just mean about death, but in a sense of passing, of transition. And it ends up being a lack of faith. I despaired because I could not conceive of a purpose or meaning to life--well, bully for me. I don't have to conceive of a purpose, I merely need to divine His purpose. It's a little trite when put down in a blog, but it's true. And it's more than just an easy fix. I need to fix the eternal present in my mind ALWAYS, to be constantly praying. It's not about fear, like I think many fundamentalists and some of my friends think when they talk about constant prayer. It's...
It's like having your glasses on. It'd be stupid to go around without them, and the world is more beautiful and sharper with them.
So, anyway, that's not really helpful to your situation Warnie. You're in a difficult place and time right now, and your soul is naturally seeking some kind of comfort. I just wanted to say that even having the honest, wonderful companionship of Pockets, I still despair. We all do.
Anyway, good luck. And Boo, send along some pictures of your show.
Jack
existential despair.
This will not be an amusing post for most folks, dear readers, so avert your eyes and view something funny if you will not be frozen in place by the cold that is the human soul.
Actually, I just wished that everyone could hear the voice that is constantly narrating in my head. It would make things a lot easier, and I wouldn't need to explain nearly as much. Experiments in allowing myself to narrate have resulted, mostly, in social dysfunction. So I avoid it.
I understand, Warnie, your emptiness. I think we all do. My situation currently isn't one related to love, but what Winston Churchill called "the black dog" comes down on me fairly frequently as well. It happens more now that I'm writing more--this is not a result of writing, but of forcing myself to more honestly investigate my feelings. As Alan Moore says, to "Be ruthless about this, and submit yourself to as much emotional pain as is necessary...". It brings it out. That's the difficulty with, for lack of a better term, mortality.
The wife (Pockets) and I were taking a spin around with her cousin the other day when I became inexplicably depressed. I was looking at the shoddy construction of the academic buildings here in the frozen north, and longing for marble/granite/stone in the construction, even real brick buildings, not merely brick facade. And suddenly, I saw corruption in everything. Everything was going to wash away and fade, everything was going to die. All the trees were dying as we speak, all the people in their cars were going to die in their stupid little boxes, even I was going to die, and what would I have written on my stone afterwards? I couldn't think of much, but more than that, I saw the fruitlessness of that construction as well. Books burn, buildings crumble, we don't even print on anything that will last more than 60 years without damage anymore.
(If I'd had the ability to look outside myself at the moment, I would have realized that this is a traditional Anglo-Saxon motif in poetry, and that might have pointed me in the right direction for solace--but I couldn't. The whirlpool of the emotion was too strong.)
So, long story short, I was a real mopey jackass for a while there. I snapped out of it enough to be civil for a while, but it wasn't until I went to church on Sunday that I really was able to be lifted out of it. The communal confession started off with, "Forgive us, Lord, as we easily despair." That was a real kick in the gut.
But I got to thinking, of course we do. Of course we despair, because we're right to if we limit ourselves to thinking, well, mortally. And I don't just mean about death, but in a sense of passing, of transition. And it ends up being a lack of faith. I despaired because I could not conceive of a purpose or meaning to life--well, bully for me. I don't have to conceive of a purpose, I merely need to divine His purpose. It's a little trite when put down in a blog, but it's true. And it's more than just an easy fix. I need to fix the eternal present in my mind ALWAYS, to be constantly praying. It's not about fear, like I think many fundamentalists and some of my friends think when they talk about constant prayer. It's...
It's like having your glasses on. It'd be stupid to go around without them, and the world is more beautiful and sharper with them.
So, anyway, that's not really helpful to your situation Warnie. You're in a difficult place and time right now, and your soul is naturally seeking some kind of comfort. I just wanted to say that even having the honest, wonderful companionship of Pockets, I still despair. We all do.
Anyway, good luck. And Boo, send along some pictures of your show.
Jack
Sunday, March 4, 2007
I wish I wasn't such a woman
First, I'd just like to point out that the two of you have been sadly lacking in posts lately. Maybe I'm just monopolizing the stage a bit...or maybe you should just write more. Originally I thought this would be more of a back and forth thing.
Second, what follows has a few references to a certain person that's been on my mind lately. Maybe it's juvenile that I feel I need to continue to hide my feelings, but there it is. Consequently, her name has been left out, but I'm sure you both know what I'm talking about. Actually if she did read this, she'd know exactly who I was talking about, but so it goes. Feel free to mock me for being a girl - you know I get that way sometimes.
So...
I woke up today feeling good. I got to see college friends I hadn't seen for half a year last night, and managed to avoid a hangover, which, like Jack said, always feels like an accomplishment after a night of heavy drinking. The general feeling of well-being did not last.
I missed church, which always sets me off a little bit. I feel guilty when I miss church, but more than that church, as it is meant to do, helps me to reconnect with the spiritual and to refocus my thoughts towards God. When I drift away from my primary purpose (self-improvement through internally lining up my will parallel to God's) I tend to slip into a kind of listlessness. I don't mean the melancholy that I have so often written about, but more of an empty, unexplainable boredom and loneliness. I think that I tend towards sadness because it's just the easiest way to alleviate the boredom. When I mope, at least I have something to do.
So of course, soon after happily waking I realized I had nothing to do today and no one to do it with. I started thinking of ----- maybe just to pass the time. Then again, I always am thinking of her these days. This past week I haven't spent much time with her, partly because I hoped that that would help, but it hasn't.
I know if I said something what the answer would be. So why should I say anything? Why should I make it uncomfortable for her too? "If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands - yeah, it may only be a 3. If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a six - no problem, I could roll a 6... I could also roll a 1. OK? So, I think sometimes... Just leave the dice alone."
I've always wanted to be someone's Laurie, you know? I've always wanted to be such good friends with someone that I could come over any time without having to plan ahead, to be friends with the girl's family. I think I could live with being ----'s Laurie, but I don't think she even sees me that way. And since I know she doesn't see me as more, I don't know what that makes me. I'm not sure I can stand just to be a common friend - someone that she may remember fondly but wouldn't make an effort to keep in contact with.
When I step back to try and think about it objectively I couldn't really say why ---- and not someone else. We have some things in common, but there is a lot where we are very different: about important things too.
I think maybe we fall in love when we really just want to be loved in return: love therefore being a reason in itself.
Still, I didn't actually mean to vent about ---- when I started this, just like I didn't actually mean to ruin my day by thinking so much about her. I just meant to describe how I"m incredibly lonely up here and I've got a restless, empty pit in my stomach. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with ------. But I can't seem to shake it for more than a few days at a time, so I thought I'd write it out of my system, but it hasn't really seemed to help.
To paraphrase a great man - I've got a hole inside and I can never drink enough or steal enough or kill enough to fill it. I know the only thing big enough to fill it is God, but knowing it isn't enough. Why can't I make myself do anything about it?
Second, what follows has a few references to a certain person that's been on my mind lately. Maybe it's juvenile that I feel I need to continue to hide my feelings, but there it is. Consequently, her name has been left out, but I'm sure you both know what I'm talking about. Actually if she did read this, she'd know exactly who I was talking about, but so it goes. Feel free to mock me for being a girl - you know I get that way sometimes.
So...
I woke up today feeling good. I got to see college friends I hadn't seen for half a year last night, and managed to avoid a hangover, which, like Jack said, always feels like an accomplishment after a night of heavy drinking. The general feeling of well-being did not last.
I missed church, which always sets me off a little bit. I feel guilty when I miss church, but more than that church, as it is meant to do, helps me to reconnect with the spiritual and to refocus my thoughts towards God. When I drift away from my primary purpose (self-improvement through internally lining up my will parallel to God's) I tend to slip into a kind of listlessness. I don't mean the melancholy that I have so often written about, but more of an empty, unexplainable boredom and loneliness. I think that I tend towards sadness because it's just the easiest way to alleviate the boredom. When I mope, at least I have something to do.
So of course, soon after happily waking I realized I had nothing to do today and no one to do it with. I started thinking of ----- maybe just to pass the time. Then again, I always am thinking of her these days. This past week I haven't spent much time with her, partly because I hoped that that would help, but it hasn't.
I know if I said something what the answer would be. So why should I say anything? Why should I make it uncomfortable for her too? "If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands - yeah, it may only be a 3. If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a six - no problem, I could roll a 6... I could also roll a 1. OK? So, I think sometimes... Just leave the dice alone."
I've always wanted to be someone's Laurie, you know? I've always wanted to be such good friends with someone that I could come over any time without having to plan ahead, to be friends with the girl's family. I think I could live with being ----'s Laurie, but I don't think she even sees me that way. And since I know she doesn't see me as more, I don't know what that makes me. I'm not sure I can stand just to be a common friend - someone that she may remember fondly but wouldn't make an effort to keep in contact with.
When I step back to try and think about it objectively I couldn't really say why ---- and not someone else. We have some things in common, but there is a lot where we are very different: about important things too.
I think maybe we fall in love when we really just want to be loved in return: love therefore being a reason in itself.
Still, I didn't actually mean to vent about ---- when I started this, just like I didn't actually mean to ruin my day by thinking so much about her. I just meant to describe how I"m incredibly lonely up here and I've got a restless, empty pit in my stomach. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with ------. But I can't seem to shake it for more than a few days at a time, so I thought I'd write it out of my system, but it hasn't really seemed to help.
To paraphrase a great man - I've got a hole inside and I can never drink enough or steal enough or kill enough to fill it. I know the only thing big enough to fill it is God, but knowing it isn't enough. Why can't I make myself do anything about it?
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