Simple arithmancy

There are more interesting things happening right now in my roller coaster week (began with a 2 hour sob and ended with an internship), but here's what I'm actually thinking about.

Okay. Everyone I've ever met has asked me, "Have you heard the news?" And guys, OF COURSE I know the last Harry Potter is going to be split into two movies. I know. And whoever begins this conversation thinking it's an awesome thing has their opinion completely changed by the end of it--not due to my mind tricks, although I am always practicing those, but because of just plain logic. The logic is this: why would you take the most INTENSE, ACTION-PACKED, BLAM BLAM BLAM ONE BAD THING AFTER ANOTHER AFTER ANOTHER AFTER A HEDWIIIIIIG book and interrupt that? My friend at work and I weren't able to sit down and read it as soon as we'd like, so we read during our breaks, and though we said we wouldn't spoil it for each other, we couldn't help it, whoever had break first would come back all shaky and just go, "Ohhh my God, Death Eaters. That is all."

I understand it's a matter of money--obviously Harry Potter has disappointed financially [jest--ya'll are just greedy]. But I stand by my convictions. Just because you chose to leave out crucial details from the first six movies doesn't mean you should sever the last one. Make it 5 hours long if you have to--I will even accept an intermission--but six months is too much.

Sadly, Pretty Big Wheel does not have the influence it should in the entertainment industry [yet], so this argument amounts to nothing. Neither will the following one, but as long as we're on a roll of unnecessary and ultimately childish discussions, let's talk. Where should the first movie end? What should the splitting point be? Because I am 10 years old, I regularly check The Leaky Cauldron, and this is exactly their poll. Their main options are: after the Silver Doe, after Malfoy Manor, or after Gringotts. My vote was immediately for Gringotts, but I was extremely surprised to see that that is the least popular, with the Silver Doe at the forefront. Here are my thoughts.

Yes, the Silver Doe is pretty much the center chapter. Yes, that's where Ron returns from his brief stint as an asswipe, and the trio is reunited. But! Remember how pissed off Hermione is once Ron returns, and how long it takes for her to forgive him? And it's not even until the next chapter that the trio even learns of the Deathly Hallows, thus making DH:I the worst named movie in the world, because all the movie-onlys will be going, "What the fuck are the Deadly Hollows, why did I miss that?" You might argue that well, after the Silver Doe could include them reuniting and setting off to see Xenophilius Lovegood, who then tells them the tale, but hello! Another Death Eater attack interrupts it! So then that's the only logical spot to stop it, because you have to consider where something begins and the next thing ends.

1. Silver Doe and Trio Reuniting Xeno and the Hallows = Boring end and beginning, plus no Hallows reference in movie one.
   
2. Xeno-Hallows-Death Eaters Gang of Snatchers = Confusing. While the Hallows need mentioning, that is such an insignificant spot to stop it, drama wise.

So then the next option is to go with the next sequence, which would be Malfoy Manor. All right, understandable, as people are probably thinking, well, end and begin the movies at Shell Cottage, with a plot against the evil Bellatrix. That'll get the fans going. Uh, but hi, my name is Dobby, and you absolutely cannot end the grimmest book of all on the grimmest note of all. Little children cannot leave that theatre thinking, oh my God, the elf is dead, I don't give a shit about Harry Potter and his grave-digging, Hallow-denying, Horcrux-searching ways, because the goofy elf just died and I officially know the definition of sadness. That's just how children's minds work. Trust me, I'm a doctor.

Instead, Gringotts is the best place. Its bookends capture exactly what the book (and the series) is all about. I present another list:

1. Movie I End: Adventure! Magic! Dragons! Good defeating evil (of both wizard and goblin persuasion)! The trio together, laughing maniacally! But! Looking off towards the castle. Visions of Voldemort searching for the Horcruxes. Renewed foreboding from the beginning of the movie. And now, renewed vigor to stop this madness. Danger and hope = Harry Potter.
   
2. Six-month intermission: Omg. What is going to happen? This shit is getting so good, I can't believe they stopped it there, the most perfect of stopping points, right when I am all dragon-invigorated to kick some Riddle ass. Voldemort and Harry are neck and neck. The next movie is going to be nuts.
   
3. Movie II Beginning: Time is running out! The same sort of haste and threat from the first movie, but with even more fear because NOW you're thinking, okay this is it, the end, there is going to be a showdown, and they're both racing to those last few Horcruxes, and everyone knows Harry either lives or dies.

This is just perfect, I think. The movie is unfortunately split into two, but it encourages the same heart-pounding nature of the book, as though it were all in one piece. If you're going strictly by words, yes, this is an uneven split. But just THINK of all the information at the end of the book. The most important parts of the book--of the series--are located in Harry's mind. I have no idea how they're going to achieve it, but somehow they have to make us feel for sure that he is going to die, just like in the book. And we need a LONG LONG time for the Dumbledore dream sequence. The first movie will be action-packed and intense, but the second movie is 1000x more important. And to really sell my proposal, in terms of series motifs, you are beginning and ending with the looming image of Hogwarts. If that doesn't fill your heart with joy, then you're a bitch.

Okay, that's my write up. What is your math? Do you think of entirely different spots for them to split it? Proceed.

-- 07:49 PM

Do you even know how to wear heels? Are you going to practice?

Oh, oh, I get it! Because I'm not a girl.

When I was talking to my doctor the other day, everything was coming up roses until she asked the last question, "How are you dealing with your anxiety?" I didn't lie; the answer is not well. I can tackle it and tackle it and tackle it until there's so much beneath me that I trip in some awful burst. It manifests in weird ways that I really should be over but just can't seem to end. A bad hair day yields an ugly day yields a screaming ripping tearing fest in front of the mirror, and as many times as I say, "Stop it," punches fly.

I'm just never going to feel beautiful or smart enough because I've got no reason to. I'll never be able to fool myself into thinking they're true, and why should I? If I can't be honest with myself, then I can't be honest with anyone, and if nothing else I like to reach for honesty.

Which is why when I'm yelling, "JUST BECAUSE NO ONE EVER INVITED ME TO PROM DOESN'T MEAN I DIDN'T PRACTICE ALONE IN MY ROOM," try to see if I'm laughing. Try to see if mimicking the world's smallest violin is an okay idea. Small problems? No grandkids for you.

I don't care who can hear me: I am mortified by my years.

And just to clarify? I can walk in heels. I can also stand in the center of a room and tear out my hair and cry in heels. What are we miming now?

-- 09:59 PM

A house is a home where love dwells

I generally don't like to write about my family in less than flattering terms here, because that's WAY unfair to them. When I look back at all my old entries about the dramz I had with them, I get angry at myself--they don't have diaries or blogs or anything to defend themselves on, so what right did I have to complain so publicly about whatever happened in private? Plus, for all I know they read this (mama papa?), so the last thing they deserve to read is some rant about something I can't bring myself to say. But it's coming to a point where I don't quite know how to go about addressing it.

We have lived in our house for 24 or 25 years. We are the first people to have ever lived there. It is not in good shape these days. Our ceilings have leaked from the showers for a long time, but in particular, it leaked right in the middle of the living room, in a spot where there is no plumbing. But the spot never grew, so we did nothing about it. (How could we do nothing about it?! If you suddenly get a mole but it never changes shape or size or color, do you just leave it there?! Cancer can always come back!) We recently decided to have a plumber check it out, because hey, there's a huuuge stain in our ceiling, which we normally would have painted over but didn't. The man came and measured everything, and we told him about how also? The basement's been flooding for about a year. Every time it rains, it floods, and we do nothing but rip up whatever carpet is there and put in a new one. Patrick can't live in his room down there anymore because it's uninhabitable. The plumber measured the walls and, stumped, cut a square in the ceiling in the spot--it was bone dry. There was no leak in there. He cut a hole behind the couch, right where the copper pipe had a teeny tiny pinhole leak. That was fixed, and now we don't hear water rattling in our walls anymore.

But there is still the matter of the HOLE IN THE CEILING and the HOLE IN THE WALL and the uninhabitable basement. Dog hair on couches, cat hair on clothes, spots where bugs were killed on the wall, floors scratched long ago by Jordan, cat-torn furniture, pee forever in the carpets, in the walls. There is no way for our house to be perfect with so many animals we adore roaming around the place, and I don't want our house to be perfect, but there are ways of controlling it. And I don't understand why my parents are resisting that.

In October, Patrick will no longer be living at home. I technically still live at home when I'm not at school, but (hopefully) I won't be in a few years when I graduate. Neither of us is there all the time, we come and go in intervals, but we do still live there for the time being. I don't care if my friends see shoes in a pile or a cat sleeping on my dinner plate, but there are some things that just embarrass me, including stains in the ceiling with holes in the middle. It's one thing to say, "Excuse the mess;" it's another to have to explain why there's a wall panel leaning against the TV.

But this is a very sensitive topic to bring up in my house. Last year I won the award for Bitch of the Century when I came home to a slightly messy kitchen and went off on how I could never have friends over, it was embarrassing, why didn't we ever really clean anything, I can barely touch anything without getting hair on me, and I'm pretty sure I used the word "shameful". I had sort of half meant it to be funny, but obviously my mom extracted the truth from it, because when I walked back out into the kitchen, she was sobbing. It was the worst I have ever felt in my life, because my mother does not cry. And now? Since that moment when I told her I was ashamed of the house we kept? She cries all the time. And it terrifies me.

Shameful totally wasn't the right word at all, it's not that. It's just, I want people to be comfortable, and I want to be comfortable too. And sometimes I get in that house and all I can think about is the stinkbugs that watch me when I sleep and the Daddy Long Leg infestation and leaning down to spit out my toothpaste and realizing that Mo peed in the sink two minutes ago. My mom hired a cleaning service to come and help her out, and I guess it makes a difference, but still, sometimes it makes my skin crawl. I would never ever in my life say that my parents have no taste, but they used to have better taste. Some of the stuff in our house is so wicked cool, like the framed pictures of Olde Plimoth and the little cottage statuettes and the stenciling, the stenciling my mom did when they first moved in! And the maintenance of the house has everything to do with what their priorities are these days, which I think are: retire and go out to restaurants. And of course it's 25 years later and they're not the same people, but aren't you supposed to hold onto that spirit you always had, somewhere inside? I only see it come out in a random burst of song, or in my dad's memories of their bike rides, and then like that it's gone.

I feel like you can sense that when you're in my house, that all the spirit is gone. Ever since that awful day, whenever anyone makes the slightest comment about an unsavory domestic condition, she confesses that, "I've always wanted to just get rid of everything on every horizontal surface." That's horrible to me. They have this very weird way of going about doing things that really upsets me: enjoy something once, enjoy it to the ground, and then get rid of it. There is no sense of pride in anything, there's no attempt to hold onto anything. Sure we used to bike ride, but now we don't and we won't. Sure I used to knit, but now I don't and I won't. Sure I used to take pictures, and thanks for the new camera, but now I don't and I won't. Sure this house was great, but now we'll leave it in this terrible condition, sell it for what we can get, and move into another place and start the process over.

What probably upsets me the most is that they’re forgetting that I’m still there. Patrick’s still there, though briefly. They may not invite people over, but I would like to. They may not be bothered by holes in the ceiling, but I am—the joke was over a month ago. That house is the only home I’ve ever known, it’s in my favorite part of town, it was the perfect place to grow up, and they’re content to throw it away when they’re done with it. Come on, Dad. Every single one of us turns to look at your old house whenever we pass it, including you, because it means something to you. Don’t you think our house means something to me? Don’t you think I’d like to drive by it when I’m older? Don’t you get that what you want to do—sell it for whatever you can get and let someone else deal with it—is giving up all agency you have over it? More importantly, don’t you get that you’re robbing me of any agency I have over it?

It’s my house too, and I’m so terrified of telling my dad that, because he can be scary. We have a jolly good time 90% of our time together, but there are those days or those nights or those moments when I wish I was never born or I never spoke or I never replied. Because what it’s going to come down to for him is money, and I’m only 20, I’ve never dealt with money before in my life. How can I tell him what to do with his money when he’s the one who pays upwards of $50,000 a year for my education, does my taxes for me, and fought for five years before I finally relented and got a job? That’s what it’s going to come down to, and no matter what I say, it’s going to end in a big fight about how I don’t have enough responsibility, I don’t help mom enough, I don’t understand the budget he’s set up, &c, &c, &c. Emotional appeals don’t work on him—you have to talk sense, and practically, I don’t have any say in any of this. But figuratively, I do, because I live there right alongside them. It’s my house too.

Phrases like “It’s my house too” don’t work on him.

Pat and I have discussed this at length. At lengthity length. Ad nauseum. Concordantly. Ergo. A lot. Almost every single conversation comes down to how the house is falling apart, our parents’ morphed personalities confuse the shit out of us, and there’s nothing we can do about it but—like them—wait it out. When my mom called tonight and said the TV finally died and that we had a small one in front of it in the meantime, I asked about the hole in the ceiling.

“What about it?”

“Has it been fixed?”

“Certainly not.”

“And we’re having people over this weekend?!”

“They just won’t go in there!”

I want to tell them, Stop covering up your faults with paper towels. Stop hiding from me because I can see you. I know that everyone living under that roof is in denial of their depression (me included) and needs a fresh start. But that doesn’t mean pretending like the “old house” never existed. Because when you try to better yourself, you move on but you don’t forget. You don’t forget like the past 25 years never happened. You hold onto parts of it, the good parts, the framework and the infrastructure and maybe not the plumbing but the people and the trinkets. Let’s renovate the rooms. Let’s all sit down together, all four of us, and let’s think about what needs changing. You can say what colors you like, and you can say where you need the computer for work, and you can say that the dog is not allowed on the couches anymore in this Ideal Future, and you can say okay then here is how we achieve this financially. Let’s stop letting one person make all the decisions just because that one person holds the bank account passcode. Everyone has a say, so everyone needs to say it.

But that’s not how things work in my family.

-- 11:18 PM

Paddy's

We did not dress according to the weather, but Jenna and I know how to make something out of anything.

Our journey began with green bagels from Brueggers, because why not? The women's bathroom was clogged, so Jenna had to sneak into the men's. We navigated our way around innocent college students who all just happened to like Barq's rootbeer, a delightful coincidence. There were spots of light rain but nothing serious. On the T, an odd-looking couple made out excessively behind me, and the girl stuck her leg between my legs at one point.

At Andrew Square, the end point of the parade route, we stood around a corner, trying to find the best spot from which to watch. I took some pictures. Soon, a man who would later call himself Mike came up to us to make small talk. By small talk I mean much too long talk. About what makes parades great. What makes Southie bad. What makes Southie good! What are you taking pictures for? Are you a professional? Photojournalism, that would be great. Just like me, I work in a somethingsomething. I've been to every state but Hawaii. I drive 500 miles every night, it's amazing. Boston's such a great place to film a movie. Six locations right now, maybe even seven. No way, where's the studio going to go? Wow, thanks for that news! What kind of camera is that? Is it expensive? What a nice camera. Is it a DSLR? Do you know what that stands for? What a nice camera, I'd like one of those, I bet.

He apologized for being "that asshole who talks to you the entire time!" to which Jenna mumbled, "I cannot do this the whole time." Mike tried to shake hands with a man standing across from us, between the barrier and a row of newspaper dispensers. The man, Marty, humorlessly refused. When Mike recognized someone, Marty and his wife turned around and moved a dispenser to let us into their area.

"Nice spot!" said Mike.

"Private party," replied his wife, adding to us, "I don't like the way he talks about that camera."

Although the parade was set to start at 1:00, nothing happened until 1:20, when the firetrucks and police rolled through.

And then.

NOTHING FOR TWO HOURS.

It was outrageous. Freezing and rainy and absolutely nothing for two hours. The family next to us tried to pass the time by dissecting sentence diagrams (I piped in that "is" is a verb, reaching my pretentious English major quota for the day). Jenna and I talked for a while. The police stood in a ring in the center of the square so that no one could reach them unless they jumped the barricade, and no one could jump the barricade because every set of joints was frozen. Where was the parade? Yes, we were at the end, but it's two miles! Do you have any idea how many parades I've marched in my lifetime? I know a thing or two about a thing or two. There's always a delay, but this was ridiculous. Maybe they canceled it. Maybe this was the wrong square, regardless of the hundreds of cranky people around us. We called our parents and asked if there was anything on the news.

"No, the parade started at 1:00," said my mom.

"Really? Because I've been watching absolutely nothing for an hour and a half!"

"At least it's not that cold out."

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT IS AND ISN'T."

Because it was that cold. And we were in thin shoes and too few layers. And we were miserable. "I don't know," we said about fifty times. But our spot was so good--if the parade were going to show up, we'd be sacrificing a really awesome spot. We pretended that we were seeing things at the top of the hill. Was that a group of soldiers or just a lot of goths? Is that a float or a very tall person? Here comes a car! Oh no, it's just the Velocar guy again.

At 3:00, The Red Cross, bless its little heart, finally showed up. No one cheered for it. The VFWs got some claps. The bagpipers were much appreciated.

And then.

NOTHING.

We booked it out of there, our feet unable to take it anymore. We'd been rooted to the same (prime!) spot for two hours in the drizzle and the cold, so we walked like zombies. Back at South Station, we took every escalator and then decided to warm up with coffee and pretzels at Auntie Anne's. While waiting in line, Jenna suddenly looked up.

"He just stole my--!"

When it comes to fight or flight, Jenna Broderick does both. She was off! chasing a guy down through the station, darting this way and that, only to realize her wallet was in her other pocket.

"I don't understand it. We've had the most boring day, standing still while nothing happened, and somehow we keep pretending like exciting things are happening."

"I can't feel my feet or my hands now."

-- 07:38 PM

Where my mind will inevitably go

My professor:

"Before I had my daughters, I thought of two things.

1. I've used up all the good names already, and
   
2. I've been making people for years and years, but now I have to make someone?"

-- 03:37 PM

Daylight's Save a Dream

I am looking for a flat in Dublin, because I did not get on-campus housing. I would have preferred one that allowed pets, but the pickin's are slim. I can't even find a one-bedroom--I have to split with some random guy. I don't know his name, but he looks like maybe a Greg--black hair, sort of beard, kind of a slob, American (everyone was American), but all around not bad-looking. We mainly tolerate each other, but there is very little communication. I get up, go to school; he gets up, goes to work.

I go to the beach with another person I know going to the same program. I assume this is not Dublin anymore, because the waves are gargantuan and because of some other events that will follow. At any rate, the waves are huge, and Jenna Z. and I try to climb a rock wall to get a better look, but suddenly! The waves smash us into the wall. We are going to drown. But someone comes to our rescue, someone who looks an awful lot like my new roommate Greg (which I've just decided he will go by). He gives me a stern talking-to, you're going to get killed, that was the stupidest thing he's ever seen, &c, &c.

We go our separate ways, neither looking forward to having to come back to the flat at some point that day. Jenna Z. and I badmouth him on our way back to school--who does he think he is? It's none of his business whether we die or not, you don't even know me, back the fuck up, guy.

Skip ahead to several weeks later when the three of us are going to museums of all different kinds. We don't know why we go, because they're shoddy museums to begin with. They look more like the Nathaniel Morton Expos, which now that I think of it, I have no idea what those were about at all. I remember doing a project on the rain forest, and that's that. It certainly looked like that type of thing, posterboards on desks, set up in little mazes, about things we probably don't care about, like rock formations and kaleidoscopes. But we go, everyday.

I come to realize that Greg has become my boyfriend, and this makes me unreasonably angry. I lash out at him one day at a museum when he laughs derisively after I say something, like he doesn't believe what I say. "You don't know ANYTHING about me. All you know is that I pay half the rent, and I pay it on time, unlike some people!"

"I don't know anything about you?"

He walks over to a wall where the kaleidescope is projected and makes it turn colors. He makes a taxidermied animal come to life. He knows everything there is to know about sealife. He is some kind of magician. I don't know anything about him.

"And now, the ultimate question: does a vampire bat show up in a photograph?"

I am crouched on the ground with an enormous bat on top of my head, wings closing in on my crown, camera pointed at my face, this is love, we understand each other--

Kellie walks in and I wake up.

-- 07:52 PM

Don't you people know how to use the Internet?

If you date me, I will buy you awesome things that you always wanted but never asked for.

-- 11:36 PM

Suffocation of the eye

Another month, another overreaction from the biggest drama queen walking this green earth--my body. Riding a bike was too much, not wearing gloves was too much, and now wearing contacts is too much. Fortunately none of this is taking too much time to heal, and a couple of eye drops plus a week of glasses will take care of the keratitis (not conjunctivitis, as it were).

But while my left eye is currently drooping and leaking and ultra-sensitive to light, I'm still finding things I enjoy looking at. Today was a really gorgeous day, warm enough that I could leave my car windows half down and drink an iced tea and not get unnecessarily angry at my keys for not appearing in my hand the second my thoughts brushed near them. I hit the brakes before I passed Bert's and decided to just go ahead and take some pictures of the beach.

It's important that I find things I can enjoy looking at, because March is a very tough month. My birthday's come and gone, so there's nothing to wait for (not that there was anything to wait for anyway), spring is a big fake until May and it hurts my heart, and I'm so done with schoolwork it's gross. This whole week I've been watching episode after episode of Veronica Mars on my computer instead of reading Tom Jones, even though Tom Jones is a perfectly good, funny book and I want to know what happens next. I'm feeling pretty unmotivated at the mo' and it's about time for a change of pace.

I look forward to the end of this school year because a) next school year is going to be off the chain, and b) this summer should be all right. I plan to make it slightly more active, with plenty of different goings-on already planned. Whether I get the internships I'm interviewing for or not, I don't really care, because they're not paid and they're a hike. It is absolutely possible to work seven days a week in the summer, and I'd do it again if I had to, but I don't have to. I don't have to have a million different publications for my portfolio this early--none of my peers do--and even if I do, I certainly won't be screwed if I don't work for some company this summer. I can always freelance. Shit, I'll save gas money and I'll have extra time to do the things I want to do, however brief those windows will be. Taking a break from writing and submitting this summer will not kill me, it will not be the end of me. Okay? (Remember this come April when I actually am turned down for the internships and my head explodes.)

But this is all very far away in the current scope of things. In the meantime I have to find things that I like, which can be hard when I feel so down all the time. I just have to keep planning, keep putting things down in my agenda, keep knowing where I'm going, because the moment I stop, I don't ask for directions. I pull over to the side of the road and dry heave. It's a style.

-- 10:10 AM

3 across, 1 down

"And that's how I spent my birthday," I said, tossing a failed crossword into the trash.

"Don't say it like that."

"Should I come up with some glorified alternative?"

"No, but that just sounds sad."

"It is."

-- 02:24 PM