The holidays have ended...

I had a splendid Christmas! We had lots of visitors, which I adore: David, Ellen, Jeannette, Adam, Miles, Kid Robot, Pink, Ribby, Mana, and Pop, plus our usual household of Mum, Dad, Ezra, April, Minnow, and me. I had a really nice Christmas eve (my favourite day of the year) which included shopping for everybody with money from my great-uncle. My dad and I returned with 17 gifts! Dinner was especially nice, as we finally had enough Tofurkey; also, another great-uncle sent us his lovely homemade applesauce.
As for gifts, I got several lovely things, including a banjo, a gunne sax dress, a few books, another dress, socks, bloomers, tea, one of these posters, etc. Ezra's main present was a PlayStation 2, which I have been using a lot, I must admit. My favourite game is Guitar Hero -- quite entertaining!

Ezra, Pink, and Kid Robot shoot off a rocket

Christmas excitment

A lovely gift from Miss Gliss! They are delightful limited edition Andy Warhol soup cans from Barney's!
In other events, everybody is here, and tomorrow is Christmas eve, my favourite day of the year. I've finished all my presents, but I still have a lot of wrapping to do.

A Mighty Wind

I LOVED this movie. I certainly didn't like it as much as Waiting For Guffman or This Is Spinal Tap, but I really thought it was delightful. The music was hilarious.

A special surprise

I am posting on my blog from school, because now I have special permission! That is a good thing! So... so far I've had an okay day. I did pretty well on the French test, I think, thanks to my flash cards, a splendid invention. Anything else? I'm only on page 27 of Beowulf, and I'm enjoying it. The poetry is interesting, but he is an extremely boastful character.

Code Monkey

I really like this song; the lyrics are simple, but funny. It's called "Code Monkey," and it's by Jonathan Coulton.

Grendel 2

"Then the harp began to play. The crowd grew still.
The harp sighed, the old man sang, as sweet-voiced as a child...
The harp turned solemn. He told of an ancient feud between two brothers which split all the world into darkness and light. And I, Grendel, was the dark side, he said in effect. The terrible race God cursed.
I believed him. Such was the power of the Shaper's harp! Stood wriggling my face, letting tears down my nose, grinding my fists into my streaming eyes, even though to do it I had to sqeeze with my elbow the corpse of the proof that both of us were cursed, or neither, that the brothers had never lived, nor the god who judged them. "Waaa!" I bawled.
Oh what a conversion!
I staggered out into the open and up towards the hall with my burden, groaning out, "Mercy! Peace!" The harper broke off, the people screamed. (They have their own versions, but this is the truth.) Drunken men rushed at me with battle-axes. I sank to my knees, crying, "Friend! Friend!" They hacked at me, yipping like dogs. I held up the body for protection..."

I love this bit for many reasons. First of all, I think this illustrates what a tragic combination of human and animal Grendel is. He looks like a really horrible animal (I picture him like a bear, only with claws and fangs and horns,) but his emotions are very real, and his thoughts, perhaps more than human. He isn't simple at all, and so befriending animals or plants or the sky is out of the question. This is (I believe) the only time he attempts to talk to the humans, but I really think that deep down he is lonely and needs a friend. He is 15 years old in the book, and I think he acts a lot like a lonely, abandoned child. At this point in the story, he hadn't killed anybody, but the humans had already labeled him a fiend, one of "Cain's clan," or, as he says, "the terrible race God cursed."

"...the corpse of the proof that both of us were cursed, or neither, that the brothers had never lived, nor the god who judged them..."

Lovely!

This line was a really powerful moment in the book for me. Think about this logically: Someone tells Grendel that because he eats dead people off the war-sites, he will burn in Hell. Grendel carries the corpse with him, the same way a human might carry a ham sandwich they were about to eat, but who is the killer of this person? The people that claim Grendel is the cursed one! So if Grendel is doomed because he cleans up the already-dead, shouldn't the killers have the same, if not a worse, fate? So, Grendel considers this, and decides that this unfairness isn't right, that it couldn't have been planned by the gods watching over the people, because where does that leave Grendel? The only logical conclusion is that God must not exist. It makes perfect sense to him. But the humans' willingness to believe anything makes Grendel furious, and that's really what started his quest for the truth, and, ultimately, his murders. So I think it can all be traced back to the humans.

I started Beowulf today and I really like it. It's very strange...
One more thing! Does anybody know what John Gardner's views on religion were? I don't know much about him, but in this book he seems to be trying to make a point about religion; I just can't figure out what it is.

The best guinea pig of them all

If you haven't already heard the news, we took lil' Sasha and Ziggy to the Animal Refuge League. My mother was especially tired of being a guinea pig zookeeper, and I cannot blame her! Luckily, we got to keep lovely April, the best one. She is really lovely -- very sweet, and she doesn't seem to mind being picked up. At one time, my room was referred to as the "guinea pig insane asylum," since Sasha is crazy. If you picked him up, he'd bite you, and if you opened his cage, he'd started racing around it in a terrified, frenzied manner.

Grendel

I loved this book. I thought it was very moving and the poetry was fasinating. I loved how Grendel was incredibly flawed, self-contained, and angry, yet I immediately identified with him, and I don't think I'll ever look at Beowulf (which I am reading right now) in the same way as someone who read it before Grendel. It was very thought-provoking. I'm too lazy to type out my favourite bit right now, but maybe later...

Scrabble

This is the single best word I have ever spelled in Scrabble. It says, "estrogen," and it earned me 77 points! Pop, I wish you were here!

Joanna Newsom

We saw Joanna Newsom on Tuesday, at Sommerville Theater. She was marvellous! I had a grand time. She played "Sadie," "The Book Of Right-On," "Bridges And Balloons," and "Peach Plum Pear," as well as all the songs from her new album. On the old songs, it was just her and her harp, but on the others, a band played with her. They were all quite good. I would love to see her again!

New York

I had a fabulous time in New York! We stayed with Lawrence in Brooklyn. Here are some camera phone photos from my excellent trip...

We went to this delightful restaurant on Friday. It's Chinese, and has a huge vegetarian menu. Only a few items are marked, "Not for vegan!!" It was good. I had a stir-fry with veggies and bean curd.

We walked down 7th Ave for a long time, which was great. It was very curious, and we waited outside Parson's for a while, which was neat.

We visited Sam Ash, which was so lovely. I tried out this electric acoustic guitar, and it was one of my favourites.

MoMA is my favourite museum in the world. Here I am examining the soup cans. I discovered recently that they are worth 100 million dollars.

This restaurant was terrific. It's a vegetarian Thai restaurant on the lower east side, and it had good food and a cool atmosphere, with the food arranged prettily and neat glasses. One of my favourite things about it was the vegan Thai iced tea!!

I had tofu pad thai:

On Saturday, we went to see two lovely exhibits at FIT. They were fantastic, really interesting, and with detailed descriptions of each garment.

We went to St's Alp Teahouse for lunch; it's very neat. It's kind of the taiwanese (?) equivalent of a hamburger shop -- lots of fried food, but really good. The picture is of our empty bubble tea glasses. I had jasmine green tea.

For dinner, we ate at Hampton Chutney Company, which has many different kinds of dosas. You can also pick from twelve different chutneys. I had cilantro, of which I was very fond.

We had to go to Sam Ash again. I got to play a Fender Jaguar for about 45 minutes!!

David and Hannah

Flowers from Ms. Carter

What a splendid time!

I had the BEST time at David Meiklejohn's event! I loved my video. I invited all of my teachers, but none of them showed up. It was okay, though.

Sorry, folks!

There is never a proper excuse for going a MONTH without writing in your blog, but especially when so many exciting things have been happening, such as:
1) Spending six days on a boat with eleven almost-strangers.
2) Attending two meditation workshops in Cambridge (one was four hours!)
3) Seeing David Sedaris, talking to him, and having books signed.
4) Getting a short (but nice) note from Jonathan Safran Foer.
5) Attending my first high school dance with Shampa and Miss Gliss.

And more!

RAIN CAN LEAVE A PERSON BLIND

Aww, cunnin'

Ain't they sweet? In case you haven't heard, Ezra's newly adopted guinea pig, April, had babies! We're pretty sure Sasha (the brown one) is a boy, and Ziggy Stardust (the albino) is a girl. They're lovely! Ezra and I are in the process of convincing Mum to let us keep them...

Schooooooool...

I survived my first two days of high school, although I'm not entirely sure I like it. I am quite fond of nearly all the teachers, but I can't stand the 12 kids in my crew, with whom I'll be spending five days on a boat. My favourite classes were English and French, and I successfully completed my first homework assignment, a two-paragraph report on Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close.
Speaking of that, Jonathan Safran Foer is apparently vacationing in Europe, but I still haven't given up hope that I'll get a letter from him...


First day o' school outfit:



A lovely lunch I made myself:

Who says I'm too old for Halloween??

I'm almost done preparing a fantastic constume... all I need is a faux fur coat, a red hair clip, and some brown penny loafers (size 7, in case you see some...)

Conjure, Artemis's lovely dog

England!

I had a fantastic time in England! I loved it there, and was not ready to come home. I spent four days on the Isle of Wight, two in Lacock, two in London, and one in Oxford. It was terrific, and I ate lots of interesting food, and did so many splendid things. I can't wait to go back!

Jeans

I love my brand new Yanuk jeans!

Root beer floats!

Last night, my mom and I had a couple of lovely root beer floats:

We made them with Whole Soy and Co. ice cream, the best soy ice cream you will ever taste!

Murderous Beautiful

Ukulele flower

Isn't this a lovely photograph? My mom took it with her camera phone. In case you haven't heard, Homestar David is making a music video of me playing a song on my ukulele. I'll put it on my blog when it's finished, which should be in a couple of months.

Wild Oats quinoa salad

Recently, I have been eating a lot of this delicious quinoa salad (black beans, corn, quinoa, tomatoes, and peppers in a vinaigrette-type sauce.) It's now my favourite deli item from Wild Oats.

Enneagram

I'm a type 4 with a five-wing (The Bohemian.) Take the test, and comment to tell me what you are!

A lovely picture

Here is a lovely photograph taken by Artemis, of our picnic. You can read more about it on her blog. (That's me, in the picture.)

Homestar David is here!