lustre

i've always thought it was a strange name. Shakespeare. because his son, Hamnet died and he was left with two daughters, his name was lost and now no one bears the name Shakespeare, although who knows who carries his blood now? Shakespeare.

i am learning to dance. don't laugh.

my parents--namely my mother--thought it would be very clever of the three of us to take swing and tango lessons in secret for the wedding in september. my sister is to be kept in the dark about it. so we started class last week and have lessons every monday for the following four or some number weeks.

i've always enjoyed dancing--but the uninhibited kind that you do in your bedroom or at school dances. i particularly enjoyed casual school dances where you didn't have to worry about a date but could come with a bunch of friends. but these lessons aren't like that, and again i am the third wheel. my mother has my father and i have no one. luckily it doesn't seem to matter because the instructor makes the couples rotate so that you're not with the same partner throughout. because the women outnumber the men there are times when the women must dance alone. so far i have learned the "rock-step-triple step-triple step" and "wrap around" of eastcoast swing and the "slow-slow-quick-quick-slow", "promenade", "conversation" and "forte" of tango. its very basic, simple stuff and i don't think it will ever come in handy--ever--but my mom is convinced i'm going to marry some foreign diplomat and that i'll need to know how to dance for state dinners and whatnot. i fail to see how swing and tango are appropriate for these galas, but what do i know...

i find that my partner usually determines how i end up dancing. if he leads, i follow properly. if he knows what he's doing, i know what i'm doing. if he's confident, i'm confident. there's this one man who doesn't tower over me but is just the right height. we dance well together. then there is this one young man--younger than me--who is tall and skinny and when i dance with him, i never know what i'm doing because he's very awkward. and best of all is the older gentleman who is tall, but holds himself well and when we dance the tango together, he holds me properly and stands up straight so that i feel dignified. he pivots me for the promenade and leads me through beautifully. when he brought me into the forte i felt like i was wearing a rose in my hair and a billowy black dress. *shrugs* but i don't know much about tango. i suppose i look stupid to anyone else.

i was convinced i would get straight A's this quarter, but i didn't!! i was so mad!! one B! there's always only one B and it screws up my GPA! i think i should get used to it.

i'm reading The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson. i highly recommend it. sometimes when i buy a book impulsively, i end up feeling reluctant to read it, fearing that it wasn't a good choice and that going through the pages will be tedious. but then i start to read it and i'm immersed. i didn't want to start this one and it stayed on my desk getting a little dusty for almost two months while i read other books. i started it yesterday and am truly glad i did. i've added the city of Vienna to my list of cities to visit before i get married--if i get married.

there's something about school supplies and stationary type stores that really interest me. and when i say "interest" i mean it makes me want to spend my money. there are four things that i could spend all my money on:

1. books
2. pens and pencils--which includes bottles of ink and calligraphy pens, sets of nibs, gel pens and even ballpoint pens if i like the smell of the ink; and more recently, sealer wax and seals
3. paper. sheets and sheets of it, parchment type paper, colored paper, organic looking envelopes and cards with witty sayings on them even if there's no occasion to buy such a card, wrapping paper (oh how i love choosing wrapping paper), various notebooks which i half fill with writing then get another before i finish because my thoughts can't keep up with how many awesome notebooks there are out in the world...
4. wallets and bags. i am not joking. i have a bag in my closet full of wallets, some of them worn, some of them cute but illogical (like this beautiful auburn-red wallet i got from a gypsy which i found out later had a slit too small for my cash); i have a collection of clutches that i only use if i feel like my hands need to be filled, and of course purses--although in my defense a lot of what's stashed away are the purses i get for christmas that i never use and don't want to throw out.

so. there you have it. don't take me to bookstores, or places like the container store and office max because i'll go crazy over the silliest things. the gypsies that come to the university for the vendor fairs are also dangerous. when i took my sister with me once, she spent $60 dollars on a purse, bought six silk skirts at $20 a skirt, two pairs of india slippers, and earrings. i spent about $40 on a small purse and a tote for school, and another $20 for the auburn-red wallet and melon colored pouch. i was considerably less broke than my sister. but she makes more money than me.

comrade. to have comrades and be a comrade. there's something about friendship and familiarity that seems to evade me. in Hesse's Stowaway it was easy for one to get that feeling of camaraderie on the ship because they only had each other on that three year treck through unknown waters. they had each other and their ship and it was as simple as that. in Cooper's King of Shadows, Nat had his Company in the beginning, and then the Chamberlain's Men when he went back. it was just him, his fellow actors and the Globe theatre. even if there were scrapes, sworn enemnity and so on, there was still that irreplaceable feeling of family. but it's not like that in real life. it seems that only certain circumstances lead to such camaraderie, and i suppose that's what makes for such good reading. in real life, there isn't that bond with people you go to school with, there isn't that bond with people you work with. and family is family--which is entirely something else. only when a group of people are isolated from the outside--because they've joined a company of actors for the summer or because one is on a ship in the middle of the ocean with 30 other men--is that sense of friendship and camaraderie there. but what can be defined as "the outside"? what do we need to be isolated from to gain such friendships? not pain and not suffering, because sometimes it is these miseries that bring a group of people together. from routine? that doesn't follow either. so what is it?

someone--i can't remember who--once described me as "cold". and i am cold to people i don't know, to people i don't want to know. i'm stiff and expressionless. but i'll work and i'll do things i am asked to do. isn't that what matters?

i think i've mentioned before how children and i don't really mesh well. the girl who i babysit nextdoor is the one exception because i've been babysitting her since she was 17 months and i changed her diapers and fed her dinner and made sure she used the toilet before she went to bed. with other children, i'm not so lucky. but this didn't stop me from agreeing to babysit the son of one of our good friends. they're going to be pay me $10 an hour! that's more than i get paid at the bookstore!

now. this baby is an only child so far and in my opinion, he's very spoiled indeed. his parents--whom i like a lot--do very well with his health: they feed him dairy so that the myelin sheaths around his nerves form properly, they feed him fruits and vegetables and make sure he sleeps at least 14 hours a day. but when it comes to discipline, they can't bear to hear him wail. and i disagree with this. i'm sure you love your son, sir, but he needs to learn that he can't always have his way. last time i babysat him, i took him to the park. as we were walking home, the sprinklers went on and he bent to pick up some mud. i pulled his arm away and told him he would get dirty, maybe even sick. we went forward a little, then he bent at another puddle of mud and i had to pull his arm away again. this time, he threw a full-out tantrum. he shrieked at the top of his lungs and fell to the ground kicking. when i tried to get him to stand, he did that thing children do so well and let his limbs go limp. his father would have let him have the mud. i picked that spoiled boy up in my arms and carried him down the street with him screaming in my ear and pounding my shoulders with his little fists. he stopped once we got home, but i was in a stern mood afterwards.

but even though he is a spoiled child, he is a child and sometimes children say things that are more profound than things that grown men would say. he and his parents were invited to the band christmas party last december (his mother sings with my sister at church). we had put our pet birds in the laundry room since the kitchen counter was being used to serve the food. i peeked in to check on them and his mother saw and brought her son over. and when the little boy saw the two birds staring at him through the bars of their cage he said, "I want to go in there." instead of taking the birds out to play with him, he wanted to go into their cage to play with them. and that said so much.

this is a little longer than i meant it to be. i think i shall stop.

color to abstraction

once, my boss was giving a friend of hers a synopsis of a book--i believe it was a bestseller. this book did not have a happy ending. in many aspects, it was not a happy book. then my boss said, "but that's life."

and i wanted to say no! that isn't life!! life is so much more than misery and unhappiness and uncertainty. why is it that books that are sad that are apathetic that are "controversial" that are contemporary sell so well? do people actually think that those books represent life? do they actually think that whatever is real in this world is compounded in such cold works of literature? if you look at a list of bestsellers, you'll see books about murder and rape and theft and corrupt religious figures and government conspiracies. why do these things intrigue people? why do we let things we fear seduce us?

i cannot understand why praise is given to people who highlight the dark things in this world. it is one thing to overcome a fear, but it is entirely something else to take something you fear and strip it of its reality in order to use it in a book.

tell a story! a truly good book will lay a fear before its audience and illustrate how it works through the piece--how it is of its own accord, not how it is used. fear in life is something that can be created, something that can be exploited, but it is never not real. fear is always real. and if it plays a part in a novel or a film, don't disrespect it by giving it a cursory role, or else it will remind you of its potency in the rudest of ways. and people who don't fear are fools.

on saturday, we went to my cousin's house to celebrate his graduation from eighth grade. while i was sitting at the dining table eating, a group of my aunts and uncles read from a book of things compiled by eighth graders. one section was based on predictions--where that student thinks he or she would be in ten years. my cousin--who has been a difficult child throughout--wrote that he plans to live at home for five more years, then leave and travel the world. he said he did not know where he would be but that he would live with his friend. and my aunts and uncles, my parents, they all laughed. i did not.

i don't think its funny that my cousin doesn't know better. i don't think its funny that my cousin is ignorant. and instead of laughing at him in his ignorance, someone should try to teach him! even if he is stubborn, laughing at him won't keep him from believing that he can live a carefree life in ten years. all i said was, "we'll see about that."

isn't it amazing what kids can do to their parents? isn't it amazing that after so many years of parenting, parents can laugh at other children when they are wrong? they are so weary, that all they can do is find humor in what should be disturbing. i hope i am not that kind of grown-up.

friday, week ten

i've written the paper. i've finished with the annotated bibliographies and research journals and works cited page. i am exhausted.

all i need now is to read it one more time, make my last revisions and turn the portfolio in.

i am exhausted.

Juno

i remember a specific lesson from chemistry class of junior year. anything that has been changed chemically always wants to return to its original state: a diamond is constantly trying to return to its state as a lump of coal. the only reason why diamonds don't return to the coal-state is because there is a certain curve that must be overcome and the chemical curve of a diamond is so high that it cannot be overcome. or something like that (am definitely not a chemist).

then my chemistry teacher told me an interesting thing. there is a fancy name for it, but i don't recall what it is. the earth was originally a chaotic mass of matter before it was chemically changed; therefore the earth is constantly trying to return to its original state of chaos chemically. he said that every day that passes, the earth gets closer and closer to chaos and that someday, the chemical curve keeping the earth ordered will be overcome. and believe me, i see signs of impending chaos in many places.

but that could take years--for now, its June.

today is monday of week ten, the last week of the Spring 2005 quarter, and i am filled with warring emotions. i want out, but the closer the day of freedom comes, the closer it comes to turning in my research paper. oh, the turmoil! the turmoil!

i am going to be 19 on Sunday. God help us all.