My philosophy of writing: The pleasure, the feeling, all through the words.

Frequently the only things in life worth hanging on to are those moments with good friends, good food/drink, and good talk, those moments that burn warmly in the bottom of your soul and make you cozy in your own skin. Language, for all its richness, is a poor medium to capture that feeling, those times made simultaneously of contentment and potential, but goddammit, it's all we have so we have to try our damnedest. Layer your words like flavors, slosh them around in your mouth like a good wine. Make them count; enjoy them. No plot, no thread of thought is going to capture on its own the tingling under your fingernails, the chemistry of interaction boiling over that is true life.

Let your tongue run free, revel in the pleasure. And no, it doesn't have to make sense:

A typhoon of octopus. A glacier of days. Aerodynamic aeolian aesthetic. Drowning challenge. A paragraph of stairways. Glockenspiel (in any context). Simpering sundials, a ton of crocodiles. Sticky checkbooks. Aphids for sale, in-laws for rent. Lapping at sounds like you're drowning in deafness. Fuzzy navy beans.

Jarring carousels, haranguing hula-hoops, a melange of melons. Overtones of overcoats, slithering staircases, offended petticoats. The unceasing demand for doldrums.

Live it!

The Gate is dead, long live The Gate.

So passes another season of the 13th Gate, among the greatest of America's haunted houses. We who work there must have strong hearts and will, for it asks much of us, but so to us does it give much to us: a soul-camaraderie, a delirious glee, pride in striking unbridled fear into the hearts of customers. Truly, it is a boon for those willing to accept and appreciate it.

This year, it almost broke me. My body grew weary, my steps faltered; for a time, I was laid low. Though I am not yet what I once was, I rallied back to carry out the end of an era, to help hoist the show over its final edge. Well, until next year at least.

Seriously though, it was a great year and I had a lot of fun, but I will greatly enjoy having spare time again, and finally getting to do all of those things that I had to put off wistfully until "after the Gate." Like having other friends. Or sleeping. It may, however, be difficult to suppress the manic miming, twirling, etc. that has become a habit--I find myself moving through the Chimes like it was the mirror maze, which is possibly hazardous, and inadvertently sneaking up on people. Also giggling silently with exaggerated gestures, which I may never in fact stop doing.

So, scare ya later!

Um, I like words?

Oh, hi there personal writing. I forgot you existed outside the graded, deadlined sphere that has devoured my life.

Speaking of which, it's National Novel Writing Month. That is but a wistful glimmer in my writer's eye this year due to crazy busy schedule and other writing obligations, but perhaps a miracle...

Current high point of my life: giant bags of Halloween candy sitting in my pantry, bought at discount the day after Halloween

Low point: the mucus-y demon living in my throat and lungs. Oh, and the complete lack of anything other than Halloween candy in my pantry.

Seriously contemplating going to grad school for linguistics rather than an MFA or something of that nature. Career options would be a little better, perhaps (though still hella gloomy probably). Of course, my linguistics professor hasn't actually shown up for class in about a week, so maybe that's God trying to send me a message. Or just get me home an hour earlier. If it is the latter, I sure do appreciate it.

I think that my social-interaction synapses have been misfiring more frequently than usual lately (something about that string of words seems odd, but oh well), and I may have crossed the line from "slightly awkward" into "eccentric". Example: A girl sitting next to me in my short story writing class complimented my story, which we had workshopped a few days earlier.

Girl: I really liked your story; I thought it was really well written.

Me. Oh. Me?

Girl: Um, yes.

Me: Oh. I didn't want to take a compliment not assigned to me, you see.

[awkward pause. blank stare on both sides.]

Me: Um. Yeah. I like words?

The stilted delivery of this, coupled with (that's not precisely the right word, either, but the sentence sounds the best) my glazed stare and the uncomfortable closeness of the desks in the classroom probably contributed to the awkwardness, along with my failure to follow this up with the usual context/explanation surrounding the phrase (i.e., My real interest is in words, what they mean and how they fit together to create different layers of meaning and experience in people's minds, rather than in a narrative or story-arc. That is why I tend towards poetry and linguistics rather than traditional fiction.). No major harm done though, I think. It is, after all, a class for aspiring writers.

Planning on taking 18 hours next semester, which in the fall would be suicidal for me but in the spring is merely ambitious. I guess I don't really need all of the classes right this second (or in some cases maybe not at all), but I'm afraid to not take them lest the chance slip through my fingers. I figured out that I can pull off my pie-in-the-sky triple minor and still graduate a semester early, but it would be by the skin of my teeth. Seriously considering abandoning Philosophy, but I'm going to try to talk to an advisor first. It would make my life a bit easier though, and I would only have to take 12 hours my graduating semester (knock on wood). For next semester, I'm looking at

Pidgins and Creoles, Brit Lit I, Chaucer, Symbolic Logic, Intermediate Poetry Writing. Oh, and Old Irish.

So much reading, but my days would be much less grueling than the 930-430 schedule I'm pulling this semester. We'll see.

Now, to write and revise poetry. I'll be reading tomorrow in front of actual people again, and I don't want to look like a total fool.