(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
Here is my recipe for Badass Hot Cocoa.
Twoish heaped spoonfuls of storebought hot cocoa mix
Oneish heaped spoonful unsweetened baking cocoa
Fourish or fiveish vigorous shakings of cinnamon powder (unsweetened?)
Threeish shakings of nutmeg
(add very hot water)
One and a half squeezes of chocolate syrup
(stir)
One precisely calculated dash of milk, just enough to make the hot cocoa drinkable but not so much that it ends up cold sooner than you're warm
(stir)
Top with marshmallow or two and whipped cream
Replace whipped cream twice throughout course of beverage
And that is my recipe for Badass Hot Cocoa.
(Later footnote: I've been going a little more minimalist lately - the mix, water, cinnamon, syrup, marshmallow and whipped cream are the real essentials.)
Friday, January 7, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Chem lab
(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
Today (11/23/10) has been One Of Those Days so far. If I didn't have a sense of humor and a proper appreciation of quality pathos, days like this would just send me over the brink like a protagonist in an H.P. Lovecraft story.
I won't go into painstaking detail, but it's worth noting that I did not get enough sleep at all, my contacts refused to get along with my eyes leaving said eyes blithering with pain and irritation and redness and weepery and I had to resort to my super ugly glasses, almost all the other schools and universities in the state are delayed or closed because of the weather but HERE in this town it's just cold enough to make the world absolutely frigid but not icy/snowy enough to merit the academic cry to abandon ship. (I suppose at this point I should clarify something - I'm no longer in high school, I was homeschooled all my life, I'm going to college next year, a year later than most people go to college, and I'm taking a chemistry class at my local uni to have another science credit on my homeschool transcript. Chemistry lab was where I was headed today.)
By all the God-fearing lemurs of the earth, it was cold outside. No numbers to brag about, really, just cold and penetrating, the kind of cold that makes one's eyeballs ache and one's overlong nose turn red and drip something fierce, like a tomato golem who's just been stabbed lots like Julius Caesar.
Oh, it was snowing a little when I was walking to campus, too. Pretty, delicate, Hollywood snow that is all like "hahaha look at me I am so innocuous, I could never do anyone harm, you are just a shivering weakling" because I am something of a shivering weakling, I really don't think I produce as much body heat as everyone else does, like I'll take people's recently vacated computer chairs and be like "is your ass a hot water bottle by any chance, this chair is super warm" but anyway.
So I got to chemistry lab. My lab partner never showed up, so I had to work with someone else whose partner was also not there, and I can't really blame the people who skipped because today we were analyzing urine.
It was synthetic urine, of course, but I still really do not care to relive that part in detail. I am not a person comfortable with bodily fluids even if they have never been inside a body.
One point, though. I think I mentioned H.P. Lovecraft protagonists before. I will carry that simile.
There was a moment, at the end, when we were cleaning up. Different Lab Partner - we will call her BD - was throwing away the droppers and pH papers and things, and I was rinsing out the test tubes containing our urine samples. (We'd had to do six tests, so that ends up as twelve tubes, six small six large.)
You know that moment in Lovecraft stories - I am assuming you've read them because it saves me explaining - when the hero has been through some scary stuff already and he's wavering a bit, and the climax comes when the guy sees/hears/interacts with/whatever something so wrong, so literally unfathomable, so blasphemous and shattering and awful that he simply cannot process it, and his mind breaks and then there's all the shrieking and flailing and fleeing into the night and so on? That was what it was like when I tipped over one of the large test tubes into the sink, one of the samples we'd heated in warm water for a few minutes, and nothing happened.
I shook the tube. I ran water into the tube. Nothin' doin'.
"Becca," I croaked to BD as she returned from dumping things in the trash. "I'm scared." I shook the tube as it was upside down again to illustrate.
"Oh," she said. "That's gross."
It was a bit hazy from there on. I remember BD got me a little wire scrub-brush from the other DI sink, and I thanked her and used it and the congealed urine began to come out of the tube in clots, and I died a little inside and kept cleaning tubes.
There was only the one completely solid sample, but it was the first one I did. The unheated samples were still totally liquid, of course, and some of the heated ones were liquid with occasional clots.
By now, I am coherent enough to write, obviously, and this is because I have had a very hot hot cocoa with extra hot, and I have listened to a couple old songs sung by Fred Astaire because Fred Astaire is the bomb. I talked to my parents about the lab, because they know I have Issues, but writing is my natural creative medium and I have recently decided that creative expression is probably going to be my most powerful weapon against insanity.
(I have also recently decided that insanity comes in many, many forms.)
Dear Harriet Walter,
Today (11/23/10) has been One Of Those Days so far. If I didn't have a sense of humor and a proper appreciation of quality pathos, days like this would just send me over the brink like a protagonist in an H.P. Lovecraft story.
I won't go into painstaking detail, but it's worth noting that I did not get enough sleep at all, my contacts refused to get along with my eyes leaving said eyes blithering with pain and irritation and redness and weepery and I had to resort to my super ugly glasses, almost all the other schools and universities in the state are delayed or closed because of the weather but HERE in this town it's just cold enough to make the world absolutely frigid but not icy/snowy enough to merit the academic cry to abandon ship. (I suppose at this point I should clarify something - I'm no longer in high school, I was homeschooled all my life, I'm going to college next year, a year later than most people go to college, and I'm taking a chemistry class at my local uni to have another science credit on my homeschool transcript. Chemistry lab was where I was headed today.)
By all the God-fearing lemurs of the earth, it was cold outside. No numbers to brag about, really, just cold and penetrating, the kind of cold that makes one's eyeballs ache and one's overlong nose turn red and drip something fierce, like a tomato golem who's just been stabbed lots like Julius Caesar.
Oh, it was snowing a little when I was walking to campus, too. Pretty, delicate, Hollywood snow that is all like "hahaha look at me I am so innocuous, I could never do anyone harm, you are just a shivering weakling" because I am something of a shivering weakling, I really don't think I produce as much body heat as everyone else does, like I'll take people's recently vacated computer chairs and be like "is your ass a hot water bottle by any chance, this chair is super warm" but anyway.
So I got to chemistry lab. My lab partner never showed up, so I had to work with someone else whose partner was also not there, and I can't really blame the people who skipped because today we were analyzing urine.
It was synthetic urine, of course, but I still really do not care to relive that part in detail. I am not a person comfortable with bodily fluids even if they have never been inside a body.
One point, though. I think I mentioned H.P. Lovecraft protagonists before. I will carry that simile.
There was a moment, at the end, when we were cleaning up. Different Lab Partner - we will call her BD - was throwing away the droppers and pH papers and things, and I was rinsing out the test tubes containing our urine samples. (We'd had to do six tests, so that ends up as twelve tubes, six small six large.)
You know that moment in Lovecraft stories - I am assuming you've read them because it saves me explaining - when the hero has been through some scary stuff already and he's wavering a bit, and the climax comes when the guy sees/hears/interacts with/whatever something so wrong, so literally unfathomable, so blasphemous and shattering and awful that he simply cannot process it, and his mind breaks and then there's all the shrieking and flailing and fleeing into the night and so on? That was what it was like when I tipped over one of the large test tubes into the sink, one of the samples we'd heated in warm water for a few minutes, and nothing happened.
I shook the tube. I ran water into the tube. Nothin' doin'.
"Becca," I croaked to BD as she returned from dumping things in the trash. "I'm scared." I shook the tube as it was upside down again to illustrate.
"Oh," she said. "That's gross."
It was a bit hazy from there on. I remember BD got me a little wire scrub-brush from the other DI sink, and I thanked her and used it and the congealed urine began to come out of the tube in clots, and I died a little inside and kept cleaning tubes.
There was only the one completely solid sample, but it was the first one I did. The unheated samples were still totally liquid, of course, and some of the heated ones were liquid with occasional clots.
By now, I am coherent enough to write, obviously, and this is because I have had a very hot hot cocoa with extra hot, and I have listened to a couple old songs sung by Fred Astaire because Fred Astaire is the bomb. I talked to my parents about the lab, because they know I have Issues, but writing is my natural creative medium and I have recently decided that creative expression is probably going to be my most powerful weapon against insanity.
(I have also recently decided that insanity comes in many, many forms.)
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Macbeth
(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
My mom asked the room in general today what the tiny little package as came in the mail was. My sister asked where said package had come from, and my mom said she believed it came from the UK.
Naturally, the words "package" and "UK" make a combination which tends to seize me by the ears, being as it is that they are two of my favorite things and the best packages I ever get always come from the UK.
Sure enough, the tiny little package turned out to be a copy of your book on Macbeth! I knew it wasn't going to be a huge book but great Scott this thing is tiny, tiny and delicate and holding it makes me feel like a zombie gorilla manhandling a butterfly. Fantastic picture of you on the cover, too.
I believe I shall begin reading it now. I ought to be working on my prelab report for class tomorrow but I think I'll only do that once I've eaten. (said she, waiting for her mother to get done cooking like an extremely useless lump which cannot feed its own damn self)
(PS, the author bio thing in the front flap claims that you have "contributed several essays and articles to other drama publications" and I just want you to know that it causes me near-physical pain that I don't know how to get my hands on these essays and articles in other drama publications)
Dear Harriet Walter,
My mom asked the room in general today what the tiny little package as came in the mail was. My sister asked where said package had come from, and my mom said she believed it came from the UK.
Naturally, the words "package" and "UK" make a combination which tends to seize me by the ears, being as it is that they are two of my favorite things and the best packages I ever get always come from the UK.
Sure enough, the tiny little package turned out to be a copy of your book on Macbeth! I knew it wasn't going to be a huge book but great Scott this thing is tiny, tiny and delicate and holding it makes me feel like a zombie gorilla manhandling a butterfly. Fantastic picture of you on the cover, too.
I believe I shall begin reading it now. I ought to be working on my prelab report for class tomorrow but I think I'll only do that once I've eaten. (said she, waiting for her mother to get done cooking like an extremely useless lump which cannot feed its own damn self)
(PS, the author bio thing in the front flap claims that you have "contributed several essays and articles to other drama publications" and I just want you to know that it causes me near-physical pain that I don't know how to get my hands on these essays and articles in other drama publications)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
dogbrain
(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
Have you ever seen somebody digging and scrabbling in the cracks between large cushions and things to recover something small they lost or think they've lost down there?
I think that's what my dog is doing right now.
And he's looking for his mind.
I think it fell out some long-gone day before this.
Dear Harriet Walter,
Have you ever seen somebody digging and scrabbling in the cracks between large cushions and things to recover something small they lost or think they've lost down there?
I think that's what my dog is doing right now.
And he's looking for his mind.
I think it fell out some long-gone day before this.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Petherbridge!
(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
I've discovered that all kinds of bridges become all kinds of better when you add the prefix -Pether- to them.
For example!
The Petherbridges of Madison County
Petherbridge of Birds
Golden Gate Petherbridge
Petherbridge to nowhere
Petherbridge of the gods
Complete and unapetherbridged
Dental petherbridge
Hands across the petherbridge
Rainbow petherbridge
Petherbridge of Sighs
Petherbridge & Burn
petherbridge failures
petherbridge clubs
petherbridging world history
petherbridging between joists
movable petherbridge
pigtail petherbridge
segmental petherbridge
covered petherbridge
wooden petherbridge
burning one's petherbridges
petherbridgeable
to cross a petherbridge when one comes to it
The Petherbridge on the River Kwai
And oh so many more.
Don't even mention Benedict Cumberbatch to me.
Dear Harriet Walter,
I've discovered that all kinds of bridges become all kinds of better when you add the prefix -Pether- to them.
For example!
The Petherbridges of Madison County
Petherbridge of Birds
Golden Gate Petherbridge
Petherbridge to nowhere
Petherbridge of the gods
Complete and unapetherbridged
Dental petherbridge
Hands across the petherbridge
Rainbow petherbridge
Petherbridge of Sighs
Petherbridge & Burn
petherbridge failures
petherbridge clubs
petherbridging world history
petherbridging between joists
movable petherbridge
pigtail petherbridge
segmental petherbridge
covered petherbridge
wooden petherbridge
burning one's petherbridges
petherbridgeable
to cross a petherbridge when one comes to it
The Petherbridge on the River Kwai
And oh so many more.
Don't even mention Benedict Cumberbatch to me.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
novelist
(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
When I was seven, I decided that one day I would be a Novelist. This key moment came after my family read the first Harry Potter book, and Ms Rowling made it look so easy, at least to my empty blue eyes.
It's the one ambition I have never given up on or decided against.
In a way, it's shaped my life so far. My mother tells me I have a gift for writing, making it the one and only talent I might have except for being able to wiggle my littlest toes. Not that I even write much at all, though I've been doing a little bit more and a little bit more over the past few months.
But the odd thing is I've always been straight up dead centered on the notion that I am going to be a Big Thing. Originally it was just a Popular Thing like Rowling, but as my brain has grown it's become a Big Thing. An author so good, so brilliant and hilarious and devastating that oceans would crumble at my name. Pulitzer Prize winner on my first novel. Nobel prize winner on my fifth. Dying children would beg for me to have tea with them as their Make-a-Wish wish. I would write for all age groups, in any genre I wanted, and publishers would lap it all up. I would be a sort of literary Prometheus, bringing light and hope and great wisdom and the all the fires of joy and despair and aching survival to the minds of thousands. Serious Business.
I'm only just now really questioning that but-of-course-I'm-going-to attitude, the manufactured destiny. (I'm 18 years old by now, so that's fair impressive.) I know I'm extremely underripe as a person, and I haven't really experienced much yet, but I can't help imagining myself, 37 years old, flipping burgers in the sewers to earn a living, alone and dead inside and sometimes wondering what happened to my dreams and certainties.
It's not like I work hard at my writing, either. Is developing as a person enough to be doing? As I write that, the little voice in my head says DO BOTH like the demanding little bitch that it is.
And then my dreams come out from behind the clouds again and they're like oh shit, when you ARE super rich and famous and adored people are gonna look into you and find this blog and that will not be a good thing, look at all this dreck I blather out
Dear Harriet Walter,
When I was seven, I decided that one day I would be a Novelist. This key moment came after my family read the first Harry Potter book, and Ms Rowling made it look so easy, at least to my empty blue eyes.
It's the one ambition I have never given up on or decided against.
In a way, it's shaped my life so far. My mother tells me I have a gift for writing, making it the one and only talent I might have except for being able to wiggle my littlest toes. Not that I even write much at all, though I've been doing a little bit more and a little bit more over the past few months.
But the odd thing is I've always been straight up dead centered on the notion that I am going to be a Big Thing. Originally it was just a Popular Thing like Rowling, but as my brain has grown it's become a Big Thing. An author so good, so brilliant and hilarious and devastating that oceans would crumble at my name. Pulitzer Prize winner on my first novel. Nobel prize winner on my fifth. Dying children would beg for me to have tea with them as their Make-a-Wish wish. I would write for all age groups, in any genre I wanted, and publishers would lap it all up. I would be a sort of literary Prometheus, bringing light and hope and great wisdom and the all the fires of joy and despair and aching survival to the minds of thousands. Serious Business.
I'm only just now really questioning that but-of-course-I'm-going-to attitude, the manufactured destiny. (I'm 18 years old by now, so that's fair impressive.) I know I'm extremely underripe as a person, and I haven't really experienced much yet, but I can't help imagining myself, 37 years old, flipping burgers in the sewers to earn a living, alone and dead inside and sometimes wondering what happened to my dreams and certainties.
It's not like I work hard at my writing, either. Is developing as a person enough to be doing? As I write that, the little voice in my head says DO BOTH like the demanding little bitch that it is.
And then my dreams come out from behind the clouds again and they're like oh shit, when you ARE super rich and famous and adored people are gonna look into you and find this blog and that will not be a good thing, look at all this dreck I blather out
Saturday, January 1, 2011
scribble
(written at a previous date)
Dear Harriet Walter,
I have a habit of writing things down on my hands when I'm going to bed and don't want to forget something. Now this is a relatively normal thing, I know, as lots of people do it during the day, but it gets better when you realize that I write these things in the dark when I am mostly asleep.
I can't always remember what I was thinking when I wrote the things. For example, one time I woke up with the words "sexual deadline" on my left palm. I don't know whether this was just a phrase I thought of and liked or a complaint or a threat or what.
Another time, a few weeks ago I woke up and the words "who voiced the Wart?" were on there, which was really fucking disturbing until I remembered that I'd realized in my slumbering stupor that in Disney's movie The Sword in the Stone (based on the first part of, what hey, The Once & Future King) the character of the Wart/young Arthur sounds completely different in the beginning from how he does in, say, the fish scene, or the whole rest of the damn movie. And I'd wanted to look the movie up and see if he had more than one voice actor. (He had three.)
And today I woke up and saw upon my forearm, mostly rubbed away, the following passage:
A sickened, sensitive shadow, writhing in hands that were not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low
Yes, children, this is the danger of reading H.P. Lovecraft before bed. You wake up and you have lines from "Nyarlathotep" scrawled on your goddamn body.
I love books.
Dear Harriet Walter,
I have a habit of writing things down on my hands when I'm going to bed and don't want to forget something. Now this is a relatively normal thing, I know, as lots of people do it during the day, but it gets better when you realize that I write these things in the dark when I am mostly asleep.
I can't always remember what I was thinking when I wrote the things. For example, one time I woke up with the words "sexual deadline" on my left palm. I don't know whether this was just a phrase I thought of and liked or a complaint or a threat or what.
Another time, a few weeks ago I woke up and the words "who voiced the Wart?" were on there, which was really fucking disturbing until I remembered that I'd realized in my slumbering stupor that in Disney's movie The Sword in the Stone (based on the first part of, what hey, The Once & Future King) the character of the Wart/young Arthur sounds completely different in the beginning from how he does in, say, the fish scene, or the whole rest of the damn movie. And I'd wanted to look the movie up and see if he had more than one voice actor. (He had three.)
And today I woke up and saw upon my forearm, mostly rubbed away, the following passage:
A sickened, sensitive shadow, writhing in hands that were not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low
Yes, children, this is the danger of reading H.P. Lovecraft before bed. You wake up and you have lines from "Nyarlathotep" scrawled on your goddamn body.
I love books.
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