Tales from the Id

Back at Ave K.Mads and I took this special topics Flannery O'Connor course.  And it was great.  And one day we had this idea to read one of the stories we were scheduled to discuss for the next class out loud with another one of our roommates, Meg, the Ginger.  The story we read was hilarious.  It was about this woman, Millie, who was something of a spinster (a plain woman in her 40's: never been married, never even had a boyfriend) and a bad writer.  In fact, more often than not she actually didn't write anything, she just daydreamed herself into her stories.  This particular story she dreamed up concerned a cow farmer, who owned just one cow, and lived in a hut of a house with a belligerent wife who cooked him lumpy grits.  The poor, beaten man just sat there at the table, his big, sad, watery eyes soaking up the abuse his wife dished out into his bowl, his fiery red hair smothered, lank, and defeated from years of a loveless life -- and Millie can't take it anymore

In honour of National Coffee Day - which was also, epically, the Feast of the Arch Angels -- we have Puck and a coffee cup. *Disclaimer. National Coffee Day was Sept 29. I realize this is late.*

Happy 137th Birthday G.K. Chesterton!! :)   High in the wreck I held the cup, I clutched my rusty sword, I cocked my tattered feather To the glory of the Lord. Not undone were the heaven and earth, This hollow world thrown up, Before one man had stood up straight, And drained it like a cup.  

Many years ago, when I was a tiny pipsqueak of a child, I played make-believe all the time.  As I grew to be a little bigger, my worlds of make-believe didn't so much dwindle as become more complex and sophisticated.  By the time I was a teenager, I put dress-up behind me with childish things, but fantasy was still alive and well.  In fact, fantasy worlds and egos are a rather integral part of my person and occasionally this is expressed in overt ways - playing Cowboys and Indians with my friends in Georgia, or Puck running around clear as day, for example.  But for as real as fantasy is, it has never wandered into the realm of Reality... until one day two years and seven odd weeks (give or take a handful of days) ago when I was invited into Someones Else's world of make-believe and dress-up, and found out that it was actually a different dimension of Real Life. When I was little, my friends and I were always going on adventures, exploring, digging to China, building things,

So why not the God of Thunder? Meaghan, I know you asked for Daniel Craig.... but he's just a man in a suit. Why have him when you could have younger, hotter, and immortal?

Starting yesterday, Good Friday, it has been overcast and rainy.  And the weather calls to mind the only other Easter I ever remember rain on: Easter in Rome, 2008.  And when it rains there, it goes all out. When the girls and I got on the metro the sun was shining.  So we were totally unprepared for the severe thunderstorm that was waiting to greet us as we got off and headed towards St. Peter's Square for the outdoor Easter morning Mass.  After a while of standing in the square getting drenched (no thanks to the ripped plastic bag we had found and were holding over our three heads in vain), a sweet old Italian lady took pity on us and gave us her little brown polka dot umbrella, which leaked, and we had the best Easter ever.  God's power shouted in the thunder, spoke gently through the words of the Pope, and soaked into the very marrow of our bones through the rain.  All in all, it was awesome and exhilarating to be in the midst of the storm with Christ's Vicar right th

This is a belated Tuesday the 5th of April post. Last Tuesday the sky was casting the rain about with such frantic urgency that it seemed as though the atmosphere above the D.C. area had suddenly realized it was several thousand years late for the Flood.  It was oddly fitting, therefore, that during one of my class breaks I flipped through a Chesterton book and came across a short story called "A Picture of Tuesday", which is about the Second Day of Creation.  I read the story, looked out the window and thought: On the Second Day, God separated the waters above the earth from the waters below the earth. And today all the waters above the earth decided to come back down.

Out of all the V-day stories I heard last week, this one was my favorite.  Here is the text in its original unedited format, with the addition of graphics à la Ani. The characters are two friends of mine who are engaged.  Enjoy. "BABE LAST NITE I HAD A DREAM THAT SOME GIRL  KISSED ME AND U BEAT HER UP" "THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN IT STARTED RAINING.  BUT IT WAS RAINING INSIDE MY HOUSE AND INSTEAD OF RAIN IT WAS TURTLES." "IT WAS SO WEIRD.  IM SORRY I KISSED THAT GIRL.   SHE KISSED ME AND I RAN AND U CAME IN--"   "AND TURNED INTO A SUPERHERO AND SAVED ME."     Aw. He loves her :) On another note I got a Valentine from Gigas Mus, also recently dubbed Lester, formerly Mr. Stinkerbutt.  We actually have not seen (or heard) head or tail of him in quite some time, so he must have put some forethought into this Valentine.  I discovered it when I took out the garbage on V-day and opened a new bag - there it was: a giant rorschach-esque message skillful

Gonff the Mousethief in Kotir “He [Gonff] was a ducker and weaver of life, a marvelous mimic, ballad writer, singer, and lockpick, and very jovial with it all.” Brian Jacques – June 15, 1939 – February 5, 2011 Brian Jacques started writing Redwall when he was a truck driver delivering milk to the children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind.  He would visit with the kids and read to them, but he was unhappy with the selection of books in their library, so he began telling them the tale of Redwall Abbey.  Eventually he wrote the story down and showed it to his old English teacher, who secretly showed it to a publisher.  The rest is history. I discovered Redwall when I was about eight years old, and I ate it up like no other book existed.  Then I read Mossflower and began Mattimeo .  And I was sad because that was all there was.  Or so I thought.  Then one day I was at my friend Christina’s house and her brother Matt opened the doors of Redwall wide.  Well, actually, let’s

This is the Tale of Mr. Stinkerbutt, his sudden transformation into the awful Gigas Mus, and his untimely demise. Once upon a time, in a charming townehouse situated at the outskirts of a large county, there lived four beautiful damsels called Erin, Gina, Meg and Me -- and one squatter called Mr. Stinkerbutt.  For the first few months that the girls occupied the house, they were blissfully unaware of Mr. Stinkerbutt's presence.  Alas such ignorance could not last forever!  One chilly morning in winter, Meghan discovered she was unable to eat her last bagel for breakfast, because Someone Else had devoured it betwixt dusk and dawn, leaving only crumbs in the bag in the closet.  This was our very first introduction to that gluttonous, pilfering soul, Mr. Stinkerbutt. Shortly thereafter, he made a second attack against our closet.  He seemed to favour Meg's shelf, shunning the dried goods on every other shelf, and nommed a giant hole into her loaf of bread. Meg despairingly h

Please welcome Jack and Megan to the bar....

If you happened to be on fb two weeks ago, your news feed may have suffered an overload from one of my statuses (sorry Ian!).  If you missed all the fun though, please enjoy the edited, picture version here (no, I am not going to subject myself to retyping all 83 comments, you'll just have to go back to the status if you want the whole story). Catherine and I created a delightfully fictitious bar, where men are gentleman: they give you their seat and they buy you a drink.  More importantly, they are all gorgeous and famous and rich and heroic.  (Is that too much to ask for?) In the beginning, I said Archie Goodwin should be there.  No sooner had I suggested this than Catherine claimed him in a most selfish manner, stating:  "I get him. Because I knew about him first and because h is long standing girlfriend was a blonde so therefore he'll pick me anyways." ... First I countered with: " GAH. FINE. be that way. but you know Archie had brunettes on the side

First, the "Flying Fork" as requested by Kat: The story of the Flying Fork is this, I was in the makeshift kitchen of my dorm room with my girls (it was March of Senior Year) and I hit a fork accidentally and it went flying.  Not that exciting, I know, but I get good reactions from the picture. Next we'll have a Freudian picture: Welcome to the Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id is death, the Ego is attracted to it, and the Superego (the part of you that is supposed to be socially acceptable/adjusted) is turning away from it. Freud was a scary guy. Next we'll have one for Meg. It's all about how much you love the sacrifice: Kierkegaard's Abraham and Isaac ( Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death ). Don Quixote for me:   Modernity has sacrificed the purity of idealism to the reality of the age. Here's one for American Lit fans: And here's a tribute to the Winter: Winter sunrises are the best. =]