Musing: "We're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means."

Thank you, friends who read XKCD. I was partway through writing this before I remembered this comic and how utterly perfect it was for my line of thinking.

I was sitting on my back steps today, blowing bubbles and crunching through candy in the sunshine, and thinking about childhood again.

One of the major themes in one of the books I read my senior year of high school (Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh, in case you're interested) was a second childhood in the midst of adulthood.

(I shall briefly Google and see if I can find the quote for you)
(This might be it. I know it's one of the ones I was thinking of.)

"In the event, that Easter vacation formed a short stretch of level road in the precipitous descent of which Jasper warned me. Descent or ascent? It seems to me that I grew younger daily with each adult habit that I acquired. I had lived a lonely childhood […]. Now, that summer term with Sebastian, it seemed as though I was being given a brief spell of what I had never known, a happy childhood, and though its toys were silk shirts and liqueurs and cigars and its naughtiness high in the catalogue of grave sins, there was something of nursery freshness about us that fell little short of the joy of innocence." (1.2.18)

This isn't exactly what I mean, but some of it is there.

I may be utterly mistaken, my darling audience, but I feel like I've aged a lot in the last couple of years. The shining indolence of adolescence is behind me, and now I have to find my place in the adult world. Which is, by the way, an utter myth and a joke.

That's not my point, though.

My point here, as much as I have one, is that life ages you according to experience, and eventually, I think you have to make a choice: to live as a grownup, aged and serious and jaded, or to stay a child.

And by child, I hope you realize I don't mean being childish.

I spend a lot of time around children, and I've noticed repeatedly while laughing at their antics that I could learn a lot from them. Somehow, when people grow up, they forget that it's alright to be joyful and exuberant and ebullient. They lose the wonder and openness of childhood.

I find that the harder and more complicated my life gets as I enter adulthood, the more I survive by remaining child-like.

Yes, this is possibly psychological regression, but that's fine. I didn't want your help building my blanket fort anyway!

Yes o.o

The moments I can think of that I've been the happiest or most peaceful are those that I'm probably behaving very much like a six year old. Playing on the playground in the snow, blowing bubbles, twirling in my ginormous skirt, singing my delight over an unexpected brownie, etc.

I've been told by multiple people that I have this mysterious way of finding pleasure in stupid little things (give me a mountain dew and a bag of sour gummy worms, and all is well in the world), and it's not that I do it intentionally, it's simply that stupid things make me happy the same way that they did when I was little. It might just be that I've grown much more Epicurean (that sounds better than hedonistic, right?) in recent years, but I think if you wait to be happy for the huge things, you'll be waiting a long time, and there'll be a lot of missed opportunities.

Bubbles pop, yes, but they're shiny and pretty and awesome, and they feel insane when I pop them every single time, regardless of how old I am. Things don't have to be permanent to be valuable.

I'm talking about retaining the freshness of youth without the ignorance and pettiness children constantly exhibit. I think the only way to make growing older tolerable is to hold on the purer joys of being alive. Without caring about looking ridiculous.

Have you ever watched a small child run? They look absolutely absurd, but they also usually have a look of utter rapture. When was the last time you saw someone over about twelve with a look like that over something simple?

The world doesn't get less amazing, guys. We just get acclimated and take it for granted, and by the time you really notice that, it's often to late to change.


(5/9/12) UPDATE:
I wanted to add this excerpt from The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer. I'm rereading it, and I love this quote from the main character, Harold Winslow.

"When I was a child, I used to look at adults half with confusion, half with envy, trying and failing to imagine the nature of the mysteries to which they'd been initiated, the pleasures they were keeping to themselves. Have you ever watched the swings of moods that toddlers go though, the way they act as if they're attending their own funeral of the axle falls off a favored toy car, or the rapturous expressions that show up on their faces when they suck on sweet things? Though the memory's fading, I can still remember feeling like that, and I thought being an adult would be even more like that--that the emotions that make us human got more intense the older you grew. Even at the age of ten, simple surprise gifts could be enough to make me feel like my heart and my brain were both about to burst. I couldn't imagine how people even survived to the age of twenty when such pleasures were lying in wait, out in the world.

But that hasn't turned out to be what happened--instead, my own father tells me that he thinks I'm turning into tin. Something inside of me is dying, and I don't know what to do to save it; something inside me is slipping away, and somehow me memories of what you were as a child have come to stand in for all the things I want to keep alive inside myself and don't know how."

The Fridge, a Thing of Beauty and Evil

So I was fridge diving the other day, and it occurred to me that there's a tragic curse on me and my siblings that resides in our refrigerator. I had to divide it into separate parts, though, in order to explain this adequately.

First, let me define "fridge diving" for you. It's a term I coined a few years ago because there was no other phrase to describe what it was that I was doing. Fridge diving is a last resort starvation technique, like eating cheese with salad dressing on it (Caesar and chedder, guys. I promise.). It's when you open the refrigerator, stare, close, repeat, and then after three or four times throw random things together and then consume it. Not always delicious, but usually edible, and it shuts that annoying hunger thing up effectively.

And as an added bonus, it usually looks a little like vomit after I melt cheese and put ranch on it, so no one wants to steal any! :D

The thing that makes fridge diving possible is what I like to call the "over forty fridge." It's a phenomenon common among grownups raised with a semi-Depression-era mindset, which is presumably because their parents were raised during the Depression and following years. The fridge is always packed, and there's usually a layer of things that you don't question or move, because they've been there long enough to become simply part of the refrigerator's landscape. There's also frequently nothing to eat in the clutter. Which is how I end up snacking on things like cheese and mustard or eggs and ranch. It's all condiments and compliments for food, but no actual noms.

So in addition to the regular, mysterious, nonfood occupants to the fridge, I come from a ginormous family, which is all well and good, but the problem here is that we all still cook for between six and ten people. There's only five people living in this house (myself, my sister, my brother, and my parents), so there's constantly leftovers. In some houses, this isn't a problem, but my family isn't especially fond of eating leftovers, particularly when that's what we've eaten the day before. Add to that the fact that we're all a little leery of eating anything of dubious goodness, having at one point or another taken a swig of milk or bite of something only to discover it's flown right past the point when it ought to have been thrown out.

The reason that we end up with old things in the fridge is usually that we're all procrastinators. Cleaning out the fridge is no one's favorite job, so we all wait until it gets really atrocious and Becca's culinary OCD takes over.

This is one of the many reasons I take comfort in knowing that my house will never be that way. Because I obviously have nothing to do with the cyclical problem here...

Anyways. This took far too long, and I shall now go finish cleaning in my evil room. (Both in the fact that it is a thing of evil, and in that it's a room for being evil...Or something. Now I need to have the Evil Room right next to the Angry Dome. Maybe it'll be my studio in my future awesome house.)

Food

I have to find some serious amusement when I bounce into the kitchen and find Becca cooking, because it usually results in me immediately asking with the enthusiasm of a small child "Can I help? :D" if I already know what she's making, and inquiring about what it is that she's preparing when I don't.

Usually "help," as with with children, means lick off cooking implements and stir things. I frequently get yelled at or smacked when I assist in Becca's culinary endeavors, but that's alright. We both enjoy ourselves. Partly because we're usually singing at the top of our lungs, and partly because we have fun together entirely aside from the role reversal. We already knew that Becca's really the big sister, though, because she's an inner first-born, and I'm an eight year old masquerading as twenty.

And neither of us have even half this much hair anymore O.o

This was all spawned because I've just assisted in the making of tieramisu (one of my favorite things ever) for the previously mentioned dinner party. I put lady fingers in the pan, whipped the cream, and licked the bowls and things. Also checked the coffee repeatedly the see if it was ready and then forgot to get it when it was done XD

This stuff. It's beautiful.

I, dear readers, am what I like to refer to as an undomesticated female. Probably less than I think in a lot of ways, but I don't really cook as such. I make food, which is an entirely different process. But the thing I've realized is that food is basically the basis for my family's existence.

Life in my house centers around the kitchen. It's where we hang out most often, which is partly because we don't have a tv or much in the way of videogames or entertainment, but largely because we prefer interacting with each other. Whenever people come over, we generally feed them.

There's a kind of unspoken open door/open fridge policy. We don't really know what to do with people who act like guests--knocking on the front door and asking polite permission for things and such.

I was watching second season of Bones not that long ago (a show that I frequently ask myself why the deuce I'm watching, since I take serious issue with maggots and such), and Stephen Fry (one of the coolest creatures ever the grace the planet) appeared in a bunch of episodes as Boothe's shrink, and he was talking for some mysterious reason about how the word "hearth" originated with the idea that it was the heart of a house, which I thought was kind of awesome. It's pretty much true for my family.

We also don't rely on recipes.

I had to laugh when I realized that my process when cooking or baking or anything of that type is essentially this:

1) Look painstakingly for the perfect recipe (one with doable ingredients and estimated time)
2) Print or otherwise transport to the kitchen where I set it somewhere accessible and visible
3) Vaguely follow said recipe for about five minutes before I disregard it and just cook

It's only in my house or the houses of my older siblings that I've wandered into the kitchen, discovered that food is in the works, asked "What are you making?" and gotten "I have no idea!" as an answer. Usually that's followed by an overview of what we threw in, like chicken or tomatoes or whatever.

Recipes are meant more as suggestions and starting points than definitive instructions. Unless of course it ruins the thing you're making to mess with the proportions. But I pretty much cook from instinct rather than making anything recognizable or specific. I feel like the main merit of food is that there's infinite variety. It should be made with creativity and experimentation. Sometimes you stumble on something really awesome. Which seems to be true in a lot of areas of life. It's funny how much everything overlaps. But I pretty much haven't made anything inedible since I was about six, which is more or less when I started cooking for myself. I had to stand on a chair to reach the stove or cupboards XD

And now there's a slight crisis with the main course. That being that we're out of things, so I shall end abruptly as is my habit, but with reason this time. I must make an emergency grocery store run. So until next time, theoretical audience. I half apologize for the general pointlessness of my rambles, but I trust if you made it through you were amused, so you're welcome.

Some people actually do deserve to die painfully

It was inevitable that I'd end up angrily shouting my views into the void of the internet, audience, but I didn't expect that to happen today.

And now that I've stopped yelling about this in conversation, I'm going to rant about it here and get angry all over again. Because it's not something I'm going to stop being angry about, theoretical readers. I've changed a lot in the last couple of years, but this is something I have not shifted an inch on.

Earlier today, a friend told me that a friend of his had gotten their girlfriend pregnant, which made him realize he didn't actually care about her for anything more than sex, so he bullied her into an abortion.

No amount of shouted profanity would suffice right here.

What kind of worthless excuse for a human being does something like that? I commented that I thought that particular specimen ought to be castrated with some rusty scissors, but if I could send the whole roiling mass of them  into hell after an excessively painful death, I'd do so without an ounce of pity or guilt.

The thing is, guys, sex kind of matters a lot. Unless you've already done enough emotional and psychological damage that you've desensitized yourself to it, it's a significant interaction between two people. It's supposed to matter, and the fact that people make light of it so much is incredibly irritating. The fact that people can just use it to demean each other and satisfy their own passing lust and move on is disgusting and depressing.

The other part of this that truly infuriates me is the abortion aspect. I don't care what you believe about, whether or not it's a right, so on. Every pregnancy has the potential to result in a child. I personally believe that it counts as a child the second you're pregnant, but that's an argument for a different day. Right now, I'm talking about the mind boggling selfishness and idiocy that allows someone to justify an abortion.

Have you ever read some of the things women say after they've aborted a baby? Do you know how it can affect someone to live with that?

I think they should have to live with it. And I think they don't ever deserve a child after that. Would you let a woman keep her second child if she had drowned the first? These people have no consequences, and it makes me angry.

Everything about it disgusts me to a depths that I have difficulty expressing, and you know what? There are people who wouldn't take issue with that guy. Who wouldn't find anything reprehensible about what he did or why he did it. And people like that are the reason this world deserves to burn.

Have I mentioned that I hate humanity with a violent and fiery passion? Maybe one in ten times I get completely transfixed by the potential and power and beauty of humanity, but then reality sets back in and every good thing people do gets buried in the overwhelming filth of this species.

Life Lessons from a Movie: Under the Tuscan Sun

So Under the Tuscan Sun isn't really my typical kind of movie, if I have such a thing. I pretty much watch anything, so the list of movies I've consumed in my lifetime is obscenely long. Maybe someday I'll try and make an actual list. Probably not, but miracles happen sometimes, don't they?

Anyway, it's an adaptation of a book by the same title, which I haven't read, but I feel no guilt in that since supposedly the film is much better (according to my older sister). While rare, it is, in fact, possible for a movie to be better than the books it's based on. Very, very rare, but I've seen it happen.

If you haven't seen it, as no doubt most of you haven't even heard of it, it's the story of a writer (Francis Mays, played by Diane Lane, and there my unreasearched knowledge of the cast ends) who, after discovering her husband is cheating and getting a divorce, ends up on a tour of Tuscany, (A "gay tour of romantic Tuscany," the scene when her lesbian friends try to convince her to go is rather entertaining,) and then on a whim buys this run down villa and doesn't go back to America.

Why in the world would that appeal to me? Silly audience, I haven't spent most of my life fantasizing about going to Europe and just not coming back. Why would you think that?

I'm not sure if I want start in the UK and work my way east, start in western Russia and work my way south, or start in southern Italy and work my way north. Regardless. I shall go, and maybe a couple years later, I'll come back to the US to visit everyone.

The movie is all about how life just kind of happens, and you can't really predict it, but sometimes it takes you somewhere unexpectedly awesome. Which is kind of in line with my general philosophy on life, but mine has yet to get me a house in Italy.

And so on to the lessons I've gleaned from it! I watched it again specifically to pull out the things it was telling me for this blog, so feel special or something.

I'm pretty much ignoring the first fifteen minutes or so of the story, because all that really happens is that she gets divorced, spends some time being depressed, and then Patty gives her the ticket. Nothing really to be learned there except not marry someone who'll end up cheating on you. And to take what good you can get out of pregnant friends, because normally pregnant women are something of a scourge. And I mean that both as in "plague" and as in "multi-tailed whip with pointy things to tear your flesh apart."

1) Don't write letters for strangers.
I base this off Francis writing this awesome postcard for a guy complaining about how he'll never get through them all or describe how amazing Italy is. She writes this fun little description and makes some observations and hands it back, and he gets mad and tells her to keep it, because his mom will never believe he wrote that.

I'm not really sure who was stupid to be surprised in that scenario, but I would argue it's a good general rule to write your own letters.

2) Follow every intriguing stranger you see.
I say this because this is the point when my favorite character in the entire movie is introduced. I aspire to be her if I ever end up as an insane middle aged woman (which only happens if I fail to stop aging in the next five to ten years). It's really because of her that this whole movie even takes place, and she's absolutely fabulous.

Also, have you ever tried just stalking someone around a public place? It's entertaining to see how long before they notice they've seen you more than is normal that day. The security guards are the most fun.

3) A Katherine quote: "Terrible idea...Don't you just love those?"
Ok, so not really a life lesson. Just true sometimes. I can think of a lot of times something awesome has happened because I or someone else have just kind of run with something. Not buy-a-house-in-a-foreign-country awesome, but awesome nonetheless.

4) Look before you strip.
Seems fairly obvious, doesn't it? Somehow it isn't always. But you never know who might be unexpectedly about when a crushed scorpion tumbles down your shirt.

5) Be careful what you tell your friends.
"You're the one who made the 'empty-shell-person at a crossroads' speech!"
"Oh, yeah. That was me."
You never know when it might end up causing them to go to Italy and buy a villa without you.

6) "It is unhealthy to eat alone."
A truly Italian sentiment, and I have to agree. Plus it's barely worth eating, let alone cooking real food if you're the only one eating. A meal doesn't really count unless it's three or more people.

I think it's probably about time for Becca and I to have a dinner party again. It's been months since we just cooked for everyone.

7) "You have to live spherically, in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm, and things will come your way."
Katherine again. I love the things she says about life. They're often things I've thought before with less eloquence.

8) "Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present."
Yay. More Katherine. Alduous Huxley said something similar in his introduction to a newer edition of Brave New World. He was speaking in the context of one's art, but the same principle applies.

9) "When I was a little girl, I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally I'd just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me."
Not really a lesson exactly, but it bears repeating. Becca and I periodically yell at each other for looking for ladybugs. This is also Katherine. Telling Francis to get over herself.

10) "If you smash into something good, you should hold on until it's time to let go."
This is the inevitable "hot, Italian guy." I agree with him, though.

Even if he's not quite to my taste.

11) Pick up both the kitten and the hot guy.

Because what else could you possibly want? I loved that she keeps the kitty even after they guy leaves the picture. Kitties are better than men. Guys, remember your place, and don't make her choose.

12) "Life is strange."

I keep thinking this recently. Fortunately it's not because my girlfriend took off and I'm now hanging out in Italy with my best friend about to go into labor. But life is strange. The sooner you get used to that, the sooner you can start enjoying it.

13) Watch the falling object rather than your girlfriend.

This dude is throwing a flag (attached to a large, heavy pole), and just when he throws it way above his head, his woman shouts down that she loves him, and he ends up getting smacked in the head. Important stuff, guys. The potential to get injured takes immediate priority over your significant other.

14) Irritable sarcasm can sometimes be lost on your friends.

After Francis goes tumbling down a hill (trying to catch up to Hot Italian Guy before he leaves for a few weeks), she's sitting in the kitchen and Patty's helping her clean up.

"....You have a snail in your ear."

"Good."

"Really?"

"No! Get it out!"

15) "There's nothing like a fountain and a magnum of French champagne to put you right again."

By now, I trust Katherine completely. All her advice must be true. So if I ever end up horribly depressed some summer, I know exactly what to do.

And I'm gonna call that the end now! Kind of anticlimactic, I know. But, that's what you have to live with if you read my blog. It happens, my dears. You'll survive. And if you don't, I can't help but feel like there was more going on there than my poor concluding skills.

Steven King is bad at endings too, so there!

And now that it's one in the afternoon, I shall go eat some breakfast! Assuming I can find anything edible.

On Snow and Adulthood

So I've been reading Steven King's Dreamcatcher, which is fabulous, and as you may or may not know, the snow plays a fairly major role in it. We also got a fair bit of snow here in the last couple weeks, and I didn't really connect the two things until the other day.

Toward the beginning of the book, Henry is walking back to Hole in the Wall (the cabin they stay in when the four go hunting in November), and makes a mental comment on how the snow, which has been falling heavily for  a while, is slowing down. That's followed by the thought that as a child, he and his friends would've been dismayed that is was "stopping."

I had a similar thought the other day when I let the dog outside. Everything was buried under at least six inches of snow, and it was still falling with the fat complacency of most heavy snow. My first thought at that point was something along the lines of, "Crap. Roads are gonna suck." My neighborhood never gets adequate attention during the winter, and since I live toward the top of a hill, driving is always kind of an adventure when there may or may not be ice all over the place.

I can't remember whether or not I had anywhere to go that day, but I presumably did in the near future.

I was immediately struck that not long ago, my first concern for that much snow would have been whether or not I'd have to go to school the next day. It was an interesting contrast for me, and it got me thinking about all the ways your perspective changes as you age. It's crazy to think back to my worries and focuses of the past, and what's insane is that you don't even notice them changing.

Or I didn't. Maybe you do.

I commented once in one of my journals that I knew things were changing, but I couldn't see it, and I compared it to watching plants grow and bloom; there's an obvious difference between the start and the finish, but you don't see every petal open.

It's one of the more profound things I said to myself in that time period XD

Anyways. Just a few quick thoughts. I may have to expand later on.

Ramona Flowers

Hello, largely fictitious audience! It's been a little while.

I suppose not that long comparatively, since I've been posting every couple weeks or so, but whatever. Time is relative, and I feel like it's been ages, and since I'm the writer here, what I say counts significantly more than reality.

That's why I started this blog isn't it? To share my bottomless wellspring of BS with the world at large?

Also, on an absolutely irrelevant side note, I have to tell you all that chocolate cereal is the best idea ever. Whoever created it and then put it into mass consumption has my undying gratitude.

This stuff. It's magic.

I should start a list of people that have my undying love or hatred based on something that wanders through my brains. Like shoe tongues! I hate them -.-

Anyways! The point of this blog, as you might well have guessed from the title, (clever little beasts,) is one of my favorite fictional people ever. Ramona!

In case you weren't aware, my profile picture is currently Ramona Flowers. That particular incarnation of her is from the comic books (I hesitate to call it a graphic novel, though I suppose it is.). Volume 5, in case you cared.

I have my cousin (Yes, you, Alexis, my love!) to thank for introducing me to the wonderful thing that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

I saw the trailer when it first came out, of course, so I knew that it existed, but since I've basically hated every Michael Cera movie I'd ever seen (with the exception of Juno. I just hated Michael Cera for that movie.), I immediately decided it wasn't worth seeing. So I wrote it off. But then last  Christmas (or perhaps the one before. I have a feeling we watched it the same year that we made the snow man massacre in the front yard, which was 2010 according to my bucket list.), my aunt, uncle, and Lexi all convinced us to watch it, and I loved it.

I got to do a presentation on it for my final project in my Mass Media class last semester.

For those of you who don't know, Ramona is the super awesome, unattainable chick that Scott gets totally obsessed with. In order to date her, he has to defeat her seven Evil Exes

But within about five minutes of her being on screen, I had decided that I want to be her when I grow up. This is why:

Yes. She's fabulous.

I miss having pretty hair. My burgundy's all faded to this boring reddish color...

Anyways. Now that I just took way longer than necessary to say half as much as I intended to, I'm going to shut up and go away.

But first, surprise! Some phone pictures of brutally murdered snowmen! Compliments of myself, Alexis, Tim, and Becca.

Uncle Ralph, good soul that he is (Jesus, according to Grandmum, and since she's dead, you can't argue that without feeling like a horrible person. So there!), brought us a spray bottle full of red liquid to complete the tableau.

 The first victim. He never had a chance.

The second casualty tried desperately to get away. No such luck. 

We were having too much fun. 

 The perpetrator of the atrocity

The lone survivor fleeing in terror.

Like they say: the family that slays together stays together <3

And thank you, Raven, because I know I stole that from you, but I can't remember when you actually said it.