All I need is a title

I have my attention getting opening.

I am going to start by defining pareidolia

Pareidolia is a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. For example,in the discolorations of a burnt tortilla one sees the face of Jesus. Or one sees the image of Mother Teresa or Ronald Reagan in a cinnamon bun or a man in the moon. Or even the devil in rain drip patterns on a patio umbrella.

This quote is borrowed from

http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html

It doesn’t sound like it’s related to my topic, which is why it will be attention getting.

I plan to tie that in because the whole letter as a means of telling the story is similar because a reader will continue wading through epistolary literature because of the whole voyeuristic urge of reading someone else’s mail

My mom actually helped me come up with this. One of her favorite books is House of Leaves which is epistolary. The first page says, “This is not for you.” Which made me want to read it.

Plus I really want to see Ronald Regan in a Cinnamon bun.  Or even Brad Pitt in a Waffle. Or maybe Jared Padalecki in a Corn Dog.

If you really want to see some cool examples go here.   After I had this epiphany, an ant fell out of the under which I was sitting and got jammed in my computer keyboard.  (Sigh)

http://www.oddee.com/item_96959.aspx

trying to get started

So Mac and Helena and I spent a lot of time in the strangely empty school library today.  I am starting to get the impression that we are the only ones who mostly care that we  have work to turn in before we graduate, and even we don’t care that much.

I am in the organization phase of this grand project.

According to the project guidelines, I need to have an attention getting introduction.

Imagine the possibilities.

I know better than to let my imagination take control,so I went a step further. (Ok, Helena made me.)

I need to find a defining key word or phrase, or use a quotation or write a brief history.

I like this quote.

“Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.”  ~Sydney Smith

I could do  a brief history of the letter tracing it’s  roots in historical cave etchings and possibly smoke signals.

I think I have a bad attitude today.

new day new jumble

I’m in kind of a bad mood. And I have the song “Roll out the Barrel” stuck in my head, so I have been humming it at dirge tempo most of the day.  Some guy in one of my classes asked me if I was hormonal.

So I punched him.

Not really.  I just really wanted to.

I had every intention of making the most of today by grabbing the world by the horns and having a positive attitude. If I were the world, I wouldn’t want to be grabbed by the horns.  It just doesn’t sound good.

Steve is happy.  He has all the things he likes around him right now.  I think I will do the same. 

I don’t get it.

And this is the perfect example

My mother sneezed me awake.  I know.  Ooh Gross.   She didn’t mean to, in fact, she was just trying to reach over and turn off my alarm so I could sleep for a few extra minutes.

The second she leaned over my head, she sneezed.

Mom doesn’t sneeze like a normal person. She sneezes and there’s a little bit of a tongue razzberry at the end of it. This is hilarious if it’s not right over your head.

It’s even less funny if you are so startled that your head pops up and you smash right into her face, slightly wounding both of you.

My brain rebelled against me all day by refusing to make any connections from one neuron to the next so I spent most of the day wandering up and down the hall hoping that someone would take pity on me and steer me in the right direction.

I can’t function this way.  It’s not Senior-itis or Spring Fever or Writer’s Block. It’s some of kind of neurological revolution.   Who will win? 

 

Not sure where I’m going with this

Trying to work my thoughts, ideas and words into a cohesive, well-written clump is taking a lot of time, particularly since, oh, you know, living takes up a lot of my valuable time and energy.

The highlight of the weekend was Helena calling a girl a “chippy”.

Yes, my well under sixty-years of age friend called someone a chippy.

This was in response to an awkward moment brought about by Mac’s visual lusting for a disturbingly pretty boy who smiled at her.  His pinched and angry looking girlfriend glowered at all of us.

I think Helena’s response deflected any questions either Angry Girl or Pretty Boy could have thrown  at me.  Since we were waiting to get smoothies, there was an endless amount of question possibilities.

Actually, I was hoping someone would ask my about my smooothie: The Berry-Cherry-Hairy (Strawberry, Cherry and Kiwi.) I think it’s funny.  No one else does.

I don’t know how the boy thing keeps popping up, I don’t think any of us are putting out a different vibe than usual.

I know my current schedule will not allow it.  I have about 9 hours of school related work to do every day. I need to sleep at least 7 hours a night.  That leaves 8 hours for food, bathing, travel time and the occasional greeting to either of my parents.  I’m not even fitting in homework.  I don’t even want to talk about that nightmare.

Yesterday was so exhausting that all we did was lie around, noodle-like watching movies.

I’ve fooled around long enough

and now it’s time to get down to business.  I hate having to get down to business on a gorgeous Friday afternoon, particularly since I spent so many of the gorgeous Spring Break days sick and confined to my house.

Now I feel mostly OK and I have to spend most of my free time working on this Senior Theme.  I can’t call it a paper or a project because it’s a theme.  (There was a heated debate about the title. I have no idea why.  I don’t really care. )

I’m still plugging away at the research.  I have read so many different things about stories and letters and stories about letters,that my mind is a blur.

There is a tome of templates for business letters for all occasions.

My favorite occasion is Process to Replace Laptop Batteries.   I think it should be a national holiday.  In fact, I wonder if I could change my theme topic to

Letters from famous people as they replace their laptop batteries.

I may be going crazy.  It would be hard to tell.

Steve is apprehensive about the state of affairs

Now there is proof

I may have mentioned that Helena has been making me and Mac reflect, in an effort to improve ourselves and become more effective.

I know, it’s a mind blowing concept. In fact, I think I might be going insane.

I made the mistake of being introspective and thinking, both at the same time.

Big mistake.

I noticed that the human brain, seen from a certain angle, bears a striking resemblance to the outline of a frog, also seen from a certain angle.

Not only did I notice it,  I mentioned it. I mentioned it loud. Probably louder than I needed to.

I make an effort to keep a low profile, but apparently the universe won’t allow it.

What I found in books

I am in the process of trying to make my ideas and research stick together like a giant Rice Krispies treat of knowledge.  This is yielding mixed results.

I came across the following  quote about Kerry Cohen’s memoir  Loose Girl 

” Loose Girl is the story of a young girl who came to believe that boys and men could give her life meaning.”

Let this be a lesson to all of us small bears.

I certainly don’t want to get all caught up in the Male Attention Rodeo (worst fundraiser ever) as so many of my peers do.

I don’t think I’m going to have a problem with this because I’m more of “You want me to do WHAT?!” kind of gal.  Like anyone else in my demographic, I do feel a certain amount of pressure to succeed in all areas of my life. (Curse you, Helena, for making me reflect on my life as whole!)   My heart just isn’t leading me anywhere right now because my head is pulling me in the other direction.

As far as the research goes,  I have discovered a few little bits and pieces of things in books.  I mean this  literally.  I keep finding things that a previous reader has left, perhaps as a book mark.  I would like to think that it might be a message in a bottle kind of thing.  I wonder if I can use “Detritus left in used books” as a source.

I am not anti-date. I’m not anti-social convention.  I am not anti-boy, although I am in total agreement with Cher Horowitz in that most boys are a lot like puppies, just not as easy to train.

The thing is, while I am indeed interested in the dating thing in general, I think that it would blur my focus at this time.  I’m trying to get a handle on this whole people bombarding me with questions thing. I have noticed that the people who I spend a lot of time with aren’t affected by the urge to quiz me about my surroundings.

It’s a vicious cycle. I can’t relax and function in a date-like manner if I don’t know someone well and I don’t want to date anyone I already know.

It’s kind of a buzzkill.

Nobody asked, but here’s this anyway:

 

The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is a palm in the genus Phoenix, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, it probably originated from lands around the Persian Gulf.^[1] It is a medium-sized plant, 15–25 m tall, growing singly or forming a clump with several stems from a single root system. The leaves are 3–5 m long, with spines on the petiole, and pinnate, with about 150 leaflets; the leaflets are 30 cm long and 2 cm wide. The full span of the crown ranges from 6 to 10 m.