time for some thrilling heroics

[recrudescence]

Tomorrow, I take my assessment for placement with this tutoring company I'm going to work with, then the next day I have two interviews and a university open house, and I'm going to spend the next couple weeks polishing grad school applications to a high shine. Maybe more fic, for when I get overwhelmed. Whew.

This past weekend was pretty rad. I got to hang out with hannahrorlove, deelaundry, and ayalesca, and narrowly missed bumping into bironic (and, by association, BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY). There was ice-cream eating and book-perusing and sculpture-garden wandering and, of course, we talked smack about every single one of you. &hearts

And now for something completely different, soda_and_capes has selected seven of my, admittedly rather vague, interests, which I will now elucidate. I use my interests field as more of a commonplace book for things that have stood out for me at some point in my life, so this is a nice trip down memory lane.

dreaming only geese
This is a reference to a book of Inuit folktales called The Girl Who Dreamed Only Geese, which I loved when I was younger. Also, the illustrations are by Leo and Diane Dillon, whose work will never not amaze me.

heautontimoroumenos
A poem by Charles Baudelaire, who was a BFF of mine during my emo phase and a harbinger of my obsession with French lit. It means "The Self-Tormentor" and, imho, Roy Campbell's translation is the best.

marrying tomorrow
This one can be taken two ways. One, I think of it as the act of flinging yourself forward and making the next day as awesome as you can, which is something I should try to do more often. And two, when the main character in Maurice (great book, great movie) admits to being "an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort," he undergoes a quick physical and is told he could "marry tomorrow" if he wanted to, BECAUSE THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS AND NOT THE FACT THAT HE'S ACTUALLY GAYER THAN GAY.

uli saying thank you
Uli Herzner was a contestant on season three of Project Runway. She was so talented and sweet and had perfect manners and more people should be like that, myself included.

three chartreuse buzzards
A song I learned at Girl Scout camp that no one else has ever heard of. It kicks ass, I swear.

speaking seventeen languages badly
Representative of my own linguistic foibles and also a quote from The Last Unicorn, one of my favorite books and movies.

marinating in liminality
My default status! I love liminality (the process of transferring between two states without belonging to either) because it's the antithesis of pigeonholing. Victor Turner, another BFF from back when I was an anthropology major, sold me on it.

If you'd like me to pick seven of yours, just say the word.

Comments

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Hit me!

We need to hang out and talk shop again soon. Too bad I'm busy this weekend.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

adult relationships, multi-purpose turtles, avoiding wank, victor of aveyron, feminist revisionist westerns, brad dourif, and goth power tools

My Halloween weekend continues to be a holy mess that needs some serious organizing. Still working on that...

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

marinating in liminality sounds awesome. <3 speaking seventeen languages badly reminds me of something the Ninth Doctor said along the same lines: time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

Ha! All of these things have happened to me in foreign countries as well, so I'd say it's par for the course.

[soda-and-capes.livejournal.com]

I clearly need to watch/read The Last Unicorn. I've been hearing how amazing it is for years.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

It's one of very few books that has a worthy film adaptation, imo. The animation style is this interesting Western/Japanese hybrid, and ~America~ does the soundtrack, which is kind of lolarious. I recommend checking out either one--it's a quick read and a fun movie.

[froggie.livejournal.com]

I swear I remember that chartreuse buzzards song...And I swear I heard it at summer camp. I thought it was a weird figment of my imagination but I guess it does exist!

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

It pleases me that someone else knows that song! All the buzzards fly away, and then they fly back, and there are dorky motions that go along with it in the grand tradition of summer camp activities. I swear, that's how I learned what color chartreuse is.

[ladyvyola.livejournal.com]

(dorky vocalizations to go along with the dorky motions)

Three chartreuse buzzards
Three chartreuse buzzards
Three chartreuse bu-uh-uh-zzards
Sitting. In a. Dead tree

Oh, look!
One has flown a-way!
What a! Shame!

Two chartreuse buzzards
(yadda yadda yadda)

....(many verses later)

Oh, look!
One has re-turned!
Let us re-joice!

One chartreuse buzzard
(yadda yadda yadda)

Now, do you know the one about Sarah the Whale?

In Frisco Bay there lived a whale
They fed her oysters by the pail....

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

Hey, fleursdumal.org, w00t! I take it you've encountered the Galas setting of that poem, then?

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

Not until now! That is...creepy in a very cool way. Very Halloween.