Join Us at the Ghost Post

I had the weirdest of feelings today. I was walking around the medical part of campus, around Moos Tower and the area where all the hospitals and medical buildings are, near Washington Avenue where they're putting in the light rail. I was walking across this stone courtyard and out of nowhere, I thought I heard the dinging of the bell on the light rail when it departs from the station. Except that that was impossible. Because the light rail isn't there yet.

Oh my God, I thought to myself. I just heard the future. It was a weird, wibbly-wobbly time moment. Most likely it was a hallucination in my weird old brain. But who knows...

Speaking of the future, [Львица] and I decided that pans with regenerative Teflon would be something we'd like to see in the future. That way, when you burn something in it, the pan isn't screwed for life.

Today overall has been a rather odd day. I had no Italian class this morning, just an oral exam, so I did my homework and spent my time walking around the river, looking at the foliage and taking in the fall atmosphere. I don't know why, but today just feels... mysterious. Consciousness of the date aside, it really does just feel - spooky.

Perhaps in part because of the weird dream I had last night. I dreamed that I was on the Scotland trip, in Stirling, looking at "the Guy Fawkes house." One - Guy Fawkes has nothing to do with Scotland or Stirling. Two - I'm not so sure they'd have a house to commemorate him, even in York where he's from. Three - Stirling did not look like Stirling in my dream. Although the painting of Guy Fawkes that was there actually did look like him. And I seemed to remember that he's also known as Guido. Weird.

Also, I think I had a dream about [novel killer] and Desperate Housewives, but I don't remember any of it. Except that I got into some epic suburban housewife fight with her.

So there you go. This post has no point. Except for this - Happy Halloween!

All Hallow's Weekend

This is turning out to be the best Halloween I've had in years.

It isn't going how we were planning - we hoped to go to a club or a party with our fabulous costumes. But there aren't many exciting events on Saturday night that aren't 21+... curse our youthfulness! So [Львица] and I decided to go back to our hometown of Lakeville for the weekend and spend it with our families.

I was somewhat disappointed - just because I built up this whole fairytale idea of having a Halloween extravaganza that I realistically should have known wouldn't happen. Sometimes, being a Romantic totally blows. Especially when you're an obsessive Romantic.

Tangent time - Am I obsessive? Stupid question, coming from the girl who's blogged about Torchwood and John Barrowman more than anything else this past month. It's been on my mind a lot - yes, I've been obsessing about obsessing :P - because of a Facebook conversation I had with X:

Me: I've always had an Scotland obsession. But now it's worse. incredibly worse.

[X]: I can't imagine... especially with your talent for obsession. (You have to admit, you're good at it. ;) )

Of course, I come back with a smile and agree that I'm a pro at obsessing... but am I really THAT obsessive? I am obsessive - it's a Scorpio trait, I'm a pro at ruminating, I tend to blabber on about the same things forever. But am I EXTREMELY obsessive? Like, to the point where I can't tell if [X] means this in a jesting manner or if she's referring to how I obsessed over [No-Mr-Darcy]. And [tedesco]. And a zillion different movies and books and such. Am taking part in a normal human trait? Or going too far? Do people just humor me because they think it's cute that I fixate for one things for extended periods of time? Or are they creeped out?

I worry about this because of how I reacted Thursday night. Admittedly, I just saw Ianto die on Torchwood and was utterly devastated (yet another sign of obsession, right?) but when [Львица]'s plans changed for Halloween, I suddenly a sudden impact with reality. It wasn't [Львица]'s fault or anything; it was just that I suddenly realized that there wasn't anything for us to do, exactly, for under 21s. And that my whole building up for some sort of magical Halloween experience wasn't going to happen. And suddenly this whole spiral of worry that I hadn't been consciously thinking about unfurled. I realized that I'm spending more time thinking about fictional things than real life, that I'm stuck fantasizing about the impossible, that I have totally unrealistic expectations for love and life and shit...

Yeah, it really had nothing to do with the pre-Halloween events. It had more to do with this.

In my cultural studies class on Thursday, we were talking again about Monsieur Lefebvre's ideas of culture and his harsh critique of Surrealism. Our professor had been lecturing at us how there is a distinct difference between the wondrous and unexpected in real life and what Surrealists/ literary modernists are involved in - the magical, marvelous and bizarre. Our professor argues that the bizarre prevents us from seeing the wondrous in real life, that it does anything but look the harsh realities of everyday life in the face and instead paints it garish colors and injects it with a life it doesn't have.

There's some truth in this. I mean, some things completely obscure reality and can be dangerous, in high amounts. But I feel like many things labeled surrealist or modernist don't ignore reality - maybe they just don't want to deal with it ALL THE TIME. Maybe sometimes, a small escape isn't so bad. Not ALL the time, clearly. But can you blame me or anyone else for want to run to sci-fi or shopping or chick flicks or going out with the guys when life gets shitty? Sometimes we need to forget, for just a short period, about the parts of our lives that suck so we can see the wonderfulness of our everyday lives. I overestimate the ability for people to see the amazing-ness of everyday life, but I believe that people do see it. But sometimes you need the escape first. Of course, I'm being a total bourgeois here, but I REALLY don't want to discuss that at the moment. So I'm being an inappropriate cultural studies student here. But I'm not really trying to be a cultural studies student. So don't judge me.

Anyway, that's exactly what I did - escaped. I stopped worrying about whether or not my using Torchwood as a way to escape the monotony of this semester is ruining my perception of reality for five minutes and... used a different way of escaping. [Львица] and I went to the Mall of America on Friday afternoon for some retail therapy (yes, yes, as a cultural studies student I KNOW this is a sign of the power of consumer culture. But sometimes it really works, at least for the short term. Which, of course, is the drawback). I bought two incredibly cute dresses, one little black dress and a fantastic sequined phenomenon.  Shown here:













Yes, I admit the sequined one is would not typically be my choice.   But after seeing La Cage  - and I need a party dress - and I love the colors - AND I LOOK FANTASTIC IN IT.  Which was mind-blowing to me, she who usually looks terrible in tight tiny dresses. So win. Epic win :D

I traipsed around Friday and Saturday in my "costume" which was my totally ridiculous way of having a Halloween costume without buying anything. Thus I was Gwen Cooper from Torchwood, since I have a similar black leather jacket and pencil jeans. And boots - lots of boots. A costume and my favorite TV show combined. Win-win. [Львица] and I carved pumpkins on Saturday morning which was FABULOUS. Talk about noticing the magic of everyday. There was something truly amazing about cutting into those fresh, fragrant gourds and scooping out the seeds to roast and coat with cinnamon-sugar or salt. Especially cutting into the one I carved, a funny, wild-shaped one that had the oddest, oblong seeds and an aroma more like butternut squash than pumpkin. Our carvings turned out really well. [Львица]'s birdcage was incredible and my goofy face didn't fair too badly either :)

Our pumpkins :)

And that evening I went out to dinner to Kieran's Irish pub with my parents. It's one of my favorite restaurants and was wonderfully decorated with Halloween decorations. I got a good night's sleep at home, watched a spooky movie with my parents and got to nibble on Halloween candy (I forgot how much I actually like Almond Joys, by the way).

So, nothing fancy. Just everyday. But magical none the less. Maybe my cultural studies prof has a point after all. But I don't carve pumpkins everyday... how can I really call it that? OMG, why do I keep doing this to myself? I don't need to keep theorizing my life - that's what got me into this problem to begin with. IT'S MY LIFE. What happens, happens. Whether everyday, wondrous or bizarre. And I need to stop criticizing how I feel all the time - otherwise I truly will loose grip on reality. 

Tomorrow's Halloween - another school day, a dress rehearsal for my band concert. Nothing super exciting. But who knows - I still think there is something magical about this holiday, whether anything extraordinary happens or not. It doesn't need to. It just... feels magical, no matter what.

Disbelief

Another late night blog, because I was woken up by a saxophone player. Yes, you read that right. A man with dreadlocks was playing the saxophone, standing outside the house across the street, in the dark, loudly playing the opening of George Michael's "Careless Whisper" while a guy in a Gumbi costume danced around him.

I've never done drugs, but I got the feeling like this might be one of the crazy hallucinations 'shrooms might cause. Don't do drugs, kids. This was whack - and I WASN'T HIGH. I SAW THIS, SOBER, WITH MY OWN EYES. OUTSIDE MY WINDOW.

I just can't believe it was REAL. I mean, yeah, it's Halloween weekend, but I was in bed, half-asleep, and then I heard the saxophone (and was beating myself up for not remembering the name of the song it was from) and then I tried to figure out where it was coming from because it was SO LOUD. And then I saw Gumbi. And then they and two other guys made their way down the street, while the saxophone player continued to blast the song which my searching for its name was calls "the song they play when people start having sex in movies" as they made their way across 35W into Dinkytown.

Really, I'm writing this right now because I've got the sax solo stuck in my head and I had to figure out what the fucking song was! And also, I want evidence that I just saw what I saw... because this was weird enough to have been a dream. And by tomorrow morning, I might just think it was. Thus, here is the evidence that it was not so. It was real. I just saw Gumbi dance to George Michael. I need to get some fucking sleep.

As I Lay Dying

I finished reading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying yesterday, while sitting in this little study hall/ cafeteria that reminds me of my father's alma mater. I got this cool, intellectual feeling sitting there, letting Faulkner's prose flow over me, and began thinking about how much death has come up in my thoughts this month. I don't mean to be overly morbid, but it HAS been a common theme. For one, I'm writing a book about people who can't die. You can see how it would be a common musing. For another, it's the month of All Hallow's Eve and growing closer to Dìa de los Muertos - Day of the Dead. Again, a common theme. Also, people I admire keep dying. And it's terribly depressing.

First it was Steve Jobs (I think I'm still grieving about that, actually. Is that weird? Probably, yes...). And then this weekend during an Indy race, English driver Dan Wheldon died in an accident. This might surprised you that I am a racing fan (only the Indy Series; my parents and I watched NASCAR when I was younger because we used to live in Columbus, IN where Tony Stewart is from, but I don't like NASCAR much. For various reasons that aren't important right now). My fav driver in the series is Dario Franchitti, but I really like Wheldon too - he seemed like such nice, friendly guy. Something I love about the Indy Series over NASCAR is that they seem better able to keep their cool and less... I don't know, Hollywood. They seem more down to earth. And I really respect people like Wheldon who can drive a car like that and be really damn good at it. It's just so sad how he died - something about racing accidents just haunt me. Well, car accidents in general, but especially racing ones. I remember seeing Dale Earnheardt's fatal wreck on TV when I was 10 - it was one of the first NASCAR races I watched too. There's something scarring and terrible about seeing such a terrible wreck on TV with your own eyes, then finding out later that you witnessed a fatal accident. I can't imagine what it was like to actually be at the track... that sort of thing would haunt me for a long time.

And to continue this parade of macabre, my college band is playing a Bach piece titled, "Come Sweet Death." To really get us into the mood of the piece (I think I've got the mood down enough, thank you very much) our director had us rehearse it once with the light dimmed. It was totally eerie and chilling, even if we as a group didn't sound as good as this choir. It's just... grim. I mean, it's more about life after death than just death... but still,  it's a momento mori - a reminder of that death is inevitable.

And because I'm a freak, I get reminded of Captain Jack Harkness every time I play this song (okay, if you want to get to the real passion of a piece about seeking release from pain and looking for solace in the afterlife, but is still a really dark, angst-ridden, tormented song, what better way to illustrate this than our dear Torchwood leader who can't ever die. Even after being blown up - yeah, just saw that in season 3. Holy shit, dude. Holy shit). And to top it all off, I had NO IDEA that Owen and Tosh were going to die at the end of Season 2 and now I'm all pissed off about that and THEN Wikipedia ruined the end of season 3 for me by telling me that Ianto dies and now I just want to crawl in a hole because I freaking love Ianto AND WHAT THE HELL, TORCHWOOD WRITERS WHY ARE YOU KILLING EVERYONE?!

Look, I take my sci-fi TV very seriously, apparently (I got really into Buffy freshman year. I mean, I had a dream that [mind ninja] and I were killing vampires. It was terrifying) and I'm terribly saddened that Ianto is going to die within the next three episodes. And it's just another reminder of our eventual lack of control, that we can't help the fact that we die. And it is terribly, terribly hard to deal with. Nay, impossible.

Yet, somehow, Faulkner makes me feel better. Not that he is comforting - he's really not, with his gritty, complex, grim ideas. But he's honest. And I like that. He doesn't always make complete sense. But neither does life. He wonderfully captures the difficulties of living, of dying, of grieving. And somehow, he makes it sort of beautiful. The same way Bach does with his tragic piece. The way momento moris are - great and terrible and beautiful. I guess what I like about all these things is that they articulate the mystery - the unknown. The fact that we don't know why things happen the way they do, why death is a necessary part of life, why it is so hard to deal with, why we think about death while other creatures don't, why accidents happen, why people like Wheldon and Jobs die too soon. We just don't know. And there's something comforting to know that we as individuals are not the only ones who think about this; it's a sort of strange way of uniting us socially, to know that we worry about the same things, that we are not completely alone. Perhaps thinking about death is important, a way of reminding us that time is limited, that people are important in our lives. Maybe I'm not really being morbid. Maybe I'm just being human.

Mischief Night

So the other day, I believe I made a reference to trying to make up for the disaster that was last Halloween.

This requires some explaining.

Okay, so it wasn't really that bad. But I'm sure [Львица] would tell me that's rosy retrospection talking. And she'd be right.

It kind of felt like this...

A little Sunday outing

Today I took a jaunt through an apple orchard and a pumpkin patch with [Львица] and her mother and sister. What a beautiful way to spend a sunny, 80 degree Sunday afternoon.

[Side note - Not that I'm complaining, though I am a little bit because our apartment building retains heat like a greenhouse, but how is it 80 degrees in October in Minnesota? THIS TIME LAST YEAR WE HAD GOTTEN SNOW. Not that I want the snow just yet. It's just I'm longing for crisp days and cold nights. Though this hot spell reminds me strongly of Indiana.]

The apple orchard was cool. Okay, it was more of a store than an orchard, not like the one I went to in sophomore year with [X] and [it's a twin thing] and their parents which actually required us to pick apples and put them in a bucket (fun and an iconic autumn event, but quite difficult if you don't what kind of apple you are looking for). Regardless, I got honeycrisp apples and apple cookies and STRUDEL. And I learned what lefse is (Norwegian potato pancakes. Norwegians baffling me with their cuisine once again!).

And off to a pumpkin patch. I was sort of startled to realize that I, a red-blooded young Midwestern American woman, have never been to an actual pumpkin patch to get pumpkins. Or maybe I did when I was much younger but I don't remember it now. Regardless, it was... magical. I know that sounds bizarre. But there's something about this time of year that is really unlike any other season. There's a scent in the air that appears at no other time, there's a glimpse of possibility, the chance that anything could happen.

Maybe it's the little kid trapped in me that always thought something crazy was going to happen around Halloween. I always wanted to get whisked off to some magical land or fight some sort of otherworldly creature. There's something about this month that's just... exciting.

Deep down I know it's just another month, another time of the year. But it never feels just like that. There's something that jumps into my bloodstream when the leaves start changing and the corn starts getting harvested that makes me a little... well, a little crazy.

I also find myself thinking about Indiana a lot this time of year. Probably because of the corn harvesting (stereotype that Indiana is nothing but corn? Not one hundred percent true, but trust me - there is a HELL of a lot of corn). And also because all of my childhood Halloween experiences happened there. I never really picked up trick-or-treating after I moved to Minnesota because I didn't have anyone to go with and then I got to old and then it got weird. Yay.

But when I was little, I used to count down the days until Halloween. I wrote short stories about it. I spent months planning my costume. I looked forward to all the movies and TV shows with Halloween themes (my personal favorite? One I've actually seen in recent years - the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where everyone turns into their costumes). I was quite obsessed.

I still am. I just want to run around in a costume for the rest of the month, eat candy, embrace the whimsical and morbid experience that is Halloween. Why do I get this way? I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with being born this time of year. Maybe Halloween is a Scorpio's idea of a perfect holiday (except that I like Christmas too. Like a ton).

But Halloween feels more than a holiday... it's historical. Like Jack-o-lanterns, stemming from the old Celtic tradition of carving gourds to keep away evil spirits (or so I recall reading somewhere. Or watching on that God-awful film reel in Catholic school). It's also controversial. Like the people who won't celebrate Halloween because they think it's a Satanic holiday. I love controversy.

Usually, I don't get this gung-ho about Halloween. While in school, away from all decorations and stores selling stuff for the parties and trick-or-treating, it's easy to forget. Maybe because the season is so weird with the strange weather that it's gotten my attention, reminding me of fall days in Indiana (going to the orchard reminded me of Indiana big time. Selling homemade fudge and apple pies and such  - it was a flashback to Brown County, where the town of Nashville is. Yes, there is a Nashville, Indiana. A bit unfortunate. Anyway, it's the classic old-style town that has a bunch of shops. A bit like Northfield I suppose, for you Minnesotans out there. My parents and I used to go there every year in the fall and they had they BEST fudge in the world. Sometimes I miss Indiana. Just a bit. ) Or maybe it's me trying to make up for last year's Halloween disaster (more about that later). For whatever reason, I've gone bananas over Halloween this year. I want to do something awesome, have a fantastic costume, really REALLY have an American Halloween celebration this year. Maybe because I feel like I don't really know what that means. And I want to find out.

No idea what this means... let's make it a goal to find out, shall we? ;)

A Little Prelude For Halloween

I came across this article online this morning: 'Corpse bride' and groom stage morbid wedding. Which I found because a Facebook friend posted this pic from a Vogue photo shoot for an idea of what she want to dress up as for Halloween.

And then I looked at more photos from the photo shoot...

And if you're not totally eeried out yet, I've had these two songs by Jeremy Messersmith stuck in my head the past two days that also deal with bones and death and such (because I heard about how he was performing a concert in the oldest cemetery in Mineapolis yesterday afternoon to fund-raise for the historic graveyard and I started listening to his music and now it's totally trapped in my head).

Why is there so much stuff about cemeteries and skeletons and the like popping up in the last few days? Maybe it's just standing out because this stuff really gives me the chills. Or because writing fiction about people who can't die really gets you thinking about death. Or maybe because it's NEARLY HALLOWEEN. 'Tis the season.