A disjointed collection of thoughts

It is the end of an era at L&T.

Today was the last day of the finest L&T employee whose initials were ever W. G. This boy is one of the craziest, jolliest people I have had the pleasure of listening to, and one of those people who you actually wish would never shut up. He's got all sorts of plans for the future, including making his house smell like strawberries and melon and setting up a Slip-n-Slide between L&T and Locker 2, in order to increase efficiency in the workplace. But he must concentrate on school and go on a mission, I will miss him, and I wish he had a newsletter.

In other news, I was thinking a few days ago about my friends' celebrity look-alikes, and I came to one old conclusion and two new ones: Flippin looks like Tom Hanks only attractive, Superthug looks like Guy Pierce, and Miller Genuine looks like Beyonce Knowles.

A lot of things have made me sad lately, but somehow, everything is working out.

I need some humbling. I really don't deserve all I've got.

I also figured out that one of my coworker's names is almost an anagram for "allergic to latex", which he is.

And continuing a pattern of having no transitions, here are my thoughts on writing:

- I want to write things that stick to peoples' ribs, like oatmeal. Like The Little Prince, like Franny and Zooey have been for me.
- I'm threatened by the fact that MilGen is so good at it.
- I think artists of any sort have a moral responsibility. To heck with Oscar Wilde and all of your "there is no moral book" nonsense. I completely agree with you, Oscar, and I hate you for giving voice to my inner contradictions.
- I would like to write like people talk, not only in the specific words and dialogue structure, but in The Big Picture sort of way. Think of a conversation with a good friend, or maybe someone you've just met but you've been talking a while - you tell stories, one at a time, in a string connected only by something that "just reminded me", you try to one up each other in story coolness, just for the sheer mad joy of it. I want to put that sensation in writing.
- I want my message as virtuous as my delivery is effective. Or else what a waste of effectiveness.
- I want to be effective.
- I keep books, did you know? I have at least fifteen of them, they're like scrapbooks, only not of my life, but of Life. Each is dedicated to something different - one is for God, one is for stories about Dean and other stories people tell me, one is for images I like, one is for composing art projects, one is for things I think are ugly, one is for the story about Roger (which is really a story for Elder M.), one is for my rockstar lifestyle, one is for clippings of things I want to be part of my marriage and family, and another is for brilliant flashes of writing I collect. Let me share some of them with you:

-- "Americans cultivated the attitude of admiring anyone who prised an admission fee out of them, especially if they suspected an element of fraud." (from the book New York 1913)
-- "I think summer is just a season of brilliant excess. Stay up too late, drive too fast, laugh too loud, hang on too long, walk too far, sleep too little." (from a friend's blog)
-- "Sometimes I doodle 'Stupid stupid stupid' in all different kinds of letters." (from Eric D. Snider's mom, ericdsnider.com)
-- "Every drop of fresh apple juice, carefully pressed from the reddest apples, shining in colors of the cheeks of a snow-country child, is yours to enjoy in each soft and juicy Kusagai Apple Gummy." (from a Japanse Apple Gummy wrapper Elder M. sent me once)
-- "So the five of us got together ... and were discussing parenceco ... (we know Esperanto)" (from the flyer for a student art show. This was all there was to the quote)
-- "Drawing describes the world by putting down lines that aren't really there and relationships of light and dark that are." (from a horribly artistic book called Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime)

There are longer ones, of course. Some from Salinger, some from Borges, some from the Tao Te Ching.

Here's one last one (from Salinger's Seymour: An Introduction) which I used to have pinned above my Starry Night poster and which, I think, fits the situation perfectly:

-- "Keep me up till five only because all your stars are out and for no other reason ... You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won't even underline that. It's too important to be underlined. Oh, dare to do it, Buddy! Trust your heart. You're a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you."

And my concluding thought is this - for the THIRD time, I went to a vending machine (the same one all three times) and it gave me two Butterfingers for the price of one. I am a lucky lady. But I can't help but think of the next student who wants one, and pity them.