The Days Are

Starting to blend together. Not because they are monotonous—just the opposite, in fact. I'm so busy, that I forget the day of the week. Or I don't realize that I've locked myself into a schedule in which I leave the house at 7 am and don't get home until 11 pm until that's far too late to change. I can't complain about the activities that fill such a day—notes and doodling antics in AP Euro, laughing and learning with Kreft in AP Lit, taking advantage of an hour and a half in study hall (the slowest point of the day, for sure) and counting the minutes of school left through AP Enviro. Then hitting an audition for the fall (read: winter) play before motoring off to work.

Oh, Work! Working at a tea shop is probably the best job ever, even if I'm only washing dishes. Actually, washing dishes is probably the best place to be. My hours are flexible. My toughest duty is matching the teacups to their saucers—right, and not breaking anything (have failed at that one already). The kitchen is clean (cough Caruso), the wait staff is great (hack hack Caruso), and my boss is, guaranteed, sober at all times (hueglhh CARUSO).

Anyway, I have an hour between work and Ballyhoo rehearsal, during which my job is to feed myself. Then it'll be time for five, yes FIVE hours of backstage goodness at Montgomery Theater. The cast for this show is fantastic, their best collective trait being the fact that no one treats me like a kid (even though I act like one sometimes). Strike that parenthetical statement—we all act like kids there sometimes. Yesterday, as our train seat on wheels rolled under a corner of the set protected by foam, it made an agonizingly long, loud farting noise. Which really shouldn't have been so funny that we had to stop the scene change for a minute or two. But it was. Whether holding still like a secret agent behind the set wall onstage or running through the entirety of Montgomery theater simply to get from backstage right to backstage left, things are always fun. Even if they seem utterly and completely mundane. The theater atmosphere is amahhhzing.

And it is because of the wonder with which I experience these busy days' events that I am not drowning in self-pity right now. That, and friends. Teachers and friends.

Wonderful things said by various people today:

• "Profoundly Novel"
  
• "The world makes me shake my head."
  
• "LEROY!"
  
• "I'm here to kick your"—"earmuffs!"—"ass!"
  

A Preview

Of a writing piece in the works.

Hi Dr. Aronow,

I'm Shelby Kay-Fantozzi, a senior at the high school. I have a huge interest in journalism, but unfortunately a hectic schedule hasn't allowed me to participate in your class or really have any interaction with you at all in the past. However, I was wondering if you would accept a piece from a student outside of the Arrowhead's regular staff. While I take great ownership of my writing, I would be happy to submit it to whatever kind of rigorous editing process regular articles go through before being published. The piece is a recollection of why the 2008 election and its results were inspiring and important to all of us here at the high school. I realize that you likely already have an Arrowhead writer working on such an article, but if nothing else, I would love to hear the opinions of someone with expertise in editorial-style writing.

The day I decided to write the article, I was reading TIME magazine's extensive coverage Obama's win in our local coffee shop. While I was hunched in my chair reading, something poked me in the side. It was a pen, stuffed between the chair's cushion and its frame. It was a really nice one—heavy, cool, metal, a name and company embossed on the side. Judging by the name on the side, it fell out of Arthur Nissen's pocket as he sat in a similar position on that very chair. I generally don't subscribe to this kind of superstition, but I'll admit that I accepted this pen as a sign—a message. Stop reading. Start writing. Stop reacting to everyone else's words and start creating your own. It was one of those earth-shatteringly inspirational moments and though I had about a thousand other things to do, I opened up the magazine to an advertisement and started writing right on the page--"The defining moments of our lives and the defining moments of our nation's history do not very often coincide with each other as well as they did on November 4, 2008."

The piece isn't finished, and I don't know what kind of deadlines I'm looking at, but I would love to have a chance to share it with other students through the newspaper.

Thank you,
Shelby

It's been a long time

1) Since I've posted.
2) Since a book has made me cry.

Thank you, James Joyce, for writing Araby. God, what a beautiful story.(I'm guessing, as I haven't read all of Dubliners) It's a story told by a 32-year-old man about his 12-year-old self, but he doesn't tell it in a dismissive way that's like "bah, I was young and foolish." NO. Instead, every word, every sentence is so...deliberate, so well thought out, it just BEGS for a structuralist response. It reads like poetry. Or a song...

Sometimes, when I read a story, I still think of Mrs. Schultz's Catcher in the Rye assignment--make a five-song soundtrack to the book. This story would get Black Balloon by the Goo Goo dolls, among other things, like Crash by Dave Matthews Band. Observe.

You've got your ball,
you've got your chain,
Tied to me tight, tie me up again.
Who's got their claws
in you my friend?
Into your heart I'll beat again.
Sweet like candy to my soul,
Sweet you rock,
and sweet you roll.
Lost for you, I'm so lost for you...

When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.

You come crash into me.
And I come into you,
I come into you.
In a boys dream,
In a boys dream...

Touch your lips just so I know.
In your eyes, love, it glows so
I'm bare-boned and crazy for you.
When you come crash
into me, baby,
And I come into you
In a boys dream,
In a boys dream...

Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future.

If I've gone overboard,
Then I'm begging you
to forgive me
In my haste,
When I'm holding you so, girl,
close to me..

I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration.

Oh and you come crash
into me, baby
And I come into you.
Hike up your skirt a little more,
and show the world to me.
Hike up your skirt a little more,
and show your world to me.
In a boys dream, In a boys dream...

Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled...I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.

Oh I watch you there,
through the window,
And I stare at you.
You wear nothing, but you
wear it so well,
Tied up and twisted,
the way I'd like to be
For you, for me, come crash
into me...

Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped.

SEE? It's perfect, and poetic, and beautiful, and I could totally identify with it. Especially, at the end, he has this moment--

"I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

That raw despair it conveyed was fantastic. And it's such a real moment. Everyone's had one of those--surrounded by normalcy, you alone are filled with sadness, regret, anger, for a reason barely related to the present setting. Or, I'm crazy and overly sentimental. You be the judge.