Writing about Writing or alternatively The Story of My Stories

Also called 'The Story of my Writing' or 'Writing about my Stories'

This is a series of vignettes, which started as separate thoughts and ended up stringing themselves together like a garland.  I apologize for keeping you.  I’ve always got something to say, but I’d be speechless with appreciation if my chatter is worth your attention.

ON GRAMMAR

I feel very strongly about the rules of grammar: we should all use them.  Writing loses its credibility when sentences are unstructured and juvenile.  What you have to say could be the most intelligent and insightful thing I’ve ever heard, but I won’t trust it if it sounds written by an ESL middle schooler.  Irreverence toward grammar is unforgivable.  

The pun isn't even about grammar,
but that doesn't make it any less true.

Stylistically sidestepping the rules is another matter.  When I’m writing creatively I prefer winding run-ons that wrap around themselves like ribbons spinning from a spool.  I’ll use every splashy adjective in the rainbow to modify my subject, squish a verb for every step of an octave into my predicate, and adorn my objects and complements with description till they collapse like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.  I make up phrases and skip in circles around what I’m actually saying so you’ll start to hear my words in my own voice, smiling with each syllable.

This brings me one step forward, two steps and a Maxie turn sideways to my next point.

ON THE PRETTINESS OF WORDS

I swoon over pretty words like I swoon over nothing else, except perhaps the climax of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme.  

A word could be aesthetically pretty, like whimsical or cacophony, or it could be symbolically pretty, like elysian or scintillating.  Oh, tell me I’m scintillating and I’m yours forever.  

Pretty arrangements of words stop my heart too, and that’s why I love poetry.

look up:and we’ll 

(for what were less than dead)dance,i and you;
high(are become more than alive)above
anybody and fate and even Our 
whisper it Selves but don’t look down and to 

-morrow and yesterday and everything except love

e e cummings

Did you smile?  I outright giggled.  Did you get it?  I sure as hell don’t.  I just love how it makes me feel.  Words make me giddy and weightless.  Any other girl’s heart might skip a beat when a boy smiles at her the right way.  Mine goes when a writer reaches for a pen.  

ON STORYTELLING

The memory I recall is never quite the story that comes out, because stories are different from memories.  I’m the protagonist in my memory, but I’m also the narrator in my story.  Narration provides insight.  The best stories are not memories told precisely as they happened; they're memories that have been best realized.  Take what you remember and figure out what really happened in the world and how it affected everything else.  Like so:

Related:
If I haven’t told you about the horror and the
hilarity of my orchestra years yet, ask me about them. 
In my freshman year of high school, there were 11 lewd,
rough-housing boys, 3 laid-back, lanky drug addicts,
one lesbian, and terrified me. 
It was the worst year of my life. 
I haven’t stopped laughing about it yet.

Before they became the story of how I fell in love with music, my memories of my middle and high school years are those of a brace-faced, socially inept, know-it-all tweenager who wanted to be the best at everything.  It’s only by the grace of God or Beethoven or the Muses that in my crusade to outplay everyone else, I found my life’s calling.  That part, of course, is the romantic story I tell.  No one wants to hear the details of the stick-in-the-mud Hermione part of my life and I hardly even want to remember it, so it gets re-written.

The problem with story-telling is that it’s so easy to replace my memories with my stories.  My 20/20 vision is made hazy by rose-colored glasses, and I live with a permanent filter on reality to keep ugly ideas and pessimistic vultures out.  I erase the errant smears that fall outside the lines of the life-story I’m sketching.  I’m so far past the frontier dividing fact and fiction that I wouldn’t know how to return to a life of veracity if I wanted to.

  

Washington Irving phrased it well: “I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.”

ON MY OWN STORY

My story-telling hobby has become such a habit and a heartbeat that I live comfortably in those terms.  I am the main character in my life story, the protagonist in my own bildungsroman.  I don’t mean that in a narcissistic Generation Y way.  Every person has his own nuanced and sensational story.  I happen to be living in this one, and I’m obsessed with appreciating everything and documenting life as it happens.  

"Everything before now, before now,
before now is just a story I carry around."
Chuck Palahniuk

As such, I take a bit of every character with me from everything I read.  I face this daunting, breathtaking, heartbreaking world armed or impaired with Alice’s curiosity, Harry’s selflessness, Elphaba’s defiance, Scout’s sense of justice, Gatsby’s delusions, Piggy’s intellect, Peter’s ignorance, Huck’s humor, and Equality’s ego.  Right now I’m still figuring all the pieces out, but one day I’ll have had enough characterization to be my own complete character.  Or maybe not.  I could go on re-writing and subtly shading myself anew forever.  How should I know?  I’m only in the formative stages of this epic, after all. 

ON THE COVENANT WITH THE AUTHOR

"Blue sky ocean to ocean,
blue ocean sky to sky. "
Rod McKuen

Whether I’m opening a book or an article on Thought Catalog, I’m agreeing to humor the author for a little while.  I will read what he has to say by understanding his words as he means them.  ‘Blue’ may not simply be blue.  ‘Blue’ could be anything from the clouded cobalt of a boy’s pretty eyes to a sunken hue in a midnight sea of sadness.   I try to accept the whole story of the author’s every word.   

Have faith in your narrator.  She’s trying to tell you something worth hearing.  Slip into her brain and hear her story as she means it.  Think in her thoughts, see in her colors, hear the world as it sings to her.  

Buy into my dramatic overreaches and the honest sincerity of my cliches.  Please don’t roll your eyes.  Understand just how genuinely and precisely I mean each nuanced word I choose.  Understand me.  Believe in me. 

“Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn,
 "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.”
Lewis Carroll

Language is just that powerful.  You can use it to let people come so close to you.  To invite someone to inhabit your own mind with you is, I think, the most intimate gesture you could ever make.  

Dear reader, I invite you into my life with each word I write, speak, or sing.  We can revel together in everything the world has to offer.  That’s all I really wanted to tell you: I’m blushing and flattered that you’re here with me.  

Boston Is

Boston is beautiful the first time you see its skyline from the Mass Pike ramp, and every time you see it after that too.  It’s crisp and cool, cobblestoned and historic, a metropolis for the young with a life story older than Paul Revere.  

Boston is an invigorating jog along the Charles by day or a scenic stroll by night.  It’s the posh shops of Newbury a block away from the landmark churches of Copley Square.  It’s the crooked streets and eerie cemeteries and old-town ambience of the North End. It’s all the college students living in an eclectic collection of colored houses on Mission Hill.  It’s the esteem of the Financial District next to the bustle of Downtown Crossing next to the enigma of ivy-veiled brick houses on Beacon Hill.  It’s a tapestry of storied neighborhoods and locales, each with their own history and subculture.  It’s stone cold outside, but with a warm hearth inside.  It’s the definition of New England. 

Boston is a sleepy Saturday morning watching TV with five roommates who don’t need to talk to enjoy each other’s company.  It’s retelling (or piecing together) last night over a strong cup of coffee, maybe over someone’s stash of Starbucks grinds if it’s a really good story.  It’s a stockpile of inside jokes that don’t make sense in conversation with anyone else.  It’s the collection of quirky posters and far-fetched memes I’ll never understand decorating the boys’ apartment like a modern art museum.  It’s the Tremont Street Raiders and the Sticky Six (though there are nine of us these days).  It’s getting all dolled up for the Symphony.  It’s a list of bizarre nicknames following increasingly bizarre stories.  It’s knocking on a friend’s door to say hello and staying hours longer than you meant to.  

Boston is an immeasurable number of bear hugs when you’re coming or going.  It’s a geographical coordinate that keeps us together in spirit when we’re separated by zip codes and state lines and oceans.  It’s a conglomeration of people from as far away as Australia and as local as Bridgewater, or as foreign as Kentucky and as familiar as Brooklyn.  It’s a communal agitation toward the T after midnight.  It’s a collective reverence for J. P. Licks.  

Boston is too much Dunkin Donuts coffee and not enough Starbucks.  It’s a convolution of streets named with no rhyme or reason, except for a small alphabetical grid in Back Bay.  It’s Newbury instead of 5th Avenue, a ‘theater district’ instead of Broadway, Symphony Hall instead of Lincoln Center, and the Common instead of Central Park.  It’s conservative and commemorative.   

Boston is, like anything else in the world, a subjective experience.  It’s a Chicken Cordon Lou from Chicken Lou’s for someone like it’s a Sunrise at Pavement for the next guy.  

Boston feels like home.  It’s manageable.  It’s got plenty of foliage, for a city.  It’s full of vibrantly blooming lives, too.  It’s welcoming.

Boston is not home, though, and never will be.  It’s just a love affair that I’m having, and a tragic one at that.  I’m enamored with everything about Boston: the city, the people, and the lifestyle.  Part of why I love Boston so much at this point in my life is the imminent certainty that I will never settle there.  Right now there’s so much to explore and test and find, but that all will run out one day.  In the end, I know New York is the city for me.  And so Boston means much more to me right now.  

What was I thinking then, running away to a beautiful, irresistible city for college, meeting the most extraordinary people, and having the time of my life, for a limited time only?  Well, Boston took me by surprise.  I had no idea I could fall so in love with it after growing up in New York.  Now my heart aches all over again every time I have to leave.  This love affair is indeed a tragedy.  It’s not the Romeo and Juliet type of tragic, although it certainly feels that way at times.  No, I know we’ll move on from each other in the end, Boston and me.  We’re closer to a 500 Days of Summer tragedy.  Boston is the experience of a lifetime, but with an expiration date circled on the calendar.  There will be bigger and better things one day.  For now though, I don’t look so far ahead.  There’s a commute into Manhattan waiting for me, but for the moment I’ve still got my eyes on the Green Monster, the Citgo sign, and the Boston skyline.  

Bus Blog: A Transcription of My Thoughts As They Happened

Having already spent ten hours Friday, four hours Saturday, and three hours Sunday traveling, I was bored just two hours into what would be a nearly six-hour bus ride.  We took a rest stop just an hour and a half into the trip, waking me up from a pleasant nap.  I decided to write out my thoughts as they happened from the end of the rest stop until arriving at the intersection of 34th and 8th so you could all take the last four hours of the bus ride to New York with me!  Here is the transcription of the original, organized chronologically by what song was playing on my phone. 

No one will get this meme
but I liked it, so there.

Cinderblox, Sonata Arctica- This is one of my favorites off of their latest album.  It grows on me every time I hear it, with the twanging banjo worked fluidly into the angry metal tune.  The drumming is more interesting in this song than in their earlier work.  I must make a note to tell Chris this, since his biggest complaint about my favorite band is that their "drumming is too monotonous." What kind of criticism is that, anyway?

Don't Say A Word, Sonata Arctica- I love it when I get two SA songs in a row on shuffle.  This one is a CLASSIC.  Not that very many people know SA at all but if they know just one song, this is it.  I fell in love with it at first listen, but didn't realize how many other people did until I noticed it was their number one hit on Spotify and their choice of closing song live in concert, even though it's like three albums old.  Scrolling through Twitter, I found that Joe Walker was having a Q&A in honor of the premiere of something or other for Team Starkid.  I asked what wearing a dress in AVPS did for his love life, since his wearing a dress would be a turn-off but the view of his biceps the dress afforded was certainly a turn-on. 

L'italiano, Toto Cutugno- Even though the song is in Italian I always want to sing to it.  The Bruins-Ranger game had just started in Boston.  I knew I'd have to fact-check the updates Adam was sending me with the Rangers' Official Twitter, since he's a biased Bruins fan.  This suspicion was confirmed when he falsely claimed the team to be up 3-0 a minute into the game.  

Love Song, Sara Bareilles- I know how old this song is, but it feels fresh since I never listen to it.  It feels especially fresh with my new "Beavcoon green" (as Eric describes them), noise-cancelling earbuds.  What a nice song.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John- The Bruins take the first goal of the game.  Evidently Elton John will not bring us good luck today.  Skip.

Born This Way, Lady Gaga- I'm no Little Monster, but I really love this upbeat, 80s-feel, Madonna-esque song.  Captain Cally scores for the Rangers!  It's a shame I don't have more Lady G to listen to if it's bringing us luck.  

They were FANTASTIC live.

Allen's Bar, Barrage- Why doesn't the whole world love fiddle music more than it does?  It's so pleasing melodically and the instrument itself is so dynamic and capable of so many styles.  I love fiddle music and Barrage and I think they're severely underrated.

Do They Know It's Christmas, Band Aid- This is one of the few Christmas songs I keep on my phone and iPod all year long.  It's just so good.

Shampain, Marina & The Diamonds- How much more can you contrast a song that was written and recorded for charity than to follow it up with a Primadonna girl like Marina?  Interesting choice, Gods of iPod Shuffle.  Not that Marina really is all about being a materialistic brat.  I'm pretty sure from listening to both of her albums in sequence that she's making statements about materialism and superficiality, not subscribing to them.  Though she is just kind of being gorgeous and making a living off of it.  Ugh.

Lights, Ellie Goulding- The Rangers have thrown away another power play.  Tell me something I don't know?  The elbow of the man sitting next to me keeps nudging me.  Not on purpose, just because he takes up more room than his seat allows.  I really like Goulding's floaty, ethereal voice.  I spot a billboard for the station Star 99.9.  We must be getting close!  Google Maps disagrees.  We're not close enough for me to make the 5:12 train to Ronkonkoma I was planning on.  Great.

Don't Fear the Reaper, Blüe Oyster Cult- LOVE!  No thoughts.  Just listening.  And maybe a little bit of remembering that my 11th grade crush recommended this song to me.

Talk Dirty to Me, Poison- I'm kind of enjoying being so lost in the music that I'm noticing distinctly the hammer-ons and pull-offs and precise timbre of the guitar in this song.  Just listening to music while we're stuck in traffic on this rainy day is kind of nice.

The Day, Snata Arctica- Heavy on the metal today.  Mi piace.  This power ballad/rock song is so gorgeous.  I never realized it was in compound quadruple meter before now.  

La Piccinina, Adriano Valle e Gabriella Piccinini- Grazie mille, Nonni e Nonno, per ballare con me al mio sedicesimo compleanno.  

I Am Not a Robot, Marina & The Diamonds- This was the Free Single of the Week that introduced me to her.  I had no idea what she was singing about but thought her voice was pretty.

*Not

I Wanna Rock, Twisted Sister- I can't sit through this without flashing back to the Spongebob Movie, even though I am not a Goofy Goober.

Deathaura, Sonata Arctica- A Bruins goal wrecked my meditation on how cool this dark, wicked 7-minute tale of a witch hunt is.  And then the Rangers responded with a goal almost immediately.  My NHL App told me Nash had scored it!  I'm glad he isn't as useless as I was feeling like he was.  The back and forth, going in circles nature of the game is reminiscent of the full-circle nature of the song.  Eerie.  

Russian Sailor's Dance, Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy- Thinking about how we played this in eight grade reminds me of how Eric just had his last Great Hollow concert and he's moving up to the High School!  What's funny is that having the eighth grade band join us on playing a symphonic version of Russian Sailor's Dance qualified as 'cool' for us.  For Eric's grade, 'cool' meant a customized arrangement of a song with a drum track and light show while Mr. Roth accompanied them on electric guitar.  How the times have changed.  Then again, Mr. Roth DID arrange Time of Your Life by 

<3333333

Green Day for us.  And he's only used the arrangements for one group that he really loved since then.  I would know, as I've had perfect attendance at GHMS Orchestra concerts since graduating the school myself.  It also occurs to me that this song is in the rock genre of classical music with its accents on the upbeats and syncopation.  It seriously preempts the development of rock and roll.  Huh.

In the Light, DC Talk- Christian rock just feels soooo good sometimes.  Also, I still love Lifeteen a lot.

Break, Three Days Grace- This is great for workout jamz and angry music.  It's also supporting my Russian Sailor's Dance conclusion by being syncopated and accenting the upbeats.  This is actually really awesome and I want to learn the bass part. 

Bennie and the Jets, Elton John- This is the second Elton John song the Bruins have scored during on this bus trip and I don't even have that much of his music for it to be popping up in shuffle like this.  I take the blame for that goal.  I should have skipped over this song more quickly.

Mary Did You Know?, Kathy Mattea- How did this Christmas song sneak onto here? Skip.

Being Alive, 1996 London Company Cast- Wrong revival.  I hate the voices of the 1996 version.  2006 is where it's at.  Skip. 

Only in New York, Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie- My first thought when I listen to this is always that it's a "fluff entertainment" piece, the technical term for which Andy and I learned in Feinstein's Musicals class.  The theory is that when the plot of a show is too complicated, they just throw in some songs that have no other function than to entertain without developing the plot.  The more you know.  My next thought is always of the production we did my Senior Year/Delia's freshman year of high school.  It was fantastic, if 

Me and Gustav, rocking SHSW during
Thoroughly Modern Millie

I do say so myself.  I loved being in that show.  The Elbow Man keeps peaking at what I'm scribbling away at so furiously.  It doesn't matter to me because he probably can't read my moving-vehicle chicken scratch handwriting.  Adam texts me saying to keep playing Elton John.  Ugh.  I think they should re-make Thoroughly Modern Millie as a movie musical.  All I can see at this moment is Queen Latifah playing Muzzy but it just works so well.

Australia, Jonas Brothers- I'm hiding my face in shame, but also definitely head-bopping along.  I kind of even want S.O.S. to play.

Fixing A Hole, The Beatles- I like the Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album (which, I learned in some music class at some point, was the first album that made it socially acceptable for adults to listen to rock), but I wonder if I need to listen to the album chronologically to really get it all.

Burn, Three Days Grace- Google Maps is now telling me we'll get to tick Tock Diner at 5:55.  Never mind the 5:12 train, I just hope I can catch the 6:12 one at this point.  It's raining pretty hard outside.  I hope it didn't rain on Kaity during her walk.  She rode with me to South Station, which was so sweet.  I'm really glad she ended up with us this semester and because I had such a good experience with getting a random roommate, I won't mind if I have to live with random roommates next January.

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, The Police- I see New Rochelle on Google Maps.  I'm not hearing Sting sing, I'm hearing Rosemary sing in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  New Rochelle, New Rochelle, our house will be in New Rocheeeeeeelle.

Finale B, Cast of Rent, Movie version- Alllllllll the tears for this song.  I interrupt the song to watch a Vine selfie of Joey Richter feeding a giraffe.  I would send the link to Rebecca but I know for sure she follows Joey Richter too and can see it any time she wants.  I start the song over to give it my full attention.  Without yooooou, the hand grooooopes, the ear heeeeears, the pulse beeeeeats.  Life goes ooooon, but I'm gooooone, 'cause I diiiiie without yooooou.  No day but todaaaaay.  Usually, I frown upon such codependency as this song promotes, but in my head I'm seeing Mark's movie.  More specifically, I'm seeing the ending with the image of Angel.  It's too haunting not to love.  I repeat: alllllllll the tears.  

Secret, The Pierces- Too harsh a mood change.  Also, the Bruins score again.  Skip.

Fight Like A Girl, Bomshel- I love this girl-power country song.  Looking out the window, I thought the fog was so thick that it obstructed the top half of a building from view.  I thought of Mighty Mount Olympus.  It turned out to just be a short building.  More like Thunder Ridge, the little mountain we went to once in upstate New York.

Delia is the second star from the right (and straight on
till morning).  Ohhh I crack myself up.

Marry The Man Today, Adelaide and Sarah from the Guys and Dolls Cast- Reflecting on Delia and the cast of the SHSW production this year.  They were BRILLIANT.  I saw it three times.  I don't like this recording, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.  A sound recording can't accurately capture the stage presence and performance of a song that's meant to be performed live.  

Seven Wicked Reels, Barrage- I always forget to count for the seven reels until like halfway through.  I started counting about a minute and a half in and got five.  I'm too lazy to try again.

Ravel's Bolero, BSO conducted by Charles Munch- Find the right version of this song and it's perfect for everything, ever.  Andy was listening to a version once that was just too slow and too loud and actually dissonant to the ear.  It was unpleasant.  I like my version.  It's kind of sensual for a classical piece.  It's got these long, legato runs that build up to a repeated, syncopated high note and then float back down shyly.  It's repeated by, like, every instrument and takes fourteen minutes.  We're getting into the Bronx now.  I don't think I'll make the 6:12 train but I'm not even stressing about it because it's so peaceful to listen to Bolero.  

Brahms's Academic Festival Overture, Budapest Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anton Rickenbacher- I played this piece with MYO!  Funny story about its name: Some university wanted Brahms to take a few classes and pursue an honorary degree.  After a ton of pestering, he finally agreed.  When it came time for his graduation ceremony, they told him they wanted him to compose something in honor of the school.  To spite them, he strung a bunch of folk tunes (think along the lines of Yankee Doodle Dandy) together under this pretentious title and played it at the ceremony.  The uptight administrators were not amused.  I think it's a wonderful piece.  I should re-learn the bass part one day.  I can still hum the melody but I haven't got a clue what the actual notes are.  Sometime this summer. I'm so enjoying this piece that I'm still not stressing about the train that leaves in 35 minutes when I'm 34 driving minutes away from the station.

{Skip like six songs because now I'm in a classical mood}

Goodbye to You, The Veronicas- This is not classical, but I'll take it.  Why this works when Michael Buble didn't, your guess is as good as mine.  Anyway, yay for girly alternative rock! I'm eagerly awaiting their next album, which is like 3 years overdue.  Chris and Adam's texts about the Bruins winning are more jesting than mocking, mercifully.  At least, that's how I'm choosing to read them.  

Crows Fly Black, Tarot- Tarot is another reason I love metal and I strongly recommend them.  Also, the train leaves in 15 and Google Maps tells me we'll be driving for at least 20 more minutes.  Ugh.

Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles- Yeah, this song is definitely supposed to segue straight into another song.  I'm missing something.

Favorite Musical EVER.

Dancing Through Life, from Wicked- I LOVE THESE LYRICS AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SONG.  Nessa starts singing and I remember how much I wish "Wicked Witch of the East" was considered a song and put on the soundtrack.  It's not because there are too many spoilers.  I still wish, though.  This tunnel is really narrow.  It occurs to me that if we collide with the car next to us and crash, this notebook is almost definitely going to land in a puddle and no one will get to read all of this golden material I've been working so hard on.  That thought, more than anything else about a potential crash, saddens me.  My discomfort is assuaged when, at the climax of the song, we emerge dramatically from the Midtown Tunnel.  It's no more light outside the tunnel in the rain than it was inside, but I still couldn't have planned that moment any better than it happened.

FINAL SONG: Cool the Engines, Boston- How fitting is it that this is the soundtrack as we arrive at our destination after a nearly six-hour journey?  WHICH HAPPENED TO BE FROM BOSTON?  You couldn't make this crap up.  Anyway, somewhere in this huge, daunting city, a slice of pizza is calling my name.  So is a toilet, since The Elbow has the aisle seat and has been asleep for the last two hours.  I felt bad waking him up to ask him to move.  

Dear reader, I wish you happy and safe traveling in your future.  At the very least, I hope it's happier than mine was today in this abysmal rain and traffic and safer than it was Friday when my bus broke down.  For tonight, I bid you adieu.  

"It must be that we build on memories and make them more than they were."

I have a confession to make.  I have had no idea what to do with this blog lately.  

I used to post once a week, at least, but those posts are so trivial when I re-read them now. I ramble about, like, tacos and maybe introduce some people in my life.  I would just kind of collect all of my thoughts over the course of a few days and weave them into a nicely arranged monologue.  Now I have Twitter for that, so in a stupid way, I haven't seemed to collect enough thoughts to put together a blog in a while.  It sounds harsh and staunchly un-intellectual phrased that way, but what am I going to do?  I think I just need to get back into the habit of blogging.  

Lololol. Let's go murder the Bruins next.

Summer would be the time for that, since literally all I have to occupy my time with is supporting the Rangers, answering the phone at China Garden, and occasionally teaching music lessons.  

Due to overwhelming popular demand (when someone cares enough to ask why I haven't blogged, I feel like an Internet celebrity) I'll start blogging again and just make it up as I go along.  To start with, here's a series of amusing and totally insignificant things that have happened in my life as I think of them while looking around my room.



Not all that long ago, my friends and I used to play Hot Potato, but using Delia as the potato.

My fourteen year-old brother's take on politics: "It would've been terrible if we elected Mitt Romney!  Just look at his name--MITT.  That reflects baseball.  He would have erased hockey from existence!"

We've vacationed at Woodloch Pines ten times and we're still excited for the next time we go (eighty-seven days at last count).  Also, I have four gold medals, a silver, and a bronze.  Most importantly, we won gold in the Scavenger Hunt, as everybody ought to know by now.

Before I started keeping a journal on the computer, I filled up six books by hand.  I started keeping my first diary in 1999.  My first entry reads: "Today is the last day of December.  Today is Christmas morning.  We are going to Ant Rooth and Unkle Gorg's house.  We are now going to Ant Angala and Unkle Madyo's house.  We are now going home.  I am now going to bed." I like to think my spelling has gotten better but I guess my narrative style hasn't really changed all that much.

I keep losing interest
and forgetting about it.

I still haven't finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia.

One time, about ten years ago, Deels and I were messing around and throwing the hand towel at each other in the bathroom.  I threw the towel in the open toilet by accident.  We panicked.  I plucked it out, folded the wet parts underneath and pretended it never happened.  Nonni told me that she and her younger sister, Aunt Maria, did the same thing when they were kids!  The only differences were that it was a pillow through an open window into a barrel of water, which I guess is pretty much the 1940's Belgium equivalent of the same story.

Half the fun was dressing like princesses.

I still have all sorts of paraphernalia from Sweet Sixteens.  There are a bunch of leis hanging on my closet door, at least 20 different-colored beaded necklaces hanging on a hook, and a whole section of my sock drawer devoted to Kanye glasses, customized chocolate bar wrappers, and all the other free DJ handouts.

In two years of studying in Boston, I never had to kill a spider.  After being home for a week, I'd already killed two.  It's good to be back.

Delia and I shared a room up until I was turning sixteen.  We had matching bedspreads that went with the light purple walls.  Then we redecorated the Computer Room downstairs and I moved into it early in 2009.  Deels and I each got to repaint our rooms and pick out our own bedspreads.  Without consulting each other, we accidentally painted our separate rooms the same color, turquoise.  

The tickets to all the Broadway shows I've seen are hanging on my bulletin board and their playbills have a special box all to themselves: Beauty and the Beast, Wicked, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Rent, Chicago, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Cinderella.  In retrospect, they're mostly girly musicals.  So sue me.  (That's a Guys and Dolls joke.  I keep myself so entertained.) Never mind all the school plays and off-Broadway things I've seen/played in.  I don't understand people who can't appreciate a good musical.

I have a flamingo collection.  There are seven flamingoes in my room and I feel negligent for forgetting all of their names over the years.  

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Midnight Premiere
Summer 2011

Sometimes I forget how much I love Harry Potter.  Then I find old Harry Potter-themed bookmarks, stickers, trading card games, a watch, newspaper and magazine clippings, buttons, keychains, pennants, folded-up posters, duplicates of some of those posters, and trivia books when I clean out my desk and drawers.  Then I remember that all the bindings on my hard-cover set of the series are broken from reading them so many times.  Then I remember what a dork I am and all is well in the world.

My name-tag lanyards from when I worked at Chuck E. Cheese's are still hanging on my door knob.  I have no idea why I don't just get rid of them.

Predictably, there's Northeastern debris everywhere.  A coffee mug.  Countless Husky-themed sweatshirts.  The rock with the Northeastern "N" painted on that Andy was so fond of stealing.  Books I acquired over the school year that I can't find room for.  Leftover things from my dorm that we didn't store in the attic.  A box of memorabilia like Symphony tickets and doodles done by friends.  And of course, all the pictures proving it wasn't all just a fantastic dream.  

This room holds all kinds of memories, and I can't wait to see what the memories from this next chapter of my life will be like.

Missing my Little Cherubs

I can't decide whether it's paradoxical or it makes perfect sense that I'll be utilizing my blog a ton more now that I'm on hiatus from Facebook.  More use makes sense, of course, but I'll have like 1/64th the amount of views since most of them came from Facebook.  I like attention and I like when people listen to what I happen to have to say (aka, when my statuses got liked on Facebook), which is why I like the silliness of Twitter.  I got 45 followers, yo.  Thing is, I'm a Dickens, not a Hemingway.  Y'all know that.  160 characters is hardly enough to hashtag a tweet, never mind compose a complete thought.  So I'll be taking to blogging to fulfill my personal attention-hog needs.  I approximate that this post will get about 17 views since it'll get tweeted about and not plastered all over Facebook.  Thanks you guyssssss.

I adore all of my classes this semester, despite all the hours of homework I'm unaccustomed to putting in.  My favorite is probably the one least relevant to my major- my Social Fact from Fiction Honors Seminar.  We read roughly a book a week, each of which is a fictional work that says something very factual about various social problems we face in society.  We're currently reading Black and Blue, by Anna Quindlen.  The title is a clever play on two things: bruises from domestic violence and her husband's position as a police officer.  It's got a compelling plot and makes you feel very real sympathy for the plight of Fran, our protagonist.  I'm just about through with it, but I'm not here to summarize or sell it to you.  I just want to talk about the characterization.

There are two characters in the novel hit close to home for me.  So close to home, in fact, that it was painful to read at moments.  One is Fran's sister, Gracie, and one is her son, Robert.  With Grace, it's the relationship of the sisters that brings me immediately to mine with Delia, while it's the actual character of Robert that brings Ewok to mind.  I actually post-it noted a few passages.  "Direct conversation had never been the way to engage [Eric]; I always had to wait through the silences for his words to swim up at me."  I saw, like a third person omniscient narrator might, myself sitting at the kitchen table, perhaps home from school on a break, watching Eric eat two Oreos with a glass of milk, reading the comics page (The Peanuts Gang first).  I could ask him a thousand questions--"How was school?  Learn anything interesting?  How's Mr. Specht doing?  What are you playing in orchestra?  Do you have hockey tonight?  How's [insert crush's name here]?"--and he'd answer in a quarter as many words--"Good.  Yeah.  He was okay.  The same pieces you played.  Yeah. I don't talk to her."  It wasn't until I bit my tongue and sat patiently that the good stuff would come out--"Oh!  Guess what Nick and Kyle and I decided at lunch about our mini-hockey team!"  And then I'd hear all the necessary updates on the Nebraska Knights, for which their friend Tom was Captain.  

Showing me via Skype
that they can dance

Or maybe a commercial would come on and remind Eric of a thought he had.  He'd ask a question about music and I'd launch happily into an hour-long explanation of chords and chord progressions and lead sheets, shocking Eric with the news that notation exists beyond sheet music.  Just like Fran's son in the story.  Maybe all teenage boys are like that.  Regardless, Fran's son also has the same birthday as Ewok does.  I was going to rhetorically ask what the odds of that are, but my Stats class last semester definitely taught me how to figure it out.  The odds are precisely 1/365.  

The relationship between Fran and her little sister Gracie is my favorite thing about this book.  The closeness of the sisters was established early on and referenced often enough so you never forgot it.  "If only I could talk to my sister, the way I had in the half-light of our bedroom when we were girls, the street lamps shining in a divot of yellow across our twin beds.  If only I could talk to [Delia] the way I did when we were younger, lying in the darkness listening to her questions, answering them as best I could."  There are dozens of lines in the book that sound like this.  Like the author had seen some picture of Delia and me giggling across the room to each other in hushed tones when Mom thought we were asleep.  No such picture exists, of course.  There is absolutely no evidence of the late-night chats that left us with dark circles under our eyes.  We were excellent at feigning sleep.  Mom totally never had a clue (Read as: Mom totally let us have our fun because she was glad we didn't fight).  

Infamous SISTERS Face

If I went to bed later than Delia did--being three years older, I deserved a later bed time--she waited up for me.  We shared a room for ten years and did this every night.  I cried when I spent the first night in my own room at the age of 15.  We got over it, but we've always had this unspoken agreement of saying good night since then.  That meant that one of us would go to the other's room and we'd say all the things and ask all the questions and show all the texts and share all the gossip we hadn't had a chance to during the day.  Usually it was in my room, since I always went to bed later, plus we wouldn't wake anyone up laughing from downstairs.  Even now, five years later, it's still the tradition when I'm home from school.  We've both fallen asleep on my bed, waking up confused in the middle of the night.  

Well anyway, Grace was what Fran missed most when she moved across the country under a new name to escape her abusive husband.  Fran referenced those good times with her sister frequently.  One such tradition was calling each other to trade horror stories after Thanksgiving dinner.  It wasn't until months after Fran and her son settled in that new town with their new names that she picked up the phone and called her sister after Thanksgiving dinner.  For four straight pages I sobbed with Frannie and Gracie.  In a happy story, you cry for the sad parts.  In a sad story, you cry for the happy ones.  



In retrospect, the lines that reminded me of Delia and Eric were less convincing than I remembered them being.  There are definite parallels, but no one else would have noticed.  It just goes to show that I see Delia and Eric everywhere I look.  I've said it before and I hope you believe me: I adore my siblings more than anything else in the world.  

You see the resemblance too, right?

Top Twelve Memories of 2012

We all know the entire ordeal of 2012 has been a whirlwind of a time.  Here are things that will make me smile most to look back on:

12) HUSKY HUNT

Some hated the Hunt, some slept through it, and some even went mysteriously missing.  I’m a competitive and enthusiastic person, though, so I took it seriously and went hard, going on a two-hour walk (getting romantic with Meredith under an archway in a park--Sorry, Eric), a six-hour bike ride through Cambridge in the coldest hours of night (spying a rather beautiful sunrise), and a 5-hour walk through Beacon Hill (encountering men dressed as a vampire gangster, a smoking Santa, and a hot dog).  The Rubik’s Cubes (Shannon, LV, Mer, Eric, Laura, Ryan, Al, Andy, Harrison, Joe, Aimee, and myself) did a lot of bonding, invented some creative Lion poses, and placed at a proud 28 out of 50.

11) Fiction of the Year

I need a broad topic to acknowledge a few things I fan-girled over this year: Doctor Who, Rod McKuen’s poetry, and How I Met Your Mother, plus how I reaffirmed my love affair with Harry Potter.  The Whovians of Northeastern (Laura, Lauren Belle, and Mer) turned me onto the BBC show Doctor Who in 2011, but it wasn’t until this year that I watched the 2005 Revival in its entirety.  I am enamored.  Like many, Ten is my favorite Doctor--his cheekiness, arrogance, and scientific, timey-wimey jargon never fail to delight--but I adored Eleven’s relationship with Amy and Rory and cried as though real people died at the end of The Angels Take Manhattan.  Plus, after converting Eric into a more obsessed Whovian than I am, we explored some Scarf-y Fourth Doctor silliness.  It’s an excellent show.  I apologize for losing many of you in that rant.  On a more lovey-dovey note, I fell in even deeper amour 
with the poetry of Rod McKuen.  Don’t take my word for it, just check his books out.  I’ll leave you with some sweet one-liners for inspiration: “I’ll stay awhile / and track the hidden country of your smile,” “I want to see the world within the circle of your arms,” and “You see how easily we fit together, as if God’s own hand had cradled only us.”  Go.  Read.  Bask in the Romance.  Delia and I discovered How I Met Your Mother this year and watch

Character pose!

 every episode together.  It’s our thing.  It’s a brilliantly crafted sitcom that I dwelled on enough in my Broken Jaw post.  Lastly, Andrea, Rebecca, and I rekindled our love for Harry Potter this summer by instating a book and movie club, culminating in a costume party double feature of the 7th and 8th movies: I dressed as Luna, Andrea as Dobby (complete with an authentic pillow case dress), Rebecca as Mad-Eye Moody, and even Jacqui donned feathers and hooted that she was Hedwig.  (Only my character survived.)  Danielle, Paige, and Christina made it to some events, and we even brewed Butterbeer.  Those nights MADE my summer.  

10) Classy Dinner Party

I think that that evening, which preceded Hurricane Monday, is a nice way to commemorate my friendship with the Duplex and generally how wonderful life is with the lovely ladies of WVF616.  My fantastic roomies humored me by helping make high-effort food (a.k.a. it required more work than just microwave preparation), cleaning (you could see the tabletop for the first time in WEEKS), and dressing all fancy for the occasion (not that they needed telling twice, those foxes!).  We had Mer, Belle, LV, Sarah, Laura, Shannon, Chris*, Nick, Charlie, Adam (1), and Adam (2) in attendance.  Lots of inside jokes were born, including those associated with hair gel.

9) North End Adventure

A freshman year classic.  On a whim, Sarah, Meredith, Lauren Belle, and I decided we’d love ourselves some Italian chow for dinner.  No one else was around to invite, so we just set sail for the North End, spawning jokes like “Two ships passing in the night,” Spite houses/babies, and immature playground silliness, in addition to scoring an awesome dinner at Cafe Pompeii.  We still sometimes reference that random adventure, just because it’s such a perfect example of the casual, random craziness of our little group of friends.

8) Sonata Arctica

What would even be the point of a Top 2012 list without the year's top music?  I finally got to see my favorite band in the world (literally, out of all world music), Sonata Arctica, live at the Palladium.  They're a Finnish power metal band that I've been in music love with since I was 16.  Andy took the trek to Worcester with me and we had a good time reconnecting on the long train ride.  Eric was kind enough to chauffeur us around the city, stating plainly that it wasn't a fantastic area to be walking around in at night.  The warm-up acts sucked and the venue was a frigid little cavern, but the band and their loud, melodic music, played at speeds to rival Olympian track runners, lived up to every expectation I've set for them in the last three years.  

7) Family Holidays

I can never stress enough how critical my family is to me every day of my life.  Of course there's my brother, who made me the sweetest Doctor Who themed Christmas card; my sister, who, though full of sass sometimes, still admits to missing me and needing help other times; my dad, who thinks in the same erratic patterns as I do and shares my affinities for coffee, Mulberry Street pizza, and the TNT show Leverage; and my mom, who never stops giving to her children and supports all the endeavors we undertake, from driving to and from rehearsals to cheering on the benches at a freezing November dek hockey game.  

Then, there's all the extended family we see at as many holidays as we can: Nonni, with her world-renowned Christmas cookies; Nonno, with the stern face he wears when he asks about boys; Aunt Terry, who always wore the silly Halloween sweatshirt and socks because I asked her to; Uncle Vic, who teases incessantly; Cassie, who we eagerly catch up with the few times we see her; Bella, who fits in as easily talking with the older cousins as she does making trouble with the little ones; Uncle Ettore, who we always seem to give Pannettone for Christmas; "Uncle" Paul, who said Hermi-one until I corrected him; Aunt Renee, with her sweet smile; crazy Robbie, who hasn't let me hug him since he was 3; Michael, who has not followed in Robbie's footsteps and still smiles for my pictures; Uncle Bruce, who might be the most patient person I've ever met; Aunt Michelle, who designates me babysitter for these holiday gatherings, since being around kids is "the best birth control, and you're old enough to be told this!"; Dario, who has the same voice as Uncle Bruce; Sebastian Pasquale, who's too little to be sassy yet; Uncle Frank, who apparently rolled under a couch as an infant; Uncle Gianni, whose eyes smile when he tells stories about his merry life as a bus driver; (Aunt Maria, who had the heartiest, happiest laughter I ever heard); Uncle Mark, who's young 

enough to make relatable jokes about the craziness of college but also old enough to whack me upside the head for the same craziness; sweet Aunt Angela, who we beg to make pecan pies to every holiday; Luke, the little cousin who's cute enough to get away with making mischief; Ava, who puts on my makeup when I'm not looking; Uncle Mario, who always says "Ciao, bella," when he hugs; Aunt Angela, who's been all over the world and shares my birthday; Aunt Grace, my scatter-brained, silly, and loving Godmother; Uncle Ignazio, who taught us to sing I Dodici Giorni di Natale; and Marianna, who's kind enough to still hang out with the kiddies even though she's thoroughly a grown-up these days.  

Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Samuel Johannes

And so on and so forth.  Any holiday.  Every holiday.  

6) Company

Go on, roll your eyes.  I wander around humming songs, I quote the lyrics whether or not anyone knows what I'm talking about, and I always cite it as one of the most interestingly interpreted shows ever.  Quite obviously, I'm actually just saying how lucky I was to be a part of Northeastern's fabulous production.  I'm lucky I had so many friends come see it and share the experience with me and I can't wait for the next one.  But seriously, give the show a shot.  

5) Freshman Year Move-Out

No, this wasn't a happy memory.  It was actually one of the saddest days ever, but that was purely because my freshman year was such a good memory--and I mean every minute of it.  The whole feeling of my first year as a Husky is mirrored in how sad I was to leave in April.  I was sad to see the end of all those fantastic times: Zombie musicals, late night Dominoes after MIT parties, hours in the piano rooms, gathering the usual suspects for dinner, movie nights, common room shenanigans, and Trojan War tactics are just a few of the ridiculous happenings that gave flavor to my freshman year.  Moving out was a sad day because it would be the end of those times, but the sadness only reflected how fantastic a year it was.

4) Woodloch Pines

I've written an entire blog about this beautiful little patch of the universe already.  If you don't understand how it can be such a monumental cornerstone in the lives of my family and the Schizzanos by this point, then I can't help you understand anymore.  

3) Getting My Braces Off

The joy of being officially done with all things dental (save for wearing a retainer very night) far exceeded the irritation of my gums bleeding for a few days.  That day was a reflection of all the things my family and I had survived: a year of braces and surgical wires, a six-hour surgery, the most horrible night in the hospital, and weeks of numbness and an all-liquid diet.  Well, I'm still numb, but in the scheme of everything else, I'll take what I can get.  We survived!

2) Delia's Sweet Sixteen

I've written a whole blog on this one too, which you should check out if you haven't.  Here's an abridged version: When a Sweet Sixteen is done right, it's both a party and an emotional experience.  We had a fantastic time at Delia's, dancing and singing, watching the video her friends prepared as a surprise, her emotional candle ceremony (I cried my fake eye lashes off), and taking pictures with the beautiful birthday princess.  We had all of Delia's friends in attendance, plus Chelsea, Sydney, Mr. & Mrs. Schizzano, Miss Denise the ballet 

ACTUALLY a fairy princess.

teacher, all the Brengel cousins (even if the boys were being difficult about dancing), Justin (who let us put a pink crown on him for half a second), the Miliones, the Finellis, and Ginger.  We had our traditional eating leftover food and opening gifts into the wee hours of the morning session afterwards.  It certainly was a fairy-tale of an evening with the whole family.






And the biggest, most monumental moment of my 2012?

1) Moving In for Sophomore Year

I remember crystal clearly that when we drove over the I-90 bridge and the city of Boston came into view, Big City Nights by the Scorpions was playing and I was giddy with excitement to see all my Huskies again.  Maybe I didn't know exactly what was in store for the year but we all knew if it was anything like last year had been, every day would be an adventure.  And every day has been a greater adventure than the last, filled with Photo shoots, Mixfest, TV Show Viewing Parties, Aquarium detours, Birthday dinners, Boston Pops concerts, Holiday festivities, getting dressed up to go teach other's concerts, and  random city excursions.  What's most special about life at Northeastern, though, is how sitting at home playing Cards Against Humanity, improvising ridiculous song lyrics, watching Trapped in the Closet, playing enough music to peel the skin off my fingers, having random dance breaks, or even just catching up on each others' lives over a bowl of cookie dough is just as fulfilling as any big adventure.  I can't confine all the laughing, nerding-out, dancing, teasing, screaming, craziness of life at Northeastern into one concise memory, so instead, my top memory from this year is the giddy anticipation I felt that day in the car for all of the times that would be had.  I can't thank my mom and dad enough for supporting me in my decision to be a Northeastern Husky and I couldn't be more blessed to have met the fantastic people that I did. 

Thank you EVERYONE in my life for all the wonderful things you gave me this year.  It certainly wasn't an easy year, what with a broken jaw, a hurricane, losing two elderly aunts, and the lamentable loss of a friend.  I truly don't know how I'd have gotten through without the support, advice, and warm embraces of all my family and friends.  My resolution for 2013 is to give as much back to you all as you've given me.  



*Editor's Note: Chris dislikes when I refer to him as Chrissy.