The Fountain of Youth

It's official. I'm addicted to ebay.
Today, I was just sitting in front of the computer, minding my own business surfing some of the auctions. I saw something that I was somewhat interested in--TV on DVD, of course. I was like, oh, $18.00. That's not too much. I'll just bid that, to push the price up a little. But no, whoever was bidding decided not to set a higher bid, so I discovered that I was suddenly the high bidder. I sat there, slowly understanding that there were only 2 minutes left to the auction, understanding I had a good chance of winning something I was kind of into but not really anticipating receiving. I refreshed the page over and over again, literally praying to God that someone--anyone--would bid at 18.50.
Needless to say, 2 minutes later, I found myself the unproud (in fact, somewhat sniveling) owner of Angel: Season One.

Maybe it's a good thing that my dad's tying up the internet 24/7.
WHY do I do these things to myself? WHY?

The real raison d'etre I'm posting: I went for a bike ride yesterday.
For me, bike riding is like stepping in a time machine. (Oh no, you're thinking. Not saccarine, childhood reminiscence. What do you expect from someone who likes Buffy?) My BFF and I used to bike ride to each other's houses all the time in elementary school. (I have the scars on my kness to prove it.) Once, I fell off in a grape vineyard (one of the many b/w our houses) and ripped a chank out of the knee cap. So cool. Blood dripping down my leg, and it really did look thick as corn syrup. It stained the cuffs of my socks. Another time, we were joining her cul-de-sac's bike club (Yes, the suburbs are lame.) for a ride until I ran over some woman's cabbage-flower-looking thing. She yelled out her front door after me.
Bad omen 1 when I was getting my Huffy Helios ready for departure was the chain had come off the front gears, so when I rode it was in perpetual first gear. (Those of you who know your bike physics know what the problem is with this: lots of work with little result.) Bad omen 2 was cleared up with an electric air pump.
Seriously, though, I haven't ridden my bike all the way to Shomont in about, say 5 or 6 years. I used to all the time, and the part of me that gets reminiscent (usually, in very short, separate instances of my life) was very happy yesterday. And, of course, what's funny is what I felt reminiscent about:
1. the excrememt smell of the ditches on the side of the road (bc we have the highest water table in Erie county, and some ppl's septic systems rise to the surface more easily than is healthy)
2. the slight curve in the road (nothing to a car, almost nothing on a bike), the hardly-noticeable dips up-and-down in the tar and chip
3. When I was little and I got my bike going really fast, I thought I saw in the tar and chip road a cartoon man with a large nose and handlebar mustache (that stuck out at his sides like stiff cat whiskers). He was perpetually sneezing. I saw him again yesterday. It's one of those things: you never know you miss it until you think about it. Then, it's like some part of you is hurting. That's what happened at school when I had my catalogued, few and far b/w reminiscent moments. Always the strangest things. Always objects or specific moments in time. Never attached, never fitting one into the other like a string of pop-beads. *

*For Cynthia--

Pop beads are the things that babies play with. Also, they can be fake beaded necklaces that come in various shapes and sizes for anyone ages 1 to 100.

THE RATS OF HAMELN

SO. Our little Miss Em Barn has discovered something VERY IMPORTANT to anyone with a love of good literature. There is a darkness descending on the land of publishing. It is. . .
The Father-Son McCube writing team.

Let's not forget to pick up our copy of the Rats of Hameln and support other McCube & McCube writing endeavors, such as the Junior class film and Will. Let's not forget that this is the book of which son McCube said, "We suddenly realized, it had no plot!" (Record article, some time 2005)

What the Future Holds

It's O-fficial. I've registered for my Fall Semester at UM. Classes are as follows: ENGL 611: Approaches to College Composition (which sounds a lot like Writing Effective Prose, I know, but it's actually required for those desiring a Teaching Assistanceship. And you know what TA ship means. All expenses paid.), ENGL689 Fiction Workshop with Maud Casey (from her stories that I've read, I believe we'll get along fairly well.), and ENGL428C: Seminar in Language and Literature: Postcolonial Writers and a focus on theater. (Please don't suck! Please don't suck!) I printed out my schedule but the printer is faulty so there are horizontal lines of white space all through the page. The proof of my future is marked. Meanwhile, I am majoring in Buffy the Vampire Slayer this summer. (I like to blame it on Dr. Bieber.)

West Virginia Mountain Mama Take Me Home

Back from Philly and short-lived hiatus in D.C. Saw 2 sexy docs:

Rock School
(the movie critics wished School of Rock* was--something I made up.)

Mad Hot Ballroom
(there's nothing like watching kids in elementary school shaking their groove things, shake their groove things, yeah yeah.)

* I wish my link for this could be "JackBlackSucks.com," there isn't one as of yet.

"On the Road again" again

I am officially in Philly for the week with Kristan, absorbing great culture and White Zinfandel. Also, it would be nice to find awesome apts. in D.C.!!!
Outtie. :) rofl

THE GREAT AMERICAN BOOKSALE, Day 2

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, omnibus, hardcover
by Patricia C. Wrede (SBP and Barn-dawg will smile at this.)

The Well-Wrought Urn by Cleanth Brooks (haha, you crazy New Critics)

Someday Angeline by Louis Sachar (Kristan's recommendation)

A Stuffed Crust Pizza from Pizza-Hut, one half mushrooms & chicken, the other half cheese, most of which is in my fridge, bc I didn't give Kristan her half of the leftovers.

et al.

Who doesn't like a good list of books?

Search for your favorite authors. Books I retrieved for under $50 total from the neglected tables at Villa's annual Great American Booksale, Day 1.
** - denotes I'm so friggin' excited to have found this!

A
Alexander, Lloyd
The Kestrel **
The Beggar Queen

Angelou, Maya
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Atwood, Margaret
The Robber Bride

Asimov
Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space

B
Bauer, Joan
Backwater

Baum, Frank L.
Road to Oz
The Wizard of Oz

Brashares, Ann
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Buechner, Frederick
On the Toad with the Archangel

C
Carey, Peter
History of the Kelly Gang

Cormier, Robert
Heroes
Fade
We All Fall Down **

Crutcher, Chris
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Cunningham, Michael
The Hours **

D
Duane, Diane
So You Want To Be a Wizard

E
Eggers, Dave
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius ** (HC!!!!)

Ende, Michael
The Neverending Story

F
Franzen, Jonathan
The Corrections

G
Guterson, David
Snow Falling On Cedars

H
Haley, Alex
Roots

Hansberry, Loraine
A Raisin in the Sun

Hinton, S.E.
The Outsiders **

Hornby, Nick
About a Boy

J
Joyce, James
Dubliners

K
Kingsolver, Barbara
The Poisonwood Bible

Kundera, Milan
Slowness

L
Lamott, Anne
Crooked Little Heart

M
Morrison, Toni
Bluest Eye
Paradise

Mulich, Zoran
THe City ABC Book

O
Ondaatje, Michael
THe English Patient

P
Pascal, Francine
Fearless Series #s 4, 6, 9, 12, 13 (haha!)

Potok, Chaim
The Gates of November

Proulx, E. Annie
The Shipping News
Postcards

Q
Quinn, Daniel
Ishmael

R
Rand, Ayn
The Fountainhead

Roche, Henri-Pierre
Jules and Jim

S
Smith, Lee
Black Mountain Breakdown

W
Wallace, David Foster
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity **

Y
Yates, Richard
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

Give a shout out to your favorite titles and put in a good word for them, bc I haven't read most of them.

So, I've been watching the first season of Last Comic Standing on reruns for the past 3 wks. I was POS-I-TIVE that Ralphie May (DO NOT skip the intro on his website. It's worth every second.) was the winner. Man, was it a shocker when Dat Phan took home the "honor." But, remember Rob Cantrell who snuck weed into the house? He was great.
In other comic news, Dane Cook's new CD/DVD Retaliation hits stores July 26th, only 10 days after I'll go to the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to retrieve by copy-in-waiting. (Speaking of, here's a great link for HP fans courtesy of Sarah.)

OUTTIE,
Lazee to the Hizzann

Home Again Home Again jiggity jig

**Anyone can comment on this blog now. I disabled the have-to-be-a-member dealio. This isn’t a cry for comments, but--well--an invitation. *
Hey, all. Back from the MD-D.C. area where I discovered I’m going to try to live in a place a lot more in the center of D.C. than on the outskirts of the College Park campus. (For those of you who are unaware: the next year for me ='s my first shot at an M.F.A. degree from the University of MD. FEAR THE TURTLE!)
**Please! Tell me SOMEONE else caught the Billy Graham "Road to Redemption" movie on prime time this past week so I can "rant" about it!! **
I have a list of things to do a mile long. But, the trip was grand in most senses of the word. I got to be around ppl who think of creative writing as a serious, academic, honest pursuit, and word on the street from a 3rd year student says the literature profs respect it as well. (OMG! Wheatonites, can you stand it?) Here’s an interesting thing, too: the Maryland website’s catch phrase is “Maryland Alumni Light the World.” Haha, borrowing from Xnese or the other way around?
But the real reason for this post comes from me and my mom’s trip to Shanksville on the way home. Aside from the killer finds at the local thrift store and the rolling Pennsylvania scenery, it’s the place Flight 93 crashed, inspiring the Patriot Act, the Class of 9/11, and the Todd M. Beamer Student Center. My mom had been there before, so she pulled the car up to the “Thunder on the Mountain” Chapel. The first thing I noticed was the port-o-jon set up outside with the brandname “Honey-Pot.” Please, if anyone has ever seen another Honey-Pot port-o-jon, let me know, bc it was really a transcendent experience. We got out of the car and walked under a bell tower into the foyer of the chapel. My mom saw Reverend Alphonse T. Mascherino and said, “Hello, Father. We’d like to see the video.” This guy looks at my mom and remembers her from the time she came with my dad. (They mistook the Rev. for the church groundskeeper until he stood up on the stage and began a group tour and introduced himself.) The Rev. goes over to an 11” TV/VCR combo and pushes in the tape. The instructions on screen are in Spanish which makes me think of home. It starts and he leaves to meet with a man at his desk 20 ft. away about setting up road signs to mark the chapel’s placement in Shanksville. The tape plays an Intro to filmmaking documentary about this man (the rev.) who heard the FLight 93 crash and wrote an essay about it (“Thunder on the Mountain,” an essay that makes me think of the Joshua Harris-Brian Moore fiasco) then decided to buy an old church and create a memorial. In the video, all this miraculous generosity starts pouring out of the local 84 Lumber and construction companies until this really fine chapel-memorial is built. The bell outside was donated and worked by a bronzist who was annoyed until he found out what the donation was for. At one point on the tape, the Rev. rings the bell over and over and over again. I can hear why it’s called the Thunder Bell. The strikes are short and unfulfilling, but the bell’s resonance, even through the bad quality of the TV/VCR combo’s small speaker a collection of black holes in the shape of a circle, pools in the center of me and makes me feel the smallest bit like the residents of Shanksville (1 main st., an ice cream parlor and an Amoco Station) on that September morning when I was actually leaving my dormroom on Fischer 4W and my RA (whom I never spoke to if I could help it) said “Come here, look at this on the TV.”

The Rev.’s been sent rocks and plaques from all over the world that he’s displayed around the chapel. One alcove has displays of every casualty’s bio. The most interesting parts of the bios are the captions under the photos of each man and woman, reading things like “She was on a business trip to Reno.” “He had just visited New York City for the first time.” indicating the reason for each person’s presence on the plane. The worst ones were those who had caught an earlier flight or had planned on returning home that evening (like Todd Beamer). I thought about Lost, then my inability to relate to evil and mortality outside of the mediation of images.
The chapel has three flags flying: the American, the Pennsylvania and another one that I don’t know the name of that looked something like this:
---------------
* * * * * blue, white stars
---------------
white?
---------------
red?
---------------

When we left, we walked under the Thunder bell (no affiliation with Wheaton) again. The first time I pulled the line, the sound was tinny. The second time I didn’t pull hard enough. I let go after that. We drove into Shanksville to find the crash site. It was like Union City, Penna. only smaller, meaning without the strips of stores and the Pizza-Hut & McDonald’s. If any of you didn’t get a chance to go to Ground Zero in it’s heyday or Shanksville or any other sites of plane crashes that devastate hundreds of ppl’s families, etc., it’s too visceral to ruin with words or melodrama. The stuff ppl left at the temporary memorial: old Hotwheels models, a Finding Nemo toy from Burger King, hundreds of hats.
The man who was volunteering in the informational shed was a misfit, one of three eye witnesses. He spoke like he was partly deaf. His name was Nevin. I’m sitting in front of the computer right now, staring at the autographed card he gave me with his address. He told me the 9-11 Commission Report was “this big.” He showed me with his hands (4-inches thick). He lived in the white house on the hill. He saw it happen. He said abt. the other eye witnesses, “They don’t talk about it. You can’t.” He tells of what happened in numbers: 248 ppl died, the plane came in on its back at 580 mph, they found the black box after digging 45 ft. down. He asked me was I a reporter with my notebook in my hand. He told me he didn’t like those reporters.
The other visitors kept asking why the government planted grass over the plane's impression in the sand. Why would they change the site like that? I thought to myself, don’t they know that they planted grass over the blemish lift by Flight 93 on the countryside? Don't they know it was because they were ashamed of their weakness.


From Shanksville to the Grove City exit, I read my mom “Good Old Neon,” which was so cool bc we were driving in a car and all the narrator says about the listener driving in a car was eerily accurate.

On the Road Again

Tomorrow my mother and I ship off to Maryland to scout the locale/run away from home/save myself from my emotions/find ANYONE with advice on what classes to register for. The Tony's are on tonight and last year I had a party for them. My, how a year changes things.
I went yardsaling yesterday and found:
1. The Secret Life of Bees and Lolita for $2
2. SEGA games Sonic the Hedgehog--seriously, I've been looking for it for like 9 years--and X-Men for a total of $4
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space--which Char, Kris, Er and I have been looking for for about as long.
4. an entertainment center (friggin' huge and heavy for $30 and some manual labor!)
BOO-Yeah!
In other news, man I could use a break from life! Woo! So, here's this great link for The Store Wars. (Kristan, I mainly thought of you when I saw this. Thanks to Coye's blog for supplying this.)