This is what happens when most of your friends are blonde.

This is the product of me rereading old Arthurian legends. Couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if Gwynivere was born in the 21st century. Enjoy!

Dear Diary,
Oh. My. Gosh. I have like THE weirdest boyfriend EVER. So we were walking down to get coffee and we passed that really dumb store with all the costumes in it. So then he sees a shield in the window and he’s all like “omg I so have to get that shield!” Except he didn’t say it that way b/c he’s always talking so formal like he’s a prince or something. He said something like “verily I much fetch yonder shield” and he sounded really dumb I laughed at him. I don’t really understand him half the time. Well I let him get the shield and he was geeking out over it. I was like WHATEVER! Just a shield arty! And he’s like don’t call me arty my names Arthur Pendragon. Like I care!
But he’s really a sweetie even if he is really weird. Plus hes like MAD hot so its ok. <3

Dear Diary,
Is Gwen Pendragon a weird name? Lol

Dear Diary,
Ok at school today we had a fencing instructer come to P.E. and show is the regular stuff like how to fence. Then he gave the sword to Arty and omg he ALMOST KiLLED the guy. Arty totally kicked his butt it was so cool. Lol it was so funny, the look on the instructers face. He was like HOLY CRAP KID and Arty’s like yeah I know right? He’s really popular now which is good for me too but he still talks confusing. Oh well he’ll get used to it. I know its probably like really hard for him cuz he just moved here from that town called Camelot. And like I never heard of Camelot but he says its somewhere in England. I guess he has an axent but idk sometimes. I guess maybe everybody in Camelot talks like they jumped out an old movie.

Dear Diary,
Arty is so cute when he gets romantic. He called me “milady.” And when I get upset or mad he calls me his “damsel in distress” and says he has to “save me.” ITS SOOOOO CUTE. <3 omg hes so dumb sometimes tho. Like ok get this in Camelot they didn’t have electricity or phones isnt that crazy!!!! So I had to teach him how to use the phone lol. So I talked to him last night and I didn’t understand half of what he said. He kept on talking about dumb stuff like steeds and jousts. And im like ENGLISH PLEASE. Whatever. He’s taking me to a Ren fair,and hes gonna kick some more butt I think they sword fight and stuff there. One of his geek friends was sitting at our table today and they wouldnt shut up about it. Anyways I get to buy a pretty dress and thats all that matters right?

Dear Diary,
Ok so Arty got on a horse it was wearing like some weird costume and he called himself a knight and I was thinking he was getting really carried away. There was this dude named the black knight and omg arty really didn’t like him. I guess the dude was from Camelot too cause he talked that way too. Anyways arty whacked him off his hourse with a big stick which is SOOOO DUMB but I just sat there and it was really hot and they had weird food and I was like HELLOOO IM ON A DIET HERE. Whatever. Arty gave me some flowers and said it was my nosegay and I had to hold im like THIS DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A NOSE AND FLOWERS CANT BE GAY ANYWAYS but he didn’t listen he just walked around and talked weird to everybody. Oh wait im late for ballet ill write more later.

Ok then there was this sword that some idiot guy in big robes got stuck in a stone and idk how anybody could even do something soooooo dumb but he said that only the true king of England could pull it out which is weird because like wouldn’t it be the strongest guy that would pull it out? Idk. So Arty pulled it out…I mean like no big deal right? But he made it like SUCH A BIG DEAL and every bowed down and called him King Arthur and it was soooo weird. Turns out the winner of the contest gets to go on vacay to England and gets to bring one person, of course hes bringing me. Now he calls me his queen and I got a little crown and everything and he says he’ll get to show me around Camelot and stuff. So im gonna have like the totally bestest summer like EVER!

*cue swirly music*

I’ve been floating around in a bubble of summer haziness still! You know when the music on TV shows goes all travel-back-in-time-y and the screen starts to swirl? I feel like I’m in that constant state of swirlyness, waiting for the pixelated rainbow to dump me at some arrival place. I guess the problem is that I don’t exactly know where I’m headed.

Needless to say, technicolor vortexes are not God’s preferred mode of emotional transportation, buuuuuut I’m usually the exception….in most cases. slash, all cases. In fact, this very post is proof to my almost druggie-like state of mind and body. Soul? Getting there.

I’m very disappointed with this blog. I have a few regular readers (love you guys) which is great….i don’t think this would last as a gigantor thing. It’s my writing that disappoints me. I’m not even sure what a blog is supposed to look like. I have random spurts of intelligence, then the rest of my posts make me look like I’m on something, a yuppie, or both. Well, I’m glad to entertain, but still….

WOW I’m going to stop wasting my life and yours. I suggest everybody read the post under this one. It sounds very intelligent and composed.  

Emerson, stars, and scapegoats

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature,” he says that stars are all the more sublime because they are always there but never reachable. What should normally drive us insane instead just puts the world into perspective: the vastness of the sky, and the smallness of our own selves.

I think that can be applied in a lot of ways; that is, seeing what we know we cannot understand, and accepting that, only to observe in awed silence. In one way that’s a sort of worship, that simple kind of admiration that a mouse that lives in a giant palace might have. The universe gives us a little sliver of an idea of how large God really is. I’ve been thinking that just as we are a reflection or image of God (or in the words of C.S. Lewis, the “statue,” or copy, or the artist himself), the universe is a cheaper copy of another of God’s many facets. I could see how some people would want to worship the earth, as it does remind us of God a lot, but that’s just as silly as deifying man or beast. That’s only because both man and earth are from the same “artist,” the same creator. It’s only a shoddy reflection we see in the stars, although a pretty one.

I’ve only just begun reading Emerson’s works, but he sounds awfully Godless and Pocohontas-y to me. He was also talking about how Nature (capital N, apparently) was designed [or created itself] to include all its own answers, and that science was only the process of finding those answers hidden in Nature. I think thats a bit silly, since God’s kept a few things mysterious just so we wouldn’t think too much of ourselves saying, “Oh look at me! I know all the answers!” And looking back at history, every time a man gets that into his head he gets rather Narcissistic and thinks quite highly of himself. So God’s tried to keep us out of trouble that way. Then of course we get mad at God for hiding things from us. Every time we come across something we don’t understand, and know we never will understand, we blame God. He is our ultimate scapegoat. It’s a nasty habit we’ve all fallen into that we should stop. It’s as naive as you can get.

More later.

Zambonizambonizamboni.

I really like that word, and was rolling it around in my head and then i got an idea. It sort of has to do with my childhood. I’m going to just go with it, so forgive me if I ramble. What else are blogs for, anyway?

I fumbled with my gloves. The grey sky looked ominous – not that the people of New York City ever seemed to care about the weather. One drop of rain and they’ll whip out their mini-umbrellas from their designer purses and breifcases. Hint at snow, and they’ve already got their overcoats on. It was all part of the city mentality: be completely paranoid and prepared, but never let on that you are. Pretend to go with the flow, that way, when something crazy did happen, it was all part of the smoothness that was your life.

Well, those are the city people. I was from the Boroughs – not good enough for the city, but cool enough to walk around without looking like a FOB, or worse, a tourist. The key is to look at the ground. That’s how you can tell who belongs and who doesn’t. The regulars, the city folk, stare at the ground, careful not to ruin their shoes in dog doo and avoiding litter and hobos. If you look up, you can’t see those things. The tourists stare all the way up at the sky, marvelling at the skyscrapers. The New Yorker’s motto is “whatever.” Don’t care too much. Just look cool.

I guess I’m in between. I like looking at the ground; I try not to look too amazed at the buildings and billboards. But what I like looking at most are faces. You can tell a lot from peoples’ faces – what they won’t or don’t say out loud. Call me an artist if you like.

I have my camera in hand as I carefully step down the slick steps down to the skating rink in Rockerfeller Center. Skaters always have great faces- faces twisted in agony from the cold, contorted by anger or confusion, curled in happy smiles and babyish pouts. They don’t know I can see them better than they see themselves.

I snap one of the gigantic golden statue looming above the skaters, then stare at faces for inspiration. The face that stands out isn’t one of the skaters, but in the shadows: one of the personnel, mopping up a spilled cocoa. He looks deep in thought, like he’s rubbing out mysteries in the rubber. Then he hears someone call him – he sets the mop aside and starts talking to the person addressing him. It’s like I can read his face. His eyes shift away – I guess he doesn’t like the person he’s talking to. He’s Spanish, or Colombian. Then the person says something and his eyes light up like a kid on Christmas morning. He says something back and goes to another part of the skating rink.

I step down the stairs and come to the edge of the rink, watching the little drama play out. A crackly voice comes over the loudspeaker: “Will all skaters please leave the rink for fifteen minutes, we’re going to clean it up.”

My are still following my subject, who walks over and mounts the zamboni. His fingers grip the wheel and he revs the engine. I can tell he waits for this every day. This is his moment.

Everyone steps off, surrounding the rink. They watch impatiently, wanting back on the ice. He drives the zamboni onto the ice, and it’s like he becomes an ice dancer, a fingure skater – almost. He twirls the machine around, erasing everyone’s mistakes, the handprints here, the buttprint there. All the little scratches and indentations that marred this beautiful, shining slab are disappearing under his gentle touch.

I know I only can see this. Children’s eyes follow the zamboni, eager to get back on the ice. I realize he is erasing everything and letting his children, the skaters, begin again. The zamboni dance is invisible to everyone but me. His eyes glimmer, his hands twiddle with the steering wheel and turning the zamboni artfully, erasing everything and leaving the ice like glass. Then he pulls the zamboni out of the rink – it seems to me like a bow would be more appropriate – and he sinks back into the shadows.

The crowds pour onto the rink and start skating again and the Christmas music blares again. I walk back home, thinking, with the bloody remains of thousands of little stories on my hands, in my mind.

The snow falls again, and the city people already have their gloves and scarves and boots on before anyone notices. Except me. I notice. I’ve always noticed.