Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Alzada

Yes, even great-grandmothers were once little girls passing their time reading Through the Looking Glass, playing with dolls, and writing to, umm, whatever exactly this thing is...

...but probably not saying up until 3:37am sending emails and poking around facebook. So times do change...

Yay sleep.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Seduction

Question of the day: Some people profess eternal love to each other, going on and on about how they've never felt anything like this and they know deep in their heart it will last forever, and sure enough they stay happily together for their whole lives. Some people profess exactly the same thing and eventually grow apart and break up. So, people say that this feels different from all those other times they only thought they were in love, that this feels real and eternal in a way they've never experienced before...are the people who end up staying love "right" and the people who end up breaking up "wrong"? Are they actually feeling something different, and believing they're feeling the same thing? Is there such a difference? Or is it just a fact that some "true love" ends and some doesn't? Does that mean there's no such thing as eternal true love? Is there any difference between believing you're deeply in love and actually being in love?

List of the day: Great Characters
What does that mean? It's hard to explain, but you know one when you find it. It doesn't mean the characters you'd want to take out to dinner. It doesn't mean the nicest and kindest characters. It's those characters you just feel add something deep and meaningful to the world, stand on their own as a unique soul. Here is a running list we've thought of so far. Of course, this list is subjective.

Definites
Seto Kaiba
Yugi Mutou
Det. Robert Goren
Shigure Souma

Slightly more marginal
Horace Rumpole
Jesus (the Jesus of Jethro Tull music)
Santa Claus (without all the naughty/nice business)
Jack McCoy

Ensembles
The Rescue Rangers
The Glen Gummis (plus Gusto)
The detectives on SVU
Other Yugioh characters (Jounouchi, Mai, Malik, Isis, Pegasus, Rebecca...)

And others I'm sure. But my personal list is clearly headed by Seto Kaiba right now. It's not an intellectual decision; I wouldn't necessarily defend it with reasoning and evidence. Of course, I would argue with plenty of evidence that he should be near the top of any list. But it's just a feeling that surges through me whenever I see him, read about him, think of it. No, not like the feeling of a crush. I don't particularly have a crush on him. He's just such a powerful soul and aura, strong and weak in his own unique ways.

It reminds me of the feeling I get listening to Budapest, although it's not exactly the same. Budapest isn't necessarily my favorite song, and certainly isn't always what I most want to hear, and I wouldn't even necessarily argue that as a matter of objective fact it's better than any other song (what would that even mean?). And yet, as I've said to my dad, when it comes on, when I listen to it, when it suddenly begins during a concert, I'm filled with the feeling that somehow this is it, this is just the pinacle of all songs, not for any describable reason, but just because it is. The song just contains that feeling, not as a comparison to other songs, but as something inherent in Budapest itself. It just is as powerful and elegant as a song could be. This is so hard to express because our language doesn't even really contain a way to talk about this that doesn't contain an implicit comparison, a lowering of other songs in order to exhault one. Something can't be "best" unless everything else is "worse" than it. But I want to say that Budapest is the best song that I know, without that meaning anything at all about other songs. Is that possible?

Similarly with Seto: he fills me with a feeling that this is it, that the power I feel from him is ultimate. But that doesn't mean more/deeper/better than, say, Yugi...even if Yugi doesn't give me that same feeling. I don't really know how to describe it. The point is that Seto is awesome.

Of course, we're not all made to be on this list. Take, say, Tummi. Tummi is an incredible character. But he's not on the list because he lives and functions within a group, within his interactions and relationships with them, on an even plane. People like Kaiba and Goren somehow separate themselves from the packs, create this individualized aura. (Yugi and Shigure, however, manage to balance existing within an ensemble and standing out as particularly deep...) Tummi, however, can't be exhaulted above all the other intricate, complicated character that exist right with him. If you included him, for his quiet good nature, insecurity, his patience with gardening and crafts, and so on, you would also have to include Grammi, for her strength and spunk and hidden spirit of adventure, and of course Gruffi, for his attempts to stick to his morals and work hard The Gummi Way no matter what, and Zummi, for his wisdom and incompetence and hidden bravery, and naturally Cubbi, for his spirit, and Sunni, and...well you get the idea. They all function together, playing off each other, existing in relationship. Individually, all are strong characters, but none rises above the others. Almost everyone I know in real life would be like the Gummi Bears, not like Seto or Goren. And that's not an insult.

Anyway, enough about great characters. Time for a bedtime story.

Money Is Seductive, But It Cannot Defeat Human Kindness
~or~
The Birth of Prostitution


He saw it from across the street. It fluttered in the breeze, tantalizing, taunting him. He stopped in his tracks, forgetting about the meeting he was heading for. It was waving at him, calling him over. He felt his heart pound. Could he do this? Four lanes of New York City traffic separated him from the coy bill blown up against the newspaper stand. If the wind shifted it would be gone, lost to him forever, only a dream...he couldn't wait for the light to change. His adrenaline flowing, he strode into the street, darting in front of a taxi, pausing as a sportscar raced past, running forward, his eyes never wavering from its rhythmic thumping against the stand. He felt his heart beat in time to the flapping of the bill. Just another few steps...yes...the honking of the truck as it slammed on the brakes only made his blood rush faster. Yes...he made it...he reached out for the bill, grabbing it in his fingers. The fates were with him; it was a twenty. He let out a deep breath and gazed at his conquest. It was smooth and cold against his fingers. He rubbed it against his palm, smoothing the soft creases, and traced his fingers over the elegant curves of the 2 and the 0. So beautifully round. And it was all his. He held it up, cradled against his palm, the wind pressing it against his skin. So beautiful. He felt a surge of radiant power as he stood looking up at it.

A sudden shift in the wind--it lept out of his palm. No! He reached out and grabbed only air, the elusive bill escaping his grasp, twirling in the wind above him, away from him. He watched helplessly as it blew down the block. This couldn't be happening...he had held it so close in his palm, and now it was gone...A woman leaned down to pick up the bill as soon as it came to rest. She looked at it, then down the block at him where he stood, dumbfounded, defeated. All hope was lost. She would take the bill for herself; no one could possibly resist its allure. He let out a sigh for his lost prize, and stared down at the pavement.

"Excuse me?" The soft female voice startled him and he looked up to see the woman. Up close he could see that she wore a low-cut dark red dress under a tight black cardigan. The lines of the dress traced the curves of her figure, and so did his eyes. "Excuse me," she repeated, "was this yours? It blew over to me."

He stared at the bill she held out to him in her soft, delicate hand. He looked up to meet her eyes, soft brown eyes shining at him with concerned kindness. He felt a warmth from deep within himself, obliterating the chill from the wind. She was giving it back. She wanted him to be happy more than she wanted the radiant, seductive twenty dollar bill. He took the bill from her, its sharp edges and cold face now rough against his skin. He stared into her eyes as he took a step forward.

"No," he said. "I want you..." He leaned closer and brushed back the black cardigan to slip the folded bill down that plunging neckline, his hand brushing her warm skin. "...to keep it."

~The End~


(Don't ask.)

Finally, a typo: Yesterday when I was very tired, I was trying type 'halfway' and it came out as 'halwayf'. Now how does that work?

Goodnight! :-)