"But soft ye now, the fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered."

I am going to see Hamlet tonight. I have never seen it onstage. I am quite, quite excited. Nay, say rather that my English/theatre-major soul sings within me at the very thought of such sport as this!

*sigh of geeky happiness*

I feel I am learning again (and I may have to learn it over and over throughout my life, but another thing I am learning is not to borrow trouble from the future)...well, I am not learning about how not to insert parenthetical comments. I cling to my parenthetical comments. Once more, then, with feeling....

I feel I am learning again how to be happy as me. ("Somebody who isn't too cool to believe it's okay to be just me.") I am a short geeky excitable wordsmith, and while I make a lousy hot athletic laconic person, I make an unbelievably good short geeky excitable wordsmith. ("I went looking for my ideals outside myself, and found that the things nearest and dearest to my heart were right here.")

Are you ever just really happy to be you? Not because of anything on the outside, but because of the inside? Have you ever been doing something you really enjoy and experienced an almost circular joy in that enjoyment? Do you ever laugh out loud when you are completely alone, or (for example) sit in your car smiling like a fool because it's just you and God, and you are sublimely satisfied with that?

I don't feel like that every day, but I think it's getting better all the time (and so are my mad quoting skills...Trudy: "How do you do that? I like quotes, too, but I can't remember every one I've ever heard."). And when I do feel that way....

Wow.

It's quite the rush.

6.5 more hours until curtain!!!!

Care a little, why don't you?

It irritates me when people don't make any effort to understand my interests. (It used to irritate me when people didn't share those interests, so I have progressed.) I am far more likely to be VERY interested in something than just casually interested, far more likely to say "I LOVE that!" than "Ah, it's okay, I guess." My interests are a part of me, and if people don't even give them the benefit of a second glance, it bothers me.

For example, I greatly enjoy carpooling. One of the things I like about it is getting to experience the music of others. I like to hear what sort of music comes from their CD/MP3 player, cassette deck, or favorite radio station. (My earliest memory of this sort of thing is being over at the duplex, down in Morgan's room with Karl and Morgan and Cathy, and hearing the new version of "Smooth Criminal," because, as Karl said, "I feel a need to educate you musically every time you come.") I appreciate the opportunity to share in something that in some sense belongs to the other person/people with me. So when I'm driving, and it's my music playing, and somebody says, "No, we're not listening to this song...change it, change it," it feels like a rejection to me. I have to fight to remember that not everyone would see it like that.

It's because I feel this strongly about this issue that I work hard to respect the interests of others, and even to understand why they are interested. In the case of very good friends, I want to be interested, too. Classic example: trying to care about sports. On my own, I do not care. But when presented with a friend who is passionate about hockey/tennis/football/etc., I try to learn about it and to understand why it fascinates them so much.

So I have rather a Martha complex about interests. "I'm making a really good effort here, and you're just ignoring me!" I like a little quid pro quo. Especially when we're talking about something creative, really. I have had conversations in which I talked about writing poetry, or finishing a first draft of a children's book, in which people either say "That's nice," or just gloss over it. And it kind of makes me want to say, "Hello, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I've just shared something personal, something that I'm proud of, and you brushed me off. You've just rejected a part of my soul."

Really, that's what all this is about, isn't it? The desire for people to care about us deeply enough to share their interests with us AND to share ours, too. And I think part of the reason God made so many different kinds of people is to give us the opportunity to see His world in so many different kinds of ways.

So listen to your friends' strange music, and watch their war movies, and be intrigued by their creative expression. It will be a blessing for you and for them.

On Rest and How Little I Do It Properly

I shocked my coworkers today by telling them that I had taken all weekend to drink lots of fluids, sleep, and lie on the couch watching movies (grand total: 6). All of this after determining that my "allergy attack" was in fact a cold at about 3:30 on Friday afternoon. This was shocking to them because usually I carry on as normal until about two weeks after I should have gone to see a doctor.

I have difficulty resting. Not procrastinating—at procrastinating, I'm a Viking. But I am not stellar at the kind of resting where I am getting the proper amount of sleep or recuperating from illness. This despite the facts that A) I feel better about life, the universe, and everything after I've had a good night's sleep, B) I recover from illness faster when I rest, and C) it's not as though I am not resting because I am doing something of earth-shaking importance. Usually I'm instant messenging or sitting in somebody else's living room all night. I love doing these things, because I love being with and talking to my friends. I just need to learn how to manage my time so that I can do that AND sleep.

Which reminds me of a quote: "I don't sleep. I hate those little slices of death." ~~ Arnie Saknussan, where "Saknussan" is probably spelled very inaccurately, and whose first name probably isn't Arnie, from the movie that is definitely called Journey to the Center of the Earth

Not that I think sleep is a slice of death. But it sure seems like a waste of time, some days.

There is a reason all those online quizzes say I'm Hermione Granger....

I majored in English and theatre at Calvin. This would seem to indicate that my gifts lie in the realm of language and communication, an indication that has been substantiated in various ways over the years since Calvin. For someone who specializes in communication and presentation, though, I get into some very socially awkward situations. Ten minutes after I walk away from one of these situations, I come up with brilliant things I could have said, meaningful glances I could have given, or clever ways to have avoided the situation in the first place. When I'm in the situation, however, I am a bibbling idiot. (Or at least I feel like one...I am not always sure how others perceive me.)

One of the things I have realized that I enjoy about English and theatre is their predictability. If you are reading a book, your intuitions on characters and major plot points may quite often prove to be accurate. If you are acting from a script, you are using lines that someone else laid down for you. In books and plays, you can determine motivations by careful reading/viewing. Just by paying attention, you can know what the situation is and why. (Unless, I suppose, you are a fan of absurdist theatre. But even absurdist theatre is more comprehensible than some real people I have encountered.) I think most of my difficulties in dealing with people in general is that I come at them from this rather academic viewpoint—if we pay careful attention, we can know [fill in the blank].

Real life is not like books or plays. It can be horribly frustrating.

Now Open to the Public

I wanted to join in on the CTC blog ring. So. Here I am on the CTC blog ring. Allow me to make a few introductory remarks.

First off, you will note that my user name is Thursday. This is a reference to the fantastic Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. It's sort of a Hitchhiker's Guide for the literature-obsessed. You should all give it a try, if you haven't already. The first book in the series is The Eyre Affair.

Secondly, this is a blog, and introductory remarks don't have to take up much space at all. This whole post was just a not-so-elaborate ruse to promote the works of Jasper Fforde.