So I'm experimenting with my template, if you haven't noticed.
I'm very disappointed that you are not able to add text boxes to either side of the main Blog Posts themselves. It all has to be down one side. PHOOEY.

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I'm watching Howl's Moving Castle, and I wanted to mention that I read the book a while back, by Diana Wynne Jones. And although the movie makes no sense, the book is like 100 times worse. In order to enjoy fairy tales or science fiction or anything that doesn't exist in our own reality, is that you have to accept the reality that is presented. Everything has to fit together by following its own set of parameters. You have to accept that this is how things work in this universe and for this reasons, and then generally anything that happens after is believable.

Maybe if I give an example, hmm, oh so Tolkiens "middle-earth" would be an example of how one could go to the extreme of creating the faith that allows the story-listener to enjoy the universe. Everything from language, to maps, to songs, he even created his own mythology. In the Vampire books by Charlaine Harris, there are rules that every character needs to follow and exist by. If a vampire is older, then it inherently more powerful then other vampires generally, it is clearly explained, and followed and when there is an exception its accounted for. But her characters and vernacular details sometimes don't follow either, but I'm not sure if that can be blamed on bad writing or planning. And it doesn't even have to be fantasical. Pineapple Express, was completely ridiculous and impossible but I enjoyed it because I accepted that it was extreme and crazy and just enjoyed the insanity. Some movies follow the whole "its soooo bad its good" rule, such as Starship Troopers or Blood Sport, and the in the book genre this would include the Charlaine Harris books, but they also spill over into the next, stories that aren't really quality, like movies such as Just Married or The Replacements for various reasons, either character issues, dialogue, typical etc. But I them like anyway.

But back to Howl's Moving Castle fails to adhere to any set of standards or universal norms and regulations. There mention of parallel universes, and other such things, but its hard to figure anything out. I found I enjoyed the animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki immensely despite fact that I couldn't really let myself go within the story, because nothing followed a pattern I could figure out. Usually that kind of thing pisses me off, I guess I'm anal retentive about that sort of thing. Its probably why I don't like movies such as The Langaliers...no sense.

Anyways that was sort of an amateur written stint about my movie and book reviewing qualifications. Very rushed to say the least, and not well organized. Maybe one day when I'm older and better at explaining myself, I'll convey my ideas more clearly.

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I can't sleep and I know why.
My teeth keep clenching together and strangely I can breathe through my nose, or maybe not so strange. I guess on relaxed nights my mouth turns slack jaw and lazy, breathing heavy and deep. My nose only allows for short shallow breathes. I relish the comfort of my pillow, and the warmth of my sheets. But tonight I feel strangled, yet alone, empty even, on more levels then one.
I keep running over what I am supposed to know, what I have been told in my head, trying desperately to make it stick. Grasping for sanity and contentedness, which probably will never be gained.
I almost feel like this lifestyle has past by, before only a year or two ago, I don't know what it means now, or where it will take me now.
I wonder a lot what is going to happen. In the world, in America, in my life...it seems to be just around the corner, something.

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Some very relevant quotes from Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? by Thomas Kohnstamm.

"The American dream is for immigrants. The rest of us are better acquainted with entitlement and boredom than we are with our own survival mechanisms. And when confronted with a fight-or-flight scenario, the latter usually takes precedence. Escape through pharmaceutical, escape through technology, and plain old running away in search of something else, anything else. (10)."

In reference to his job at a law firm conducting research on high profile cases, mostly having to do with the telecommunications bubble: "Every boom is followed by a bust and, in America, someone will always find a way to make money off the bust-most likely lawyers. (15)."

In his 'I quit' letter to his boss: "I'm off to embrace spontaneity, imagination, and other stuff that doesn't exist around here. (22)."

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realize after having read the Vampire book drunk I may have liked it more then I would otherwise. I mean really its kinda crappy, the writing is very simplistic, the characters too. I read someone who thought it should be in the Young Adult section of the bookstore. Though there is a lot of sex and violence, it kind of fits that description the best. I’m surprised that the Six Feet Under guy was interested in the first place. But whatever I enjoyed the story and the concepts, and maybe that’s why they decided to create it visually, there’s a lot of material and places to go with Harris’s vampire world. And perhaps the TV show has helped to further my obsession. I’m excited to read further and watch further! And ashamed to say I wish vampires like Bill really existed because I would so be up on that, haha I wonder if this is what people who read Trashy romance novels feel like after? Now if only I could find book two Living Dead in Dallas, and I find myself dying for Sunday nights like I never have before.

In the meantime I’m reading Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?, by Thomas Kohnstamm, offering an alternative perspective to the notion that all travel writers lead sexy lives while on assignment. I figure I should try to broaden my travel reading horizons, break down some stereotypes. But it seems he’s extremely misogynistic, in fact offensive sometimes and even in some ways incredibly close to what I think most men are like, but decline to mention. We’ll see how it goes. I can already relate to a few things he’s written, similar notions to Troost, escapism, non-committal lifestyle etc. And gosh darnit I need to pick a book by a woman one of these days.

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I’m reading the books that the HBO vampire series True Blood are based on, by Charlaine Harris. Last night, before I realized what I was even doing, I was drunk, expecting way too much and reading the first book Dead Until Dark. I laughed harder, squirmed over my bed more and even felt shy during the raunchier pages. It was interesting to say the least. I read straight through till past midnight, and realized I was doing it half because I was waiting to feel validated and learned I never will be. Stones don’t bend. They are quieter then silent, but have astoundingly absolute constitution when broadsided with water. And the water flows and flows and flows and the stone sit heavy at the bottom, letting the water flow over its long smoothed surface. There are no bowls or small cracks where the water could well up.

This morning I woke heavy, confused about vampires and me. Sometimes and quite easily I bounce back, usually after sleep my brain restarts and remembers nothing of prior. I’m generally cheery, I lay and watch for a while, sometimes slipping out silently other times staying and planting ‘wake up’ all over the place. Not today. Although things went normally on the other end, ‘pat pat’. And have resumed, even attempted compensation for last night, trying to make up.

I haven’t thought about a book this way in a long time, I want to savor its entire trashy splendor. But the timing is off. Or maybe there is no such thing, if I give myself over to the way books and movies and art and anything makes me feel then things do change and lead me down new paths.

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Often times when I think the worst about things, I imagine hands slipping out of each other. I need to create these hands that pass across my vision. I mean to say that I need to draw it, hang it.

I miss Humboldt. I often wonder about why. It was freedom I suppose. I often fancy the life of a recluse, the distance facilitating the avoidance of obligations. But at the same time, I think back to the unhappiness that went along with it. Maybe I just miss the people and the scenery I wonder what that it means to miss places you’ve lived in life? I want to move a lot and know.

I’m pretty sure I’m an empty shell most days. Until the wind changes, and the sea washes something along. It’s occurred to me that I don’t want Jordan to know that I’m more of a romantic slob then I seem. I like to project a tom boy exterior, but really on some days that empty shell houses coral, crimson and even scarlet flesh longing for fire and intensity and passion. I want to stagger under someone’s gaze. And it seems it has always been on the edge for a while now, I haven’t been knocked down by weak knees, I haven’t felt butterflies bouncing off my tummy walls. Sometimes I miss the beauty so much, but I can’t even remember what it felt like. No warmth, no blooming, no brushes. I really am a silly girl…no matter how much I try to not be.

The moss has grown heavy on the stone, damp and dark under burning blue irises.

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Probably one of my favorite things is discovering places I've never heard of, and looking them up to find out more. A recent example is the country Azerbaijan, which is ginormous and lies along the west coast of the Caspian sea in the mid-east. I was actually really embarrassed I had never heard of it! Another place is the French Island of Réunion, which is in the Indian Ocean kind of to the north east of Madagascar. This place apparently has a similar climate to Hawaii, a really active Volcano, some spectacular and rarely noticed scenary, and in 2005 a Mosquito spread disease called Chikungunya spread like crazy through the 800,000 people living there and killed 200. Africans, French, and Chinese cultures mix and according to tourism websites, mix peacefully. But I'm skeptical of what peaceful means after reading all my travel books about Colonial Islands.

How did I hear about this place? Jordan is selling an amplifier through ebay to someone there, after sitting around trying to figure out how a package could cost $135 to send to France, we discovered this little Island was in fact a lot farther then European waters. We reflected on how we should ask this mysterious French ebay person what it was like there, go there, and even live there. Jordan stating, "I could so live some place like that, give me internet and I'm set". He went on, "I could totally do Tech Support". I didn't want to say how I wasn't sure if this little Island had enough computers to preform Tech Support on, but I didn't feel like it. His enthusiasm for saying something like that on his own made me giddy.

All of the pictures of the Island show extremely different scenes like snow capped mountains, deserty brown hills, lush V shaped valleys, aquamarine beaches and coral reefs, and lots and lots of lava. I can only attribute the vast differences in vegetation to elevation changes, because if its in near the equator and affected by the ITCZ then it should follow a pretty standard climate and only allow for certain vegetation. But as any physical geographer should know, as you go up in elevation climate changes dramatically, thus vegetation does too. Thanks Professor Haynes.

Anyways trips to Réunion cost quite a bit. In fact the currency there is the Euro, and in 2006 the GDP per capita income was about 20k(US), meaning this island is probably more stable after its colonization compared to lets say Fiji, because it is still controlled by France.

My new mission is to discover if anyones written an accessible outsides view/travel book thingy about it!

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I haven't been anxious like this in a long time. But its starting to build. The stone is rolling back on my chest, resting on my sternum marrying its self to my bones. I feel like its blooming into the rest of my body, to my very finger tips.

I was looking at one of my mothers books describing Chakras. You know those obscure rainbow cirlces drawn on various Eastern versions of the Buddahs and such. Its the circles of energy eminating from the spine. Your life force energy. And the Fourth Chakra, or the Heart Chakra, is where the phsyical meets the mental of my anxiety. Sanskrit: अनाहत, Anāhata. Its function is love and inner passion. I suppose it makes sense for this Chakra to feel the opposite of love, if love spreads from the heart to the rest of the body, then when that Chakra is fucked up, its going to send out something else? Am I stretching this too much? The only place where the anxiety sort of gets caught, is in my throat. And hey! Whada-ya-know, there's a Chakra there too. The fifth Chakra, the Throat. Sanskrit: विशुद्ध, Viśuddha. The throat function is communication and creativity. Well that doesn't make any sense? I'm being creative right now, in some people's opinions, and communicating. But maybe its something else I'm not doing in my real life.

Maybe if I talked to a real Yogi, not some Santa Monica mom poser, I would come closer to really figuring out Chakras. But in the long run, knowing about the Chakra's doesn't really do anything unless you are a real Yogi in my opinion. I'm kind of rambling because that's what I do in an anxious state of mind. It just kind of spills out all ugly like that. In fact now im reading more about Chakras I realize I'm probably severly misinterpreting them and construing them to make them work for my problems.

The real reasons I'm anxious are deep. Not like philisophical and moving, nothing like profound and worthy of the rest of the world hearing. Just moving through my life things change, the things in the deep are the things I don't even realize exsist until they are on top of me. Or until after, I look back and realize jeezes that voice is there, it was there the whole time. When the misconnects happen, the forgiveness goes away...

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I’ve continued reading the Theroux book, looking for salvation from its dreary start. Theroux who’s first travel descriptions consist of sentences like “this place felt English and twee”, “the mountains I was passing by are named this, this and this…” and then suddenly he’s hiked into a valley, over another ridge and to a hut, playing scrabble with obnoxious human beings. He doesn't dwell on something for very long. Or maybe I'm just not noticing it. Bryson seems to piece together his journey so well, that I feel like I've actuall spent time in that place too, I remember names of poeple and places even. Theroux will not linger on much for long. But then again the book is thick, if he did, it might be twice as long.

Also it’s like he can’t find a single person who is acceptable, every human and human related thing is tainted, it seems he would much rather describe the scenary, or be in it at least.

But I’ve also neglected to mention that he’s trekking through New Zealand’s Fiordland after having just split with his wife, after the removal of what might be a melanoma on his arm. I guess I could give the guy a break. He drops some magnificent sentences and thoughts, amidst the most depressing anecdotes.

But I’ve decided I’m quite burnt out on the South Pacific, more then I thought. So I’m going to wait and read Theroux at a later date. Although I can't resist but to type out a three paragraph quote from the book that describes Fiordland New Zealand. It's probably the lengthiest description of something in the book so far, and one of my favorites.

Deeper in the valley I was among ancient trees; and that last half hour, before darkness fell, was like a walk through an enchanted forest, the trees literally as old as the hills, grotesquely twisted and very damp and pungent. A forest that is more than a thousand years old, and that has never been touched or interfered with, has a ghostly look, of layer upon layer of living things, and the whole forest clinging together-roots and trunks and branches mingled with moss and rocks, and everything aboveground hung with tufts of lichen called "old man's beard."

It was so dark and damp here the moss grew on all sides of the trunks - the sunlight hardly struck them. The moss softened them, making them into huge, tired, misshapen monsters with great spongy arms. Everything was padded and wrapped because of the dampness, and hte boughs were blackish green; the forest floor was deep in ferns, and every protruding rock was upholstered in velvety moss. Here and there was a chuchle of water running among the roots and ferns. I was followed by friendlyrobins.

It was all visibly alive and wonderful, and in places had a subterranean gleam of wetness. It was like a forest in a fairy story, the pretty and perfect wilderness of sprites and fairies, which is the child's version of paradise - a lovely Disneyish glade where birds eat out of your hand and you konw you will come to no harm.

I began to feel hopeful about my life. Maybe I didn't have cancer after all.

Pretty much what the picture shows, Theroux has done in words!

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