A Glimpse...That Place

The Random Surrealism Generator

better late than never

Kat, Key, and Fae have finally convinced me to come out of my corner and attempt to introduce myself. I've avoided it this long because introductions are generally scary things. The goal of most introductions seems to be that of convincing people that you're sane, normal, and generally an upstanding member of society. I don't fit into those categories, mainly because I'm an odd little thing, so it's hard for me to get up and describe something about myself without disturbing people.

Ah well. Here goes....

Normal stuff: my name's Karen, I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia, I'm in my second year of college, studying creative writing.

Weird stuff: my pen name of the moment is Red, which gives you a clue as to what my favorite color is and also tells a little bit of who I am. I don't think of red as always this fire-engine-bright color that gives one a headache; shades of red include everything from soft pink to deep maroon. I guess I identify with that, because there isn't just one "shade" to my personality, I'm many different things, sometimes opposite things, which gets interesting.

Stuff I like: free thought, Bono, black and white photographs, the Psalms, rainy days, creative expression, Chopin nocturnes, unexpected beauty in common things, postcards, roadtrips, old books.

Stuff I dislike: oppression, Al Gore, spinach, mauve, cold fingers, injustice, MacDonalds hamburgers, barbed wire, apathy, legalism, misunderstandings.

That's a bit about me.

Red.

Quote of the day:
-- Prayer is the greatest, swiftest ship my heart could sail upon.
(Jewel Kilcher)

In a Brief Moment of Boredom

Since it's so brief, it's not one of my 'oh wow!' kind of moments, but rather that I just felt like sharing a pretty picture with those who would call themselves Narnians.

"I am pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed."

A little bit of faith can go a long way.

snow!

Ok, I know, I am pathetic. Now that we have that out of the way, it's snowing!!!

For some reason, I have tried to post several times, but it won't save. I commented on the Spring-like weather, the chance of ice, and the coming allgery season. But it was all deleted when I had to renew by the web access thingy. Oy.

But still, it is snowing, and I am in my comfy dorm room, hooked up to the internet. Life is good.

Now go have fun in the snow.

Your resident Spring fairy with allergies,
Fae

Picture Fun

A free class period + Photo Express + digital pictures =

Artist Series a la Peter Pan

So we had four lovely ladies dressed up with nowhere to go and nothing to do...except take pictures and later manipulate said pictures. Here's one of the favorites, as it was requested by dearest Stephanie:

Writing

Empty, mocking, laughing lines
Stare back at me from an empty page,
Daring me to put down words.
To scrawl down on the blank
Space; ideas I must write
Refuse to come to my pen.

Silence is punctured by a tapping pen;
I probe between the lines,
But my longing to write
Glares back from the vacant page
And my mind is blank.
The pictures in my soul need words.

Snarling, rough words
Beg to crease paper under pen,
Grappling, fighting to fill the blank,
Distorting the pristine lines,
Snapping, clawing the page
Demanding of me: write!

I press the point to write,
Bullying, commanding words
Boil on the page.
The stroking of the pen
Fills in the simmering lines,
Trying to calm the restless blank

I pause at a momentary blank,
Out of pictures to write,
But the beast between the lines
Again stirs up the words.
They pull at my pen
And wrestle it to the page.

My soul is glued to the page,
Toiling to shrink the leftover blank
Space, losing pace with my pen.
They are winning the battle to write,
Those coercing, driving words
As I labor over the last lines.

I throw down the pen at the end of the lines;
I've survived the words and turn the page
To be greeted by a new blank, and nothing to write.

Funny Feeling

Doesn't this pic just give you a weird sense of inspiration? It does for me. Maybe it's because I'll always had a fascination of the sky. Everything from rainbows to thunder. So when I saw this pic, I just had to share it. Of course, I did get it last semester, but hey, it's the thought that counts.

Go have fun chasing after lightening bolts,
Fae

An Excerpt From...

The Diary of the Housekeeper of Minas Tirith, Tuesday

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

There are one hundred and twenty-five rooms in the palace to be used as accommodations. I clean every single on of them. I know every single one of them, and sometimes I loathe every single one of them.

Between the constant flow of people in and out of the palace, in addition to the royal family, sometimes I feel as if I am stretched far beyond myself. The work is strenuous, but I would gladly serve my king and support the country he governs. Think you that housekeeping is a menial chore for base servants? Then you are one of the people I laugh at, for nobody knows more than I about the secret little things that keep our safe country running smoothly.

But today, ai! Today was promised as an easy day to me, with few coming and going at the beginning of a new week. I had but three rooms to clean where the occupants had stayed one night. These I count as easy, for it is but a simple task to change the bed linen, clean the lavatory, and sweep the floor. At best the job takes twenty minutes...at worst it may take up to an hour and a half. (Dwarves will do that to you.)

Then there is the daunting task of cleaning rooms where the residents have lingered a long time. Oh, the tales I could tell of some! But I digress from this particular point. Of these I also had two. And this is where my frustration begins. In room two hundred forty-three, where the Haradian emissaries had been staying. I had been in there earlier in the week to change the bed linens and tidy the washroom a little, and had been somewhat shocked as to the clutter in the room. Of course, one would think that the emissaries would take all their belongings with them when they left, but apparently not.

There is always a slight moment of apprehension when one opens the door to a vacant room and takes a first look at the damage done. I thought I had entered a battle zone. Nobody had told me Harad had declared war on Gondor. I stepped gingerly over the remains of a cookfire that had been left in the middle of the stone floor, bits of food stuck to the stones. The bed wasn�t in too bad of a shape, but the entire lavatory seemed to be covered in grime a quarter-inch thick. I dared not wonder too hard about the cause.

I began with the bed, as I always do, and the task itself was easy enough. But the further littering and destruction of the room tugged in a most annoying manner at my peripheral vision, and I fell to the pick-up of large trash items such as meat rinds, bits of leather and other unidentifiable objects. The thing that angered me most, however, was the cooking fire. Did they not trust the good fare that the castle kitchens provided? Did they fear poison? Apparently so, and after I had disposed of the charred wood, I fell to scrubbing the gray stones with a fervor that would have stripped the polish off of Anduril. But again I digress, as the tale in all its telling is simply tedious, as was the time I was forced to spend getting the room ship-shape again. Let us simply say that by the time I had finished scouring the cracks in the floor to remove all the desert sand from the room and had battled ferociously with the lavatory grime, the Housekeeper of Minas Tirith was ready for a massage and a mug of mead.

+> Key <+

This entry excerpted from a diary-x entry made this summer.