listening.

i was talking with one of my friends today, and it struck me exactly how hard it is to just truly listen (just as rick mentioned in his story). i found myself wanting to jump in and add my own two cents--but that wasn't what my friend needed. i just needed to listen, and be a touchstone at the moment. and it's hard. i want to be able to respond and offer my insight--but sometimes, people don't need that.

another part about listening that's hard is passing judgment on the person. for instance, when i'm listening to my friends sometimes, their comments just leave me a little bitter and slash or caustic and i want to rip them for making such comments. if i'm talking to them not in person, i roll my eyes to try and get that feeling out of my system because what they really need is someone to listen to them.

and finally, to those of you that have listened to me while i ramble on and on as i am wont to do, a huge thank you. listening is quite possibly the hardest thing to do.

pss:the roads we would've traveled

so this is getting to the point of ridiculousness where i am over 100 blogposts and i am still blogging. what is wrong with me.
disclaimer: all names and characters are purely fictional. any overlap or coincidence with reality is accidental.

pss:

"we'll go to vegas, erica baby," sean used to say. "we'll go to vegas, and then we'll go to reno and just hit up cities from there. and we'll travel across the country and once we hit the nyc, we'll go worldwide."

when sean used to say that, all erica could do was smile brightly and nod. she had bought into the fact that she and sean would be together forever. they would get married, fulfill the american dream and get a medium-sized suburban house with a white picket fence, they'd have two children, and then they'd retire and get old together. so, it came as a surprise to her when sean just picked up everything and left her. 

"i'm sorry, baby, i just can't do this any more," he had mumbled, trying his best not to cry. erica had just let him go--what else could she have done? the instant those words had tumbled from his lips she had just gone on autopilot. she had been so numb and couldn't react. 

but now, three months after the breakup, she could hold herself extremely well. she had gone out for drinks with friends, partying with the neighbors, everything that she hadn't done when she was with sean. it was like she was an entirely different person. one summer day, she had decided to fulfill an old promise that she had heard. she called up her friend.

"hullo?"

erica giggled at her friend's groggy voice.

"hey valerie, wanna go on a road trip with me?" 

"sure, why--wait a minute, where did this come from?"

and then erica had told valerie of her plans to travel all across the country, and maybe the world if she wanted. valerie (being the adventurer that she was) had wholeheartedly agreed. they had gotten together a ragtag group of friends and had flown down from alaska to las vegas and had roamed freely around the country, taking in the sights and the smells of the entire u. s. of a.  and now, here they were at the jfk airport, waiting to get on their international flight to london.

"you know, val, i never thought that we'd go through with this," erica said, grinning happily. "and we all got to know each other so well!" 

her friend nodded. 

"i guess flaky sean was good for something then after all."

how to end a story.

now that i've written up the first draft of "the longest recess," i'm really stumped about how to end it well. i know that i've wrapped up several loose ends (and left one hanging purposely) but i have a problem pulling out of the story. i know that it's good to get opinions, but i don't want to run it by many people for fear of dampening the surprise.. i think i might keep it a maximum of five people who get to help me make my ending better. blender's already given his input, so one down, four to go.

oh, wit.

so, continuation of rick's and puneet's posts. this sounds so much like a knowledge issue. if any of the juniors are stalking reading this, go make your knowledge issue on "how does (insert tok terms here) affect what we view as humor."

anyway.
merriam-webster defines wit (in our sense of the word) as "apt or clever humor."

yup... that's suitably vague. thanks, dictionary.
anyway. (again.)

to me, humor doesn't have to be slapstick or just outright dumb (sorry rick, i am not a fan of will ferrell for this reason, he always seems to play really just dumb slash annoying characters). humor's hard to pin down, it's hard to define. which takes me back to the conversation we had in calvert's class near the end of the year.

for me, humor (or my sense of humor) is based on a smattering of sarcasm, exaggeration, toeing the taboo, references (especially to pop culture and by that i mean music), outlandish connections, and also deadpan. deadpan has got to be my most favorite type of humor--saying something hilarious with a completely straight face. (i'm on a tangent, oops.)

in relation to rick's post, i think i'm the opposite. i love british humor and hate american humor, mainly because i also think america's just really dumb and stupid. british humor to me is what i do a lot of--i comment on the situation and hide behind my attempted humor. rick likes humor that reveals something about the characters, but i think that the british style of humor reveals things about characters. if the characters are pointing something out, then it has to hold some sort of importance slash significance to them, it wouldn't be completely just burned at random. this is also maybe why i really dislike american humor. will ferrell doesn't cease to annoy me, and steve carrell's character in "the office" makes me cringe on a regular basis.

censoring the truth--fiction, or just plain lying?

so i was stalking browsing through some people's blogs and came across this post on vicki's blog. it was linked to this page on wikipedia regarding hypergraphia. at the end of the article, i came across the line:

the diary was edited by daniel aaron and published in 1985 by harvard university press.

which prompted me to think, why would you ever edit a diary? that seems to me a heinous crime against the author of the diary. sure, they wouldn't want certain secrets being divulged to the public, but then if the diary is published posthumously there is no problem. so why would you ever edit a diary? if you edit a diary, then you are changing what the author is saying--and that is just outright lying. a diary is a good (truthful) window into a person's mind, and changing anything in the diary is almost the same (to me) as murdering that person's thoughts and replacing it with a surrogate which is totally not honest at all. so, why people edit diaries, i might never ever know.

story update.

so it is 12:30 in the morning and i am now editing my first draft of my short story! 13 pages long. and my story is on the last day of workshop... if you'd like to tell me that i'm going overboard right now, please do so.

story planning.

now i am just being ludicrous and breaking 100 posts. this is totes ridonkulous, i'd like my life back please.
anyways, this is totally copying julia and posting my short story research online so that y'alls can get a sneak peek at what it's going to be about. hopefully, we don't go over my story last 'cuz then that's a Huge Responsibility that i probably cannot live up to. le sigh.

so, my story involves the court system. i have no knowledge of the court system. these notes are a courtesy of austin and julia. thanks a ton guys!

• there's a court case. it is a civil case. meaning that there is a plaintiff, a defendant, attorneys for both, bailiff, and judge. 
• dialogue i shall not post here, because it would take too many lines. but thank you so much austin for all of that!
• the lawyers are (sometimes?) introduced to the jury. this is when the two characters (kayla and mira, you shall both be familiar with them. they are verse-y.) have their less-than-joyful reunion party. without the party. 
• recess is the part of the trial where the judge announces that people are taking a break! like afternoon break, or breaking for lunch, or overnight. my title is a play on this word, and kayla knows the general plot already.

edit: this is also being posted on the separate page that my story will be on as soon as it is finished slash after my workshop day. slash whenever.