My First Blog Award! Cool!

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liebster awardWhat a way to start the day. Yesterday, I was nominated for a Liebster Blog Award. It’s an award given to bloggers by bloggers, and it means as much as it does because it is from one of my best friends, the wonderful Courtney of Sycamore Grove. I heart her so very much! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

How It Works:

1. Add the award icon to your blog!

2. Link to your nominator to say thank you.

3. Each blogger should post 11 facts about themselves.

4. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you, & create 11 questions for your nominations to answer.

5. Choose 11 up-and-coming bloggers with less than 200 followers, go to their blog, and tell them about the award.

Facts About Me:

1. As of November 22, 2012, I have been with my husband for a grand total of 8 years (both dating and married). Hard to believe, honestly. I am so very blessed.

2. I am expecting my first child, a daughter, within the next 1.5 to 2 weeks.

3. I am an avid story/drama/imagination addict. I don’t know what my world would be like without Story.

4. I was born in Florida but grew up in the Caribbean, only to end up living in land-locked Indiana.

5.  I love Mad Men-era vintage clothing. I love feeling classy and classic. Can’t wait to get to the point when I can return to my dresses once my little lady is born.

6. I often fall in love with fictional characters and sometimes very, very hard. Most break my heart but some can never be tarnished.

7. I am two degrees from Mehcad Brooks (“True Blood” and “Necessary Roughness”).

8. I have a red Caliber named Calleigh Duquesne (I seriously couldn’t resist).

9. When I was in grad school, I was published in Parma Nole, the Journal of Heren Istarion: The Northeast Tolkien Society. Twice.

10. I started bellydancing in 2007 and have found a beauty and confidence in dance that I never imagined I could.

11. I love online RPGs. I currently play in two Hero System X-men games and have also built both Hogwarts and Fables forum-based rp games. LOVE IT!

My Answers:

1.Do you still think about your first love?

Yes, I do. At least he was what I could, at 14 years old, think  of as my first love. We’re friends on Facebook even. Not that he knows that I head over heels for him. LOL

2. What three people (alive, dead, or fictional) would you like to have lunch with?

Louisa May Alcott, my elder sister Jodi, and Queen Elizabeth I

3. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Hmm. I honestly have no idea. Oh, wait. I tried some eel once when out to sushi with the hubby and his best friend. That was NOT pleasant.

4. What’s your favorite punctuation mark? Or grammatical rule?

I love hyphenated adjectives, honestly. For example: prettily-dressed, hurriedly-finished, hastily-improvised. They are such fun! ^_^

5. What’s your go-to way to pamper yourself?

Long, hot bath. Then I rub all over with a dark, spicy lotion (like Black Amethyst or Sensuality: Black Currant Vanilla from Bath and Body Works), massaging my neck, shoulders, and feet. Add a little purple satin nightie. Then crawl into bed with a good book.

6. In light of the Holiday Season, what’s your favorite family tradition?

Thanksgiving Day, after dinner, we all relax/doze on the couches and watch “White Christmas”, singing along together, of course.

7. Can you dance?

Yes, and rather well so I am told.

8. In the soundtrack of your life, what’s your theme song?

“I AM” by Nichole Nordeman

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

At the risk of quoting my husband’s “girlfriend” Rachel Weiss, “I, sir, [want to be] a librarian!”

10. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?

I wouldn’t. I like it; it’s grown on me after 29 years.

11. Write your epitaph.

Don Pedro: Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

Beatrice: No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. (Much Ado About Nothing II.i.301-306)

My Questions:

1. What was your favorite story while growing up?

2. Do you play any instruments?

3. Do you dance when no one is watching?

4. If you could live in any historical era, what would it be?

5. What are you reading currently?

6. What subject would your friends consider you an expert on (social, academic, what have you)?

7. What is the pet that you ALWAYS wanted but was never able to get?

8. If you were a noble lord or lady, would your motto be?

9. What song automatically warms your heart when it starts to play?

10. Why are you so passionate about your blog?

My Nominations:

1. Louisa May Alcott Is My Passion

2. MadSilence

3. Historically Obsessed

4. 20-Something Bibliophile

5. Diary of a Book Addict

What is wrong with new?

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This morning, on NPR, Lynn Neary reported on the National Book Awards, saying, “In recent years, the National Book Awards have been criticized for nominating too many little known authors and ignoring big names. The award, some people whispered not too softly, was losing its allure.” 

I found myself rather struck by this comment. Isn’t the point of book awards to reward those who are doing great writing and to alert the public at large as to new and exciting works in the writing world? If we ignore the new authors in favor if just the “big names”, the well-known authors who are constantly in the spotlight, doesn’t that just create a veritable masturbation circle rather than a progressive community of authors? Doesn’t it also remove the prestige from the award and make it simply an annual hot-potato game between a select few? We who love to read surely want the writing world to grow and develop authors who are producing an ever-expanding treasure trove for both ourselves and others, and that can hardly be done if we refuse to acknowledge the work and success of “new authors” who have created wonderful works and built amazing worlds.

I am in great favor of new and emerging authors being honored at the National Book Awards and other similar honors. Some of my favorite authors are ‘new’ authors on the scene, only a handful of years into their publishing careers. Authors such as Erin Morgenstern and Diana Setterfield who have worked so hard to create engrossing worlds continue to hone their craft and work to create even more wonderful worlds for us readers to explore. Why should authors like them not be as readily honored with prestigious awards as those who have run the track for years?

Granted, that is just my opinion, but I think it’s at least worth a point or two.

Citation: Neary, Lynn. ” ‘Round House,’ ‘Forevers’ Win National Book Awards”. NPR. 15 November 2012. <http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=165186998>. 15 November 2012.

Dream Memory: The House That Xavier Built

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So I am avid X-men fan. Most of you know this. I buy the comics, own the movies, play rpgs. I greatly enjoy the franchise and have since I was a teenager. Last night, I had a very interesting dream.

I was an X-man. At least one in training. It was partially living in one of the games I’m in but so much more than that.

Xavier’s Mansion was still Xavier’s mansion but it, too, was so much more than just that. It was like the mansion had a sense of folded space. Outwardly it never changed but, inwardly, it grew and grew as Xavier’s took in more and more young mutants. The littler children and younger teenagers lived in large dormitory rooms together and trained with their powers. As they grew older and gained more control over their powers, students would then be moved into their own single dorm rooms upstairs.

On this particular occasion, the older students were finishing their training and heading back up to their rooms to clean up and change. As they headed past the children’s dorms, the kids, of course, ran out to meet them. Me, being the mother cat that I am, ordered the elder boys, “Come on, boys, upstairs! And you boys, back to your studies. Go on!” When asked why the boys had to go but the girls got to stay, I replied, “The girls put in the request weeks ago. Now give us the room.”

Begrudgingly, the boys vacated the large, ballroom-sized hall beneath the staircase and landings as Storm took one of the little girls up to the second floor landing. I and the other older girls smiled at the younger ones and told them to look. Storm and her little companion were up on the banister and, suddenly, they pitched forward, flying around around the ballroom. For Storm, of course, self-propelled flight was a matter of breathing, but not for Gemma. So I happily announced to the girls, “Today, all of you get to fly.” The mentalists and telekenetics smiled and stood off to the side to control the girls as they flew and darted around the room for about 20 minutes. Listening to them laugh and squeal gave me no small amount of pleasure.

And then I woke up.

Frightening Control

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Have you ever had a moment when you are so very angry but you find yourself with an almost marble-esque calm about you? When people say stupid things or ask obvious questions on purpose to be annoying, and you find yourself answering in a low, calm voice and with the patience of a saint, rather than smacking them and calling them the idiot that they are?

I have had that happen several times over the past few months, and it startles me a bit each time. Granted, I teach middle-schoolers AND I’m very pregnant at the moment, a perfect recipe for frayed nerves and a low threshold for stupidity. I think it worries my students a bit when I know and they know that they are purposefully trying to be annoying and waste time, and I answer them in the calmest voice known to man, perhaps with a touch of long-suffering in it, and tell them that we’re moving on, I’ve already answered every question they could think of (they are on their handouts), we don’t deal in “what if’s”, and they brought whatever the discipline situation is on themselves.

Yesterday, I had this particular issue. I have a small class of students are very…talkative is a mild way of putting it. Chaotic is perhaps a more apropos term. I separate out my class, sending the most self-motivated students to the library with To Do lists of the work they were to complete, and kept the remaining students (who honestly probably could not manage themselves enough to work on their own if their lives depended on it) with me. They also received a To Do List, along with discipline procedures and a new seating chart. They were told to read the To Do List, ALL of it. But, of course, they had questions. One young lady kept asking questions about what was going on that day and I kept referring her to her handout, which had all the pertinent information on it, which annoyed her to no end, I’m sure.

Is this was because of how we acted yesterday (when they basically told me to my face that they were not going to behave well unless the dean of students was in the room to watch them; he has been a frequent visitor to our classroom so far this semester).

Yes.

How long will it be like this?

Until things improve.

This seat is uncomfortable.

You brought the new seating arrangement on yourself.

What if…

I don’t deal in what ifs and you are not being given an option.

The class was informed calmly and honestly that they had left me no choice but this method of high structure and swift discipline. For an 88 minute block, I sat at the front of the classroom and watched them closely, with a list close at hand. Every time they talked out, were out of their seat without permission, were off-task/not working, trying to communicate with other students, etc., they received a demerit and immediately notification of said demerit. And I stuck to it. I had given out 9 demerits to a class of 10 by the end of the day, multiples to some students. Some got the point, closed their mouths, and got to work. Others were fighting it in their own way but I stuck to my guns, again remaining calm and quiet, and that was that.

I admit, I scared myself a little bit, that I fell so easily into the position of jailer. But I remembered that I am doing what is necessary. My administration and the kids’ parents expect a great deal of me and I’ll be hanged if I let the students keep me from doing my job, which I told them to their faces. Plus, I need to watch myself and my stress level. I am two months out from my due date and this is as much to protect me, as it is to help them be productive and get their work done.

So, as I must, I will put on that mask, be the calm, swift jailer, as long as I must in order to make things work. Then maybe…MAYBE…something will click and change. We can always hope.

Figment Daily Theme – Binkie

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Prompt: Pick a childhood toy. Describe it twice, first through the eyes of a child, and then through the eyes of an adult remembering his or her childhood. What changes? 

1. She’s the most adorable thing! Peppy is a kitty soft white fur and peppermint candies on her tummy. They are all glittery and pretty and sparkle in the sunlight. It makes her look even happier, and she even has them on the bottoms of her feet and in her ears. She has a pink glittery nose with a spot of blue on it. I think I accidentally got paint on her when we were playing. And she’s always teasing me, always has her tongue sticking out at me. But I know she doesn’t mean it; she’s just playing. She has this little spot in the middle of her forehead where she still smells like peppermint, even after we’ve been together for so long. It always makes me feel nice and safe. She goes with me everywhere, she’s even come to New York with me when we go to see Aunties. I bought her a little hat and sweaters and mittens, and I have a baby carrier for her so she doesn’t have to walk in the airport or hide in my bag. She loves to travel, or just sit with me while we are reading or watching TV.

2. She’s just a stuffed animal. A quirky, sweet-looking stuffed animal that still smells faintly of peppermint at a spot right in the middle of her forehead. I’m amazed she’s kept that scent in such a small spot over all these years. She was a gift from my mom’s best friends, my Aunties, and I loved her to pieces as a child. I bought baby clothes and cut ear holes in little hats for her so that I could take her to the “frozen wastes” of upstate New York when we would go to visit Aunties in late winter. Peppy, as I call her, is little more than a cute stuffed cat but, to me, she represents a very happy relationship.

Rediscovered Poems – found these in an old notebook at work

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Melissa

Small, intense, passionate, friendly

Sibling of two angels

Lover of Ben, books, and music

Who feels tired, busy, challenged

Who needs a vacation, new sights, reading time

Who gives friendship, advice, time

Who fears loss, hurting people, heights

Who would like to see New Zealand, Japan, and my child’s face

 

Intense Gold

I think sometimes that I’m the liver of a dream.

I feel wrapped in warm gold, strong, and soft.

My hands grip the softest intensity.

It’s like trying to hold water in a river.

Soft and strong, gentle and intense,

washing away and forming, all these things at the

very same time I feel and it’s like being hit with a bolt of lightning.

I feel safe and protected,

I wrap it around me like a soft fur coat.

I wish to keep it all my life long.

It’s comfort, like a cat purring on my lap.

I breathe and believe and I know I am blessed.

Can such things be real, everlasting, and true?

They must be, smelling like lilac and yellow sunshine.

It’s as fresh each time as a cool breeze.

I want to shout and scream so everyone will know.

All I know is I want to stay here, wrapped in warm, intense gold.

Notes on Narnia

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For Aslan

C.S. Lewis’s world of Narnia is amongst my favorite ‘Neverlands’. There is very little about these stories and characters that I do not love. I own the giant anniversary edition with all of the novels in it, as well as the original, color illustrations. My husband bought me the BBC series as a Christmas gift when we were dating. I also own the new movies done by Walden Media, which I adore. These are stories and a world that I intend on sharing with my daughter. I want her to imagine Aslan walking beside her, cuddling her, encouraging her. I want to gift her with that “tangible” image of God that comforted me marvelous much as a child.

However, I have noticed something very interesting in the Walden Media movies’ treatment of nationality. Now, it may not be a big deal to…well, anyone but me, but I found it intriguing. In “Prince Caspian”, Ben Barnes stars at the title character in his first mainstream leading role. As Caspian X, son of the Telmarian Caspian IX, Barnes is depicted as swarthy, with an olive complexion and longish, dark, almost-black hair. The Telmarines, who invaded Narnia after the disappearance of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, came from across the sea and were sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve themselves, happening upon Narnia by accident years ago. They have now been ruling over Narnia for centuries, and Caspian is the latest heir in a string of Telmarine conqueror kings. The Walden Media movies depict the Telmarines as swarthy, dark of hair and eye, with an accent that can be described as Spanish or Latin.

Now, fast-forward three Narnian years: Edmund and Lucy return to Narnia, accidentally bringing their odious cousin Eustance with them. Landing in the sea, they are picked up by the Dawn Treader, captained and crewed by none other than Narnians and led by their dear friend Caspian, King of Narnia. Now, as soon as Caspian (once again played by Barnes) begins to speak, we notice something different about him. Gone are the swarthy skin and deep-dark hair, as well as the Spanish/Telmarine accent. He has been transformed into a “proper” Narnian with a pointedly British accent, skin that is slightly paler than when we last saw him, and hair that has been lightened to a warm brown (presumably by the sun), as has his facial hair.

Like I said, this may not seem important to anyone aside from me, but I find it intriguing that Walden Media chose to represent Caspian’s separation from his Telmarine heritage and his integration into the traditional Narnian culture through his appearance and accent. He seems older (as he is, truthfully) and more mature than the boy who squabbled with Peter and trembled before Aslan, but is still filled with awe at all he is continually learning about Narnia and the lands beyond it. One has to wonder, though: why not just leave him as he was in the previous film?  Why choose this particular method of visually representing growth in addition to the mental and emotional evidence? Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy it. Few actors are more adorable to me than Ben Barnes, especially when he’s playing my favorite prince. But the idea still intrigues me, and I count it a very clever writing and filming device.

If you’ve seen the films, what is your opinion?

Travel by Map

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I walk into a bookstore or library and instantly feel at home, welcomed, wanted. I pause, just standing inside the door for a moment, looking around to get my bearings, and begin to develop a map of this beautiful new world that I am about to encounter. I search for my safety zones first: Literature, Young Adult Fiction, Graphic Novels, and Children’s Books. I traverse through these territories on my map, looking for undiscovered countries and worlds to add to my travels.

Sometimes, I settle down for a while in order to take things in more deeply, more fully, to observe the locals and their customs, to hear their language. All of this helps in my decision whether to cut my visit short or stay for a prolonged time, whether or not I will return at a later date. There are castles and monarchs to visit, black-and-white circus tents to explore, games of Triumphs to be played, secret stories to hear, mysteries to solve with Victorian aristocracy. There’s so much to do and only so much time right now.

Children’s Books is a whimsical world of color, animals both real and fantastic, outrageous costumes, strange customs, and beautiful lands. It makes me smile just crossing into that territory and, once again, I pause to get my bearings. The younger lands are my favorites, where imagination and magic still run rampant without some of the rules that have been imposed by the older worlds. Wyveraries (wyverns/libraries) walk around in the open, reciting all they know about their particular letter ranges. Children flit and fly about with reckless abandon (oh, watch your head!), chasing after the bread-and-butterflies that tease them. Mighty battles are fought by the tiniest of creatures, showing bravery beyond the measure of size. Ducklings offer pigeons cookies, and princesses dance their shoes to pieces of a night. I love the rampant magic, imagination, and amazing fantasy of these worlds and I wish I could stay longer. But I have many miles to go and my time is beginning to run short, unfortunately. I must hurry.

Soon, I make ready to leave this beautiful map of imagination, my arms full of new treasures, as well as some rediscovered ones. These treasures carry the souls of these worlds and their inhabitants within them, souls that glow with a light beyond anything that can be captured in paint, charcoal, or on film. They capture the essence and beauty of their respective worlds and I carry that beautiful essence with me always, in my heart and mind, as well as in my hands.

As I move to step out the doors again, I risk one look back with a smile and the silent, ever-present promise.

I will come back. I will always come back.

The Taste of Dreaming

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Dream of Stars by `zeiva (http://deviantart.com)

I am a sensory dreamer. Those are my favorite (and most terrifying) type of dreams: the dreams where I can feel, smell, hear, and taste things. I can never quite “see” very well in my dreams, oddly enough, but my other senses can be needle-sharp at times. I can feel a person hug me, smell them near me, hear their voice reverberate in my ears, and feel kisses and touches tingle along my skin. I can feel the warmth of the tears that roll down my face, feel my chest swelling with the heat and sting of crying. There are times that those tears have even spilled over into real life and I have awoken sobbing, unable to stop. Even though that can be difficult, heartbreaking even, I still love those sensory dreams.

I have dreamt about my daughter before, years ago. I dreamt of rocking her in her nursery in the middle of the night, watching her in the moonlight as she settled down to sleep in my arms after eating. I could feel the soft, warm, sleight weight of the child in my arms, hear her little coo as she yawned, and watched her scrunched up her little fists under her chin.

I have dreamt dreams of such peace and beauty and love that, even while dreaming, I struggled to burn them into my memory so that I could remember them when I awoke. I have jolted out of bed in the middle of the night, so compelled by a dream that all I could do was get up and write it down. One night in grad school, I spent an hour sitting on the edge of the tub, writing down a dream in the bathroom so that I wouldn’t wake my roommate. The images and the story were just so powerful and moving that I refused to lose them. I have dreamt dreams that are so detailed as to amount to a memory. I have been reminded of them by the way the sun shines, a certain smell in the air, or particular words that someone might say or a look they might give me that strikes me with a certain déjà vu. I remember looks and kisses as if they had really happened, events and encounters as though they were facts.

We are told that dreams are our subconscious working out the things that we do not let to the forefront or things that lie dormant within our minds. I do not know what parts of me all these dreams are trying to reveal but I will admit that I do love and enjoy these dreams and the lasting impact they have on my memory.

Hearing Voices

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I often recognize voices more quickly than I do faces. I become use to the sound, inflection, and cadence in a person’s voice. My memory stores scents and sounds much more quickly than faces. And even with faces, my memory latches on to one or two parts of a face (eyes or mouth, usually) and not the whole. Specific parts that make them unique. But voices…voices come to me more quickly and elicit more powerful emotions. My mother’s voice singing, my husband’s voice telling a story, hearing Ian McKellen as Gandalf…these voices all bring dearly-loved memories to the forefront of my mind and make me smile without fail.

My propensity for voice-memory is also true with actors and TV shows. I learn parts of actors’ faces and especially their voices rather quickly and I find that, once they become familiar, to hear them again is oddly comforting.

Case in point: I am watching the X-men anime television show on DVD currently and, the minute Wolverine opened his mouth, I said to myself, “I know that voice.” So what else did I do but look it up? I found out that it is Stephen Blum, the same gentleman who has played Wolverine in several of the video games, as well as in “Wolverine and the X-men” and a host of other Marvel animated movies and specials. To hear that voice and recognize it distinctly as Logan, my Logan, makes me ridiculously happy. That gruff voice is oddly comforting to me; it helps me feel even more at home with one of my favorite comic franchises, to put a voice to the lines that I am so familiar with.

I have a similar reaction to the voice of Kevin Conroy, the gentleman who was the voice actor for Bruce Wayne/Batman for most of my life, starring the well-known animated shows “Batman: The Animated Series”, “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm”, and as the elderly Bruce Wayne in “Batman Beyond”. Without his voice, Batman just doesn’t “sound” right to me. He is the only one who has even done the voice difference between Bruce and Batman correctly and believeably. He doesn’t growl or tear his vocal chords to shreds; it’s a simple, well-done timbre change. As he is phasing himself out of the role, I find that I am snatching up as many of the Batman movies and whatnot that he is in as I can. It’s a sweet bit of nostalgia that I am unwilling to give up. Not just the memories of the show but those that accompany it; friends coming over, laughs being had, all the rest of it.

Voices are precious to me – their cadences, inflections, the quips, repeated phrases, and mottos spoken by them. It’s why I’ve been speaking, reading, and singing to my daughter while she’s still in my belly. I want her to learn and know my voice, the things I say, and how I say them, as well as those idiosyncrasies of her father’s voice. Voices are precious, words are precious, and one of the greatest gifts of memory that we can be given or give. It’s a gift I plan on bestowing upon my daughter.