If I were queen then you and I'd be neighbors, I would pick you up each morning for doughnuts and tea

An album recommendation: My Brightest Diamond's output for this summer, A Thousand Shark's Teeth. Though it doesn't blow me away as much as Bring Me The Workhorse it's still got that great moody feeling that I love so much; and Shara Worden's vocals don't ever ever disappoint. I hate her for how good her voice is. Since I don't want to go into a long-winded review of the album, all I can say is this:

Have you guys seen the Romantics series on the BBC/PBS? No? Well, in the series, Mary Shelley was depicted as a beautiful woman writhing around crazily on her bed in a red satin gown. This gives you the impression that a night with Mary Shelly is full of opium and pretty colors, and the most mindblowingly physical sex you can imagine; the kind of sex that makes you question existence. This, to a somewhat lesser yet still powerful extent, is the impression that I got from Bring Me The Workhorse, it was just so different (to me at least) and had such a well-done cinematic feel that was beautiful in a polished but raw way, like madness that definitely had a method, a method so good that it seemed like madness all over again. With A Thousand Shark's Teeth, the method is still there, but there's less of the madness, though that works out just fine. The big orchestral feeling is more chamber-like, thanks to the help of a string quartet, and there's a thicker production quality on some tracks that seems reminiscent of Tear It Down, a group of remixes of the stuff. There's also a wider array of music here, and Worden is obviously borrowing from various styles, maremba, baroque, etc. It's all done as best as it could be done, albeit a little sleepier than I expected. So, to continue the metaphor, if Bring Me The Workhorse is the crazy rolling around on the bed Mary Shelley sex, then A Thousand Shark's Teeth is calmer but still fantastic after a few months of dating Mary Shelley sex. Yeah, that works perfectly.

Another thing of interest: I made Sachertorte! True, the chocolate glaze was not as thick as I'd want it to be, and making it was a giant mess of baking goods and abusing the standing mixer, but it was fantastically good and my mom, for whose birthday it was made, thought it was delicious. And really, if I had more time and wasn't trying to make it for a surprise, it would have turned out better and I would have had more time to enjoy the cooking, which I really did enjoy.

Oh, and I cut my hair. Ironically, on the same day that my 14-year-old brother was taken to a salon to get a $60 haircut. Yeah, I did it myself. Again.

Dr Crookedmouth to the OR, Stat!

It looks like it did while I was in France, only the front looks better. I took off about an inch from the bottom just to clean it up. Here's how it looked before, about two weeks ago:

Oxford, home of hot chicks and bicycles.

So it's less shaggy now. Also, I don't know who that girl on the left is. I look AWESOME.
And yeah, I promised Girl On The Left that I would grow it out this summer, which I might still do. The good thing is that the shortest layer in the back is down to my ears now, so it should grow out pretty even. Or keep it short, because that always looks good, right? Right?

God, I need to use this blog to talk about more interesting things. Like, why am I not writing right now? Because there are DVDs here. And I have torrents now? And........yeah. I'm gonna get going on that within the next week, for real. Right now I'm trying to get a job for the summer, and my expectations are being throttled by the boa constrictor of minimum wage part-time positions.

Gonna have to get along without ya instead of asking "where'd you go?"

Now that I'm back in a country that doesn't suck at things that are plugged into the wall, I finally managed to download Jamie Lidell's newest album. Jim is marketed as the product of one of Lidell's alternate personalities, who is sort of the conniving devil in the back of his brain, making him do craaaaazy things. Whatever. Anyway, the album itself is good, and fun, and pretty perfect for summer; just don't turn to it when you're looking for the perfect lyrics to write on your livejournal. Of course, the production is so good that you can't really care about the lyrical quality.

Jamie Lidell always gets accredited mostly for his voice, a Marvin Gaye/Otis Redding croon that you don't expect out of a guy from the middle of the UK; not to mention that it's his voice--run through a computer--that serves as the primary instrument for Lidell's live shows. He's got a great amount of control and breadth with his vocals, it's one of those voices that could read the phone book and make you want more and he knows it. And usually it's felt like Lidell is the only person in the recording studio; Multiply has a soulful yet electronic feeling where the music revolves around and is led by Lidell's voice. But with Jim, the music has a broader sound, backing vocals, bass, percussion; everything seems legitimate and real, like it was cut in a studio by a real person in the 1970s and not by a few guys with computers. It's this bigger sound that is the strongest part of Jim and makes it so damn catchy. There's such a sweet nostalgic feel to songs like "Wait for Me"and "Where'd You Go" that you don't think that you're listening to an album from 2008. Of course, the computer isn't gone forever, as it shows up to good effect in "Hurricane" and "Figured Me Out". All of the music blends with Lidell's vocals instead of just being a backing track.

But, as I said before, the only real weakness is Lidell's writing. I've seen him say in interviews that this album was going to be about the lyrics, but that just doesn't seem believable when you listen to them, I mean, really listen to them. On more upbeat songs this is never a problem, and Lidell does have a good ear for the words that fit with the lyrics. But some of them are just silly; "Out of My System" talks about exercising while "Wait For Me" declares " Don't you know you can't believe all that you've heard/I know it's rough when all you have is my word" and " Without you by my side I just can't sleep/That's why I'm up all night counting sheep". And yeah, this seems a little immature compared to the skill of the vocals and production, but it's those latter two elements of the song that make the lyrics irrelevant. But this really suffers in the slower numbers where we're forced to listen to what he's saying. "Rope of Sand" is a desperate attempt at existentialism which is too simple for its own complexity; and as an aside I don't think that Jamie Lidell has to constantly repeat how he just doesn't understand anything. "All I Wanna Do" is equally meh, "It's a world full of magic/It is never ever tragic". Not that it's bad per se, but I'm pretty sure that I wrote that when I was in high school and thought I was pretty deep. And I just don't understand "Another Day". I think that it's about a guy who was always afraid that he and his lady wouldn't have anything else to say to each other, but now they don't but it's okay because silence is now what can do the talking for them? I love you even though I have nothing to say to you?

All in all I like the album a lot; Jamie Lidell is one of those artists who seems to be full of an earnest sense of life that says that he's enjoying his work, not just doing it to fulfill a record contract or because he thinks he has some sort of artistic obligation. Jim doesn't resound with any "greatest album of a lifetime of work", but it sure as hell isn't a bad patch.

A battle of Arrondisments

So a few months ago, my mother and I had a conversation something like this:

Mom: We're so looking forward to our Paris trip! We rented Paris, Je T'aime. Have you seen it?
Me: Nope. Is it good?
Mom: Oh, it's wonderful. It's such a great Paris movie!
Me: Have you seen Amelie?
Mom: No, but I know that you want me to see it.
Me: Yeah, that's my personal favorite Paris movie, I guess. It's really sweet, you should see it.
Mom: Well, how about you watch Paris, Je T'aime and we'll watch Amelie before we all go to Paris!

Of course, that never happened. My family has a pretty wide lazy gene.

So tonight, almost exactly one month after we left Paris, my parents and I sat down in the basement to watch both of these movies. First up: Amelie.

.....okay, I'm a woman between the ages of 15 and 25. You know exactly what I'll say about Amelie. Aside from the initial "I want every aspect of Amelie's life, every article of clothing, every painting on the wall, every dark red throw pillow", the film is a wonderful whimsical feature, with a romanticized Montmartre as its back round. When my dad asked me what it was about in the video store, all I could reply was that "it's about this girl who lives in Montmartre and it's really pretty and I love it", which is the closest that you can get to the plot description. It's a story not just about Amelie, but the small yet colored lives around her that she watches and influences.

Now, there are three ways that a setting can work in a story. First, it can be there simply by virtue of things needing to take place somewhere. This is the sort of "anytown USA" setting; it's just somewhere to put your characters so that you can focus on the other stuff. The second is the type that Amelie uses, which is when a setting becomes a sort of character in the story, the place makes the characters or plot fit better. In Amelie, Montmartre is a place of artistic absinthine fantasy and childlike joy, coupled with the obvious yet still playful sex trade; we cannot imagine a character like Amelie Poulain living anywhere else, they are so fused together. In the end, Amelie is a cute film, a feel-good film that doesn't make you feel like you had to make yourself dumb or anesthetized to feel good, it's one of the most earnestly happy feelings that you can get from celluloid.

Paris, Je T'aime is the third type of film; one that tries to be the latter but ends up being the former. The film sets out to be a series of eighteen shorts, all based in a different area of Paris, all supposedly about love. Because, you know, Paris is the only place that love exists. What should be happening is eighteen stories that are distinctly and completely Parisian; but what happens instead is that we get eighteen stories that just happen to take place in Paris. I can let that slide, of course; after all, Sleepless in Seattle had nothing to do with Seattle itself, but it still worked as a film. But Paris, Je T'aime is constantly reminding the viewer of where the stories are with transitional clips that focus on the many monuments and recognizable sites, as though to say "hey, pay attention, this is in PARIS. Isn't that CREDIBLE?" Yeah, sure, but the truth is that without the Parisian location, each vignette would be nothing more than a short play put on by high school students (seriously, a lot feel like that). There are several about falling in love in five minutes, a few about long-term relationships, a handful about death or life generally sucking, and a couple that focus on tourism there. Actually, that's a pretty good breakdown of what Paris, Je T'aime says about what your experience in Paris is: you fall in love, your life sucks, or you are a tourist. And the worst thing is that, if you didn't worry so much about the languages used (thankfully, mostly French), then almost every single story could take place anywhere; there's nothing about them that says "only in Paris". It could happen in London or New York or San Francisco or Boise; which wouldn't make it very special at all. This means that, really, the only reason why I'm paying attention to the film is because it's in Paris. It's playing to one of my biggest weaknesses, which to me is a "bravo" coupled with a "fuck you".

The cast and directors were good enough for what they were doing, and there were no poor performances. But on the other hand, it sort of felt like one of those giant birthday cards that someone passes around the office. Sure you'll sign it, but you're not shooting for a penmanship award, nor are you going to impart any words of wisdom in it, after all, it is a giant Hallmark card, and Paris, Je T'aime, for all of it's glitter, is still just that: one big giant Hallmark card en français.

The only short that seemed to resonate with me at all as a really Parisian one was, ironically, about an American tourist named Carol (Margo Martindale) who delivers her narration in completely mispronounced French. Her story is simple; she's in her forties, has no children or spouses, and has always dreamed of going to Paris, so she studies French and packs up to go visit the city by herself; trying unsuccessfully to speak French to the locals who are only too willing to reply in English, following her guidebook that she keeps in her fanny pack to the letter, eating and sleeping alone. She sits in Montparnasse cemetery and thinks about her sister and mother who have died while she sits near the grave of Jean-Paul Sartre, she misses her now-married
-with-children ex-boyfriend as she looks over the city and realizes that she has no one to say "doesn't this look beautiful?" to. Finally, she sits in a park and eats a sandwich, and comes to a realization:

"Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I'd never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn't know what. Maybe it was something I'd forgotten or something I've been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me."

The thing is, I remember having moments exactly like that. What seemed to be missing from Paris, Je T'aime was not just that Paris is where people tend to fall in love, but where people have been falling in love for hundreds of years. The beauty of Paris isn't just it's sex appeal, it's the history, the muggy sense that it is a living, breathing organism that can hear and feel you. It is both magical and real, old and new, male and female, full of livelihood and tragedy. And though the other shorts seemed to have these elements somewhere in them, none resonated past their characters. I can tell you that only in Paris does Carol's reminiscence of sadness and happiness and life happen in that way; or if not only in Paris, then in very few places in the world. Unfortunately, most of the film seems to fall into too much of a clichéd set of love stories, held together by the circumstance of being set in Paris.


Of course in the end there's not really a battle between films here. My mother adores Paris Je T'aime, and though I think that she really liked Amelie (she was smiling the whole time!) she just called it "cute", which is still a perfectly fitting compliment. I, on the other hand, would never betray Amelie Poulain, and I lied about liking Paris, Je T'aime.

Things and things and things and things

It's time to start organizing my summer, since this one is gonna be a relatively short one, and I don't plan on wasting any of it. There's more to it, of course, than just getting a job; and I want to sort out the things that I'll be doing while I'm not sucking up to the man so that I don't go to school and go "ugh, I wasted my summer."

Summer is not a thing to waste, though of course a "wasted" summer is a matter of opinion. You might say I wasted my summer by not joining the Peace Corps or building a house somewhere. In that case, I'm a waster.

Anyway, I'm gonna break this down, and remember, I'm more or less making this up as I go along.

Things to Do
(This means all the activities that I could do without necessarily spending gobfuls of money.)

• Write as much as I possibly can of Secret of the Clockwork Mouse, and possibly even find a better title somewhere in my brain.
• Do more stamp-making, and make stationary for writing letters.
• Actually write letters to people this summer.
• Finish my oil pastel self-portrait and work more steadily with oil pastels in general.
• Same goes for charcoals.
• Practice guitar, saw, and (maybe) tin whistle.
• Pro-actively learn magic tricks so that I can amaze my friends and annoy my enemies.
• Experiment with that herbal tea set I got for Christmas.
• Do more outlining for Archer stories, get a big-ass calender and fill it in with story ideas.
• Repair my cowboy boots and my black flats
  

Things to Read
(Like, you know, books?)

• Goethe's and Marlowe's Faust
• Ulysses
• Orlando
• The Faerie Queene
• Jung
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces
• That Hermann Hesse book that Peter gave me, like, three years ago
  

Things to Buy
(Okay, this list needs to be short)

• Pants (3 pairs)
• Shirts (2?)
• Ballet Flats
• Art shit
• A watch (Fossil?!)
  
• More RAM for the lappy, if I end up keeping the lappy
• Elvis Costello, My Brightest Diamond CDs

That actually seems manageable, now that I look at it. I need to avoid overspending this summer, since that was the worst mistake of last summer. Of course I'm leaving an allowance in there for sale items (especially in the clothing department), and I'm sure that I'll buy a cheap Powell's copy of at least Ulysses, since I know that I'm more likely to read a book when I'm not thinking of returning it. And there's definitely a trip to the library to come in the next few days. I'm kicking myself for not bringing my Virginia Woolf book with me, since that had Orlando already in it; but oh well. I'm looking forward to Goethe.

And I guess I should think about getting that perfume from Anthropologie. Maybe.

Good news: the family is talking about maybe going to Disney this year! Bad news: they'll be going while I'm still 20. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

Find that dappled dream of yours, come back and see me when you can

I'm back in Portland, after one last wet but wonderful day in London and a couple of cramped but uneventful and decent flights. I'm back, and things already feel like I never left, and I hate that. By the end of today the afterglow of "I was in Europe yesterday" has faded away, and now it just feels like I never really left. It's the house and the room and the people never changing that much, not having friends who just want to hear you tell stories about your trip, so on and so on. I know that I always sound terribly depressed whenever I talk about being home; the way I always describe it is that I suddenly have to sit in the backseat, which just feels wrong after spending all that time taking care of myself and getting out of some shitty situations. Last night when I got in dad asked me:

"So can you believe that it's over?"
"No," I said. "but I still can't believe that I got through everything, I mean, it was tough."
"Haha. Yeah." He mocked picking up a phone with his hand."'Mom, dad, can you put more money in the account pleeeeeeeeaaase?'"

Anyway, that's basically how things have gone so far, but it's only been a day. This weekend is the Rose Parade and the Ballet, and then mom's birthday. By next week I hope to have some prospects of a job. My goals for the summer so far are:

• Get a job
• Make money
• Save 90% of the money I make
• Write a novel
• Read Ulysses
• Find a good place to live in Vancouver
  

Pretty simple, huh? I think that I can manage most if not all of it, I'm getting more and more comfortable with the writing that I've done for the novel (tentative title: The Secret of the Clockwork Mouse) Here's what I have so far:

PART ONE

Chapter 1
Bridget in Atlantic City. Meets Michael. He tells her suchandsuch, magic is a lie, la la la.

BEGIN FLASHBACK ARC

Chapter 2
Three years earlier
Bridget at home in Missouri with family. Description of family life, etc.

Chapter 3
Two weeks later
Some sort of community event (dance? something like that) where she sits with Michael, hint hint he’s shallow. Hint hint so is her family. Michael gives her a book or something that he thought was “pretty”.

Chapter 4
Two days later
Reads book, it blows her mind, tries to explain it but no one gets it, first real solid inkling of wanderlust.

Chapter 5
One day later
Has a sort of existentialist breakdown, makes plans to leave Missouri.

Chapter 6
One week later
Leaves Missouri. Is awkward but determined. Stays in a couple towns, locations TBD

Chapter 7
One week later
Gets into Chicago, creepy hotel, finds Gimbal poster and enough money for a ticket, decides to go, goes and sits down. MEANWHILE, Gimbal gets all pissy about performing, thinks about his wife leaving him, et cetera.

Chapter 8
That day
Performance. She’s blown out of the water. Sneaks down to the front of the theatre to try and see the magic stuff. Gimbal takes a liking to her, decides to take her on as a road assistant since she has nothing to do. Bridget goes back to hotel, meets other guest and tells her about new career as a magician’s assistant.




Chapter 9
Two weeks later

On the road. Learning tricks. Shows a serious knack for illusions. Gimbal lets her on as an assistant, first show, big success, she’s found a place where she belongs, la la la.

Chapter 10
Three months later

A few months later, she and Gimbal are BFFs, though he seems suspicious of her. She is probably falling in love with him, more or less. Tour has moved to Atlantic City, Gimbal gets a contract to play a show there every night for a month. A few days into the show a clockwork mouse breaks, he gives it to Bridget to fix. She does, and the next day he is gone. The theatre manager says that she will have to complete Gimbal’s performances, or else the company will owe everything back to the theatre. She does, and of course it’s spectacular.

END FLASHBACK ARC

PART TWO

Chapter 11
Two and a half years later

With Michael gone after saying that magic sucks, Bridget is totally bummed. She is up on her extended contract, so she closes the show and saves the money, while getting odd jobs on the boardwalk, like working at a soda fountain. Spends her extra time trying to figure out magic tricks without the aid of props. Notices cute blonde girl (May) sitting outside the Psychic booth across from the soda fountain.

Chapter 12
Two months later

Rainy day, May comes in to the soda fountain. She and Bridget get to talking. She reveals how she’s too scared to know her fortune but she still wants to find out anyway, she was a former winner of the Miss America contest a year back but has fallen into obscurity and stayed on the boardwalk anyway. More magic practice.

Chapter 13
Five days later

More flirting, more magic practice. Bridget has been trying to stay awake in order to make her unconscious more active in her conscious life (she doesn’t say it that way though). The girls go out to dinner and get cozy, there’s a kiss before Bridget passes out from exhaustion.

Chapter 14
The next day

Bridget wakes up in May’s room. Awkwardness followed by making up, just-being-friends attitude. Bridget thinks that she has enough to start rehearsing a stage show. May confesses about her financial woes to Bridget, and Bridget decides to let her stay in the guest room of her apartment.

Chapter 15
Three weeks later

Couple weeks later. Still working on magic act, quits soda fountain job and May takes her place there. They are living pretty cozily, though still just friends. MEANWHILE May finally gives in to her curiosity and goes to see the psychic. The old woman gives her a reading and tells her about her fear, lack of self-esteem, and says that it is all caused by a blockage to her heart (she doesn’t say it that way though). May comes home a bit half-crazed and shaken by the reading, Bridget comforts her and they just end up, well, you know.

Chapter 16
One month later

Happy couple-time! Though they don’t think of themselves as a couple. La la la, they’re still happy and all so that’s good. Bridget is ready for the magic act, and May is eager to be an assistant. So they rehearse a bit and everything seems to go fine. May keeps going back to the psychic, but doesn’t tell anyone what she hears there, though the readings seem to disturb her slightly.

Chapter 17
The next day

First performance of new show. Blows people away, but Bridget loses control of herself, accidentally setting the stage on fire and nearly killing May. May gets put in the hospital and then comes home, does not blame Bridget but still seems shaken by the event. Bridget, totally obsessed with her own guilt and disturbed by her own ability, leaves in the middle of the night.

PART THREE

Chapters 18-23
The next six months

Letters organized by month from Bridget to May. Describe the places that that she visits, the people she encounters, and especially the revelations that she finds and the new acts of magic that she is able to perform. Letters get more and more lovery-dovey emotional and confused and less logical and straightforward as time goes on, but not too much yet...these first five months are still mostly dominated by reason.

Chapter 24
A few days after the last letter

Returns to Missouri. Her family is overjoyed to see her, and don’t seem to be angry at her for leaving, especially since she has found her own success. She meets Michael again and he doesn’t realize even when she tells him just what an impact he has made to her life. He is only a few days away from getting married, so her family insist that she stay for the wedding.

Chapter 25
Three days later

Bridget has spent the last couple days trying to reconnect with home and she can’t really do that. She opts to leave in the middle of the night before the wedding so that she won’t get stuck. Her father finds her about to leave and tells her how hard it actually was for them the first time, and that it was wrong of her to leave them. However he does not object to her leaving this time, and they have a generally loving father-daughter moment before she goes off.

Chapters 26-28
The next three months

More letters from Bridget to May, explaining her reactions to the family visit. The letters are more manic, more emotionally written. Bridget begins to convey a real sense of love for May, and expresses how much she misses her and how wrong she feels in leaving. The magic becomes bigger and more abstract, suggesting that Bridget’s abilities go beyond the simple manipulations she thought she could do.

Chapter 29
The day after the last letter

In Las Vegas, Bridget finds a man fallen in the gutter, drunk and ill. When she realizes that it is Gimbal, she takes him to the hospital and then rents him a room to rest in. He explains to her how he lost most of his money, became alcoholic, got arrested for attacking his ex-wife’s husband. Explains more about their relationship before the divorce, how she was an assistant that cheated and left him.

Chapter 30
One week later

In taking care of Gimbal, Bridget has rekindled her affection towards him. Though he is still not well, he seems happy to see her. Finally, she asks him why he left. He replied that he was both afraid of her abilities and wanted her to have opportunities for herself without the influence of another magician. He explains how what she does isn’t illusions, but real honest-to-god magic, because she thinks that it is real and that somehow makes it real. He proves this by showing her the clockwork mouse that she fixed all those years ago. The inside of the mouse is still in shambles and doesn’t seems to be capable of working, and yet the mouse works better than any of the clockwork ones. He admits that he has always loved her, but that he also supports her relationship with May, and tells Bridget that she should go back to her. A few days later he is dead.

Chapter 31
Two days later

After sorting out Gimbal’s affairs, Bridget writes one letter to May, declaring that she is finally going to Los Angeles, but that she wants to come back to Atlantic City as soon as she has visited LA, but only if May will let her come back. She begs forgiveness, summarizes her trip and her meeting with Gimbal, explains how she feels about May.

PART FOUR

Chapter 32
One week later

Bridget arrives in LA. Finds place to stay. Should echo her first day in Chicago, though now she is more worldly. Gets a hotel room, wanders around, sees the Jazz Singer, explores around the studios, hears the name Mary Camden thrown around as she is apparently a former beauty queen and a new starlet. At the hotel she learns that a woman had come to see her, but did not leave a name, just a message asking her to stay in her room in the earlier parts of the next day.

Chapter 33
The next day

Bridget waits as per instruction. The woman who shows up is May, who moved to LA ahead of Bridget, knowing that she was going to be going there, and had her mail forwarded from Atlantic City. She did not get the last letter about Gimbal yet, so Bridget tells her, and May is at first cool with her, but then forgives her, though their relationship seems platonic at this point. MEANWHILE May goes back to her new Beverly Hills home and reads the Tarot cards that the psychic woman gave her when she left Atlantic City.

Chapter 34
Three days later

Bridget and May go out to lunch while she is shooting her new film. May suggests that Bridget use her skills in motion pictures in order to create special effects. Bridget explains in more detail to May just what she is capable of. May seems interested but also concerned for Bridget, and is secretly afraid that Bridget’s obsession about controlling her abilities is nothing more than an excuse to not stay in one place at a time.

Chapter 35
One week later

Bridget has her audition at the studio, after rehearsing her “effects” for the past week to make sure that they will be safe and work in a studio. The studio heads are stunned by what she can do, and offer a handsome paycheck, with the exception that she will be credited under a pseudonym, Herman Waite (Gimbal’s real name). Bridget and May go out to celebrate Bridget’s success, and spend the night together. Two days later, Bridget moves into May’s apartment.

Chapter 36
Three months later

Bridget is living happily, occupied both with her new job at the studio and her newly renewed relationship. She still practices the magic privately, but is no longer intimidated by it. She seems to have influence over most of the elements around her. MEANWHILE, pressure from the studio department forces to May to lie somewhat about her relationship with Bridget, and to create a pseudo-romance with her current co-star.

Chapter 37
Two months later

Bridget is still kept busy, but is feeling jealous of May’s co-star, especially since publicity seems to require him to come over to their house often, as well as be at every event or dinner that they attend. Bridget asks May if her getting her own house would help to ease the pressure from publicity, to which May reluctantly agrees. Bridget buys a house down the street from May’s. The two discuss how, when May’s contract expires in a few months, they could find a few investors and executives in order to fund their own studio that would exclusively feature Bridget’s effects.

Chapter 38
Three months later

The two women have found a few backers for their studio, and have scouted out locations for it in Beverly Hills. On the eve of May’s contract expiring and the night of the wrap party for the film that her and her fake boyfriend starred in together, Bridget has a crisis of conscience. She goes to May’s house and when she’s not there, Bridget waits for her to come back by randomly setting out the deck of tarot cards that May keeps on her table. The results seem to show that she is destined to be alone, so she panics and goes home to pack her things for another journey.

Chapter 39
The next day

May, having figured that Bridget was at her house the night before, confronts Bridget just as she is finishing her preparations for leaving. She begs Bridget to stay, but Bridget refuses, saying that her magic is still too dangerous to fund an entire studio for, that May would be happier with her fake boyfriend, that her life would be easier if Bridget wasn’t an active part of it, and that she is destined to be alone. May replies by bluntly declaring her love for Bridget, and that she can only be destined to be alone if she allows herself to. Bridget replies that her feelings are the same, but that she is still to worried about herself to be with someone. May replies that she’s staying with her anyway. The two agree to go to Europe or something for a few months while the studio is being constructed.


Next thing to do is character summaries! Then fleshing out the chapters. Those letters are gonna be hard to write.

All these things I say to you, all these things I say are true

I think that's in a Coldplay song. It fucking sounds like Coldplay and it might not even be in a song, but whatever.

I haven't posted enough about how generally beyond shitty many of the experiences in Norwich were for this semester, probably because the posts would have been full of expletives and I would end up punching the computer.

So I'll let this real survey from UEA Accomidation do the talking, along with the answers that I wrote out for them:



If you called the accomidation office, why did you need to come and see us?

I along with one of the other residents in MCC went to ask about the incident of a non-resident gaining entrance to the flat and abusing the utilities, which made the residents feel unsafe. We had to go into the accomidations office because we were not informed of how the issue was resolved and were still feeling insecure.

Did you feel that your query was dealt with to your satisfaction?

No

Please detail why you felt this.

We were patronized by the people in the security office and told that our worrying was nothing more than 'fear mongering', and then informed that they did not have the manpower to simply leave a message of some kind in the flat telling us that we were safe and that the situation was being dealt with.

Do you have any other comments about the services offered by the Accommodation Office?

I booked my reservation for my flight to England from the United States three months before departure, since I was operating on a budget and that was the best time to get those tickets. A few weeks before my departure I was told that I needed to be at the office to pick up my key at or before 5 PM on the day that I got in (Friday), or else I would have to book a room in a hotel for that evening, at my own expense of course. With the type of ticket that I had bought there was no way of getting a flight into London any earlier on that day. I arrived in London at 11 AM on Friday, and had to rush to get to UEA on time, the entire process being incredibly stressful and difficult to manage, especially for someone who had never been in the country before. I literally got to the office at one minute before it closed, and from that point on was apparently entrusted to find my way there and manage the moving-in process. I was never told that there was no internet in the dormitory, and because it was Friday I was unable to get online until Monday afternoon, and though I understand that there is a good reason for registering for internet, an initial warning of the lack of immediate service upon moving in would have been helpful. Also, not having a liason from the housing office available at MCC during all hours (save for the housekeeper who was only there for a few hours each weekday) was in my opinion unacceptable and probably contributed to the insecure conditions of the apartment, since not only did the one incident of break-in occur, but two weeks beforehand another woman who was not a resident had somehow gotten into the flat and set a pile of phonebooks on fire under the stairwell. That there is not a front desk system or a nearby security office from the University for Mary Chapman Court makes it an unsafe situation, and though I personally think that residents and students should be treated with respect as they are adults, this should not be viewed as a sort of abandonment by the University (with the exception of the cleaning staff) that compromises our safety and general welfare.

Please can you detail in the box below the things that you liked most about your UEA Accommodation

I appreciated having a housekeeper to help with the general state of things in the kitchen and in the bathrooms, and the location in the city center was a good way to get to know my host city while on my exchange.

In the box below can you tell us the things you would most like to change about your UEA Accommodation.

Having a front desk service or any sort of 24-hour assistance on the site of the dorm itself is necessary for the well-being of its residents. Even in private apartment complexes, there are building supervisors and superintendants and a front desk that is on call to help with any sort of service or security issues. The fact that this was only immediately available to us on certain hours of the weekday is a serious problem, and a safety and health hazard.

If you have any other comments about your Accommodation this year please can you detail them below.

The presence of mildew and rust stains in the bathroom is unacceptable. Mary Chapman Court itself is almost depressingly decorated, we don't even get proper walls, just painted brick, the washing machines left holes in my clothing, the showers were easily clogged, the beds were small and uncomfortable, and the radiators were turned off without residents being informed and, in several of the dorms, the entire heating system would break, in the middle of winter. Also, the system of 'if you lose a key you have to go to campus security (a 30-minute bus ride) and pay a £20 fee to get a new house key is unfair and unreasonable.


I'm in a little place called Stevenage right now, staying with Amanda's relatives, and I swear it's like I died and went to heaven by comparison to all that crap.

Retour

I'm in Paris again. And I'm leaving tomorrow to go back to England.

I know that that seems like a completely lackluster pair of sentences. Fact is that I'm in the middle of a lackluster trip, part not having enough time to enjoy the things I want to enjoy, part remembering all the reasons why not traveling a lot with my family is, well, a good thing, and part straight up repetition. One day I'll come to Paris and not be required to go to the Louvre; I really don't think that visiting it every time is worth the nine Euro. Truth is it's just too damn big, and too damn hard to get around in. And the crowds are hell.

My family took me going to England as a perfect excuse for them to go abroad as well, which has, at the moment at least, resulted in me having to listen to two people snore at the same time. You would think that they would find some somnambulistic way of synchronizing. My brother, who is 14, is sharing the room with me, and he prefers to sleep on his back, with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open, and he snores with such conviction that either he has a breathing problem, or he dreams of being Laurence Olivier. My father on the other hand sleeps in the other room, above the covers, and his snores are accompanied by clicks with each in and exhale. I know these things because I have traveled with my family before. And I don't sleep very often when I do, you see, I'm a sensitive person when it comes to noise; anything dissonant or continuous (say, a car alarm or the ticking of a clock) is bound to keep me awake until I stubbornly fall asleep, most likely with a frown and crossed arms. And of course I'm sick of doing the whole faily schtick, the hypocritical gesture of being old enough to drive, drink, vote, pay taxes, and keep a job, and yet every summer be forced into the back seat, given a list of chores, curfews, and the pidgeonholing action of making me try to sleep within ten meters of my brother. I love him, I do, but ever since he was four his sleeping habits have been a problem for my sleeping preferences (when he was a kid he insisted that we left the bathroom light on in the hotel room(s) as a nite-light, interfering with another one of my sleeping requirements: darkness), and the more I live on my own, the more pissed getting stuck with him makes me; of course I can't afford my own room, but there must be something to be done. Some sympathy for me not getting sleep would help, which for my mother is just me being dumb and stubborn, and why-not-just-get-earplugs.

So there's that, and then there's the day-to-day life of Brennan Family Travel: my father not being interested in what's significant around us (PARIS) and going on and on about his job that I know all about, my brother not really caring too much one way or the other, and my mother berating everyone else's decisions or ideas if they conflict at all with her's. You should have seen them trying to conduct a car in Britain. Good grief.

So other than that, I spent hardly enough time around my favorite pieces of art in Musee d'Orsay and didn't even get a chance to see Cupid and Psyche in the Louvre, the Opera Garnier was closed, and what hit me the worst, I only got a few minutes in the upper chapel of Sainte Chapelle, because everyone else had "seen enough" and was "about ready to get going", after spending about ten minutes looking at some of the most beautiful stained glass in the world. And I don't even want to start on how everything I tried to say in regard to the art, or museums, or Parisian things in general was either shot down via rolled eyes or completely ignored.

Oh, and I got almost-heat stroke dehydration in the Louvre and blacked out in the entrance hall, then spent forty minuted lying on a cot in the infirm, trying to explain the nurse that I have cramps from hell in French. "J'ai de al mentration....je souffre."

Oh, and the apartment we rented has mildew and roaches.

Good rant post, Meg. Good think I'll be home tomorrow to amend this.