ontology | a week in the life (Reply)

Well!

Things have been a bit mad. I feel rather as if I have been plucked unceremoniously from one life and thrust into another, and when certain familiar things attempt to poke their way in I feel magnificently disoriented. Except for once, when I was four, I have never moved even within the same state, and therefore a move signifies complete and utter change. The stores should be different, and the people I see--I shouldn't feel as if I am in the same place as always when I leave this familiarly strange house!

Where did I leave off? There is so much to tell; most of it probably won't be of overmuch interest to anyone else, but I always feel compelled to remember everything: every event, every sensation, especially new, History-of-Banui events such as this.

Thursday: We are Totally Isolated. The internet is cut off while I was in the thick of it, and the phonelines are switched, We continue packing arbitrary rubbish that is still floating about the house. It is mostly a dreary sort of day, until late evening, when Dad and I bring boxes to the Rectory and listen to one of his mix albums in the car, with a jazzy 'Autumn Leaves' and Dylan's 'Visions of Johanna'. After unloading, we stop at Sheetz to get Mum some coffee, and Dad buys me cinnamon rolls, which are remarkably good for a) not being hot, and b) for coming from a convenience store. (Dad, maker of the third-best cinnamon rolls in the world, would probably call them ghastly. I, not ever having been a pastry chef, am less discrimenating. I have been stressed all day! Give me sweet things!) I also entertain weird Sirius plotbunnies inspired by Dylan (as usual), including why the chorus of 'Like A Rolling Stone' is so incredibly Sirius ('how does it feel / to be on your own / no direction home / like a complete unknown / like a rolling stone?'), and even weirder Mrs. Black plotbunnies which I never actually write down, because I am never that smart. Thursday night, we sleep on our mattresses on the Rectory floor, after a dinner of pizza (one ham, with sesame seed crust, one pepperoni, with cheese crust).

Friday: I sleep late. I also wear my orange jumper delightedly for much of the morning, but the weather decides to become warm again and I am forced to wear something else. Mum, siblings, and I go back to the other house to clean while Dad is at work. I listen to lots of The Seeger Sessions and dance with my broom. I go exploring in the morning while Mum is at a doctor's appointment. On my bicycle. Parents, if they were present, would stare in wonder and possibly take my temperature. Find nothing much of interest, but the neighbourhood is lovely. I remember very little about the end of the day.

Saturday: Unpacking! Mum and Dad go off to clean for several hours; I ride my bicycle in the rain. We have church in the evening; everything feels weirdly out of place. After church--FOOD SHOPPING. This merits capitals, as the days before we had been scrounging about for bits of things and, er, getting things from McDonalds. Our local NPR station plays very splendid music on the Folk Show most of the day, including a nice Joan Baez piece and several Bob Dylan songs, including what I now realise is the very first Dylan I ever heard: a version of "This Old Man" which we had on a cassette entitled For the Children; it had traditional songs done by a lot of well-known musicians, most of whom I can't remember, but I think I'd be rather surprised if I found it again and realised who I was listening to at the age of four.

Sunday: Er. What happened on Sunday? Mainly, I remember unpacking, and reading Inkheart, and being very in love with the house. And listening to NPR. Scads and scads of NPR.

Monday: Labour Day (which has communist roots! - Dad and I joke about this several times over the course of the day). We unpack more. I re-read Inkspell frenetically and am delighted to discover that Cornelia Funke quotes Wallace Stevens several times. Wallace Stevens = love. I also attempt to make oatmeal shortbread cookies and eat about a fifth of the dough before they ever get into the oven (much too good!). Dad makes calzones. We watch The Great Escape and I have to jump up every ten minutes to check on my baking cookies, which turn out excellently. The high point of the day is the tiny bat Timmy shows us clinging upside-down to a tree not far from the house. It is adorable; furry and brown with wings like thin rubber, one flung out and the other tucked beneath its body.

Tuesday: Cookies are gone by the afternoon. I begin to be restless, as I am reading all of my books and the internet is not set up. We also start school, and I begin reading Beowulf (again). Er, that is, we start bits of school. I look over some of my Creative Writing assignments, and some are absolutely terrifying and some sound like splendid larks: I get to write a historical short story at some point of the year! I also write two research papers. Witness me have a nervous breakdown.

Today: More Beowulf. I want the library desperately. I haven't been all summer, and this is beginning to wear on me. Profoundly. (I also couldn't properly celebrate my one-year Potter fandom anniversary, except by reading fic. I wanted to write fic, but I didn't. Of course. Bleh.)

Main computer does not seem to be starting up properly--when one switches it on, one gets the normal start-up and then it stops on the red and green and blue thingummy that says something about putting on lower power--the thingummy that always shows up right before the menu screen thingummy with everyone's desktops on it. I am trying not to panic. I am also using Dad's laptop on which everything is difficult to read, but at least we got a normal mouse on it for the time being, instead of that wretched laptop mouse. In any case, it needs to be looked at.

Ugh, I don't think that this entry does anything justice--too many facts and not much of what I feel about the facts. I was beginning to get so internet-deprived that I was talking blog entries out loud to myself, because, perhaps, writing about things is how I begin to understand them. I am sure I have left out important things that I will remember later. At the moment, my legs are both asleep and the kitty keeps trying to lie on them.