tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15409327541348866052024-02-07T22:27:13.317-08:00The World Is Very StrangeThe second incarnation of "The World Is Very Strange"Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-88830674419325626542015-07-13T13:07:00.000-07:002015-07-13T13:07:16.199-07:00On The Importance of WindowsIt occurs to me that I have not written since February.<br />
<br />
This has not been for any particular reason. It's difficult to do things, really anything, when living in an underground room with no windows. This is something that should seem obvious, but doesn't. You don't think about your lack of productivity in windowless spaces until you happen to occupy a windowless space.<br />
<br />
As it happens, I'm currently in a library.<br />
<br />
When I was a teenager, keeping this Blog up as a way to have a diary without having to admit to having a diary, I wrote a lot of my entries in libraries. I say "libraries" but it was really just one library. They were usually written during Honors Choir - a class that, for reasons I can't entirely remember, I tended to end up in the library for. I wrote, as you tend to in high school, with desperate fear that whoever was next to me would read what I was writing.<br />
<br />
The library at Exeter High School had many windows. At least, the second one did. The old high school library at the iteration of Exeter High School I attended my freshman year, was, in fact, located in a basement.<br />
<br />
It's funny how things work out, sometimes. Often.<br />
<br />
The library I currently occupy is the Uniondale Public Library. I had not heard of this library in high school. I had not heard of Uniondale in high school. Were I to, somehow, hold a conversation with myself in high school specifically on the trajectory of my life, it would go something like this:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">INT. EXETER HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY - DAY</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">NELLY and TEEN NELLY sit at a table in the back of the library. It's fourth period. Besides the two of them, it is deserted. The sun cascades in from the large, luxurious window. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Enjoy windows. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">TEEN NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">That's it? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Also, you're going to move to New York, change your major, dye your hair, meet two different incarnations of the Doctor, travel to South America, get tear gassed, win a screenwriting award, study religion, work for the Girl Scouts, and somehow end up narrating audiobooks.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">TEEN NELLY </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Right? Take advantage of windows. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">TEEN NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">OK. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Also, you're going to stop updating your Blog for long periods of time every once in a while. This is usually meaningful. Sometimes, it's not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">TEEN NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">That's vague. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">NELLY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Most things are. Windows aren't. Make sure you have windows. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And so on.<br />
<br />
It is entirely possible this would go on for several hours - my past self never fully grasping the importance of windows, even as I attempted to drill the concept into my own mind with maddening enthusiasm. Some things are not meant to be understood until they are experienced.<br />
<br />
I should also note that I graduated from college this past May, and have since been focused on the process of forcing my somewhat ill-fitting self into the guise of an adult. It's a bit like trying on pants.<br />
<br />
Eventually, just as in high school, I will pack up my things, and leave the library. I will end this Blog entry, and allow its contents to fade away, like a strange dream. My day will continue. I will be presented with problems I will wish I had addressed earlier - possibly, when I was younger. I will look at my life and wonder why it isn't somehow different.<br />
<br />
I will wish I was an adult.<br />
<br />
And of course, eventually - though there is no telling how long that eventually will extend - I will find a place with windows. I will look out at the sky and be reminded that there is a world out there, that life is inherently more complicated and more exciting than the walls of my room and my head. I will realize that this exact moment is not as absolute as it seems. And then, most likely, I will forget that.<br />
<br />
But I will have a window. And, as lost as I might feel, at least I will know what is around me. </div>
Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-48806792656007854052015-02-23T10:36:00.000-08:002015-02-23T10:36:44.785-08:00My Grandfather's PictureI have a picture of my grandfather on my desk.<br />
<br />
It's on the left.<br />
<br />
I've had a number of desks over the years. Desks are my base of operations. When I move, it's the first piece of furniture I think about, and the first thing I settle into. Even in Peru - during that period I moved just about every week - it was always nice to find a hostel with a desk. <br />
<br />
I've had this picture on my desk, every desk, since I've had desks.<br />
<br />
Or, at least, I think I have. I realized today, about ten minutes ago, that I don't actually remember how or when I received this picture.<br />
<br />
The picture of my little sister, across the desk on the right, is easy to date. I took it with me when I left for New York, five years ago. I was eighteen then, she was ten. She looks ten. Round glasses that are too large for her, a smile that is at once unsure but just a bit too young to be self-conscious, some sort of plaid shirt I know she doesn't own as a teenager, a <i>natural</i> hair color - and of course, no make up. Looking at it reminds me that I need to get a new picture. This one says nothing but "2009".<br />
<br />
Next to that is a picture of David Bowie with a large dog. It rests on my microphone, waiting to be tacked onto the wall. I got that in New Paltz. Where else?<br />
<br />
Returning to the left, I have a picture of myself and two of my friends posing at mini golf course in elementary school. It is not an old picture. In the grand scheme of my relatively short life, you could say it is. But, it isn't. My friends and I are probably around the same age my sister is in her picture. As old as the picture feels, thirteen years is not that long. Or, near thirteen years, rather.<br />
<br />
I remember the picture being taken. I remember three copies of it being framed. I remember all of this taking place, but not exactly <i>when</i>. It's in that strange, foggy period of "childhood" that after a while seems to blend together into a soup of experiences - the exact chronology of which is confusing, and mostly irrelevant.<br />
<br />
And then there's my grandfather.<br />
<br />
It is, technically, a picture of both my grandfather and grandmother - back when they were a unit of "Grammy and Poppa." They are sitting together on a red bench, with water as a backdrop. I have no idea where they are, or why they are there. It's most likely Maine, as the picture is dated "1985" but it could just as easily be New York.<br />
<br />
I was not alive in 1985, but I remember when they looked like this. I remember when my grandfather was alive and they lived together on Reg Rock Road in a cavernous house made for a large family with a large history. I remember it, but I know that my sister does not. I remember playing in the basement, and the attic, and at Poppa's thoroughly modern desk.<br />
<br />
And now, here I am, at my thoroughly modern desk. My macbook pro sits in the center beside my USB condenser mic. The drawers hold external hard drives and digital camera chargers. Knick knacks I pick up as I go litter the edges, and a clock appropriately looms above it all. <br />
<br />
In five years, how will this desk have changed? How antiquated will today's "thoroughly modern" be, and what pictures will go with it? <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-74993617651290181282014-11-17T07:38:00.003-08:002014-11-17T07:38:45.130-08:00It's Venezuela Out ThereI have this habit of writing when I'm anxious or overwhelmed.<br />
<br />
I used to do this a lot in high school. I'd flunk a test and come back the next day with a thirty page radio script. I am not an unintelligent person, but I'm often flustered by academics. The constant barrage of Things I Have To Do makes me nervous. Sometimes the only way I can feel like I have control over the things around me is to waste valuable time throwing all my energy into something that, ultimately, has nothing to do with anything.<br />
<br />
Case in point, the following:<br />
<br />
I was in the library with my friend, Jackie. The two of us met last year when I moved into the dorm room next to hers. I once woke her up at two in the morning to ask her to name a fake game show. At the time, she barely knew my name. Somehow, we became close.<br />
<br />
Anyway. We were there. She was working diligently on something computer science related that I am, in no way, qualified to describe. I had several thousand things due in a variety of subjects including Spanish, mysticism, and science fiction, and was steadfastly refusing to do any of them. I was bored. I tapped my pen restlessly on the desk. I fiddled with my hair. I tried to summon from deep within me the motivation to be productive. I pulled out a notebook.<br />
<br />
I sighed.<br />
<br />
"What should I write about?" I asked.<br />
<br />
Jackie looked up. She raised an eyebrow. I braced myself for a "don't you have work to do?" response. I should have known better. Jackie, being Jackie, did not question my intent. She thought for a moment, half her mind still clearly swimming in numbers, and eventually, delivered the following prompt:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A conflict between two female characters - JEAN-BOB and MRS. DARCY - containing the following things: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">1.) A used tampon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">2.) A slug.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3.) Prune juice with hibiscus. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4.) Venezuela </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">5.) King penguins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In addition, someone must say the following phrases: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">1.) "You resemble a beluga whale." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">2.) "Oh, whoa is me!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3.) "Why is that chair on the table?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4.) "That chair is sexy." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been told that, were I to peek into Jackie's mind at the exact moment of this discussion, all of these things would make complete sense in relation to each other. I have concluded that studying computer science does strange things to one's mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Regardless, by the end of the evening, I had, in fact, complete the prompt. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so, I give you, A Thing I Wrote While I Should Have Been Doing Other Things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB, 19, is working the register alone at an otherwise empty shop. She is preoccupied, staring into the distance in a way that suggest this is her default state of being. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The door opens. In walks MRS. DARCY, 50's, in a rush. She hands over her credit card immediately. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Caramel machiado. Large. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That chair is so sexy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm sorry? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That chair. The one over in the corner by the ironic, but stylish picture of a slug. In comparison to the slug, it's the most attractive thing in the room. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Why is it on the table? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The slug? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The chair. Why is the chair on the table? You're open, aren't you? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That depends on your definition of "open". </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Should I go somewhere else - </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If you define "open" as "We have a great abundance of prune juice with a vague hint of hibiscus" then no, we are not, in fact, open. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I see - </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But, if you define "open" as "We are currently operating and are thus ready to accept your order of a highly caffeinated, most likely unhealthy beverage" then yes, we are open. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What is your name? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Jean-Bob. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Jean-<i>Bob</i>? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Jean-Bob. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I see. Jean-Bob, if you would like to continue to be employed, I suggest you turn around and begin making a large caramel machiado, which, if you'll recall, is what I ordered when I came in. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You know, you resemble a beluga whale. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Excuse me? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Or, at least, you would, if you accepted the world around you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm troubled. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So am I. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm starting to think that reality, as we know it, is a dying construct. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Can it be a construct with coffee? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Have you ever considered it...Mrs. Darcy? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">How did you know my name? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's on your credit card. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But, have you ever considered it? Have you ever stopped and stared at the reality that we inhabit and imagined it crumbling to the ground that only may or may not exist? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If I say yes, will you get me my coffee? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We are human. Theoretically. We know that we are human only because we are not any other species on Earth, like beluga whales or king penguins, and human is simply the only option left. We, in particular, Mrs. Darcy, are women. Made of X chromosomes and used tampons. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I don't need this. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But I am troubled by the deep, ever present knowledge that at any moment, these facts might cease to be facts, and we may find ourselves adrift in a desert of nonsense and chaos. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, woe is you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, woe <i>is</i> me! Oh, woe are us. We. You and I, and this cafe that is not a cafe. Woe to those who are secure with what they believe to be their permanent location in space! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm leaving. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But where are you leaving from? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Here. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But what is "here"?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I don't care. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That's good! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm going to Starbucks. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The door opens. She exits. A moment passes. The door opens again, and Mrs. Darcy re-enters. Jean-Bob just smiles. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Um. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hello, again. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's Venezuela out there. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Indeed, it is. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But, we're in New York. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We're not anymore. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But...will we go back? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Maybe. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have to go to work. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You don't <i>have</i> to do anything. There is no permanent reality. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Right. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Caramel machiado? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Uh, yes. Large. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Coming right up. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thank you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She sits down at the counter. She glances around. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You know something? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MRS. DARCY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That chair <i>is</i> sexy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">JEAN-BOB</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I know, right? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Jean-Bob gives her a coffee. They smile, content, and glance out the window at the Venezuelan street outside. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THE END</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So, were those two hours productive? Not really. Were they fun? Yes. Does that make it worth it? I don't know. But, here it is. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I think I might go grab some coffee. </div>
Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-80777583264190378952014-09-19T09:28:00.003-07:002014-09-19T09:28:46.933-07:00An Open Letter to the UniverseDear Universe,<br />
<br />
I generally assume we're on pretty good terms. I am a born and raised Unitarian Universalist, after all, <i>universe</i> is in the name. Sometimes I stare, wild eyed, into the void and wonder what it is that you require of us, but for the most part, I tend to just take things as you throw them.<br />
<br />
Recently, you've thrown quite a lot at me. Moving, classes, running a club, working for the girl scouts, bed bugs, infections, an inability to find a job that pays more than $100 a week, constantly washing and re-washing every article of clothing I have while wrapping everything else up in insect-proof plastic...but, you know all this. You gave me all of this. And I'm sure that, somewhere down the line, I will learn a tremendously valuable life lesson from all of it. I'm not here to ask you to change your MO. I would just like to ask for a simple <i>amendment</i>, to whatever cosmic plan you may have in place for me.<br />
<br />
Have you ever listened to Janelle Monae? Her talent as a musician is such that I am skeptical that she originates from this universe to begin with. So, I thought I'd ask. If you, in fact, have not, take a look.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lqmORiHNtN4" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
Did you see that? <i>That</i> is a life changing experience in three minutes and forty-four seconds. That is the face of the woman currently occupying a significant chunk of my ipod; the song I have sung so many times in the shower that I'm surprised even the bedbugs are willing to live with me. This is a performer who wrote an album so good that I once spent three days trying to download it from a mountain in Peru. Her lack of a grammy nomination makes me physically angry.<br />
<br />
What I'm saying is, her music is important to my life.<br />
<br />
And you know that, as the universe.<br />
<br />
And yet, for reasons I'm fairly certain I'm not supposed to be able to fathom, you have yet to give me the opportunity to see her live.<br />
<br />
Now, I understand that you are an ever changing force. I currently inhabit a world where pictures and videos are often more important than the experience itself. I get that. And, I understand that you have provided me with a wealth of such things to keep me going through the good times, the bad times, and those times I hear that she's going to be in New York when I'm with my family/in another country/at a wedding/showing turtle skulls to girl scouts. You know I'm grateful for this.<br />
<br />
But, I suppose I'm somewhat old fashioned. I am rarely of the opinion that the "good old days" were actually as good as people say they were, but I do find myself with a distinct attachment to live performance. I like the thrill of standing in front of a stage, the feel of over-amplified music aggressively chipping away at my sense of hearing - I'm even a fan of that strange, awkward moment when you accidentally lock eyes with a random stranger beside you and you realize that he has no idea what's going on. You can't get these things from YouTube. Not without expensive sound equipment. And kidnapping. Probably.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow, sometime after two, Janelle Monae will be performing at my school. This is the one time I have ever had any real interest in a visiting musical guest. It is my senior year. There are many, many reason why I should be in attendance. But, of course, I understand. I understand that, especially recently, you've had a lot for me to do. I understand that there is purpose in seemingly random things. I understand that I am supposed to be learning.<br />
<br />
But given that you <i>have</i> been interacting with me quite a bit recently, and I have, in fact, been doing the best I can to carry out the things that I am supposed to carry out, I would like to - with great courtesy and respect, of course - ask for Saturday evening to myself.<br />
<br />
You can have the morning. You already have the morning. But once the exterminator leaves, and I'm finished with the three hours of Spanish homework, and I've washed everything own for the third time in a week, is it at all possible that you could just <i>give</i> me those last few hours? Just those. Just while Janelle Monae is onstage. I don't need the rest of the concert.<br />
<br />
Thank you, Universe, for taking the time to read through this. Should you need me, I have a feeling you know where I live. I have not enclosed a resume since, again, I'm fairly certain you know all that, and most of it isn't really relevant.<br />
<br />
I hope to hear from you soon.<br />
<br />
Nelly Nickerson<br />
<br />
<br />Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-12612783687499207782014-09-12T09:27:00.001-07:002014-09-12T09:27:07.269-07:00Time Is Kind of An Illusion, Sometimes. I may or may not have become unstuck in time.<br />
<br />
Granted, I live in an apartment where, if not for the use of clocks, it is impossible to tell whether it is night, day, or anything in between. Clocks are, of course, imperfect - with the very distinct exception of that atomic clock my grandfather once showed my mother that one time when she was five and having a brief crisis over the existence of measurable time. Sometimes, it seems, PM can be accidentally switched with AM, and you find yourself awake several minutes after your class started, but with the space around you looking, for all the world, like it was the middle of the night.<br />
<br />
Admittedly, this environment does make it easier to deal with the ensuing panic.<br />
<br />
I threw on some clothes. Once outside, confronted with the somewhat later than midday sun, it became apparent that I was <i>late</i>. I had not, in fact, been dreaming when my alarm failed to go off and I wandered my bedroom in a haze looking for socks. The real world is alarmingly real when you can feel its breeze and see its clouds and hear its too-fast New York cars in the distance.<br />
<br />
The walk to class is a short one. It's about the length of "Way Down Hadestown". Sometimes, if I'm walking towards that <i>other</i> part of campus where the language and science classes are, I can get through "Hey, Little Songbird". On days when I'm distracted and I've been known to stop and contemplate the colors of a leaf, or an abandoned piece of paper on the ground, I get all the way to "When The Chips Are Down".<br />
<br />
These are from <i>Hadestown</i>, by the way. It's a concept album by Anais Mitchell, and you should definitely look it up.<br />
<br />
Anyway.<br />
<br />
I climbed the steps of Breslin Hall, frantic and sweaty, still trying to shake the dreamlike feeling from my surroundings. At this point, I had only been to this class once. I knew where to go purely from muscle memory, as it was in the same room as the Nerd Club I had been attending for four years. Consciously, there was a good chance I was completely unaware of what I was doing or where I was going. I opened the door. I was expecting a classroom of people. I expected to find myself on the wrong side of a room full of eyes - interrupted, and perplexed.<br />
<br />
Instead, the room was empty.<br />
<br />
I closed the door. I took a step back. I took a deep breath, shook my head, and opened it again.<br />
<br />
Still empty. Still strange.<br />
<br />
There are several steps that must be taken when arriving at an empty classroom that should not be empty.<br />
<br />
<b>1. CHECK THE WHITEBOARD</b><br />
<br />
Or, alternatively, the blackboard. Often, an empty classroom just means that class is being held outside. In this case, the board revealed only the details of a class on marketing. Or economics. Or, possibly, existential terror. I've never been very good at business.<br />
<br />
<b>2. CHECK THE DOOR</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
There is a good chance you have missed a sign on the door saying that class has been cancelled or moved. These signs are usually small, half-unintelligible, and complicated. The only thing on the door of 211 Breslin was a spider - small, white, and quick moving.<br />
<br />
<b>3. CHECK YOUR E-MAIL</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This is when it get truly complex. Both the general step, and in the context of my story.<br />
<br />
Professors like to e-mail you during those moments you are least likely to check your e-mail. It's different for everyone. If you check your e-mail before bed, they will write in the morning. If you check your e-mail right before class, they will have e-mailed you last night, and the message will be lost. All of these e-mails will be to the school address you never use. They will then complain that students never check their e-mail.<br />
<br />
If you have a smart phone, this step may or may not be easier. If you have an old, fairly temperamental smart phone, this step will only be slightly easier. In my case, I spent a good twenty minutes standing awkwardly in the wide, cavernous hallway of Breslin, desperately trying to convince my four-year-old iPhone 4 that it would be a good idea to log into my portal. It was only after this task was completed that I noticed a poster on the wall announcing that the Hofstra smartphone app had finally been rebooted and updated.<br />
<br />
The poster was literally at eye level. An impressive feat, considering I'm only just under six feet tall.<br />
<br />
My inbox contained three new e-mails. Out of the three, only one of them said "I am sick, and therefore will not be able to teach class today." It was from my Eastern Philosophy professor.<br />
<br />
The Eastern Philosophy professor I had three years ago.<br />
<br />
I opened the e-mail.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, it explained, apologetically, that my professor would not be in class today, and that we would continue our discussion of Taoism on Tuesday. I remember this discussion on Taoism. I remember jumping back and forth between note taking and a film pitch about trailer parks and Freddie Mercury. I remember it being moved from a Thursday to a Tuesday. I remember being a sophomore with cherry red hair and pants that were too big for me.<br />
<br />
I checked the date. It had been sent today.<br />
<br />
I looked around me. The hallway was empty. Faintly, I could hear other professors giving lectures on things I couldn't make out. I heard the sound of an elevator. I heard someone order coffee from the coffee stand downstairs. There was nothing strange about this space. There was everything strange about this space.<br />
<br />
I sighed. I put in my earbuds, and returned to <i>Hadestown</i>. I walked back to my timeless apartment. I tried to watch <i>The Daily Show</i>, but the only full episode that would load was one from a week ago. I contemplated the past. I ate breakfast at two in the afternoon. I wished, not for the first time, that my grandfather was still alive to take me to his atomic clock, and reassure me that time was, in fact, real.<br />
<br />
The next time I left my apartment, it was dark. I hadn't noticed it change. I sighed again, itched a bed bug bite, and went to class. <br />
<br />
<br />Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-52328342795199406142014-09-01T18:15:00.000-07:002014-09-01T18:15:02.561-07:00Bedbugs or Vampires? Is There Really a Difference? There are a number of similarities that can be made between bedbugs and vampires.<br />
<br />
The obvious one is, of course, the fact that they are both active only at night. As the sun sets and you slip into a deep, dreamless sleep, a vampire emerges from the shadows and stands silently at your helpless, unconscious form. You cannot see the vampire. Even if you were awake, the vampire would not want you to. Similarly, and simultaneously, a bed bug emerges from the dark folds of your used mattress. It ponders your skin. It creeps soundlessly around you, until it stops.<br />
<br />
Both the bedbug and the vampire see you as their prey. Their perception is accurate.<br />
<br />
In the case of both creatures, the lore that is associated with them is often difficult and contradictory. Can a vampire be killed with a wooden stake, or do you have to set it on fire? Can you use a bug bomb to save yourself, or do you have to call a professional fumigator? Is it possible to sleep with your mattress encased in plastic while you wear a chain of garlic around your neck - and will either of these things actually protect you?<br />
<br />
The short answer is that there is no answer. The only answer is possibly. Rituals, in their many and complex variations, are never guaranteed to be successful. This is as true in black magic as it is in insect extermination.<br />
<br />
Returning to your bed, both the bedbug and the vampire are feeding. Blood is, of course, life. Your life. And at present, it is being drained from your body to feed the life of another.<br />
<br />
Routine is important. The vampire drinks from the same place on your body it always has. It will return to this place - your neck - over, and over, and over again, never straying from this fixed place. It is both practical and a compulsion. Vampires are, by nature, compulsive beings. They have a long, ancient history with obsession - obsession with numbers, with counting, with practice.<br />
<br />
Bedbugs are similar. In the morning you will wake up covered in red marks. You will notice that these marks tend to cluster. There is never only one. Once the bedbugs have learned how your blood travels through your body, they will find a place and feed again, and again, and again. The marks they leave will pile onto you, change you - the layers of enflamed sores distorting the familiar topography of your skin.<br />
<br />
What happens next varies in both cases. The sun will rise. The bedbugs and the vampire will retreat into the shadows, quenched. You will wake up and somehow things will be different. You may itch in places you did not itch before. You may be lightheaded, pale, with a thirst for something you can't entirely put into words. You may not even be human. Or, at the very least, you may not feel like you are.<br />
<br />
I should mention that I have it under relatively good authority that my apartment is, in fact, infested with bedbugs and <i>not</i> vampires. But you can never really be sure, can you? Tomorrow I could begin the last year of my undergraduate education as an entirely different being. Either way, I will certainly be an itchier one.Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-76106376400685959272014-08-01T11:56:00.004-07:002014-08-01T11:56:55.792-07:00Trails Without EndThe other day I walked twelve straight miles without stopping, and didn't realize it. I began at the edge of a dark, seemingly endless trail - the entrance of which can only be found by those who accidentally stumble upon it while wandering "Historic Huguenot Street" in a fit of profound unemployment. I had heard legends, myths even, about the so-called "Rail Trail" that extended from Gardiner to "just South of Kingston". With my starting location of New Paltz, I assumed I would, eventually, find the end.<br />
<br />
I did not.<br />
<br />
I walked for six hours. In the beginning, I passed joggers and bike riders. Locals walked their dogs. Children sat bored in strollers as their mothers power walked. People cut across to get to the strangely Lynchian pizza place down by the Salvation Army. No one seemed to think it was odd. No one seemed distressed or disturbed. I was reminded of walking through Swazey Parkway in my hometown of Exeter, New Hampshire. As I became more comfortable, lulled into a sense of familiar small town security, I resolved to walk the whole trail. It was well maintained, and clearly frequently used. The sun wouldn't set until 8:30, so I assumed I had plenty of time.<br />
<br />
Then I looked down. Not at my watch, of course. Who wears watches these days? I looked down at my phone which was, at this point, busy trying to keep Spotify running in the middle of the woods, and it was then that I realized, I had been walking for two hours.<br />
<br />
Now, that doesn't seem like too dramatic a realization. But, to keep the tension up, I will here add that I had not eaten anything, and had only packed one small, store bought water bottle.<br />
<br />
I looked the trail up and down. Behind me, I could no longer see where I had begun. Before me, there seemed to be no end in sight. Around me, there was a suspicious lack of people or animals.<br />
<br />
But, as has been made abundantly clear to me over the course of this summer, I am a girl scout. I do not get intimidated by the idea of an endless trail, nor do I, apparently, feel physical exertion while hiking one. The trail had been laid out online, so it obviously had an end. I took a deep breath - taking care to remind myself how lucky I was to have oxygen in this air - and strode onward.<br />
<br />
It should be noted that it is not uncommon for me to go for a walk in the woods and end up gone longer than anticipated. In New Hampshire, I had a habit of wandering off into the woods, getting lost, and having to call someone to pick me up by the side of some highway far away from where I had started. But the thing about trails in New Hampshire is that they have endings. If you walk too far in any direction, you'll end up in another state, which will inevitably bring you to some semblance of civilization. This is one of the side effects of being from a small state. You may feel trapped, and claustrophobic, but at least you know where you are.<br />
<br />
New York, as I am constantly discovering, is a different beast. Aside from a few driving habits, I have basically acclimatized to metropolitan New York. I understand the mentality of Long Island. I can generally figure out how to get places in the city without having to check a subway map. I know who to ask about what and what to never mention to others. In a way, my Long Island/New York City experience has been somewhat similar to my New Hampshire upbringing, in that I always know where I am. Walk too far on the island, and you'll hit a beach. Walk too far in the city, and you'll hit the suburbs. It's easy.<br />
<br />
But upstate, even somewhere only ninety minutes North, like New Paltz, is not the city. It is beautiful, like New Hampshire, but unpredictable, like New York. Walk too far in any direction and you...will still be walking. Forever.<br />
<br />
As I kept hiking, the trail seemed to extend. I walked across bridges, through bogs, past rivers, through horse farms, past secluded houses, and empty baseball fields. There were moments when the trail seemed to be raised, at the top of an incline, only to suddenly be below the ground beside it. There were pieces of it that seemed to go straight through people's private properties, and then I would walk for an hour never passing a single building.<br />
<br />
It was somewhere around hour five when I started to realize that I no longer had the physical stamina to keep going. Well, that's not true. I could have kept going. I wanted to keep going. But my stomach was clawing at me to feed it and my throat was beginning to feel like Spongebob in that episode where he dries out in Sandy's house. I wanted to keel over, or at the very least, sit down, but there was nowhere to do so. I passed a sign that, I assumed, would signal the end of the trail, but instead simply told me that from that point onward, the trail hadn't been properly "maintained" as if the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail Association had, themselves, simply given up trying to understand the length and whims of the trail.<br />
<br />
Bizarrely, turning around and walking to a part of the trail I recognized as being close to my house seemed to only take me about an hour. This is most likely due to my actually paying attention to the passage of time, and to my house being slightly closer than my original chosen trail entrance...but it was still strange. I wasn't walking faster, if anything, I was moving slower due to the increased presence of hunger and thirst.<br />
<br />
For a road that goes straight for miles and miles, it is surprisingly maze-like.<br />
<br />
Upon finally arriving home, eating something, and mindlessly staring at the television for a bit, I did a bit of research. The Rail Trail, as the name suggests, used to be a railroad that ferried produce from Ulster County into New York City. By 1977, the barely used railroad closed, and naturally, lay abandoned until 1985, when the various towns it ran through started buying it up. It didn't open as a recreation trail until 1991, when the town and village of New Paltz (which are, apparently, two different things. Who knew?) managed to purchase about 12 miles of it. The website claims that the trail today is "24 miles of Linear Park from Gardiner to just south of Kingston" and much discussion is had about Gardiner and the south side of the trail, but of the north side - the side I eventually discovered was the side I hiked - not much is spoken of.<br />
<br />
Railroads, and by extension, their remains, are man made creations. In the late 19th century we decided we needed a rail road, so we built one. In 1985 we decided we needed a hiking trail instead, and so we changed it and built that. Now we're left with a road that seems to lack purpose - eternally going <i>somewhere</i>, but never quite seeming to begin or end. There is a sense, when walking down the trail for hours at a time, without a local's sense of location, that the trail exists independently of us. What would that space have been had someone not decided to build a railroad? Who knows? But, for some reason, I can't help but feel that people would still walk up and down it, blazed or not, trying to find the end of something, and inevitably fail to do so. Something about the path wants you to keep walking forward, to lose track of time, to think you understand it only so that it can prove that you do not.<br />
<br />
It's been a strange summer. But, all things considered, it's been a pretty great one. At the very least, my leg muscles seem to have developed super-human strength. Any previous summer, I would have decidedly noticed that I had walked twelve straight miles without stopping before reading about it hours later on the internet. <br />
<br />
<br />Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-8283650210031979752014-07-09T09:39:00.002-07:002014-08-01T12:02:32.953-07:00Having the Week Off Leads to Ridiculous QuestionsThe other day I posted this video on my YouTube page:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7fC2RLZjlpU?list=PL01CCFA707AE2769C" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
Yeah.<br />
<br />
My friend Casey and I have an incredibly old inside joke that I somehow felt was relevant to the fact that I had missed her birthday. That was, literally, the only motivation behind this.<br />
<br />
And yet, a day later, I received the following comment:<br />
<br />
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.030000686645508px;">I expect a Sailor Moon Crystal review from you now that you're back on Youtube. :) Okay. Goodbye." </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.030000686645508px;"><br /></span>
<i>Sailor Moon Crystal</i> is, for those unaware, a shiny new anime based entirely on the original <i>Sailor Moon </i>manga. It's basically the <i>Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood</i> of Sailor Moon - but with significantly more sparkles.<br />
<br />
I can only assume the comment in question is referencing the previous Sailor Moon videos I made, back when I thought I might like to go into ThatGuyWithTheGlasses-style video reviewing. In those videos, I clumsily made my way through two episodes of the English dub that I had fond memories of watching over and over and over again as a kid. The editing was terrible, the audio was beyond poor, and I mocked my way through them so much that people apparently wondered if I was Sailor Moon fan at all.<br />
<br />
For every comment like:<br />
<br />
"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.030000686645508px;">I'm DYING right now!!!!!! This is TOO much!!!! I absolutely LOVE your videos!!!"</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I got another one like:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.030000686645508px;">i don't want to be mean but pelase hang yourself !"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.030000686645508px;"><br /></span>
Which, honestly, kind of just seems like the circle of life as far as YouTube is concerned.<br />
<br />
I was pretty sure the world had forgotten about these videos, and for the most part, I was right. I'm still getting comments asking for new videos, despite having not updated beyond the above video in about three years. With this video, I've even gotten a few private messages (which are, apparently, still a thing.)<br />
<br />
So, I guess, I'm left wondering...should I?<br />
<br />
Dabbling in YouTube is a bit like dabbling in <i>Salem</i> style witchcraft. It could work out really well for you, but it could also come back to painfully bite you wherever you'd find it the most painful.
Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-30688648172453928412014-06-09T09:46:00.001-07:002014-06-09T09:46:26.397-07:00Things Have Been HappeningSo, you know how I mentioned I was writing a screenplay?<br />
<br />
Well, I finished it! 120-something pages, and I can now say I've written a feature film. Not one that's been filmed, mind you. Just scripted.<br />
<br />
But yeah! Suck it, fifteen-year-old me sitting around writing <i>Doctor Who</i> scripts while thinking I wanted to be an actor. Tough luck, you're a screenwriter!<br />
<br />
...or, uh, an aspiring one. At least.<br />
<br />
But, as if finishing the thing wasn't exciting enough, a few days later it won Best Feature Screenplay at the Hofstra University Film Festival! AHHHHHHHH!!!<br />
<br />
I was very excited. Words can't really describe how excited I actually was - it can only truly be expressed by leaping up and down screaming. I would demonstrate, but I have new roommates I'm rather determined to have a good impression on. Considering how early on in the relationship I had to text one of them to let me in after locking myself out, I really do need all the decent impressions I can get.<br />
<br />
But, yes. In the space of about a day I went from some chick with a thing for <i>Legends of the Hidden Temple </i>to an award winning amateur screenwriter. And then, several days later, I went from award winning amateur screenwriter to my cousin's bridesmaid.<br />
<br />
It was a particularly transformative couple of weeks.<br />
<br />
After spending five days and four nights in Cleveland - wearing a lot of wisteria, having my hair cemented into being unrecognizable, drinking, wearing heels, riding in a limo, having my name announced to the Doctor Who theme - I then immediately moved to New Paltz, NY to start my job as a Theater Program Specialist at a fairly local girl scout camp.<br />
<br />
New Paltz is a bit like Twin Peaks, if Twin Peaks was on the East coast and crossed with Portland, Oregan. On my first night, I sat in a local bar and chatted with a group of people who had been here their whole lives, and the consensus was that New Paltz is "different" from other towns in New York. Indeed, the people are laid back and friendly, the food is relatively inexpensive and almost always good, there are three used book stores within a street of each other, and the coffee is wonderful. The population is divided between young, usually white, college-age hipsters, and older, grizzled locals in some variation of plaid. The hipsters live in coffee shops and vinyl record stores while the locals haunt dive bars and creaky, wooden churches.<br />
<br />
Being a clear outsider, but not a SUNY New Paltz student, I'm somewhat of an anomaly - a designation that extends outside the village to my job at camp. In general, a conversation about my place of origin will go somewhat like this:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SOME SORT OF WOODSY STRUCTURE - NIGHT</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">An OLDER PERSON smoking a cigarette in a quiet, dark corner stares at me with a raised eyebrow. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OLDER PERSON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You're from <i>where</i>? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">New Hampshire. But, I've been living on Long Island for a few years. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The older person takes a drag, nods. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OLDER PERSON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ok. Where on Long Island?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, right now, I'm actually living in New Paltz.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OLDER PERSON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ok. Let me see if I can get this. You grew up in New Hampshire, but you lived on Long Island for how long? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Around five years, but for half of one of those I was living in South America. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OLDER PERSON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yeah. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OLDER PERSON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But, now you're in New Paltz? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yes. Just for the summer. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The older person sighs, takes yet another drag, shakes their head. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OLDER PERSON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm too old for this. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, yeah. No one's entirely sure how to react to me. Do they treat me like someone from the quiet, idyllic trees of New Hampshire? As a New Yorker? As a traveler? Without a distinct category, everyone seems to have just settled on "not from here" which, as a native New Englander, I can appreciate. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, with a feature film script under my belt, and a girl scout pocket knife in my bag, I have arrived in a fairly </span>familiar<span style="font-family: inherit;">, but utterly alien new world. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-77252951027154319902014-04-27T15:16:00.003-07:002014-04-27T15:17:35.141-07:00Salem: The Television Event of 3 AMIt was late. And by that, I mean, it was early. Very early. So early that the only people still awake were drunk, having sex, or watching Netflix. I was doing none of these things.<br />
<br />
I was watching Hulu.<br />
<br />
No one things straight at two in the morning when you're running on about five hours of sleep from the previous night and you're trapped in a small glass booth. You tend to make poor decisions like buying one dollar black magic books on Amazon, or giving more than a minute's thought to the fate of Shia Lebeouf. This particular evening I found myself in that strange part of Hulu between the 60's horror anthologies and the high budget shows about scruffy white dudes doing things. In my quest for something mindless to watch I came upon a show called <i>Salem</i>.<br />
<br />
The description read as follows:<br />
<br />
<i>"As the wife of a wealthy but ailing town elder, Mary Sibley holds the distinction of being the most powerful sorceress in 1692 Salem. Ruthless, yet vulnerable, Mary leans on her ageless accomplish Tituba to help advance her supernatural agenda - but Mary's world is turned upside down when John Alden, her long lost love, finally returns home from years at war and starts asking questions that threaten to expose Mary's darkest secrets." </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Naturally, with a paragraph as deeply rooting in historical fact and analysis as this, I had to watch it.<br />
<br />
It's produced by WGN America, and is, as far as I can tell, the only original program WGN America currently airs. It's plastered all over the channel's website, complete with a three-minute behind the scenes documentary that dares to ask the question "Was Salem Real?"<br />
<br />
My immediate answer is yes. I've been there. I bought an iced coffee at the Dunkin Donuts. It had too much sugar.<br />
<br />
But WGN America's answer is that "the story is fantasy, but the magic is real." What does that mean? Your guess is as good as mine. Currently, the pilot's the only thing up.<br />
<br />
This is what I retained.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SALEM CENTRAL SQUARE PLACE - NIGHT</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">People are gathered around a large stage in the middle of the night. There's two people in stocks, and a very angry old Puritan guy with a whip and some hot irons. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ANGRY OLD PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There's sin all over the place, and these two are all up in it! I'm going to brand it into their face because that's kind of what they did in the Scarlett Letter, right? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The people in the crowd make vague loud noises that vary from enthusiastic cheering to gossipy whispers. The camera lingers on some CHICK IN BLACK, who isn't expressing an emotion beyond "I'm sexy, but I'm PURITAN sexy." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Suddenly, a random SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE shoves his way through the crowd. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Unrelated Bible Verse! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ANGRY OLD PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Very wise. I smile at you, but in fact, I don't give a shit. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But this is so cruel! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ANGRY OLD PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So? We're Puritans! Burn them with hot pokers! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He brands the two people in the stocks, and for some reason, despite having probably seen this kind of thing before and cheering for it moments earlier, the rest of the Puritans choose this particular moment to be all "Oh god, how cruel!" </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. RANDOM PURITAN BUILDING - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The aforementioned Chick in Black runs off toward some white building. It can be assumed that this is MARY SIBLEY because she is showing the appropriate level of hair and cleavage to be the female lead. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm going to war. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm thinking of signing a contract with the devil.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Never mind. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SALEM CENTRAL SQUARE PLACE - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mary is walking with TITUBA, the only black person in Salem. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ANGRY OLD PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Good day. Would you be interested in a confusing double entendre that hints at my knowledge of your sexual indiscretion? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not particularly. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ANGRY OLD PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, here's one anyway. Puritan burn. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Don't worry. We'll get him later. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ANGRY OLD PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm sorry? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nothing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. DARK WOODS - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Tituba leads Mary through a dark, foreboding, and frantically edited forest. Occasionally, there are demons and flashbacks to sex happening. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm suddenly not sure if I want to do this! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Do you want to have a baby out of wedlock?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not really. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Then lie back and give yourself to the devil. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She lies down, and Tituba starts spreading oil all over her. We get seemingly random flashes of demons and of the Scruffy White DUDE, who is now heavily implied to be the father of the baby. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mary starts screaming. Black goo stuff starts spreading all over her now mostly naked body. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Let it inside you!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO PROTECT ABORTION RIGHTS!!!!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Some confusing, poorly edited stuff happens. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">FADE TO BLACK</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TEXT: SEVEN YEARS LATER</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SALEM CENTRAL SQUARE PLACE - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Scruffy White Dude, now looking significantly more scruffy, wanders slightly dazed into town. He looks up at a tree - there are three bodies hung there. He shakes his head. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He wanders through town and we see a bunch of random people wandering around yelling about damnation and hell - basically, just your average day in a Puritan settlement. Eventually he comes across a house that, presumably, was once his. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE'S HOUSE - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He wanders around the house with the same boring quality he had outside. It's sad, things are covered in sheets. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Suddenly, a guy with a gun shows up. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Scruffy White Dude! You're back from the war! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I am! I thought I'd angst about it for a while. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Would you like some exposition? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Most certainly. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Old Angry Puritan has been replaced by the possibly psychotic Cotton Mathers, everyone's extra scared of witches, and your ex-girlfriend married a sick, old, rich guy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This all makes me generically unhappy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I thought it would. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mary Sibley is doing some evil needlepointing in her elaborate living room. Her husband, a practically comatose guy in a wheelchair, sits by her doing nothing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: center;">A guy who kind of looks like RORY from Doctor Who comes in. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: center;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOT-RORY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mrs. Sibley, here are some packages. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ah, thank you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOT-RORY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Also, your ex-boyfriend from the woods is back. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SIBLEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh good. I think I'll not react at all. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOT-RORY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Very good, Mrs. Sibley. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SOMEBODY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS, a guy who looks unnervingly like an insane, bearded Ben from Parks and Rec, is being led through some random guy's house to the bedroom of the guy's daughter. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">RANDOM GUY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She's flailing around like in the Exorcist! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(gleefully)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, yes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We're taken upstairs, where a teenage girl with lots of scars is, as mentioned, flailing around like in the Exorcist. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">WHO ARE THE WITCHES?!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">POSSESSED GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">FL:KKGFJ:SOIGHGHGOISP"IJGDSLJGHGHOISGDOIHS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is clearly a spectral attack. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. MEETING HOUSE - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's a typical Puritan church service. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We are sinners and there is sin and it's giving us a witch problem so we should KILL EVERYONE. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As the generic male protagonist, I loudly disagree with you despite having been raised Puritan. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Because you're the protagonist, and you just got back from the war, I'm not going to hang you for blasphemy. Church is dismissed!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Everyone gets up and shuffles for the back. Scruffy White Dude and Mary catch sight of each other and their sexual tension. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You've become quite enigmatically evil since I left. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You should come to my house for dinner. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THat sounds like a great idea. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mary is standing enigmatically on her balcony. She glares at something, then immediately strips off all her clothing and walks inside. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Her sick, old husband is sitting in his wheelchair. She does something vaguely magical, and a frog comes out of his mouth. She smiles, and lets it suckle from her leg. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's a good thing I took off all my clothes for this. How else would you know I'm evil? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S DINING ROOM - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The most posh of the Puritans are sitting around for dinner. Scruffy White Dude is unnerved because he's "not posh" and he's sitting across from Mary. Next to him is SOME REDHEAD GIRL, who is young, but uncharacteristically adventurous for a Puritan. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SOME REDHEAD GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I bet you saw all kinds of interesting stuff at war! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">French and Indians, mostly. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">RICH PURITAN LADY</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, those savages! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SOME REDHEAD GIRL</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They're not savages, Mother. You're so unenlightened. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hey, Scruffy White Dude, what are you thinking about? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Scruffy White Dude looks down at his pants and sees the Redhead fondling his junk. The Redhead then becomes Mary. It's weird. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Um, I'm gonna go. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Scruffy White Dude is engaging in some late night angsting.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I thought you were dead. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That's no excuse! We're Puritan! Women aren't allowed to have fun. You know that. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. RANDOM GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Cotton Mathers is still hanging out with the possessed chick. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">POSSESSED GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">:DSKLGJ:SOGIHGOIGF:SFG:LKJSDFG!!!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sexy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He creepily strokes her leg and has a decidedly not safe for work flashback about sleeping with a hooker...or something. End scene. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. PATH IN THE WOODS - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Scruffy White Dude has decided to leave. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm going to leave!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOT-RORY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Wait! You can't leave! I have to show you something! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Who are you?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOT-RORY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm the guy from the stocks in the cold open. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Tituba and Mary are hanging out in the bedroom, getting ready for the Sabbath. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You know, I'm starting to have second thoughts about this whole "witch" thing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is literally the only interesting thing a woman can do here. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Fair enough. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She lies down on the bed, much like she did in the woods, and Tituba again starts putting oil on her. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"Here's some stuff about the Devil</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He's totally on another level." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Word. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Suddenly, Mary's eyes open, and she can see some really creepy stuff happening in the woods. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. CREEPY WOODS - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Meanwhile, Not-Rory and Scruffy White Dude are watching all the crazy shit go down in the woods. This includes dove killing, people wandering around in live animal heads, black goo orgies, and fire. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOT-RORY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR ME! AHHHHHHH!!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">CREEPY ANIMAL HEAD GUY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There's totally people watching us. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They run away. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mary suddenly sits up. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The circle was broken! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What circle?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You know, the circle. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's always been more like a vague blob to me. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, whatever it is, it's broken. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Fuck. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Mary comes downstairs to find Giles Corey sitting in her living room. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I know what you did last summer. And I'm going to tell. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Why?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Scruffy White Guy has a right to know that your dead child was his! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Did he face social exile for this kid? No. Was it inside of him? No. I'm going to get you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SOMEBODY'S HOUSE - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Cotton Mathers is <i>still</i> hanging out with the possessed chick. She's even more messed up than usual. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">WHO ARE THE WITCHES?! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">POSSESSED GIRLS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SDFSLK:JSDGL:JGHGSOISGJL I CAN'T TELL YOU! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Then I hope you like leashes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SALEM TOWN SQUARE THING - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's normal day in the town square. All our central characters happen to be there. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Suddenly, Cotton Mathers shows up with the Possessed Girl on a leash. This is not a joke. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NOW! FIND THE WITCH! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What the fuck? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">POSSESSED GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SNARL SNARL HISS HISS DSF:LFLKJGD:OGSI</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Possessed Girl freaks her way over towards Mary, who gives her a look that clearly says, "This is not the witch you're looking for" The girl then heads for Giles Corey. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">HE IS THE WITCH! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Wouldn't I be a warlock? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">HE'S A WITCH! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. OUTDOOR JAIL CELL - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Giles Corey is locked up in a jail cell. Cotton Mathers is watching him, crazy like. Mary comes up behind him. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This sucks, I'm definitely not the witch. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I take it he's the witch. How disgusting.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Heee heee heeee. I think I'll stone him. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sounds good to me. I <i>hate </i>witches. If you know what I mean. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I don't. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. CEMETERY - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That random redhead chick from earlier in the episode is drawing in cemetery with Scruffy White Dude. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SOME REDHEAD GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They say that drawing and anything fun is idolatry. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'll show you <i>idolatry</i>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SOME REDHEAD GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">At that moment, Mary approaches the scene. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have to go. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He leaves. But Mary comes closer. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Interesting place to draw. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SOME REDHEAD GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have no fear of death! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Interesting. Have you ever considered the Devil?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SOME REDHEAD GIRL</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Apparently not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. SALEM TOWN SQUARE PLACE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Cotton Mathers drags Giles Corey through a screaming crowd of Puritans ready for a stoning. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is really ill-advised! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">COTTON MATHERS</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Um, it's God-advised, thank you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The stoning begins. It's really violent and bloody. Suddenly, Scruffy White Dude appears. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Giles! What are they doing to you?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GILES COREY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I believe they're stoning me. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SCRUFFY WHITE DUDE</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is a travesty! I'm going to give an enlightened, boring, protagonist speech about why this is wrong! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">From her balcony, which is now inexplicably next to the square, Mary rolls her eyes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I <i>hate</i> speeches. Also, I'm just now realizing my ex-lover might be kind of a problem. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She turns and walks inside. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. SICK OLD RICH GUY'S HOUSE - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She steps inside, and addresses Tituba. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That thing that happened in the woods last night can never happen again. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">TITUBA</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ok. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She turns, and a bunch of Puritans who I think we're supposed to recognize are standing around, presumably also working for the Devil. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's time to get shit done, understand? Only by doing vaguely evil things like driving a teenager crazy and convincing our minister to stone a guy can we make sure that Salem is FINALLY OURS! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">RANDOM DEVIL PURITAN</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Aren't we in Salem Village? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MARY SILBEY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NO. We're going to take over SALEM. Because that's what the Devil wants - complete control over a random English settlement with more trees than people. Now join me in an evil laugh! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They all laugh. Evilly. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. ABOVE SALEM - NIGHT</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The camera swoops above Salem towards the moon that seems to be perpetually full. On this image, we fade to black. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I may have left out a few key details. It <i>was </i>three in the morning. If this intrigued you, <i>Salem</i> can be watched on WGN America Sundays at 10 PM, and on Hulu + the day after it airs. I know I'll be keeping up. </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>
</div>
Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-57069964048947850202014-03-25T11:03:00.002-07:002014-03-25T11:03:59.111-07:00Does That Make You Larger Than Life? When you go through a significant weight loss, I've found there are, generally, around three distinct ways people react to it.<br />
<br />
1. The "You've clearly lost weight but I don't want to imply anything" method.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. PARTY OF SOME VARIETY - DAY</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A relative and/or friend who hasn't seen you in a while keeps staring at you from across the room. Eventually, you cross paths. You juggle your mimosa as he/she smiles in an oddly conflicted fashion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">RELATIVE AND/OR FRIEND</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You know, you look <i>great</i>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You look down at your outfit, now sporting a dark stain and smelling faintly of spilled mimosa. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YOU</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Um, thanks. So do you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You wait, thinking that, perhaps this conversation might continue. It does not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">RELATIVE AND/OR FRIEND</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You saw <i>Frozen</i>, right? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The general idea behind this seems to be that your friend and/or relative has noticed that you have lost weight. Maybe they've watched you struggle with it for a while, or maybe they simply haven't seen you in a year. Either way, they would really like to compliment you on your </span>appearance<span style="font-family: inherit;">, but are entirely unsure if making the compliment weight-related is appropriate. The expectation is that you will have the same logic as a girlfriend in a male-centric sitcom; they'll say "You've lost weight, congrats." and your response will inevitably be "What? Did you think I was fat before? Did you think I needed to lose weight? Did you forget our anniversary? I think we need to see other people." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
2. The "I think there's something different about you, but I can't quite figure out what" method. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. OFFICE - DAY</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Your professor who hasn't seen you since you were in a terrible place in your life looks you over. She smiles. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">PROFESSOR</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You look like you're doing well. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YOU</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thanks. I feel like it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">PROFESSOR</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yeah, you look...healthy?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YOU</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Um, thanks. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">PROFESSOR</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, did you see <i>Frozen? </i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This one's filled with nuance. With my weight loss, it wasn't so much a weight loss as a return to form. I'm naturally plus sized so, with some people, it's often hard for them to tell when my weigh fluctuates. People assume that losing weight takes you from fat to skinny with nowhere in between. With me, it's less "I was fat but now I'm skinny" and more "I'm a bit more balanced and comfortable." I had gained a lot of weight during a particularly bad stint with depression, and since getting that more under control, I've lost quite a bit of what I've gained. The result is that I seem different. I'm happier, a bit more confident, and wearing pants that fit me. Because a </span>surprising<span style="font-family: inherit;"> amount of weight loss is actually internal, when people pick up on it, they're sometimes not picking up on the size of your girth, but on the way you present yourself. As bizarre as the phenomenon is, it's admittedly pretty amusing to watch people stand around desperately looking for the right words to describe you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
3. The "throw caution to the wind" method. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">INT. FUNERAL HOME - AFTERNOON</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You've just arrived home after a six-month stay in another country. You immediately find yourself at a funeral, where your grandfather spots you. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GRANDFATHER</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Who are you?! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He laughs. Despite having heard the joke before, you laugh as well. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YOU</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hi, Grampy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GRANDFATHER</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I was wondering if I'd ever see you again. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He takes a moment to look you over. He seems proud. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GRANDFATHER</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Did you lose weight? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YOU</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As a matter of fact, I did. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GRANDFATHER</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You look good, kid. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YOU </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thanks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">GRANDFATHER</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Did you see that movie everyone's talking about? <i>Freeze </i>or something? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I like this option best, but it is, admittedly a risky one. Weight's a pretty tricky thing to discuss. It carries a lot of...well, weight. We're conditioned to think about it constantly - whether it's "Hooray! You're skinny" or "Damn, you're fat!" or "Whatever you are, you need to do something about it." The compliment of "Hey, have you lost weight?" instantly brings this to light. On TV it's seen as the thing you should always ask a women, whether she wants to lose weight or not. Because of this, it's lost some of it's legitimacy. It's a shallow thing to say, rather than a genuine one. It's left us constantly looking for the correct thing, and never really finding it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Personally, as a sufferer of thyroid disease, as someone who has struggled with </span>weight<span style="font-family: inherit;"> and self image through most of their life, I'd say compliment what seems to be on the forefront of the person's mind. It's not easy, you may have to become a psychic. But for a lot of people, I know that "It seems like you're doing a lot better than you were before" would mean a lot more than "Hey, you're a weight I can name, but still can only barely find pants for!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-23961707568959360032014-03-03T08:07:00.002-08:002014-03-25T15:15:27.845-07:00Baby, You Can Drive My CarDriving in New York is an experience.<br />
<br />
Now, I learned to drive in New Hampshire. Despite the fact that we don't have permits - you can legally drive at the age of 15 1/2 as long as you have your birth certificate and someone over the age of 25 in the car with you - and despite the fact that our roads are quite frequently black ice laden death traps, we're generally pretty low key drivers. We have accidents, like everyone, and we have disagreements, like everyone else.<br />
<br />
We are particularly antagonistic towards drivers from Massachusetts. New Hampshire has somewhat of a "New York/ New Jersey" rivalry with the state, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on. Perhaps we're bitter that they have all our sports teams? One would think we would be more bitter about Vermont, which is, of course, just an upside down New Hampshire with bafflingly better tourism.<br />
<br />
But, I digress.<br />
<br />
I grew up hearing about Massachusetts drivers. It was always "those damn Massholes letting me go even though they have the right of way - don't they know they're holding up traffic?" Anytime a car on the road did something stupid, my parents would instantly check the plate, and if they were from Massachusetts they would nod their heads sagely and say "that makes sense."<br />
<br />
Notice though, that despite our antagonism towards our neighbors to the south, for the most part, our rage is kept inside the privacy of our own cars, and spoken of with a healthy degree of self awareness. I know, for a fact, that most of my parents' antagonism is based on having to drive in Boston which, even those from Boston will tell you, does not do the term "clusterfuck" justice. We're aware that, for the most part, Massachusetts drivers are just like us. It's simply more fun to blame the occasional fuck up on their license plates.<br />
<br />
That being said, any New Hampshirites possessed of genuine, rage inducing hatred toward the drivers of Massachusetts should really consider driving in New York.<br />
<br />
To New York, New Hampshire is basically Canada, and it's easy to see why they have that view when you compare our drivers. New Hampshire is mostly trees. Even if you're in a city, like Manchester, you can bet that driving there will entail a picturesque drive through forests and tree covered mountains on a three-laned turnpike with a speed limit of 65. Unless there's an antique car show, or the tall ships have come to Portland, or you're in Nashua, you probably won't be caught in a traffic jam for longer than about twenty minutes. We drive leisurely and with little intensity unless we're in a rush, in which case we might start pushing 70. We're calm drivers because we can be. You only get aggressive when you change lanes, and even then, it's just a matter of putting on your turn signal and waiting.<br />
<br />
This is a marked contrast to New York. In New York, it seems like everyone has somewhere to be in that exact moment and you are the one thing standing in their way. It's not a matter of "damn it, I'm stuck behind some slow, out of state asshole" it's "god damn it that slow out of state asshole needs to be taken off the road."<br />
<br />
In New Hampshire, we're very independently minded. We're the live free or die state, after all. As a rule, we don't really interact much beyond an uptight New England head nod. If someone pisses us off, we'll just walk away. This extends to driving, which is fundamentally an individual experience. If you get cut off, you might shout about it, but you'll do it in the privacy of your own car. You might think something like "God, I'd love to just go over there and let the bastard have it" but it would never occur to you to actually do it. Their bad driving is their problem, not yours. At least your car's fine.<br />
<br />
In New York, it's a different thing. One of the things I love about New Yorkers is their openness. A New Yorker will talk to anyone. It doesn't matter who you are, or where you are, or wether or not you're from "away". To them, there's really not much of a difference between one person and the next. Everyone is worthy of being spoken to, and of course, everyone is worthy of being yelled at.<br />
<br />
I think my first real New York auto-experience (is that a thing?) was when I accidentally took a parking space someone had claimed outside a Bloomingdales. I didn't realize they'd had their signal on, or even that they were there. When I got out of the car, I was greeted by the face of an enraged woman in large, blue SUV.<br />
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The following conversation must be read with the understanding that the SUV lady sounded as if she were about to explode, and I sounded like I had already exploded and was trying to recover.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">EXT. MALL PARKING LOT - DAY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I step out of my car and head for the Bloomingdales entrance to the mall. I utterly fail to notice the large black SUV following me across the lot. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hey, you! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I do not respond. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You! Girl with the hair! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">At this, for some reason, I turn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Um, hi? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You know that was my space! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You just took my fucking parking space! I had my signal on, did you not see it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I guess I didn't. I'm sorry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yeah, you better be. Are you going to move it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Do you want me to? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(as if it should be obvious)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">YES. It was my space. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">ME</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, ok. I'll just go do that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">SUV LADY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Idiot. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so, I moved. </span></div>
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This was shortly after I started driving in New York, and the experience terrified me so much it took me a few weeks before I was comfortable trying it again. It wasn't so much the woman herself that threw me, it was the fact that I was now in a place where not only was my driving being constantly watched by the drivers around me, but if I did something wrong, they'd be sure to let me know. I've been flipped off more times than I care to admit, which to a New Yorker, seems like the natural result of being a driver. </div>
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But as long as I may live in New York, and as many times as I might find myself the target of profuse swearing on the way to New Rochelle, I will never escape my New Hampshire roots. The idea of taking the time to personally shout at someone for their driving will always seem odd to me, as will the idea of constantly driving like you're in a rush. I will forever be worried that I'm driving in the wrong lane, or taking the wrong turn, and someone will hit me. Worse, that they'll talk to me. </div>
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Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-87010125635405388342014-02-16T23:48:00.000-08:002014-02-16T23:48:06.430-08:00One YearWe forget sometimes how long a year actually is.<br />
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All years are long. They are eventful, and painful, and absolutely nothing like what we imagine they will be on New Years Eve.<br />
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Last year, when 2012 came to an end and 2013 began, I stood in front of a fire and burned the words "The End of the World". My cousin suggested it. The metaphor referred to both the Mayan apocalypse and my own tendency to focus on mundane events as if they held earth shattering consequences.<br />
<br />
But that wasn't really the end of a year and the beginning of another. Technically, chronologically, yes. The year we were all supposed to die had ended. We could pat ourselves on the back and celebrate that we had made it through. But, for me, nothing had really ended. Nothing had really changed.<br />
<br />
My ending came a month and a half later. One year ago today.<br />
<br />
I could write about what's happened to me in that year. It was a lot. More than I knew, or ever would have imagined could happen in a year. But I've already done that. I've thought about it, and talked about it, and probably made it more significant than I should have. That's what you do, I suppose.<br />
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One year later, and I find it surprisingly difficult to be retrospective. Is that a good thing?<br />
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It's cold in New York. Colder than it was a year ago. It's clearer now, but changed. I feel like it's been forever since I've been here...but I was really only gone for a year. Less than that, actually. I feel like I've lived an entire separate lifetime - like I've been born, then died, then come back to exactly what I had before. Can you live an entire lifetime and come back exactly the same?<br />
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I doubt it.<br />
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But you can sit around and revel in your change. In my case, being a year removed from the early hours of February 17 is anything but bad. If I feel myself being pulled back to it, I can just remind myself of that other life I led, and it's a bit easier to force myself away again. It gets easier the long I'm away from it, and I suspect it will continue that way.<br />
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But it's inevitable that being exactly a year away from something will also, somehow, pull you back to it with a greater force ever before. All the progress you made is suddenly both readily apparent and meaningless. You can try to run away, and you're very capable of doing so, but the date makes the memory slightly quicker.<br />
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So, whether I like it or not, February 17 will forever be my new year.<br />
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<br />Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-39569540602386039092014-02-12T09:42:00.001-08:002014-02-12T09:42:06.453-08:00What To Do? I've got about a half an hour to kill. The Daily Show has already been watched. I've checked Facebook and Cracked. I've checked my e-mail (both personal and school) and have even resorted to checking Twitter.<br />
<br />
And yet, here I am.<br />
<br />
In Colombia I would occasionally run into this problem. Breakfast was at seven, and most people had to be out the door by eight, but I never had to leave until nine. I would find myself in an empty apartment with no one but Rosa to talk to (my Spanish was so basic, at the time, that our conversations could really only go as far as "Buenos dias, como esta? Esta jugo de mora?") Occasionally, I'd have another volunteer going with me to blind school, and we'd hang around trying to figure out what we were going to do that day. During the period when I was teaching at the school without the woman who ran the program, I spent a number of mornings pacing back and force across the living room while Jay, a friend of mine who had agreed to come with me, watched a Korean drama and told me to either calm down or go to hell. When I wasn't fretting, I usually read or listened to music.<br />
<br />
But that was South America. That was me when I wasn't considered a "student." You become an entirely different person the second you step onto a campus - and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why. It's true that, as a student, you are suddenly burdened with all the responsibilities of studenthood, the severity of which can be quite overwhelming. But when you're on your own, you have just as much to worry about. You may not have to think about when your next paper is due, but you do have to consider where you're going to live, how much money you have for rent, what you're going to eat, how you're going to teach three classes of Spanish-speaking blind children when you can only speak a smattering of Spanish.<br />
<br />
And yet, with all that to worry about, I still found myself with an enormous amount of time to devote to reading, writing, painting, and any other hobby I felt like pursuing. I read more books during my six months abroad than I had read in years. Originally, I thought it was because I had shaken off my internet addiction (among other things). Despite the impressive list at the top of this entry, my internet usage is nowhere near where it used to be. I get tired spending hours on end online, and I mostly use it for Google Docs and Facebook. Having recently re-learned how to function without it, I returned to what I actually enjoyed doing.<br />
<br />
But, for some reason, despite keeping it up through the trip, and through two months at my parent's house, the second I returned to a college environment, I became too stressed out and tired to do anything but sit around watching <i>Bob's Burgers</i> on Netflix again. How did that happen? I have no idea. My workload isn't even that bad. It's been relatively easy to keep up with, and I'm generally finished with it all pretty early. How is simply being in a college environment inherently more stressful than the outside world? And, why?<br />
<br />
You always hear that college, for all it's stresses, is a cakewalk compared to the "real world". You're supposed to "enjoy it while you can" because as soon as you graduate and are faced with the pressures of actual adulthood, everything goes to shit. And you know, maybe it does. Adult life is probably a lot harder than I think it is - having only spent a few brief months experiencing it. But from my naive observation, at least as an adult, outside the "high school in dorms" atmosphere of college, you can be slightly closer yourself. You have less to prove.<br />
<br />
But of course, everyone is different. Certainly everyone's adulthood is different. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems when you're outside it. And if it's one thing I learned while not being a student, it's that I am very, very young.Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-48880697578007186482014-02-03T08:48:00.003-08:002014-02-03T08:48:49.341-08:00I Took A Trip On The Starship EnterpriseSo far, living in Enterprise again has been fairly uneventful. <div>
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I've managed to keep a decently low profile. I haven't dyed my hair any outrageous colors, I don't play my music too loud, and I try to keep the television and angry Spanish homework screams to a level no one else will hear. On my first day, I played the guitar for a bit, but since realizing that you can easily hear the sound of a guitar from the hallway and bathrooms, I've not touched it. </div>
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<div>
I think most people know me as a visitor. There are two people I interact with on my floor on a semi-regular basis. One of them is my neighbor - another senior here past the four year mark - who informed me that the previous resident of my single was someone named "Elizabeth" who vanished after a man came and tore her name off the door. The most likely explanation is that she dropped out or graduated, and the man was either her father or a representative of Reslife. I'm choosing to believe there was something mysterious and otherworldly about it, mostly to keep myself occupied while I'm trying to fall asleep at night. </div>
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The other person I see regularly is my RA. She lives about three doors down from me, and is pretty outgoing and easy to talk to. We're both taking the second half of Advanced Screenwriting, so we're both going to have to find a way to successfully write ten pages a week while not losing our jobs. Her script, as she pitched it the other day, was really interesting. A sci-fi sister story I would totally take my sisters to. It's ending in particular excited me, though our professor told her to revise it. I hope it doesn't change too much, but then, it's not my script. Still, I would love to see it in theaters. I could easily see it as the new Hunger Games. </div>
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The fire alarm has gone off no less than eight times since classes began last week. Enterprise always was famous for it's sensitive alarms. It's usually hairspray. </div>
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The alarm itself is loud and blaring - the kind of sound you'd expect to herald the approach of a nuclear disaster. It will start suddenly, anxious and upset, and then build as you run around the room trying to remember where you put your shoes and coat. By the time you've thrown everything on over your pajamas and stumble out into the hallway with the rest of your annoyed and fairly zombie-like floor, the alarm will inevitably sound like the world's most intrusive and nagging parent. You <i>know</i> you need to leave the building, you're aware that though it's probably someone burning popcorn in their microwave, it could always be something worse. Yes, Mom, we get it. Please let us exit the building in peace. </div>
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I should note that this is no way a comparison to my own mother. My mother's nagging does not sound like a fire alarm, and is generally triggered by something I've done (or, more typically haven't done) that was legitimately stupid. You get the idea. </div>
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Once we've all filed out of the building in as close to an orderly fashion as we can managed at one in the morning, the courtyard between Enterprise and our neighboring hall, Vander Poel, is suddenly filled with the least energetic angry mob on the face of the earth. There's always someone who manages to find out whose room triggered the alarm, and when the person is discovered, it seems for a brief, exciting moment, that the entire building is going to sacrifice him or her to the housing gods. Then, of course, the moment goes by. We all realize that not only have we forgotten our torches and pitchforks, but we've all probably done something just as stupid. Being angry takes a lot of effort, and over-tired, freezing cold college students are not the sort to be bothered with effort past midnight, if it's not going to help raise their GPA. </div>
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You are then left with several choices to pass the time: </div>
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1.) Find someone you are remotely friendly with in your building and stand around commiserating. An attractive option because, of course, misery loves company, but also because it assures the rest of the building that you, indeed, have friends and are a relatively normal person. It's also a good way to make friends, since the person you wandered over to complain with will inevitably have their own friends who you will get to meet and possibly forge a lasting friendship with. Or you'll hate them. </div>
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2.) Decide "fuck this" and walk across the street to Dutch Treats. Dutch Treats is our on-campus convenient store - convenient in that it's open 24 hours and doesn't stop serving sandwiches until four. Or possibly three. I'm not really sure. A fire alarm going off is a good opportunity to get groceries, and no one really minds if you stand in an aisle staring blankly at the microwave noodle bowls for a half an hour. Depending on the length of the evacuation, you could get there, buy some milk, say hi to the guy in the back who makes the sandwiches, and leave just in time to return to your room. </div>
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3.) Call someone you know and complain to them. If you are lacking friends in the building, and don't want to spend the meal points getting things you don't really need at Dutch Treats, the "call a friend and bitch about your building" option is a good alternative. On the one hand, your friend will not be pleased that you woke them up at one in the morning to discuss something that doesn't really effect them, but on the other hand, if they're really your friend, they'll get over it in the morning and do the same thing to you should they be forced to evacuate their own building. </div>
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4.) Force your significant other to either come and pick you up, or stand around with you. In last night's evacuation in particular, I heard many couples use the term "Valentines Day is coming up" and "Bring something warm." </div>
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5.) If it's particularly freezing, Vander Poel will open it's doors to lost, cold, Enterprise students by announcing that it's lounge is free in the most secretive way possible, thus ensuring that no one will actually come. If you are one of the lucky people in the back of the mob to hear the announcement, you can hang out there, with the seven other people who heard, and check the window every five seconds to see if people are filing back in. </div>
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Then, of course, there's the ever popular, </div>
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6.) Stand around awkwardly by yourself, occasionally playing with your phone, wondering why fate has seen fit to force you outside in the middle of an evening's Hulu viewing, and didn't even have courtesy to warn you beforehand. </div>
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As for me, I chose a skilled combination of options 2 and 6. I started in Dutch Treats, bought some milk for tea, and and then returned to the courtyard outside Enterprise to stand around checking Facebook on my phone. By the time I had come from Dutch, the social groups had already been established and it was too late to attempt to find one to crash. </div>
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Eventually, they have to let you all back inside. There is a great migration towards the door that you will suddenly instinctively be aware of, even if you're not looking in the general direction of the mob, and everyone will file forward blindly. The crowd moves as one, like molasses, slowly oozing its way into the building towards the elevators. The elevators, of course, will not work properly, and the flow of student traffic will come to an abrupt and confusing halt while everyone waits for the elevators to cope with their issues. </div>
<div>
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Luckily, I live on the first floor, so I just took the stairs. I put my milk in the refrigerator, turned my Roku back on, and returned to watching Rod Serling teach me about humanity through the use of elegant, science fiction parables. I could almost forget I had just been forced to stand around outside for no particular reason. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So Enterprise is very much the same as it was when I last lived here, to the point where it's a little surreal. So much has happened since then. A part of me feels like if I take a stroll up to the eighth floor, I could find myself and let her know what's ahead. She'd probably just ask me why my hair looks so thin. </div>
Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-84378596445224297312014-01-31T07:57:00.002-08:002014-01-31T07:57:59.119-08:00Please God, Not BeiberSo Justin Beiber's gone insane and everyone's surprised. The reaction went something like this:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NEWS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Justin Beiber did something stupid today because he's twenty years old, and thus, an idiot. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">VIEWERS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">How dare he be an idiot?! There was once a period when he wasn't an idiot! It's as if constantly watching his every move during his fragile adolescence has in some way warped his mind! I feel personally slighted! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">NEWS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">In other news, here's a list of the Top Ten Best Times Hugh Grant Stuttered in an Amusing Fashion. Oh, the nostalgia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">VIEWERS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If Notting Hill isn't on this list there's no hope for this fucking planet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so on and so forth. </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It occurs to me I should probably watch the news a tad more often. Being of the useless m</span>illennial<span style="font-family: inherit;"> generation, I admit I'm a bit more inclined to watch The Daily Show and read Cracked, but surely there must be something that hasn't been transformed into a social media vehicle. At the same time, my level of concern for the antics of pop figures I didn't care about when they initially rose to fame is pretty minimal. I just feel I'm missing out on this great outrage. Like when Miley Cyrus discovered sex and everyone went nuts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is interesting to note that the coverage of Justin Beiber's fall from pop star grace has focused almost entirely on his </span>delinquent<span style="font-family: inherit;"> actions, whereas the coverage of Miley has focused on her sexuality. Could this be, perhaps, because we expect young men to discover sexuality, but we're still surprised when young women find it? Pictures of Justin have seen him shirtless and </span>tattooed<span style="font-family: inherit;"> and clearly trying just as hard to be a sexual icon as Miley. Why is that not as shocking? Why do men fall from grace with their actions, but women fall from grace with their sexuality? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps, I'm over analyzing. Or, perhaps I'm not analyzing enough. This </span>millennial<span style="font-family: inherit;"> generation only ever goes two ways - we either overreact, or fail to react enough. The same could probably be said of the generation before us, and probably was. We have a habit of declaring the new generation is the most important generation ever, and then promptly telling them they'll amount to nothing. I wonder if we'll ever realize how much we repeat ourselves? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have to go to Spanish class. Perhaps I'll ask someone there. </span></div>
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Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-59429866293193942392014-01-27T21:46:00.001-08:002014-01-27T21:46:38.935-08:00In MotionI spend a lot of time walking.<br />
<br />
During the day I'll walk to school or work. I'll walk to meet a friend, or to get coffee. At night, I like to go walking with my ipod. The music is important, and a fairly good indicator of my mood, but it's the motion that's vital. Being still is problematic.<br />
<br />
I've always been a walker. In high school I'd walk the same route around my neighborhood every night, generally listening to Keane, or the Doctor Who soundtrack. Occasionally, I'd mix it up with some Beatles or Amy Winehouse. I think I also listened to a lot of Queen. I'd walk the same streets every night, literally wandering in a circle. Surprisingly for someone with as minuscule an attention span as myself, the walk never bored me. I looked forward to it, and after a while, I needed it. I'm not sure why. Maybe the repetition comforted me. Maybe the act of walking and mentally reciting the lyrics to <i>Under the Iron Sea</i> was some sort of adolescent meditation. Maybe walking alone in the dark made me feel more interesting and mysterious. Maybe it was just nice.<br />
<br />
It's interesting. I used to be able to churn these things out in minutes. Stream of consciousness writing is easy, or at least, it was. I haven't done this in a while, and since then, the entire universe seems to have become exponentially more complicated. My life has always been sort of narrative, in a way. It wasn't exactly complex, unless I made it complex. I had a tendency to blow things out of proportion. I was often anxious about inane things. I didn't feel my life was worth living unless it was dramatic and impressive.<br />
<br />
Since I last wrote, I've seen and done a lot of strange things. I am both entirely different and exactly the same. I'm so far removed from that person in the RSR booth rambling about haunted doors and Eric Roberts. A part of me is glad for that. The other part hopes she isn't gone.<br />
<br />
I've always said the world is very strange.<br />
<br />
<br />Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-9481034592090955882012-08-16T22:27:00.000-07:002012-08-16T22:27:34.830-07:00Bullet In The FaceIs the most ridiculous thing I have ever watched.<br />
<br />
I happened to catch it on IFC at work. It's like Quentin Tarantino did a lot of drugs and had a one night stand with the creators of Law and Order who then suggested they do more drugs and create a 6-part miniseries.<br />
<br />
Dude just killed someone with dental equipment. The bloodied dentist's screams can be heard outside in the waiting room and one mother turns to her daughter and just says "See, this is what happens when you don't brush your teeth."<br />
<br />
I have to appreciate that during this show that, traditionally, would probably only be marketed to men, there was a birth control commercial, which means that at least someone out there thought of the possibility that women might be watching this insane, violent extravaganza.<br />
<br />
And of course, it has Eric Roberts in it. Of course.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I wonder, because I used to so adamantly make fun of him due to his appearance in the Doctor Who TV movie, if I'm now doomed to be forever stalked by his appearances in things that I watch. It's like when I saw The Dark Knight, and he just suddenly showed up playing Maroni and I was like "Oh god, the quality of this shot has just decreased exponentially!"<br />
<br />
In other news, the building I'm working in is definitely haunted. Either that, or there's something wrong with the door. I'm leaning more towards the broken door, since when I lived here three years ago I remember the door being broken and people constantly complaining about it. But then, wouldn't someone have fixed it by now? Maybe it's supposed to be broken. Maybe the broken door somehow protects us, and if it were fixed the entire building would somehow fall into another dimension, dooming everyone inside to forever wander some sort of horrifying nightmare world.<br />
<br />
You never know.<br />
<br />
As is probably clear, my job is not the most exciting of occupations. I've been keeping myself busy by watching old episodes of the Twilight Zone and reading Dune, further cementing my status as a person who will never be cool. Every once in a while I'll turn on the television in the booth and attempt to find something that isn't the Real Housewives of Somewhere. I've watched a lot of the Science Channel. That show "Dark Matters" is really hilariously interesting. I appreciate the "dark side of science" theme it's got going, and even further appreciate the terrible dramatic reenactments they use to present it.<br />
<br />
I'm trying to think of some sort of elegant and creative way to end this post, but I don't really have much else to say. "Life is strange" is about all I can think of, but then, the blog itself <i>is</i> called "The World Is Very Strange". If you hadn't picked up on the whole "life is strange" thing, then you've clearly missed something.Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-49635535167114851102012-08-05T05:08:00.001-07:002012-08-05T05:08:34.971-07:00In Which I Am EmployedToday I began my illustrious career as a Residential Safety booth babe. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My job is very simple. If someone doesn't have a student ID and they want to get into the residence hall, they talk to me, and I swipe them in. I then write them down, and hope they're not here to murder whoever it is they're going in to see. During the day, I imagine this might actually require some work since residence halls do tend to attract quite a lot of people who want get in and visit other people, but of course, I'm not working during the day.</div>
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I work from midnight to eight AM, a time slot that actually works very well for me as I'm essentially nocturnal and I get paid more. I'm sitting in a booth with a broken television trying to tell myself that this is less horrifying than working at the hardware store due to having a chair to sit in and the ability to use the internet. No one has asked me to ring out 150 individual sockets yet, so I suppose I should be grateful. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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The booth I was assigned to is in Enterprise Hall, which I lived in during my sophomore year and looks nothing at all like I remember it. They've changed the entryway, the turnstile, the sort of lame half-lounge they had by the front, and replaced the vending machines with brand new leather couches. It's distressing, but in a way, kind of nice. The old Enterprise Hall is where I lived, the new one is where I work. For some reason, I find the distinction important. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Since it's August and the university is in between summer semesters, the hall isn't currently home to rowdy, drunk college students, but to a high school Christian camp from Texas. Despite their inherent lack of ability to use their swipe cards to get through the damn turnstile, none of them have really caused me any problems. They do seem to have a habit of leaving their keys in their room and locking themselves out, but I'm sure that has more to do with the fact that they're in high school than it does with their love of Jesus. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I spent most of my shift watching the X-Files on Netflix, but I did have a nice conversation with one of the campers about the weather in Texas at around four thirty in the morning. I mentioned that in the few times I'd ever been to Texas I'd experienced some of the most oppressive weather on the face of the planet, even worse than that time I spent in an Israeli desert, and for the most part, the girl seemed to agree. I asked her about the camp she was participating in, and was pleased that she never once asked me about my own religious beliefs. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It is now eight AM, and technically speaking, I'm due to be done now. Some water has just dripped onto my head from the ceiling, which is interesting considering this building is fourteen stories high and it's not raining out. I'm left wondering what would happen if Jesus was forced to go through the Enterprise turnstile, and if he would have as much difficulty swiping in as his high school followers seem to. I like to think he'd just walk straight through the wall, but then, I suppose that's why I work at a safety booth and not at a Christian camp. </div>
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All in all, it's been a decent first day. Now if only my relief would show up. </div>Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-15843303675930900932012-06-16T08:11:00.000-07:002012-06-16T08:11:06.795-07:00Thoughts From The Historical SocietyToday I'm trying to be my mother.<br />
<br />
By which, I mean, I'm working at the Historical Society in her place during open hours as a favor to the program manager who didn't want to be left alone. I think it's more that she had a meeting at ten and needed someone to handle visitors while she was busy since, from what I've seen, she's certainly more than capable of running things on her own. At the very least, she's definitely more capable than I am.<br />
<br />
This isn't the first time I've had to do this. On Saturdays, the museum's only open from 9:30 to noon, so there tends to not be a huge influx of people. On days when my mother is out and I happen to find myself at home, I'm occasionally asked to fill in. It's not excessively difficult since, again, there's usually not a huge amount of people desperately in need of local historical information at ten in the morning on a Saturday. Every once in a while someone will come in and I'll have to explain to them that the curator is out, and that I'm only marginally well versed in the town's history. More often than not, I end up showing them around the building, handing them a business card, and telling them to come back on Tuesday when my mother will be back.<br />
<br />
So far, we've only had one person come in, and he literally knew exactly what he was looking for, where to find it, and how to look through it. All I had to do was stand and ask the program manager if he was allowed in the archives, which he was. Other than that, it's mostly just been me, the laptop, and a cup of Starbucks coffee.<br />
<br />
Despite my anxiety about not being able to answer any Exeter, New Hampshire based historical inquiries, it's nice to have something to do. My relatively terrible semester ended in mid-May, and I've been sitting at home waiting around for my house in New York to be ready to move into. It's been nice, since I'm given nearly unlimited time with my friends, who I always miss terribly when I'm at school, but apart from hanging out with them, when they're at work or doing summer homework, I have <i>nothing </i>going on, and it's starting to drive me a bit insane. Despite having to wake up far earlier than I usually do, it was nice to, for a moment, feel like I had a job or something other than TV Tropes to get up for.<br />
<br />
I've watched an absurd amount of television. I've started at least four projects. I also turned twenty-one in the middle of all this.<br />
<br />
Oh yeah, that's right. I'm twenty-one now. I suppose, as a personal blogger, I should probably discuss this or something. I did start blogging at the age of fourteen, so I'm come somewhat far with this. I used to update a lot more than I do, of course. I blame social media. My friend Alice got me so addicted to Tumblr that I've been using that as a blog more than my actual blog, which is a problem since I keep getting reminded at school that blogging is a good way to get yourself out there in the professional world, especially in the media business. I can't imagine this blog getting me anywhere, but I have had it in one form or another for several years now, so it deserves a lot more love from me than it's been getting.<br />
<br />
Plus, I'm sort of at a loss about that whole "moving ahead with your career" thing. I went into film originally because I wanted to take screenwriting classes. I wasn't sure what, exactly, I wanted to do, but I pretty much wrote myself off as being purely a writer within the world of film. If I did pursue film after college, I wasn't expecting to have a desire to be a director, or operate cameras or anything. I just wanted to tell stories. During my sophomore year, which was my first year as a film student, I operated soley under this principle, and paid almost no attention to the technical or visual side of things. I considered myself nothing more than a writer with an interest in film, and never once thought to consider myself a "filmmaker".<br />
<br />
This was all fine and dandy, until sometime this year, that all changed. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was from hanging around with cameras more, maybe it was from getting the chance to play around in my experimental class, but at some point this year, I found myself falling deeper in love with the medium of film, and with the idea of shooting and directing. I've always had a thing for cameras, and looking back, it sort of makes sense that I'd find myself getting this interested in film, but I was seriously not expecting it. I've always been a movie person, but I never really thought of it as being something I could actually do, it was always just something I was interested in. At some point in the semester that "interest" turned into a genuine desire to actually pursue it, and as exciting as that is, it's also a bit terrifying.<br />
<br />
Because now that I've realized this, now that I know for a fact that, yes, I would like to be a filmmaker and actually do something more than just write, I'm more than a bit behind. There are people in this department who know cameras inside and out, who have wanted and dreamed of being directors their entire lives, and compared to them, I'm just starting out. I have so much to learn it's not even funny, and I'm terrified of not being able to catch up.<br />
<br />
Of course, this probably all sounds like fairly ordinary twenty-one-year-old thoughts. I have a feeling I'm supposed to be confused, and just starting out. It will be interesting to see how I feel about all of this in five years. Hell, it will be interesting to see where, exactly, I'll be in five years.<br />
<br />
For right now, though, I'm sitting in the Historical Society, which is, ironically, the place I shot my last film. I don't know a great deal of local history, but I can probably tell you where to point an HD camera to make the building look dark and disorienting. At the very least, I can tell you what sort of flashlight you should use when shooting the place in the dark, and which victrola records make the best ambiant music.Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-38727445048125543942012-06-03T07:14:00.003-07:002012-06-03T07:14:54.278-07:00Glitter Purgatory<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vGe2EkIskS8" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
So, here's this film I made.<br />
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This was my final film for Experimental Film and Video Production this semester. I shot it at the Exeter Historical Society during my spring break, and then spent about a month doing post production stuff. I was reading House of Leaves at the time and I think it kind of shows in the kind of film I decided to make. It was difficult to choreograph, and even more difficult to put together, but I think it paid off. I can't exactly say it's everything I ever wanted it to be and more, but I'm still relatively proud of how it came out.<br />
<br />
So yeah, that's my official thing. That film up there? I made that. True story.<br />
<br />
At the moment, though, I'm sitting around at my parents' house watching Fish Tank Kings while drugged up on allergy medication, definitely not making a film. I've spent the last three days working backstage at my sister's dance recital, which sounds like fairly easy work but was absolutely not. There were so many little kids running around in sparkly tutus...it was like, glitter purgatory.<br />
<br />
I haven't written in forever. I know that. I really need to get myself together and update more, but right now, my brain is just mush. I figured, for some reason, I should at least put something up. I guess drugs will do that to you.<br />
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Have a good one,<br />
<br />
*Nelly*Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-68094248991300272582012-01-31T07:06:00.000-08:002012-01-31T07:08:11.850-08:00A Powerpoint! Yay!<div style="width:425px" id="__ss_11351416"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/NellyOfExeter/a-powerpoint" title="A Powerpoint">A Powerpoint</a></strong><object id="__sse11351416" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=apowerpoint-120131090525-phpapp01&stripped_title=a-powerpoint&userName=NellyOfExeter"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed name="__sse11351416" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=apowerpoint-120131090525-phpapp01&stripped_title=a-powerpoint&userName=NellyOfExeter" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/NellyOfExeter">NellyOfExeter</a>.</div></div><script src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js?c1=7&c2=7400849&c3=1&c4=&c5=&c6="></script><br /><br />I made this to teach myself and my roommate how to use Slideshare. It was good times. I need coffee so hard right now. <br /><br />*Nelly*Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-49420175936907861582012-01-08T11:57:00.001-08:002012-01-08T11:59:07.517-08:00Live From New HampshireWith all these people keeping tabs and blogging about the New Hampshire primaries, I feel like, as a native New Hampshire dweller currently sitting here, I should add my own observations.<br /><br />It's warm as hell.<br /><br />My high school is being taken over by Mitt Romney supporters.<br /><br />A giant Ron Paul sign kept me from getting any cellphone service at a creepy convenience store on the side of the road the other night.<br /><br />And seriously, it's warm as hell. Tonight's low is 22. In January. I know politics, by nature, especially Republican politics, tend to generate a lot of hot air, but this is just ridiculous.<br /><br />Could it be Ron Paul? The space infront of his abnormally large sign was the only place in Exeter the other night that didn't have service. Even my car had trouble starting...though, that's not really that unusual. But seriously! As soon as I managed to pull away from the sign, my phone had power again! If Ron Paul's sign can do that, imagine what sort of strange, evil, reality warping powers the man himself must possess? He must be the one changing the weather! I knew it had something to do with the primaries! That must be it!<br /><br />Deep down, beyond that old, conservative, white guy exterior, Ron Paul is, in fact, Slender Man.<br /><br />DRAMATIC MUSIC!<br /><br />Or, possibly Cthulhu. One or the other.<br /><br />MORE DRAMATIC MUSIC!<br /><br />This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's really going down here in New Hampshire this primary season. Take that as you will.Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-88388548256548836342011-12-01T09:07:00.001-08:002011-12-01T10:51:33.531-08:00Doctor Who Meets Sleep DeprivationI haven't slept much lately. I've slept a bit. I've spent more time trying to sleep than actually sleeping. In other words, I've been awake a lot. And tired. Very, very tired. <div><br /></div><div>So naturally, in my sleep deprived state, I turned to Doctor Who. </div><div><br /></div><div>I used to do this all the time in high school. I've always had somewhat insomniac tendencies to me, and whenever it got particularly bad, I've noticed, is when I always seem to get back into Doctor Who. I don't know why, it doesn't make much sense, but it seems that the show has become my go to "thing to do when I can't sleep". Granted, even when I'm not experiencing a period of sleeplessness, I still love it. But, there's something about being totally sleep deprived that makes me think "Hey, I should re-watch some Doctor Who." </div><div><br /></div><div>And so, I did. </div><div><br /></div><div>On <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tumblr</span> recently people have been talking about "things they like that no one else likes." I'm not sure how the topic began, but it seems to have taken the place by storm. I don't usually respond to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Tumblr</span> things, because I don't usually write on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Tumblr</span> much. I have a blog, it seems somewhat redundant to post long winded things that don't matter in two different places on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">internet</span>, so I usually just use <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Tumblr</span> to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">reblog</span> pictures I find funny and to read feminist criticisms of DC Comics and Disney movies. </div><div><br /></div><div>But, of course, because I haven't been sleeping, and because I've been watching so much Doctor Who, it got me thinking. Not really coherently, of course. It's a miracle I can currently string more than one word together as it is. But it got me thinking about things that I like that no one else seems to, or at least, that are fairly conflicted, specifically in Doctor Who. I remember back to when I was massively, unhealthily involved in the Doctor Who fan community, specifically the Outpost <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Gallifrey</span> forums (which, I believe, have a different name now) where I was constantly reading other peoples' opinions on various episodes, and how I occasionally disagreed, but usually wasn't terribly fussed. I never really spoke much on the forums, I just read. But, with all the debate that went down, and all the controversy over which episode was the greatest piece of speculative fiction ever written, and which was clearly thrown together in the space of an hour, there was one episode that seemed to get it the hardest. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, this may have changed. I haven't been on the forums in years, not since before series four. I haven't read any forum posts on the current run of the show, and, to be honest, I don't even know if my account would still work. Maybe there's a new "love it or HATE it" episode that's enraging people, I don't know. But back in high school, when I was knee deep in discussion and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">fanfiction</span>, the episode that sparked a thousand forum wars was series two's "Love and Monsters" </div><div><br /></div><div>"Love and Monsters" was an interesting experiment. It was the first of what was to become traditional, one episode per series being "Doctor light" meaning, that it made limited use of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">show's</span> primary leads. With the limited screen time of the Doctor and his companion, their actors could be off filming a different episode while simultaneously filming this one, the allowing two episodes to be done at once without overworking the actors. This was done to save money and to get an extra episode out per series. </div><div><br /></div><div>As with any new idea, the concept of an episode that made limited use of the Doctor was a bit of a gamble, and took some time to perfect. The series three "Doctor light" episode "Blink" is generally considered to be very, very good, and even ended up winning a Hugo award. Series four threw the formula for a bit of a loop and had one episode that was "Doctor light" but "Companion centric" and one that was "Companion light" and "Doctor centric", and both episodes are strong contenders for my favorite new series episode of all time. </div><div><br /></div><div>But though everyone grew to like the formula, some even looking forward to what they would do with it this time, there was always that controversial first one, "Love and Monsters". Despite being significant, the episode is not commonly remembered fondly. I remember there being a discussion about Russel T. Davies' writing on the forums and someone commenting that they "liked the guy, liked his writing, but there was no excuse for Love and Monsters" People just didn't know what to do with it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here's a quick summary: A man named Elton (not the funny sunglasses one) keeps a video blog documenting his encounters with extraterrestrial activities, in particular, the time he came downstairs as a child and saw the Doctor standing in his living room. We follow him as he makes friends, falls in love, runs into monsters, and eventually gets his mystery solved. The entire episode is an examination of the lives of the people the Doctor leaves behind, those whose lives he touches but who never really get the full story. </div><div><br /></div><div>I adore this episode. I think it's beautiful. While it may not be the epitome of "Sci-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Fi</span>" it is a gorgeous example of character writing. Every character is fleshed out and interesting. Every one is clearly separate, and defined. The friends that Elton makes are all people whose lives have been touched by the Doctor in someway, and though initially that is the only reason they meet up and band together, we get to watch as their relationship evolves into legitimate friendship, as their meetings to discuss the Doctor become less about the Doctor, and more about simply being with each other.</div><div><br /></div><div> The group is a bit of an affectionate parody of Doctor Who fans, people who are quirky and excitable and drawn to this one subject, but who are also generally sweet, normal people with all sorts of talents and interests. The villain of the piece, an alien disguised as a ruthless man called Victor Kennedy, is representative of the small, terrible minority of fans who seem to only exist to suck the fun out of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">fandom</span>. He shows up, tells them they're not serious enough, and forces them to use their meetings for nothing more than hard work. He takes their passion, which they had been using as an inspiration for art, for writing, and as an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">outlet</span> for social interaction, and morphs it into serious, hard work. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of the major complains was that the villain's true form, a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">cartoonish</span> green creature called the "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Absorbaloff</span>" was too ridiculous and stupid, but really, when it comes down to it, the episode wasn't about him. The episode was about the relationships between people and the complete craziness of life, and the fact that he was ridiculous and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">cartoony</span> only served to make the final outcome more absurd, and because of that, more tragic. A big theme is Elton's loss of control over his life, it's literally crashing down around him, and a lot of that is due to the completely absurd things he finds happening to him. The episode would lose something if the villain was more traditionally intimidating, because, as a viewer, this is what we find normal. There is nothing absurd about a traditionally intimidating villain victimizing someone, the character will find it odd, but the audience will be comfortable and accepting of it. Having a truly ridiculous villain, that not only the character but the audience itself finds absurd, forces the audience to really feel the complete ridiculousness of the character's situation, thus making the absurdity and tragedy of the story even more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">poignant</span>. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's kind of like Brecht. But with prosthetic, green monsters. </div><div><br /></div><div>I particularly love the scene with Rose's mother Jackie. Rose was the Doctor's companion at the time, and was only about my age. Her mother was only ever seen when Rose went home, and though she did get a good deal of character development from those episodes, it is in "Love and Monsters" that we finally get to see her when she's left alone. We see her pain and her worry; the fact that she literally has no idea where her only daughter is, only that she could be anywhere in the most dangerous corners of time and space. We see how devastated she is, and how lonely she, but also how <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">fiercely</span> protective she is of both her daughter and the Doctor. </div><div><br /></div><div>Her subplot revolves around Victor Kennedy sending Elton to infiltrate her life to get information on Rose. Eventually, Jackie and Elton become good friends, Elton <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">genuinely</span> enjoying spending time with her. She tries to seduce him, at one point, but then admits that she was being stupid and that she was only doing it because she was lonely. Elton realizes then that he is in love with someone else, his friend Ursula, but that he values Jackie as a friend, and offers her a pizza and movie night. </div><div><br /></div><div>Things seem to be going great, until he returns with the pizza to find a very livid Jackie who has just found a picture of Rose in his jacket pocket. This scene in particular is exceptional. Jackie takes a moment to yell at Elton, pointing out that it's never her, that it hurts to be left behind, and that despite all of this, she will protect her daughter and the Doctor until the ends of the Earth. Her monologue is beautifully written, and very well acted, and it forces you to look at Jackie in a whole new light. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the end, of course, the Doctor and Rose show up and the monster is defeated. Elton finally gets his mystery solved, and despite having lost everything, manages to find peace. His final line to the camera is, honestly, one of my favorite quotes off all time: </div><div><br /></div><div><i>"When you're a kid, they tell you it's all 'grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that's it.' But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better." </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Like Jackie defending the Doctor and Rose until the ends of the Earth, I will defend this episode. Yes, it's atypical, yes, it's got some strange, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">cartoony</span> elements to it, and yes, it's not exactly hard science fiction. But that doesn't stop it from being beautiful. While it's not a bitter deconstruction of everything Doctor Who is, like series four's "Midnight", it is a decidedly different look at the show, it's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">mythos</span>, and it's fans. I realize a lot of people didn't quite get it, but to those who didn't, maybe you should take another look. </div><div><br /></div><div>And that, to answer <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Tumblr</span>, is what I love that everyone else seems to hate. If you haven't seen it, check it out. I'm going to try to get some sleep. </div><div><br /></div><div>*Nelly* </div>Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1540932754134886605.post-17685223357191464122011-10-26T14:48:00.000-07:002011-10-26T15:43:22.554-07:00The Great Adderall Shortage of 2011Yep. It appears we have a crisis on our hands. There is no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">adderall</span>. Anywhere. <div><br /></div><div>Well, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ok</span>, there is. But it feels like it's nowhere. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've been diagnosed with ADD since I was fourteen, and I haven't gone this long without it, during the school year, since my freshman year of high school. It's annoying. I should be writing a script and trying to organize my film shoot this weekend, but no, instead I'm typing up a blog entry. An entry which, at this point, I may not even finish. </div><div><br /></div><div>Hooray. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's not like I can't live without it or anything. I can live perfectly fine. It's just hard. Everything is infinitely harder to do simply because my brain can't focus on anything long enough to actually accomplish something. I'll start things like crazy. I'll start things and then get distracted by my room, some music, the damn ceiling...</div><div><br /></div><div>Even just then, as I was looking around for distracting things to list, I got distracted by the fake flowers on my roommate's desk. I can't even stop myself from being distracted long enough to list things that I'm getting distracted by. </div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose I should talk about something a bit more interesting than my struggles with my own attention span. </div><div><br /></div><div>New York Comic Con! I went to New York Comic Con. It was awesome. So many things happened to me, and eventually, I'll probably tell you about them. Batman told me he was the night, Eliza <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Duskhu</span> was three feet from me, I met the Nostalgia Chick, I grilled Bruce <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Timm</span> about female characters in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">DCAU</span>, was rendered unable to speak for at least three seconds during all of these encounters, sometimes for longer. I got to preview two things, and hang out with my friends, and overall, it was awesome. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'll write more about it, I promise, I just...you know, got distracted by the light up pumpkin on my desk. It doesn't actually light up anymore. I should really put more batteries into that. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway! Um, what else? Oh! I'm filming a movie this week for "Intermediate Film Production" my current film class. I think it's technically "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">RTVF</span> 47" but "Intermediate Film Production" just sounds so much more impressive. It's called "The Short Halloween" and is about a little girl who fends off the Joker with a bucket of Halloween candy. I finally got the damn thing cast, I have a location, and I finally have costumes (with considerable help from my Joker who, thankfully, provided his own costume and make up) and despite my raging ADD, seem to be fairly on top of things. </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, in film, being "fairly on top of things" translates to "Oh my god, I'm filming this weekend and I'm going to DIE." But, you know, I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling that. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd mention that I've been reading a lot of Slender Man blogs lately, but apparently, every time you mention "Slender Man" on a blog, someone, somewhere puts it on a list of possible Slender Man stories. I promise this isn't a Slender Man blog. I've had this blog for years, and I have no intention of turning it into a Slender Man story. This is, and always will be, a place for me to rant and rave and kill a few spare moments. </div><div><br /></div><div>Apologies to those who have no idea what I'm talking about. Slender Man's a...well, Google it. If you really want to. Just don't plan on sleeping. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway! What else? Um, Halloween is coming up? I wanted to do something really epic, but it's the day after my shoot and I have to read fourteen pages of <i>Fathers and Sons</i> for Russian Literature. I wanted to be Goth Princess Peach, but I'm starting to lean more towards "Overtired College Student" I think I could pull that off pretty easily. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, and speaking of Russian Literature, what the hell is up with Russian Literature? Every story, if it was written during the nineteenth century can be summed up as "This guy who is kind of a dick falls in love with this woman who is either evil and stupid and then tragedy strikes because life is cruel." </div><div><br /></div><div>Yeah. Sounds pleasant, right? </div><div><br /></div><div>We just read "First Love" by Ivan Turgenev, which is literally fifty pages detailing this one teenager's semi-abusive relationship with this 21-year-old who's having an affair with his father. In fifty pages...not much happens. There's a lot of dramatic sulking, elderly princesses snorting from snuff boxes, contemplation of the protagonist's navel, and people getting hit with horse whips. When you list things off like that, it actually sounds pretty exciting. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's not. It's really, really not. </div><div><br /></div><div>While it is, by no means, on par with Ethan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Frome</span> in terms of sheer <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">excruciating</span> literary agony, it's not something I would ever choose to read again. Here is a rough transcript of the conversation my roommate and I had after we finished it: </div><div><br /></div><div>Roommate: I hate Russian Literature.</div><div><br /></div><div>Me: All of it? </div><div><br /></div><div>Roommate: All of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Me: Oh, come on, it's just one story. </div><div><br /></div><div>Roommate: And all the others. I want to kill myself. </div><div><br /></div><div>Me: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Ok</span>, well, that's fair. But, what about that one about the two Russian officers stuck on an island? We liked that one.</div><div><br /></div><div>Roommate: That's because they were cray-cray! </div><div><br /></div><div>To be honest, I don't actually know how to spell "cray cray" but that <i>is</i> an exact quote. </div><div><br /></div><div>So yeah, despite the fact that my professor said at the beginning of the semester that he was going to try to break the misconception that all of Russian Literature was dark, depressing, angst-ridden tales of torment, he hasn't really given us much else to read. It's all been, literally, a dick-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ish</span> protagonist, an evil or stupid woman, some romantic mishaps, then tragedy. </div><div><br /></div><div>Except of course for that one about the two Russian officers stuck on an island. That was hilarious. </div><div><br /></div><div>So yeah, I don't think I have much else to say. I have to go to the bathroom, my hair is up, there's a large coffee cup and a coke next to me, I have more to do than I can possibly keep track of, and last weekend Batman told me he was the night.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think that about sums it up. </div><div><br /></div><div>I hope this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">adderall</span> shortage ends soon. I don't know how much more of this I can take. </div><div><br /></div><div>*Nelly* </div>Nelly Of Exeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12236919738587310382noreply@blogger.com1