Yesterday we came around three, but the sky had already begun to grow dusky, and we walked around the property and saw the tanks and the pond, and talked, and I walked on some logs, which I never before enjoyed, but since practicing yoga, I have developed a balance I did not know I possessed and like the feeling of mastering my balance on a slim log. I realized there are some in River Legacy I would like to try, and I think perhaps I have found my newest possibility of death.

Anyway, we talked a good deal but I actually thought a great deal about The Garden of Virtues, and I visualized clearly Shelley's return to the garden and just how it would look. I saw a trail of antique photographs, and I would tell the old story with the sense of tragedy it deserved, the children deserting the garden, and I clearly saw Shelley's larger booted foot stepping upon one of the weathered photographs, him lifting it, looking at it, and becoming involved in a reverie of the past as slowly he re-entered the old places, touched the old things-- which were put away for him in a rusted cabinet.

I am presently reading two engrossing books after months of non-engrossing books. One is The Turquoise Mask, by Phyllis Whitney, and the other is Mistress Anne, by Temple Bailey. Whitney's book is more suspense-oriented and very intelligently written. Bailey's book is excruciatingly romantic. Each chapter gives me a reverie and a delight, and I feel that wonderful sense that there is something so beautiful I can only glimpse in shadows and touch only through reading or writing fiction. Her Glory of Youth I found in an antique shop in my childhood, and I treasured it. I never dreamed I would find all of her other books online one day for free download.

I walked out to the tank this morning. I made a cup of tea and held it as I walked across the very long pasture, in gray light before sunrise. The wind was high and blew across me, splashing my hot tea in my face at one point. There were some big dogs in that area, and when I realized there was no fence between us, I came back to the house without climbing the hill to the tank.

Do you know what it is to come out in early morning light, with only fields on all sides of you, as dressed or undressed as you like, with your cup casually in your hands, and just start walking in one direction, any direction, just walking?

I am reading The Fourth Turning to understand first and foremost where I am in the great scheme of things. I am at the end of Generation X. This is the generation begotten by the Baby Boomers. At the tailing end of Generation X I experience the least identity with and power in my generation, which is the most dysphoric generation of this generational cycle, which is about to end.

This is true for me. I have a sense that I came of age very late. I have a sense that I did not come of age at all, that I was always of age. My generation, according to this book, is extremely dependent on self and does not look to the outside. In general for my generation there have been no grand messages or themes. The unity comes in its unraveling and dysphoria. Like a natural autumn, we are the drying-up, the dying part of the cycle.

According to the book, we will experience a monumental crisis around the year 2025, when the nation will experience death and rebirth, as it did with World War II/Great Depression, Civil War and Revolutionary War. This crisis will force a change of life and completely separate the lifestyle from what it was before. However I am not really interested in all those theories.

Anyway, at the tailing edge of my generation I have begun to feel very interested in the leading edge. The first things that come to my mind are The Breakfast Club and Edward Scissorhands. Gothic culture came about in this time, but there is a general attitude of darkness in the youth culture whether or not members would identify with the gothic culture. One thing that separates the tailing end of Generation X from the leading end of the Millenial Generation is the birth of the Internet. This has had such a profound impact on youth culture and identity, and I wish the book could have covered it, but it was published in 1996, and that was when the Internet first became available in a widespread sense.

I was very much a part of the early Internet. I made my website immediately, became engrossed in the gothic and fantasy cultures online, which revolved around movies like Labyrinth and Legend. I think it is really interesting that I immediately found so much common to myself on the Internet. I feel like it was because my gravitation to the Internet corresponded to others who wanted to express the same thing I did.

So the early Internet was dominated almost exclusively by Generation X. The Millenial generation will have no recollection of it. Their present domination of the Internet has changed its timbre completely. Now the Internet is a social place. It is not the place you go when you are a nerd, it is just the place you go.

I find myself going between two different cultures, one older than myself and one younger than myself. I question my need, but I do not feel like I can express and create artistically until I know about whom and what I am speaking. It may be that I would be much more effective all around if this need had never occurred to me, but there it is, and I must continue to examine it.

Ideas from reading The Fourth Turning, by Strauss and Howe.

I have come of age.

I have come to a time when I struggle constantly with what is important to me, what should be lasting in my life.

I want to express myself. Succeeding in that expression is more important to me than having a successful career of that expression. I want to express my individuality in ways permanent and impermanent. Impermanent ways are my dress and appearance, more permanent ways are physical objects I create, and the most permanent are my writings and photos. I do not totally understand how to balance the importance of these three. My life feels devoid of immediate happiness when I focus myself entirely on writing, and it feels devoid of lasting happiness when I focus exclusively on creating objects and on my personal style, both of those I consider as lifestyle.

In fact, I would consider all three to be what I call an artistic lifestyle. It is very important to me to have and preserve the concept of myself as an artist. If I fail to give myself opportunity to express or contemplate, I feel constrained and desperate, feel a deep resentment toward my job and structured lifestyle.

Opposed to this desire for an artistic lifestyle I desire a traditional lifestyle. I desire order and mastery of all domestic subjects. I want to be in control of the home, its cleanliness and practicality at all times. I want to master domestic and decorative skills and prove my prowess in a lasting sense.

I experience on a regular basis,
A worship of beauty
A longing for the distant past
Love for the gothic
Need for enlightenment
Need to settle myself
Desire to reconcile and balance all relationships
Wanting fame, to leave my mark
Insecurity that I am clinging to things not for me, because of my generation
A need to stick out
A terror of incomformity
Total apathy, lack of energy or motivation
Often coupled with internal restlessness by which I feel paralyzed
A total lack of identification with anyone my age

For my new player, I bought a treasure trove of albums,

Barry Manilow (for Mandy)
Linda Ronstadt
America
Mannheim Steamroller
Vivaldi
Castles and Cathedrals, classical compilation
Barbra Streisand/Barry Gibb
Stravinsky
Romeo and Juliet soundtrack
Fame soundtrack
John Denver

This novel was one of Austen's earliest, if not the earliest published. I was reading her early unpublished work, Love and Freindship (sic) and saw some decided similarity between it and Northanger Abbey. Love and Freindship (sic) was written before Austen knew how to spell, and I find it nearly unreadable, even with grammar corrected. Northanger Abbey has emotional conflict arising from love, friendship, gossip, speculation and is overwrought and excruciating with satire and dry interjections from the author. The end had me cringing. How different from Mary Shelley's loving and lovely interpositions in her own works.

I feel discouraged from this work in continuing to read the rest of Austen. Technically now I have read all of her books, but I was going to re-read the big and cinematic three before watching the Masterpiece Theatres.

My focus as a writer of love has shifted considerably. In high school I tested every boundary I knew in my work and as I matured I decided most of those experiments were unsuccessful. I concluded that the most lasting love is found in faithfulness, fidelity, devotion, and I became more interested in chivalry, Camelot, and found my ideals in accord with Victorian romances, where the characters suffer dutifully through bad choices and are rewarded richly. However Austen's cynicism reminds me of the self-destruction possible in adhering to those ideals. There is some suggestion that Austen was disappointed in love and her cynicism was born from that. How can I ignore that kind of pain in my ideal Victorian world? How can I continue to paint the rose-colored pictures of successful and earned love when I have seen the devastation of those who followed the formula and failed to see results? Or, like Austen, do I spend too much time thinking about other people?

After reading any work of verisimilitude (sp?) I am left with the conclusion that life is a muddle, that there are no easy answers, a concept blanketed in what I learned in English class as "human condition."

And so I concede to this, I do the best I can, and the only thing I can positively promote in any of my works is hope, and as I feel that cynicism is the death of hope, I am tired of Jane Austen and will not be continuing the books for a while.

I am a little disappointed in the way things have panned out. Catherine became a little too obsessed with the gothic, to the extent of tasteless behavior jeopardizing her love relationship. She seems immature and I do not share Henry's admiration for her. The love story has been very weak overall, everything subordinate to the cautionary message about getting too obsessed with gothic romances.

In addition, a great deal of this story has been devoted to the main characters talking about other people. That seems very amateurish to me. I tended to do that in my early writing to shy from the lack of action going on with the main characters. All around, there has been very little conflict in the story and now, in the last 7/8, there is absolutely none.

In the morning I was awakened by the sound of a key turning in the lock, and I rose up in bed immediately on the alert.

I expected Shelley to turn away and leave, but my door opened a crack, then wider. He brought a tray of tea and breakfast food to me.

“I thought you would be hungry,” he said by way of apology.

I did not know whether to renew my anger that he had locked me in again, or be delighted that he was trying to make it up to me. My hunger seized me, and I took the tray with alacrity.

“I’m starved. Stay and eat with me.” I tossed my wild hair from my shoulders as Shelley brought my bed jacket around me.

“I can’t. I’m in the middle of my work—“

As he moved close to me, I turned abruptly and kissed him. He was shocked—too shocked to respond to me.

“You must spend the morning with me.”

“I told you that I cannot.”

I pulled the yellow ribbon from my waist and wound it about his neck. Curiously, it immobilized him. “You are bound to me. I won’t let you go.”

Shelley made no attempt to remove the ribbon or to flee from me as I poured tea and served him a cup, then offered him a muffin. He lay down next to me, propped up on one elbow, and watched me. He did look absurd with my yellow sash around his neck, but I was pleased to have made an impact on him.

After we ate, he lay on my bed, looking somewhat disgruntled, and gazed out of the window. I sat above him, stroking his hair. “You may go now if you like. You’re no longer my prisoner.”

“The ribbon,” he growled. “Remove it.”

“But it was only a joke.”

“Take it off me.”

At the furious look in his eyes, I untied the length of satin and pulled it back around my waist. “You have no sense of humor.”

As soon as it was no longer on him, he moved to the door. “You’re turning out to be quite a challenge,” he said rather acidly.

“What did you expect?” I retorted. “For me to be docile and do whatever you say, allow you to control me? Once I had no choice but for you to do as you liked—but things are different now. My will is not yours. Perhaps one day I will master you.”

He moved through my door without another word, and I knew that was the last I would see of him for that day. Still I was not sorry.

I was leisurely about dressing for the day, since Shelley had already brought me enough food to sustain me through the afternoon. I finished my tea and took my time about selecting a dress, then I sat at my vanity table, where I continued the unbound journal I had been keeping for the past few days.

I haven't been able to decide whether or not I want to keep this part. I don't know if I want Shelley to be a unicorn, as I originally planned, or simplify things. I think I will probably simplify things. It does not make sense for the ki-lin to come to earth for a thousand years only to tamper with humans and bring them grief. I think I will preserve the ki-lin identity in A Garden of Virtues, where things are nonlinear.

This weekend we enjoyed the last temperate weekend probably for a time to come. I was able to decorate pretty thoroughly. We have the tree now and other ornamented locales. My monks are across the mantel on a pallet of snowy fleece. I want to get long candles for an advent wreath. I also disassembled the broken Christmas angel my mother gave me and used the lights for a tiny Christmas tree. They are incredibly hot, and I'm hoping they will not set the tree on fire, since they melted the angel's plastic cone.

I am still not sure how to complete reparations of the angel. I don't really know how to make another cone, need to remove the last sharp bits of the present one, and figure out how to brush, iron, glue and clean the various parts to rightness. I don't need her this year anyway.

I still want to make the Snow White Christmas tree skirt. I also want to glue the sequins back on the felt Advent calendar. I will need to buy some as well as the candles.

Last night I was able to come up with several dress and project designs. I am publishing those to A Fine and Private Place. In addition to the Awakenings project I am considering revitalizing Cinderella. I didn't like the last chapter and want to change it.

Yesterday we went to a new church. That was interesting, and we will go again. It was a very modern nondenominational church, though it was actually not very large, or at least, the attendance appeared to be fairly low. After that we had jazz brunch at Birraporreti's, which was really remarkable.

So, here I am again. I must admit, it's very much a low after such a nice weekend.

I use this online program called Zamzar to rip Youtube videos into files my portable device can read. My favorite video has always been "Anything for Love" by Meatloaf. I have been foiled time and again in my effort to capture this video. In the old days, on one tape recording, the tape ran out. On another, it warped. On a third, I staked out the couch for the whole weekend during a video marathon and was forced to leave when the video was aired.

In the early days of the Internet I scouted this video for hours on end. I never found it. I priced it on a Meatloaf video collection for $100. It wasn't worth that much to me. However, when Youtube came out the video became commonplace. I tried time and again to rip it, but the file size was so large it would take hours to get my email link. Usually by then I would be asleep, and Zamzar only keeps the video for 24 hours, so I missed it again and again. I decided to try again this afternoon and persevere, however,

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by a third party."

Why?

All of his other videos are online. His newest 20 minute long video with Beauty and the Beast-type stuff is in high def: "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." I have that one already-- it isn't the same. Why do they have to do this to me? I could have downloaded it again and again. Now it is gone, and I will never have another chance. I could have had it for free. And I don't want his whole video collection, not at all.

What is the big deal? That video has got to be fifteen years old. Why?

It's very fast reading. It is the most engrossing thing I've read in a while. My initial impression of it was wrong in many ways. It's not completely a spoof. The characters are like the characters in her other works. The heroine is staunch though, like a gothic heroine, I find myself wanting to shout directions at her, and cringing when her decisions, or lack of them, cause trouble.

I have a couple of questions. One is about Henry Tilney. When Catherine first meets him he is clearly a likeable fellow, really more teasing and fun rather than aloof. He parleys with her a great deal. He is very talkative. However, he is in fact elusive. He disappears. There are explanations for some of his seeming coldness, but there is cause for suspicion. Not everything adds up. Am I misinterpreting his playful and extremely verbose speeches? What he has to say is very interesting, but I wonder if I am interpreting him as being too flippant because I am unaccustomed to heroes speaking so much and so variously. When he is with Catherine, there is nothing unreassuring about him at all. He is very dashing, which also makes me uneasy. His speeches are so verbose it makes me wonder how many times he has made these witty remarks to his dance partners. Catherine is totally obsessed with him. I question that.

In addition there are the occasional appearances of Henry's father. Catherine's instantaneous reaction to him was to find him very handsome, and on his very occasional appearances in the story I notice him very distinctly. There is some subtle highlight, unless I am interpreting things the wrong way. There is some growing intrigue surrounding him. Is he trying to keep Catherine away from Henry and Miss Tilney? Does he really approve of her? But I found my imagination running away with me onto fields far less decent than anything which Miss Austen would condone, such as, is Henry's father really the gothic hero villain? What if Catherine falls in love with him? We know Henry's mother is dead, so he's single. Did Austen include that sentence on purpose, because I really noticed that? Is she above pairing Catherine with this man? I really want to know.

Henry has no depth of character. His father has at least suffered a loss. So there is some emotional highlight over him.

Also, I am halfway through the book, and there is no Northanger Abbey or faintest mention of one. Catherine almost toured Blaize Castle. She's a gothic novel fanatic, so she was excited about that. I really want to keep reading. Right now my vote is on Mr. Tilney. He's subtly tragic.

Labels: NaNoWriMo 2008, Red Rose

This is the second lunch I've passed in this downtown Barnes and Noble. I like this place. If I worked here I would undoubtedly come here for lunch. It is going to be hard forfeiting the hour and fifteen lunches, but normal life is less stressful than this. I am not cut out for city living. I still had driving troubles today. These one way streets are so difficult. I don't understand parking, and I like finding locations that I "cain't miss" from the road. Everything is so densely packed. Everyone else seems to have walked somewhere, but I celebrate lunchtime as the time to get as far away from the work as possble with as much comfort as possible, and Subway, I'm sorry, is not comfortable.

Last night I slept from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. when I had to call in. I have slept so much lately, but I feel in such a muddle. My head is pounding. If I were home I don't think I could put myself together enough to do any of my things.

I really long to do things, too. Writing Red Rose relit my creative world. It was very much a struggle. My very last day, Nov 30, was when it was effortless. It reminds me like a lot of things do of the Return to Innocence. That song has given me so much to consider. It's very important to me. The return from chaos to simplicity, from switched-off drudgery to active creativity, is very complicated and requires much care. For years life has seemed to me a constant process of attempting to recenter myself from the time chaos began entering my life, which was exactly half my lifetime ago. I see perfect creative facility as being perfectly centered. Writing the novel was very important to me from that standpoint. It reilluminated me, but it was very difficult.

Well, I'm going to use my last few minutes to glance over books and leave. I have learned I need to budget about fifteen extra minutes in for screw-ups. I have done stuff every time. I can't believe I drive so poorly and ineffectually in the city.