The Track: Satan's 7th Circle of Hell

I hate gym class.

It's the worst class in the whole wide world.

I silently whimpered to myself as I awkwardly laced my feet into the clunky, boyish tennis-shoes. My mother had bought them for me for the new school year; they smelled like the inside of a sports store, which translated to intense dread and terror.

Usually, we have to run around cones and play stupid games with balls or flags. I would have to race across the floor--shoes squeaking, trying not to fall--with pointy elbows flying and kneecaps pumping. One time, during Kick-Ball, when all eyes were on me, I charged at my stupid rubber foe for all I was worth. I closed my eyes and kicked so hard I almost got whip lashed. Then everybody laughed. When I opened my eyes, I saw with horror that the ball stood motionless beside me and my left shoe was spinning toward the ceiling.

Today, however, was not a Kick-Ball day. Nor was it a Dodge-Ball day. Dodge-Ball day was a hellish eternity of my skinny 8 year old body being abused and pelted by the more athletic boys and girls, in which I would have to escape to the edge of the room and sit with the other losers who couldn't defend themselves, where I would gratefully play with my shoe laces or pretend to ice skate with my fingers until Coach B blew her whistle and started a new game.

Rather, today was a Mile day. The third graders were herded outside of the crisp air-conditioned building, and left to the brutal mercy of Mother Nature's hot-flashes. The interminable menopause of the Texas Deity--a blazing 110 degrees painfully magnified by the blackness of the rubber Track. We were told by our decrepit, vulture-like teachers (who rested in the shade with a couple cans of soda) that the Track was only one quarter of a mile, but we all knew they lied. The thing stretched for years and years, burning through my new shoes, dampening my socks and scourging my bare feet. On the far end of the Track, the elementary school could be seen through the wobble of heat waves. An ugly oasis of brick. I would squish it between my fingers (one eye shut tight) and imagine squeezing out the cold of the air conditioning and rubbing it all over my flushed and dehydrated body.

The worst part about the Track was the smell. It stunk like melted rubber. Tiers that that be caught on fire by the rays of the sun, under the magnifying lens of the atmosphere. The scent would stick in my nose and make my tummy hurt at lunch, in which case I'd push away my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or squish it in the bag and stab holes in it with my fingers.

After all of the kids completed four laps around the Track--and could prove it with four freshly punched holes in our exercise tickets, we were allowed to go back inside and make the greatly desired stop at the drinking fountain. I'd wait in line, with all of the other sweaty third graders, for the chance to gulp down as much water as humanly possible in an appropriate amount of time.

Water was never so desirable, sweet, or quenching, as it was after the Track was through with me.

I heard my vent go "Hwhhhhhhh" and I wrote this:

The north-easterly wind blows through the sand crusted canyons, occasionally stirring the particles and loosening the bond of over one million years. Soon, there will be nothing left. All is silence but for the steady hollow blow, landing dry upon my ears as if I could hear the echo of civilization evaporate from the cracked rock of the earth. No more. Just the solid hum of wind decomposing monuments of time, like the hum of bees muffled by hands over ears--pressing the sound away. To be smaller. Strange, how such a tiny noise--the reverb of wind through arches of rock and the microscopic tinging of animate particles, dancing along the edge of the canyon--can be painful. I press harder against my ears to make it stop. Sand in my eyes, tears fall. Dust in my throat, cannot make noise. I stomp, but my weight is insignificant against the vastness of the desert earth--one stomping human being on the crust of the planet; it is absorbed immediately by the thirsting sand. I yell silently, but nothing is added or subtracted from the dying voice of wind. Not a ripple of sound across the wide sea of atmosphere as there is no receptive end but the two beneath my white fists.
I sink into the bed prepared for me: sand and stone. The earth rumbles. Years go by, then finally, and with mercy, the volcano erupts with the life breath of the inner earth--hydrogen-sulfide--and I fall asleep.

And so this is Christmas....

Alas, I find myself pondering Christmas in the last 45 minutes of its existence. I have been poisoned with sugar and my little brother is currently shooting darts at my head with his new NERF gun.

"And I've got refills! Three refills, actually!" Weston gloats, a pinched twinge of levity in his mezzo-soprano voice--- while loading yellow spongy darts with purple suction cups.

Seconds later, my room turns into a circus.

My mother enters and splashes onto my water bed in a glorious fanfare, ruining the tautness of my tidy blankets.

Ansel, my older brother enters. Tossing his puzzles pieces in the air, he says "I finished it!! Ooops..."

Erika exeunts to my father's stentorian beckons, with a dangerous flicker in her eye and a low threatening growl.

Alone, and surrounded by the commotion of my family, I determinedly peck at my key board and will vocabulary to flutter through my fingers.


*********************************

Alas,
nearly twenty minutes have passed since ere the asterisks. Ansel challenged me to put together a 3-D puzzle, in which the quizzical wooden zig-zags warped and wrapped about my brain, both frustrating and delighting me (but mostly the former), in my attempts to fashion the thing into its spherical conclusion. Every now and then I felt pulled to give into my primitive lust to cast it upon the ground and shout unintelligible troll curses at the obnoxious puzzle pieces, but I retained this urge--if only to prove to my family once and for all that I am not altogether lacking in my left-brain capabilities (for which I have been ruthlessly labeled).

It is 12:02 am.
In my puzzling reverie, I let slip the remaining remnants of Christmas Day and have passed unknowingly into the realm of post Christmas.

This side of Christmas holds much danger and mystery: My ACTF acting competition, my new work schedule, a new semester...the year 2010.

I watch the shimmers of red and green smear into nonexistence as the magic of Christmas is rubbed away by the mere separation of two minutes.

Fare thee well, Christmastide; oh sugar filled glut of holiday, with your joyous laughs and lingering moments of revelry and laziness. I shall think of you later with a greater fondness, whence you harden in my memory, and drop like a ruby --my 20th Christmas-- into my mindful collection.

Christmas Eve Eve Interview

With Christmas trees glimmering with deep reds and greens and fuzzy blues--in every window and along the M45 in Allendale, I recognize that Christmas Day will inevitably come, only to depart again for another 365 days. The jolly spirit will disintegrate into the irritations of mundane reality, in which dreams do not always come true and depleted bank account must be faced.

As a twenty-year old,I am well aware that Christmas is not what it was when I was a child--I cannot experience the bliss of innocent selfishness nor the thrill of magic found in an empty plate of cookies by the fireplace, on Christmas morning.

Christmas for me has changed. It retains the wonder in its truest sense, but the feelings have altered as I have grown older; I must admit, amidst the glittering tinsel and blinking lights, I sense a fragment of melancholy.

In an attempt to refresh that childish spark of Christmas excitement, I interviewed my nine year old brother, Weston.

Our interview took place after he should have been in bed, but before he brushed his teeth.

He started off with saying, "11:14pm means..." (He paused to count on his fingers and stare at a spot on the ceiling) "16 minutes until Christmas Eve." Through the course of our little discussion, he promptly informed me every time a minute ticked by, bringing us closer to Christmas Eve--and thusly Christmas day. His excitement shone through his physical rambunctiousness, and quickness to lean over my laptop to see what I was typing.

Weston said that his excitement for Christmas could fill the whole cardboard box that the new microwave came in (which was the largest parcel he could think of), that he had turned into a submarine earlier in the evening with the help of scissors and scotch tape.

I asked him what he wanted for Christmas, and he replied with a loud, monotonous "Uhhhhh..." followed by an example of his socially instilled reception of consumerism,in the midst of total innocence: "I want that X-wing--that $50 dollar x-wing!!" Then in a booming voice he added,"It's 13 minutes until Christmas Eve!"

I asked the nine-year old to describe Christmas morning. He said, "I just jump out of my bed--I don't get out of my pajamas--I just get out of bed..Check my stocking, eat breakfast, and wait for you guys to wake up. Then we open the big presents." The latter part of the quote was illustrated with a sweeping arm gesture and round saucer eyes.

"12 minutes until Christmas Eve!" he screeched in afterthought.

Next, I inquired about his favorite part of Christmas (aside from opening up presents. He articulated a series of stalling interjections as he pondered a question he had never given much thought. "Umm-ummy-um-um-um...the whole thing?...Including opening presents."

Then it was the tough question. Does Santa Clause Exist? He quieted in embarrassed meditation and finally said, "I don't know..." What do your friends say? He replied, "yes and no..." Weston, on the break of double-digits, has found himself in the inevitable quandary of Santa's existential reality. I could see the wheels turning in his little head, plotting ways to stay up all night on Christmas Eve to catch either Santa Clause--or our parents--in the act of delivering presents below the tree. Good luck to him. (In my day, I could never manage to stay awake long enough).

Finally, I asked Weston to close his eyes and imagine himself in 42 years from now, waking up on Christmas Day. What will Christmas be like, then?

"Well..." he said after serious consideration, "I would weigh a lot with all of my hairs, and how fat my butt was...I won't get as many presents as I would when I was a kid...I'd get like a foot spa and a tie...I'd rather not have a tie--how about a tie-fighter?! Or a time machine?! I would go back in time to when I was ten years old..." He paused dramatically to do justice to what he just said, then exclaimed, "And there's seven minutes to Christmas Eve!!"

Though he was not consistent in his verb tenses and his verbal sentence structure was awkward to type, I found some wisdom in his youthful words. Rather than submitting to the mundane boredom that can easily accompany age, I should use this time of year for an intentional relapse into childhood. Why can't it be magic for me, too? I'm not too old, just yet.

Tomorrow night, I shall don my footie pajamas and dream about whatever sugar plumbs are--and rejoice with my kid brother in the pile of presents and filled stockings on Christmas morning.

After all, there is only 23 hours and two minutes until Christmas Day.

I might as well get excited now.

Dust.

It was a dim corridor.

A drab carpet that reeked of decades past winded through the mall passage ways and branched off into various depressing stores, all of which were almost completely empty. A florescent light buzzed and mannequins beckoned headlessly from the surrounding windows, their fingers curled grotesquely behind freckled pains. We passed into one of such shops and floated through isles of hanging fabrics and quizzical frocks.

Submerging ourselves deeper into the artificial lighting, my sister and I perceived another human being. He loitered about, behind the counter, and killed time by arranging and rearranging the display. Our presence did not disturb the dusty old man, nor do I believe we could have. It was as if he had long given up on receiving costumers and had resigned himself to perpetual preparation, performing menial tasks that could be done and redone--all for the sake of this thing that would never come. The old man had forgotten the sound of footsteps--the sound shoes make as they pass softly from the retro carpet to land (lightly scuffing)on the hard floor of the shop. He did not look up. Not once.

Meeting eachother's glance, my sister and I silently agreed to leave.

Perhaps it was the intoxication of the flickering light of the artificial sky, or perhaps it was the freakish tauntings of the freakish display mannequin--but upon turning around, the room seemed to stretch at least three fold the distance we covered walking in. The opening seemed to be the arch of a distance mirage.

A Random Thought

Someday I am going to have a baby. And that baby will be a boy. And that boy will be just like Henry David Thoreau.

He will be an eccentric forest dweller who writes poetry and reads wood chips.

And I will be a proud mama.

I am much obliged to don shallow decency

I was puzzled and somehow, deeply wounded, when the ice slushed beneath my laced boots and steeped the hem of my dress in frigidity. It seemed to move through my heavy skirts, passed my bodice, and into my heart--which froze promptly upon contact.

To the tone of the church bells about Eliot's pulpit, I perceived Mr. Hollingsworth (once promised to me in an unofficial but nevertheless sacred engagement) arm in arm with the young Priscilla. Eyes sparkling like the puddles she hopped over, Priscilla melted like a snowflake into Mr. Hollingsworth's half embrace.

I might have stared a bit too long for decency, but then again, what I did next wasn't very decent.

Pretending to retrieve a hair pin, I stooped and slipped off a soggy boot, then hurled it with all of my might. She made the most lovely noise when it struck her in the face, but I must admit that I missed. I had been aiming for him.

My Secret for Memorizing Lines

My fan base has importuned me long enough. I shall reveal it--but to you, only, who are my most dear and adoring fans of the blogish realm.

I have practically memorized my 13 pages of lines without allotting it specific time, and that was done with a careful observation to all of the time I waste staring into space.

I have put my time to better use...
1. While I'm staring at my alarm clock in the morning, trying to remember what day it is.
2. While I'm brushing my teeth and washing my face.
3. While I'm showering.
4. While I'm stirring my oatmeal
5. While I'm blow drying my hair and putting on make-up

I have intelligently delineated my morning routine and have turned it into a rehearsal.

It is effective in varying amounts, but I persist nevertheless.

Of course, I could only fit 4 lines on my alarm clock (so as to not block the time) and I had to laminate the pages that go in the shower. I've always found doing lines and blow drying my hair at the same time to be difficult--that is, until I discovered that a simple piece of scotch tape would hold the sheet of paper to the wall right next to the mirror.

If you open up the right most section of my bathroom mirror, you will see page two and three of my script. This works really well, except I've discovered that brushing teeth and articulating can be treacherous: flying specks of toothpaste may flit in an eye or two, and there is always the chance of choking on the toothbrush. I have come close a couple of times, but it's all in the name of art, and art is no good without pain/risk and/or stinging eyes.

Though it is an echoing and rather splashy environment, the shower is positively a joyous place to memorize lines. Only, I would recommend informing your roommates if you are going to try it, because they might think you're talking to somebody in the shower in which case they may become jealous of your casual intimacy with other people who you don't even live with and if you can eat their cereal and occasionally sneak some of their ice cream, your roommates might wonder why you don't bother to get to know them better--let alone share a breakfast conversation with them if you make time for other people when you're in the shower. (To avoid all of this, simply inform the roommates that you are merely talking to yourself, and you, as a theatre major, are exempt from all conventional definitions of sanity).

The hardest time to memorize lines is while putting on eye liner. It doesn't work, so don't try it. Just...don't. Lathering facial lotion and foundation works moderately well, but memorizing while stirring oatmeal is 65% more effective. I simply need to open up the cabinet to my left and lo and behold! Page 7 and 8 of my script!


In this fashion, I have memorized my lines in short little intervals. I'd say it was moderately successful, but here are the down falls.

1.I memorized my lines a bit out of order
2. My roommates have read the sections of the play I've taped up, and now they know what happens.
3. Condensing my time in this method (and not allowing time for my own thoughts) has made me go slightly insane. Of course, one must weigh the pros and cons of such things. Sacrificing sanity is not the right choice for everybody, but if you're an actor, it might get you places.

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed hearing of my secret line-memorizing methods.

Microwave, A History

Microwaves were discovered in the 12th century A.D. by Lord Henrik Byzantinhead. He had been galloping across the Norwegian countryside when his horse toppled against an oddly shaped cube stone. Lord Byzantinhead dismounted and observed the strange phenomenon. He was astounded to find that the cube had a swinging portion that open and closed, revealing a tiny spacious interior. He loaded his discovery among his other parcels and brought it to the king.

During his presentation to the king, Lord Byzantinhead referred to the strange object as a "microwave," for he had named it after his horse, "Microwava."

The microwave was held in the court of the Norwegian King for many decades; it was used to store his most precious documents until 1178, when the handle was poisoned and the king dropped dead upon touching it.

Three months later, another microwave was found in the mountainous terrain of Bavaria. Over the next couple centuries, at least 45 more were discovered.

It wasn't until the pinnacle of the Dark Ages in circa 1330 that the use of the microwave was realized, in which case a peasant had the idea to plug its cord into an outlet and toss in a piece of raw mutton. When the microwave lit up and 4 and a half minutes later, the raw mutton emerged, well-done and bubbling with gravy, the peasant was burned at the stake for witchcraft.

After this incident, the holders of microwaves were forced to go underground, as microwaves were banned by the Church. Anyone suspected of illegal microwave usage was to be hanged until dead, or drowned until drowned.

During the English Renaissance, Queen Elizabeth banned the Catholic church and liberated microwave usage. For the first time in almost 300 years, people of all classes were allowed to heat their mutton and lamb chops in microwave ovens.

We have come a long way in microwave usage, since Lord Byzantinhead's discovery, the nameless peasant's death, and the re-institution during the Renaissance. During the 20th century, organic microwaves were replicated by the grace of technology, and have been made available to the masses.

I would encourage each and every one of you to appreciate the long plight of the microwave oven, next time you heat your Easy Mac. Hug the electrical-wavy-apparatus close to your breast, stroke its numberish buttons, and whisper something affectionate.

Some may say that microwave oven cause cancer, but I would say that it is your fear and ignorance that gives you cancer, in which case, you deserve to die.

Thank you for your time.

πατέρας

Cold. Th earth stretches like an endless desert and sand billows into the sky like a heavy cloud. I taste the dust of the pyramids in my mouth. I choke. My back breaks lifting the blocks of stone on top the many--reaching into the sky--reaching for divinity--trying to touch it with the pitiful point of man's greatest construction of time.

My hands are caked in mud, the scent of straw stains my skin. Blood runs down my back, streaming down the razed streaks--disfigured with insufficient healing.

Water--I crave water! Throat is parched like the cracked earth below me.

Forgive us our sins.

Below me lie my brothers and sisters. My mothers and fathers. Their bodies of salt and shrouded clothes. Their lives broken by the greed of Man--crushed by stone, beaten with flesh, exposed, molested, emptied into the earth.

Father Father

I roam the earth with feet that have trod many miles. The miles have worn my face and hardened my skin, crystalled with salt. My eyes see the struggle and the pain--perpetual--ahead.
A world without end.

Father

My begging hands are ignored, scoffed at, slapped, beaten, crushed.

I am used as an animal--labor--toil--sex--dirt

Why do they steal my clothes, rip me, scourge me, crucify me

Thorns--I fall. I writhe and slip in the blood pouring from my wounds.

Stinging--pain--stench

We gather together in a dim room with a low ceiling. The door is closed and the candles are lit. There is no time for the bread to rise--we must eat it now--for we must flee. The bread is ripped and passed. It is sweet and soft on my tongue, I press it to my mouth and devour it. It fills me, slows the knives of hunger. We pass the bowl. The wine spreads warmly through my body. Magma--burning and shaping. I bring the trembling bowl to my brother's lips. He drinks deeply and passes it, too.

Father.

Hot. The earth stretches wide and far.

A world with out end.

Rachael descends into the abyse of nihilism

I am truly wondering if words exist in one's mind as drops of water in a pool. If too many are used at once--say, are evaporated quickly by the selfish sun on a sweltering afternoon, will there be any drops of words left for tomorrow's refreshing sip?

I have used too many of my words, too quickly, and my Brain is currently buzzing with the interminable wasteland of parched nothingness. I cannot link two thoughts together to save my life. I can not comprehend and intelligibly convey this essay I have read twice through because the 11 page paper of yesterday zapped me of my loquacious hydration.

That is why I have turned to this blog. In an attempt to irrigate my mental capacity and to coax it into working for me. I am tired of fighting with my sentance structre, my grammer, my concept. Can't we just work together--you and I--so that we can achieve that blissful utopia known as sleep? (My red-lined eyes can attest to its long absence.)

In absolute desperation, I perform a rain-dance of metaphores, of similies, of the sacred ability to formulate analogy. I will give you my first born son, of god of the English major, if only you have pity on me and grace me with words...

Somebody Stop Me Before I Eat My Classmate

Lateness is frustrating. In acting classes, especially. They are so unpredictable! One can not simply walk into a black box and slip into the familiar flow of page turning and note-taking. I have no idea what to expect.

Pushing open the heavy door of the Performance Center classroom, I find myself in room full of humanoid animals. After a cursory glance and seeing most of my classmates on all fours, I assume we are cats for the day.

I slip into my cat. (It is not difficult as I occasionally stalk about my house as a cat and meow at my roommates). After a bit of investigation, I realize the population is not merely feline. This realization does not bother me as I am too preoccupied with grooming myself, but after a while, I spot something that does catch my attention..

There is a bird in the room. My ears perk. I freeze. Several minutes pass as I trace its delicate movement with my glassy green eyes, the fire of my stare burning into its delicate feathers.

Secretly, I calculate the formula to kill. Space to cover divided by pressure to suffocate. With a pinch, the serrated tips of my claws emerge. Like water, I slither in an out of the clutter along the wall, keeping in shadow (save the orbs of my glowing eyes), fixed upon my prey. All else fades into shadow. Just me and the pathetically twittering bird. The quivering feathers that hypnotize and strangle my attention.

Silently, breathing smoothly through my nose, I creep closer with the ease of rolling water and my hunger tumbles in my throat like a purr. The space is right—and I have not been sensed. I flatten against the cold floor—my muscles coiled to...POUNCE. In a flash of movement and flutter of wings, I land.

Emptiness.

I feel my back arch and hair stand on end, hunger not satiated. With liquid furry, I hunt my prey through the crowd of dogs, gorillas, hedgehogs and other felines. That bird is mine.

My steps are careful. Muscle glides across bone, below coat, around absence of collar bone. My tail curls about the air and the soft current tickles my whiskers. Every dust particle, every insect in every corner of the room is visible to my sharp eyes. I easily find the bird. The hunt is on.