Oddities of Me

Oddities of me, you say? Some may read this and think, well that's nothing new! But folks let me tell you what an obsessive passion for old houses coupled with boredom over Christmas break can do to a person...mainly me. And maybe only me, unless you happen to suffer from the same things currently. In that case you may want to read on solely to find a way to both feed your obsession and stave away your boredom or forewarn yourself of a potential hazard awaiting you on your very own computer. At any rate, read it!

Well folks, I'm sure the features of Google are no secret to anyone. After all, it's where students of all ages and grades turn to when facing down that 'three sources guideline' for papers. And although I've found good, ol' solid books to be a much more reliable source - after all I'd rather sift through the solid waves of faded words and yellowed corners than the technical, white noise jargon of that never-ending, always wind-tossed currents of the Internet, but anyway, my writer's mind digresses yet again - I've found that Google does have one no-fail feature that always manages to give me what I am looking for: Google Maps!

I often wonder what my fellow Facebook friends think of my occasional status updates when I rave about Google Maps. Do they think I'm crazy? Do they never check my pages and therefore don't see my status' - as I do with many of them, regrettably. Or do they understand in a small way because my love of old houses is so widely known to all? Whatever it is they think of it, I know I've found a solution to my boredom. Now sure I'm sitting down for a half hour or more, and the key is to move around, but look at it from this angle instead people.

Already I've found two old houses I can use in stories, which is always a good thing right? Anytime I can find an old house and use it so, the endless searchings of narrow streets was worth it. What exactly am I searching for anyway? What would make me want to sit down for a half hour or more perusing the dilapidated, crowded streets of my parent's home state of Upper Michigan? After all, most of the houses in the neighborhood's I peruse on Google Maps are shrouded in sagging, moldy and outdated siding, tiny budget windows or original wooden ones with foggy cataract panes and frames stripped of wood. The roofs sag like the ground above all those filled-in underground mines, and their facades similar to the droopy faces of a comically sad Bloodhound hug the narrow, weed broken sidewalk, or the crumbling edge of the road itself, as if constantly nudging its shoulder, or a tender spot, reminding the road that it was here first, and they're both deteriorating together, everything will die at once.

But as you've also probably known, these are the types of houses and neighborhood's which attract me. There is something about a dilapidated house that captures my eyes, my creative mind, wisps of stories and characters floating through my mind just yearning for that special house to settle down in. Before I have time to stop them at the threshold between my mind and my imagination they have sprung from the door, already running within the rooms of a house I have paused only a few seconds to see, already carving their names into its plaster, its peeling wallpaper. A stroll in Google Maps through an intact neighborhood with plenty of space between the house's facades and the street would be boring to me. Granted, many a story lies within such neighborhood's as well, but not mine. So perhaps I am searching for inspiration within the twisting, rising, dipping and narrow streets of Ishpeming and Negaunee, Michigan. Perhaps the many characters and fragments of stories within my mind are searching for a home, and only need a single glimpse, enough time to press the negative against the shutter in my mind and imprint it there, like a painting against a sun-bleached wall removed to expose the wallpaper's original beauty beneath.

Whether or not you knew Google Maps could in fact be so benefactory towards one writer's inspiration, I hope you found something useful in tonight's blog post. Also, I hope you - whether you are an old house fanatic or not - take a moment to peruse Google Maps. Where, you ask? Well, it could be your hometown, your parent's hometown, a friend's house, a former home of yours or your parent's. Or just type in a random address and see where it takes you. Why not? If you're like me, you'll have days stretching ahead of you in an endless, unbroken line like empty clothing lines in winter bending with the wind, aching for that first weight of an airy, floral blouse, aching for a purpose again rather than just a thin reminder of summer shivering in the chilled air. Or even just open up Google Maps and peruse the myriad endless streets of a small town or sprawling city and listen to your mind to see which street strikes your fancy. After all, that's how I found both the modest, white farmhouse and the large, three-story Victorian that I am currently forming stories around. It's like a virtual road trip on the Internet! And if you're like me and don't have a car, it's the next best thing. Perfect with a cup of hot chocolate and a friend to discuss the old houses you'll spot along the way, I might add. ;)

Oh the indignities you'll suffer!

Warning to all readers: this week's blog post will confirm once and for all my all-encompassing, all-consuming obsession and passion with old houses. Maybe you already knew that, but this time I think I've outdone myself. Just to let you know ahead of time, you've been warned!

With that out of the way, let me fill you all in on the way I spend my evenings here on campus at UW Green-Bay as the semester winds down and I find myself with an empty afternoon filled with the promise of only...studying. What do I do you ask? Well, realizing I had an 'old houses itch' I decided to scope out different real estate websites in my hometown of Sheboygan and look up some old houses for sale in the area. (Now you understand why I put the disclaimer in the beginning, don't you?) I don't know if I've mentioned this before but most of Sheboygan's old houses are clustered on the northside, and I unfortunately - and fortunately, depending on which way you look at it - live on the southside, so the only time I get to really peruse these collections at the slow pace I desire, is to 1) Ride my bike over there, 2) Go on real estate websites or 3) Go on google maps. Yes, I have done number's two and three very frequently, and when I'm home I also enjoy watching the real estate channel. Like the billions of people in the world, there's also myriad varieties of houses out there, both young and old, and it never ceases to amaze me how completely different they all are.

What does amaze me however is how old houses can change over the centuries they've been planted in the same spot. Now I know I've talked about how owners can completely defile the age of their homes by 'remodeling' them when what their really doing is applying a facade of vinyl siding, vinyl window casings, carpet and paint. But this blog post will be a little different. And it involves my reactions to most of the old houses I eagerly clicked on, on various real estate websites only to be plummeted back to earth with a mocking laugh and pointing finger, and a voice in my head that said "did you really expect those houses to portray their original character? You know what happens to most old houses these days right? Why do you keep believing the best of people??"

Like the nut I am, I answered my own question, and replied "well, there's got to be some hope left, isn't there? I mean, I'm sure there are still old houses out there, dilapidated or not, that look more or less the same today as when they were first built. There must be people out there that don't drag their old houses kicking and screaming into the 21st century from head to foot, but actually stand there on the threshold and ask themselves "why am I adding this white paint to this luxurious cherry woodwork? Why am I carpeting the stairs? Why am I doing this, why am I doing that?"

Now I could be cynical and say that the only reason old house owners are doing such atrocities is because the owners next to them are doing it, or it brings a better resale value. So what? People want old houses nowadays that look like new houses but yet still have that age and old house feel? I can't wrap my head around that, if it is indeed true. Are people ashamed of the dark woodwork, the antique wallpaper, the scarred wooden floors that they feel so compelled to cover them up with layers of the 21st century? Now again, maybe I take such a stance against such layering, if you will, because I'm the type of person that wants an old house that's falling apart so just a breath pent up from its early days and a cracking fieldstone foundation are all that's holding it up. I want the leaking, wooden windows, the creaking and sagging floorboards. I don't care if my house is dysfunctional or the paint has been stripped from the siding until the wooden planks are gray and brown like the once thick and tousled coat of a trusted family dog who's now slowing down and graying around the edges, though he tries to hide it. Is that what all these owners are trying to do? Blend in their old houses with all the new copy-and-paste facades of new houses until its this uninterrupted glossy sea of perfection without a ripple to be found?

I hope I'm not getting cynical again, but perhaps you can see the bone such an issue has been chiseling at ever since I fell in love with old houses in middle school. But, I digress. Let us move on the real topic of today's blog post, which involves the story behind the title: "Oh the indignities you'll suffer!"

You see, while I was disappointed with old house after old house that looked promising on the outside but whose facade was really just a thin eggshell disguising the sometimes meticulous but more often sloppy and unsightly remodel job that shredded its historic heart and buried the pieces in discrete corners, where they would forever pump feebly, searching for that single vein that served them well but for reasons unknown has been severed. Oh dear, here come the metaphors. Well, perhaps I could have put up another warning: "Talking about old houses will cause me to inadvertently revert to complicated and rambling metaphors and pinnings. I realize the sentences can get long, and I'd like to think that I'm working on that, but the truth is I'm not." I'll just stop there, otherwise this blog post will be a series of warnings, instead of what I intended to talk about! Then again, do I really ever talk about what I really intended to? That would mean that I was in control of what goes on paper, and we all know that's not true. My fingers are merely mediums that are guided by my thought process. It's like sitting down at a type writer, poising your fingers over the keys when all of a sudden a rogue gust of wind billows through the open windows and beings typing frantically, leaving you just sitting there, watching the keys form on the paper at a rapid pace. Then all at once its gone, and you're left reading the words before you, wondering where to pick up, wondering where they came from.

The metaphor train has taken me away once again, but I'm back at the station, ready to board the train I intended to. I promise! While I was looking at all of those old houses on the real estate sites in Sheboygan, I couldn't help but think that just as parents sit down with their children before significant transitions in their lives and explain to them what it coming and prepare them for it, perhaps old house elders should sit down with younger old houses and explain to them the horrors they'll endure throughout the centuries.

You might be thinking, well, that's not odd at all. I mean, it's not like old houses are living people or anything. They're just a combination of wood, insulation, glass and nails. And you'd be right of course, but in my mind each and every old house is as alive as you and me. So the metaphor works. Imagine a sprawling Victorian perched atop a hill in a smallish town on a quiet street. It's one of the oldest in the neighborhood, built in 1860. Next to it is a smaller Victorian with only a two-story turret, versus the elder's three-story turret. The smaller Victorian was built in 1906, fairly new by my standards, but still intriguing nonetheless. Together they are surrounded by what is considered their town's historical neighborhood, with houses ranging in years from 1860 to the 1920's, whom all of the houses consider the youth around them and constantly snicker at their inexperience, but yet provide timeless wisdom nonetheless. After all, some of them were built by the same families and consider themselves as closely a knit family as the people who dwell within them. But anyway, more on the family history later.

Say the small Victorian and the big Victorian have been watching a new family move into a circa 1928 Bungalow, one of the youngest houses on the block. Despite its compact size everyone has always admired the traditional craftsman details like the broad, deep porch, inviting porch swing, the leaded mullions in the windows and the decorative details surrounding the original windows. Although personally the younger Victorian dislikes - like myself in a way - the sharpened corners and block designs of the bungalow, whereas it bears the sinuous curves and arches of the Victorian period. Within a few weeks of the bungalow being occupied again, the two Victorians begin to notice subtle changes within it.

Whereas once the pale morning sunlight would fall through those leaded diamond mullions and onto the richly hued staircase, highlighting the meticulously dusted craftsman-style staircase and the high wainscoting along the walls with its deep chair rail and dentil moulding...now the sun seems to shrink back at the white paint adorning the balusters and banister, as well as the wainscoting. Soon even the window frame itself is shrouded in white paint, leaving the sun no deeply textured wood grain to accentuate. The sun can no longer have any fun in that part of the house, the elder Victorian thinks with a scoff. The younger Victorian just shakes its head.

Just as the elder Victorian feared, carpet soon sprouts up on top of the polished wooden floorboards like some exotic form of fungi that is both beautiful and repelling to different eyes who gaze upon it. Any wallpaper bearing a hint of color is stripped from the plastered walls, and neutral paint colors are applied. Now the sun won't even have all those colors to fade some more, it won't have all those textures and filigree to caress. It will be met instead with a blank facade of insipid color. That house will become a stranger to the sun, soon enough, the elder Victorian thinks. I barely recognize it myself anymore. Once again it shakes its head.

"If those are the colors, textures and fabrics of this century," the younger Victorian tells the elder Victorian with a hint of a tremor as well as distaste in its voice, "then I don't ever want to feel such fungi on my floorboards, or watch my original wallpaper be stripped in favor of that bland paint slapped on my walls. Its like painting the ocean a dull white so you can't see any further than the surface, and that carpet is like blocking anyone from going deeper than the surface, never able to discover the history and inimitable beauty within it. They're erasing its character that was meticulously built into it, as well as built up by time, and the sun. The sun doesn't want anything to do with that house anymore, but yet it still lingers on the porch swing, and outside the windows, for there the house is still itself. But it's only a shell, and the sun knows that. Just like the painted ocean, if you keep that layer on long enough what time has lovingly caressed will fall away and all that will be left is the false wall erected by those who thought they were performing a favor. When really it only made the house the pity of the neighborhood, another brought to its knees at the bloodied hands of the 21st century, made to look like a thousand houses cut from the same mold. Some body should have warned it what it would go through."

"I've suffered many indignities in my day," answers the elder Victorian. Looking up, the young Victorian shields its eyes against the sun which has momentarily turned its back on the bungalow and focused upon the two of them. "I've lived through the roaring twenties, the ugly patterns and colors of the sixties, the impersonal modernity of the eighties and now here I stand, more or less intact. On all three floors I might add. I've been divided into apartments in the fifties, when a suitable owner couldn't be found that would accept my sprawling labyrinth of rooms and floors with open arms. I've had my woodwork painted more than once, my bathrooms tiled and tiled again with a horror of different colors. My kitchen, oh my kitchen has taken the brunt of it. First it was the budget cabinets with their smooth white fronts and plastic handles, then it was the pathetic attempt at modernity in the seventies, as well as the influx of flamboyantly colored furniture. Most of these people had complete disregard for my history, let me tell you. They saw me as a blank slate that they could paint anything they wanted onto, both meticulously and carelessly, rather than see it as a chance for me to make an impression upon them."

"Does every old house learn of such incidents before them?" The young Victorian asks. The elder Victorian chuckles, its sagging floorboards creaking and its wavy windowpanes in original windows distorting the world in glorious ripples. Like ripples of wrinkled skin, the younger Victorian thinks, catching a glimpse of its freshly painted siding in the reflections of the windowpanes. "No," the elder Victorian answers, "some of them don't. But they all should. Just look at the bungalow over there. It had no idea it would be the next on the block to fall into the mold so many owners are forcing their old houses into these days. They shove, they hack, they cut, they paint, they layer, they do anything they can to shove them into that mold. It seems they'll stop at nothing and yet they still insist the history, the character of the house is there. Well I say if you tear out the beginning and end of a story without reading the entire thing, and then attempt to rewrite both and expect them to comply with the story in its entirety, there's no way the story will be anything remotely similar to the original. Yet that's what these owners expect, and the sad part is, most people believe it."

"There's one thing I don't understand though," the young Victorian says. "I've had an outdated kitchen since the 1940's, and my linoleum is an unsightly burnt orange and yellow that's bubbling in some places. My baseboards, treads and banisters are all worn in spots from centuries of dirty shoes and hands upon them. My windows barely contain winter's chill, my past owners are always grumbling about the drafts coming through and the high heating bills. Every one of my floorboards creak and none of my walls are plumb...yet none of these has been corrected, and all of my owners have celebrated these imperfections. Why are houses like the bungalow, who are much younger than me, stripped so abruptly of their history and coated with a thick layer of perfection while I...remain as I was?"

"You're one of the lucky ones kid," the elder Victorian answers, chuckling again. "There are a precious few people who embrace such imperfections as yours...and mine." It have been the sun still hovering above them, but the younger Victorian thought it saw the elder wink from its third-story Palladian windows. "They love the creaky floorboards, the scarred woodwork that's a darker shade than the preferred lighter shade of most houses. They delight at the blatant lack of cabinet space and the bubbly linoleum that's a kaleidoscope of colors that if you look hard enough will take you straight back to the 1940's, when it was all the rage. Both you and I, kid, have been lucky to have such people living within us, and preserving our history, rather than hack away at it like the poor bungalow across the street. Let us hope that for the rest of the centuries we're permitted to sit quietly on this lovely street and enjoy small town life, that we continue to attract such owners. Because I'm telling you, when I see more and more houses along this street get turned, it cuts me deep, deeper than my sinking field stone foundation below me. I don't remember the day I was built, but I do know from talk in the 1920's that I was at one time the most elegant and large Victorian in this town, you were built in my image, did you know that?"

The young Victorian looks up at the elder Victorian soaring a story above it, and smiles. "I do know, yes. And I am honored, for I too bear the testament of my years proudly, and like a limping ship coming into the harbor have a hard-won battle, I am celebrated for my tenacity against time and my embracing of at the same time. That's the true balance at the heart of every old isn't it? Finding that balance between warding off the damages of time, yet embracing it the same, for to stop fighting it would spell disaster like the abandoned Federal home five houses down, but to embrace it too much would mean a lethal crossing over of the threshold...and I'd end up like the bungalow."

"You are wise for your young age," The elder Victorian praises. "I have taught you well. And yes, you are correct. That is the balance all old houses must face when they reach a certain age. You and I, we've been blessed with owners who have made that balance easier for us. Let's hope we'll find such people once again."

"And soon," the younger Victorian adds with a smile, glancing at the 'for sale' sign planted deep into its sprawling yard, the sign swinging back and forth in the slight summer breeze. It couldn't help but notice how the sign swung in tandem with the porch swing hanging from the bungalow's porch. Its smile broadened when it noticed a tentative ray of sun stretched out on the swing, casting finger-like shadows upon the paint-peeling floorboards of the porch. You'll go back inside one day, it thinks, watching the sun a moment longer before closing its eyes contentedly against its warmth. The bungalow will find that balance. We all will.

The moon, the sun and other things.

Ahh yes, a couple of weeks ago - well, considering how long it's been since my last blog post, obviously more than that but...I'm splitting hairs - I posed the rhetorical question that perhaps I write, about writing too much. But then shoved aside the question with a resounding 'no', because after all, it is the central part of me, defining so much of who I am that to deny it it's unique voice upon the white screen of this box would be like denying more than ninety-percent of myself. The writer within me, just like my obsession and fascination with old houses, always find a way to leak into whatever I'm writing about every Wednesday. Such, I concluded then in that one-way argument with myself that I needn't worry about writing too much about...writing! For there is always something new and refreshing to say, like waking up every morning and seeing a different bird perched on the branch directly outside your window, greeting you with a new trilling song that makes the pale morning fingers of light even more bouyant, until it seems you could blow them away like the deepening rays of afternoon brush away nighttime's fog and dew.

Someday perhaps I should delve into exactly why it is I fall again and again onto the brittle and breathless morning atmosphere by way of metaphor's and similies. God knows I've never woken up early enough to see a sunrise - at least not any that I can remember as clearly as those my imagination paints gleefully in my head - and I consider myself a part-time morning and night person, so it's not like I wake up embracing the morning like a lawyer facing snarled traffic in a few hours hugs their first cup of coffee to their chest, willing it to give them patience, and every thing else they couldn't possibly acquire until much cups of coffee later. But yet in many of my novellas, 'story-thoughts' and poems alike, my voice wanders to that broad room slumbering behind one of the myriad closed, six-panel wooden doors along the corridor of my imagination, flings it open and delights at the images and words abounding, picking and choosing or sometimes reaching up with a fistful into those haphazardly dancing blizzards within the delicate forks of light.

Sunlight is also a fascination of mine, I've noticed. Like the metaphor's above are testimate, so is the fact that during my frigid walk back to my apartment on campus after my last class I admired the very tops of the barren trees where the sun was hitting them, bleaching them in that particular golden hue of late evening, while the rest of the tree was shrouded in the indifferent, snickering shadow of winter. I've also figured out that the earliest reachings of morning's light, as well as its dying rays of late evening are what captivate me most. All of these rays are from the same sun, yet some barley carry enough heat to wittle away at the laden fog like deft fingers weaving a new and beautiful color over a pitfully faded shade, while others burn in that intensity that can only come as death creeps closer. The sun casts its fingers outward, perhaps gripping the barren tree tops or the elegant slope of hills for a final grasp on the land it has bathed again and again, even as the one-eyed moon regards it from its steadily rising perch, those golden hues hang on, deepening, deeping, flooding color into the same dark shade, extracting color from the earth to fuel itself, until that hollow stare tumbles down, ebbing away the heat of the evening.

I also, as you've probably noticed, have a magnetic literary pull towards the moon, and nighttime in general. I actually wrote a poem a few years back about the peculiarity I have of coming up with some of my most vivid and captivating poetry at night, when the world is in slumber, but my mind is running, racing, skipping and skating across the sloping, wide-plank floorboards of my imagination, keeping me awake and restless with the ever-increasing creaks and groans it emits. And one again, old house metaphors have snuck their way in through the back door, twining themselves so seamlessly with my words and every day writing and thoughts that I don't notice they are there until I step back and examine such metaphors.

Perhaps though, old houses and writing have always gone together. Or is it just my mind that melds them so indelibly? I can't help but think back to Robert Frost, who lived his life high in the New England countryside, buried within sparkling blankets of snow, writing his poetry so treasured today, treasured by me as well. Why I cling to Frost as my favorite poet, I do not know. Although I could give you guesses: because he writes so unfailingly about the countryside, because his poems aren't so ambiguous that I feel I can at least find a somewhat sturdy foothold along their sheer and smooth rock facades and also perhaps because I was too lazy or uninterested to delve into the many other American poets offered to me throughout my school days and chose to stick with Frost, because he was so widespread and appreciated.

I'll admit, I've never been one for reading poetry. There's something irksome to me about the ambiguous, seemingly lofty language poets speak in that offsets me. Granted, Frost himself isn't omitted from such a group, some of his poems fall into the category of a raised-eyebrow and titled head struggling to inch the ball of reason or meager understanding even a breadth closer along the sloping, constantly weighted floorboards of our knowledge both our own and others. But for me, perhaps the fact that he writes about the countryside and its many flapping and fluttering layers of lives and tales overrides that ambiguity. Or, as I've realized in the back of my mind somewhere, the fact that he is so associated with New England - a place that has captivated me since I have loved old houses - has earned him a sturdy string woven deep into the fabric of my heart.

I can guess, that for however much I balk at the mysterious language of both yesterday's and today's poets, that some of my own poetry falls directly in step with the poems I shake my head at. For instance, I think of the first poem I wrote about my hometown, Sheboygan, WI. I had intended it to be free-verse, like most of my other poems, but instead it morphed itself almost by will into a form I had made up, which is three lines of three words and three lines of one word, which would be six lines in each stanza. The super-condensed form forced me to condense what I wanted to say, and thus the end result was something completely shrouded by fragmented memories that rose to the surface about my hometown. I know what they all mean of course, but after having my parents and brother read my poem, I was met with the same expression I have doubtlessly given many poems I've had to read for school.

Which leads me to thinking, do the authors of such poems know how truly complex they are? Do they choose such privileged language for the same purpose I did? Because they knew that sometimes - in rare cases in my opinion! - forms actually say more efficiently what you couldn't say within the boundless confines of free-verse? Sometimes we need fences, I am beginning to understand, when it comes to our writing. For sometimes the Mustang captured amidst the sprawling, reddened facade of the Nevada plains is in more free struggling against the foreign sensation of a saddle and bridle because he has escaped the danger of the predator, both in the animal and in the government. Also, are such poets, when met with all these equally ambitious interpretations of their poems, find humor in them? Or endless inspiration to create more work than can, somewhat ironically, produce so many views in all of us as we as a society view each poem through a kaleidoscope, inevitably influenced by those around us, as well as what society has gingerly sprouted and nurtured within us.

Reflecting on all of this, it's all beginning to seem eerily similar to the lectures my English professor gives at my college, UW Green-Bay. After all, am I not talking about the many ways we can study literature, and interpret it? Only unlike sitting in my English classes, my mind isn't running away without looking back to the refuge of my imagination where it can frolic amidst words that don't make me stumble and knit my brow, amidst ideas and characters that aren't totally unrelatible or coax sleep to my side like luring a stray kitten out of the woods, slowly but with a barely contained eagerness. No, I haven't fallen asleep in class, but I do admit to some head bobbing and momentary closing of the eyes. But in my defense, when I don't find something interesting in the least, I supplement my time in English class by writing songs and poems, and have been satisfied with them all. Sure it's not a creative writing class, but it's better than sleeping right?

You may not believe me, after reading this, but I had indeed intended to talk about music when I sat down to write this blog an hour ago. Perhaps I will leave that for next week. Or, like all those times before my mind has dared to step over the threshold of the sun-faded, familiar room and crossed that narrow hallway into another, that dominant side of myself will jerk it back, or perhaps just lightly tap it on the shoulder as its fingers fly over the clicking typewriter keys, daring itself all along not to find those inevitable connections, don't find them, don't look...just write.

But that's what leads me to talking about writing and old houses, isn't it? The act of 'just writing'. But if these are the places that such an act takes me, then may I always have a pencil in my hand, or at least a droning English class to use as a convenient backdrop to filter out the tumult of the world and step over that threshold into places I myself have never been, but my imagination knows well, and beckons to me eagerly, sometimes pulling me inward, sometimes patiently waiting. But always waiting nonetheless, greeting me with a new faded mural upon the walls every time.

My Old Friend

Once again, I've been plagued by my blog. As it sits here empty in the vast tumultuous sea of the Internet like a dusty and dogeared Bible on a shadow-laden shelf in a musty library, I can't help but remember all the Wednesday's that have come and gone like an invitation declined again and again, yet it is always extended with the same brimming of hope in the eyes.

So here I sit on a Sunday night, with too many hours stretching ahead of me like a young boy with too much open road ahead of him and too much horsepower at the tip of his fingers, and I don't know what to do with it. But like I told one of my online friend's I was talking to at the time, I was debating between listening to my stations on pandora.com and writing something, and she told me...do both! So that's what I'm doing. I've forgotten that I can in fact, write while listening to music. They tell you that for concentration purposes you shouldn't try to do both at once, but I've known for a long time my mind in fact uses music not as a distraction but as a sort of white noise that some people use to fall asleep to. It acts like a thin veil to separate the world inside my head from reality, to separate the imaginary noise from the real noise. You get the picture.

But, I digress. What I really meant to talk about tonight is how I feel when rereading, or even just randomly tripping over a certain character, fictional town, or witty line in my mind while going about my day. Doing so feels like running into an old friend. There's a lot of things familiar about them, but yet there's something different. Is that's sort of different that only time can bring about, like moving away from your hometown and then coming back after twenty-some years, or maybe even just a few months. It's that perspective you gain, isn't it? When you're walking the narrow, shadow-dancing halls of that story, listening to the muted conversations behind the wooden, six-panel doors and watching that hallway bend, twist and curve out of sight, always wondering what's at the end, wondering if there is an end...you're as familiar with the story as your own reflection in the mirror. But take down all the mirrors for a few months, or twenty years...and then one day wake up and find them all there again, would you look at yourself differently? What would remain the same?

I've always been fascinated with how time affects buildings that have no one to tend to them, to keep the deftly twining hands of time at bay. I'm talking about abandoned buildings. I love how their wooden siding becomes smooth and rutted at once like slick river rocks. I love how each board shines a dull gray, stripped of paint slowly like sand scrubbing bones in the desert. I love how the many roofs of all those abandoned barns stay to sway inward like the backs of mares who have served well over their years and now live without a purpose, but are still loved. I've always also thought of this slow but obvious deterioration of abandoned buildings to be nature reclaiming the buildings themselves. After all, the materials - most of them - were wrought from nature. So nature is just reclaiming what is it's own. Perhaps in it's own way nature is showing mercy on the building, even though it may seem that in it's dilapidated state it's the opposite of mercy. But like the woman who stays with her abusive husband, few can understand it, or want to.

The way I write stories - or novellas, more specifically, is this: they usually start out as what I have dubbed Story Thoughts. Which are basically what their name implies, basically random thoughts springing from my brain and onto the paper where they cluster into a handful of characters, plots and trailing veins pumping to a heart that's barely there but living nonetheless. Once this is done and the imaginary becomes real - on my computer anyway! - it's up to me whether I want to strength that heart, twine more veins to and from it, and feel that blood tasting of the Oklahoma plains, or the wind-swept streets of my home state of Wisconsin, or the blustery cliff of a New England ocean side cottage. What often happens though, is I stumble upon a dry spot and have to clutch the heart with both hands, struggling to remember what it was that started it pumping in the first place, or another vein will come sneaking upon me, allowing me just enough of its sugary delight to get me interested. Then off I go on another story thought, until I'm tangled in a haphazard array of veins and hearts, each pumping to a different tune, each as familiar as my own heart, each connected to my mind in some way, to my everyday thoughts.

That may not seem very effective, devoting myself to one story, only to jump into the driver seat of the next shinier and faster convertible that comes along like a hitch hiker looking for that scraggly man with a heart more restless than the last, a guy she can never hope to tie down, but delights in the fact that she stole his stampeding heart for an instant, only an instant, but it felt like an eternity. But in my defense, such a writing style has brought about a plethora of ideas I don't think I would have gained otherwise had I stuck with one story until the end. Now granted, I know I've caused an eternity of dead-ends, like an abandoned house that some kids decided to paint but stopped at the second-floor, or that one new window on the third story that looks like a gaudy piece of jewelry on a homeless woman, out of place and almost indecent. But again, in my defense, all of those dead-ends bump against my consciousness like the open barn door banging against the siding until you run out to shut in it in the swirling, white noise effect of the blizzard.

I've probably digressed again, haven't I? But I've learned long ago that when I'm writing - whether it be another blog post or a novella - I'm like the packhorse trailing behind the cowboy's while my mind is the powerful, prancing Stallion ahead that commands attention and simply tugs me along, knowing I serve a purpose somewhere, but not caring what it is. Nonetheless, I'll tug on that thin and frayed rope I'm tethered with and attempt to steer myself back on track.

This blog post actually came about roughly a week ago when I, facing extra time on my hands, decided to reread one of my favorite novella's I started earlier this year. It doesn't even have a title yet, such is the fate of so many of the others. It's simply called Brick Farmhouse Story, because - and do I have to say this? :) - it was inspired by a brick farmhouse! And also, like so many other of the old houses which have inspired stories, I only glimpsed it for an instant but that instant was enough to paint a detailed picture upon my mind, and spring fictional characters and their stories on the windowpane of my imagination. Whether this speaks of a photographic memory, or just an intense love and passion for old houses I guess is up to you to decide, but that's how most of my stories come around. Anyway, while rereading this novella I had started, I felt myself being gently pulled back into the world I had created on paper and from a steadily fading and distorted mental picture in my mind of a silent and humble brick farmhouse. I felt that same excitement as the characters felt, and sometimes, if I'm far enough over the threshold of their world, new ideas to continue those final words dangling off the edge of another cliff of imagination will come to me, and I'll start another chapter, or continue a conversation, or maybe start something completely new.

It also feels good just to know they're still there, all those characters, and the worlds they live and breathe in. Waiting, watching and wondering...when I'll return. Now maybe, you wonder, how I can walk around in my own life with all these worlds and people all products of my imagination dwelling in the same square footage. And my answer is, it's all perfectly natural to me! And those of you who are also writer's can agree, I'm sure. Just like all the abandoned houses and farms that have caught my fancy throughout my life, it is a certain kind of beauty that only a few can understand, and appreciate. Every time I see those dilapidated buildings I feel the same excitement and fascination coiling through me like so much whispering prairie grass swaying and bending amidst its golden field. But there's always something different, something that time has altered with its deft fingers like the bare branches of a forest shaking the snow which lays upon them, or creating a new song with the wind that twines between them.

And just like the abandoned farm on the way to my great aunt's farm in Upper Michigan, I don't know when exactly I'll return to the many story thoughts and novella's I've started and stopped over the years, but what I do know is that they'll scrawl their name on another folder and file it away in that narrow and endless hallway of filing cabinets in my mind. The floorboards of my imagination and conscious sag with the weight of them, and someday they might even snap, but it feels good to have them up there, stored away. Are they in order? Probably not. But, I prefer it that way.

Little side note: The house pictured in this blog post is the house of the abandoned farm I mention in the above paragraph.

Following the Same Old Cow Trail?

Here I sit, on another Wednesday night, fingers drumming my desk, inches from the keyboard, taping out anothe idea for today's blog post, my mind already churning it's wheels, waiting for that familiar scroll of paper to be fed to it, where it can funnel it down towards my hands, which move as nimbly as the seperaet keys on a typewriter, each moving silently but for the occassional pause to crack the knuckles, or think of a transition point perhaps.

But sometimes that ream of paper gets jammed, or the mind demands it back, turning the wheels backward, instead of forward. The fingers lay there, idle, not knowing what to do with themselves like a hardy and trustworthy family car which has suddenly become untrustworthy and it put to pasture in the backyard, where grass will be the only thing acknowledging it's presence and decades of service to the same family.

In some form or another, whether it be unambiguous or as vague as nighttime's breath nearly burned away by the pale morning sun, only a few wisps remaining, to whisper of what had been, I always have an idea for a blog post every Wednesday. Tonight was no different. You see, I had intended to write about...writing! My writing and everything that comes with it, more specifically. Which I'm sure I didn't have to spell out for you, but there it is.

But just as that reem of paper was being fed I thought to myself, what did I write about last week? And the week before that, and that? Even if last week's blog post was about an alternate side of myself, Side B of Me, it all boils down to that dominant writer's side I have, and how just as I envision myself in elaborately vintage and antique dresses and high heels, the writer in me is kept as private as my flair for flamboyant dresses and a girl who's personality is the exact opposite of that which they see every day.

Another underpinning of all of my blog posts is old houses. No matter the subject, I can always find that thread - however thin or seemingly nonexistent until I was tripping over it - that connects what I'm talking about to old houses. Now, perhaps it's no secret, but many of my poems are metaphors relating to old houses. For example, in a poem I wrote quite a while ago entitled Nostalgia I wrote about a distressed woman relating her crumbled marriage to the dilapidated state of the old house they once owned together, every disrepair and piece of crumbling plaster was something they ignored or refusd to fix in their own marriage. One line that particularly resonates with me in that poem is the very last line "with all I have lost within this house, I haven't lost myself."

And that, just now, gets me to thinking about a quote I had read, or perhaps heard somewhere, in that vast, pulsating ocean of information, both useless and utterly captivating, that we wade through every day. The quote is this "to be a good writer, you need to write what you know." It would seem, in my case, that I have been following such a claim long before I stumbled upon this quote. Since middle school I have been writing about storms, old houses, small towns, the Great Plains area, tornadoes, troubled but closely knit families, dilapidated old houses...you get the idea. So why then, if it's so obvious that these are such topics I should continue writing about because they inexplicably - and sometimes inadvertently - work their way into every aspect of my life, pose the question that is the title for this week's blog post?

You see, when I logged onto my blogger.com account and clicked on the new post button I had, of course, intended to talk about writing, or something related to it, or something that would eventually work it's way towards being about writing. But then I thought about all the other posts I'd written about writing, and how it has virtually ran like all those low-hanging, musty filled tunnels of thousands of abandoned mines across Upper Michigan through the blog posts that have managed to roll away from that centuries old tree looming above them, only to realize they had come to rest on a gnarly root, not escaping at all, just a little further away.

This of course, led to me posing the question to myself, "why worry about if I talk about writing so much?" I mean, if someone's really into interior decorating - which I happen to love! - wouldn't all of their blog posts be about interior decorating? And if someone really loved music - like my fellow 'sister' and blogger, Melanie Light - wouldn't every one of her posts be about music? Or at least loosely related to it? So why then, am I worried about writing too much about...writing? After all, just like all those people posting blogs about the ever-interesting and progressive restoration of their old houses - a huge dream of mine someday! - or that person charting their across-the-globe travels from one small town to the next, each post, and the blog itself, has a common thread. That single thread that fell down to down three others, which started a braid, which as time went on grew thicker and thicker, until now it's a secure rope. A rope that unfurls itself maybe every day, or once a week, once a month, or even once a year. Whenever that person decides to write a blog post, is when they pull on the security of that rope, knowing that buried somewhere inside is that single original thread, strengthened now by all those ideas accumulating into a common subject, a common base upon which they visit again and again every time they begin typing in the same box I'm typing in now!

So I guess the question posed to you all, my faithful blog followers and readers, as the title of this week's blog post, is a rhetorical one. Obviously in the once again lengthy post above, I answered it for myself. But I pose a question to you, readers of my blog. What are your opinions about my weekly posts? I don't know how many of you are writer's yourselves, although I know all of you obviously. Can you relate to my posts? Do you find yourself skimming over paragraph after paragraph about the qualms and triumphs of being a writer? I realize I haven't talked about music in a while, but really, whatever comes to the forefront each Wednesday is what I write about. And whatever good intentions I start out with talking about music, old houses, the countryside, poetry, or photography, it always, always, comes back to writing, doesn't it?

And that, as the final answer to the question, is proof that I need not worry about going back again and again to writing. After all, if it can manage to relate itself to anything else I happen to think to write about, it must be a bigger part of me, and more influential than even I realized!

Side B of Me...Again

A while ago I wrote a blog post which discussed my dreams and a hidden personality I have of sorts that loves dressing up in high heels, donning layer upon layer of over sized vintage jewelry. That girl who isn't afraid to show the camera her emotions, to bring to life those crazy dress designs in her head, to drape herself across antique furniture, fixing the camera with a stare that speaks volumes and makes one wonder, could this be the same the same shy girl who drifts soundlessly through the halls of her campus, meeting peoples gazes with a tentative smile? Who's voice is quiet and a rare occasion? Who's deepest dreams and most inner thoughts escape only through her writing?

But this time, I'm not talking about one of my lesser known creative sides - which most often emulate themselves into the characters I create in stories - I'm talking about my clothing preferences! Now maybe it's totally cliche for me to talk about clothes, but frankly, I love to shop! And one thing I've noticed about myself is that I'm literally subconsciously - or inadvertently perhaps - drawn to the most expensive items in the store. Some would call it a gift, for what? Recognizing quality? Or merely a gift at emptying my wallet hypothetically before I even hit the cash register? Now I don't want to make myself out to be a spending freak, although frankly, when I spot an item I like, price is one of the last things I look at. Not an effective way for a college student living on campus to shop, I know. But there it is, folks.

Well anyway, enough about my flare for spending and even bigger flare for an attraction to particularly expensive clothes. What I really wanted to talk about tonight are my different personalities by way of how I dress. Let me explain. When I still lived at home and went to school, on Saturday morning, I would throw on my stretched-out, pilly sweater and even more stretched out sweatpants and start cleaning. Granted, these are clothes one usually wears when cleaning, but on Saturday I usually end up wearing clothes I save for the inside of the house.

Now I know there's people that wear such things out in public, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some people feel their best in comfy clothes like Uggs, sweatpants and over sized sweatshirts. And on some level, I envy them, being so low-maintenance and all. Not that I myself are high maintenance. At least...I don't think I am! The only thing I take meticulous care to do every day is straighten my hair. I hate it's natural waviness and tendency to stay put however I blow-dried it like a giant, curling wave frozen halfway above the surface of the water. On days when I know I'm not going anywhere, or again on the weekends, I won't straighten my hair, just to give it a break, but also because it feels good just to throw on what I call my comfies and not have to wake up two hours before I have to be somewhere just to do my hair and get ready.

That's the thing about me, if I have an event, or somewhere to go, I'll usually take more care to dress up. Granted, going to your classes and general walking around isn't much of an event, per se, but it's reason enough for me to think about what I'm going to wear. What's been killing me lately is that I'm forgetting to throw on earrings and necklaces. I am a sucker for jewelry, especially vintage, over sized pieces. So why do I keep forgetting to put it on? That's a question for later, folks.

But there's another side of me, Side B, you might say. That side of me wishes to dress up in waist-high pencil skirts, with a wide patent leather belt, high heels and a fancy dress shirt. That side of that wants to brave the winter cold in a plaid-printed dress, wool tights, knee-high boots, a thick sweater and a long petticoat on top. Yes, yes, you may be reading this and thinking, she does have a flare for expensive clothing! What can I say? It's something I can neither deny for myself, or of myself. It's just there. Albeit I hate long sleeves and how constrictive they are - not to mention the fact that they elbow-out, ugh! - I absolutely love scarves, sweaters and boots. Granted I have plenty of scarves, and enough sweaters to keep me happy - almost! - I don't have nearly as many pairs of boots as I'd like. Now I know we should be satisfied with what we have, and don't get me wrong, I am. I'm grateful for my comfortable and warm, fur-lined boots. But there's so many outfits my mind conjures up for every season as if it were deftly plucking certain ingredients from each and mixing them together until the taste was just right. Only problem is, my wallet scuffs at such outfits, wagging a finger in my face for being so foolish.

I think that's all part of being female, and a woman, though, isn't it? We always yearn for those outfits singing up at us from magazine ads, or backlit gloriously from a storefront window. We go to the store and pair together articles of clothing, imagine ourselves wearing those sky-high heels with the leopard print, or those knee-high boots or anything in between. I'll admit, even though I only own one pair of heels - and their wedge sandals that kill my feet, but whatever, they're the most fashionable shoes I have, so to hell with comfort! - I envision myself walking in that pencil skirt, and a dress shirt that actually fits, with my heels clicking on the floor. One question that comes to my mind when I think of myself wearing such outfits is, who would I be dressing for? And the answer is...myself! I know I'm not currently looking for a boyfriend, and certainly not in the near future, so that's not the answer. But because I'd be dressing for myself, what part of myself would I be satisfying?

Side B of me, of course! That side that I keep hidden in the secret passageway within an old house's walls, that passageway that I found early on in life, when I first began to write and explore a part of me so inexplicably huge but yet so easily concealed from those in my everyday life. It's like the ice-berg effect used in Psychology. On the surface you only see that small lump of ice but underneath that liquid barrier is the rest of that iceberg big enough to tear a gaping wound into the likes of the Titanic. Sometimes those brave enough to dive below the surface can catch a glimpse, or perhaps it's offered up to them, but blink, and you'll miss it.

As little girls, I'm sure many of us loved playing dress up, and I'm sure I was no exception. I can remember vaguely rummaging around in mildewed chests in my relatives and my parent's basements and attics, thinking how cavernous they were, and how the layer of clothes fell into the hole you were digging in, like dry sand spilling around you, or water lapping at the edges of your sand castle. Maybe such a tendency has carried on into my adult life, and taken a new form. Or perhaps it all ties into my passion for flamboyant Victorian-style homes, and the dresses and jewelry of that era. Someday I hope to wear a dress as elegant as the one's the women in that era wore so long ago, if only to catch a glimpse of their world, and how it feels to step back in time alongside the Victorian house I one day hope to own.

Once again I have tied in old houses. But just like my passion for writing, it is an indelible part of me, one I can't help but invite into all of my blog posts, and many other aspects of my life as well. To give you one more example of my dressing habits...this Friday I'll be leaving for Michigan where I'll enjoy the company of relatives I haven't seen since July. All week I've been saving my favorite articles of clothing - sweaters, shirts, and yes, even jeans! - for the trip. I've even sketched together an outfit for Friday in my mind. Yes, I know. It may sound strange, and overly enthusiastic because after all...they're just clothes right? Yes, that's true. But to me part of my detail-oriented self involves planning out outfits. Hell, in middle school I used to lay out what I was going to wear the night before. Which come to think of it, as I stand for a few minutes in front of my closet now...might be a time-saving option I should re-employ. But anyway, I'll leave my thinking-out-loud moments for after this blog post is complete. That is, if it ever reaches that point!

Whatever my obsession for planning ahead the outfits I'll wear for occasions whether it be another day of classes, a blessed trip to see relatives, or even a much-needed weekend trip home, I don't think of it as an obsession or side-effect of my detail-oriented mind at all but just another song in the soundtrack of Side B of me.

Mending fences...sometimes

I write this blog post a day late, but I'm beginning to realize that whether I post something on Wednesday or not really isn't the point. The point is if I post something at all or not. On the eve of finishing a paper for my Humanities class, I succumbed to the idea for a new poem and started working on that. The poem was my second attempt at an abstract style.

You see, a couple of months ago I wrote a poem about my hometown, Sheboygan, WI. Somehow, in the midst of trying to figure out how to sort out my frustrations with it and my passion for it, the poem ended up forming itself into a rigid, very abstract form that surprised me but ultimately turned out to exemplify my feelings for Sheboygan better than had I gone my traditional poem-writing route and wrote it free-verse. That poem, entitled Hometown, and the identically styled poem I just finished writing today entitled Trees Don Their Petticoats, has left me wavering on my once strong stance against formal poetry.

You see, I've always explained to others - well, okay, mostly to myself! - that my style of poetry writing is like a wild mustang roaming the vast, insipid plains of Nevada. If you were to bridle and saddle that mustang fresh off of the plains, you'd have a hell of a time trying to ride it wouldn't you? Such is the way I feel when I'm forced - or sometimes even when I'm not - to write within a poem within a form. Now it doesn't matter if that form is something like so many words or syllables per line, or a certain topic, or a certain length, or anything in between, any kind of form feels like that mustang running full-tilt across the plains when he slams into a rigid fence, stumbling back in shock, then realizes he's wearing a harness, and a saddle, and someone is trying to mount him.

It wouldn't feel natural would it? That's the same way I feel with poetry forms. Give me a specific topic to write on, I'll be fine with that, but give me specific guidelines I have to work in? And suddenly that lush, thickly-bedded field I'm standing in, listening to the fields sway with a thousand whispers, their thin bodies darkened by autumn's golden touch, a haphazard array of wildflowers bending with the breeze, their colors melding with one another, the pure essence of country life...is all hemmed in by hard, plastic fencing. Even though they're miles off, simply a thin white line in the distance broken up by undulating hills, I can feel them pressing in, breaking off the feel of the land rolling on forever, no longer joining hands with the horizon and skipping gaily on, perhaps plucking a few of the flowers from the field to twine in their hair.

Now I may strike you as overly dramatic on that part, but it's how I've mentally pictured such a scenario to be. When I write, I desire it to be as unfettered as possible. No fences, not even a dilapidated, rusty barbed wire fence trampled to the ground, an old form of poetry forgotten and abandoned. Granted, in the words of a professor at my former college, UW-Sheboygan, poetry forms can draw poems from us that perhaps couldn't have been coaxed out otherwise, and turn into something vivid and beautiful that we second guess if it was in fact, us, that wrote it. But even such a notion isn't enough to make me any less repulsed by the idea of forms.

But, you make wonder, didn't you just before say that you've given slightly on that front? And yes, you would be right. I did say that. But here's the difference. That was my own form I came up with. Somehow putting my own fences around the hypothetical field of the writer within me - albeit temporary fences - is acceptable. Now maybe you don't understand how that can be, and find it contradictory, but it's the truth for me nonetheless. Perhaps to explain it better I'll go back to the idea of the mustang again. Isn't there a difference between him being forced into capture, and him choosing it? When he chooses to be captured, he is willing to accept all the restrictions and the new definition of freedom that will come with it. Versus if he were forced into captivity, he wouldn't be nearly as willing to accept the new contexts handed to him.

Also, when I mentioned the slowly-emerging form with which I wrote my poem about Sheboygan and how it effortlessly captured and explained everything I was struggling under the weight of to effectively convey and mention, it brings me back to what my UW-Sheboygan professor had said about poetry forms drawing from that rare trickle of talent buried deep within us. The poetry form I used for my poem about Sheboygan as well as for the recent poem I finished consisted of simple stanza's of three, two-word lines and three, one-word lines. With this condensed form of poetry I found I had to condense my thoughts to abstract ideas. And in all truth, it was the first abstract poem I had attempted.

That's another thing. I truly hate reading those type of poems that make you feel like your eyes are simply sliding around on the surface of all those randomly tied and jumbled words like an inexperienced child left to flounder on the ice, its chipped surface slicing into him again and again, each time giving way less and less. Now granted, I could sit there and try to figure out such a poem's meaning, but seriously? I would like to read a poem and feel like I have at least even a small chance of figuring out what it means. I dislike being left with the notion that I'm too limited imagination - and patience - wise to pluck at the hardened guitar strings of a poem, bending over it with ear pressed tight, waiting for the slightest sound to escape, to give me the faintest notion at all of what lays trapped within its wooden body. Okay, maybe that was cynical, but I'm sure all of you know by now I have a certain cynical side, she's got to come out and play sometime doesn't she?

Anyway, back to the point. Albeit by writing two abstract poems in the ultra-condensed form I mentioned above, perhaps I'm contradicting my distaste for abstract poems of both the honored poets of yesteryear and also modern poets. Because after all, when poets wrote their abstract poems, I'm sure they knew perfectly well what they were talking about, and perhaps bounced in their chair will glee at what professional critics and the general public alike would take from it. Just as when I wrote Hometown and Trees Don Their Petticoats I knew perfectly well what I meant in every line and stanza as well. Whether people will get the same notion and ideas when they read them all depends on their perspective and a slew of other things. So perhaps I have inadvertently presented myself as a hypocrite throughout this entire blog post, and perhaps my once rigid stances against both poetry forms and abstract poetry no longer stand like a newly built threshold beckoning the way into a recently built home where every corner is plumb and the basement has set to sink into the earth, but instead that threshold may be more like the sagging wooden beam of an aged, dilapidated farmhouse. One that has swayed with the pressure of time upon it, the constant downward thrust of a boot, sandal, or even a bare foot. A threshold that feels itself being pulled with the house as it forms to the earth, embracing it perhaps, each board, window pane, plaster wall and wooden door becomes not a solid structure but a liquid form melding into each other, the centuries becoming feared less and less.

Whatever I have made myself out to be in this blog post, I know one thing for certain. If and only if I choose to write a poetry in a form, it must be one I have sketched myself. For if I am standing in the swaying, haphazard beauty of that field and fences are being built around me, I may write, and find something breathlessly beautiful and perplexing on the other side, but it won't be as satisfying as if I had built those fences myself, leaving the nails halfway out, the boards paint less and sagging. Because sometimes I mend those fences, other times, I don't.

Outdated Sounds Fine To Me

A couple days ago I got to thinking about the kind of kitchen I'd want to have in my future old house. Now we've all seen those old houses that stay true to the historic period and character of said house, the woodwork is unpainted, antique/vintage wallpaper adorns the walls, not an inch of carpet to be found, antique furniture is arranged in every room...and so on, but then you enter the kitchen and you're suddenly jolted into the 21st century. Polished stainless steel, granite counter tops, pure white cabinets and contemporary light fixtures.

Now maybe the owners of some old houses desired a kitchen such as this to suit their exemplary cooking skills, or perhaps they run a culinary business, or any other number of things. But as you've all probably heard me declare before on my blog, I am a die-hard traditionalist when it comes to restoring an old house. For me, everything has to be period-appropriate, including the kitchen. I know that may come off as more than a little ignorant, and truth be told, I can't explain exactly why I so firmly hold this stance, but I do know that the kitchen I described in the above paragraph isn't the type of kitchen I imagine in my future old house.

I understand that everyone has different skills and expectations their kitchen needs to meet, and sometimes those requirements mean updating the kitchen to the 21st century. But do people have to make it such a blatant transition? Or even worse, take the rest of the house with it? You know what I'm talking about. The full carpet on the stairs, all - or most - of the woodwork painted, soft, muted colors on the walls, plush furniture, carpet in the bedrooms, new windows, vinyl siding on the exterior. And once all of this is complete, like piling on dress after dress upon yourself, until you're lost within a maze of layers meant to conceal the aging structure beneath, owners of such houses still call them old. Well I'm not sure what can still be considered old about your house, but I don't see anything.

To me, when people install carpet, paint the woodwork, and update the kitchen so it looks like a polished and gleaming miniature scale of a New York City high-end restaurant, they're trying to create the new house they really wanted. Now that may be a completely judgmental way of looking at, but seriously? What you're doing is putting layer after layer of the present on what it took history hundreds of years to create, like laying down a ridiculously thick layer of butter on a succulent biscuit until when you take a bite all that fills your mouth is butter, and you never reach the moist body of the biscuit. How's that for a weird metaphor?

If home owners wanted a new house, why not just buy one? Why pull an old house out of the comfortable space of its history and update it with a false vinyl-sided facade? You're certainly not doing its history justice. And really, how can that be considered restoring it? To me, restoring an old house involves picking it piece by piece out of the dark, mildew-laden hole time has sunk it into and returning it to its original roots. That means, ironically, peeling back all the layers people have inflicted upon it over the years. Like the shaggy orange carpet, the vinyl siding encasing the original wooden siding and original windows in a false, plastic cage, the decades of wallpaper layering the walls, and the crooked cabinets bearing flat, lackluster fronts. I find it interesting that my idea of restoring an old house involves peeling back the layers while other's ideas of restoring involve applying layers. So which is the right way, you ask? Which do people prefer? Well, if the old house listings I receive from my favorite website, oldhouses.com have anything to say, it would seem the answer to that question is the latter.

Too many times I'm come across old houses that have been modernized. In the name of...what? Efficiency? Cost effectiveness? Practicality? A better resale value? I don't understand it. To today's old house buyers, what is so repelling about wavy-paned, original wood windows? Rich, dark cherry woodwork? Scarred and pockmarked wide plank wooden floors and gasp! a mildly outdated kitchen? Now maybe I ask all of these questions because - obviously given my age - I have yet to own my first home, and therefore don't know the challenges presented to me by an outdated kitchen. But really, I don't think that's fully the case. I'll use my great aunt as an example. She lives in rural Upper Michigan in a late 1800's farmhouse that was originally a log cabin. Her kitchen takes me back to the farm's hay day when cows were plentiful, chickens provided food for the table, and my aunt's brothers were busy from dawn to dusk tending to different things. Through it all my aunt had the same spacious, yet albeit dated and simple kitchen, and as far as I can garner from conversations both with her and my family, it's suited her fine.

And another thing, it blends with the rest of the house! So what, you might ask, is the point I'm trying to make? What I'm trying to say is, my great aunt made her kitchen work without completely dislodging it - and the rest of the house for that matter - from its well-seated roots and updating her kitchen. Granted, she wouldn't have the money to embark on such an endeavor, but she's kept her house the same throughout many generations, and I couldn't imagine it any other way. In fact, I feel such a palpable connection to the house because of that fact. I can feel the house's history soaking in around me with the distinct smells and sounds of the house. The hills and valleys in the floors seem to me as if the house has expelled a century's long sigh and sunken its supple and pockmarked skin into the land which it was built upon. It can shameless bare its aged facade, and not be mocked for it. In fact, it takes pride in its flaws, for it knows it has earned them well over the course of the centuries. Like an experience war veteran hobbling along in life, both in the present and in the past which has so wrought his body yet wears his many badges with rigid honor that belies the tremor in his hands, my great aunt's house stands proud amongst its dwindling, idle farmstead.

Perhaps I take such a strong stand against the modernizing of old homes is because I am somewhat inexplicably drawn to the dilapidated and even abandoned type. A reason quote on Facebook from one my cousins sums up the type of house I dream of one day owning and meticulously restoring. "You know that type of place where you remove a doorknob and replace everything else." Not only does that lend one's mind a spectacular mental image, but it also gives me a platform on which to build my explanation of my somewhat absurd and dare I say, impractical? Dream house.

Why do I say "somewhat absurd" and "impractical" you say? Well, I say the first because I'm sure - or perhaps I'm just assuming here - that not everyone dreams of their first house needing a terrible amount of work and looks as if a soul hasn't even looked upon in a decade or so. But that, consequently, is my dream house, folks. I want that type of old house where so little paint is left on the sagging, wooden siding you have to make like you're solving a mystery in trying to find the original color. I want that type of house that smells of centuries of neglect, of stories piling up against the walls and ceiling until they bow, where every owner and family has left their mark, welcome or unsightly. I want that type of house where every floorboard creaks, every window sticks in humidity and offers a wonderfully distorted view of the world through the foggy cataracts of its panes. I want that type of house that has faded, antique flower wallpaper on the walls, the type of pattern that screams at you in the quietest voice, that pattern that makes you recoil, yet tilt your head, imaging furniture in the room, imaging it somehow working. I want that type of house that has the dark-finished cabinets, a charmingly scarred linoleum floor with all the grotesque colors of the 70's living in harmony like all those flower-clad people joining hands in the sixties. I want that type of house where a small pantry sits in the back, with original built-in cabinets and seemingly endless nooks and crannies behind glass-fronted cabinets where you can store up for a long winter, or cram full with summer's plenty. I want that type of house where spiderwebs live amongst the intricacies of the millwork and fretwork carved so delicately from richly-hued wood. I want that type of house where pocket doors squeak in their frames, perhaps speaking to the rest of the house in an indistinguishable voice, whispering of the newcomer amongst them, whispering about the way her eyes travel ever so slowly over their surfaces, penetrating deep, yet finding no fault, a faint smile nudging tentatively at her mouth, threatening to burst into a laugh, or perhaps morph into something more fluid and erupt into her veins, causing to dance gleefully down the musty, shadow-laden halls with pure excitement at the sheer disrepair of it all, the utter neglect and overwhelming need for attention, for updating, for anything but the constant, crude ignorance of time always watching yet never looking.

Before I propel myself into a vivid imagery of every little detail of what i want my house to look like...I shall stop myself. For I could go on forever, listing everything I desire, and every reason why I should have it. Now I'm not claiming ignorance here, I know what the cost - money wise -of owning a house such as the one I've described above, will ultimately be. Not to mention I lack any true restoration skills other than a fierce longing and desire to own such a house. But such things can be learned, and this has been one of my greatest dreams since early high school, so there's no way the sheer cost of said dream is going to turn me away now. I have mentioned this to my parents many times, and each time they look upon me with a little more of a raised brow, with a little more of a crooked grin, you get the idea. My mom keeps pressing the idea of an already restored old house upon me, one that has stayed true to its history of course! But I'll have none of it. Let someone else live in a restored old house, after I have restored it. To me, an already restored old house is no fun to live in. Well, I shouldn't say that. It would be amazing to live in an old house, but for me, part of that enjoyment involves returning said house its original state, instead of just moving in and soaking up the fruits of someone elses labor.

This may also come from the fact that I'm constantly spotting new abandoned or simply dilapidated old houses in need of repair. If I settle down in an old house which has already been restored, who is going to rescue all of the other old houses out there in need of repair? Now granted, just like every stray cat I spot, I can't save 'em all. Not unless I want to become both an old house hoarder and a stray cat hoarder! But part of my dream of owning an old house involves in fact...many old houses! You see, once I've restored one, I want to start on another, and another. The only problem with that is - and perhaps it's a good thing that I've identified such a major problem right away? - I know for a fact I will get extremely attached to the first house I restore, and therefore it will be hard to part with it once I've completely restored it. Now perhaps that's natural, because after all, you're not only living in the house, but getting to know it intimately, and see it transform right before you like one of the literary classics being written before you, all while you haven't the slightest idea of its true brilliancy, but will find out fully later. Even if I don't restore one house after another, I will continue to search out and pine for all the abandoned/dilapidated old houses I see, because I feel a kinship with them. My heart yearns to fill them with something, to see their rooms one by one, to feel the house breathe around me, or stand silent and watch me somberly from the road as I pass by, my eyes lingering longer than most, my hungry gaze catching it off guard, perhaps sending a jolt of a foreign emotion through it, an emotion it hasn't feel in years, perhaps decades, that emotion that it feels coursing through it with the opening of a door, the rush of wind through its windows, the tinny drifting of voices floating up its soaring ceilings, nudging the dust there, demanding it to move on, because life has once again crossed the threshold, and time must find another structure to sink its talons into.

Writing this, I realize that my ideal old house is, in fact, quite complex. But it is my dream nevertheless, and one that I feel takes up a considerable portion of who I am, and in fact may even be on the same level with my dream of becoming an author. After all, my greatest inspiration for any story, are the many fictional, and real, dilapidated/abandoned old houses I have encountered both in my mind, and in real life.

I Live In A Spiderweb

It has been ridiculously long since my last blog post, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who looks forward to them each week. Ever since taking the mammoth leap with moving to college I haven't been updating. Several reasons come to mind, but in the end I know I could have worked around all of them. Hell, I could've even posted on a different day than Wednesday right? But then again, my blog is called Writing Wednesday's, so that would go against it. But it's a thought, anyway!

Well, earlier this morning, when I was brushing my teeth more specifically! I actually came up with an idea for a blog post! So here I sit, typing it out. It feels good to get into my blog again. Honestly, even when I haven't posted anything for three weeks - or is it more? not sure - I'm still thinking about my blog. Especially the flamboyant flower wallpaper! Man, I would kill for that on the white walls of my dorm room. Then it'd really feel like home! Yeah, keep dreaming, sister.

Now you're probably thinking, oh dear, here she goes again, nudging that ever wandering literary train off of its tracks again. But hey, I've proven before that jumping from one topic to the next can be fruitful and even more rewarding than staying on topic! So I'm not going to set this train on its tracks, but frankly, the edges of those said tracks are so worn from constant derailing I doubt the train would even stay on its original coarse to begin with. So really, what's the point? But nevertheless, I had an idea this morning, and I intend to write about it tonight!

So while I was brushing my teeth I had to refill the Dixie cup dispenser I use to rinse my mouth out, and as I was doing so I thought about the Dixie cup dispenser my grandpa has in the upstairs bathroom in his house. He has it there for the same reasons I have mine, which is so that no one person has to use the same cup, and also they are dispensable. Of course once my mind made this connection it happily skipped across that suddenly appearing bridge and bounded through the rest of my grandparent's house. I saw the cramped upstairs bathroom with its robin's-eye-blue walls, its long, narrow interior, outdated heater, single window overlooking the dark red metal roof, the old wooden door that won't quite stay shut. Then I walk outside and see the dark brown/burnt orange carpet. The wobbly balustrade, the low ceiling, the row of short doors leading to small rooms underneath the eves of the roof. I see the bedroom where my mom and I sleep at one end of the hall, and the other room at the opposite end where my dad and brother sleep. I see the antique furniture, the ever-present layer of dust, the quaint beds, the same small lamp, the window overlooking the bluff across the street. I see all these physical things and also memories, memories that will be made again, and memories that are only in the past, like a masterpiece novel being written but the ink only stays visible for an instant, long enough to imprint it on your mind, so long as you remembered it, and touched it with your fingertips now and then to acknowledge it, like an old friend who lives far away, but with a single phone call can bring them right beside you, distance only a figurative thing.

My point is this, when the simple Dixie cup dispenser next to my sink reminded me of the Dixie cup dispenser is my grandparent's bathroom, I wasn't just taken back to that cramped bathroom, but to the entire house, and my grandparent's themselves, as well as many other things branching off from that single connection. Thus is the meaning behind the title of today's blog post. You see, the spider weaving those first few threads of the spiderweb together were like that Dixie cup and my grandparent's house. But as the spider gains speed and feverishly weaves and intertwines the web, forming a solid mass from simple, thin strands that began with a single one, I find that simple connection, isn't simple at all. But a rather complex bridge leading to a land of hollows and crooks, towering mountains and lush forests singing with the rising chorus of a thousand animals. Anything can take us back to such memories, anything at all.

Like the fall-inspired apple cider drink featured at my college's campus coffee shop reminding me of the horse rescue farm I've mentioned a handful of times in my blog previously. Whenever I would go out there to volunteer in the wintertime the owner, Mary-Ellen and I, would enjoy hot apple cider around her blazing wood stove, warming ourselves with conversation and one of the drinks I consider to embody the very essence of fall itself. I thought of buying the apple cider drink right then and there, just in hopes of getting a phantom taste of that sweet, warm liquid I so treasured at the farm. But I stopped myself, wondering if it would taste the same. You see, that's another thing. When we find something that is similar to something we had in the past, it may not measure up, and we may be headed for only disappointment. I know I'll taste Mary-Ellen's cider again, and perhaps I'll wait until then!

There are many other connections I can think of that remind me of many different things. For example, whenever I catch a whiff of a certain smell I am immediately taken back to my great aunt's farm in Upper Michigan. Her house has a distinctive smell that I find instantly calming whenever I step over the threshold. Of course, it could have more to do with the fact that she lives in an old house...in the country...on a farm...on an isolated, quiet, street of road, but knowing me all these things only add up to...the ultimate perfect home! It's no wonder I feel so at ease when visiting her. Thus the connections I find that take me back to that tranquil setting are all the more sweeter. And each connection that we find along the way, and throughout the day, whether it is intentional or unintentional, is meant to be treasured. For if we hold onto it long enough, and cross that bridge with enthusiasm, temporarily leaving our present lives behind, we may step upon the first tentative threads of our own memory spiderweb, and weave along the glistening maze into our minds, laughing as we're immersed in the blissful memories folding and blending into one another like a water color constantly shifted by the tides as it lays at the bottom of the sea. A new picture forming every time you blink, each one more beautiful than the last.

In Your Face

Imagine this: you're driving down a road. It can be any road, a narrow, pockmarked country highway, a major four lane highway where everyone's going at least twelve miles above the speed limit, a residental road crammed with workers on their lunch breaks or any other road you can think of! There you are, just driving along, perhaps listenign to the radio, shifting in your seat because you feel those three hours of straight driving settling against you like a lumpy leaden jacket, or maybe you're talking to someone, glancing between them and the road. Your eye catches a billboard alongside the road, advertising something awaiting you at the end of the next off-ramp, or in the next town, or next city or even the next state. Maybe it catches your eye like a child's finger lightly tugs your shirt as he goes by, curious eyes emploring your own. Or maybe it's merely a blur in your peripheral vision, your mind barely giving it attention like a thin-lipped man deeply engrossed in the stock market numbers, his eyes flicking over his daughter's proudly held drawing, a low grunt the only acknowledgement of her masterpiece.

Then suddenly that billboard, that obscure advertisement boasting the same product to passersby since perhaps the business itself has been in business, or since the road had been placed there...is on your windshield! Your mind is startled from its numbing laundry machine spin cycle, it's thrown off balance by what lies before it. You feel it bouncing around up there, struggling to make sense, taking in the obtrusive excalmation points, the pointed finger, the raised brows, the adnormal amount of teeth filling your vision like a picket fence descending into the horizon, never ending. You pump the gas but the car doesn't slow, was there a hairpin turn up ahead? A hill, the exit I needed? It's no use, you can't remember. All you can think about is that advertisement boldly stepping over that carefully guarded threshold and into your personal space. That hallowed, painstakingly kept space like that vaccumm-lined, impeccably dusted and arranged room in your grandparent's house you couldn't enter even under a blood oath until you were of age. You step back, stumble over things, unsure of what to make of this thing plastered before you, demanding your attention, sucking it away from all avenues with its brilliant, too-bright colors, its obnoxious screaming words that make the voice in your head want to burst with the force of each letter, each exclamation, each claim made again and again and again...

Do you ever feel like this when you encounter one of those annoying pop-up ads when perusing an Internet site? There you are logging into facebook, or checking on song lyrics when it centers itself conveniently over what you were reading or looking at, instantly casting everything in the background to shadow so it stands solely in the spotlight, like a greedy child pushing others away, then waltzing to center stage, planting herself beneath the light and letting a malicious grin eat up her face. I'm sure I can safely speak for everyone when I say no one likes pop-ads such as those. What's the point of them? As if we're not annoyed enough by the blinking, flashing, sparkling, jittering, fluttering, flying, animated, chirping, boasting, screaming, pointing, demanding, offending nature of online advertisements already. Then they have to literally come half an inch from your face when you're just trying to get things done? No, I don't think so. I don't want an advertisement blowing up in my face, usually framing some ridiculous new fad some crazy-haired, black, horn-rimmed glasses donning freak came up with in his basement while his body has molded itself to his chair and his brain has molded itself to his rotting skull.

Okay, okay. I'm being cynical now. But seriously? Who came up with advertisements such as those? And who can conoct exactly the right formula for them to make them the most abrasive and annoying little pop-ups and boxes we've ever seen? Do they sit there and poke, prod and test people all day to see what gets them angered the most? Now I don't want to come off as angry in this blog post, mainly because I don't want this to turn into one big, rambling rant. I'm simply just trying to state my opinion, and I guess if it comes off a little rant-like than I guess I can accept it! Because I'm sure there are plenty of us out there who feel the same way.

Take Facebook for example. Within the last few months I've noticed a blatant change in the way they post advertisements to their site. When I first created an account almost a year ago there were only little advertisements along the righthand side of any page you happened to be on. Not only could you specify to Facebook what exactly you were looking for where ads were concerned, but you could also delete the one's you found offensive or had showed up too many times. As I've found out, it was too good to be true. Now there are ads at least three or four times bigger than the one's mentioned before, and guess what? You can't delete them! And they have proven to be some of the most annoying and vexing ads I've ever encountered online. One of them happens to show what they deem to be effective weight loss by showing a rather chubby woman in nothing but a bra and underwear from a side view, and the wa-la! miraculously skinny woman - who is supposed to be the same woman - shows her wearing even less! Her arms are crossed over her chest and she's wearing a thong.

The first time I saw that ad I was obviously repulsed. First of all, we can tell when someone has lost weight without half - or less than half - of their clothes being off. And secondly, I think I can safely bet that any weightloss product advertised in such a matter isn't going to gain much trust or interest from anyone. It's going to offend people, to make them refresh the page to expunge it into eternity. But unfortunately it will return, just like the ads boasting the question Is It Real Or Fake? and then proceeds to assault you with an off-the-wall picture like the man-dog or a premature kitten fitting in the palm of your hand or even the world's longest eyelashes? which shows what is obviously hair glued to a woman's eyelids. Who the hell concots this stuff on the Internet? Where is there brain during all of this? People of all ages come onto Facebook to reconnect with family, friends, collegues and co-workers alike. They come to play games, to relax, to catch up on the lives of people who lives hundreds or even thousands of miles away from them. They don't come to partake in mindless trivia who's answer is to obvious the question seems pathetically pointless. Yet there they are, snagging our attention like a fish hook in our brains, tugging, demanding, sinking deeper, thickening our blood until we feel like pounding our laptop in frustration.

When did online ads become so obnoxious like this? Like I said earlier Facebook ads were never this offensive or utterly indestructable. We, the users, used to have control over not only what type of ads we choose to appear on our profiles, but also what we didn't want to see. Now it's like the Wizard of Oz, some greater force sitting behind that familiar white backdrop, snickering, drooling, barely able to stay seated as our anger seethes and we look away in disgust at the ads he posts to his ever-rising glee upon our pages. Okay, okay, the cynical side is taking over. I think I'll derail this Facebook rant now. :)

Like always, this week's blog post is terribly long, but I do hope you're taking something valuable away from it. But I'm not quite done talking about online ads just yet! I wanted to slip in another site I frequent alongside Facebook, Pandora.com. For those of you unfamiliar Pandora is an Internet radio site where you can tailor-make radio stations that fit your personal music-tastes and unlike traditional radio, when a song comes up you don't like, you can banish it! Ah, the freedom. But wait! That freedom - like every other freedom - comes with a price. That price being randomly placed ads that jolt you from your smooth-sailing music enjoyment and collide with your ship like that mysterious ice berg tearing into the site of the Titanic. I know when listening to Pandora I usually venture onto other sites, usually Facebook or Oldhouses.com to peruse other things, all with the blissful backdrop of my favorite songs. But then an ad that's unnecessarily three-times louder than the music interupts the flow of the tide onto the beach, and I shrink back, scurrying off my towel as ice cold water nips at my toes and sun-warmed skin. The sky clouds over, chasing away the sun like a mother scooting her son's curious stare away from a crab, his claws clicking rhymically. Okay, I'll admit, it's not that bad. But it's annoying nonetheless. What's more vexing than these less than a minute ads are the full-page ones that attempt to load before a different station you clicked on starts playing. Just like any YouTube video, they have to buffer before playing smoothly, but while I was listening to Pandora yesterday I figured out that rarely happens. So there I am on another site, waiting for my station to start playing and all I hear are fragments of a cheerful woman or falsely-portrayed family harking some toxic chemical that doctors have deemed family-safe all while music almost as abrasive as what you hear on the radio these days plays in the background. Or attempts to play I should say. Met with the claim that your music will start playing in four seconds after a minute had passed I was forced to refresh the page....three different times.

Now granted this could be avoided by upgrading to Pandora One, which eliminates commericals, but that freedom comes with a price as well. Thirty dollars I believe. So now us Pandora users have to literally pay out of our wallets for the priviledge of enjoying smooth, enjoyable music listening with the annoyance of buffering, chirpy commericals butting in like that scowling fat kid in the lunch line? It shouldn't have to be that way. Everyone should be granted that priviledge regardless. Now I understand Pandora has to make a profit somewhere, and ads do help pay the bills - as they graciously remind us users - but I'm sure another way around it could be found. But, I've talked about Pandora enough. So again I will derail this train, and perhaps skip along the tracks in search of another one.

Talking about Pandora reminds me of the animated ads on Facebook I've encountered as of recent. Once again I was just doing something else on the site, perhaps commenting on a friend's status, writing my own, or playing a game when an instantly bothersome advertisement began attempting to play on my homepage. At first I couldn't figure out where it was coming from but then there it was! Smack-dab in the middle of the page, playing out in fragments as if I'm supposed to care enough to put together all those pieces and figure out what they're trying to tell me. No, I don't think so. I turned off the sound on my laptop and continued doing what I was doing. What's even worse was that is was an interactive commerical. Now I just view those as those games the teachers force all the high school students to partake in on the first day of school. Those events where freshman are thrown in with seniors and all are expected to hug and back-slap like they have more common-ground than happening to attend the same school. Why would company's think we'd risk clicking on an ad when we know it's going to take us somewhere dark and mysterious, some place where viruses or all those extinct and faded exclamation points you'd been avoiding on peeling billboards and ads pasted in storefront windows for years are crouched in the corners, waiting to strike for a second time, to maybe draw some blood.

There's a lot more I could talk about, and perhaps you've garnered that from the length of today's post. But honestly? It feels good to finally say my piece about the growing number of online advertisements boldly stepping beyond that threshold and pointing a finger, pressing into us, making us stumble backward, wondering how the moat around our personal space dried up and the big-bad world of advertising knocked down the door and took over our castles. If you're a Facebook user and are as frustrated as I am about the nature of their recent shift in how they present their ads, feel free to say your piece as well. I'm here to listen as much as I am to bitch...I mean rant...I mean, well hell, I'll do it all! :)