Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Inner cacophony

I've been meaning to put this up for awhile.

"Wanting to be someone you're not is a waste of the person you are"
~Kurt Cobain (1967-1994)

I find myself heartily agreeing and feebly protesting. But that does not matter, I feel the truth of it regardless.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Crash

(Feedback, please :) )





“Wait!” I yelled after him,
“Pointer! Wait for me!”
            He was bleeding badly; a piece of Dramaticon shrapnel had ripped the side of his right calf open and blood drops spattered the tree tops as he shot away.
            I jumped on my Rotor Floater -(weird name, I know. For one thing, they really don’t float, it’s more of a zooming-blow-your-cheeks-off-your-face sort of a motion), and cranked after him.
            He was riding in a North-Easterly direction through the tall pine trees, his longer-than-fashion-dictates-as-proper black hair whipping around his fine-boned face.
            I was having a hard time keeping up with him, he goes especially fast when he’s upset.
            He seemed to be heading for the lake; we had done recon around it yesterday, and Pointer had, well, pointedly remarked on how beautiful and peaceful it was. Later that day he had told me in private that the place had actually been soothing to his normally harried soul.
            I figured that he was heading there to be alone and to sort out his current emotions.
            But I, personally, did not trust him to be by himself in his current state of mind and body. I could only guess at the thoughts currently racing through his head. Erratically emotional at the best, he was down right dangerous to himself during the current circumstances.
            He’s never been all that stable, and he’s been worse since he had to leave his parents and baby sister in the Safe-tunnel at Terracone Mountain.

            He had almost reached the soft blue pudding bowl that is Benedict Lake, and I was just about ten yards behind.
            I was starting to really worry about him; he nearly crashed into a bristlecone pine at the end of the pepper-and-salt sand. He’s not all that great of a flyer as it was, but he’s also much more careful than that. It was almost as if he was entertaining some sort of a death wish.
            He crash-landed, his rotor floater sliding in the sand, it landed nearly a foot away from the softly lapping water.
            I carefully maneuvered around the bristlecone pine, the same one Pointer had almost crashed into, and landed my RF next to his.
            He had already stumbled off his Rotor floater, and was kneeling with his legs in the water, blood from his right calf trailing in the miniature surf. I couldn’t see his face, he was bent over, fists clenched to his chest.
            I knelt down next to him, and put my arms around his shoulders.
            “Pointer, it wasn’t your fault that we lost the Omotor containers,” He angrily jerked his body, nearly dislodging my arms, but I held on tighter.
            “How do you know?!” He spat, his face contorted with anguish and fury as he turned  to look into my eyes.
            The whole point of our mission had been to retrieve the highly explosive containers, but they had caught fire at the last minute. Pointer had doggedly tried to hold on, but Robert had wrestled them from him and chucked them at a pursuing Dramaticon, therefore blowing it and the entire Lonquine base up.
            A pretty successful mission, if you ask me.
            “Robert made you leave the containers,” I replied, “You would have blown up with them if he hadn’t.”
            “I should’ve put out the fire, Crash, I could’ve spat on them or something!”
            “You know that’s nuts,” I told him gently, “There was nothing you could have done”
            “Maybe you’re right,” He gave in, “But I still feel like an utter failure.”
            “Don’t, you have no right to, Pointer.” I told him, “Besides, you successfully blew up that Lonquine base, and even if it wasn’t part of the plan, it worked out pretty fillerackin’ well, if you ask me.”
            He leaned back into me, the previous rigidity in his body lost. I held him tighter. We kneeled in the water a few minutes more, letting the peace of the lake sooth us both.
           
I noticed that Pointer was still bleeding.
            “Come on, get up. We need to go back to Robert and get your leg wrapped.” I told him, giving his shoulders one last squeeze and then standing up, water dripped from my jeans.
            Pointer held up a hand, and I heaved him into a standing position.
            I kept hold of his hand as we walked back to the Rotor Floaters, supporting him as he limped along.
            We climbed onto the flying bikes, and started a much slower and safer journey back to camp, leaving the semblance of a peaceful world behind.
          We’ll be back in happier times, I promised myself, Pointer, and the lake as the wind whipped our hair and emotions behind. 

Friday, August 26, 2011

The Title Does Not Belong Here On This Post

Watermelon breath.
Lake-wet hair, canoeing. Stars,
Moon, marshmallow roasts.

Pizza, pool grass.
Sunflowers, dandelions,
Sun-scent skin, smiles.

Four leaf clovers, no
school, bare feet, freedom. Garden.
Jubilant hand-stands.


Summer
by Amoniel

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Old building seen on the way back from Escalente

Wouldn't this thing be the coolest to live in? 

It's in a beautiful location too, though you can't really tell from the stupid pictures.


















Sorry I didn't really take any pictures of the entire building all at once, I just snapped as quickly as I could while we drove by.

Eyelance

(Is there anything you think I can change? Please give criticism, I want to know what I can do to make this the best.)



I made my way out the door into the early morning light, book in hand, earplugs silently plugged into my ears. I wore a brown sweatshirt, to guard against the beginning-of-day chill. I opened my front-yard gate, and continued onto the road, making note of the briskly cool air, and late sunrise.  
            ‘Summer is truly over’, I thought groggily to myself, ‘the sun no longer rises at 6:30. It tops the mountains that surround the valley at about 7:15. Something like that, I’m not sure. It’s late, though.’
            I had a few blocks to walk until Main Street, and then one block up to the bus stop. There isn’t anything special about our high school bus stop in this small town, no markers, signs, or benches, just a lonely little spot between two house fronts.
           
I passed the Saope’s house at about 7:20. I don’t know much about the people that own the house except this: they are an old couple who seem to travel a lot, and they have this huge (and I mean HUGE) co-operative garage and yard sale every summer. My mother goes every year, and fills our poor, defenseless garage with even more useless treasure. We ought to have a garage sale of our own one of these summers. Maybe then we’d have room for my dad’s car, and I could get a motorcycle. My parents won’t let me get one; they say we don’t have the room. Psh….
            But I digress.
            As I walked by their front yard, I noticed two kids working, a boy who looked about eleven or twelve, and a girl who looked somewhere around sixteen.
            The girl was watering the Saope’s numerous planters, many scattered around the table in a courtyard sort of set up, and a few set cheerfully on their porch.
            ‘The Saopes must be away again’, I mused, ‘it’s too late in the year to have grandchildren over, as far as I know.’
            The girl seemed to have dressed hastily that morning; she wore different shades of dark, faded black pants, and a long sleeved navy shirt. She also wore an extremely bright orange hat, and her short, dark hair hung below.
            The boy wore khaki shorts and a gray hoodie; his hair was cropped short and was a sort of sandy blonde color. He had a cocky manner, and swaggered after the girl, who I then decided was his sister.
            Neither of them seemed to have books, bags, or backpacks about their persons, as most kids on their way to school do. Still, ‘they could have stashed them somewhere safe while they do their chores’, I acknowledged.
            I continued on my way up to the bus stop as I observed and thought.
            I arrived shortly after 7:24; no one else was yet there. I stood and waited, listening to Muse, I had turned my iPod on only after reaching the bus stop. I enjoy listening to the sounds of the outside while I can during the day. As it was, I became bored after I had reached the bus stop, so I turned on my distraction.
            I wasn’t left alone long, a brown jeep arrived and parked carefully on the left side of the road, opposite of there I stood.
            I was already resigned to school, so I didn’t bother hoping that maybe, just maybe, the bus wouldn’t reach my cozy little roadside. It’s really only the first day that’s the hardest for me, and that day was the second. I always resist some, but not enough to make me miserable. I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.
            A white car arrived soon after the jeep, and parked on the right side of the road, close to an apricot tree and a tractor-like contraption. I’m still not sure quite what it was; I assume it has to do with harvesting crops. I’ve never bothered to find out.
            Casually, I reviewed my surroundings as I listened to Sunburn, a song by Muse. I observed the girl and boy from the Saope’s yard coming around the corner of Main Street.
            ‘Ah, so you do attend the same school as me’, I thought in the direction of the girl, ‘though I’m not so sure about you, shorty.’ This was directed toward the boy, good naturedly, of course, but he was, indeed, short.    
‘I assume you attend the elementary school, with either Clark or Sam’, Who are my younger brothers. They attend fourth and sixth grade. They enjoy legos, pretend sword fighting, macaroni and cheese, annoying Lavinia (My little sister. Don’t ask me where my parents got that name.), and repeatedly breaking their teeth.
            ‘Of course, you could be in junior High, and in that case, neither of my brothers would know you.’ I thought. It was possible, maybe he was of middle school age, but just hadn’t quite reached that long and lanky growth spurt yet. His age was rather hard to get as I thought more and more.

            The girl walked with a kind of life-loving grace, I could almost see her personality and soul within every step she took. That is, until she seemed to spot our patiently waiting little group. Then she folded her arms tightly around her chest, and her charisma seemed to fold right into her along with her arms. She seemed to become almost withdrawn. She began to walk faster, leaving her brother behind as she maintained her pace. She kept her gaze on the ground, or straight ahead with little sidelong glances at the cars and me.
            When she was about two thirds of the way to the cars and me, she glanced back at the boy; at that point I realized that they still weren’t carrying any school supplies. I, myself, clasped a green notebook under one arm. All of my other school supplies, books, pencils, and such, were already in my locker.
            The girl suddenly stopped when she realized that her brother had fallen behind, to let him catch up, and they continued walking.
            When they reached the bus stop, instead of stopping on either side of the road, they advanced on up the block, and avoided eye contact with everyone.
            I watched them sidelong until they reached the stream two quarters of the way up the block, until the bus finally arrived at 7:36. It was then that it hit me, ‘they must be homeschoolers; it might even be that they are THE homeschoolers.’
I had never seen either of them before. From what I could tell, they were probably in the first ward, too, but I had never encountered either of them before that morning. They must have been the famous, though rarely encountered, homeschoolers, the ones with the well-known German shepherd the ones who, I’ve been told, used to attend church, but stopped some years ago without any easily apparent reasons.
            As I boarded the bus, I realized that I was intrigued about the girl.
            I once read “Stargirl” for a class, and there was something about the homeschooled girl that reminded me of that character. Perhaps it was that easy grace, and the zaniness from the clothes and hat, but then again, it could have just been because I came to the conclusion that she was homeschooled, as was Stargirl.
            I greeted my friends, “Hey!” “hey.”, and sat down next to Paul.
            As the bus drove away, I turned to look out the back window, the window behind my seat, and saw the girl looking directly at me.
            She looked with a kind of drilling gaze, curious and probing, and strangely wary. Her eyes evoked curiosity in me. I felt as if my very soul had been laid bare, which was strange, the girl was quite a long way behind the bus, and I’m not sure how I even got the sensation of eye contact.
            I will never forget the piercing curiosity and wariness of her green eyes.

Written-in-the-Margin

I always
forget that
you wear
glasses,
but your
hair is
beautiful.
How do
I tell
someone
like you
something
like that?

Strangely
enough,
in that
one dream
you drove
a truck
what could
that mean?

Thoughts
flicker and
die as I
try to
remember
your face
and that
feeling.

I try
not to expect
anything,
but still,
sir, you
said you
would
call me.
And you
still haven't.

Snowdrops

The sound of windchimes
softly play. I shovel new
borne snow, cleansed is soul.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Tem Do Music Shuffle Survey Thingy, Don't Read If You Don't Like That Sort Of Thing.)

RULES: 1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.


1. SOMEONE SAYS "ARE YOU OKAY" YOU SAY?
Red Barchetta –Rush (Pretty)

2. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Portrait (Out of the blue) –Enya (Even prettier, what gorgeous piano playing.)

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
? –Eva Cassidy (I don’t think “?” is the actual title, it’s an acoustic cover of that song by Cindy Lauper, “Time after time”, it’s one of my all time favorite songs. I think it fits well here.)

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Zion Train –Bob Marley and the Wailers (Interesting…)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Alabama –Neil Young (This game might work better if I had actually been the one to download all of these songs, the iPod I’m using used to be my dad’s, lucky for me, my musical tastes are pretty close to my dad’s.)

6. WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
I can’t Explain –The Who (I love the beginning guitar of this song. And the song doesn’t fit too bad here, either.)

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
DJ –David Bowie (What friends? Just kidding. (Interesting song, I wonder how relevant it actually is?))

8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Dreaming –Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (Baha, that’s funny. I like this song.)

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Jumpin’ Jive –Joe Jackson (“Boys” Oh brother. Huh. Not exactly one of my favorite songs, but the gibberish is funny J )

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Closedown –The Cure (Love this band. Pardon me a moment as I figure out if this song is relevant to the question… I have no idea.)

12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Fragile –Sting (Kinda perfect, and I rather do adore Sting, he’s another of those poet musicians.)

13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Indoor Fireworks –Elvis Costello and the Confederates(?) (No I don’t, I swear!)

14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
I Am Weary, Let Me Rest –The Cox Family, from the soundtrack of “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” (Interesting…)


15. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Redemption Song –Bob Marley and the Wailers (Aha, a rebel song, me like.)

16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Por El Suelo –Manu Chao (Huh, one of maybe the two songs of theirs that I actually like.)

17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Suspicious Minds –Fine Young Cannibals (Again, huh. I am not the biggest fan of that particular band.)

18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Tombstone Blues –Bob Dylan (Weird. Do any of these make any sense to you, knowing me?)

19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Juliana –Quarteto Em Cy (I won’t even bother commenting on this.)

20. WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
Sanctify Yourself –Simple Minds

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
I Believe –Tears For Fears (Eesh, I don’t really like this particular song, but it makes sense to me here.)

22. WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Wake Up –Arcade Fire (I’m liking this one, nice song. Though I’m almost nearly totally ruined for Arcade Fire forever by a music video of theirs that I saw on Today’s Big Thing. The song was pretty creepy too.)

23. HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Burning Skies –Tones On Tail ( Interesting.)

24. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Duboniks – Return of Mark Skids (Ek.)

25. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Tem Do –Caculinha Seu Orgao Seu Conjuncto 

Thursday, August 18, 2011

"The notion of saving the planet has nothing to do wiht intectual honesty or science. The fact is that the planet was here long before us and will be here long after us. The planet is running fine. What people are talking about is saving themselves and saving their cash flow."
~Lynn Margulis. (Found in the Sunbeams section of The Sun.)

Interesting... though I don't wholly agree with it. I really do think we're doing a pretty bad job in our "stewardship", whether or not is we are actually the stewards. But really, that whole thing about people really just wanting to save themselves and their cash flow seems pretty insightful to me, which kinda ties into this one, also found in the Sunbeams:
"Even the most ardent environmentalist doesn't really want to stop pollution. If he thinks about it and doesn't just talk about it, he wants to have the right amount of pollution. We cannot afford to eliminate it - not without abandoning all the benefits of technology that we not only enjoy but on which we depend."
~Milton Friedman
Something to think about, at the very least. I mean, if I think about it, I am right now writing quotes about the environment on my blog, which happens to exist on a computer that runs on electricity that I am certain was not converted from the sun or wind's energy, while I sit on a swivel chair made from plastics and metals which were taken from the earth and which are pretty difficult to give back. Would it be difficult for me to live without these things? Most definitely, but I like to think that I could totally live without them. And besides, I am of the opinion that we haven't truly explored what humanity is capable of without the aid of technology.
I seem to be on a quote spiel today, as I really feel that both of these lead into this: "Between the two poles of whole truth and half truth is slung the chancy hammock in which we all rock." ~Shana Alexander. That rather explains my feelings about both quotes, that they don't necessarily have all of the truth, or all of the untruth.

All three of these quotes are, inexplicably, strung one after the other on their page in this order: Lynn, Shana, Milton. Huh. As if Shana's explains and unifies them... Baha, perhaps I am thinking about this too much :)


Monday, August 15, 2011

50 must read books (as compiled by Amoniel, mom, and dad.)

1. Jonathon Livingston Seagull -Richard Bach
2. Treason -Orson Scott Card
3. the Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East (Series) -Baird T. Spalding
4. The Prophet -Kahlil Gibran
5. Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) -J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Catch-22 -Joseph Heller
7. Death of a Salesman -Arthur Miller (?)
8. Ender Series -Orson Scott Card
9. Walden -Henry David Thoreau
10. Leaves of Grass -Walt Whitman
11. Heart of Darkness -Joseph Conrad
12. The Monkey Wrench Gang -Edward Abbey
13. Everett Ruess: Vagabond for Beauty -W.L. Rusho & Vickey Burgess
14. Born to Run -Christopher McDougall
15. Memories, Dreams, Reflections -C.G. Jung
16. Winter Count -Barry Lopez
17. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -Jean-Dominique Bauby
18. A child Called it: One Child's Courage to Survive -Dave Pelzer
19. The Hidden West: Journey in the American Outback -Rob Shultheis
20. A Biography of Ed Abbey -(?)
21. The Moors Last Sigh -Salman Rushdie
22. Sundance -Sigmund Brouwer
23. Candide, ou l'Optimisme -Voltaire
24. The Odyssey -Homer
25. The Poisonwood Bible -Barbara Kingsolver
26. Riddle of Stars -Patricia A. MCkillip
27. The Bean Trees -Barabara Kingsolver
28. Seymour, an introduction -J.D. Salinger
29. People's History of the United States -Howard Zinn
30. Watership Down -Richard Adams
31. Stotan! -Chris Crutcher
32. The Diary of a Young Girl -Anne Frank
33. The Bible -A whole bunch of people
34. Greek mythologys (?)
35. Silent Spring -Rachel Carson
36. Out of the Dust -Karen Hesse
37. Return of the Native -Thomas Hardy
38. I will Fight No More Forever: Chief Joseph and the Nez Pierce War -Merrill D. Beal
39. Fight Club -Chuck Palahniuk
40. Brief History of Time -Stephen Hawking
41. A Seperate Peace -John Knowles
42. Desert Solitaire: a Season in the Wilderness -Edward Abbey
43. The Milagro Beanfield War -John Nichols
44. The Tales of Alvin Maker (Series) -Orson Scott Card
45. The God of Small Things: A Novel -Arundhati Roy
46. The Complete Short Stories of Earnest Hemingway -(Bet you can't guess who it's by.)
47. The Chosen -Chaim Potak
48. Dostoyevsky (?)
49. Travels In Alaska -John Muir
50. War and Peace -Leo Tolstoy

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

This Post is Titled: Amoniel Loves Mushrooms (But Her Camera Refuses to Acknowledge Their Beauty)




















Utah is Absolutely Gorgeous

An awful lot can happen in three days when you're camping. How I wish I could go back already.
I now want to travel as much as possible when I'm old enough, through cities and forests, the wild and "civilization". I seem to be happiest when I'm moving.

Friday, August 5, 2011

A Currently Useless Thing (Why NOT to start anything late in the day.)


This was built by me last month to serve as a hide frame, we had recently killed a goat then, (Some dear friends were moving far away, and couldn't take the goat with them.) and mom was scraping the hide, draping it over the log pile. She was pretty much done by the time I finally got the frame all built, and we couldn't find any twine to tie it with. The hide ended up getting buried in our field. We had neglected to salt it from the very first, and to multiply that mistake, we left it outside that night instead of throwing it in the refrigerator the moment we got home. Sadly, the whole thing was a waste. But hopefully, if we ever try to tan leather again, we will remember what we learned from doing that one, and we will have this frame to stretch and scrape it on.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

We're all mad here, darling

 "Of course, in an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too."
~Saul Bellow, "Henderson the rain king"

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

A story by Amoniel, Kathryn, and the Dreamer

(I will try to alternate the style of the letters where I detect a change in handwriting.)

Once upon a time
Alphonse ruled over a kingdom of
fictional animals, and they all


Had fictional tales of an amourous quality
and spent endless hours fighting of[f] the dreadful foes that inhabited the flames of candles.
They fought long and hard, day and night, until


The tiger lost a tooth, and he cried "Mama save me!"
Little did he know that a wild cowboy was in the area at the time and was quick to respond.


"Hi ho Silver!" The cowboy yelled as his horse reared. He waved his banana-yellow hat in the air and galloped off toward the scene of the crime.
When the shadows grew larger he dismounted his horse to prepare for the long night ahead, all the while thinking of a plan for discovering the truth.


He unrolled his sleeping bag as the moon rose, making everything look like liquid silver.
"I've got it!!!" He shouted.
Everything made sense now as he rushed to repack his stuff. "I've got to hurry! It'll be too late if I wait for morning." He muttered as his hands flew. Packed with a new found energy the cowboy leapt on his horse and rode towards the castle. If he hurried he could catch the


Black knight, dastardly doer of dark deeds.
'I've got you now' the cowboy said under his breath as his horse galloped faster and faster. The castle came into view as
a growing feeling of unnatural discomfort ran down the cowboy's spine. In a sudden gush of wind the Back Knight appeared in front of the cowboy and pleaded for forgiveness. "I was wrong to do such evil, let me make it up to all the victims of my crimes somehow." The Black Knight begged. With a slight smile the cowboy laughed, "Throw us a tea party[.]"
And the mad hatter and march hare came; they all lived happily ever after. (Except the hare smashed the best teapot.)


[It's random because we wrote it as a game; the game is best played with three people. You have a piece of paper, lined is best, the first person writes something on the top of the paper, (preferably something that is easily added to) and passes it to the second person. The second person reads what the first person wrote and then writes something under the first person's writing. (I think it works best to leave an unwritten line in between each person's turn.) The second person then folds the first person's writing under the paper and passes the paper to the third person. The third person reads what the second person wrote and adds something of their own to the paper, and so on.
I think playing with at least three people really makes the story random, the third person never reads what the first person wrote.]
[Kathryn, could you show this post to your oldest sister?]

Monday, August 1, 2011

Because I Love Clouds

 Enjoy!





Except for the first one, these were all taken on the same day.

July of the 31st (But Not Today.)

We celebrated Harry Potter's birthday with home-made poppyseed cake yesterday, he turned 32, I think. And no, I forgot to take a picture of the cake before it was devoured yesterday, I'm terrible at remembering those things, but here's a link to the recipe we -Jeru, Tor and I made it together, I think it went way faster then it would have otherwise- used.
And if one more person asks if it was Daniel Radcliffe's birthday we celebrated, I will cream them. ;)