Shakespeare Prepares to Travel

Setting: Shakespeare is sitting on his bed with his laptop, eyeing the clothes, books, and gizmos spread helter-skelter about his bedroom floor.

Background: Shakespeare is about to travel to the Upstate New York home of his friend Sir Walter Raleigh (Ben for short), where he will add Ben and Ben's luggage to his vehicle's inventory before continuing on to resume his studies at Hillsdale College.

To pack, or not to pack? That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler on my bed to ponder
The feeds and wall posts of outrageous Facebook,
Or to take arms against a sea of laundry,
And by much folding, end it. To stuff my bags,
No more; and in those bags to say I end
The quandaries and the thousand small decisions
That packing's heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To stuff, to haul,
To haul, perchance to cram: ay, there's the rub;
For in that car what cargo space remains
When we have shuffled off this icy drive
Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long trip.
For who'd not bear the boxes full of books,
The hefty sacks, the suitcases so portly,
The need to be efficient--and the toll
That countless choices on the chooser take,
When he himself must needs decide to pack
Or leave his bodkin? Who'd not fardels bear
But that the dread of something in New York,
That well-beloved country from whose bourn
The journey stretches on, puzzles the will
And makes us rather stare at bags we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?*
Thus packing doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And schoolward journeys of great length and distance
In this regard their currents run awry,
And lose the name of action.

*Shakespeare is blaming his procrastination on a fear of being crowded once Ben's belongings and his are united. Really, though, he'd probably find something else to blame it on if he were planning to drive the whole way alone.

The Last Day of My Life

It was the perfect day. My absolute best friend, Scarlett, and I were gaily zipping around the New Boston pond we called home, playfully dipping our feet in the beautiful stagnant waters and giggling as only female mosquitoes can.

"What a delightful day this is, Delicia!" Scarlett chimed in a high-pitched tone. She had a really cute monotonous voice, and never wavered from a perfect E-flat. Naturally, I was jealous of this talent (I was always wavering between an F and a G), but Scarlett was the soul of modesty. She never criticized me or boasted about her superior ability.

Scarlett's comment was very true. It was a gorgeous day. The sky was a brilliant azure, spotted with little clouds, wandering lonely and floating on high o'er vales and hills. The native birches and pines swayed gently in the warm breeze, and the tall grasses at the edge of the pond rustled softly. A few birds warbled off in the woods a little way, and a few frogs sat solemnly on their lily pads glistening in the sun, but even these rainclouds, to speak metaphorically, could not block out the sunshine of the day.

"Your comment was very true, Scarlett," I whined cheerfully. (As humans, you may not realize that it is entirely possible to whine cheerfully. I am told that happy whining is a very difficult feat for those of the homo sapiens species to accomplish, but we mosquitoes have long mastered the art.) "It remains true even now. Delightful is the perfect word to describe this day. Let us cavort."

The sounds of our laughter filling the air, we began to fly around the pond together. We chased each other through the rushes; we spiraled up around the trunks of the trees and pirouetted around the leaves. Suddenly, as we began to sail into one of those warm spring zephyrs that are just so much fun, Scarlett stopped dead in her flightpath. I nearly slammed into her, but thanks to my superb reflexes, for which I had long been known around the pond and even a couple yards into the forest, I missed her by a centimeter or so and hovered by her.

"Dearest Scarlett, what is the matter?"

"Do you smell that, Delicia?" Scarlett had a hungry glint in her eye, and as I sniffed the air I understood why. Carried along by the very breeze in which I had been so heedlessly playing was every girl's favorite scent: blood.

Incidentally, I will never understand why boys don't like the smell or taste of blood. I tried to get my friend Vladamir to try some once, but he seemed positively revolted. But this little observation has no real pertinence to the story at hand, and so I will leave it for better minds than my own to ponder.

Once we smelled that blood, Scarlett and I did not even to confer on our next plans. We both knew at once that we simply must follow the scent to its source. The instant we smelled that delicious fragrance we began to crave the ambrosia it represented, and mosquitoes never think twice about cravings. As the Great Culicidae once said, "To follow one's nose is to follow one's heart."

We flew into the wind at full speed, and it was not long before we passed through the forest and came out into some sort of human subdivision. There was a newly-paved cul-de-sac surrounded by fresh green grass. Big green metal boxes and partially completed sandy driveways dotted the sides of the road. Parked in the circle at the end was a gold van, and near it, digging passionately, were two men. Both wore jeans and workboots, but while one sported a white T-shirt, the other was decked in a blue polo. And while the white-shirted fellow had a bandanna on his head, the other was bare-headed, exposing his sandy hair to the northern sun.

"Goodness gracious, Delicia!" cried Scarlett, her melodious E-flat in a violent crescendo. "Look at those men! Aren't they handsome?"

"Yes, indeed, Scarlett," I returned, "and boy am I hungry!"

"Look at that younger one - the one without the beard. He's so tan! Do you think we could actually be so lucky as to have found a Floridian import?"

"I don't know... but he is tan. Oh, I can't wait to taste that sun-warmed liquor." I shuddered with anticipation. "For what are we waiting?"

Screaming madly with delight, Scarlett and I honed in on the youth with the bronzed complexion and sandy hair. I was flying so hard to get a taste of what promised to be a truly delectable treat that I could barely control myself. I was truly alive.

Suddenly, without warning, Scarlett once again halted abruptly, and it took every bit of my superb reflexes to avoid her this time. "Scarlett, darling, what's wrong this time?" I cried, my fleshly desire for indulgence deeply in conflict with the nobler virtues of my spirit.

"Look," whispered Scarlett, with uncanny vibrato, "look, dearest Delicia, at his hand!"

I looked, and I gasped. Covering the skin of this young man's hand was a yellow glove of leather. Instantly, my mind hearkened back to the days of my childhood (I think it was five days before, but it may have been only four; I have never had a good sense of time), when all of us fledgling mosquitoes would sit and bask in the wisdom of the Great Culicidae, history's greatest mosquito.

"Young skeeters," he used to say, "you are young and inexperienced. Beware of frogs, beware of dragonflies, and beware of birds; but most of all, beware of the Yellow Hand of Death."

Scarlett was very pale. "I'm frightened, Delicia," she said. "I don't think we should go any further."

I hesitated. Certainly, it was not every day that such a warning as that given by the Great Culicidae should be so applicable. This hand was certainly yellow, and it could be the hand of death foretold. Perhaps to attempt to eat from the banquet before me would be to irrationally tempt fate. Perhaps this was a golden opportunity for me to test my virtues of self-control, temperance, and restraint.

On the other hand, this was a feast like none I had ever seen! Every instinct in me cried, "Eat, drink, revel, be filled! Indulge yourself." (Curiously, this inner voice was low and deep, rather Darth Vader-esque; very unlike my high-pitched, nasal speaking voice.) How could I ignore my instincts? Everyone knows that mosquitoes are usually - though not invariably, I must allow - driven by instinct. I was not the exception to the rule, and so I turned to Scarlett with resolution in my heart.

"Dear friend," I crooned, keeping mainly to the lower note of my range, "I cannot ignore my God-given desire to be filled. The blood of this dashing young lad is calling to me, figuratively speaking, and I must obey. I will exercise the utmost of caution. I will look constantly at the Hand as I drink from the arm, and I will keep my reflexes ready. You know how good my reflexes are, Scarlett."

Scarlett, of course, could not deny that I had terrific reflexes, so she timidly agreed to join me. We buzzed down together to the tan, muscular arm that was so attractive and lighted on it with mosquitoey stealth. True to my word, I kept my eyes focused on the Yellow Hand and prepared to drink.

I cannot even begin to describe the pleasure that coursed through my entire body as I pierced the vein of that noble soul. The richness, the sweetness, the positive delectableness of that blood took my breath away. I closed my eyes out of sheer pleasure, but quickly opened them again as I remembered my promise of vigilance. I looked at the Hand, but it had not moved.

A completely unexpected - and indecently loud - whine from Scarlett startled me. "Look out, Delicia!" she intoned. "There's another hand!"

My eyes darted upward with a catlike swiftness, and I quickly beheld just how true Scarlett's warning was. Hovering a couple feet above my head was an enormous human appendage, this one also clothed in yellow leather. This was a crisis. My very life was in danger! Who could say but that I would nevermore see my dear pond, nevermore drink from its peaceful waters, and nevermore cavort above its lily pads? But I was the mosquito with the champion reflexes from the area. Mere human dexterity was no match for my insectival agility. The hand had not yet begun its descent; I would just pull my mouth out of the arm - like so - and....

Smack.

My Last Post of 2007

I'm not exactly sure what this post will be about, but as the clock ticks toward the end of my Christmas break, and the end of my continuous access to Verizon FIOS, I feel that any failure to post would be a waste of opportunity. Furthermore, I've finally gotten back into reading David Copperfield after a woefully long period of reading nothing at all, and there's something about Dickens that inspires me to put my fingers to the keyboard and write away, [Merrill].

Maybe I should just talk about Dickens. Basically, I love him. He has such an amazing way with words! His characters are so colorful and enjoyable, and he conveys David's thoughts in such a clear and insightful, yet amusing, way. There's a tremendous thrill of satisfaction that comes from reading about Aunt Betsey Trotwood telling Uriah Heep to act like an eel if that's what he is, but otherwise to control his body. (At least, I personally was tremendously satisfied by that line, for it expressed precisely what I would have wished to say to that loathsome creature, had I the privilege of being one of the novel's characters.)

Even the most minor characters in the book have such depth. Mrs. Crupps, for example, is only David's landlady; yet her manipulative hypochondria, her careless attitude towards her duties to her tenant, her repeated use of the phrase, "I'm a mother, myself," her infantile habit of placing pitchers on the stairs in a vain plot to break Peggotty's legs, and myriads of other little, almost unnoticeable traits and idiosyncrasies make her into more than just some uninteresting foil. She, along with all the other personalities in the book (and they are many), is so alive that the story becomes alive itself. I have no trouble seeing why David Copperfield is one of the world's greatest classics.

In other news, we broke the December snow record. (I'm not sure why I say "we," since neither I nor any other human had anything to do with it, but I cannot think of an alternative that will leave the sentence in active tense.) I don't know any specific numbers for the amount of precipitation in my town, but Concord exceeded 1876's 43-inch record just this morning. Last year, we had 1.8 inches, according to the website I consulted, but I don't even remember getting that much. It would appear that all the snow last December deserved was donated to this year's December on top of a normal amount as a kind of consolation prize for the month that really ought to be white.

I can hardly believe that 2008 is now less than thirty minutes away. It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to get used to the new number. I don't think it should be hard: I hate writing 7's, and "2008" has fewer syllables than "2007" anyway. Pitiful though it may seem, I think I'm going to head to bed now, just minutes before the calender changes. I am quite tired, and there will be plenty of 2008 to enjoy come tomorrow (and the following 365 days).

EDIT: I got distracted and stayed up after all. It's now 2007 2008!!!

Happy New Year, everyone!

They don't make books like they used to...

Strong though the temptation was, I resisted the urge to, once again, entitle my post with some variation of the announcement that I had returned to the blogging world. Saying "I'm back" implies that I have seen the error of my non-blogging ways and am now strenuously striving to mend them. This, however, is not the case. I have returned, but I offer no guarantee that I will remain.

I have not been neglecting my blog through any previous resolution or self-denial. Simply put, I have not recently satisfied the urge to blog because no such urge has existed.

Now, however, is an exception. I miss writing out my thoughts and sharing them, and, rather unexpectedly, I miss writing in general. As a matter of fact, I have rather wanted to write for a week or so, but I have been utterly unable to come up with a good idea for a post. I'm sure many interesting incidents have come my way this summer, but I have lost my habit of viewing every happenstance through the lens of blog-worthiness.

It now amuses me, when I think of it, how much my life once centered on my little web page. My first thought each morning would be, "What can I blog about today?" Every time I could snatch a few minutes between school subjects, I would make a frenzied dash to the computer to make sure I had not missed any new posts on my blog list. And since my days were far busier then, I often stayed up late writing a post or editing a photo since there was no other time I could do it. Describing me as obsessed would not have been far from the truth.

As I have already intimated, obsession with blogs is no longer a fault of mine, whether it was before or not. I have spent most of my summer doing other things. I wrote in my last post about working at Grandpa's, redecorating and renovating his upstairs apartment. That has now been completed, and I have been instead occupying my time with whatever happens to be convenient. I have been reading more, playing the piano more, and working on school some (I still have to finish Calculus).

My expectations for reading over the summer have been rather high. I have often regretted the brevity of the list of books I have read, and this summer seemed the perfect time to lengthen it. Sadly, I had the misfortune to start with a book that I did not enjoy at all: The Last of the Mohicans. I spent nearly all of July with this as my official current book, but I could not bring myself to read more than one or two chapters at a time. Upon analyzing the situation, I decided that I had several good reasons for this hesitation.

1. Few of the characters were likable. In fact, Heyward was the only major one for whom I had any sympathy. Although the Mohicans were described as "bold," "handsome," "noble," and many other favorable adjectives, I found them cold and a bit uncongenial. Hawkeye was simply obnoxious, though not so much as David, the singer ("I have never profaned my lips with any song that was not taken directly from the Holy Psalms."). The girls were not bad, but I felt no connection with either "happy, beautiful Alice" or "somber, noble Cora." Since I certainly could not sympathize with the enemies, I was basically left with a tale of people for whom I cared absolutely nothing.

2. I could not discern an overall plot. I felt as though I were reading a collection of semi-related stories that went through a constant cycle of conflict and resolution. This can be done successfully, I'm sure, but at the end of each chapter I found myself wondering why I kept reading when all the immediate problems had been solved. Perhaps I had not looked for it hard enough through my apathy, but I could not find a connecting plot thread or an overall conflict to bring unity to the book.

I hate to leave books unfinished, since I never get back to them. Case in point: Lord of the Rings. I have not finished that series, despite having seen the movies more than once and read The Hobbit multiple times. I have even read the Silmarillion, but I "took a break" from the main series a quarter of the way through Return of the King and have never stopped that break. Someday I will pick up that volume and read it right through to the end; but until then, it will serve as a warning when ever I want to stop a book partway through. "Remember the Lord of the Rings!"

In this case, however, I permitted an exception. Having logically proven to myself that I could legitimately stop reading a book I was so little enjoying, I switched to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. That book is incredible! I do not think I exaggerate when I say that it is one of the best-written books I have ever read. I love all the characters: sympathetic or not, they are colorful and interesting. Jane herself is the best of all, with all her various emotions and ideas clearly explained and described. The plot is unified, too, and the descriptions are moving. I consider a book to be very well-written when I find that it makes me at various times angry, amused, worried, excited, and sad. (No, Charlotte Brontë's publisher is not paying me for saying this.) Jane Eyre does all of this, holds my attention, and does not leave me with any sense of regret for how I have spent my time. Long live Jane Eyre!