Changelings

Those few people who are regular readers of this blog know of my (slight) obsession with mythology/folk-lore/fairy-tales, etc. It's not something I try to hide; it's just an aspect of my personality that I don't always showcase. But I'm digressing. One of the most common stories (and one of my personal favorites), is that of the changeling. The changeling, depending on where the story comes from, is either Troll or Fairy or Fae, and is left in place of a human child, usually while the mother is either asleep or has her back turned. Why the child has been stolen also depends on who is telling the story. According to some, they thought the human child was pretty. Others say that they wanted their children to be raised as human for a better life. Many however, believe that the Fae desired human children as teinds, or tithes, who were sacrificed every seven years. But generally, that doesn't matter, because the story focuses on the concerned parents of the child. Almost always, they realize that something is wrong with their child, and they seek the advice of a priest or an old woman. (Why are wise women always old?) The sage tells the parents that they should try to boil water in eggshells (or brew beer in an acorn) in front of the child. If the child is a changeling, they will laugh and question the odd behavior. If the child is not a changeling, they will continue to lie there like the boring (but oh so adorable) baby they are. Once the parents know that their baby is a changeling, they abandon it in a field, so that the Fae parents will want to switch it back. And that's where the story always ends. But that ending always struck me as rather hollow. I always wondered what happened to the changeling, and what happened to human child while it was in the land of Fae. And then I found "The Stolen Child." (Yes, this entire post was just an excuse for me to post this.)
"The Stolen Child" by W.B. Yeats

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than he can understand.

Yet another appologetic post

It's been awhile since my last post, and I appologize for that. (Far too many of my posts seem to begin with that phrase, and I appologize for that as well.) The reason I haven't written in awhile is because I haven't had anything to write about. All I've done lately is work, it seems. (Well, that and see Batman: The Dark Knight. I thought about writing a post on the movie, however, the only thing I have to say about it holyfuckingshitohmygodthatwassofuckingawesome!, and that didn't seem like a very good post.) However, Stef's away for awhile, so I'm responsible for the maintanence of Secrets, and I'd feel bad if I let her down.
I promise to post something with a bit more substance soon, but for now, here's another random youtube video.

A Nioclesian Nightmare

Apparently Kat and I were on quite a sci-fi/ fantasy kick when we were younger. What we have here are three short excerpts from what we thought would become an epic novel. We had originally planned this as the story of a group of friends who lived in a world that was very loosely based on The Lord of the Rings. There were four “races”: the Nicolese, an elf-like race who were artistic and had very pretty hair, the Buffante, a vampire-esque race who were endowed with psychic powers in all of their gothic glory, the Chippini, a race of pixie people who were the pranksters of the world (think thin Hobbits on crack), and the Rutos, the dwarves of the realm who were grossly undeveloped.

Here is an actual chart of the four races that Kat and I made. (Yes, we made a chart.)

Elf-like Race Nioclese

Beautiful

Artistic

Long Lives

Aristocratic

Tigger/Pixie Race, Chipini

Fun loving

Bouncy

Jump very high and long

Pranksters

Giggly

Move lightning fast

Glow in the dark

Eyes of weird colors

Vampire-like Race Bufante

Smart

Morbid

Each has their own “dark gift”

Same level as elves

See in the dark really well

Suck energy/feelings

Dwarf Rutos

Strong

Loyal

Sorta Dumb

Sorta Ugly

Love Food

With that explanation out of the way, on to the mocking (Kat’s comments are in italics, mine are in bold).

“You’ll never catch me, Edric!” Andre called out from a tree.
“Of course I will, I just need to follow your voice” Edric told his friend. That sounds oddly like echolocation…were the Nioclese part bat?
“Curses, foiled again!” Andre laughed, quoting a human comic book he had glimpsed
once. Curses, foiled again? What the hell was wrong with me? . I don’t think comic books are even that lame. I don’t know…there’s nothing quite like stealing ancient clichés from cartoon villains to make sure a story starts out right.
“Maybe next time you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“You know perfectly well I can’t keep my mouth shut.” Andre joked
“And that’s why you always lose.” Edric countered, gently pushing his friend with a
smile.
“Heeeeey, shut up!”
“I believe it’s you who need to shut up.” Actually, you should both shut up. The dialogue here is awful. Who talks like this? The boys playfully tussled on a broad tree branch before tumbling out of the tree and landing with a soft thump on a large clump of moss covering part of the forest floor.
“Will you guys ever stop?” Calista mocked, crawling out from her hiding place beneath a decaying old tree stump. “You do realize this means I win.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that” Edric laughed as he leapt at her.
“Children, it’s time to go!” Andre’s mother called. The breathless trio raced up to the car where the matriarch of the house of Mosne waited. “Honestly, this forest is one of the cleanest places I know yet you always seem to get dirty.” Yup, there’s no dirt in these forests apparently. No, there’s dirt; it’s just a very clean dirt. She scolded, wiping a smudge off of Edric’s face, most likely made by Calista’s foot, but in a tussle, you never know. You never do.
Calista, Andre and Edric continued to pick at each other for the full car ride, until they
reached the Nioclesian meeting house, a multi-purpose hall built for the use of their
neighborhood in Coran Arbor. Is that close to Ann Arbor? The Nioclese met at least one a month, but individual families met much more often to chat and enjoy themselves while watching their children play.
Today was the day for a formal meeting, however, and Mrs. Mosne met several other kithen groups, among them Among them…what? What was among them? I’m dying to know how we planned to finish this sentence. I mean seriously, who just starts a sentence and then
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The three grabbed their bags and pulled them out of the car, staring up at the tall, brick
mansion manor that was to be their home for the next 10 months. “Just look at this campus, you guys!” Edric exclaimed, gently caressing a purple flower petal with his finger tip. They looked away from the building and saw the most beautiful mélange of plant life any of them could have ever imagined Ok, we probably used Microsoft Word’s thesaurus for that one. Were we thinking menagerie, but for plants? Anyway, this word is incredibly awkward. Gigantic tropical flowers grew next to evergreen trees, bleeding hearts grew happily intertwined with vines of ivy and ripening apples gestured to the plum trees when the wind blew. How the hell could that happen? Where exactly was this place, and what kind of climate was it? Or was it “magical climate control”? “Magical climate control”: the answer to global climate change! The three friends stood silently, awestruck by the breathtaking surroundings, when Andre, with the keenest ears heard a dulcet voice call to them, “I see you have found the garden.”
He whipped around and his curious blue eyes met a soft gray pair. “You three must be
new students.” Edric and Calista now heard and turned to see who was there. A tall Nioclese with light auburn hair and a whimsical stance smiled at them. “My name is Keni Junip, Mr. Junip will do. No it won’t. Did we seriously make a pun on juniper? And what kind of name is Keni? I believe I will have the pleasure of being your Nature Apperception teacher. He doesn’t know? Either he teaches the class or he doesn’t, especially if he knows they are students. Shouldn’t he know what he teaches? Apperception? Maybe we meant Perception? Or Appreciation? Beginning tomorrow I will teach you of each of these plants and many more beyond, both their *good qualities* and their ills, that you may gain a better appreciation for the beauty of the power and balance of the natural world,” he told them, pointing down a path which led in deeper, onto the grounds. “But I see you already have great respect for the earth and it’s wonders. I must leave you now, I look forward to our meeting again tomorrow. Feel free to further explore this extraordinary portion of our campus, but do not linger for too long, there is much else to see,” and with that he left them by another path. “He left them by another path” oh, how poetic. Isn’t it, just? Couldn’t we have said, “he walked away”? God, no. Right, of course not… that’s far too easy, and plebian.
****************************************
Calista gave Andre her “look” and walked into her room, carrying her duffel bag. Why? Was she mad at him? We have no clue. Hey, now, she might not have been mad at him…we don’t know what “her ‘look’”is. For all we know, she might be trying to seduce him. She saw a girl, with long black hair and pale skin, and wearing all black sitting on her bed. “Hello.” the girl said.
“I’m Lunette. What’s your name?”
“Calista.”
“I’m a Bufante (Buffer{i}?)What the fuck does that mean? What are you?” Lunette asked. What are you? How rude is that?! Kind of an odd question when meeting someone…
“I’m a Nioclese.”
“Are you sure?” No, she isn’t…she was only raised as one. But you’re a complete stranger, so you must know.
“Uh.. yeah. Why do ask?”
“What about your father, I don’t think he’s a Nioclese.” Blunt much?
“Well, I don’t actually know him.” Why not just go on Maury? He’ll help you find your father…
“I thought so!”
“What are you, some kind of mind reader?” This cliché makes baby puppies cry. As opposed to those adult puppies? Very, very young puppies…their eyes aren’t open, but they’re crying.
“Not a mind reader, no. That is impossible, as, people can think a hundred things at the
same time. I can read the subconscious though.” Yes, that makes perfect sense! The “mind” is too difficult to read, but the subconscious, where people have thoughts that even they don’t know; well that’s an open book. Freud must be so jealous of this girl’s reading abilities.
“Oh, um... okay.” I like how many “ums” she’s had. Are you saying you wouldn’t have any if your new roommate claimed to know your father?
“The fact is, that your father is a Bufante. And not just any Bufante.”
“What?”
“Your father is Bon Arment Jovien. He is the Bon, the king of the Ancient Ones. And
technically you are his eldest child and heir.” It gets blunter, and far less plausible…I’m so proud. Fun fact: we got the name for the “king of the Ancient Ones” from John Bon Jovi…surprised?
“Right. Are you feeling ok?”
“I’m feeling just fine, but if you don’t wish to accept the truth now, wait until you meet
other Bufante. Is the plural of Bufante, Bufante? One Bufante, one hundred Bufante. They’re like moose. No they aren’t…the plural of moose is meese. Like mouse and mice, duh. They’ll see it too, even if they haven’t discovered their gift. This isn’t from
reading subconscious. We can all sense each other and our leader.” Just don’t drink the Kool-Aid...
“Whatever.” Calista walked out, to see the rest of the campus. This concludes part one of “the mocking things we wrote” on Snowden’s Secrets. Don’t worry; we’ll come up with a better name for part two…eventually.
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Kitten and yarn

This is a video of a kitten and a ball of yarn...if I wanted to, I could try to make this into some clever metaphore about life or something. But really, it's just a very cute kitten.

The Daydreamer in the Hole: A semi-autobiographical psuedo-fairytale

This is what happens when I get bored at work. I realize I talk a lot about work... I promise my next post will have nothing to do with fast-food.

Once upon a time, there lived a girl. She wasn't a particularly beautiful or rich girl, but she was a very nice girl. This girl was so nice, in fact, that with only a smile and a sincere "have a nice day," she could dramatically improve the life of a perfect stranger. Now as this girl was not from a rich family, she had to work. And work she did. The girl worked at a restaurant, that, while popular and cheap, sold mostly disgusting meat sandwiches (with poor quality, burnt beef) and potatoes chopped up into wedges. Despite the fact that the quality of the food was so poor, the restaurant was extremely popular. One of the restaurant's innovations was that customers did not even have to go inside to get their food: they would order and pay at one window and then receive their food at the next. This was called the "ride-through" and although one unfortunate worker had to clean up after the horses, it was an incredibly lucrative invention. The girl worked at the second window. Everyday, the girl would smile, hand the customer their order, and say "have a wonderful day." The customer would ignore her, the horse would whinny, and they'd ride off to someplace more exciting. This process would repeat for eight hours, until the girl's shift was over. The girl of course, had no idea where the customers went after they left her window; to her they seemed like the same twenty or so people, going by her window on a continuing loop. She liked to imagine that they went somewhere exciting. She was a very nice girl, but she suffered from an ailment that derived from having read far too many fairy tales in her childhood: the girl was a compulsive daydreamer. Many times at work she would become bored with the monotony and dream that she were somewhere, anywhere else. And even though customers loved her bright smile and kind words, her wandering mind meant that she was not very good at her job.

The girl knew this. And that is why she had a hard time understanding why she was continually put at the second window, or as the workers called it "the hole." Why would she be put in a position where she was bound to screw up? She didn't understand that at all. (Of course, to be fair, she had a hard time understanding a lot of things, since, like almost all extremely nice people, the girl was an idiot. A very nice idiot, to be sure, but an idiot nonetheless.) So the girl continued to do her job, and she continued to screw it up by not paying attention. As time went on, however, the girl began to see things that she hadn't before: her daydreams were starting to meld with real life. Soon, middle-aged men with missing teeth and bad comb overs and horrible breath weren't flirting with her, but trolls were. Her manager that insisted she work in the hole was more than her boss, she was an evil witch with all the charm of a poisonous snake. Customers weren't people to be helped, they were only gluttonous mouths that led into always-empty stomachs. The girl was entertained by this merging of her two worlds. And as she danced with insanity, she realized that her dreams had saved her. She hated her job, and her dreams prevented her from showing that. And they taught her that her job was temporary.Someday she would leave this place. She was not a damsel in distress trapped in some tower. She was a girl at a window, with a smile and a soul. That would have to be enough for now.

Potato Boulders

Something we seem to do a lot here at Secrets is what we've deemed "soul-sharing." With that in mind, I have several "confessions" to make. Confession number one: I am a geek. I'm sure any one that reads this blog regularly will be shocked by this confession. But Kat, you're saying, you always seem so incredibly awesome. How could you possibly be a geek? (Alright, I know you aren't really saying that, but I'd really, really like to imagine that you are.) And it's true, dear readers, I am a geek. I'm not the stereotypical geek, certainly, but I am a geek. I hate math, I've never been all that into sci-fi, I'm so bad at video games that I make Pacman cry, and as far as science is concerned, the only thing I can do with a test-tube is break it. However, I am a geek. Wikipedia says "The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc."[1] " Geeks are generally associated with intelligence and social awkwardness, and I certainly possess enough of those characteristics to qualify. (On second thought, perhaps I'm not a geek;I'm a nerd. I'm really not in the mood to split hairs right now.) All of this talk about geeks is really only supposed to be a lead-in to what I actually want to talk about. I know, I know, this is a ridiculously long introduction, especially since it isn't actually over yet. (Confession number two: I love meta-discourse, and I use it far too much.)

I love mythology; and I am geekily obsessed with it. (See! I told you I was going somewhere with this.) Recently, I've been reading The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, and it's gotten me thinking about the universality of myths and the human experience. I've always loved mythology because I could relate to it so well even as it opened my eyes to an exotic world that disappeared centuries ago. The first world that I entered was the Greco-Roman (although it was really more Greek than Roman) Myths. When I was younger I would see myself as the different heroes (or villains) of the myths. One day I was Prometheus, running away from the Gods to bring the gift of fire. The next I was Medea, plotting my revenge. Then Penelope, Circe, Calypso, Hermes, Athena, Artemis, the list goes on and on. I've often dreamt of becoming a modern Orpheus, even though I know that requires far more talent than I could ever possess. At work today, however I realized something: I am Sisyphus.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Sisyphus was a Greek king damned by the Gods to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity. As soon as he reached the top, the boulder would roll down the hill, and he would have to start all over again. I was making fries during the lunch rush today when I saw the similarities between and myself. (Confession number three: I work in a fast-food restaurant that shall be nameless on this blog.) Now, I hate fries, as fries are the most monotonous job imaginable. For you lucky people who don't understand what I'm talking about, I'll show you how it's done: Take basket. Fill basket with fries. Drop basket with fries into fry vat and hit timer button. When duty button beeps, take fries out, shake basket, and put fries back in vat. When timer button beeps, take fries out, hang fries to get rid of oil, and pour fries into fry holder. Pour salt on the fries. Mix the fries with a fry scoop. Put fries in individual fry boxes (small, medium, and large.) Repeat ad nauseum. (As you can no doubt see, this is a job that could be done by a lobotmized robot.) Now, we are supposed to have a certain number of each size of fry at all times. However, because I hate fries and I wasn't paying attention today, I could not reach that number. As soon as I made fries, they had disappeared into one mouth or another. I could not roll my boulder of potatoes (well, potato product) up the hill of greed and gluttony. From that realization, I saw that the absurdity of much of modern life. We are all Sisyphus, doomed by our hubris to do the same thing over and over and over again. Unfortunately, this isn't just about potatoes. We make the same mistakes, live the same lives(once you factor in technology), and have the same ideas as our parents did. The human life- birth, childhood, puberty, adulthood, children, aging, and death- has not changed since the Cro-Magnon. We have added technology, but has that really changed anything? We are still rolling the boulder of mortality, trying to get it up to top of that hill. We still fight death, and while we can prolong life, we cannot end death altogether. There is a certain futility in the human condition; we struggle against our own frailty in vain hopes to change reality. (Wow, this has become an incredibly depressing and morbid post for something that started out so light. I'm sorry; I really wasn't intending this.) I'll leave you with this: in my case, the fries weren't disappearing, people were eating them. What seemed idiotic and futile and boring to me, was feeding people and making them happier. So even though I felt like Sisyphus, there was some purpose to my actions.

Stardate 15,760.2

So apparently there's a law against having sex with a penguin while purchasing a toothbrush from a gas station on a Sunday. On a more philosophical note, remember that even if its baloony sin, its still sin.