"I didn't vote this year either. Again I was too exhausted to find its meaning. I love my home and I love this life and I do love our 'freedoms,' however I can't understand the ritual enough to research the characters in the race. My only homework was reading signs plastered in the front lawns across the county. I certainly don't want to vote based on font and landscaping. I'd rather keep quiet, pay my taxes and pray the government leaves me alone to be honest with you."

- Mr. Mraz

It took C.R.A.Z.Y., Boys' Club coming-of-age French-Canadian movie, to very belatedly hook me onto Pink Floyd and the Stones (and this, of course, comes a year after the Stones performed at the stadium when Jess ran into Keith Richards on the way back from class and thought he was just a random crazy old man). Listening to consecutive Pink Floyd is an entirely sensory experience because the buzzing and tinkling and riffing slide from earpiece to earpiece so it's like having an orchestra in your head. Then a lady's operatic vocal cuts through the middle of Great Gig in the Sky.

It was very appropriate dystopian background music to my reading about anti-abortion laws in Ceausescu's Romania because it reads like a twisted fairytale. If a woman delivered and reared nine children, for instance, she'd receive the first-class "Order of Maternal Glory", but you'd have to have given birth to and brought up ten or more children to attain the shining title of "Heroine Mother". Pregnant women were coerced into giving birth and bringing up their child regardless of whether they were married or not.

I can never decide how conservative I am. Most of the time I feel like I'm stuck smack in the uncomfortable centre of an ethical/religious spectrum. Election fever in Virginia right now, btw, and a friend from Bible study yesterday mentioned how she cried because the Democrats are in. Then she said, "At least we still have Bush, praise God," and I had to pinch myself to keep from gasping. Maybe because I live in the IRC (which I privately and affectionately refer categorize as "hippie-full") and all the pro-Democrats here are raging mad about the passing of the same-sex marriage amendment, which basically defines the institution of marriage as solely existing between a man and a woman and means no unions other than marriage will be legally recognized in the Commonwealth for couples of all sexual orientations. The argument is how even unmarried heterosexual couples will face changes for the worse. But the colourful issue here is still further nullified possibility for gay marriages. Like how I may buy this shirt simply to milk the political climate, am I simply a callous resident alien who chooses to appreciate and interpret the unfolding of human drama from the sidelines because that's the only place my passion lies - in the drama, not the issue itself?
I got carried away. I am late for class and am sleeping over at the Incubator tonight so no more diatribes, which is what happens when you swallow America.

I think I've successfully avoided writing anything coherent for around a month now and this is not meant to be a photo-heavy blog, if anyone sets out with that kind of goal. I may be getting chalkdust poisoning at present because I'm making a poster for SWAG class and bought a bucket of sidewalk chalk to decorate with which is turning out to be enormous fun but I'm leaving powderpuff pink fingerprints on everything. Forgot to mention in last post that I've finally watched 15 and love it, and that I've finally written a review for a movie that you may have actually seen.

1. I was Sherlock Holmes for Halloween, although people would not stop asking where the pipe had gone.

2. Josie from Eugene O'Neill's A Moon For the Misbegotten may be my absolute favourite character in a play, ever.

3. Han may like this :)

My muse, now happy, lay thyself to rest,

Sleep in the quiet of a faithful love;

Write you no more, but let these phant'sies move

Some other hearts: wake not to new unrest;

But if you study, be those thoughts addressed

To truth, which shall eternal goodness prove;

Enjoying of true joy the most and best,

The endless gain, which never will remove,

Leave the discourse of Venus and her son

To young beginners, and their brains inspire

With stories of great love, and from that fire

Get heat to write the fortunes they have won:

And thus leave off; what's past shows you can love,

Now let your constancy your honor prove,

Pamphilia.

- Lady Mary Wroth