A Reprise

As the new year dawns it becomes clear to me that I want to read my books, take photographs and publish Blanche. I guess it's as simple as that.

I am reading my AGNI collection and I find that the stories fall into a few styles. There are vignettes containing little action and much description, a distinct place/time relevance with a sharply-defined protagonist. They remind me of a very good photograph. Then there are what I think of as the cynical stories. They tend to have a bitter slant, with sex, violence and eye-catching themes like the Holocaust, and I guess they are for the ironic set, a commentary of a society beset with ennui. As you might think, I don't like those stories very much. I love the historical stories and I'm excited to see them. It's interesting to learn more about the small presses and I can't wait to look for some of the novels by these authors. I took a lot of pictures over this holiday and it's been a lot of fun. I seem to have a literal fascination with winter light. Half the photos I take are of windows with cold light streaming through and the other half of vegetation. I loved ta...

I like The Importance of Form in Sketching by Matthew Kirby.

The cellar at the Monteleones' house. Baby food jars are suspended from a board along the ceiling to hold nuts and bolts.

Church on Magazine St. The side is covered with tarp during reconstruction.

A scrap metal sculpture in private courtyard.

Ceiling, Cafe Luna on Magazine St.

Gates at Jackson Square.

Calm waters.

Afternoon on the Mississippi river.

A certain slant of light.

The Mississippi river is calm.

Chad's French fry sculpture at Chateau Coffeehouse

I couldn't feel less like Christmas if I was angsting in black nail polish and mourning veils. Not once this season have I felt moved or excited by the bustle, lights or prettiness around me. I took a possessive joy in decorating our home but certainly not a holy one. And when I think of my family far away from me and each other, physically or otherwise, my heart is as dead and cold as a stone in my breast. The one thing that has lifted my spirits is that every day this week I have gotten a book off my Amazon wish list from my dad and Donna, and in January I am going to take these books to the coffee house or under a tree and read them to my heart's content. I really didn't want to suffer postpartum depression over A Raven for a Lark, but I can't deny it any longer. I know when I leave my world that it will be a while before I have the stamina to enter it again. Memories of it come upon me and it's so beautiful I feel sorry for everyon else in the world. Sometimes ...

The Wild Child, by Rikki Ducornet-- historical in nature, descriptive and evocative, reminds me of Robert Coover and Angela Carter

My new year's resolutions look great! I can't wait to start. The only thing is figuring out how to fit all this stuff in. I'm nixing a couple of things till next year, at least seriously, because I have an unfathomable amount of stuff on my list. You really can't imagine. Last night I was overwhelmed with a desire to sew, and it continued on into today. I didn't because I wanted to finish some Christmas chores, but now I want to figure some sewing into my schedule. I may do it tomorrow since I'm managing pretty well with the chores. The specifics haven't been delineated, but my 2006 activities include: writing--revising, submissions, digital photography--photo editing, photolog and photo print journal, sewing and crafting (just as I'm sitting here now I remember the botany/flower press idea too), cooking--limited to high tea, the only meal I find interesting. I want to make my own tea sandwich recipes and already have lots of ideas. As I'm just now r...

I finished Marion Harland's guide tonight and I wonder ceaselessly at two things. 1. She is so down on America! Even more than I am. She complains of things in which I am so well-steeped I could not see them for what they were. In particular, American style and cookery. It is true that our food, which we count as so much more generous in portion than the overseas counterpart, is as coarse and indecorous as it is plentiful, but as an American woman I cast up my hands and declare I would rather spend my time on something else. She makes an interesting point about American women's fashions. In France women wear what looks good on them, and in America women wears what comes off the manufacturing line in the latest style. It is very conformist, and I have to admit I feel it in myself, for I would be embarrassed to wear something that is "out" even if it flattered me better. 2. Harland's other point I feel clearly from last night's experiences. I looked in my journ...

Nov. 26. Some electric bass guitars from the Guitar Center

I decided today that I like Christmas well enough. It proves a great challenge, and it is good to face an onslaught of stress. I must fend off rampant materialism and disgust for the Christmas corporate entity. I must think very seriously, just this once, of how to be meaningful to those I love and disregard whatever is not meaningful. I omitted a tier from our Christmas tree and it is much lovelier and less obtrusive. This afternoon I began scanning pictures to enclose in our relatives' Christmas cards. A trip to Hobby Lobby is in order for them and me. Then I have gifts to wrap and more to buy, and cards to mail. I think with each year this will get easier. The thought of having a child now suggests more entropy than I can even imagine. It is almost an hour till lunch and I am so glad. The night has gone somewhat quickly, and I am hungry. I have a book to read and some things to try out with audioblogging, in my office. I had some pink bows left from my Christmas tree long, long ...

Tomorrow we are going to the Galleria to mingle with Society. I'm so excited. It's been kind of a wasteful night, kind of creative, kind of fun. Now I'm bedding down, anticipating tomorrow: we may go ice skating! Anyway I'm going to read a little Helen Keller before bed. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

In no age before or since could one really say "She came and kissed me for the first time and I never knew such delight" and "Teacher and I played romp in bed" without attracting a lot of irrelevant attention. Whatever the case, those two, Anne and Helen, certainly did love one another and while it is well to dream of two Victorian girls in long stockings and chemises thrashing one another with pillows, I am in the cold laboratory again. It has been a very nice evening for me anyway. Tammy brough enchiladas for the day shift revelries and was kind enough to leave them for our enjoyment. They made my dinner and shall make my breakfast also. I have packaged a neat sum of them since there is nothing in the house to eat. Think of how much better I will write tomorrow with a fortifying meal in me! It is cold enough outside that were I in a heated room I would feel very cozy, and crawling into our bed tonight seems a most desirable thing. When I do, the sky will alread...

Read this and see if it doesn't make you a little bit happy. It's my new favorite journal.

I talk about my resolutions for the new year .

I think that if Helen Keller's book does not inspire one to learn again then nothing will. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

I love Victoria Holt -- love her! I am reading Menfreya in the Morning now and for a lesser star I would feel ill of encroaching envy, but not for her, never her. She is the light to which I aspire -- hers is the perfect vehicle for fantasy, and I am not ashamed of my adoration. I was so, so right to bring this book to work. It has brightened my spirits considerably. Her style is neatly honed yet descriptive -- with a few words she captures a moment, and I am there -- yet does not dwell tiresomely on any one thing. And her writing, unusual for such an intellectual style, focuses almost entirely on atmosphere and emotions. It is all I could ask. It is hard to have courage to write A Raven for a Lark next month, but I must try, and it is better to have this idol to whom I may aspire, than not the slightest idea of greatness. -- Sent from my Treo

I have settled in and taken the first leisurely shower in ages and weirdly feel like writing not an angsty journal entry, but a genial daily report such as I was won't to do before college. I looked at the clock and it was eight. Then I looked at it again, expecting it to be eleven ... And it was nine, just nine. Time has slowed here -- everything is slower and somehow my evening feels more meaningful. I feel so focused. I wonder if this means I am one of those city people now, looking to the country for zen-like refreshment for a day or so and then scooting off back to my fast-paced life. But no -- it is too much for me to dismiss my feelings so casually. This is more than peace and quiet, this is my crucible and having been wrought into being here I fit back into my old shape naturally -- -- which isn't entirely a good thing. I've come too far to retreat and I fear I am too sharp when I feel threatened. But all of a sudden everything around me seems important. I have very...

I wonder why I saw the two most important movies in my life so close to each other, when I was sixteen or seventeen, and why I have never seen another movie so great as those, and likely never will. I saw "Immortal Beloved" first -- which I could appreciate all the more playing the piano, and I fell in love with every aspect of that movie: it will never fade from my mind. The other movie "La Belle et le Bete" came later, introducing a shadowy world that has affected me forever -- it is excruciating to watch the commentaries today and see the actors, and the sets, and to know that it was all real, just as it is excruciating to think that Mary and Percy Shelley existed somewhere, and John William Waterhouse existed somewhere -- somewhere I wasn't. The castle sequences were filmed in a dilapidated park in France that still seems obscure and un-noteworthy to anyone -- that it is festering in seclusion even now with those same lichen-covered statues is unthinkable to...

Reading this Women of Influence book is causing me to remember another of my great childhood loves -- "The Miracle Worker," the story of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller. It was Anne Sullivan I really loved, and still love -- it always made me heartsick to think of her sacrifice, devoting every waking minute to another human being, with almost no life left to herself, until she died in old age, and Helen Keller required another translator. But God -- she must have known it -- that's the best way to live -- it is to have every moment of your life swallowed in supreme goodness and satisfaction. No wonder I loved her, and no longer do I feel sorry for her -- I envy her. I thought of her today perhaps because when I was around eight or nine I grew aware that she and I shared the same initials "AS." Today is the first day that I am Amanda Monteleone at work, and I have written my initials "AM" dozens of times already. It's strange, but the satisfaction of...

It's the culmination of everything wrong with me right now, a physical presentation of my self-perpetuating emotional mess. The more I scratch the worse it itches, and it even spreads. Just like everything I think is wrong -- I try to perfect it, and its flaws become even more apparent to me, and I notice even more that's wrong. When will this end? When will I find peace? I realized tonight what a coward I'm being. I must stop thinking, perfecting, scrutinizing -- and just do -- do things that really matter. This is just another trap, a false paradise, where many remain. But there is something more, and I will have it. -- Sent from my Treo

"...the goal of which is to seem richer than we are, and make "smartness" (American smartness) cover the want of capital. Having created false standards of respectability, we crowd insane asylums and cemeteries in trying to live up to them." from Marion Harland's Victorian housekeeping manual, taken from Gutenberg.org (I'm reading it on my Treo tonight)

I wonder if we all rebel when we know something we are doing is wrong -- and briefly it flares up before the flame goes out forever -- in defiance and remembrance and stubbornness. I was thinking of this on contemplation of Women's Dress Reform in the 1860's, followed two decades later with the most unnatural and terrifying corsetry that I know in fashion, with the additional use of ether, arnsenic and other poisons as beauty enhancements. Then almost immediately women stopped wearing corsets forever, and they show no sign of taking them up again. Fur and other animal corpse byproducts was loudly disclaimed in fashion two decades ago with periodic resurgence, but with the last two years it has become a staple not only in women's fashion but home decor, and it comes cheaply as any will testify who seek a substitute for fur or leather products. Last year in JC Penney I saw a sweater with a rabbit fur collar that was only $20: I can't believe how little it costs or how pr...

"If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it?" Sojourner Truth I think this principle should be applied universally.

Internet manners. Real-life manners. Who do manners impact the most? The person enacting them, or not. Having manners instills a sense of pride in oneself. Having restraint, tact and decorum are necessary when presenting oneself. The problem with the internet is that one has no means of gauging other reactions and little initiative to care what people will think since with all probability they will never know who is reading their stuff. So I think about this a lot. Should I invest my time in participating in web forums? are my journals right? Is the content suitable for the internet? What a laugh. Anything is suitable for the internet. There are no rules here. My words are going from this tiny keypad through aether to who knows where. The only feedback I get is penile enlargement spam and letters from Al Kharat of Saudi Arabia asking me to donate money in lieu of his assassinated son. I am talking to no one here. There is nothing here. And yet everyone is here now. Everyone's payin...

I reflected on Gabriel as I crouched on the rooftop and observed the stars. The wind whipped my tattered dress around my ankles as I looked over the faintly illuminated wreck of the city below me. I had not seen him for days now: he would not see me, I knew, even if I wandered in the high wind from empty street to street. He had a way of hiding himself from me when he didn't want me near him. Or perhaps he would catch me fiercely in the wind and reprimand me and not cease until I was home, and then he would leave me again as dissatisfied as before. (Has it come to this, then, in a lonely city, writing airy things, grasping for that which would elude me, fanning a light with too little fuel in a vain hope of rapture? I know you are there but you are so far away I can no longer feel the must for the forest around me or rest my head without feeling close, too close to traffic and rustling human life, and so I will write what has replaced you in my soul, this stark place which terri...

Comfort with, or at least, tolerance of, the status quo. Letting things stay as they are, usually implying that they are on a downhill slope. Living each day the same as the last, letting life and love slip away. I was thinking today that this is how everyone's life is ruined. Because they become complacent with inadequacy, their own, or wrongdoings. I wish that I could become a great writer. Always I have found that when I fix my sights on a desire, somehow my writing catches up, without my realizing it. It just becomes second nature. Always now my stories fall short of what I would express. I don't dislike what I have written in the past, but when I think of what I would write now, I am overwhelmed by the disparity between my choices. On the one hand, I can keep writing about the things I have been writing about for years, reworking the same themes, perfecting my formulas. But the thought of that now is stifling. Somehow it doesn't seem good enough. And on the other hand,...

I got caught up in re-reading A Question of Honor this afternoon while beginning the task of my story journals and I am not entirely displeased with it. As it is, it is a story only I can enjoy and it occurs to me that I might revise it so that I enjoy it more. It is all for me, after all, and I am casting aside all consideration for the crippling rules that text violates. As I work I develop a better idea of what I want with my journals. My plan at present is to organize all writing chronologically, except for placing relevant texts together. I have two or more versions of some stories, and for the sake of continuing their revision it would be better to put all versions together. I miss emailing fragments to my blog, oddly, for all its trouble, and I'm still working on a system that will allow me to view my stories online from anywhere while maintaining automatic backups of them on my computer. The simplest solution seems to me to be to use Dreamweaver as my text editor but there ...

We went to church today. There were no Wallace Stevens parrots on the rug while I drank tea in a kimono and wondered if God existed, there was no appalling void as we went to Whole Foods for a pizza and I saw everyone dressed up and knew where they had gone, because I was dressed up too. But during the service, I quite literally thought my brain was coming out of my ears. Maybe it was Satan coming out of me. This was my second Unitarian experience. To read about an idea is one thing, I guess, but to worship with it is another. It is tiresome to say that I am tired of being uncomfortable, but I yearn for a church where I am not constantly stumbling over unfamiliar words and practices. Is it routine I crave? Horrible thought, and horrible too to crave comfort I guess. But I feel desolate worshipping in a church that makes no mention of Jesus, and glancing up at the altar to see a quilt hanging behind. It's not even heretic or pagan, it's just nothing. I long essentially not merel...

I am well-satisfied with this month that has seen me through late summer into fall. There is something about late summer that drags at my heart. It burns brightly at its end with no promise of abetting and then relentlessly it is swept away by the breeze. I have not yet felt the crispness of fall, but I feel strange tonight, looking back and longing yet feeling a peculiar attachment for this present time. I guess I have been doing what I'm doing long enough for it to have made an imprint. This is the time of the Treo, the blogs, my yet unyielding grapple with the meaning of technology and my strange desire for it beside my relentless passion for what is natural. This is as I have said a time when I am to connect my past to my future. I am changing. I am energetic, running away from this shadow that threatens always to drop on me, pinning me down like a heavy cloak, and I might crawl from beneath it with only the greatest effort. I still have no words to describe the shadow distinct...

Again, the photographs. I know you must be tired of hearing of them, especially when you cannot see them, but they are obsessing me. Really no wonder I have been so obsessed with the way I look. I guess anyone would feel that way taking a crash course through their own past and staring endlessly at photographs they haven't unearthed in ten years or more in an attempt to order them chronologically. I note the changes in my look and it sends me on long mental journeys of how I felt at a certain time of my life, or more unpleasantly, how blatantly bad I look at times. And more depressing, though I'm on an upward swing, I do not look my best right now. I'm going to talk about my appearance now, which is something I try to avoid doing, because I end up deleting these entries anyway. I have a sense of guilt about it, like it's immoral to think too much about the way I look one way or another, because it leads to unhappiness, but really not thinking enough about how I look has...

I have found a new barometer by which to judge my actions, or rather, it is an involuntary barometer that is improving me perhaps without my say. For every weak thing I do or begin to do, I ask myself if I would admire myself for it. I have felt so critical of myself lately, so ugly, so awful, and out of it has sprung this quest to improve myself. I don't want to become a slave to style magazines; rather, I could not admire myself for doing that. At the same time, I want to look right and decent and keep from embarrassing myself. I feel like my hygeine is always falling short, just like the housework. Every time I turn around, there's hair where hair shouldn't be, there's stuff under my toenails, my tee shirts are shrinking up and showing my stomach; to say nothing of my wildly oxidizing jewelry, scuffed shoes, &c. I don't understand why I don't see anyone else with these problems! Do they spend all their time at home cleaning their jewelry and ironing their...

I have been quiet about doing this scrapbook as I examined my feelings and thought many times about coming to write about them but I never knew what I would say. Now it is that end/beginning time of the week that I always half-look forward to, half-dread, Sunday night, when Nathan has gone to bed and I stay up a few hours later to get back on track for my night schedule. I thought that I would write of my feelings tonight but even now words fail me. I don't know why my Beta photos affected me as they did. All the others I looked on with a sense of nostalgia or humor, even the very worst. I guess I'm not as good as I thought. When I see those pictures when I am with all the other girls my age, my heart breaks. They were all so pretty, just as every sixteen-year-old should be, and I looked awful. I wore my long, long hair straight back from my forehead, and my glasses were so large they scarcely stayed on my face. I had this baggy shirt and teal cardigan sweater vest over the shi...

Yesterday I found a Grosset & Dunlap book at an antique shop in Comfort. After dinner wih Lydia at der Lindenbaum, we took a late-night walk around the town and saw, to my amazement, swarms of bats circling a light pole, chasing insects. They are so strange: I see why they are the stuff of lore. I retired later reading my book A Little Mother to the Others, remembering again the absolute silence of country night, which once amazingly I took for granted, not knowing differently. After breakfast we saw Truer der Union and the old Comfort train station, of which I took several pics for the purpose of the half-dozen stories I've started that take place in abandoned stations. I want to revamp my writing notebook with stories most important to me featured, because having taken it on the trip I realize that nothing I want to work on is in here. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

I get out here and feel entirely different. Suddenly the world's problems seem so far away. Pollution and crime can't possibly exist. There is no greater safety than these uncivilized places. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

We're on the road between Hico and San Antonio. All around are hills, dotty shrubs, and prickly pear cactus. So far we've visited the Hidden Valley chocolate store and we have a few places where we plan to stop on the way home. Tonight we'll reach Comfort and perhaps have dinner with Lydia. I can't wait to see the little towns. I got the best antique books in Fredericksburg and I hope to have similar luck now. Unearthing my old pictures and scraps put me in a mind more to archiving, and it's hard not to snatch everything I see for a memento. I haven't been on the computer more than sparingly and it's made a wonderful difference for my home time. I do a great deal more and feel more lively. I bought us some web space for email addresses and Nathan's music, and right now I have no plans to develop it for myself. I'm happy with this blog and my Fiction Press account. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

To be buoyed up in a moment when there is no sensible cause for optimism, when everything in me feels as brown and withering and fluttering as the dead leaves of Fall which must come so soon. I wander through the almost-deserted building and never have I felt so alone and forsaken and lonelier still do I feel to guess that everyone must feel this way as they walk a momentary lonely road. Since I have been in the habit lately of challenging myself and testing my limits, I put down the gauntlet: be happy now, now! And I thought suddenly, I am lonely, but I am an island, and I am good, and no one can take this from me, the blood rushing through my veins, this fire. I can stand in two places at once. Here, and the far wild recesses of my mind, where I can hearken to those familiar spirits. I felt the great desire to run and never stop. How wonderful it is to feel this strange, restless energy. I decided to do as the ancients called and make a balance with body, mind and spirit: in doing I ...

Last evening attempting to write and failing at it did much for me. For once, really doing it, I finally realize what I should do. I am too burdened by past stories, many novels, to write any more. Difficult as it may be, I want to apply myself to revising these completed novels to my satisfaction before even touching the unfinished novels, much less beginning a new one. It has been on my mind for some time how many completed novels I have, and how all of them are unfit for human eyes-- Love's Shadow, Love's Image, Cymbeline, A Question of Honor, and Winter's Light, and the short stories, The Grove (lost presently), The Beekeeper, The Tower, Absinthe (also presently lost), and The Annunciation. And my two oldest, A Fragile Reverie and Winter Rose. I am starting to realize that with regard to revision and display, I can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear: nevertheless it gives me great pleasure to share my earliest work, whatever its flaws. Winter Rose was an attem...

Blanche stepped into the ancient garden of delights, basket swinging from one hand as she surveyed the flowers for harvest. They would serve to adorn her simple gown for the fair, and perhaps accentuate her charm for Jean's appreciation. A crafty smile worked at her red lips as she picked the loveliest lily blossoms for her black hair. With or without her stepmother's approval, she would receive Jean's court. Suddenly he seemed her only means of happiness or survival. She relinquished the flowers and knelt suddenly at the small, old grave, feeling not for the first time a familiarity with the place. "Yes," she whispered suddenly. "I was here long ago clutching my father's hand, beholding you, mother, being laid into the ground. Oh, God, his face was terrible!" She closed her eyes and shivered at the memory. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

There have been times in my life that have moved slowly, perhaps for good or bad. But now, nothing moves slowly. When I contemplate how little has altered for me in one year, I'm staggered. Soon, all too soon, it will have been an entire year since I have worked at Mary Kay, Inc., and yet it feels like just a couple of months. Days, weeks spin by at staggering pace. I remember something that happened to me, and I'll realize that months have passed since the event. I'll scan over my diary only to find that weeks have passed since I wrote in it, when I was sure it was only a few days ago. The feeling grows stronger with each passing day: it is near-insurmountable now, so that I am driven to find a way to slow the passage of time. It is almost supernatural, as though I'm on a legended fairy island where I'm being cheated of my life: while five minutes of my revelry passes, it has really been five years, and my very life is slipping through my fingers like sand. I know ...

I'm giving up momentarily on finding the best interactive fiction engine for my Treo-- it's just too frustrating. The Hugo engine only plays one game at a time and now I have the weird feeling that everything I uploaded to my PDA has become lost to me, but is undeletable. Besides, I'm more interested in prose than interactive fiction at the moment-- at least until I find some good software for both desktop and Treo and can play the games reliably. Despite Hugo's apparent cross-compatibility, there are bugs everywhere. There are other software to pursue, but I'm tired of thinking of all of it. I'm more interested in free fiction on the Internet. I thought today of what would make a successful free book, and this is my working idea: (1) the achievement of a whole work of fiction, short story or novel; (2) the available resources and education to edit/revise that novel to the best of one's ability; (3) comprehensive criticism and feedback for further improvemen...

Blanche stood before her small mirror, lacing her corset herself for the first time as best as she could. She could not do it as tightly as Muriel might-- but Muriel was nowhere to be found. Likely she had gone out early that morning for some herb or other. Blanche, freed temporarily from Muriel's scrutiny, did not feel put upon to attend her chores, and with her basket flew from the house and down the road, before her stepmother might return and detain her. Once out of sight of the old shanty, Blanche relaxed her pace and lingered along the road, near Jean's stretch of farmland. He noticed her instantly: stopped where he worked the land, and waved a tentative greeting. Blanche felt in the moment that more than an expanse of grass parted them: it was her stepmother's ire: even his shyness for her was near-gone. Languidly Blanche leaned against the gate and watched him continue his work. Despite his obvious pleasure at her unexpected company, he looked almost cheerless: sh...

How would I Iive without this resource? Yet its necessary source, oil, is our reason for my country's war with Iraq. I have read tonight-- and I intend to contemplate the possible truth of it-- that the USA wants to control what is left of the world's oil supply. Is this worth human lives? No. What can I do without this precious medium, the Internet, through which I express my life's passion? To have this thing which need be finite due to our greed is unsettling. What should I do? Will the world be as my post-apocalyptic imaginings describe in twenty years? Will we be bereft of electricity, on which every human is so dependent? I wonder if I am building my house on the sand in this event. Lately I have given myself almost entirely to electronica. If it were to end, much of my effort would be not only obliterated but obsolete. I wonder what I should do. For if our country should do something, I should do it first and wait for others to follow me, rather than the other way a...

A passionate storm is at work; it calls to my mind the two weeks last year I wrote A Question of Honor , and how I finished its last pages in the midst of such a storm. I'm beginning to learn the way of the weather here: storms come up and break more violently than in south Texas. Since I have always appreciated a great storm, this is an enjoyment to me. I am reading "Mathilda" by Mary Shelley, having completed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , and its writing, while not as eventful or enthralling as Bronte's, seems one long song to Romanticism, passion, and all its ideals. That the two were written in the same society at the same time amazes me; while their similarities are obvious, Shelley's is clearly devoid of the piousness that heavily characterizes Wildfell. In fact, I thought perhaps Anne Bronte's work might not be as popular as that of her sisters' because her clearly didactic tone is such a poison to modern scholars. All I have learned of Bronte makes...

When I come to my old home, suddenly I remember what matters. Maybe this time I can take it home with me. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

Bleah. Another beautiful day. And I slept through half of it. (warning, a lot of complaints to follow) I just sent my Treo blog and was praying it would go through so I could come in and complain. So here I am. So I'm trying to figure out why I get 8 mB a month web service on my phone, and it's only alotting me 2.5 this month? I guess they're doing it partway and maybe they do the billing at the first of each month, but I should be getting more than that. And I still haven't gotten my pay. Bloody hell, how far behind am I in my pay??? I guess I will have to start keeping records on it and exact my money, since they don't exactly give it to me. *&%#W @$%^# @#$%$!!!! Why's everyone trying to take everything away from me? I'm just waiting for that phone to ring again so another telemarketer can bother me, but it seems they decide to stop that after I wake up. And I don't know how to turn off the ringer on the bedroom phone. And I don't feel lik...

Here is my very first Treo blog, and thus it will probably be very short. These keys are miniscule but ah, if you could just see how precious my little friend is. I may end up eliminating punctuation and caps if I can't grow accustomed.  This will be perfect for writing poetry, though, since I spend more time thinking than writing.  Or maybe I will have to learn some fashionable shorthand- it's about time I got hip on my abbreviations.  So I am @lunch, wishing I'd brought a book...  Wondering if it really pays to grow up...  Thinking on my new favorite hottie anime singer...  Which would be my very own husband. Sigh...  Wondering if I will ever see him again for more than a 30 min interval...   I hope we can do something fun this weekend...  Go to the zoo...  And good lord I want to see my freaking BJDs.  And my cat is a mess, throws up in a new spot every day. He's listless and depressed... Last night I came home and he was ...

I came on with the thought to write for the sheer hope that Nathan might read it-- if I had known he had already checked my weblog I would have been writing on it in the lab just to be able to tell him my thoughts. Nathan... I miss you, too. I almost forgot tonight was abnormal but as soon as I came in Henry was acting really odd, the same disturbed way he acted when I came home from Bethyl every afternoon. Then I remembered you weren't here. I don't think I ever said the Bronte books were written by the same person. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are in two very different styles, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is different from either of them. After I finish this book, however, I intend to go into a deep study of all their lives; if I start researching them now, something will probably spoil the ending of this book for me, and I don't want that to happen. Darkthorns, I don't know if The Tenant of Wildfell Hall will be to your taste, but since you liked those othe...

I am almost overwhelmed with the desire to obtain more information about this author and her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall . I have not been afflicted with such passion for a book in longer than I can remember. I have become a true bookworm again-- glued to this novel, and loathing and scorning every interruption from it. I am over three-fourths done with it, and then finally I will be able to research criticism about this book about which I have never heard. It cuts me more deeply than Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre ever could, though the similarities between all three fascinate me. That these sisters existed on this earth is as overwhelming to me as considering Beethoven existed on this earth. I have been doing very well with Nathan gone-- even though it's only been five hours or so. I cleaned up the house some and did some shopping-- got some peppermint patties to cheer the night, and if that doesn't work, I will get a mocha valencia. I haven't done anything else t...

Nichol entered the shabby parlor with misgivings. It was still difficult to believe that someone as elegant as Hildegarde might live in such deplorable conditions. Perhaps she did not use any of the rooms Nichol had seen, but then, which did she use? She made a motion to draw back the velvet draperies and let light into the room, but a single pull at the cord, and a course of spiders trickled from the curtain folds. A shiver ran down her spine and she moved backward, not wishing to make greater evil with her tampering. Hildegarde showed no sign of returning from her errand soon and Nichol felt impatient for some distraction from the oppressive quiet. She spied on a far table an antique phonograph which, despite its apparant age and neglect, was not broken. It was loaded already with a cylinder and Nichol was curious to hear the machine at work. Studied in Victorian technology, she was able to crank the phonograph and put it into operation without risking its destruction, though it appe...

(You stole me away to a place where the wind in the trees moaned like the restless dead Where spiders plotted my death in the dooryard You surrounded me with the shadow of your love till all I could see was darkness, and I dreamed.) I wandered thus through dream-fields with a piece of poisoned apple lodged in my throat I floated above the ground and my skirts trailed through the grass: my burial shroud dragged the ground A shadow moved behind me, but my instincts were blunted I reacted slowly, turning from the menace and fleeing toward our shanty That wooden contraption of sticks and twine, where my love waited by Plying a jew harp with careless grace as I danced for You, every step, every curtsey, for my savior. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

"And Hugh? Where did you meet him? And what is he to you?" "The only friend I've got in the wide world. May I see him, please?" "First, tell me what is is to you and to this child?" 'Lina rejoined, her black eyes flashing with a gleam, before which the brown eyes for an instant quailed; then as if something of a like spirit were called to life in her bosom, Adah answered calmly: "Your brother might not like me to tell. I must see him first-- see him alone." "One thing more," and 'Lina held back her mother who was starting in quest of Hugh, "are you a wife?" "Don't, 'Lina," Mrs. Worthington whispered, as she saw the look of agony pass over Adah's face. "Don't worry her so; deal kindly by the fallen." "I am not fallen!" came passionately from the quivering lips. "I'm as true a woman as either of you-- look!" and she pointed to the gold band encircling the th...

Her hand is locked firmly in his own: it is warm and tangible. His fingers are stronger than they look: she thought they might be as lithe and ethereal as the rest of him. "Where are we going?" Josette whispered with concern as he dragged her persistently at a dizzying speed through unfamiliar roads. He did not answer, but reached a chain-link fence, and stopped. On the other side of it was an abandoned church with roof falling in. "Climb," he whispered fiercely. "Go as quickly as you can. I'll hand you up as far as I can." "But what about you?" Josette questioned, but he made no reply, firmly hoisting her up. She grasped the links and climbed as well as she could. She reached the top and looked down to see if the man followed her, but he was nowhere to be found. She gasped. She didn't even know his name to call for him. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

Engelburg. The name resonated in Nichol's mind. Of course-- this was where Gabriel had met and loved Gisela Weisse, a young ward of the household already promised in marriage. If the authenticity of Hildegarde's letters could be verified, this would be a powerful discovery indeed. Nichol studied the letters at length while Hildegarde waited. Nichol sensed her confidence in the find. "Are more of Lysander's things at the burg?" Hildegarde watched her closely-- too closely. Nichol began to redden, afraid Hildegarde was considering her personal interest in Lysander. "I don't know what belonged to Gabriel. I haven't the faintest notion about antique things. I am no expert." She arched a brow. "But you are, Miss Durand." Nichol looked at her incredulously, wondering if there was an underlying implication to Hildegarde's words, or if she were going mad. "I am studied in artifacts-- yes." Again Hildegarde was watching her, not as...

I have to stay awake: please help me. I'm so drowsy I don't even care to surf the web. I've written three scenes already and I think it's made my eyes tired. I always dreamed of being a paid writer-- darn it, I am. I can't think of anything to think about. I already made lists of groceries, chores and lofty life goals. Somehow even in this July I am freezing when I step outside in the darkness to drive home. I dread that void. Sometimes even my most favorite music can't shake me from that oblivion when I get in the car. It's like being an astronaut looking at earth-- lonely and cold. I feel now that an inferno could not warm me. I see myself under the comforter now-- then I'll be warm and safe. I want to start transcribing Hugh Worthington soon. I was considering tonight what things I want in my life and Gutenberg is one of them. I don't know how far my interactive fiction will go but it's worth a shot anyway. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'...

She slides down the wall next to him, fidgeting with her grocery bags as she does. "I have a roll-top can of Spam. And soft drinks." She smiles apologetically. "The convenience store doesn't have much now. They only carry things that don't spoil." In the shadows she sees the barest glimpse of his smile. "You're kind to share with me." "What else would I do? Go home and eat it alone, while you shiver in the dark? We might be the only two people left on this earth, for all it seems." His pale gaze meets her. The look in his eyes is unfathomable, almost otherworldly. A shiver runs down her spine. "What is it?" Josette asks. "Why do you look at me so?" He puts one hand over hers and the can of Spam she is holding, surprising her to silence. A howl pierces the quiet, chilling Josette's blood. "Oh, God," she whispers with dread. There are wolves nearby: their population has increased rapidly with the declin...

The winter wind blasts her as she ducks under the stoop and fishes for her key. Lingering in the doorway is a tall, lanky figure watching her. Josette pauses, key poised in hand, as she meets the man's black stare. "Lysander," she breathes, her heart accelerating. For the first time that day she doesn't feel the cold. He is dressed in black from head to toe: his pale face is framed by close-cropped black hair. "Josette." His voice is barely audible above the howling wind. She notices for the first time that his cheeks and hands are wind-stung and she wonders how long he has been waiting there: she left to carry out her errands hours ago. "I want to talk to you." There was urgency in his voice. Her heart beat harder: she couldn't help wondering if he had missed her as she missed him, if he felt the hollow cold as she did. As she exhaled her breath was marked by frost. She slid her key into the lock with a trembling hand and jiggled it slight...

I am so excited that this did not disappear that I'm beside myself-- I looked all over the Internet for this site and couldn't find it, but from what I can tell they had to change their name because CYOA was sueing them. Wow! I can't believe it's well over a year since I wrote this story! Time does fly-- what have I been doing for this past year? Here I am on the eve of my first wedding anniversary wondering how on earth I got here.

The old museum creaked and groaned against the wind that battered it in the storm. Bare branches tapped Nichol's window as they lost the last of their leaves in an autumn storm. Tucked at her desk with a small space heater, she shivered and drew an old gray sweater further around her shoulders. Through crooked glasses she peered at the handbook she was reading on the effects of light on fragile documents. After staring blankly at the page for several moments she found she could not concentrate on it, distracted by the storm outside, and she marked it and placed the book aside. Storms such as these roused her to impatience. It was warm and cozy to be indoors on such a night, with no imposition to travel beyond the small apartment she kept on the third floor of the museum, but it was lonely to share the storm with none but oil paintings and marble sculptures. Convulsively she reached into her desk for the sheaf of old papers she kept, but just as abruptly ceased. She was tormented wi...

He found her in the cold darkness of her room, lying on her bed as though sleeping. But the pallor of her cheek suggested more than repose. Jean went to her, lifted her shoulders, shook her. That was when he saw the garment tied around her chemise-- the corset. Blue rimmed her eyes and shadowed her fingertips: her breathing was shallow and uneven. Hands shaking, Jean worked quickly, untying the whalebone contraption till Blanche fell loose and senselessly back on the bed. He touched her face, listened to her breath, till he was satsfied she would keep, for she would not wake to his voice or prodding. He watched over her silently, till he heard her stepmother enter the house at the break of dawn, and slipped quickly through the window-- not before caressing her cool white cheek. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

Blanche woke with a delicious sense of peacefulness. Yellow light touched her face like a flower's caress, reminding her of the earthen garden she had discovered the evening before. Now more than anything she desired to return. As she dressed and bathed her face, she considered how she would slip there beyond her stepmother's notice. Before she entered the corridor she fastened her mother's locket around her throat and admired its glimmering cheer. In its glow was the semblance of flames, of wood and blowing ashes. A madman wobbled backward, viewing his work with satisfaction. That afternoon Blanche found occasion to visit the abandoned garden when she was done with her chores. She kept quiet company there with birds and insects till the sun descended and she hastened back down the dusty road past Jean's house. This time she paused to look, no longer absorbed in her discovery of the garden. His tall, lean form was blocked against orange light: he continued working after...