Nightmare at 20,000 Degrees

I was recently very ill and I ran a high fiver. Having a fever makes my brain do funny things. I was burning so hot that I let my brothers watch a movie on my computer while I tried to sleep; I knew that I wasn't going to be sleeping anyway; the past has taught me this. Instead I elected to roll over and let my fever burn while I listened to the movie. It wasn't very good; it was about Harrison Ford as a lawyer trying to prove that he didn't murder one of his coworkers. There were no car chases, explosions or anything else interesting. Now, I'm not one to object to courtroom drama (get it? Object? I'm so clever), but this wasn't even the good, Perry Mason kind. However the movie did let my brain interpret the characters and lines into a sort of home-made mashup of itself. It's literally the only way to make the movie interesting.

Once the movie ended and everyone went to bed, I took a hearty dose of Nyquil and twitchingly slipped into some unpleasant non-REM sleep. My brain became stuck in this one awful dream. It's going to be hard to describe because there's nothing like it.

Essentially, I was meeting these people who I think were Italian. However, they didn't speak Italian (or maybe they did), because this language was based around a black, endless supply of cubes arranged almost exactly the way you see below.

Amazingly, Google Image search already had an image of my dream on file.

The only difference between my dream and the picture was that it was like a cube planet made of black cubes. Naturally, the planet was a cube instead of a sphere. I need you to understand how exhaustingly massive it was. Whenever the Fever-Italians would speak, it was like somebody would grab my by my brain stem and yank me down a nonsensical path through the cubes. Each word would take me to a different place on this complicated, black cube. The cube would twist, turn buckle, warp and deform with every new word. I think I was trying to learn the language, but it was simply impossible. The more they talked, the more the city of cubes twisted in seemingly random motion. I couldn't see a pattern to any of it.

It was a tangled nightmare, and it kinda felt the way this looks.

I dreamt this from when I went to sleep around midnight until 6:30 in the morning, when I got up use the bathroom. As I shakily returned and slid into bed, I noticed that my fever had gone down significantly, perhaps completely. The covers were much colder than they had been only moments before. As I pulled my two blankets around myself, I thought, “oh please, not more of that awful Italian language dream.” I was actually terrified that I would have to go back, which I had been subjected to for hours, unable to escape.

It was quite relaxing having an orderly mind.

Fortunately, I didn't have it for the rest of the night. I sat in bed, staring at the ceiling, hoping that I'd be able to go to sleep. Apparently I managed it quite well, because the next time I awoke it was 12:00 in the afternoon. I still felt horrible, though. 

English is Crazy

After an entire semester spent struggling through Spanish, I've come to appreciate my native language much more. Spanish, like English, has its own set of rules to follow. There are exceptions, modifications and just plain weird things about the language that we, as English speakers, don't use. If I were better at Spanish, here's where I would whip out a few direct examples of what I'm thinking of. But I'm not good at Spanish.

Is it offensive that they used shades of brown to denote "Spanishness?"

As I learned the broad strokes of Spanish, it made me start to question English's oddities. Like, why do we say, “way to go?” What does that phrase even mean? I see the word “way,” which means a style or method, but I just get confused when it's placed with “to go.” Are we saying that someone did something just the right way? Perhaps it's a reduction of “that's the right way to go,” suggesting that someone did something good. Who's the guy who decided to reduce this phrase into a meaningless hunk of words, huh!?

I can't prove it, but I suspect this book had a lot to do with it.

Here are some more phrases that could very well confuse and infuriate someone who is trying to become more proficient with the language:
Break a leg
Keep your eyes peeled
Look sharp
By and large
The apple of my eye

What is up with our English? And lets not forget words with bizarre alternate meanings that relate to things that seem completely arbitrary.
Cold (Refers to low temperature OR viral infection)
My mother kept telling me that if I didn't wear a coat out in the cold, I'd catch a cold.
Rose (A type of flower OR “to go up”)
The rose rose from its humble beginnings in the dirt.
Brood (To ponder moodily OR “offspring”)
Charlie's brood were known to brood.
Blubber (Mammalian fat OR “to utter while sobbing”)
Teresa usually began to blubber when the subject of whale blubber came up.
Tender (Sore OR gentleness OR “to present for acceptance”)
Bill tenderly tendered his resignation, which was difficult because his arm was still tender.
Count (A European nobleman OR “to recite numbers”) (Sesame Street has known about this for years.)
The Count would count the tiles on his ceiling when he couldn't sleep.
Season (A specific annual time division and “enhance the flavor of food")
During the winter season, Mark noticed that Sarah would season her cooking more heavily.
Coast (Seashore OR “move aimlessly”)
While riding my bicycle, I coast down the hill by the coast.
Polish (To make something shiny by cleaning OR someone or something from Poland)
My Mom made us polish the Polish furniture.

Oh well, since it's the only language I have, I guess I'll just have to keep using it.

Style Stuck

Here's an entry that's as much for me as anybody else.

If you've been writing a while, you probably have a style you like to write in. Whether that be an emulation of romance novels (“Her eyes burned with passion”) or you exclusively write nonfiction (“The American Civil War was a time when...”), you'll find that you've settled into a style that's comfortable for you. Even if you try to break away from it, it's going to creep back into your work, like how your slouch creeps in while you're trying to stand up straight for a prolonged period of time.

...Which is really difficult for some people.

I noticed that I was style stuck when, of all things, I was watching Cinemassacre's video detailing his trip to Sleepy Hollow, NY. He begins by reading a passage from the actual Sleepy Hollow book, which was one of the most beautifully written things I've recently heard. The particular passage reads,

“Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of the land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail of tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility.”

I already know that some of my readers will be all too happy to tell me about all kinds of books with beautiful writing, and if they do so, I encourage them to hunt for it in Google Books and mention some page numbers.

Now, this isn't something that I can just analyze and explain why it's pretty. It's like describing a painting; the most I can do is list some subjective reasons I had for liking it. In lieu of a detailed explanation, here are some things that jump out at me.

Washington Irving was going to great lengths to describe what he thought of as an idyllic place, and so he uses language that reflects the relaxation he (probably) felt when he was there. He uses somewhat uncommon words for things, like saying a brook “glides” through the valley, and that it “murmurs.” If I had been trying to write something like that, my subtlety would have been much more hammer-like.

“A river flows through the valley. The soft sound of rushing water is all you can hear over the woodpeckers.”

It doesn't sound relaxing at all! Of course this is a tongue-in-cheek example of my own writing, because I'm sure I could write something relaxing if I really tried, but Washington Irving makes the whole paragraph feel effortless, as if he wrote it in one dip of his pen with a single, flowing movement of his hand. He didn't even have to think about why he loves Sleepy Hollow.

"I had you fooled. I really hated it there. I'm just that good."

How can I use this to improve my writing? I'll stick with my usual advice and say, it helps writers (especially me) to read as many books as possible, by as wide a variety of authors as possible, as much as possible. I haven't read anything in a while, which might explain this whole “no blog” situation I've been stuck in. As always, it also helps if you like what you're writing about. It's even better if you love it.