The new Harry Potter came out this week, but since I'm not going to see it until this weekend, I have been watching all the old ones. Sometimes, I just listen to them while I clean the house, or paint our dirty, chipped, embarrassing stair rails a clean, glossy white. I'm doing that a bit at a time, in a relaxed, this-isn't-a-big-project way, so watching a movie and having tea during painting doesn't seem that out of place. But with Harry Potter on in the background, I hear lots of scary music. Every day, hours of scary music. Well, almost.
Scary music sometimes has a pounding beat that makes you feel like something is about to happen, sometimes the soft, sharp, high pitches make you feel creepy, sometimes it just sounds like how it feels when something really scares you all of a sudden, and you feel that adrenaline rush. (But not in a very good way. I guess some people like it. I like sugar.) That last kind of music describes having a scary feeling, rather than creates, I think.
But what makes scary music scary? It's just a bunch of sounds. What if it's only scary to us because we have been conditioned to think it is, just like we are conditioned to make sense of all music based on the scales that western music uses. (Not country, for those of you who were thinking that. By "western" I just mean, not far east or Asian and all that. Their music only sounds "weird" to us because it is based on an entirely different pitch system than ours. So, if we were used to their scales, their music would sound normal. I've probably over-simplified it, but yeah. Speaking of over-simplifying, this whole parenthetical explanation probably over-complicates what I was trying to say in the first place.)
You know, we've all seen scary movies, and maybe it's what is going on when the music happens that makes us scared. If the music were out of the context of the movie, it might not really be scary. When you hear some modern "classical" music, it can sound really strange. Even Stravinsky when you think of the rhythm in Rite of Spring, could be used as "scary" music; you could make it work in a movie, if it were not distractingly familiar. Of course, it was written for a scary sort of ballet, I guess, anyway. But some sort of dissonant symphonies or string quartets would sound scary, but if you're just sitting in a concert hall listening, they just sound strange or itchy or beautiful or whatever. They just sound like music.
I don't know...
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
15 July 2009
12 June 2009
controlled by sweaters (for 2 years)
Some days I just feel fat and itchy and gross and old. I think it's allergies.
On the bright side, I have recently begun typing while looking at the screen instead of the keyboard! This is a huge step, and I didn't even try, it just happened one day!
Actually, today was one of my best days this whole summer. Yesterday was too. I read. I napped. I practiced. I made our bed. I worked out. I cooked dinner. I enjoyed clean floors. Both days I did all that. None of those are things that I usually get to do. Never in a normal semester, and most of the time not even in the summer! And today, Steve bought me the first season of The Road to Avonlea! It was a big surprise! I think this is my first summer where I am actually relaxed and organized enough to enjoy a little time off. I mean, I've had time off before, but either spent it worrying about something, or putting off cleaning my house. Usually both.
A few days ago, I put my sweaters in the attic, and that changed everything. It freed up a shelf in my closet, (which then got to hold all my extra bath stuff, which made my bathroom use-able again, which made the downstairs bathroom not full of my makeup and toothbrush) AND freed up the floor of my other closet, which means my shoes are no longer all over the house, which means my hanging clothes are accessible, which means the important clothes are no longer on the living room banister waiting to be worn. I now have a living room that does not look like a closet, which makes it much easier to clean up the pet hair every other hour when it gets bad. (Okay, not really, but almost.) And since all that is done now, I have time to practice, read, and nap, like a normal person who doesn't have kids yet.
One shelf, one box of coats and sweaters in the attic, and my entire life has changed. It's wonderful. And my cherry tomato plant has three bunches of little green tomatoes on it now.
Anyway, I am perfectly content, but still rather itchy and bloated and old-looking today. I need to go take an allergy pill, and perhaps a glass of wine.
On the bright side, I have recently begun typing while looking at the screen instead of the keyboard! This is a huge step, and I didn't even try, it just happened one day!
Actually, today was one of my best days this whole summer. Yesterday was too. I read. I napped. I practiced. I made our bed. I worked out. I cooked dinner. I enjoyed clean floors. Both days I did all that. None of those are things that I usually get to do. Never in a normal semester, and most of the time not even in the summer! And today, Steve bought me the first season of The Road to Avonlea! It was a big surprise! I think this is my first summer where I am actually relaxed and organized enough to enjoy a little time off. I mean, I've had time off before, but either spent it worrying about something, or putting off cleaning my house. Usually both.
A few days ago, I put my sweaters in the attic, and that changed everything. It freed up a shelf in my closet, (which then got to hold all my extra bath stuff, which made my bathroom use-able again, which made the downstairs bathroom not full of my makeup and toothbrush) AND freed up the floor of my other closet, which means my shoes are no longer all over the house, which means my hanging clothes are accessible, which means the important clothes are no longer on the living room banister waiting to be worn. I now have a living room that does not look like a closet, which makes it much easier to clean up the pet hair every other hour when it gets bad. (Okay, not really, but almost.) And since all that is done now, I have time to practice, read, and nap, like a normal person who doesn't have kids yet.
One shelf, one box of coats and sweaters in the attic, and my entire life has changed. It's wonderful. And my cherry tomato plant has three bunches of little green tomatoes on it now.
Anyway, I am perfectly content, but still rather itchy and bloated and old-looking today. I need to go take an allergy pill, and perhaps a glass of wine.
07 March 2009
a picture of part of my thoughts
So I have been really busy the last few weeks. When I get tired and busy, sharing my thoughts with all of you is kind of hard, because, well, thoughts are the first thing to go. And then I don't have any to share. :( Anyway, but it's Saturday morning and I am having tea and enjoying the lovely breeze on my balcony, and the thoughts are slowly returning...
I could say something about politics, but let's all be spared. I could say something about shopping for a dress for a wedding coming up, but it's been dismal, so again, let's be spared. (I'll just say that I have been to more than 30 stores, and seen nothing but pure hideousness--even if I had hundreds of dollars to spend on a dress, I would not have spent it, they were all so ugly. Either that or mostly just those sorts of fun little dresses that my fronts are way too big for... As I told a friend, a bit too much fun.) Why is it so hard? I really just need to get my sewing machine fixed.
I have also been thinking a lot about decorating/organizing/cleaning things to do around the house. Sometime soon, perhaps I will post pictures of my striped piano room with it's empty golden frames on the walls and it's Alice-in-Wonderland-purple bookshelf, and it's rich and lovely, dripping-orange-wax candelabra. :) Or my beautiful, bubblegum pink closet! (I can do this when I stop finding it so astronomically challenging to take a picture, and get it from my camera to my computer and from my computer to my blog. Right now, I only can manage to get pictures that are already on the web, like from facebook and stuff.)
But really, I am just sort of consumed with wanting to make another cup of tea right now. In just a minute. And since I only post pictures from the internet right now, here's a really good one:
A bathtub that I very much want to take a bath in. My friend in Chicago has a bathtub like this. I took lots of baths in it (and pictures of it!) when I was there last summer. These sorts of bathtubs are some of my favorite things ever, and it's even better when they have feet. My friend's has feet. :) This one doesn't, but I chose the picture because it's still the perfect shape and I love how the faucets are on the side, and I love the stool next to it, and the way the light is coming whitely through the window.
Anyway, I think about bathtubs a lot, so I thought y'all should hear about it at least once.
I could say something about politics, but let's all be spared. I could say something about shopping for a dress for a wedding coming up, but it's been dismal, so again, let's be spared. (I'll just say that I have been to more than 30 stores, and seen nothing but pure hideousness--even if I had hundreds of dollars to spend on a dress, I would not have spent it, they were all so ugly. Either that or mostly just those sorts of fun little dresses that my fronts are way too big for... As I told a friend, a bit too much fun.) Why is it so hard? I really just need to get my sewing machine fixed.
I have also been thinking a lot about decorating/organizing/cleaning things to do around the house. Sometime soon, perhaps I will post pictures of my striped piano room with it's empty golden frames on the walls and it's Alice-in-Wonderland-purple bookshelf, and it's rich and lovely, dripping-orange-wax candelabra. :) Or my beautiful, bubblegum pink closet! (I can do this when I stop finding it so astronomically challenging to take a picture, and get it from my camera to my computer and from my computer to my blog. Right now, I only can manage to get pictures that are already on the web, like from facebook and stuff.)
But really, I am just sort of consumed with wanting to make another cup of tea right now. In just a minute. And since I only post pictures from the internet right now, here's a really good one:
A bathtub that I very much want to take a bath in. My friend in Chicago has a bathtub like this. I took lots of baths in it (and pictures of it!) when I was there last summer. These sorts of bathtubs are some of my favorite things ever, and it's even better when they have feet. My friend's has feet. :) This one doesn't, but I chose the picture because it's still the perfect shape and I love how the faucets are on the side, and I love the stool next to it, and the way the light is coming whitely through the window.
Anyway, I think about bathtubs a lot, so I thought y'all should hear about it at least once.
03 February 2009
I want this phone!!
Isn't it great? I don't care that I couldn't walk around and do chores while I'm using it. That's the ONLY time I talk on the phone, but I just want it!
Steve told me the loveliest thing when he finished studying tonight. He saved it in his mind to tell me because he knew I would like it so much.
While he was going to Sam's to get gas on the way home from work, he saw a lady, standing on the sidewalk, as if she were waiting for someone to come along and pick her up. He said she was probably 75 years old, with white, white hair, and "all dolled up" he said. And she was wearing a full-length fur coat. How glamourous. He said that since she was so old, the coat was most likely real fur! And all the way to the ground. She must have had some fabulous shoes and sunglasses on, but he left that to my imagination.
I want to be like that lady when I'm old.
31 January 2009
My new favorite thing to do....
...is to upload pictures.
This is from when I had tea while making a peach strawberry pie while sitting on the living room floor watching Lord of the Rings. Here's another one:
While I was doing that, my Kince was sitting watching me, like this:
And this is what he saw:
That was also the day that we had this for dinner:
Sorry if this results in a bunch of picture-ful but content-less posts. I'm having so much fun!
This is from when I had tea while making a peach strawberry pie while sitting on the living room floor watching Lord of the Rings. Here's another one:
While I was doing that, my Kince was sitting watching me, like this:
And this is what he saw:
That was also the day that we had this for dinner:
Sorry if this results in a bunch of picture-ful but content-less posts. I'm having so much fun!
21 September 2008
glory, pumpkins, Eeyore and love
Alright, so I have been trying and trying to post this weekend. I have had so many lovely thoughts, but every time I try to blog, I just end up leaving it as a draft. I have too many thoughts, especially about C. S. Lewis. So here's just a little piece of all the things I was trying to write.
Saturday morning was cool and nice, so I took my tea set (with tea and cream and sugar in it!) outside and had tea on a blanket under a grove of trees. I was finishing C. S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory. I love, love, love how stunning the end is, and how realistic and honest Lewis is, even while he is tying together such lofty, lovely, scary thoughts. I cannot say all that it made me think, and you'll have to read it yourself if you really want to know about it, but here is one quote from the essay that always brings me out of myself and back to reality:
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations---these are mortal, and their life to ours is as the life of a gnat. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit..."
On a different note, Steve and I have bought a huge pumpkin! It looks just like it came right out of a coloring book--it is such a perfect shape, and so orange, and has such a properly curving stem. It makes me so happy. I am going to make lots of pumpkin foods this fall. I have already been looking for recipes, and I found a soup, a pudding, and a stuffed pumpkin recipe that all sound very good and not too hard. :) I can't wait!
Today Steve went out to run some errands (he sometimes goes to Dillard's when they have a sale in the really tall men's dept.) Anyway, he came home with, among other things, seersucker shorts (this is too many parentheses, but I have to say, he loves seersucker, which I find quite funny) AND he also had a very non-Dillard's-looking bag. It was actually a bag from the Disney Store. He told me to open it, and inside was Eeyore! He got me an Eeyore stuffed animal for a surprise, and I thought it was just the sweetest thing ever. My very soft Eeyore is at the moment sitting on top of my very wonderful, great big pumpkin which, under the circumstances, looks even more coloring-book-ish.
What other random things have been on my mind? Well, we have again been very busy and I am thinking of taking a sort of break from "extracurricular" (I guess I mean extra-marriage, but that's not a word) activities in October, so that is something sort of nice. I am happy I got to have tea outside, but mostly I am so amazed and happy that I have married such a wonderful guy who buys me Eeyore stuffed animals and who, by his own admission, knows how much it means to me to have curly hair. Of course there are other more important reasons I love him, but wow. :)
Saturday morning was cool and nice, so I took my tea set (with tea and cream and sugar in it!) outside and had tea on a blanket under a grove of trees. I was finishing C. S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory. I love, love, love how stunning the end is, and how realistic and honest Lewis is, even while he is tying together such lofty, lovely, scary thoughts. I cannot say all that it made me think, and you'll have to read it yourself if you really want to know about it, but here is one quote from the essay that always brings me out of myself and back to reality:
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations---these are mortal, and their life to ours is as the life of a gnat. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit..."
On a different note, Steve and I have bought a huge pumpkin! It looks just like it came right out of a coloring book--it is such a perfect shape, and so orange, and has such a properly curving stem. It makes me so happy. I am going to make lots of pumpkin foods this fall. I have already been looking for recipes, and I found a soup, a pudding, and a stuffed pumpkin recipe that all sound very good and not too hard. :) I can't wait!
Today Steve went out to run some errands (he sometimes goes to Dillard's when they have a sale in the really tall men's dept.) Anyway, he came home with, among other things, seersucker shorts (this is too many parentheses, but I have to say, he loves seersucker, which I find quite funny) AND he also had a very non-Dillard's-looking bag. It was actually a bag from the Disney Store. He told me to open it, and inside was Eeyore! He got me an Eeyore stuffed animal for a surprise, and I thought it was just the sweetest thing ever. My very soft Eeyore is at the moment sitting on top of my very wonderful, great big pumpkin which, under the circumstances, looks even more coloring-book-ish.
What other random things have been on my mind? Well, we have again been very busy and I am thinking of taking a sort of break from "extracurricular" (I guess I mean extra-marriage, but that's not a word) activities in October, so that is something sort of nice. I am happy I got to have tea outside, but mostly I am so amazed and happy that I have married such a wonderful guy who buys me Eeyore stuffed animals and who, by his own admission, knows how much it means to me to have curly hair. Of course there are other more important reasons I love him, but wow. :)
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