Pirates or Ninjas?

Q:  So.  Pirates or ninjas?

A:  Okay, so.  Back in the day when Pirates of the Caribbean first came out, I couldn't care less about pirates.  I knew about the whole skull and crossed bones thing, the raid, pillage and plunder thing, the wooden leg, eyepatch and parrot thing, but that was about it.  I had been on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney Land a couple times, and that's still about it.

I didn't even want to see the movie because I thought that it would be super creepy.  I'm not really a fan of scary movies, and when I saw the trailer while at the theatre for another movie, the whole "not really dead" skeleton thing was a little much.  I was pretty much convinced that I would have nightmares if I saw the movie.  Somehow, that must have passed, because I went to see the movie in theatres.  And I pretty much fell in love with it.  When I met one of my best friends from high school, I learned that falling in love wasn't nearly as crazy as you could get when it came to Pirates.  She had dressed up as Jack Sparrow for Halloween, owned multiple t-shirts sporting skulls, wore hoop earrings every now and again, and planned on getting an Aztec gold coin someday if her brother could swing the cost to purchase a replica.

Being around her made me a lot more excited about pirates in general.  So I picked up books that were about pirates or had pirates in them.  I'm pretty sure I read about half a dozen books about pirates during that phase of my life.  All fictional, of course.  But I also Google searched so I could learn about the Jolly Roger and other pirate flags.  (Did you know that each pirate captain had his own signature flag?  But they didn't fly their colors unless they were about to take a ship.)  I took quizzes which told me what my pirate name would be.  And I anxiously awaited the second movie after it was announced.  I did not, however, go to see The Pirate Queen when it came to town, I drew the line there.  Even though it looked like a decent show, I was iffy about it, but I digress.

In short, all through high school, I would answer your question with "pirate."  Actually, up until this year, I would unabashedly answer with "pirate."  This year, however, one of my residents is training me to be a ninja. I suspect that she hopes to convert me from piracy, but pirate is in my blood, mate, and she'll have to square with that some day.  Perhaps on the day when I advance to full ninja level, my true pirate nature will reveal itself.  Or hopefully not.  Because if it doesn't, I can use those ninja secrets so I might become a pinja.  Or a nirate.

The short answer is "pirate."  Because I know even less about ninjas.  I haven't read anything about ninjas, and yes, they're pretty amazing, but I'm not impressed.  Ninjas are assassins, if I'm understanding this correctly, but pirates are the rebels of their time.  Sure, a good deal of them died out from scurvy or were run through with a rusty cutlass, but they dedicated their lives to the sea.  Sometimes the sea took their lives, but it just sounds so romantic.  Yes, dirty, icky, bearded men sailing around the open sea is romantic, get used to it.  I just don't see the romance in ninjas.

Thank you, Google, for helping me find this.
Fun fact, this is actually the flag of John Rackham or Calico Jack.

P.S. I apologize for neglecting Poetry Friday, yesterday was a really hectic day what with class and my friend coming in to visit, and a staff meeting, etc.  So I might make it up this weekend, elsewise there just won't be a poem read this week.

"Pirates could happen to anyone."

- Tom Stoppard

Love Hesitates

Q: Do you use writing prompts?

A: All the time.  These past questions I've come up with all on my own though.

Q: Can you use a writing prompt right now?  Create a story/situation based on this personification: love hesitates.  (Thank you, creativewritingprompts.com)

A: Yeah, sure.

She was one of those people who had a glow.  Hers was a rosy one, and it was almost as if her skin had a pinkish tinge to it, more so than your average human being.  People who looked at her instantly admired her, they couldn't help it.  She radiated this confidence and exuded this magnetism.  The one thing that completely set her apart from other human beings (aside from that unearthly glow, of course) was her uncanny ability to navigate the world with grace despite her handicap.  Somehow she walked the world with a deep red blindfold over her eyes.  Against all expectation, she could see into the hearts of those who admired her, discerning those with pure intentions and those without.

They say that Justice wears a blindfold, but even Lady Justice has a seeing eye dog.  Love is also blind.

Love sat on a park bench in the center of town, facing out towards a deserted playground.  She felt a tugging on the back of her blindfold and turned.  Though she couldn't see who the person was, she could smell the wisps of a man's cologne.  It smelled faintly of sulfur.

"What do you want?" she asked, turning her face towards the playground again, her shoulder blades tensing.  She sat up a little straighter and looked directly ahead as the spidery man took a seat next to her.

"Aw, you don't seem happy to see me, Love," the man said, sticking his bottom lip out in a mock pout.  Of course, the blindfolded Love couldn't see his act, but she got the idea.  "I'm here to do you a favor."

"What could you ever do for me?"

"It's pretty easy, actually," the man said.  With a snap of his fingers, the blindfold around Love's eyes disappeared into smoke leaving her blinking in the sudden sunlight.  "And now's point in our conversation where you thank me and fall over me in gratitude.  Just think, this'll make making sandwiches ten times easier."

"I don't suppose you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart," Love commented coldly.

The man clutched his heart as if she had aimed a dart at the bloody sack of an organ.  "We're interested to see what you do with it.  Go ahead, enjoy.  Live a little."  The man grinned, and without a word, he disappeared into memory.

Love was left in the sunlight, blinking out at the playground that was no longer abandoned.  In fact, there seemed to be a young man sitting on one of the swings, gently swaying to and fro.  While she was rosy, he was golden.  He was the picture of beauty, and Love could immediately feel herself drawn to him, but she halted.  While Love hesitated, her rosy complexion deepened, the roots of her hair transforming into a deep red.  Love, no longer blind, turns to Lust.

And there you have it.  This was just a little blurb by Brianna that was written in starts, not all in one go.  Lovely, I know.  Thank you for reading, I hope I haven't lost you yet!

But love is blind and lovers cannot see

The pretty follies that themselves commit;

For if they could, Cupid himself would blush 

To see me thus transformed to a boy.

- William Shakespeare

Take Me Out to the Movies

Q: So.  What do you think about movies?

A: I love movies.  A lot.  Mostly because I grew up with them.  When I was little, maybe I was around 8, or maybe a little younger, I can't remember, my family used to go to my grandparents' lake house at Little Swan Lake.  I remember it being the most exciting part of my summer because we would all pile into the car for the long drive, my brother and I each getting a separate bench in our family's gray mini van.  Though I don't remember what time we left, we always got to the lake house in the dark because we'd have to be careful so we didn't trip over the gravel driveway or the shallow steps leading up to the door.  How this relates to movies?  Well, my uncle had left his boxed set of the Star Wars trilogy at the lake house, and my mother (being the nerd she is) introduced us to Star Wars very early in our lives.  I remember sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching Darth Vader enter the Rebel ship for the first time in Star Wars: A New Hope.  If I remember correctly, the carpet was sulfur yellow.

But it didn't stop there.  My mother continued to introduce us (us being myself and my brother) to movies that we still hold dear now.  Mostly trilogies, and mostly from the 80s, bringing us to Back to the Future and Indiana Jones.

Part of the reason (I think) I'm so drawn to movies is also because when I was so young, we went to my grandparents' house a lot.  My grandparents on my father's side.  There in the basement of cold tile, stale cigarette smoke and the laundry room was the most extensive collection of movies I had ever encountered.  Right next to Blockbuster or the little drug store that used to be down the street.  In those days they were all VHS (my grandpa has since then updated to DVD), and I remember going down there with my brother and just looking through all of them.  Mom would come with and we would pick out movies that we wanted to see.  That's how we ended up seeing Indiana Jones and Back to the Future, if I'm not mistaken.  We would take the movies we wanted to borrow upstairs to Grandma, and she wrote down the titles so we wouldn't forget that we had them.  She said that it was like we were renting the movies and we had to remember to bring them back.  And my grandma has the smallest handwriting I know.  Aside from my one friend, but that's another story.  My grandma's handwriting looks literally like a spider strung out its web and curled it around just a little bit to form words.  So basically my brother and I couldn't read it back in the day, but we trusted her.

When I got older, I continued to re-watch the same three trilogies and branch out into other 80s classics including (but not limited to): Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ghostbusters and The Blues Brothers.  And by the time I got to high school, I considered myself at least semi-knowledgeable on all things movie related.  Well, movie quote related.  As it turns out, I wasn't the hotshot that I thought I was, so I needed to watch more movies, leading to my Watch Before I Die list of movies.  By senior year of high school, I was in a Cinematography class.  Not only were we taught how to make movies and clap the clapboard at the appropriate moments, but we learned about the elements of cinematography and what (artistically) makes a good movie.  I absorbed as much as I could in that single semester, and now I  can't watch a pretty movie (like American Beauty or The Hangover, bet you never thought you'd see those two movies mentioned together...) without gasping, "CINEMATOGRAPHY!"  I kid you not.  I do that.  A lot.  I'm sure my friends get annoyed.  Ah well.

What's weird is that those people who seem closest to the movie fanatics in my life are actually the furthest away from movies themselves.  My grandma, for instance, doesn't watch movies.  She also doesn't read books, but that's another thing entirely.  My dad also doesn't really watch movies.  This is weird to me because if my parents were all about movies, I would be all over them so that I had something to relate to them about.  That, and my mom likes movies so much, I don't understand...did my dad ever take my mom to the movies?!  I wonder...

Q: So what was the last movie you watched?

A: Branching out from my usual 80s movie/chick flick/Netflix Instant Watch, I watched King Kong.  That's right, the 1933 original.  Because I'm just that awesome.

Thank you, Google!

I was watching it for research, actually.  And I have determined that the Loch Ness Monster only appears for a good 5 minutes, tops.  The movie itself was pretty good, this coming from a girl who was raised on decent special effects mostly hailing from the 1980s and being based on Star Wars.  Anyway, the battle against the T-Rex could have been shortened, and Ann Darrow REALLY needed to stop screaming for 10 seconds, but it was definitely worth watching.  I enjoyed it.

"You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies."

- Steve Martin

What are you going to do with that?

Q: So, you're an English major. What do you want to do with that, teach?

A: No, I don't want to teach. Mostly because as a writing major the only class I would be qualified to teach in high school would be Creative Writing, and the last time I was in a creative writing class, no one took it seriously. Not that I'm saying all creative writing has to be serious, but really folks? Writing poems that rhyme...with "cat" and "mat" and those? You can do better than that.

This may seem like it's in the same vein as Monday wishing, but here it is.

Want the realistic answer?

Q: Sure, why not? I'm a fan of realism.

A: I'm going to sit trapped for eight hours a day in a cubicle in a gigantic office building in the midst of ties and panty hose and I'm going to write jingles. And mission statements. And memos for my boss because he doesn't know the difference between "their" and "there" and also because I really don't want another memo saying: "Be their and make sure they bring there notes on the Berger merger." I'm going to make jokes about Chaucer that no one'll understand and I'm going to read poetry by the water cooler when I'm on my fifteen minute break because none of those accountants or other people are interesting to talk to.

Q: That sounds lovely, I don't know why you're so grim about it.

A: Because I want to write.

Q: But you are writing in that scenario.

A: No. I want to write for me. I want to write poetry that people think is ridiculous and brilliant and silly but profound. Something that makes people think while they're choking with laughter. I want to write a novel with characters that kids dress up as for Halloween, and I want every parent to recognize them and suggest another book for that kid to read. Because Brianna's great, but have you read Rowling or Adams or Pratchett or Gaiman?

I want to write plays and screenplays so quirky that they only cater to a specific audience. I want to write for my favorite TV show and make it even better than it already is. I'll write plays that Darren Criss will compose music for, and we'll both be such great friends that he'll invite me to watch the filming of next week's episode of Glee. I want to write skits that make me laugh every time I see them performed and I want kids to perform them and have fun doing it. No chore skits.

I want to live in a box on some deserted London street and support my "habits" by miming. Or monologuing. Or reciting poetry. Any poetry. Maybe even Shakespeare. I want people to be able to say "I knew her when..." and be proud when they see that I'm actually living out my dream. Show pride when they gesture towards my cardboard box, decked out with Christmas lights running on a portable battery.

I want to write until my keyboard falls apart or my fingers bleed. I want to write nonsense and things that make no sense just because I can. I don't want people to ask me what I write, and I don't want them to ask if they can read it. Not until I'm done. I'll sit in a local cafe and scribble on anything in sight from napkins to menus or newspapers. I'll do the crossword in the newspaper first, of course. The locals will recognize me because of my overlarge cream sweater with the adverbs dripping off the sleeves and the adjective stains.

That's what I want to do. I don't want people to remind me that I actually need money to live. I want to have come into a decent-sized inheritance so I don't have to worry about things like that. If I do, the street performing'll cover it. I don't want people to tell me that it's impossible. And I don't want people to tell me that I'll never do better than what's already set as a goal. I don't want people to tell me to be practical. Because that is practical. Reaching for dreams, shooting for the moon, facing the impossible, doing what you love. It is practical.

"Write without pay until someone offers to pay."

- Mark Twain

Monday Wishes

Wish I was here...

This is my Monday Wish. I wish I was here. Well, there.

Meet Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a British science fiction series that started back in the 1960s and ran until the mid-1980s, if I'm not mistaken. The reason the producers could run it for so long is because The Doctor (the main character) is a Time Lord (aka not human) and every time he "dies," he actually "regenerates," giving him a new face and allowing the producers to hire a new actor. Which is really clever, if you ask me. The Doctor you see above is the 10th Doctor as played by David Tennant. After the Doctor Who movie, the show went on a hiatus until about 2005 when it was brought back with the 9th Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston. Long story short, this is part of the new series, and a lot of younger folk whose parents might have watched the original series are getting into the show. It's run on BBC and BBC America, and if you don't have access to either of those, you can watch it instantly on your computer through Netflix. Thank you, Netflix!

But back to my wish. I wish I was there, right next to The Doctor. Or maybe off to the side and out of the camera's reach. You see, The Doctor has these companions who he takes on all these adventures through time and space, and I want to be his companion. Not just on the set, but in real life. I want to step inside that funny blue box and gasp, "It's bigger on the inside!" and really take off to some unknown planet. I can just imagine what my first meeting with The Doctor would be like:

(A college residence hall building in the United States. Midwest. If you looked out a window and squinted enough, you might be able to see corn fields. Inside, on a floor lined with doors, the TARDIS sits situated directly between the doors labelled 408 and 412. The Doctor is hanging half out of the door to the TARDIS, seemingly adjusting the door which doesn't seem to be cooperating. He's mumbling about the queen and how he had promised that he would be at the wedding, but the TARDIS has been unreliable of late.)

(The door that opens onto the floor squeaks open and slams shut behind a 20-something year old girl with golden blonde hair and black plastic rimmed glasses. She doesn't notice the TARDIS at first because she's digging in her backpack for her keys. By now the TARDIS door is completely open and The Doctor is puttering around behind it. The girl, seeing the light spilling from inside the TARDIS thinks it's her door that's already open, and turns to enter the TARDIS. Once inside, she looks around, takes in the control panel and the size of the place and shakes her head. She walks out and The Doctor pokes his head out from behind the door. The girl walks in again and her jaw drops.)

The Doctor: Excuse me, I hate to be rude and all, but people don't usually just walk into other people's police boxes...

Brianna: Sorry, you're parked in front of my room.

The Doctor: Am I? (crosses the center bit of the TARDIS and opens up a door on the other side that didn't previously exist, exposing a bland door covered in colorful labels heralding it to be "Brianna"'s room) So I am.

Brianna: Do you know how long you're going to be? Because I have class in half an hour.

The Doctor: Well, it could take a while. Well...maybe not. You might as well stay for lunch. And then...come with me?

Brianna: Go with you where?

The Doctor: Anywhere. Anywhen. You pick!

Brianna: Sure! Mind if I get my knitting?

The Doctor: Not at all! What are you knitting?

Brianna: A Doctor Who scarf.

Scene.

Okay, maybe it would be a little better than that. Because The Doctor might actually be a little more confused, and I wouldn't be nearly as bland. Well, in the second draft of my wish it'll be better, that's for certain.

Anyway, I would love to travel with The Doctor. Run around while being chased by strange looking aliens that really just want to be loved, meet The Master and find a way to defeat him...again, explore the endless corridors in the TARDIS and check out that swimming pool and library The Doctor's been talking about... I want to visit the Medieval era just for a little bit because I wouldn't want to stay some place that was so ridiculously patriarchal. And the 1920s in Chicago so I could dance like a flapper. He would take me to planets on the other side of the galaxy where the grass is purple and everything has a pink tint to it. I would be scared out of my wits and have a bucketful of fun. He'd call me clever, and I'd say he was crazy, and we'd zip off on another adventure.

"Not impossible, just...a bit unlikely!

- The Doctor