To List, or not to List: that is the question… to which the answer is quite obvious.

After hours of relentless but unassuming scrutiny of my blog, I’ve observed that I am an unconscious lister. Common in most of my few-and-far-between posts are lists: my 2008 objectives, my “never” list, my hitlist, my llama names list. While languorously browsing through a copy of TIME Magazine (December 24, 2007. VOL. 170, NO. 25) this morning, I stumbled upon an inventive essay by one James Poniewozik (uber-cool last name, right?). Poniewozik - I was desperate to type that name again – explains how, come year’s end one cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a Top 10 list; how it’s an obsession, for listmakers and list readers alike; how there’s something magical about distilling wisdom into a single gleaming digit; and how it makes things easier to remember! Even God has his list: the 10 commandments! Going off on a poetical tangent, he exclaims that a list is ‘the sonnet for the era of PowerPoint. (“Top 10 Ways to Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day: 10. More lovely. 9. More temperate…”)’ In that case, I am a bard.

I am a list-lover. I read, consider, scrutinize, criticize, compose my own to battle the afore-judged list, revise and am finally satisfied… and I do not restrict myself to list-writing only at year’s end. Every day is a day for lists! They’re my new favourite thing. So, in celebration of my listing mood and because if you put a number on it, people MAY read it however trite, trivial and insipid it is, here is yet another list. It’s about me, because a list is all about one thing: the person who wrote it!

Jeru’s To Do List: Long Term Goals (written when I was 17 or 18):

1. Get a Jack Skellington tattoo.
2. Live near a Yew tree.
3. Get lost in a labyrinth.
4. Watch a Pagan/Wiccan ritual take place.
5. Throw a massive party.
6. Take a spontaneous road trip.
7. Win a Hugo Award.
8. Go to Comic-Con International.
9. Attempt to master the English language and then Change it!
10. Learn more Latin.
11. Meet Joss Whedon.
12. Visit the Roald Dahl Museum.
13. Memorize Edgar A. Poe’s ‘The Raven’.
14. Attend the Academy Awards.
15. Attend a Film Festival, probably Canne.
16. Read more Charles Dickens, and Terry Pratchett.
17. Visit the old and new Seven Wonders of the World.
18. Have a house with its own name! Like Pemberley.

19. Add one more to this list to make it to number 20!
20. Think of better things to put on this list.

Truths, and Passions

I’ve been consciously aware of the negligence suffered by my deprived and lonesome blog. I’ve been bad, and must apologise directly to my little, unassuming speck of topography that hardly contributes to the vast and convoluted realms of cyberspace. Sorry, blog. If it’s any consolation, I’ve spent most of my days mulling over subject matters that would be worthy enough to grace you. Regrettably, I’ve been feeling somewhat numb and colourless of late, which has naturally left me feeling uninspired and unoriginal. I’m feeling a bit clichéd so please forgive me if my writing is not as fierce, vivacious or generally good as it usually is.

I’m being suffocated by the incubus of uninspiration (yes, I made up that word), and my muse has forsaken me. I’ve begun deliberating my circumstances; what is it that truly inspires me? What is the nature of my own personal creativity? What do I require in order to create a masterpiece, my magnum opus?

I used to write a lot during those murky days, when Aphrodite took pleasure in my torment. When everyday was passion and misery…and love and love and love…and disappointment. I’m going to avoid the cliché; that writing was my therapy, an outlet for my emotions, helped me make sense of this mad, mad world. Instead, I’m going to take a very Classical outlook to the whole state of affairs: that a human reaches his full potential during a period of strife; just as the empire of Rome flourished under the farcical democracy of the emperor Augustus, just as Catullus produced his greatest love poems when his mistress did not reciprocate his love, just as Nicole Kidman’s best movies were filmed while she was going through her divorce.

We cry out when we feel helpless. We are impassioned. We put our souls into our art because we already feel so vulnerable and exposed.

Those desolate days and sleepless nights have come to an end. My restless spirit has found a companion who shares my vibe. I'm very certain that my posts from now on will show my restored faith in humanity and love. I'm inspired in a different, and better, way.

a capital offense

to uppercase letters,

i reject you (plural), capital letters. i think you are overrated, overestimated and overvalued. i can differentiate between my proper nouns and all my other words adequately without your help. i don't need you. not for the first letter of my every sentence, not for emphasis, and certainly not even for the the nominative form of the singular first-person pronoun.

from now on, i submit myself to employing you only in my academic writing, filling out forms that absolutely, specifically insist on 'block letters', when referring to God, and if i forget that i hate you, capital letters, and use you by mistake (This is very likely NEVER to happen because I very rarely make mistakes. I am not so inattentive)!

from,
jeru.

p.s. lowercase letters are cuter.

Paradise Lost

Heathcliff to Catherine in Wuthering Heights:

"Because misery and degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict could have parted us, but you, of your own will, did it."

I know those word. I feel I could've said them myself.
It's my life.

Meditation on Beached Whales

I need to recover from my heinously uninspired post on christening my non-existent pet llama. Unluckily enough for you, reader, this is not the post in which I redeem my dignity, and blow your mind with my vigorous and dazzling superhuman philosophical prowess. Instead, I will bore you, because that is what I’m good at, and I believe one should always stick to one’s strengths. My redemption shall come later. It’s not very important to me anyway.

Like many of us living in, what I call, the copy-and-paste generation, I expect Google to think for me on every occasion I need an answer to a life-determining question; what’s the weather in Florence? when did the ancient Mayans claim that the world will end? what is the purpose of white crayons? do ligers and tygons really exist? why did the chicken really cross the road? Until recently, I’ve been sufficiently blissful in my click-off-a-button knowledge, but now, since I’ve been reacquainted with my paperback friends, I’ve resolved to begin thinking for myself. Once upon a very long time ago I used to be able to do that. It shouldn’t be too hard.

My first deliberation is beached whales. I don’t understand the process of a beached whale! The earth is made up of 70% water, right? Maybe more than 70% now that the icecaps are melting at an alarming rate. So how, on watery earth, does a whale come across one of the 30% of landmass AND manage to get stuck? I assume that a whale cannot be pushed by the current because it weighs an awful lot. If anything, dolphins or sharks should get beached. They’re lighter and swim closer to shore…Unless they’re streamline in comparison to whales so they can swim against the current. I do know that dead things float in the ocean, until they sink ‘coz of decomposition. In that case, a dead whale could aimlessly be pushed to shore. I also know that the most convenient way to dispose of a dead beached whale is to explode it. But I still don’t get how a whale gets beached… Is it simply swimming along in one direction for too long and eventually lands up (literally) on a shore somewhere? No, no, no! I refuse to believe that a whale or a whole bunch/fleet/school/whatever of whales could be that silly. I just don’t know, and I refuse to Google until I’ve deliberated some more.

I am certain that the metaphor of a beached whale is powerful, and can be applied to almost every problem. If one feels stuck, suffocated, desperate, one can be compared to a beached whale. I’m sure there are other interpretations, but I’ll let you Google it.

Shortlist: Names I Would Name My Pet Llama...

...when I eventually get a pet llama, because llamas are cool and quirky creatures who get a bad rep for spitting at people, but they're actually really smart and deserve some love.

Note: Shortlist is subject to change.

1. Tina the llama ('Tina, you fat lard, come get some dinner. Gosh!' - Napoleon Dynamite)
2. Kuzco the llama (since it's an obvious, unavoidable name)
3. Queen Mab
4. Abner
5. Voldermort
6. Lola the llama
7. Lloyd the llama
8. Mercutio
9. Foof the llama
10. Juno
11. Lupin the llama
12. Miley Cyrus
13. Funny llama
14. Rama llama
15. Osama llama
16. Llama llama
17. Doctor Evil
18. Duck the llama
19. Pett the llama
20. Dalai llama

Click here for more "llama llama goodness"

A Random Jeru Thought

I wish I were less awkward.