Parker's Back

Here I am again, bitten by that nasty little procrastination bug that now wants me oh so badly to not have this english essay written on time. Don't worry, I'll show it, I'll write this post AND get the essay done on time.

Let's start off with a story about how very easily I could have died last night. Last night was Julia's birthday party, she wanted to go to a french restaurant, oo la la, fine, I promise myself to the event and she makes the reservations. The night before (Thursday night) I come online and she happens to be there and happens to tell me to go look at the menu online and decide what I want ahead of time so that she can call ahead and tell them. So I do.. and lo and behold there's some english writing at the end.. and it tells me about how 'les frites' and everything is fried in peanut oil! This is where you should be saying 'HOLY SHIT' because, my friends, if Julia had not by chance been online and had not by chance told me to look at that menu, then I would certainly have gone to the restaurant last night and I would have eaten without a second thought. And folks, I would have been dead before you could say "OH SHIT."
It's actually a really scary thing for me to think about, how these little seemingly unimportant coincidental events (such as my happening to have been online when Julia was online on that particular night) have such an incredibly enormous impact on the outcome of ones future.
What kind of fuckers cook with peanut oil in this country?! God I hate this.
It teaches me to be extra-cautious from now on though, no more false sense of security for me!

Anywho, I was planning on going to the after party when they got back from the restaurant, but guess what? I think I actually made myself physically ill with my stressing! I have more to get done than I can handle really, and for most of yesterday/ last night I had this feeling in my stomach.. and was all weak/shakey like when you haven't eaten in a really really long time. It was NOT cool.. I don't think I could have made it to Julia's :(

It got a little better when I forced myself to relax, and I did so by putting my work aside, curling up in bed, and watching The Neverending Story! What an amazing movie, if it wasn't a part of your childhood then you are sorely deprived. My mom would always have to leave the room and cry when the horse died and I have a vivid memory of getting VERY upset after there were only a few fragments left of Fantasia because it terrified me that the whole world was gone and everyone died. (My brother in turn spent years in terror thinking that the "Gmork" was going to come out of his closet, it impacted us all in turn hahah). It got me to thinking about the whole point of the movie in general, which was children losing interest in the world of fantasy/reading which personally I think is bullshit and could never happen, but anyways it got me thinking about MY childhood fantasizing. More specifically, about that part of ourselves that we lose when we grow up (very Peter Pan-esque eh?) I used to play such vivid imaginary games.. I'd always pretend to be Atreyu, and I WAS him, or which ever other character from where ever that I fancied (often Gabrielle from Xena.. for some reason I always identified with the side-kick and not the main Hero). I'd become so emerged in my fantasy that it felt just as good as if I actually WAS the fantasy character. When I'd play with my Barbies (and Barbie horses of course) I LIVED those stories that I created for them and became so enraptured in the stories that hours would pass and I wouldn't notice.

When I think about myself now, I don't think this is something I could really achieve again. At least not in the same way. When I think about it I really start to miss that creative child. I still read a lot and I still lose myself completely in the books, but I've lost that creative spirit and I don't feel as though it's something I could ever get back. I think it's something we all lose maybe, a loss of innocence. The more we grow up, the closer we're forced to the reality of our life and the world around, the less able we are to live in our fantasies. It's like, we stop making up adventures for our dolls when we start experiencing our own adventures and making our life into its own story.
For the best, maybe, but maybe one day I'll pull out my barbies and see if I can bring back that old spark.

I'm writing my english essay on a short story, so I'm fooling around on the internet looking for some context on the author and themes to help me get a better grasp on it. I came across a quote by the author (Flannery O'Connor) that caught my interest:

"Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction."

It stuck out to me because I do some writing, and the type of writing I do rings very true to this statement. If you don't want the dirty truth of raw human experience, go paint a rainbow or something.

*edit* I have to add something else I just found through my researching: about how we "legitimize literature study by making it as difficult as possible to understand." HAHA OMG IT'S SO TRUE!!