Final Thoughts on the Dark Tower

Dear Wal,

A week-ish ago I told you I had barely scraped the surface of  Stephan King's final installment of his series The Dark Tower. Well, I come to you today to tell you that I've finally finished it. It's over. This is the end. Roland finally reached his tower and climbed to the top.
And guess what he found there.
Spoilers lay here. Beware.
I mean, seriously, if you don't want the entire series ruined for you, don't read on.

Roland's life played out on every level of the tower as he ascended: each event signified by smells, sounds, faces, voices, mementos. And at the top? At first, I thought it might be Stephan King himself, there to tell Roland some terrible, disheartening truth. However, earlier in the book that idea was squashed. Then I thought it might be Gan, or God, but Roland described the Tower as Gan himself. And I thought that it might be Roland's death. Frankly, I had no idea. For once in the course of this very long series, I had no idea what was going to happen. I stuck to the idea of death because, naturally, the top should symbolize the end, right? Not so, for ka is a wheel. No, instead, Roland opens the door to the room at the top of the tower only to find that there is no room at all, but an expanse of desert. The very desert that The Gunslinger opens on, with those fateful words: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." Yes, the story repeats. Only, its slightly different. This time, Roland remembered to grab Cuthbert's horn at the battle of Jericho Hill. The last battle for Gilead. Of course, Roland doesn't remember anything from the previous journey he just made.
How poetic, that Roland, the wanderer, the seeker, doesn't get an end. He just goes on wandering, goes on seeking, and repeats the classic quest narrative again and again. And what a horrible fate. Roland goes on. Roland always goes on, and in the end he's always alone.
But...I have to say this is something of a creative cop-out, if a brilliant one. What Roland found at the top of the tower was just a tad bit disappointing  It makes everything he has gone through seem pointless. It makes the whole series seem pointless. But when you really start to think about it, to really try to wrap your head around it, you can't. Throughout the series, King has asserted that Roland's world is as close to real as you can get on the page. He has intertwined it every step of the way with a close second to what we like to call the real world. Does what Roland found at the top of the tower mean that everything he did, his entire world, wasn't-at least in the context of the fictional universe King creates-real? Were Suze, Jake and Eddie really a part of Roland's life or just a mirage? Does he meet new people, or does he meet the same people every time? Speaking of time, does Roland simply go back in time? Is he just saving the same world over and over again? Or better yet, is he saving another parallel universe? I think he is. I think he's doomed to walk every universe, every slightly altered earth, until he's saved every Beam in every universe and reached the top of every tower. Problem is, the multiverse is infinite.
Crazy, right?
Unlike everything else in this series, this ending just refuses to click. It's probably going to be teasing my brain for weeks.

/endrant

P.S. HEY GUYS!! THERE COULD BE MOVIES SOON!! And there are also comic books. HA, you thought I was going to read them? Nope.

Yesterday, Silver Fell From the Sky

Dear Wal,

This winter has been unusually warm for us in North Carolina. I'm sure there are many people who share my foreboding when I say that this worries me. Simply because, nature has a way of coming back to bite. This winter may be mild, but that could just mean that the cold is late this year, or that Lady Nature has decided to save the cold for next winter. In any case, yesterday morning brought on the first winter storm of the year. There was a two hour delay for school (rejoice, children! two more hours of sleep!) and when I finally did get up, it was to this:

The woods in front of the house, taken by my wonderful mother

Sadly, this is the only picture we have of the ice on the trees. I was too busy getting ready for school. The ice was still on the trees when I got home yesterday evening, but I was too busy being sleepy. Excuses, excuses, I know. Me taking pictures would involve me actually keeping my camera charged. Last night the full moon was out. And if your a member of the population who are regularly up after midnight, then you know how bewitching a full moon on a quiet winter night can be. The moonlight soaks up the color in everything, making it look like a black-and-white photograph. And you can see, especially when there are no leaves on the trees, you can see almost as if it's daylight. The moonlight plays games with your mind, because you know its the middle of the night, but you can see through the shadows. Last night, the shadows were filled with silver.

I just wish there was a way to capture moonlight with a camera. 

/endrant

"I'm not Robin Hood."

Dear Wal,

Last Wednesday's episode of arrow seemed at first to be another bland, "Oh, let's pick a random obscure villain  make him realistic, and throw him at the Hood!" day, and then this happened:

Yes, those red lights mean it's going to explode

Once again, the concept of Dodger (our intrepidly adapted villain for last week's episode) is really very cool. After the Royal flush gang and the Count, I have to say that I've come to expect a little wit in the reimagining of the Arrow cannon. Dodger didn't disappoint in this regard. He gets his name because he straps bombs around people's necks (as you can see, Felicity had one on at one point) and tells them what he wants them to steel for him. If they don't comply, BOOM. The reason he's called Dodger is because he "dodges" the blame. He never gets caught, whoever he's collared does. Clever, yes? And the character Dodger gives a little tip of the hat to Green Arrow's origin, when he tries to compare himself to the Hood, saying that they both steel from the rich. The Hood says curtly: "I'm not Robin Hood." I love it. I just love it. This show is great.

Felicity is finally becoming more involved with the team behind Arrow. She is becoming Oliver's Oracle, or if you think of it in terms of Smallville, his Chloe. But let's be frank, it isn't Felicity we're interested in, it's another of Green Arrows partners in crime fighting. Speedy. And I'm not talking about Thea. Beware, spoilers lay beyond here.

Yes, ladies and gents, I'm talking about Roy Harper. We've all been waiting for this. Maybe with great anticipation, more likely with dread. As we all should know by now, sidekicks in liveaction rarely work out like they should. In my opinion, sidekicks in comics don't always work out like they should. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of sidekicks. Young Justice began to change my mind before it dove into the meandering waters of Invasion, and Damien Wayne has changed my mind a little bit more, but I'm still not convinced.
However, this looks like it could be interesting. First of all, this is a much older Roy than in the comics, at least in this stage of Green Arrow cannon. The Roy on Arrow is closer to Red Arrow's age. Hopefully, that's the character we'll see on the show, and not Speedy. Judging by the red hoodie Roy is always wearing, I think that's pretty much a certainty.
There was another exciting development in this episode: Ollie's mom has finally decided to stand up for herself. However, I'm afraid that she'll just screw things up more than they already are. I won't mention what she did. You'll see if you watch on Wednesday, or if you watched last Wednesday.

/endrant

P.S. I have to pronounce Wednesday as "wed-nes-day" in my head in order to spell it right.

Wait a Minute..What Happened?

Dear Wal,

Today I cam home to this:

Thankfully, Dad didn't hit anything when the truck started sliding. Dad came and got me at school, which is odd, because as you know I ride the bus to the library. So I ask him what's going on, and he tells me that the truck is stuck, because it slid off the hill. I didn't realize he meant this hill. 

I mean, how did he manage to do this? I have no idea. I don't think he does either.
Now we get to wait until the ground either dries out, or freezes. Oh joy.

/endrant

The Laughing Fish

Dear Wal,

I have a little Batman trivia for you today.

The first Batman: The Animated Series episode I ever saw was "The Laughing Fish." This was when I was about six years old. Needless to say, it freaked me out. You might think the idea of smiling fish in Gotham River cheesy, but it's not. It's completely creepy and just a little terrifying.
"The Laughing Fish" begins with a group of fisherman bringing up a net full of fish who all have the Joker's face. The Joker has poisoned the river and the bay, so that every fish has the same sick little smile. Of course, the first thing Joker does is jack the TV, in order to force a certain executive, Carl Francis, to market the Joker's fish. Of course, Batman ("Glory-hoggin long underwear geek." Detective Bullock, gotta love him.) and company from the GCPD go to protect Francis from the Joker. Thankfully, Batman has a handy dandy antidote in his utility belt to save the guy from Joker's laughing gas before it's too late. But then the Joker threatens Francis' second in command at the company-Thomas Jackson. So Batman concocts this elaborate scheme to switch places with Jackson just in case. One part of the Joker's poison has already been introduced to Jackson, and the other part has to be given to him somehow. The idea was that the Joker would attack Jackson, who is actually Batman in disguise, instead of attacking the real Jackson who is dressed up like Batman. Things don't quite turn out that way. Joker poisons Jackson's cat, who runs rabid and attacks Jackson, even though he looks like Batman. That's when this happens:

As a kid, this totally freaked me out. I thought Batman was dead (foolishly) or worse, finally driven mad by the Joker. Then it turned out not to be Batman, and I was relieved. Granted, if I had been more observant as a child I would have realized that the hysterically laughing Batman wasn't the real one. However, when I was six I was even more oblivious than I am now, believe it or not. Later in the episode Batman had to fight a shark. That was pretty great.
Besides the shark fighting part, this episode has to be one of the most unsettling episodes of the animated series, simply because it's so bizarre. This scheme in particular highlights the Joker's insanity...he's trying to patent smiling fish and sell them to the public, as if anyone would ever buy a product endorsed by the Joker. The best part is, "The Laughing Fish" was adapted word-for-word from a comic book of the same name written by Steve Englehart. This run of comics is considered one of the first  to redeem Batman from the goofy, shark-repellent carrying character of the Silver Age and Adam West. In Engle's books, Batman is depicted as a much darker character in a much darker setting, returning him to the pulp fiction days of Bob Cane. Plus, the Joker was returned to the insane, maniacal killer that he's meant to be, and Silver St. Cloud was first introduced.

/endrant

My Experience with Snail Mail

Dear Wal,

Today I experienced something that I've never experienced before; sending a package via snail mail. Yes, in this age of the internet, it isn't so unbelievable that I have never sent a package through the mail, but for me it was a very anxiety producing and slightly demeaning experience. None the less, I know how to send a package in the mail now. And I reminded myself of how to send a letter.
I and several of my friends decided we were going to send a bunch of stuff to Rhett and Link, because on their show Good Mythical Morning they have this thing called Thursday Means Mail. So, we gathered together a bunch of miscellaneous items, and I put it all in my backpack. I got off the bus at the library in downtown (that's where I usually write these posts from, but not tonight because of this adventure) and happily went off to the post office, to send things to California. Then I reached the parking lot. About six people had decided that they wanted to back out all at once, and of course I tried to walk in the middle of all of them instead of using the sidewalk like a rational human being (rationality?! sanity?! HA!). Thankfully this is a small town, so people don't mind waiting for idiots like me to cross the parking lot.
Once I got inside, then I had to decide on a package. That was extremely stressful, but not that hard as it turned out. I just got one that was the right size. Then I put everything in it. Or so I thought. In the stress of the whole ordeal, I had forgotten to take the letter explaining all the random things I had put into this package  out of my notebook, so it didn't get into the package at all. I paid for my package. The post office lady was very nice, she walked me through everything. Someone behind me even made a joke about how they sent X amount of packages per month, and still couldn't get it right. I left without even noticing that the letter was still with me. It wasn't until I got home that I realized what had happened. So I wrote on the back of the letter explaining what had happened, and got an envelope. That's what you do with emails, right? Anyway, I figured Rhett and Link would get a kick out of it.
Then I discovered that I couldn't remember where to put the stamp. Total. Failure. So I ran to the internet, and looked up how to properly address a letter. I successfully followed the directions, and put my letter in the mailbox. Now I get to wait.

/endrant

P.S. 300 pages out of 900 of The Dark Tower. I'm winning. Slowly.

How I First Met Superman

Dear Wal,

this isn't a good picture, but you get the idea

I remember the original Superman movie (1978) with a near-mythic quality, because of the icy vistas of Krypton and the equally cold and crystalline Fortress of Solitude. I wasn't very old when I saw that movie, I couldn't have been more than seven, and it's one of my fondest childhood memories. Even though the movie wasn't new, and wasn't animated and it didn't have a black horse in it, but I still loved it. I was too young to realize how lacking the special effects are in that movie, and frankly I didn't care. I still don't care. For me, the 1978 Superman is like Star Wars, or Star Trek, the original series. It's awesome is beyond comprehension.
So, for the longest time, Superman was to me a dude in tights who lived in an ice castle in the arctic. Those images of ice and more ice stuck with me, while the rest of the movie faded from memory. I vaguely remember Supes as Clark Kent jumping through a field, and how weird Lex looked with hair, but that's all. I don't think I even got to see the whole movie, because I remembered nothing about turning back time.
The next time I encountered Superman was Superman Returns. Sadly. I did get to see that movie all the way through, but I really didn't understand what was going on. Like, for instance, that Supes had a kid, or why Lex had this elaborate plan to build a new world on an island of kryptonite. But I still thought it was awesome. Remember, this is ten-year-old. I distinctly remember my mom going: "Where do they get these men!" as she was cooing over Brandon Routh as Superman.
So, what is all this leading into?
The Man of Steel.
We've all heard about it. Most of us have seen the trailer.

And I've got to say, I'm excited. This is a chance to redeem Supes from Returns. I just hope they kept the idea of Krypton as an ice planet, because that was beyond cool. I've heard people say that trying to make Superman a gritty, edgy hero isn't the way to go, that a new movie should stick to the basics of truth, justice, and the American way. Me, I think a more realistic take on Superman (if such a thing is possible) could be a very good story. Superman is truly a difficult character to put in a movie/tv show/video game, or even as a comic book character, simply because he has so much power. Somehow, you have to make a god relatable. Do it wrong and you could end up with something like, well, Returns.

/endrant

Slade

Dear Wal,

I know I forgot to post yesterday. I apologize. It won't happen again. I'm writing to you on Saturday to make up for my irresponsibility. I also realized that I missed an episode of Arrow, so I remedied this via the CW website, and happily watched the latest episode. Now it's time for the review.
Let ,me say before I begin, that this show only gets better and better.
Granted, this last episode was a little heavy on flashbacks. Oliver spends most of his time unconscious, because he was shot by a certain person he threatened in the episode (you go girl! Kill that vigilante!), and lost in the world of his past on the island. But the extended flashback is far from boring, unlike certain Hush comics I need not mention. Slade really begins to get more involved in the story, which is fantastic despite his bizarre accent. Is he actually Australian? None the less, Slade deals out lots of punishment to the bad guys and Oliver, as he begins the painstaking process of Oliver's training. It's nice to see Slade outside of Teen Titans. Not that Teen Titans wasn't great, because it was, but it's nice to see Slade with some character development. I thought he was awesome on Teen Titans, but it always irked me that we never really found out anything about him. Then again, that was the best part about him. I always secretly thought, when I was a poor little noob, that Slade on Teen Titans was Batman, testing Robin's ability to lead his team. It makes sense, doesn't it?
One thing I've learned over the course of this show is that every new character, and the name of every new character, is significant in relation to the comics. Nothing, or at least very few things (ex: Walter) are meaningless. As far as I've seen, the people working on this show have really done their homework, and they really respect the source material. Even though I've never actually read any of the source material..I've spent enough time on Wikipedia to realize that. Nothing thus far has been mucked up or made simply silly like what was done with many characters on Smallville (granted, Superman is a hard character to update and realisticify....that's not a word). But who is Billy Wintergreen? Anyone? Google proved useless on this one.
Besides Slade, Yao Fei's motivation for teaming up for the bad guys is finally revealed. I didn't honestly believe that he was actually willing to work with them, but for a minute there he threw me. Another layer of mystery has been added to what happened to Oliver on island, with the introduction of the dragon tattoo. What exactly does it mean? I'm guessing it's some kind of secret order of archers that Oliver eventually becomes a member of. Who knows, maybe Merlyn is a member as well.
This episode is the first where we start to see the transition between  the man Oliver is when he is shipwrecked on the island, and the man he is when he becomes the Hood. He's got, for the first time since being wrecked on the island, that emotionally removed look in his eyes that so characterizes him. What I'm wondering, is how he went from dirty blond to brown. I prefer the blonde.
Let me just say that this is an excellent way to tell an origin story. The frame narrative works so much better than spending ten years mucking around in high school, without even a decent costume. This way we can enjoy the nuances of an origin story we already mostly know, while still feeling like the story has a point. And although we know the basics of GA's origin story, there's still enough mystery surrounding it for it to be engaging. A better example of this tactic is Person of Interest, where parts of the back story of both main characters, Harold and John, are told as the current.story-taking place in real time-needs them.

/endrant

Stephen King, Why are these Books so Long?

Dear Wal,

I've been trying to finish The Dark Tower series, as you all know, for about a year. Any other series of seven books, I would have finished by now, but these books are just so long, and so..pointless. Yes, Roland and company are trying to reach the Tower. Yes, they encounter many adventures and trialls along the way, but really..it didn't take Frodo and company this long to reach Mordor. They did it in three books.
Needless to say, I'm tired of this series. Don't get me wrong, all the books are extremely well written and the interconnectedness of every tiny detail is at times fascinating. Plus, King is really good at dramatic, often morbid irony. He's Stephen King. He would be.
Up until The Dark Tower, the final book in the series, I was willing to follow along with King's story, and absorb every little detail of it, but this last book is at best ponderous and frustrating. King's tendency to stretch out a story longer than it needs to be has blotted out most of the good qualities of this book. I was really looking forward to the end, the final epic battle to save the universe, but The Dark Tower has been one huge disappointment.

SPOILERS. Don't read on.

It took two hundred pages, I repeat, two hundred pages, to cover the day before Roland and company finally got through the door to Thunderclap. Why did it take so long? Allow me to explain. King feels the need to cover every possible angle of a scene, by jumping back and forth from characters. This is refreshing when the characters are grouped together, because it really gives you a window directly into their thoughts, but when the characters are separated, it works out so that King tells the same events over again, even thought you already knew what had happened. In Song of Susanna, this wasn't so bad because the dynamic between Detta, Susanna, Mia and occasionally Odetta all in one mind was so fascinating, but this last book.
I don't know how I'm going to make it to the end, and I so badly want to finish this series.

/endrant

Bucket List

Dear Wal,

I apologize for not posting yesterday. The Deines family came up from Florida and we goofed off all day. Today we went skiing. It was awesome. And it made me think of all the things I want to do before I die, because, well, skiing is exciting.

1) Find a big field somewhere and gallop across it on Buzzy. No trees to worry about hitting, the wind in my hair.

2) Run a 5k in 20 minutes.

3) Learn to ride a motorcycle

4) Write and draw a comic book series

5) Write a book

6) Go to space

7) Talk to aliens

8) Go to Germany for a month

9) Talk to Germans

10) Learn to snowboard

/endrant

My Worst Nightmare

Dear Wal,

As a child, one recurring dream haunted me. Not every night, but it was so vivid and so real that it staid with me long after I woke up. The fact that it has staid with me until now, when recurring nightmares are a thing of the past, and many of my childhood memories have faded into the mysterious fog of time. In fact, I would say that next to falling off a 17 hand (that's over six feet tall) draft horse and spraining my ankle, that dream was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I got over this fear long ago, but the dream itself still haunts me.

I'm in some sort of outpost, the last place you stop before you make the hundred mile drive to Grandma's house that night, the last toll before crossing the bridge. It's getting late. The sun is setting, the shadows have begun to creep past table legs and boots and still hands. The people in the outpost trickle away, becoming fewer and fewer as the day ages. They have no faces, and they ask me no questions. I leave them alone, because I know they won't speak to me. They leave me alone, because they already know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to cross the gap.
There's no other way to describe it. The gap: two huge slabs of stone, creeping slowly toward each other, and every day close the path between them by the moment the night fell utterly over the land, trapping the last rays of sun within their grip. The road between them is an easy one, if walked during the daylight. But evening is quickly ending, and I'm still sitting in the outpost watching the sun as the two slabs of stone slowly eat it alive. It's only when the cliffs start to kiss the edges of the sun, that I get up, leave the outpost, and place a foot on the road.
Everything after that happens too fast for me to believe. The cliffs accelerate from their steadfast creep and move impossibly fast, closing their crushing jaws around me. I'm crushed, assimilated into the fabric of the stone. From a third perspective, maybe it's death, maybe it's something more, I watch as I become not me anymore, but a red blur in the rock strata. Somehow, I know the cliffs are closed permanently.
Only then do I wake up, after the whole horror is over.

Freaky, right?

/endrant

Prelude to the Canter!

Dear Wal,

Building on what we did last week, now Buzzy and I are working on being relaxed while gaiting...and eventually (dun dun duuuun!) cantering. I have never been able to really master the canter, other than wildly racing through the wilderness giggling madly. Because, for some reason, when you're riding a cantering horse the urge to laugh wildly is impossible to resist.
But seriously, this is exciting, I can count the times I've cantered Buzzy on one hand, and all those times were uphill. (See, if you have a neurotic horse like Buzzy, with barely brakes, then you canter them uphill so by the middle of the hill, they're like...ugh, no more D:) In any case, I'm really really excited. This is going to be awesome, even thought at first we will most definitely not succeed, but who cares! Soon I will be able to put my dreams of flying lead changes and wonderful collected canters into reality, hopefully.
I've gotten off track, again, haven't I? Well, for the next few weeks BUzzy and I are going to be back on the running walk again. Except, this time it's with a greater purpose in mind than just refining his action and my equitation. Now, we're going for relaxation and flexibility, because when Buzzy moves into a running walk he is extremely tense. His stride is short, which means that he doesn't reach under his body with his hind legs like he should, and his head is up and his nose isn't vertical with his pole. Granted, he is a tennessee walking horse, so he has to have his head up in order to use his shoulders, but that doesn't mean he gets to be all strung out about it.
Here's a video if you don't get what I'm talking about:

The first gait, the step pace, is what he's doing now. The horse in this video is more relaxed than he is, but you can still tell when the horse moves into then pace he's tense, because his head doesn't bob. However, in the flat walk and the running walk his head does bob in time with his movement. A head bob is a good tell of when a walking horse, or just any horse, is relaxed. 

/endrant

P.S. I saw a corvette motorcade of eight today. 

I Hate Grammar Nazis

Dear Wal,

For some reason, whenever I comment on something on Youtube someone feels the need to correct my grammar, or my spelling. You know, find an insignificant little mistake without actually reading what I said. Granted, my spelling can get pretty bad (usually it's things like there, their and they're, or ad and add, or hear and here, you know how that is) but really? Honestly? Do you people live just to correct grammar? I mean, come on. Get over it. I made a mistake. Woop-dee-doo. I spell stuff right when it's important, such as in a paper for school, or one of these blog posts (er...most of the time). I don't consider a Youtube comment to be that important.
What touched all this off? Well, a while ago someone corrected me on Youtube. Then it happened again. And I even proof read my comment so that it wouldn't happen this time. Nope. And do these Grammar Nazis correct the people who actually need it? Nope. They just pass over all the "did u here wat hppned last nite?" comments and come after me for a little thing like "add" instead of "ad." You know what I'm talking about, didn't you? You understand what I'm trying to say, yes? So screw my grammar. This is the internet. We're human beings and we speak English, one of the most ridiculous languages on the planet. We all make mistakes.
When I read a sentence, half the time I skip over the errors automatically. My brain translates the word, however horribly mangled, into what it's supposed to be originally. This comes in handy when deciphering typos or chat speak, or just misspelled stuff. Obviously, this automatic filtering causes me problems when it comes to proofing. Thank goodness for spell check.
But seriously, I know I have trouble spelling stuff. I don't need to be reminded of it. 
Well, that was a long and pointless rant.
You know what's sad? That I can't write a youtube comment without spelling something wrong.
VSAUCE:

/endrant

P.S. Watson and I were talking about The Lord of the Rings (I was drooling over Shadowfax, and Watson was saying something about Gandalf.) and this random guy walked by and said: "Gandalf. Word."

P.P.S. You know what I said in reply to that person who corrected me on Youtube? "Thanks. I always miss that won. :D"

I Wake Up in Stages

Dear Wal,

I set my alarm clock (lol, at first I typed: "alarm clark") for 7:30. I usually don't get to bed until after midnight. I keep telling myself that this is an irresponsible decision, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet. Anyway, when I actually get adequate sleep, this it what happens:

1) Deep sleep. At this point, I don't hear anything or sense anything outside of sleeping. If I dream, I don't remember any of it.

2) Crazy dreams. I start having all kinds of strange dreams. Everything from superheroes, superheroes, and more superheroes to bizarre premonitions of other worlds and strange, horrific visions. Most of the time, I remember these dreams, or snippets of them. This stage is where some of my greatest ideas for fiction have come from. I've come to consider my dreams a direct conduit into my imagination, one that I exploit as much as I can. Strangely, my dreams rarely include Batman (at least, not that I can remember).

3) Lucid/Awareness. I officially know that I'm a human being on planet Earth, third planet orbiting the star Sol. I know I'm beginning to wake up, but I haven't quite gotten there yet. It's at this point I can decide whether or not to stay asleep, and I can control my dreams. But strangely, it's not my actions (or the actions of the characters in my dreams, because most of the time I dream in third person) that I can control, but the conditions around me; the structure of a world, or a story, in the dream. As I've gotten older, my ability to manipulate my dreams has gotten to be less and less.

4) Officially waking up. There's no turning back now. I'm too aware to go back to sleep. The dreams have kissed me goodbye and run away to the dark recesses of my imagination. Very slowly, I come back from the world of sleep and back to the real world.

5) Denial. I want to be asleep. I don't want to be awake. Being awake sucks. Usually, at this point I lay in bed for a few hours, drifting in and out of stages #3 and #4, and pretending desperately to be asleep whenever someone walks in to bother me, or feed the cat, or something. Finally, I decide it's time to get up. When I don't have school, I get up around 11 or 12. It's the most wonderful thing on the planet. When I go to bed early on a school night, the alarm clark wakes me up around #3 or #4. When I don't get enough sleep, the alarm clark wakes me up at #1. No dreams for me. ):

/endrant

The Count is Cool

Dear Wal,

I have an Arrow ritual. Every Thursday morning when I get to school, I sit down and watch the latest episode on the CW website. (I go to this amazing school where they leave you alone with a computer all day, for the most part anyway, in case you're wondering.) You see, the CW website has less ads than if I were to watch it on TV, plus it has this wonderful thing called a pause button, so I can wander off if I need to and not miss anything. I hate missing things, especially when it comes to my favorite TV shows, which Arrow has become. Yes, I'm officially a dedicated fan now.
However, for the past few weeks my ritual has been interrupted because I rescheduled the horse lesson to Thursday morning. So I had to wait a whole weekend to watch Arrow again. (The horror! D8) So now instead of Arrow Thursday, it's Arrow Monday.
Anyway, let's get down to business.
The Count. I don't know about you, but I was really afraid of this:

Because, well, who wouldn't be afraid of that costume? There are few comic book costumes that translate well directly from the page to live action, and trying to translate that costume to live action would have been a really, really bad idea. Plus, this is a guy who runs around using his dizzy powers (as Austin would say: "DIZZY!" *waves hands* "I WIN!") to get revenge for one thing or another. So many things could go so wrong if the character was interpreted too...literally. Very little about the Count as he is in the comics is very interesting. (That said, if anyone knows any good Count Vertigo stories, let me know. I really just need to read some Suicide Squad already.) I mean, he had a condition called Vertigo (which is, actually, a real disease) and he happens to be a count. Combine that with a mysterious electronic device implanted into his brain to correct his disorder (but wait, it have him superpowers too! Wow!) and you've got another cheesy themed supervillain. I've never been impressed with Green Arrow's rouge's gallery, but Count Vertigo? Seriously? Although, a villain with the ability to make his arch enemies dizzy would work well to stop a hero wielding a bow. I'm complaining again, aren't I? Before I go off on a huge rant about ridiculous themed supervillains, let's get back to the point. Last week's episode of Arrow, "Vertigo" took the Count down to a more realistic, less green level. Instead of an actual count, Vertigo is a drug dealer who got his nickname because when he was experimenting with his product, Vertigo, he would administer it to his victims with a double syringe, making it look like they had been bitten by a vampire. So, people called him the Count, as in Count Dracula. I thought that was pretty great. It keeps the name of the character so that crazy nerds like me will recognize who the character is, but still manages to give the character a dark, sinister edge. What are drug dealers, if not a form of vampire? Once you stick "Vertigo" on the end of "Count" the edge is lost completely. In any case, this was a good episode. I very much liked the reinterpretation of the Count, even if we didn't get to see very much of him. Oliver was too busy getting dumped off a cliff and meeting in secret with the Russians. I'm sure we're going to see more of the Count for sure. Because, he'll probably come back, in typical superhero fashion, completely crazy. (But if that much Vertigo drives you crazy, then what about that other guy he killed earlier in the episode? Suspension of disbelief, quick!)/endrantP.S. I'm writing this in the library, and this kid sits down at the desk next to mine. He's like: "Good job for being smart." I look at him for a minute, bewildered, and then say: "I'm writing about a guy named Count Vertigo, so it depends on your definition of smart."

Cantering Builds Character

Dear Wal,

If you've ever ridden a horse, then you know that cantering is a scary thing. A terrifying thing. A completely traumatizing thing. But it's also one of the most exihlerating things you can experience. When I canter my horse, underneath the fear (ohmygodohmygodwhatifIfalloffanddie) glorious images of cowboys chasing bad guys and herding cattle run through my mind. It's like flying.
Buzzy and I feel much the same about cantering. Imagine a very small scream of fear in the back of your mind, slowly rising until it blocks out everything else and becomes a howling wail of terror that makes it impossible to think logical thoughts like: Oh, you know, I have this thing called balance. It usually keeps me from falling off. Cantering a horse is like riding a really big roller coaster, one of those gigantic snaky ones (I REALLY need to ride one of those!) except it's not crash tested and built out of tensile steel. No, my version of a roller coaster is an extremely volatile animal who could very easily accidentally kill me at any moment.
So you can understand my fear of this particular animal.
As I mentioned on Friday, this week's assignment is for Buzzy to learn to let loose and kick up some dust without having to be afraid. It's time I learned to do that, too.

/endrant

Buzzy Learns That It's Okay to Freak Out

Dear Wal,

I've decided that a good way to motivate myself to get more involved with my horse is to post my weekly assignment from my fantastic natural horsemanship instructor, Lynn Brown of Transitions. She's been guiding me and Buzzy for almost three years now (gosh, has it been that long?) through this long and interesting journey of ours. Buzzy and I are still overcoming our collective fears, after all this time. But in different ways. This week, our homework was to basically run around like an idiot and freak out, because sometimes you just need to freak out.

What's going on inside Buzzy's head

I took off Buzzy's halter and let him out, loose, in the vast, distracting space of the arena. He had every opportunity to just lose his mind. However, he isn't the kind of horse that does that easily. He gets stuck, and then his feet stop moving, and very soon after that his mind stops working and he goes into what Lynn likes to call his scary place, where everything is terrifying. It takes a very long time, usually, for him to return to Earth. That is, if we let him stand still.
Not this time, Buzzy, not this time.
No, this time Lynn decided it was time to practice a little shock and awe to totally shake up Buzzy's scary place. And shake it up we did. The first thing Lynn tells me to do as soon as I step into the arena is to just chase Buzzy, full speed. I looked at her like she was crazy. And then I went after Buzzy, somewhat half-heartedly, and even my tentative effort sent him off like a rocket.His bubble (and when I say bubble, I mean his personal space. Horses have it too.) is about the size of the planet Mars. From forty feet away, I can give him directions and have him respond, and from ten feet further away after that he's still connected to me. That's sixty feet. That should tell you how sensitive Buzzy is.
So then Buzzy and I start playing circle game, offline and with the-as I said before-vast, distracting space of the arena. He's remarkably connected to me, but he still occasionally takes off like an idiot. You know what I did? I went after him. I made the undesirable thing, running away, very uncomfortable. As soon as he took off, I charged him, sending him galloping around the arena in a wild frenzy. It didn't take him long to snap back around and focus on me again. And, eventually, there was less flight and more thought, which was the point of the whole exercise. If I kept his feet moving, then his mind would have to follow along and actually function, otherwise the feet would get tangled up and confused. This sounds like an easy thing to do, considering the behavior I just described, but it's not easy at all. Buzzy operates in stops and starts. One moment, he's galloping top speed, and the next, he's stuck again.
Once we had the flight out of him (mostly) then I had to get him to move out like he needed to, consistently. That was hard. But that wasn't the point.
The point of this lesson, was for Buzzy to learn that it's okay to freak out. In fact, that freaking out can be a very character and confidence building experience. Something we can both take to heart.

/endrant

P.S. I HAVE RAINBOW DRUMSTICKS. O: