Sneaky McSneakington

Things that fascinated little Amanda:

Secret symbols and signs. The flower in "Scarlet Pimpernel", for instance. Or hieroglyphs. Or hand gestures. I read a historical fiction about ancient Egypt in which a character (as I interpreted... I may have been wrong) placed his right hand on his left shoulder in a gesture of surrender or resignation-- like saying "Uncle". Long afterwards I felt more comfortable praying that way.*

Sneaking. I thought it would be great to be either invisible or very, very small, or maybe to become an animal of some kind, in order to sneak unnoticed.

Plain loaves of bread, which I associated with Palestine; and plain rice, which I associated with Asia.

Burying stuff. Like (I'm sure) practically every other kid, I buried stuff in my backyard. Had I found something already buried, I would not have been displeased.

Moats, drawbridges, and rope ladders that can be drawn up. Sherrill replaced the wooden ladder to my playhouse with a rope ladder, making himself even more a hero than before.

Sharks, tigers, hawks, other predatory animals and, to some degree, cannibals. It was more a sense of awe, less one of fondness.

Mud. Second best to clay. I tried making "Egyptian bricks" once, with mud and sand and dry weeds. It... kind of worked.

Flying or being able to swim underwater endlessly.*

Hidden passages and underground chambers. Yes, I mapped them out. Many of my dreams involved secret passages. For example: I was sleeping in the cupboard under the sink in some house and, when I woke up, instead of coming out, I went the other way and discovered a network of passages YAY.

Signet rings. I wanted one so very badly. I wanted to seal envelopes with it.*


*still haven't really given up on this one

Doors

Did you think you were meant for a room with no doors
We found you without ever knocking
We could never have made you or kept you around
Couldn't have everyone talking

Did it take you a moment to adjust to the truth
The human one that we have told you
When the dark flooded in and you felt the first touch
Did you really expect it to hold you

Complainish

I write a lot of happy stuff in here, which is the way I like it. But there's a time for this and also for that and whatnot. So here are some of the things I don't like.

I don't like it when someone magnifies an aspect of a person (one event, one characteristic, one behavior) until it eclipses everything else about that person-- especially when they successfully misrepresent that person to a gullible third party. Obviously I don't like it when people do it to me; I also get defensive when I see it happening to someone else.

I don't like it when someone uses a joke to humiliate, disparage, expose, or otherwise cut someone else down. Jokes are useful that way. You can use one to make your point, then disown it. It gives you the upper hand. The object of the joke knows that if he objects or tries to clarify, several people will turn to him with reasonable expressions on their faces, and they will tell him not to be so serious. And whether or not you mean a joke to harm someone, you can't undo it.

I don't like highly sexualized Latin pop/hip hop. Shakira. Fergie. I know it's weird to be so specific, but this one type of music seems to personify almost everything I grieve, regret, or fear in my life. It is to me perhaps what a giant ketchup-filled blender is to my mom... to George W, a huge walking military thesaurus... to Augustine, a throng of Manichaean students making out in a pear tree. And I don't even like the way the music sounds.

Personal preferences are natural, but I don't like it when men think they know how women "should" look, what they "should" wear, what "should" interest them (also applies to women with regard to men). That is idiocy at a tall and glorious peak.

I don't like sensing that someone is worried about me, or angry, irritated, or bothered about me-- and they say nothing. It's even worse when they start implying.

I don't like shopping for clothes. It takes a long time; it's complicated; it's disheartening; it's expensive and tiresome and I come out sweaty, my eyes red with what must be huge, boulder-like particles of dust.

And while I'm on the topic, I have a confession to make: When I'm around a man who is gay, I may feel (very uncomfortably) that my choice of clothing is under a harsh critical eye. Beastly of me? Yes. Stereotyping? Yes. I don't like stereotyping and it's even worse to realize that I've done it.

I don't like being a hypocrite. At times I criticize something and don't realize the irony until later. Other times I just sit miserably, under a cloud of obligation, and I condemn, fully aware that I'm condemning myself and that few others know about it.

I still don't like idle radio talk. It depresses the crap outta me.

Repentance

Where I am the cold is growing
Nights forget to wake the morning
One into another flows
Far away the sky is snowing
Distance makes it fall more slowly
Fall on faces no one knows
Thousand bodies in repose
Now the distance only grows

How it haunts me in my dreaming
Thousand saints beneath the evening
Lit by Your nomadic spheres
Call on winds to speed my leaving
Call on winds to leave me freezing
Now I have become my fears