12/01/2002 - 6:59 p.m.

To days of inspiration

I've been re-reading my story, and I'm at a complete loss. I've got Michael's problem- I'm not in the same mood I was in when I started it. However, things aren't at a point there to change as drastically as I have, so, if you've been holding out and waiting for something to happen there, give it a rest for a while. Check out some other diaries and I'll re-collect my depressed/morbid thoughts in a month or so. (Have to think like Lisa to write her story.)

At the moment, I've been listening to Thistle and Shamrock on NPR, scribbling Celtic knots, and want to write about things green and magical. Though, when you're stuck in flat, brown, no-snow Iowa, anything is a welcome change. However, from all of the positively divine stuff I read, I know I haven't got the skill to compete- I haven't got enough historical background to trust the validity of my own writing (my problem with JK Rowling, but we won't get into that). So, I'm just watching the pictures flashing in my brain, wishing I could draw them or describe them, but I can't.

There's no magic in being an American. We haven't got any romanticised past to go back to. We started out annoying and stuck up and fighting everybody, and we haven't stopped.

We had a perfectly good language, until Mr. Webster came along and said "I love the letter z and hate the letter u, and I'm going to change as many words in my schoolbooks as possible to reflect that and pervert the nation, so take that King George!" Git.

I know that it's all just romanticism, but right now I'm all for that. Today, I would renounce all the mean things I said about the movie of The Last of the Mohicans and happily watch the invincible Indian hero save the day and the girl, and I wouldn't care that technically he shouldn't have lived past the first scene. I would give over every rational thought to watch the moon rise from the parapets of the strongest castle in the world.

Well (sighing deeply), I'm here, and finals are next week, and life is a desperate and constant struggle against society. Not the imminent forces of evil, just conformers. There is little mystery left in life, unless you're into God or advanced sciences. The green trees turn into test papers, the castles are replaced by military spending, the magicians use only slight of hand, and the songs speak only of cheap thrills and death.