backyard crowing
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morEmma
last night i slept four hours, which i have discovered is the worst amount of sleep for me. it's the kind of tired where your alarm sounds at six fifty and your roommate bugs you to turn it off. then ten minutes later it rings again and you turn it completely off, and you worry that you won't be able to get up if you close your eyes again, but you do it anyway. yes, four hours is the worst amount of sleep to have in a night. you're just barely awake and you can make it to class, but only with an unwashed face and your paper barely done. i have GOT to get some regular hours for myself.
i'm listening to a bunch of things off of itunes at the moment, but rilo kiley at the moment--portions for foxes, what fun.
"bad news
baby, i'm bad news"
i transcribed a bunch of jeph jacque's cartoons from questionable content today, maybe he'll actually e-mail me back this time. i wrote him a note saying i liked his stuff a month or so ago i think and have yet to get a reply. i know he's probably extremely busy, and he says he tries to reply to all the people who write in, so maybe i'll never have contact. i did at least 7 or 8 transcritions, though, so it's possible he'll notice and send an email my way. but i'm sure i have bad email karma, what with not writing back to my grandparents and all.
yesterday this guy in my french conversation class jacob chatted with me briefly in the hall.
i need to call both of my parents back, mom won't be happy that i haven't yet bought a bus ticket to get back to h-town. perhaps i'll do that first and then call her. i don't have the energy though, i'm exhausted. it will be an effort just to go to my astronomy study session this afternoon, let alone run to dobie (which is incredibly lazy, as it is located 15 minutes from my home). whoosh.
stuff eaten today:
propel
bugles
fig newtons
mr. goodbar
no wonder i am so fat
i saw jen, a girl i know from high school today for the first time since. i never realized people hated me so. she didn't say anything, really, just "hi" and the polite stuff--but then kept moving right along with her buddy. whatever. i'm not sure i ever did anything to her. i didn't really know her too well, but i remember going to her house for a party and there was hella drama with the frenchies and creek peeps. i don't quite remember what the deal was--i think it was that the french kids and the american kids separated into their respective groups, without getting to know each other. at least two people shed tears at the end of it all, and i think she might have been one of them, i'm not sure.
mme w. was the best. what a great french teacher and a sort of mother to us all! so caring!
okay, so here's for some stuff that came to me last night--it's rough as can be, but just a few ideas for the emma story:
Emma is exiled from the town because she refuses to attend church, and Butch refuses to hide her any longer. He is a good man, a godly man, and will not have a blatant sinner in his household. The first couple of times she missed mass, he honestly believed she was ill. After some time and some solid evidence that Emma was indeed feigning her sicknesses, Butch agrees with his intolerant town. In his time, though, their exiling Emma was far from intolerant--it was just and expected. Butch is somewhat sad to see her go, as she kept him company when no one else had. Of course, he had the townspeople, but he only saw them in church, and never on a daily basis. His day-to-day existence prior to Emma's coming was solitary indeed, and he missed his wife. Before she leaves he gives her some food, money, soap, and an extra blanket. He doesn't entirely want her to go, but somehow "knows" it is for the best.
- also - how does Butch get by as a farmer when he only has himself to do all the farming? well--wait, he's a rancher, but still he probably needs some slaves or people around or sthg so he can get work done. i'll make him rich, so that he doesn't need to earn a profit, really. he just wanted some company and a woman to cook for him--so voila Emma.
was Emma poor before she lived with Butch? how old is she?
Butch can't stand the heat of the community any longer - they didn't like Emma living with him, and now they hate her for her blasphemy. Emma would have been happy to stay at Butch's house.
-----later she realizes that the only way her writing would improve is if she had been forced to take that step and survive on her own. now she has a chance at writing for a magazine her writing has improved so much. she is thankful for her trials, for they have made her stronger and a better writer in the end.
Emma (where does she live again?) jumps trains to reach another nearby town, but doesn't dare jump them anymore, she repeatedly gets into tight spots where the "cops" or whoever it is nearly catch her. She doesn't have enough money to get home, only to this other tiny town. Her food runs out eventually, and in the meanwhile she busies herself in finding a job of some sort. Her prospects are gloomy as she is a woman, but maybe she'll become a tutor or a woman working in the town bakery (did they have those?) -- or something in the clergy, wouldn't that be ironic?! Maybe if she did join the clergy being a nun or something she could change her name so no one would recognize her, or maybe the town where she lived with Butch is just far away enough that nobody (or few people) travel between the two. Perhaps someday she can dig her way out of the rut she's in and return to the bustling city where she came from.
Perhaps she can write to a parent or relative in that city, and ask them to send her money? Perhaps she can get that money in the mail and then ride home?
But no. I want her to be stuck. This is part of her journey.
Oh, and I want her to be homeless for a while, too. She can live in an abandoned house (that would be fun to create) and use the mailbox number as her own. Perhaps she'll get caught. Either way, we'll hear about the house and her strategies as to how to use its mailbox without being found out.
How long does she inevitably stay with Butch? Does she ever go back? Does he ever go to her nearby town and run into her? What things does she do to make it obvious that she's not genuinely sick?
- also -
When Butch and the town find out she's faking it, she soon after in the story finds herself hopping trains--but she doesn't do it very much, she's afraid she'll get caught again, just like she did with Butch. When she is at Butch's, she's very innocent and doesn't know how to fake it w/o being found out. When she sneaks around using the mailbox, she becomes better at hiding her habit--she's less innocent than before, she knows how to "work the system", so to speak. Perhaps as she grows more and more clever she can wiggle out of that town faster than she might have otherwise...had she not lost some innocence.
She still holds tight to her belief that church isn't necessary, but she struggles w/it as well. She tries to be a "good" person, and realizes that her "good" is different than most everyone else's. She doubts herself on occasion, though, and her writing shows this apprehension/insecurity.
also, her writing changes as her innocence is lost! she was "inspired" before, but now writes without cease! her writing is darker, she sees people around her as hypocrites, and she writes of the weakness and laziness/unworthiness/intolerance of the humanity that surrounds her. She is becoming a woman.
2:12 p.m. - 2005-11-09
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