Olympics and Life

     The Winter Olympics begin tonight, which I'm thrilled about. Last time that happened I was in the middle of my sophomore year at NSU. Olympics, because they happen roughly every two years, are a good time to stop and reflect on life.
     For my speech class that semester, I recounted a history of the Winter Olympics, because it sprang easily to mind. And also I could watch Cool Runnings as research. And the Arctic feel of Ross Hall made watching the events much more authentic. 

     The other day Jessica asked for help on picking a wedding dress. (I knew watching Say Yes to the Dress reruns would eventually pay off...not that I did that or anything. It's an unexpectedly enthralling show.) Sure, it felt like she was asking basically everyone she knew for advice, too, but still, that meant that she trusts me. And that means a lot. 

     Skyped with Courtney today, school's keeping her busy, but it's going all right.

     Super Bowl LII was Sunday, and it was an amazing game. Philadelphia beat New England 41-33, and I think it was the first time I'd watched the entire game in ten years.

     Budweiser won the commercials this year, which were especially lame. Bud's ad was, when you think about it, classy and yet self-aggrandizing at the same time, highlighting their water-donation efforts during the hurricanes last year. Also, for an NFL ad, Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr reenacted Dirty Dancing, which was pretty hysterical. 

Good News

     Last Friday was Amy's cheerleading night with a local Down Syndrome group at a Catholic high school nearby; which is one of the high points of her year. She did great, and had a fantastic time. The Comets were trounced in both games, though.

     Yesterday I got an unexpected encouraging note from the editor-in-chief of Frontstretch.com, thanking me for merging smoothly into accelerated traffic late last season and drafting along well with the rest of the staff. And this morning I was promoted to doing a column for the upcoming season.

      Caleb was raising money for a Special Olympics fundraiser tomorrow morning, and he reached the goal he was hoping for.

     The folk music group the Spencer Family were visiting GBC Sunday night, so Mom and Amy have been listening to their songs all this week. And Mom got to visit with the Guenthers since they dropped by. 

     Ashland adopted a hedgehog earlier this week, which was worth celebrating. "Lol, I'm a mom!" she texted me excitedly. "By adoption, of course." Hedgehogs are maybe even cuter than coatimundis.

Mid-January Happenings

     The Okmulgee County Tournament was last week, which meant I covered 22 basketball games in six days through radio broadcasts. Wrote up five articles today for ONN. Wrote two Fronstretch articles last week, too.

     There was a potluck lunch at church yesterday, which I wasn't exactly thrilled about, because it's awkward to eat around other people. Like Frank Gilbreth, I tend to see eating as unavoidable delay. And the fact that four couples have gotten married within the last year, and another two couples engaged, makes it awkward at GBC. I kept an eye on the Selby boys to give Justin and Melody a break, which meant a lot of sprint races from one end of the hallway to the other.

     Caleb got his driver's license on Friday afternoon, which he's thrilled about.

     The Patriots and Eagles will play in Super Bowl LII, they seemingly just played each other in Super Bowl XXXIX, in February 2005 - I remember the year because Mimi was incredibly sick. She died six weeks later.

     I was hoping to borrow Dr. Mackie's habit of writing a poem a day this year, but that hasn't gone very well so far.

Post-Christmas 2017

     Christmas was pretty low-key this year. Lots of ping pong.
     Pandora says I listened to 4,116 songs this year, for 15,753 minutes.

     From what I heard the youth group ice skating was a little awkward, but went pretty well.
     The church's annual music night was nice.

     Went to the Steeleys on Christmas Eve after church, that was nice. Playing Monopoly with Dylan and Paige is a little like being on Shark Tank. 
     Caleb gave me awesome Parks and Rec coffee mugs; one with Tom grinning and the other Mouse Rat-themed, complete with their former names.

     December has been a fairly horrible month, which is fitting, as it wasn't the greatest year ever.

   

Thanksgiving 2017

     It felt a little more like Thanksgiving this year than the last two years. Last year the Foxes came over here, and the year before we didn't do anything (one of my poems written for classes that week was titled "Just Another Thursday".) Amy watched the parade on TV, then the National Dog Show was commented upon while lunch was being eaten.
     Ham, pecan pie and peach tea were consumed, as were cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.
     We went to Tahlequah to see Lankfords at Louise and Harry's; they're getting ready to move into town, so there was a tinge of sadness to the happy socializing. Still, it was a good time. Damon played his accordion and Courtney played mandolin. Played basketball with Lillyanne. Talked with everybody while the Cowboys game ended on TV. And it was just good to be in Tquah again, even for such a short time.

     The Ruscos hosted their annual Black Friday Hoedown, which was nice. About thirty people from GBC were there, and line dancing is as impossible as ever. Unlike square dancing, there's not a partner to work with, which makes it much harder. Brad Paisley, Brooks and Dunn and Billy Ray Cyrus are all good to listen to, though ("Ticks," "Boot-Scoot Boogie" and "Achy Breaky Heart"). Also, the caller was calling at half-speed, that might have had something to do with it, too.

     Amazon had a sale on books, so I bought a copy of G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and a book of essays about Friday Night Lights (the TV show). And Jan Karon's new Mitford book.

     In high school football, Beggs beat Oklahoma Christian in Edmond in a 3A quarterfinal matdchup (Demons vs Saints, lol), so they'll play the Sulphur Bulldogs in the state semifinals next Friday night at Edmond Santa Fe High School.

Arkansas Hiking

     The annual edition of the Grace Bible Church-Tulsa Arkansas Retreat was this weekend. It was beautiful scenery that was great to look at.
      About 35 people were there in total, the largest group ever - mostly young families and old people, so a typical Sunday. Which meant, as usual, that I had Danny's line from The Family Nobody Wanted running through my head a little bit: "There's nobody the right size of me!" (It's from a memoir by Helen Doss.) The Wheelers, Selbys, and Purviances were the young families (and Mom was watching Amy), and then Courtney and Caleb had Mattie to hang out with. Met some newer people I vaguely knew by sight, which was nice, I guess.
     Met the Gundersens' friends Nann and Quint from Branson; they were awesome to talk books and play poker dice with.

     Went on a couple short hikes; maybe five or six miles in total, to Triple Falls, Chickenhead Bluff and Hawksbill Crag/Whitaker's Point. (The last one is considered the "Most Romantic Spot in Arkansas," which is kind of interesting. Many couples get engaged there.) They were all incredibly pretty. On Saturday had lunch at a cool tourist trap restaurant called the Ozark Cafe; the Jasper eatery is the oldest in the state, with the original 1907 floorboards and an awesomely random collection of items on the walls. We spotted several sports-car groups and motorcycle groups along the highways, too.
     Rode with the Selbys most of Saturday; they're awesome parents to have four small boys that well-behaved. It was good to get to talk with Justin and Melody. There was an interesting museum in Ponca called the Elk Education Center, besides showcasing local wildlife, there was also a lot of local history, which was fun to read. Enjoyed hearing Mr. Gundersen's stories he's learned of local history.

     Watched some of the TCU-Iowa State and OU-Texas Tech football games on TV aside from the hiking and exploring, and I think I got a few good pictures. Tried to memorize the layout of the cabin, to maybe use in a plot sometime (maybe Winter's Grace, if it ever happens?).
     A sign in Jasper read that the Pirates won the 1960 Class B state championship in basketball, and had the entire roster of boys underneath that announcement. Pretty awesome. Not so awesome is that Mr. Gundersen fractured his fibula while hiking. 

     Mountains are wonderful. It was sad to return to Oklahoma. I need to reread Shepherd of the Hills. Halloween was very quiet; I halfheartedly dressed up as Bill Murray in Space Jam. 

Wake Me Up

     September is ending, thus this post's title.

     The book sale was this weekend; it was a pretty good haul, about 160 books for about $100, all together. My favorite find was an unabridged Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (Kate Douglas Wiggins), though we also found copies of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Willa Cather's My Antonia. 

     Dad was on a business trip to D.C. this week, thus incrementally progressing mine and Ashland's master plan of getting every citizen to visit there, haha. 

     Rewriting projects isn't usually quite as interesting as the rough draft, but they're some of the most important steps.

     Got my roughly-twice-a-year haircut a couple weeks ago, still haven't gotten used to it yet.

     We finally finished running through Parks and Recreation, which was sad. And Netflix yanked Friday Night Lights, which was a little disappointing.
      In movie news, Mom and Courtney hated La La Land's ending, though I felt like it was right for the story. Most of the time dreams don't work out, so of course Sebastian and Mia couldn't stay together. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was fun, though Mulan was strange. The new Emma Watson-led Beauty and the Beast remake is much better than I expected so far. (I usually watch movies in halves when watching by myself.)

CAMP: Part XI

     This year, I don't really know what is happening at SGYC. I know there are about 52 campers, and I know that Steve Long is the pastor (which should be great), but beyond that, I'm not sure.

     Why am I not sure? Because all the GBC youth bailed (though I can understand why), and so I didn't have a way to get up there. Which is frustrating, because Ashland and I had worked out that I would visit on the way back.

     Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 has been stuck in my head recently.

     So this week is much the same as any other this summer. Today's been filled with work, and the family went to visit the DeSpains. Today's articles are high school orientations and city fundraisers, and making PDF files of last week's stories. I Skyped with Amanda, Maya and Ellie for a bit this morning. They were "talking" to Uncle Wesley all the rest of the day, Manda said.

UPDATE 7-27:
     From pictures and Facebook posts, it sounded like it went well.

Easter 2017

     It's been a restless and wandery day. There's a storm coming, the tension has been slowly building since morning. Called home, everybody's helping Amy hunt for Easter eggs, and then the traditional baseball game with them afterwards.
     The Passover dinner at GBC apparently went really well, there were about 110 people there, roughly twenty percent of them being visitors, in the sense that they aren't part of the congregation, but all were at one point or are well-known friends of folks who are.
     Dado's final living brother, Kenneth, died this morning. And yesterday would have been Grandpa's birthday, the first one since he died last summer. That was kind of hard to deal with, but easier than I thought it'd be. Maybe because I was distracted by the day's tasks. Mom, Courtney and Amy all went over to Tahlequah to Louise's Thursday, Trish and everyone are visiting, and Bob came over.

     GBC's not officially sending a group to SGYC this year, but there's a plan for an Oklahoma-based camp to start near Chouteau in summer 2018. According to an email I got from Mrs. Boyer, Steve Long will still be the pastor this year, which should be a good thing. I'm not sure if I can be a counselor this year, depends on how the job search goes. If I do go, it'll match the time I spent as a camper - five years.
     Amanda's been teasing me incessantly all week long. ("Rolling eyes") Maya's second birthday is in two weeks.

     Reading slowly through Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter, because he just can't be read quickly. And also, it's good to sit and think for a while on what his characters have to say and experience. Same way with Flannery O'Connor. I've mostly been reading her nonfiction work Mystery and Manners, which I would say is one of those books on writing that everyone ought to read, along with Stephen King's On Writing, William Strunk Jr's and E.B. White's Elements of Style, William Zinsser's On Writing Well, and William Goldman's Adventures of the Screen Trade. And, if you're into that sort of thing, the AP Stylebook.

     This week's movie of study for Gothic Film and Lit was Crimson Peak, which started well, but unraveling quickly into a horror movie that just didn't work - the harshest critique a story can have. Dr. Mackie and I hate horror movies, so there was that part of it, but Kenzie likes them, and even she wasn't a fan. Tom Hiddleston did well in his role, and there were some good ideas as far as storyline or plot developments, and it had a lot of the traditional Gothic elements (creepy mansion, ghosts, a secret, naive young woman, murder) but there was far too little backstory and far too many unanswered questions by the end. Also, all three of us vehemently wanted the heroine to die, which can't be a good sign.
     The Predators crushed the Blackhawks in game two of their first-round series, and in other NHL action today, Ottawa beat Boston in overtime, Toronto defeated Washington halfway through double overtime, and the Ducks put out the Flames. In NBA news, the Thunder start their first-round series against the Rockets tomorrow night.

     Tom Sawyer went fairly well both nights; the audiences were mostly responsive and animated, and also fairly high in terms of numbers: maybe twenty-five Thursday, thirty-three Friday, and only about a quarter of those were comp tickets. It's kind of sad that thirty people is an enormous audience, but that's the way it is with the RSU Theater Department.
     I played the voice-acting role of Sid Sawyer, Tom's insufferable half-brother, who is, in the words of Derek Steeley, "the Eddie Haskell of American literature." And he's right; Sid is (shudder). So that's partially how I played him, although I was primarily thinking of Waldo from The Little Rascals. (Indignant shudder.) Most lines were voice-acted, as it was a staged reading, which meant only key scenes were acted out. My actual character was Doc Robinson, whose only purpose is to be the brutally-slain murder victim of Injun Joe in the graveyard. Cody played Tom's friend Joe Harper, Keirstine (Jennifer from last spring's "Tales From Tent City") was Becky Thatcher.

     Jimmy Fallon was the host of Saturday Night Live this week, and about half the sketches were really funny. For SNL, that's a good average. The cold open was making fun of Trump again, which was pretty snicker-worthy. - it features someone in a Grim Reaper costume, which instantly brought to mind Jacob's Killer from "Go With the Flow," one of our SWAT skits. (Our blooper reel still cracks me up. And MAN do I miss everybody....) Another good SNL sketch tonight was a date getting crashed in the most awkward way imaginable by the woman's ex, with the punch line stating that he was the one responsible for dragging the guy off the United flight the other day. And they didn't have the best reputation in the first place even before that - remember the (parody?) tune "United Breaks Guitars"? Another was a time-traveling version of Family Feud. 

     Haven't been able to get much work done today on essays and stories that need to be written, but that's part of why I'm typing this post - hopefully it'll kick-start my word output. Sometimes that happens. But anyway, it was time for an update.

April Firsts

     Another April Fool's Day with no tricks played on anyone. Rats. I did finish the first 5K race I ever entered this morning, so that's something, though. There were 92 entrants total, and I finished 39th overall with a time of 38:17. That was sixth out of seven in my division, and I mainly walked most of the way (I'm a sprinter; and terrible at anything resembling distance.) Maybe because I walk everywhere that was why I finished midpack? I'm used to traveling on foot, so I've learned to be more efficient? I don't know. I'm pretty sure most 5K's aren't run with a soundtrack of poetry playing in your mind, though. Snatches of Rudyard Kipling's "If" were narrated by Plato the Buffalo from Adventures From the Book of Virtues. (I know he recites it during an episode, but can't find that clip at the moment.) My goal was just to finish, and I did that, so next time I'll have a time to aim to beat.

     In other news....let's see. I donated blood for the first time two weeks ago, and I survived. I was afraid it was going to be like Ashland's horror story of the first time she tried donating blood (which won a Random Status of the Week Award). Like her, I also apparently have small veins. Unlike her story, there was no blood spurting everywhere. Three nurses looked at my arm before deciding they found one big enough - but I'm blaming this on their being exhausted from working all day. (It was like 4:45 on a Wednesday afternoon.) Once they found a vein the right size, it took about three minutes to finish filling the little bag, which they said was a lot faster than normal. My arm didn't bruise or anything, but the pricked finger they tested my iron levels on hurt for a couple days, and it was hard to type. (Your middle finger on the left hand is used often in typing - and so I couldn't play guitar for a while, either.)

     This week's movie in Gothic Film and Lit was a 1991 mystery directed by Kenneth Branagh called Dead Again. The plot was incredibly complicated, but it was a good movie. And well-constructed. (On rereading Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, it was much better, because I could look at the mechanics of how she built the plot and notice all the foreshadowing.) Robin Williams played a serious role as a homeless psychiatrist, and Wayne Knight (Stan from Space Jam, Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park) was in it, too.

     In not-for-school-but-for-sanity reading, I just finished Billie Letts's novel Where the Heart Is, which was full of thoroughly weird but incredibly real characters. I liked it. (It was made into a movie starring Natalie Portman.) And a biography of Agatha Christie (titled plainly Agatha Christie: A Biography) by Janet Morgan had some good parts, though it was somewhat dense and the pace was glacially slow. It would have been better if it were read concurrently with her autobiography.

     Capstone is due Wednesday, so all the seniors in the English Department are kind of freaking out. I have to (try to) tame my nemesis, ACADEMIC TONE IN WRITING, enough to pass the Committee's judgment. I think I can, I think I can...just keep swimming.... Dr. Mackie and Dr. Dial-Driver will both do their best to argue for me, so that's something.

     There've been at least three fire alarms in the last 36 hours, much to my annoyance.

     The beginning of April means that it's also the start of Stupid Profile Picture Week, and something like the sixth year it's been held. This is what my hair looks like after I get out of the shower. It tends to fall straight over my face.

A Difficult Week

     It's been exactly five years since the CVS Scotch Tape Incident. Feels like much longer. Sunday is the twelfth anniversary of the night Mimi died. That is always difficult. When I started this blog there was a post about it.
     She died when I was eleven, and so now she's been gone longer than I knew her. That is especially hard to understand.

     Just found this Bear Grylls article on grief in my Facebook newsfeed. Sure, I made fun of Man Vs. Wild, but it's that kind of show. Running Wild is interesting, and I enjoyed his memoir Mud, Sweat and Tears, at least what I heard of the audiobook version. He's a really interesting person. This was a good article, I thought. And it rereading it out loud gave me a chance for voiceover practice on doing his accent.
     In July 2013, Sunny died, and so I wrote about that. It was hard to deal with. Then in November 2013 Copper was hit by a car. That was bad, too. About a year after that Nano died late fall 2014, which has been hard to process, even though she was more than ready. Maybe that's why.  And Grandpa's cancer won three days before my birthday last May. I definitely haven't understood that yet.

     All of my stories for the last year or so seem to involve death of some sort, and it's the same way with classmates Brian and Lauren's stories, too. One of those jokes around the English Department. I kind of specialized in murder ballads in poetry classes, along the lines of Garth Brooks's "The Thunder Rolls" or Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away," "Choctaw County Affair" and "Two Black Cadillacs." Maybe it's an Oklahoma thing.
     Sure, most English majors employ the rule of thumb that when in doubt, you throw a murder into the plot, but even if we aren't trying to include it, characters still die. Brian's best stories from Fiction Writing were a Western revenge tale and one about a lonely, slowing-perishing baseball-loving widower. Lauren is a master of William Goldman-style suspense thrillers who loves Stephen King, and it shows - in a good way. Two weeks ago the couple's dog was put down in one of my flashfiction stories for Pop Market, and a novel I'm in the early stages of working on features a woman with terminal cancer as one of the main characters, while a minor character was a dog who was run over.
   
     Most of the weekend will be spent retyping old essays for the portfolio portion of Capstone, I think. Caleb gets back from Mexico Sunday night.

A Tough Week

     We're about a third of the way through this semester. That's plenty enough to be exhausted. The second verse's line "and lately I've been too confused to think" from Collin Raye's "I Can Still Feel You" has been stuck in my head all week, which certainly qualifies as a Song of the Day. I found this picture of Snoopy Monday night while replying to one of Susan's tweets, but it also applied well to the way this week has gone.

     The psychology test Monday afternoon went about how I expected - I scored an 83. That's not great, but considering it was mostly identifying parts of the brain and what side effects behaviorally would occur when sections were injured, it's probably better than I should have scored. But the really strange part - that was tied for fourth place out of about twenty students, the high was 90, followed by an 85 and 84. About half the class scored 70 or lower, someone managed a 36. How do I know these scores? Wednesday the professor created a PowerPoint comparing our scores to the previous class, since it was the same test. Part of the slides were scoreboards of totals recorded, so that Dr. Marrero can keep accurate statistics. He then proceeded to give a wonderful reminder that tests don't matter in the long run, and that he only gives them because the school requires it. "It's what you do, who you are, that matters. Not what your grades were." That's about as close to preaching as you can expect in a college classroom, and it isn't the first time he's come close to that boundary, dropping hints here and there that he probably sees the world from a Christian perspective.
     We then watched a clip of an interview James Dobson had with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before he was executed. It was interesting to see Dobson the psychologist at work, as compared to the author, counselor or radio host. Bundy seemed incredibly manipulative, which fit what we've studied so far about psychopaths (the course is Psychology of the Criminal Mind).

     It's been a long week. Besides Agents, the TV's been on hockey and Thunder basketball for background noise, but none of those are exactly non-stressful forms of relaxation, as I noted in a post three years ago. The Daytona 500 is next Sunday, which is exciting, but also adrenaline-filled, too.

     Valentine's Day was a regular Tuesday, which was fine with me. It was filled with homework in Pop Market, like crafting a character description and recording our impressions to the (largely terrible) thriller flashfiction written last week. Dr. Dial-Driver ranted about the state of public education, so I got yelled at a bit for disagreeing with her too vehemently, but that was mainly for starting a debate over Steve Rogers and the degradation of values and morals in American society since World War II.
     In Gothic Film and Lit that afternoon, neither me or McKenzie understood very well what was going on in Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw, and Dr. Mackie didn't have many answers, either. It's that kind of book.
     Dropped by the Chi Alpha meeting, which was fine. Kept tripping over the trash can while playing ping pong on the Centennial Center rec room's hideously-warped table, which played a big part in why I kept losing repeatedly.
     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. overdid the pop-cultural references this week, and when I say that.... the episode ended on a terrifying cliffhanger which will be interesting to follow - FitzSimmons is trapped yet again, is all I'll say for now.

     Finished the Nicholas Sparks (The Longest Ride) I found for a dollar last week, it wasn't A Walk to Remember or The Notebook, but the ending was well done. Dialogue was strong throughout, and that indefinable caring-about-these-characters that all great authors have was there again. He used an intertwined structure throughout, switching from a delirious 91-year-old WWII veteran remembering his life and marriage in first-person to a third-person romance between a professional bull rider and a Wake Forest art history major, bouncing between their perspectives before going back to the old man. The way he brought those storylines together was really inventive.
     Also reread through J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy for school, which is wonderfully written and extremely painful to read through. I'm not quite sure how I can work his insights into my capstone paper, but I'm sure there is a way, because the people he writes about are most of the main audience of country music.
     This week's Gothic Film and Literature reading is called Rosemary's Baby, by a guy named Ira Levin. This stood out because the old guy in The Longest Ride was named Ira Levinson. Anyway, after a quick internet research, this book is apparently to blame for all the vampire-and-goodness-knows-what-all other crap that's been published since, which was exactly the opposite of what the author wanted, since he was trying to prove that all that stuff was stupid. (It's a horror story about a group of Satanist witches kidnapping a newborn. Besides that awful plot, it was poorly written.) Anyway, this guy Ira Levin also wrote the play No Time for Sergeants, which started Andy Griffith's career, and a novel called The Stepford Wives, which William Goldman (yep, the thriller author best known for The Princess Bride) wrote the screenplay for during the movie adaptation. (There is a large chunk of Goldman's nonfiction Adventures in the Screen Trade dedicated to the lessons learned from this experience.)

     Got about five hours of sleep last night, the kind where you wake up every twenty minutes bolt upright on High Alert Mode.
     Sage - she and her husband work as office assistants in the English department - got out of Shakespeare just as I was about to go to Capstone, when she spins around in the hallway. "Can I take your picture, Wes? You are like, THE image of 'A Distraught College Student' right now." She meant it as a joke, and I thought it was a funny quote, because if it wasn't humorous then it would just be way too true. Especially after I looked up the definition of distraught: "Deeply upset and agitated." So I posted it to Facebook, and a lot of people - mainly other students - also thought it was funny/sad/applicable.
     Capstone was difficult because of the material we were reading, mostly centered around the split between how children and adults see the world through Peter Pan and a terrific Robert Louis Stevenson essay I had never heard of called "Child's Play," which seems like it would fit extremely well with G.K. Chesterton's "Ethics of Elfland" and Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. More than usual had read the novel before seeing the Disney movie, and so found it quite lacking. A discussion of Disney villains commenced here, and I was again chided for not having seen The Lion King in its entirety (but if you know the songs, isn't that enough?). Then the rest of the other readings we were looking at were about caring for the elderly, death and mortality. This led to a lot of discussion about the everyday glory and burden of caring for elderly relatives as they grow frailer, and while it was a great discussion, the material was really painful.
     One interesting fact learned today: Dr. Dial-Driver says that Lady and the Tramp was originally a book! Since her specialty is children's lit, I'll take her word for it. (The novel of Bambi was also mentioned today, which brought to mind that The Fox and the Hound was a novel first, too, but there's no way that I will ever read that - the Wikipedia plot summary is far more depressing that the movie, and the movie is appropriately realistic enough in its open-ended unresolvedness.)  

     I don't think I'm actually sick, but I feel like I've been just dragging through the last couple days. Found a Spotify playlist of classical covers of rock and pop songs, which has been interesting to listen to while writing this post. (Jed and Miss Kathy would approve.)
     Discovered that Screen Rant, a movie-news website I usually find useful, is taking applications for a list writer, so I might apply for that. It would only be part time - all of their content comes from freelancers - but it would be something, and they're a pretty good-sized site in terms of traffic. That would look good in a portfolio of writing samples. And lists are usually easy. And since it's freelance work, I wouldn't have to move to California or anything.

     UPDATE SATURDAY MORNING - Whether because of stress or sickness germs going around, I was up most of Thursday night throwing up. Did nothing all day yesterday, I'll probably be fine in a couple days.

Sunday Night in February

    The Patriots won Super Bowl LI over the Atlanta Falcons in overtime, 34-28. It was the first time the game was tied after regulation, and the best commercial was the preview for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which looks fantastic, but that doesn't say much for the actual ads.
     Bob Costas is being replaced as host of the Olympics, starting in Korea next February. This is extremely saddening.
     Kevin Durant and the Warriors were back in Oklahoma City last night. It was rough to watch. Facebook was full of angry fan posts all day leading up to tipoff. And we lost, but we hung in there for most of the game. But like Russell Westbrook said in an interview, sometimes you just have to move on with life as best you can. A PBS special on Mary Tyler Moore made for a good antidote when I got too frustrated with the game.

     Psychology test tomorrow afternoon, not sure how that will go, so I've been studying most of the night. Capstone is going okay, better than Seminar was, that's for sure. Starting to get a better idea of what Gothic stories aren't, so that's something. Pop Market is going well so far, so far we've written flashfiction romances, Westerns and suspense/thrillers. (Flashfiction is generally capped at a thousand words, so not much room to tell a story, which makes it very difficult, but a fun challenge.)
     In general, things this semester are not good, though not quite as bad as last semester was. I just have to get through to May.

     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going well, though the last couple episodes have been a little slow in setting up the next section of the plot. AIDA is a wonderfully-awful character, and there's been lots of interesting multiple roles being played lately with the L.M.D.s.
     Ashland and I have been teasing Mrs. Boyer about her lack of keeping up with MCU news (though that's our job). Guardians Vol. 2 (much-anticipated) comes out on May 5, Spider-Man: Homecoming (also much-anticipated) on July 7, and Thor: Ragnarok (meh) on November 3. They just started production on Avengers: Infinity War, which is exciting. And Doctor Strange (also meh) comes to DVD in a couple weeks, so I can catch up on it, and then I'll be current on all fourteen chapters of the story so far.
     DC, obviously, but The LEGO Batman Movie looks funny. And I'm excited for Cars 3 in July, of course.

     Auditions for the RSU Theater Program's adaptation of Tom Sawyer were the week before last; the cast hasn't been revealed yet. So of course I galloped through the novel, because any excuse to read Mark Twain is a good one. (And besides, a change of pace was needed after depressing/frightening Gothic stories.) The adaptation was written by a lady named Laura Eason, who apparently is a producer or something of the huge Netflix show House of Cards.  (I haven't seen it, though of course I know about it - violent political thrillers aren't my wheelhouse. Robin Wright plays the First Lady.)
     Also reread Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow, which was probably better the second time, because it's one of those kinds of books. There's always more to dig out than can be noticed all at once.
     A Walk to Remember was on TV the other night, and I'd never seen it, so I watched because it was a good time for a break from studying. It stars Mandy Moore, and it worked pretty well, though I liked The Notebook better when it comes to the first two movie adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels. This sets the tale up in the late 90's, which wouldn't have worked at all in print, but telling the movie version of the story in the 50's would have been equally awful structurally, so I was fine with that change. The Longest Ride, a newish book, sounded like an interesting story when the movie came out about a year ago, and the campus bookstore had it on sale for a dollar, so I scooped it up. A dollar isn't much to waste if it's not worth rereading. And I also got a William Faulkner novel called Light in August, also for a dollar. I've been meaning to read him for a while, because I think I'd really like him if I could slowly explore through Yoknapatawpha County, based on short stories of his that I've read. And Faulkner is like one of the great writers of Southern fiction, inspiring Wendell Berry, Harper Lee, Jan Karon, and I don't know who all else.

Hi, Again

     It's been a while since I've had a chance to post anything on here. (List-making doesn't count, nor do recaps.) Another dismal semester was endured and survived. Christmas went fine. Rags is having a delightful time mercilessly teasing Trevor's cat Timmy. He was the Perrys' cat, but they moved to Tulsa a couple months ago, so they gave him to us, and he adopted Trevor as His Person. Chloe DeSpain's cat Butterscotch is his sister, and they look just alike: large and orange tiger-striped. Their dad was Freckles the lazy black-and-white barn cat.

     Grade-wise, I got A's in Audio Production, Children's Lit and Creative Nonfiction, a B in Seminar and a C in Early American Lit. That makes a 3.4 GPA this semester, and drops my overall GPA down to 3.77. Not that that matter all that much - they're just numbers - but I was convinced that I was going to fail Seminar (because it was so difficult) and Early American Lit (which I couldn't ever figure out what wasn't working there). In one word, this semester was "Dreadful."

     I listened to just under eleven days worth of music on Spotify this year - 15, 744 minutes total. That consisted of 1,173 songs from 430 artists. My top five artists played were Brad Paisley (duh), Avril Lavigne, Owl City, Steven Curtis Chapman and Kenny Chesney.

     For Christmas I got a portable speaker (which sounds awesome), small pocketknife and this upcoming year's Chick-Fil-A calendar. I got Caleb a cast-iron skillet, which he was thrilled about, and he got a new ping pong paddle from Mom and Dad, which he was really thrilled about.

     Carrie Fisher died this morning, which is sad.

     Updates of friends: Josh just got engaged to Sara, and Samantha and Nick from the NSU BCM are having a baby next summer. (First second-generation SWAT member, it will be.)

The Best of 2016

     Recap post of the year's events, similar to the ones I've done in years past.

Best Blog -
     Tim Chalies. Though Grammar Girl is also really good.

Best Country Song of the Year -
     No question, it's this super-medley to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the CMA Awards. When it comes to actual songs released this year, there wasn't much good to pick from. But Jake Owen's less-than-creatively-titled "American Country Love Song" and Keith Urban's "Wasted Time" were both pretty good.

Best YouTube Channel -
     Studio C wins, though Screen Junkies, makers of "Honest Trailers," is another good candidate.

Best Movie Seen in Theaters -
     Captain America: Civil War, hands down. Ben-Hur was fine, as were Rogue One and The Force Awakens. 

Best Netflix Documentary -
     The Price of Gold, about the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan fiasco, was a really good one, and I Know That Voice! is my favorite documentary of all time, but both of those were pulled from Netflix this year. Grr. But Top Spin, following a quartet of teenagers trying to make the U.S. London 2012 Olympic table tennis team, was a great one.

Weirdest Skill Learned -
     How to apply theater makeup, during prep week right before Tent City opened. I was able to do my own after one explanation from our makeup artist. Also, how to tie a ponytail correctly was another odd trick learned.

Another Niece is Born

     When Amanda's daughter Maya was born last year, that was a big deal, and very exciting. And since she adopted me as her big brother all those years ago, that makes Maya my niece. And being Uncle Wesley sounds nice. Well, anyway, now I get to be Uncle Wesley again, this time to Elora Desiree, which was the name that she and Aaron picked out for Maya's little sister, born today. She was born at 3:01 p.m. at 19 inches long and weighing 6 lbs, 14 oz.

UPDATE a couple weeks later -
      Maya is doing well as a big sister, sharing her toys whenever possible.    

Grandpa

     Grandpa died Wednesday afternoon(May 26) of cancer. It's good that he isn't sick anymore, but it hasn't exactly sunk in yet. Or maybe it has, all of the last school year I don't know. It's hard to tell with things like that, sometimes.
     The funeral was last Tuesday; it went well. The funeral home was packed to the limit with family, friends and coworkers, and at every intersection all the way to the cemetery there was a fire truck standing guard. They rang the fire bell to signal his passing; which was really emotional for some reason. Also the slideshow of pictures; most of us were kind of falling apart.
     After the graveside we went over to Louise and Harry's, where about eighty to a hundred relatives came to talk and hang out, for that is what you do when there is a grouping of Lankfords. Most people from their church brought food over, so there was more than enough to feed everyone. Mom had a good time spending time with everybody; Caleb shot baskets with a cousin.

     Jackie Dale Lankford was born on April 14, 1947 in Pawhuska(the nearest town with a hospital to Wynona), and was in the middle of the Lankford kids; yougner than Bob and Louise, but older than Ken, Nina or Linda. They bounced around as Papa Lankford worked in construction in various places while preaching. (Accuracy of facts isn't part of the stories of Lankford history, so everything has to be patched together.) Eventually he married Linda Morris in the mid-sixties, and they had two daughters, Dayla and Jatina. He worked for the Tahlequah Public Works Authority as a lineman for many years, and also served with the Tahlequah Fire Department. There was also a landscaping business at one point in the early 80's.
     In his free time, he enjoyed canoe racing with Bob on the Illinois River, and the family often went on road-trip vacations to various states. Later, after his marriage to Robbie, he loved to spend time spoiling their dogs Bogey, Fancy and Gretchen. They also went through a square-dancing phase at one point, and they liked to take off in the RV for some destination or other(usually Branson) almost anytime. He also really loved being out on Lake Tenkiller in his pontoon boat.

     I didn't really know him very well until I got to college, though we'd gotten closer in my teens. I'd go over there on most weekends while in Tahlequah at NSU, and we'd watch Shark Tank each Friday night and then whatever sports were on ESPN or FS1. I was at his trailer when Dale Earnhardt died in the 2001 Daytona 500, and also on 9/11.

     He came to a lot of my soccer games and homeschool-group plays, and it was a tradition that we went over there for Thanksgiving. He was just so full of common sense, which is far too uncommon nowadays. And yes, it's good that he isn't sick any longer, but it's still really sad for the rest of us. Especially Robbie.

     Love you, Grandpa.

This Week in Review

     This hasn't been the greatest week ever. For most of it I was sick with either an ear infection or strep throat (I think the latter). Then Grandpa died on Wednesday afternoon. Which was good in a sense, because he isn't sick anymore, but it's still hard to deal with. The funeral will be Tuesday afternoon.
     It's strange to think that it's been almost five years since Youth Tour. All these pictures of Memorial Day cemeteries and stuff on Facebook, so it's neat to remember that I've been there at Arlington.

     My birthday was yesterday; it was pretty quiet, as it should have been, given the funeral preparations and all. But it was nice. Got the DVD of Inside Out, and a series of books on language by a guy named Mark Forsyth. Started one of them, The Elements of Eloquence, which is wonderful so far. Began rereading through the Anne of Green Gables series for the who-knows-whatth time, which is nice. Definitely needed after finishing Seabiscuit again while reading some depressing textbooks for my summer course. Laura Hillenbrand is a wonderful writer, capturing danger and tension especially well, but at a time like this, especially if not feeling great, that's not necessarily a good thing. I didn't much like C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed, but it's the best so far out of the textbooks I've read for this course. Watched a strange, but good, movie on Netflix called My Girl. It's a coming-of-age story about a girl who lives in a funeral home, and one summer her dad remarries and her best friend dies. It would make a great novel, reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird if it took place in the early 70's, which makes it even more unusual that it was an original screenplay.

     In sports news, an American rookie from California won the Indy 500 yesterday, and the Thunder will likely lose to the Warriors tonight in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. Then Kevin Durant will probably head somewhere else. But the team will carry on somehow, just like Tahlequah will continue to run somehow without Jack Lankford in it. The Sharks and Penguins are playing for the Stanley Cup, the first game of that series in tonight.

     Kaitlin's wedding last Saturday went well, it was at First Presbyterian in Sand Springs, which is a very pretty church. It was a good wedding, whatever those criteria are. It was almost like being at GBC seven or eight years ago - with the Buckmasters, Grahams, David Ipock, the Buenos all there. The Scotts drove up from Russellville to be there, their boys are growing up. Most of the Fergusons were there, Laura had just about left for North Carolina for her summer job. Good to see Josh again. Also in attendance were the Wilsons and Ruscos, and half the Coxes.

Weekend Update

     The sun is shining brightly, the temp is about 70 degrees, and the wind is only about ten miles per hour(for Claremore, that's nothing.) So, it's a great spring Saturday, right? I suppose so, if you're one of the families who attended the Easter Egg hunt held on campus this morning. (I honestly had to think for a very long time before realizing the holiday all these people were celebrating was Easter.) Over being sick from whatever I had last weekend, so that's something. It's Dad's birthday, so that's good. It's also eleven years ago today that Mimi died. That could be part of the reason I've just been sort of down today. Another reason could be that I'm simply exhausted. There hasn't been that much homework, even, this week, but still....

     Rehearsal for Tales From Tent City are coming along pretty well; though we all have to polish up some lines and things like that. The set was built on Wednesday and Thursday, so that's kind of exciting. I built one of our characters' houses, and decorated another. And promo posters, both the homemade-looking teasers and the official ones, were posted all around campus. Showtime is around 7 p.m. on the weekends of April 7-9 and 14-16.

     Been working on finishing a short story for Fiction Writing due Monday. That's kept me busy most of the weekend so far. Lots of hiking around campus has been done, too. I think I've covered around fifteen miles in the last two days.

     I'm very glad today is almost over. "But tomorrow is a different day..." Maybe next week will be easier.

Opening the New Year

     Music is helpful to do homework by. So I've built a lot of playlists on my Spotify channels. Putting them on "shuffle" mode, going by station, the first songs played this year were the following: from the lengthy Story Songs collection it was Brad Paisley's "Part Two", from the 80's it was "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Guns N Roses, while the first song from the 90's/2000's playlist was Eli's "Stand", CHRISTMAS was playing Love Handel's version of "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" and StayAwake was playing Owl City's "Speed of Love".
     Pandora stations, CHRISTMAS! featured Brad Paisley's rendution of "Silver Bells", Comedy and Laughter played Andy Griffith's wonderful monologue "What It Was, Was Football", Michael W. Smith's "Breathe" was the first dose of Decent Christian Music, while the DJ over at Everything 93.5 played Scotty McCreery's "See You Tonight", Family Road Trip Radio had the Temptations singing "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", and Movies and Musicals was playing Owl City's "Hello Seattle" for some reason. Boston's autobiographical "Rock and Roll Band" was heard when flipping the dial over to Sports, "The Dance" by Garth Brooks was heard on Square Dance!, Study Aids was playing MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine", and the folks at This is Country Music were playing "I'm Already There", by Lonestar.  
     The titles of my Spotify channels are much more practical and boring, as compared to the names of the Pandora stations.

     Glory was the first cat to decide to pounce on my bed to take a nap; then helped type those above paragraphs. And then she and Rags and Darcy got into a big fight last night. Rags helped me finish this post.

     Watched the NHL's Winter Classic yesterday afternoon; the Canadiens pounded the Bruins 5-1 at the Patriots' stadium. But hockey is Canada's game, so it wasn't too big a deal. Besides, I never have much liked Boston, anyway. Dad listened to the Sugar Bowl on the radio as Ole Miss destroyed OSU.
     Caleb went to the gun range with Mom and Dad, they all had a good time.

     Courtney, Trevor, Dad and I went to go see The Force Awakens finally  Star Wars is very much its own thing, so I'm not sure what how to classify it. Courtney and Dad loved it.
     The new movie chronology renders most of the novels nonexistent, which is irritating, because some of them were pretty good. (There's one by James Luceno that is simply tracing the history of the Milennium Falcon.) But anyway, you get a rough idea of what happened to everyone, and then - blam! Erased away with Episode VII. Technically, they now take place in an alternate universe, which seems like a flimsy copout, but whatever.
     Glad to have watched it now, since Star Wars is basically the pop-culture version of the Super Bowl.