Aurora Dimitre's Books and Rambling

So, this morning in my Philosophy class (dear God, do I hate that phrase), we were talking about Descartes, because philosophy has a love affair with that loser, and how he wanted psychology to be taught as the basis for everything. Which is an interesting idea, with one main problem that I can see: parents don't like it when their kids think for themselves. So, I said this, because it's a small class and we just shout out whatever we're thinking, and the professor, who is the liberal of liberals, kind of a weird guy but an interesting guy, I like him, made a crack about, "Yeah, definitely, I know I don't want my kids thinking for themselves" with the implication that, obviously, he does want his kids thinking for themselves. And while I can concede that yeah, this guy is telling the truth, or at least he thinks he is. A lot of parents will not admit that they want their kids to just be carbon copies of them, or, rather, they won't outright say, "...

So, I'm in NoDak, which means I am right in the middle of that Arctic Death Wave or whatever they're calling it (today and tomorrow wind chill brings us to about -60, which is, even for NoDak, A Little Cold), and both my school and my work called off. Which is kind of amazing to me, honestly, if I've learned anything growing up with North Dakota, it is that We Do Not Call Off For The Weather Unless Someone Has Died Do You Think We're Pussies Or Something. But I guess even -60 is like, a lot. Nothing's called off officially yet for tomorrow--though it's supposed to be the same--but I don't work that day anyway so I don't care, though I guess if school doesn't get called off I should maybe wear gloves between classes, or something (and MAYBE I should get a real winter coat at some point, because I have a lot of jackets but my heaviest coat is a leather jacket with some padding in it, it's chill tho). And I should probably wear my hat instead of j...

So, it's cold today. No surprise, it's winter, and we've been pretty lucky so far this winter, considering; it's been pretty mild overall. Today though, it's cold. High is -4, low is -14, but the windchill is bumping it down so far that, right now, when it is -7, it feels like -29. So it's cold. I'm someone who grew up here, so it's not like, absolutely terrible to walk from class to class (though I'm pretty sure my car is not starting when I have to go to work at four, but luckily it's Thursday and I know 100% where I can get a ride from), but I'm like, wearing full-length pants. Hell, I even put a hat on this morning. Normally I just use my over-the-ear headphones as my only head protection from the cold. I zipped up my coat.  But this morning, I also saw some guy in shorts, because this is a college campus and you've always got those guys who wear nothing but shorts, and I also saw a girl carrying around an iced coffee. Like, I m...

So, I finished typing up the Frankendraft last night. This project is completely unprecedented in everything I've done with it, from the first draft (or... two first drafts? I wrote two versions of the same story, with pretty much the same plot, just one of them is more coherent and one of them has more SOUL) to the fact that I decided to cut and paste (literally, I spent three nights, one night for each part, sitting on my dorm room floor, shivering because we hadn't got air conditioner covers on yet, gluing cut-up pieces of text to, at first, cardstock and later, when I ran out of cardstock and glue, taping them to torn out picture book pages) the two first drafts into one Frankendraft, and now the fact that it's not going to be a clean rewrite. Normally, what happens with my drafts, is my first draft is a glorified outline. It is where I figure out what the hell is going on and who the hell it is happening to. Since this one is semi-sorta-kinda based on a real thing,...

So, I got a couple packages of new tapes from Ebay yesterday, and one of the packages was pretty much exclusively Anthrax tapes. I love Anthrax, I think they're fun, and one thing that I really, really like about Anthrax is how much they love Stephen King. Scott Ian. How much Scott Ian loves Stephen King. But, anyway, one of the tapes was just a collection of b-sides and live recordings and stuff like that, which I'm down for, but the thing that really got me about that one was the fact that they addressed it to "Constant Listener," which is straight Stephen King talk ("Constant Readers" are what he calls us), and that was just. It was beautiful, I loved it, it is so easy to make me happy, those two words just made my day. I mean, that and the fact that I'd just gotten twelve new tapes. I'm not like I was when I was fourteen anymore; I don't only read Stephen King. I don't even read Stephen King that often (she says, sixteen days into...

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original Tobe Hooper 70s version, not the early 2000s torture porn one) is my favorite horror movie. I love how visceral it is, I love how it takes itself seriously but doesn't come off as pretentious (maybe it's because there's not a hidden flavor of "you don't really get this" because, honestly, what is there to not get?), and I just love the entire overarching feeling of the movie. It is also one of the few horror movies that has really freaked me out. Not like, nightmare freak out, but like, crawling up my spine freak out. Last weekend I watched the sequel. It came out in 1986, it's got a new Leatherface, and it's got a much different feel than the first one. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is much more of a typical slasher flick than the first movie. But. It is maybe the best slasher I have ever seen, for so many reasons. It doesn't take itself seriously, but doesn't do it to the extent that it becomes just dumb...

So I decided it would be fun to take a philosophy class this semester. I don't need it. I'm graduating this spring, and there were three classes I needed to take to graduate, so I had tons of room. So I shoved my schedule with other classes, like African-American Lit: Harlem Renaissance, Western Civilization Pt 2 (have not taken Pt 1, but eh), Abnormal Psychology, and Modern Philosophy. I pretty much knew as soon as I signed up that I would end up just hating this class. First of all, some of the most pretentious people I know are in this class, so that's kind of annoying. As well as that, philosophy in general is something I cannot really take all that seriously. Rene Descartes (who is who we're starting with bc he's like important or whatever) sounds like someone who would not be fun at parties. At all. He was just obsessed with math. I don't want that at my party. Maybe it's my staunch anti-pretension talking, but I just. Granted, it hasn't been...

So, the project I'm currently working on has a history of just depressing the hell out of me. It's the one I'm doing that's kinda sorta WM3-based, and so naturally the research depressed the hell out of me, the writing of the first draft depressed the hell out of me, but I thought that maybe, piecing together the two versions of the first draft wouldn't, at least not as much. Because it's pretty much just an art project at this point. Seriously, the past two days have seen me hunched over on my floor well into the night gluing and (later, when my gluestick ran out) taping scraps of paper together. But it's like as soon as I stepped back into the world of this project, my chest hollowed out. You know? Where it's just empty inside. From part one. And part one's not even like, the really sad part. Maybe I've just been spoiled with my last first draft, the one I did over Christmas break, because even though that one did have some serious stuff, f...

So I'm re-reading The Stand right now, and as I'm reading the chapter where Nick meets Tom, I get to thinking--hey, aren't they remaking the movie? Wouldn't Timothee Chalamet be like, a really good Nick? So I got to thinking about other possibilities, because the only thing we know about this movie is  'it might be happening', so here, have my Stand remake fancast. Timothee Chalamet: Nick Andros This is a really far cry from Rob Lowe's Nick, but Chalamet is like, real close to the book description of Nick, and he seems... really hot right now. Like boy's in everything. I have seen none of his movies but I trust this little French-American boy.  Ross Lynch: Lloyd Henreid RIP Miguel Ferrer, you might not have really been what the book described Lloyd as, but your "what the fuck have I gotten myself into" expressions really, really made your performance in the original miniseries the best thing in the world. But Ross Lynch is pret...

So, it's 2019. There are a few questions to ask. What did I do last year? I started this blog, and posting regularly. While this isn't like anything very many people read (I average ~20 views a post, hollaaaaaaaa), I do like it, and I think it's a way for people do kind of understand my voice if they're curious on whether I can actually write or not. I mean, this is different from my fiction, but, well, I mention I write in my videos, now you can decide whether I'm kidding myself or not. Speaking of writing, this year's projects were... a novella for class, a first draft, a first draft that I abandoned (i'm sorry i still really like this idea maybe some other time), a decision that I Need To Rewrite The Pet Project Again, a first draft, a revision of what I'm currently calling my best work but I'm looking at another round of revision this coming year, a first draft, a rewrite that taught me yeah I can't do fantasy, and a NaNoWriMo that cons...