The Sanity of Lucas

My brain's going to fall out. I've been working on a Spanish project due Monday, for three hours maybe. I'm about .0025% done. How in Hell am I going to finish it?

Watched Anchorman...didn't really think it was that funny. And I noticed that the part from the commercial where he runs into the open drawer and yells "Ron Burgundy is DOWN!" happens to be missing from the film. Don't you hate that? Also the part where he's drinking and smoking on air is only just part of a video montage in the beginning credits. I feel cheated.

That reminds me of a dream I had a few nights ago. The third and last Star Wars had come out, and I'd gone to see it. The whole movie was two guys fighting with badly-rendered lightsabers. It gave me a sick feeling to watch, and then when it was done I remember thinking, "Hey, that wasn't Star Wars. There were no characters!" So (for some reason) George Lucas also happened to be there watching the movie. I went up to him and told him the movie sucked and that it was his fault. But I'm sure he was insane. It was on my shoulders to redo the last episode in the sextology, and I took the task on happily (already knowing what had to go in the movie.) Then I woke up. What a weird dream.

I apologize for that.

Same Old, Same Old

Got the exact same score for the third meet in a row. That's 177.25, and I had different dives in every meet. Is that even possible? I got a 7 today, and threw my two and a half. Unfortunately my feet were half off the end of the board and I smacked. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

I finished the life-sized clay fist in art today. I think it looks pretty sweet.

Oh yeah. Art is the class I left Journalism for. So far I have NO complaints. NONE.

And Saginaw High had ZERO divers.

ZERO

A Man

I drove to Lansing to see my friends at MSU and then drove to Ann Arbor to visit my sister. It was all very enjoyable, and my parents are now more trusting of my ability to do more grown up things (it's not like I'm 18 or anything, you know). My father said to my mother, "We're making a man this weekend."

Ok. So there's a problem I'm having. I can't decide what to work on. I want to do some sort of claymation project, but I also want to draw, and I also want to write, and I also want to make a short film.

If I spread them out I could do all of them, but if I try to do them all at the same time, I won't be able to do any of them. But I'm too impatient. I'll work on one for a while then switch to another one then switch again. And none of them will be finished. Ever.

Also, I'm getting over my fear of diving. Good For Me.

Won

I won diving yesterday; Nick was at MISCA's and I broke my previous high score. Only one more dual meet until I qualify for Regionals.

Pretty soon I'm going to start a seperate blog for my stories. I need somewhere to archive them all. Then you can read them.

Still no one's signed up for Beta Reading. I wonder if that means no one comes here, or that I'm a bad writer.

Well then. To the Excerpt:

When he leaned in close, she told him he was too fat. There’s no way he’d be given this job, not when fitness was one of the necessities. She looked into his eyes and could feel she’d done it. It was all just a psychological trick. Tell them they’re not good enough for some reason or another, and for just those ten minutes they’d believe it. They’d take that identity into the back room and it would destroy them.

“You’re too old,” she had said on many occasions.

“You have bad hygiene,” was a favorite.

“You’re not tall enough.”

“You’re too nice.”

All of these were meant to cast doubt. The hopefuls were here for a job; they’d waited a long time. And just before showtime, she’d psychologically sabotage them. The simple truth was that she just really didn’t want any of them to get the job.

Beta Readers Needed

I closed down my novel blog yesterday, since it's starting to embarrass me. I don't like people being able to read my rough, unedited writing whenever they want. Besides, it's not like I even had all the chapters up.

So here's what I'm doing. The second draft of the novel is expected to be finished sometime early this summer. If you'd like to read it and give me your honest impression/critique, you can comment on this post and include your e-mail. I will send you updates as to where I am in the rewriting process, and eventually the second draft (all of it) in your e-mail.

If you don't care to, look for my book on shelves sometime in the Spring of 2007.

Also, you can sign up by e-mailing me at adamholwerda@hotmail.com if you'd like your contact information to remain confidential.

Thank you
Adam

Deferred

Today is not such a good day. My friends are all mad at each other, and one of them quit the dive team. (Come back, we NEED you!)

I come home and here's this little white envelope from U of M. (Oh great, I think...) I open it up and it says "Thank you for your interest..."

I got deferred from U of M, and they haven't even seen this semester's grades. (Which are all Bs and two C plusses) Once they get those, there's no way I'm getting in.

If you know me, you know how badly I wanted to get into the University of Michigan, and now that I'm put in limbo for another two months -they make decisions by April - I just feel nauseous. I think I'll take a nap.

No Can Dive...

I stayed home from competition today...if I had gone I probably would have qualified for Regionals, but who knows? I still have Valleys, and the rest of the season.

I'm still sick. Now my ears are getting in on the action, making me deaf and adding to my pain.

I don't have any other news...I'm going back to bed.

Groundhog Day

I'm going to wake up tomorrow and it'll be Groundhog Day again.

Okay, maybe not, but I'm still mighty sick. Sore throat, stuffed nose, clogged ears, phlegmmy coughs. I feel miserable. I can't even play San Andreas it's so bad.

I don't have much to say, just that I think it would be good to have some more holy santos.....

Also, if you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true.

Excerpt from "Brian's Elephant"

One night his brother was in a rage. He awoke Brian out of a cold slumber and, pulling him out of bed and pounding his face into the floor, broke his nose.
“You told,” he said.
Blood siphoned onto the floor and his brother stood there idly wringing his hands until the spreading liquid reached toward his feet. Then he was off, padding back into his room as if nothing had happened. Brian lay there fishlike, his mouth opening and closing in mixed disbelief and pain. Finally a choked, miserable sound came from him and after a while his mother walked in. She was wearing her nightgown, and seemed groggily unaware of what had happened. When she turned on the light and saw the blood; saw the way the carpet seemed to glisten wetly with new color, she looked rather like a fish as well. Her eyes grew large and began darting around, as if every alarm inside here head had gone off and she just didn’t know what to do. Brian’s moaning grew louder as he watched, holding his nose and feeling the sticky warm fluid gush through his fingers. Then his mother, finally getting the message that her son needed help, dropped to her knees and reached for him, saying, “My God Brian, you’re bleeding!” The boy moaned louder, and his mother scooted closer, but outside the immediate radius of the saturated area. The situation was (or could have been) dire, but Brian’s mother wasn’t going to stain her nightgown if she didn’t have to.
The next day the elephant had designs all over it. Brian sat looking at it, and it swished its tail indifferently. The hospital had kept him long enough to clean him up and fit him with a nose cast, but fortunately the break was not complete; once healed, there would be no way to notice that it had been broken in the first place. His parents, in the waiting room, had asked him over and over how it had happened. Brian told them he’d fallen out of bed. They frowned, as it was his fault they’d had to get out of bed in the middle of the night and go to the hospital. He could not tell them the truth; that it had been Tony who had done it, not Brian. He knew his brother would not talk to him if he told, brothers did not betray each other. And they did not break oaths.
The designs on the elephant’s skin were akin to a maze. They were square, with corners and long paths that would take sudden turns and fold into other ones. The designs were deeply embedded into the elephant’s skin, and at the very bottom of them were shiny silvery particles, like in the ocean at dawn. Every time the elephant moved, the designs shimmered. Brian found them very entrancing and at the same time the sparkles made him feel sick to his stomach.