Get thee behind me, yoghurt

Stupid yoghurt brands that are pretending to be like the brand I like but taste HORRIBLE. But no more! I have vanquished the last of the yucky yoghurts.

I admire Inigo Montoya.

I mean, you spend all kinds of time thinking up a line to say to your enemy (or friend, whatever), and then you get the perfect moment to say it…and then you say it. And either it works, and you feel good; or it works, but you somehow feel hollow; or it doesn’t work, and you feel stupid. Inigo actually had his enemy fleeing in terror after his line (cutting the guy’s men to ribbons first didn’t hurt).

Usually, that would be the end of it. But not for Inigo. He said his line again. (Why waste all the effort of thinking it up on something you’ll only say once?) And then again. And kept saying it…and it continued to work.

Bravo, Inigo. I have considered you a hero since my childhood. (Though I can’t say I approve of revenge in general…if I were to go on a revenge quest, I hope it would be as perfectly conceived and executed as yours.)

Oh, Muut! Muut!

How could you?!

Even if it was the “rules”–I bet you didn’t even warn her, explain it, give her time to prepare!

Traditional Fantasy Quests Mirror Reality

I’ve heard it many times: fantasy is escapism. There’s not a hint of reality. Blah blah blah. Some people acknowledge some fantasy as reflecting reality, but say that the older fantasy style (quests,etc.) need not apply.

But you know what? I think that the traditional quest–with no apparent logic, arbitrary rules, and no real human reasons–is a perfect reflection of reality. (I’m not saying it makes good fiction–that’s another bowl of fruit.)  I mean, that’s what we do all day, every day. (Maybe me more than some, lodged now in corporate america…) There are mysterious, 1-dimensional figures–often you never meet them, you just get their voices floating to you with instructions, or cryptic messages in your e-mail–who “guide” you, and you must follow the apparently arbitrary guidelines to the letter, or face catastrophic consequences. There is strange importance placed on seemingly worthless items (that may or may not be “real”) for no apparent reason (Purchase orders, vouchers, anyone? Bluetooth headsets for desk phones? Post-its? Business cards? The last cup of coffee in the office pot?). There are processes that occur with no explanation and seem to affect the protagonist with no link to said protagonist, totally twisting the quest from its original path, no foreshadowing. And all along you have the lurking suspicion that at the end of the chain (I have to go after annoying details because someone is asking me for them, but that someone is only doing it because someone else is asking him/her, etc…) is Satan. (Okay, maybe that last one isn’t a traditional fantasy staple, but maybe it ought to be…)

Overextended

I am so overextended I have actually downloaded some to-do-listish organizey software in order to try to help me cope :’(. 40 hours a week of work-work; not-enough hours a week of my full-time master’s program; trying to (oops, not really supposed to talk about that, I suspect) do something very time-consuming in my spare time; no time to play guitar; I feel really guilty when I read; I have been falling off the fitness wagon and simultaneously telling myself it’s okay to comfort myself with whatever food I want at any given moment because after all, I’m working so hard; dealing with all of my car issues; trying to fit in some meditation so I don’t actually go bonkers; cooking scarborough fair shortbread (which I first saw at a million words and have been wanting to make–though I forgot what Carolyn said about the square pan and when mine didn’t go into rounds nicely, I modified the recipe a bit so that it would) and brownies for my co-workers because they always buy me lunch and never let me buy them lunch and it bothers me (this is not just one co-worker–the whole freaking office seems to have taken on the “feed Meghan up” duty); picking people up at airports; running countless errands; putting together packages to send to Jessie; trying to get enough sleeeeeeeeeeep…I am soooo overextended.