A Foolish Figure

Hello all! 
 

This is me now: 

 

(A better view of this incredibly accurate comic:  http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=124)

Thirteen years ago, I was a little girl with delusions of grandeur.  I believed I would one day become a famous author, like my heroes, Charles Dickens, Homer, Jules Verne, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Horatio Alger, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and...well...I could go on for an awfully long time. 

Doesn't that make me sound jaded?  

Well, I'm not really!  :-)  I absolutely love being a PhD student, a teacher of college age students for the first time in my life, a proud dog owner, (Yes, that absurd quadruped is indeed mine.) a proud owner of slightly less absurd chinchillas (and you know it's bad when the rodents are less absurd than the canine), and a re-inspired writer of fiction--fan-fiction, to be exact, but as I do not expect ever to be a published writer of fiction anymore, I am willing to embrace it. 

So, back to the me-thirteen-years-ago.  About thirteen years ago, I made my first foray into creative writing.  I had a red, Stockwell office products, one subject, wide ruled Notebook.   The cover claims 8" X 10.5" and 70 sheets to itself.  I am willing to allow the inches, but there cannot be more than twenty-five pages in it. 

For your general amusement, I will reproduce the writing on the cover as closely as possible, given the fact that it is handwritten and that I am not going to share my name here:

 

Literature  S------- B--------- 
[editor's note--this may explain the page shortage.  little sisters are convenient scapegoats]

K----------'s 
Poems

The Poem's
[editor's note---GAH!  10 year old me was very confused about apostrophes...obviously]
of a
Girl

by
K---------
E------
B---------

Inside the front cover of this wonderful notebook was 1. My address...including THE COUNTRY.  Because, you never know when your wide ruled notebook may be stolen away and smuggled over the border.  DUH!  And then the following inscription:

All the Poems in this
Book were written
by the K------- mentioned
above

Yeah.  It really does say that.  I have no excuse. 

And we're just getting to the good part.  Oh yes indeed!

The poems in this illustrious tome are as follows:

Galadriel

My rabbit's named Galadriel
She used to live in field and dell

In the woods she'd bounce and leap
And in the underbrush she'd creep [editor's note:  it has never been established that Galadriel ever enjoyed this primitive naturalistic existence.  There is some evidence that the fuzzy lop was actually born in captivity...but you never know.  I think I saw a few fuzzy lops running around wild yesterday...]

Once as in the grass she lay
I found her and she's mine today.

[editor's note:  the following was added in pencil two years later:]
She died and was laid in the grave
She, who we in mem'ry do save
[*snif*]

Estella

Her curls are flaxen  [editor's note:  Estella had pitch black hair]
Her eyes are blue
She stands at height
Of one foot two

She wears her dress
Without a trace
Of wrinkles in
Its shining grace

She stands regally
Like a queen
She is neither too fat
Or too lean  [editor's note:  there is an (N)  in parentheses before the "Or" but it is clearly a late interpolation]

She is my beauteous
Porcelain doll as she
Stands upon her
Dressy knoll  [editor's note:  don't ask...]

Creation

In our week there are seven days
I'll tell you why it's so
It took God seven days to make
The world that now we know

[editor's note:  ten years ago me was apparently allergic to punctuation]

On the first day God made the dark
And severed it from light
These first two things that God did make
Were much like day and night

On the second day God made the waters
And moved them from the sky
The water would be used to drink
And air for birds to fly

On the third day God told the sea
To separate for land
He told the earth to bring forth grass
And every flow'ring plant

On the fourth day God made the sun for day
And the moon to rule the night
He set the stars up in the sky
To help the moon make light

On the fifth day God made the fish
And all the birds that fly
He put the fish into the sea
And birds into the sky

On the sixth day God made the beasts
And all the creeping things
He then made man to rule them all
Even the ones with wings

On the seventh day since all was done
God used this day to rest
He said "It all is good but man
In my Image is best"


Grown

Sometimes I think about
What i'll be like when I'm grown up
I'll be real good, I'll never pout
I'll act like a lady, not a pup
And then I'll think about a job
I'll do something great
And not be married to just any Dick, Harry, or Bob 
But, as I contemplate I think I'd rather live in peace and quied [editor's note--I don't think that 'd" was intentional...but you never can tell with these things]
And my fate would be to do nothing greater than keeping my kids from starting a riot 
But anyway  I'm still quite liddle 
So I'll wait till the day 
When I can answer this riddle

[Possibly the most scary thing about reading this old notebook:  My handwriting still looks EXACTLY THE SAME.  Life is hard...]

Yes, folks.  I did write those ridiculous things before I was thirteen.  I promise that if you read my livejournal anymore you will not be subjected to anything qute so...whatever that stuff is!  Though a few works will come close. 

But that brings me to this livejournal, and the whole point of this post.  I have a blog--"In Western Lands"--in which I ramble about randomness from time to time, and in which I'm planning to begin rambling on about the books I read (nothing as formal as book reviews) which anyone can read.  I have a personal blog about my life, but, no offence to you lovely livejournalers, I prefer to keep my whereabouts a little teeny bit private.  At least, I want to know the acutal legal name of a person before I give away my name and school and home address and favorite discontinued ice cream flavor.  :-)  I did not want my livejournal to be either one of those things, so I have decided to make it the home to my creative writing from the beginning until today.  And, since I have kept everything I've written since "The Poem's of a Girl"  [GAK!--for form AND content!] I have decided to post a work every day or so, whenever I feel like laughing at myself, going in chronological order.  

So, tune in next time for...

"Tommy Holmes, Cabin Boy" a rollicking adventure on the high seas, or a pastiche of Kidnapped and Treasure Island, depending on your perspective.   (But we'll be nice to 12 year old me [I have things dated from this story on], since it was my first attempt at fiction.)


Ooh!  I just remembered two older works:  When I was six or seven I composed the following two songs

Squirrels:  "Squirrels run up and down the tree.  Chatter, Chatter, Chatter.  Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! All.  Day.  Long"  
                    C        D    E    F      G-F E-D C         C            C          C           f/G        f/G          f/G       G     E        C

Bunnies:  "Bunnies,  Bunnies on their way.  Bunnies, Bunnies in the hay.  I just like them any way."
               C    E       E     C    D    B     C         E    G     G     E    F  D    E     C  D   E       D     C B  C

When I played and sang these masterpieces for my piano teacher, she noted that they had no key signature.  And I never composed again.  Well...until counterpoint class my senior year as an undergraduate...but that hardly counts.  Way to stifle budding genius, Mrs. B-------!  My ridiculous fluffball is disgusted with you.  [well...maybe he's disgusted with me for brushing him and fluffing him up like that...but there is no way to prove it]