GIP. my new dark tower icon, made by fetalcoffin for i_contest

[timepiececlock]

I've been trying to figure out how to add another text box component to my LJ layout, and failing miserably. I used to understand how to do it, but I've forgotten. For now I just changed the layout, and moved the text box to the top with the sonnet I wrote a month ago for one of my classes. I also added some new sites to my links box and changed the title to "doors on a beach" because I'm rereading Wizard and Glass while waiting for my mom to read Wolves of the Calla, and all of this is putting me in a very Stephen King mood.

I'm also listening to "The Legionnaire's Lament" by The Decemberists, a song I downloaded from saava a while ago. I didn't think much of it when I first downloaded it, but damned if it doesn't really grow on you. I think I quite love it now. Any other good songs by this group?


I'm a legionnaire
Camel in disrepair
hoping for a frigidaire to come passing by
I am on reprieve
lacking my joie de vive
missing my gay paris
in this desert dry

And I wrote my girl
told her I would not return
terribly taken a turn
for the worse now I fear

Its been a year or more
since they shipped me to this foreign shore
fighting in a foreign war
so far away from my home

If only summer rain would fall
on the houses and the boulevards
and the side walk bagatelles it's like a dream
with the roar of cars
and the lulling of the cafe bars,
the sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine.
Lord I don't know if I'll ever be back again.

la la la la dam
la la la low

Medicating in the sun
pinched doses of laudanum
longing for the old fecundity of my homeland
Curses to this mirage!
A bottle of ancient Chiraz
a smattering of distant applause
is ringing in my poor ears

On the old left bank
my baby in a charabanc
riding up the width and length
of the Champs Elysees

If only summer rain would fall
on the houses and the boulevard
and the side walk bagatelles it's like a dream
with the roar of cars
and the lulling of the cafe bars
the sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord I don't know if I'll ever be back again

If only summer rain would fall
on the houses and the boulevard
and the side walk bagatelles its like a dream
with the roar of cars
and the lulling of the cafe bars
the sweetly sleeping sweeping of the Seine
Lord I don't know if I'll ever be back again...

be back again,
be back again,
I'll be back again

------


And now here's a poll to satisfy my curiosity-- curiousity?-- whatever:

[Poll #227384]


I ask because I realize that I say things now that I never used to say 3 years ago. For example-- "I think I quite love it now." I said that earlier in this entry. I would never have said that 3 years ago.

I started using new words in my internet typing when I got into anime, but I never incorporated that into my daily speech-- mostly because they were random japanese words that no one but my anime friends would know, and most of which I couldn't pronounce accurately anyway, so I didn't dare try to use them in conversation with a Japanese-speaking person.

Since starting in on Buffy fandom, though, my syntax has changed a lot. I'm not sure why. Some of it I *know* I got from Buffy. I sometimes do that thing of turning ajectives into nouns ("a happy"), or turning or turning verbs into nouns ("spillage", "wiggage"), but not that often. That doesn't account for everything. Mostly I end up insterting words like "rather," "quite," into my sentences for no intention-practical reason at all, and using phrases like "not so much, no," or "what not."

Also, I've say "hella" a lot less than I used to. Now I only use it in conjunction with certain contexts, instead of as an all-purpose synonym for "very" and so forth. --- See, that's it again: I never used to say "so forth" either.

Comments

[evemac.livejournal.com]

Mostly I end up insterting words like "rather," "quite," into my sentences for no intention-practical reason at all, and using phrases like "not so much, no," or "what not."

You too? I have over-used 'rather' and 'quite' ever since I started being a fandom-girl, and now it seems to have bled into my speech. Though I have always been mocked for saying 'proper' things like, "Oh, that would be lovely!"

And words like 'so forth' as well -- really, I think it's because we subconsciously try to vary our vocabulary and speech patterns when we're in a world in which people's judgements of us are based on how we type. Or at least that's what I've come to realize about myself.

It took me a while to realize 'hella' originated in the Bay Area -- I thought everyone used it until a friend from Chicago had no idea what I was saying. And then afterwards, Gwen Stefani spread it around the entire universe with Hella Good so now *everyone* knows it. But I don't think I say it too much anymore. I'll ask my sister, she would notice it more than I would.

I fell in love with The Decemberists because of Here I Dreamt I was an Architect, but my current favorite is California One/Youth And Beauty Brigade. I think you'd really enjoy all of their music, it's very early-90s alterna-folk.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I have over-used 'rather' and 'quite' ever since I started being a fandom-girl, and now it seems to have bled into my speech.

I'm glad I'm not alone! It seems a weird trait to pick up... and I wonder if there's any direct relation to the geographical/cultural positions of the particular groups of friends that we talk to the most from fandom... Could I be picking up speech habbits from south east coast fans, whereas some other fan is picking up speech from new york fans?

It took me a while to realize 'hella' originated in the Bay Area -- I thought everyone used it until a friend from Chicago had no idea what I was saying.

I know! It took me until 10th grade, when my 23 year old (and cute) World History Honors student teacher used that world as an example for something about culture or something... I remember he said how when he came "up here from LA" he couldn't figure out what "hella" meant. I remember being shocked.

Gwen Stefani spread it around the entire universe with Hella Good so now *everyone* knows it.

I know! And now I wonder... do the people who hear it on the radio know how to use it properly from just that one line? I read somewhere that G.S. heard it used in a club in S.F. and desided to use it in a song. I used to use it constantly though. I also wonder... if I am talking to someone from another state, and I say "hella," are they going to assume that I'm only using it because it was in the song, and like them had never heard it before and am now some kind of poser?... Heh. Maybe I'm overanalysing this...

I do think "whatnot" might have been in my vocabulary already, because last year a boy in one of my classes from some Eastern state comented that people around here "say things like 'whatnot' a more." But that might have been because he'd just heard me say it.

[evemac.livejournal.com]

I think whatnot is especially big in Berkeley, I went to a camp for a few summers where almost *EVERYONE* was from Berkeley and that was what hooked me on whatnot.

I've picked up "y'all" from the southerners on LJ, but it's mostly because there's no proper word for a plural you.

I've had a conversation that led something like this:

Me: blahblah hella people at the party blahblah
Person from out of state: Hella? You mean like that No Doubt song?
Me: No, I mean hella, as in 'a lot.' It started HERE, I swear!

Regional speech things are funny.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Me: No, I mean hella, as in 'a lot.'

::giggle:: Poor evemac.... luckily I haven't had that conversation yet, but I'm sure I will someday.

[onetwomany.livejournal.com]

I'm a pretty ocker Aussie when I speak, but typing that into LJ would just confuse folks or make me look really pretentious. Greetin’ Lj types with ‘g’day?’ I don’t think so. Ditto to other stuff, like saying ‘cool as’ without offering an actual comparison, or sticking the ‘but’ on the end of the sentence, or referring to ‘me car’ rather then ‘my car’. Slips through occasionally, but for the most part I try to avoid it. Other than the big difference is the lack of ‘wheee’ and ‘lol’ in my everyday speech – that just sounds silly out loud ;-) But an awful lot of the other phrases I use on LJ has crept into my every day life. "Not so much" especially - that's really contagious, as is the noun-making. It's kinda scary how much I have adopted actually. Ah well, at least my speech is different.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

saying ‘cool as’ without offering an actual comparison

That probably would confuse me. I'd be asking you "as what?-- C'mon, as what? But you didn't finish your sentence!"


the lack of ‘wheee’ and ‘lol’ in my everyday speech – that just sounds silly out loud

I admit, I don't "squee" or "wheee" out loud. Though if everyone did, I'm sure the world would be happier.

[lin-lin-lucy.livejournal.com]

*giggles* sara is funny....

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

::bows:: why thank you!

And merry christmas and happy new year!

[lin-lin-lucy.livejournal.com]

you too! are you ready for school?!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

somewhat. I'm feeling a bit sick, actually.

[lin-lin-lucy.livejournal.com]

really?...that sucks....