haha...I'm laughing at what I titled this post...though you can't see it because Yours Truly doesn't know the code, so I'll tell you, I randomly typed "wotcher!" into the title blank...I'm still not entirely sure what it means except maybe "hey! [look out?]!"

I have a Chocolate Tofu Mousse Pie chilling in the fridge currently...so delicious!! I was going to make it for Mom's birthday, but...instead of buying chocolate chips she bought carob chips! ew! Carob should be illegal - so nasty, and to be propagated as an alternative to chocolate! What treason!

My book reading list is growing expontentially! Just a few selected titles from the masses:

A Tale of Two Cities (a reread, I didn't get it the first time)

--Charles Dickens

The Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy (series??)

--whoever wrote, Adams or somesuch.

The Republic

--Plato

--CS Lewis

The Foundation Trilogy (restart)

I, Robot (and ensuing series)

--Isaac Asimov

Cicero's writings...

--Roald Dahl

--George Orwell

--John Steinbeck

--Plutarch

--Michka Assayas

Plus numerous others that I don't remember right now...oh! I finally found The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (by Howard Pyle) for sale at Borders! Alas, I had to purcahse a copy of Psychology Today for magazine analysis (that's due Thursday...ugh). I still have to get another magazine, or find another three page article in the same.

oooh! That gives me the chance to vent about Mrs. Corlee! ARGH! I like her, she's a very likable person, but she treats us as grammar school kids instead of sophomores (no the irony does not escape me..)! She won't consider arguments in things that are nearly entirely opinion like Applied Practice and the ambiguity in vocabulary words! We have to do formula writing, too, which isn't so bad. But she's like "I know some of you are stifled by [formula writing] but I don't care. This is what we teach on the sophomore level - it's our curriculum." (though she did teach us what those brackety things you see in quotes mean) And she said that if we ever take an essay test over a passage and we aren't given a specific topic that we should always start with diction. Of course, she's entitled to her opinion, but isn't it more logical to start with theme (especially if it is something you've read all the way through)?

Because thats what the whole thing is about - stories, essays, articles, whateva. They always have that question "Was this piece written to entertain, inform, or persuade?" well..a lot of the time its all three or two of the three! I think writers want to entertain you, but they also want to teach you through the story, not in a condescending manner (like a certain aforementioned English teacher) because they learned something valuable from the story.

I think it was Ray Bradbury who said something to the effect of 'writers don't write stories, the stories write themselves' Its certainly true with me, I know that the stories I get in my head don't originate in my thought, though they may travel through it. But this writer is afflicted with laziness and the stories never get told and only I enjoy them!

Oh yes, had to sit and think a moment...FALL HAS BEGUN! So happy...there's something about autumn that stirs my soul more than spring, summer, or winter (though late winter is luvverly). So many pivotal things have happened in autumn for me - my "rebirthday" is October 25th, November 5th is something much less pleasant to recall, How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb will be a year old at the end of November, this month (I believe) contains the day that U2 first gathered back in '76. It's so beautiful. Some people say fall is kinda like things dying; and winter death, but autumn more like getting ready for bed and winter is taking a restful sleep. All the trees give a last splurge of colour and gaiety, the grass yellows, the air has a crispness, the mornings are cold and the days mild. Night is clear and lengthens to rock us to rest.

Music and poetry come too! October being the title of both a haunting U2 song and lovely poem by Robert Frost! It has inspired me too, at times! It is a time for reading stories and telling tales and don't all great adventures start in autumn?

And do we even need to go into food? Hot soup and stew, pot pie, potatoes, apples, yams, squash, greens, corn, carrots, garlic, and onions! Hot chocolate, long sleeved shirts, chai, maybe this year I'll perfect pie making...mmmm. Summer won't let its furious grip loosen for a few days yet, but it is passing...

-George Eliot