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Let's give this another try

It appears that rather than updating on a weekly basis, as I had hoped to do, I in fact update on a nearly monthly basis. Heh...sorry 'bout that.

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I have recently discovered that while I love writing, I hate English and no longer wish to major in it. This is kind of a big step for me, not so much because of the decision to change my major, but because of what I have decided to change it to: Linguistics. 

I have pondered the idea of pursuing a Linguistics degree before, however I was always deterred because the general ed. requirements for any Linguistics program include much more math than any English program. I hate math. But I have come to discover that I hate English just as much, which is weird but true.

The thing is, I hate math because I've always had trouble with it and it's not something I enjoy in the least. I find it boring and not all that useful and really very confusing most of the time. On the other hand, I have come to hate English because it can never be nailed down to one correct answer and instead of using that to make it a broad and variable subject that includes diverse approaches and so forth, most English teachers take this as license to define the Rules of English by their own preferences and that is bad and also very annoying for anyone who holds a different opinion (me).

So anyway, this may not last, but for right now, the official major is linguistics. As if anyone cared.

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Speaking of linguistics, I know I mentioned that I wanted to think of a name for my "other" room, where my computers and paperback books live.  Well, no time like the present, and since I am currently playing hooky from choir practice on the pretext of nursing a sore throat, I will give this another try and hope that this entry does not do a downward spiral into angst and depressing memories like the last one.

We have on occasion referred to this space as the "computer room" for the obvious reason that it contains our computers. This, however, strikes me as an unfitting title for a place that also contains so many books and so much paper. "Computer room" does not take into account the row of little plastic motorcycles on one of the bookshelves or my geode collection on another. "Computer room" sounds so utilitarian, like a white-and-grey tiled space with rows of desks, each with its keyboard placed at the angle that management has deemed efficient. It certainly doesn't sound like a place where comic-book collections are housed, where cards and pens and scraps of paper are piled on every surface, and where overweight tortoiseshell cats may sleep half on top of old-fashioned typewriters, making several of the hammers stand vertical. 

Likewise the word "library," while accounting for all the books and perhaps the round felines, does not leave much room for a vice, pliers, wire cutters, boxes of beads and enough copper wire to construct necklaces for the entire female populace of California and Nevada. It does not seem to include the pile of glasses and cereal bowls fighting for space with the papers on my desk and the box of wheat thins sitting open behind my keyboard. "Library" is an orderly, quiet word which requires a certain stuffy, uninterrupted quality to the air. It wants the soft glow of leather covers and the dusty-sweet smell of old, very-slightly-moldy paper. All the leather-covered books are out in the front room, where they can be easily seen and make me look well-read. All the books here are paperback fantasy epics and dime-store sci-fi adventures. No library here.

Bill tried calling this room the "office" a couple of times when we first moved into it after the Captain left. He stopped fairly quickly, perhaps because I never repeated it, perhaps because he too realized how unfitting the term was. "Office" has a connotation of industry, of things getting done, of memos being written. If this were an office, I would be compelled to do something worthwhile in here. At the very least I would have to use the desk for homework and the kitchen table for breakfast and not the other way 'round as is my wont. Besides, no room with action figures posing on shelves and hanging on the walls can be an office, especially if said room also contains "lie flat to dry" laundry on the free chair and a Spiderman trash can. 

Then there's always "studio" which none of us have ever applied to this room because it would be simply too absurd. True, a studio is where an artist performs his or her art most of the time, and by that definition this is technically the closest thing I have to a studio, since when I actually sit down and write, I usually do it here. However, "studio" makes me think of large, open rooms with many windows and maybe the odd sheer curtain, filled with easels and lights and flower arrangements, not to mention youngish, well-groomed men with vaguely continental accents saying "Velcome to my Styoodeeyoh!" with perhaps a graceful wave of a hand in the direction of the current work-in-progress. This connotation is all wrong when applied to the place where two geeks do geeky things on their computers, one occasionally drawing the attention of the other to some new wonder of geekdom, while unholy disco remixes of the theme from Legend of Zelda play in the background (curse you, OC Remix!).

My Dad's room like this used to be called the "study" before he changed it into a chapel and hung a cross with a traumatizingly realistic corpus Christi in it. I find it disturbing that he makes his visitors sleep in that room with the crucifix hanging over them, and can only hope that he takes it down when he has overnight guests. It has become known as "The Scary Jesus" among us children, and is only marginally to be preferred over the crucifix at church because the church's Jesus looks stoned and is making the peace "V" with both hands.

Anyway, my father's slightly odd decorative preferences (hi Dad! *waves*) should probably be saved for another entry altogether. So getting back to what I was saying before I wandered off topic: study doesn't really work for this room either because studies are quiet and used for reading and profound contemplation, the latter sometimes accompanied by snoring. Both activities are highly difficult to perform in this room because if the sound of Bill playing X-quest does not disturb your concentration, his exclamations when he wins or loses each level certainly will. Also see previous comments about remixed Nintendo game music, which is even less conducive to contemplation than it is to "art". On top of which, this room contains no big, comfy overstuffed chairs, and in order to qualify as a study, I think a room should have at least one of these.

So it's just the "other room," defined only by the fact that it is not the bedroom, front room or bathroom. This seems unfair, as all the other rooms have some kind of title, even if they aren't very imaginative. Still, maybe it likes being mysterious. Possibly it revels in the fact that it is undefined and can therefore play so many roles. It is conceivable that being an unknown gives it a pleasant sense of daring, defying all attempts to fit it into a single function.

More likely it wishes we would vacuum more often, and occasionally dust, but ah well.