So we’ve been up since 2am. Matt’s boss asked him to work European hours because the Italian project he is on was having a bit of trouble and he would come online just as the Italians were going offline. As wife and cheerleader (as well as the unemployed half of the couple) I didn’t think it was very fair that he get up at 2am while I stay snug in bed, the unemployed slacker (aka the deadbeat). So I’m getting up with him.

A few things of note have happened:

I got the first two volumes of Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God books. I read just a few of the first paragraphs of the first book and I noticed something about myself. It felt really nice to be reading scholarly nonfiction again and to be dealing with big words and complex sentences. It felt like I was dusting off the old brain and starting her up again. I’ve been reading mainly fiction (Lord of the Rings) and nonfiction, but the nonfiction has been gardening books. Gardening books don’t really stretch the brain. “Plant the seed at this time at this depth. After the seed germinates and gets its first set of real leaves, it will need fertilizing with fish emulsion at half strength every week for three weeks.” Important information but not a real mind-bender.

While purchasing the respectable Campbell books, I also got…… “Tarot for Dummies.” Yes, you heard that right “Tarot for Dummies.” And it is set up exactly like a Dummies book. It’s so funny. This is supposed to be arcane knowledge that deals with otherwordly psychic powers, and it’s in Dummies format.

Carla and I want to have interactive games on our website and we thought we would write a little program that reads your tarot cards. It seems like a simple enough concept. Randomly choose the cards and, with if/then statements, display the appropriate message. But it turns out that there are a TON of sites that do this little game. But that’s okay… we’re going to write our little program anyway.

The reason I got the Campbell books is that I have to set up the “religion” of the witches and wizards and dragonriders etc etc. I thought I would make both the witches and wizards wise, but the witches deal with mother earth, nurturing, plants, herbs– that sort of sisterhood and motherhood. And the wizards sect would teach about power in an Eastern religious sort of way. Hmmm…. I’m going to have to come up with better wording than things like “sort of way.” 🙂 Anyways, these “teachings” already exist, but I don’t know much about them. So the research begins. 🙂

A couple more things about the Tarot book. It was in the New Age section at Barnes & Noble, and, both while I was looking at the books in that section and while I was checking out at the cashier, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed whenever someone would pass me in that section and would stand perfectly still until they passed, relaxing after they were gone. My chosen group of friends and my family all ridicule, often in a very base manner, all forms of fortune-telling. Astrology, tarot, tea-leaves, palm-reading. Now, I agree with my family in that I don’t think any of these things will tell the future, but I was soooo embarrassed to be seen with a tarot book. I was one of those people that we all make fun of.

Another observation whilst in the New Age section of Barnes & Noble: the witch books section is big. All the other New Age topics– crystals, animal spirits, Indian shamans, I-Ching– they only got a book here and there or a shelf at most. The witches get an entire bookshelf (about 5 shelves). Witchcraft is popular. And there were a couple of books concerning the topic of being a teenage witch. All those books had the same anachronistic quality that the Dummies tarot book did. For example, they had the famous “Book of Shadows” (several copies) as a paperback with a modern cover. However, whenever you see The Book of Shadows in a movie, it’s always this huge dusty tome with everything written in calligraphy, not typeset. I think the next movie should have the witch getting her books from Barnes & Noble, not handed down from her great great grandmother in an old wooden box.

Okay, final observation: my 12-year-old cousin wrote a fantasy story. We’re probably going to post it on our Wizard Moon site. You can find it at: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=610132 Now, here’s the observation… actually there’s a couple of observations. First observation: At the age of 12, she already has the language of stories understood. In fact, she understands it so well that she can create her own story using the language and format that we have developed as a population (Americans). She can mimic children’s books of that genre so well that I think, with a little editting, she could be an author of children’s books or of major studio motion pictures.

And I thought writing books was hard.

I did an interview with Sam Hurt once and he said that one of the reasons that he enjoyed teaching children more than teaching adults is that children don’t have their self-editors working in high-speed yet. Adults edit everything we create to the point where it’s hard to create. Children let things come forth without inhibition or self-editting.

I’ve tried to turn that editor off and I can’t. Try it. Try to draw a cartoon or write a short essay without constant self-editting. It’s really hard. As adults, we are crippled by a lifetime of judging other people and worrying about how others will judge us and what we create. (Or at least that’s my theory.) I think it’s a handicap that you can overcome, but I don’t think it’s easy to overcome. At least, I haven’t overcome it yet. 🙂

Second observation: Kels uses Japanese names a lot. I love anime and manga, have studied the Japanese language and culture, and have named my dog with a Japanese name. (Niko which is hard to explain. Niko niko suru means to be smiley. In manga, when a character is all smiley and happy, they write the word niko a couple of times around them.) But Japanese cartoons are all the rage right now. Take a look at Cartoon Network and count how many of the shows they air that are Japanese. Or even Saturday morning on the four major networks– lots of Japanese cartoons. And they use the fact that they are Japanese as a marketing selling point. Japanese stuff is hot right now. I don’t think I was the only influence in her young life that led her down the anime road.

Her story follows all the elements of a children’s fantasy book with mainly fantasy names that follow Western phonetics, except for the occasional Japanese name. I just find that interesting.

Boy, do I overanalyze or what?! C’mon, throw something at me. I’ll disect it, add a couple of fancy words, and give it back to you– broken apart and labeled for easy consumption. Omigod! And I’m about to read Joseph Campbell books! You think I overanalyze now….

Oh, last observation: on the site where Kels posted her story there were thousands of stories posted. Writing and telling stories I think is a human trait, not a personal trait.

Hmmm… it’s now almost 4am. The day is about to start.