Wednesday February 7, 2007

[Disclaimer:  I get soooooo frustrated by the way Xanga takes pictures with brilliant colors and dumbs them down into faded, cataracted, and depthless shots.  I promise you these pictures are much more vivid in real life!]

I went on an excursion last weekend, accompanied by my ever-lovely, fun and fascinating buddy Mari Ellen.  The destination was a tower on a hill nearby…and the purpose was photography.  You see, I’ve been trying to take photos of all the places featured in my upcoming novel in order to post them on my upcoming website, and this particular landmark is featured in one critical scene.

Of course, our trek might also have been vaguely motivated by Mr. Teacher Man (aka. Mr. Bryan) who saw me hanging out of my classroom window several days ago and suggested that if I let down my hair, à la Rapunzel, I might actually snag myself a man.  The few men we crossed as we walked toward our destination quickly put any of those fantasies to rest.

It was a beautiful winter day, chilly and clear, and though my latest attempt at a no-carbs, no-sugar diet made me so weak that I looked and sounded, to quote myself, “like an asthmatic heifer running a marathon”, we did reach our destination, and I did take the pictures I’d gone for.  (And in my weakened state, huffed and puffed and pretty darn near blew the tower down!)

Welcome to Sausenberg…a local site whose walls have probably witnessed WAY too many embarrassing (and probably reprehensible, illegal, and scandalous) BFA memories! 

It looks innocuous from the outside, but once you step into the darkness of the tower, it can become a bit treacherous.  I was grateful for the few, narrow windows that punctuated the darkness with welcome slivers of sun.

But the spiral staircase was beautiful…

The top of the tower provides a bird’s eye view of the ancient walls on the perimeter of the mountaintop.

I briefly thought of letting down my hair, like the tress-blessed Rapunzel, but I figured anyone able to reach my not-so-long locks would have to be roughly twenty meters tall, and that would make him just plain inconvenient for fun stuff like…you know…kissing.  For those of you who find yourselves gagging at the thought of a “teacher type” kissing, uh…get a life. 

  

How German is that countryside??  Gorgeous…

BUT on to more self-absorbed things!

It’s time for yet another informal census on potential titles.  Please pick your favorite three, in order of preference.  I’d love as many opinions as possible! 

1.  The Sameness Paradox

2.  Shards of Shell

3.  The Twoness of Birds

4.  Fragments of Birds

(Yeah, there’s a theme here!)

5.  The Mushroomness of Fear

Or offer any alternative ideas the above inspires!

I’ll be back shortly with some of the world’s WORST poetry written by some of BFA’s BEST poets…on purpose.  It’s worth checking back here in a few days!