Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

“I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.”

Edith Wharton was born in 1862 and passed away in 1937. Edith wrote many novels about New York during the turn of the century. She is also a Pulitzer prize winner for her book The Age of Innocence. Her novel Ethan Frome was published in 1911.The book Ethan Froom is set in an English city called starkfield. The novel follows a man visiting this city and he tells the reader story of Ethan Frome. Ethan Frome lives in starkfield and he has a mysterious air about him but nobody seems to want to talk about him. The main character trys to learn more about the man.I would read this book. It seems a lot like the great Gatsby. I am pretty curious what is so mysterious about this guy and why nobody wants to talk about him.

My Life Is My Lover But Don't Tell My Wife

Kermit the Frog: Leap Frogging The Sweet Fantastic

You know what they say about getting older? Hey I'm Kermit and this is my life. It’s more than that though its also my lover but don't tell my wife. I’ve been a private P.I. now for almost twelve years. My days of copping are long behind me and the name Rico is nothing but a muffled whisper in the back of my head. He means nothing to me anymore. At least that’s what I tell myself to stay sane. 

           

            Two months after I got my P.I. license my first case came in.  Some hotshot relator from upstate came into my office.  Well it technically wasn’t an office more of a van but that doesn’t matter right now. Long story short my office got burnt down a few weeks before and I was forced to relocate. So anyway this dude named Mickey Blackman sits in the passenger seat of this Volkswagen with me and he tells me this story. For client privacy I cant really tell you anything but basically his wife made a run for it a few weeks back. Blackman said all she left was a note. He wouldn’t tell me what was on it. Then this Blackman guy starts acting all paranoid and now he’s telling me he thinks his wife got kidnapped. Says the handwriting on the note wasn’t his wife’s. Next thing I know Blackmans gone and I’m at the pier with Jason Seagull. Must have spaced out.

            I watched the rain make little puddles in the parking lot outside my apartment. It had been three weeks since I’d heard from Mickey and still had no leads on his wife. Nobody I talked to knew anything about Mickey Blackman or his missing wife. Things were starting to get real psychedelic man. Cause guess what. I go down to the station right, and pulled Mickeys file. Apparently this Blackman guy has been dead for fifty some years. And there wasn’t even a file for his wife. Shoot I didn’t know what to do man. When I got home that night my place had been broken into. Looked like someone had been seeing for something. Then there was my fax machine going off like crazy. It was Blackman. “THERE WATCHING US!” This whole thing got me spooked so I booked it to this club I knew some of my old cop buddies would be. I walked into the club illuminated by all the neon signs behind the bar and you’ll never guess who I see. Its Mickey. He’s all coked up and harassing these girls at a table across the room. This is trippy man.

Fat Schmidt

Memorable Passage

Memorable Passage From The Great Gatsby

“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.” 


The Great Gatsby was one of those books that left me feeling some amount of every emotion. I loved the characters in this novel and Fitzegerald's writing style. I think the whole book was great and this is just one of the many quotes that stood out to me. I think I loved this quote for two reasons. The first reason this quote stood out to me was that this part of the novel was the beginning of Gatsby's realization or rejection (whatever your opinion was) that Daisy will never be enough to satisfy him. I really like Gatsby and this just made me sad because I wanted him to be happy. The second reason I thought this quote was great is because I think it also shows something about the human heart. It seems everyone has some idea in their head that if I can just have this one thing then I'll be satisfied and everything will be ok. Anyone who gets their greatest desire knows that it never completely satisfies you or not for long anyways. 

Writers As Readers

1.       When I write it does not matter where I am but I do like to be listening to music. It helps me focus and my mind does not wander as much when its playing. I like to have a full stomach when I write as well.

2.       I like reading books that take place around the civil war. I enjoy reading about the time period and the people who lived there. Also I think the lifestyle back then is very interesting. I also like reading books with a lot of symbolism like the Lord of the Flies of East of Eden. It just makes the books seem more interesting and it gives you something to think about.

3.       I think I am more like Ray Bradbury or Nathaniel Hawthorn. I’m not nearly the writers they are but I think my strong suit when writing is imagery and they were both pretty good at that.

4.       I think the most things I remember about reading books is right when you finish something. You kind of sit there and think about it and you’re a little satisfied that you finished it but you still wish that the story kept going because you liked it so much.

5.       I remember when the fifth Percy Jackson came out I was in fifth grade and everyone I knew got it the day it came out. I remember being super excited to read it and I thought it was so good. Its taken me a long time to read East of Eden I’m still only half way through and I’ve been reading it for just under a year. It’s not that it is bad I just kept reading it off and on and Im determined to finish it because a while ago I went on a bad streak of reading parts of books and then quiting.

6.       My first reading teacher was Mrs. Mckmillin. I remember she would take us down to a creek by our school and let us read. I always liked that part about school.

7.       The first book I remember reading was the Dirty Harry Series. I liked those books a lot because they made school seem fun. They also had a lot of mischief in them that I thought was entertaining.

8.       I cannot narrow it down to one favorite book because I like so many different ones. I think I like novels better than series though.

If I Were In Charge of the World

If I were in charge of the world

I’d cancel Mondays and also

Refried beans, those things are gross man.

If I were in charge of the world there would

 be more Jason Seagull and more Christmas music

If I were in charge of the world

You wouldn’t have Frog Genocide

You wouldn’t have Stupid Toads

You wouldn’t have Rerefried Beans

Or “ Hey you can’t put your hand up there!”

You wouldn’t even have your hand up there

No one tells Kermit what to do.

If I were in charge of the world

A matched potato would be a vegetable.

All animals would agree frogs are the best animals

And a person who sometimes forgot they were green

And sometimes forgot they were a frog would still

Be in charge of the world.

I know why the Caged Bird Sings Poem

Can we find a way out?

Are we stuck in here forever?

God help me

Even if we get out then what?

Dude I found the key

By golly were free!

I always knew we would make it out together Goiter

Right on man!

Dude what do we do now?

Sing Goiter, we sing.

Recurring Dream

Recurring Dream

            When I was little I had dreams that would continue from day to day like a TV series. I think I was about twelve when I had these dreams. In the series of dreams there were three different ones. The whole primacy of my dreams were that I could not find my mom because she was lost or something like that. Most of the first two dreams are hazy but I remember that I was searching through this school that had been make shifted into a market of some sort. For some reason the second dream was always in black and white which I thought was really weird. I remember the third dream the best. Somehow along my journey to find my mother I got stuck on a ship crew. The boat that I was now apart of hunted sharks. On the boat there were three people and I was the person that shot the harpoon and I stood on the top of the boat. We also had someone that road behind us on a jet ski who would kill the seals that tried to attack us. I think I was pretty good at my job as far as I can remember. After the whole boat trip I somehow got back to the school and I found my mom somehow. I think its really weird how in dreams you can never remember how transitions occur so your always finding yourself in different places and never knowing how you really got there.

Dream Thread

We were all alone until I heard some tapping on the window. I let Santa inside. He must have been freezing. “You got the stuff?” I asked him. He gave me that reassuring Ho Ho that always makes my jollies warm like chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Kermit got out of his chair to hug Santa. They embraced like two doves stranded in a cold winter blizzard. Not knowing whether they would make it to the next day. I think I saw Santa cry a little. After they parted Santa pulled the egg nog out of his bag. I took a sip and got dizzy. Next thing I knew I was going through this very detailed psychedelic purple portal.

Writers Dream

5. I think I would go crazy if I could not talk for five years. I think I talk too much to be able to keep quiet for that long. I would have to carry around a pen and paper everywhere I went like Mayo Angelou everywhere I go so I could still communicate. I do think that it would do me good to talk less and listen more you can learn a lot that way. I think by listening more I would gain a greater value and appreciation for the words I do speak.

9. Most of the time I occupy my mind with music. I listen to music almost all the time no matter what I’m doing. It helps me focus and not get bored when I am doing something. I daydream a lot about what my future will be like and just wander how my life’s going to go. I get distracted really easy when I am trying to do homework. A lot of times I will tell myself I will do my homework just thirty minutes after I watch TV and eat then I get really unmotivated.

6. I wish I was better at speaking other languages because I am not very good at it. I took Spanish one and two so I knew a decent amount of Espino for a while. Then I went to El Salvador and during the trip I tried to buy a pen from a lady and all my memory of the language went out the window.  If I could be fluent in any language I would probably do something like French or German. I thing the more European languages sound the coolest.

10. I agree with Nathaniel West when he says, “Easy reading is damned hard writing”. I think authors put a lot of time and effort into their craft and as a reader it is easy to overlook the amount of work put into the books we read. When I write I find the hardest thing is grammar. If I’m writing a paper for an English class I think the hardest part for me is coming up with a good intro an organizing the quotes in the best way possible. Writing is hard

11. I really don’t know the answer to this question yet because I am not old but I do think you can still learn stuff after you are twenty-five. It might be harder to remember all of the stuff but I definitely think it is possible. I have a friend whose Grandma is in her eighties and she is still taking classes at a college she has something like eight degrees. I also heard a story on the radio the other day of a older woman who enrolled to college in the 60’s but then had to stop because she started a family. I think she started up again this past year and graduated with a degree. So there’s two good examples of older people learning new things.

         The black cat lingered in the dark corners of the side alley. The moon above dimly lit up the vastness of the night sky. The cat watched a tiny mouse scuttle across the cracking asphalt until it was just within its reach. Then the cat pounced onto the poor mouse. It died instantly. At the mouse’s funeral all his family attended in their gloomy attire.

               

The man got out of his bed and put on his dark green robe, brushed his teeth, and slid on his watch. The robe had been a present from his wife a few years before and it had had muddied stripes down the sides as to make the whole robe look like the rows of a vineyard. He slowly creaked his way down the carpeted stairs and reached his front door. The man turned his wrist to check his watch. The paper should be in the yard by now he thought to himself. Opening the door he met a biting breeze that smelled of the pines surrounding his house. Quickly now he strode across the stiffened grass. Each one of his steps crunching into the ground as if he was walking on fresh salad.

The sun rose up over the distant horizon and set the rocks on fire. The once cold brown faces of the huge cliffs quickly became a scorching orange that seemed to blaze as a second son on the surface of the Earth. Soon the desert floors colors began to appear more vividly and it seemed like the surface of the barren planet mars.