My Name (goes on a rant)

I write a little thingy about my name for my Creative Writing class.  Steal Me Not.  Enjoy!

My name is Kayleigh McKay. 

            Urban Dictionary says that the name “Kayleigh” or rather, that spelling of it, was made popular by a band named Marillion.  Their song "Kayleigh" is about a guy who misses his old girlfriend, Kayleigh. 

 

            A few years ago, my dad admitted that the reason he named me “Kayleigh” is because he liked that song so much.  Fair enough.  It is his style anyways—he likes classic, soft stuff—no Metallica for him.  Stuff like U2, like Sting (who I always thought was a member of KISS for the longest time). 

 It sounds like a KISS name....kind of

            It’s not a bad song, but it made me monstrously sad when I first listened to it.  I had, at the time, an old boyfriend that I wanted very much to miss me.  I’ve only listened to it a couple times since then, because I don’t like being sad.  The song makes no mention of whether or not Kayleigh misses him back, but I can tell you, she does.

            Urban Dictionary also tells me that people say I’m “lovely”, “ditzy” and have “eyes the size of a bush baby” which means very big. 

‘Big eyes’ is pretty true, maybe only because I do good eye-makeup every morning.
 haha, yeah I wish!

            I cannot speak to “lovely” though my dad would probably say I am—but that’s his job.  That ex-boyfriend of mine may have said “lovely” while we were dating, I don’t remember.

            “Ditzy” however, is perfect.  If someone—like my mother—gives me a list of things to do, I will do the first one or two of those things and completely and honestly forget about the rest.  It drives her crazy, but that’s why I always tell her to make a list.  Sometimes when I’m driving, I get all frazzled and forget simple stuff, like I can’t turn left on a red light at an intersection…especially when there is oncoming traffic.

            That’s why I failed my road test.
 don't do it, kids

            Other entries try to tell me that I’m a petite athlete, which is nonsense.  It’s impossible to be petite when you’re 5’8”.  It’s impossible to be an athlete when your favorite activity is curling up into a ball underneath a mountain of blankets, snuggling with an oversized teddy bear, and taking a nap.

            Still another entry says I have a big heart, which is a phrase both my parents and I have used to describe me.  I’m very forgiving of people, and I understand them and like to listen to them.  Sometimes I push myself aside for other people—I feel that it’s my job to help people.

            But sometimes I get sick of it.  And then I feel guilty for not helping someone who needs it. 

            Like that guy I’ve never met in person, that guy who talked to me and met me over Skype for only a few hours before deciding he was in love with me.  He had some serious problems, one of which was deciding it was okay to be legitimately in love with someone you barely know. 

            I felt bad, and I didn’t really know the extent of the crazies from which he was suffering, so that incident became a few weeks long before I put my foot down.  No, I’m sorry—I don’t have time to talk to you for hours on end every day.  I have things to do, things I would rather do than listen to you beg me for this or that.  The help you need isn’t going to come from me.  Sorry.

            And I am sorry, but also tremendously relieved.

            The name “Kayleigh” or “Ceilidh”, in Gaelic, is the word for a social gathering—a dance. 
 and a jolly good time!

 Kind of like the Scottish version of a hoedown, but with better music and less redneck.  “Ceilidh” is also the name of my paternal grandparent’s sailboat.

            It used to have an eye and half a smile painted on either side of the bow, and I remember seeing that when they came up the Eerie Canal to a town near mine for a visit.  I was probably about 6, or 7.

            I bragged to some stranger, some random lady, how the boat was named after me, and it was happy about it—look!  It’s smiling.

            It’s a nice boat, although the smiley face got painted over years ago.  I’d like to live on a boat like that for a while, it’d be fun.  Perhaps a bit claustrophobic, but no worse than the dorm room I’m in now.

            All in all, I was surprised how well that website knows me.

 

Feeling Fashion-y and Ancient Asthmatics Philosophizing

Lady GaGa...does it get any better?  How much fierceness can be jammed into an outfit?

that's just cute.  Classy and beautiful.

she even does Christmas specials

Okay, anyways, I just had to get that fabulousness out of my system before I exploded in a cloud of glitter.

POOF!!!!!!!

 So, I read this "essay" by Seneca, (who is not Native American...it's a different kind of Seneca), and I had to write this response paper.

His essay is actually a letter to a friend, but it's pretty much what essayists (who invented the essay) based their stuff off of.  It has been titled "Asthma" and it's about him talking about an asthma attack and then he goes on about the nature of death and stuff.  It's all philosophical-y.

No Stealsies

 

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this piece was to understand.  There’s an expectation with older pieces of writing—they will be strange and hard to understand.  But this was as easy to read as anything “modern”.  Perhaps that’s because this is a letter to a close friend, and not some great thing that he’d have read to a crowd of people.

            The form called the essay is really quite loose to my understanding now.  That is blowing my mind a little bit.  What a contrast from dry research papers, the things I had previously called “essays”.

            Now, I’m wondering though, isn’t this thing technically not an essay, but a snippet from a letter to Seneca’s buddy?  I presume he goes on to talk about things that are going on in his life afterwards.  Is this how people back then wrote letters to each other?

            Isn’t this also a “personal essay”?  It’s very much about Seneca’s own thoughts and musings, and the highly personal nature of him gasping for air.  I’m having a hard time nailing down exactly what is and what isn’t an essay and what makes up all these various types of essays.  There probably is no good answer, is there?  That kind of thinking is hard to get used to—I’m familiar with it in the context of visual arts, but it’s a little odd to have it now in writing.  Writing in the classroom used to be so regimented and strict, and now that has been blown out of the water and I don’t really know what to do.

            Wow, I’ve strayed pretty far from my topic—sorry.

            Anyways, I like how he directly speaks to his reader, by predicting what his questions are going to be.  “‘What kind of ill health?’ you’ll be asking.”  That’s pretty informal, and, well, refreshing.

            Seneca also uses two metaphors to very strong affect.  He compares his asthma attacks, and impending death because of them to a trial, in order to explain that it’d be stupid for him to be happy because his attack has passed.  The other comparison was one’s life to a lamp.  Is the lamp any worse off after it was put out than before it was lit?  He is explaining how he thinks that death is no different from that period of time before you were born—or conceived.

            I think that the reason this was so easy for me to understand is that he uses things that can be related to on a universal level.  Two thousand years after he wrote this, we still have lamps and trials and worry about the same things.  Maybe it’s just a really good translation.

 

 

Yup, so that's that.

I will leave you with this, a fabulous shoe for your consideration and worship.

Your're welcome!

Meditations in the Cold (and something about Bon Qui Qui)

This is mine.  No stealies or "Guurl, Imma CUT you"  That's right.  I will go Bon Qui Qui on your ass!

This is for my Intro to the Essay, and I'm not sure how this is an essay...but it's what I did. Maybe I'll call it a personal essay.

 

It is 9:15 in the morning.  I’m leaving the dry, hot air of my dorm room for the biting cold outside.  Even though I know I’m not going to be late, I’m still not happy with myself—I’d wanted to get out the door by 9:10.

            I see a little bit of my mother in me, as the elevator begins to drop.  She likes to plan things out too—all her departures are timed to the minute.  Our family has had many a strained and tense beginning to an outing before. 

            “Get out the door by…” is actually a phrase that comes straight from her morning routine.  She’s never late.  Strange, that even though she’s not here, her influence is.

            The wind is unforgiving and it makes me wish I had a face-mask.  My face is going numb.  Inside my pockets, my hands are getting damp, clammy.

            A need to plan things, time things, is a small example of an odd human phenomenon.  Culture.  I think that’s how it starts—a bunch of little habits passed on down the years.  It’s quirks, preferences, attitudes that a child absorbs and then emits for the rest of his life.  His children do the same thing, and their children, and their grandchildren. 

            I guess it comes as no surprise then, that some five minutes could sour my morning even before I ventured into the subarctic campus.  I’ve been trained.  As I’m going down the steps in front of the Library, I’m wishing I hadn’t chosen to schedule early classes this semester as my mother had told me to—I wouldn’t have to go outside until it was afternoon, and hopefully not so cold.

Words that Live in My Dorm Room

This one is for the class I'm most excited about this semester - Creative Writing.  Yay!
So anyways, the assignment here is from a prompt out of our textbook.  your were supposed to find ten things (written things) that were in your room and write a memory that's associated with it. 

 

“Riders on the Storm” The Doors

            I remember, last summer, being desperately heartbroken, and trying to find my center again.  I discovered the Doors that summer.  I wrote a poem by the light of a candle, and painted the paper with red wine, and burned a corner off of it.  That was weird.

            “Writers on the storm” I said, in a midnight poem. 

Bottle of Lotion, given to me by my mother for my birthday

            I always thought there was pomegranate in it—until just now when I am actually looking at it.  It’s called Persimmon Plum (there are no plums either).  The smell, of imaginary pomegranate, makes me think of the myth of Persephone.  I prefer to think of her story as one of love rather than rape.  I’ve painted pictures, watercolors, of the happy couple.

I still don’t know what a Persimmon is.

NuStevia (extract of the stevia plant, sweetener)

            This reminds me of eating granola with yogurt and raspberries for breakfast with my mother—day after day, the granola with a cup of coffee.  I taught my friend over this Winter Break to eat this, this lumpy old people food. 

            She loved it.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

            The first time I read it, I don’t remember how old I was.  I think I borrowed the book from our local library…maybe.  It was big, perhaps because I was so small at the time.  Its cover was black and had that crinkled plastic put over it.  The only thing I remembered from it was something about shooting the dragon where he didn’t have a scale, and something about goblins and ponies.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

            I watched the silent movie version of this.  Illegally, I think, on Youtube sometime last year.  The first silent movies I did watch were horror pieces, famous ones.  I remember printing out Jekyll’s letter at the end of the book, tearing it up into pieces, and then painting and drawing on top of the pieces.  It was an art piece, done around Halloween, featuring a faceless head being broken open like an eggshell by livid green hands.  These hands were hatching.

Lady GaGa’s "Bad Romance"

            I was in 10^th grade when I discovered how much I liked this song.  Chem class, not AP Chem, Regents Chem—for the dumb kids—it was me and my flamboyant friend.  No one was sure whether or not he was gay, I don’t even he knew at that time.  We listened to GaGa on his iPhone when we did classwork.  It was a good class.  The room was painted a strange pastel green, and I liked the teacher.  He was always nice and explained things well.  He was the tennis coach. 

            I listened to this song so many times that I got sick of it.

Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

            I bought this in the Commons.  It’s an easy read, and I want to copy his voice.  Reminds me of when I was completely obsessed with Johnny Depp.  That’s how I was first exposed to this story.  I watched as much of the movie as Youtube would let me.  All these drugs, they didn’t seem too bad, with the exception of the character Gonzo.  But Gonzo was just crazy.  How was it possible that Johnny still looked good when he’d had half his hair shaved off?

How Not to Write a Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark     

            Reminds me of where I bought it, Dublin, Ireland.  I love that country, something about all that green and all the history just enchanted me.  I remember our tour guide talking about their economic woes, which were apparently caused by them building too many houses, so now they are selling for dirt cheap—my parents would never buy me a house in Ireland.  Is it even possible to buy a house in a country you don’t live in?

Susan Kay’s Phantom

            Taught me the art of writing a whole novel just to talk about how awesome a character is, in addition to being a very wonderful read.  Now it’s all crinkled because I loaned it to my friend, and she must have spilled something on it. 

            The night I got it back from her, I was sleeping over at her house, and there was the most ridiculous snowstorm going on outside.  There must have been at least a foot of snow on the ground.  From my calves to my toes, I was soaking wet and numb.  But it was worth it.

Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

            I found this on sale at Barnes&Noble, which was really exciting—I think I was there with my dad.

            Also reminds me of the time I bought something similar (though more expensive with less material) for my then-boyfriend.  He probably likes it better now than he did when I got it for him.  It was a Christmas present…I think.  I remember I went a little bit crazy that Christmas and spent way more than I should have buying him things.

I'm baaack! and I'm serving you some Art History Realness!

So, my darlings, if you're still with me after my absence for the Internet over winter break, I have a present for you.  An assignment from my "Episodes in Western Art" class in which we investigated The Palette of Narmer, this Ancient Egyptian...thingy.  We were looking at what makes sense to us and why we understand it and then what doesn't make sense and why.  Simple, straightforward, and it looks like it's going to be a wonderful course!

A)

            1) I understand which of the figures is the Pharaoh.  He is the largest, and wears the crown.  On the first image the Pharaoh is defeating some enemy, and on the second image he appears to be involved in some sort of procession.

            Also on the second image, there appear to be stacks of decapitated bodies, with their head lying between their feet.  Therefore, I’m guessing that this piece commemorates the Pharaoh’s military victory and consequent celebration.

                        I think I’m able to “read” this because the events depicted here are cross-cultural events.  I don’t have to know anything about Egyptian culture to understand that a bunch of decapitated bodies probably has something to do with war. 

                        I’m able to understand the depiction of the Pharaoh, because that concept is not exclusively Egyptian either.  There are always leaders, with crowns on their heads in many, many cultures.

 

2) Therefore, the things I have difficulty “reading” are things that are strange to me, that I have no reference point for.

For example, the long-necked cat-like creatures on the second image, who are being ridden or controlled by humans.  I have no idea what they are—some terribly inaccurate representation of giraffes?  Are they some sort of mythological monster?  I have no idea.

The bottommost row of the second image is an ox standing over a man, and both of them are beside something that resembles some sort of stone-work construction going on.  There are a few bricks, and some sort of wall.  But I have no clue as to how these elements are interacting with each other.

 

B)  In order to understand what the giraffe-cats are, first I’ll go try and find out if there were giraffes in Egypt in 3,000 BCE.  If not, I’ll go look for a catalogue of Ancient Egyptian monsters to see if giraffe-cats exist in there.  If that doesn’t work, I’d see what an expert Egyptologist has to say about that piece, hoping he will mention the creatures.

 

As far as the scene on the bottom row of the second image, with the man and the ox, I’d probably just go straight to the expert.  Maybe also looking up what oxen symbolized in Ancient Egyptian beliefs, it may have symbolic meaning that I’m not catching.

I Get Depressed and Write a Poem About How Much I Suck

Oy vey.


I'd like to point out a typo in this picture....anyways..

that's how I was feeling about my life, and since writing this poem I really don't feel any better, but I figured I ought to make a post, so this is what happened. 

If someone steals this poem I will find hunt them down and cruelly dismember them.
 this is the last person who tried to steal stuff I really care about

Lament of the Mediocre

            Kayleigh McKay

 

Scribbling,

Fiddling,

Waiting.

 

Life is made up of these

Moments of nothingness—

Stagnation

 

Dreams decay before your eyes

Or rather,

You see them for what they are—

 

Scribbles, just to pass the time,

A fog that hides you from yourself

From your own eyes,

 

Lest they see your inadequacy,

Mediocrity, Inability

To pick yourself up and move!

 

Your existence is futile,

You squander your own potential

Out of sheer laziness.

 

But do not despair,

People like us fill the world,

We are its base—

 

We provide the step-ladder for those

Who are willing to sacrifice

And are brave enough to try.

 

Without those who are dull

How would the stars ever shine?