~~wherein reena sings a love song she hopes to believe

i've been told that loving fic isn't enough, as far as a life goes. i mean, sure of course i adore the things i read and they mean more to me than anything, and good writing is all tingly and amazing and sweeter than chocolate-- but we all need... more. more out of life. Bigger Things, reena, Bigger Things. well, i don't think so. i think anyone who says that, doesn't know what it's like to be in love with words beyond anything, and in love with the things those words conjure, the world inside your mind being all fragrant and smelling like rain and summer and warm wet secrets. because, in "real life", that's what i love too-- if i'm engaged in living, it's because it resonates with the life inside me. going to a great class is an experience that hopefully extends the things i've been living through and thinking about, that feeds my love of words, and doesn't take away from it in any way.

i want to live a life not disconnected, but fully integrated with this insane fiction obsession i have. i want to flow into different aspects of things, explore and find communities and have fun. i'm in college to learn and have fun and be enabled to do what i do naturally, only in the company of peers. that's why i'm here-- well, besides there being no place else to be. i'm happy-- and i'm in love with reading-- and just because that reading isn't schoolwork, doesn't mean anything. i suppose there's a danger that i only want to read h/d fic and there's room for nothing else in my head, but that's not true. i'm as curious as ever, about everything.

vanityfair's latest story is... well, one of those stories. that amaze me and make me "feel the love", heh. i can't believe you could write things so true, so real, about things that don't always fit in my head-- as much as i love harry & draco together-- they don't always make sense to me. sometimes they just scream at me, that it's impossible, and it'll never work, and the awesome task of bringing them together believably makes me quail. but wow. i love to be reminded of my own limitations sometimes, because that means there's hope i'm not even seeing. it's completely unrushed, and completely thorough in it's build-up, and yet it ends up exactly where we all want it to. amazing, Aja Is Amazing.

i feel limited-- in that my imagination seems to be dependent on my emotional outlook to some degree-- and i think i'm actually a Believer, in that i never actually lose faith, i always want to see it. maybe that's my problem-- as much as i want it, secretly i'm afraid it's not true. and that prevents me from letting my imagination show me how it could work. that applies to a lot of things, actually. even if you think you believe, do you really? for me, that's a complicated question. aja amazes me with her unwaveringness, and the clarity of her vision. harry & draco could be any two people or characters, who seem impossible, frustrating and completely resistant to being brought together, being realized. they yell at me and scream, "but i don't want this, i don't, i don't, i don't!", and as much as i try to convince their avatars (in my head) of their error, they don't want to hear it. they're pouting at each other and that's that.

'course, that's how i am. as fluffy and romantic as i seem to myself, actually i guess i'm a bit more steeped in pessimism than even i realize. or maybe it's just tiredness-- being tired of hoping, and fighting. sometimes i think it's lack of vision-- but no, i do have visions, i just don't know how to believe in them enough to make them come true-- and sometimes it seems that by the time anything happens, it's always too late.

i shouldn't tie h&d so closely to my experience, i realize, but i can't seem to help it. or maybe i should-- what else can i write from, if not my own experience?

but this means it's almost impossible to give them the story they deserve...

anyway. vanityfair can, and does, and did, and i stand in amazement and giddy happiness before her altar~:) and. i haven't even mentioned that that's one of the most original and unforced erotic scenes -ever-, not just harry/draco. *forces self to stop gushing*. ok, stop now.
~~

btw. wow. asilvahalo is the first hp slasher i've ``found" in the same college as i (i.e., binghamton). wheee~~! mebbe i'll say hi one day~:>

~~me and julio, down by the schoolyard....

::cries:: i really do come from a different universe. it looks so very different, and people's houses are all strange-looking in it, and people wear strange clothes, and... just everything seems different, and i can't believe i walk around and "blend in" so to speak, in semi-rural america, with that in my background. i was that person-- with the weird home decorating, and the scary-looking school uniform, and it was all intimately familiar in a way it really shouldn't be, but it is.

what i wouldn't give for russian roulette [the story] to sound as perfectly plausible to me as to the next person. (though let's hope that the next person isn't russian, heh). ah yes, ignorance is bliss. these photos just bring it all back. i looked like her, and i can't even believe it now-- but it's true. orphan annie, russian edition *chortle* ah well at least i can laugh at it. it's easy to forget who you are, or at least where you come from, online, sometimes. --and in real life, too. maybe that's a good thing-- or maybe that's just a weird thing. and it's not like anyone can really know the things i'm referencing, anyway (even if i did spell them out), unless they'd shared the same experiences. well unless i really spelled them out i guess-- then at least people would have a clue. but there's no point. it's just weird. the things i forget i am. i am, aren't i? if i grew up in moscow, this changes who i am, vs. who i'd be if i grew up in alabama, right?

i feel like i get a reading on people, online. i feel like i know where they're coming from, often enough. but usually i don't even know where they're from. i mean, ok, i know the words (australia, california, canada, england, etc etc)-- but they're just words, mostly. on the other hand, i think my writing is plenty enough to know me. sure, i don't know how my past fits into my writing, or if it shows up at all-- but it must. i can't help it, if i'm being honest, i imagine.

and when i said, i can't believe i was so much like that girl in the photo-- it's because i'm so far away, not, so close. i look at that, and i think-- i'm nothing like that. that was in my past but it's deeply, deeply unconscious now. it's funny that i come from that. like i said, it's like being from a different universe, and completely integrating into this one, but sometimes you just smirk and think, wow. i'm really not native, am i. weird, heh. and it's not like my family lived in moscow for hundreds of years either-- just about 50, two generations born, and just on my mother's mother's side, too. i like being rootless, in a way-- makes me able to imagine my roots wherever i feel them, wherever i want them-- i want them to be in the emerald isles, and so they are. but-- my own history isn't quite the same. it's actually there, and real, and i can't imagine it away-- though i've done a good job trying-- and that's weird.

it's funny. all the different hidden selves we contain. how they live alongside each other. it makes me smile, knowing there are these hidden depths to everyone i know (or kind of know). especially online, it's a weird sort of realization. all the different places we're coming from, just to end up at something resembling the same destination. having things in common is probably more special because of all the things we don't have in common (in the fandom, as writers, whatever).

self-definitions and self-perceptions are malleable of course, and i'm really not that girl in the photo-- even if the photo was of me, heh-- but that past is still there, either pushing us forward or weighing us down, or tormenting us, what have you. it makes us move. it makes us write. that's probably a good thing.

P.S. ~~ha, it's funny that song (`me and julio') was running through my head, writing this, since-- well-- considering what it's about. *laughs* hee my mind works in mysterious ways, sometimes. and oh man, but paul simon is a wacky, wacky guy.