pre-Rumbelle

The Original Beauty and the Beast (to me)

re-discovering ancient forms of modern things

        This post can be said to be something of an offshoot from my box of lost things post. Originally, I began writing this as a digression within that post, but being as it is presently 10:30 on Saturday and I have two posts yet to post, it became worthy of being a post in its own right. Well, and I had plenty to say on the subject anyways, so it's probably for the best that it is now its own post.
        When I went down in the basement that fateful night to look for our Harry Potter books, the first thing that caught my eye, as it so happened, was actually my old Beauty and the Beast storybook. I had been thinking of this just the other day, incidentally, as I was thinking about Rumbelle in Once Upon a Time while riding on the bus (thinking about Rumbelle is becoming a common and favored passtime of mine) and by way of that I came to think of my old storybook. As though summoned by my recent thoughts of it, the book was suddenly before me, and I carefully took it up in my hands and reread the full tale with new perspective.
        It’s rather neat in that it’s also not the same version of the story as the Disney version of the tale, and I think I actually had read that book before I saw the Disney movie, and I still sort of think of it as the original version of the story to me. It’s different from both the Disney story and the Once story. Kittens feature much more prominently into this version of the story, which, of course, definitely appeals to me. There are many other differences as well, from the way the enchanted rose plays in (in this story, it spells doom for the protagonist’s (see note on protagonist’s name under second picture) dad when he picks a rose from the beast’s garden rather than for the beast by holding his life in the balance) to the way in which she returns home (in all the tales, the beast lets her go at some point on the condition that she returns; in this tale, it is by way of a magic ring; in Once, it’s with the promise of a story and without the expectation that she will return) as well as many other interesting differences--which could be potentially another follow-up blog post, if it turns out that way. This book used to have one of those boxes that had buttons on the side of it that played sounds to go with the story, as well, but I think the batteries in that part corroded or something, and it’s gone now, so that’s why there’s that blank cardboard part at the side of it now.

here it is where I'm keeping the book now on display beside two of the items from my lost box, my castle and my music box, which makes for what I fancy quite a lovely and fantastical display.

the front of the book. You can see that the girl, in this version actually named "Beauty" (which is probably the thing I like least about this book, that she's named Beauty and not Belle, which is just strange, but I guess they figured the name "Belle" would be too French and would go over small childrens' heads) also looks rather different from the Disney Belle. She has the magic ring on her finger. The book has very lovely illustrations as well, and all the pictures are quite pretty.

The first inside page, with Beauty at the side of her dying beast, and her kitten concernedly tugging on her sleeve. In this version, the beast nearly dies from Beauty’s forgetfulness, because he gave her the magic ring so she could travel home, but for no more than seven days. She didn’t realize it had been more than seven days, and so when she came back, the Beast was dying because she’d been gone too long. Of course, at this point she kisses him and he becomes human again (though no dishes sing about being human again--dishes don’t factor into this version of the tale at all, not even Rumpel’s precious Chip). In this story, the Beast is even given a name for when he is human: Prince Bartholomew. Not quite as cool as Rumpelstiltskin, but still nice. 

This is the moment when the beast catches Beauty (I still want to call her Belle, but I must remind myself that this one is named Beauty) in his private room, where there is a picture of him as a human prince, which she doesn’t get until she sees him as a human again. Her kitten happily frolicks at the side. You can also see in the text where there are symbols that once corresponded to the little soundbox thingy at the side, so you’d push them and hear the beast’s roar, for example. I really liked it when I was little. 

The classic ballroom scene is very prettily portrayed here, with Beauty in a pink dress and her ever-present kitten playing with the harp. I believe this is also the page where the text, while listing things Beauty and the Beast did together, mentions that the two of them played hide-and-seek with her kitten, which is an awesome line that creates a great and hilarious mental image. It’s particularly funny if you try to apply it to Rumbelle--can’t you just picture if Belle had brought a kitten with her and she and Rumpel had played hide-and-seek with it? ;) 

The final page in the book, that happily-ever-after pagespread with a beautifully painted sunset and the kitten climbing on the prince’s once jealously-guarded rosebushes. The book concludes talking about how Beauty and Prince Bartholomew were known throughout the kingdom as kind, gentle, and fair rulers. It’s a nice little book. I wonder if you can still find it nowadays. Anywho.

This tangent also reminded me of some other things I've related to Rumbelle of late...

This is my calendar and a program I posted next to it from a play my cousins' school put on not too long ago, both of which make me think of Beauty and the Beast and hence Rumbelle right now.

The program for the play, which just so happened to be Beauty and the Beast. It was largely based on the Disney version. Someone in their group did the illustration, which is a lovely drawing of the enchanted rose that spells the beast's doom in this version if he cannot find love. My one cousin played Belle's wacky dad, the inventor, another cousin played a milkmaid in Belle's town, and a third cousin played Chip himself. I hadn't started watching Once yet, back then, or I would have looked at the whole thing so differently. 

My calendar picture this month even made me think of Rumbelle/Beauty and the Beast. It's a cat with a rose, and I couldn't help but think that the rose fit as the beautiful thing, or Belle, and the cat could be the beastly thing, or Rumpel/Beast (though the cat is beautiful, as well. Of course, Rumpel's beautiful in his own way, too.) This calendar is themed "life lessons you can learn from your cat" and so this month's picture is captioned "see the beauty in something others cannot". It seems more likely they mean that the cat is seeing the beauty in the flower, but it can also be like how Belle saw the beauty in Rumpel or the Beast (depending on the story) when no one else could. It fits. And the fact that I made the connection also reveals how obsessed I am. 

        I had also intended upon getting into a digression on the Frenchness of Beauty and the Beast and how that appears or doesn't in the different versions and from there on how romantic it is to watch Beauty and the Beast in French, and how we did so in French class, and some other French romantic stuff. Yes, I do actually plan to digress sometimes. But now I must needs post.
        Beyond the violet mist, we rediscovered ancient and cherished tales and compared them in new light with more recently discovered tales, as well as with other pleasant visual mediums.

the Lost Box

A Box of Lost Things:

finally finding what you've been searching for,

just as soon as you stop looking.

        What happened last night (now a few nights ago) was like something out of a creative writing prompt. I almost expect that somewhere out there, on one of those websites that lists creative writing prompts that I've been meaning to look at but haven't yet, the exact scenario that occurred last night is listed as a hypothetical statement for a prompt, a "what would you do if..." statement. But it really, actually happened.
        I found a box for which I have been searching for three years. You may or may not know that about three years ago, we moved. I'm not going to say where being as this is on the internet and all, nor am I going to explain the details, but moving is moving and so if you have ever moved (or even if you haven't), you likely already have a picture in your head of a house filled with boxes in which all the stuff of one's life must be crammed. The particular box to which this blog post pertains was the very last box I packed from my bedroom. It contained what I then considered to be among my most select and favorite items in my room, carefully packaged away. It was one of the last things on the moving truck and so it followed that it would be one of the first things off, but in the utter chaos of unloading I did not see where it went. I unpacked all the boxes that had been put in my room and I was distressed to find that my treasure-box was not among them. I searched the boxes in my mom's room, and in the closets, and the living room, and throughout all the house, and I did not recover it.
        I still searched on and off as time went on. Whenever we cleaned the house I picked up my search, and I double- and triple-checked all the places I had already checked, and I still thought of it. It wasn't as if I was searching for it constantly, though, and quite some time had gone by since I had looked for it. I don’t mean by the subtitle of my post to imply that I had given up all hope of finding it, but rather that last night (or a few nights ago, as aforementioned) I was not looking for it. Instead, I was looking for our Harry Potter books so that I could find a selection for my Lit Program piece for individual speech. I know I’ve seen our Harry Potter books since we moved, but I couldn’t find them on our bookshelf, and I thought that the last time I’d seen them might have been in a box in the basement, so I went down there to check.
        The first thing that caught my attention down there is actually the inspiration for and subject of what is now my third blog post of the week which I have recently placed in another tab. But beneath it (and perhaps slightly to the right), I found my lost box, literally my box of buried treasure (it can indeed be said that it was buried, because it was under a thing or two in a pile in our basement storage area). I stared at it in awe, hesitating and questioning whether it truly was what I thought it was. The defining characteristic of my box of lost things was a rather large bulge in the top, where the castle tower came up. Indeed, my castle was probably the most defining thing that was in that box, and the item I remembered and missed most while it was gone.
        So I saw this box with a bulge in the top, labeled "Bedroom--fragile" in purple sharpy, just how I knew the box would be (and I couldn't help wondering how a box labeled "bedroom" so clearly could have ended up in a pile in the basement, but all's well as ends well, I ‘spose) and it was really a sort of dream-like moment because there was a part of me that had wondered if the box hadn't somehow been left behind, even though I'd handed it up onto the moving truck myself, or if it had been gotten rid of somehow, and I had come to doubt whether I'd ever see my treasures again, and yet here they were, in front of me. I picked the long-lost, near-mythical, treasure-filled box up at long last and peeled off the plastic wrap holding it closed, and I pulled open the folded cardboard lid-flaps, and I gazed in wonder upon my precious things which had been hidden from me for the better part of three years, which has felt in a way like forever (though at the same time like no time at all). The warm, caramel-vanilla scent of my candles mingled with the fainter underlayer of the oddly familiar smell of dust that seemed to be specific to my room back home flowed out of the box and transported me back to the moments spent packing it, carefully wrapping and tucking away my favorite things and entrusting them to the care of this little box. Deciding I could pursue the HP books later, I hastened upstairs with the box in hand and began uncovering each cherished possession, lifting them from the box one by one with reverence.
       Time runs short and so I fear my post must as well, but perhaps here I shall simply list the items that were in the box and insert the pictures of them I took the other night, and I shall explain each one’s significance in yet another promised follow-up post.

First and probably most significantly, my castle. Yes, it is the kind from a fishtank.

My beautiful music box. It's funny that it plays the Peter Pan song, because after watching Once, I definitely look at that differently now. 

a fish from my old fishin' around game. Remember, explanations later.

a little purple decorative "princess" box... which holds mysterious things...

mini-keys from a journal that had a lock on it and an ancient starburst in said box. There's an inscription on the inner ring of the box that says a little rhyme about wishing. It's not a famous one, I don't think. I'm away from the box right now so I can't recreate it here. You probably can't read it from the picture, but if you can, that's cool. 

some decorative do-dads from the gem show--a carmelly-gold rock, an amethyst pyramid, and a butterfly, which might be tourmaline, I don't recall. I should ask my mom. She knows her gems!

a translucent monticello keychain, of which it is very tricky to take a good picture. I think in this picture you can see the dome and columns fairly well, you just can't quite see the word "monticello" under it, and it isn't very clear. You can see some of the pictures on my wall, my lamp, a hat, the floral head ring I wore to prom last year, and a few other things, if you're observant like that. 

one of my yummy-smelling candles that scented the box so strongly. I don't recall exactly what the scent was called, but it is something to the lines of caramel-vanilla, perhaps with some note of spice or another. 

a thing of miniature cupcake cups; one of the few things the box contained about which I had completely forgotten. I believe I'd gotten them more recently, so they didn't have the time-honored-ness nor the connected memories the other items had. 

a small wood plaque-type thing I painted with a waterfall scene upon a purple background. Somehow it escaped my notice then that nothing is supporting the waterfall but for some floating rocks.

a funky-looking hand-operated back massager...

which works as a display easel for my wood-plaque-thing.

two plastic sword hilts

.... and more!

Beyond the violet mist, we rediscovered a long-lost treasure box and the cherished treasures therein.

mon petit bibliothèque

My Little Library

finally getting a library of my own :)

        I have always wanted a library. As you may be aware, I am sort of a book nerd, and I am madly in love with the written word--I am a writer, after all, but equally (if not even more so) I am a reader. I love to surround myself with beautiful, lovely books, and to spend hours pouring over them; I love their look, their feel, their smell, and most everything about them. I’ve never been very fond of e-books, because I simply love paper books so very much, and why not allow your literature to sprawl and fill space? There is nothing like holding a good book in your hands, with beautiful, soft, pale yellow, sweetly aged-smelling pages, a pretty little binding, and an enthralling tale carefully captured in its precisely crafted language printed neatly upon the page. I have long dreamt of having some sort of library of my own, particularly an expansive one that might belong in a castle, a vast, ballroom-sized space filled with rows upon rows of shelves completely filled with books, with luxurious window seats and comfy chairs and elegant candelabras and fanciful decorations and gorgeous stained glass windows and an intricate wrought iron spiral staircase to the second story which would contain more books, and one of the wall-mounted candelabras could be pulled down to open a secret hall behind one of the bookshelves which would contain secret books and maps and passages and more secret items, and another such secret hall could be revealed by removing a specially selected book from a certain shelf deep in the library, and all the shelves would be an elegant deep warm cherry toned, mahogany sort of wood, and all the wood would have ornately carved patterns on it, and there would be murals depicting fantastical scenes and faeries in forests, and it would generally be the most splendid library of all libraries anywhere, even more splendid than the library Rumpelstiltskin gave Belle (I wonder how many blog posts I can manage to reference them in?), though that was indeed a lovely library (and plus, how many guys give you a library twice--in the fairytale world and in the ‘real’ world?). It is likely needless to say, though, that I have not yet obtained this library. Not quite.
        I have, however, taken a step in this direction. My mom promised me that I could have the bookshelf which had previously been adjacent to our kitchen in my bedroom if I got the space for it in my bedroom cleared, and just last night, I finally attained this goal. It did take me a few days to work through the somewhat notable pile of accumulated whatnot in the corner of my bedroom beside my closet, but with the help of a couple of snow days, I got the task accomplished. I sorted through clothes and papers and various tchotchkes and trinkets and whatall over a couple of days, I stored my suitcase in the basement to make space, and I swept the miraculously uncovered new spot of fluffy dust bunnies, I moved the pictures hung too low on my wall to accommodate the height of the bookshelf, and finally I found myself with a beautiful, cleared, clean space for my very own bookshelf. We moved the freshly cleared shelf into my bedroom in the lovely spot carefully prepared for it, and I dusted it off and began the exciting process of loading it with my books. I’ve been anticipating getting this bookshelf in my room for some time now, and so I had piles of books prepared for it which have been blocking my door so it couldn’t open all the way for a little while. I finally sorted these books and lovingly arranged them just how I wanted on my shelf, and then I admired them in awe. I also took a bunch of pictures but I don’t feel like bothering to sift through those and to post all of them just now, so that may be another follow-up post some time, or I might just not post them. We shall see.
        But perhaps the best part of this was discovering that, despite how large the piles of books behind my door had seemed, there was still significant space left open on my new bookshelf. Which of course means that I can go get more books. Book shopping, anyone? :D Hehehehehe.....
        It’s funny, this is the second blog post I’m writing this week, but it’s the first one I’ve finished, because I’ve been switching back and forth. I’m also setting a new record for blogging this week. The other week, I made a record for getting my posts done the earliest I ever had, but this week, it’s a record in the other direction--this is the first time that my first blog post has ever come at nearly 10 o’clock on a Saturday night. That’s me and blogging, I guess! I did actually start my first post around Wednessday, I think, but this is the first one I’m finishing. But it was just kind of a weird week. And besides, I was busy making way for my lovely new little library corner :)
        A beautiful and precious new library was formally consecrated this week beyond the violet mist, and now new books may begin flowing in to fill its shelves, a thought which makes us smile widely.

Temporary Restoration

The following is my best attempt at restoring my lost Rumbelle post (see “post I am too distraught to give a proper title” if you don’t know what I’m talking about). For historical record, I shall here note that the original post was posted upon February 8, 2014, and so imagine that that is the date for this post as well. If you can think of anything I’ve forgotten to include in this restoration, or better still if you have any idea how to retrieve my lost post, please let me know!

Rumbelle!!!!

I ship it. 

          I think this post has been inevitable for a while, and now seems like a good enough time to write it. As you may have gleaned from my many references in both my blog posts and now in my monthly 'something awesome', I ship Rumbelle.
          I should now explain what this means. Of course, you people are likely more knowledgeable about the internet and terms used thereon than I am, and so you may already know what these mean, but I personally wouldn't have understood this statement not all that long ago, so for the benefit of people like me, I'll go ahead and explain.
          You are almost undoubtedly familiar with the word “ship”, but on the internet it has of late taken on a new meaning. I mean, hopefully all native English speakers know that ship means to mail or send something, or also a boat or sailing vessel, but that’s not the meaning of the word ship we’re using here. This form of ‘ship’ is casually derived from relationship. It’s funny, because I never thought I didn’t know what the word “ship” meant, but I was very confused when I first came across this usage of it. ‘Twas in a facebook chat with my best friend I first came across this use of the term “shipping”. She was telling me how she shipped Mary Murtle and Joe or something (not actually those two characters; this is in fact a reference to an inside joke my friend and I have long had, since around sixth grade. The characters she actually mentioned were from some internet manga she was reading, and I wasn’t familiar with it, so I don’t recall the actual names my friend used) and so I, rather confused as to in what context my friend was mailing these two characters, asked her “so you’re shipping them where?”. After having a little fun with me, she explained that shipping in this case means “the act of fully loving and supporting the beautiful relationship of two fictional characters”, or something to those lines. I tried to go back in my facebook chat history and find the original quote, but I couldn’t find it; it was quite some time ago. I think this is a good approximation of her definition though, and I think her definition pinned down this meaning of the term quite well, so this is the definition of “shipping” I’m using here.
           You’re less likely to know what “Rumbelle” is, especially if you don’t watch Once Upon a Time, as it is a more specific term and so less widely used than “shipping”. Rumbelle is simply a contraction of the names of the two people in the relationship, Rumpelstiltskin and Belle, and it is used to refer to these two characters together and the lovely relationship they share. When I explained this term to my mom the other day, she referred to famous “Branjelina”, which is a name that follows the same concept, and it’s so famous even I’ve heard of it. I think this term refers to the relationship of someone named Brad Parsley and Anjelina Jolie, but I don’t know or care about them. This post is about Rumbelle.
           So, why do I love and support the beautiful relationship of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle so very much? It’s difficult to pin down; they are simply exquisitely beautiful together. Part of it may be that I love the individual characters so much on their own. Rumpelstiltskin is one of my favorite characters in the entire show. It’s hard to say why exactly I like him. I think I started to like him circa episode four (my mom and I have been rewatching the series on Netflix, as Once is a show which fully warrants rewatching), even before he had a sympathetic backstory. It’s kind of strange, but Rumpel’s just fun to watch. He has a lovely giggle. He is clever and witty and it’s very amusing to watch him interact with others. He’s dark and manipulative, but honest(-ish; as Charming pointed out, he struggles with honesty of heart rather than honesty of words) and to be fair, he does always give fair warning that all magic comes with a price. He’s rather dashing. It’s just... the giggle. The clever, wittiness. The... Rumpelstiltskinness. In the course of watching the show, I gradually developed an appreciation for character and thence a little crush on said character. To use another modern internet term, I guess you could say I’m a 'fangirl', as referred to in this little “quip” (to quote Rumpel in one of his first romantic moments with Belle):

Hehehehehehe ;) ‘tis true. 

(this is what I was changing when I accidentally deleted the original post. I was changing “it’s” to “‘tis”. I know. If only I could’ve left it be... ) 

from http://weheartit.com/entry/48993327 found by google imaging “Rumpelstiltskin and Belle” (I haven't even visited the site).

I don’t know what’s so attractive about this, and out of context of the show it probably isn't, but after falling in love with the show, it just is. I can't help it.

I couldn’t find where this one was from, but it was somewhere on the internet, via google images. 

         Belle is also a wonderful and very likeable character. I think the reason I like her so much is because I kind of want to be her; I relate to her in a lot of ways and I envy her in others. She is truly the heroine of book nerds. She reads in abundance, as do I, and she uses the wide variety of knowledge she gains from her books to have awesome adventures and outsmart everyone else at need, which is the aspiration of all we of the noble order of book nerds. She dreams of having adventures and seeing the world, and she gets to in such cool ways. She is brave and bold and has a good heart and is able to see the good in others when others can’t (particularly Rumpel). She is a wonderful and interesting character and she is familiar in many ways and yet surprising. She’s even easier to like than Rumpel (though he is still immensely likeable). I also love her amazing hair, which is red--I’ve always sort of wanted red hair--and it is always wonderfully styled. I recently used her hair, along with the purple-blue coat she wears in the scene when Rumpel is going off to Neverland and he thinks he’s never coming back (but he does, and he always shall), as an inspiration for a first sketch of a character--the protagonist of Avgir Lys, an excerpt of which I recently posted, as it so happens. 

Here her coat (mentioned above) looks bluer.

I don’t know what the caption means, so don’t ask me, but it’s a lovely picture. I think that ship is a great background for an "au revoir" kiss. 

Here it looks purpler. The red in her hair is also brighter.

Both of these last two pictures are from this fun Once fan site: http://whyweloveonceuponatime.tumblr.com/archive

(this is a nice site for some cool Once pics)

          Belle is just an epic character. There’s this thing my younger cousins do when they’re watching a movie sometimes where they’ll point to a character and say excitedly, “I’m that one!” If I were to do that with Once, Belle would definitely be the character I’d choose to be. She’s an awesome, heroic book nerd, not to mention that she gets to be with Rumpel.
           Besides just being incredibly likeable on their own, Rumpelstiltskin and Belle are even better together. They’re simply so sweet together, and I love to watch all the scenes in Once where they are with each other. It’s hard to say exactly what it is that makes them so great together. A big part of that is how they make each other better. Belle truly brings out the light in Rumpel. She sees past his flaws to the goodness he had, and still has, in him and she helps him to choose it and become better. He has become filled with darkness, but Belle brings out the light in him. She helps him go from being a villain to being a hero, to put it in those generalized terms. It may seem harder to see what Rumpel gives Belle (besides his being generally attractive) but in a way, the same man who locked Belle in a dungeon ironically unintentionally and unknowingly freed her from an arranged marriage and helped her find true love. Despite hypothetically keeping Belle away from the world, Rumpel actually helped her get out and see the world. Not only did he give her the world metaphorically by giving her a library (twice--and I mean, really, how many guys give you a library twice?) but literally by enabling her to go out and do things like have a quest to, well, originally to slay, but later to free a man from being, a yaoguai.

          I think that’s about all I had on my original Rumbelle blog post. I know it’s not exactly the same, but nothing lost and recovered ever is. I think I have a fairly good memory, though, and so I know I’ve covered the gist of what I did before. Like I said at the top, if you can think of anything I’ve forgotten or better still if you can help me recover my original post, please let me know!

          Beyond the violet mist, we are romantics and we’ve been greatly enjoying watching the beautiful and lovely relationship of Rumpelstiltskin and Belle continue to unfold. (Beyond the violet mist, we’re beginning to recover from our tragic loss and melodramatic response.) 

Still TO BE CONTINUED!!

Distraught

Post I am too distraught to give a proper title

        Presently I am distraught. I am so distraught I could not even think of a real title for this blog post. I want to weep and cast my computer upon the floor with great force and scream and moan and freak out and roll on the floor in agony and beg for help. Does anyone, anyone out there in the wide blog world know how to un-delete a post? In this moment, how greatly I despise thee, o bedrattled internet! <swoons overdramatically like a southern belle. Hopefully at this point my blog readership metaphorically runs to my side to aid me>

       I think I accidentally deleted my Rumbelle post. Which suuuuuuucks. It sucks soo badly. I was using my grandma's laptop and I'm not that familiar with its finger-mousepad-thing, and I was trying to edit my Rumbelle post, because, well, the post I was going to do tonight was going to be the follow-up post for my original Rumbelle post, possibly with a digression into what I'm calling, "the most awkward double date ever", and so I was looking back at and just reading over my original Rumbelle post, and I saw a little thing I wanted to edit. Strictly speaking it wasn't even a grammatical error, it was just something I wanted to change to make it sound nicer, and so I clicked the little "edit" pencil, and then... I don't know what happened. I saw the post open, and then I clicked something and I backspaced what I was changing, and my grandma's mousepad went all weird, and all the text in the post editor was suddenly gone, and I freaked out and panicked and closed the tab, and then I was like, "wait, gosh, I shouldn't've done that", and I re-opened it, and I hit "undo" again and again, and also control z like a bunch of times, and then under "posts" I hit "revert to draft", and it still wouldn't come back, and now there’s a post still where the Rumbelle post’s supposed to be, but it’s just empty. I saw on the main page of my blogger account under the feed of the blogs I follow (yes, I do follow my own blog) the beginning of my beloved Rumbelle post was still there, but when I clicked "more", it came up with my "this page no longer exists" message (which I recently learned how to customize, which is pretty cool, but it's still frustrating to come up against it (if you want to see my awesome error message, just go to http://beyondthevioletmist.blogspot.com/2014/02/rumbelle-i-ship-it.html, the URL of my dearly departed post)). I went back in my history and tried to find it, then we came home and I went in my school laptop's history and tried to find it, but it was nowhere to be found--I either got the "no longer exists" message or my post editor with the unnervingly empty post.

       I then proceeded to spend, like, an hour on the internet floundering around and desperately trying to find any way possible to restore my lost post, but to no avail. I read a bunch of blogger help articles, marked nearly all of them “not at all helpful” and left comments like, “PLEASE somebody tell me how to get a post I accidentally deleted back!!!” on all of them, and I searched all my internet history, and I read random how-to articles on the internet. An article on cached webpages in your history sounded promising, but I couldn’t figure out how to find these cached pages. Even if I could just see a picture of my post, I’d be happy to re-type it all if I could only get it back. I’ve been trying to recreate my Rumbelle post from memory and from what I’ve found of it (basically that bit of the intro from my post-follower), but it’s going to be really annoying to have to redo it. That’s probably what I’ll have to do, though.

       If you have any vague half-inkling of a clue to an idea that might possibly in some way lead me to being able to recover my lost blog post, I beseech and implore you, do not allow yourself to hesitate the slightest bit from sharing it with me in the comments on this post, or by finding me in person and instructing me on how to recover it. HELP ME!!!! AAAAA!!!!!! I want my Rumbelle back :’(

      I guess I’ll plan on posting my re-creation of my post some time next week in addition to my 3 weekly posts. At least this post of stress and outrage was rather quick to write.

Things I have learned from this:

1. I shall back up all blog posts from hereon out in a google doc and/or word doc (google docs have revision history and so in this way are preferable to word docs, but google docs are on the ever-fickle internet) (I’m typing this presently in a google doc)

2. I know it’s here on out, not hereon out, but I like hereon out, and so I’m going to use it simply because I can. I also know this isn’t something I’ve learned and so it doesn’t even belong in this list, but it still seemed like the best place to put it.

3. When people say that things you put on the internet never ever go away, they’re lying. The internet’s not nearly that safe or reliable. (Not to say you shouldn’t still be careful what you post on the internet, but you should also not trust the internet to not lose your stuff.)

4. I hate the internet. I love it and it’s useful and an indispensable tool and all that, but I absolutely despise it right now. Curse and bedrattle thee, o internet! (Bedrattle is one of the words I’ve invented. I should do a post on those words at some point, and on my language.)

Today tragedy struck beyond the violet mist, and we lost something precious and beloved, unless you, o blog readership, can help us recover it.

spinning

Spinning

Quote from an earlier blog post draft that I wrote in the first week or so of CWII:

        I've been reading the blogs of some of my fellow creative writing II people, and I've learned so much more about their lives and who they are that I never realized before. It's quite amazing. A small part of me wants to put deep, personal things out there, too, so they can get to know me more too, but the bigger part of me doesn't want to. The internet is a vast and uncontrollable place,

That's as far as I had gotten. I was reminded of this after looking at other people's blogs again today and seeing still more deep and personal and emotional things they had posted. I was looking and thinking about what to write for my blog post today so I could set a new blogging record for this week, two consecutive blog posts done by Thursday (now Friday, but it's still a record for me), and so I saw this draft and I thought, "maybe I can do something with this." It occurred to me that in some respect it could go along with another idea I'd had. And so that's what this blog post is based in: using some old draft I had started a while back as an intro to another post for which I had had a vague idea. 
        So, what is the deep, personal thing, yet thing which I am still willing to post on the internet, that I thought of to go with this? Well, as you have likely gathered, I'm kind of a weird person. And so I decided to do something about a weird, random fact about me / a weird, random thing I do. 

        It all started at Norwegian camp. (Isn't that one of the best anecdote-starters ever?) There, among many other neat things, we got to learn to spin wool in a really old-fashiondy way. Like, even more old-fashiondy than the way you see Rumpelstiltskin spinning in Once. He has a whole big fancy wheel; we had the much more basic form of spinning tools, which were basically sticks with hooks on the end. It was interesting but tricky to spin the wool. I took quite a lot of time to make not a great deal of thread, and mine, like most everyone else's, came out all lumpy. 

Here is a picture of my first "skein" (using the term loosely) of wool thread:

as you can see, it's not very good and it's not very much.

I took a little chunk of wool with me from Norwegian camp, because as tricky and strange as spinning it was, it was also rather fun and it felt nice to do with your hands, the spinning and twirling of the stick and the careful direction of the fluffy wool into a some semblance of smooth-ish thread. At this point you may be thinking that spinning isn't really all that unique of a hobby. I mean, it's old-fashioned and archaic and somewhat rare of a hobby these days, but it's not exactly a weird, random fact. Or maybe to you it is, but if it's not weird and random to you, don't worry, the spinning's not the part that I meant to be weird. 

I didn't really stick with the wool. No, I found a better medium. 

What else are you to do with all that hair that comes out in your hairbrush? It seems such a waste just to throw it all away. Sometimes, in the spring, you can put a scrap of embroidery thread in it and throw it outdoors. Then, birds will use it to make a nest, and if you're lucky, you can see which nest it is by the embroidery thread. But this doesn't exactly work in the dead of winter when it's -20 (sans windchill) out here in--well, to the internet, my location is Norway. In reality, it's probably been colder here than even Norway is. So, I thought, why not try and spin it?  
        Well, and also I'd seen a thing on animal planet about a lady who spins her cats' hair into thread and then knits sweaters with it. While this is tempting, especially because it's pretty much the ultimate way of saying, "I am a crazy cat lady", (which, by the way, one of my goals in life is to be an official crazy cat lady) we don't really brush my cats, and anyways, they're not really shedding this time of the winter. I think cat hair would be a harder medium, too, especially because its so short and often doesn't stick to itself well. My hair, on the other hand is an excellent medium. Allow me to explain by outlining my process. 

First, obviously, you must brush your hair. I have always loved my hair. It is rather long, though I'd like it to be longer (it grows quite slowly--I've never cut it short), it is a nice shade of blonde and has a gentle wave to it, and it is very silky and soft when it is washed, combed out, and smoothed. It is both a good thing and a bad thing that it is so fine, though, because it is very much inclined to snarling. In winter I have an almost perpetual and nigh irradicable rat's nest at the back of my neck, where scarves and sweater collars and coat collars and whatall rub and mess with it constantly. But the nice thing about this is, other than the fact that the fine-ness of the hair lends to its silkieness (when it is indeed brushed), it also leads to it sticking to itself better, and this is the principal reason I find it easier to spin than wool. 
        Also, it takes less preparation to spin hair than wool. At Norwegian camp, when we were going to spin the wool, we washed it in little kid swimming pools, and then we had to card it, which is where you use two brushes to get the wool smoother and all lined up in the same direction so that it can spin smoothly(-ish). With hair, these steps are both accomplished by the regular care of your hair. You don't need to wash hair in a tub of water when you wash your hair regularly while it is attached to your head. Really, spinning your own hair is much cleaner than spinning sheeps' hair anyways; sheeps aren't huge on baths, and I know where my hair has been, and I can't say the same for the sheep's hair. Also, as the hair for spinning is collected in your hairbrush, I mean, I guess I could still try and card it, but it's always seemed to me that brushing it effectively cards it for you, so I don't. 

Then, when it gets full, I empty the brush. Another nice thing about using hair for spinning is that you get it bit by bit and so it's easier to spin it a little bit at a time. With the wool, you have to have some supply of it, and then you have to also be able to obtain wool somewhere in order to continue. With the hair, it comes in more or less regular amounts over regular periods of time. This also keeps the thickness of the yarn you're spinning more uniform and consistent than with wool. I have been working on my length of thread for a fair period of time now--I started not all that long after Norwegian camp ended last summer, and now it's late winter--and I have a fair amount of good yarn built up. The availability of the hair at regular intervals automatically paces your work on your spinning. It's quite nifty, really. 
       Though I don't card my hair, I do stretch it a little to get it in the right shape to spin. I pull it out into a length like this:

see how it's narrower and longer than the hairbrush? I just gently pull it out longer like this so it's all ready for spinning. 

Then comes the exciting part: time to get out my spinning stick!

this is my spinning stick with the hair I've already spun wrapped around it. The hook is on the end at the right; you can't hardly see it because my starting knot's so messy. It was much neater when I started, but it's broken several times. This is the biggest disadvantage of spinning my hair: it's fine but it's also weak, and my yarn has broken and come unknotted several times and so it's been repaired quite a few times. Other than the knot, though, it's stayed pretty neat when I repair it, because my hair sticks to itself quite smoothly. Its smoothness also causes my knot to slip sometimes, as well. My hair has its pro's and con's, but I still prefer it to wool by a good ways.

unwinding the spinning I've done from the stick so I can work on it again. My hairbrush, at ready, is seen in the background.

comparing my working length of hair-yarn to my 'skein' of wool-yarn. See how much smoother and nicer and more uniform my hair-yarn is? It's also much softer and less rough than the coarse woolen thread. My hair-yarn is very nice homemade yarn. 

drawing out the working length of my hair-yarn in my fingers, preparing to spin it. You can see that it looks curly because in this picture I have the strand a little slack, and so it's pulling in on itself. Spinning is basically just twisting it into a nice cord, so it's just all twisted up, and since this piece is unfinished, it wants to pull back in on itself and untwirl. 

I double the length of hair-yarn I'm working with back over the lengths of it being stored on the spinning stick. I catch it on the hook, which holds it in place and helps spin it. You can see the end of the thread, which is in my hand, is looser and less tightly spun than the majority of the thread. It has been worked less, and I never finish the end (or at least I won't until I'm done with my skein) so that I can attach the next piece I'm going to work with.  

the hair-yarn doubled back and caught in the hook, drawn out and taught, ready to spin a new piece on.

the hair I've spun starts from the knot, is spiraled down the stick, and then is stretched back up to the hook, which holds it as I draw it out to spin it. 

in my hand is the rough end where the new piece will be attached. Behind my hand the new piece awaits. 

attaching my new piece of hair to my old in order to begin spinning. I line up the piece of new hair on the rough end of the already-worked hair

and then I rub them together to attach them. I spread both ends out with my fingers and push them into each other to connect them. This part was nigh impossible with the stubborn wool, but my hair takes to itself quite easily. After just a little rubbing and working, the pieces join quite nicely, and I am ready to begin spinning it. 

drawing the hair up in my hand, ready to spin it. The newly-added piece is in my hand and so is harder to see, but it's there. I couldn't actually take pictures while I was spinning, as that just about takes three hands on its own, but this is close. You can also see in the background my homework stuff, as I do homework on my bed. I like to sprawl my whatnot out. So, this is a pretty honest look at my homework area of an average evening, though my stuff is shoved aside for my picture taking. Anyways, this is just before I spun, but when I'm all ready to spin.

a closer-up picture that shows my spinning much better. The already-spun stuff is to the right of my hand, and the new, not-yet-spun stuff is to the left of my hand, and I'm holding and guiding it with my hand. 

drawing the length up, about to spin. Imagine this picture is the actual spinning, because like I said, I couldn't spin and take pictures at the same time. It wouldn't have looked much different, anyway--I would just have the spinning stick in my hands instead of held between my knees. Really, the only way you could've told if I was spinning would be if I'd done a video. Perhaps some other time.

 So, when you spin this way, you twist the stick in one hand, typically my right (the story of my hand dominancy is complex enough for a blog post of its own. I'll put it down in my ongoing idea list) and hold the thread with your other, typically my left. I re-spin the old stuff a little more before I go to the newer stuff, to help it get tighter and more uniform. When you are spinning, you are literally just spinning the stick. You twirl it in your fingers and it twirls the threads together and makes it into a cord. To spin the new part, you spin the old part up tight, until it has a little too much spin in it for just it, then you slide your fingers back over the new stuff, and the tension of the twirl spreads out into the new part. It spins itself with the saved-up spinning from the stick you've transferred into the thread. Then, the new length becomes one with the old length and you've got yourself a few inches more yarn. 

This is the new part looking like the old part. It has officially become hair-yarn. You can see here that there is still a part to the left of my fingers that is unspun; this is where the next new piece will attach. 

The length of my new spinning

my new loose end.

now, I take the end out of the hook and wind the hair-yarn back up around the spinning stick to store it until I'm ready to spin again.

here is my new length of spinning, all wound up around the spinning stick. I'm getting a fair amount built up! Eventually, I'll be ready to make something with my own hair-yarn. I'm not sure what I'll make; I know how to crochet, but I could learn to knit. We shall see. 

My complete hair-spinning kit. My hair brush and my spinning stick all laden with hair. The loose end is shown out toward the hairbrush, which will supply it with its next piece of new hair.

my lovely hair-yarn, all smoothly twirled up around my lovely spinning-stick. 

all wrapped up and ready to put away. 

Where I keep my spinning when I'm not working on it, a windowsill in my bedroom. On the right, you can see a random length of purple ribbon I hung up, and slightly to its left you can see the string from which my zentangle robot (I'll explain it another time) and on the far left, from the turn-handle that opens the window, you can see a cool bead-strand hanging. I have a bunch of stuff hanging up all around my bedroom. Maybe some time I'll have to do a post on my bedroom. Maybe not. But, so, that's where I keep my spinning. 

a cool perspective close-up on my spinning on its shelf. 

a little farther out picture of my spinning on its shelf. You can more clearly see the bead strand and you can even see the top of my jewelry board, and a little of the corner of my shelves on the left. Oh, I'd forgotten I'd hung that pencil there. It's hanging from my Zentanglebot string. Because, where better to keep your spare pencil than hanging from the string of your Zentanglebot?

Now you can go and spin your hair if you'd like. Of course, I don't know where you'd get a spinning stick if not at Norwegian camp. It might not be too hard to make something like that, though--just a stick with a hook of some sort on the end. They probably even sell big fancy spinning wheels like Rumpel's somewhere, though I wouldn't have a clue how to use one of those.

from somewhere on the internet.

I hope I've offered a fairly decent explanation of my process, not to mention revealed some interesting stuff about me, though hopefully to strangers of the internet I still remain rather vague. I like spinning my hair, and I think it's a good, weird, random fact about me to share. It's fun, and it's nice to think while you work through the spinning of it. It's very fiddly with your fingers and hands working the stick and the hair around, and it's a good occupation for hands, and it just has a nice physical flow as your doing it, and it still lets your mind wander freely. In a way, it's a practical second use of my hair. I just love the old-fashioned-ness of it, and imagining I'm in a time long ago whilst I spin, and more recently the way I feel like I could be in Once Upon a Time while I'm doing it, though I've been spinning my hair far longer than I've been watching Once. In a way, though it is like I'm spinning gold--just look at the color of my hair! ;) It's just a fun hobby, and I like that it's pretty unique, too. I like being weird. :D 

       We spin straw-like hair into silken gold yarn beyond the violet mist.