Erica Lynn Stratton

Moving Sucks

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:15:15 GMT

In going through all the bazillion things that seem to have somehow migrated into my dorm room, I'm finding inflatable koosh balls, a plush owl, unused film, a heat gun, pennies in places I never knew pennies could go and more receipts than I know what to do with.

In short, I'm moving.

And I want you all to move too.

No, no, not to an apartment in Naptown... or Seattle... or New York... or wherever the hell it is I'm going to. Instead, I'm moving my Livejournal.

If you're wondering why the hell I'm doing this, it's THE NAME. Most people can't even say it right. I decided on it one night when I was sick and watching that King Arthur movie and I saw this. I don't think you can blame it entirely on the Robitusin, but Gwenever and Gwenevere were taken so I used some nonsensical mishmash of the two in a fit of pretty actress worship. Changing it to something else is a little easier than fixing an ill-considered tattoo, but it costs $15.00.

So I'm making an entirely new account. Fortunately I don't have a lot of stuff to move around on here, but it's going to be a bit of a pain for my friends and such and all the cool links I have and everything. I'll friend you all again, but there will be a lot more links and cool stuff and such for you to play with once I get everything moved.

This journal (Gwendovere21) will be kept up for one month, starting today. After that, it'll be deleted and everything will be moved to the new journal:

http://ericastratton.livejournal.com/

Pink Sunglasses

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:49:47 GMT

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Artistic Integrity

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:12:57 GMT

I'm using my film camera for the first time. 7 rolls of film just from Senior Prank.

I was walking back to Spector when J. came up to talk to me. "Get a lot of compromising pictures?" he asked with a smile.

"Some," I said, "but I won't put them all on Facebook."

"Aw," he said, "that's what I like about it! K. and I were just discussing the embarassing pictures you take. You seem to have a knack for it."

"Aww," I said, "thanks."

I wasn't sure whether to be complimented or ashamed.

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:15:56 GMT

Seriously, who draws these? Every now and then we get this crazy comic on the chalkboard of 2nd Spector.

Chess Pieces Should Be In Black and White

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:45:37 GMT

oh my god it's my senior oral you guys all have to come!!!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:58:22 GMT

When?!: Monday, March 24, 2008
What time?!: 11:45am - 2:45pm
Where?!: The King William Room, BBC

The moment has come. I am going to put on the gown and the silly hat and sit my ass down where generations of Jhonnies have sat before me. My essay is:

"What Breeds About the Heart"
(Pity in King Lear)

I want to invite EVERYONE. And, in fact, my essay does have something for everyone:

some Pity (for Andy)

some God (for Erik Klaus)

some bastardly deeds (he knows who he is)

some Kurasawa (for Mr. Yee)

some bitchy women (but in a good way) (for Miss Burlington)

some sex and violence (for everyone else)

Hell, someone can even invite Mr. Sutton, I have a footnote on the Marquis de Sade

Brooke can keep me from hugging Chole and Miss Siler can tell me how biased the tutors were and Dan Lewkow can be impeccible and Alex Bunnell can wear bunny ears and Mark can offer to dance with me and I'll look at him funny and Miss Harrison can make cool comments and Everett can just sit there and look good...

God, I love graffiti

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:06:49 GMT

Wanna see some more?

WANT TO BE QUOTED IN A MAGAZINE?

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:34:31 GMT

Did you attend The Vagina Monologues? I need "a quote from an audience member" for my article on women at St. John's that will be published in The College Magazine. The article has a word limit, so I'm not looking for a novel, but feel free to comment or e-mail me on:

--any way you were surprised, inspired, or shocked by the production

--your reaction to the word "vagina"

--whether you thought the production was relevant to the "women's experience" (whatever that means) at St. John's or in life in general

--anything you want to say that is WAY better than any of the suggestions I give here

If you didn't attend the production but know someone who did, please e-mail them this and tell them to send their reply to erica.stratton@sjca.edu.

My Grandparents' House

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:14:18 GMT

After an exhausting week in New York City (in which I lost my wallet and got the flu) I took the Amtrack train to Cumberland, MD, where my grandparents have lived for 55 years. This is as close as the train could get me to my ultimate destination (Morgantown, WV). Cumberland is the town where I lived until I was eight, and almost nothing has changed in the twelve years since I've left.

In my grandparents' house there are lots of books,

and their walls are hung with art:

I tried to call my mother last night on this:

This is an actual rotary telephone, and it actually works. My grandparents have used no other phone for as long as I can remember. I tried to "dial" it, but having received the message that my call could not be completed as dialed I found myself defeated by my inability to adapt to ancient technologies and ran for my cell phone.

I'm Published

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:32:40 GMT

"The problem of violence in Annapolis is clearly a growing one and it cannot be solved until it is truly identified. We feel that this can only be done through the strengthening of a network that is dedicated to reducing violence."

Read the article I wrote on the Epigenesis program on their blog.

Heroic Nerds

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:52:20 GMT

... or actually I should have titled this, "Nerd Bonanza". Why?

Because I just found the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft online.

Of course, this isn't really his "complete works". The best stories I think he ever wrote were at least co-authored with someone else, and they're all in The Horror In the Museum, which I would dearly love to find online. Some of the stories he wrote by himself, especially the early ones, sound kind of like...er...like how Oscar Wilde might if Oscar Wilde only had the talent of the average Harelquin novelist. Yep. Stay away.

But Lovecraft has also written the only horror tales that actually scared me. So, if you haven't already, feel free to check out

The Colour Out Of Space (Probably the best thing he ever wrote.)

The Thing On The Doorstep

The Tomb

The Dunwich Horror (Because, man, who doesn't love a good shuggoth?)

Why I Am Not Successful

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:50:31 GMT

I have finally discovered why I have not yet become a micro-celebrity:

My Livejournal layout is ugly.

There are other people (like stereotypist and , korenshadmi) who make their journals far more than just the emo writings of unhappy jobless people and post comics and stuff about how they worked for the New York Times and have thousands and thousands of friends that comment on their every word. And their journal layouts are lovely. I fear I will never be able to reach such heights, though I have tried and failed at least six times now. As some of you may not have realized, the time when you logged on to my page and all the text was shoved off the screen was not a glitch but my efforts to post a new layout without realizing the difference between a basic and a plus account, or S1 and S2. I finally settled on the current one, but I wince every time I log on. So...

Anyone know of any good groups or websites that have beautiful LJ layouts for a plus account? I want something black and red and edgy. Or just something with birds on it. Or, hell, anything nice looking that will make my friends page (which is full of large graphic posts of comics) look good.

EDIT: And as long as we're on the subject, how to you make the names of peoples' journals into live links? I've been wandering around in the FAQ but I can't think of the right keyword or something...

God, I'm computer illiterate. This is what 4 years of liberal arts school will do to you: beware!

Thank God

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:55:23 GMT

Insomniac on the Loose!

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:42:09 GMT

I got exactly one hour of sleep last night. There was no real reason for it except that the weeks of drinking all night and sleeping till noon have made my internal clock go entirely wonky. My body would simply not let me sleep. I spent my precious extra hours doing Important Things like sending people e-mails for possible interviews; perusing web comic archives; reading an article on Le Miller and her horrible, horrible life; and writing a few more paragraphs on an erotic story I'm working on where I compare the build of a gorgeous man to "a lavishly upholstered couch made to kiss on". At breakfast I did things very carefully so that no one would guess how little sleep I had had, a state which can occasionally approximate mild drunkenness. I made sure to drink enough coffee so that the world eventually came back into focus.

Tsk, tsk, you say. Am I going to work on my paper like this? Am I going to apply for writing/editing jobs like this?

Hellz yeah.

I expect the caffeine crash to come around 2:00 this afternoon. Hopefully I will have actually gotten enough work done by then that I will feel that it is worth it. On a more positive note, I saw the sun come up this morning for The First Time in God Knows When.

The Essay

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:29:14 GMT

Finished a full draft Thursday night, met with my advisor on Friday. Now editing said draft verrrrryyyy slowly...

My impression of this paper is that, even if the week we have left isn't quite enough to do all I want with it, I'll do all right. It hovers around 24 pages, and has been written on one of Shakespeare's most difficult plays. I put a lot of thought into it... but the topic is still too broad and diffuse, and the language I'm using doesn't have the lightness of when I'm really "into it". I've had my life after St. John's too much on my mind to make this paper where most of my real energy is going, and I didn't know/failed to plan what I wanted to write about early enough, so all the literary niceties that would make it a really good paper are being sacrificed to the time crunch. They'll definitely let me graduate with this paper and will say nice things about it to me, but I'm not seeing any chance at all of getting that essay prize. *sigh*

I'm on the sixth (hopefully the next to last) draft. Every so often I go and print out the latest copy and work with a pen for a while just so I have a break from staring at the computer screen, and it's adding up to quite a stack of pressed dead trees. I think the day after I finish I'll make a point of tossing them all into the recycle bin.

Home

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:08:35 GMT

First day back in the condo in WV and still haven't seen anybody. It's strange because while I was gone, M. moved house again. Not very far, just to another building in the complex, only with an elevator. (M.'s insurance for when she grows old here and can't walk up the steps anymore.) All the rooms in all the buildings are exactly the same, so it dosen't feel at all like we've moved. All the furniture in more or less the same configuration, and all my old things still in place (including a granite rock that came out of the belly of the Snorri that we've hauled from house to house with us ever since.) The view out the window is quite different but the illusion is complete: today M. and I were wondering if, last time I'd been here, I'd accidentally cracked a tile in the bathroom, only to remember that the last time I'd been here I'd been in another building and another room entirely--that in fact this was the first time I had entered this bathroom, which was still being built the last time I was here.

It's pouring and will freeze over tomorrow. Played around with Ali's digital camera, trying to capture pictures of the rain.

Buy My Photos

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 01:11:10 GMT

I still have some photos left from the Agora craft fair, so for those of you who have expressed interest or didn't get to go, I'm putting them up here in hopes someone else will want to buy them, either for themselves or as presents for their family and friends. If you don't live in the same state as I do (MD, currently) tell me which one you'd like within the next week and I should be able to mail them to you before Christmas.

They are all framed and come in two sizes: 5" x 7", selling for $10.00 each,

Chole Ho

Forbidden Planet window display, NYC

Julia Joyce, Asateague Island

Pretty Woman Walking Away, NYC

Croquet Practice, St. John's College

The 8" x 11" ones sell for $30.00:

Charlotte Licker

Charlotte Licker

Coney Island

Bather at Coney Island

Orchard Beach, NYC

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Some thoughts on late-night parties

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:07:57 GMT

Every Friday night for the past few weeks people have not only been hanging off Spector's balconies drinking, they have been partying in the common room on my floor--i.e., right outside my door. This would not be so bad if I was invited, but as the entirety of my floor besides myself is made up of Sophmores, these seem to have been mostly Sophmore parties. So I will be sleeping, oblivious to the preparations going on a door's thickness away, when I will suddenly be woken by some kind of party mix.

The conversations people have while drinking are (naturally, because of the location) astoundingly clear. Usually they begin with complaints about how few sexual partners the speaker has had, followed by various gossipy stories on the sexual lives of other people not present. Then they all go out on the balcony and sing a very mangled version of "The Star Spangled Banner". Then they all come back in again, and after a little there will be a lot of running up and down. Finally someone will yell, "Hey, are you going to the movie?" and someone will yell back, "Wait, I can't find my shirt!"

Dude, I'm a character in a teen romance novel!

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:01:26 GMT

God knows how this happened. I don't know this girl and the story hasn't anything to do with me personally (though it does sound a bit like how I imagine my life after college.) She apparently just plucked two names out of the air and they happened to be mine. They're even spelled right.

It's also labeled as a "gerardway love story". Does this mean that I'll get to have sex at some point?

gah...

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 05:02:41 GMT

I just realized I'm down to no more than a pop song by Snake River Conspiracy and a few paragraphs in a biography on Hans Christian Anderson to use as refrences that really describe the arcs of my feelings. All the other works I've looked at are either too slanted towards the tendencies I have being wicked...or being lesbian, which is too simple. I need to find new models.

Ladybugs

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:19:03 GMT

If one lands on your face, you will become a great beauty.

If one lands on your hand, you will soon be married.

But if one flys down and smacks you in the eye, what's that supposed to mean?

Maybe The Best Photos I've Ever Taken

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:36:39 GMT

Seriously.

Ancient History

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 02:04:07 GMT

Was cleaning up my unbelievable backlog of e-mails and found this:

See that condo on the left in the photo that's pretty much untouched? That's where M. (my mom) was living at the time (and, in fact, still lives). She had scorch holes in her patio furniture afterwards, and the two condos on either side of her bulding were reduced to scrap. It all happened
last year, and the condos on either side of ours are all rebuilt now, but the photo never fails to shock me.

I Hate Thanksgiving

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:57:23 GMT

For the past 21 years I have been forced into a small house with 30 other people who were supposedly all related to me. Despite their great number, none of them seemed able to cook. They also seemed to be some kind of religious fundamentalists because there was never any alcohol. Thus, this year I'm ditching the family, staying in Annapolis, and going to the President's house for Turkey Day. Who else has similar plans? Or, barring that, more interesting ways to spend the holiday than dismembering a large bird?

Ah, love.

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 05:11:06 GMT

White Ninja Loves A Fish