Shared Story Revision (Note: it's against my religion to swear. Even if someone else did it first.)
She stood at the edge of a precipice, between one moment and the next. Staring at the physical representation of her life. She felt regret for all of the things she missed out on in life, and guilt for all of the things she did wrong; all the times she could have visited her Grandma in the hospital before she died of a massive heart attack, all the children she never had. But it wasn't entirely her fault, it was others too, the voices in her head. The voices that kept talking in her head, each one stranger than the last.

"where are my farm tools?" asked one; there was a moment of silence as they all waited for and answer. A direction. "where are the got d*** tools at! S***!" Screamed the voice.
"We're right here, n*****, d***!" said a voice that sounded like Beyonce.
She really hated being schizophrenic. She looked back at the precipice, a gap between her world and reality.

2nd part of: Maps to Anywhere

           the two sections before House of the Future are a collection of small seemingly unrelated stories, about a page and a snapshot each. They talk about every day things like taking pictures and rush hour in a unusual way. or they talk about people using one event to illustrate them. Quite a few of them talk about growing up. Becoming the big people, taking a different  view and so forth.
          House of the Future was about his brothers death, thanks for the spoiler on Thursday. It also talks about his parents friends and his aunt Flo (who may or may not be the one from Hurricane Ride). on the title, he suggest in his writing that it is called House of the Future because of the exhibit in Disneyland which he repetitively discussed with his dying brother. But it could easily mean the House of God, we all die, so we are all going to the House of God in the future.
          The other phrase that was used one way but could mean two things was "swimming with the stars." Obviously in the beginning the meaning is clear; swimming with celebrities. However when his mother latter reflects, saying "my son, swimming with the stars" it could mean two things: one she's reminiscing on his brother before the cancer and what he did that summer before it struck. Or it could be referring to the celestial bodies in the air, which most people vaguely believe the souls of the dead are connected to.

on By Any Other Name; first off name acidotes make me laugh, always have. like I mentioned in class about the haunted house at disney world. So these name games I got. In fact one time I made a list of names with a little story attached. See in the LDS faith we like to joke about not being Molly Mormons, who would be the perfect Mormon woman and do all her callings every week, bake her own bread know everyone in her ward(A.K.A. congrigation) and so forth; My joke was to give names like N. Active Member to the people who were in her ward, it was fun and interesting. I also get not being able to find your name at the store, I can't even find a different spelling of my name at the store and it is not that uncommon; actually I can almost never find my middle name either and there  has been a Brianna in one of my classes every semester that I can tell.
       I got to say I totally had a happy freakout when the author metioned Joseph Smith, the first latterday prohphet of my Church. The question about the breastplate I can answer too; the breastplate mentioned was not that of a roman soldier but one of a Jewish preist like in the picture on the left. Although Inonicly Joseph Smith does seem to have rather wide set eyes as well(picture on the right). I personally don't think the stones were still attached to the breast plate while he used them but instead, it has always been my suspition that he used them like one uses one of those magnifying paper weights but instead of just magnifying the words it both magnifys and translates.
         lastly about the title of the chapter Beacons Burning Down; I totally understand and know what it is like to have something you think is really stupid grow on you. I would like to compare this to the joke "I mustache you a question" at first you don't laugh. It's not a funny joke, it's a corny joke at best. Then you find yourself using it the next day on one of you friend, suddenly it's hallarious. That is what I image the author felt like the morning after hearing this line.

   Since it was not clear what we were suppose to post on this week I am going to guess that it was the essay packet reading. When I asked in class you said that the differents between fiction and an essay was that fiction was made up, but the things spoken of in an essay actually happened. The first story, Red: an Invocation, was a little obsesive but perfectly realistic, I suppose. The next two based on memories of family, the last of the short essays was based on history, mythology and fact, but like too many of the stories in the packets you give us had an abupt end due to the packet not containing the entire text.

    The first long essay gave new meaning to essay as defined above. What was written was very probably what happened but like the first story also elaborated on, making the essay less about what happened and more about how the narrator felt about what happened, what the event put made the narrator think. although I am fairly sure the event was someones death it is interesting to note that besides the death of the fly, which presumably happened while the narrator was writing, the event this peice is about is never really adressed.


    The last story is of course not only the longest but a mixture of near all the styles here to used. It is the reacounting of a memory, with historical, mythical, and pratical references, and a whole lot of emotion and thought written down to suplement the raw facts of the event. The narrator even tells us what she thought and did before and after the event to give us more context and closer. I also really liked her reference to the birth of Jesus, saying sending the shepards a letter with an angel on it would not make them "sore afraid," I just love bible quotes.

ok. . . so When It Rains It Rains a River no one talks like that and no one think like that, the reason no one talks or thinks like that is, no one can listen to, or read, that type of phrasing for more then 20 secounds without losing it, I know it happened to me. The repitory patterns were mind numbing the grammer was atroshous and the characters were so bland, I think I may have cried from a brain freeze, I wasn't even near anything cold. also, it didn't get any better in The Singing Fish, and if you want us to read it why not include the whole story intested of just inserting the weirdest parts in a "packet".
Not even going to start on The Falling Girl because it makes light of scuicide.
Skip to August 25, 1983 interesting story, intreging plot, kind of morbid, but still my favorite in this packet. I really like how the author used his own name in the story to add more credit to the words of the odder self. Lastly, The Fifth Story was a little obsesive, isn't every story about something small and seemingly insignificant, but still pretty interesting, I like how she would start back at the begining to explain each change of events in her mind, sort of help you follow her somewhat twisted logic.

About Juice
       When I first went to read it I hoped that it would not be like the previously assigned reading but would rather have a coherent and understandable theme to follow through what I at the time supposed would be a single story. This is not what I found. I found a hidden theme of obsession and loneliness in four separate stories about four unconnected people.
        On their loneliness; Their loneliness is somewhat self inflicted and is not due to not being surrounded by people, except in Translation, in Proportion Surviving the loneliness is caused by an apple drought which caused the narrator to be unable to obtain their favorite beverage fresh, not like in No Through Street where the narrator lost contact with all they loved through development and wandering, both are a different kind of lonely from the loneliness in First Sleep which is the loneliness of losing someone, just one person, close to you without an understanding of why. All of these latter loneliness's seem insignificant however when compared with the loneliness and abandonment of Translation.
         On their obsessions; the first narrator is obsessed with the mountains, obviously, she will not leave them she sees them as her world and she talks to them near the end of her sanity as she is alone. The second narrator is quite obsessed with apple juice, she writes poems about is, goes on strikes for it, and even gets unreasonably depressed over the lack of it. The third narrator is completely caught up in trains, she spent fifteen years on them, if she is to believed. The forth narrator is obsessed with sleep, it is all she does. She sleeps with short interludes of awareness in which she describes the world around her.

Fiction
        I really liked the fiction writing packets, they are so motivational. I don't know about the rest of the world, but in my sphere of existence most of the kids I know want to write a book that will one day be published, I have written or started to write many stories myself. when you have a story that you working on these packets bring them to mind almost immediately, it makes you want to settle down in the cushioned corner of a warm couch with your computer or notebook and write, using all their fabulous suggestions to reach deeper and make more of a story that could have come out saying less.
       They also make me want to go back and edit the stories that I have already written. There is this one story, I wrote it when I was like 9, it was all over the place. I never noticed that it was all over the place until I started thinking back on it while reading one of the fiction packets assigned the first time. Suddenly I saw that the plot jumped all over, it was unclear why the characters where doing what they were, who the main female lead even was (due to a little editing debacle), and the villain didn't even exist until the last chapter. When I realized how horrible wrong it was I had to wonder how anyone could have let me believe it was good. although now I think about it on of my reviewers merely said she thought it would be good if I went back and edited it in a few years.
         I also read a lot of fiction in my spare time, it is a joke in my family that I'm addicted to fiction (which I know is mostly a joke but sometimes wonder if my family does). Since I do so much fiction reading I could also compare some of what the packets said to how the authors of some of my favorite books write, it is an interesting exercise to think on. one of the authors I have been reading lately makes a point of giving their co-lead a description of them before they meet then making it clear that although the description does fit it is not there is more than one why to interpret their actions or the descriptive words used in that description.