Rex sine Terra: King without a land

I am a king. Yes a king.  Rex sine terra, or a king without a land, in the way that Medieval Spain had men with the title dux sine terra.  The title came with certain status and authority.  It made you a duke, gave you certain prestige and acknowledged your standing in society.  But it did not come with land.  It wasn't a landed title based on the holding of certain castles or estates.  It was a title without land.  You were a duke without land.  And in this way I am a king without land.

A castle means safety; an arrow readiness for battle; a lion dauntless courage.  Red signifies military strength and magnanimity; blue truth and loyalty; purple royal majesty; silver peace and sincerity.

Now this doesn't mean that you cannot have land, authority and power.  It just means your title doesn't guarantee it.  If you were a duke without land in Medieval Spain, you only controlled your household and whatever estates you owned before the title.  Duke just came along as a bonus.  As for me, I am a king, but I did not inherit a kingdom with this title.  I have no land of my own complete with subjects.  But this does not mean I do not have power.

First and most importantly I rule myself.  I have adopted the motto "qui vicit, qui se vicit", or he conquers who conquers himself.  I believe this to be true.  A great many things can be done with self-control and determination.  The sixteenth century poet and satirist, Pietro Aretino, had this to say about the subject of self rule: "I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."  In my personal experience self rule is not only the most important thing for personal growth, it is also what paves the way to other successes. 

Does this mean that everyone is a king?  Certainly not.  One must have at least a modicum of self-control to vie for the title.  If you sit down and think about it you may be surprised at how few of the people you know actually exhibit self-control and the ability to rule themselves.  Think especially of those bad decisions you try to persuade your friends not to make.  Are they motivated by fleeting desires and lack of self-control?

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to actually look at the definition of rule now.  According to the dictionary, to rule is defined thusly: to control or direct; exercise dominating power, authority, or influence over; govern: to rule the empire with severity.

If rule can be defined as just having influence over, and let's face it some kings barely had that, then I rule all sorts of things.  I rule not only myself but also all of my possessions.  Due to the fact that I believe technological devices are magic I cannot claim to control them, but I certainly have a dominating influence over them.  (Ok, at least on most days.)  You may recall my mad ideas about the workings of flash drives.  Well, I own two of them with their attendant cities of miniature scribes and I rule their actions and inhabitants.  As far as influence goes I can reasonably say I have influence over my family and friends.  Who doesn't?  So in a small way I rule them too.

Actually my friends are the reason I'm a king in the first place.  My senior year of university my friends helped me build a cardboard castle in my dorm room.  That is really a story all of its own but that is the reason I am king.  Every castle must have a king, right?  Why didn't I just name myself queen of the castle, being that I am in fact a woman?  Well, I'll get to that in a second.  However, living in a castle demanded a power structure.  I knighted my friends, gave them titles and power.  Even before I became a self-proclaimed king I settled quarrels between them to the best of my ability.  After I became a king I naturally waged wars against enemies who threatened peace in our kingdom.  I made royal declarations and of course conducted battles with foam swords and cardboard shields.  

So, why not a queen?  Think about the history of women and power.  If you think of truly powerful rulers you tend to think of men.  Alexander the Great, Caesar, Henry VIII, Genghis Khan, Napoleon.  Do you think of Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great, or Cleopatra?  No, usually not.  Not to mention that many of history's powerful women only wielded power through men.  Often women came to power as regents for their young sons.  Catherine the Great only gained power by overthrowing her husband and having love affairs with powerful men in the kingdom.  Other women had to use their femininity as their strongest asset in politics.  Cleopatra kept power and influenced politics by making alliances, or romances, with powerful Roman rulers like Caesar and Marc Antony.  Elizabeth I was probably the first monarch to rule in her own right but she had to do so by constantly using her possible marriage as a bargaining chip.  She never married and one has to suspect that this was at least partly because her most powerful tool was dangling the hope of possible alliance with her into various political situations.

The lion in Leeds that greets me at my bus stop.  I like to think it is a royal lion.

So, the only real way to rule in your own right without having to use your marriage as a bargaining tool for power is to be a king.  If you are a queen your property goes to your husband when you are married and he controls it.  A king doesn't lose control by marrying.  A king doesn't rule only as long as his son is in his minority.  Historically, a king has more inherent power, authority and respect than a queen.  I didn't want my kingly status to depend on my personal choices of marriage and alliance.  I wanted to remain powerful and retain my freedom, and keep my cardboard castle to myself.  So I declared myself a king, claiming the position, the power, and the freedom that comes with such a title.  And I stubbornly defend this choice with anyone who argues.

Besides I wanted to be able to wear the color of royalty officially.  Purple was the colour of Roman emperors, kings and powerful men in ancient times.  The Roman Emperor Aurelian wouldn't let his wife buy a purple shawl because it cost its weight in gold.  It was expensive, it was a status symbol and it was highly regulated.  Sumptuary laws made it available only to certain classes of people even in the Tudor age of England.  So, I want to be ready just in case the old sumptuary laws keeping purple for the royalty come back in fashion.  Now that I've made myself a king I can wear what I like.  And more often than not I choose purple for my kingly raiment.

Polygonal Melodrama

Some people have the great misfortune to be plagued by people.  Yes people.  Maybe I'm just a misanthrope, that is still up for debate, but it seems to me that people have an alarming tendency to behave like weeds.  They pop up everywhere in vast numbers and there is almost nothing you can do to prevent them from turning up when and where you do not want them.  The problem with weeds is that they seem to be unhappy with simply growing in your garden.  They seem to like coming equipped with spines and thorns to make your life miserable while they slowly choke your beloved plants (cauliflowers, roses, what have you) to death, much the way people pop up with their unwanted drama and plague you with it mercilessly, slowly strangling all joy and happiness in your life.

Ok, fine, maybe I am a misanthrope.  If you dealt with the people I deal with, you might be too.  Don't get me wrong, I do like some people, for instance my housemate.  She brought me an adorable cauliflower cake from a tea shop the other day.  Relax, it's shaped like a cauliflower, not actually made from cauliflowers.  That would be the most rubbish cake ever invented, but I digress.

Cauliflower Cake from Betty's tea shop. Adorable, no?

So there are a handful of people I find acceptable.  The rest I'm rather tired of.  Whether you are a magnet for dysfunctional individuals, or you simply find yourself in the middle of a ridiculous amount of drama, you know what it is like to be plagued by people.  Much to my dismay I have occasionally found myself in the middle of a whorl of drama, either my own or someone else's, that I somehow managed to stumble into.  For several years now I have also had the great distinction of being a dysfunction magnet.  Sometimes the drama and dysfunction runs so deep that even years of study could not uproot it or untangle it.  So don't try.  Yes, I am advocating that you join me in giving up on worrying and contemplating.  The only solution to this sort of problem is chocolate.  Or cake, that works pretty well too.

So stop trying to figure out if you are involved in a love triangle, a love square, a love pentagram, a swirling vortex of drama or any other type or configuration of polygonal melodrama.  Don't even begin to try to understand it, or fix it.  Do not bring in any other verbs to deal with it.  Save your brain the trouble.  Break out some cake and enjoy life. 

Don't try to untangle things.  Trust me it's not worth the effort.  Just cut yourself loose from the snaring knots of strife.  Admit defeat.  Raise the white flag and declare that you are through trying to decipher the meaning behind the insanity.  If anyone or anything tries to get in the way of your timely retreat, don't just throw in the towel, throw it at their head.  Then sit down, put your feet up and eat some cake, preferably chocolate, but I'll let you decide that one. 

After all, you've just won the greatest victory of all.  Freedom.

Mad Images

I'm in a weird mood today.  Yes even weirder than usual.  So, I'm going to leave you with a few bizarre and wonderful images I've collected recently. These images not only suit my strange sense of humour, and my weird mood, they also serve to illustrate just how mad the whole world is.

Mr. Monk a.k.a. Frangelico

I was not the person who decided to make this particular alcoholic beverage in a monk shaped bottle with a rope wrapped around his waist and all its lettering done in gothic scripts.  (Of course if I was consulted I would have approved very heartily of this plan).  I did, however, give him a hat and dub him Mr. Monk.  I think he must be a Franciscan and therefore fantastic.

Cage-frame men in a workshop

These strange cage-frame men were in a workshop I happened to pass by one day after work.  It is hard to tell with all the glare through the windows, but these cage-frame men are standing by big tools in some sort of machine shop.  They look like they are about to come to life, switch on various tools and carry on working on their latest projects.

Barbara Banana - Fruit Box Security Officer

Before leaving work for the day a few of the girls giggled while they crafted this addition to the fruit box.  According to the inscription written on a post-it note this is Barbara Banana the Fruit Box Security Officer.  Apparently she is guarding the granny smiths because somebody loves them.  But it seems to be a part of her role to also guard pears and protect strawberry children too.  Her weapon of enforcement, and of course a natural choice for security, is a spoon.  Her uniform appears to include a night-cap or strange pointy hat.  Maybe it's the long nose, maybe it's the crookedy teeth, or maybe it's the allusion to witches with her pointy hat, but I think this Barbara can really only be described as a crone, albeit a slightly amusing and charming one.

Apparently I am not a good pirate, for I do not know how to plunder.  Therefore I sadly, must work.  Some days plundering just sounds so much more appealing.  Ah well.

So there you have it a collection of some strange images and things I've seen of late.

E is no longer just a letter?

rEading cat - Photo Source: Flickr by SuziJane

Today at work I saw a title that said e is for escape.  The article itself was talking about ebooks for the elderly.  However, it made me think E scape.  Huh, a technological escape.  Suddenly my mad brain took this idea and ran with it.  The letter e in front of things means some sort of technological version of them.  Ebooks, and emuseums are somehow online and accessible through new technological means.  If the letter e stands for technology then I decided all sorts of other words needed to be rethought.  For instance, a rEunion is where people are rEunited by the internet or facebook after a period of time.  Come to think of it, rEthought itself needs to be rethought.  REthought could mean coming to your conclusions based on things you have read on line.  The word rElate can mean to email a friend a story, or to form a connection or bond with someone online, (e.g. She could rElate to the blogger's love of ice cream).  To rEgift would be some form of sharing online, perhaps on facebook or twitter.  To rElax would be to find peace in online activities.  To dEstroy can be to ruin something online.  To bEsiEge can be to attack something online, probably with nasty comments (it gets two E's because besieging things in real life requires you to surround them and it is a rather intense process involving numbers and deserving of two E's).  But you could probably Evade capture by simply going offline.

On second thought, I don't think Escape is a technological escape.  I think Escape is a technological landscape.  A long row of computers could be considered an Escape though.  Or maybe a picture of the components of a computer.  Escapism could become a new art form.  It would be the next stage beyond post-modern.  It would be so post-modernly modern it could almost be modern.  See (which would become sEE, would be to view images online, and considering the eye-popping implications of two capitalized E's they are no doubt shocking ones).  Anyhow, my sentence got derailed by that tangent.  This is what happens when you start replacing whole words with letters and using letters to mean whole words.  E, is no longer just a letter which can only lead to more confusion in the future.  E is the most used letter in the English language if I am not mistaken.

Think about it.  Words like Elucidate (explaining things online) may be just as good as elucidating face to face.  But consider words like Eat and Elope.  Eating and Eloping are not in any way enhanced by an online experience.  These words are physical and their enjoyment is in the real physical world.  No E anything can rEplace that.  And what about sEcret.  There are no secrets online.  This all brings new meaning to the word Evil.  Is technology of the devil or is it simply malicious?  I'm not sure.  But this just brings me back to my rants about technology ruining the world and so forth.  Before I go on at length about this I will go to bed.

By the way, bEfore, now means procrastinating online when you should be doing other things like chores, or sleeping.  What other E words can you think of?  Ok, I'm really going now, you must be rElieved.

A Sunday Drive to Hebden Bridge

Today was entirely too lovely to be spent indoors.  So, although I had slept but a scant few hours I knew I needed to go ahead with the plans to hike with friends.  Why, you may ask, had I not slept much?  I had been working incredibly hard on an application for a job.  This is no ordinary job.  This job is so unusual, so specific, and so remarkable that it must have been made for me.  This job is to conserve, repair and generally work with model ships in bottles.  If I were to get it I would work at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, under an organic conservator and help do tiny repairs to ships in bottles.  I cannot think of a more random or delightful job to do.   I love ships in bottles.  I make miniature dollhouse furniture etc. in my spare time.  I studied the history and science and sailing at university and learned how to calculate longitude.  Yeah, that's right.  So, because I cannot think of a more amazing job and because I am randomly the most perfectly suited person for this job I spent hours agonizing over every detail of my resume and cover letter.  Eventually I admitted defeat, sent the application in its imperfect state and went to bed far too late.

Why did I need to go on this hike today?  Well for one thing, I told them I was going.  I am a person of my word.  If I say something I mean it and if I tell you I will do something I will.  For another thing, the sun was actually shining.  In case you do not know or cannot appreciate the significance of this I will explain.  I live in the UK.  This means that the sun NEVER shines.  Ok, to be fair it shines three days a year.  But this is simply not enough days in the year for me to fulfill my sunlight quota and replenish my vitamin D levels.  I was born on the West coast of the USA and I need my sunlight.  Needless to say I needed to savor the rare and delicious sunshine on this fine day.

The Hole in the Wall: Pubmaster.  I just loved this lantern.

Reluctantly and determinedly I got up way too early and got ready to go.  We were going to Hebden Bridge a cute little town on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.  The drive was leisurely as we wound our way past idyllic landscapes made even more perfect by the delicious sunlight pouring down on them. Hebden Bridge was delightful.  We had a nice lunch outside in a park.  We strolled along the river.  We admired architectural details, ducks, and dogs.

Tiny hillside cemetery on the way up the hill.

We climbed a small hill to go explore the little town of Heptonstall.  It was adorable as well.  It had its own tiny museum, the place where Sylvia Plath was buried, and a fascinating church ruin.  The old medieval church ruin sits majestically at the top of the hill nestled amongst the gravestones of the long dead.  Just at the other end of the small cemetery in the same churchyard is the newer larger church that is still used.  The ruined medieval church began its life in the 1200's and its stones bore witness to the many changes it saw during its lifetime.  The roofline was clearly altered, raised to match the new nave that was added.  The arches and windows were updated to be a bit more gothic.  Many churches have changes made to them through the centuries, but what made this church unique was the fact that it had two naves side by side.  When the town was prospering and growing in the sixteenth century the church was made larger to accommodate the growth of the town.  The walls and aisles were not just widened, an entire second nave with a new north aisle was added alongside the first.  I have never seen a church with two naves like that before.  It was fascinating to think about and gorgeous to behold.

The flowers growing among the stones mark the division between the two naves of this church. 

In case this was not evidence enough for you that this was a fascinating church I have another oddity for you.  The south entryway into the church seems to have been roofed with old gravestones.  I'm not sure at what point in history that decision was made, but I suppose they were a handy material as there are lots of them lying about the church yard.

Note the writing on the gravestones now acting as roofing material.

In the newer cemetery we did not find Sylvia Plath's grave.  The weeds were quite troublesome to wade through in much of the cemetery and we eventually gave up our search. I did see a headstone with RIP on it though.  I don't believe I've ever seen one outside of cartoons.

We walked back down the hill climbing on a few nice boulders on the way down.  We sang some songs about rocks, mostly meant to be about rock and roll, but we giggled anyway.  Then we ended our day back along the river in Hebden Bridge eating ice cream.  It was a lovely way to soak up some sunshine.  If my luck holds I may read in the sunshine tomorrow.

Sunset over Leeds

Batty Ideas, Harmonizing Bubbles, and Bonsai Trees

Foggy morning in Leeds

Today at work I had one of those moments where I realized how bizarre my life is.  This time it had to do with two things.  1. My stranger than strange job.  2. My very strange mind.

Let me explain.  My job is to come up with new ideas for ways to talk about and ultimately write about my clients.  There are only so many times you can write about the way that blinds allow you to adjust the light in a room.  So you need to come up with other topics.  I'm really good at it because my thoughts are well, simply random.  When I interviewed for this job they told me they were looking for more creative thinkers.  So I employ my creativity without any filter at my job.  Which means that I write about whatever come to mind.  Sure I've written the articles about decorating with blinds, but I've also argued that wooden blinds are more eco-friendly than curtains.  (There is some truth to it in the way that some materials are produced and acquired more sustainably than others.  Nonetheless, they're about even really.)

Perhaps my crowning work was the piece on creating a cardboard castle for your children to play in.  It comes complete with a working drawbridge I'll have you know.  What does this have to do with wooden blinds you ask?  Ah, well, every castle needs a portcullis and what better to use than wooden blinds?  I kid you not.  I get paid to write these things.  But today while I was writing a slightly more sane article about kitchen safety I had my realization that my job is truly strange.  I was talking about the danger of toasters getting too close to curtains and catching them on fire (you should really use wooden blinds see?) and I happened to write the phrase "errant toaster".  I had been thinking that it had simply wandered out of it's usual place and gotten too close to the curtains.  When I revisited this article I read it with the other connotation of the word errant.  I read the sentence with the mental image of a wayward toaster.

I am sure I do not need to tell you that my mind took this idea and started running with it.  Suddenly I was grinning vacantly at my computer screen as I imagined evil toasters with devil horns and pitch forks running around the kitchen prodding things, setting toast and curtains on fire, and generally creating havoc.  Undoubtedly I was scarred forever by the nightmare scene in The Brave Little Toaster and deep down still cringe at the idea of a toaster in flames.  Except this didn't star a creepy clown and the toaster in my work was evil not cute.  This is like the Brave Little Toaster's evil twin.  With that train of thought derailing my sane article writing I decided to switch to another topic.

Photo by Stellajo1976, via Flickr

Cleaning.  Surely cleaning was a safe topic.  I'd write about how you can make cleaning more fun.  I wrote an article about turning household chores into the Cleaning Olympics, complete with sibling rivalry turned into athletic competition, timed events, and medal ceremonies.  Then I started working on making cleaning fun for adults and my thoughts got derailed by bubbles.  Yes, bubbles.  Ever since I watched Disney's Cinderella I have wanted bubbles to harmonize with me while I scrub the floors.  Is that really so much to ask?  I'm not asking for singing, talking, loveable mice to help me.  I'm not asking for Fantasia like powers to make the mops do the work for me.  I even sing the song, Sing Sweet Nightingale while I do my work.  All I'm asking is that the bubbles oblige and harmonize along with me while I work.  I started thinking about this and got utterly derailed on that article too.  I decided that the problem was the head scarf.  I haven't been wearing a head scarf while I scrub and I can't tie a perfect bow behind my back.  I mean, how do you do that anyway?  Mine always end up sideways.  Sigh, yet another Disney ideal I'll never reach.

At the end of my shift I realized I had to stay and water the bonsai tree.  Now that I've started watering my colleague's tree and everyone knows that I'm keeping it alive it is sort of my job.  If it dies it will now be my fault not my colleague's.  So I now have bonsai watering duties at work.  It is growing leaves again, but it looks so straggly and sad.  I feel sorry for it.  When I placed it back on the desk I shook my head.  I have the weirdest job in the world, but I guess at least I have the mind to match it.

Is brevity a virtue?

Concise.  Pah.  I couldn't be concise to save my life.  What other people can say in two words I feel requires so many more.  I turn phrases into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into pages of ramblings, rants and randomness.  I am verbose.  And that perplexes me actually, because I'm quite the opposite in real life.  In person, in real life face-to-face situations I'm quiet.  No, I'm worse than quiet, I'm down right reticent.  Maybe my writing style just makes up for the cautious nature of my quiet personality.  But then is this really such a bad thing?  All through school they try to tell you that you need to be as concise as possible.  But some of the most beautifully written things are those that elaborate, in a great many words I might note, on the beauty of some minute detail that mere mortals have passed over unobserved.  Poets are not exactly concise, yet their writing is arguably far more worthy to read than the most concise documents with legal abruptness to their credit.  So why is concise writing considered such a virtue?

If a picture is worth one thousand words and you aren't using pictures and don't use one thousand words... are you really communicating? Just a thought.

If you are trying to be scientific then yes, brevity is admirable.  You lay out the facts in a logical and clear way that communicates all the important points neatly and concisely.  Well done, you can write a brief report and make charts; but I will argue that this is not what real writing is all about.  Writing is not about merely communicating facts it is about telling stories and communicating feelings.  And stating facts concisely does not make for interesting reading.  Every love story ever told can be condensed into this, two people met each other and fell in love.  That is not interesting.  Yet, we are continually drawn to love stories.  Why is that?  We are drawn to them because we love to watch the way they unfold.  Sure, they all start the same way, with two people who discover that the other person is unlike anyone they've ever met and they can no longer see themselves with anyone else.  But what we really want to know are all the details.  Why it works for them, how they respond to each other and difficult situations, how they work through the struggles that face every couple.  Love brings out the very best and very worst in people and we want to be made to feel for the characters with every delicious word of their story.

Sometimes a sentence just isn't enough to capture the depth of feeling.  Sure you can simply state, I'm angry, or I love you, and leave it at that.  The Emperor of Brevity will no doubt knight you on the spot.  I will argue that this is not enough.  Why you feel that way is just as important as the fact that you do.  The beauty of language is that it allows you to communicate with great variety and depth everything you feel and think.  You have an entire language or two, or three if you're feeling ambitious, to draw words and concepts from to express your thoughts.  You have the ability to use all of the rich and subtle variations of thousands of years of vocabulary to put your feelings into words that express them exactly and beautifully.  Do not cheat them of this richness by believing that brevity is a virtue. 

Scholars may opine that brevity is best.  They may look down in haughty disdain on those of us that cannot reduce our words into scientifically precise sentences.  Yet, I would challenge them to argue that the statement I love you, can in any way compare favorably to an entire love letter.  I would bet they cannot do so convincingly.  No, no, words are a delicious thing and I believe they were meant to be devoured in great quantities.  Let others strive to be concise.  I think I'll keep my words.