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Location: Work.
Listening: "If You Could Read My Mind" by Stars On 54.

I'm sure that I'm the last to do this, but I just popped over here, got sorted and picked up my wand. I sorted into Gryffindor, which was somewhat surprising after another site persistently placed me in Slytherin (apparently because I prefer to conquer than to succeed *grin*). My wand turned out to be Phoenix Feather and maple, 7 1/2 inches. I was very disappointed when I had to pass on the Dragon Heartstring and cedar, 13 inches, but a 13 inch wand would really be a little much for me, in retrospect. I also kicked around and decided to purchase an owl. If only the supply cabinet at work was half as interesting...

Recently, I've been feeling the need to burrow down and lose myself in some good, old-fashioned make-believe. This is likely in reaction to the current state of world affairs (I recently started reading/watching the news again) as well as other real-life concerns that have been pressing rather roughly in on me (see previous entry on bills, etc.). I've stopped reading my biography of Jean-Francois Champollion for the moment and have embarked on Herodotus' The Histories, because ancient history has always been the best "faery tale" for me--the people, places, events, and details of daily life are so distant from my own world that it's easy for me to think of Caesar, Alexander, Ramesses, and their ilk as heroes and villains in an epic fantasy saga. When I can lose myself in this notion and really get swept along with a story, then look up and realize that, essentially, "Yes, Virginia, this did happen.", it's just that much cooler. It's the same for literature in which legends, myths, and historical facts intermingle. I was the only person in my high school AP English class who loved Beowulf and, again, one of the only ones who read ahead in The Iliad and The Odyssey in Latin. Perhaps it's adventure that I seek--solace taken from the mess of my own exterior world in someone else's quest across desert, field, and "wine-dark sea". Perhaps.

Another reason why I've always enjoyed ancient history and literature: humor. The Greeks, in particular, had a wicked sense of humor--dry, and heavy on irony and puns. Just the way I like it. Herodotus is, quite frankly, hysterical in the "There is a great and terrible tale of men and why they will not slaughter the pig in their rituals which will strike the hearer with deep amazement. I will not tell this tale. I will instead, speak of Attyaxas, son of Blepherus, who attacked the Melitians eleven times without ceasing, walking even in the rain..." (sic--my book is at home) sense. Perhaps there is some deep, mystical reason why Herodotus felt he could not tell the tale he built his audience up for--perhaps they knew this reason, and he was merely alluding to it to remind them of the existence of the story. Greek culture and etiquette are fraught with such subtleties. However, I prefer to think that Herodotus was the ultimate straight man who wandered from temple to oasis to grassy hillside telling his tales of great and foreign cities and trying to see how far he could push his serious audiences before they smirked.

Some last few bits of work remain, but I will leave you with something that Peter tossed out last night:

Leigh (aloud): "...and so the Greeks fell upon the city of Colchis and carried off Medea, the daughter of the king..."
Peter: "So what you're saying is that they wanted some of that funky Col' Medea?"

Herodotus, meet Tone Loc. Tone Loc, meet Herodotus.

Peace out, philiae.