Why, Yes, I am a Truly Astonishing Specimen!

It felt a bit like a one night stand when I left Katelyn's house the other night, as she was still sleeping when I left quietly and auspiciously, and I was carrying my moccasins.
I have been rereading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, and it is equally as riveting the second time around as the first. I read it for four hours today. Due to my inability to read at a notable speed, I didn't get as far as someone else would have; however, I did get from less than half way done to more than halfway done. I have always highly recommended this book. I heard the film was a disappointment, but I myself never saw it. Perhaps I should, now that I'm familiarizing myself with the characters' stories once again. I also think I'm enjoying it even more now that I'm older, for the last time I read it was a few years ago, when the movie was still new.
In addition to my kind of slow reading pace, which is partially due to my tendency to reread paragraphs for clarification and more vivid imagery, I displayed my lack of prowess at simple mathematics to Mugs today. I've always known I've been poor at simple math, particularly as I learn more advanced math and succeed at it, but I guess this is something most people don't really know about me. It certainly isn't something you would assume about somebody without precedent, and as I am good at math, it isn't assumed I struggle to simply add and subtract. The other day, in fact, I was at work and counted something on my fingers, and Alexandria proclaimed, positively astounded, "Did Callie McIntosh just count something on her fingers?!", as if this was an absolutely preposterous notion. And then I said yes, because I did, and I do.
The example I was getting to was today, less than an hour ago, actually, when I showed Mugs my "Special Drawer" from when I was a child. I had sort of forgotten about it, but I spotted it so I thought I'd show him. It's really just a drawer full of miscellaneous objects that used to have some sort of value to me when I was young, like my Magic Bean and Magic Rock from my grade three teacher, or my stickers, or my tiny box of earrings, or my Pokemon cards which are in Japanese (which is actually kind of cool). We discovered one of those Mad Minute math sheets, which are just sheets full of either adding, subtracting, multiplication or division questions, sometimes a mixture, which I did in school in the primary grades. I don't know why it was in my drawer of once-cherished possessions. It had no answers, and I guess I mentioned that I'm poor at simple math, so he decided to make me do it orally and he would time me to see how far I got in a minute, as per Mad Minute procedure.
Well, it turns out I failed. I got less than half of the sheet finished. It's just really hard for me to make the numbers relate to each other. I even used my fingers on some of them. Maybe it's just because I'm out of practice, maybe I don't rub right with sums and differences, but either way, I felt kind of inadequate.

More Misadventures

With Callie and Katelyn! Attached at the hip. Kind of.
I woke up at 845 and baked some brownies. The plan was that Katelyn would be up around 11 and we'd hang out at 12 or so, but she got up at 12, so we didn't end up hanging out until around 2-ish, as can be expected with the Katelyn.
We were at her house and for the first hour or so we ate and talked and ate. We made some delicious cheesy things that set off the smoke alarm twice, and we exchanged gifts. She got me some pajamas which I'm wearing, and I gave her a picture of us with some collage-y hints, four brownies, plus a wonderful card written, of course, by yours truly. It was good.
We then headed over to Burma's to give her her Christmas gift from me, but she wasn't there so we just left the gift there and moved onward.
We continued to the Feminine Touch because I wanted a bra and matching undies, but they didn't have what I wanted so we left. Then it was Starbucks, to buy some gift cards, and we also ended up getting some delicicous hot drinks and a cookie we didn't finish (we took it to the movies but I forgot about it--it is now in my purse).
We stopped at McDonald's to pee.
Then we got to the theatre and bought our tickets to see Avatar over an hour in advance because it's cheap night (we're cheap) and it gets busy fast (but efficient!).
Then it was La Senza, where I did find the bra and undies I sought, plus some more. I also renewed my membership and got a stamp on my Bra Club card. 76$ spent there.
We finally go to the movies to actually watch the movie, and Katelyn got the popcorn with her many Scene Points Card points. Wonderful.
Except for how it wasn't, because like half an hour into the movie Katelyn started to feel gross from a motion sickness-type deal and left to find health "for a while". I say that in quotations because she left for the rest of the movie. The popcorn ended up being barely touched, as well as the pop. When she first left and didn't come back for a while, I thought maybe she was sick enough to be puking or something, and despite the fact that this thought came into my head, I didn't go check on her. I just kept waiting and waiting until I realised she wasn't coming back and hoped for the best. I figured she just went to go see another movie or something. I watched the whole thing by myself, which wasn't so bad actually. The plot was kind of the predictable romance, but the graphics were so INTENSE it was just unbelieveable. It was so real, I just, augh. I can't even explain it. Simply outstanding. I guess you could say I was watching it for the technology more than the movie, but, you know, a storyline is always a nice perk.
So after the movie (oh yes, and I was holding in my pee the whole time because I didn't want to leave our stuff by itself) I gathered Katelyn's stuff and went out to find her, and she was standing by herself with this smirk on her face like yeah, I just ditched that movie because I can't handle the AWESOME. By that I mean, she was thinking how ridiculous it all really was.
I gave her her stuff, but it turns out I forgot her scarf, so while she fetched it I went pee; the line moved surprisingly quick.
So while I was in the theatre actually enjoying what I payed for, it turns out that Katelyn hadn't been in another movie. She was sitting in the lobby people watching for two hours straight. The ticket ripper guy in a wheelchair was apparently "creeping" her, with stares and such, but I think she just doesn't know when a guy wants her. He talked to her. Poor guy. Picked the wrong chick for small talk. Afterwards we stopped at McDonald's to pee again and then came home, and here we are, me typing and Katelyn watching me type. The strangest thing about it all is that we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves somehow.
Yep.

Callie's Daily Transformation

Without makeup (pale, lifeless-looking, as well as grouchy)

With makeup (lovely colour in face, big eyelashes, feeling much better)

Mm, Mm, Good

Itches have an incredible power over us living things. People will go into wild positions that are uncomfortable or strenuous to relieve themselves of an itch. They put stress on other parts of their bodies to take away very mild discomfort. Cats go into wild contortionist poses. It's very bizarre.
In other news, I'm recently sick. Wooo. However, being sick spawns toast eating, and I do love toast, so I'm eating it. With cinnamon spread.
Mmm.
Toast.

AUUUUUUUGH!!

I don't remember what I was going to blog about! Sorry guys. This is all I've got tonight.

Psychedelic.

Alright. So, I just suddenly remembered The Ashes (see followers--I am too lazy to create a hyperlink) has the guilty pleasure of reading young adult novels. Well, I have discovered my most shameful pleasure is reading trashy, trashy teen magazines.
I mean, they're just awful. It's like Playboy: some great articles, but that's not why most people buy it. They like the celebrities and beauty and health questions, also known as sex questions and am I too fat questions. Personally, I like to look at the fashion and take the quizzes ("Are You a Good Flirt [that's what it tells me]?" or "Are You a Twi-Hard [not so, I'm afraid]?"). It's fun. I've also noticed that over time, the shopping and things has gone from 'saves and splurges' to 'outfits under 50$' because nobody wants to read about the 200$ clutch they can't afford anymore, I guess.
It's not as if I don't read good and decent magazines, because I do. I enjoy Maclean's quite a lot; it is a magazine full of strongly opinionated but open-minded writers aimed at readers just like them. It's great. I like Elle Canada because it is kind of my life force. I don't know why, I just really like the Elle Guy article and usually the other articles are really insightful for every day life. Plus, the high fashion photos are inspiration for art a lot of times, and I often save certain pages and tape them to a variety of things because the photography is very unique and even rhythmic. Depending on the photographer, of course. I also know that both Chatelaine and Homemakers have AWESOME recipes, for meals and desserts, some of which I will attempt to make in the near future (as in possibly Christmas). And I also read the Walrus at Chloe's house, and I quite enjoyed that too. I should get me some of that.
Anyway, I just love teen magazines. They're great. I know they're really not, but I can't help but dive into one every chance I get, even if I just end up making fun of it the whole time. Actually, sometimes I can't handle the stupidity of them so I skip the section entirely (flirting tips, for example), but otherwise, I think they're a fine form of amusement for half an hour or so. Plus, the bright colours are great for collaging, one of my favourite things to do.
Anyway, this isn't even what I was going to blog about. I was going to blog about ym adventure to the store. I was counting my steps while I walked in the cold wind with Clara to get some milk and, yes, a trashy teen magazine (although that was not in the original plan). I counted them in groups of eight, like music. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 3, 2, 3, 4, etc. When I got to ten groups of eight, I counted that as one on my fingers, as in one group of ten eights, or eighty. I believe in total I counted to 14 on my hands, from my house to the store and back, excluding steps inside the store. 14 x 80 = 1120, so I took 1120 steps to walk to the store and back. I don't know why I did this, or why I felt compelled to blog about it, because it's turning out to be a relatively short blog particularly in comparison to my spontaneous magazine blog, but here we are. Or should I say here I am, since I can't really know if you're even there. I guess that's why I call you ghosts.
Oh goodness, I just got another blog idea. I won't do it here, because this simply cannot be that long, but be prepared! The next blog: ghosts. My ghosts. Not the normal kind. As it would be assumed, all things considered. All persons considered.
Oh yeah, and I end today with a super faded period. Conclusive, but soft around the edges.

cheesburger *no meat

Well, Katelyn and I had quite the misadventures tonight.
Promptly after school, we began our journey to downtown, which was all good and fun. Katelyn was returning a rather unattractive birthday gift to a store which actually had a lot of other really cool jewelery, so the giver obviously took the time to pinpoint the very ugliest item in the store and give it to someone who has no resemblance in taste to that kind of thing. I also found out I have over one hundred dollars more than I thought I did in the bank and bought one Christmas gift.
We then ate at the kind of new Chinese restaurant 98 Super Panda, and it was really, really great. We both had crisp tofu appetizer with sweet and sour sauce, which kind of looked like body parts covered in blood in the darkness of the movies (we ate the leftovers at the movies), but tasted delicious nonetheless. I actually liked the tofu a lot more than my meal, and my ice tea tasted very much like ice tea should, which is glorious. I tipped her twelve percent, which I know is weird, but I was having commitment issues between ten or fifteen. I should have gone for fifteen. Then again, she wasn't much of a waitress.
After that we walked along to the movies to see Brothers, and we bought Yogen Fruz smoothies with pineapple and banana and peach and pineapple juice. Mmm. Better with mangoes, but mmm. Anyway, it turns out watching this movie was quite an ordeal. We sat in our seats like normal and since there appeared to be nobody sitting next to me I put my purse, coat, scarf and Katelyn's coat on the chair. Then on the pre-show reel they told us not to be "Tommy Texters" because when you text it disrupts everyone else, and Katelyn and I agreed, as well as contemplating the use of Tommy instead of Timmy or Tarrence. We concluded Tarrence is a great name.
So, we were sitting there waiting for the movie, when a boy from the group of preteens down the row from us came up and said excuse me to get by our legs, which was fine, but he did this little hand-waving thing to gesture our movement. We moved our legs, but it was like, did he just give us the hand sweep? Sheesh, we'll move, master. And then he eventually came back in and we moved again. And then someone else left, and came back. And then someone else, and then someone else, all from the evil preteen bundle. It was getting rather annoying.
Then someone else decided to come in, late, no less, when the lights had already gone down, and he came in to sit with the evil preteens. He was looking around saying, where is my seat? and then he said, ah, screw it, and grabbewd my stuff and started putting it on the ground. The gross theatre ground! Plus he just grabbed my stuff. I was like excuse me? That's my stuff. And all his friends were like, no, no! That's their stuff. And he's like oh, I'm so sorry, and was super apologetic and everything, but I didn't care. Someone behind me started laughing at him and someone else said way to come into a movie late. So he was like, well, is there any way you could move your things to the floor? And I said no, at first, because I was already kind of mad at him and his dense, blatant stupidity, but then after he tried sitting in the same chair as some chick and swore out loud I just put all my crap on my lap and lived with it. And the chick behnd me laughed again.
Then throughout the majority of the movie the evil preteens were talking and being obnoxious because they were so "cool", and they kept LEAVING and making us move all the time. Then this one chick was walking to her seat (I hadn't realised she left) and somebody whistled at her. Somebody else was going back to his seat and he tripped up the stairs and the whole theatre heard it and laughed at him. Then somebody outside banged on the exit door really loud and it freaked me out. Then the person sitting behind me kicked my seat a bunch of times. PLUS the kid who moved my stuff was a Tommy/Timmy/Tarrence Texter, and one of his friends even told him so, but he didn't know what she meant because oh, he was late and missed the pre-show. I just wanted to shout at him to shut up and turn off his phone.
After that though it was quite fun. We visited Alexandria, and the movie itself was really great! Twisted, freaky, but great. We had a successful, hilarious night, because despite how annoying it all was, it was, in short, hilarious.

Eustress

Isn't it blissful?
I find that when I look at other people's profiles on any site, although it is facebook in particular due to the explicit nature of the profiles, I go look at mine just as thoroughly and scrutinize every tidbit of information in my info, quotes, favourite books, etc. I think, how does my profile look to them? Who are these them people anyway? Do people even look at my profile? If they do, what do they do? Do they laugh with me or at me? Do they laugh at all? Do they feel pity or intrigue or fondness or hatred, or do they simply pass over my profile as an unintentional link to another, more interesting profile, and forget about mine just as quickly as they came upon it? Do my friends look at it less than strangers? Do people even know I exist?
Not that it matters, really, I'm just curious. It's just that I added two new friends on facebook and I molested their profiles, and now I do the same to mine. I have a system for looking through profile pictures. I start with the oldest ones and work to the new ones to see how they have developed and their tastes have changed over time, which is particularly effective if they have over thirty pictures. I tend to delete mine as I go so that they can't see my awful, awful taste in profile pictures from long ago. I'd rather not share that with the world.
Anyway, I came on here to blog about something in specific, but I really don't remember since I added two friends on facebook and have been glued to the screen ever since.

So it Is

What is with moving Christmas decorations? They really freak me out. Not only are they extremely tacky and UGLY but they're creepy too, and that is never a good thing for Christmas. They move on their own! It's terrifying! Usually it's semi-normal, like a snowman lifting his hat or a reindeer moving his head, but I saw this one and it was a penguin riding a polar bear, and it rocked back and forth really, really, really slowly. And it was looking at me the whole time. Awful, awful stuff. Plus they are those decorations made out of material that are lit up, more often than not poorly, from within. They take up the whole yard practically. Freaks.
Another sight seen in my journeys was a man delivering newspapers from his van on a busy, 80km/h road. Almost a highway, possibly a highway, but fast and relatively busy nonetheless. He was just putting his flashers on and throwing the papers out the window, across the passenger seat. It was ridiculous and excessively lazy.
I've also come to realise I feel obligated to fill the gap in front of me if I'm going down the stairs at the far end of the school, near the tech hall. It is always really slow at the top of the stairs, but on the second half it runs really fast, so I feel like if I don't go fast enough to fill the gap between myself and the guy in front of me I'll be holding up the whole line and throwing off the flow. It's kind of nerve-racking.
Oh and did I ever mention my bus issues these days? I don't really take the bus, but when I do, I'm a little better about not having a totally irrational and outrageous panic attack about it's coming, but I still kind of freak out if it's been a really long time.

YES!!!

I got my new issue of ELLE today, and I'm making brownies for rehearsal tomorrow. Rehearsal for the musical, that is, in which I play the slutty chick! Woo! It's a blast. I wish we rehearsed more. I love it. It makes me want to be a Broadway all-star and just get paid to do rehearsals for awesome musicals. And performances, of course. Anyway, I am in a super mood, and I have brownies baking their happy little selves in the oven as I write.
I have big plans for my brownies this season. They are my primary gift. I'm making two batches for rehearsals tomorrow, two batches for my homeroom on the last day before Christmas, on or two batches for my friends (I haven't added it up yet) and two batches for Christmas Eve. I must buy ingredients, obviously.
I have all my Christmas gifts planned out. I even made a list, and my whole paycheque is going toward gifts when I get it. I'll probably get most of my shopping done on Tuesday next week, and it will be out of the way! It's thrilling. Last year I was good at Christmas shopping too, but this year, I am just on the ball. On top of the ball, you might even say. I'm very pleased with myself.
Lately it has felt so blog-like outside, it's amazing. Late Fall is the ultimate time for blogging to me. It just feels so right. When I have an idea, anyway. I don't really know why, I guess it just reminds me of my glorious blogs I wrote last Fall. It feels like the blog I follow that starts with an L that I can't pronounce. Beuatiful and pure and natural.

The Mess that is Me

I can't sleep I can't eat I can't dream
Does that mean something's wrong with me
How can you make your body sleep
It's kind of out of my control
Does it mean there's something wrong
Something down and something deep
Something that I can't decipher
In the mess that is me

I can't dream so I can't live to fulfill my dreams
I can't sleep so I can't wake
There is no difference to me
Between the waking and the sleeping
Maybe it's all just a dream
Maybe it's all just a dream
Did I make a fool of me

Maybe in the end we'll find I'm not wholly out of my mind
Maybe in the end we'll find that I was right all of the time
Maybe in the end we'll know how things really ought to go
The messiness is contagious
Does it leak, does it show
It was you that took my sleeping
You are keeping me awake
My life feels so one-sided
One dimension more than I can take

I can't dream so I can't live to fulfill my dreams
I can't sleep so I can't wake
There is no difference to me
Between the waking and the sleeping
Maybe it's all just a dream
Maybe it's all just a dream
Did I make a fool of me

On my desk I have a dime I have a quarter
Together they make thirty-five
I know people have had kids by then
I know some are no longer alive
At this point in my life thirty-five seems far away
But I know time is relative
Nothing even sells for thirty-five cents today

What is this thing I've fallen into
It's brought me closer to the Earth but farther from the Sun

Does it mean there's something wrong
Something down and something deep
Something that I can't decipher
Ah, well, who needs to decipher

Katelyn is Doing the Funky Chicken!

And she just laid an egg.

Ay!

So, I planned on blogging and explaining how my previous blog really helped for a nice vent, and then how I went to my singing recital and it was fabulous and such, but then I come on Facebook and what should I find but that my childhood friend (friends no longer are we) is pregnant. Is that not ridiculous? OH MY GOSH. I don't even know what to say. This relationship is a big part of what ended our friendship, and right when she told me she had unprotected sex with him the first time I said do it safe or don't do it all, preferably not at all, and she said she knows and blah blah blah, but lo and behold, here she is with a 14-week organism blooming inside of her. I just can't believe it. I am truly, deeply in disbelief. When she was younger she said she wasn't even going to kiss anybody until her wedding day, which I knew wouldn't happen, but you understand that she was obviously going to save herself for one person. It's just nuts. When she got with him she became a totally different person. I miss her.

Callie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Written in the style of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Today I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. This whole week I haven't gotten adequate sleep at all so I've been incredibly tired and it all seemed to build up and make me especially tired today and I was so tired when I got up I forgot where I was which is always a bad start to the day and I could barely keep my eyes open as I got out of bed and I was so tired I don't remember taking a shower but I must have because I blew dry my hair but while I was doing that I almost fell asleep and I hurt my ankle trying to catch myself from falling off my bed.
When I was doing my makeup I noticed I needed to tweeze some stray eyebrow hairs so I did but one made me bleed and another one I pinched my skin and it hurt a lot and when I was putting on my mascara the wand went right into my eye and it made me tear up so I had to wash off my mascara and start all over again.
I left for school too early so when I got there it was really crappy and the music they played before class was terrible and my first period class was mind-numbingly tedious and then second period was good but then third period came and lately my friends have kind of made me feel left out because they are getting mighty close these days and I am being left in the dust and then in fourth I felt like a robot due to my increasing boredom and misery so I stopped talking until fifth and when I did talk Mugs just pointed out that I hadn't talked for forty-one minutes and that made me sad so I stopped again kind of and he didn't even ask what was up until after school but by then I was so sick of waiting for him to ask I didn't even tell him.
I rushed our good-bye because I wanted to be courteous to my friends who walk home with me and not make them wait for a long time but I shouldn't have because they didn't even wait for me so I felt bad for rushing our good-bye because I wanted it to last longer and I felt angry and lonely because apparently sitting on their asses and watching the O.C. or whatever it is they do is more important than waiting the great length of time that is five minutes for their friend to say good-bye to her boyfriend and then when I went outside I saw them walking ahead of me and into one of their homes so I walked home by myself like a loser and cried the whole way, because I felt like I could have vanished from the face of the Earth forever and they wouldn't give two fucks about me.

For the Dead remind us we are Alive

Want to hear some old news? This computer sucks. Yes, indeed. I turned it on and then when I opened Firefox it all froze. I waited for a long time and then out of frustration I went against every fibre of my computer-savvy being clicked the mouse a bunch of times, and it actually did something. Eventually it started working, but it was really slow, and it keeps telling me I have an invalid window key or something like that, so I tried restarting Firefox and all that did was cause the computer to tell me I needed a Quicktime and iTunes update, which I did. For this to complete, I had to restart the entire computer, which interrupted this post, so I did that, gave up on the computer for the night and went to bed.
And now it is tomorrow. Sigh. I feel awful about not blogging. It seems every time I feel the inspiration the computer decides to go douchebag on me and it seems like I'm just neglecting it again. I'm really not, I promise you. I try to blog all the time and this cruel computer just turns me into another poor victim of a technological failure. The stupid thing would rather just sit here in sleep mode, never proving itself functional, or perhaps dysfunctional would be a better word. Maybe it is ashamed of its dysfunction. Regardless, it's keeping me from blog land and it's frustrating. So, what I'm saying is, I'm sorry my computer hates being used so much.
My next door neighbour killed himself. I'm not sure which day it was exactly, or when, but there were a lot of cars at his house on Friday and I heard through my brother's ex-girlfriend who knows the guy's daughter or something like that that he killed himself. I was very surprised to hear this. I never talked to him, or even really saw him at all, but he was still there. It also happened to occur the weekend I was home alone. It's strange to think that a life was ending while mine was continuing normally right next to it. I can't imagine wanting to kill myself, and I think even if I did I don't think I would have the resolve to even go through with it. I'm too freaked out by that kind of thing.

Some Day

What if I'm not really here? What if I'm just a brain, or just an idea, or just a figment of my own imagination, and once I die, it really means that my imagination has chosen to, or is unable to, continue creating new images, so I die and end up in the blackness that is death? But then, isn't death a part of life, and therefore it is also part of my imagination? I suppose if that's the case, I can't ever really die, more just like start imagining in a way my current imagination can't comprehend. Perhaps I'm really just a schizophrenic who is living in my delusions in a totally different world, and I'm so convinced that I'm right that the world I'm really in, if I were to believe in it in my delusional world, would make me seem delusional. Since I don't want my delusions to think I'm delusional, I deny the real world I'm in, and then the people in that world think I'm totally off my rocker. Or perhaps I'm from a world where all of the people, except a select few who are sort of like higher beings or something, are delusional and they watch over us, feeding and maintaining our physical selves and allow us to dwell within our delusions uninterrupted. Perhaps it is being delusional that is the norm, and not to be makes you different. Of course, it wouldn't make much difference to those who are delusional, because we don't even know about those other ones.
Or maybe I am in this world, the one I believe is really here, but I'm actually in a deep and seemingly hopeless coma that has led me to believe I've kept on living normally. Maybe once I die, it will actually be the day they pull the plug on me, or I just die on my own. Are iPods and tiny cell phones and GPSs really around in the waking world? Maybe I'm actually an outstanding inventor who will come to and know of all these futuristic devices nobody actually made yet. I'll make millions. Maybe I'm still the little girl I was years ago and I've just gone into this coma somehow and will wake up soon, with all these images of my future self that may or may not come true. Maybe I'm just having a crazy long dream, and I might not even remember it when I wake up. You never really know, I suppose. We'll find out how it all goes down one day.

it will Come

So apparently playing loner games like solitaire is good for you. The problem-solving, puzzle-ish nature of the game stimulates something in your brain that is used less in this think-for-you society, and it helps memory, both long and short term, which is always good stuff. So all my loserish tendencies have been helping me all this time. Yes. Losers do come out on top. Sometimes.
Anyway, I have some mildly gross news for you ghosts. I have a really ingrown toenail. I used to have fungus on three of my toenails, so they were all really thick and disgusting, so they used to not grow, but now they do grow, and one grows in. Ugh. Plus some of the fungus hasn't completely grown out, so it's a really thick nail that's growing in, so it's even worse. It kills and really sucks. On a bad day, it hurts just to walk. Also my ankle is injured, so that sucks too. Sometimes that also hurts to walk.
Mugs is really sick, and yesterday when he was over I took care of him and felt like some kind of reverse mother wherein my son is older than me. Anyway, it really sucks, because as sickness goes, it tends to suck. Katelyn was missing today due to "sickness", although it is very likely this ailment is a falsehood. I don't know where Alexandria disappeared to, but I saw her this morning and then she vanished.
I've noticed over time that street lights tend to go out when I come near to them. When I stand near a light, it dies. It's a strange phenomenon. It's as if I am a death wish upon electricity. Maybe electricity is trying to tell me something, like that I should die. Or that I will die by electrocution. Wouldn't that be wild way to go? I'd be alright with that, although I imagine it would kind of traumatizing for any observers that might be present.
I end today with a question mark, because I feel kind of unsure.

Leaves

Wouldn't it be glorious if all the leaves were white
If they twinkled like the stars do in the blackness of the night
If they blended into puffy clouds that hang above the Earth
If they were pure as platinum and a thousand times its worth
If there was no bitter darkness, no pain grew in their stems
If they glimmered in the sunrise like semiprecious gems
Wouldn't it be splendid if when the snow fell down
the leaves were the same colour? Not a snowman would be found
With a dark leaf on his body, no he's white as white can be
He's strong and free and happy, as all snowmen should be
If I were a snowman and had leaves that you could see
I'd feel better knowing I had no wrongness or death in me
Oh, wouldn't it be glorious if all the leaves were white
If they kept you feeling happy in the sadness of the night

Diesel

Well, my plan was to start this post with: "At this point in my life, I cannot find my camera" but then I found it, so that won't work any more. I guess I'll try, "At this point in my life, I know with certainty the whereabouts of my camera." Except maybe it would be better without quotation marks. You get the idea.
Anyway, it has really suckled not having my camera the last couple of days. It also sucks because it was in a really obvious place and I don't know how I missed it, so I feel silly for having not found it for so long. Like earlier today I saw this photo just aching to be taken, and I said to myself, I must run home to grab my camera and then run back to take the photo while I still can! But then I thought, oh, dear me, I am unaware of my camera's whereabouts at this time, therefore this opportunity must be denied the joy of being taken. It was a terrible misfortune.
I was just about to tell you ghosts what I'm doing right now, but then I realised I have a Right About Now box for that. I shall update the device shortly.
I made brownies. I'm not sure how outstandingly delicious they will be, but I tried.
Alright. This blog sucks. I'm going to quit and try again another day.

Quite!

I had such a wonderful day and night yesterday! Mugs and I were celebrating six months of wonder. We made cupcakes! And decorated them! And they tasted truly delicious. We went to go see Where the Wild Things Are and it was AWESOME. I definitely want to buy it. It was so awesome! They turned the simple little book into this deep and metaphoric piece. I loved it. Then we took some marvelous pictures (and videos) and it was great fun. I made him yet another Love CD, among other things, and bought him cookie dough, because I know he loves it. He bought me a legal pad of paper (wooooooooooooooooot!), bath stuff (which included shower gel, body lotion, back washer, nail brush and bubble bath--all honey-scented!), chocolate-covered espresso beans (my breakfast today) and beautiful red roses. And he made me go downstairs when we got to his house until he was "ready", which meant he was getting the gifts all out and putting on a suit! It was adorable and wonderful. I came upstairs and he was in his suit holding roses and being all romantic and splendid. It was wonderful. And the gifts were supremely thoughtful.
In other news, I've been meaning to blog all week but I've been super busy. Sorry. There was something I wanted to blog about but I can't remember what it was. I'll have to start making notes. In fact, that's definitely a great idea, because I don't even have to keep track of the note to remember what I'm trying to remember. Just seeing it in writing will help me keep it in mind. Isn't that weird how your memory works? Your brain is just like inexplicably capable of retaining information for recalling later. It's so cool. I love brains! Alright. I've got to stop talking about this, or I'll never stop.
I love you Muggin!

Oh Baby.

I went for a stroll with the canine today, as evidenced by the photos. It was much colder than I had anticipated, and I am still suffering because of it. I can't raise the core temperature of my hands. They are icy. I went all for comfort today, though--instead of the jeans I usually opt for, I wore sweats, a t shirt, sweatshirt, and even Crocs. I could care less how I look right now. It's a wonderful feeling.
Anyway, on this beautiful cold day, I brought my camera, also evidenced by the photos. It feels good to see all the photo ops and actually take advantage of them once more. There were two I ignored because my hands were too cold, but it's alright. I had a good time. It was nice and windy by the water, which is where I went.
I've decided again that I love going to the water with Clara when it's cold. Remember my painting in the snow idea? And how wild that would be and everything else? Yes. Like that. It's inspiring. I love the darkness and I love the clouds and how you're not supposed to be at the beach when the temperature is negative. It's wonderful indeed. I feel so good when I'm there, isolated with just my body and my thoughts and my dog and the beauty. I think wild thoughts. Some worth sharing, some secretive, some so fleeting I don't even remember them, but I know they must have happened. I just love it. It's like my special place where I get to find myself and be myself and not have to dwell on anything but the cold, cold darkness of the naked, deserted beach. It's solitary and deep. And I like it.

The Birds and the Bees and the Hornets

I went to work today, that wonderful place that makes you smell bad and feel fattened and want to sleep. While at work, I had a break, that wonderful time at work where you get to sit on a disgusting-looking couch and have policies shout at you from the walls and watch television without a choice of which show is on. Some days, the shows are really very awful. This awful sort of show usually means the channel is on Much.
Fortunately, today I had no such luck. The channel was National Geographic, which you may expect to be boring due to its nerdy reputation, but it was really rather fascinating! The show was Deadliest Animals on Earth or something like that and they showed giant hornets, some kind of rhino, crocodiles and polar bears. It was all very interesting, but what struck me the most was the hornets.
Perhaps it struck me because it made me think of Mugs, perhaps it struck me simply because it was the first creature shown. Perhaps it was both of those things. Mostly I think it struck me because of the organization and nature of the things. These bugs are the size of a deck of cards. Cards, for goodness' sake! Humongous. Hence the name giant hornet. It was so intriguing to see the way they did everything. Everything is so logical and sensible and intelligent. The way they create the little hexagonal safe places for the young, it's insane! How do they know a hexagon is what they need? And it showed one of them killing a praying mantis. It like crawled up to the mantis and jumped on it and then decapitated it with its pincers. It was madness! Then it chewed up the body into little balls of praying mantis wonder and flew it home to the babies to feed them. These hornets can kill a whole colony of bees in three hours and proceed to feed the carcasses to their young. Three hours, and a whole colony is out the window! It's insane! And the hornets look like monsters next to the bees! The bees look like infants! These hornets can kill a human. Their venom attacks your nervous system. One colony lasts for six months, and kills around 40 humans during that time. Insane (woah, déja vu).
It's all so perfect and wonderful. They know exactly what they need to feed the youngins, and they know it's important to feed them well because they can't do it on their own and the colony needs them to sustain itself. They make so much sense. They know who matters and they are selfless and live to make their world of gigantic wasps functional for them. We could learn from them.

Evening, subjects

Enjoy

Do the Doo-Wop

Fall presents so many beautiful photo opportunities I fail to take advantage of. It's unfortunate, really. All the leaves with the wetness pouring on them, or off of them, or slowly drying around them with the little drops placed so aesthetically. I do love fall. Perhaps since we have been truly experiencing fall for the past little while (over two weeks straight of rain, clouds and wind) that I felt so inspired to blog it up. Fall just feels so wonderful! Quite invigorating.
My plans for tonight consist of nothing, because I am a loser with no friends who aren't workaholics. Well, that's not true, but everyone is working tonight, and I'm sitting at the computer by myself on this blustery Friday evening. Woot.
Hmm...my plan was to make this a really very good blog, but I'm drawing a blank. Maybe the acknowledgment and ensuing analysis of my loserishness brought my blog potential down a few points. Actually many points. Many, many points. I will try to get a good one germinating in my brain for you ghosts, and who knows, maybe I'll write it on my napkin again.
Also, Katelyn took a photo of my with wonderfully wet glasses and a creepy face going on, so I thought I'd share that loveliness with you.

And that's the way it is

I have been trying to come up with a good follow-up to my getting back to business blog, but I could not think of one for the longest time (meaning a few days). Then today on the way home from dance, I felt the blog come! It was wonderful!
I was listening to Other Side by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and in one line he says "a cemetery where I marry the sea", and I recalled a conversation I once had with Rachel about that very line. She was going on about how stupid the lyrics of that song were, and she mentioned that line in particular. She wondered what the words meant, so I offered the interpretation that it might mean he was at the grave of his significant other, and since he could no longer be with to her, he would "marry the sea", or dedicate himself to fishing or something. Rachel still found it stupid, by the way, but that is beside the point.
What this recollection did was lead my thoughts to the idea of marrying the sea, and I thought about how many people have married the sea over the years. So many fisherman and captains of boats and things. I started thinking that the sea has a lot of spouses indeed.
I then proceeded to think of the sea as a polygamist. My original thoughts were that those who married the sea were considered its wife regardless of whether they were male, because the usual way of polygamy is a husband having many wives. But then I figured that most of those married to the sea were men, plus the sea is, in my mind, a beautiful woman (perhaps a seductress!?), so I changed my image to it being one wife with many husbands.
This is the part when I determine my blog topic!
I thought, since it is a gender reversal, does this not make the sea a reverse polygamist? I was so excited to come up with this statement, I wrote it on a napkin so I wouldn't forget. It put a big, fat, satisfied smile on my face. The sea is a reverse polygamist! For surely the reverse of one husband with many wives is many husbands with one wife, correct? However, in my research I discovered that polygamy, by definition, is not a husband with many wives, but simply one with many spouses. So, by definition, I suppose this means the sea is not a reverse polygamist, as there is no gender specification, but as polygamy is viewed by society and presumably by polygamists themselves (a man with many wives), the sea would qualify as a reversal of the practice. How strange polygamy is.
Also, I put the picture of me on here because my hair is straight! I got it cut recently but it is extremely short, so short in fact, that if I were to wear it curly I would look absolutely ridiculous and poodle-esque. That is not the look I'm going for, so I will be wearing it straight from now on, until further notice, which will happen when substantial regrowth has occurred. Plus, my hair was looking totally awesome that day, and I wanted to remember the good hair day. Good haird days make me feel like a champ.
I end today with a very plump period, like you put your pen down and the ink blotted because you got distracted by your cat trying to eat your cookies while you were on the phone.

I REALLY AM BACK.

Alright. So, I am very well aware that I most unfortunately have not been keeping up on my dear blog at all as of late, and any blogs that I have done have been kind of half-hearted. Actually, they have been most painful and bad indeed. However, Mugs said he looked through all my blogs right from the get-go (or at least the artificial get-go, because I deleted the first few really lame posts), and he said that he liked my old ones better than my more recent ones, and that my most recent ones have been crap, pretty much. I agree. I would be kind of hurt by this, but I will not be, and I instead will feel inspired to turn over a new blogging leaf. By that I mean I will turn the current leaf back over to the side it was on previously, that is, the good side upon which I blog frequently and with quality. I'm not sure exactly when the blog leaf turned over; it sort of happened gradually in a soft breeze I didn't even take the time to acknowledge. Nonetheless, a tornado will sweep over this leaf, and my blog will be back in business. Yes, I will waste some more time on the computer blogging when I could be doing useful things like homework or excersizing or doing chores. Yes, I will feel lazy and put my abnormal thought patterns on a public forum at night. Yes, I will regain my computer-chair posture in the evenings and afterwards stand up to cracking, locked joints and that wonderful mixture of feeling both accomplished at having blogged so well and extremely unproductive for having worked so hard at a blog rather than something else. Yes, I will glue my camera to my hand again and document my days in pictures, and yes, I will restart blogging.

Don't take that bike seat

So very sorry indeed for my lack of blogging. Today I had quite an adventure, so I think it is a worthy candidate to restart my blogging journeys.

I went to work today, which in itself is rather mundane, but as a note, I rode my bike. My brother once rode my bike to school and got it stolen and he recently just bought me a new replacement bike, so I'm trying really hard to keep it not stolen. Anyway, I rode it to work, and to prevent theft, I locked it to a tree where it was hidden and also surrounded by thorns, which proved to be effective, as it was not stolen (yes!). I removed my quick-remove bike seat to further prevent theft, and I took it with me into work.

Alexandria worked at the same time as me, and we were going to finish at the same time, so her father, Mr Alex, planned on giving me a ride. Work itself was very good, as always. After work, we bought sundaes for Katelyn (who we were hanging out with later), Alexandria and myself, so we went behind the counter to make them ourselves. Alexandria was paying, so I went to go make the sundaes and in doing so I left my bike seat on the front counter. After we had that all set, we left.

We unlocked my bike and put it in Mr Alex's trunk and headed out, and after Alexandria had grabbed her stuff from her house and we got to my house to drop off my bike, we discovered I had no bike seat. It was very curious indeed. My first assumption was that I had left it in the bushes. I felt very bad for Mr Alex, but he gracefully offered to drive us back to the bushes to search for said seat. On the way, we grabbed Katelyn, who was looking ever-fabulous in striped boxers, a huge Spongebob t-shirt, her mom's blazer and pink fuzzy slippers.

Well, we drove all the way back to the bushes, only to discover there was no seat to discover. We even double-searched with no luck. I suddenly came to the realization that I had left my seat on the counter when I made the sundaes and failed to retrieve it. There was hope! I was 100% sure that's where I left it. We then commenced to sprint to work with me in the lead, Alexandria close behind and Katelyn pulling up the rear, yelling about her coldness and how we're running too fast and she has slippers on. I could not stop laughing at how very ridiculous it was.

We finally got into to the store, and lo and behold, there is Josh, holding my bike seat (with new found greasy [grease from fries, etc] fingerprints on it), as well as a huge lineup of customers at the counter and practically every staff member at the window. Why in the world everyone was at the window, I have no idea, because there is usually only three people up there, but that night, at that time, of course everyone decided to stand collectively in a clump in varying degrees of uselessness. So everybody saw us come into the store and it was hilarious.

Anyway, that is my big adventure. I will make sure to keep my bike seat on hand next time. After that adventure went down, we continued to Katelyn's house to talk about work for about an hour and a half and then go to bed. This would be much less depressing/pathetic if our Friday night hadn't been planned to be much more exciting. You see, our plan was to have a poker party with Burma, Emily, Alexandria Katelyn and I, but Emily made new plans and therefore canceled on us, Burma canceled on us because she had to "watch her dog" and I forgot my wallet, so I couldn't contribute to the pizza fund, and the other two had very little money, so they could only buy a medium pizza with on topping and they only ate one slice of it each. Then this morning I had to get up and leave right away because I had to work again.

So I guess I fight mediocrity with my excessive loser tendencies.

Magic Jack

14 days of September and only one post. Again, bad.
Anyway, today I'm feeling kind of OK. Bit of a stressful day, but we got through it, and here we are, so it's all good. I plan having stress release at dance tonight.
Ah yes, dance. First class was on Thursday, and it was AWESOME. I felt thoroughly relieved of, like, I don't know, everything. Not that anything was particularly wrong, but I felt awesome afterward. It's such a release to dance. My whole life feels like rainbows.
Sorry this post failed. I'll get better. Maybe later tonight.

Baaaaaaaaaaanana

Wow. I haven't posted in 17 days. That is really bad.
Well, my first excuse will be that I was simply distracted for a few days. I don't always post every day, so few-day distractions are acceptable.
My next excuse is that I went to go visit family for four days, driving all over the place, so I obviously wasn't blogging then.
When I returned from that journey, I was in no mood to blog, as I was tired, plus bogging meant sitting and I had been sitting in a car a very long time and was not exactly itching to plunk down and do it again.
After the one night in my own bed we left again to go visit more family, so for those two days I did not blog.
Then it was the last day before school so I spent it outside tanning and having good times with Katelyn and Mugs and Indian food.
I finally felt the urge to blog, but the computer was screwed. So I couldn't physically blog. It was terrible.
Now the computer is not screwed, so I am explaining my lack of any bloggish connection for 17 days, and that's about it. I will also mention that I will probably be blogging less now that school has started so you ghosts should definitely not be expecting a blog every day.
This semester I have Anthropology/Psychology/Sociology, Fashion, Functions and Physics. Anthro is pretty cool right now, but I imagine it will get better as time goes on and we become more involved in the subjects and such. Fashion, so far, is turning out to be pretty lame, consisting of a superfluous detail of our teacher's experiences in PEI as she positively fell at the feet of her PEI Dirt Shirt, which is actually really ugly, as well as ripping out magazine pictures to illustrate via collages as to "why people wear clothes". Functions is Functions, still mostly review, and Physics is the same (but I have Purdy, so plus!).
I gotta split!

(Y)

OK, I have been looking through all of my posts once again, and I am once again finding myself very entertaining, particularly in this post.

An Uber-Lame List of Radness!

I stole this list from The Ashes in a swift movement of grace and stealth, also known as copy and paste. I will do as she did, and make my favourite ones (or the ones I actually do/think) bold.


-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can
think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell
my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves
me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you
realize you're wrong.

-I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to
have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and
sticks when they've invented the lighter?

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're
going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to
be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the
direction from which you came, you have to first do something like
check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to
yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're
crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-That's enough, Nickelback.

-I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know"
feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose
not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't
work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically
fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all
know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards
or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and
suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first
saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually
becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting
90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's
laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little
bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the
only one who really, really gets it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than
take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear
your computer history if you die.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to
finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the
spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron
test is absolutely petrifying.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart",
all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod
and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up
to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in'
examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete
idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and
said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies" <--actual lol!

-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and
instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I
know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the
person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the
shower first and THEN turn on the water.
(NOTE: I turn the water on after I get in...)

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty,
and you can wear them forever.

- I would like to officially coin the phrase 'catching the swine flu'
to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an
overweight woman. Example: "Dave caught the swine flu last night."

-I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their
profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got
the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if
I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring
would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go
around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly
nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be
a problem....

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work
when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything
productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't
want to have to restart my collection.

-There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are
going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me
if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I
swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people
watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will
they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't
watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and
leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?
Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and
goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone
and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not
seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she
hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light
internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle,
then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising
speed for pedophiles...

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers,
but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still
not know what time it is.

-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

-I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to
answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car
keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the
Donkey - but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze
button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time
every time.

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would
happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and
the link takes me to a video instead of text.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they
drive behind obeys the speed limit.

-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or
Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw
they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words,
someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think
about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people
eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by
myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard
before dinner.

Love Game

I did not get a particularly restful sleep last night, which is unusual, but more importantly, it is unfortunate. This is due to the fact that I usually have better hair days when I sleep well, such as yesterday's ÜBER hair day, and I'm going to a wedding today, so having crappy hair will kind of suck, because obviously one wants to look nice for a wedding. This wedding is going to be on a boat, actually, and at night, so it will be a nice change in the usual wedding scenery.

But what is the deal with me always having rad hair days when I'm going to work, where it is strangled into a ponytail and many clips, and then barely forced under a very unattractive visor? Yesterday was quite possibly the greatest hair day I have had all August, but no one was around to see it, because after I discovered the great hair, it was gone at work for seven hours. Plus, even after work, it is not salvageable, particularly after seven hours, and I always have extreme visor head and frizz patrol.

In slightly, actually really a lot, better news, yesterday marked four months of dating my dear Muggins, and I wouldn't have even realised this if he had not pointed it out. You see, we started "dating" on "20 April". (This all in quotations because we never actually started with a date, and have only ever had one date officially, and many unofficial dates, so I guess we started as "in a relationship" but only kind of. Plus, we are not actually sure of when we started, because we sort of just came to a gradual understanding after I broke up with Lukas. The 20 April is just a ballpark.) It was the 19 when he pointed out that the next day was four months, and I was very surprised at this because all day I had been thinking it was the 18. Anyway, since I now knew, and he had been the one to point it out, I decided it was high time I got in gear and made the CD I'd been compiling songs for for longer than a month. This CD was a secret little gift for Mugs I had been planning, and I'd kept wanting to tell him about it, but I'm glad I didn't.
So, I managed to download all the songs on my list and then some, and I got them into iTunes and made him a playlist. The list ended up being 2 and a half hours, which is obviously too long for just one CD, so I had to make him two! I was excited. I burned them and then started to collage on of the cases with fabulous pieces of magazines and stickers, because I love collaging and that is usually how I like to give gifts. Then he called me, which is a big deal, because he is very uncomfortable on the phone, and we talked for over five seconds (like ten minutes!), and I thoroughly enjoyed that, to say the least. I love talking on the phone. It allows you to really focus on the words the person is saying and the sound of their voice without distraction. Anyway, he told me to go over in an hour so he could shower or whatever, and I did, and I gave him the CDs and he loved them, also to say the least. We listened to the whole two-point-five hours and it was awesome. I feel really good about having got that done. I'm not really one to hand out gifts on "anniversaries", because I don't consider it gift-worthy unless it's actually a year. "Just because" gifts are fine, but I hate those first kiss, first bouquet of flowers, first simultaneous sneeze type disasters those nauseating couples like to call "anniversaries". Which is why he was kind of surprised I gave him a gift on the fourth month marker, but I wouldn't have given it to him that day if he hadn't pointed it out. I just figured hey, I've been attempting to make this CD for ages, I might as well do it now that there is sort of a reason.

More good news: mother dearest decided to make me a most excellent and fabulous breakfast today! It consisted of a poached egg, two slices of REALLY AWESOME RYE TOAST and three pieces of veggie bacon! And orange juice. I felt like an ad. It was quite scrumptious.

Even more news, though not necessarily good: On the porch today I discovered a liver and some intestines of an unnamed creature one of the cats killed. There was no further evidence of something ever having lived, like feathers or fur or feet or something, just the organs. It was really gross. The liver was green. My mom made me take a picture of it because it is "hilarious". She is twisted.

"Drinking cola can be exhausting!*"

Well, I found a Woman's Health magazine on the coffee table this beautiful morning, and I don't know where it came from, but I started reading it and I've decided that the people who write this thing are not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to the use of punctuation, exclamation marks in particular. Practically every sentence so far ends in a very unnecessary exclamation mark, like everyone is so excited to find out that this trendy black and white bag is inspired by Kate Spade's "famous boxy totes".

ex:
What mix is your mutt?
Tak[e] a quick online quiz! The free computer-generated test at whatsmydog.com pinpoints likely possibilities based on ear, head and tail shapes!

or

Stop thinking about what's bugging you and let your thoughts wander by doing something mindless, such as swimming, taking a shower or going for a walk!

Why is everyone so excited? It's really not that exciting. It's like they know that their magazine isn't as successful as other magazines, so they are trying to get readers re-excited about reading it with stupid exclamation marks. All it's doing is bothering me. It makes them seem unintelligent, or at least uneducated. I don't want to read a magazine written by people dumber than me; I would just write the magazine myself. Plus, and I know the swimming they were probably thinking of really is mindless (floating in a small backyard pool), but when I think swimming, I think of Michael Phelps propelling his huge self down a fast swimming lane, concentrating really, really hard on winning. Not mind-wandering material.
It's like the episode of Seinfeld when Elaine gets ragged on by Mr Lipman about using too many exclamation marks. He says it makes her seem dumb**. Even Mr Lipman recognises the stupidity of it all.
Lose the exclamation marks!

I mean...

Lose the exclamation marks.

XD

*also from Women's Health, the over-excited, girlish magazine.
**not exact words.

Family = Fabulous

Well, the family thing was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was rather fun. I feel kind of bad for being so pessimistic about my relatives.
The say started out fabulously for me, with my internal clock waking me at 830 and my shower going awesome. I was having a mediocre hair day, which sucked because the day before I was having an outstanding hair day but I was only going to work, but it was alright. I found my sunglasses finally! I was so excited to finally have them back.
We drove there, obviously, and in the car was me, mom, dad, Court, Jena and Clara. If you do not know, that makes for a very crowded 5-person car indeed. Jena sat in the middle seat in the back because she is the shortest, and Clara sat on both of us. It was very uncomfortable and drooly and hairy.
When we got there, we saw people I hadn't seen in years, which was totally rad. My cousin Lee was even there (I hadn't known he was coming!), who I hadn't seen since I was four years old, and he looks and talks so much like Clinton it was sort of ominous. It was like Clint was there but stockier. Last time I saw him before Sunday he was 18, now he is THIRTY and has three chilluns. Insane. That makes my aunt and uncle grandparents, my grandma a great-grandma and my mom and dad great aunt and great uncle. It's crazy. It feels like Lee's having kids made my family sound so much older.
Anyway, it was really great. There was lots of food of course and lots of loudness, which is also of course, and swimming in the pool and wearing my NEWFOUND SUNGLASSES OF AWESOME SUPREMACY. I was also being a pyromaniac with the fire and I kept it going for a very long time. My uncle Dan was impressed.
And thoughout the day I knew exactly where my sunglasses were, and reminded myself not to forget them, because I had just found them and that would be most awful to lose them so quickly. In and out of my life once more.
I wonder how many people were there?
Uncle Dan, Aunt Heather, Lee, Lee's wife, Lee's three kids, Jazz, Jordie, Uncle Mudd, Aunt Amber, Amanda, Ben, Uncle Mark, Mom, Dad, Chloé, her boyfriend Dave, Courtie, his girlfriend Jena, and me.
21 people! Yeesh. It was a full house. I felt like a loser for not bringing Mugs. Ha ha, the only one who didn't bring her "special someone".
My goodness, as if I just said special someone.
Anyway, it was great fun, and it's too bad Clint couldn't make it. We even took photos of all the cousins and then of the siblings (my mom's siblings, that is), and it was frantic, and then we left and crammed ourselves back into the car and got all drooly and hairy again. And by that I mean Clara drooled and haired on us, not me.
About half an hour into the ride home, I realised I had forgotten my sunglasses, after all that.
Mom said she grabbed them for me.
Oh, good.
Good day.

PS the little wiener dog in the picture is the Fischer's, her name is Peanut.

Shortened Blog!!!!!

Well, tomorrow is the day I see family I haven't seen since I was very young indeed, although I have talked on msn and facebook with one cousin. I know I'm supposed to be happy to see them and such, and I am, truly I am, but I am not made for social gatherings, particularly with my very loud Italian-esque family. I usually end up sitting or standing in silence with food being shoved down my throat, occassionally being asked a question just to prove they know I exist. So, as glad as I am to be seeing people who I haven't seen in ages, I am too quiet and feedable to relate to anyone for longer than five minutes, so I imagine that as long as they're talking, I won't be.
Anyway, I worked today finally, and that was good stuff. I was going to do a way better post but I decided just now that I want to go for a stroll, so that's what I'm doing. I'll blog Monday or Tuesday probably.

It was a short relationship.

Well, I quit twitter.
I kind of figured I would, as the site was being supremely unkind to me right from the get-go. No profile picture uploading, no design changing, sometimes not even a homepage loading. Plus, I have my "Right About Now" box, which is like twitter except better because I'm not limited to 140 words and I don't have to make an entire stupid account on yet another profile site, and I get to choose what sweet background I have in the box (right now it is a penguin, if you can't tell). Sounds better than twitter to me. That site and I just rubbed the wrong way. It was inevitable.
In other news, you know those little puzzle things where there is only one gap among all the pieces and you have to strategise about where to move each piece in order to create the image? Well, I solved one! I was thoroughly exhilarated after having finished it. It's the picture I used today, obviously. I was so proud of myself. I spent a kind of long time on it, between 20 and 30 minutes. I don't know if that's decent or embarrassingly bad, but I've never done one before, so I'm really happy! It put me in such a great mood. When I was in the final stretch and I could see exactly what pieces I had to move and where to complete, I felt like, actual adrenaline. I stood up and put my fist in the air and shouted, "Yes!" when I finished. It's kind of pathetic, and the fact that the picture is of a dinosaur-looking giraffe with eyelashes doesn't help. Nonetheless, it was a great success for me, and I feel very awesome at having done it. All mentally stimulated and whatnot.

Roots and Shoots

I love looking at trees. I love the way their branches all spread out in their own unique way, completely different from even the most similar relative, all taking up space how they feel they ought to. I like to look at the bark, how sometimes it is very rough, or knobbly, or peely or, most sadly, peeled off. I like to think that every tree has its own personality, and its own story to tell, if only we would listen to them.
How can they not have stories to tell? They are so old, some of them, but still so happily living on. They must be so wise. They have seen so much, seen so many changes in the world. The lucky ones get to live in forests, amongst their own kind, seeing new trees come to life and old ones pass on gracefully, naturally, unlike those who live in cities, seeing their brethren murdered ruthlessly to make way for much larger, apparently more productive space-takers. It must be upsetting for those trees, watching all of that death happen, and having nothing to do about it. They see young trees planted in this environment in a vain attempt to make up for the old trees that were taken away, but it is not the same. They must hurt inside. I wish people would listen to the trees; understand their perspective.
Poor trees.

Hum

Well, I was going to twitter out, but it isn't working for me. The site itself stopped loading as soon as I tried picking out a profile picture, so I tried just going to a different page, but it won't let me do that either. Now I can't find out if I will be a part of twitter's under 25 statistics. Lame.
Another thing that's lame: this computer! Oh, how lame it is. It is moving in slow motion, which for dial-up would be acceptable, but it is supposed to be high speed internet, so the slowness is greatly unappreciated and frustrating. Even my non-internet programs are slowing down. I've only done about five hands of Hearts in ten minutes. The one thing that seems to be functioning normally is iTunes, which I thankfully, mercifully managed to get working again, but it took a while to load when I first opened it. Needless to say, I realyl hate this piece of modern technology, which is why I hope to save for a MacBook, that's if I can handle not buying every fabulous article of clothing I want as soon as I have some hot fresh dollars in my fist. It shall be a most strenuous journey, but I'm sure, eventually, a worthy one.
Bad news bears, though: Alexandria's brithday party tomorrow. Well, that's not bad, but my lack of present or even present ideas is bad news bears. Why do I not have a gift for her? ARRRRG. This sucks. I'm terrible. And Mugs is very right, my blogging is supremely slacking these days. I just get so distracted, and, more often than not, frustrated. I feel very lazy indeed. Nothing is happening in my days.
Well, other than helping Mugs paint his fence, which I thought was kind of fun, but he finds it depressing because it keeps him locked up at his house all the time, so now I'm feeling dpressed for him. It's taking way too long, and we had the Tyrants at it today.
Which means I saw Bonwick, finally, who I haven't seen since June. It was good I guess. He is the same, as is expected for most humanoids.
Man alive, I'm so sick of sitting here doing nothign these days. I feel like I'm going to start growing algae or something, like a sloth. It's most unfortunate. Oh, know what else is unfortunate and supremely loserish? I do notes on facebook again, which in itself is bad enough, but lately I've been doing them and then just not publishing them so that it seems like I'm not doing them.
I'm very sad.
By sad I mean pathetic.
And loserish.
Oh, Katelyn is back. Very tanned, very not hanging out with me because she's SHOPPING of all things, after a trip to Dominican. How deep those pockets must be.