Kicking My Own Ass

So, a few days back I got it in my head to re-write something from my literary formative years. We'll call it a need to validate my continued expenditure of time on this glorious writing habit of mine. And it truly is glorious. Look at the difference between then and now, and tell me that's not astounding:

The Original (circa 2006) :

       _{Sheeba looked out of her bedroom window, there was something out there, there had to be, as her sensitive ears had picked up the sound of something hitting the ground. She left her window, to finish getting ready for bed, and went to the small dressing room that was an extension of her room.
       Tonight is the night that I will steal my way into the guild. Sessho-Maru thought as he took a running start and leaped over the ten foot wall surrounding the palace, and cleared it without even touching it. He landed in the castle gardens, where he saw an open window, perfect for getting into the palace. He climbed the tree next to the window, and entered the room. At first, the room was empty, but a girl suddenly came out of a small door to the left of him. She looked as if she was about to scream.
       Sheeba Came out of the dressing room, wearing a plain silk gown, and was shocked to find a tall boy with dressed in an olive green sleeveless shirt, light brown breeches, and a light brown cloak. He had long silver hair, and some demon marks on his face. One second he was next to the window, the next he was behind her, holding his hand over her mouth.
       "Don't scream," he ordered as he removed his hand.
       "Who do you think you are!" Sheeba asked hotly.
       "I'm Sessho-Maru, and I'm no one to worry about, I'm here for one thing, and one thing only, to steal my way into the guild," he answered.
       "Well, since I want you gone, take this ring, and be gone," Sheeba ordered, as she handed him the ring off of her hand. He moved towards the window.
       "Thanks," he said as he jumped out the window, he landed on the ground and jumped over the wall
       Sessho-Maru landed on the other side of the wall, hitting the ground with out flinching.
       "Well, did you get something?" asked a boy who was slightly shorter than Sessho-Maru, but not by much, he had blonde hair, and honey colored eyes. He was dressed in the same outfit a Sessho-Maru, for that was the common clothing of the people, only his shirt was navy blue.
       "Well, if you have to know, yes, I did get something," Sessho-Maru said as he tossed the ring to him.
       "Hmm…well, judging by the fact that this ring is very expensive, I'd say that you are welcomed into our guild," the boy said.
       "Thank you Sasuki," Sessho-Maru said to the other boy.}

A challenger appears! (as of 2011) :

         Soren slipped into the shadow of the palace's wall. No pressure, Soren. Just get in, grab something shiny, and get out. I guarantee your head will still be attached come morning.  Of course Malek would be calm about breaking into the palace; he could only gain from the crime. Soren, on the other hand, was risking his head.  If he had any other choice, he would have walked out right then.
       He listened intently, hoping to catch any tell-tale signs of people on the other side of the wall. That would be just his luck, vaulting over the wall into a garden party or a pack of dogs. Hearing nothing, he glanced around; there was no one in sight.
        "Here goes nothing," he murmured, rolling his shoulders and popping his neck. If he was caught, he was dead, even if he managed to escape. He stood out like a sore thumb in a crowd. Being one of the only towheaded palies in a country of dark-haired, tan people tended to have that effect. Shaking his head to clear it of such thoughts, he backed up several lengths to get a good running start.
       The wall couldn't have been more than ten feet tall, and he was a little over six feet tall; he could climb it easily.  Without giving himself a chance to think through what would happen if he was wrong and there was someone on the other side, he sprinted toward the wall. Jumping at the last second, he pushed off against the wall itself to gain height and hooked an arm over the top.  The garden below was empty, he noticed with a relieved sigh as he dropped to the other side, landing among the foliage with a dull thud.
       He froze, worried someone might have heard him. Sloppy work, Soren, making such an obvious noise, he scolded. When no one came to investigate, he allowed himself to take in his surroundings.  There were flowers. Lots of flowers. How in the world could the king of a poverty-stricken country like Leone justify such extravagant landscaping, especially in the middle of the desert? Focus!       There was a window to his right, dark and near enough to a tree that he could get in and out without too much fuss. It could lead to his death or it could lead to regaining what he'd lost. Or it could be a supply closet, which wouldn't have been very useful but was certainly better than a room full of guards.
        With the spryness of a capuchin, he worked his way up the tree and into the room.  It took his eyes several moments to adjust to the darkness of the room, moments which would have been the death of him if he were less than lucky.  Apparently fortune was in his favor, because he was still standing unmolested, head firmly on his shoulders, when his vision adjusted, allowing him to see the room.  In the muted range of colors available, he was able to make out a small table surrounded by luxurious cushions, the remains of someone's afternoon tea still waiting to be removed, a large potted fern, and a door, slightly ajar.
       He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Cursing under his breath like a sailor with a stubbed toe, he looked for a place to hide.  With exception to the fern, which made a horrible hiding place by being on the opposite side of the room, the only place to hide was among the cushion.  If someone was planning to use the room, the cushions were a horrible idea, as well, and he turned to go back out the window, only to catch himself as a pair of voices, one suggestive and masculine, the other bubbly and feminine, rose through the air to warn him that his escape was cut off.  Trying to leave under the hope that he wouldn't be seen would be tempting the fates, and he had a feeling he was running out of luck.
       Effectively trapped, he forced himself to calm down and examine his options.  You're so screwed.  Fingering his dagger, he wondered how many guards he could kill before they subdued him. Somewhere between one and ten, if he had to guess.  Any second now, they'd stumble in on him and— His eyes caught movement again, from the other room.  He could just make out desk or maybe a vanity past the door.
       Fighting off the urge to laugh in relief, he crept closer to the door. There weren't any guards; no one was anywhere near the door; he'd seen a reflection in a mirror, probably of a curtain moving.  From his new vantage, he could see the entirety of the next room reflected in the mirror.  A lavish bed, an armoire, a vanity under the mirror, moonlight filtering through obfuscated glass  – all the extravagant things he'd expected to find in a palace bedroom.  He hadn't, however, expected her.
       That was no curtain, he thought wryly, fixated on her reflection. Even if she hadn't been busy undressing, slowly removing every layer to protect the expensive fabrics from tearing, he would have stared.  There was something familiar about her, like he should know who she was – at the same time, he would have remembered those assets.  It wasn't just her body; the way she moved, with purposeful grace, niggled at him, asking him to remember what he had no memories of.
         As he watched, the woman tugged a light, silk robe around herself and pulled a pair of tortoiseshell combs from her dark hair. Almost absently, she deposited them on her vanity, trading them for a leather-bound book, and lit an oil lamp near her bed.  Warm light flooded the room, ruining Soren's night vision, and he watched her a few moments longer as she curled up on her bed and began reading. That was rare, a woman who could read; men who could read were rare enough on their own.  Briefly, detachedly, he wondered if he could read. He hadn't seen a scrap of text since waking. But that quickly passed as he forced himself to consider the combs.
       Tortoiseshell combs were a luxury in land-locked Leone.
       This simplified things. All he had to do was wait until she fell asleep, sneak in, take the combs, and sneak out. By the time he was done, the couple in the garden would be gone, their tryst over with, and it would be safe to slink off into the night. She  probably wouldn't even miss the combs, if her casual treatment of them was any indication. No one would be the wiser and he'd be one step closer to earning his freedom and his memories.
       Time passed slowly, mocking him, and he grew anxious as she continued reading.  The hardly stifled sounds of the couple outside only served to irritate him. How could she concentrate on her book with those two out there moaning and yowling like half-mute cats?
       They quieted, presumably left, long before she closed her book and put out her lamp, as though she hadn't heard them at all. Maybe she hadn't.  It didn't matter, really. In fact, it was better that she hadn't heard them. If she had, she would have discovered more than a pair of lovers having a secret roll in the hay in the loudest way.
       Soren gave her some time to fall asleep and stay that way before he crept into her room.  It wouldn't do to go sneaking around only to be caught in the act. Combs in hand, he glanced at his slumbering victim; he couldn't shake the feeling, like he knew her. It was so tempting to wake her up, ask her if she recognized him, knew him.  His memories would be returned in time, but even a little hint at who he was before would be—
        "Djaq?" She was looking directly at him, eyes wide with shock. "Djaq? Is that you?"
       His chest tightened with panic and desire. It was dark, she probably thought he was someone else, but what if she didn't? It wasn't worth finding out it he was wrong, but…Damn it! he thought, pocketing the combs and dashing into the other room. He hesitated for just a moment at the window, still tempted to go back, to ask about this 'Djaq' and find out more about his past. If he wasn't Djaq, at least he'd know who he wasn't.
       With a pang of regret, he forced himself to disappear into the night. It's better this way...

Seriously. That's a hell of a lot of improvement. I thoroughly kicked my own ass. I needed validation, and I damn well nearly threw my younger self in front of a bus to get it. 

Let's Talk About Vampires

    I'll admit, I've always had a fascination with vampires, quite possibly ever since I saw that probably horrible movie about a kid turned into a vampire or something when I was, like, ten. Vampires are cool, like bow ties. Well, vampires done properly are cool, anyway. So, really, it's no surprise that they would make an appearance in my novel, and by 'make an appearance,' I mean, 'have one of their individuals being a main character.'
    It's not uncommon to have a vampire in the cast. I don't often see them grouped together with faeries, elves, and trolls (among other things) but I'm sure it's happened before, because they're everywhere. It's like American culture, at least, has some kind of creepy vampire fetish. Actually, it's not just like, I'm pretty sure that a creepy fetish is exactly what it is. Thanks, Bram Stoker; you may not have been the original source of 'sexy' vampires, but you certainly contributed to them. 
    So, lets posit that vampires really do exist, for a second, and that they're living in plain sight and we just don't know about them. Now, assume they, as a whole, decide that it's a-okay for us, the humans, to know about them, so a few thousand vampires across the nation come out of the vampirism closet. How would we, as a nation, react?
    To start with, I can tell you right away that there will be more people who will hate the vampires for being, well, vampires, than there will be people who are willing to accept them for it. Your neighbor Steve? Yeah, he's a great guy, with a good job, and he takes care of his family, volunteers around the community, and regularly attends mass at St. Jude's United Methodist Catholic Church of Episcopalianism and Jesus and the Latter Day Saints*. All in all, he's probably a much, much better person than you'll ever be. Oh, and he's a vampire. Suddenly, Steve isn't getting voted Mr. Springfield every year, he's getting hazed until he's forced to uproot his family and leave, and that's if we don't try to kill him first. It wouldn't matter if they were the fucking pope, we would hate them. Why? Because they are an abomination unto Nuggan. Because drinking blood is unnatural, despite the fact that it's natural for them.
    Another thing I can tell you is that teenage girls would date vampires specifically to piss their dads off, every time. And those that aren't trying to rebel against their father would be genuinely and naively attracted to dangerous and forbidden act of sleeping with someone who's probably at least a century older than you and thinks of you as boxed wine. There'd also be a number who would fit into the vampire-hating category described above. That goes for teenaged boys as well, only I'm guessing they'd make a game of trying to nail the hottest piece of centuries-old ass. Hey, these women have had several centuries to perfect their technique, and they're not all saggy or fake like Stacy's mom. 
    But let's say we, as a race, move beyond our initial— Who am I kidding? Homosexuality, in all likelihood, has been around as long as we have. Atheists have existed as long as theism has (not everyone believes the first person to come along and say, "Dude, I didn't sleep with Mary, I swear. It must have been some giant invisible man from the sky."). After all this time, we're still bickering over morality like vultures fighting over that possum you ran over last week. 
    Okay, so maybe we do something completely uncharacteristic and respond with vampires by holding out our hands in welcome (like we did with the aliens.. oh, wait). Frankly, such a peace would be tenuous at best. As Lucas puts it in my novel, "[It] only works out for [them] until some asshat from the eighteenth century gets it in his head to take advantage of some naïve thirteen-year-old. Trust me, it will happen." So, if there's anything you learned today, let it be that vampires shouldn't come into the open, because the last thing I need is to have Vampire marriage rights propaganda shoved down my throat. Oh god, Worse yet Human/Vampire marriage propaganda. Because nothing says, "I don't want to live in this world anymore," like a pamphlet detailing why vampires and humans should be getting it on.


*If I haven't offended you with that statement, kindly add your religion to Steve's church in your mind, so that it can be equally insulting to all.

An Analysis and Decoding of Facebook Posts...

    I was going to write something about how I was a hipster before Fall Out Boy because as mainstream as they come, and how I avoided Facebook like the plague until a few years back, all in honor of Google+, which I am impatiently waiting to join, because I've already accepted that Google will rule the world at some point, so I might as well stay on their good side (also, if Gmail is any indication of their ability to do everything better than everyone else, G+ ought to be amazing). But I didn't know where to go with that, really, and, besides, where's the humor in it?
    So, instead, I will be an asshole, and gather a number of poorly written comments, posts, etc, from Facebook, and attempt to decode them. Because nothing says, "I love you," like, "I find you worthy of my company, but you'd be worthier if you wrote in English." So, without further ado...

1. "na i was just there. i think hes in the future trying to steal futuristic weapons to bring back to this time so he can be a gun ho bad ass lol haha"


    Initially, this comment seems pretty straightforward. Someone is in the future stealing guns to bring back to our time. But let's take a step further and look at it both more literally and on a deeper level of understanding. Just below the surface is an ingeniously written,  tragic story, really.
    Thomas 'Hes' A. Bastard was a pirate serving on one of the many ships that frequented Port Royal in 1695¹, until he fell through a temporal distortion and was transported to the distant future. After wandering the deserted wastelands of Neo America, he discovered a settlement of people, if they could be called that after hundreds of years of oppression, working under the trigger happy supervision of the Xenons, a race of cyborgs.
    After seeing the future of mankind, Hes awakens to his duty. Everything in his life has been leading up to this event. It's his destiny to prevent the Xenons from coming into power - from existing, if possible.  So, with the help of Marta, a hot, busty girl with a rebellious streak, and an innocent Xenon orphan named Choppah, he comes up with a plan to steal the Xenon's secret weapon, The Captomatros, and go back in time.
    While gathering the materials and information needed to infiltrate the Xenon fortress, Hes falls irreversibly in love with Marta and happily cooperates when she tries to seduce him, though the experience is soured when it turns out that she was secretly a Xenon the whole time and was only seducing him to get information about his origins. After that, she leaves him, returning to her life as a Xenon. It pains him, but he channels that pain into unbridled rage.
    Forced to come up with a new plan, Hes undergoes a number of dangerous surgeries, performed by Doc, a shady Xenon with questionable motives, to become a Xenon. Once he's healed up, he sneaks into the Xenon stronghold, making it most of the way to where they were keeping the weapon before someone realizes he's not supposed to be there and sets off the alarm.  He fights the rest of the way, only to come face to face with Marta in the hall outside the Captomatros's storage room.
    Though it's been nearly a year, his feelings for her are still tender, and he nearly loses his life because he's unwilling to hurt her. Eventually he subdues her, only to be told that he has a son. In this moment of distraction, he's shot. With only minutes left to live, he busts into the storage room and activates the weapon.
    After a flash of bright white light, Hes wakes up in his hammock on the ship. He remembers every detail of the future vividly, but there's no evidence that he was ever gone. Deciding to keep his dream, because that's what it must have been, to himself, he goes about his life as usual. However, while on shore leave in Port Royal, he runs into a woman on the street. It's Marta. She's human now, but she remembers everything as vividly as he does.
    And then the credits roll, leaving you to wonder, "What the fuck just happened? Was it a dream the whole time? Or was the Captomatros some kind of thing like the Matrix? And what the hell happened to Choppah? Sonofabitch! I want answers."

¹ As evidenced by the previous comment, which postulated that the man in question was in Port Royal in 1695.

    Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any further comments exhibiting the qualities that would make it perfect for this exercise in analysis. I can't tell if I'm happy or angry about it. On one hand, that means my wall has a minimum of stupid on it... on the other hand, it has a minimum of stupid on it. What the hell do I friend these people for, then?

Very Superstitious...Er, Suspicious

    If you're me, you're a single lady, and you put your goddamn hands up with unbridled enthusiasm every time. You revel in the fact that you have one fewer obligation than most of the seven people you talk to on a regular basis. You disappear off the map for a whole week and get away with it. It's great, really, it is.
    Heck, if you're like me, you even get the joy of not being solicited for dates all the time. Some girls might lament that no one likes them and they're worthless; I'm not one of them. I know for a fact that if I actually wanted to, I could probably get a boyfriend. He wouldn't be the cream of the crop, but he'd exist. Maybe I'd get lucky and he'd have a sexy (English/Irish/Scottish) accent, too, and be exactly the right height with perfect hair and a love for wordsmithing. The biggest reason that I am perpetually single is that I choose to be.
    Unfortunately, this has problems of its own. Aside from having to deal with the rare occasion when part of you insists that one of your guy friends has exactly the sense of humor you want to date, there's also the fact that you suffer from an extreme lack of experience. That's bad enough on its own; combine it with being socially awkward and slightly paranoid, and you get one thing: someone who freaks out the moment someone shows even the remotest interest in them romantically. In other words, you get me.
    I could cite several points in my life where I've reacted badly to being asked out - one being when I shot a guy down without a seconds' thought in sophomore year (admittedly, he was a jerk and used to pick on me for liking Pokemon, so my reaction was not unwarranted). But I think I'll stick with the most recent example of why I'm perpetually single.
    Yesterday afternoon, I get a message on facebook from a guy who's friends with a  few of my friends. I'm immediately suspicious of him, because I don't even know the guy, and here he is talking at me, but I push that aside long enough to see what he wants. It seems innocent enough to start with. Heck, I'm even flattered, because he calls me pretty.
    But then I get the horrible feeling that he's beating around the bush about what he wants.  He asks questions that can only point to one thing: this jerkoff wants to ask me out or something ridiculous like that. Admittedly, asking me if I'm single (it's right there on me profile, why ask?) wasn't very subtle. My answer, "Single and loving every minute of it," was a not-so-subtle hint that, obviously, I am not interested. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in him (not entirely, at least,), it was that I am currently so very opposed to the idea of pairing up, even in the event that I get a chance at a guy I'm already interested in (except David Tennant. I would tap that without a second thought, given the chance).  But, apparently, he didn't actually believe me, or something, because he kept inching toward making a point.
    What's important is not how I proceeded, so much as what was happening on my end of the internet. I was freaking the fuck out. Panicking, even. I was a rabbit being chased by a cougar, and god dammit I couldn't remember where I'd buried my ak-47. I was consulting a few of my guy friends, because they were there and I can talk to them about this stuff. I just didn't know what to do with myself.
    The obvious remedy for this problem, of course, is to do one of the following: (a) create a fake boyfriend so that, in the future, I can use him as a repellent, (b) Move to a remote location where I am literally the only person for ten miles and buy everything I need off the internet and adopt forty cats to fill the gap in my heart where intelligent conversation used to be, or (c) stab any single man that comes within a a yard of me. Oh, and there's also these insane options: get a real boyfriend, or learn to fucking deal with it. Those last two are just too outlandish for me, though. I mean, really? Who does that? Serial killers, that's who.


    On a purely coincidentally related note, Books of Adam put a post up earlier this week that I find entirely too easy to relate to after yesterday. Lucky him. He gets free, unsolicited publicity as a result. If you like laughing, you'll like Books of Adam, trust me, I'm a Doctor (Who fan).

Mortifying Mom

      Statistically speaking, you have a mom. Moms are interesting creatures. Not only are they capable of not strangling you during the years when you're at your most obnoxious, i.e. most of the years before age twenty,  but they are capable of evoking in their offspring, evoking in you, horror that filmmakers cannot hope to ever achieve, and they do it without goring a hot cheerleader five minutes into the movie that is your life¹. The worst part is, they don't have to try, and often don't realize what manner of life-scarring words are tumbling out of their mouths. They really don't try to horrify us², it just happens when they do just about anything as soon as we become aware of what 'cool' means. Actually, that goes for dads, too (especially mine).
      Realistically speaking, I think my mom's, like, the coolest mom ever. She's one of my best friends, and I love her to bits. But, at the end of the day, she's still my mom and I'm still at that awkward phase where I can talk about sex in jest with my peers and even write about it, but, God forbid my mother ever says anything even remotely related to sex. For a number of years, my brain would explode any time she even mentioned in passing that an admittedly attractive actor was attractive. Doubly so if she actually said anything about sex. I've only just gotten to the point where my brain doesn't crack in half when she makes a point to tell me that she thinks one of the blogs she reads (most of which, excluding this one, are about the Paleo lifestyle) is written by a really hot guy.


      So, there I was, sitting at the table with my laptop in front of me. Normally I would have been in my room listening to loud music and trying to ignore the internet long enough to do something constructive, but Mom decided I wasn't allowed to retreat back to my 'cave,' as she calls it, after lunch that day. So, in keeping with her wishes and because we have a relative visiting, I moved my operation to the living room for the day, because, whatever, maybe a change of scenery would let me get over the fact that I don't want to write the next scene in my novel.
      It didn't work, but I did do some world building (because watching Supernatural while they're trying to talk to me is bad form). About twenty minutes before being forced to come out and be less of a hermit, I'd started working on the form for a city-state in Valeris (formerly known as Hell) called Damascus. Normally when doing this there's no problem because filling out these forms is about as interesting as watching grass grow in slow motion. Heck, I don't even usually go into a lot of detail because things change, anyway.
      Now, for those of you (i.e. all of you) who don't know, Damascus is a fictional city-state in Valeris that the Cubi³, the incubi and succubi of the world, call home. That's really all you need to know to realize that doing this with my mom right next to me is not the best idea. Truth be told, it went perfectly fine until I started in on the religion portion of the form.
      See, I make crap up all over the place for my stories, but I like to base bits and pieces of them off real things and beliefs. So, while making up the religion for Damascus, I decide to look up Lilith on wikipedia (reliable or not, it is where I get information, because screw research, that's why), which leads to me reading about several other figures connected to her. Mom, of course, sees me switching between Word and Wikipedia as I outline the Damascan religion with deities loosely based on what I found and make up stuff about them. "What are you researching?" "Oh, you know, stuff for my novel." "See? My daughter does research while she's writing," she says to my aunt across the table.
      I ignore the impulse to close my laptop as she watches me work. "So, is that real?" Of course she means to ask if I'm using real-world deities, and I reply with a smirk and a no. I continue working, because it's better than sitting there awkwardly, trying (and failing) to participate in whatever conversation they're having. I'm out here, she should be fine with it.  And then it happened.
      "Most Cubi practice Harlotism. The Church of The Harlot is built around five deities, Lilith, Agraht, Nahm, Ishet, and Samil." She starts reading off my document, out loud. "The first four deities (Lilith, Agraht, Nahm, Ishet) are sisters, the first four succubi in existence, and the mothers of all cubi (some sects also believe them to have created the rest of the world’s creatures out of boredom). Samil is the father of all cubi, the first incubus, and husband to the other four. Some people believe Samil is also the brother of the other four deities, while others believe he’s their father." At this point, I start feeling rather awkward, because she just read about incest, so I get up to leave. "And still others believe he’s unrelated; the holy scriptures do little to clear this up, as they refer to him as all three at different points (usually by different ‘prophets’). It’s common for individuals to choose to pray to a single, favored deity," I hear as I walk away under the guise of simply wanting a cup of coffee. 
      And then she gets to the horrible part. She's reading loudly enough that I can hear her from the coffee maker. "Also known as ‘The Whore,’ Lilith is associated with fire, passion, and all things related to sex. Her cardinal direction is south." The emphasis is mine, of course. She laughs as she finishes reading it, which is just about the same time that I sit back down with my over-sized cup of black coffee. "Is this, like, an outline of your characters or something?"
      "Ah, no," I say. "It's worldbuilding stuff. I'm organizing my thoughts on the places in my world, and that's the religion of Damascus." And, of course, I feel the probably unnecessary need to explain why one of the deities is called "The Whore." "They're Cubi, incubi and succubi," I explain, having no idea if either of them know what either of those creatures are. "So, it only makes sense that they'd have a goddess for sex. I mean, I have 'The Hag,' 'The Maiden,' and 'The Mother,' too. Sooo..."
      This was followed by some sort of silence. For me, it was awkward, and I spent my time trying to find something to say to remedy the situation. I never did.
      Of course, given my luck, I will stroll out of my room tomorrow and stumble upon her reading this post out loud. So, in closing, I ask, 'If Sephiroth can destroy universes, do space eggs have salmonella?'⁴

---

¹ If your mother did this, she's not doing motherhood right, and you should buy her a manual on how to properly raise children like a non-serial killer. There's probably an Idiot's Guide for it.
² Except the ones that do try. But they're dicks.
³ Cubi: An adrogynous term used to refer to incubi and succubi as a species. I stole if from DMFA, though I'm sure Amber's not the first person to use the term. Either way, DMFA is a great comic. 
⁴ This most ridiculous question, courtesy of Shelby. 

Brainstew

    If my life depended on it, I could easily write a list of all the things I know that I don't think about very often. This is a quite extensive list, and it would actually be a lot less trouble to list what I do think about. Of course, a list of what I do think about would be a rather inaccurate representation of my inner workings. Why? Because,
"                                                            "

• "I can do that later."

• Squeaker

• Food

• Welsh Corgis

• Writing

• Any of my characters

is entirely too organized to properly portray what actually happens in my mind. A more accurate example would be something like, "Okay, time to sit down and write. 'Worst case scenario, Darron didn’t talk to him for the better part of a week.' Hmm. What to write next? OH LOOKY, IT'S SQUEAKER. HI SQUEAKY? HOW ARE YOU? No. Stop it. You're supposed to be - WTF CAT WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE I'M MOLESTING YOU? I'M NOT EVEN TOUCHING YOU! No. Ignore the damn cat. You should be writing. 'Worst case scenario, Darron didn’t talk to him for the better part of a week.' Oh, right. Uh, you know what? Let's go spend some time doing random shit on the internet. Maybe it will inspire you to- you know what? No. Screw that. There is cantaloupe in the fridge and you could totally go get some. Because fuck the internet, that's why. Okay. This is a hallway. I'm most certainly in a hallway. If I run down this hallway, the papers I've pinned to the walls will make a whoosh sound. It will be awesome. Yes, yes that was awesome. Okay. Cantaloupe. I've got this. What's that mom? Uh, sure, I'll cook dinner for- MERLIN! KITTY! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THAT I'M AFRAID TO CUDDLE YOU BECAUSE YOU'LL HATE ME IF I DO..." and so on.  
    It's best not to dwell what happens inside my addled brain, just what comes out of it eventually. And no, I don't mean the clear liquid that sometimes leaks from my ears. I don't even know where that comes from; maybe the rocks had to pee or something.
    I have the vaguest feeling like this post was supposed to lead up to something slightly more important than the fact that my brain clearly has some kind of attention deficit disorder, but I can't for the life of me- Lasers. My cat is afraid of lasers.

_{I did all of that with the shift key. Not capslock. What is wrong with me?}

Lasers

   While I was planning on writing yet another blog on my cat(s), several of the eleven voices in my head piped up and voiced their fears that I might start to sound like my cousin and her husband sound about their (I grudgingly admit) half-way adorable baby. So, while my cat's behavior is funny, I'll treat you to a story about my man-child father.
   I can't remember exactly how many weeks back it was, because let's face it, I've been out of school for a month, so I barely know what day of the week it is at any given time. But it wasn't too many of them ago that my mom and I decided that it was time to go buy tomatoes and marigolds (and peppers) for the garden. Tomatoes because they are tasty and we've always grown them, and marigolds because they're just so goddamn happy as flowers go.  We did it as a semi-planned, half-on-a-whim quest.
   With tomatoes and flowers on the brain, we left the house in the Honda, our shiny blue car that doesn't get used much because I like driving Moose (the Mercury) more. Stopping at the hospital on our way out of town, so I could be forced into the driver's seat, much to my chagrin, I killed the engine twice before we got back on the road and took the long, less traveled route to our preferred nursery.
   There's a reason why I don't like to drive the Honda. "Oh, and what reason is that, awesome and wise Shqueer?" you ask (if your name is Tyler). Well, the flesh of the matter is that I am crap at driving manual transmission vehicles. If I were the supreme ruler of everything in the universe, I would give any and all stick shift vehicles a death sentance. As much as I love the Honda for being the nice, new car, I hate it in equal amounts for making things harder than they have to be.
   So, we get to the nursery and buy our tomatoes and leave. I spent some time loitering around the flowers, because, really, I like flowers.  Once everything was paid for and put in boxes in our trunk, mom took over with the driving, much to my unexpressed glee, and we sped off down the road to Albany, listening to ABBA. I neglected to mention that I jacked that CD from Moose, didn't I? Trust me, this fact is important. Your life depends on knowing that I like to listen to ABBA with my mom. No really.
   In Albany, we go to Home Depot, because they have some kind of sale going and we're just savvy like that.  We buy a bunch of marigolds, yellow ones, orange ones, yellow one with red spots, and after a short-lived, failed search for a particular type of Gerbera daisy, we leave again.  Mom mentions that my aunt wanted us to get her a pair of tomatoes, so we drive out to her itty bitty house (that I want to steal from her after she's done fixing it up).
   Her green Jimmy's sitting out front, so, using logic, I conclude that she must be home and we go to knock on her door. Nothing. We call around to the back yard, wondering if she's out there doing stuff. Still nothing. We try the gate near the door - it won't open. By this time, we're just looking for a hose so we can water the plants and leave them, maybe with a note if we can find paper and a pen. The gate on the other side of the house doesn't work, either, so we go back to the car and sit there for a minute or so.
   Mom gets the bright idea to call my aunt, so I give her my phone - commenting on the fact that its battery is low as I do - and she punches in the number and presses call. It rings once and dies.
   Shrugging, we leave, deciding that the tomatoes we already bought were so puny, in comparison to the ones we bought her, that we were going to go back to the nursery and buy a few more of the individually sold ones for ourselves. On the way back, we stopped at the library because I was having ACDC withdrawals and thought maybe they'd have something by them to borrow. No. If they have any at all, it was checked out when I was there. I got Aerosmith and Bon Jovi instead. Both of those are poor, poor substitutes for ACDC.
   So, rocking out to the best of my ability to Bon Jovi - because, hell, I only knew one Aerosmith song at the time - we return home.
   Mom pulls into the driveway just as the front door slams shut and my dad walks around the corner of the porch looking for all the world like he thought we were dead. Of course he was pissed off. We didn't leave a note and he didn't know where we were and- and-. "You were supposed to be sleeping." Yeah, well, he woke up when his phone went off when we called, he says. I tell him that's not possible because my phone's been dead since Mom used it to try to call my aunt.
   He'd been all over town looking for us. Worried sick, apparently.
   He even called the police because he thought we were in trouble. He thought we'd gotten into a wreck. Because the first person I'm going to call if I get into a wreck is him, not the police, the people who can actually help me. The police, of course, told him to stop being ridiculous (citation needed) and that he couldn't file a missing persons report for 24 hours. We'd been gone for four at the most.
   Despite the fact that I should have been touched that he cared, I couldn't stop myself from laughing about it.  It was ridiculous. The one time he's not supposed to wake up, he does. The one time Mom and I decide to run off while he's asleep to avoid the inevitable bitch-fit that happens every time he goes shopping with us, he makes a big deal about it. I'll admit, if I had time to steal a CD from the other car, I certainly had time to write him a goddamn note, but god damn. There is such a thing as overreacting, and that was it. I found it so absurd that keeping myself from laughing would be like asking me to go back in time and save the Titanic.
   A later look at my phone showed that, yes, Mom did accidentally call Dad instead of my aunt, so there's that. Now whenever I want to go somewhere with Mom, I have the ability to joke about not leaving a note - something that we, as a family, don't do on a regular basis as is - and calling him just long enough to let it ring once and hang up and the like. Because if there's one thing I have fun doing, it's making inside jokes at my father's expense.
   So, how about you and I take a trip to the beach? We'll 'forget' to leave a note, take the wrong car, and call only to hangup after the first ring. Then we'll have tons of fun while my dad is running around town, calling the police, getting pissed off that he can't file a missing persons report before we get back, and generally overreacting to the fact that omg we're gone! What? That doesn't sound like fun? Oh, fine, we'll leave a goddamn note. Yeesh, you're such a wet-blanket.

The Horror

   I woke with a start. My window was open again. Not wide open, just open far enough for an arm or a cat to slip through. And my blinds were raised, all the way, exposing me to the eerie blackness of the night. My window opened onto... nothing. There was nothing outside; no stars, no moon, nor ambient light from the city's blasted streetlights. Just blackness.
   It was hard to breathe. Fear constricted my airways more efficiently than any python could have hoped. I could not move. I was paralyzed by the blackness beyond my window panes. That deep well of darkness, home to everything I'd ever feared and many things I had yet to fear, stared at me, licking its chops, and savoring the smell of a girl paralyzed by its gaze.
   I struggled to move, to sit up, to stand and turn the light on. Maybe with some light I could allay my fears, convince myself that it was just a cloudy night. The light only made the dark seem more sinister; the light only revealed what the dark had hidden.
   At my window, so close that his nose almost pressed against the screen, a man's face appeared from the dark. He had sharp features, almost as though he were carved from marble. His high cheek bones, framed by brown curls, and refined nose might have rendered him handsome in combination with his deep brown eyes under other circumstances. These were not those circumstances, and I found myself legitimately afraid for my life.
   I kept my eyes on him, like I would a weeping angel. Don't Blink. Blink and your dead. I thanked the Universe for giving the world David Tennant. It was damn good advice.
   I recognized him after a moment. In Chemistry, earlier, he'd cheated off my test. I'd been sitting next to him in class for a week - didn't even know his name, it was something like Blue... Bruce? - and now he was cheating off me and watching me sleep. I'd read this book before.
   "Bruce," I said, suddenly angry.
   "It's Eric, actually," he said helpfully.
   I faltered for a moment. how could I have been-. It doesn't matter. "Eric, this is unacceptable behavior. If I ever catch you doing this again, I will stab you. In the chest. With a wooden stake," I said, glaring at him. "Then I will leave your shiny fucking corpse in the middle of fucking Venice or wherever the fuck it is, with a strongly worded letter to your sparkling overlords telling them exactly where your pot is."
   "You've read those...books...too?" His voice was fading and everything became blurry, washed out. "Do... hard it makes...for an Incubus...?"
   I woke with a start, sitting up abruptly at my desk. "What the fuck was that?" I murmured, looking around. Eric was beside me, cheating off my history exam. Catching my eye, he winked knowingly. I have yet to figure out if he was letting me know that he knew about my dream, or thanking me for letting him cheat off me.

   The preceeding was a fictionalized account. Any and all resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental. Well, except for the fact that I basically did have that dream, but at home, in bed, sans the conversation with the creep watching me sleep, plus a whole lot of me being scared half to death of open windows in the weeks following. Other than that, not a mite of this was true.

Derping Photos

   Normally, I ignore photos on Facebook, because, let's face it, most of them are crap. We all know this, so I don't need to comment on them most days. But, no, I signed on this morning and saw one that made me think.

Like this, only with real people.

   I would have ignored it - because, really, it was Karen and Brian¹, so they're exactly who I would expect to take derpy photos. No, it was the fact that I'd seen it before, only with different losers. I don't know what would possess someone let someone photograph them doing something so stupid. I mean, if nothing else, you're risking getting your face licked by a creature that knows better (not a dog) while simultaneously attempting to get so close to licking their face without actually doings so that you can taste what they had for lunch.  I'll ignore the other explanation - that the people in these photos are trying to French kiss and getting it horribly, horribly wrong on camera. Not that I'd be surprised if that were the case - I mean, I never see attractive people do this - and on the rare occasion you do see an unstaged photo of attractive people doing this, it looks less like derping and more like a mating ritual, as it should.
   In cases like this, it's not the camera's fault that you come out looking like you were on the wrong side of the door when God was handing out photogenics. No, it's entirely your fault for making yourself look stupid in the first place. You may have thought it would be awesome, but that's because you couldn't see the stupid look on your loll-tongued face.
   Sometimes, yeah, it's not your fault. For every awesome, or even relatively not stupid, face your face makes, there are around ten to twenty retarded transition faces. This is especially true for when you're talking. I've developed a hyper awareness to cameras for this reason, so that I don't end up in photos like this one:

Crappily drawn car innards are crappily drawn.

   I have a hard enough time looking dignified without people photographing me when I'm derping out to whatever happens to be blasting into my ears through my headphones at the moment. Unfortunately, this sensitivity to cameras usually kicks in about .21 seconds before the shutter clicks, giving me just enough time to look directly at it and widen my eyes in alarm, an involuntary action, I assure you.  So all 'candid' photos of me look the same.

A pretty accurate recreation of my expression when photographed.

¹ Karen and Brian here are used in reference to a Dane Cook sketch - The Friend Nobody Likes. 

My Cat Is Like Your Baby

Disclaimer: If you're easily insulted by the insinuation that cats are like babies that take care of themselves and manipulate us shamelessly, you should leave now. I apologize profusely for the insult to your cat and will gladly send your cat a handwritten apology if you email (it's there, on the left) me with your address and the plaintiff''s name or something. If your baby is insulted by this, you need to get a kitten immediately (I'd recommend an animal shelter, but then you miss the cute fluffy stage) and start educating it on the greatness of our feline overlords. No, that wasn't written at gun point. I don't know what you-. 


    Unlike some individuals of my gender and age, I do not have what we in the business call a "baby." If you've never had the confusing experience of being around a member of the human species before it reaches that stage of maturity where it's capable of taking care of itself, you may not understand what a baby is. Luckily, I've prepared a lovely way of explaining the common infant to you. Unless, of course, you've never spent five minutes around a cat. In which case, I'm sorry, but you'll have to learn from personal experience. Good luck, and keep your hair away from it.
    Babies are like cats. Or, rather, cats do a hell of a job acting like babies. In fact, cats are so good at pretending to be babies that their vocalizations are on similar frequency to a crying baby's. No, I'm not lying. Those of you who have a cat handy, I'm not one of you. My neurotic kitty is currently hiding in terror under my bed because we have family visiting.
    Look at your cat. What do you do for that cat on a regular basis? Chances are, you are its main source of food. It's not very good food - who the fuck decided that cats should eat corn/wheat based kibble in the first place? - but it's food, and it keeps them from actually having to risk injury catching a bird or something. Also, it's way easier.  Babies do the same thing, with one key difference: they are generally incapable of catching and eating birds. It's got something do with their immobility combined with their lack of immune system or something like that. I don't know; my experience with infants is limited to staring alarmedly¹ at them from across the room. 
    There is an equally good chance that you have a box full of a sand-like substance somewhere in your house for your cat to use for... ahem. Anyhow, this box requires cleaning every one to three days, depending on how many cats you have and how picky they are about the amenities.Some people can train their cats to use toilets, yeah, and some cats go outside, but, for the common house cat, it's usually the litter box for them. Babies require diapers - and they get rashes. Do you see where I'm going with this train of thought?
    Communication. Babies are pretty good at it. I mean, they cry when they want food or attention or have managed to get something wrapped around their own neck (until they can't cry anymore, at any rate), and they're damn persistent about it. They will cry themselves red in the face until you realize that it's baby thinking, Are you a fucking retard? I want that thing that's just out of my reach, not a goddamn bottle you moron. Some parents get lucky and have a baby that makes different noises for what they want - I'm pretty sure most of them have, like, two kinds of crying, and one of those happens when they want me to go away. 
    Compare this to the common house cat. Adult cats don't really bother with meowing at all unless there's a human present to take advantage of. Wikipedia says so, so it must be true. And it doesn't stop there, they have so many variations of the sound that we don't even know how it's supposed to be spelled (Squeaker insists it's mrow, but she might just be responding to the fact that I'm talking to her). Even better, cats understand our body language - so do babies, yeah, I know, but, you know what? Babies don't really get the connection between you pointing and the fact that their attention should be on the explosion you're pointing at until they've spent almost a whole year on this planet (at which point they use their new-found knowledge to point at things that aren't there and steal our souls).  Even at my cat's age - seven or eight - most kids lack the basic understanding necessary to realize that my body language says, I clearly do not want to associate with you, oh my God, will you go away and stop getting your sticky hands all over my stuff? Cats? Cats fuckin' get that, man (and their response is, usually, to love you like you've never wanted them to). 
    Have you ever stroked a baby? You, yeah, you in the back. Yeah, I'm calling the FBI. Step away from the baby you sick freak. So, for those of us who aren't getting arrested in the next day or two... moving on. 

    Cats are geniuses. No, I'm not just being biased, okay? Yeah, your baby? Maybe it's smart, for a baby, but compared to a cat, it's a moron. Mothers take care of babies - most of the time - because they have a biological need to and they bond with them because it's hard not to care for something you've put so many hours into (I mean, I care a lot about my Pokemon, too) even if those were not necessarily voluntary hours. Cat owners (and dog owners, to an extent) take care of creatures that actually don't really need us that much because we want to. Cats have so thoroughly manipulated us - usually by being adorable and fluffy when we first meet them - that we take care of them without needing a biological reason to do so. 

    Okay, I'll admit it, owning a cat can be like parenting a teenager in some cases. I mean, Merlin eats our food, sleeps in our house, would wear our clothes if he wasn't a nudist, and would use our internet if he could read, and yet he treats us (mostly me), for the most part, like crappy teenagers treat their awesome parents. So, yeah, owning a cat isn't always the greatest thing ever, and every cat you get is like playing Russian² roulette, where the bullet is actually the neurotic cat that doesn't want to be outside and will pee on you out of fear if she hears the neighbors while you're trying to help her conquer that fear. Also, if you're a male, you'll probably have a hard time getting a girl friend.

¹ This is not a word, but it should be. 
² Since a revolver loads six and kittens usually come in six-packs, like any respectable beer, I figured this was a pretty great simile. Just thought you should know that. 

The Joys and Sorrows of The Common Nap

   When was the last time you took a nap? If you said during U.S. history, I empathize with you, but you really don't know what you're missing. I, myself, just got done with a six hour nap, not because I was that tired, but because my body needed to repair itself, and I'm only halfway through the process. It's one of the many few joys of napping and one of the only situations I can justify wasting part of my procrastination hours on sleep.
   To nap, or not to nap, that is the only question¹, whether 'tis safer to suffer the slings and arrows of yonder head ache, or to take arms against head pain and by napping end them? Aye, there's the rub.
   Don't get me wrong, maybe normal people are perfectly capable of napping without consequence. I just know that I have a horrible time of it. And, by horrible, I mean ucky-feeling and self-kicking; and by time of it, I mean in the hours following my nap.
   First, it must be noted that, for every nap I take willingly, there are nine unwilling naps. These usually occur during Star Trek (or Doctor Who) when I'm on my couch being comfortable. If those conditions are met, there is a thirty-three percent chance that I will be asleep the next time you look at me. If I'm comfortably warm on a cold day, that probability doubles. If I obtained less than six hours of sleep the night before (almost every night) that probability rises by ten percent before it is doubled by being warm.
   When I nap without a valid need to do so, e.g. a migraine or relatives, I wake up feeling horrible. I'll have just enough of a headache to piss me off. My mouth will taste funny, and will make everything else tastes funny, and my stomach will insist I need food while simultaneously insist that I've poisoned it somehow. I might even wake up with a limb that doesn't want to move because I was sleeping on it and it's still a-fucking-sleep.  
   It's like my body has a hat full of bits of paper labeled "Nap" and "Watching Doctor Who" and other such activities,  and every day, starting at three o'clock and ending at ten o'clock, it draws a paper in fifteen minute intervals and determines my level of consciousness from it. On a good day, with optimal circumstances, there would be about three "Nap" slips for every six "Doctor Who" slips. Slips are added and subtracted based on various factors, until you have the current set up for the day. After that, it's like playing Russian Roulette with a gun that has six bullets. You're, well, I'm, fucked; unless you take preventative measure, there is no way to go unscathed.
   So, preventative measures; you'd think they'd be something I could just get used to doing everyday, yeah? Hah, you're funny. I can't always take the appropriate measures to avoid a case of the naps. Why? Well, part of it is because I haven't actually figured out all the things that cause me to nap. I know that not getting enough sleep at night, headaches, warmth, and watching my favorite TV shows seem to cause it. In the past I thought it was related to the protein content in my dinner, but I've since decided that excuse if bullshit. It's hard to prevent what you don't know about; for all I know, my mapping problem is caused by the government brain implant that keeps me as docile as they can manage (which, actually, is pretty damn docile). I don't know about that implant, but it might be the cause. My napping might be their way of ensuring that I don't have time to start a revolution against The Man, reducing me to simply raging against the machine² that allows the Man to have power. So, really, there's no sure-fire way to save myself. Or is there?
   Truth be told, I'm starting to suspect my entire personality is the result of living in a place where the sun only visits for the half of the year that I tend to spend being a hermit in the middle of town. Last summer, I only went outside because my mum wasn't in great shape, so if fell to me to water plants and shit. The summer before that, I don't remember even going outside - wait, no, I did, I went out for a robotics car wash and got a nasty sunburn, like always. So, what does sunlight have to do with sleep? Well, it stimulates your body, causing it to produce more serotonin, which is supposed to boost your mood (among other things, one of which is control your appetite), for one. For another, it also causes your skin to produce vitamin D₃, which is necessary for bone health, and just about everything, and has been linked to increased feelings of not-depression in depression patients (This is my source, by the way), though, D₃ may or may not be related to why I can't nap if I've gone outside and gotten a good dose of sunlight. 
   So, maybe, all I need to keep from wasting my time on napping is to invest significantly less time into exposing my skin to the sun and avoiding soap (because soap removes all the D₃
   Still, napping has its place in my life. Sometimes, it's worth just taking a nap for no reason other than the fact that your relatives are visiting and you really don't want to have a baby shoved in your general direction again. If you wake up while they're still there, you can always pretend to be asleep until they're not looking and slink off to your room to continue pretending to be in a coma. Or, you might have a migraine (I have one right now). Napping is a great way to get rid of those pesky migraines, man. Sometimes I'll be stubborn and attempt to fight my way through the rest of the day, but normally I just give up at the first sign of a headache, because, really, I cannot function in a normal capacity when my brain feels like it's got a rail-road spike in it that I accidentally jostle every time I think, whether I'm moving or not. I get them more often than I admit to because admitting to having one usually means admitting to having caused it by, theoretically, accepting ice cream freely given, for example. I get migraines from sugar. Or wheat. Or both. I really don't know. And, when I have a weak moment, god dammit, it's almost always in the face of ice cream or cake or pie, despite the fact that I don't even like that stuff anymore. I must be a masochist or something. No, really. 


   In other news it's the weekend, meaning I can sleep in for two days straight! So, have a great Saturday and Sunday (which comes after) and get some sunshine this weekend, guys. Seriously. It'll make you happier with your lot in life, even if only by a little.


¹Well, the only question relevant to this blog post, at least. Some guy named Hamlet said something about existing, but he was just being emo, yeah?
²Hello, not-so-subtle reference to a band I like. 

Being a Girl (Kind of Blows)

   Before we begin, I am obligated to inform you that this may not, in fact, be all that funny unless read in some variety of ridiculous voice. I recommend the deepest voice you can make.  Also, comments expressing clichéd sentiments about the subject matter will be frowned at and, subsequently, filed into the part of my brain with everything else I pretend doesn't exist. Your comments will be seated between the time I fell off the swings in sixth grade and the time that I accidentally went to hug someone when I intended to shake their hand. They will be seated behind every instance of me trying to use my left hand to shake hands ever. So, don't waste your own time; say something witty or rain praise down on me for being a god among men, better yet, do both. Keeping that in mind, let's proceed, shall we?
   I have been a girl for nearly nineteen years now,¹ and I have one thing to say about my experiences. "Being a girl has been the worst experience of my life." That's pretty bad, because my entire life has been spent as a girl - as much as dress and act like the boy I probably should have been, which is not to say I think I'm actually a boy in a girl's body, just that I'm one of those girls who didn't come out of the tomboy stage. I could list about a million things I hate about being female - one in particular happens on a regular basis.
   I think the one that bothers me most is that I retain weight more easily than I would if I were a dude. My body is stupid enough to think that I'll (a) attract a mate with all of this² and (b) that there will suddenly be a world-wide, massive famine that will render me in need of fuel for a baby I don't (or won't³) have.  Since males don't have to worry about losing babies to famine, they tend to retain less weight, on average, than females in general. I, of course, do. Of course, there's also the possibility that, since humans did not evolve to consume grains, my body assumed it actually was starving for fifteen or sixteen years, and I'm somehow failing to convince it that I'm not eating that shit anymore - which probably has more to do with the occasional cheat than what I eat on a daily basis. Just humor me for a moment, yeah?  Following this line of thought, my body has been like, "OMG, why don't you feed me real food, bitch? Oh, you know what, we must just be going through some kind of cow-shortage, because otherwise you wouldn't be eating your food's food," for the larger portion of my life. Now it's confused and complaining because, "Like, why is it that you continue to shove that shit into me if there are plenty of cows and other cute animals around to eat? I guess we're trying to re-establish cow herds or something, so I'll just dispatch the insulin squad to make sure you have plenty of energy stored away for when we're not allowed to eat cows again, in the hopes that, someday, there will be unlimited beef forever. You know, just in case you get knocked up or whatever." Because my physiology totally works that way.
   Normally, I only think about my weight in terms of, "This desk is tiny, I need to find a slightly bigger one," and "There's a gap between those two assholes in the hall, if I were just a little tinier, I could fit through it," and, my personal favorite, "God damn it, I wouldn't have to apologize for bumping into people in the halls if they weren't too dumb to realize that I'm standin-... maybe if I were tinier I wouldn't have this problem in the first place?" Honestly, I don't care about any of the social stigmas attached to being overweight - particularly since they don't really apply to me - I care because it's inconvenient. I like to think that, some day, I'll have to opposite problem. "Holy fuck this desk is big, I wish there was a tinier one," or, "If those assholes were tinier, there might actually be a gap for me to slip through so I could get to wherever the fuck I'm going faster," or "All these assholes keep bumping into me and they don't even apologize. I'd wish I had the mass to shove them around and demand one, but I've been there before and I don't want to do that again."⁴
   But, then you have days like today, or rather, tonight, where I realize things about myself that I really don't want to acknowledge - like the fact that I am, surprisingly, just as romantically inclined as any other female hermit. I go through my life actively avoiding that moment of epiphany where I realize that some guy I barely know is actually kind of attractive. Why? Because it makes life less complicated. Of course, despite my best efforts, it always happens anyway, usually for someone that is completely and totally out of my reach. Even when I could reach out and take them, I become a coward and refuse to act because I don't like being that public about my emotions. I'm emotionally repressed, so sue me. Really, when this does happen, it's not that big of a deal. Okay, it's a big deal, depending on the object of my affection's location in relation to myself at any given moment. But it's only a big deal because I go insane in the 'homicidal serial killer' or 'stalker' kind of way if they live too close to me or on a street that I use regularly. Seriously, I can be a real creep sometimes.
   Really, though, I don't kick myself too hard over the unobtainables. Having a crush on an unobtainable in my own life isn't too much different from having a fangasm every time I see a picture of David Tennant⁵; it's innocent (enough) and doesn't have the potential to make or break my year.
   The ones I always end up kicking myself over are the ones that actually might go places, under optimal circumstances. Sometimes, they might even go places despite the circumstances at the time.  I kick myself over it because, on occasion, I will clearly see that it can go someplace, maybe, and then I don't act on that moment of clarity. Why? Because I'm not an optimist; I automatically shoot thoughts like that in the head under the assumption that all of my feelings will, forever, be one-sided in every case imaginable.  You should see where I dump the bodies - it's not pretty.  I really need to find a new landfill to dump any new ones in before they start piling up in the street.
   But, you know what? No fucking longer. Okay, a little longer, but after that, fuck being a pessimist. Okay, no, being a pessimist is okay. Just... Look, this is what I'm trying to say - no longer will I be questing for the holy grail that is health, I'm starting a new quest, and it involves being in prime condition the next time I have the opportunity to pursue an eligible bachelor⁶. This quest also comes with a side-quest attached: "Satisfy Curiosity." I don't know what I'd look like as a normal person, so I'm going to find out. Period. End of story. I can only hope my boobs don't disappear in the process.
__________________________
¹It's entirely possible that, if past lives exist, I was a boy in one. I'm not qualified to say for certain.
²Yes, I did just gesture to all of me.
³Even providing for the future possibility of being in a situation where most people have children, I probably won't want to.
⁴The language used in these thoughts has been preserved in it's natural state to provide the reader with a more realistic reading experience.
⁵David Tennant is amazing. This is a universal truth.
⁶This, in no way, implies that I am unhappy with my chronic bachelorettehood. In fact, I take pride in knowing that I don't have to commit my time to more people than absolutely necessary.  I love being alone. In fact, I should just marry myself and move into a cabin in the mountains as far from people as possible while still having the internet.

Summarily Approaching Why I Shouldn't Have Gotten an Award

This is what I'm listening to now. 

Consider it a reward for finding your way here.

Also, I apologize if you find today's entry lacking in humor.

   Tonight, friends, was the night where my school honored the over-achievers of my class, and a handful of underclassmen. Yes, the fabled awards night, a clandestine experience where those individuals who don't know what an A looks like on a report card are not welcome.  Or, at least, they shouldn't come, because they'll just feel bad about themselves.
   Surprisingly, despite my chronic absences and distinct lack of giving a flying fuck in the past year (or two), I was present, not to support a friend, but to receive an award of my own. Really, this does come as a minor surprise to me. Why? To answer that, let's briefly take a look at why, for the past year or so, I've been a horrible student.
   At one point, man oh man, there was a time when I wasn't apathetic toward my learning experience in public school. I was determined to get A's in every last, damned class if it killed me, and it wasn't just because I was being bribed to do so. No, it was a matter of honor. If I couldn't be at the top of the heap in all of my classes, it would be considered a smudge on my otherwise impeccable - except for middle school - record, and I was perfectly willing to go ahead and commit seppuku  right there in the middle of the commons if it came to it.  I made up hours in P.E., made up time for percussion, did most of the extra credit that came my way (because having 105% in a class isn't enough over-achievement, not even once), and was generally a smug-ass individual about my obviously superior intellect as indicated by my equally obviously superior grades.
   For those of you who are riding a slow pony, I'm not like that any more. You want evidence? Okay. I got a C in P.E. That alone demonstrates a level of does-not-give-a-rat's-ass so great, that it's almost like I was unconsciously trying to get a bad grade. Like, my brain realized that if I didn't get a C sometime soon, I'd seriously screw myself over in college or something.
   And then there's the fact that I've missed an average of one day a week since the beginning of the year - this term alone it's closer to 1.5 days a week. Now, we've already established that I have an actually-cares-about-this level of about negative two when it comes to school, yeah? So, naturally, my grades are... significantly better than average? I have A's in all but one class. What the flying fish monkey is this? That one class. Yeah, it's piano and it's only a bad grade because I've been absent so much. I could just make up time, and Bam!, look at that, another straight-A report card.  Seriously, LHS, you've got to be kidding.
   So, given the evidence presented, it is not entirely outlandish to postulate that I really don't deserve to be ranked 27th in my class (last I checked). And yet I am. I've even got a medal, as of tonight, because of it. And, hey, I've got an honors diploma and four specializations. What the hell is this? I don't even-.
   If I were to try and find a moral in all of my high school experiences, it's this: you don't have to show up to be successful. This is, of course, completely and utterly untrue for most students and has absolutely no real world application. My brain recognizes this. My head, however, will need to experience total defeat before it realizes that my brain is, once again, the smarter of the two. See, my brain's smart, it knows all kinds of things, like the fact that that thing on the lawn mower doesn't even look like a fuel primer and actually looks suspiciously like a screw attached to the engine and that we probably shouldn't touch it because it will. Oh, look at that, head, you decided to go ahead and press it, and now your thumb has a circular burn. My head is so stupid.*
   Well, on the bright side, my brain is smart enough to recognize that I've been procrastinating on my homework by working on my novel, thereby voiding my procrastination entirely. My head is too stupid to figure it out, so maybe I'll continue to churn out words at an alarming pace for the next week or two. Somewhere in there, I'll find time for the homework that I have yet to finish. Maybe.

*Yes, that was a reference to Doctor Who.

"What's your book about?" "I DON'T KNOW."

   I ran into a friend's mom today during school and we got into one of those tiny conversations that I always hate to be involved in. You know the ones; you were on your way to do something else, or maybe you weren't, when they seem to come out of nowhere and ask you how you've been doing and talk about something you have in common and ask what you've been up to and you stand there trying to be friendly, all the while trying to think of a way to escape without seriously offending them. The worst part is I very well may have trapped myself; I may have instigated this encounter by asking her how she's been and I remember her trying to walk off at one point but I started talking.
   Anyhow, she asked what I'd been up to recently, and so I told about twenty-percent of the truth - "Oh, working on my novel, mostly." This, of course, is a lie of omission - well, actually, thanks to the mostly it's an outright lie - because, really, I also spend a good chunk of time doing nothing on the internet while still managing to feel like whatever I'm doing is somehow important. And when I'm not doing that, I'm watching Doctor Who or Star Trek. Really, most of my writing takes place during my third period and at one in the morning when I feel guilty because I haven't done any writing since I got home from school, and even then I allow myself to be a lazy bum by forcing myself to write only four hundred words.  For future reference, four hundred (out of context) words looks like this*:

   “Interesting,” River breathed. She took a moment to look at the girl. She didn’t look a day over sixteen; River had to wonder how old she really was. Lydania’s hair was a dark purple with the occasional silver streak and her horns curled similarly to Xylander’s. “You remind me a bit of Lord Holtman.”
   “His mother was a Mathis, like mine,” the girl answered. “At best, we’re distant cousins.”
   Something made River want to keep Lydania around. “With Eloise gone and the big wedding coming up, I’ll need someone to fill her duties. I don’t suppose you know your way around a dressing room?”
   “Well, Milady, I don’t mean to boast, but I did assist a theatre troupe, a pretty good one at that, with costumes and makeup before I started working here,” Lydania replied, smiling.
   “I’ll talk to Xavier about getting you reassigned, then.” River looked down at her night clothes; she had yet to get dressed. “In the meantime, I don’t suppose you could help me get properly dressed before he comes bursting in here and teases me?”
   “Of course, Milady.”
    Where it usually took Eloise half an hour, Lydania took only fifteen minutes to get River dressed and made up.  Eloise had always preferred to put River in warm colors, yellows and oranges, but Lydania chose earthier tones. Looking at herself in the mirror, River smiled; she liked the way the colors worked together and the way they didn’t bring out the blue in her skin. She’d almost gotten used to thinking of herself as a Smurf.
   There was a rough knock at her door, an impatient rapping of the knuckles.
   She sighed and crossed the room, but the door opened before she could lay a hand on it, and Xavier slipped inside. He was frowning and barefoot and looked like he’d just jumped out of bed. “This is the fifth time you’ve done this in the past week; they know you’re here,” she said bluntly as she close the door. “And you can’t just burst in her like that, I could have been in the middle of changing or something.”
   He scoffed and gave her a sidelong look. “It’s not like I haven’t seen an iceberg before,” he said flatly.
   “You’re as sweet as vinegar,” she said, feigning adoration.

   Using the default settings of Word 2007, that's a little over half a page. See how lazy I am? And that was a tangent.
   She seems impressed by the fact that I'm writing a novel - a sentiment I can't mirror, since I'm of the opinion that any idiot with a pen can write a story, maybe even a full-length novel - and asks me what its about. It's a question I've had to answer often enough. Every time someone finds out that I'm writing a novel, they ask the same question, "What's it about?"
   What I hate about this question in particular is that I can be perfectly prepared to start talking about my novel until it comes out of their mouth. Suddenly, there is literally nothing in my mind that could possibly be used to explain the damn thing. In fact, I'm pretty sure my mind has to reboot entirely before I can even begin answer the question, which explains the long pause that follows every instance of the question. This pause is usually followed by some horrible attempt to explain the plot without making it sound totally lame. This attempt is a failure. Sometimes I simply tell them my problem, "It's hard to put into words," or "It's hard to explain," or, "I don't know right now." These are my better moments in relation to this question. Today? I came up with one of the best answers yet, "Oh, it's fantasy." This is a huge leap forward in my attempts to explain the enigma of my novel.
   If they're still interested, I could elaborate. "It's a cross between a modern faerie tale," of course, they'd hear, "fairy tale," but I'd ignore that, "and high fantasy." Not completely accurate, but close enough for government work. It's a starting place, because that's really what I need. Then I'd be able to say stuff like, "It's about a high school student who agrees to help a demon usurp Hell's throne," or "Oh, it's about a girl and her involvement in the end of the world. Also, demons." See? Easy.
   Though, really, there's nothing quite as amusing as their reaction to, "I don't know." I can only imagine they think I'm some kind of head case. I know I'm writing a novel, but damn if I know what it's about. For all I know, it's just a 126,000 word long string of seemingly random characters. They see this; I know there are real words there, but there's no way to explain that with my limited vocal skills. I'm a monkey, and I've been mashing on a keyboaraf;lksdhgas s;adlkghas;dlgk has ;glksh gs.

*Actually, it's only 383 words. 
For the record, I did try to draw something for this. Yeah. No. It didn't work out at all. Maybe I should acquire an illustrator. Hmm.

Vindictive Mastication

   I promised to write a post about my freshman, John, today, but, well, I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what to write about him. Honestly, he's highly amusing in his own right, when he's not abusing me for saying "Macbeth" or not-so-subtly hinting that I need to hurry up and finish The Summoner (by Gail Z. Martin) so I can start the next Patrick Rothfuss book. The problem I'm having is clearly remembering anything that's happened this year, let alone putting anything amusing into words.

   Now that the sun's back, it feels like it's still September, and I'm still about a week off from first introducing myself as "a senior in denial," because, as we all know, I really, really didn't want graduate back then. Seriously, this is impossible. You know what John? No. I quit. This is asking to much of my Saturday afternoon brain.

   Instead, I'll opt to beat a dead horse to death, and tell a story about my cat. Eventually I'll run out of stories to tell about her. I expect this will occur in about twenty years when she's too dead to give me anything new to talk about.

   So, go watch an episode of Recess. Chances are, TJ tried to convince Miss Grotke that, "My dog ate my homework," after tearing it up something that looks suspiciously like unfinished homework with his own mouth. Anyone smart knows that no teacher in their right mind will accept that excuse for late or mysteriously absent homework, and yet TJ tries anyway. Really, TJ, it's just better to convince your parents that if you don't do this paper, you really will fail this time, you're not lying, you promise, and you're too sick to go to school anyway *cough cough* and maybe, just maybe, you could stay home and work on your paper in front of the TV all day? You can't get away with claiming to have a dog that just so happens to have a hankering for paper with graphite seasoning, boy. Kids who claim to have a homework devouring feline? Well, they're just stupid. They should probably get held back for being that stupid, I mean, seriously? So, congrats, TJ, you're not me.

   The problem, of course, is when your cat actually does 'eat' your homework. Meet, once again Squeaker. She likes hip-hop, metal, and the sound of food being dropped on the floor. Oh, did I mention she likes to tear pieces of paper into a billion smaller pieces, just because she can?

   When I was in fifth grade, my math homework almost fell victim to her vindictive mastication. She chewed the corner off before I realized what she was doing and just spat it out on the table. I was forced into the tedious task of copying my homework onto a new set of papers out of shame. I mean, submitting a piece of homework that fell victim to a splatter from a drink or a minor spill is one thing - it shows dedication, you know? Like, "I'm going to fucking do this homework while I drink my pepsi, because I'm that damn dedicated to finishing it before Angry Beavers comes on." But a paper that has been inside your cat's mouth? That's just. That's like going over to a strangers house and cleaning up everything, including the dirty drawers* in the corner.

   It's like waking up with a cat's butt-fluffly making physical contact with your face - something that I have, unfortunately, also experienced (Damn you, Squeaker, you adorable cretin!). When you realize what's happened, you feel dirty, and there's no soap in the world that will wash that feeling away. The best you can hope for is soap strong enough to burn your flesh off, and even that won't work.

*You can decide for yourself what I mean by drawers.

The Table

   It really isn't that often that even a single individual chooses to attempt to disrupt the delicate balance of the lunch room by sitting in a place that, frankly, they do not belong. At least, not by sitting at the table that I've been sitting at during lunch since I was a freshman - except for a brief stint in sophomore year when I had second lunch and didn't want to disrupt the balance of the already unbalanced second lunch environment. Frankly, I am both passionately territorial about this table and unabashedly apathetic about it. Most of the time, it's not that someone is using my table, it's that I do not like to be displaced and further deviate from normalcy.

   Depending on the size of the group of lost individuals at my table, I will either back off (large groups) or I will unceremoniously sit down at the table, regardless of who or what these individuals are. Generally speaking, most of these instances happen on days like today - days in which freshman have the same lunch as upperclassmen. This would totally explain why it happened today, except the individuals in question weren't freshmen, not one of them.

   So, I get released at exactly 10:44 by Mr. Wong's sub, and I stroll on out to the commons, like usual, only to see a pair of girls - one of whom used to be quite affable (in fifth grade) - sit down at my table about thirty seconds before I could get to it. Initially I decide to say screw it and sit at an unoccupied table nearby. It's okay guys, sit at my table. But wait. No, actually it isn't okay. I only have a month left in this hell hole, and I'll be damned if I'm going to move for a single pair of misplaced girls.

   Dropping my bag on the table, I sit down. I still feel strange because, frankly, they're occupying the seat I normally sit in. I'm unashamed and the situation itself bothers me about as much as having a cat on my lap. Out of all of the feelings I could have regarding the situation (including a sense of foreboding), I can only feel proud of myself for standing up for myself and allowing myself to continue to be a creature of habit.

   My buddy, Crystal, sits down next to me and we start talking. Everything seems perfectly fine. The other girls - damn, I'm not even paying attention to them, but they didn't seem to be angry or anything. And then Kayren sits down, and suddenly it's like we've offended their religion and their favorite book right before sleeping with their boyfriends.

   I'm vaguely confused by all of this. We never once made it seem like we wanted them to leave, and, in fact, after one of them stormed off to the next table over, Crystal actually invited them to sit with us. Because we're not petty like that, and we're actually quite friendly. It's not like there wasn't room for them. We haven't had a full table since Alex stopped bringing his (now ex-) girlfriend around. There are eight seats. There are five of us that sit there normally. Holy shit, there's room for two more girls.

   But no, they're not having any of our niceties. Mason sets his bag down and goes to get his lunch right before these girls return with a swarm friends and occupy all five of the remaining places. By this point I'm starting to get the feeling that I've become involved in the most ridiculous game of chicken ever. And, dammit, I'm going to win if it kills them.

   Mason returns to find his seat taken, a fact he finds fairly distressing. It's at this point that the girls launch into berating us because they were sitting there first, and tables aren't assigned, and blah blah. Honestly, by the time they got thirty seconds into their bitching, I wanted to smack them. Or, better yet, conk their heads together in an attempt to abuse some sense into them. We weren't being confrontational at all. Even after the girls started attacking us over it, we weren't doing much more than attempting, rather badly, to defend ourselves.

   At one point, the girl I don't know points out that what we did was very awkward. We don't even know them, and we just sit down are their table? Like, WTF man? I'm sorry- oh. Wait. "Uh, I do know her. I've known her since fifth grade." Unfortunately, this doesn't stop what has become a flood of stupid pettiness. What did they hope to accomplish by prolonging the conflict? I mean, seriously? We weren't going to move. In fact, the only thing we did was put off getting ice cream until we were damn sure our table wasn't going to be completely full when we returned. Even then, I elected to forgo Crystal's generous offer of free ice cream  mostly because I didn't want to feel sick all weekend, but also partly because I felt it was a good precaution to have someone hold down the fort.

   So, in response to accusations of being complete strangers (which we weren't as evidenced by my knowing the one girl since fifth grade) Crystal introduces herself and is promptly ignored. Shortly after this, they apparently get tired of the confrontation and leave, moving straight past the conspiratorial whispering stage of the "You dun wronged me, betch," cycle to the gossip gal stage.  I couldn't blame them, I wanted to tell everyone I knew about the two stupid girls who sat at my table and then picked a fight when I sat there too, too. The difference being, I was highly amused by the entire event by this time.  It wasn't a source of anxiety at all, no, it was humorous, more humorous than an entire week's worth of failblog. In fact, I'm pretty sure I grinned when I was passing the one girl in the hall. And I'm pretty sure she pointedly ignored me. Even now, I'm highly tempted to add her on Facebook and mention how much fun I had at lunch in my request, not because I want to be friends, but because it seems funny to me.

   I half expected to hear about myself during class. "Did you hear about those girls at lunch?" "Yeah, I heard they sat down at a table with people they didn't know! How scandalous!" At which point I'd promptly stand, because none of my classes were doing anything and say, "Yes, the rumors are true, I disrupted the tranquility of my corner of the commons to combat the greater threat of a complete upset of the delicate balance on the room's environment by passive-aggressively confronting two girls who were attempting to bring the building down around our ears." Or something epic to that effect. At least, I like to think I would have done that, but, well, it seems entirely uncharacteristic of me in the presence on anyone who isn't one of the people I consider to be a friend.

   And, yet, I still grinned at that girl. Maybe, just maybe, my comfort zone is expanding to include non-essential personnel? A better question, is: "Why does this annoy me?"