Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Reach for sky, don't assume it's too high.

Well, this is just ridiculous.
Here I go again with a post, after I said I was going to be gone for awhile. Only the most capricious of souls could break such a mighty promise.
Capricious, that's me.

Anyway, I went to Sky High today with some chums. Do you know what Sky High is? It's three trampolines with slanted walls shoved into a warehouse, with vending machines and game gadgets jammed in the empty spaces. The entire place smells like feet, and there are constantly small children capering about underfoot to trip over.
Sounds like just loads of fun, eh?
It actually was pretty gosh-darned fun, once we started boinging. It's hard to bounce off the walls and be bored at the same time; that borders on being an oxymoron. I mean, sure, there was the occasional kid bouncing into your legs or tripping onto you, but it was a fine experience.
We were the only people there who were above the age of eight. The "staff" guys, each one lanky and zitty and blond and looking exactly the same as every other "staff" guy who worked there, making me ponder the possibility that they were all clones of each other, wandered over to make sure we were following all the rules far too often. The rules included no sitting, no standing on these red pads that were all over the floor, no touching the yellow pads on the walls, no wearing shoes without laces, no talking too loud, etc. One of them would always be a few feet away, ready to pounce and say "EXCUSE ME LADEEZ BUT THAT'S NOT ALLOWED."
Just because we're not six years old and adorable, they think we've come to tear the place down. I've grown out of innocence; now I am discredited by the world.
Well, maybe not the WORLD. But at least the staff guys at Sky High.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BACK. *poof*

She sneaks back onto her blog, suddenly drawn to it now that she's admitted defeat and abandoned it.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
I do have something to blog about, luckily. Last night I went to a hockey arena to watch hockey players play a hockey game. I was not anticipating any amount of fun, let me tell you. I have never been a huge aficionado of crowded sports arenas with big sweaty men in jerseys waving their jumbo cokes and greasy buffalo wings around as they shout bits of advice at the players. "PUT IT IN THE NET, THORNTON!" "MAKE THE FRIGGIN' SHOT!"
The only reason I can describe a hockey game so vividly is because I have actually attended one before. One of my mother's "teacher-friends" (She's a first-grade teacher, and apparently all the teachers at the school she works at are real good pals.) had four tickets that she was supposed to sell to a guy through craigslist or something. But then the guy decided he didn't want to go, or something. He just never showed up. She wasn't a hockey fan, but knew that my dad and sister were through my mom, so gave them to us.
This was a couple years ago. I was a young and vulnerable child, at the tender age of eleven, totally unprepared for the wild mayhem of a packed hockey arena. I clung to my father's sleeve as he excitedly maneuvered the family through the fit-to-bust passing areas of the pavilion. During the game, huge screens situated all around the ice rink flashed between bright advertisements and encouragements to "MAKE SOME NOISE!"
Believe me, the audience fully took the screen up on that offer. People shouted and clapped and hollered and belched and stomped and cheered and booed and screamed and applauded and cried out until the entire arena was one big atrium of excited cacophony.
If I were a hockey player, which I will never be, but still, if I were a hockey player, I would not be able to concentrate in the middle of all that obstreperous bedlam.
But then, maybe it's quieter down on the ice, like being in the eye of a hurricane. But I will never know, because I wasn't on the ice. I was one cell in a sea of pandemonium, and it nearly drove me out of my eleven-year-old mind.
I really tried to appreciate the hockey game, but it was difficult when I had no idea what was going on down there. Every once in a while people would start whooping extra-loud for no apparent reason. I always knew when they had scored a goal, because the entire sea always leapt up out of their seats in a grand rollicking wave. Plus, I knew what a goal was, even if I understood no other aspect of the game. I would obediently stand up until the thrill had died and people returned to their seats.
My mom got my dad four tickets for Christmas this year, so we all went again. It was basically the same thing last night, except I am no longer an impressionable child, and I could easily handle the mad turbulence of the arena. I tried to enjoy it, because hockey tickets are expensive, and I knew it was probably the last time I would attend a game. But I think one visit every couple of years is enough of that kind of environment that I will ever require.

Today I woke up with the wisps of a nightmare holding fast in my mind. I wrote everything down as quickly as I could, before the memory made like a winter dove and fluttered away.
It made me think of somebody. I don't know if you read my blog, but if you do, I miss you.
I don't think anybody reads my blog anymore. One of my former readers abandoned her blog, one I never knew in person but seems to have disappeared into thin air, and one is gone from my real life and hasn't left footsteps on my blog-life.

Hello, nobody.

Oh. I just looked at my blog, and somebody checked the "Jeni sucks" box. Not exactly exemplary feedback, but at least that means somebody is still reading this thing.
Don't expect me to keep updating because I've ended my hiatus so briefly. I don't know if this blog dead or alive. Maybe it's a flower seed that just needs some coaxing to bloom; or maybe it was buried too deep under the surface and is destined to ferment until the end of time.

Monday, December 28, 2009

GONE. *poof*

So, I will be taking an extended hiatus from the blogosphere.
I decided this a while ago, but just today I realized that I never actually posted a warning of hiatus-ness. So, this is it.
This blog has really been going downhill for a long time, and I don't think I can stretch its tenuous existence any more than I have already. At one point I've got to admit that I have nothing to write about and put a stop to the burbling posts full of space sentences and rambling.
Even if I did have something to say, I can't get on the computer to post because it is constantly being used by somebody or another. Usually my dad.
I don't know if this blog is on a break, or just broken. I might be back, or maybe not; I'm not going to make any promises.

Friday, December 11, 2009

The Grand Fiasco.

I just came back from baking cookies at my friend's house.
It was a disaster.
She has apparently never made cookies or cake or anything from scratch before in her entire life, a great worshipper of the boxed cake mixes and refrigerated slice-and-bake cookie dough rolls.

Earlier today, discussing whether homemade or storebought cookies are better:
Me: "Homemade cookies taste better."
Judy: "You can't even tell if you don't taste them side by side."
Me: "People will be impressed if you tell them you made cookies yourself."
Judy: "If you don't mention it, nobody will even think about it."
Me: "Homemade cookies are more thoughtful to give to people."
Judy: "Storebought cookies are more convenient."
Etc, etc, etc.
There was no baking soda or vanilla extract in her house, so we made a quick stop at mi casa for me to dash into my kitchen and retrieve the necessary ingredients. She was unsure of the purpose of baking soda. I told her it was so the cookies would rise. She was unsure of what rising was.
She only had one egg in her fridge, so we sent her dad to get another carton. Then I couldn't find any butter in there.
Me: "You don't have any butter..."
Judy: "Yeah I do... right here."
And then she pulls out this big tub of fake-vegetable-oil-butter-flavored-spread.
Me: "...that's not butter."
Judy: "Yes it is, look."
And then she points at the word "butter" in the phrase "butter flavored spread."
Me: "Well okay then we'll see how this goes."
And then I open the tub.
Me: "Um. It's empty."
Judy: "Oh. Whoops."
So she calls her dad at the store and tells him to get more butter. Guess what he brings back? Another tub of 48% vegetable oil "butter flavored" spread.
Me: "Sigh. Okay, I guess we'll just put in a little more flour."
So we're sticking all the ingredients in a bowl and beating it all into a fine greasy mess, thanks to the oily fake-butter concoction.
Judy: "This beater feels really hot."
Me: *adds sugar*
Judy: "I think it's overheating."
Me: "Okay, we better hurry before it breaks, then."
So we throw the rest of the stuff in and she flicks the beater on high speed.
Me: "Hurry gogogogogo the top is starting to smoke I think hurry gogogogo!!"
I smash a couple eggs into the bowl, glug in the vanilla, and dump in the flour.
Beater: *breaks*
We dumped the smoking, useless appliance in the backyard and stir the rest of the ingredients in by hand. It is a slow, grueling process, but we are finally ready to plop greasy balls of dough onto trays. We stick them in the oven for ten minutes, then check to see if they're done.
Me: "Ehhh they could use a couple more minutes."
Judy: "Okay!" *punches button*
I didn't see that she entered FIFTEEN more minutes of baking time, when I had meant just two or three. And I didn't realize until it had been quite a while...
Me: "Hey, the oven hasn't beeped yet."
Judy: "Well it still has five minutes to go."
Me: "??? How much more time did you put it in for???"
Judy: "Fifteen minutes..."
The cookies are almost completely blackened.
The next few batches come out looking fine... but then we tasted them.
Us: "EW."
That butter spread stuff really messed up the cookies. They tasted like dry, dense lumps of ickiness that even her little brother wouldn't eat.

I don't think I convinced her that homemade cookies are better than storebought ones.

Monday, November 30, 2009

"Life," said Piggy expansively, "is scientific, that's what it is."

Remember when I used to post every day? Or at least every other day?
Those sure were the days.
One reason is that the half-broken laptop (as in, the only thing that worked was Appleworks)(which is mildly ironic because... apple works. It was the only application that worked.) (Ha.) broke completely, so I can't type on it and then transfer to this Internet-capable computer. Another reason is that I don't have the time to blog anyway.
It's not like I really have anything to blog about. Blogging used to be fun, but now it just sort of feels like a responsibility. I feel guilty if I go too long without posting.
And okay, now I have a dentist appointment. *goes to the dentist*
*returns from the dentist*
Hi.
My teeth felt lovely and refreshed for all of ten minutes. Then I had to eat a salad for dinner, and there are bits of walnut and spinach and feta cheese and dried cranberry stuck in all the little crevices.
Christmas.
I have done almost all of my Christmas shopping, and it's only the first day of December. I also have done almost all of my Christmas-crafting. For my dad, I papier-mached the letters "F-A-M-I-L-Y," then ModPodged family photos onto them and strung them into a thingie to hang on the door or a wall or something. And for my mom, I made bath jellies, a bar of oatmeal soap, and these awesome little things called "bath cookies." To make them, you have to bake them in the oven like real cookies, and they come out looking like cookies, too: but instead of eating them, you drop them in the bath and they dissolve and make the whole bathroom thick with the scent of sweet vanilla.
My mom is actually more of a florals kind of gal. But I love the smell of vanilla. I will be lying on the floor outside the bathroom whenever she uses a bath cookie, nose pressed to the crack beneath the door where it doesn't quite meet the ground. Inhaling.

Today I realized that sometimes people go out of their way to be incomprehensible. It is very inconvenient when I am trying to understand what they mean when they say this or do that. But I guess I can sympathize with those who are too insecure to be their honest selves.

Monday, November 23, 2009

The werewolves looked like kitties!

Despite my refusals, my friends were able to drag me, kicking and thrashing, into the theater showing New Moon. I sat in one of those retarded chairs that flop upwards when you stand up staring at the screen and trying to convince myself that this was the worst movie I had ever seen in my entire lifetime.
Darn. I accidentally liked it. Especially the part where Robert Patterson got smashed into the marble stairs. That was my favorite scene, that one with him getting tossed around. It wasn't bloody or icky, so don't think I'm a morbid freak. Though I may be one.
It was hilarious in that theater though: people laughed out loud when they saw Lautner with his nasty long-haired wig on. And then they screamed with excitement when he took his shirt off. I did too for the fun of it, but I thought he looked COMPLETELY NASTY with these all bulbous muscles in extra places where nobody even has muscles in real life.
Umyeahwell, it was better than the first one for sure. Not really a good movie at all, but not a wretched mess.
I always just have one thing to say, and then I wait to post until I have something else to add to it because I don't want the post to be so short, but then whatever I had to say gets old and I don't want to post it anymore because it happened three weeks ago, so I just delete it.
From now on, I'm just going to post what little tidbits I write anyway. Starting... NOW.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

"Ew! Broccoli is so good!"

OKAY SO.
The school newspaper has this section called "Overheards," which is a collection of random and often humorous quotes that the newspaper people have heard in the hallways. Since they don't know anybody's names, the quotes are anonymous. One of them this month was "Ew! Broccoli is so good!"
I SAID THAT.
I feel so proud. I'm practically famous! (not really.) But it is completely out of context. My friend was saying that cheesecake was her favorite food and that she hated broccoli. I hate cheesecake and love broccoli, so naturally I said, "Ew! Broccoli is so good!"
Yeah. That's the only thing I had to blog about. I'm so happy I have time to blog today. High school means so much WORK. Now homework consumes most of the weekend, and I'm out with my friends for whatever is left of it. Poor blog. I neglect you.
And now it's dinnertime.
Sorry for the lame post.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Or are we ashes and wine?

Okay. I know I have urged you to listen to A Fine Frenzy songs far too many times, and if you dismissed anything of hers before because it was too slow for you, give this song a chance. It's much catchier than what she usually does. Listen.
I also want to nominate "Bird of the Summer" (by her) as the best lyrics ever. I used to think "Minnow and the Trout" was so clever with its whimsical stories, but this song is so pretty:

You came with the season, as the first swallow sang
A brown-headed stranger, with a five-letter name

We planted our kisses where the wild berries grow
My feet sprouted wings and I flew all the way home

My cheeks red like fire engines racing
Straight to the heat of your skin
And I know our days are numbered, early bird of the summer
You'll fly south just as the fall begins

The leaves changed their colors and the schoolyards were filled
My coat with the patches barely keeps out the chill

You sent me a postcard from a town out of state,
I wish it were warmer and I hope you're the same

The fields where we wandered were golden
Now only muddy my boots
And I know I should recover, you're a bird of the summer, I was wrong to try and capture you

I met someone walking in a park by the lake, it don't fly like we did but it don't fly away

Gone is the pale hand of winter
Here is the first flush of May
And soon I will discover whether birds of the summer fly in circles or just fly away

I must be boring all the non-A Fine Frenzy fans to tears. Sorry about that.
We have to memorize all the states and capitals AGAIN, for World Cultures. Plus some physical features to spice things up and make us feel like we haven't been transported back to the fifth grade.
I'm excited for this weekend. There's a race in Monterey that I do every year, and it's this Sunday. I don't do too many organized races, but this one is really nice. The route goes right along the water, so you've got a nice view of the ocean to enjoy while you run.
And the weekend after that, I'm going down to Palm Springs to visit all my relatives who migrated down there as soon as they turned forty and refused to ever come back and live Northern Cali ever again. We're eating Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant, which is so untraditional and lame that I don't think I've be able to choke down the turkey.
Just kidding. It will taste fine.
I'm going to go to this little store that I went to last year for my (very very early) Christmas shopping. They have all these cute little stationary sets, jewelry, plushies, and things like that, and I will probably get the majority of my gifts for my friends there. I always get impatient for Christmas. I'm going to start my season a month early.
Okay, I keep getting distracted with things, sooooooooo
bye.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Sanna Croose.

SO today I went to Santa Cruz. Beautiful place. My family and I occasionally decide it's time for some salty air, so we drive over there and park about an hour from the wharf. Then it's an hour's stroll along the ocean, enjoying a constant view of powerful waves crashing onto the rocks.
Almost every other time we've gone to Santa Cruz, I have bought a chocolate-covered strawberry at this festive little candy store on the wharf. For the first time ever today, I bought a bag of caramel corn instead. Everybody crunched and munched the delicious confection all the way back to the car. I felt sugar-buzzed and content as we pud-pud-pudded around the downtown area. There was a bookstore that I spent at least an hour in. I bought three used books for less than ten dollars, and read this one book that made me literally laugh out loud several times. Luckily there were few other patrons to stare at me.
My mom bought a knife at a kitchen store. The blade could not have been more than two inches long. She apparently found in in the clearance section and was charmed by its soft lime-green rubber handle. I asked her what she was planning to cut with the dinky doll's knife.
"Little things, you know, like radishes and stuff," was her reply.
The last time I ate a radish, I was nine years old.
In the Urban Outfitters, several quirky objects stole my heart. A flashlight shaped like a cat, and when you turned it on, the lights came from its eyes. A plug-thingie that was shaped like a little man, with a face and limbs that you plugged extension cords into. A magnetic clip that looked like a mousetrap; the trap could be lifted and could snap down and clip papers. A phone shaped like a hamburger: the bun flips open to reveal the keypad. A drawing pad that you could draw on, then look at your drawings through special glasses and they would look like they were popping off the page. A Rubik's Cube with a little screen that would function as a clock, thermometer, timer, or one other thing that I forget, depending on which way you turned the top row of sqaures. Who comes up with these weird little items? Can it be my job when I grow up?

Anyway, when we got back I decided to make a pair of shoes out of duct tape. My dad got mad at me for wasting expensive duct tape, but they were awesome shoes.

Oh my golly gee, I forgot to mention. On Friday I attempted to teach two of my non-softball-playing friends how to play softball. I never realized how hard it is to teach somebody a new skill. I will never be a teacher, I guess. I was like, "Okay first we'll learn how to throw yay," and I threw a ball, and then was like "You go now!!!" and of course they didn't know how. Then I had to go, "Ummm well you put your arm back kinda like that, and then you just sorta bring it upwards and then like, go like... that, and then you're done."
Trying to explain how the game worked was even harder.
"Okay soooo if the batter hits it and it hits the ground before any of the fielders touch it, they have to throw it to first, which is that one, and if the batter gets there first then they're in, and if the first baseperson gets it and steps on the base first, they're out... oh and they're allowed to run through first base, but not second or third, those ones, because if they do then the fielders can tag them even if they already touched the base, but you're allowed to go back if you run it as long as you're not tagged first... but if the batter hits it and it goes in the air, one of the fielders has to catch it and the batter is out automatically, and the batters on base can't advance to the next base, because if somebody hits the ball and you're on, for example, second, you can run to third and even home if you have enough time..."
I'm so bad at explaining things. I left them dazed and confused.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Clever trick

Today I was walking home from school, and I saw this candy wrapper on the ground. It was for Air Head Extreme-o's or something. That exact wrapper had been lying there for as far back in the school year as I can remember. I have been taking the same route home every day, and I've noticed that wrapper on the ground the same way I notice the cracks in the sidewalk or the fallen leaves scudding across driveways. It's always just been there, part of the scenery.
Today I realized it was litter. So I stopped, and picked it up, and threw it away. It's something I should have done weeks ago.
But now I'm worried I'll miss it. Maybe my life will change somehow, because I purposely altered it by getting rid of something that has always been a part of my daily routine. You never know.

A little later, still walking home, I realized I was smiling. I immediately stopped, thinking it would look stupid to be smiling at nothing. But then I thought, why not? I smiled all the way home. Why is it considered idiotic to be smiling when you're alone with nothing funny or cute or whatever? I protest this unwritten law. I will smile all day tomorrow.

I have an urge to go to a park with somebody and sit on the grass tell them my entire life story, and then talk about randomities such as the ones listed above for an entire afternoon.
Any takers?

Friday, October 23, 2009

T-shirts and Tutus

I'm not dead. I swear.
I guess... I've just had a really busy twenty days? High school is so nonstop. After cross country is homework, and after that is bedtime, and if there's ever any free time, my sister's always on the computer so I can't update. I used to have about twenty-thirty minutes of free time in the morning depending on how quickly I chose my outfit and ate breakfast. That was when I left for school at 8:05, barely making it to tardy bell. Now I have to leave at seven forty, so I can't really use the morning for blogging time anymore. Plus... the sister is usually watching her cop shows on it anyway.
Stuff that's happened during my absence:
  • I got my backbrace. It's really uncomfy. It's like a great big SQKWEEEEZZ around my torso... constantly. And it looks really awkward under my clothes. I tried to find shirts and stuff that hid it, but only about three shirts actually made me look normal. It really hurts in the rib area because my sister kicked me there and now there's a large and icky bruise. Putting pressure on it does not exactly relieve the pain, know what I mean? But enough complaining.
  • I finally scored a medal in cross-country. I think my dad would be pissed if I went through the whole season without a medal, so I was relieved to earn one, even if it wasn't anywhere near first place.
  • Free online barcode generator. This is mine. Get yours. *click*
  • Realization: we really have a very rowdy school. EXAMPLE: Today while crossing the street to get to the trail behind the school, a guy with his buddy parked in the passenger seat swung out from the student parking lot and swerved the car towards where my friend and I were standing and made an "OHMYGOD I'M OUT OF CONTROL" face, then veered away at the last second, sending loud guffaws out the open window as they sped down the road. Dangerous. Stupid. Rowdy. EXAMPLE: In the parking lot, a bunch of seniors were hanging off a pickup truck, sitting in the bed and jumping on the roof. The driver lurched forward to try to send all the guys flying backwards, a haphazard experiment in inertia. They all laughed and swore and clung on even as the truck screeched into the street. Dangerous. Stupid. Rowdy. EXAMPLE: As I walked home from practice today, tired and sweaty and in no state to put up with any dangerous stupid rowdy acts, of course I ran into a gang of hooligans by the creek. They greeted this vulnerable young freshman with various obscenities. Where has the respect gone? Why are people obnoxious in the face of innocent passerby?
  • Halloween. After a two-year hiatus from dressing up and trick-or-treating, my friends have peer pressured me into dressing up and going candy-begging with them. We're being MAGICKAL FAIRIES. That means t-shirts and tutus, with wands and tiaras to top it off.
  • That's it.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

My single solitary guide...

Oh my goodness. I used to only watch one show, The Office. Then I added Chopped to my queue. And then I watched two episodes of Community and fell in love. This show is hilarious. I love it. But I'm afraid I'm turning into a regular television-watcher. I used to watch TV every once in a while, now I watch it every weekend. The no-TV-on-weekdays rule still applies, though. Not that I have time on weekdays to watch TV after cross-country.
Speaking of cross-country. Eight mile workout the other day at QUICKSILVER, which means upupupupuphill. My legs have been feeling icky and weird ever since. They've never felt like this before, and I gosh darn don't like it!
Ahhhh. My sister and mom are out somewhere, and I finished my homework. Now I have the house all to myself. I walked to CVS for a roll of Necco Wafers, and now I'm blogging and listening to wonderful A Fine Frenzy and eating delicious chalky candy and enjoying the perfect lazy evening with no interruptions.
I'm glad the day worked out this way so I could have this little pocket of time to myself. It has been a busybusybusybusybusybusybusybusy week and I am SO glad tomorrow is Friday.

My dog is begging me to play with him right now. He enjoys dragging me out into the backyard and placing various objects in my hands just to snatch them back again. It's the real thrill of his day in his dog life.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Ick.

I just thought I'd share some photos that make me feel extremely uncomfortable.

This next one makes my femur feel like oatmeal.
Something about children with really unnatural faces gets me. These vintage food ads give me the shivers all the way up.
Why does this kid have a pile of hot dogs lying on the table while he's eating a big bowl of pasta? If you'll notice, the spaghetti is being brought into his mouth with such force that the strands are tilted back with the tailwind... and he's not even bothering to look at where the food is going. Bright fellow.
You know you want these pork and beans. But you can't have these pork and beans. These are my pork and beans."OH MY GOD IS THAT OSTRICH LIVER? GIVE IT HERE!"
I know it's just a baby. Not even a real baby, just a doll of a baby. But it completely freaks me out.
I don't even know how I stumble across these things. I hope I've made your Tuesday a little bit creepier.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Another quiz, yay!

You heard me, folks. Get ready from another copy-pasted quiz that I got from somebody else’s blog!

Do you love life?
Certain aspects of it...

How many hours of sleep do you get per night?
Depends... usually about nine.

Can you draw?
Anybody can draw! Some people just can’t draw WELL... like me.

What’s the creepiest thing that has ever happened to you?
Thinking I was being followed this one day... RUN-ON SENTENCE TIME! ...it was getting dark, I was walking home and I kept making random turns through the neighborhood to get this guy off my trail, but he kept following me and I was like WHOA, GO AWAY so when I got close to my house I started running and he did too, but then I went inside and locked all the doors and looked out the front window and he just kept walking down the road, so I guess it was a coincidence.

What does your room look like?
Blue wall. Green lantern. Mishmash of colored pillows. Polka-dot bedspread. Two bulletin boards cluttered with cards/photos/tickets/drawings/whatever. Whiteboard. Bookshelf, whose top is often used as a lounge area for my cat or a seat for me. Shelves of junk. Drawers of junk. A desk cluttered with junk. Horrible screechy metal doors that open into a closet. Bamboo wall stickers. Beige carpet. Mirror. Teal hanging organizer tube thing.

How long is your hair?
About this long.

Have you ever traveled abroad?
Proud to be able to say YES!!

Which do you prefer: boiling hot or freezing cold?
If we’re talking about tea, I’ll take boiling hot. I’m guessing this is about weather/temperature though, so my respuesta finale is freezing cold.

What font do you like to type in?
I don’t know. Helvetica?

Have you ever cut yourself?
Falling off a bike, being careless while chopping vegetables, pricking a finger with a needle while sewing, pressing too hard while shaving, tripping and scraping a knee, yes, I have cut myself.
I think if this quiz was looking for juicy emo secrets, it should have been phrased as “Have you ever cut yourself on purpose?”

Have any of your family members died?
Yeah.

What are all the pets you’ve had in your life?
First pet was a goldfish, whose name began with a D but I forget it now. My sister had one named Ditto. They died.
Second pet was a hamster named Zoom, and another (my sister’s) named Slyvester. They died, a terrible tragedy.
Now we have a cat, Lewis, and a dog, Jack. They are not dead.

What is your favorite song?
It’s always changing, but stays within one album: One Cell in The Sea by a Fine Frenzy. Right now it’s between “Last of Days” and “Minnow and the Trout.”

Who was your first crush?
Peter Pan. The animated one. Not kidding.

Is he/she still your crush?
No. I have MOVED ON, Petey-boy.

Who do you like now?
What if I had answered yes to the last question? Then this question would be a repeat. :o

Who is your best friend?
I have a lot of best friends!! I don’t think anybody really has just one...

What do you usually take for lunch?
I take an apple and carrot sticks just about every day, then I usually grab Craisins, almonds (if we have any), or a granola bar. These days I’ve been taking Gatorade too, to ‘fuel up’ for cross-country. (Or maybe I just like the taste.)

What do you give your friends as gifts for their birthdays?
Impossible question!! It depends on the person!!

Do you floss?
Do you breathe? Yes, I floss.

Do you prefer a big group or small cluster of friends?
Big group!

What smiley faces do you use the most? (ex. :) :/ XD)
The normal one. :) Sometimes :D too, but that’s reserved for when I’m REALLY happy. Plus :( when I’m sad, and :’( when I’m REALLY sad.

Are you outdoorsy or indoorsy?
I guess outdoorsy. Because after school, I run cross-country in the outdoors, then do my homework in the backyard (outdoors) and eat dinner and sleep. And spare time is usually spent on my bike--in the outdoors, and I do love camping and hiking, which my family does at every opportunity. Then again, I like to spend time in my room with my cat and a book/my scrapbooking stuff/the newspaper/modeling clay/my sketchbook/my journal when I’m feeling lazy. But I do that stuff out in my little spot in the backyard a lot too. :/ I don’t know!

Are you a jock, emo, prep, nerd, or artsy type?
I thought there were more labels than that...? Well anyways, I am not an emo or prep for sure. I don’t know if I’m a nerd or not. I have friends, but they might be nerds too through someone else’s eyes. I can’t really tell. I’m not exactly a jock, I play softball and run cross-country but not super-duper well. And I’ve never quite been sure what defines an artsy type. I can’t draw or paint, so I’m pretty sure I’m not. What does that leave? I guess I’m in the Miscellaneous file. No one label can define me.
When you think about it, that’s true for everybody.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
I’ve heard this one before. I never get this question. I think I would probably get to the wax factory and ask for a deep maroon or a bright green, and they would tell me they ran out of colored wax and use plain wax instead. Other crayons in my box would bear wrappers with “Tickle-Me Pink” and “Goldenrod” printer on them, and I would be sitting there, brand-new for eternity, because no kid ever took any interest in the crayon labeled “Plain.”

Do you have a secret admirer?
How would I know if they were secret?

What is the most important thing in the world to you?
My cat, my family, my blog.

What is the best thing that has ever happened to you?
Going to Europe last summer was without a doubt the most wonderful thing that has ever happened and will ever happen to me in my lifetime.

Can you sing?
See “Can you draw?”

Which celebrity do you admire the most?
Einstein. He was a genius.

Are you a good kisser?
You’d have to ask my cat.

Are you usually early or late?
Uhhhh. Both. I guess I’m usually early for appointments and what-all, but sometimes late for parties and meet-you-at-the-mall-at-noon type things.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Fan of Pandas

So this morning I had to get up WAY too early to go to a cross-country meet at Westmoor. It was all the way in Daly, which meant an hour's drive. I had to get up at EIGHT. I repeat, WAY too early for a Saturday.
Not really. I actually haven't been sleeping in so much anymore, partly due to the fact that I want to get up early enough to get at least a forty minutes' run in before the sun comes out. This won't be a problem come winter. I wish it were winter right now. Cold air slips easily in and out of your lungs. The outdoors aren't so sticky and uncomfortable in winter, and as long as you've got a thick jacket you can enjoy crisp air on your face without worrying about sweat or sunburn or freckling. Plus, with winter comes rain. i<3rain. style="font-style: italic;">sharks to buy and kill and eat. Nothing was all packaged up like it is at Safeway. The squids and dead fish were piled up on beds of ice, oysters laid in tubs of water that you scooped out with a strainer, and the live fish were crammed into tanks with no room to swim around, just fins and tails wiggling, the piscine equivalent of jogging in place. Only the sharks had any room to move around. It smelled like lobsters and crayfish and fish and squid and and dead cow and dead quail all intermingling into one big cornucopia of nauseating scents. I scurried over to the nicer-smelling bakery area after a few minutes of holding my breath. They had adorable little butter cookies that were shaped like pandas:
which we got for my sister, fan of pandas. She hasn't eaten any yet because they're too cute. I don't blame her; I wouldn't want to demolish the cuties with my teeth either.
We went out to lunch, and I got a salad because I wasn't very hungry. Irony ensues. The salad was two feet wide and three inches deep, a monstrous dish that could feed fifty people. After eating for a couple of years, I had barely made a dent in the thing.
After such a fun day, I came home to homework. Blah. The rest of the day was pretty blah-y, so not much else to say. Plus I should sleep anyway because I have a 10k tomorrow morning and I should have gone to sleep a long, long time ago...


(...in a galaxy far, far away...)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Considerella went to the ball.

Got measured for the back brace the other day.

Yuck. Yuck, yuck.

Lots of pokey-proddy-feely-pinchiness from a doctor who smelled of hair gel and cheese. He put me in this tight cotton jumpsuit thingie and scanned me from a zillion different angles, and whah-la, a 3-D image of my torso started rotating on the computer screen. The horrible plastic spine-straightener is being fabricated as I type.

Got my new cross-country uniform after practice today.

Yuck. Yuck, yuck.

Not only is it Spandex, it’s about fifty-four sizes too small. And I have to run in that thing!!

The past few days haven’t been all bad, though: I shaved a few seconds off of my previous time at the meet last Saturday, had some time to ride my bike over the weekend, went to Wal-Mart and bought pajama shorts for three dollars, and took a nap on a school day.

This is a first. After a disgustingly intense cross-country practice that ran late, I headed upstairs to get my homework done before it got too late. My bed, though, was radiating some serious comfort rays, and I decided to crawl up onto it and sit for just a few minutes, deciding my brain would work better if my achy legs were rested. It being a bed, though, I was obligated to lie down. Once I had my head on the pillow, the cat rose from the bookcase, padded across the room, hopped up onto the bed, and curled up on my stomach. No way could I get up with an adorable fuzzy feline snuggled right there, so I kind of accidentally conked out. When I woke up almost two hours later, I thought for a few minutes that it was morning. But then I remembered... cross-country-bed-cat-homework-ohcraphomework and sprang up to get it started. I’ve never actually slept like that in the middle of the day on a school day. I slipped into unconsciousness for a few short minutes during the Broncothon last year, but that hardly counts. I felt wonderfully reenergized afterwards and powered through my homework.

I could not get to sleep that night.

Homecoming dance and game is next week. Dances are the bane of high school to me, but everybody else seems to enjoy them and the mild ripples of drama that go along with them. EXAMPLE: He was gonna she was gonna ask him out he said yes she said no they told me he said she said she turned him down for him but he asked her so she asked him and he said no and I said yes so now I’m going with David, can you believe it???

*sigh* Freshmen. (MEANT SARCASTICALLY BECAUSE I think it’s hilarious when sophomores, who were freshmen a single year ago, sigh and shake their heads and go, “oh, those freshmen.”)

----

The world is still spinning

The sky is still blue

My life will continue

But I’ll keep missing you


Still missing people, especially one. Why do I keep wanting to see them when I know it’s impossible? Somebody once said something about elusiveness; knowing you can’t have it makes you want it.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Here comes the first flash of May

Today was my first cross-country meet. It was very un-intense: three miles with only mild hills. The freshman girls ran first, at nine o'clock. It's so much easier to run in the mornings than at three/four o'clock in the afternoon in August/September. That doesn't mean I did any better than I expected: I was in the middle of the pack, exactly average.
It was a nice change from my usual Saturday morning, though: rolling out of bed, lacing my running shoes, munching a piece of toast, going out to run, and then either riding my bike to my grandma's house, starting my homework, vacuuming the house, or getting a load of laundry going and crawling back into bed with a book.
Which is pretty much how I've spent every single Saturday morning since school began. How many weeks ago now? Four?
This first stretch of school usually drags onnnnnnnn and onnnnnnnnn, but this year the days are whipping by like that. *snaps fingers* High school is good, but I miss certain people. Some people went to other schools or moved away, (actually only two people moved away) but some people I just don't have any classes with, and it's so impossibly crowded that it's hard to find people at lunch.
Um.
Yesterday was 9/11. I never really knew what the big deal was about 9/11 before. I thought a plane had accidentally crashed into a building, which I knew was very, very bad, but why all the "AMERICA SHALT NEVER FORGET THEE DAY" patriotismness? Disasters happen all the time.
But then we watched a documentary about it in World Cultures. It was a TERRORIST ATTACK, and people DIED. There were people on fire and people stuck on top of the building, and it was so horrible horrible horrible that they jumped off and pummeled SMACK into the ground because they were scared and confused and would rather be dead than suffer this sudden and unexpected hell. Another plane rammed into another building, people fled, wild-eyed and breathing raggedly as a tower collapsed behind them.
It's one thing when you see stuff like that in a movie. I'm one of those people who have trouble buying into special effects
but
this was real
and it happened in our country
when I was alive, not a thousand years ago.
I felt really deflated for a while.

iwilln e v e r f o r g e t

Then I came home after cross-country and went online, and GUESS WHAT.
A Fine Frenzy has a new album, Bomb in a Birdcage. Now, I have never been one to freak out over some new album but adnjfnjdahgufgbfbfudaifd;uhfg this is amaaaazing, I didn't even know she was going to have another album.
Unfortunately this one isn't half as good as her first, One Cell in the Sea. Not a quarter as good as her first. In fact, I don't think I'll even buy the entire album. The style of music has turned around, and even her familiar voice sounds different in most of the songs. "Elements" though... that's a good song.
It's hard to love it as much as the first, but I will carefully cultivate myself and allow it to grow onto me until there is a place in my heart for it, right next to One Cell in the Sea.
In other news, I wrote four poems last night, after a long era of not writing any at all. One of them was about missing people, because lately I've been thinking about all the people I'll never see again. the little old lady-the lonely girl-the cute lovable one-the inspiring artist-my first follower-the off beat kentuckian~~ Some people have it a lot worse, though. They move somewhere new, and then every single person in their lives, aside from family, are just cut right out. I guess when so many people are lost like that, you only remember the ones who were close to you, and the thespians just sort of drift to the fuzzy edge of your memory.
Most of those people I knew for a long, long time. Two of them I knew for less than three weeks. But I don't want to forget any of them evereverever.
Ever.



Sorry this post was a big string of mood swings. Parts of it was written other days, and I just patched it all into one post here.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

...for only $4.99/month!

I just bought some more music on iTunes. I also went to the mall today and bought two shirts. After the mall, my mom and I went to the downtown Tapestry and Talent and I bought a bag of cashews at a convenience store on the way.
So I'm just on a spendin' spree today. Whoo!
Thanks to cross-country, I now know how to get to a dog park on foot. And NO WE DON'T RUN IN CIRCLES AROUND A DOG PARK. There's a trail thing behind it that we run on. But anyway, that's where I'm going for tomorrow's morning run. I'm gonna bring the dog and have him socialize for a while, then run home. Yay. I don't run with my dog often because the thing is kind of a hassle, but we'll make an exception tomorrow WON'T WE POOKYBUTT??? (He just walked in. He must have known I was talking about him.)
I was taking pictures today with my old camera, the one with the lens that doesn't close all the way and the weird internal disfunction that makes it slightly blur some shots, and realized that the camera was junk. But it's not like I really need a new one, I'm not really so much in the habit of taking pictures.
My phone is on the fritz, too: it refuses to send a text, so I try to send it a billion times and it keeps not working. Then it sends all one billion of the texts and I'm like agahfbdsafdjkfvj
but that's okay, I still love it, we're best friends for life.
Uhhhm not much else to say. School's fine, cross-country's aweshum, life is good. I just remembered that we have cranberry juice, so I'm gonna go drink some now.
~~J

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Two Weeks

Of school have passed. And I'm functional!
Anyway, I was about to blog, but then I got caught up in this website, called One Million Giraffes. It's so cool, and such a good idea! A bored Norwegian set a goal to collect one million giraffes by 2011. People can sculpt, draw, paint or whatever a giraffe, then upload it and send it in. I'm going to make one after I publish this post.
Other stuff: I watched every single Harry Potter movie that we own last night. I was up until three o'clock in the morning, but still managed to wake up four hours later to go for a run before it got too hot. AND TODAY WAS HOT, LIKE SERIOUSLY BOIL-THE-SALIVA-TIL-YOUR-TONGUE-BURNS HOT. I had to mow the lawn and trim the shrubby things over the fence. Not a good day for yard work, but c'est la vie.
Thursday is my birthday! I was going to say yay, but then I remembered I had to get a back brace that day.
I don't know what I'm still doing up. I'm really tired, and I should finish the last of my homework instead of browsing giraffe pictures and blogging. I should do my laundry that I never got around to. I should drink an Airborne because my dad is sick and I'll likely catch it.
I should go.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

This is my life.

WELL it has been a realllllly long time since I last posted.
My days are busy. I get back from cross-country past five, and then the rest of the evening is occupied with the consumption of dinner and homework. No time to blog, phoo.
Bad news. We have to swim in P.E. It's cold and chloriney and then you're all wet and your hair sticks to your face and you smell like chlorine for the rest of the day. But that's not the worst of the bad news.
I have scoliosis for real, and I have an appointment on September third for them to run tests and get me fitted for a back brace if I need one. The doctor said she was pretty much absolutely sure that I would need one, but they were going to do the tests anyway just to make me SUFFERRRRR.
And guess what September third is. September third is my birthday.
Leave it to my mother to forget my birthday and schedule an appointment for a scoliosis specialist to poke and prod at my spine on the one day that should be fun, or at least pleasant. Maybe she'll schedule an appointment for me to get braces on Christmas.
I sound so whiny. I'm not really so upset about it. My birthday's on a Thursday anyway, so it's not as if it would be much different from a regular day. Aside from a scattering of "happy birthday"s from friends.
I bought music on iTunes for the first time in my life this afternoon. Click for a bigger picture:

It was seven dollars and ninety-nine cents for that, money that could have been spent on a real object that I could hold in my hands and use. It's a strange thing, buying music. Money was just cast off into the world somehow, and what you've bought is just a few more lines on your iTunes library. But then you click the lines, music starts playing, and it's all worth it. This music was definitely worth it. I think I mentioned her before, but in case I haven't, GO LOOK UP HER SONGS AND LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN LOVE OBSSESS.
Cross-country today. Was so hard. Five miles, and it was all up-hilly. BUT I only had about a half-hour of homework, and I could hop online to blog, so that's okay. I decided I'm going to take my dog up that trail again this Saturday since I have nada planned. Sunday brings a birthday party, yay. But it's only halfway through the week. Can't be looking forward to the weekend yet.
So.
How's your life?

Monday, August 17, 2009

It's the first day of school.

Urgh. You know what that means, though? That means this blog has been here for almost a year. I guess I'll have some sort of blog-party when we hit the anniversary.
Yesterday, I tried to stay active all day so that I would be tired at night and fall asleep right away and get the maximum amount of sleep-minutes possible so I wouldn't be late on THE FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL. I went for a run in the morning, then bike-rode most of the day, walked my dog in the afternoon, played basketball with my sister, looked for my classes at the high school, and ellipticalled while watching Chopped until it was dinnertime.
Yeah, I was tired. And I ate two Canada mints. Oops.
Cross-country starts today after school. I don't know how much we're going to have to run. Hopefully not too much because I'm really tired right now.
Probably just sleepiness. Waking up a six/six-thirty has yet to become part of my morning routine. My alarm woke me up at six, and I managed to roll out of bed and crawl into the bathroom half an hour later, but now I'm all sleepy, have extra time on my hands, and wish I'd gotten more rest while I could.
I still haven't picked out my first-day-of-school outfit, which I should probably do now, seeing as I'm in my pajamas and have to leave in ten minutes.
Gotta go.
----
First day of school: I was a clueless freshman among clueless freshmen. My cousins and sister, who had walked with me to school, dissipated immediately into the crowd, locating friends within seconds of arriving.
I was jostled and bumped through a hallway leading to the quad, where I sprang down into the grassy oasis at once. The concentration of students was lesser here, and I caught my breath as I pulled out my schedule. From the central point of the school I could see just how intimidatingly crowded it was here. Students bustled past each other in groups, hundreds of bodies in constant motion. It was a relief to locate some friends so we could dive back into the crowd together and make our way to our first class.
My teachers seem pretty nice, mostly. And I have friends in all my classes.
Lunch was crazy. My friends and I walked around in hopeless circles looking for a place to eat that wasn't already occupied by a scary clot of seniors or a huddled circle of freshmen. When we finally sat down on a brick wall-thing, we were informed that it was the "senior wall" and that we as freshmen were not safe in their territory.
Whatever. We stayed there. Nobody stabbed us or shoved our heads in toilets, so it was okay.
In sixth period I sit behind a guy who went to Juvenile Hall for five days for getting high at school and attended San Jose Community last year.
I feel scared.
Cross-country after school was pretty horrible. It was hot and muggy, the conditions that are the opposite end of the spectrum of perfect for running.
The good thing about the first day of school is that there's no homework, so I have time to blog and shower before dinner.
It was a pretty good start to a school year. We'll just see how all this goes.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Screenies

I figured out how to do them. This revelation will change the legacy of this blog forever.
FUN GAME!!!! <--Click for a good time. My desktop :)
For the record, I absolutely cannot stand the taste of Soyjoy. The smell nauseates me. But I collect the wrappers because they are just so cool!
Okay, this is just a dumb little post. I didn't really feel like blogging, just wanted to share my discovery.

Canada mints!

Cross-country tryouts were yesterday. Warmup-stretches-sprints-laps-more sprints-done. The coach guy (never told us his name) told us to turn in our sports forms and run over the weekend. Today I got up entirely too early (seven o'clock on the dot: compare to my usual ten or eleven wake-up time) and ran for a half hour to get it over with before the clouds parted and the sun could boil my bones. Cross-country goes from three to five. That doesn't leave very much time for homework before eight o'clock beddy-bye time. Maybe I'll have to start going to bed at the ungodly hour of nine!
School starts the day after tomorrow. I should probably have already gotten myself into a school-night sleeping regimen. Oh well. I'll work on that tonight.
Yesterday I walked to the Long's Drugs near my house (now CVS) and got a few luxury purchases: White-Out and Canada mints. Canada mints are like giant Altoids, but not as minty and less expensive. I've only had them once before, loved them, but then couldn't ever find them again. So, I was thrilled to see the 99 cent package for sale. I ate one on the way home and vowed to only eat one every other day. I haven't eaten one today... so far, so good. :D The whole drugstore has been restocked and re-shelved with the aisles all in different arrangements and new signs. It's weird. But cool.
Okay, I left for a while to go for a walk with my dad. Now I'm back, with no more to say.
kthatsitseeya

Thursday, August 13, 2009

I ALMOST DIED!!

(just kidding.)

WOW I blogged yesterday and I forgot to even mention that we went to the dog beach the other day. My dog, Jack, whimpered the whole way there because the only time he rides in the car is when we’re putting him in the kennel. I kept telling him that no, we weren’t going to the kennel and that we were going to the beach, and I explained in great detail the joys of splashing around in the ocean and how much sand there was for him to run across, and how there would be other dogs to play with and to please just shut up and I’ll give you a MilkBone.
Not really. I am not so cruel. The poor mutt can’t help it if he doesn’t understand English.
The whimpers stopped abruptly once we got out of the car, though. He was like “HEY WHAT WE’RE GOING FOR A WALK? WELL WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST SAY SO?” It was a short walk to get to the dog beach: about twenty minutes. We were about to set up camp near a big bouldery thing. Then we noticed the dead seal rotting away under the boulder.
Yeah. We decided to move elsewhere. The beach was really un-crowded: I guess people don’t want to look after their dogs while they play volleyball/swim/wade/dig/lounge about. The spacious stretch of sand invited us to let Jack loose and hurl a tennis ball as far as we could and follow close on Jack’s heels running after it. That got tiring after less than a half hour. We engaged in a not-as-draining game of volleyball, then meandered down to the ocean.
At first we just let the water splash up around our ankles, laughing at Jack chasing the tide with the few other dogs that were on the beach. Soon we’d wandered deep enough into the water that our knees were almost submerged and the splash of the tides cast salty droplets onto our shorts. I ran back up to our little camp thing and took off my soaked shorts and slightly wet T-shirt. Ta-dah, I had my bathing suit on underneath, and I dashed back down to the water. I wasted no time, not slowing my pace until I was waist-deep. The waves pushed me backwards, I pushed forward. Soon I was bobbing a little, mostly underwater except my head and shoulders. Seaweed danced between my knees and clung to my legs, salty spray brushed my face. I was feeling very much at ease, even when a particularly large wave knocked me off balance for a brief second. Then a particularly larger wave started building up, and I tried to back up a little bit but couldn’t get very far being half underwater like that. It was a very weird feeling when the wave was right up in my face, curling over me. I wanted to freeze time, even for just a second, and enjoy the sensation of being embraced by ocean water.
Time didn’t freeze. The water crashed down a split second after I realized it was so close, and I got knocked down and spun in a frantic loop. There was the initial shock of being taken under so forcefully, and the panic of not being in control of my body, but I knew I was very close to shore, and the direction of the wave was only taking me closer. I was safe, so I decided to just let the wave exhaust itself. Surging forward, I felt sand beneath me and scrambled to stand up. Once my head was out of the water, a tangled mass of wet, sandy hair fell like a thick curtain across my vision. I didn’t have time to stabilize myself before the rushing water made me lose my balance again. I fell on my butt, found myself in about two feet of tidewater, and sat there. I started laughing a little bit because now that it was over, it seemed kind of fun and I found myself wanting it to happen again. Actually, I’m pretty sure a brain cell in the back of my mind was screaming as I tumbled through the water, “I can’t wait to blog about this!
The only thing was that now my head was wet and sandy. I brushed a couple stray pieces of seaweed off my arms and legs as I assured my dad that yes, I was okay, no, nothing got scraped, and did he happen to have a brush on him?
I got cleaned up (i.e. brushed my hair) with the help of my sister. After about fifteen minutes of yanking at my soggy mass of hair, it flattened into its regular, straight self again. I rinsed it off in a shower thingie, then went splooshing into the ocean once again. This time I didn’t go more than waist deep, though. I’m not completely crazy.
On a more boring note, I got my X-rays today. Turns out the large irregular curving lump on my back means I have a pretty wacky spine. I looked at the X-rays and saw a skinny ghost thing that was apparently me, with a line that went straight up my back for a few inches, then veered off to the right and became straight again in time for it to reach my neck.
The guy checked my record stuff and said I didn’t have to worry... yet, and that I should gain weight and keep a healthy diet and put some aloe vera on that sunburn of mine. Did I mention the horrible sunburn I got at the beach? Four applications of sunscreen did nothing to protect me from a blazing California sun. Don’t be surprised if I show up at school completely red from head to toe, with the upper half of my body bending over to the right.

What would happen...

...if you see your doctor shuffling through the halls sobbing while a nurse measures and weighs you, and are later told that she has had a family emergency and is not "emotionally stable" enough to give you your checkup? Guess what would happen.
You would have to sit in one of those uncomfortable paper gown thingies wondering what happened, then shift around on your butt waiting for them to find you a different doctor, then nod and smile and say it's okay when various nurses poke their heads in the door and say yes, they are still looking for a doctor, and get told to get dressed again and sent into the waiting room, and then called back awhile later and put into a room and given another one of those gowns as well as an unfamiliar doctor, and after an hour and so many minutes since first exiting the waiting room you receive your checkup.
They said I had an irregular curving lump on my back. By the time we got to the X-ray unit, they were closed. I have to go back there later today.
But before I got my checkup I went to the mall with mah sistur, and bought STUFF. Namely, a dress, a shirt, and a bottle of water. In the bus on the way there there was a guy who talked constantly to his pal the entire way, describing a story in rapid bursts of swear words. I plugged my iPod into my head and listened to the Mamma Mia theme song over and over and over and over and over until we got there.
I'm going back there today to see Julie and Julia, which looks like one of those movies that looks really good in the previews but ends up being terribly boring. Last night I saw the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was one of those movies that looks really good in the previews but ends up being just okay.
I don't really have anything else to say. Three days til school. Ack.

Monday, August 10, 2009

DUDE IT'S LIKE RED AND BLACK!!

So. Footsteps has a new look, temporarily. I'm looking for one that incorporates footsteps into the design, and coming up with nothing. This one is cute and I'll keep it for now, but the only problem is that it covers up the poll and chatbox.
I stopped typing for a minute and heard crickets chirping in the backyard. It's nice to listen to, but reminds me that I should have gone to bed over two hours ago. I just want to do a quick post before going to sleep. (a.k.a. laying on my bed staring up at the ceiling, rolling over and staring at the wall, rolling and staring at the other wall, and so on.) It was pretty hot today. I worked in my mom's classroom, which is just about all I've been doing the last few days. But today I left early: about two o'clock. Since my grandma's house is on the way home from the elementary school, I popped in to say hi and steal a slice of her cantaloupe.
I love cantaloupe. And fruit from the market always tastes ten times better than the Safeway kind.
When I got home I was too hot to go for a bike ride, so I rode the stationary bike instead so I wouldn't feel fat and lazy. The big highlight of the day was filling up a kiddie pool and splashing around for about half an hour. I didn't think I'd do anything else for the rest of the day, so I just hopped in with what I was wearing: shorts and T-shirt. But then my mom came home and said we had to go to OfficeMax, Kohl's, and the dollar store. (I wish I got some form of payment for mentioning company names. It's like free advertising for them. Because sooooooo many gobs of people read this blog.) Anyway, then I had to dry off and change and throw my wet hair into a beret thing so nobody would see its wetness in about four minutes. We bought nine notebooks at OfficeMax for nine cents. I bought wall stickers that look like bamboo at the dollar store for one dollar. They're pretty awesome. I made it look like they were sprouting from my bed and had them shoot up next to my bulletin board.
Going to Kohl's reminded me that I'm running out of time to buy school clothes. I don't do that thing where every year, you purchase an entire new set of clothing, but I'm still wearing clothes that I bought in sixth grade. Some things have holes worn into them. I do not have any jeans that fit, no exceptions. So I kind of need to buy at least one pair of jeans and some shirts that don't have holes in them. I did buy a shirt the other day, which I am proud of. That's at least one. Since I don't own anything from Kohl's I didn't trust the store (yeah, paranoid) and plus, I only had five bucks with me.
Tomorrow I go work at my mom's again, then have a doctor's appointment. Afterwards I need to do my laundry and go to the drugstore to buy toothpaste.
I live a thrilling life.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Emmett

It’s the last week of summer: usually a depressing time, but not this year. I think I’m just about ready to go back to school. Even though it is-- DUN-DUN-DUN --high school. I cleared various craft projects, sketches, and the like off my desk and replaced them with my school planner and some math workbooks to practice in at least once a day. I erased the random to-do’s and lists of movies to watch and books to read off my whiteboard and created a day-by-day planner and a countdown to the first day of school.
I’m not excited, really. I’m just trying to ease myself back into school-mode.
Today was a long, lazy day: I took my dog for a walk in the early morning, then walked to my grandma’s house to walk her dog and go to the local market. After lunch my mom and I biked to Cost Plus, then my cousin’s house to see their new kitty. His name is Emmett, and he’s adorable. He is brown and bronze-striped, like a tiger, kind of. His eyes are a warm golden-brown caramel color that invite you to melt into him. A very pretty cat. They got him at the shelter, and he had already reached the ripe old age of three when he was bought. (Unsure whether that was the correct word.) We entertained him with bits of yarn, then went outside to sway to and fro on their rope swing. They came over to our house, where we cut up magazines and taped pictures onto my bookshelf. Then they went and watched Heroes, and I came online to blog. I’ll have to start dinner soon. I’m going to try a new recipe: chicken and red potato taquitos.
Last night we met up with out family friend, Shelley. She’s fifty but looks abour thirty-two, and she plays the drums in a band called Throwing Roses and lives in an apartment with cashews always in the cupboard and a cat who will bite you if you come too close.
We walked on a trail in Campbell that passed through a park. There was a nice clean-cut all-American looking couple enjoying a picnic on the grass. Amongst the sandwiches and napkins, though, there was a bong. It was unpleasant to see there, because if it hadn’t been there I would have passed them off as a couple people sitting in the park , enjoying the warm afternoon air. But seeing the bong immediately transformed them into horrible dirty people with ugly habits and deteriorating health. Funny how that one object can change a person’s mind. Plus, why did they have it out there on display like that? Nobody wants to see the icky thing. Because then they get icky thoughts about you. And what could have been an innocent picnic is an icky, icky thing.
But you know, it wasn’t so big of a deal as I make it sound. We went to Aqui for dinner. My dad got something with mango salsa on it. I made mango salsa once, and it was delicious, but for some reason I never made it again. I made a mental note and this morning at the market I bought two mangos. I don’t know if taquitos really go with mango salsa, so I’m going to make the salsa tomorrow when we have sesame chicken. Yum yum.
After dinner we went home, and I watched a show about this girl who sews little microchips and speakers and things into clothes. There was one shirt where if you touched your wrists together, it would play recorded sounds. She made a hat that would flash lots of little LED lights when you pressed a button on the lid. It was cool. I would very much enjoy a shirt that made sounds.
Anyway, I have to go make dinner. Try not to choke on a tortoise shell in my absence.

Donner Lake

Haven’t blogged in forever. Sorry. I haven’t been able to snatch a minute on the computer: whenever I have downtime either my sister or dad is using it. Plus, I always have little things to do, errands to run, and I think, “Okay, I’ll start the Donner Lake post just as soon as I finish this,” but then I have to go do something else and forget, which to leads to some other thing, and days pass without me ever starting the post. Plus, I have been spending just about all day in my mom’s classroom, helping her move around desks and shelves, stapling piles of papers, arranging lesson plans and filing various little bits of information. It sounds boring, but at least it gives me something to do.
ANYWAY. Donner Lake. My aunt/uncle/cousins are the kinda people that have enough money to rent out a cabin nestled in the foliage surrounding Donner Lake, so about a week ago, that is exactly what they did. My family and I drove up there to stay the last night. Several small boating docks jutted into the water, and we chose one nearby the cabin to dump towels, folding chairs, and coolers full of fresh fruit and cold drinks. We got there around lunchtime, and snarfed sandwiches on the dock. Small ripples textured the lake, sending gentle waves of water lapping softly up against the shore. The lake was in constant slow-motion. After eating, I sat in my bathing suit with my feet swirling little patterns into the water, watching my cousins and sister sitting in their bathing suits swirling little patterns in the water, wondering when one of them was going to go ahead and jump on in, because the water felt cold between my toes and the rest of my body was starting to sizzle a little bit from the sun but I didn’t want to be the only one swimming while they sat there un-swimming, watching me. They said they didn’t feel like swimming. I didn’t believe a word of it. Here they were with a giant stretch of fresh cold water on a blazing hot late-summer afternoon, in their bathing suits and ready to swim, and they tell me they’re just not “in the mood.” I swallowed my scoffs of disbelief and jumped in. After stroking and paddling and splashing and kicking for an hour or so, I hoisted myself up onto the deck. The cuzzies and sis were in the cabin. My dad was on the deck. So was an inflatable canoe my uncle had brought, without my knowledge. We canoed.
We canoed across the lake, then over to some private beaches that you were supposed to pay for, which was pretty dumb, then looped back around and to the dock. At that point I was tired, so I changed into a fresh set of dry clothes, drank a glass or orange juice, and sat on the dock with a book. I didn’t get too much time to read, though, because it was just about time for early dinner. Spaghetti. Yum. After dinner my mom and I walked around the lake. It was a longer walk than we had expected, so it was pretty dark by the time we returned. I was too tired to shower but did anyway, then clambered up the ladder into the small loft I was sharing with my sister. I fell asleep quickly, but was awoken by
THUNDER!!!!!!!
AND LIGHTNING!!!!!!!!!
Which scared me so bad that I lost my breath a little bit as I half-climbed, half-tripped back down the ladder. I don’t usually get scared of lightning or thunder, but the thunder especially was hardcore. It was so freakin’ loud that the cabin literally did shake a little (though it might have been in my head) and every time lightning flashed, it would stream through the big bay window in the front room and spill a shock of blinding light into the cabin that made you blink to get rid of the spots it left hovering in your vision. Everybody else was awake in a flash. (Ha-ha. Flash, lightning, get it.) I wanted to close the curtains, and so did both of my cousins, but everybody else wanted to watch the lightning. They wanted to watch it. I wanted to run away and bury myself underneath seventy miles of blankets and hide in an underground burrow twenty kilometers deep in a room with a quadruple-locked door. But the lightning wasn’t even half as bad as the thunder. I can’t even begin to describe the horrible, eardrum-crushing cracking noise it made. It felt like a mild earthquake and sounded like a thousand redwood giants crashing to the ground at once. I made one daring trip back up to the loft (Which I’m pretty proud of, considering how much courage I had to muster up in order to make the six-foot climb) to retrieve my pillow and blanket, then got two more blankets from a linen closet and nestled deep into the coach, wrapping my gatherings around me tight, pressing a pillow over my eyes. Beside me, my cousins did the same. Rain beat against the roof, a sound I usually love to lay in bed listening to, but the thunder interrupted every couple of seconds and made my bones rattle.
Eventually, all that commotion must have stopped because I fell asleep there, swaddled up in blankets. I was awake before anybody else. My first emotion upon awakening was relief that the storm was over. I decided to make a fancy hot breakfast, and eventually people started waking up at the smell of hash browns and scrambled eggs. We had to leave that morning. It was sad to drive away from the lake so soon, but I’d had a good time the day I was there to enjoy it.
Except for, you know, the thunderstorm.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Old post, sorry... I lost my USB stick.

Well, there have been TWO big events in the time I have been gone. One: the aquarium for my dad’s birthday, and two: two days at Donner Lake.
I haven’t been to the aquarium for years: I was taken once as a little kid and once in fifth or sixth grade. They had a new exhibit up: the Secret Life of Seahorses. Their life isn’t actually so secret anymore, since the aquarium explained in detail with pictures and videos every aspect of their supposedly secret lives. Some of the seahorses had these crazy extra limbs with leaf-resembling thingies on them so looked like plants, and they were displayed in glass boxes filled with plants, so you would have to stand there searching for about an hour and a half looking for a telltale shifting eye or coiling tail before moving on to the next display. I was able to find two seahorses in the tank. My sister and dad could each find six. I felt inferior.
There was this one gigantic tank that was two stories tall and full of sharks, fish, and manta rays. I admired the sharks’ piscine grace, and wondered why they weren’t eating the other fish. My answer came lumbering into view a few seconds later: a big fat giant whopping beast of a fish swam by. That thing could have eaten me in two bites: it was nearly the size of one of those Volkswagon Bug cars.
Not really. Maybe half the size. But for a fish, that’s still huge!! He probably told the sharks to back off and leave his fellow fish alone, and the poor helpless sharkies were too afraid to disobey. That fish was boss.
I imagined the monster slamming its immense mass against the side of the tank, sending the glass shattering and the water rushing out to flood the aquarium. Local visitors and camera-toting tourists would run screaming from the tumultuous flow of fish-water, and Mr. Giganto-Fish would snap up small children in its big strong jaws. I tugged my dad’s sleeve and suggested we go look at the otters.
...which were adorable! They reminded me of young children on the playground, (the lucky ones that weren’t swallowed by that fish) hopping in and out of the water, climbing over random scatterings of driftwood and popping through hollow logs. We probably spent more time at the otter exhibit than in any other part of the museum, joining the rest of the crowd in a chorus of coos and laughs over the otters’ playful antics. Time for an otter joke to wrap up this paragraph: What otter can cast spells? Harry Otter!! Share that one with your friends, folks. You’ll be the coolest kid at school if you get people to believe you made that knee-slapper up.
The octopus was unimpressive. He sat with all his tentacles smushed up against the corner of the glass so you couldn’t see his head, just a mass of squishy white octopus-goo. Meh. The penguins were awesome, even if they just sat there, not doing much. C’mon. They’re penguins. Gotta love ‘em.
The bestest part ever was the jellyfish. They glowed in alienish colors, half-transparent as they pulsed gently in the water. Their caps bore no evidence of a mouth or eyes. Those long tendrils looked like strands of silk, but one touch and BZZT! you die. I stood staring at a tank of jellies for a long, long time until I began to feel sleepy. When I grow up, I’ll make a movie that is just masses of jellyfish pulsing, and win an Oscar. America will be mesmerized by the jellies’ delicate tendrils, glowing colors, slightly eerie but fascinating aura.
We went to Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner. I eated me a salad, then we went home and consumed very caloric chocolate cake. I fell asleep after a slice of it, my senses fuzzy through the sugar-induced haze.
I’ll have to tell you about Donner Lake later. I have to go to a bowling party that starts in like three minutes...

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Stuff

Same old, same old.
Chores. Bike rides. Swimming. The three components that have made up my entire summer in the United States.
Not much to talk about, except for the fact that I’m going to the AQUARIUM tomorrow! It’s my dad’s birthday, and we’re both geeks, so the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a thrilling place to spend his birthday. I bought a plush jellyfish from a garage sale for 25 cents last summer and named him Rondando, and I’m going to bring him tomorrow to see all his jellyfish pals.
My cat is a freak. There was a bug flitting across the roof of my room just now, and my cat was on top of my bookcase trying to swat it with his paws. I climbed up on there too and held him up so he could reach it, but it flew away, across the room. I jumped onto my bed with the cat still in my arms and lifted him to where the bug had come to rest, but it got away once again. I leapt to the other side of my bed, but the dumb cat couldn’t even see the bug until it took off, even though I was holding him three inches away from it, so I ended up having to clamber up on my desk and hold the cat up so he could swat the troublesome insect. The cat stared at the bug for seventy-six hours, eyes gleaming. I kept waiting for him to lash out a paw and kill the thing for good, but he just kept staring and staring. Then he slumped back against me and started purring loudly. I sighed, plunked the useless feline on my bed, and killed the bug once and for all with a flick of the flyswatter. Then I sank down onto the bed and hugged the wonderful little kitty and nuzzie-nuzzled him for a while before returning back here to type this. I love my cat.
Another day, he committed another great act of stupidity. I have a nylon rope with stuffed animals hanging from it across my room. One of the animals touches a hanging lantern light, and one end of the rope is tied to a hook near a set of shelves with more stuffed animals and a few bottles of lotion and notebooks and things. My cat was sitting on my bookcase, because the limits of his world are pretty much my bed and my bookcase, when suddenly he spotted a bug. (I don’t even know where all these bugs came from.) I guess he was feeling a little more ambitious that days, because the bug was hovering near my lantern in the center of the room, and he decided to go for it anyway. He sprang from my bookcase and expected his momentum to take him all the way to where the bug was, I guess, because he seemed pretty surprised when he dropped and hit the rope of stuffed toys, upsetting the lantern and pulling one end of the rope free, which sent the rope flinging towards the shelves and knocking various items on the floor. Have you ever heard that cats always land on their feet? The kitty landed upright, daintily hopped up onto my bed, and purred. I love my cat.
Actually, I had another huge swerve off the highway of routine today: instead of riding my bike to Pier 1 Imports like I had planned, I rollerskated around the neighborhood. I felt like I was in the 60’s. I used to live on skates from when I was about 8 years old to about 10. Whenever I went outside to mess around in the yard, I would put skates on instead of shoes. I had this thing for hitting wiffle balls against the side of the house with a tennis racket, and I would do that on skates. It must have looked weird to random passerby. Most of the time I would speed-skate in rapid circles around the court. Sometimes I would cradle my kitty in my arms and skate around with him. Neighbors would give me gooey smiles if they say me. In fourth and fifth grades, I would rollerskate to school and back, dropping my skates off in my mom’s classroom. My sister and I would have water-balloon fights on skates. When the family took Wholesome Family Strolls around the neighborhood, I was always on skates. I don’t remember why I stopped. The only thing is that people kinda stare at you when you whiz by: a kid on skates is not as common as a kid on a bike. Plus you can’t get as far: I’ve taken my bike to places far from home. On skates, that would take a while. It was a nice change from pedaling, though, plus it brought back some childhood nostalgia or whatever. Even though I’m still a child anyway. You know what I mean.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Short Little Quickie :)

Wait, there's another Harry Potter movie after this one? I didn't know that! I thought the one I saw the other day was the grand finale, but apparently there's a whole nother book, and therefore a whole nother movie. Does that mean the characters end up being like 18? Remember when Harry was an eleven-year-old, and eleven-year-olds read the books? Now it's all out of whack because Harry and company got old, and their fans stayed young. At least this means the sucky ending of the last movie wasn't the end to the whole big shebang.
In other news, I found a website whilst reading other people's blogs. One blog linked me to this awesome website called MyLifeIsAverage, kind of an equivalent to FML, which I enjoy but also feel a bit uncomfortable reading because of the F part. Click here for laughs.
So, this is why I don't blog as often anymore: there's nothing to talk about. I go for bike rides, go swimming, and do chores. There is really not much to be said about those things. My mom declared yesterday that summer was over, and we had to start getting back into school year gear. (I used the word "gear" instead of "mode" so it would ryhme. MLIA.) That means we can't go to the beach or do any day trips or anything anymore. Which sucks, because I only got to go to the beach once this whole summer. Oh well. Next year, then. We went shopping for school supplies, then decided I could just use whatever was left over from last year. We're drawing close to that depressing last-few-days-of-summer part of the year.
I guess I just keep bike riding and swimming and chores-ing until it's time to enter that intimidating place known as HIGH SCHOOL.

*dun dun dun*

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Three Days in the Life of a Person

I realized something the other day: summer is more than half over. There is less than a month left. With that in mind, I set about collaging a variety of items onto my pencilcase and notebook. (My version of getting ready for the school year.) They came out really cool, and since I already had the craft box out... (a.k.a plastic bin containing candy wrappers, clay, ticket stubs, plastic eyeballs, beads, glitter, fabric scraps, cotton swabs, sequins, markers, ribbon, and also a glue stick) ...I made some erasers from fancy eraser clay shaped like a donut, ice cream cone, pizza slice, mushroom/muffin, and bowl of spaghetti. So now I’m all set. :D (Lots of lists in this post so far. Also a multitude of parentheses.)
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t really mind going back to school. But I do mind going to HiGH sCHOoL. There’s going to be seventeen-year-olds there! Seniors! People with jobs who get high in the bathrooms and leave trails of cigarette smoke behind them, and talk so dirty that you start itching for a bar of soap to jam in their mouths, and make out in the corners between classes and are so big and tall that dinky freshmen avoid crossing their pathes at all costs so they don’t get dumped in a trash can or have their heads shoved into a toilet bowl. UMYESI’MALITTLESCARED. I’m only thirteen, and untangling middle school took me a little bit more than the three years I was given. High school intimidates me.
On a lighter note, we went to Gilroy the day before yesterday. I got a box fan for my room, because it gets so hot up here that you could fry a rat on the ceiling. I’m not really in my room much during the day, but it’s hard to sleep when you feel like you’re submerged in a pot of boiling water. I’ve been staying up til two or three the past few weeks, mostly reading or drawing or making little erasers/collaging notebooks and pencilcases. Cough. See first paragraph. Sometimes I go downstairs to use the elliptical machine and watch late-night Food Channel on very low volumes. Sometimes my dad is still up, and we play backgammon for about an hour, then we both get tired and go to bed. Actually, that’s only happened twice. He’s usually tending to some Very Important Matters via computer or paperwork.
The day before that, I went to the mall with Sarah and we saw the new Harry Potter movie. We got to see all the characters get drunk. Yay. Also, Dumbledore dies. Darn. The thing that was missing from the movie was the classic dramatic run-in with Voldemort (oh snap I said it) at the end. All the other movies have had that scene where Harry and the Dark Lord battle it out. Every. Other. One. This one ends pretty badly, too: Snape kills Dumbles, the bad guys run away to go tend to some other evil doings, and Harry vows to go destroy them and Voldemort. You’d think there would be more closure, or at least the promise of another movie afterwards, but nope. The credits roll, and that, Potter fans, is that. My friend’s birthday is coming up, so I got her present while I was there. A shirt with a dinosaur on it, purple nail polish, and two erasers: one shaped like a slice of cake and the other a set: three bowling pins and a ball. It’s a bowling party. Pins and ball equals bowling, cake equals party. I hope she gets the gimmick, or else I wasted three bucks on nothing.
Today, my mom visited a friend who lives in Willow Glen. She let me walk into the nearby town to browse antique shops and relax in the bookstore. I thought about buying a book, but decided to just go to the library when I got home. Which I did. Then I walked to Jamba Juice, then to Starbucks, then back to Jamba Juice in a fit of indecision. Deciding to get Jamba Juice was based on the fact that it's healthier, but I ruined it by ordering a parmesan pretzel with my drink. Not so healthy. :\ There were a couple of kitchen stores, too, and after a little walking around I went back to my mom's friend's house and played Monopoly with her kid. He had trouble grasping the concept of bank loans, and also rent. Explaining how to handle finances to a five year old is beyond my abilities. I just sort of let him do his own thing, and he ended up winning. Shucks.
The rest of the afternoon I filled with chores. Walked the dog, washed the windows, scrubbed down the bathroom, vaccummed the carpets, did my laundry. Thrills. I biked to the library to get some books, then to the grocery store for my mom. After dinner, the family went over to -name of my middle school- to play tennis. The past week or two, we've all been engaging in Fun Family Active Sports after dinner: tennis, basketball, or this softball game called Three Flies Up. Ain't we a good family. It's weird to be there now: it's like, this is not my school anymore. I am not part of this place. I should probably walk over to -name of high school I'll be attending- tomorrow and familiarize myself with the campus.
Love from your lazy blogger. Sorry I’m not posting more often.