Thursday, April 30, 2009

Swine Flu

So, swine flu. What is it? I'm actually not really sure. Here's what I know about it so far: it has "hit" our area, it came from Mexican pork, we have a 5% chance of getting it, and in order to not get it we have to sing the birthday song twice while washing our hands. That's all the information I could gather from the rumors floating around school. Some people are getting paranoid. In one class, we had to scrub the tables with 409 and wash our hands before starting class. We watched a video on the importance of hand hygiene and were given a tutorial on how to wash our hands properly in another class. And all the while, I still don't really know what the heck swine flu even is. I guess I'll go look it up now.
Okay, I just Wikipedia-d it. And the verdict: I still don't know what it is. I did find a cool close-up of what the virus looks like, though.
It's kind of pretty, isn't it? I think so. The symptoms are all the normal sickness stuff: coughing, sore throat, throwing up, et cetera. So that means... you could either have a common cold, or... SWINE FLU! You could either have an upset stomach, or... SWINE FLU! What makes swine flu so bad, anyway? Does it kill you, or something? That would actually be cool, if it were dangerous. We could have an epidemic, and make it into history textbooks! Everybody would panic and plunge into poverty, there'd be all these dead people piled up in carts on the sides of the roads, and little kids with no parents. We'd run out of food, and I could make bread with sawdust instead of flour and put it in baskets to deliver to all my family and friends, only to find out that they'd all died. That would be exciting. I hope this whole swine thing turns out to be deadly.
Well, actually. I ate a sandwich today for lunch. It was really good. On second thought, I guess maybe starvation wouldn't be so cool after all. I like ham and cheese too much. I shouldn't let my visions carry me away and banish my common sense like that. For some reason, sandwiches make me think of my Europe trip. There are only 48 days left. I almost cried just now typing that. Happy tears, though, don't you worry. We recieved the itinerary a while ago. I've read it almost every day since. I want to have the route engraved into my heart by the time we depart. We're going to London first, then Paris and Versailles, then Lucerne, then Florence and Pisa, Assissi, Rome, Sorrento, Pompeii, Meteora, Delphi, and finally Athens. I really don't think I've ever been so excited for anything in my entire life. Things I've only ever read about, or seen in movies will be viewed with my own two eyes. I'm going to see the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon, and everything else I never thought I'd ever get to see. Being in another country seems so impossibly unreal. I'm going to board a plane in America, and after a day of flying I'm going to get off in London? That is impossible. But it's going to happen. I've never taken a trip abroad, apart from tentative tiptoes into Canada and Mexico. My first time out of the country (pretty much) and it's going to launch me all the way to the other side of the planet, without my family, for seventeen days. I'm actually kind of worried about two things, though. A) What if I lose my luggage? I only have about seventeen day's worth of clothes, so if I lose it, I'll have to go around naked the rest of my life. B) What if I miss my mommy? And daddy? And sister? And kitty cat? My cell phone is useless in Italy. I don't know if I'll ever have access to a computer in order to e-mail back home. My worries are usually washed away by all the excitement, though. If I let it sit here bottled up in me, though, I might explode before the 48 days of waiting are up. I need to go scream, or dance, or something.

Sorry if this post wasn't funny, or whatever. I'm too pumped to care.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

A Purple Speck

I wonder when the day will come that I will simply run out of things to say. Some posts are kind of like, fillers between the ones that actually talk about actual events. There’s only so much rambling that can come out of one’s mouth, you know? Well actually, one’s fingers, if that one happens to be typing. As I am. I feel really guilty if I go more than a day or two without blogging. It starts calling to me, weeping and begging me to come back and fill its being with more writing. I always take pity, but the result is usually a “just-barely post,” full of words and sentences but no actual substance. If you get what I’m saying. Which you probably don’t, but that’s just because I’m too complex for you. Anyway. I have a strong feeling that this post is going to be... just barely.
See how much I’ve written already? And the only thing it’s talking about is how I ramble about nothing so often. I’ve managed to ramble about that as well. Ramble ramble ramble. You know what I just realized? That’s a pretty word. Ramble. I should keep a list of my favorite words. So far that would be: ramble, because, attractive, awkward, and majestic. “Ramble” and “majestic” are the because-they-sound-nice words. “Attractive,” “awkward,” and “because” are the because-I-use-them-a-lot words. Attractive is actually an attractive word in itself. Go on, say it. Didn’t that sound nice? It even looks pretty on the screen, don’t you think? I guess that’s probably my favorite word, then. It bats for both teams: I use it a lot, and it sounds nice.
Speaking of batting... and teams. I thought I had a softball game today. I thought I was going to be late for this softball game. I thought this nonexistent softball game was at five, and I was throwing on my uniform at 5:10. So I grab my bag, don’t bother to tie my cleats, and sprint over to the field at the high school. And when I get there: Screeeech. I play for the Purple Nightmare Penguins, our team color is purple. (Side note: Duh.) One team on the field wore green jerseys, the other sported yellow. I was a purple speck amongst hordes of green and yellow. Then I remembered, hey wait, today’s Tuesday, the game’s on Wednesday. Whoopsie-daisies. I fake a phone call on my cell and talk loud enough for people to hear: “Hey, I think my game is at another field... no, it’s at five-thirty, we have time... okay, bye.” Does that sound convincing to you? I hope. Some of the fans on the bleachers were glancing at me sideways and wondering what this purple mess was doing at their green-and-yellow game. That’s an excellent display of my scatterbrainedness, if that word even exists. I guess I could just say “stupidity.”
We have block scheduling right now. It kind of sucks. The periods are twice as long, which makes the day drag on and on... especially when you’re spending those two hours with certain teachers, and I ain’t namin’ names here. Plus, I always get mixed up. Today I had fourth period after lunch, and I kept thinking that after this, I was going to go to lunch. But no, afterwards I headed straight home. It’s weird. It’s confusing. I don’t like it for some of the same reasons why I don’t like Backwards Day: I like things to be in order. Having the classes all switched up is not my cup of steaming-hot chamomile tea. Speaking of having things in disorder: The mold squad has torn away half of the upstairs carpet and padding, leaving bare floorboards in their wake. They took out the vanity in the bathroom and hacked away at the plumbing. We’re repainting, re-trimming, re-doing it all. It’s going to take months, they say. I should photograph the damage, and show you the guest room I’m living in now. I don’t even have a bed. Some of my stuff is packed away in boxes, other stuff is heaped in piles around my makeshift room. I hope I don’t go insane, even though I think I’m kind of getting there.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Card Games-a-thon

Hey, you know that freaky-creepy video I was going to do to that song, Insomniatic? Yeah, um. Never mind. My sister refused to film me, and that, my dear friends, is that. She declined even after I promised to pay her by the hour. Had she accepted that, though, I probably would have backed out. It’s not like I sneeze money into tissues, even though that along with pickle-juice-induced fire breathing would be pretty freakin’ awesome. I always make these references back to earlier posts... I wonder what people who haven’t read those posts would think. (If you’re new to the blog and the thoughts passing through your mind at the present moment are something along the lines of “What the heck? Pickle juice?”...go read Kosher Dill.
I looked at the poll recently, and... WHO ELSE CRIED DURING THAT MOVIE? AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE? I bet it was Billy. You better believe it, buddy. You just got guessed-as-the-one-who-cried-during-HSM2. I love that movie. Watching pretty people dance and sing is always a happy experience. Especially if you leap up and join in, as I can never resist doing. I think if you ever saw me dance to the HSM songs, you would understand why I don’t attend -whinnying mascot- Nights. But I decided I am going to the -whinnying mascot-a-thon this year... for the first time ever. We get to pick three activities to do. I picked Movie-a-thon, Reading-a-thon, and--get ready for this folks--Card Games-a-thon. None of them sound particularly fun. I just chose the ones that were certain to be indoors and away from all the craziness where I could just sit and wait for the day to be over. I sound like a party pooper. In my defense, I think I was born into the wrong generation or something. Playing carnival games and bouncing around in giant inflatables is a very twisted concept of “fun” for me.
For some reason, this reminds me of our new unit in my class of physical education. Football. Yay. I don’t really get football, there’s too many rules and too many people crashing into each other on purpose. I can’t even throw the ball, which, in my humble opinion, doesn’t really count as a ball at all. Balls are round. Footballs are more oval, and pointy at the ends. When you throw it, the ends turn corkscrews instead of just flying straight like a normal round ball. But every other sport has grown on me, I’m sure this one will too.
Sad thing:
I don’t know if any of you William’s-goers had Ms. Stephen. And I don’t know if any of you Ms. Stephen-hadders know that she has cancer, and she’s going to retire at the end of this year. I sent her a get well card-poem thingie earlier on in the year, but she wasn’t strong enough to send a reply until several weeks later. That’s worry-making. I wrote her a letter that’s going to go in a big binder of photos and letters from other former students and some of the teachers. Ms. Stephen is an unforgettable woman. It would suck if she died.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Gargoyles

Wow. I have not posted since Thursday. Two whole days without blogging? How have I managed to survive?
I haven't actually been that busy, either. Well, there was some stuff going on. Like a softball game on Friday, at the PAL stadium. It started at eight o'clock pm, which is when I usually go to bed, and ended at nine thirty, which is when I am usually snoring away. The sky was all dark, with the lights blaring down on the field. I felt like a real professional, you know? And the lights that surround the field made the ball cast weird shadows... like, if it was rolling on the ground you could see six different shadows all around it. It reminded me of those weird water-skeeter things. I forgot to bring a jacket, and since it was nighttime, it was really, really, really freezing cold. There was body heat in the dugout, but out on the field I felt like an abandoned stone gargoyle. I actually didn't feel like a gargoyle at all, I just wanted to use that word. I learned what a gargoyle was just recently. They're cute. But anyway, yeah. It was cold. And about halfway through the game, I was playing second when-gasp!-something strange happened! Involuntary shudders were shaking my body. It was weird. I tried to stop, but I couldn't. It was kind of freaky. I guess I was just shivering, but to the ninth degree. I clamped my teeth together, and for some reason, that helped. In the end, we got our shivering booties kicked to Nigeria. They won by twelve runs. I don't think anybody cared, though-- we all ran to our mommies, who waited with thick blankets and jackets, plus cars with the heaters on full blast.
Saturday morning, the family held a garage sale. My sister and I hauled all of our old junk out onto the driveway and hoped somebody would come along and buy it. Several somebodies came buy, and in the end I made almost thirty bucks, which will go towards the Europe fund. And on Sunday I did chores and homework, whee. Anyway, I have to go to school soon, so I better go make a lunch and whatever.
Do widzenia! (Polish)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Kosher Dill

Really cool thing I just learned about: I am now able to text posts to my blog! I just text whatever to this one number, and it'll show up on my blog! That sounded too fabulously cool to be true, so I tried it out. Sure enough, it worked. However, I'm only allowed to send 60-character texts. And it doesn't let me enter titles. But, I have some pictures on my phone that I want to get onto my computer, so. That'll be good. Plus, now I can blog from anywhere, like anywhere! But, only 60-letter posts. Bleh.
Really non-cool thing I just learned about: Alyssa doesn't have a blog anymore. She deleted it. Sobby-sob. I am the only person I know with a blog now. Which is probably why I'm craving a collab blog. I guess I'll link the the Other Blog again now, just in case somebody skipped the last post. Here it is. Go. Join. There's two so far. I just downed an entire pickle right now. We always have a jar of Kosher Dill Halves in the fridge, and I ate two. My lips and throat are burning with salt. I should probably gulp some water before I start breathing fire, but that would actually be very cool. On hot days, I could just blow a stream of fire into the air and then ka-zam! Warm as a button, not as if that analogy made any sense. (Warm as a button: Analogy? Metaphor?) Plus, if I ever found myself trying to survive on a deserted scrap of Antartic, freezing would be the last of my worries.
Though, I doubt a pickle would ever grant somebody the superpower of fire-breathing.
I'm kind of enjoying this burning sensation, though. Maybe I should glug some pickle juice and see if I really do start breathing fire. Probably not. And, a completely unrelated subject that I'm about to start jabbering about: the promotion dance. No, people, I am really not going to this dance. Whenever it comes up, people are like, "Really? Why not? You should go! It'll be fun!" Well. Maybe dancing is fun for some people, but I am far too awkward and uncoordinated to dance in a public place. In front of the television, while watching Hairspray? No problem. But in the school cafeteria, surrounded by all my peers? Yes problem. I've been to two -whinnying school mascot that I won't post in case somebody tries to track me down and kill me- Nights in my life, and I did not enjoy either of them. Why?
  • people who jostle and bump and push
  • sucky music that shatters your eardrums
  • sweatiness from collective body heat
  • people's adrenaline running rampant, acting wild, drunk and high on Gatorade
  • self-consciousness when you start dancing
  • slow dances when you have nobody to dance with so you just kind of stand around awkwardly trying not to gape at other people's intimate moments
  • having to scream to be heard
  • having to listen to everybody else's screaming
  • more sweating and screaming and getting shoved around late into the night
And the promotion dance will be no different. I don't intend to go through all that for a third time. I'm not going to do the whole Great America thing, either. Amusement parks are also not my thing. I have a flash-forward of what it will be like. And that flash-forward does not portray 'fun.' But I'm going to do the walk-across-the-stage thing. Because... we have to. Otherwise I probably wouldn't. Speaking of end-of-the-year activities, our whinnying school mascot that I won't post in case somebody tries to track me down and kill me-a-thon has been moved to May 15th, or 18th, or something. It used to be on the last day of school, but too many people ditched, so they made it right smack in the middle of a month so hopefully more folks show up. I've never been to a whinnying mascot-a-thon. One more experience missing from my life. In sixth grade, I went to the "study hall" thing. Mr. Gordon sat at his desk, and us kids were scattered across the classroom. He let us sleep, so I napped most of the day. It was nice and cold in there. He gave us some garlic crackers. In seventh grade, Sarah and I had the same sixth period class. We looked at the carnival-game-ridden quad, then... left. My house is near the school, so we walked there, had lunch, read magazines, and so on. I don't intend to go this year, either. My mom said it was okay for me to call in sick that day. But then I'd have to bum around the house. If I went anywhere, people would think I was a truant. So I guess I'm finally gonna go to this thing. How about that.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Summery Scientific Typos get CHOPPED!

Thick, muggy air filled my throat as soon as I left the air-conditioned comfort of my sixth-period classroom. It was hot, like really... hot. I looped around the back of the school, past the pool... to notice that the gate leading to the pool deck had been left open. Nobody was around back here. I could have run through and leapt into the cool relief of cold chlorine-y water. I could have. I would have, but luckily I do have some amount of self-restrain. It was tempting, though. They should know better than to leave that gate open.
I really should be building my lightbulb right now. Have I mentioned this whole thing? I have to build a lightbulb, for my class of the studies of physical forces. I Googled it, and fortunately there were a whole bunch of webpages explaining how. But still. It's hard. You need lots of wood, and also copper. There's a row of batteries with a spring on the end, then two wires that lead to a switch. Making the switch has been really confusing. Oh well. Speaking of science, I'm starting to regret the choice I made for next year's class. I could take either biology or conceptual physics. I chose conceptual physics. But now I think maybe I should have taken biology. I hadn't really thought about it until the night to mark your class choices came along. I hadn't even known that you could choose which science to take. Biology? Conceptual physics? Biology? AAaaaaAAAaaAahHhhH! The pressure got to me, and I had to just mark something down before I deteriorated into a puddle of nervous goo. So, conceptual physics it was.
Spring is here, finally. It is hot. There are flowers and bumblebees. There is sun. (Hello, skin cancer.) It actually feels more summery than springy. Hey! Spellchecker didn't catch "summery," so I looked it up. Summery is a real word. Dictionary.com says it means: of, like, or appropriate for summer. That makes sense. (I typed "sens" instead of "sense" by accident, which spellchecker also didn't catch, so looked it up... it said it was a street name for marijuana. Oops.) My poor pathetic little life. I have nothing real going on to talk about, so I broadcast my typos across the Internet.
I watched this show called Chopped Saturday night. Interesting show. They give four contestants these random ingredients (for example: peanut butter, bell peppers, ground beef, peaches, wheat bread) and they have to make a dish out of it in thirty minutes. It would be fun to make one of those-- like, one person is the judge and picks the ingredients, four others are contestants, and then another person films it all. But, I don't have access to a place with four kitchens right next to one another, so that's that.
And now I really, really should work on that lightbulb of mine. Gotta go.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

The Other Blog

I made another blog. I want it to be one of those blogs that has a bunch of different writers, and each one posts under their name... you know? Alternatively, that blog will sit in a little corner of cyberspace, abandoned and lonely, desolate and forlorn, waiting for the day that somebody's fingers will fill it full of new words, stories, and ideas. Whoa. I think I just sent myself hurtling into a state of deep depression. That's pretty hardcore, man.
Um yeah so anyway. I was drinking water today, and the water was in a plastic cup, and the plastic cup was transparent. And when I finished drinking my water, I saw three words on the bottom of the transparent plastic cup. "MADE IN USA." I said it aloud. Made in USA just doesn't sound right. "Made in China," "Made in Indonesia," sure, but "Made in USA" just has a weird non-ring to it. Say it aloud. Right now. Yes, this means you! Say it: "Made in USA." I don't know about you, but it just doesn't work for me.
I also laid down today, on the pavement next to the front lawn. (Waiting for my dad to come outside so we could go to the hardware store) I used to do that all the time as a kid; we have all these home videos of me running around on the concrete driveway or sidewalk or whatever, and then suddenly dropping down to take a nap. Makes me laugh every time, HA! But yeah. Your whole perspective is different down there. The grass looks taller. The houses look squattier and further away. Home Depot is such a depressing place to be. All these beefy hairy guys comparing drill saws (Side note: Is a drill saw a real tool? I just sort of made that up.) and tired old couples arguing over paint colors for the family room walls and chubby little kids running down the aisles waving chainsaws in the air. And whenever I go there, whatever we're trying to find takes forever. Trimming. Paint. A special little metal hook thing for the toilet. We had to buy seventeen feet of trimming. It scraped the ceiling as we carried it to the register, and getting it all tied up and secured on top of the car was a messy job requiring lots of sweat, muscle, and twine.
You know how I was going to go bowling for Judy's little brother's birthday yesterday? Yeah, well. I showed up at the bowling alley with my gaudily-wrapped gift. I sat there for fifteen minutes. Then I texted Judy, wondering why she and her little bro were fifteen minutes late to his own party. She texted back saying the date had changed to next week. So she wasn't late-- I was a week early. Eurgh. I went home and ate a sandwich. My present for him was awesome, too: a plastic hippo with a sort of squeeze trigger protruding from the back, and when squeezed, its mouth opens and out comes a cheerful stream of nontoxic soap bubbles. I spent forty minutes wandering the toy aisles of Target picking it out.
Vaarwel for now!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Accidental Snow Trip

Hey, bloggy blogsters. Been a while, huh? I mostly have been neglecting y’all because I’ve been in Arizona. We came home two days ago though, three days before we were due to arrive back home. Why?
Well, okay, it’s a long story. We drove to Flagstaff, which is a few hours from the Grand Canyon. I was really excited about finally getting to see that big crack in the earth. Our family is so... camp-y. It’s seems as if the Grand Canyon is a destination most every camper would visit sometime or other. (Side note: That last sentence just barely made sense.) Anyway, it was “raining” when we got to Flagstaff. We stopped at a gas station and realized how freakin’ cold it was for being April, and wondered why it wasn’t snowing or at least hailing. I stepped out into the “rain.” Ouch. That wasn’t rain. That was hail. Frozen ice bullets pummeling down onto us all and bouncing off the ground. How unpleasant. It was fun to catch them and then pop them into my mouth, though. They melted away as soon as they touched my tongue. As we drove through town, my mom pointed out a Starbucks and demanded we stop so she could pump caffeine into her bloodstream. As if the cold weren’t exhilarating enough.But anyway, yeah. When we got out of the car, it wasn’t hailing anymore. We stood there for a while staring dumbly out at the fluffy white bits swirling through the air. After a while, my dad breathed, “I think it’s snow.” The rest of us kept on staring. This couldn’t be. But finally, we had to admit that it was, in fact, snow. We bustled into the coffeeshop, eager to get out of the body-numbing chill of the snow-contaminated air. I have actually never seen snow fall before. So I was in shock, a little bit. Pretty hardcore, huh? Huh? Yeah. Shock. I was in shock. Yeah. My mom and I shared a latte, my sister and dad sipped hot chocolates, and we mused our situation. (Word-wrangling time! Mused our situation? Or mused over our situation?) Starbucks has Wi-Fi, so we checked the weather for the Grand Canyon. It was 27 degrees over there, and snowing hard. Later in the afternoon, we found that it was 19 degrees. We only had a tent trailer to house ourselves. There was no electricity in the campsites, so our portable heater would be useless. We would have to hike through snow during the days and possibly freeze in our sleeping bags at night. Not fun, people. Not fun a-tall. I mean, at-all. I guess I should have a space there, instead of a hyphen. I should just delete all that, but, eh. I’ll just leave it. Anyway, now I forget what I was talking about. And now, alas, I remember. We ended up busting our butts to get home, cutting the Grand Canyon from our trip completely. We turned the car around and whizzed out of the state of Arizona with a screech. We drove for the rest of the day, snow blowing around us as we high-tailed it home. Eventually, the snow ceased to bluster. Well actually, the snow didn’t stop. We just ran away from it. However, we didn’t make it all the way home. At eight o’clock PM, we still had seven hours of driving to go. It was still freezing cold, so camping was out of the question. We pulled over and spent the night at a hotel. I was bummed that we didn’t get to see the Grand Canyon, but the whole conundrum was certainly an adventure. A nice juicy, tender story for the blog. (Side note: meat is gross.)
I guess I should tell a little more about the actual trip. We hiked. All day, every day. I completely love hiking. We were constantly surrounded by huge red rocks to admire and climb. It was pretty, but every hike felt the same as the next. No waterfalls, forests, or anything of the sort. The landscape consisted of the musty dusty brownish-red of the dirt and the dull green of cacti and joshua trees. It was all right though, different.
Anyway. My room is officially in shreds. I couldn’t even have the comfort of coming home to my own bed. Getting the carpet in and all is really taking much longer than any of us had thought. Sigh. I really miss my room. I need the atmosphere of a normal bedroom around me. My sister’s is all torn up as well, and my parents’ room is buried under all the stuff that has been ejaculated from both our rooms. Anybody want to rent out a bedroom for me? I could chop it off your house and glue it to my own. That could work. Really.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Arizona

The campsite we're staying at has Wi-Fi. Pretty cool! So, I'm writing from the warm, snuggly comfort of my sleeping bag right now, in our tent trailer, in a campsite in Sedona, Arizona. We have been driving for two days straight. Ugh. I hate sitting in a car for so long. I practiced sitting still for my flight to Europe. It's gonna be twice as long, and the only space I will be entitled to occupy will be a little chair instead of a whole backseat. It was hot and smelly coming over here. Our route happened to take us past several factories and cow-manure piles. BUT, m'darlings, I did get my kicks on Route 66. You know, it's not really much after all. If I hadn't known this was the mother road, I would have passed it off as just another highway. Once we got to a tourist town, though, they made sure you knew that this road WAS, in FACT, ROUTE 66. A strip of souvenir shops sold Route 66 T-shirts, shot glasses, metal signs, fake license plates, china plates, briefcases, hats, keychains, magnets, pins, salt-and-pepper shakers, and more. Hey, folks, how about an oven mitt printed with Route 66 sign logos to remember your trip? They were on sale at three different shops for $6.99. I actually brought ten bucks, which I thought would be enough to buy one of the signs for my room, or maybe my door. NOT. They were exactly $12.99 everywhere I looked. Pfff. (That's like, that thing you do when you blow out of your lips all annoyed-like.) I did buy a cheap souvenir-store-quality pin for my backpack. It's the Route 66 sign, nothing fancy. I've always liked the sign, even before embarking on this perilous voyage.
We ate at the Route 66 cafe, which I thought was very gimmicky of us. The place had what is considered "atmosphere." There was an old-fashioned looking red car on the roof. The inside was all done up to look like a fifties diner, complete with a blonde waitress with a poofy hairdo. I wondered briefly if she was required to do her hair that way for her job. I don't see why she'd have hair like that otherwise. There was a big TV right smack in the middle of everything, but it was tuned to men's wrestling. I couldn't watch it because of the awkwardness of staring at men rolling around on the floor grabbing each other. Even reading that probably made you squirm. Imagine watching it. Bleurgh. The bathroom stalls were made of car doors, with only a curtain to conceal yourself. The walls in there were plastered with portraits of the King, Route 66 signs, more Elvis pictures, more Route 66 signs, and a final round of Route 66 signs. My fingers started itching, and I had to clamp my hands shut to refrain from prying a sign off the wall and casually smuggling it out under my T-shirt. 
None of us really enjoyed that town too much. We were all pretty eager to get to the campsite and start setting up the trailer. It's a really nice site, there's a river right next to us. Tomorrow we hike all day, nine miles in all. Then we're going to this Indian monument thing, but I can't remember what it's called. Tozigoot? I don't know. We did go to this other Indian thing today, the Montezuma Castle. He built this thing on a mountain so as to ward off soldiers and stuff who were coming to sneak up on their Aztec tribe. It was cool, but you couldn't walk right up to it. It was about half a mile up the mountain, and once you'd stared at it for a while, you were pretty much done. We swung through the visitor's center, then got back on the road. 
Oh, I forgot to mention. Happy Easter. We bought marshmallow Peeps at a Walgreen's along the way today to celebrate. Then we roasted them over a campfire earlier tonight. It was really goood, with extra o's. The colored sugar hardened, so it was gooey marshmallow cream all spilling out of this crunchy sugar shell. Only five Peeps to a pack, though, so I only got one sticky sugar bomb to enjoy. Ah well. That was my Easter thingie. Celebration, or whatever. I'll put up the photos as soon as I return home. Probably no more posts until then, sorry... unless I find another place with Wi-Fi. Six days, y'all.

And for the record, I did dance in the middle of Route 66. My dad stopped at a minimart for a soda, so I ran out to the middle of the street and sang that Route 66 song and danced. No cars were driving along just then, so yeah. Some people stared a little, but they're probably used to it by now. Arizonians are known to be a little wacky. I felt like a local.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

SCREAM BANG BANG

My dad installed a filter into our computer. Now I can't go on YouTube or Twitter. Not that I ever used my Twitter, but still. I'm on my mom's laptop right now, so I have been soaking up as much YouTube as possible.
I came across two very terrible songs as I was browsing music videos. One was, initially, a terrible screamo headbanger mess. It made my head hurt the first time I played the video. So... wanna listen?? Anyway, I actually replayed te video a second time, and amazingly, started to enjoy the rugged screams and shrieking guitars. I was shocked with myself at first. This song was obviously rubbish, but here I was allowing myself to enjoy it. Actually, I think that's pretty hardcore of me, huh? I WAS A CREATURE BEFORE I COULD STAND!! Yeah. I think I could get into that. Then there was this one. I don't really know what "genre" that one is considered, but it was, yeah. Bad. Her voice is squealy and made my eardrums flinch. I won't allow myself to listen to it again, because I refuse to let it start appealing to me. I'm listening to Slipknot again as we speak. As we type. As I type. Augh.
I should probably post a good song, while I'm at it. I'm pretty sure none of my readers will enjoy either of those songs. This band/singer, The Script, is currently considered "indie," but I've heard one of his songs on the radio. This one is catchy, and if you listen, in the beginning he says my name! I'm a poor girl living in a rich world. Sheeyah. His other songs are okay, but the "We Cry" one is the best. Look around for the second-best, Breakeven, I'm too lazy to put the link.
Guess what? Remember our moldy floor? Well, those person-mauling, Jeni-terrorizing machines sucked it all away. But now we have to strip out all the upstairs carpet, all of it, as in, ALL of it. That means I have to pack away all my gobs of stuff, heave it all downstairs, and live in the family room. My parents, I don't even know what they're going to do. Maybe I'll have to go in the kitchen, and they take the family room. Or maybe I'll have to move in with my sister, in the dining room. I should probably be packing right now, but I have been literally all day and am sick of it.
I have a new project that I plan to get started on when I get back from Arizona. (Ellipsis...) A music video! Huzzah! Whoever you are, you probably scoff at Aly and Aj. I am one of the few people in this world who fits these two requirements: a) is over the age of eight years old and b) likes Aly and Aj. I think people just hate them because they're Disney. Yes, they're Disney. So what? The video will be set to this song. It will consist of me pulling crazy tricks in my spy outfit, me being still and creepy in my gothic/vampire get-go, me in my seventh-grade witch costume minus the hat preforming a worship-sacrifice-ritual dance, various shots of the moon, a closeup of an eye, and a clip of something burning. All this will be chopped and minced so the whole thing is intense and fervid and a little bit freaky. Cool, huh? Huh? It'll be a weekend project. It probably won't be done anytime soon.
Tomorrow I'll be off to Arizona, so this is the last post for seven days. Actually, probably eight days. I'm going bowling for Judy's little brother's birthday party on Sunday, which will probably take all day. I love her brother. He is so cute.
:)

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Seedful Seedless Grapes

Isn't it weird when you find a seed in a seedless grape? You start to distrust them, you know? It happened to me the other day. I was plucking supposedly seedless grapes out of their bag, chomping off lengthwise halves. This is how I eat grapes. One half at a time. It tastes better that way. Anyway, it's because of my strange grape-halving habit that I saw a seed. In a seedless grape. Are they crazy? If they're gonna print "Seedless Grapes" on the bag, they better make dang-blasted sure that there are, in fact, no seeds in the grapes.
Just kidding. I wasn't mad. Got'cha! I started laughing, actually, once I had pulled the seed out from the grape. I am certain any normal person would simply flick away the grape and be done with it. I pull it out, look at it, laugh at it, blog about it. But, you know, I am just that kind of gal, huh? You know what? I don't know why people buy seedless grapes. If I got my hands on a bag of non-seedless grapes, I'd pluck all of the seeds out of the grapes and plant grape trees. Then I'd make wine with my bounty of grapes and sell it in France for $650, just like at La Foret. (Click on the wine list link on the left, scroll all the way down. They have a wine for 650 bucks per bottle. Not kidding, buddy.) I'd make a huge profit. Hey, you know what? I think I'm onto something here! Because that is just the kind of entrepreneur I am.
I stopped posting songs long ago, but go ahead and listen to this one. It's muy bueno, though I don't quite know what's going on at the end there with all the creepy sound-FX-type music. Look up her other songs, too, they're all awesome. Except Fever. That one I could do without. This one is good. So is this one. I really like this one. This one too. And this one.
So, this Sunday is Easter Sunday. Just like I wasn't too pumped up for St. Patty's Day cuz I ain't Irish, this one don't mean too much to me either due to my non-Christian-ness. If I were Christian, I would wear a pretty spring dress and go to church early to help set up for the kid's Easter* egg hunt planned for that afternoon. Instead, I'll be on the road all day, headed towards the Grand Canyon. I remember when we used to have egg hunts and all that. Those were fun. We even dyed eggs one year for the happy-family-spending-time-together novelty of it. We stopped the egg hunts and Easter baskets after fifth grade, though, and now Easter Sunday pretty much just blends into all the other Sundays of the year.
(*When you're talking about easter eggs, do you say "easter egg" with a lowercase or "Easter egg" with a capital? Yeah, this is random and unnecessary, but some things I just gotta know.)
Speaking of Easter. This relates to Easter slightly, seeing as it involves cute-but-icky marshmallow Peeps. Check it out. I'm entertained by all that kind of stuff, ya know? It's just too bad she didn't eat the nachos, though. I wouldn't, but still.
Something scary happened today. There was a man sitting in a small, odd-looking orange car in front of my house when I arrived home from school today. He watched me as I went in the house. Creeeepy. I locked all the doors as soon as I got inside. Anyway, about half an hour later there was a knock at the door. I jolted, froze, then ran into the laundry room to hide. Then I changed my mind and scurried upstairs, braving past the mold-devouring machine in my room to peek out the window. The guy was walking back towards his car. Okay, it's time to insert a little fact about myself. I am paranoid, like seriously. So I snatch up the phone with the intention to dial 911. No, I wouldn't press the call button. I just wanted to have it all ready (phone in my hand, emergency number dialed) in case he busted through a window or something. He didn't. I pulled out my cellular device and called the next-best-thing to the police: my mommy. "Mom, there's a weird guy and he knocked on the door!" I whispered breathlessly into the receiver. She laughed, assured me it would be fine, and hung up. I was left with a buzzing dial tone in my ear and a heart stricken with betrayal. My mother left me here all alone, possibly to be murdered! I could almost see her weeping face on the news the next morning. "-sob- I told her it would be fine. I didn't know he was a murderer! I didn't want to leave work for what could have been nothing. -sob- But it... it wasn't nothing. It was... my daughter is dead! I could have saved her! -sob-" Then she waves the cameras away, too overwhelmed with guilt and grief to talk anymore. Huh. Actually, I still am in danger of being murdered, because nobody has come home yet and the murderer guy may still be lurking. The orange car is gone, though. But you know how those secretive murderers are. He might be crouched behind a bish in my backyard. Maybe he's right behind my left shoulder, slowly reaching out to grasp my neck and strangle me before I can turn to look. God, I'm afraid to look now. Seriously. I kept getting the "jolts" earlier. Gusts of wind kept blowing the fence open and shut with mighty bangs. I thought it was the nurderer. I had the window open upstairs, and I heard a door slam. It was just the wind blowing through the window and banging closed the door that lay parallell to it, but again, I thought it was the murderer. I seriously panicked that time, bringing a baseball bat and the phone with the pre-entered 911 with me as I cautiously ventured upstairs. Halfway up, I remembered about the window and felt profoundly stupid.
Soooo... yeah.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Bonk

I officially hate mold. Mold is ruining my house, and my head.
You know how I'm living in the guest room now? Well, we moved the table out of the dining room so my sister could live in there. There was a hanging decorative light thing that hung down over the table. With the table gone, anybody could bang their head on it. It's happened a few times already. More than a few times. Several times. Many times. Zillions of times. It hurts throbbingly for about four minutes, then you can move on with your life. However, I managed to settle myself directly under the lethal houseware without noticing as I chatted with the sis. Then I remembered that I needed to take my laundry out of the dryer. So I leaped up with great gusto to go get it. Then--BAM--my head rams into the light-thing, sending me right back down onto the floor. Ow-w-w. I hit it so hard that the glass thingies that covered the bulbs popped right out and smashed onto the ground. My sister screamed. My mom came trotting over, looked at her crouching daughter surrounded by hunks and splinters of sharp-edged broken glass, and announced, "That's a big mess." She made me vacuum it all up until she noticed my head was bleeding. I was dismissed to swab away the blood. Thanks, Mumzers.
I pressed a paper towel on my head. It came away red. I wondered a little bit why it didn't hurt more than it did. I folded another towel to press on the bloody spot. Discarded it. Pressed another. Got one wet and pressed it. Pressed one last dry one. Finally the bleeding stopped. It didn't even hurt anymore. I guess that's a good thing, huh? In the morning, the spot was crusty when I touched it. Eww. I crumbled dry blood out of my hair as I took a shower, watching in disgust as it swirled down the drain. Yuck.
If there hadn't been any mold, my sister would never have had to live in the dining room. If she hadn't, the table would still be in there, and there would have been no opportunity to clunk my head on the chandelier-type thingy. That is why I hate mold, folks. That is indeed why.
Okay, now that that relatively slapstick story is over, how about let's get serious and deep, hm? I was just thinking today. Everybody works hard to make themselves nice and kind and caring, and funny and helpful and cool and fun and, you know, all that. But if you slip up just once you lose all of that. Then you're either annoying, catty, selfish, stupid, conceited, or just generally a bad person. It only takes once to screw up, you know? And then for the rest of your life, (or at least for a sizable amount of time) you suck.
Does that make sense at all? I don't know. Just try not to screw up and you don't even have to understand it.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

It's an option

Religion Should Be An Option Not An Obligation
It's an option for me, right? Since I am non-religious. But I want to be non-non-religious.

Just thought that was cool. Though, I wonder why the "ON" didn't include the "I." ReligION should be an optION not and obligatION. Huh.

Friday, April 3, 2009

So, the toilet flooded...

Pozdrav! (A little Czech for ya there.)
You know what's really funny? I just checked the poll, and there are two votes for "Awkwardness." That means people think awkwardness is worse than sickness, worse than grief. Likewise, mates. Well, actually, I have not quite decided which is worse. You know what I think? I think this is a grand time to bring up the Awkward Incident of the Day! You know when a whole bunch of students are all jamming themselves into one classroom's doorway? And the doors are not quite wide enough for two students to walk through comfortably? Yeah. But then you and another person are about to walk through at the same time. So you both stand there, one on either side, and then you start to go both at the same time. So then you jerk back to let the other person through, but you look up to see they've done the same thing? At the same time? So you both are rocking back and forth, starting towards the door and then leaning away, before one of you can slide through and put an end to the awkward door-dance.
Anyway, you're probably squinching your little old eyebrows at the title. "SO IS THERE CRAP ALL OVER THE PLACE?" you ask in an awed whisper-shout. No. There is not. The toilet was full of nice clean water, in fact so clean that my dog prefers it over his dish of water that we fill from the nice clean sink. Who knew water could make something so gross? We'll get to that "gross" part later though. This is one heck of a yarn to spin. (I've gotta practice my Arizona yarble, y'all!)
Anyway, it happened kind of a while ago. I came home one day, and toilet water was soaking the carpet in the upstairs hallway. Uhm. That was unpleasant. We rented this odd vacuum-type contraption that sucked all the water back out, though, and we left it at that for a day or two. Then my dad started making calls to to our insurance company. He figured it's be good for them to "take a look" at the invisible ""damage."" Extra quotes around the word "damage" because whatever "damage" existed wasn't very apparent. The insurance guy was due to arrive at five o'clock last night. He finally showed up at seven thirty. We weren't so much glad to see him as much as we were plain old relieved. Look at the carpet, and then go on ahead and leave, please, buddy. But the insurance companies make their dinero off of damage, problems, trouble, and lots of it. The screwier the problem they have to deal with, the higher they can set their rates. Anyway, the dude whips out a bunch of tools and starts tearing up the carpet, peeling it away with long, painful rrrriiiiippps. We watch in horror as he shreds up the floor and invites us to feel the padding underneath. It's wet. Then he lacerates that too, and shows us the mold that has grown underneath. Eww.
This morning, we moved all the furniture out of my room. While I was at school, they tore away the rest of the carpet. My room is bare, with nothing but walls and floorboards. They put big, noisy machines in the house: one in my room, one in my sister's and one in the hall. They're sucking away all the ickies and forcing dry air into the wood to scare off the mold. Unfortunately, they also scare my dog, my cat, and me. When you open the door, it whips open for you, and if you step inside you get sucked towards the machine. I'm not even kidding, man. The things are freaky. And loud. It's like somebody is screaming at you, constantly. Big fat yellow pipes snake all across the floor, curling through the hallway and rooms like the exceptionally large snake that I plan to ride. (See post below!)
Anyway. All my stuff is in the guest bedroom, piled up in piley piles. I live in there now. We have a little couch in there, so I sleep on that. It's a little depressing, you know?
Anyway, nashledanou for now!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Career Day

April Fool’s! Today was not Career Day. It was Attitude For Achievement day. I really don’t feel like recounting all the little details of the event, but the internet is still BROKEN anyway, so who cares? We all took a personality quiz to see what type of person we all were. I am Analytical. I am quiet and withdrawn, I pay attention to details, I like facts and figures. That’s what the quiz said, not me. So I suppose I should be, like, an engineer or accountant or something. Too bad, suckas, I’m still gonna be an editor. Speaking of “I’m gonna,” I was reintroduced to John Goddard today. He wrote down a whole bunch of stuff he wanted to do in his lifetime, then did it. He climbed mountains and kayaked rivers and studied ancient languages and visited a zillion different places in a zillion different countries and all that. We were supposed to be awed, inspired, and “wow-I-can-do-that-too,” but I am Analytical and reasonable. Who in the world has the moola to fly to all these countries? To buy all the survival equipment to explore all these rivers and rainforests, climb all those mountains, and everything? This guy must be the richest dude in the world. I am so serious.
Anyway, I did make a list of impossible “goals,” just for fun. Here it is:
  • Learn to write and speak Mayan
  • Touch the bottom of the ocean
  • Place a bed on surface of a lake or pond. Nap on bed.
  • Ride a cheetah.
  • Ride a dolphin.
  • Ride an exceptionally large snake.
  • Sleep on top of a big furry polar bear.
  • Stand on the equator and see if it’ll take me all around the world.
  • Travel to North and South poles. Drive red and white striped poles on either end.
  • Create a large air bubble in the Pacific ocean and become a legal citizen of said bubble.
  • Learn to flamenco dance in Madrid.
  • Set up a new system of government in a government-less country. Appoint a feline as president.
  • Go to Pluto (Asteroid 85347 or whatever) and put up a flag that says: WE MISS YOU! IT COST A LOT OF MONEY TO REPRINT ALL THOSE SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS!
Who decided to make Pluto a non-planet anyway? It always seemed so cute and shy: the furthest planet, the smallest planet. I think if I were ever to marry a planet, it would be Pluto. So basically, the same gang of scientists that decided Pluto was too dainty to be a planet was the gang of scientists killed my husband. That is so not cool.

Belated Post

Sorry I haven't been posting, guys. My internet was screwed up. Here is one post that I wrote a few days ago:

In case you were wondering, there are only 78 more days until Europe. I have bad news about the trip, though: we were meant to go on a cruise of the Greek islands, but that part got cancelled. One of the other school that was to go with us backed out because they didn’t have enough students sighned up. Sigh. Comfort finds its way into my broken heart from the fact that this means the cost of the trip will be MUCH cheaper. More money for, you know, college and everything.
I am actually probably not going to post this for a long time from now. My internet connection has not been cooperating, but my handy-dandy daddy will come to the rescue, perhaps. Otherwise, you can say bye-bye to this blog for a few weeks. Kisses. My life, as it stands, is interesting enough that I have some STUFF to tell y’all. For instance, Career Day is tomorrow. (For instance. Who says that? Who on this life-sustaining planet says that? Me, apparently. Sorry for indulging in such a geeky phrase.) Anyway, I am not entirely sure as to what the heck Career Day is, but I suppose I’ll just find out, now won’t I? We don’t even have to bring our backpacks to school, which proves what an uneducational day this is bound to be. I actually have my future all carved out in stone already, so I’m all set. I am going to be an editor and wear flat black shoes, pencil skirts, and ponytails at the nape of my neck to the office. I’ll live in a little apartment and cook for myself. I will buy eggs, milk, pasta, vegetables, bread, and Craisin trail mix at the grocery store. I’ll have a cat and a big TV that I’ll never watch. Then I will retire to a creepy old mansion at the top of a dark and foreboding hill. I will obtain seventy-four additional cats to roam about the scraggly trees surrounding my house, cast warped shadows on the walls, and create mysterious silhouettes in the windows. I won’t go out of the house, not even for groceries, which is a big sacrifice because I love grocery shopping more than anything in the world except maybe boxed cake mix and electric pencil sharpeners. I’ll kill my cats and eat them for nourishment.
So, yeah. I have all that planned out, so who needs Career Day? Not me, no ma’am! I think I already detailed my future here on the blog, but I can’t be sure because I don’t file the archives in my brain. I think I changed it a little bit. We were cordially invited to the Eighth Grade Promotion Dance at the end of the year today. Evil little envelopes were handed to us in sixth period. I imagined all the horrible things I could do to torture the envelope, and settled upon burning it at the stake as I walked home from school. I did not tie it to a stake. I placed it in a disposable pie tin. Would you believe it took me a box and a half of matches to get that sucker to burn? The wind kept gusting out big whooshes of air as soon as I got a match lit. The times that I could actually get the match to the paper proved to be worthless because all the damage it did were a few brown burn marks. After fifteen minutes of pure sweat and blood, all I had was an envelope that looked like a toasted marshmallow. One match caught, finally, and I sat back in relief to watch the paper get reduced to crinkly sections of charred black ruin. The orange flame ate through the paper slowly. A breeze carried it out of the pie tin, but I smacked the burning mess down with an aluminum rod until the entire thing was nothing but ash. A very sophisticated sacrificial burning. It was kind of pretty, all crinkly and black with orange glowing through. Not pretty enough to erase from my mind the knowledge that the thing was burning hot. I attacked it with a hose, then got to work picking up all the burnt-out matches scattered across the pavement.
Yesterday, my sister had her softball pals come over to eat dinner. They have these things, these “team bonding” meals, every once in a while. One of the girls on the team feeds the rest of the team. It seems like a good idea on the surface. But whoever thought it up did not take into consideration the antisocial little sisters who do not care for obnoxious ninth graders any teammates may happen to have. I was in the backyard bemoaning the event. When the clock struck five, I stuck my head into the house from the back door and hollered, “HAVE ANY OF THEM COME YET?” Then, and only then, did I look up. They all looked down at me. Whoops. I slam the door closed, grab my softball bag, and decide to head to my six o’clock practice an hour early. I couldn’t go through the house, though, and there were more of, shudder, THEM at the side gate. That left me with one option: clambering over the wooden fence. I tossed my bag over, then hoisted myself up on a raised garden bed. With the help of a nearby tree, I got one leg onto the fence. It was like an awkward game of Twister in midair. One leg was hanging down, the other was bent with one foot planted on the top of the fence, and my arms were clutching onto two different branches in the tree. This was, in fact, a predicament. I got over alive, though. But I had an hour to kill. I went to Bret Harte and wandered around for forty-five minutes, then went down to the creek and read the graffiti. People had these cute little conversations with each other, and it made me laugh when I read them. Two girls walked by as I was laughing. Here I am, all alone, sitting on this piece of concrete, laughing. That must have looked strange. Just another awkward incident in my life.
I hope the internet stops screwing with me and I can post this soon. Au revoir, mon cheries.