Trip Down Memory Lane

No, Mark, I will not be breaking out into song.

Remember those days when we were kids around nine or ten and we just over-exaggerated EVERYTHING! The carpeting in the living room was really lava. Our parents were aliens. Our teachers were really FBI or witches out to get us. Well, I was going through some old writing stuff and came across a re-telling of one of my childhood stories. It was an assignment we did in English that required us to compare a story from our childhood to a fairy tale or myth. I chose Pandora's Box because it was the only thing I could think to even barely put against a story from my childhood. I posted it below mainly because I feel like making my page as hard to load as possible and it's nice and lengthy.

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus the god of craftsmanship, to create her and he did, using water and earth. The gods endowed her with many talents; Aphrodite gave her beauty, Apollo music, Hermes persuasion, and so forth. Hence her name: Pandora, "all-gifted". When Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus' brother. With her, Pandora had a jar which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the jar, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing which lay at the bottom, and that was Hope.
My Pandora’s Box did not contain all the evils of the world nor did opening it threaten to reshape the universe. Pandora, also, was not the one my box was entrusted to. My older cousin Kate kept herself a separate room in the shed behind her grandmother’s house. She was often our “sitter”. Of course, though she was supposed to have been watching us, she was, more often than not, locked up in her spare room. So, my friends and I were left to our own devices. Despite this rather wonderful freedom we’d been gifted by my cousin’s laziness, we had such deep rooted curiosity, as children often do at a young age, that we spent most of that time devising plans for breaking into her padlocked room.
Earlier that year, her boyfriend, a carpenter‘s son, had added an extra layer of wood around the outside of the shed. My aunt had complained that Kate’s music could be heard from the house and wanted the volume lowered. In addition to my cousin’s laziness, she was also stubborn, so instead of turning it down, she set Joseph to work insulating the structure. This added an extra level of difficulty to our goal because then we couldn’t tell if she was inside or not as well as excluding several of the plans we’d come up with, the likeliest to be successful being the one that included the removal of a loose board at the back end of the building.
Faced with this new dilemma, we returned to the drawing board to concoct yet another plan to access the, by then, mystical dwelling. (Imagination runs rapid in such circumstances.) It took us several weeks to develop a solution to each hindrance. Telli, our Spy, was posted behind the trees in the backyard to keep an eye on Kate’s comings and goings so we could create a schedule. Sare, our Strategist, used this information to work out our plan of action while I set to work procuring the needed supplies, including the “invitations” to Telli’s sleepover. (Telli lived next door.)
It turned out, however, that Kate inadvertently moved up our plans while simultaneously making things easier for us. On Monday of the following week after our plan had been perfected, she told us that on Tuesday night, when she would be “watching” us while all the parents went to bingo, she had a sleepover, herself. Aware in that way that older kids are, she warned us sternly to stay away from the shed. “You’ll regret getting in there, trust me,” she said. The next day, Telli reported that the padlock on the shed had broken and Mike had nailed up a thin board over the door. “Doesn’t matter,” I told her, “It shouldn’t be hard to take down. It’s only up for the night to keep us out, so it’s probably loose.”
“Okay, now what?” Sare asked. “We wait. Bingo starts at 4:30. Katie leaves at five. It gets dark at six. Our parents’ll be back at eight. We’ll meet by the shed at 6:30,” I replied. At the time, the entire thing had seemed quite simple and rational to me. After the brief exchange, Telli had returned across the yard to her own house where she intended to keep watch from an unsuspicious distance, Sare walked across the street to her house where she was to destroy our Plan Papers ( because at ten, we firmly believed the FBI would somehow find out), and I went to our own little hideout in my aunt’s garage where I finished gathering our supplies: two hammers to take down the board, a brick to place in the doorway to hold the door open, nails to nail the board back up when we left, several flashlights, and small bag with various basically useless items we had anticipated possibly needing in the case of uncontrollable incidents such as Kate’s sudden return, a random gang shootout, or an alien invasion. (Again, imagination runs rapid at that age. Believe it or not, there was even a needle and thread in that pack in case one of us was stabbed by a pirate with a sword and needed the wound sewn up.)
The only time before 6:30 that any of us went near the shed that day was at around 10, while Kate was still asleep to quickly sneak out to place the somewhat heavy load of supplies in the trees outside of the shed. By 6:25, we were all there, hiding in the trees. (Despite the fact that the only ones who could have caught us was the neighborhood boys our age that didn’t care, we acted as if we were breaking into the Pentagon.) Telli and I took the two hammers from the bag we’d borrowed from the garage, chosen for the fact that is was old and if we had to leave it, it couldn’t be identified as one of ours. (Yes, I know, silly.) As Telli and I set to work removing the four nails used to place the board diagonally across the door, Sare began a walkaround of the shed, for security purposes of course, until the sun finally sank below the horizon and we called her over to hold the flashlight.
It didn’t take long to remove the board and lower it silently into the hidyhole amongst the trees. We placed the napkin with the new nails wrapped in it on top of the board along with the two hammers. Telli shouldered the bag and the three of us prepared to open the door. But as Sare pulled on the handle, it opened only an inch or two. Peering into the crevice, I saw a chain at the top of the door.
“Ah, the unanticipated inner lock,” I hissed. “Telli, fish into that bag and grab a pencil. Sare, go and get me that crate up against the fence between Telli’s house and this one. Oh, take a flashlight.”
The plot was clear-cut, simple. I just had to stand on the crate and work the chain free with the pencil. It went quite smoothly and after a few minutes of poking and grumbling, the chain slipped off with a tiny clang. Climbing down, I moved the box aside and we prepared, once again, to enter the room. “First thing first girls, weapons,” we heard a voice say quite suddenly.
You’ve got to be kidding, we thought, caught before we even went inside.
I recognized the voice. It was my cousin, Greg. He was a few years older than Kate. Telli pointed him out, standing on the other side of the shed.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I don’t care if you break into my sister’s getaway. I’m jus’ warning you to be careful.” That was all he said before walking off down the street. We stared after him. Streetlights made the road visible. Several of his highschool friends waited there, beers in hand.
“Okay,” I said, “ready?”
“What if he’s right?” Telli asked urgently.
“Jeez, Telli,” Sare griped, “you know he’s just a jerk.”
“What do you think’s in there anyway?” I laughed.
“The Boogie man?” Sare joined.
Arrogantly, she and I reached for the handle again, this time the door swinging open swiftly. The moment it opened, we looked into the dark room and a low, harsh-sounding growl rose as if from the floorboards and something lunged at us. We slammed the door , screamed and took off in three separate directions. (All of us ran for our own houses, I found out the next day when we all spoke.)
It’s safe to assume that Kate found out what we’d done, since we ran off without putting the board back and leaving not only the nails and hammers on the ground, but Telli went only a few feet before she dropped the bag to run faster. Laughing hysterically, Kate told us the next day that the “beast” inside the shed was a stray dog and it had only lunged at us because it was guarding a litter of four puppies.

Oh, btw. My life sucks right now. Thought I'd add that in somewhere. Like Hell in a Handbasket sucky too.

*slaps self*

Procrastination is SO bad. I know this. I'm completely and utterly aware of the fact. Tomorrow, I have part of my senior project due. What am I doing right now when none of it is done? Playing on my blog! Hell, I created a wishlist! The hours are going by pretty fast and I have all kinds of things to do today. I repeat, PROCRASTINATION is BAD!

2/3/09

NIEH!!!

What the hell, Universe?

As the great philosopher Garfield said, "I hate Mondays." This week, Tuesday isn't exactly my favorite either. Out of Midol, missing school, headache from Hell, dishes to do, homework to finish, cramps that are having a field day I like to call 'Little Katrina' going on in my poor defenseless body. What the hell, Universe? You can't spread these kicks to the teeth out over a week-long period or something? No, wait. You can't do that. You have all kinds of other crap planned for the other six days of the week I can't miss out on. So, nevermind. I'm gonna sit here, bite my tongue in an attempt to ignore the pain, skip the dishes, whine into the phone to whoever I guilt into listening to me, blog angrily to Hinder's Get Stoned, and contemplate bashing my brains in with a book. Ok, maybe not that last one, but you get the point.

When I Was Young

Ok, so I'm not exactly getting up there in the years but the point is that I feel like it. Kinda. I miss when I used to go out on the weekends. I miss when I wasn't juggling all the cooking, housework, animals, homework and everything else like a clown playing with chainsaws. It sounds absolutely horrible to say but the only thing about my mom leaving that is really bothering me is that I'm always exhausted and weak from life. I hate it. I especially hate it because there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I'm going to show it. Anyone whose been here knows that the real backbreaker is the acting tough. Pretending to be strong is what finally kicks us in the knees and knocks us to the ground. And I am just so eagerly anticipating that. Having to play part-time mother and housewife on top of Senior Project and college prep is starting to make my head feel like a shaken up snowglobe after a three year old has discovered it and vigorously beat it to death in that way that three-year olds are prone to doing. Man, I never thought I'd agree with a commercial. Life really does come at you fast. And it goes by a hell of a lot faster. I feel like I've been chasing after a huge bus that has LIFE written on the side and about four hundred seventy three miles later, I just realized I really don't want to catch up. The only problem is that the line of people behind me chasing after it to with a big sign over their heads that reads SOCIETY won't let me stop and drag along behind. I have to keep running or get trampled to death. Stupid survival instinct. No matter how tempted I am to get trampled, I'm still running.

Freezing my-ooh, look a dead kitty!

You ever hated the world? Yep, yep. You ever hated everyone around you just for being people? Just passed that roadmarker. You ever hated the world and its damn people so much you want to be magically swept off to a secluded cabin in the middle of fricken Alaska with no other living thing but your dog and a multitude of hungry wolves and bears waiting outside to eat you? Well, if your answer was yes, welcome to the cozy little cell in Tartarus where I'm making that wish. Drafty cabin, ten minutes of sunlight, lots of books, and a companion that can't talk? Oh yeah, that's paradise. Frostbite aside, totally what I'm looking for.

Blah...

That's right. Blah.

There would be a random picture but I'm on my sister's computer which means no good pictures.

Double blah with a side of grrr and an extra sprinkle of Nieh!

Dear Amanda?

Seriously? What the hell? Mark, are you really going to start every posting with 'Dear Amanda'? Can't you throw in an occasional, 'Dear Sharkey' or a 'Dear Morgan'? Hey. John Lennon's available for listening. Kinda.

http://dear-amanda-central.blogspot.com

In case you don't want to scroll down far enough to see my list of blogs to follow.

My Way of Checking if Mark read anything

You're on the phone with me. Say "Flustered Flobberworm" or "Boo!" if you find that easier.

Stupid Boredom Fairy

There is nothing worse than being bored. Tie me up to a tree and give me ten minutes to get loose before you set the tree on fire. That would be totally preferable. At least I wouldn't be bored, now would I? Having abosolutely nothing to do is torturous. Seriously. And it makes you say stupid things. Total boredom usually ends in calling up someone you don't talk to that often and rambling on about nothing important and saying things you'll regret later just to say something. At this point in the boredom, you're usually annoyed and therefore will sound that way. The Boredom-Fairy is somewhere laughing her damn sparkly wings off at all the people suffering from her blasted fairy dust!

Valentine's Day Shopping

GRRR!!! I hate this holiday! But it is hilarious! Expensive, evil, and hilarious! I went to four different stores. For two different people! Hey, Cupid, get your arrow-shooting arse down here and give Hallmark's advantage-taking butt a piece of your mind, would ya? Geez!

Follow the damn butterflies, would ya?

Ron would have been oh so ecstatic if someone had said that to him instead of the ever-popular "follow the spiders" line. That worked out great, didn't it? Nearly eaten by the King Kong of the Spider-world and saved by a car with a mind of its own?





You may be asking why this is relevant.





It isn't.





It's entirely random.





Haha. I win.





Why?





Because you read it.





So there.

Taking A Stab At Something New

You ever notice how sometimes you try something new just to try it and you turn out to be good at it? Or you might suck on vacuum-sucking levels but the point is that it is important to try because you might be really good at it.

So, I took a long-awaited stab at non-magical romantic comedy. According to my critic/friend, it's the best thing she's read of mine. (Which is saying something for her because not only has she read most of my stuff but she REALLY loves some of the other pieces.)

So, that's pretty cool. I think I'll keep stabbing at this one. Now as long as it doesn't bleed all over my shoes...

Life Lesson

Hey there, here's a newsflash for the world. Are you aware that there is a difference between cancelling on someone and standing them up? If you don't, you'd better learn it because it's an important one. I never get angry at someone for cancelling on me, but if you don't let me know you're not showing up until after the fact, then I get a little annoyed. If, this dreaded statement, something comes up, let the person know that something came up, otherwise, YOU'RE NOT CANCELLING! THAT'S STANDING SOMEONE UP! It's past the rude line and in the sector of 'pisses people off'. Have the decency to at least leave a message or something. Don't call a day or two later and say, "Oh yeah, I forgot. Something came up." You know what I'm going to say to you then? "Uh, yeah, I kinda noticed when you didn't show up that you didn't show up. Thanks, Sherlock. What would I do without you?" It's a courtesy thing. You may have missed the manners course they fed to us in like first grade but you should have enough common sense to know that people don't like it when you make plans and break them WITHOUT ANY NOTICE! No one over the age of fifteen can honestly they say they've never seen someone get upset because they weren't informed of broken plans. If you can, you're either a monk or literally living with a troll beneath a bridge somewhere and even that I don't buy because I'm guessing that the monk, though he didn't show it, got a little peeved when monk #2 was supposed to drop by for a little bible study and never showed and the troll probably reacted like a real jerk when the goats were twenty minutes late for crossing to better pastures! (Yes, bible study actually means bible study. You know, with that big book. I don't mean monk #1 and monk #2 are off to the local pub for a round of beers.) Digressing...

Still digressing...

Breath in, breath out...

Ok, so life lesson for the day, kids. If you make plans with someone and you decide you're not showing up, LET THEM KNOW!!! Don't be rude. Our generation has enough of a bad reputation. Let's prove them wrong. Let's pretend some of us have manners.

Because I Need One Today

HAPPY LIST PART II

Night prowls with flashlights on Halloween

sighs and whisperings

going barefoot around the house

compulsions

singing in the shower and when you
think no one can hear

window seats and bready-smelling
mazes of bookracks

stockings hung from the chimney
with care

a warm crackling fire

a walk down a pine-needled path

daydreamers

checking the faces of departing movie-
goers in an attempt to determine the
quality of the film

infatuation kept under wraps

killer Scrabble games

being the only group of friends
in the movie theater

list-lovers

spending time in the baby's nursery after
everyone is sleeping

when the sky has lost the sunlight
but not yet found the stars

the study of wind-resistance conducted by
holding a cupped hand out the
car window

poinsettias

the first frost coming without a whisper

achievements

the habit of making distinctions

bringing beauty and meaning into life

singing in a choir

Never Make Plans

You ever notice how if you slave over plans for a big day and look forward to it for weeks and work really hard to set up for it and then...something comes up. I don't get mad about it. I just get annoyed with myself. I mean, geez! What's wrong with me? Why would I get my hopes up? I know perfectly well that nine times out of ten, things just don't go my way. Why bother getting all the chores done and getting up early to get said chores done so I won't be busy on day of big event (or small look-forward to event. Whatev) when I know it's probably not happenin'? Because I'm young, stupid, and female. And as a feminist, I should slap myself for saying that but let's be honest here. As a girl, though feminist I may be, I can't help myself. We get excited, we aim to please, and we worry. That's what it's like when we have a friend over, have a cousin over, have Great-Aunt Barb who can't hear anymore over. And it's worse during the holidays! Oh my god, it's worse. We turn into housewife, Santa's helper, Martha Stewart, Betty Crocker freaks of holiday-induced nature. I don't care if you're some little gothic princess who paints pentacles on your shoes to piss off "the man", you get the holiday jitters like every other woman and you may deny it to the very core of your bones, but you have the urge to bake cookies too! It's like it's attached to our DNA. So thank you, holidays! Now I have a kitchen table covered in desserts I'll never be able to finish off, a refridgerator filled to the brim with leftovers, thank-you cards I need to write coming out of my ears and one hell of a mess to clean up including a Christmas tree, stockings, and lights of all kinds. What did I do this cold Friday morning? (Btw, why the hell did Christmas have to fall on a Thursday?) I got up early this morning, like before seven, on a day I'm supposed to be on vacation, to clean up all the mess left from holiday havoc and midway through I get the lovely message "something came up." So, you know what? I'm cleaning up Saturday. Afternoon. Late afternoon. What's my message today, folks? NEVER make plans!

Oh, and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. ;)

Oh, the Art of Weakness

Ok, so I haven't ranted in a while. Well, on the blog, anyway. So, what's my fantastic topic of discussion, you ask? Here it is: Infallible, invulnerable, perfect characters. Now, I'm not saying, I don't have the same urge to make my characters totally awesome, no embarrassing moments, no screw ups, not a single thing wrong with them. Unfortunately, who the hell can relate to that? There has to be something. They have to have flaws. They can't be perfect. I know, sad, but true. Don't write a perfect character. Throw in some semblance of humanity. Yes, even if your character is a green, eight-eyed monster with purple hair. There has to be some little something. It can be subtle. By all means, go for subtle if the character isn't our main one. But, yes there's a but, our main character has to have layers. And by layers, I mean, the human-mind kind not the parade float flower kind of layers. Humanity is necessary for a character's survival. Even the big baddies get it. Look at Darth Vader. Big, bad, and you guessed it, semblance of humanity.

Interesting Words Pretty Much Rock

ambrosia: food of the gods, which conferred immortality.

glowworm: a wingless female beetle which emits a greenish light

knave: a petty rascal

obelisk: a tall four-sided pillar

sumptuary: relating to expense

trepidation: confused alarm

demagogue: a leader of the people

hirsute: hairy;shaggy

rostrum: beak of a bird

par: state of equality

besom: a brush of twigs

ciliary: belonging to or of the nature of eyelashes

fuddle: to make stupid by drink

jettison: to throw overboard

quixotic: chivalrous to extravagance

mealy-mouthed: inclined to hypocrisy

zoolite: an animal substance petrified or fossil

eyrie: an aerie; nest of a bird of prey

imbroglio: an intricate and perplexing state of affairs

nostrum: a quack medicine

unction: act of anointing

lilt: to sing cheerfully

Everyone Should Have A Happy List

Happy List December 3rd, 2008

playing Clue

wandering the fairgrounds

walking along the beach at night


seaweed tapestries woven w/shells, fish bones, feathers, etc.


magic show


oak spiral staircases

a street full of bookstores and galleries

the sound of the wind

wandering into an antique furniture store

out-of-reach cabinets

drawbridges

climbing a tree to do some constructive day-dreaming

sunlight streaming through the trees

instant poker parties

music boxes

motorcycles

antique trunks

looking down from a ferris wheel

tying your hair back with ribbons

tree houses

long phone calls

sleeping with a jacket over you

stargazing

rainstorms

fireplaces

the smell of the sea

friends

Before I Die

I was asked to write a Before-I-Die List so I thought I'd post it since I prefer typing anyway. Yes, yay. For me, at least. No, it's not realistic. What's the point of realistic goals? These are things we want to do, not things we're going to do. It's fun, really.

1) Become fluent in Latin, Gaelic, and French. (So not likely.)
2) Become a mother. (Even less likely.)
3) See my Celtic homelands. (Eh, maybe.)
4) Conquer the art of walking in high heels.
5) Lose enough weight to make me not gag in front of a floorlength mirror. (What? I can dream.)
6) Have a job that pays enough to let me pay the bills, keep the kitchen half-filled, and leave enough left to buy little spoil-them gifts for my godchildren.
7) Publish a novel. (Still dreaming)
8) Give one spectacular piece of advice. (It could happen.)
9) Be remembered for good reason.
10) Successfully cook a perfect Thanksgiving turkey.
11) Dedicate a room in my house to my own personal library. (Ok, this is rather likely.)
12) Finish all the novels I've started, if only for myself.
13) Get my degree.
14) Teach British Lit and Creative Writing.
15) Come back and live in my hometown.
16) Visit Disneyworld.
17) Have a pet turtle, two parakeets, several dogs and cats, and an aquarium of fish.
18) Have one peaceful day.
19) Go to a Journey Concert.
20) Go to the SuperBowl.