Frets of AAAAH

Perfectionism is something that I strive for. I have always aimed to be better than everyone else at everything, and while I rarely accomplish that, I am usually pretty proud of what I have done. "Practice makes perfect" was an adage lodged into my brain at five, and I have never been able to shake it off completely.

But.

One downside to my quest for spotless, holy glory is that whenever I can't get something after practicing, I begin to lose it. I begin to doubt everything I've ever stood for. I fail at things I used to be good at before, like writing or standing up.

Like now.

I recently started learning how to play the guitar, like every teenager who thinks they're cool because they know how to play guitar (only I am hopefully not that annoying, because I hate people who can play three chords on the guitar and suddenly they think they're Paul fricking McCartney, and one of my fears when I started this was that I would become one of those).

And I can't get it.

I can play a bunch of chords, and I have good hands for guitar (because they're man hands, according to Ginger... *shakes head bitterly*) but I can't...you know...actually play guitar. I can play chords individually, but when I put them together, they sound like Death is skinning a drugged hyena. My fingers can't move fast enough.

And the thing is, even with all of the practicing, I can't get it. I can't get it! And I'm beginning to wonder if I am just being too hard on myself because I started a short while ago, or if I just suck at instruments and should give up now before somebody dies due to my atrocious playing, or if it just takes longer for some people to stop wanting to lie on the floor and die every time I they mess up a chord change.

Muse for Today:

This is wonderful. He's obviously making up for his stupid name.

(Source: http://thecountercurseisunjellify.tumblr.com)

Why Don't I Finish Anything?

While I was watching this video from nerimon, I was reminded of Brain Crack.
What?
Yes.
Brain Crack is an idea that these guys stole from this other guy, but it wasn't really thievery, they just talked about zefrank's idea, so it's just like citing your sources, and I hate this sentence because it's a nightmare, and basically the whole idea is (as Alex explained in the video...unless you just scrolled by it without a legitimate reason to skip it, in which case I despise but completely relate to you) is when you get an idea, and your brain cannot immediately work on it, and you keep working away at it in your head, thinking about it, and perfecting it to the point that you are never, ever going to finish it. Or start it. And your brain becomes addicted to thinking about the possible conception of this idea, like a drug.
Oh.
So there's a name for it.
Because I have these ideas all the time, which it is one of the things I loathe about myself. I have never finished anything that I like, but I have all of these good ideas that I never even start.
Sometimes, it's because:

• I am distracted in World Studies/Math/English, and I think of some idea obviously  sent from Heaven itself (yeah, that's right), and then I can't do anything about it, because I am in school. I can never start just randomly doing something in class, because I am sure to get caught or miss something that might be on the final.

Other times, it is because:

• I'm outrageously lazy and don't like doing stuff.

Which is bad, bad, bad and really has no excuse except that everyone's doing it Mom my God just leave me alone so I can listen to the sound of my teenage angst alone in my room.

Is there some sort of cure for Brain Crack? Do you have any Brain Crack ideas?

Pretty much every single story I've ever attempted to write is Brain Crack, which goes like this:

"I really like that idea about the ninja princess unicorns who, like, team up with Medusa and, like, go mess up Atlantis. That's a pretty cool idea that, like, everyone will love! People, like, love Atlantis! I am so full of ambition and drive! LET'S DO THIS!"

Two days later:

"I'm kind of bored. What should I do? Maybe write that ninja princess unicorn story that I wanted to write a few days ago? I said I would start that, but then I did something unimportant...maybe I should do that?"

*goes on Internet instead*

Three weeks later:

"Princess...ninja...unicorns? WHY DO I BOTHER THINKING AT ALL? I HATE EVERYTHING."

Three weeks and one day later:

"So I had this totally cool idea, right? There are, like, sea turtles, and they're, like, waiters for this diva of a rooster..."

Quote for Wednesday, June 15, 2011:

Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart.

-John Dryden

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Dryden#Absalom_and_Achitophel_.281681.29)

Muse for Today:

I am sick of the Internet, and I think I am alone in this opinion.

Snob

My return to school this year has made me into... a snob. Or an anti-snob, which is in and of itself pretty snobby. There are too many snobs. Snob. Now it doesn't sound like a word. Snob snob snob.

It has sapped all of my time- well, not really. Combined with my general laziness and my slight lack of time, I have not blogged in some time. It took a bit of cajoling to win back my sponsor. They pay me tens of theoretical dollars. I can't forgo that money, my sirs and madams.

I am an anti-Abercrombie-&-Fitch snob, which means that if I ever stop wasting my time and start doing something worthwhile, they will NEVER sponsor me. I really hate the brand, even if it is begrudgingly well made, because it symbolizes everything I hate. Most of my childhood hatred can be summarized in Abercrombie & Fitch. It symbolizes vapidity to me, the idea of buying something just so you can have the tiny logo on your shirt pocket, bragging to everybody that you just paid $48 for a t-shirt that's so thin you'll pull holes in it by Week 5. Without the logo, the shirt would be costing a lot less. I hate it. I HATE IT.

I am, in general, a snob. But I am a Harry Potter snob almost more than anything.

I hate it when people only watch the movies and don't read the books (what's the point?), I hate it when people watch one movie and they declare themselves 'a fan' (the fact that you own five Hot Topic shirts with Rupert Grint's face on them is, while admirable, NOT directly related to you being a fan), and worst of all, I hate annoying Harry Potter fans who feel the need to rub their Harry Potter lovin' in everybody's faces. We get it, Irritating-Girl-in-My-Math-Class. You've read the books "forty-two times each! I SO wanna go!"

See if I care. Go on, ask me if I care.

NO.

But worst of all is:

"I can't wait to go! My friend got us tickets and everything! So which movie is it? Five?" (True story, by the way.)

AAARGH. Give ME the tickets!

I am also a clothes snob, but I am the worst kind of all- I am a hypocritical clothes snob. I care more about what other people wear than what I wear. Like K. (Remember K, my brother who I represent with a fake initial?) I care very much about what he wears, which makes him want to walk outside in a pair of shabby clown pants and only one suspender.

I wish I owned suspenders. But two, at least.

Quote for Thursday, November 18, 2010:

It is impossible, in our condition of Society, not to be sometimes a Snob.

-William Makepeace Thackeray

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/snob.html)

Muse for Today:

I am so tired that I cannot decide whether 'Thackeray' is an awful last name or a good one, and whether coupling it with 'Makepeace' makes it better or worse.

One More Thing

Oh. Right. Guess who hasn't read the Atlantis Complex yet? And guess who else is rubbing it in my face by blogging about it? All the time?

(This is, in case you hadn't noticed, a VERY SORE SUBJECT.)

How Embarrassing.

I am clumsy and quiet, which translates that I embarrass myself a lot.

Which is somewhat counterproductive, because the whole bloody point of being quiet is to minimize all embarrassing moments. Does this work? No. Not if you go to my school, where everyone from four years down to four years up knows your name.

Usually, I have no excuse for the stupid things I do. They usually involve dancing, because I could not dance to save my life, although I have yet to find a situation in which I would need to dance in order to save my life. Can you imagine that?

Evil Villain: All right. I have captured you for some unfathomable reason, because you neither hold exceptional power, intelligence, beauty, or money.

Me: That sounds reasonable. And kind.

EV: Now that I have you and am waiting for a response to my ransom note, I will need you to do something.

*dramatic pause*

Else you shall DIE.

*dramatic pause*

I shall need you to dance.

Me: What?!

EV: Go on! The Worm? The Macarena? The fist pump? Anything! Your doom awaits!

THEN I would die. But nothing that desperate has happened to me yet. Still, it just so happens that most, if not all of my embarrassing moments occurred because of dancing, clothing, sneezing, exiting or entering rooms at inappropriate times, and one time, cornbread and Snapple. I don't even remember what happened, just that cornbread and Snapple were involved somehow and that it seemed quite scarring.

Not scarring enough if you've forgotten, says my mind.

Shut up, mind. I am trying to tell a story here, and your comments are not helping. You've already put me horribly off track. Look. I was talking about dancing and now I'm talking about cornbread. Shame on ye.

Ah yes. The embarrassing moments that I push myself into hardly count. I don't even remember those. The ones that other people do to me (which also mostly involve dancing) are the ones I remember best, like a time in the sixth grade that I have only ever told B about. That was scarring.

THIS one. Involves DANCING. It is making me so ANGRY and ANNOYED and SCARED that it is CAUSING me to CAPITALIZE important words.

I don't want to. BLEH.

I will let you know if I survive with my dignity intact. (Which I won't.)

Quote for Thursday, May 20, 2010:

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.

No one dances sober, unless he is insane.

-Cicero, Pro Murena (Ch. vi, sec. 13).

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dancing

)

Muse for Today:

The fact that school ends in FIVE DAYS and that my gym clothes smell like they were dipped in perfume concentrate because of the Girls' Locker Room, even though my socks smell bad.

And this, which is a t-shirt design that I wish I'd made:

What do I love?

• Right now? Not much.

I'm still running off of yesterday. The hatred is still present. Hopefully not perpetually, because that would make me an angry teenager. That is too cliche for me. And I don't know how to be a goth.

Humans are Stupid

I think that the idea of people was bad and then it just went downhill from there. I mean, what do people do? Consume more than they produce. Pollute. Bully. Fight wars. Cut down rain forests. Take over everything. Drive H2s. Leave the lights on and the water running. Leave fast-food wrappers lying around. Have two people living in McMansions made for a small army.

And what do, say, monkeys do? They can't drive! They don't have running water or electricity! They live in the darn rain forests! They live in harmony with the environment, while humans just fight against it. What do we do so we can live? Displace animals and cut down trees and drain lakes and rivers and...and...

I need to shut up.

I apologize for this rant (actually, it wasn't a very long rant. If you watch me, I could make a whole blog ranting about book banners and genocide and people I hate and embarrassing things they make us do in school like ballroom dancing, for crying out loud! What if I'm not going to the dance? Do I need to do it then, huh? Huh? HUH?) but people make me so angry. Let's take a boy who lives down the street from me. I'll call him... Boy Who Lives Down the Street From Me. BWLDTSFM is a hapless, obnoxious character, but otherwise he is okay. Somewhat. No, not really, but he...no. Anyways. Let's pretend that he has some redeemable qualities.

BWLDTSFM is a chronic litterer. Since he lives down the street from me, he goes on my bus and he is constantly chucking food wrappers and water bottles out of the window.

(On an entirely unrelated note, have you noticed that boys often spit? Like donkeys, they'll sometimes just turn their heads to the side or open the window and spit. K is starting to do this, although he is a young 'un. Why? Girls usually just swallow their saliva. How come boys can't?)

I hate him. He will one day slip on wrappers and die and I will think "I told you so!"

Another thing. Do you know how sometimes you drive by a car that has its windows open and it's blasting the music so that everyone on Jupiter is annoyed? Well, why do you always hear rap or hip-hop? Why don't you ever drive by a car that is blasting classical music?

Quote for Monday, April 26, 2010:

Ach du lieber! There's a strange little girl over there, staring at us!

-One of the Three Little Pigs from Shrek 2 (2004)

Muse for Today:

The fact that I haven't done a Muse for Today in a very long time. Epic failure.

Also, my math class. We are flying kites.

Book Banning

I mean, really?

A while back the American Library Association released their list of the most banned books for the 2000 to 2009 decade. Harry Potter was at the top, of course, because of people who probably have never read the books, but:

Junie B. Jones and Captain Underpants were on here! They were kind of high up, too!

Seriously. My cousins, my brother, me, almost everyone I know grew up with at least Junie B. Jones! How is it bad? She talks the way that real kids talk!

Some books that I like(d) that were banned:

1. Harry Potter (series)
2. Bridge to Terabithia
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (not many other people like this book, but I do)
4. The Giver
5. Blubber
6. The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby (Yes. I am ashamed. This is the only Captain Underpants book that I've ever liked. I've read more (shame shame) but this is my RELATIVE favorite.)
7. Speak (actually, this book creeped me out. I can see why some parents would like to ban the books. No. Wait. Give us the freedom to choose our own books, please.)
8. Mick Harte Was Here
9. Fahrenheit 451 (I'm reading it now.)
10. Junie B. Jones
11. A Wrinkle in Time
12. Goosebumps
13. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (you'd be surprised how many of Judy Blume's books are banned)

To see the list I'm blathering about, click this link.

Dear December

Dear December,

Did I mention I hate you?

There have been a lot of you in my lifetime, and you are bad enough because you are cold. And dying. And K is reading over my shoulder and that creates pressure and good he's gone. No. Now he's back. And I don't want this post to be about him and now he's left once more.

And you come by too fast. Since we have holiday break, we are trapped inside all the time and I think my jump rope is outside! What will happen to my jump rope? And then we are cooped up and K and I try at least once a day to kill each other and mi madre says "I can't take this anymore!" and then we look sheepish and sit quietly and read. Even so, attempted murder is not festive.

No. Not at all.

And I hate you.

More reasons? Gladly! You know a reason why this winter? Particularly this winter?

YOU WON'T EVEN HAVE SNOW!!!

I understand that there are people that I know who would love for it even to be cold. But where I live, there is snow. Every winter!

And now there are 'possible snow showers' that never show and 'light evening snow' that never snows, light or night!

So. I hate you, you eejit.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians Trailer

Is it bad that the only thing I was thinking when I saw this was "I hate this"?

I really, actually don't care if that's bad. That's what I thought.

Here's why:

• I don't like the Annabeth actor.
• I don't like the Grover actor.
• I don't like the Annabeth actor.
• I don't like the Percy actor.
• I DON'T LIKE THAT SILLY ANNABETH ACTOR.
• I don't like that they made out that Percy is some iPod obsessed Zac-Efron-haired-kid. (I mean, honestly? Logan Lerman, the idiot that plays Percy, had a voice that reminded me of High School Musical. And using his iPod to look at Medusa? What are they playing at? I know they're trying to make it all modern, but they're losing the spirit of the books!)
• I don't like that they acted like Grover was some skirt-chaser instead of a nervous little goat-boy.
• I don't like that Percy is seventeen years old. Has the script writer read the book? It's all-important to a prophecy that Percy turns SIXTEEN. SIXTEEN is slightly younger than SEVENTEEN. So what are you going to do, huh? Percy Jackson and the Suburban Family of the Camp Half-Blood Kids?
• Did I mention that I DON'T LIKE THE ANNABETH ACTOR?

All Hallow's Eve...Eve

I am back to (hopefully) give you a decent post that you will enjoy reading.

If you don't, well, I don't honestly mind, just as long as you don't lower my self-esteem by telling me so.

I have many things slotted for today- my opinions of stuff, mostly. Fan fictions, certain (cough cough) Disney celebrities I HATE, the fact that Halloween is just one day away and I am almost jumping from excitement. Hooray!

Then there is the stupid, idiotic stupidity of a dance. A dance has to ruin my day.

I've said before that I hate school dances. Proms, homecoming, socials, anything. I do, I REALLY do. They're pointless and superficial. So I refuse to go to any.

I have nothing against people who enjoy dances (what difference would it make whether I did or not, really?). No, I have things against the times when people look at me as though I'm a few marbles short when I tell them so.

Friend: Are you going to the dance today?

Me: (VERY matter-of factly) No, I hate dances. Why would I go?

Everyone in that section of the room drops their stuff and looks- stares, actually- at me.

Egads.

This stretches farther than a dance. People are all different. Everyone likes different things, and I don't think that you should have an exaggerated reaction to my opinion just because I'm not going to do something that many other people are.

I'm overreacting, I know. But this has bugged me for years.

Moving on.

Tomorrow is Halloween. The one day where Stranger Danger doesn't apply- you can take candy from strangers.

That is, of course, with proper supervision. And cool costumes.

• To the stray high schooler: PLEASE be more creative with your costumes! Wearing a mask or devil horns or anything that did not take considerable effort and planning SHALL NOT be condoned! If you don't wear a costume, you are cruel. You are stealing candy from the people who deserve it. Like me.
• There is always at least ONE house with the jumbo-sized chocolate bars. Find it.
• To candy-givers: Don't open the door to any people without costumes. Or, if you have to, give them the linty ones from behind the sofa cushions.
• Never accept linty candy. Throw it back in their faces. Then run.
• Stay safe!
• And be smart, of course. I don't need to tell you that...you're reading my blog, aren't you?

Quote for Friday, October 3o, 2009:

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

-Lear, Scene I

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/King_Lear)

Muses for Today:

Sigmund Freud, Freudian slips, Podcast Friday, and Halloween.

Nostalgia

If you type 'nostalgia' into Google (or Blackle or Givoogle or whatever it is you use) you get songs and definitions of nostalgias, but 'nostalgia' is really when people gaze off wistfully into the distance and remember the times passed.

A few days ago, my mother found her old school, and Facebook communities formed by people who'd graduated from there. It was a Kindergarten through Grade 12 school, so she knew it all her life. She said she feels so nostalgic right then.

This means something, I'm sure, but I'd like to consider nostalgia at some other time.

[K just got home from soccer. They lost again. Let's hope they weren't playing first graders. (We can only hope.)]

Mr Bean is a lovely TV series and I think group of movies too, but I wonder about him. He's funny and confused and nice and oblivious, but does he ever get lonely? In The Return of Mr Bean, he is forced to buy himself a birthday card and be surprised when he gives it to himself. I don't remember exactly, but I saw the episode Merry Christmas, Mr Bean, when his girlfriend broke up with him, and it was very sad.

Does he have any family? Is he ever scared?

I have to remind myself that Mr Bean is actually Rowan Atkinson who has two brothers and a mother and father and a wife and two children and does have a family, thankyouverymuch, but Mr Bean seems a person to me. Thinking of Mr Bean as a person and not a character is so sad.

I'm going to Gives Me Hope now.

Quotes for Saturday, October (yikes! October?) 3, 2009:

They're sharing a drink they call loneliness

But it's better than drinking alone.

-Billy Joel, "Piano Man"

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

-The Beatles, "Eleanor Rigby"

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Loneliness)

Muse for Today:

Mr Bean.

Mistaken! Read First

I just realized that 'frak' is a swear word! Oh no!

I will never say it again.

I am truly, truly sorry.

Note: I just deleted a part of a post where I wrote about how relieved I was that I could use the word because it sounds like a swear word though it's really not, but I just found out that it is swearing and I have misled you.

Ohdearohdear.

Ode to My Documents

My Documents are dead. The Desktop has fallen. They are coming.

By some horrid, twisted mistake, most of my documents on my computer have been deleted. The stuff I hardly ever look at were saved, but my poems? My story beginnings? All gone.

Sick, sick irony. I don't know how it happened. But I guess it's a lesson learned the hard way; always double-check everything, back things up on hard copies, and as my aunt wisely said, "Save it in multiple places."

But, even as I sob and throw a bouquet of virtual flowers on my no longer existant documents, I will look back on the things I can remember from there.

My Poems and the Notepad Gang: I Say, What I Am, From the Corner, Keyless Gate, Rhoslyn's List of Words, Words, Facts, Massacre, Unsung

The Stories, Featuring Lists and Definitions: Excerpts, V.M.D. Backpack, Marlite Legends, Odd, Storm Ferne and Martlett, HP Icons, The Story of Griselda Marchbanks

*sighs*

Yuck. It's Seventh Grade.

I was reading the fabulous blog of Libba Bray, the author of A Great and Terrible Beauty, and the most recent post was of something that I hated.
http://libba-bray.livejournal.com/50319.html
YUCK! I hated seventh grade. Hated, hated, hated, with every fiber of my being. Sixth grade was just bad, but seventh grade was sixth grade with a dollop of stress added on top. And poison. And rat's tails. Not cool. It seemed like every single person was growing up exept for me. I don't want to grow up, of course, and I'm trying not to, but it's very depressing when people become bratty idiots who you cannot stand for more then three minutes.
And one commenter said something extremely lovely, not to go to school dances, that's the solution.
Why do they even have school dances? No one even dances. It's just an excuse to waste lots of time and money going and embarassing yourself. I went to two dances in sixth grade and I never will again. It was a scarring experience. And Libba's discription does not make me eager to go to anything else.

Quote for Sunday, August 16, 2009:

Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive.

-Elbert Hubbard

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elbert_Hubbard)

Back from NYC, but mostly Penderwicks

I, Freedom R.A.S., am back from New York! It was, of course, completely brilliant, especially Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza, and the Empire State Buliding. Chiron, from the Percy Jackson series was right, the Greek gods and goddesses are everywhere. Quite frankly, I am glad to be home. I really appreciate where I live now.

I have mentioned The Penderwicks, I believe? The series by Jeanne Birdsall is fantastic, and I finished reading the sequel, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, for about the twelfth time. I adore that book, even more than the first one, probably because the readers get a glimpse into the Penderwicks' home life. Jane and Skye, I think, get a better part in this book, and Batty becomes more of a person, to me. And Rosalind is not lovestruck. That's always a bonus.

But the thing about reading any of the Penderwick books is that in the slight euphoria I get after reading one, I start to believe that the books could happen. I know they can't. My cousin, J, even made up a genre for books that are simply too perfect to happen, but are written like they could. (The Casson family books, by Hilary McKay, also fall under this genre.)

But even the little things that go on in their lives, that could only happen not to me, oh, I am so jealous of! I want to recite a poem by Shakespeare that confuses everyone so they don't know it's about love! I want to spy on my red-headed neighbors through the forsynthia hedge! (Too bad we don't have red-headed neighbors or a forsynthia hedge.) I would love to live near a Quigley Woods-like place!

I guess I'll just have to make do. It's like I'm being openly taunted when I read these books, like: Ha ha! Nah nah nah nah boo boo! We can do all of this and you can't! But I suppose the whole magic of these books is because it's not happening to me. And B, J, and K are all perfectly anoying sometimes, but I suppose we're sort of Penderwick-ish when we're all in the same place. I have no idea what I would do with any more sibling-like relatives. Not to mention how crazy everyone else would go.

Quote for Thursday, August 13, 2009:

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

-Hamlet, from Hamlet, scene ii, by William Shakespeare

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hamlet)

How to Kill an Artemis Fowl Character

SPOILER WARNING: If you are not through reading Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (and maybe some of the other books) skip this post.
I have just finished reading Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, and I am angry. Angry, angry, angry. The ending- well, not quite. The entire book had me feeling like I wanted to snap something in half, mainly whenever a certain character was mentioned/made an apperance. That character was Minerva Paradizo.
A few days ago, I was at my local bookstore. My mother said I could buy a book, so I was wandering around the Percy Jackson/Artemis Fowl display. (Gah! The Last Olympian was $15!) I had just finished Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, and was eager to get to the library to get The Lost Colony. I picked up the book to read the back, and when I got to the last sentence I put the book down as though it was on fire. The sentence was:

And she was only twelve years old...

I read an excerpt at the end of The Opal Deception, and Artemis was being pubescent and noticing girls all over the place, and my immediate reaction was to think: My goodness, this does not bode well. No, Artemis, no!
Guess what? As usual, I was right. Every time Minerva Paradizo spoke (mostly when she was mentioned by Artemis) I had to sit on my hands to avoid breaking something. A vase... a pencil... Minerva Paradizo's curly blonde head...
And at the end Butler said that she was pretty and sharp and could give Artemis a run for his money at chess....
NO. NO. NO.
And The Time Paradox is checked out of the library and I can't see if Minerva falls into a volcano to meet her fiery death! Is killed by Butler on Artemis's command! Is stabbed between the eyes with a paper clip! Better yet, I hope she doesn't show up at all. To some, she may be a decent character. I hate her.
[after several minutes of thought]

I suppose that's unfair. It's not her fault. Oh well. I can't control what happens, that's the good part.

Quote for Today, Wednesday, Because I Am Done With Makeup Quotes:

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.

-Charles Caleb Colton

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hatred)

Old Friends

I've moved a couple of times in my life. And the first thing I hated about moving was leaving the house. I grow extremely attached to the house. And then comes leaving the people. When we lived close to my cousins, I hated leaving the people more than the house, though I did love the house dearly. (All the trouble I take to make friends, and then we move!)
Of all the times we moved, that is the one time I remember and it was hard. I had about fifty million friends and three or four best friends, because I was just about the most popular person in the grade. You would think that with all these friends, and the amount of tears there were when we left, we would keep in touch. Nope. Never. Not once. Not to say that I tried.
After we moved to where we are now, one of my best friends in second grade, Elizabeth, moved. She wrote me a letter, but I never wrote back. I move on from friend to friend pretty fast. If someone doesn't bother to be there, I start again, making new friends until they move away.
A while ago, my mother told me that one of my very best friends from before we moved had moved away from her house. Now I can't even picture her any more. Because we don't keep in touch, I can imagine what they're doing, based on what I remember, which, sadly, is not much. Even with the power of imagination vested in me, I cannot see them any way besides the way they were when we left. Obviously, it's been six years, they'd have grown up, and if they were such brilliant friends of mine, I should know they're like. Even considering this, I think I prefer them as they were six years ago. I don't think that's a bad thing.

Quote for Some Day I Missed:

A friendship that can be ended didn't ever start.

-Mellin de Saint-Gelais, Oeuvres poétiques

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friends#Old_friends)

Contests

I hate contests.
Namely, sweepstakes. Why, you ask? Because, my dear sirs and madams, I never win. It's awful not to let me win. If you are thinking about sweepstaking something utterly cool, don't even bother anymore. Just send the prize/prizes to me. Like an espionage mission, we can switch suitcases.
This sweepstake in question was, of course, a Harry Potter sweepstake. (Is it sweepstake or sweepstakes? Is sweepstakes a plural or a normal non-plural word? These are the questions that haunt me....) And it wasn't just one prize, it was several! I had so many chances, and yet I didn't get one. Grrrrr. And even if I had one, chances were I never would have used it, but now we'll never know, will we?

Quote for July 23, 2009:

"If I win I'm a prodigy. If I lose then I'm mad. That is the way history was written."

-Artemis Fowl, from Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eoin_Colfer)