Freakier Friday

An excerpt from a book I am writing where a girl switches bodies with her ex boyfriend. 

“ You have to get up.”

“No, I can’t.”

“No, s@#%, You need to get up! I need to be at work in twenty three minutes!” Jesse swore.

“I’m not going to work for you!”

“No, you have to!”

“I hate myself too much to get up.”

“Yeah, boo hoo.”

“I cannot be seen like this! We need to figure out a way to switch back, right now, before anyone sees us!” The thought of being in public as Jesse Clorence was just too much embarrassment for me to take. “Call in sick.”

“Dang it, I really can’t miss another day.”

“Jesse, oh my god, this is a sick day ok, this is the sickest day you’ll ever have. This is the reason that sick days were invented. ”

“Ok, ok, you’re right.” He reached over and grabbed my pocket.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t just grab people.”

He pulled out his phone from my pocket. “You were lying on my phone. I have to call my boss, and technically you are me- so I’m just grabbing myself, which is perfectly allowed.”

He dialed then shoved it in my face, “you have to talk to him.”

“Why me?”

“Because I sound like a girl okay?”

“What do I say?”

“Oh my gosh, say you’re sick, duh, and you’re not coming in, he answered, ok, c’mon.”

“Hello?”

“Yeah, what do you want?” A not very friendly voice barked at me.

“Um it’s Jesse.” It was hard admitting that. I turned red.

“Jesse, no.”

“What?”

“No, the answer is no.”

“Umm.”

“I’m just messing with you, what do you want?”

“I’m not coming in today, I’m sick.”

“You’re sick huh? What you got this time?”

“Umm,” I stammered, I looked at Jesse. He threw my arms up in the air at me and looked exasperated. “Umm, umm the flu.”

“Ummtheflu? I think you had that already.”

“Well you can get it more than once.”

“you know what? you want the day off you gotta come up with a new disease. C’mon let’s hear it, you must got lots of excuses floating up there, let me here a good one.”

I gulped, “I think I have may have changed bodies with this girl.”

“Haha, that so huh? That’s mildly amusing, try to think of a better one by tomorrow huh? I gotta keep the crew entertained.” He hung up.

“So?” Jesse asked, “Did it work? did you get the day off? was he nice to you?”

“Sort of, I think so, no.”

“Yeah you talked to Ben all right then, he hates me, not as much as you though, probably.”

“Now he hates me.”

“Probably, he doesn’t know who you are though, you’re lucky.”

At that I wailed. I was the direct opposite of lucky. I knew who I was and I did not want to be him! I did not want anyone else to find out! It was a horrible deep bellow, I wanted my girly scream back but there was no way to get it, no way, no way, no way.

Tribute the the WB

I found this article in my old room that I wrote in my school's very hippie, yay for protests, sex, and drugs type paper in 2006.
Haha, as it turns out the CW is the voice of no one, but hindsight.
Article:
A tribute to the WB from a WB Teen
On September 17,2006 the WB television network closed forever and for the first time I felt twenty. I didn't feel sixteen anymore, not eighteen, not even twenteen, just twenty. Childhood is over and there's no going back.
The WB was where I grew up. Other networks were too adult or too childish. The WB was the awkward adolescent- not mainstream enough to be mainstream and not enough of an outsider to be an outsider. The WB was a true teenager and so became the voice of a generation- we were WB teens.
Everything about being a teenager was on the WB. Always overlooked and underrated, the WB shrugged off major network adulthood and forever established its place as The Teenage Network. Its signature hits Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, Felicity, Charmed, Angel, 7th Heaven, and later hits Gilmore Girls, Everwood and Smallville were the shows we grew up to. They were our teenage culture. No other network understood what it was like to be a teenager- they didn't remember. If we ever had problems we turned to the WB. We knew all we had to do was turn on the TV and someone somewhere would be growing through the same thing. If that fictional character could make it through it, we knew we could too. They weren't just characters they were our friends and role models. We knew their names and secrets. We were never alone on the WB because we were all growing up together.
It's not the same now. The WB along with UPN has merged into a new network called the CW. They have carried over the same shows and we still watch them. But it's not our community anymore. It's just a television show, it's just two or three television shows on a network that have no connections to each other or to our generation. The CW doesn't have a history, it doesn't remember. This isn't what growing up was like. It has big and flashy gimmicks and lots of hip catch phrases. It's the voice of a new generation- not ours. Our childhood is over, it's gone and it's never coming back. It's time for someone else to grow up. Thanks WB for letting us.

Perfect Generation- rest of chapter 1

“Dad!” Tawny let out a wail with not nearly enough power packed in it to let him know what he’d done. He would never know. It wasn’t just that he was a dusty. Her dad was the dustiest of all dusties, practically another species. With his strict rules of no operations until you were 18, and no computers at the dinner table there was no way he would care about what happened at a party. He didn’t even consider parties Tawny went to as real as if he was born like 200 years ago when people had to go out to go out. She had explained a million times, a million and one that when she was at a party she wasn’t home and shouldn’t have to go to dinner.

“I told you it was suppertime.” He said without a trace of remorse.

Tawny blinked back tears, blinked back images of Tover’s eyes coming closer. Tover- oh God! He’d think she ran out because she didn’t like him. This should have been the best moment of her life but leave it to her dad to make the best the worst. That was what he did best.

“You know the rules,” he continued. “When it’s supper time the computer needs to go off at the first request.”

“But dad,” Tawny whined. He couldn’t be this big a jerk could he? “I was at a party!”

“Oh Tawny, that wasn’t a real party!”

Tawny balled her hands in fists and gritted her teeth, “I’m not hungry!” She snarled. Maybe if she got back on quick enough she could go back to Saran’s and Tover would still kiss her. She’d have to get another invite from Saran though who last she’d seen had looked rather busy with her hands all over some sim boy who was probably as gorgeous in real life as his sim was. She wasn’t going to be pleased with Tawny for leaving either. Saran couldn’t understand dads like Tawny’s- no one did.

“Come sit with us anyway.” Was his preselected reply. Her dad ran like some prehistoric game with only three varied outcomes: 1. He told you what to do and you did it. 2. He told you what to do and you disagreed that that’s what you should do at which he told you to do it again, louder, and 3. He told you what to do and you very calmly and rationally explained that that would RUIN YOUR LIFE!! At which he didn’t care and made you do it anyway.

“Well I’m not going to say anything!” Tawny pouted.

“That’s okay, your mother and I need to talk to you.”

Tawny groaned.

At the table her mother already sat, still looking thin from her last liposuction and also looking like they had lipo’ed some of the color out of her face. That was something else to look forward to Tawny thought even though on her mother it made her look sick and weak. She wished the evolution selections committee would add excessively ugly people to the list of people to sterilize and she wouldn’t have had to have been born.

Her little brother Sailor was also already at the table. Tawny wished most of all that her parents had sold their rights to have a second child and one million dollars could be sitting in Sailor’s seat instead. That kid was not worth a million dollars, fourteen maybe. He was piling up his plate with eggplant like it was his favorite food. That would be because it was, Tawny thought with a shake of her head. Thirteen ninety nine.

Tawny didn’t like anything her parents made her eat ever. The programmers should invent a new way to eat online that didn’t make your stomach glow in the dark so she would never have to see her little brother eat again.

“You’re late Tawny,” Sailor admonished, cross because he wasn’t allowed to start eating his eggplant until everyone was at the table.

“I’m sorry, when did you turn into a watch?” Tawny snapped, wishing as she spoke that would actually happen to Sailor.

“Quiet down, kids, we need to talk to you.” Tawny noticed her dad sounded fading to her, like she needed to turn his volume up. She remembered her earlier vow not to say anything and quieted down. She wasn’t going to grace them with her conversation. Not when they had stolen from her the best thing that had been about to happen in her life. She was going to be like a wall- like when someone left their sim at a party but went somewhere and it just stood there not responding so you didn’t know if he hated your guts or had just gone to the bathroom.

That must be what Tover thought about her! Tawny’s heart lurched. This was the worst day of her life. She stared at her empty plate. When her stomach growled audibly in the silent air she noticed no one else was talking either. Slowly she looked up to find they were all looking at her.

“What’s going on?”

Her dad was fading but he had no volume button.

“Your mother is sick.” Tawny made out.

Projects I'm working on

The Perfect Generation

Sixteen year old Tawny Tamblyn lives in the cyberworld of the future with online parties and sim characters far more beautiful than she thinks of herself in real life. But everything changes when her mother passes away. Suddenly their father is ordering her and her little brother to pack in the middle of the night, they must leave immediately but he won't say where to or why. Could this have anything to do with the disease that took her mother's life and the evolutionary committee that seeks out and sterilizes “non perfects”? Tawny always felt like an non perfect compared to her lighter skinned, thinner classmates, but didn't think there were any left since the homo sapiens had gone extinct and the homo cleverus had taken over the world. But then, if there ever was a “non perfect” person it would be her... 

Freakier Friday 

Sure it sucked when 17 year old Brittani Sinclair woke up one morning to find out she had been turned into a guy, but what's even worse she was her ex boyfriend. Good thing she totally didn't still have a thing for him...

Planet of the Grapes 

This is a short story I wrote when I was 13 I want to make into a kid's book about grapes that live on another planet. When they find out grapes on earth are being turned into wine they build a rocket and come to the rescue.

My 29th Life 

The Universe repeats itself every trillion years and teenager Sam Mead is the only one who remembers. As he waits to be born for the 29th time he wonders if this time will be any different? Will he finally make a difference? Can he impress the girl he's loved for over five hundred years? And could he ultimately save himself from his 29th premature death? 

Secret Identity

Twenty something Larisa Ollerman works at a boring job in a boring town where nothing ever happens until the night she stumbled upon a mob killing. Now the witness protection program wants to send her where no one will ever find her- back to high school. Is it worth it?

Perfect Generation 3

He looked even better than he ever did in class, wearing a dressy brown jacket and slacks. Simple yet elegant, that was Tover. She wondered briefly what he looked like in real life then changed her mind. She didn’t want to know. He looked perfect as a sim, so however he looked in real life it couldn’t be better than this.

Just as she was working up the courage to go over to him a sim pushed her, literally, to the ground. Tawny looked up as Kereun Chung, famous celebrity mingler herself, strode over her sim’s body to Tover- without so much as a glance under her feet. Tawny picked her sim up, brushing off dirt and dust and saw that her sim had a scraped knee through a new hole in her nylons. She looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching, she hoped Tover hadn't seen but he wasn't looking at her. No one was.

She was stupid to think he would be looking at her. Saran had probably showed him a picture of her real face just like she had Kereun back when they were thirteen, back when she had made Tawny the laughing stock of the whole school and Tawny had had no choice but to forgive her- she was her only friend.

Tawny sank down into the couch and turned on the TV.

She turned the volume of the party down really low so she wouldn’t have to hear the other kids talking and enjoying themselves. She turned the TV's volume up.

In what she swore was the sim cartoon she heard someone ask if they could sit down. Then someone touched her sim’s shoulder.

Tawny could see before her sim that it was Tover. She turned her sim around slowly, waiting for her heart to quit pounding and trying to think of something to say.

“Hi Tawny.”

“Hi.” Was all she could think of.

She turned on her smell sensor again; Tover never sat next to her in class so she didn’t even know what he smelled like. His sim smelled like the same brand cologne every sim boy she had ever smelled wore, of course. Tawny turned it down again. Tover was head bobbing with the music which Tawny had turned down. She and Saran had different taste in music to say the least.

“You like music?” He asked. Tawny reached over to twist her music sound on. Not this music, she thought.

“Yes,” she said while wondering if Tover was only pretending to head beat to it. There was no discernible beat that Tawny could notice, just a lot of electronic noises sounding at random times. Tawny did like music but she liked old music, oldies, really old music, the kind anyone who performed would have died long ago and there was no more of it produced ever. The kind no one else liked anymore because it was “quarky”, like Tawny. It was no wonder she was always sitting by herself.

She was a little disappointed Tover liked this music too but at least he was sitting with her. She hoped it wasn't because he felt sorry for her. Saran had probably told him she liked him. She had told Bing Brady last year and Bing, not being a sensitive boy like Tover, had used this knowledge to make Tawny his personal slave for months before showing up at the Evolution dance with Kereun Chung and informing Tawny that she would be “like dating a dog.”

Tover's sim draped a long perfectly shaped arm over the back of Saran’s couch, just inches from Tawny’s sim’s head. Tawny could feel the hair on her own head stand up.

“Nice heels,” he breezed.

Finally someone had noticed. They were only one of 622 pairs she could have chosen but she’d chosen these because they complemented her dress- one of 470 she could have chosen- but she’d chosen them both together, on purpose and in only two minutes. It was this attention to detail that made you stand out as a sim but for some reason no one ever noticed Tawny.

There were seven bars anyone could see if they clicked on her sim. They kept track of her education, her monetary value and among other things- romance points. The romance bar had a heart next to it and it was pink or if it was Tawny’s it was empty colored. She had never even been asked on a sim date. It was embarrassing to think that everyone could click on her and see that. One of the disadvantages of being in sim mode.

Tover had stopped head bopping and he wasn’t saying anything- he was just sitting there. Tawny hoped he wasn’t looking at her romance bar. Tover’s was about half full, very impressive for an only sixteen. He was going to figure out he was way too good for her and would probably get up and leave soon.

“Have you ever kissed a boy before?” He asked instead.

Tawny flushed hotter than her romance bar should have been. Luckily her sim always retained her perfect composure, even if she didn’t ever know what to say. She just gazed into his virtual eyes. Up this close she saw that they were flecked with bits of amber that twinkled like gold dust. Tawny’s own eyes were melting into sorry globs of forgotten ice cream.

“Tawny!” A sharp voice interrupted her trance. It was coming from the hall of her own house. A real voice. She ignored it and turned up the volume to the party.

“Tawny!” It called again. It was a voice that was not very good at knowing when it was being ignored. “Supper time!”

She muted so she could yell, “Dad, I’m at a party!”

“Well turn it off.”

As if you could just turn off a party, like it was a game! You couldn’t just turn off your life. Why did dusties like her dad always act like this wasn’t real life?

She turned the volume up to full blast, not even caring that she could hear the awful music again. It was just more noise, more noise to drown out the footsteps coming down the hall.

Even louder than the noise were Tover’s gold flecked eyes coming closer and closer. Tawny closed her sim’s eyes but left her own open to watch. Was this going to be it? Her first kiss?

Suddenly everything went black and quiet like the time they’d had that power outage when she was six years old. Her sim, Tover, Saran’s couch, the entire party had disappeared. Her dad’s face jumped in front of her screen.

Internet dating

I'm sure like 1% of the people online are really awesome. But in order to find one I'd have to go through ninety nine guys like this:
1. The man-slut. These guys seem nice and normal before you meet them. They even may state in their profile that they are looking for a nice girl, an LTR even. ( which actually doesn't mean something dirty, I had to look it up) They even want to meet in a public place usually. Then after they have determined that you meet their discerning criteria- you are not a man, or fat, they ask if the next time you meet if you will have sex with them. If you don't say yes and seem really enthusiastic about it then they will refuse to hang out with you. I mean I get that for some guys that is all they really want but they should at least pretend to try, at least pretend they remember your name. In the good old days they had to buy you dinner before. Now they think they can just sidestep that step by being perfectly uncharming. Uh, I don't think so!
2. The flake. These guys are really excited if you email them. They email/ text a lot and seem really excited about meeting you. They may even set up a time and date themselves. But they always cancel, something always comes up. There's always a good reason why today is not a good day, but they promise tomorrow will be better. They repeat over and over how much they really want to meet though and I think a part of them does. I feel sorry for these guys because they probably have no idea they even do it. I wonder if they have ever even had the commitment to go on a date let alone form a relationship and they will probably wonder their whole lives why they never meet anyone.
3. Looking for Ms Perfect. These guys are the opposite of the mansluts but they are just as dangerous and common. For these guys no girl is ever good enough. No girl except the girl that exists only in their fantasies as they haven't figured out yet that life isn't a fantasy. The girls they want don't exist and if they did they wouldn't deserve them. They pass themselves off as being "picky." Despite the fact that most of them themselves possess none of these qualities they will carry around a list a quarter mile long filled with all that their dream girl will possess. I am not conceited by any means I just have self esteem and I happen to believe that I do possess many of these qualities- I think and have been told by a lot of people that I am funny, I am pretty, I'm definitely self motivated and follow my goals in life. I'm very loyal to my friends. I try hard to get these guys, who appear to have the personalities of cardboard boxes upon first meeting, to talk, reveal any part of themselves that would give me hope there is actually a human being in there. But I think- hey maybe he's just shy, maybe he's really great when you get to know him. Well too bad I will never get that opportunity because I am not good enough for Mr Perfect seeker. Mr Perfect seeker knows that there is a perfect girl out there for him, probably only one in the entire world that he will find on POF or OKcupid and he will just look at her and know she is his soul mate without ever having to get to know her. I think that if such a girl really did exist she could do way better than him.
On the plus side- what did I get out of online dating? A free coffee, a free bowling, and a free burrito! Almost worth it! I'm not a quitter but I think that I would be more likely to find a decent guy walking around the park, or Antarctica.

The Perfect Generation 2

Chapter 1 continued...

Ugh. She would have to wait to play again until her sim’s head grew back. If she had the premium channel that could happen as instantaneously as Tawny wished but without it it would be tomorrow before her Sim’s new head was strong enough to face the monster again.

“muffins,” Tawny cursed under her breath. This was the hardest thing she tried to collect for sure. She only had two jello salads and she’d been playing for nine days.

              Ping! Her screen shook.

Tawny looked down even though there was only one person in the world who ever messaged her. It was Saran, of course.

              “Tiny!” She greeted with her nickname for Tawny.

              Tawny groaned. She was using her actual form which meant Tawny would have to reply in actual form too, not as her sim who even without a head looked better than she did. Saran’s pretty bronze smiling face and narrow thin frame were filling up her instant message screen. Next to it Tawny felt like a big, black blob. It wasn’t fair because Saran’s parents had already bought her a plastic surgery even though she was the same age as Tawny, sixteen, and Tawny’s parents always said, “Not until you’re eighteen.”

              Aww to be rich, Tawny thought for the umpteenth time as she looked longingly at Saran’s perfect face, her nose had just been fixed and she had always been so thin even though her favorite online exercise was mini golf same as Tawny. Saran didn’t even need a sim. 

              Tawny reluctantly hit video over. Instantly Saran’s image scaled down to half the screen and Tawny’s own came into the other half. Tawny looked away.

              “There you are dahling,” Saran drawled. “Let me see your pretty face, aww, there it is.” Something about the way she said pretty made Tawny feel that she didn’t find it at all pretty- just like Tawny didn’t.

              “Be at my house in five minutes.” Saran instructed.

              “Why?”

              “Party. Tover will be there.”

Sometimes Tawny regretted telling Saran she had a crush on the boy from their class. She had been teasing her off and on for weeks, the cruelest of which had been when she'd told Tawny that Tover had asked her what Tawny was doing for the Evolution Day dance just to see the reaction on her face before telling her that she was kidding. Tawny had ended up not going like usual. Saran looked serious now though.

              “Real or Sim?” Tawny panicked. Tover had never seen her actual face- she always went to class as a sim, most everyone did except Saran and a few other lucky rich kids.

Saran scrunched up her perfect nose, no need to worry about getting a wrinkle after her plastic surgery. “Sim is so overdone!” she whined.

Tawny frowned. “Say it’s sim or I won't go.”

“Oh you, and half of everyone, it’ll be sim,” Saran sighed. “I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about- he’s going to have to see your face eventually, what are you going to do? Have an online Sim wedding? Have a sim ‘romantic encounter’?” Saran giggled. “Just have online sim children?”

The thought had crossed Tawny’s mind though she didn’t know if that was yet possible, unfortunately.

“Why don’t you just ask your dad for some plastics already?”

Tawny sighed- been there, done that. How to explain her dad to other people? Saran had been her best friend since they were at the same online preschool together but even she had never met her dad. It wasn’t even just about being rich or not. Tawny felt there was something far deeper that was wrong with her dad- something even money wouldn’t have fixed.

“Plastics wouldn’t help me,” she grumbled instead, “have you ever heard of a lightening surgery?”

“Honestly- I don’t see what’s so bad about it,” Saran lied seamlessly about Tawny’s coloring. “Anyway- I don’t have time to talk to you, I need to go invite more people, get ready and come over.” Saran’s face disappeared and mercifully so did her own.

Now she only had three minutes to get ready for Saran’s party. She could have warned her sooner. She'd never known Saran to spend any less than eternity planning one of her parties. She wasn’t a last minute invite was she? Saran wouldn’t do that to her. Or would she? She would but Tawny pushed the thought out of her mind.

She was going to have to wear one of her sim’s other heads. She clicked over and browsed the selection. They each cost a pretty penny, if her dad found out… Well he would find out when he saw the internet bill but by that time the party would be long over and Tover’s heart (hopefully) won! She clicked the one with the smallest nose, highest cheekbones and lightest skin she could find. Then the box- “this will be 449.99, is this okay?” Yes, yes it was okay.

There, with a scarf no one would even be able to see the line across her neck. And since she was going as her sim she wouldn’t have to get up and browse her actual closet to find one. Tawny hated getting up, and trying clothes on her own blimp frame with her dark skin was not nearly as fun as picking out clothes for her sim- who looked fantastic in everything with her thin womanly figure, no awkward girlish parts, and beautiful bronze skin. She would look fantastic in a paper bag. Not that that would ever be necessary. Her sim had a hundred times more clothes than Tawny. Tawny collected clothes too but that was hardly a hobby as every girl did that once they were old enough to surf.

Tawny’s sim had over 600 pairs of shoes and she had to browse them all in less than two minutes now. She wondered what Tover would be wearing.

She grabbed a pair of white heels that would go with the low cut sleek blue dress she’d decided on in twenty seconds. They were crazy high but they showed off her sim’s long legs and her sim had no trouble walking in them.

She moved on to hand bags and accessories and chose a silver clutch, hoop earrings, a diamond pendant and a sterling silver cuff bracelet. Another thing she liked about being in sim mode- you didn’t have to be rich to look rich.

She was ready to enter the party. Immediately she looked around for Tover’s tall black haired sim but he wasn’t there yet. There were a bunch of kids from class but they didn’t wave her over or make eye contact with her even though she stared hopefully over at them for a whole thirty seconds. She clutched her clutch tighter.

Saran’s house was the fanciest online house Tawny had ever been in but she was used to it: the elevators, the sim doormen, the robot chef. Tawny reached down to pet Saran’s sim cat who was rubbing and purring against her sim’s leg.

Well at least someone likes me, even if he is just a cat, Tawny thought, and a fake one at that. A fake one that didn’t even leave any white hairs all over her nice clothes.

After the cat moved on Tawny did what she usually did at parties- she hung around the robot chef. He was baking tonight, though any food he cooked was just for show as the recent app they had invented for online eating had had disastrous results. She hadn't been able to afford the app herself but she'd heard about it on the news- something about glowing stomachs. The app had quickly been banned after that and online food had turned into an illegal drug like caffeine. It was too bad as she would have really enjoyed seeing Kereun Chung or some of their other classmates with glowing stomachs.

Tawny switched on her smell sensor and could smell the cake he was baking at least. It smelled sweeter than any she’d had in real life. It smelled worth the glowing stomach. Tawny’s sim usually got the first slice which always came out in a perfect triangle without so much as a crumb out of place. Sim cake wasn’t fattening and it didn’t make a mess if it accidentally dropped on Saran’s plush white carpet.

After wards she used the bathroom, just so she could look like she belonged, waiting in line, turning off her smell sensor. When the line had run out she went looking for Saran’s cat again.

Then she spotted him, not the cat- Tover!