NaNoWriMo

I just finished my NaNoWriMo yesterday. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, where participants try to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.
I'm going to try for 60,000 words.
Really I feel bad because finishing was easier than I think it was supposed to be. Maybe because I have run 100 miles a week for a whole year (which is the running equivalent of doing NaNoWriMo, every month, all year i think), but I think NaNoWriMo should be hard. Even though I had writer's block I wrote too fast usually only working on my novel for an hour to and hour and a half a day, usually writing 1600- 2000 words an hour.
I think my novel is awful- because I didn't know how to say anything and I just said it anyways and it will probably take me until next November to edit it but that's what I get for being such a slacker!
The good thing about NaNoWriMo is you don't have to worry about whether your novel is good or bad, and that is a nice break that I don't want to be over. 

Childhood Diary

I found my childhood diary while cleaning out my room at my parent's house. I was always the writer.
10/13/1994
"Toaday was a half day. We had milkshakes. Annelise is Mean to me and wount share here candy. And I share candy with her.
It inst fiar."

#8 year old problems


I was smart enough to know that when I turned 9 I would think 8 was little so I wrote my future self a reminder.

May 10, 1995
"I think 8 is big."

I was not found of segues.

June 28, 1995
"I hate my sister. I also read Cookie McCorkle and the case of the Missing Castle. Yesterday we saw a trian and hiked 2 miles."

April 2, 1996
"Me, Tiffany and Kathryn are in this club called the Tigers. We make money and give it to the humane society. (True story, it took me 2 years to raise 100$ to donate to them) (this next part is crossed out) I have known for a long time that Annelise is a dope."

because I have known things for a long time, riight, not even ten.

I did not write it in very often. Note to self- make future kids have a journal and write in it more so they can laugh their butts off at themselves at age 27.

4 books

It took me 22 years to finish one book. I wrote a lot of short stories as a kid but never was able to make them into novel length works though I always dreamed of doing that. At fourteen I used to add completely unnecessary scenes that had nothing to do with the plot of my works to them just to make it longer. I used to try typing in bigger font, having more chapter breaks. The longest I got was only about thirty pages on the computer. I would get so frustrated because they would be so much longer than that in my notebook where I wrote everything down. I didn't have my own computer. When I was in college I thought- okay I can finish this book since it is my school project, but it will probably take me three years to finish it. Then I made myself work on it everyday for an hour. Not a super lengthy time but substantial. It started to get done. I finished it mostly in one year. But boy I did not want to work on it sometimes. Sometimes writing is fun, but sometimes it is so hard I'd rather be running. That was what I did for awhile, or cleaned my room, or looked at my split ends. I could do that for hours a day. Hours plural. Finishing a novel was hard, really hard, like running 5,000 miles in a year hard in a different way. I didn't want to write another one.
But I did, want to. I just didn't do it. I wanted to want to do it. Until I was sitting on the beach one day with my notebook, thinking about the Uglies books I had just read. I wanted to write an adventure like that. It spoke to me on the beach, write me. And even though that novel was almost one hundred thousand words I finished it from start to finish in about a year.
I had another novel that was almost done that whole year, one that would remain in that state for over two years. I looked over it from time to time and I just didn't like it so I worked on other things, or nothing. Then one day I realized how many children I had living in the house and it was like a switch- I suddenly had to work on them until they were grown up. I worked until I finished that almost done one- about one hundred hours of work later and didn't stop typing.
My fourth book, Baby Summer, was in fragments in an old notebook that wasn't rediscovered until about two and a half months ago. It was about eight thousand words- most of them usable, a thousand or so not. In a month it had expanded to 50,000 words. In three weeks I liked all of it so much I stopped editing it.
Wait? That doesn't happen! I don't like them even when I have spent months editing them sometimes. Sometimes I never like them, they are unlikable. This was a novel writing break.
It took 22 years for 1, 3 years for the second, 1 year for the third, and one month for the 4th!
Only 9 to go

That's Hard to do With an Ice Cream Cone

        I decided to make a picture book for my niece- it's about a girl with an ice cream cone. Right before she is about to eat her mom calls to say she is coming home early and the girl suddenly remembers her chore list. She has to run around doing her chores while dripping ice cream over everything.
        I thought drawing would be easier than writing but I was wrong- drawing is hard! It was hard with a pencil so I tried using the computer. That was hard too so I switched back to pencil- that was still hard.
        Especially when I found a picture book I had made when I was thirteen that was super cute, and one I had made at like age seven that was the same. Grown ups don't draw.
        Anyway here's a picture from it.
   

Girls and their Hair

From Baby Summer

Girls and their Hair

“I hate my hair!” That's Ana, every morning when she looks in the mirror. She has the same hair as me. Long, dark, straight. The only difference is I love my hair.

“Why don't you hate your hair Dee Dee?” She barks at me.

“I love it because I can braid it, and put it in pony tails, or just one, or just leave it. I can do anything I want with my hair!”

“Ugh,” Ana sighs and shakes her head. “Everything I do with my hair it looks just the same- ugly.”

“Who are you calling ugly?”

Me and Ana have the same hair but we see it in different ways. Ana only sees the bad- like when she wakes up every morning and it is tangley and hurts to brush out. Or how it looks flat when she has been berating it for a few minutes. Hair does that. It's right next to your ears- it can hear you. 

Stories

   My stories are like my children. Right now I have 11 children in the home and I need some of them, one of them at least to grow up and move out. I have two grown children- Once a Girl and the Perfect Generation but Perfect Generation had a baby- my grand baby- the sequel and I got to raise it. So finishing that one didn't help me any. Freakier Friday is an 18 year old but still in high school and still needs a new name.
   I just found an old notebook full of a few of my abandoned children and they were a lot cuter than I remembered, a lot cuter than the other ones I have. I couldn't help but take them back once I saw how cute they were. I want to spend time with all of them, but if I spend time with all of them it's going to take 11 times as long for one of them to grow up.
     When I get a new idea for a book it's like getting pregnant again. Oh no! Not another one! You can't finish the stories you already have! I do not need this other mouth to feed. Let's think about this and try to come up with a good reason this would NOT be a good idea for a book. But it's already here, it's too late I love it already. 

My Family's Name

We are going hiking at Mount Lahana tomorrow morning to find a name for the baby, "six o'clock, no make it five!" That is the drill sergeant my sister. And if you think it is nuts for a nine month pregnant person to climb a mountain before the sun is even up then do us a favor- keep it to yourself, cuz I'm the one who has to live with her.

"Why so earlyyy?" That's Kyle, I think. He's under a blanket and doesn’t really sound like Kyle but who else would it be.

"It's not early, it's 6:17," My sister hisses which wakes me up good and fast but not Kyle. Ana is pissed because we have slept so late. She does not notice that the sun has slept late too, that that is normal.

"How did you get over here?" I ask.

"I didn't, I slept on your porch. I slept walked, I don’t know!" Kyle retreats back under his blanket.

"Get up!" If I was naming my sister I would call her wacka, I suggest that.

"Maybe I will wacka you!"

"C'mon, let's get up," I tell Kyle.

The drive is not long enough when you want to sleep but I don't get to sleep anyway, Ana says she cannot drive because she is pregnant. I know better than to argue with her now. I drive even though I am fourteen and have never driven the truck beyond the driveway before. Driving is not that hard. There are names everywhere, like- pothole, speed bump, deathtrap, cliff's edge, yi-yikes! that last one Kyle came up with, the all go on the notebook but Ana doesn’t think any of them are very good.

"How about Sun Rising?" At last it is doing so. It is red down here, not the way you think the sun normally looks, the way it looks in paintings sometimes and you think- the sun never looks like that! It does at 6:45 in the morning- who knew, who knew?

"Red Eye." Ana looks at it.

"That sounds horrible," I say.

"Isn't that like a disease or something," Kyle says.

"No, like the eye of God."

"I don’t think God would have red eye."

"Yeah, I think they're blue."

"No, they're made out of gold, or marbles."

"You guys are both wrong, the sun is God's eye."

"Where's his other eye?"

"He only needs one."

"The moon," Kyle says at the same time.

"The moon is his eye at night."

"Moon eyes." I say.

"Nothing sounds right," and Ana does not talk for the rest of the trip, even when I ran over the tree stump that Kyle said was a raccoon.

"I'm not a raccoon killer!"

"Raccoon Killer." Raccoon Killer goes into the notebook, I wrote Treestump Killer and Stumpy for Kyle. "You're going to drive home!" I yell at Kyle.

I cannot stand the thought that I have killed someone. I want to close my eyes and see a tree stump with my tire marks on it, that's what we will see when we go back, no blood on the tire, or scrap of fur, no raccoon carcass on the side of the road. I want to close my eyes and miss the turn to the mountain, to head into town instead- to get a drink, to forget my sorrow, to swerve,

"Don't close your eyes!" Kyle screams. "Jesus!"

"Jesus," I inform him, "is a name Latin people name their children, not us."

Okay I made it to the park, "no raccoon family swarming us and demanding justice yet," Kyle says.

"That's because I hit a stump!"

"Stumps don't cry, this one cried."

"Crying Stump, Crying tree, Weeping Willow, Willow."

I want to hit Kyle and my sister. "It was a stump! Sometimes they cry! It was cut down! Wouldn't you cry if you were a stump?"

Kyle so makes me want to cry.

We are at the mountain, my sister is looking up at the top and probably just now realizing that she can't see it. "You guys, let's go, it's already 7:39," she snaps.

 

Dreams Are Like Drugs

Dreams are like drugs and sometimes you get a bad trip.
Last night I dreamed I was making cookies. Not a bad start. But I was also watching a baby. In my dream I decided to have the baby nap in the oven because it was only 300 degrees- just nice and warm. A little bit later I realized this was a bad plan and rushed over to pull the baby out but it was too late- the baby had turned into a baby shaped cookie, just like all the others on the cookie sheet.
I didn't think this was strange, not dream worthy at all, but I did kind of suspect that this was a dream because I had an inkling- I think, think, I would be smart enough in real life not to baby down for a nap in the oven. Think so. So I decided even though I didn't see a baby anywhere, even though I was horrified by the baby cookie, that I would just pretend to put the baby down in a crib and see if my dream would go from there.
But then the parents showed up. They were going into the room with the crib. I hid in fear, would they find their baby sleeping there or would they see the baby cookie? What if the police came? They would know immediately what happened. I should just confess now! Oh my gosh I don't want to go to jail! I'll never see my family again! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO JAIL!! How had this happened?
I upset myself so much I woke up and in my half drowsy state I realized that it indeed had been a dream because I was definitely, definitely smart enough to not put a baby in the oven. It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized what else was wrong with this situation- ie that babies do not turn into cookies. Why does my brain do this me? Why? I don't take drugs! Should I start?

Colors

Inspired by the color poems in the book Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar. Which by the way are way funnier than mine, check it out.

Pink
fresh cut carnations in a hello kitty sink
pink

White
It's snowing on the rooftop, gleaming lights bright white

Orange
An orange tabby cat licks his paws in the setting sun
melted creamsicle runs

Brown
A bunny's fur, the same color as its nest in the ground
brown

Red
stop the rage, lava spilling out of your head, cinnamon flames,
red

The Lying Game book review

The Lying Game is a series I keep listening to more out of boredom than anything else. People say that life is too short to read bad books when there are so many good ones out there but I've had trouble finding any- good ones I mean. This series is okay. Which is more than I can say for most other YA books I've tried reading or listening to lately so this one stays. Which isn't to say it doesn't make me too nauseous to listen to while running though because it does, like totally bi-otch.

I've listened to the first four books and apparently there are two more. There is probably enough interesting stuff here for one book. I know other readers felt this way about Sara Shepard's other series- Pretty Little Liars, too but to me she throws in enough interesting side stories to make that series entertaining. Here, not so much, unless you find school dances, dates, and endless conversations with her friends about which one is the bi-otch-iest entertaining.

The series is about a foster teen named Emma who discovers she has a long lost twin- Sutton. She arranges to meet her, only to find out when she arrives in her sister's town that Sutton has been murdered and the killer has orchestrated for Emma to take over her life.

It is a jarring narrative experience. It is told in the third person through the eyes of Emma who inexplicably hands off to the ghost of Sutton who talks in the first person and doesn't remember anything about her life but can somehow read Emma's mind. There is no warning when this transition is about to happen and it can take a few paragraphs to sort out who is talking. Sutton is a total bore as a ghost, mostly just whining about how Emma judges her, and mooning over dreamy guys, and then conveniently remembering pieces of her life (but omitting the most important parts) when it is convenient to the plot.

Sutton's friends are very one dimensional- they are bi-otches, as they like to say every other page or so. Even though they get a little back story as the series goes on they are really hard to relate to or like any of them. Emma has a little more depth but the depiction of all foster parents through her eyes as negligent a-holes who just use their foster kids to get government checks was off putting to say the least. I'm sure some of them are insufferable but it is a really tough job being a foster parent and there are much easier ways to get money if that's all you're after. Why is it that Emma didn't even have one foster parent that was a decent human being?

Each book centers around one “suspect” that Emma is 100% positive killed Sutton until about ¾ of the way through when -oh my gosh! they didn't kill Sutton! What a surprise!

The books would be more interesting if they focused more on the murder mystery and less on what everyone is wearing.

I kept listening because I needed something to entertain me at work and it passes, barely. Something interesting finally happened at the end of the fourth book. As in, actually interesting and unexpected. This is the kind of twist that Pretty Little Liars is full of. Is it too late to save the series though? I guess I will check out the next two books, or the last one at least. Let's just hope they don't extend the series again!

29th Life

My 29th Life

    I am alive, already. It feels like I just blinked my eyes and 999,999,999,982 years went by .I can’t pin prick the exact moment, it’s more like a growing awareness that beats with my renewed heart and spreads like blood all through my tiny body. Beat. Beat. With every beat I become more alive, I wonder when the opposite happens and every beat starts making me a little closer to dead. When I am nine or does it not until the water starts filling my lungs?
    Great, I am nine seconds old and I am already remembering. It gets earlier every time. I just want to rest, can’t I sleep in this time?
    Of course how’s this for my sense of time- 999,999,999,982 years feels like an instant to me but nine months in my mother’s womb is the closest thing I know to eternity. The closest thing I know to rest.
    I am not an ordinary baby. The only thing I don’t remember is when I was.
    I remember when I will be born- May 15th, a Wednesday at 5:16 am. My mom will name me Sam after my grandfather who will never call me that or his grandson as many time as I live. If I am alive my father has already left my mother and me- leaving behind nothing but my brown skin, brown hair and brown eyes. I will have my mother’s last name and be Sam Fredricks and never know what my father’s is- though I guess Ramirez or Cruz or Juarez.
    I remember who’s president- Bill Clinton, a man that my grandfather will throw his beer mug at on tv one summer night when I am three.
    I remember who the prettiest girl in the world is- Dominique, and that she does not remember me. I don’t know what it is like to kiss a girl but I remember that they have cooties again so I don’t mind, for now.
    I remember high school. How could I forget? I remember the beginning but not the end- I will never make it out. On the first day one of the bigger boys will give me bruises that my step father will try to match. I remember my mom pretending not to notice. I know exactly how many times this will happen- eighty seven. Eighty seven times every time.
    I remember when I die. I will hurt, I will be scared. I will see it coming because every time it is exactly the same yet I won’t do anything about it. The world will turn black and then I will end up back here.
    I remember because it just happened to me, what felt like moments, but was billions of years before I had a heart beat again and woke up inside my mother. For the twenty ninth time.

I went to a Mariner's game the other day. We used to have an agreement, the Mariners and me, if I went to their game they wouldn't lose. For twelve years in fact they won every game I went to. But apparently we don't have that agreement anymore. The Mariners were doing a lot of losing when I wasn't there for the past ten years or so though. Every time I go to a game their highlight real starts in 1995 and ends in 2001. So when I was a kid I thought they were good.

My dad was quick to tell me horror stories about the Mariners. This was not normal- he insisted, of their brief, but to me, as far back as I could remember, success. “Ok, dad,” I thought, “maybe that is how they used to be, but I am here now, now things are different. April 2001- the Mariners started their season going 20 and 5! All year they surpassed everyone but my expectations of them and ended the season with a major league baseball record for most wins in the season -116! This was not normal, my dad insisted, a once in a lifetime season. But I thought- of course the team I like is this good, of course they are. In the post season they were defeated once more by the evil, soulless Yankees. They missed their first world series bid so the imps in training could go for the forty eleventh time or whatever. I cried then- I mean there were a lot of people crying in Seattle that day- grown men as well as 15 year old girls. But I wasn't that upset then because, they would go next year. Of this I had no doubt. They would be this good again next year, or maybe even better, maybe they would 117 games! I mean, why not?

Time is supposed to heal all wounds but every year now it just gets sadder. They haven't made it to the post season since 2001 and have only had a few years finishing over .500. I now understand what my dad was saying- that they will never be that good again, that was a once in a lifetime team. And that was the Mariners once in a lifetime shot.

I hope that's wrong- but these days, it sure looks like it.

Secret Life

This first part of my new story is almost a true story!

Chapter 1

“No, not that one, that one.

No! Not that one! That one, that one! Not that one, the one behind that one, the one with the orange fin.”

“What are you talking about they all have orange fins.”

“But this one is oranger, ooh there it is!

Oh it got away.”

Larisa Ollerman, that's me, waved the net around half halfheartedly and the three hundred or so goldfish in the tank swam out of the way. All except six slow ones that I presented to my teenage girl customer.

“No, those aren't him.”

“It's a him now?”

“Yeah.”

“How can you tell?”

“I just can, I only want him.”

“Well trust me girl, the harder you chase him the faster he's going to run.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” I sighed. I'd been working at the Plantasia Pet Ranch for three months now and had yet to make a customer laugh despite my best efforts. I had been working with this particular customer for going on thirty minutes now and had so far managed to restrain myself from beating the girl's head into the fish tank. So far.

“I'm just saying,” I continued as I waved the net around.

“There he is!”

“That there are plenty of other fish in the sea, ones that would love to go home to a girl like you,” again my net inadvertently caught three unwanted fish, “why this one?”

“I just like him,” the girl shrugged.

I shook my head. This was the same reasoning my friend Shannon had used to explain why she was still with Josh Radcliffe though the boy resembled something they would sell at the Pet Ranch and was about half as intelligent. Of course Shannon hadn't made me catch Josh for her with a 9 inch net, out of a sea of gaping, bug eyed bozos, a fact I hadn't appreciated fully until now.

“Attention Pet Ranch shoppers, the time is now 8:50 and Pet Ranch will be closing in ten minutes. Please select all your final purchases and bring them to the front. For your shopping pleasure we will open again tomorrow bright eyed and bushy tailed at nine am. I won't be here, but uh you might be, thank you, thank you very much.”

I groaned. Not only that I had been chasing a stupid thirteen cent fish around a tank for the past half hour but because I could tell from that rambling chain of idioticness that Larry was closing.

“Hurry,” the girl whined.

“Oh you can't rush true love,” I sniped, which was a lot more polite than the reply I was thinking in my head which was something along the lines of; you're going to have this fish for four days before he dies and you flush him down the toilet, it doesn't matter what he looks like! It didn't help that the particular fish the girl wanted I couldn't tell apart from the other 299 fish in the cramped tank.

I glanced to the clock anxiously. It was 8:51. The girl had come in at 8:20 with a group of friends who had all got bored and left about twenty minutes ago, while I was cleaning one of the fish tanks.

“I always want what I can't have,” the girl said sagely as if that explained her behavior.

“Oh sure, you can have him,” I said, “and for the low price of 13 cents!”

The girl shifted uncomfortably. Oh please, I thought, there is no way you just now realize how ridiculous you sound. I knew customers like her- if they didn't know they weren't ever going to figure it out!

Only after I had netted out 275 of the goldfish into a smaller bucket did the girl finally shriek- “ohmygod that's him!”

I had just been about to dump the fish into the rest but I caught herself just in time and dumped it into the plastic bag that had been sitting open next to me for the last thirty four minutes.

“Well,” I said peering at it, “I sure hope it's a he, for your sake, unless you know, swing that way.” Please don't swing that way, I thought as soon as I had said it. The fish didn't look any better to me from this angle. He/ she? how could you tell really? was orange and covered with small scales, had two bubbly looking eyes sticking out from it's small head and was making gaping motions with it's mouth while it stared at her dumbly through the plastic bag. Actually, now that I thought about it- it did suit the girl perfectly.

“I hope you'll be very happy together,” I said as I handed over the bag. “For the thirty seconds that thing is going to live,” I muttered under my breath. Luckily the loudspeaker drowned me out.

“Attention Pet Ranch shoppers, the time is now 9 pm and the Pet Ranch is closed, please leave now.”

Guys in Young Adult books

Have you ever met a guy like one of the ones you read about in a young adult novel? I sure never have. I keep meeting real guys. Real guys are unlike ones in these books. They have flaws, they do things that are annoying, and they definitely don't just fall head over heels in love with me at first sight, not even once. They are one other thing though- like, interesting.

Not to name any names but I have noticed the vast number of Young adult “sci-fi” books I start to read now-a-days starting off strong, interesting and then devolving halfway through into a poorly written romance novel. I say poorly written because they are not realistic to me. The guy, usually a good looking one, who is charming, and smart, and well, perfect, actually (except for being really dull) enters the novel and approaches novel's heroine. He professes his deep love for her just because presumably she is the star of the book and he wants more lines. Said boy will follow girl around complementing her, buying her things, and saying lots of ooey gooey lovey dovey brownie bits. And apparently teen girls like this?

I say apparently because this is seeming to be the trend as of late. Maybe it is because I am not a teen anymore but I really don't like these novels. I don't like living vicariously through these girls. I find them to be b&*%$ actually. Oh look at you, you're a self proclaimed ugly loser who gets perfect guys to drop out of the sky and kiss your feet. Well screw you! I want to read a novel about someone I can relate to, not someone I want to beat to death with her own book.

I worry about girls who read these books with no outside knowledge about guys and relationships. Guys are not perfect. Girls aren't either- no one is. Humans are flawed, deeply. Falling in love can take time, it is not usually easy and there is a lot of pain involved. When I go on message boards about certain TV shows I watch usually the guys I find to be the most realistic are lambasted by posters as “jerks” and “d-bags” because they do things that are unkind occasionally or don't return every single phone call. I worry these “perfect” boys are creating unrealistic expectations in the generation that reads them.

Things people say

-World War I started with the assassination of the arch duck Franz Ferdinand.
-How do you bottle spirits?
-If I had boobs I'd put stuff in them all the time.
-Just because I'm not hungry doesn't mean I can't look at the menu.
      -Sometimes I look at the menu while I'm still eating. Do I know what you guys are talking about?
-When two people have sex 50% of the time it's the girl's faults, 25% of the time it's the guy's fault and 25% of the time it's nobody's fault, it just happens.
-I think boys are yucky. (9 yr old girl after my own heart)
-They should take a picture of them and write 'lowered expectations' on the bottom.
-I broke up with my boyfriend yesterday and I moved on today.
-There are plenty of other piranhas in the sea.
-It's a simple math problem- if 4 out of 5 guys ditch you then you just have to go on 20 dates and you'll have 4 guys.
-My friend's from Idaho and she's never even seen a potato.
-Greeners don't get married early very much, I think it's because they're smart.
     - I think it's because they're ugly.
-I don't get why they say this song is by Justin Timberlake, it's just this girl singing about how the guys don't know how to react to her sexy back.
-You're going to hell.
     -I'm Jewish, we like invented hell.

-How bad was it Bob?
     -Well, it was medium bad.

Tails

Story I wrote for a short story contest when I was 15, the prompt was- "the wind howled across the island"

The wind howled across the island. The wind is the island's breath, its voice. It hangs over me in billowing clouds like mustard gas and chills me to the bone.
"I have dreams for you," the voice says, "oh I have such dreams for you."
How dare you? Don't you think I have dreams? Dreams that may be different from your own?
If I could capture this sound I'd beat it. Your sound is fish screaming, rabbits popping in some gross mutated form.
I have such nightmares.
All the children die. They die when the scientist comes. He carries with him his favorite implements of choice destruction. The little ones live behind crossed wire, they have no choice. They live behind bars on this island. This island that claims us all. Its dreams for us are all the same.
Sometimes he shoots us and then we are still for awhile. Sometimes we get sick afterwards, occasionally they even make us healthy.
My parents they have died long ago. My sisters and brothers too. I believe I once had a large family of about thirty five or so. One by one this island of despair claims each of my friends. I believe I once had many friends.
I am twice my size, I am blue colored and red. I have cancer and aids. Everytime I eat something I get worse, everytime I drink something I get something else.
I am cradled in death, in it I find my dream, I dream only for peace. When I reach out for my dream I can leave the island and the wind will blow me down no more.
Sweet, sweet, come to me dream, take me away, I want to go. When I have gone my body will go down to the edge of the island, thrown from the shore. And as the rain falls on me and I float away the island breathes and then its breath is no more.
"Look at that rat! It gets away."

Pretty Little Liars Book 9 Twisted

I was a fan of the Pretty Little Liars books 1-8. They were a little drawn out but I listened to them on audio book when I was running so hey the longer the better! They are pretty bad books but in such a deliciously good way. What I mean is they are very well done bad books unlike so much YA fiction, and they made a lot more sense than the train wreck of the show that bears the same name that yes I do still watch despite having adult taste buds and all now.
I wasn't sure I wanted to read book 9 because book 8 ended the series on such a good note I didn't want to spoil that by having book 9 potentially go back and change things that happened in book 8 but I finally caved in. I'm glad I did. My guilty pleasure is still a pleasure.
Twisted starts off a little slow like most of the others do, some filler boy problems, blah, blah, but by the middle I was hooked into even those story lines. By the time it ended I was hooked. Again. What? No! You can't end there! where's my library card?!
There are so many wild twists in these books the only thing you can expect is that whatever is happening will have some wild twist to it that you will never be able to guess.
There are a few things that bug me about these books, like if I have to read about another guy who has "pink, kissable lips" I might just throw the book across the room. (and then go fetch it and finish reading it like nothing ever happened) Not that it isn't great to know that his lips are pink and not in fact blue, or orange which could mean he has hypothermia, or a really bad spray tan. And that you would be able to kiss them if so desired. But you could say that about anything, even a poster, I mean, who hasn't made out with a poster at least once? All I can say is it's a good thing I don't live in Rosewood- I couldn't tell any of the guys apart.
And for anyone complaining that this is all just a money making endeavor, that's probably true but did you know they have this place where you can go and take any book, or audiobook you want, read it/ listen to it and return it when you're done with it and get this- it's completely free! What is this place? you ask? it's called a library! I know, right!

Being an adult is an aquired taste

I would rather drink root beer than anything else with beer in the name. I have bubblegum mouthwash because the mint is too minty. I would rather go roller skating than go to  a club. I shop in the Junior's clothing section. I'm a little too hopped up on sugar most of the time. I don't like to tell people I meet how old I am because I think I can pass for a good five years younger but I think, this week I may have developed my first adult taste buds.
I was watching one of my favorite shows, not to name names or anything, but it is a show about teenagers being played by people my age. How much longer are these people going to be in high school anyway? I mean these shows act like it is normal to be in high school when really- it's not! Very, very young people aren't even in high school anymore let's move on! But anyway, I found myself getting bored. Like so bored I needed to play a computer game while I was watching the episode- on my computer. Which meant I had to go to another window, so I was just listening to it without the visual. Pretty soon I had muted it. I was in the middle of the episode and I didn't even care what happened next. The entire plot of the episode circled around this girl who gave another girl the stink eye in English class or something, and btw, what's up with every high school show showing the students sitting in their chairs listening to their teacher up until the bell rings? We never did that when I was in high school, 5 minutes till the end of class everyone had their backpacks on and was standing by the door waiting to go, but anyway. That's not the point- the point was high school is boring! There I said it. I enjoy watching a show about grown up drug dealers my friend showed to me. I enjoy a show with grown @$$ adult characters more than one about high schoolers! I am soo grown up! 
The other day at work I was walking by the grown women's section and I saw a shirt I actually wanted. I was so proud if myself but then I saw the price tag. Wow, it's expensive being an adult. I need to get a real grown up job one of these days.
I'm still going to like Hello Kitty though.

Nostalgic love for bad music

Sometimes I crave things that are bad for me, and right now it's my Linkin Park CD that I bought in 9th grade. Why? Because it was so good in 9th grade. It could be totally random. A tune could pop into my head that I haven't thought of in five years and I have to race home and listen to it right away. Maybe it was mainstream corporate America trying to pry into teenager's wallets with commercially approved "rebellious" lyrics and purchased melodies but, but, but...shut up!
I don't like Linkin Park's new stuff. I would rather listen to the Backstreet boys than Bruno Mars or Nicki Minaj. I could pop my Backstreet boys Millenium CD in my walkman and be 13 again. I wasn't a stupid a 13 year old as my sister thought, listening to my Backstreet Boys album. I knew back then that my days of being able to like the Backstreet Boys were numbered but I secretly hoped I would love them forever just like I vowed to always hate those in grades younger than me.
 I used to think that I would always hate anyone more than a few months younger than me because they would forever be underclassmen and how could I possibly stand underclassmen ever when they were so moronic? But now that I am feeling very old I wouldn't mind shaving a few years off my graduation year. It's a good thing most people outgrow being moronic underclassmen, well some people, about half of all people. It's not something I miss, yet I listen to these songs and it is. How can I be nostalgic for a time period I so desperately wanted to outgrow when I was there?

Planet of the Grapes

edited story I first wrote age 13
Chapter 3

Flek waited in the bucket. It was dark and his body hurt from all the grapes lying on top of him but he didn’t care. Not at all. He was certain that something was going to happen now, this was the way to Planet of the Grapes, through this bucket. If only he could see.

Flek was vaguely aware that they were moving, he felt slammed into the grapes below him and the grapes on top of him and then they were set down somewhere cooler and even darker than before.

“What do ya see up there?” The grapes below were calling up, telephone style the reply came back, “cold and a lot of dark, pass it on.”

“dark, and a lot of cold, pass it on,” Flek repeated listlessly to the grape below him. None of those grapes at the top had any imagination. What he wouldn’t give to be up there.

Flek heard footsteps again, they shook the bucket, then excited cries form the top, “light! light!” Flek clung to his sister again. There were sounds from the top coming closer that Flek had never heard before, how to describe something you had never heard? Flek needed more words.

Flek waited for what felt like a month, in Earth time it was about two hours. It seemed to be getting lighter, not so heavy and not so dark. The grape on top of him was lifted away, like he weighed nothing. Flek was in the dark so long he’d forgotten how to see. Flek perceived the Earth he saw as the surface of the sun. His sister and the others howled.

They were lifted in the air next, plucked from their stem, and tossed into another bucket.

Some of his sisters and brothers landed beside him. Their stem which had born them, connected them to their mother, and sheltered them so long was gone, tossed away. Flek’s forehead was burning.

When all the grapes were in the new bucket it was lifted into the air.

Flek sat up high as he was carried. It was like some wonderful ride. Everything he saw whirred by so fast, but what he did see fascinated him. He saw brown things and red shapes. Blocks with arms and some with legs. Huge orange circles and long yellow squares. Flek didn’t have words for anything. This strange place might as well have been Planet of the Grapes for all he knew.

He saw the woman who had picked them eating a strange fruit that didn’t come from grapeville and didn’t speak grapish. He wondered if it were going to Planet of the Grapes. No, of course not, it wasn’t a grape. But then where did it go? Did it have its own planet?

He had never thought about any other fruit planets before. He wanted to go there too! He wanted to be a banana, or an apple! or a watermelon…

While Flek was figuring that out his brothers and sisters were being quiet for the first time Flek could remember when they weren’t sleeping. Not just quiet, silent. Flek didn’t have time to marvel at that or contemplate the difference between silence and quietness because it was just too exciting watching this woman spaceship. She was the spaceship to Planet of the Grapes, the better life.

She smiled at the small boy who carried the grape bucket, “Thank you Corduroy, you can set that bucket over by the cabinets.”

“What did she say?” Flek wondered. The boy set the bucket by the cabinets and ran off before his mother could give him another chore to do.

The lady leaned over, looking in the bucket at the grapes. From this angle her teeth looked bigger than the sun.

Flek cowered behind another grape he didn’t know but the other grape was trying to cower behind him too.

“Don’t be frightened,” He told himself, “She may seem big and scary but she is going to eat me.”

He stopped cowering and let the other grape hide behind him.

Flek looked up. It was so nice to be on the top of the pile. Now he was de-stemmed he was going to die sooner, he wondered why the boy person had de- stemmed them. They were going to eat all of them? Maybe- these people figures were awful big. Unless they were going to make grape juice, or wine.

Flek shuddered. He tried to push that word out of his head but now it was there it was there. Wine was the worst fate for a grape. His mother’d told him about it when he’d been three days old, a little nubby thing. It was like no grapes land and worse. When you were made into juice it hurt, it was a violation, all of your insides were on the outside and shared by everyone else, everyone was you. When you fell into No grape land you disappeared and never made it to Planet of the Grapes. But when you were made into wine the worst from both came in. The wine would be made like the grape juice but then it would sit on a shelf for years normally before someone drank them. Living that long before someone ate them would mean the grapes would surely die and never get to go to Planet of the Grapes. Flek shivered suddenly despite the heat of the room.

“Oh what a perfect grape,” The woman said spotting Flek as he moved. She leaned over him and picked him up out of all his brother and sister and neighbor grapes.

It all happened much quicker than Flek had ever imagined. He had time to feel excited after the fear and then before he could feel anything else he was in the person’s mouth. Sharp pointing white teeth poked him all over until he was in little shreds. Then Flek’s first life ended, he didn’t know what happened next.

The woman finished up Flek and ate two other grapes.

“Mmm,” she said, “delicious. You grapes will make an excellent wine.”

I get rejected

How much rejection can one girl take? I'm on a mission to find out. Agents of course reject you, book publishers- it's what they do. But so do jobs and guys and friends and well pretty much life.
When I first moved to Bellingham I applied to 50 jobs and I got hired by Petsmart. So the rejection rate of a minimum wage retail job for a college graduate I would put at 98%.
I was calculating in my head when I was bored running the other week and I relized I have not asked out as many guys as I thought- only like 8 I could think of in the last 8 years. Well, I only meet one worth asking out about once a year and sometimes they aren't even worth asking out it's just that I can't find anyone who is! I thought my rejection rate was a lot higher but as I remember it I only got 3 straight out no's out of that, 2 yes's and 3 mixed messages that later turned into no's. Of course all of them turned into no's when it came to any sort of commitment (some of them it was too much commitment to even talk to me) so I'm going to say my rejection rate there is only about 100%. In fact I have even been rejected by guys I haven't even asked out, wasn't even thinking about in a hundred years asking out! They go out out of their way to reject me. So maybe it's even greater than 100%.
I haven't written to many agents yet but I will. So far it is 100% rejection rate, 50% we're not even going to bother rejecting you rate. I have read online that their rejection rate is right around 99%.  Goody so I only have to write to 98 more?
This puts life's rejection rate at around 99%.
The good news is you only really need one, you only need that one or two percent, you just have to put up with a lot of rejection to get it.