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.