Fat Tuesday musing…

I’ve been thinking about sacrifices and things, and I’ve come to realize that *news flash* nearly all food is delicious. I mean, one would practically have to live on bread and water– but bread is actually quite good. Come to think of it, I really like water, too. (It’s so refreshing!) And sweets… Tea is sweet, juice is sweet, fruit and cooked carrots and sweet potaotes are sweet. And Eliza’s broccoli might as well be dessert!

And fish? First, if it’s a dead animal, how is it not meat; second, unless you eat them like Smeagol, they’re delicious; thirdly, no one can even pretend eating anything fried is a sacrifice. Then there’s, what? Pierogies? Potatoes and cheese and onions swathed in soft, buttery noodles is considered fasting?

Has sainthood ever been more attainable?

…
PS: I guess I could just live on ham and grape juice… But then I probably wouldn’t. Live, I mean.

 

I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea

but I know what heather looks like / and what a wave must be…

Actually, I do know what heather looks like, but I don’t know how it smells or how tall it would be if I stood in it or how it looks when it’s dead and snowed on or does it even get snowed on at all and if it’s soft and what noise it makes when wind or footsteps go over it. 

I have a little better knowledge of waves, as I have visited a particular Great Lake on several occasions, but it’s not the sea and it doesn’t smell like salt. It kind of smells like sweaty water and whatever fishing bait is being used nearby. Besides, it’s hard to smell when you’re being blinded by the glare of the sun off the lake and the concret you’re sitting on, and you’re distracted by herons that your brother is feeding heat-stroked minnows to.

It’s hard to reasearch things on this disorganized network of inaccurate information we fondly call the internet. And I keep having to look up things for White Funeral, like different types of sailboats and rowboats and docks and tides and… The list goes on.

But there are things I do know. I know the twenty-nine different types of snow, the feel of cold wind down the back of my neck,  months where the difference between day and night is just the sky changing shades of gray. The moon being so huge and orange and low on the horizon that it seems to be asking for someone to try and climb onto it. (Which is how it looked last night, and I wished I was out in an open field so I could chase after it, or just stare and stare without streetlights polluting my view).  

 Well, speaking of things never seen, I am leaving this weekend for… Kentucky! I will be surrounded by wilderness, and I will see mountains, and (best part) I’m going with the DHFs! I think it will be awesome as long as it doesn’t turn out like a cliche TV show, where the one character gets invited to go camping or something and they show up in a pretty dress with some technological device in hand. (Not that I don’t know how to pack; Eliza has given me a helpful list, and I’ve gone camping plenty of times. It’s just a weird phobia I have, I guess.)

In other news, today was like a giant time-warp because I had to go to the dentist and get my hair cut. And then it was like oh wait, the day is completely over. Sigh. I never want to sit in another waiting-room chair for as long as I live. (Unfortunately, some dreams really are unattainable.) Now I have to get some writer’s group stuff together, and go to bed. (Instead, I’m half-watching The Voice and writing this. I justify blogging because it’s already been some time since my last post and I assume I will not be back here until I’m home from Kentucky. How do I justify watching some lame singing show? Yeah. There’s really no excuse.)

 

I could live on bread and cheese. (And only on that? So can a rat!)

Today I am what Poncho is calling his “human lab rat”, meaning I have this chart where I am to record my heart and breathing rates at certain times– the first of which was ‘upon waking’. I don’t think that one turned out very scientific, as I didn’t have a watch of any kind, and was trying to count my pulse and the seconds. So it says that my heart beat 30 times per minute, which makes it sound like I was in a half-alive coma state. (Possibly this is true. I had just woken up, after all.) (I don’t think “woken” is a word.) (Too bad.)

Also today I went to the grocery store with Dad. This was our list:
salsa
onions
cheese
bread
hamburger buns

This is what he tried to convince me to buy:
apples
butter pecan syrup
pecan pie
pastry
some kind of soup
apples (again)
basically everything we happened to walk past

Then we ended up standing in the middle of the deli area because someone he knew was there, and they were talking. Whilst the deli counter lady was calling to me from behind, and Dad was not telling me what kind of cheese to get, so I asked for sharp chedder. This prompted the deli lady to go into great depth telling me that they did not have sharp cheddar, well actually they did but it was expensive and–
Me: “OK, never mind…”
Lady: “Do you want a half pound of it? A quarter? Are you sure? Do you want a slice to taste? Here it is, it’s good, it’s wrapped in wax.” (because only legit sharp cheddar is wrapped in wax, apparently)
Me: “No, seriously–”
Lady: “Oh, I see, you’re sorry you even asked.”
Me: …………………….
Dad: “Ask for some colby jack.”

You see why I juse loooooove shopping.

Now Dad is actually cooking the hamburgers, and sighing and talking to himself and– “Oops, somethin’s on fire.”

Oh boy.

~Pen

PS: Yes, the title is from Annie Oakley. Yes, I remember that from third grade. Though not the accompanying dance moves, sadly.

 

sparrows in the holly bush

Well, I don’t have much to say, but it’s been FOREVER since I blogged and I hate to be away so long.
So.
Here I am.

So much has happened between Christmas and now that I feel like I have to catch up. Christmas was awesome, obviously, and New Years was extremely lame (Mom says we need to come up with a new tradition– I vote for playing games because…) my birthday was SUPER FUN and it involved going to the park, eating delicious food, being with my friends, and playing Spot It with my family. Grandpa kept shouting “whale!” for the dolphin, and it was so fun playing games with everyone. I also got a birdfeeder for my bedroom window (no birds have found it yet even though some sparrows live in a holly bush literally five feet away).Oh, and we had cookies.

Being seventeen is waaaaaaay more enjoyable (so far) than being sixteen. I don’t know why; I just felt like at sixteen there were somehow all these societal expectations– driving, working, being a grownup yet a typical teenager. I hated telling people I was sixteen! But now, I’m seventeen and I feel like the pressure is off– if I’m not driving now I must be waiting until eighteen and the same with everything else. I’m in an in-between age where nothing in particular is expected of me and I love it. (Perhaps that is why I loved being fifteen as well…. So nineteen must be my next fun age. Hm.) I feel like I have the freedom to “stretch” and evolve at my own pace and not rush into things just because I’m now old enough for it.

I wish I could vote, though. (Not that citizens get to vote on anything important [cough, SOPA/PIPA].)

The other main thing that I have been doing lately is writing. I am so excited about the way that White Funeral is shaping up. It’s different from the original in many ways, yet I feel like it’s closer to the original concept. Things haven’t really changed, it’s just that I understand them better now. So things that I’m adding are things that I feel were in the original, just not fully revealed or explored. I’m really having fun unveiling things, and feeling like, “oh, that’s what I really meant when I said that”. Sometimes I think my subconscious writes and I just try to follow along.

Oh, and one more thing: I taught my dog Lily to speak! (I mean bark on command. If she was really holding conversations with me I would have mentioned it earlier.) Anyway, she does the trick perfectly… unless other people are watching.
Me: “Dad, watch, I taught the dog to speak.”
Dad: “Wow, she learned English? When did that happen?”
Me: “Noooooo… You know what I mean.”
Dad: “She does that too much already.”
Me: “No. She’s a good doggie! Lily, wanna treat?”
Dad: “Too much noise…”
Me: “Lily! Lily! Sit. Good. Speak!”
Lily: ………. *tail wagging*
Me: “Speak!”
Lily: …………*staring hungrily at treat*
Me: “Lily, speak!”
Lily: ………. *squirms*
Me: “Speak, Lily! Speeeeeak!”
Lily: “woof-BARK!”
Dad: “Wow. Amazing.”
Lily: *sneezes on me*
Me: “Thanks…”

 

Christmas Adam

You know, because it’s before Christmas Eve! Mom told me that last night.

I can hardly believe it’s so close to Christmas. With moving and all that, Advent went by as a blur of purple and what?-already?-pink. But the tree is up (with a new piece of tape on the stand, as is traditional), the lights are lit, and the gifts are wrapped. I bought the last of mine two days ago… Example number five thousand and one of how I am a procrastinator. I always want to find the Perfect Present to give people. Something unique! And cool! Yet useful! Soooo, yeah. Luckily Mom knows of all cool stores ever and was also willing to drive me there even in her slightly stressed mood. We went into the first one, where I got __________ for ______, but did not find anything else. Then we went into a ____ store so I could look for ______, but did not find any, so then as we got into the car…
Mom: “Oh my gosh. Ohhh my gosh. We’ve been in like a ton of stores and you haven’t found anything!!!”
Me: “Um. We’ve been in two stores, and one of them was like a fake Hallmark. And I actually did buy something. So… be calm.”
Mom: “Oh. Right.”
So then I kept doing my impression of her freaking out, which made her laugh, and I found the rest of my presents in the third store we went to. All was well.

It even snowed this morning, and there was a GORGEOUS first snow last week which actually stuck and was awesome and cool. I took a walk through my new neighborhood in it, and got a bit lost. I was going to follow my tracks home, but the snow was falling rapidly and I didn’t really want to go the same way I had come. The unknown was calling me! Oh, and I heard the bells ringing from the nearby church, which gave me some idea of which direction I should walk in. I eventually made it home… Though at one point I was a little afraid I would be doomed to become the Lost Soul of Serborn, doomed to wander suburbia forever in search of home.

Buuut then I heard very familiar barking, and realized I was right around the corner from my house.

Humans: 1. Cul-de-sacs: 0.  

Right now Dodge is pretending to spy on me from the other side of the Christmas tree, and Dad is listening to cats meowing Jingle Bells.

Yep. It feels like Christmas now… 

The other night I had a dream in which I was talking to my mom, and I said “Hey, tomorrow is Thursday.” But she said,  “No, tomorrow’s Christmas!” and I shouted “YAY!” and did a happy dance. I think I’m aging backward this year. :)

In that case, YAY!!! CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Love,
Pen

 

a message from the beyond…

OHMYGOSHINTERNETINTERNETINTERNET—

Hi.

Did you miss me?

Yeah. I’m a little insane right now, from not having the internet in a week, or more, I think. I;ve been able to access email once or twice, and look up a few things in bits and scraps. To do this post, I had to outwit a computer at the school where my mom works. It’s all because we’re living at our new house now (yay! I must say, unpacking is way better than packing.) and the internets have not yet been connected. Tomorrow is the day we’re back online. I hope.

I mean, I didn’t think not having internet would have this big of an effect on me. I consider myself very low-tech. Anti-tech, sometimes. Convenience, bah humbug! But the past few days have proven me pretty wrong.

Still, I guess it’s been good. I’ve been reading real books a lot more. Plus, my room is pretty much unpacked; I’m just working out the details. I can see the moon setting as I lay in bed– I saw the lunar eclipse the other night. I have been looking out of the spy-hole in the side door, and gazing at the sky, learning where everything is and what is around me. The new house is starting to feel like home….

From beyond the realm of internet,
Pen

 

Precious Tetris

Moving is…..

Insanity.

We’re throwing things into Dad’s new (insanely yellow) truck and the back of the van, driving back and forth to the new house, putting things in bedroom closets and basement corners. One of my tasks was to pack up all the Precious Moments figurines from the dining room hutch. Then Mom made me organize them in some theme-related manner, the result of which was me trying to make the boxes fit into other boxes in an optimal-usage-of-space. It’s a new game I like to call…. Precious Tetris! Every time I finished a box (oh yes, there were many boxes of boxes) it was Next Level time. I also played Mini Tetris by packing small, breakable items inside of loaf pans.

I also packed:
One million rolls of film (Mom told me to label the box, so I wrote “Please Develop These!”)
CDs (and casett tapes. …..really?)
nature items (feathers, shells, rocks, a bit of a wasp nest– what’s a bedroom without them?)
all my books (*cries*)
an electric typewriter (there is truly nothing like it for curbing the inner editor! I get good ideas while typing on it, which happened yesterday night while I was there…)
most of my clothes (I have a huge closet now, and I take up one fourth of it.)

Poncho packs like four toy guns in a box and takes it over. Then this morning he was complaining that he has no boxes. Hmm, I wonder how that happened.

We also took over the Christmas tree, which will now be kept in the basement, since the new house doesn’t exactly have an attic.

Dad: “I’ll sure miss throwing it down the stairs.”
Mom: “We could throw it down the stairs after…?”

I know. The loss of a lovely Christmas tradition. But, the way the ceiling peaks in the new living room prompted Dad to suggest that we get an extra-humongous tree. “It could be like the White House tree.”
Me: “Christmas at the gray house.”
Dodge: “How would we decorate it?”

It’s going to be interesting having Christmas at the new house. I’m pretty excited…. But not about packing more boxes, or vaccuuming more baskets, or seeing another square inch of contact paper…. But at least by the end of this madness I’ll be really, really good at Tetris. ;)

~Pen

 

thy canopy is dust and stone.

Having to title blog posts lends itself to a lover of randomly discovered quotes. The above is from Romeo and Juliet, and is part of what Paris says over her tomb. “Muffle me, night, awhile.” is another good one from the same. I can’t wait to read the full play for school! But I have to finish that blasted book Frankenstien first. Sigh. Hopefully Dracula will be better.

Anyway…. I needed a brain break. My head is partially exploding because, well, I have a lot of things to get ready for the new house (we signed the lease yesterday… woot? yay?) and the thought of going through the chaos of my bedroom is enough to give a delicate creature such as myself a headache.

[This is a bit off topic, but yesterday we all got our pictures taken for this parish directory thing, and the picture-taking lady kept calling me "princess". I was like I HATE PRINCESSES inside, but on the outside I just smiled and went along with it. Why do picture taking people always rub me the wrong way? They're always tilting my head and pushing my shoulders back and saying inane things in an attempt to make me smile. "On a count of three, say 'We never fight'" she said while taking a pciture of me and the brothers. "We cannot tell a lie," I said through my teeth.]

Wow, that was a long tangent. Anyway, yeah. I’m excited, but also procrastinating by first trying to work on writing, then by writing a blog post. Then by eating a sandwhich while writing a blog post (why didn’t anyone tell me we had lunchmeat? Food hoarders).

Now I am staring out of the front window. Sometimes I do this in the middle of writing things. I stare out, and depending on my mood, I might contemplate the sky, the clouds, the trees… or smashing the asphalt open with a sledgehammer. You know. Peaceful, happy thoughts.

~Pen

PS: “sword” is “words” rearranged. That’s telling, no?

 

I like your Eeyore sweatshirt.

So, today is Poncho’s birthday! He had his friends over today and there was much Lego ninja-ness. So yesterday we were trying to get things ready for that (on top of a lot of other things), and we had all paused in the kitchen, where Mom was standing in her pajamas and freaking out.

Mom: “I’m really stressed, OK? I’m under extreme stress.”
Dad: (sarcastically) “No way, really?”
Me: shaking my head in the background and mouthing ‘not cool’ to Dad.
Dad: “I mean… what can we help you with? Do you need something?…. I like your Eeyore sweatshirt.”

Then we all just burst out laughing. 

So, happy 11th birthday, Poncho!

Love,
Pen

PS: dear blog readers… I didn’t mean to be gone that long, alas. Life’s been crazy (Halloween, movie making, writing, house hunting– and finding!) but I’m back now. :)

PPS: Like the new header? Picture is courtesy of Dodge’s fab photography skills. He also had to help me upload it as I clicked the mouse a hundred times, frumiously saying ”It’s not loading! It’s not loading!” 
Dodge: “What are you going to do when you need to download stuff for two hours? New computers need that.”
Me: “You’ll do it for me. Right?”
Dodge: “Riight.”

 

a slightly sarcastic library letter

To Whom It May Concern:

Dear sentries of knowledge, dear keepers of treasured volumes, I beseech you.

Please sort your teen section.

I am an avid reader and frequent patron of the County public library system as a whole, and of the Brooklyn branch in particular. What I have found during my forays into the so-called “teen” fiction section is this: there are so, so many books marked “teen” that should not be.

I must express my intense frustration at the categorizing of many of these books. In the publishing world, there are categories called “Middle Grade”, “Upper Middle Grade”, and “Young Adult” (also called “YA”). Note that nowhere is there such a word as “teen”, for the simple reason that it does not work. Specific age does not determine what a person reads; reading level, intellect, and personal maturity do. There is no way to categorize such things, because it so vastly varies from person to person.

Now, I do see the benefit in having a label such as “teen”. Lots of people fit into it. It sounds “cool” (note my use of quotations here to convey my disdain at this notion). Besides, those younger than YA will happily glide into a section marked “teen”.

That is just the problem. I am on the older end of YA, and do not enjoy having to sift through innumerable titles that seem plucked from my fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade bookshelves. Instead of feeling welcomed and relaxed in the section of the library allegedly set aside for my age group, I feel foolish, forced to browse through titles written for people four years younger than myself. Again, I must stress that it is the personal which determines what one will/won’t read. There are certainly enough mature thirteen-year-olds out there, but they will naturally read ‘ahead’ of their years— whereas someone like me is bothered by books that are too young for me being labeled as for my age group.

This is why I propose—nay, beg—the separation “teen” and “YA”. Vaguely aged and/or Upper Middle Grade could be put into a “teen” section, and books for older teens/young adults into a “YA” section. At the least, they need distinctive stickers on their spines. I feel that this will make things clearer for everyone, while also easing and enhancing the browsing experiences of your youthful readers.                                                                                                                     

Yours Most Sincerely,
Pen