Dundundundananadundundundanana….

Do you think I ought to put the characters’ thoughts in italics or not?
Maybe I ought to leave that to philosophers. Or editors.
Personally I think they ruin the moment sometimes.

In other news, my writer’s block is slowly thawing (it was a block of ice, you see), which means I’m feeling less like a marsh wiggle and more like myself again. I finally managed to get through one part that was bothering me a lot, by tricking myself into outlining. I had a surperstition about outlining, which is that: Every story I’ve ever tried to outline ends up screeching to a halt shortly after the outlining.
We shall see if the superstition still holds true.
I really really hope not.
It wasn’t really an outline though, it was more like notes concerning certain main threads, and of course I goofed off a bit just to entertain my bored writer brain, and to scare off the screeching-to-a-halt part. Like thowing salt over your left shoulder… which normally only results in the dog running up to lick the floor behind you… But never mind.

Also I learned a new poem, and I can stop reading Mythology, and I’m going to be taking a hunter safety course so I can go hunting with Dad soon. Yay!! Actually, on our way home from camp, we stopped in these woods that Dad used to hunt in, and we pretended to hunt. Well, Dad had a gun and a hunting license, so he was actually hunting, but I was really just pretending, and really really trying to keep still even though a fly was trying to eat my flesh.
Dad: “So, do you think you could handle doing this for hours?”
Me: ”An hour?”
Dad: “Hours.”
Me: “But Dad… a fly is trying to eat my flesh!!”
Dad: ”It’s only a deerfly.”
Me: “Well it’s trying to eat me!! I’m not a deer! But it wants my flesh!” (pause) “Ow, it bit me!”
Without the fly, I could be fine though.

As we tromped through underbrush, a really bad smell came up, and I turned to my right to see a dead cow lying right next to our path. It had been dead a while, since it looked mostly picked clean, except some skin/hair, and bones of course. It was really unnerving to see a dead cow. I mean, a dead deer you might expect to stumble upon, and I have (quite literally– eurghh). But a dead cow. You’re completely unprepared for that when the woods you’re used to are the Metroparks. Sometimes I feel so urban. I see cows on milk cartons, but just about nowhere else.
Anyway. The dead cow. Ugh. But five seconds later we startled a live deer and watched it spring away. So, you know, circle of life blahblahblah. Food for crows. I love crows.

It was fun, also, pretending to be Katniss, stalking prey. We were actually in what would be the tip of District 12, though not the Seam itself. I asked Dad if it was really possible to shoot squirrells in the eye to kill them, and he said yes of course, that’s the best way to get all the meat; so I said can you do it with a bow and arrow and he laughed and said, yes, if you’re unnaturally lucky.
Drat.

I did have a bit of luck this weekend, though: I found the remains (trace evidence, as Dad called it) of the rocket I made and launched last year at camp! Every year at this camp we launch rockets. Last year I won best decoarted for my rocket, “The Mocking Bird”, which had been painted purple and gold and adorned with turkey feathers. Well, I’d launched it and it’d landed so high up in a pine tree that you couldn’t even see it, but this year Dad and I went over to the pine tree thinking the rocket might’ve been knocked down in a storm by now. And there it was, my rocket in all it’s decomposing glory. The tail was pretty mcuh all that was left, but it stil had my name and the date on it, so I was really happy. Then this year’s rocket, “The Bat Wing”, survived without incident.

And there were bats in the cabin Dad and I stayed in. We stayed there on purpose becaue we knew there were bats. They were so cute! I could hear them squeaking and flapping as I fell asleep. Love. Plus I did not get a single mosquito bite. Fly, my pretties, fly!! Mwhahahahahahahaha!!!
I would make the best Wicked Witch of the West, you know.

I think I shall go back to working on my novel now that I’ve gotten some of my randomness out of my system.

Yours till the jelly beans,
Pen

PS The title of the post is me singing the part of the Wizard of Oz when the tornado comes and the mean lady goes by on her bicycle… I really should watch that movie again, I haven’t seen it in ages.

 

the only genre my life would be is literary fiction.

Over the weekend Dad and I went camping with Senoir Princesses (it’s a dad/daughter organization, for those who’ve ‘graduated’ from Indian Princesses or whatever you want to call it). I got a sunburn that is slowly turning into a particularly nice tan. We slept in a tent, survived sweltering heat, rowed a canoe 10 miles downriver, stayed up till 4 am watching the fire, fished, lived on a diet of cereal/soymilk, peanut butter/jelly, and hotdogs/brats. And walked like a mile to the bathroom. The good thing was that at night, the mile-long bathroom journey was actually pleasant, because the fireflies lit up the soy fields like fairyland. It was all misty, with a full moon, and then here’s these golden sparkles going off by the hundreds. And lots of ferns and mushrooms and things you might associate with little wood sprites. So yeah. Many adventures and interesting things…

In other news:

Driving school is excessively, excruciatingly, interminably boring.
ZZZZzzzzzzzz.
Yeah, two more days of that. Joy. The driving instructor said “Car-eeming” instead of “careening” about seven times today. Then we watched movies with dead people and 80′s celebrities (“Hi, I’m so-and-so from Roseanne.” Huh? And the cheesiness!!! Thank you, God, for making me not be alive in the 80′s).

Dad and I watched Sherlock Holmes (special thanks to Gwen for letting me borrow it) earlier tonight and it was pretty good. Except the American girl annoyed me. Why does there have to be an American? I wanted a movie with Brits; gimme my money back! Oh well, the rest was worth it.

Then I have to read this book called “Look Again”, and it’s horrible writing. The author describes everything in absolute detail. The whole room, all the people in and around it, what they all look like, do, live, and are wearing. Blehhhh. How does this junk get published? Oh, I know, because they know someone. Or they’ve already been published so the editor allows misplaced modifiers to run rampant, and similies to overrun the pages like dieased rabbits. (Haha, get it? except that is so not a description this author would use. She’s more like “the soup poured into the bowl like smooth liquid of the heavens” or whatever. It’s supposed to be a thriller. Move on!) 

Basically not that much going on around these parts. But I wanted to post because I’m hogging the cool basement all to myself, mwahaha. Plus I didn’t want to have a long space of silence between posts.

So.

A lot of thriller novels and films, but unfortunately my life right now is literary fiction. Blehhh and good night.

Yours till the hub caps,
Pen

 

A Million Bright Ambassadors

Yesterday, Dad and I were sitting on the couch watching the sun come in through the western window, and the little dust flecks in the sunbeam. For some reason we both like to sit and watch the sunlight in the evening. Then he said something about “a million bright ambassadors” (it’s more like a billion, in my opinion)… And the boys showed up. We took turns walking through the sunbeam of dust, and just when we settled down again, Lily appeared. After a pause she started chomping the air. Trying to eat dad’s bright ambassadors, along with anything else that moves… Goofy dog.

But now I know where I get my quoting thing. I just realized how Dad does it all the time, only he quotes Pink Floyd instead of Lewis Carroll. We are so alike. That’s why I love him even though he annoys me sometimes, because I can totally see how I have a lot of his personality traits. I even have his ears (left human, right elven). And may I say that though I’m a teenager and supposed to be thoroughly embarassed of/angry at him all the time, I’m actually not. Don’t get me wrong, we have our days, but generally I just like talking to him, listening to his stories and riding in the car. I like when it’s just the two of us and we can blast the music all the way to the library, with the windows rolled down. Dad always says that full volume is the only proper way to listen to good music. I happen to agree. Mom doesn’t. So it’s like our special thing. And whenever I think of camp I invariably think of certain music, a certain way of the sun hitting the hills and the road, the taste of Deerfield General Store vanilla ice cream.

As you may surmise, I am pining away for camping with Dad. He’s off at some camp with Dodge this weeked, and before that he was gone with Poncho. When will it be my turn?

In the meantime, I’m just sitting here on the couch– as I write this, actually– watching a million bright ambassadors come streaming in on sunlight wings.

-Pen

 

home again, home again, jiggety jog

Hey! I’m back from Atwood!!! It was such a great time. The weather was amazing (except for this morning it rained and I got soaked… but it made cool fog afterward so it was totally worth it. :) ) and I felt very energized just from being outside, moving around, running through the woods and hiking for two hours on Saturday (whew!), and having snowball fights, and all that. Ironically our Wii Fit is going to scold me for not doing exercise for three days. Ha on you, Wii Fit. I probably got more exercise this past weekend than in the past three months combined! Oh well.

I decided that I love winter because it’s here and it’s gorgeous and foggy and icy… ahhhh. Lake Atwood was so pretty in the mornings and evenings, because it was frozen but the 40 degree weather was making it melt a little, so the result was fog/mist. Lovely.

Ice fishing on Lake Atwood… I wasn’t really sure what those little huts were for (porta potties?) but then this morning I realized it was to shelter them from the wind. Ohhh. ;)

Hiking the trail to the Airfield took Dad and I two hours (there and back, five miles… we did stop to talk to a rabbit hunting farmer we met though, so probably we were actually walking for a shorter time.). But the airfield is pretty nifty, and the scenes along the hike are great.

Snowball fighting (dads against daughters) was another highlight. I didn’t get hit once, but I did hit a couple of the dads. I loved ducking and throwing and running using sleds as shields. Eventually Karen, Lisa, and Sam convinced me to sled down the hill. We raced each other and I totally wiped out and got soaking wet in the melting snow. I have no pictures of it, basically because if I did not keep moving I was going to get a snowball in the face. ;)

Dinnertime Saturday we all went to the Dellroy Community Center about two miles from camp. Some ladies from the little town made us a big dinner (with mashed potatoes that were soooooo good… and amazing cookies and pie…). Afterward we had a pig race with those walking Mr Bacon pigs. Every cabin gets a pig and they decorate the jockey (a little teddy bear of some sort) and name the pig. Our jockey was dressed as an angel so we named out pig Heavenly Ham. There was also a very clever person who named their pig “Senior Pigsesses”. LOL. Anyway, Heavenly Ham made it to the final round only to lose by a centimeter! Here he is valiantly crossing the finish line in the qualifying round, and then being comforted after his eventual defeat.

Late Saturday night I roasted marhsmallows with Lisa and Sam at the fire Fireman Jim made. Then we went back to their cabin and talked until about three in the morning, and had hot chocolate. Lisa about died laughing when we were talking about our hair, and I said, “Some of my hairs are grey”. They are because my hair is a mix of different shades of bonde and brown so some look kinda grey, so I was being completely serious but we cracked up because Lisa’s laugh is hilarious. I ended up just sleeping over at their cabin.

At the end Dad and I went on a hike around the mist-shrouded, thawing-out lake Atwood to say goodbye even though it was raining. Then we hung out with Lisa and Sam for a while before leaving…. sigh. Leaving camp is always sad, but at the same time I really wanted to take a shower. The roads were all foggy and cool and there was an awesome tree by this farmhouse. There was also a field full of black cows roaming around, and since they were so dark they popped up out of the mist very suddenly and flapped their ears at us.

Of course, the best part of camp was spending time with my dad. It always is. :)

Soooo…
that’s all. The End. As they say at the end of the Madeline movie, Fin.

Fishy Fishy Fins!!! Wow, hyperness. Haha, it made me think of the Salamader, “It’s a fish show!” LOL.

Peace,
Pen

PS did you know that haddocks are fish? I didn’t until today. So now I know what a haddock is from that poem in Through the Looking Glass, when the white knight meets Alice. “I search for haddock’s eyes/among the heather sweet/I make them into mutton pies/and sell them in the street…” sigh. That is next on my list for memorization…mwaha. ;)

 

Heat Wave!

Dude, we’re having a heat wave here. It’s upwards of 30 degrees! I think it might hit 40 this weekend, thank goodness. Dad and I are going camping this weekend at Atwood, and I am so excited!! Last year it was really fun but soooo cold. So hopefully we’ll get a break this year and I’ll actually be able to go outside without having to bundle up everything except my eyeballs. It’s so funny though– whenever I go camping, I always end up wearing clothes that used to belong to either my grandfather or my dad. And they fit me. Especially my grandpa’s (my dad’s dad, not Grandpa Vegas) wool shirt thing from when he was in the army when he was seventeen. And here I am and it fits me very flatteringly. Haha.

Our icicles are melting, too. :( We had some on the front of our house but now they’re shrinking. Nooo! When we used to play elaborate gams outside in the snow we would always knock them down and use them as knives, spears, and ice picks. Good times, good times.

So what else is up today? Hmmm. Well, I am dying because AP says I have 0 posts and I NEED to put up part 6 of White Funeral!! I hate having 0 posts. Alas. I need to write some poetry, too, though. I haven’t written any AP-worthy poems in a while. I did write one weird poem that I will probably never post anywhere about this hill that my dad told me about.

Oh! Speaking of Dad, I had him read The Hunger Games, and he just finished yesterday. He was totally glued to the book all of Tuesday. I knew he would love it! So yesterday we had a little book discussion and…
Me: “What did you think of the ending?”
Dad: “I can’t believe it’s only the first book! Glad she ditched the doughboy though.”
Me: (a little incredulously) “But… But I liked Peeta!” Then again I was pretty undecided the second time I read it and then Catching Fire was total torture because I could not decide if I wanted her to pick Gale or Peeta. Sometimes I think Gale because, well, it’s Gale and they’ve always been together, they’re so alike, they make a great team and Gale really loves her… But then I also think Peeta because, well, it’s Peeta and he’s very sweet, he and Katniss are different so they kind of balance each other out, and let’s face it, he’d be completely crushed if she picked Gale. But Gale would still have Madge so it’s not really fair.
Wow. I have no life. But I love those books anyway.

Well, I guess that’s all for now…. Peace out, homies!! LOL. I was saying that to my mom and my ASL teacher yesterday because my ASL teacher said soemthing about “peeps”.

Yours till the tea leaves (oooh that was a good one!)
-Pen