The words "Kimchi Kat" do not show up in that order on Google.

I'm going back to calling Cassee Kimchi Kat, even though it's misspelled. It's not on Google! How fabulous is that?

My titles have absolutely nothing to do with my posts. I like it that way.

I'm not sure if this is just me being a spelling/punctuation/grammar person, but I find it really strange to have Facebook chats with certain people. I type out full sentences and try to put my entire thought in one post. Other people...don't.

Example:

Me: Hi, Anonymous!

Anonymous: hi libby

how r u?

Me: I'm fine. You?

Anonymous: i'm fine to

do u like cheese?

Me: Um...

Anonymous: ?

Me: Why are you asking?

Anonymous: i dunno

i just wanted 2

well

?

do u?

Me: I guess. I mean, cheese is pretty cool. I don't eat it all the time or anything, but I like it.

Anonymous: lol

yeah

i don't

like it

i think its kinda gross

but

ok

It's really strange for me to look at a chat I've been having and see that I speak in sentences, but the people I talk to speak in little. Short bursts of. Speech. It takes a minute for them to write up their little three-word phrases (subordinate clauses!) and send their little tiny bits of thoughts to me. I'm not annoyed with the people who type like that, just the way they type.

its annoying. 2 try 2 read. ok? cuz ur little. mini-thoughts r not interesting. their kinda stupid. k?

So please stop it and write like you've cracked open a dictionary at least once in your life, please? I'm getting a little angry here, actually. I could rant for a while on this subject; I did once in English class. But I'm going to stop now. I might devote an entire post to this some time, but not now.

I've changed the nifty little profile picture up in the right-hand corner several times now. First it was a creepy staring face because I was too lazy to put up a better picture. Then it was the picture of a dress made from old iPod skins. I love that thing. It's absolutely amazing. But I got bored of it after a while and changed it to an interrobang, a combination exclamation point and question mark. Now it's an irony mark. Yes, it's not just a backwards question mark, it's an irony mark. There's a huge difference. I'll probably have a picture of a dead rat up by March.

It's interesting how a lot of people seem to blog the way they talk. Like, some people write really, really long paragraphs and then pull themselves back on subject. Some people just write down thoughts and skip to the next one. Do I blog the way I talk? I can't tell. I don't just talk to hear the sound of my own voice, whatever you think. I talk because I can.

I don't think that's a better reason, but I don't care.

I keep thinking about colors all the time and I don't know why.  It's very strange. I keep doing things like searching the word blue on Google or typing in yellow on Wikipedia. I even have the word blue written on the back of my hand. In purple marker, natch. I love that word, almost as much as I love colors. This is prompting me to make a list. Unfortunately, I can only think of a few things to put on it right now, so it will be an ever-growing list. I will add to it as I think of other things to put on it. Don't worry, though; that could take millenia.

Things I Like More than I Should for No Apparent Reason:

• Colors
• Butterflies
• The word natch
• British spellings of words
• British punctuation
• Punctuation
• Green cargo pants
• Characters who wear green cargo pants
• People who wear green cargo pants

I barely ever made lists until I started blogging and the little Bulleted List key showed up. See, blogging is a bad influence on me. I should leave my blog to collect virtual dust here on the Internet and go rant about people who curse too much elsewhere. Of course, my reader(s) would probably all die from lack of their daily me.

I'll stay. For now.

"stayhome mom & doting dad yearn for your baby"

That was an adopt ad in the newspaper. I thought it would make a great title. Aren't you just dying to give up your child to them? They yearn for him/her. Yearn.

Last night, I stayed up until midnight watching animanga with the child. Because I am the kind of person who thinks midnight is late but will stay up that late just to watch animanga. Of course, I didn't just watch animanga. This is the full list of things I did (minus the one or two or ten things I forgot about):

What I Did For Two Hours Last Night

• Decided the animanga was racist against the French for only offering Japanese and English subtitles
• Complained about Tohru having brown hair
• Complained about my complaining about Tohru's hair
• Informed the child that I am often hairist against those who are not blonde
• Complained about almost every character's voice
• Spent the first five minutes whispering to the child, "His voice is weird!"
• Burst into hysterical giggles every time Yuki talked
• Imitated Yuki's voice by putting my hand over my mouth and talking in a falsetto
• Resolved to look up who the voice actors were so I could laugh my head off at them
• Told the child he was acting like an animanga lover
• Assured the child that acting like an animanga lover was not a bad thing
• Giggled
• Snickered
• Laughed
• Read two books
• Yelled at Cassee (aka. Kimchi Kitty) until she ran upstairs
• Wrote Kimchi Kitty gusta Ponchita on a paper plate
• Decided to gasp and put my book (or hand) over my mouth every time anyone swore
• Decided that there were too many opportunites to do that in the animanga
• Complained about how profanity is affecting our children
• Decided to put my hand over my mouth and gasp loudly whenever people in real life swear
• Complained
• Complained about the songs during the credits
• Complained when the child skipped over the credits
• Listened to the child complain that I complained too much
• Told that child that I was complaining for the sake of complaining
• Actually watched the animanga

It was a busy evening indeed. Besides, everyone knows that the more I complain about something, the more I like it.

One of the books I read was called The Blue Avenger or something like that. It was an okay book, but as a pseudocurser, my favorite part was that every time in the book where someone should have cursed, it instead said !@#$. That was because the main character liked old-fashioned comic books, where characters say @$#! a lot, and also because his father said something along the lines of "profanity is the language of those who can think of nothing else to say." In other words, "people who cuss are idiots." Yes, that means you.

Idiot.

Garbage trucks make strangely pretty sounds.

I heard a sort of chiming noise today while I was typing, and lo and behold, it was the friendly neighborhood garbage truck. I had no idea they could sound so pretty. Garbage trucks seem kind of nasty and garbage filled, but they're really lovely sounding.

I had yet another dream that I was a man. I think that's supposed to mean something. Probably that I need to find inner harmony. I don't care, though. I'm not really interested in inner harmony right now. The guy dreams are funny, anyway. They're exactly the same as my other dreams, except I just know that I'm a guy.

I have my writing music on, so cross your fingers and hope this will be a long post. Use the power of positive thinking! I love positive thinking. It's amazing. With positive thinking, anything can happen! We can fly to the forking moon if we want to! Yay! Optimism!

My writing music is--please don't be creeped out by this--bubblegum dance. That's what they call it. Like Barbie Girl by Aqua, Butterfly by Smile.dk (it was on DDR)...It's kind of creepy at times and has no point, but I like it. I write better when I have meaningless lyrics in my ears. At least, that's my theory. It might not be true, but I have more fun this way.

Okay, now that you know about my love of scary music, I'm moving on. Keyboard: check! Ten fingers: check! Writing music: check! Inspiration: ...not check. What's the opposite of check? Slash? X? Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I have no inspiration. I am inspirationless. There is no inspiration inside my soul at this point in time. Try again in five to seven business days.

I've just noticed yet another thing about myself, which I will try to put into words for your reading enjoyment. I live my life for you, you know. I slave over these posts. I spend ages sitting around at the computer putting off blogging and futzing around on Facebook. It's a tough lifestyle.

Anyway. In lots of teen girl things (novels, movies, et cetera), the girl has to choose between two guys. I know this because I am a teen girl and therefore have been exposed to many teen girl things. Usually (this is what I think, anyway; I'm sure not everything is like this) one of them is the nice, cute guy who's her friend. She usually ends up being freaked out by him wanting to be more than friends because she's into Other Guy. Other Guy is often a bad boy and/or tall, dark and mysterious. I can't really think of any examples off the top of my head, so I'll write my own.

Example:

"Aethelfrith," said Aiden, looking at the ground because he was very shy and all shy people spend inordinate amounts of time staring at dirt, "I really like you."

Aethelfrith was shocked. "Aiden!" she exclaimed, staring at him with her mouth open wide enough for a small airplane to fly in. "I am shocked! Up until this very moment, I had not even stopped to consider the fact that you might be in love with me, even though that would be a very convenient plot point!"

Aiden became suddenly engrossed in watching himself scuff his foot against the floor. Aethelfrith considered his adorable brown eyes and scruffy blonde hair. She had thought of him like a brother ever since she had been born, but he was actually very cute, now that he had mentioned his love for her. "Do you really like me, too?"

"Um," said Aethelfrith; for truly, she was in love with Azrael, the handsome but mysterious boy who had shown up under cover of darkness and camped out in her driveway all week. "Um. Can I get back to you on that, Aiden? Maybe we can have a chapter break here?"

Aiden stumbled away, now staring at the ground with a distinctly downcast air.

"Ha ha," said Azrael, appearing out of a cloud of darkness and the souls of fallen angels. He was too busy smoothing his wavy black hair to make one of the witty comments for which he was known, which was a disappointment to Aethelfrith.

"What's so funny, Azrael?"

"You are," he said, with a sneer that only enhanced his chiseled features. "You and that mouse of a boy you hang around with."

"Aiden is not a mouse," said Aethelfrith.

"I hate mice," remarked Azrael, disappearing in a puff of very manly black smoke. He left a faint smell of human failure and burnt toast behind him.

"Who should I choose?" cried Aethelfrith to the heavens as she fell to her knees. "Aiden is cute and loves me, but Azrael is handsome and eats misery for breakfast! Oh, how confusing my life is!" She shook her fist at the sky, which didn't respond. Air is not well known for it's communicative qualities.

Let us all agree that I could make a fortune writing novels for teen girls.

If I'm watching a movie or reading an animanga, I tend to root for the cute nice guy. If I'm reading a book, I pick the Other Guy. My theory for why I do that is this: In real life, I could more easily imagine myself with a cute nice guy. Movies and animanga (anything where I can see the character) remind me more of real life. So I pick the guy who's cute and nice, the guy who I would want to date.

If I'm reading a book, I pick the Other Guy. I have a reason for that, too. In books, the only thing you have to base a character's personality on is how they talk. Bad boy-type characters are almost always wittier and more sarcastic, which amuses me more. If I can't see the dude, it doesn't feel as real. Seeing really is believing!

Of course, it could just be that I like certain characters more than others, but that's not as fun. I can't write any more. That lovely example sapped my creativity. More writing shall come your way tomorrow, unless of course I get bored.

Forking heck in a handbasket.

Ignore the title. It was the first thing I could come up on such short notice (short notice being the two days I've spent on this post). I know I should have sat down and worked on it earlier, but I was sure you would all be too busy with your lives to notice that I skipped out on blogging for a day. Or two. They're beginning to blur together in my mind.

Today I am going to go more in-depth on the subject I know you're all dying to hear about: why Pseudocurses? I know it's very hard to type into the search bar every time you want to read my magnificent blog--don't worry, I have trouble spelling it, too. It's just one of those words. The e comes before the u, if that helps.

I don't believe that swearing should be against the law or whatever. I really have nothing against people cursing when they drop hammers on their feet or when they lose the competition they've been training for all summer. Those are legitimate reasons. I'm against people swearing every fourth word just because they can. All words have power, and profanity has more power than most. Using it over and over again makes it lose its meaning, and I don't think profanity should lose its meaning. It's called profane for a reason.

I try not to curse out loud and I do find it offensive. I curse when I write, because I feel like some of my characters would swear. To me, that's not the same; it's them, not me. I know they're figments of my imagination, but still.

So next time you feel the need to say ---- in front of me, please restrain yourself. I carry soap in my coat pocket.

I'm making a list today of names I really like. It's going to be amazing. I like a lot of names, but I'm really too lazy to think of them all right now. So this is more of a partial list. If you could open up my head and look inside, you'd see them all, but please don't. I'm not in the mood for a lobectomy.

Names I Really Like:

• Isabelle
• Tom
• Aethelfrith
• Jessica
• Suzannah
• Jezebelle
• Kaylan
• Soren
• Vyvyan
• Matthew
• Allison
• Katrine
• Valentine
• Bellatrix
• Liz
• Emily
• Juliette
• Yvette
• Noel

That's not counting things that are not names but are used as names, like Kashe or Butterfly. I like them, too.

Marker caps. Marker caps, also known as those little things you put on the end of markers, are very useful things indeed. Without them, markers would dry out and we wouldn't be able to use them. That would be sad, as markers are a staple supply for young children drawing stick figures. My main problem with marker caps is that you have to take them off before you can use markers. What's that supposed to be about? The things get lost so easily. You just put them down on the floor, and before you know it, they're halfway across the house under the sink. Evil but helpful. Isn't that how most things are?

I am too tired to write any more. This is because most of my blogging is done between the hours of 20:00 and 22:00. I should really blog earlier, but I'm lazy. Have I mentioned that I'm lazy? I'm lazy.

Goodbye, children of Earth.

Attack of the annoyingly entrancing animanga!

I may never stop lumping anime and manga into animanga. It's so much more fun to say.

Look at me, blogging without the cousin's violent Facebook chat messages popping up left and right on my screen. I'm very proud of myself. This is a big step for me: the step after blogging because it's still a novelty and blogging because it's become a habit. I usually need someone to shove me through this step until whatever it is I'm doing becomes habit, but today I'm not. Wow! So exciting. I really feel like I'm, you know, growing up or something.

I've just finished reading Fruits Basket Vol. 6 (did I mention I've become hooked? I'm hooked. It's the blondes...) and my mind is kind of spinning. Am I the only person who it's like that for? When I finish reading a good book--or manga, or comic--my head sort of spins. In a good way. It's like the characters and story are still in my head, wandering around, and I have to think everything out again. That's why I read books a whole bunch of times. And also because I skim the first time and don't pick up crucial plot details until the second or third reading...Breaking Dawn...

Anyway, I read books a few times, usually only getting up from the couch to eat, and then find someone else who's also read the book to talk to. Talk meaning yell at ("Oh my forking gosh, he chose his stupid clothes over life? That jerk! That jerk!") and hope they agree with me. If they don't, we can have a wonderful discussion about character motives. Everyone had better agree with me on the issue of Tom deciding he'd rather make dresses than live past sixteen, though. Can you tell I'm still bitter about that? Read the Magic or Madness trilogy by Justine Larbalestier to find out why. And read the first one first!

I still have a stack of books that is the size of Kansas on the shelf, just waiting for me to pull them away and open their pages, but I'm resisting. Writing instead of reading can be very hard. For me, anyway.

I have decided, overnight, to become a vain person. Yes. Vanity is suddenly pouring from my pores. And my vanity needs you to help it out and let it take over my body. Please help the vain impulses and comment on this blog.

I'm tired. And the brother is distracting me with questions, such as "Why is the guy who looks like a girl cross-dressing?"

Because cross-dressing is fun, that's why. I have personal experience. Of course, that was just to shake things up a little bit.

Look at all these wonderfully short things pretending to be paragraphs! I'm getting too tired to write any more. Yes, I am. I'm not just making excuses so I can run off and read.

Look, cousin! I made a whole tag, just for you! Be filled with happiness!

Pseudocurses: Now with extra thoughtfulness!

I'm pondering several deep questions as I write. Actually, only two of them, and they're not very deep. It just makes me feel smarter to call it pondering several deep questions. Firstly: Why am I continuing to write stuff that anyone visiting this page can see? Secondly: Why don't people who write advertisements spell-check first? If you're going to, like me, post things on the internet, you might as well spell them right.

As usual, I have nothing much to write about, so today I'm going to sit and type all the things that come into my head.

I'm bored...I'm hungry...I can't think of anything...this is taking too long...why am I doing this...ooh, veggie sausages...this house is loud...yay, irritating Cassee...why is Robby humming...I want two sausages...no, Sluggy is a stupid name for a Magcaro...I don't care if it's level fifty-six, it's still a stupid name...

Wow, what fascinating insight into what I think about. I always thought that I spent my time thinking about important things, but obviously I don't. Please pretend that whenever I don't say anything, I'm thinking about the meaning of life, not vegetarian sausages. I usually have illustrious thoughts; I'm just, I don't know, having a bad thought day.

I think I'll tell you about the last book I read. It was probably Fruits Basket again, but I threw that off to the side before I was halfway done. I get annoyed when I read manga because the authors can do beautiful drawings and I get jealous. See, I've always wanted to do something beautiful, and since my art is crap, I try to write beautifully. I just don't do very well with that,  either, so I'm stuck writing sarcastically and hopefully kind of humorously. Wow, I'm getting so personal. Really letting out my feelings here. Now you know how I feel, even more than when I shared my thoughts about veggie sausage.

Anyway, the last actual book (book as in not manga) I held in my hands was City of Ashes. I was too lazy to finish it again, even though I keep telling Erin I'll do it. I read it this morning for an hour before I finally stumbled out of my room. That's progress. Then I read it again for a while and got to the part where Alec is a jerk about Magnus. That part makes me cry every time. I feel a list coming on...

Parts of Books that Make Me Cry Almost Every Time I Read Them:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Bellatrix dies
• Breaking Dawn when Bella kills and drinks blood from a mountain lion
• The Realms of the Gods when Rikash dies
• City of Ashes when Alec is a jerk
• Wide Awake at the ending (tears of joy)
• Freak Show when Billy doesn't get voted prom queen
• Annie on My Mind at the ending (tears of joy)
• And many more that I can't think of at this moment but will have me shedding tears the next time I read them.

Well, I'm off for a Family Fun Night in my place of residence. Au revoir, adios, farvel, Auf Wiedersehen, selamat berpisah, sudie, adeus, dovidenia, and just plain goodbye.

Adverbially me.

I'm sure you've noticed that my recent posts have been lacking in verbiage. Well, not verbiage, exactly. Lacking in real writing, not just lists of thing I hear around me. I haven't really been writing very much at all, not even in my notebook. There are several possible reasons for this to be happening.

Reasons Why I Haven't Been Writing Much:

• The mothership has become angry with me and used their futuristic devices to block the creative impulses from entering my brain.
• Subtle atmospheric differences are reducing the level of whatever it is in my brain that causes me to write.
• I'm lazy.

They're all very likely reasons, but for some reason I'm going to go with the last one. Sloth, as we all know, is a sin, but who cares?

I'm very tired again today, and I have nothing much to write about. The ideas, they do not flow. The English, it is not coming to me. Non. Je n'ai pas les mots.

Meatballs. The plan was to write about useful objects, so I'm not sure why meatballs are here. Meatballs, being small balls of dead animal substances, are pretty much useless. They say the things are edible, but I'm not sure. Who really wants to put a small ball of dead animal in your mouth? Even the idea sickens me. I hear that Ikea (preferably pronounced IK-ee-uh) makes the best meatballs, but I've never had the chance to find out. Okay, yes, I've had the chance. I'm just vegetarian.

Someone pointed out to me that I put the word the in front of a lot of things. You know: the cousin, the child, the thing, the chick. I have no explanation for why I do this. It's just my way. It's a part of my DNA. If I stopped calling you all the people, I would lose my essential Libby-ness. Yes. I would. If you have any ideas of why I like definite articles so much, please tell me.

This is a song that I have always really loved, so I'm posting the lyrics for you all to enjoy. Remember "Schoolhouse Rock?"

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here.
Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, got some adverbs here.
Come on down to Lolly's, get the adverbs here!
You're going to need
If you write or read,
Or even think about it.

Lolly Lolly Lolly, get your adverbs here.
Got a lot of lolly, jolly adverbs here.
Anything you need and we can make it absolutely clear...

An adverb is a word
(That's all it is! and there's a lot of them)
That modifies a verb,
(Sometimes a verb and sometimes)
It modifies an adjective, or else another adverb
And so you see that it's positively, very, very, necessary.

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here.
Father, son, and Lolly selling adverbs here.
Got a lot of adverbs, and we make it clear,
So come to Lolly! (Lolly, Lolly, Lolly)

Hello, folks, this is Lolly, Sr., saying we have every adverb in the book, so come on down and look.

Hello folks, Lolly, Jr. here. Suppose your house needs painting -- how are you going to paint it? That's where the adverb comes in. We can also give you a special intensifier so you can paint it very neatly or rather sloppily.

Hi! Suppose you're going nut-gathering; your buddy wants to know where and when. Use an adverb and tell him!

Get your adverbs!

Use it with an adjective, it says much more,
Anything described can be described some more.
Anything you'd ever need is in the store,
And so you choose very carefully every word you use.

Use it with a verb, it tells us how you did,
Where it happened, where you're going, where you've been.
Use it with another adverb -- that's the end.
And even more...

How, where, or when,
Condition or reason,
These questions are answered
When you use an adverb.

Come and get it!

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, get your adverbs here.
Quickly, quickly, quickly, get those adverbs here.
Slowly, surely, really learn your adverbs here.
You're going need 'em if you read 'em,
If you write or talk or think about 'em ... Lolly! (Lolly, Lolly, Lolly)

Announcer: If it's an adverb, we have it at Lolly's! Bring along your old adjectives, too - like slow, soft, and sure. We'll fit 'em out with our L-Y attachment and make perfectly good adverbs out of them!

(Get your adverbs here!) Lots of good tricks at Lolly's so come on down.

(Lolly, Lolly, Lolly!)

Adverbs deal with manner, place, time,

(Lolly, Lolly, Lolly!)

Condition, reason,

(Father, son, and Lolly)

Comparison, contrast

(Lolly, Lolly, Lolly)

Enrich your language with adverbs!

(Lolly, Lolly, Lolly)

Besides, they're absolutely free!

(Lolly, Lolly, Lolly)

At your service!

Indubitably!

You didn't get much in the way of verbiage today, but you got a very lovely and somewhat obnoxious song. That's a fairly good trade-off, I think. I'm sure Audrey doesn't think so. She gave me several death threats during the course of this blog, like this one:

*quiet seething voice* Blog or I will reach through the computer and throttle you.

Pleasant, Audrey. You make me feel so loved.

"Did you learn nothing from Willy Wonka?"

Well? Did you?

That was part of a conversation I heard in the hallway today, and I promised I'd use it for the title of my post today.

This post is the Libby is too lazy to really write a blog post post. Deal with it.

Quotes That I Am Reading Off This Website And Find Amusing:

• People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children. -Bill Watterson
• If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either. -Dick Cavett
• Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. -Oscar Wilde
• Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -Clarence Darrow
• If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur. -Doug Larson
• Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -Oscar Wilde
• One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. -Larry Gelbart
• We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true. -Robert Wilensky
• The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution. -Hannah Arendt
• Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. -Lily Tomlin
• Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange. -Robin Morgan
• Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. -G. K. Chesterton
• War is not nice. -Barbara Bush
• Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try. -Fran Lebowitz

Wasn't that exewwww3333333333333335624444444444

Sorry; the cat walked over the keyboard as I was trying to write that. Wasn't that exciting? Yes, yes it was.

I do not like them, Sam I Am.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a blog when you keep doing things like pressing ctrl+w while trying to type?

Updating is starting to seem like a chore, and you know how I am about chores. Once I have to do something every day, I lose all interest. Except for reading. I could read forever and still be interesting. That is because books are tofu for the mind.

Today, I developed an irrational fear of walking the hallway from fifth to sixth hour.

It all started two days ago when I was standing outside the door and the bell went off, making me late. Yes, for the first time in my thirteen years of existance, I was late to a class. Cue the shocked gasps. I had to walk past the classroom, up the stairs, and into the office. There were a few other people there. The secretary looked up and said, "You were walking to class and the bell rang," as if she'd heard all the explanations before. She probably has. We all filled out our little yellow slips--they're actually a white paper attached to a yellow paper, so you fill them both out at the same time and they can keep a record of your misdeeds. "This is your first time getting a pass, isn't it, Libby?" I nodded.

The paper burned my hand as I held it. I swear it did. The little red marks on my hand are not pen that says "p. 126," they're burns from my hall ticket. I wanted to rip it into shreds and leave it on the floor screaming for mercy, but you have to hand the things in to your teachers. My teacher left it propped up against the blackboard. Every time I looked at it, I shuddered.

That is the story of how a piece of paper barely the size of my hand scarred me for the rest of my school days. Feel free to cry and tell me how sympathetic you are to my plight. I'm sure you care.

I'm too lazy to really write much, so I'll just type out some of the things I heard during my school days. Eavesdropping is fun. Very, very fun. People do tend to get confused when you're sitting in a corner working and then burst out laughing, though. That's just the price I have to pay.

In French (so many amusing things happen in French; I don't even write half of them down):

Several classmates were staring at their classmate's sandwich. Let's call her Chandra. Chandra told them to stop staring at her sandwich because it was freaking her out. Jonathan said, "I want to put a suit on that sandwich and take it on a date. Yes, a suit. It's a man sandwich--not that men eat it; the sandwich itself is a man." Man-sandwich.

Madame was telling us about how the French teacher at another school has very good hair. Apparently at a French teacher meeting, she said, "I just want to touch your hair!" He said, "You're weird."

Madame was showing us pictures she took while in France. Unfortunately, many of them were of dead animal carcasses lying on tables waiting to be sold. Us vegetarians were highly disgusted. Everyone else took it as an opportunity to tease us.

"Oh, look! More dead animals!"

"YES!"

And then, when the dead things had passed: "Look, veggie guys! Grapes!"

When Sam was called on to say, "J'aime le jambon (I like ham)," he said this instead: "Je n'aime pas d'oeufs verte et de jambon vert." I do not like green eggs and ham.

And then, in Mr. X's class, he told us to "stop conjugating and figure out what to do." Esse, sum, es, est, sumus...I think we should do our play on the Mormons!

Picture Frames. Picture frames are very useful when framing pictures. Without them, our art would hang on the emptiness of our walls without anything around it. What a thought.

Most pictures just wouldn't be the same without the squares of wood or plastic surrounding them. Taking away the frame just about takes away the art. There are more than eight picture frames in our house, as well as countless others that are, I'm sure, waiting to be filled with some lovely picture. Every house should have at least one or two, just in case some priceless piece of art drops out of the sky and they need somewhere to put it.

I was bored in math class, so I decided to write a list of things that would make good names for bands. This was after I'd finished working, of course. What kind of person do you think I am? ...Don't answer that.

Libby's Band Names (Remember, if you're stuck in a band with me, don't listen to a word I say):

• Trash Bag Fashion
• Halfway Decent
• The Fourth Wall
• Here Be Dragons
• Schrödinger's Cat
  
• The Maybe Girls
• Lifeline
• Loud Profanity
• Human Addition
• Far Far Away
• Fish And Visitors
• Die Klarinetten
• Tangible Refrigerator

Remember, infidels: be a rebel, just like the string bass players who wear different colored socks at concerts.

Broadcasting live from the land of working internet!

Preston has been down for the past few days. Preston is my internet connection. He and Remi (the computer) have been fighting a lot lately. Remi and Preston fight a lot, not like Remi and Frederick (the child's very large fake gun), who are biffles. Anyway, the inanimate objects around me quarreling cause me to be stuck not blogging for a few days. They say Preston'll start working again soon, but I'm not sure when soon is.

Today I went to the library with the cousin. (Yes, the cousin. I know I have another cousin, but only Audrey-chan gets to be the cousin.) She was subjected to the Libby Shelf-Pull Experience, which should not be confused with the Libby Transvestite Experience. The Libby Shelf-Pull Experience is the method I use to get my ten-book-high stacks every time I enter a library. I go over to a random shelf and scan it, thinking things like "I like that author" or "I've been meaning to read that" or "That book has a funny title" or "Ooh, a penguin! I'm reading it!" Then I pull it off the shelf and add it to my pile. I shelf-pulled five books for the cousin, but then she told me that was enough. She also called me a bibliophile and a dork.

The cousin told me to start reading manga. I started it, though, so I shouldn't be complaining. Too bad. Complaining is practically my hobby. For the Japanese-impaired, manga is a backwards graphic novel with out-of-proportion people who have eyes that take up half their heads. When people put manga on a television screen and animate everything, it's called anime. Anime is watched; manga is read. There is a very clear distinction. However, if you watched someone reading manga, that would be anime.

She decided to start me on Fruits Basket because it has a.) a plot and b.) minimal violence. Those two things make it good to reccomend, I suppose. Maybe in manga-world. So far, the first volume hasn't given me anything other than a desire to make a list.

Things That Annoy Me About Fruits Basket Volume One, Pages 1-39.

• Yuki. I always thought Yuki was a girl's name, not a man's name. Also, there is one page where Yuki's eyes look faceted, kind of like a bug's eyes.
• The fact that the book is backwards. I have trouble reading it still, because my eyes actually travel from left to right, top to bottom when I read. They say that comes from reading English books.
• That's it, but I'm sure more things will pop up to bother me as soon as I pick it up again.

This keyboard is slowly driving me insane, and I'm hungry. Try to live for a few more days without my blog. I'm sure it'll be hard for you.

ttyl, infidelz~

Storming the SPC!

I looked up pseudocurses on Google for some reason and found this blog as one of the entries. That scared me. I'm going to go run and hide in a corner with my tin foil hat.

To the kid I saw on the way to advisory today: Jesus did not die 4 you. I know that without even getting into the complicated web of complication that is religion. Jesus is incapable of doing anything 4 anyone. For is a preposition. 4 is a number. Numbers are not words and have no right to go around pretending to be words.

I'm in advisory as I write this, being advised by Mr. X (I'm protecting his identity). There are fourteen of us students.  There are twelve lights on the ceiling. That's six sevenths of a light per person. There are thirty desks; that's two and a half desks per person. It's very exciting here with me reduced to counting furniture. I could, of course, be socializing, but you know me.

I have said that I will read anything people shove into my hands. This list I am painstakingly compiling of books I have read recently will be proof that anything and everything is reading material to me.

• Another Kind of Cowboy. This book is by Susan Juby, who is pretty awesome. I want to be like her when I grow up. Read Alice, I Think to see why. Anyway, the cowboy book is about this dude Alex who is busy riding dressage and being in the closet, and his biffle Cleo, who's busy being rich. The funniest part was a page near the end. I'm not telling you about it. Go read it yourselves.
• Generation Dead. Read my post two days ago. Then read the book.
• An Abundance of Katherines. Also known as that Katherine book. The plot was maybe a little predictable: "So there's this guy who only dates girls named Katherine, and he meets this girl--" "And her name's not Katherine, but he falls in love with her anyway." "How'd you guess?" I have mad skills. It was funny enough to make up for that. I like funny books.
• Rebel Angels. The sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty. By that Libba Bray woman. She's funny. Her books are, occasionally. It's about girls at a boarding school in Victorian England who can, you know, go into a magical world and fight evil.

Today my English teacher was telling us about run-on sentences she says they're bad for our writing. I don't know what her problem is I love run-on sentences they're awesome. I'm sure I use a lot of run-ons in my writing, which is a habit I should probably get out of. Please notify me if I use too many run-ons and it bothers you a lot and you want me to stop okay that would be nice.

I plan to write up a petition and pass it around, trying to end the current degrees thing down at the SPC. As soon as I have enough people, we'll storm the SPC. Anyone reading this who goes to my place of learning and agrees that English has a place in American schools, get ready.

Two trains are 120 miles apart.

I've always wanted to know how to do a problem like that. I seem to be reading them all the time in books: "FMC sighed and threw her pencil out the window again, pausing to listen to the  soothing yowls of the cat next door she'd hit. 'Two trains are 50 miles apart on parallel tracks...' When was she ever going to need to know this stuff?" Well, FMC, it's really amusing when you pick up a math paper and see a problem you've pretty much read before. Being a fictional character I just made up, it won't matter to you.

Am I the only one who gets excited about math problems and dictionaries? Everyone should. Dictionaries are amazing. Fabulous. Wonderful. Terrific. Spiffing. And don't even get me started on the wonders of the thesaurus.

Notice that I am now double-spacing my paragraphs in an attempt to make my blog posts look longer. It makes me feel smarter when my posts are long, so I'll do this now. Even when my paragraphs are actually only one sentence. It makes the whole thing harder to read, but it's worth it for the joy of feeling like I actually wrote something of interest.

I didn't do very much today.

It was a boring day.

I don't have much to write about.

I haven't written in my notebook recently. I think it's because of this blog, sucking my life and energy away. The thing is like a demanding little child, reaching its sticky fingers for me in the hopes that I'll climb down from the chair and play with it. (You know how people in movies and such jump onto chairs when they see mice? That's what I'm like with small children.) Pseudocurses is taking away all my creative impulses and focusing them at it. The last thing I wrote was a depressing free verse poem, actually. I forgot what I called it. Something depressing. Now, isn't that a great name for an emo band? All the books I've been reading are about zombies and goths (is there a difference? Don't get offended, gothies, I love you all from the bottom of my heart) and their depressing music.

Something Depressing. I love it already. Their first song could be about a goth wedding or something. It could start out sounding sort of nice and sweet, about something borrowed, blue, old, and new, and then break into bringing something depressing and slicing your groom's head off.

If I'm ever in a band, remember to stick me in the corner and not let me do anything important.

Gosh, I haven't really been doing my Object that is Important to Your Lifestyle for a while. Newspaper bags. Newspaper bags are those skinny plastic bags that newspapers come in. They aren't big enough to fit anything except newspapers and dog crap, but they're far from useless. It's just that no one's discovered a use for them yet. Scientist are working on this as you read. I, for one, have always loved newspaper bags. Back when I was a young whippersnapper, I enjoyed blowing air into them and tying the end up so the air was trapped inside. Something about this reminded me of a carrot, so I waved it around and told people that it was a carrot. Then I stuck sharp objects into it and probably laughed hysterically. I was a strange little child. I'm still a strange teenager, though I try not to think of myself as little.

I played my clarinet today. I can hear the applause from all the people who know I practice about as much as I practice my dribbling. (Dribbling in sports, that is, not dribbling food down my shirt. I do that all the time without practice. You could say I'm a natural.) I played the ever-exciting Jammin' with Charlie, the piece our teacher gave us for jazz band. It sounds terrible without a bunch of other jazzy people playing with you, but they say practice makes perfect. Too bad our practice logs are due tomorrow and I'm going to get yet another D-. I am a clarinet-playing failure, except that all my teachers somehow think I'm very good.

I have to get my beauty rest. Toodles, infidels.

Zombie romance.

Yes. Zombie romance. Sit back and imagine it: The girl shivers as they walk around the moonlight lake. The zombie slips off his coat to hand it to her. Unfortunately, his arm falls off with the coat and rolls to the ground in front of the horrified girl's feet. So romantic! So touching! So disgusting! Imagine the same undead boy and his living girlfriend, sitting together in her childhood hideout in the woods. Suddenly, the zombie leans in towards the girl and eats her brains! Now the two of them can be together forever! Or maybe the girl could just die.

Forget about those Twilight books, those House of Night books, that Anne Rice woman. Vampires? So passé. Who cares about bloodsuckers with the speed of cheetahs and the power roughly equal to a couple hundred sharks? All they want to do is feed off your blood and turn you into one of their filthy kind. Zombies, on the other hand, shuffle in vast hordes to attack their victims and feed on their brains. It's like comparing apples to oranges (assuming the vampires are the maggot-infested oranges).

Two good books to help you in your understanding of the differently biotic: Generation Dead and the soon-to-be-released Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters. I'm not going to tell you what happens, because you should go out and read them yourselves. (Even you, Spiffy-kun, even though I know you can be bioist sometimes.) They'll really help you understand me when I say things like differently biotic and bioist.

A few days ago in class, we had to read yet another depressing story. The only good thing about it was the discussion we had afterwards:

"It could be like Noah's ark and God...except no Noah and no ark. Just God."

I apologize for not posting recently. It's been so hard on me, what with the harvest bein' so bad this year. I was up all night yesterday plantin' broccoli with my toenails, and then I had to take a break to paint 'em again. Those  darn broccoli fields do nothin' for the feet. I hope we manage to sell some more broccoli by Wednesday, otherwise we might not be able to pay the cowhands.

Goodbye now, y'all.

My sincerest apologies.

I am unable to write a blog post at this time.

All that these fingers are capable of writing is pages of heartbroken anguish, free verse poetry, and "that stunt I pulled on Tuesday."

Where's the mothership when I need it?

"..And then everyone would have holes in their heads!"adegrees m

Can you see the pattern developing here? I use a quote from my fascinating day as the title of a post, then I explain it in one of the first few paragraphs. Maybe tomorrow I'll mix it up a little, just to annoy you.

I thought yesterday was the last day we'd have to deal with our morbid class, but no. Two days spent talking about the most gory things we could think of? No, no, that's hardly enough. We need to spend our entire class periods talking about violence. At least, that seems to be the mindset of a certain person in my group.

We were trying to think about the logistics of a computer chip implanted in our brains to let us play music and such (it's going to happen someday, I swear) and I said, "It'd be really expensive..."

"I think it would cost three dollars," said that certain person. Okay, fine, it was Jaewoong.

"Three dollars? Jaewoong, that would be really, really hard to do. It would not cost three dollars."

"I think it would."

"I think it wouldn't."

"Well, they could make a machine with lasers on it, and they could go around shooting people in the head! And then everyone would have holes in their heads!"

"And they'd all just stick the chip in through the hole?"

"Yeah!"

Also in English, our Polish student raised his hand to ask, "We have learned about the Holocaust, and races, and nuclear fallout...Cannot we learn about, like, happy things or something?" See, even the foreigner sees through her plot to depress the Halifax out of us. And then probably make us all her slaves, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

True friends leave footprints in your heart. Excuse me for being literal, but that sounds painful. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't really want footprints in my heart. It would be pretty bad if you had to have heart surgery in the future, too. The doctor would have to ask why there were little footprints on your heart. Okay, if I think about that any more I'll be sick.

I'm going to list about a hundred names from this website (can I add a link to this thing?) Name Nerds because it has a list called: It Came From The Baby Name Book. It makes me laugh, and we all know how hard that is. Okay, I lie, but it's still funny. Maybe if I don't get bored I'll list some stuff from: What To Name Your Baby Goth. Or you could just look it up yourselves.

• Conception
  
• Asian
• Dicklit
• Hermaphrodite
• Xanthippe
• Phantasia
• Ag
• Trinidette
• Kulukulutea
• Fitzclarence
• Abboid
• Lepeet Hessemdooks
• Tennis
• Zdzislaw
• Pervis
• Lymphoid
• Jock
  

Spiffy-kun, I know you love your page-missing baby name book, but please remember that baby name books have the stupid options as well as the other ones. If you're thinking about naming your child something dumb, just think about how horrible I plan to make life for my future child from the future. If you don't want your kid associating with Khaytelynne Aethelfrith Simone, tell me now.

Yarn. According to Dictionary dot com (yes, I'm going to put links everywhere now that I know how to make them), yarn is thread made of natural or synthetic fibers and used for knitting and weaving. Yes, both natural and synthetic fibers! Amazing. Lots of people in my family enjoy knitting, which is a hobby involving two pointy sticks and a lot of yarn. To knit, one makes little loops with their yarn and somehow forms all their yarn loops into an object. I've actually never knitted, so I have no idea what the finer points of knitting are. Before reading the definition for yarn, I hadn't realized that it was also used to weave. See how reading dictionaries and word-defining websites helps me? Yarn can also help me, I'm sure, even though I've only ever used it to tie up stuffed animals. Go out and buy some yarn to help the economy or something.

Today when the announcements turned on, I said, "It's temperature, not degrees!" The announcement person, being down in the SPC, ignored me. There was actually rampant ostracism at my place of learning today. Louis refused to listen to my imaginary friend's jazz riff, even though he spent an hour last night dilligently composing it. He plays a mean jazz oboe. Louis didn't care and then--horror of horrors--even sat on my imaginary friend. Such rudeness!

"And we can cut off his feet, too! Just for fun!"

We did this project in English class--we were supposed to be doing it, but no one did--where we had to think up handicaps to stop people from doing what they were good at. You know, a la "Harrison Bergeron." Our class was apparently the most violent out of all the hours. Every other answer was something like, "We'll break both her legs permanently so she can't play soccer!" or this conversation, which took place in my group:

"We'll cut her fingers off!"

"Yeah! But what if she tries to write in blood on the walls?"

"Ew! Guys, that's nasty!"

"We'll put her in a room with waterproof walls!"

"La la la, I can't hear you!"

The worst one was definitely the group behind me, who I happened to hear discussing this:

"Oh, well, we can cut off his thumbs so he can't play video games."

"That's a good idea! And we can cut off his feet, too! Just for fun!"

If you give a group of eighth graders a topic, they will think of the most violent things to do with it. This is why I believe we should all read books and write responses on ponies and magical unicorns. How can anyone be violent with ponies and magical unicorns? ...Wait, don't answer that.

Today I wore my very dapper outfit to school in an effort to blend in with my comrades. Along the way, I learned that ties are a rainbow of fun! and that little brothers tend to say things like, "Libby, you look like a girl," just to annoy you. People kept asking the same question over and over: "Libby, why are you wearing a tie?" I came up with several different answers, but I only ended up using two.

"I'm on the men's basketball team now, didn't you know?"

"It's ironic."

"I'm having a gender identity crisis."

"It's a free country."

"What tie?"

People in general have trouble accepting a girl wearing a tie and mens dress shirt, even when those people are her comrades. Goshdarnit, my own comrades don't even accept me. I feel so unloved. Five or so different people did come up to me and tell me how much they loved my clothes, so that was pretty fabulous. I wasn't looking for recognition from all you cripples and random people, though. I was hoping that my own team would care about me. I actually even had a fight with Comrade Colin, during which he became convinced that I was racist.

Halfway through my first hour class, we realized that there was a bat hanging from the ceiling. It was so cute, but my classmates didn't agree. Well, a few of them did. Surprisingly, it was the girls who seemed to be the most grossed out by our furry little friend. My teacher spent a few minutes assuring us that it was nocturnal and wasn't going to attack us. Then he went down to the office and got the custodian to take it away.

Today's important topic: Vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners help you clean, assuming you own a vacuum cleaner. If you don't own one, it's not going to help you. You'll have to clean your house with a broom or a Roomba™, and we all know how horrible that would be. The only problem I can see with vacuum cleaners is the amount of noise they make. It's very distracting to be half-asleep on the floor trying to do nothing and be rudely half-awakened by the sound of a vacuum cleaner turning on downstairs. Many a relaxed evening in my household has been ruined by a vacuum cleaner. Still, vacuum cleaners have one big thing going for them: their name. Vacuum. How fabulous is that? It's almost better than time-space continuum.

I should really practice the clarinet today...my band teacher even wrote down on my report card: Should practice more.  Pshaw, I say. Ought does not imply is. I read that in a book. I think it means that just because something probably should happen doesn't mean it's going to. Like my clarinet skills, which aren't going to improve much because I practice once a week. My band teacher also said I was a fabulous clarinetist (not in those words...) even though I don't practice.

After some deep meditating and stuff during class today, I realized that there is a major problem with life: We don't all look like anime characters. My life would be greatly improved if I had giant eyes, a line for a nose, and hair that stayed almost exactly the same no matter what I did. Flying Spaghetti Monster, up there in the sky, why didn't you make us all anime people when You touched us with Your noodly appendage?

I am proud to own my shirt.

I finally ended up going on the shopping excursion I've been threatening for a few weeks now. It was a fabulous experience.

Shopping for guys clothes is a lot different from shopping for girls clothes. I had to pick up a whole new set of lingo, and I'm only just learning the language of girls clothes. (I can pretty much tell the difference between straight leg and boot cut now!) Guys clothes have a whole new language. It's pretty forking confusing.

If you're standing in the guys section, leafing through shirts and muttering to yourself, "Too small...too small...I can't be that small, can I...?" it's not that weird. You could conceivably be shopping for your brother. Or your boyfriend. Or a boy who happens to be your friend. It's not that weird.

If you're standing in the back, talking to the helpful guy (he had curly hair and really green eyes) and getting your arm measured for shirt sizes, that's when it starts getting weird. The guy seemed a little confused. I don't know why. He was just dealing with a teenage girl with a lot of hair trying to buy a mens dress shirt. It's not like people don't normally do that or anything.

Actually, I have a strong feeling a lot of the people around me while I shopped were freaked out. I randomly began talking to clothes as I looked at them on the racks as if they had feelings: "What size do you think you are?...Seven? What? Do you forking expect me to be a seven? Gosh!" ... "What size do you think you are?" Yeah, I don't have strange habits at all.

So. Insight into my fascinating life. I can't wait to blend in with my comrades, the men's basketball players.

Today in history was Valentine's Day.

At school today, someone began to tell us all about something important in history that happened on this very day. They're usually all very depressing facts, like "so-and-so got shot today but two hundred years ago" and "today was the day Hitler was born." However, today's announcement went "Today in history was Valentine's Day!" Really? I thought Valentine's Day was in two days less than a fortnight. And then, as if to add insult to injury, our Announcement Reader told us that "the current degrees is 30." Tempertature. The current temperature is 30 degrees. Even if the right word was degrees, you wouldn't be able to conjugate it with is. Degrees is plural. Is is singular. If this keeps up, I'll have to storm down to the SPC and go copy-writer on their scripts.

Your weekly dose of the English language is now over.

I just realized that people will be able to look at this blog years from now when I've completely forgotten about all the dumb stuff I used to do in middle school. I'll be able to look back and laugh, but my future employers will be able to see what was running through my head in eighth grade. Scary.

A Note To My Future Employers In The Future: What's it like in the future? Have they invented those solar-powered scooters I want yet? Anyway, Future Employers, please disregard everything I write on this blog. Unless, of course, it's stunningly intelligent. In that case, I'm your girl. Hire me.

I've already learned something about blogging, and this is only my second day. I suppose you could say I'm a quick study. When making a blog, don't give it a really long name that's nearly impossible to spell. I was trying to type Psuedocurses into the search bar on Remi (short for Remington, my computer's name) but I mixed up the e and the u again. That's the trouble with coining terms and then naming your blog after them. The next time I make a blog, I'll call it somethng simple like Bob or Cat.

Today I am going to write about my opinion on an important topic that pertains to your life. Yes, you, reading this blog on your computer. I will write up an opinion every day, like an opinion column or something, unless I get bored. If that happens, I'll stop and you'll all cry tears of sadness that you don't get to read my opinions. I'm sure you care enough about what I think that you'd cry. Everyone cares about me. Even if you don't know it yet, I'll tell you. You care. Deeply.

Geese. Yes, those winged birds. I don't care if all birds have wings. Geese are particularly winged. They have two wings, in fact, one on each side of their body. Most geese use their wings to fly, but I've heard that some geese use theirs for other purposes, like bowling. Have I mentioned how much I love to bowl? Wait, that has nothing to do with geese and my opinion on them. Okay, back on topic: I think geese are nice but pretty dumb. You wouldn't notice how dumb they are, watching them fly around in the sky, but I fed a goose woodchips once while I was supposed to be doing some Girl Scout thing. The goose ate them, too. Also, you always hear urban legend-esque tales of geese biting people's fingers off like feathered snapping turtles.

I'm reading a book that Mother found for me. I think she gave it to me just because it's about pumas and she knows they're my favorite animals. How does she know these things? I swear the woman is a mind reader. The book's name is The Last Wild Place, by Rosa Jordan. It's about these young children whose parents are dating. Or something. I can't really tell who's related to who, especially since I think the main character's sister is best friends with his best friend's mom. And they have a friend named Lily. She's a creepy little soccer player who would take her soccer ball to class with her if they let her. The three of them go into this wetlands, despite there being venomous snakes around, and meet some adorable little puma kittens. I'm still waiting for the mother puma to show up and bite someone.

Writing a blog is a very important step in my life, somewhere between having a child and buying a new computer. I don't think I'm ready for this emotionally. It marks the end of innocence. Yes, it does. Don't ask how. It marks the beginning of a period of new life and thoughtfulness. Blogging raises my awareness of the online world around me. (Raise your hand if you can tell I'm making this up. Wow, that's a lot of hands. I had no idea my reader(s) were so intuitive and good at detecting lies in text.)

I really wanted to go shopping today, but I don't think it's going to happen. Heck in a handbasket. I need to go buy myself a guy's dress shirt. I'll never be able to survive without one. Also, I told about twenty people of my plans to dress up and look dapper with the men's basketball team. If I don't do it, they'll all be disappointed. Actually, most of them think it's a stupid idea, but I'll still be disappointed. And I'm the only person who really matters around here. In the land of the brunettes, the blonde-haired girl is queen.

I'm done butchering sayings now. Go live your lives. And remember, children, a leg for a leg leaves the whole world unable to walk.