My house is under attack.

As stated above, my house is under attack. I had to say it twice, just to make sure it would sink in. Robby's friendie who moved off to Kentucky or somewhere equally pointless just came back for a visit. I am, of course, not amused. Well, I was pretty amused while pretending to hide the garlic and rubbing the cat with the little bits of garlic that fell off while the child tried to wrestle it away from me, but Mother spoiled my fun by taking the garlic away.

Grace just walked by, read my sign (unattended children will be sold to gypsies) out loud, then began laughing hysterically. Ever heard the expression "peals of laughter?" That's how she laughs. "Very funny, Libby," she said. Oh dear. I think Mother told her I'm hiding here with the kimchi kitty. Cassee doesn't really like people, so I let her in my room and she's been sitting here ever since. It's nice and quiet in here. The cat is sitting on the get 'em while they're hot (guys) Girl Scout cookie poster from fifth grade. I'm questioning her choices of where to sit.

A motivational speaker came to my place of learning today to speak motivationally to us. I was certainly motivated, as I mentioned to Spiffy. She didn't seem to be motivated, however. "He's just pimping his product" was her opinion on Mr. Gold (was that his name?). He was telling us about this website he made up for all of us younglings. It's called What Kids Are Saying. My initial reaction was: a lot of what kids are saying isn't exactly fit to print. I went to the website, and there I had yet another reaction. I'm reacting like a science project here.

There is not enough forking room to type anything on Mr. Gold's website. This is apparently because all entries are proofread first, but I don't care. There is no room. The word limit is five hundred or something. That's okay if you want to write a poem, but a short story in five hundred words? That's not a short story. That's flash fiction. That's a vignette. I looked at two, and they had no plot or anything. Also, they were both about chicks crushing on dudes.

I am so jealous of authors, I really am. Am I the only person who can barely look at a piece of Flair or little icon-thing with a quote or joke from a book without thinking, I wish it was my book being quoted. This random jealousy of people who are published has to be pretty common. All kinds of people wish quotes from their books would make their way across the Internet, right? I'm not alone. Please tell me I'm not alone.

I turned in an assignment for English about four of the books I've read in the past two months or so. This was a very difficult assignment, as I hardly read books at all. It might as well be blank paper filling up my two bookshelves—sorry, blank paper–shelves. I finally managed to find a few to write about (read: nine) and polished off a fantastic piece of writing. The only problem is that I think my teachers will assume I didn't like any of the books I read, only because I wrote sort of sarcastically about all of them. Examples:

Blood, violence, and an adorable, somewhat incestuous couple. What more does a book need?

The plot was pretty much that the main character, who decided to name herself "Poison" for some reason, got her sister kidnapped by the Phaerie Lord and felt the need to run off on a quest and get her back.

Liss assures me that writing like that is "just your way, Libby." Strangely enough, Mother says a lot of things are just my way. Mother and Liss may be sharing some kind of telekinetic mind connection, but I hope not.

Dictionary dot com changed its layout. This is awful. It'll take me at least a week to get over it, and then I'll probably complain about it every now and then just for kicks.

Last Sunday (yes, four days ago; I didn't feel like writing about it then) was a lovely musical event for our schools known as Bands in Review. The title is fairly obvious, but I'll explain it, just in case anyone needs me to spell things out for them. B-A-N-D-S I-N R-E-V-I-E-W. Yes. That is where the parents and extended family of students in bands in our city review the bands. It's a fabulous event for fabulous people, and I've been nervous about performing at it since it was announced to me that I was stuck with doing it.

Sure, all of our rehearsals up until then went fine, but what if someone spontaneously combusted? What would we do then? I realize that was also my excuse for not wanting to do my audition for Mr. Bloodsucking-parasitic-bug-thing (his last name is leach, probably spelled some way that lessens its resemblance to a nasty bug-thing): "But...but...what if I'm playing a scale and BAM! spontaneous human combustion? There's at least a one in five billion chance! It could happen!"

"If he's on fire, Libby, put him out."

"But what if he spontaneously combusts too fast?"

"Well, he'll probably be, um, spontaneously combusting because you played so well."

Anyway, it was the morning of the big concert. I had just woken up from a dream about being late to the concert and then realized that I had only five hours left before someone was going to drag me onstage. Ahh, eek, and various other noises people who are extremely afraid make. Fortunately, I had already decided that this was the day to purchase City of Glass as a pre-concert gift. Pre-concert gift as in: I know I'll do fabulously at this thing, so I think I'll buy myself a book ahead of time.

Stuff happened. I bought my book and read the first chapter. Two-thirty loomed ever closer. It definitely loomed.

Suddenly, it was time to put on my band shirt, a very stylish black shirt with Concert Band or something on it. I tried tucking it in, but tucking shirts into dress pants reminds me of the time I dressed as a member of the guys' basketball team and makes me giggle a lot. I ended up using a hairband to tie it up in the back. You know how that works; I shouldn't have to explain it.

Mother walked me down to the school even though it's a block from my house. I was desirous of her company. I also wanted someone to talk to, given my habit of talking a lot about useless subjects when nervous. "What if I can't find my people? They say, 'Look for the people in black,' but I'm color-blind!"

"Libby, you're not color-blind."

"...You know, I've always wondered why stop signs are green."

Mother was not amused, as her father happens to be color-blind.

Eventually, I found my people. We were all sitting around chatting in a practice room, complaining about our shirts and how ugly they were. I know I said they were stylish a couple of paragraphs ago, but I was lying. Just before we left for another practice room (I don't know why, either), our teachers told us to tuck in our shirts. There was a definite groan around the room. I felt like being rebellious and didn't tuck in my shirt. No one noticed.

We had what felt like five minutes to warm up and tune before we had to line up so we could go onstage. I had to be near the front of the line, near the flutes. Flautists. The stage is a lot smaller when you're up there performing, by the way. It's like the audience and the stage switch sizes when you move between them. I think we played all right on our first piece, Circus Bee, but I played too hard and I was doing badly when we started The Great Locomotive Chase.

I know I have no details about what it was like onstage, but it's not my fault. It's always hard to describe that part of a concert, which may or may not actually be the most important part. My theory is that the stage lights release something that makes us all forget everything that happens onstage.

After performing, we filed down and sat in our section: the awesome section. Yes, we're so awesome that our awesomeness filled the section. Everyone just chatted between songs. I spent half the time trying to convince Anna that the girl wearing sunglasses onstage was somehow related to Cyclops from the X-Men, and that she had to wear the sunglasses or else her laser eye-blasts would vaporize the audience. It didn't go over well with her, given that she didn't know who Cyclops was.

I'm going to venture out of my room to see if there's any food. Wish me luck, dear readers.

"What kind of vegetarian are you?"

Today, I began to clean my closet while trying not to do my homework or pack. Yes, I am that skilled. I can procrastinate doing my homework and packing. Two in one. Watch (well, read) as I procrastinate about three things at once: I'm not doing my homework, packing, or playing the clarinet. I know, I'm amazing.


I tab to dictionary dot com more than is healthy while writing this blog. It's not my fault. I think of a fabulous word to use, but I'm not exactly sure if it works for what I'm thinking of. So I just zip over to dictionary dot com, type the word into the nifty little search bar, and voilà (that's French) I know whether or not I can use the word without making a fool of myself.

I haven't been updating much...at all...

This is probably a sign from the heavens and/or me that I am not a responsible young adult and should not be trusted with a blog. Take it away from me. Lock up Remi! No, wait, don't. I need him for, um, school stuff. No, not Facebook at all... Take away my blog, though. I can't write on it as much as people expect me to. I'm letting you all down! I feel like a horrible person.

Okay, I'm over it.

On Tuesday, my English class had a debate on the hot topic of vegetarianism vs. omnivorism; or, as Ms. Knox liked to call it, vegetarians vs. meat-eaters. Yes, this is the very same Ms. Knox who Spiffy and Liss have ranted about on their own blogs. Terrible teacher, lisps a little, over-explains, writes unclear directions, focuses a little too much of our valuable class time on persuasion...yeah, that's the one. She divided the class into four sections: pro-vegetarians, con-vegetarians, pro-meat-eaters, and con-meat-eaters. No one knew what she was getting at with that, but she responded to all questions with either "I'll explain later" or explained which section of the class was what again.

I was stuck with the con-vegetarians, which made me lose the uninterested, slacker-like vibe I have been trying to project for the past week or so. As a proud vegetarian, I was not about to argue for the side of those carnivores. Fortunately, she let us switch sides until we were hanging with the side we wanted.

The pro-vegetarians across the classroom became my new people. We sat around for a little while coming up with reasons why vegetarianism is where it's at, but then we lost interest. What can I say? We're eighth graders. Losing interest is pretty much what we do; that, and make perverted jokes. We do that a lot, too.

"I'm sorry," said one of my fabulous group-mates. You're all fabulous, every single one of you. "But meat-eaters reminds me of dinosaurs."

"Meat-eaters are dinosaurs."

I wrote that down as one of the notes our speaker (Rennie) was going to use in her argument. It became kind of our slogan, our rallying cry. Also, we put our hands up in front of us so that we resembled deformed, scale-less T-rexes and made dinosaur noises. Did I mention that we're eighth graders? This kind of juvenile behavior shoukd really be beneath us, but it's not.

Speaking of juvenile behavior, we clapped like maniacs whenever someone who supported our anti-dinosaur beliefs spoke. We also waved our hands around and gave thumbs-ups while Rennie talked, tried to start chants of "beans and rice! Beans and rice!," and made fun of the opposing sides' arguments when no one was talking. We also talked back when people were talking, enough that Ms. Knox told us we "weren't allowed to talk to the people were talking" several times. I had to ask if we were allowed to talk to the people who weren't talking.

Everyone brought up peanut butter as something vegetarians eat.

"You say vegetarians don't get enough protein. Vegetarians get lots of protein. They can eat peanut butter."

"Peanut butter has protein?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Danny. He isn't a vegetarian, but he did a great job pretending. "That's why you eat pb&j."

"But I don't eat pb&j."

"What kind of vegetarian are you?"

"Don't talk while other people are talking," said Ms. Knox.

We (the vegetarians) obviously won all the debates by sheer awesomeness. Other people didn't agree, but they were just dinosaurs and no one really cares what dinosaurs think.

When I got home, I decided to pretend to be a dinosaur. This involved scrunching up my arms and hopping around the living room making dinosaur noises. Since, as everyone knows, dinosaurs breathe methane (another point brought up by some group: cows contribute to methane in the air), I also said "Methane! Methane!" at random moments.

"I'm going to eat you!" I told the child. "Methane!"

"Stop saying methane," he said.

"Methane!"

"Stop it!"

Since the child wouldn't let me eat him, I decided to eat the cat. "Methane! Methane!" I said, dropping into a very hunter-like crouch and stalking my prey. "Methane!"

"Meow," said the cat.

"Methane!" I tried to bite the back of the cat's neck, as that is a very good spot to bite when killing things, but she tasted nasty and her fur stuck to my mouth, so I gave up.

Madame, my French teacher (all French teachers are called that. Unless they're men. Or women who think they're young enough to be called Mademoiselle), decided to let a notorious problem student take control of the class when we had a half day. He took a vote of what we should do that day, as she asked, but it was already getting out of control by the time his friends showed up to write their own ideas down.

French Activities:

• Heads up, seven up
• Silent seatball
• Movie
• SSR
• Brendan and Brad teach how to take a computer apart
• Mom and Dad
• Loto
• That swatting game
• Gang fights
• Drugs
• Mr. Brown
• Make out

Brad voted for everything. A surprising number of people voted for gang fights. We ended up playing silent seatball. Brendan, however, wasn't ready to relinquish his microphone. He sat at the front of the classroom, narrating the game and giving us comments like:

"Sarah, show some expression."

"Zach and Ryan, stop giving Nick accupuncture with rulers."

"Cooper, stop being such a ladies' man."

I learn a lot in French. No, really. Even with Zach doing things like leaning back so his head is on my desk and dancing in his seat with only this as an explanation: "Madama, I'm in my ya-ya house."

More exciting stuff happens in my life, but my fingers would fall off if I even tried to write it all down. It's practically eleven at night. I'm going to sleep.

This blog post is shorter than some words.

Today is Sunday. In different places around the world, they call this fine day many different things, but I'm really not in the mood to list any of them. I'm not really in the mood to do much, but I feel obligated to post today. You see what writing this thing has done to me? I feel almost like I should be responsible.

Lolcats annoy me.

I just had to get that out there. They really do annoy me. I have nothing against the idea of putting captions on funny pictures. That's just wonderful, as far as I'm concerned. I just don't like the misspelled captions. They bother me. Yes, I'm sure there are many people who think the misspellings are all part of their charm, but I think they'd be just as funny if they were spelled correctly. Funnier, maybe, because it would take less time to figure out what the heck they're saying under all those z's and exclamation points.

Amazingly enough, it's becoming a lot easier for me to write the name of my blog. As they say, practice makes perfect. It used to take several tries for me to type Pseudocurses correctly into the little searchbar. Now I can do it the first time I try! My finger practically fly over the keys. I feel so fantastic. This is a great talent I have: being able to spell the name of my own blog. Next, I might try spelling someone else's blog.

Eva Hattie told me a few days ago that she wants a signed copy of my book when I write it (maybe even if it's my autobiography about the genius or stupid thing I do with my life). Yes, the people I talk to usually end up being quoted here. If you don't like it, get a sign to wear around your neck, something along the lines of: Libby, do not quote anything I say. Or, even better, you could print out this thing I just made up:

I, __________(your name here), do not give my consent for my words, spoken or written, to appear on the blog Pseudocurses.

__/__/__(date)  ___________________(your signature here) _________(your favorite color here)

Okay, lovely. Hand this to me at any point between now and our world's imminent doom on December 12, 2009, and it'll be totally valid for as long as I want it to be. The world is going to end on 21/12/12, obviously. It's common knowledge. Several ancient civilizations prophecied it, so it must be true.

I'm really not sure what else to write about. I mean, seriously. I've been over pretty much everything that's on my mind right now. I wrote a poem today, but I'm not going to tell you about it. I'll just mention it in passing and leave you to wonder. I feel so cruel.

Long Words:

• Floccinaucinihilipilification
  
• Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
  
• Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
  
• Antidisestablishmentarianism
  
• Honorificabilitudinitatibus

The only other long words I saw were actually too long to post, so I refrained.

I'm tired. Bye, infidels.

"His brain was so big it fried his hair."

Yeah, that's what Mr. X says about Professor X from the X-Men. If you don't know who that is, look it up on Wikipedia or something.

I had a whole bunch of witty things to write today, but I forgot them all somewhere between going to school and coming back from school. Sometimes I do that.

I'm really not sure how I can be annoyed with people for not posting on their blogs when my own posting is erratic, to say the least, but I am. Don't tell me, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Libby is a hypocrite. You're thinking, Libby should really post a lot more because I'm dying to read her amazing thoughts. You're thinking, The reason Libby doesn't blog enough is because Apple has probably already taken over her mind, body, and soul.

Well, I'm thinking, Tough cookies. Yes, I am. I am thinking about firm cookies, rock-hard cookies, cookies that are roughly the consistency of hardened concrete. It's fascinating here in my mind with all the cookies and me. They're Thin Mints, by the way. When I think of tough, nasty cookies, I think of Thin Mints. They're probably my least favorite Girl Scout cookies, after those peanut butter sandwich cookies.

Girl Scout Cookies (In Order From Yummiest To Nastiest):

1. Thanks-A-Lots (Why don't they make them anymore? Why!?)
   
2. Shortbread (Trefoils)
   
3. Peanut Butter Patties (Tagalongs)
   
4. Carmel DeLites (Samoas)
   
5. Lemon Chalet Creams
   
6. Reduced Fat Chocolate Chip (or possibly Low Sugar Chocolate Chip?)
   
7. Dulce de Leche
   
8. Thin Mints
   
9. Peanut Butter Sandwiches (Do-Si-Dos)
   

I'm not completely sure I got all the names right, since I don't have the paper with me to get the spellings and stuff. Girl Scouts out there, tell me if I did anything wrong.

Notice that I did numbers this time instead of bullet points. It's very special. I did it just for you, dear readers.

I'll have to do either really stupid or really genius with my life so I can write an autobiography and make a lot of money. This is assuming my various other career ideas don't work out for me, of course. I think most people do the stupid/genius thing first and then are compelled to write their autobiographies...I'm doing it out of order. Whatever. If I know I'm going to do it, I can start writing my autobiography now.

Wait, no, I can't. That's the point of waiting to write it until I've done something stupid/genius. There isn't really much to write about my life as of yet. Nothing important, anyway. Obviously I can write about my life; I'm doing it right now. I just can't write a full-length autobiography yet.

Mother made us soup today. Yes, the tyrannical dictator made soup. She does that a lot, actually. Just because we live in a dictatorship doesn't mean we're not well-fed. Unfortunately, the soup was a little messed-up. It was brownish-yellowish, tasted strongly of lemon, and looked exactly like vomit. Absolutely delicious. Mother is a wonderful cook; she's just unable to make lemon rice soup. It's not that bad, really. I doubt that most people can make lemon rice soup. It's a talent.

The idea that people are reading this at this very moment sort of creeps me out. (Hi, people!) Anyway, I know that of course I'm only writing this for you people, but really. You're reading my words. In fact, many people who I don't even know could be reading my words. It scares me because I'm easily scared.

To all the people reading this, hi again. Also, I want to know who you are. Obviously I know who some of you are (hi cousin; hi Liss) but there could conceivably be people I don't know reading this. So write your names for me, please, as comments. I feel under-appreciated when no one leaves comments for me. I've always been a little annoyed by people who always beg for comments or whatever, but now I know how they feel.

I have nothing more to write. You know, I wrote more in my notebook before I started this blog. Words flowed like honey from my fingertips. Ew, not, they didn't. They flowed, just not liked honey. That would be nasty. But now I write less and less. It's truly terrible. And it's all this blog's fault.

Good afternoon, children of the night.

It's not afternoon. Oh well. And you're not children of the night, either. At least, I hope you're not. I assume you'd tell me if you were a vamp, right? Like, Libby, I know you've suspected that I'm a vamp. Maybe it was because I drink the blood of innocents, or maybe it was the fangs. I'm not sure. I am a vamp, though. Please don't treat me any differently. The undead are just like you and me. That would make me feel so much better about your condition, as long as you weren't about to suck my blood.

I had a moment of confusion today while half-listening to music and half-watching animanga. One of the characters finished speaking, and then someone in my song said la la la. For a second, I heard it as being in the animanga. I was totally confused.

I'm so sad that the kimchi kitty refuses to walk on the computer. At first, she would walk across the keyboard and write something like jnsdatfyr, but she now jumps right over it. It's very cute and all, but I'm sure it would be much easier to just walk across the computer.

Mother has commented that she is not the only cruel dictator in our household. That is true, Mother. She thinks I'm dissing her. Yes, she does. She said it to me, the same way the cat talks to me every day. Father is also an inexorable ruler, but I haven't mentioned him because he's not around right now.

I can't be the only person who has ever spent time staring at several sheets of paper spread around me, sure that I was supposed to have learned it in class and yet have no idea how to do my homework. It's a common predicament; it must be. People can't learn everything teachers tell them all the time. It's just not possible. If it were, we'd probably all be living on the moon with a race of super-smart people. Or, as Mr. X thinks will happen in the future, we'll make some robots that are smarter than us and they'll murder us all.

There is a small black marble almost exactly in the center of the square formed by the walls and the sideboard. It looks to me like modern art in the making. Human misery. Blackness. One soul in a square wasteland of sameness.

Where did I put my camera? This could make me all kinds of money, nearly as much as writing out my teen girl novel about Aethelfrith, Azrael, and Aiden would. I could call it One Deeply Depressed Marble Drowning in a Sea of Wood and Misery. Or not.

The child and I were having a super air-guitar contest! I was losing. I'm not exactly sure how you can lose when the only thing you're doing is waving your hands around pretending to strum a guitar, but I was losing. I got bored of guitar and changed my hand positions.

"Libby, what are you doing?" asked the child, still strumming like a maniac.

"I'm playing the bass!"

"Oh yeah, the bass guitar."

"No, the string bass!"

"This is a rock band," he informed me. "You don't play string bass in a rock band!"

"I'm playing the rock string bass!" At this point, I was seized by an amazing idea: String Bass Hero! Everyone would want to play it! You would hold the Wii Remote up above your head and use the Nunchuck like a bow! It would be at least as profitable as my career as an artist, if not more.

I'm getting tired and lazy now. Deal with my short post. I might write a longer post tomorrow, but probably not. Being tired and lazy doesn't go away that easily. Either you have it or you don't.

Laziness is not a choice, dear readers.

Commie and me.

The child seems to enjoy animanga, although he says, "Why are they all cross-dressers!?" a lot. I say it's because the author (author? What do you call someone who writes manga?) wants to do it. That's kind of a bad explanation, but it's true. That is why writers do things. Why did J.K. Rowling kill Hedwig? She wanted to. It's just the way thinks work.

I went to visit Commie again today. I love it there, and I don't really know why. It's like how I love Montréal. I'm usually a little nervous in big cities, but I just love Montréal, who knows why. It's the same with Commie. Even though it's a high school, I feel comfortable there. This is why I wanted to go there; this is the first step to coming out of my shell.

I have barely any time tonight, as I'm being told to go to sleep soon. I live under a dictatorship here. I think I will hold a protest soon. Maybe in front of the refrigerator or on the kitchen table...you're invited. Bring signs. We'll peacefully demonstrate against Mother and her dictator ways. There'll be Girl Scout cookies, too. See, now you want to come. Everyone loves Girl Scout cookies. They're made that way just so you'll buy more of them and further our plans for world domination.

Sorry, did I say world domination? I meant helping people at all times and living by the Girl Scout law.

 I think this post has taken me a week to write.  I keep starting, stopping, eating, procrastinating, starting, and stopping again. With a few other things, like going to school and sleeping, mixed in. This is my life.

Back to typing about Commie, the lovely school at which I am going to spend my next four years of education. That is, assuming I don't get kicked out. You never know; I might become a rebellious teenager and take up various profligate pastimes. Profligate, of course, meaning utterly and shamelessly immoral. It's my word of the day today. Next time someone's being a jerk, don't tell them that. Call them profligate.

Commie. Right. I'm so distracted today. I went to the Commie thing after school with Liss, since we both got accepted and we're both going. Spiffy was there, too, but I have no idea about her status as a commie.

Spiffy, Liss, Eva Hattie, Katie, and I found each other once inside the school. Peter Ways (I think that's his name) gave us each a lovely rainbow lanyard with Community High School repeating on it over and over in black letters. He asked us to go write ourselves nametags, so we did. Obviously, we are not the kind of students who would refuse an order from a person of authority.

Little did I know that my picking the name tag with the little 3 in the upper corner would seal my fate.

"Everyone whose nametag has a one in the corner is in group one," announced a staff member. "You'll be with this host." They gave the host's name, but I ignored that because I knew I wouldn't have to care. Host was what they called the current students who were showing us around the school. In scientific terms, a host is an organism that harbors a parasite. In Steph Meyer's lovely novel, a host is a person who's being controlled by a random soul. See what the commies think of us?

Fine, a host is also a person who recieves and entertains guests. I'm just thinking of the most negative definitions I can.

They moved us into the auditorium, where we sat by group number. Unfortunately, no one I knew was in my group. See what I mean about the sealing of fate? One of the commie jazz bands played for a long time. Too long, in my, Eva Hattie, and Katie's opinions. We mostly talked over their lovely music (first in the state or some such thing).

"What's the point of putting us in these groups?" asked Eva Hattie. I'm not transcribing her words exactly here, mostly because I forgot what she said. At least it's not yo dawg, why be they killin' our groove? which is how most conversations I transcribe sound. "Do they think we're going to talk to each other and get to be friends?"

"But we are!" I protested. "I've gotten to know Bethany already! Bethany and I are the best of friends, aren't we?"

"Sure," said Bethany, giving me a look like she thought I was a few pages short of a novel.

"See?"

We had many fabulous and fascinating conversations, but I don't remember them.

Peter Ways invited the counselors and several of the students to speak to us before sending us out across the school with our hosts. He also gave us pizza.

My hosts were a guy named David with curly hair who looks like I think Brendan will in a few years and a girl whose earrings blatantly broke the hand rule (if you can fit your hand through your earrings, they're too forking big!). They brought us up a flight of stairs to a classroom, where they proceeded to light a fire under the cauldron and pull out a couple of black magic textbooks. As it is said in the Book, The only thing worse than black magic is beginners performing black magic. The Book never lies. It's hard to lie when you don't exist.

So maybe there wasn't any black magic. I lied. There was, however, a very large picture that reminded me of the Buddha, a wall covered in posters of First Nations people, twinkly lights all around the room, and pillows on the floor. Pillows. Forking pillows. In a high school classroom.

David spoke to us about his school, then opened up the floor for questions.

No one talked.

"You already know everything about Community?"

No one talked.

"Okay, okay, I get it. You're the strong, silent type. I respect that."

"So, when does school get out? Like, every day?" I asked.

Let's back up for a moment. This is me talking, me, Libby. This is the girl who can't give a two-minute speech in front of the class. This is the girl who has trouble asking questions in class, especially asking the first question. This is the girl who freezes up when the band teacher asks the ten-person second clarinet section to play their part. And I asked the first question! I'm so proud of myself.

He drew his schedule on the board and tried to explain it to us. The floor was opened up. Other people talked.

"So, how many of you know you're going here?"

I raised my hand; so did a few other people.

"How did you feel when you found out?"

Silence.

"I was really happy. My friend came running up to me in the hall and said, 'We got in!' I didn't believe her at first, but then she was right. I was happy." I sat back. "I'm still happy."

"As you should be."

"So, are all the desks like this? They're awful." The desks are awful. There's a bar right below my knees, so it's very hard to stretch my legs out. I guess that's the point.

"Yup. All over the school. And they're at Pioneer and Skyline, too, so you can't switch schools to stay away from them."

"That's exactly why I was thinking of switching schools."

"We get a lot of people who stay away just because of the desks."

I talked! It was great. I love talking. People who don't know me probably don't know that, because I'm so shy and get nervous so easily, but I could talk for ages. I just need someone I'm comfortable talking to who won't get totally bored after a a few seconds. Or a few minutes...hours...days...I really, really love reading out loud. I try reading to the child (with high-pitched voices for men, low voices for women, and scratchy Darth Vader voices for everyone else, natch), but either he gets bored or I get tired.

Liss dragged me out to the swings in front of the school afterwards because her host told her to try them out. We hung. We swung.

It was fabulous beyond reason.

I'm going to be a commie. Maybe that's what I'll call the musical of my life. Currently, it's Libby, the Musical: A Highly Fictionalized Account of my Life. Commie and Me might work, too, but I think Libby, the Musical et cetera has more verve. There's another word for you: verve. Look it up yourselves, infidels, I'm going to go play the clarinet.

Over and out.

It's called a dictionary.

Don't die just because I've been too lazy to post. I would hate it if that happened. Don't die from anything else, either. I'd miss you from the bottom of my heart. I would miss you from the tiniest crevices of this piece of stone I call a heart. There would be much missing involved in my being.

Today I shall type at length about one of my favorite topics: English. Yes, that language which we all speak. I assume you speak English if you can read this, anyway. I really love English, more than is probably sane and healthy. Typos tend to make me feel inadequate. I use words like inadequate. I own an Oxford English Dictionary. I made a list of my favorite words today in math class while Liss stared at me.

It is my fate to be a teacher of English in some fashion. Middle school English, high school English, college English...you name it, I might teach it. I have had many ideas of what jobs I might take in the future, but this is probably what I'll end up with. Never mind that I hate children and speaking in front of people. The country needs more people with a genuine love for our language teaching it. Say "no" to apathetic English teachers! Say "yes" to shy people who are passionate about our language and your spelling mistakes!

There is a word for situations when someone else makes an appalling mistake and you still feel the need to quote whatever it is they're saying: [sic]. That means: I notice that you have made a mistake, so I will put these three letters behind it to prove to the rest of the world that I have noticed your mistake and am therefore smarter than you. That's a lot of meaning in three letters. I might be paraphrasing there, but that's pretty much what it means. So, that's what those "Bad Grammar Makes Me [sic]" people are about. It's such a helpful little Latin-rooted word.

I have been reading blogs such as Red Pen Inc. and Apostrophe Catastrophe. I love the phrase apostrophe catastrophe. Those of you who go to school with me will have to deal with me saying, "Oh my gosh! Apostrophe catastrophe!" all the time. Also, "Don't make me get out my red pen!" I have two red pens now. One is pretty normal. The other is a sparkly red gel pen. If there's anything more awesome than a grammar freak, it's a girly grammar freak.

English: use it.

Tetchy: irritable.

Caliente: hot.

That's a terrible Spanish Word of the Day. Everyone knows what it means already.

It has come to my attention (yes, it totally has) that people who are cat owners act differently than people who are not cat owners. I even came up with a short quiz to determine if you're a cat owner or not.

Are you a cat owner?

(1. Strongly agree; 2. somewhat agree; 3. neutral; 4. somewhat disagree; 5. strongly disagree.)

__ I often feel the urge to run over and pet a cat.

__ I have used the phrase "look at her cute little kitty pawsies/nosie/face" in a sentence.

__ I own cat food.

__ There are cat toys scattered around my house.

__ I have petted a cat in the past day.

__ I have spoken to a cat in a baby voice.

__ I have spoken to a cat as if it can speak back.

__ I have spoken to a cat.

__ I own a cat.

If you answered strongly agree to the last question, congratulations! You are most likely a cat owner! I make the most helpful quizzes, don't I? Tomorrow, maybe I'll make a quiz to help you figure out what color hair you have.

I'm done now, dear readers.

I'm a Commie!

I'm in. I'm in! I could write that over and over. I could fill up a hundred pages. I'm overjoyed. Seriously.

I won't do that to you, though. I'll just say that I swear my heart leapt when Liss came running up to me in the halls and told me I was number nine. Actually, forget it. You, dear readers, get to hear the entire fabulous story. You should be happy for yourselves.

There really is no fabulous story. I lied. It's just that out of four hundred people who wanted to go to Commie, I was ninth on the list. I'm in!

It's going to be totally strange going to a school I can't just walk to. I've been able to just walk from home to school and back all my life, but I have no idea how I'll get out to Commie. Whatever. There are many other fabulous things about Commie, including:

• Ten minutes of passing time (no more panic in the halls!)
• Its small size
• Getting to call teachers by their first names
• Eating wherever because there isn't a lunchroom
• A complete OED in the media center (I'm sure the other schools have one too, but still)
• Me

Because I'm going to be a commie! Yay!

I don't think I should really be allowed to write a blog post for a few days, or at least until the thrill of being a commie! wears off. All I can really type is stuff about how excited I am and lots of exclamation points. Multiple exclamation points. One might even say too many exclamation points.

!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just hope there aren't any rebel scum.

This is a short little mini-post, but I don't care. Live with it, infidels.

Kornerupine.

I don't know what it is, either.

Today I sold Girl Scout cookies. This is because I am a Girl Scout. It would be more than a little strange if I wasn't a Girl Scout but I was selling their cookies. Our cookie booth was really not that exciting. We sold about four cases, which is forty-something boxes, and we ran out of a couple kinds. We also had to keep explaining to people about how we switched bakers and that's why the names are different and everything tastes nasty. At least there weren't rival scouts at Kroger again. Last time there were these random other chicks who actually had signs and uniforms. Unlike us; we had a sign Zoe and I made in five minutes and none of us have uniforms.

Liss was wearing shorts and flip-flops like she hadn't noticed it's still March. Or mars, as they say in la belle France. As we were walking to the store, Mother said, "There's a wrongness to that." She meant Liss's outfit.

After selling, we partied in my basement and then went to a writing workshop. I was kind of nervous about going. I mean, I wasn't too worried about the writing part of it. Obviously I write, and obviously I write stuff that other people read. It was the whole there are going to be people I've never met and possibly people I have met thing that worried me. I am not a people person. I am a what are these people doing in my bubble? person.

The person-in-charge had us stand in a circle and introduce ourselves. Then, after stating our name and business ("I am Libby. I am at this place because I am.") we told a melodramatic story about something that had happened that week. I talked about my freezing up in front of the entire class, sadly, not very melodramatically. I'm not repeating that story because I wrote it all down two days ago. Also, it's such a scarring memory that I prefer not to bring it up. Okay, no.

She told us all about what melodrama is. It seems to be pretty much a style of drama where there's a damsel in distress, a slimy-looking villain (sometimes with a hunchbacked, idiot henchman), and a heroic hero (sometimes with an idiot best friend for comic relief). It makes no sense at all, and the characters all talk funny. I did not sign up for this class, by the way. I wanted to do the journalism one.

She warned us (in a whisper, I have no idea why) that it can be kind of sexist, and also that since we were all girls, some of us would end up acting out male roles. Liss said (not in a whisper) that I was a man.

Do you know how many times a day I have to tell people that I'm not a man? At least once. They all find it incredibly amusing to call me a man. It's not, people. I am not a man! I don't even look like a man. I really don't.

We ended up writing and performing a short sketch. I ended up playing a man. But I was a very fabulous man named Bivouac de Blacktop, and I totally didn't get stage fright and puke in the corner. I barely even entertained the possibility for more than a minute. You can go read our script on Liss's blog, which I think I have a link to in the corner. I will just mention that we ended with a unison "FOR ENGLAND!" and put our fists in the air, for absolutely no reason. It was my idea.

Our cat, Cassee, doesn't like to eat people food. We've (my family, trying to find food she likes to eat) tried feeding her cream cheese, cooked eggs, milk, cheese, tuna, and chicken, but she won't eat it. I've ( me being an idiot) tried feeding her veggie sausage, cereal, string, cookies, and ice cream. She won't eat those, either. I was wandering the house with a half-eaten, cold pancake dangling out of my mouth, and I suddenly decided to feed it to the cat. I broke off a little piece, put it on my hand, and held it out to her.

She ate it. I have a pancake-eating cat. I'm so happy!

Two days ago, I said that I suspect the child is a rebel sympathizer. I now have proof, even more than just his refusal to disclose the location of the rebel base. He wouldn't let me have the good sword (there are two foam swords in the house, one that sucks and one that doesn't). I asked how I was supposed to crush rebels without a sword. He said he didn't want me to defeat rebels. Rebel sympathizer! His friend, the vamp, didn't believe me, but it's true.

The lottery for Commie High is tomorrow. Commie High is really called Community High, but I like to affectionately call it Commie. Liss was very surprised that I wanted to go there, as I had spent all of math class once making fun of it. It's the funky school here. Only a quarter of the people who want to go there get to because it's so small, so they have a random lottery system. I really, really want to get in, but I might not. So. Panic central. Oh well. My life will go on if I don't get to go to school with the commies.

Maybe.

I will live a sad, miserable existance, but I will live. I am strong!

Except not really.

My family is impairing my rebel-crushing activites.

They are! The child refuses to tell me where the rebel base is. I can't believe I have a rebel sympathizer in my own home! I mean, I have to live with the kid. He probably reads seditious newspapers when he's not busy dropping the cat. I can't believe those rebels corrupted him.

Forking rebel scum.

In other, non-rebel-related news:

I've just recently decided something about people, and it's this: people care a lot about their crap. That's crap as in junk, not...whatever else the word crap can mean. If people are wandering around and they see some crap, they're like, "Oh, look! Crap!" but they don't do anything about it. The moment it becomes their crap, they care about it. "Look, here's my crap! Don't touch it! Jerk!"

So, in conclusion: people are overly protective of their crap.

Take that however you wish.

My walk home today was detained by several strange older men. Okay, Sam and Niraj. I wouldn't exactly call them men, but they're older than me and they're definitely strange. It was really amusing to talk to them, actually. I think it's because they're guys and they have vaguely perverted (sometimes more than vaguely...) guy perspectives on things. Or maybe it was just because we started playing that slapping game. You know, the one where you slap each other's hands until you give up? Of course, I wasn't playing. It's so barbaric! Everyone gave up on it pretty quickly and just started slapping each other.

I might secretly be a werewolf. Secretly to you, me, and the rest of the word. I wouldn't think that, but I keep getting strange scratches and having no idea where they came from. Oh well. At least this isn't like the time I looked down at my hand and realized I was bleeding. That was pretty bad. I hadn't even noticed...

I have decided that I love translators. This is not strange, because I fall in love with a different profession every week.

Professions I Love:

• Translating
• Video game design
• Web page design
• Author...-ing?
• Journalism
• Singing
• Songwriting
• Tile setting
• Animal training
• Costume design

And many more that I am (guess what?) too lazy to think of at this moment. I am going to mention my own laziness at least once every post, and if I can't think of a way to work it in, I'll just type it at the end. Anyway, it's pretty unfortunate that I have no talent at half those things. Sob, sob. Listen to my tears through your computer screen. ;_; See, that was a little sad face. I can use emoticons. I have the ability. I just, you know, choose not to.

Martial: pertaining to war.

There is no Spanish word of the day today. Ha ha, suckers. French is better anyway.

Oh no! War! War really messes up my vibe. My table in science class refuses to admit that our positive vibe exists. It does, darnit! They keep crushing it like I crush rebels, but it's there! Danny said to me, "Your positive vibe can go to--" but I said, "Danny!" in a very scandalized sort of way before he could finish his sentence.

I'm going to miss them, in a sick and twisted way. Them and their hobo-out-running, cursing, arguing selves. If you're reading this, Swagat, Niraj, Danny, Aaron, I love you all non-romantically and non-creepily, even though you kill my vibe. Please don't say you love me back. You know that creeps me out.

So I have nothing more to say now. Wait. Yes, I do. I have something vitally important to say.

It's not important at all. I lied. I just need to describe to someone, something, anyone! my terrible crash-and-burn on that forking oral report.

It was a little past eight on the morning of 03.06.09 (yay! Three six nine!) in the classroom of Mr. X. I am still protecting his identity. Yes. I had a report on the fine state of Arizona to give, and I thought I was prepared. Well, mostly prepared. I was still crossing things out and changing around my lines, but I figured I could do it.

He decided to have my group present first, and out of the four of us, he picked me to go first. Yay. I kind of started panicking. Okay, not kind of. I totally started panicking. It was almost as bad as those first few days after I got the hall ticket. (By the way, I can walk down the halls without panicking now! It's so exciting!) It was a combination of several things: my...slight...fear of speaking in front of people, Mr. X, and it being early in the morning.

I stood at the front of the room, clutching my notes and the microphone. I think I might have been shaking a little. Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to start talking. I looked down at my notes...

And freaked. I froze up. I couldn't talk, couldn't move, nothing. I just stood there, trying to talk, but nothing was coming out. It was the kind of thing you read about and hope never happens to you. I started crying, actually, out of nerves and embarassement and who knows what else. Emotional overload, I guess. We sympathetic individuals (read: wimps) can only take so much of this. Our systems aren't meant to handle it.

I sat back down and refused to answer when he asked why I wasn't presenting. He moved on. The rest of the class stood up and presented. It went without a hitch.

I was kind of mad at myself for not being able to talk, but I couldn't do anything. It just happens. It's like that.

Such is the curse of being a socially inept, shy, sympathetic individual.

Lazy.

Only four English words end in -dous: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

Isn't that just stupendous?

As of this very moment, I am listening to music, typing this post, watching my cat scratch herself, chatting on Facebook, and ditching jazz band. All at the same time! This is what we call multi-tasking, dear readers. I'm not very good at it, but I manage. Obviously.

I didn't blog yesterday because I was too lazy. I know I use that excuse a lot, but it's not just an excuse. It's the truth. Can the truth be an excuse? Wow, what a fascinating and pressing question. If I answered it, that would totally raise the profundity level of this blog.

The question now becomes: Do I want to raise the profundity level of this blog?

Of course I do! Did you think otherwise for even a millisecond? I'm ashamed of you. Gosh. Of course I want to raise my forking level of profound thoughts, if only just because I like the word 'profundity.'

The truth can be an excuse, because it all depends on the person who hears it.

Pretend you understand what that means. It'll make me feel better if you do.

Wow, I'm typing in sentences today, not paragraphs. Maybe I should type each sentence separately and make this post about a mile long and annoying to read. That would be fun! It would also kind of go against all my type like you mean it! English language rants...

The child has been waking up at the same time I wake up. Six-forty-five, but I usually don't stumble out of bed until at least six-fifty. He likes to wake up that early for some completely insane reason, even though his place of learning doesn't begin for another couple of hours after that. Every time I see him at the table next to me, I want to say, "Are you mad, child? Go back to bed!" Unfortunately, my mouth doesn't really work that early in the morning.

I wish I could sing. It's terrible, you know. I could write some lyrics, but they'd be useless because I couldn't write music to them and I can't sing them anyway. I get jealous of people who have skills that I don't. I'm just one of those easily jealous people.

People I am Jealous of:

• Singers
• Published novelists
• Small Asian figure skaters
• Figure skaters
• Hockey skaters
• Good dancers
• Really good clarinetists
• Really good instrumentalists
• People who are naturally graceful

And many more.

Before I forget, the Word! of! the! Day! Excessive punctuation! It's fun--for everyone!

Parry: deflect a blow.

And, to raise cultural awareness (I'm not sure how, but it sounds good), the Spanish word of the day!

Papel: paper.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you have a group of vampires. I say hypothetically because we all know that vampires are fictional. In my system we have vamps (dude vampires) and vampettes (chick vampires), because vampire just isn't gender-specific enough. Anyway, the vamp group. What would you call that? In Twilight, they're a coven, and I can't remember any names from other books. I like a clash of vampires or, like crows, a murder of vampires. Which do you like better, dear readers?

And yes, this is how I spend my time: thinking about names for fictional things.

Have fun with reality, infidels.

Look somewhere else if you want deep and profound thoughts.

I feel like there should be more profundity on my blog. I am lacking in profound thoughts. Lists: Yes. The English language: Yes. Profundity: Not so much. Oh well. At the moment, I myself am lacking in profound thoughts. Deal with it. I am.

The child is working on a poster project for school. His Mind Fair project, to be specific. My classmates will remember the mind fair as the time the cafetorium was filled with poster boards every year. Everyone else, just try to imagine a large room filled with elementary school students milling around, looking at poster boards with subjects ranging from "My Remote-Controlled Hoverboard" to "The History of Chocolate" to "Are You Really Shorter in the Afternoon?"

I made two in my six years at elementary school. My first, in third grade, was about sea otters. I have no idea why I picked sea otters. I didn't even really like sea otters. I wrote facts about them in Microsoft Word, printed them out, and glued them onto blue and green cardstock and then onto my poster board. I also brought an activity: a sponge in a bowl of water that was supposed to simulate a sea otter swimming. Someone knocked the bowl over and spilled water all over the floor.

My last was in fifth grade, only because it was required. I did "Harry Potter by the Numbers," (yes, I came up with it myself) where I listed things like how many copies were sold and how many years it took for each book to come out. It was only because Spiffy told me "Sporks: A Very Deceptive History" would be stupid. I still have that poster board somewhere in the bowels of the basement, I think.

The child is doing his on different kinds of gemstones. I'm not sure why he picked that. It's his choice, of course, so I can't complain. It's just a bit of a weird project. Gemstones. Beryls and emeralds, specifically. My favorites.

I keep telling myself I should actually make an iTunes account with which to purchase music, but I haven't done it yet. This is what we call laziness, dear readers. Dear readers. I like that. You are all dear readers now. Live with it. Anyway, the other reasons I'm putting off my iTunes account making are (a) Apple Inc. will be launching Project iZombie sometime this year and I don't want to give them more power over me and (b) my iPod would have some of the most random music on it, including:

• Disturbia (Rihanna)
• Barbie Girl (Aqua)
• O Canada
• La Marseillaise

It would be like tangible proof of my non-existant music tastes.

I am going to try writing while using as few contractions as possible. I think this will be hard for me and very strange to read. It makes me feel like my writing is a lot more formal, even though I am using most of the same words. The point of this is pretty much to help me see how many contractions I use in my daily life: a lot. I am going to write a post soon and try not to use contractions. It is kind of hard to write this way. I have to keep checking myself and writing two words instead of one.

I should start writing a word of the day! I love words of the day. We supposedly have one at my place of residence, but it ends up as more of a word of the week. Right now, I feel too lazy to come up with an original word of the day, so I'll write down the one of Dictionary.com. It's my second favorite reference website, after Wikipedia. I'm not sure Wikipedia counts as a reference website, though.

acute: serious; pervasive

And, just for fun, the Spanish word of the day! ¡Viva España!

pan: bread; loaf

Today in English class, I had an argument with Jaewoong and Michael about whether the book beloning to Jonas was Jonas's book or Jonas' book. I was telling them that it was Jonas's book, and trying (but not doing a very good job, apparently) to explain that only words that are plural can have only an apostrophe and words that just somehow happen to end in s have to have an 's. They didn't seem to believe me. Personally, I just think Jaewoong was arguing for the sake of arguing. Finally, they looked it up. I was right.

"English," said Michael, "is stupid."

"Sometimes, it is," I agreed.

That's why we love it!

Darn you! Read my forkin' blog!

Spiffy, for some reason, thinks I have no phone skills. I don't know where she got that idea...

This is a normal ride-home-from-school phone call to Mother:

"Darn you! Darrrrrrnnnn yoooooou! Pick up the forkin' phone! Darn you! Oh, hello, this is John S.  McCain speaking. Ha ha ha, no, it's me, Libby, your daughter. Not your son, 'cause I'm not a man. No, I'm not! Gosh! Anyway, I'm in the car with, like, five people and Pascale's mom is driving me home because it would be weird if she didn't. But then Pascale had this idea, she was like, 'Oh my gosh!' and we were like 'Oh your gosh what?' and she was like, 'Y'all should hang with me!' and we were like, 'That's rockin', dude!' Yeah, that was how it went. So can I? Hang with Pascale and people?"

See, that's perfectly normal.

I had my Girl Scouts over last night. And the cousin. She's not one of my girl scouts, but she's a girl scout and she's my cousin, so it works. She and Liss informed me that they always keep a tab up on their computers with my blog on it, which I find a little creepy. If I was going to say who my biggest fans are, it would be you guys. I'm basking in your slightly stalkerish adoration over here.

Both of them (Liss and Audrey) told me no less than five times that I was "Hitler incarnate." They also accused me of wanting to "kill all non-Aryans" and told me that "you should start in America because we have a lot of people who aren't blonde and blue-eyed." Since I know you have a tab up and are reading this, I'm going to talk to you two. Everyone else who isn't either of them, look away now and don't look back until I tell you to. This paragraph does not concern you.

To Audrey and Liss: I have told you several times to stop it. I find it extremely offensive that you would even compare me to Hitler. I am the person who cried so hard she had to leave the room when our teacher taught about the Holocaust. There is a difference between liking blonde hair and wanting to kill people who aren't blonde. I have no problem with any hair color; I just like blonde more. Hitler was a horrible person. The Holocaust was a horrible thing. I don't even like bringing it up in conversation, much less being accused of wanting to do something like that. End of rant. Please, shut up.

You can look now. I should probably have written this on my list yesterday (I told you it would grow!):

• Blondes

I spent about ten minutes this morning cleaning up after all y'all. More than half of that was spent sorting the game cards into six equal piles and making sure they were all facing the same way. I'm not OCD! Kimchi Kat kept getting in the way by sitting in the box and rubbing her little kitty face on the cards while I was trying to sort them. I still love her very much, though. She was creeped out by everyone sleeping in the basement. The poor kitty had no idea what to do.

Also last night, I allowed Liss to braid my hair into ten different little braids. She was laughing at me because I divided my hair into sections before I brushed it. It's not my fault I have a lot of hair. It comes naturally. I slept with it like that and they called me Medusa all night long...I'm crying here. Show some sympathy. And then when I took it out, it was all funky. Yes, that's how it was. All funky. I am not going to describe what that means.

We tried to watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but certain people laughing their heads off on Facebook caused Liss to pause every few seconds. Then she started saying "I luv ya, man!" every time Harry was in the vicinity of a male character, just because she could really imagine him saying that. Half an hour into the movie, after everyone had finally migrated over in front of the television, it skipped back to the beginning.

Our movie-viewing was obviously doomed from the start.

I could probably think of a few more things to write about, but I don't feel like it.

I really don't want to go back to school tomorrow. I haven't done much over break, and I like it that way. I'd almost rather have the knowledge that I could do something than actually do it. Plus, school is so...educational. I'm not looking forward to homework, classes, or the Walk of Shame every morning. Oh, or band...I haven't practiced since I left the house Friday last week. Fork.

Break really is a break, you know? Like someone hit the pause button on my life and let me have a while to sleep it off, but they're going to hit play again tomorrow and expect me to me ready. I don't want to play...

I'm using a lot of ellipses and also not making sense to myself.