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.
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