Ha, kittens.

Tee hee, y'all.

I thought that was pretty funny, you know. Writing a three-word blog post? High wit. I certainly laughed while I was typing it up. But I didn't laugh for very long because, you know, three words.

The point was that I've been trying to prove to the wife (that's Erin, if you're out of the loop) that I don't always think about kittens. She thinks I do, just because I write the word 'kittens' on my papers and say 'kittens' at random times and go on kittenwar all the time. I tell you, though, these are completely normal behaviors. Other people do stuff like that, right? Right?

Anyway.

I wrote about drugs for a while, but then I got bored and erased it all. And not drugs drugs, you know, just non-prescription Ibuprofen. Prescription's such a funny word. In French it's prescrire, and it always cracks me up for some reason. Don't ask.

I was "taking notes" in Sam's class today, but it was okay because we didn't actually have to take notes. I was just writing down some important things, like "Les Mis does not equal Mulan" and "in Soviet Russia, machine loves you." Erin was adding her own notes, and she told me I needed to put in the ninja ampersand. Then she said some rude things, like "Santa > &," which aside from being rude is entirely untrue.

She told me I should put the ninja ampersand somewhere in my notes, so I did. Then she looked for it, but it was such a good ninja that she couldn't find it. Ha.

The point of that was that I was reminded of the epic saga of the fabulous exclamation point and the ninja ampersand. That's right, it's become an epic saga. I mention it about twice and write a little dialogue and it changes into an EPIC SAGA. Such is the power of my brain.

We have a new character in our, uh, epic saga. It is the question mark, the exclamation point's best friend. The two of them are like this !? which incidentally makes its own type of punctuation, the interrobang. The question mark is at this moment using lots of interrobangs as it yells at the exclamation point. You don't need to know what it's saying, just that it involves a lot of "you're an idiot" and "why did you tell it to go away when you love it!?"

The exclamation point was going to come up with a totally legitimate reason, but eventually it had to except that it was acting totally irrational (after the question mark yelled at it for a while. The question mark can be quite scary sometimes). So now the exclamation point is sulking and wishing it hadn't been so stupid.

The ampersand is pretending it didn't happen. It's training its new ninja protegé, the number 2. I bet you didn't know it hopes to be a ninja. Well, it does. It aspires to be a ninja. It dreams of being a ninja. It...really wants to be a ninja, okay? Unfortunately, it's completely unimportant as of right now, because it has no clue of the exclamation point's burning love for the ampersand. The ampersand doesn't really like to talk about personal relationships while training, and the two can be pretty single-minded when it comes to the way of the ninja.

Then............

(Look, lots of dots! Dots dots dots! Guess what comes after the dots! {No, it's not 'Light' or 'tom bombadil,' okay? [look, parentheses inside parentheses inside parentheses! Maybe now I can look into a mirror and it'll be another mirror!]})

The fabulous exclamation point showed up at the ninja ampersand's top secret ninja training facility and said, "AMPERSAND. WE NEED TO TALK."

And that's it for now, dear readers.

In related news, look at this picture I found when I Googled "ampersand and exclamation point:" & and ! It has a question mark too, but that's okay.

In completely unrelated news, my whole 'write a thousand words a day' plan? It's working out. As of '13 February 2010,' as I wrote at the top of the Sticky on which I'm keeping track, I have counted 7,660 words. So yeah. That's not bad. (Most of them are under 'RITZY,' but hey. Still words.)

Ciao, infidels~!

Kittens.

That is all.

Guess what?

Look at this video of a kitten on YouTube again!

Yeah.

I'm sitting here late at night and the cousin is leaning on me. She's also tickling my side, or she was, but I think she's giving that up. Do you hear that, cousin? I think you're giving that up.

Sorry if this ends up sounding like me talking to the cousin, but it's not like this blog ever sounds like anything normal.

Today is Valentine's Day, you know. I like to call it "V-Day" because that's cuter. Kind of like "X-mas," although X-mas is a legitimate term that was used way before texting shorthand came into public use. I mean, people were saying X-mas before smell phones were invented.

I did practically nothing for V-Day, which is a shame because it's one of the cutest, most commercial holidays ever. All I did was get presents from my parents (rice crackers with seaweed, Japanese chocolate mushrooms, and white gum, because that's what every girl needs on V-Day) and hang out with the cousin.

The cousin is now lying on the floor trying to make the cat love her. It's a losing battle, cousin. (Good God, she's not even next to me and I'm talking to her. I must be slowly losing my mind. I love you, everyone! Remember that when I go insane and try to throw kittens at you when I see you because I'm too crazy to care who you are, okay?) The cat will never love you. The cat might be a space alien, or a robot, or an Animagus, or a ninja, but no matter what, she is heartless.

I mean, if she knew what V-Day was, she would probably refuse to celebrate it. She would be one of those people who goes, "Ew, sparkles and pink and love and happiness! I want to go sulk in my basement lair and eat frogs or something." She's just a little jerk kitty that way.

Another non-human who I've nonetheless decided hates V-Day is the exclamation point. It's not a ninja exclamation point, because it's not subtle enough to be a ninja, but I'm still not sure what it is. It might just be a random exclamation point. Or a fabulous exclamation point. Yeah.

Anyway, the fabulous exclamation point is Not Happy. With the capitals. The exclamation point is the kind of not happy that can't be expressed by lowercase letters, all right? See, it's in love with the ninja ampersand. It wants to marry the ninja ampersand and, like, have its children or something. Although I don't think that would work out because they're both "its," being punctuation.

But I'm getting off track. The fabulous exclamation point is deeply in love with the ninja ampersand. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem, because the exclamation point is very forward with its feelings, but no. The exclamation point said, "AMPERSAND I LOVE YOU LOL," and waited for an answer.

The ninja ampersand actually kind of ignored it, if you can believe that. The ninja ampersand was on a Top Secret Ninja Mission and didn't have time for exclamation points who caps lock too much.

So the exclamation point sulked for a while, and then it said, "OMG AMPERSAND PLZ TALK TO ME!!!" because it wanted the ampersand to talk to it. Their conversation went a little bit like this:

&: ...

!: WHY AREN'T YOU TALKING TO ME??

&: can't talk. important ninja mission.

!: NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ME MY LOVE

&: ...

!: SO AMPERSAND. I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION. ALMOST AS IMPORTANT AS ME, SO THAT'S PRETTY IMPORTANT

&: later. i'm busy.

!: I DON'T CARE. AMPERSAND. DO YOU LOVE ME??

&: i said i'm busy.

!: ANSWER MY QUESTION HONEY

&: ...

!: OMG YOU DON'T LOVE ME DO YOU??

&: it's not that.

!: YOU HATE ME OMGOMGOMG YOU RUINED MY V-DAY OMG I'M NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME YOU HEARTBREAKER

&: exclamation point, i said it's not that. i just have an important ninja job and i really shouldn't be talking to you right now

!: YOU HATE ME OMGOMG JERKBAIT I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU

&: well, if you're going to be like that

!: LIKE WHAT? I'M GOING TO BE LIKE WHAT?

&: i thought you weren't talking to me.

!: I THOUGHT YOU HAD AN IMPORTANT JOB.

&: well...look, i'm sorry. can we talk later?

!: NO BECAUSE I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU. EVER AGAIN. SO THAT MEANS NEVER

&: but you're talking to me

!: I AM NOT. GO AWAY. STUPID NINJA AMPERSAND

&: fine, i will

!: ...

!: COME BACK I LOVE YOU

!: -CRIES- -IN CAPS LOCK-

That was my V-Day story for you. It was kind of sad, I guess, but maybe the ninja ampersand and the fabulous exclamation point will get a happy ending later when I'm not tired out of my mind and with the cousin. Right now the two of them are kind of like this:

&||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||!

Maybe tomorrow they'll be like this:

& !

But I doubt it.

Sad V-Day, but hey! It's twelve-twelve, so technically it's not even V-Day anymore!

I bet you thought I was going to blog more.

I have two words for you.

(They're not I lied or you're gullible or rainbow kittens, although those would all work. Except maybe rainbow kittens, but they're just so cute.)

Actually, it's one word, but I'm saying it twice, so I think that makes it count as two words. Right? Someone back me up here.

Ha ha.

So there you are. Just because I am doing this insane thing that I'm probably going to quit in a few days when I have homework again does not mean I'm going to devote more of my time to you. That's right. I wrote eighteen hundred words today and none of them were for you. They were all for me. I'm keeping them forever, hidden in little folders on Lisette that say "writing" and are purple. That's right, purple.

Okay, maybe I'll give you a word. I mean, I have eighteen hundred. I can spare some. Here's a word: objectified. Heck, here's a sentence: Are you off your meds? That's right; I think making fun of people who are taking medication for whatever reason is extremely funny. Ha ha. Ha. Do you see me laughing? Of course you don't.

Sorry if this is coming across as a little bit, I don't know, insane or disjointed or insane or something. It's too late and I should be sleeping, but I felt like bragging.

I don't have anything else to write now, but I feel somewhere in my cold heart that I should write more than just "ha ha I'm so cool" before I give up on you. I just have no clue what to write. Even my muse isn't helping me.

Yes, I have a muse now, as of twelve twenty-two a.m. EST. It is the empty bag of "NORI MAKI ARARE rice crackers w/seaweed" next to my bed. They were delicious while they lasted. Salty and crunchy and seaweedy and everything. Yum.

Some people would say that I should throw them out, but I'm not some people! I'm the hero! Anyway, this is my new totally justified reason (read: excuse) not to throw them out. This empty bag of seaweed-related food is inspiring me. It is sending brainwaves into my...brain. It is giving me all kinds of fabulous ideas just by rustling its plasticy plastic.

...Yeah, I need to get some sleep.

Sorry for not really blogging, but I can pretend, right? And so can you, infidels! Ciao!

Blogging again.

So I've decided to try this thing where I write a thousand words a day. Kind of like NaNo, I guess, but not necessarily about the same thing. Anyway, NaNo was more like one thousand, six hundred sixty-seven words a day until you started getting behind, and then you ended up with three thousand words a day for a week...

Good times.

The cat is sitting on my bed. She's not touching me; that would be too much for her little kitty brain to handle. She's just sitting a safe distance away and twitching like the twitchy meeper she is. I swear, she is the weirdest cat ever, and all cats are weird.

I've started to say "meep" all the time. It's just terrible, I tell you. I go through phases of saying random words whenever I can. Meep. Squish. Sometimes I wish I could just talk like a normal person and not have to meep at people.

I was getting off the bus a few days ago, and I caught my bag between my leg and one of the seats. I made a "meep!" noise, because of course that makes sense. John (our bus driver looks remarkably like a young John McCain, so I call him John) said, "You're welcome."

Me: Meep!

John: You're welcome!

Erin: LOLWUT.

No, really. I think she said that.

Oh my gosh, that just reminded me of how while I was standing around in the snow feeling like a pimp today, this guy walked by and told his friend about how something "made him lol." I was like, "Go away, dude."

Oh, now the cat is actually sitting TOUCHING ME and PURRING. I can't believe it. I will treasure this for the rest of my life. This kind of thing happens once in a lifetime, or maybe just once a month, but not very often nonetheless. I'm so proud of her. This is like a step to becoming normal.

!

Do you know what song I keep listening to? Of course you don't, unless you're some kind of mind-reader. Please don't tell me you're a mind-reader. I would be seriously freaked out if someone turned out to be reading my mind. Sometimes in class I do that thing I saw on MLIA, where you think very loudly, "If you can hear me, cough," and then I feel really, really relieved when no one coughs.

Anyway, song.

It's "Paparazzi." By, you know, that Lady Gaga woman. (I wanted to say "that Lady Gaga lady," but that would be a major visit to the Department of Redundancy Department. Wow, I keep getting sidetracked today. My mind is, like, not staying focused.&)

ANYWAY. Seriously this time. You can tell I'm serious because I used CAPS LOCK.

I keep singing it in my head and stuff, except I replace the word "paparazzi" with "stalkerazzi." Seriously, if you've heard the song, it makes perfect sense. I'm your biggest fan/ I'll follow you until you love me...

Why am I listening to this? Someone hit me, or something.

Have you noticed that I keep sending you to links? It's to distract you from the way I'm too lazy to write anything of substance. Look! A turtle eating a strawberry! The cover of "Going Bovine!" Purple water!

...Yeah. I should just stop right now.

In case you haven't noticed, the ninja ampersand is hiding somewhere on this page. The exclamation point is also somewhere, but it's a little more conspicuous. Okay, a lot more conspicuous.

By the way, this was 596 words. 404 to go...and homework, of course.

I'm just in a writing mood recently.

Does anyone else know how that is? You go along for days, weeks, whatever, barely writing anything, and then suddenly you just have to write. I wrote like twenty-five hundred words this weekend, and then I spent most of lunch writing too. (Sorry guys). I can't help it. I just have to write right now.

Anyway, that's why I'm finally blogging. I am not a creature of habit, okay? I am my own person, with my own random reasons for doing everything. No one can make me do anything I don't want to do. I mean, actually, you can, but...

God. I've been doing that more often recently, you know. I trail off at the ends of sentences. I don't like doing it. It makes me feel wussy -- I'm sorry, I mean it makes me feel like the sympathetic individual I am.

***---***---***---***---***---**&*---***---***---***-!--***---

Two days after I wrote that first part (you can tell time passed because of the random punctuation) it became obvious to me that I'm not in a very big writing mood. If I had really felt like writing, I would have managed to finish more than three short paragraphs of a blog post.

In other news, did you see that the ninja ampersand has an exclamation point friend? The exclamation point is not a ninja. The exclamation point is...I don't know. Something that is also very good at disguising itself, like a ninja. Maybe it has an invisibility cloak, or maybe it's just magical. Or (this is the other option) the ampersand is a ninja that can actually hide itself and be subtle, and the exclamation point fails at subtlety.

Exclamation points aren't very subtle. I mean, obviously they're not, because they're PUNCTUATION and punctuation doesn't have emotions, but I don't think of them as being subtle. Think of this as synesthesia, except with punctuation having feelings instead of numbers having smells, or whatever synesthesia really is. I'm too lazy to skim the Wikipedia article to get the vague, ambiguously true facts the way I do to learn most of the things I know.

!!! -- exclamation points. They're fabulous and loud and don't shut up. And when you put too many of them in a row they look tacky. And...you can put tildes in front of them and then Erin (and probably other people, too, but I only know of her) calls it a squee squiggle~!

;;; -- semicolons. They're sort of confused and unhappy because they always have to join independent clauses and they never get to have any fun. That's not saying I don't live semicolons; I do love them. Semicolons are some of my favorites.

::: -- colons. Colons are cute but no-nonsense. Like librarians, or something.

??? -- question marks. They're like little kids: one can be cute, but too many in a group are just obnoxious. Or maybe that's just me.

... -- periods. Periods are just boring, okay?

,,, -- commas. It is Gertrude Stein's opinion that commas "are servile and they have no life of their own." I have to tell you, I like commas. I like them a little too much. They're just so helpful for breaking up my thoughts and creating natural pauses and when I write without them I get confused, and I have to go back to using them.

&&& -- ampersands. They're pretty much fabulous.

——— -- em dashes. (Not to be confused with en dashes or hyphens, even though all three of them are little slashy lines.) Em dashes are just normal, but kind of amazing at the same time.

/// -- virgules. I actually don't care about virgules, I just wanted an excuse to type that. Try saying it out loud sometime. Virgule.

So, now that I'm done obsessing, shall we go back to my endlessly fascinating life? I think we shall.

(If you don't think my life is endlessly fascinating, why are you still here? Go read Maureen Johnson's blog or Scott Westerfeld's blog or watch this video I found on YouTube just now of a cat meowing. Or watch this mystery video by clicking on this percent sign %.)

I passed all my classes with flying colors, by which I mean I got all A's. That's right, everyone. I win.

I am hoping very much that tomorrow is a snow day. It's supposed to snow a whole bunch, etc etc, and I don't really feel like writing this anymore, so deal with it, infidels.

Ciao.

It's Wednesday, January 13th.

2010. 4:47 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Et cetera.

I'm writing this because Nathanael said, and I quote, "blog more! now!!!!!!!!!!" Now I'm never safe to go online without someone yelling at me. I have the cousin (or not, since I never talk to her. Just to avoid this), and I have the fishy, and now I have Nathanael. He's not the anything, except maybe the Asian. Oh, and he's the chick, but I'm not even going to try to explain that.

The tab at the top of the screen here says "Apple." I can't for the life of me tell you why. The weirdest part is that the bar at the very top, which is supposed to say the same thing, says "Blogger: Pseudocurses - Create Post." This is either a problem with Blogger or a problem with Lisette. I'd prefer to think it's a problem with Blogger, because Lisette is like my metal and plastic and whatever else people put in computers child.

I was going to write about a terrible habit I've picked up recently. What was it? Good God, I can't even remember my own bad habits. How will I make fun of other people if I can't remember the obnoxious things they do? I think my life is ending. Do you hear it ending? It's making this scratching noise and meowing and...that's the cat outside the door. Okay. Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes. Terrible habits. I was going to squish about the way I use 'squish' as a verb in situations that are totally wrong. I know I already wrote about that, but that was a few days ago. You've probably already forgotten, or something. I know I had, until I looked it up.

The fishy thinks I should squish an entire blog post of squishing that word into the wrong place. I said to her, "Erin, you're a psycho. No one will understand that." She said, "Well, you don't have to do EVERY word! Leave enough normal so people know what you're talking about." Then I think I might have said, "Maybe I can squish that."

I mean, I'm sure it's possible. The fishy and I once had an entire conversation about the colonization of various countries by Europe by pointing at a map and saying "squish" a lot. It went something like this:

Me: Dude, that's weird. Look at the US; it's like squish.

Erin: You're right! It is like squish.

Me: But I thought the US was still being squished by England whenever this map is.

Erin: No, the US squished England. Remember?

Me: Oh. Yeah. Hey, why hasn't anyone squished Africa?

Erin: Because it's a desert?

Me: Well, no one squished the Sahara. But there are other parts that aren't squishy. Like, here.

Erin: Oh, yeah. It's all not squish.

Then Australia turned into BAM-Land. Bioterrorism was involved. And, as everyone knows, you can't sell Canadians. They get kind of mad.

I need to go eat dinner soon. I eat food. I know, it's shocking. There are so many other things to do with food, but I choose to eat the stuff.

You probably can't tell, but about forty-five minutes passed between the end of that paragraph and the start of this one. Maybe I should go back and put some tildes and asterisks in so you know I'm serious. Random punctuation always makes me think more of the person writing. You know what, I'll just put the tildes and asterisks here.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~&~*~*~*~

Did you see the ampersand I snuck in? It's a ninja ampersand. Punctuation so often goes to ninja finishing school to train in the ways of the ninja.

I'm running out of things to say (or write. Whatever), so I'm just going to copy some things other people have already written. Sometimes we call this plagiarism. Sometimes we call it being lazy.

Right here with me, I have my copy of "How Not To Write." I got it for Christmas this year (in case you were wondering, last year I got an OED. That's because I'm fabulous). It is full of fab, advice, and grammar humor. Here are some examples.

Stuff From "How Not To Write":

• One will not have needed the future perfect tense in one's entire life.
• You should just avoid confusing readers with misplaced modifiers.
• Remember to never split an infinitive.
• Don't verb nouns.
• Don't use Capital letters without good REASON.

If you didn't understand that, I am totally willing to lend you my copy.

How was that for a blog post? Admittedly, I stole someone else's humor because I was too lazy to be funny on my own and wrote about ninja punctuation ... but I enjoyed it, and that's all that matters, infidels.

Happy forking New Year!

It's the year of the tiger now. I tried to look that up on Wikipedia, but it didn't work out for me. I did find out that 2010 is the year in which the Dynamic Tower in Dubai will be finished. Dynamic Architecture is, by the way, that guy who makes buildings that spin. Usually I call them that, or sometimes even, "the buildings that go spinny-spinny." This is because I am a master of language.

Anyway, the buildings spin. It's kind of amazing. They're also prefabricated, so each individual floor was premade and just stacked up. Oh, and the best part (other than the way they spin. The spinning is pretty special) is that they move according to voice commands. You can say, "Move, infidel," and your floor will spin around in circles. How cool is that?

Apple is maybe-possibly-sort-of making a tablet computer. The iSlate, maybe. It's like a

cross between an iPhone and a computer. It seems like the kind of thing people would have in

the FUTURE, when we all drive our hovercars to work and vacation on the moon and live in

bubbles underwater.

Obviously twenty-ten is now the FUTURE. How does it feel to be living in such a

FUTURISTIC world filled with advanced technology? I feel pretty good about it, actually. I like

the FUTURE so far. It's not bad. Last year, I was all, "Oh gosh! The new year is fast approaching!

What if aliens come and take over our planet, demanding chocolate and firstborn children?"

But so far there have been no alien invasions, so I think we're doing well. This is obviously the

right way to measure the worth of a year: Well, no aliens...Everything is hunky-dory!

In other news, we will now write the word FUTURE and anything that has anything to do

with it in all caps. This makes no sense if you think about it and goes against the conventions

of standard English, but we all know I don't care at all about standard English. I mean, good

God. Have you seen me type recently? It's "lolz" this and ":)" that, with a side of lowercase

letters.

Lol.

My God, look at me. I can't even write "lol" without capitalizing it and putting a period

after it. I won't be able to survive if the chit-chatty texting-talk takes over the world. They'll

probably lock me up for impeding progress after I spend ten minutes writing out a full reply

to something instead of just typing "k lol." I'll be imprisoned for my conservative ideas. Do

people do that? Jail people for not being radical enough? I mean, I guess they did that during

the French Revolution, but...

I'm rambling. You don't want to read this, do you? You probably want my thoughts to be

clear and organized, like pencils lined up on a desk. I would do that for you, I swear I would,

but my thoughts aren't neat like pencils. My thoughts are like (insert some wild hand gestures

and waving of hair) wheee! BAM! Kittens! Squishy wiggle twitcher fuzzy! Super special! Eep!

and I don't think they would make sense to anyone else.

I'm making increasingly less sense, you know. I used to be clear when I spoke. I used to be

able to explain things to people and have them nod and say, "Thanks, Libby. I get it now." But

now I have trouble saying thinks without putting "squish" in the sentence instead of a more

commonly accepted verb.

Sentences That Would Make Sense If You Were Me, Or Alternately, If You Were

Insane

• Oh no! I squished it wrong!
• Erin squished me again when I tried to name my phone Renesmee.
• I squished the cat.
• Where do I squish these?
• I was all like, "You know, it's squishy," and she was all like, "I don't understand you."

Ooh, we could make an activity out of it! I love activities! Y'all can guess what verbs I

replaced with "squish." Tell me later, if, you know, I ever actually see you. (Wow, commas.) If

I don't actually see you, then I don't care what you do. Oh, that was mean of me. You can

always post little squishies (comments! I mean comments!) on this post. It makes me feel

special when people comment, and since I never post, no one ever has the opportunity.

So I'm sorry if this was weirdly formatted and hard to read. Blogger hates me sometimes.

I give it presents and say, "Blogger, je t'aime bien," to it so it loves me, but it doesn't always

work. Just try to read this. I know you'll try very hard because my thoughts are so fascinating.

I know it makes me feel better to know I'm still thinking.

Peace out, dear readers.