And now, a cheer about e-mail!

G for glass

M for mature

A for amazing

I for immoral

L for licorice

What does that spell?

Gmail!

I just signed into this blog with my new gmail account. The only difference between my new gmail account and my old yahoo account is the username. I still have the same password, which I use for everything. If someone finds out what it is, they'll be able to get into pretty much everything that belongs to me online. I don't like my new gmail account because I don't know how gmail is supposed to be spelled. I want to say g-mail, but I'm not sure if the g is supposed to be capitalized or not.

I was going to go mope around the house, but the cousin told me to blog. It's very annoying, but I hear many authors have people who yell at them whenever they don't work and get them to finish their novels. I know this because I always read the little page of dedications at either the front or back; you know, the one that lists all these people who helped me through the tough process of writing? Does anyone else read those?

I'm really not sure what to write about today. We have a very strange and difficult new song in band. It's called Amparito Roca. Go look it up on Google or something. I have the first clarinet part, only because the teachers took pity on me for having played the second parts in our last two songs. It has a lot of sixteenth notes, which is a problem because I can't play sixteenth notes, and a lot of music in general, which is a problem because I can't play. I vowed to myself that I would learn to play this song, but that was what I did last time and it didn't work. I still say it's going to be fun. Anna, who has the second part, laughs at me every time I mention it.

My favorite element of the periodic table is Uuu, unununium. It's also number 111. See how awesome it is? I know nothing about it other than those three things, but they're awesome enough that it could be completely stupid except for that and I wouldn't care. How can an element be stupid? you ask. Well, I'm not answering you. Go think about it for yourself.

The cousin is telling me via Facebook to write about her. This is our conversation:

Libby

I don't know what to write about.

3:55pmAudrey

ME!

'cause I'm special.

Yes, that is exactly what our conversation looked like. I didn't pay her anything to say that. The cousin speaks of her own free will. My writing is all going to look messed up now because I put that little chat thing in.

The cousin's name is actually Audrey, to everyone who might not have met her. I just call her the cousin. I don't know why. I said it one day, and it stuck.

Weird Names I Call People and Who They Really Are:

• The Tyrannical Dictator: Mother
• Father: Father
• The child: Robby, my brother
• The cousin: Audrey, my cousin
• Hermano: all girls I talk to who are not Spiffy or Anna
• Hermana: Anna
• Prima: Spiffy
• Chica: Niraj, also any other guy

And there you have it! I don't know why I like calling people by Spanish words that apply to the wrong gender anyway. It amuses me. I suppose I should use French words, since I actually speak some French, but Spanish is funnier. The problem with having different names for everyone means that I can't just say, "Hola, hermanos!" like I did before Spiffy and Anna (who take Spanish) complained about being called guy names. Now I have to say, "Hola, hermanos y hermana y prima!" which is really too long for a greeting.

I also speak French in situations where French doesn't make sense, such as in the middle of sentences typed to people who don't speak any French. But why would you do something that stupid? they ask, and I reply, I did it parce que I felt like it. They call this Frenglish or Franglais.

The cousin just told me that I made a mistake in claiming that her posse calls me the abortion one because of Chica's story. The story about Chica was completely true, but it's not why they call me that. I don't feel like typing up the cousin's story, so you can go ask her if you really need to know.

This post is fairly short, but I'm not in the mood to write any more. I have homework to do and school tomorrow. Adios, infidels.

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.

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

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

"We'll cut her fingers off!"

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

"Ew! Guys, that's nasty!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's ironic."

"I'm having a gender identity crisis."

"It's a free country."

"What tie?"

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

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

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

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

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