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

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

"We'll cut her fingers off!"

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

"Ew! Guys, that's nasty!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's ironic."

"I'm having a gender identity crisis."

"It's a free country."

"What tie?"

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

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

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

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

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

I am proud to own my shirt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am the proud(?) owner of a blog.

This feels like a really important step in my life, for some reason. I can't imagine why. It's only a bunch of words that I'm sending out all over the Internet. People who I've never met aren't able to read this or anything.

I've never written a blog before, but I've read books about it, which gives me all the information I need to know. They all started out with describing themselves, but I don't really feel like doing that. I think there's a little box in the corner I can put important information in. You can all read that when I get around to putting stuff in it. Until then, hang on my every word hoping for some oh-so-exciting details about my personal life.

I decided to call this blog Pseudocurses because I forking can. It's a free country, et cetera. There were two major things, other than my freedom of speech and so on, that factored into this decision.  A. I'm one of those people who can be heard saying "Heck!" as a curse. Yup, we exist. We're not just like ghosts, fairy tales you weren't sure were real. I don't swear. Much. I prefer saying, you know, "forking heck." B. All the other names I liked were taken. Also, "pseudo" is an awesome word.

I don't care if that's three reasons. This is my blog. I can do what I want. Right now, what I want to do is finish writing this post and get the cat off the table again. Poor kitty. Even though she, too, lives in a country of freedom, the tyrannical reign of certain people in this household keeps her on the floor. How will she ever grow into an empowered cat if we're taking away her natural rights? I should hold a peaceful demonstration in front of the refrigerator.

Maybe I should talk about my life on this blog. What a novel idea. Today, I plan to go shopping. I love shopping almost as much as I love bowling and curling irons. In my opinion, they are like methane gas slowly filling my lungs. However, this shopping excursion might be fun. Fun. While shopping. Can you imagine? I need to buy a dress shirt so I can pretend to be on the boys basketball team at my fine learning establishment. They all wear fancy clothes on game days. Apparently, this helps them bond as a team. I'm not exactly sure how that works. Team bonding or no team bonding, I have wanted to pretend to be on the team ever since Spiffy told me I couldn't sneak onto the bus because I'm not on the team. My comrades will be pleasantly surprised when I show up dressed like them.

Well, I'm glad that's over. Don't expect too many fireworks here. I'll blog once a month, if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, I'll leave this to rot and die on the Internet. And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we? (That was a rhetorical question, by the way.)