Prepositions are not things to end sentences with.

I now have trouble writing or saying sentences that end in prepositions. It just feels wrong in

my head. I have to write things correctly. Is this a good or a bad thing? Discuss.

On the other hand, I keep confusing homophones like they're and their. I feel stupid and

unworthy and horrible for about a second after I do it. Then I forget about it.

The temperature recently has reached over ninety degrees. This is unacceptable weather of the kind that will not be allowed in northern Canada when I move there. My dear family was stuck in the basement all day. It was boring down there, and it was boring and hot upstairs. I was convinced that Cassee was going to get heatstroke.

Today I made some beautiful art out of Mod Podge (well, that stuff. I don't know how to spell it), paper, duct tape, scissors with funny edges, and these awesome paintbrush/markers. Mother does not seem to appreciation my genius artwork. I can't imagine why. She just called it a collage, when anyone can see that it is obviously an abstract composition.

Ah, duct tape. It is useful for so many things, such as fixing ducts, holding together the fracturing bits of a failing relationship, and making clothing. Many people make prom dresses out of duct tape. I think this is mainly because of the Stuck at Prom contest that offers three thousand dollars worth of scholarship money to the winners, as well as money to the school that held the prom.

Look at the winners. Their dresses and tuxes are crazily elaborate. I don't even want to think about how long it took to make those. Or how much duct tape.

Tape.

Today, I will finish my hundredth book this summer. This is a frightening thought, and I don't know why. I've read thousands of books in my life, have never known which one was 500th or 666th or 729th, and have never cared. But now that I'm counting, it means something. I have a goal. I am working toward it. I have a record of ninety-six books I've read, and I can look back at them and remember.

Mother says I should keep writing down what I read after I hit a hundred. I've never done that before. I don't think I have the ability to keep track of these things. I always had to write up my stupid practice logs for band the morning they were due because I didn't write down when I practiced. Oh well. At least I actually told the truth about when I practiced, unlike some people.

Speaking of band, I quit. Spiffy is calling me a quitter now. So is Liss, but Liss just likes to call me things to annoy me. She spent the entire weekend calling me either Little Libsies or crotchety old woman.

We had a thrilling Girl Scout weekend, probably our last one ever. One of our members is thinking about giving up Girl Scouts. In most troops, I think that would be okay, but when you only have four members, a quarter of your troop leaving is a lot. Also, we don't do many things that you have to be a Girl Scout to do, like earning badges or going to Girl Scout camps. We just sort of meet and gossip and sell cookies outside Scrapbook Haven.

Not that I don't love my troop. I do. I love them more than I love nail polish and Gmail combined. Who else sings new lyrics to "You Belong With Me" in A&W or plays Apples to Apples in the car with Lego Building Blocks winning Chewy and Learning Spanish for Sticky? No one I know.

Anyway, we went on holiday up North. The drive was five hours of insane Apples to Apples and general craziness. I managed to spill several different food items on myself. Zoe's Aunt Franny kindly allowed us to stay in her boathouse, which was a shack by the water decorated with baskets, plastic furniture, and a bunch of little statues and things, which Liss named. The best part was a loft with a lot of old trunks and a vacuum on it.

We tried to catch fish in Crystal Lake for ages, but it didn't work too well because we were afraid to get swimmer's itch from the water. Finally, Anna got tired of that and sat down in the water to catch a fish. We also went swimming in Lake Michigan. On one side of a giant pier, the water was the color of puke. Liss has some other, ruder names for it. On the other side, it was clear and nice. We swam on both sides, and there was absolutely no difference.

What else did we do? That was about it. I read Liss's depressing book (Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins, #95. It's not actually out yet, but she had an ARC) and played mancala in rounds for at least an hour. Everyone called me OCD because I rearranged the pieces so they were with other pieces of the same color. Then they all started arranging them like that. OCD is not contagious, you know.

The weekend was really fab and stuff, but I have realized something shocking. Or, well, really not so shocking. This epiphany came to me while I was floating down a river on a tube, holding onto Liss's tube so she didn't float away from me.

I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who can spend a lot of time around other people and not lock myself in my room for a while afterwards. I mean, that's a little bit exaggerated, but private people such as myself have trouble living in a shack with six other people who aren't related to me for long. I know some of you would have trouble with it, dear readers. Admit it. You're not all bubbly, cheerful, extroverted types.

That's all I have to say. My next post, whenever it may appear, will be at least partly about my feelings toward my hundredth book. It might even include my hundred book list if I don't get lazy about typing it.

I have to go move on with my exciting life now by going to the dentist and giving up Remi to the child.

I have trouble thinking up titles, so live with this.

I have done many things since I last posted. In fact, I have probably become a better person and stuff. This kind of stuff happens when you least expect it. One night, you're you, and then you wake up the next morning and realize that you've become a better person overnight.

This is a partial list of what I did between my last post and this post.

In A Partial Week Of My Fine Life, I:

• Slept
• Watched Pokemon
• Listened to the child talk about Pokemon
• Played Pokemon
• Played Super Princess Peach
• Read many things, including but not limited to Bad Kitty, Lulu Dark Can See Though Walls, Scott Westerfeld's blog, The Schwa Was Here, and the latest issue of Nintendo Power
• Kicked the child off the computer
• Got kicked off the computer by the child
• Scribbled
• Scrawled
• Jotted
• Read a dictionary
• Saw the cousin
• Stared at the cousin's shoes
• Stared at the cousin's hair
• Stared at the cousin in general
• Saw my troop
• Was annoyed by how quiet the little Brownies were, conveniently forgetting that I was that quiet in third grade
• Was gloated at by Liss
• Threatened to beat Liss up if she didn't lend me her ARC of Leviathan
• Went to school
• Was bored at school
• Was supposed to play the clarinet in band
• Didn't play the clarinet in band
• Had a bad day
• Made sarcastic comments
• Giggled
• Picked up the cat
• Jumped on the trampoline in a swimsuit while the child sprayed me with a hose
• Sprayed the child with a hose while he jumped on the trampoline
• Wrote this list

Okay, the end. Wasn't that thrilling? I was just about thrilled to death while I wrote it, but I kept being distracted by the child's Pokemon in the background. There are lots of fight noises and "PIII-KA-CHUU!"'s and someone keeps laughing coldly in a monotone and saying, "Pokemon are not friends. You will never defeat me, Ash Ketchum." And, oh no, Pikachu just fell out of the sky into a pool of water! What will we do now? And oh my gosh, Ash just got attacked by a lot of roots.

Only-vaguely-paying-attention-to-Pokemon is much more fun than actually-watching-Pokemon. Unless Team Rocket shows up. I love Team Rocket. They, along with Captain America, are my homeboys. Team Rocket doesn't have a Wikipedia page of its own, which is just horrible, but here are the Wikipedia pages for Captain America and Pokemon crime syndicates. While I'm putting up links for useful Wikipeda pages, here is wikipedia.org/Asian_People.

I'm not sure what to write about today. I can make long lists and type up links to Wikipedia, but real writing is beyond me at this point. "What point?" you may ask. Well, the POINT OF NO RETURN, dear readers. See, I put that in capital letters and italics, to show how hyper-important it is. Michele Jaffe, who wrote Bad Kitty and I think some other stuff for the older audience, says iper-cool, which is like uber-cool, which is like hyper-cool. Anyway, back to the POINT OF NO RETURN. It is a point that can only be reached once in a multi-colored moon, and no one would like it very much if it wasn't so awesome and obnoxiously capitalized.

So I had this awesome dream that I was wearing a tie, leggings, my fab rain boots, and a black dress with a giant zipper up the front, much like the black robes Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts wear. It was great. I bet you all wish you could have fabulous dreams like me.

(Interval of who knows how many hours.)

Yes, I left this blog for hours and then came back to write on it. This is because I have a strange feeling that I should try to finish something for once in my life. I am now sitting here while my family watches hockey, wearing a purple plastic tiara that's too small for me, and reading a book that Meg Cabot woman wrote. Well, I was reading it. I had to stop now that I'm writing this.

I have other things to do now, like study for my math exam and fill out important papers for Commie. I also have something for English due eventually, but it's just a list of books I've read and I don't know when I'll be expected to turn it in. Oh, and there's a French final on Wednesday, but I've decided to be cocky about that and only study the night before. Don't tell Madame.

My nail polish, which matches my plastic tiara, is coming off. I only put it on last night. Or two nights ago. The time blurs together in my mind, it really does.

I saw this fabulous surgical mask today, for protecting oneself against the swine flu.

I don't have anything else to write about. Here, you may have the first sentence I read when I pick up my book:

Scott was still just...Scott.

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.

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.