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.

This is me blogging.

It's nothing you haven't seen before. I sit down at my computer and prepare to hammer out something that will end up taking the shape of a decent blog post. I complain a lot to whoever I'm talking to through the glory that is the Internet (sometimes through random punctuation that has no meaning to anyone but me, like this charming message I sent to Erin: ...!? ;;;;; && ^ : ) : ) ^^ ). And then eventually I get over it and write.

Christmastime is fast approaching, you know. In fact, there are some who would say it's been here for weeks. I mean, the Christmas music has been playing nonstop for ages. When we eat lunch in Kerrytown, there are always cheerful songs about Jesus and angels and Christmas spirit playing in the background. It's driving me crazy.

I'm not completely sure what my position on Christmas music is. I think I'll make some lists. That's what the characters in the novels I've been reading do. List-making is big in YA. It's a very easy way to write things out without actually having to develop them, you know. Perfect for NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, the lists:

Bad Things About Christmas Music:

• There is nothing else during the month of December. Nothing
• I think "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and that other song, the one with the bells, are some of the most depressing songs ever
• You hear every song over and over
• As a result of that, it gets stuck in your head
• It's super annoying to find yourself humming it when you could be humming something, else, like "I'll Make A Man Out Of You"

Good Things About Christmas Music:

• It's only around for a month

Okay, so now I know I hate Christmas music. This is so refreshing. The only problem is this: I might still like it. I mean, there are many things I like even though they're obviously terrible and I should hate them. I just can't think of any off the top of my head. People who know me can think of them for me, right? I trust you to know me better than I know my own self.

That reminds me of Twilight. I'm starting to love it again. There, something for the "this is horrible but I love it like my own psychotic, unclean child" list. I think it was discovering MyLifeIsTwilight dot com, which is sort of like MLIA but with worse spelling and creepier, Twi-hard posters whose lives seem to revolve around their life-size Rob Pat cutouts.

Actually, it might be because I was trying to read Breaking Dawn in French. I like to read things in French and see how much I can actually understand and how much leaves me wishing I had a French-English dictionary in my huge coat pockets. It doesn't help that books are mostly written in some weird tense I haven't learned yet, but at least I can understand some of the words. And imagine how amazed I was when Edward asked Bella, "Tu veux la voir?" and I realized that the direct object pronouns Kris Ann have been teaching us are actually used in the French language. Also, it is just as epic when Bella asks "Why am I covered in feathers?" in French.

Pourquoi suis-je couvert des plumes?

I don't know, Bella. Helpfully, Edward explains that it was because he bit a pillow. Ou deux... Oh, Edward, you pillow-biter. Now I understand why so many teenage girls want to marry you. I certainly find pillow-biting attractive.

I put a lot of links into this post to distract you from actually reading it. I mean, who would pay attention to me when there's a link to Rob Pat's slightly stalkerish visage staring you in the face. Come on, click it. I dare you. I hear they call him Robward now.

I can't keep writing, infidels. I have things to do. Important things. Yes. More important than spilling out my thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Internet at large, as crazy as that may sound.

Remember me?

It's okay if you don't. I don't really make much of a mark on the Internets. I make more of a ripple, I think. You know, because a ripple is a lovely phenomenon that spreads out in concentric circles before fading away into nothingness.

But that's not like me, because here I am! I'm back, because I really can't live for very long without knowing that I have people out there hanging onto my every word. Like the cousin. She said to me this weekend -- we were at my grandparents' house -- she said to me, "I need your blog! I need it to LIVE!" or something like that, and I said, "That's...nice, cousin."

I have another excuse this time. Yes, a new one. You've never heard it before on this blog. There is a concrete reason why I haven't blogged in a month. The last few weeks of October, well. I have nothing to say about that. But I was busy for the entire month of November.

"But how can you be busy for an entire month straight?" you ask. "How can something keep you occupied for that long? Your attention span isn't really that long, is it?"

Dear readers, it is that long. My attention span was long enough to let me spend an entire month of my life on NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo is the short way to say National Novel Writing Month. (NaNo is the short way to say NaNoWriMo. Apparently writers don't like to actually write things out. Who knew?) NaNoWriMo is for crazy people who don't mind that they will have lost their souls by the time the month is over. NaNoWriMo is for masochistic nerds. NaNoWriMo is what everyone wants to do until November starts and they have to pick up their pens.

You write a novel, or at least fifty thousand words of something in a month. Yes. 50k in thirty days. That rounds out to a neat 1666.6 words a day.

People do it because people are crazy. People have issues. And people who think they can write have even more issues than most people, so they think writing fifty thousand words in thirty days will be fun.

(Actually, it was fun. Shh! Don't tell anyone!)

But that's what I was doing all month. I was obsessing over my word count: Do you think I can hit 30k tonight if I'm only at 26k? I was writing a lot of things that didn't make any sense: "It appears that a small tornado has entered my classroom." I was breaking the fourth wall whenever I got bored: "And then he took the midnight train going anywhere and joined a gang in the hood." I was deleting a lot of crap: Yes, that's why you didn't see anything about gangs. I was sleeping normally...Or not.

As you can imagine, I hardly had time to do my homework, let alone update the Internet on my fascinating life. NaNo sucked up my life like a vacuum sucks up dust. Also, it stole my soul and made me go slightly crazy for a few days. But I'm all better now!

Maybe.

Let's see, what happened to me today? I went to class...I went to my other class, where we talked about Catcher in the Rye.

God, I love that book. I liked it a lot more before we had to analyze it in class, of course, but I still love it. Holden is such a psycho. I don't think I'd like to meet him, but I love reading about him.

Nothing else really happened to me today. I can't believe I'm trying to blog about my life when nothing interesting happens in my life. I mean, I wake up, I eat some breakfast, I catch the bus, I spend several hours in a semi-controlled learning environment, I go home. Boring. Who wants to hear about that?

I could make up something to tell you. I could say to you,

It was a dark and stormy day. The wind was howling like wolves howl when they haven't eaten anything for weeks and their fur is starting to fall out in patches. Water crashed against the walls of Community High School, because there's a lot of water crashing downtown. There was a flood, okay? It was flooding, and dark, and stormy, et cetera. This is very beautiful and descriptive, but it's not going anywhere because I'm too lazy to write it.

If that didn't bring tears to your eyes, I don't know what will.

Irony is the new black.

I don't know; I read it in a book.

I know I said I'd be bringing you my deep insights into the community at Community (people make that pun way more than the commie pun, which is obviously a better pun), but I lied. If you haven't gotten used to my false promises and backstabbing yet, you might have a problem. I mean, seriously. I haven't even written up the rest of those books I read over the summer, and that was months ago.

I'm sure anyone reading this would love to hear about fashion trends at Commie, but sadly I can't write about fashion trends. I can write about how stupid-looking I think those tights that are made to look like you're wearing socks over leggings are, and I can write about how everyone and their mother wears skinny jeans, but that's not trendiness. That's me being rude. I have one more thing to say, though: this chick in my world history class was wearing caution tape around her neck. Yes. The yellow-and-black stuff that says CAUTION over and over. Around her neck. I know!

I really wish that I could write about a typical day at Commie. I think I did that about Slauson once upon a time. The problem is that typical and Commie are like mangoes and jellyfish: they make you scratch your head and get a confused expression when you read them in the same sentence. Commie...it's the alternative, as the rainbow zebra drawing outside the office says. It's a completely unique place. Sometimes I walk in and think, Wow, my school is so freaking unique.

No, really. Yesterday, I walked in and found a group of maybe ten people singing the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air outside the Dean's office. They were not serenading her, although that would have been about the funniest thing since sliced bread. They were just loitering in the hall before class, singing. I had a sudden realization that this is what life must be like in High School Musical.

The other reason that it's hard to write about typical things at Commie (are you scratching your head in confusion? You should be) is that I have three different schedules every week. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have a full schedule of four classes. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have two classes, an hour and a half of slacking-off time, and forum. And on Fridays, I get to go to all of my favorite classes!

Maybe I'll just write down all of my classes and leave you guessing. Guessing about what? you ask. If she writes all of them, there will be nothing for us to guess! I'm glad you asked that, dear readers. You will have the opportunity to guess which block I have each class! What fun! You can also try to figure out whether or not I enjoy each class from the cryptic descriptions I will leave next to the class name.

Real World Civics & Economics. At Commie, we are too cool for regular classes like, say, civics or econ, so we're stuck with RWCampersandE. Cheryl teaches it. She also has a forum, is the advisor of the Mock Trial stuff, and probably does countless other things.

Foundations of Science I. Again, we're too fab for biology. We get FOS instead, which is like this funky combination of biology, chemistry, and...you know, other sciencey stuff. Courtney, who's pretty awesome, teaches it, and so does C.J., who may or may not have a real name and is sixteen going on thirty.

French II. French is French, d'accord? There's not much to say about it. On the other hand, there's a lot to say about my teacher. Kris Ann is kind of a lunatic, and I mean that in the most loving way possible. She has to wear sunglasses all the time because otherwise she gets horrible migraines that have mini-stroke-like effects on her. She also squirts her students with a squirt bottle when they're being profligate. She squirted me the other day. It was pretty amazing.

Introduction to Literature. In Intro to Lit, we only read depressing stuff. This is because the main teacher, Ken, is from the if it ain't depressing, it ain't literature! camp. Our other teacher is Ellen. She's a poet and she thinks I'm a good student. Stop looking at me like that. I'm a great student.

World History. Mother is of the opinion that this class is wasting her tax dollars. Sam is really nice. That's all the information I'm giving you. Think. Ponder! Ruminate!

My free block is amazing and sometimes I go the library and sometimes I do my homework and sometimes Liss and I toss the ol' pigskin and it teaches me nothing, which is why this is an atrocious run-on sentence!

Geometry. It's math, okay? Math. Numbers and algebraic expressions and the Fibonacci Sequence ( 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144...). Diane teaches it. She is also a counselor. You would think that counseling would be a full-time job, but no.

Forum. Well. They tell us that forum is a class, but I don't know if I believe them. For example, I spent all of forum on Thursday learning the Single Ladies dance for the talent show next week. It was supposed to be a secret, actually, but not anymore, ha ha ha.

Did you watch the dance? I hope you did, because it will now be much easier for you to picture me, a couple of girls, and two guys doing this dance on Tuesday.

Now that I've left you with that mental image, I bid you adieu.

Guess who?

It's me, obviously. The privacy of my blog has not yet been compromised. The only person who gets to decide what ends up posted on the fabulous pages of Pseudocurses is yours truly. Don't worry. The reason I didn't blog for a month and a half was not actually because some creeper changed my password and I couldn't figure it out for weeks, like I originally planned to tell you.

It's because so much has been happening in my life. My gosh. Exciting new things are at every corner in this thrilling life I lead. I swear, every time I turn around some kind of great thing happens to me. Like, well, Commie.

I am a commie now. It all happened so fast...One moment I was hiding in my room pretending summer would never end; the next, I was being jostled around on a bus heading to Community High. School buses are not comfortable. If you have a choice, don't take them.

So. Anyway. I'm back from my hiatus, here on the Internets to bring you pithy and misanthropic insights into the world of Commie. I've even changed the color of links or something to red in honor of my school. Our school colors happen to be black and white (and our mascot is the rainbow zebra! Peace and love: Fight, fight!) but that's not the point. The point is that those reds can only really be represented by one color, and it is red.

Community is a unique school in downtown Ann Arbor. It's right across the street from Kerrytown, so of course everyone jaywalks across during our lunch period. Um, what else. Basic information, just in case you don't know...Community High was originally an elementary school. It has three floors and four staircases. Students are chosen by a lottery. We run on a block schedule, having half our classes each day and all our classes on Friday. An exclusive part of the Community experience is Forum, an hour-long class involving community service, friendship, and food.

I wrote that entire thing without even looking at one of the two Community websites. Go me. They're here !!!!! and here ???? in case my explanation wasn't awesome enough.

Let's see...this post will be full of Commie-related lists. You will enjoy them.

Fantastic Things About Commie:

• It's tiny. There are three floors, one hall on each floor
• No dress code! Not that I would, you know, care
• We can have hour-and-a-half long free blocks
• It's an open campus, so we can leave school during our free blocks
• The block schedule means we have two days to do homework
• We get to call our teachers by their first names
• It's almost impossible to get lost
• It's close to No Thai, Teriyaki Time, Kerrytown, and Smoothie King
• Teachers just talk to you in the hallways (and call your dog emo)
• All the teachers seem really psyched about teaching you
• People let you do basically whatever you want
• Peace and love: Fight, fight!

As you can see, Commie is pretty cool. I am so happy I go there. All of my Pi High friends tell me, "Oh, Libby! Come to Pioneer so you can catch a glimpse of me in the packed hallways! The teachers won't care about you, but it's okay: our stifling atmosphere and piles of homework will be worth any hardships!"

To this, I say, "No." I also whine, "But I liiiike Commie! And Pioneer scares me! It's so big!"

"You won't get lost!" they assure me. "Much."

Commie is my homeland. I am not switching schools for anyone. Ever.

The commies, my comrades in scholarly pursuits, are unique and fabulous people. Every single fricking one of them. I am not quite commie enough to abandon the useless and somewhat rude pastime of putting people into boxes, so here is my list of the types of people I have identified at Commie.

Commies: A List:

• Goth/punk refugees
• Scene/emo people: like the gothies, but more skinny jeans and plaid
• Sensitive artistes
• Assorted nerds, mostly male
• People whose levels of funkitude are too high for normal education
• People who like the idea or the specific classes
• Other people who don't broadcast their fabulosity on their sleeves

And there you are. I think I fit in with the sensitive artistes, actually. I'm quite sensitive. I'm just not particularly artistic.

Oh, and one last thing that is imperative to know about Commie: Everyone wears skinny jeans. The guys wear skinny jeans. The girls wear skinny jeans. Laurel, who teaches Spanish, wears skinny jeans. Even I own a pair of skinny jeans for the sole purpose of fitting in at Commie.

As much as you can fit in at the local alternative school, anyway.

I've read a hundred books this summer.

I have. No lie. And here they are, with short review-type things for your viewing pleasure. You can skip over this entire list if it bores you to tears; I don't care. Or you can read it to find out which books I shelf-pulled from the teen sections of libraries are fabulous.

Libby's Summer Reading

1. Deadline by Chris Crutcher. Christ Crutcher writes books about athletes who mess with the status quo. In Deadline, the main character is a football player who falls in love and finds out more about the people in his town than he ever wanted to know when he is diagnosed with a terminal disease. I cried at the end. It was a deep, moving book.

2. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. Mother thought there were things in this book that were inappropriate for my young eyes, but it was a good book. Norah agrees to be Nick's girlfriend for five minutes, but she ends up spending a crazy night chasing him around New York. There's also a movie, but I don't want to see it because it won't be as good as the book.

3. Art Geeks and Prom Queens by Alyson Noël. This book is about an art geek whose mother wants her to be a popular girl. She falls in with the popular crowd, but I don't think I'll spoil the ending by telling you that she ultimately goes back to the arty, geeky people.

4. Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson. I read this book because I've seen other people my age reading it. It was better than I thought it would be, but I still wouldn't recommend it. Three girls from, you know, different walks of life, form a lifelong bond while working on a peach orchard.

5. Lulu Dark and the Summer of the Fox by Bennet Madison. I love Lulu Dark, Halo City, and Bennet Madison. This is the sequel to Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls, which I must admit I liked more. I mean, how can you not love a book with lines like, "The drag queen was impressed by our classy wheels"? The books are fabulous and funny, and I think people should read them.

6. Rock Star Superstar by Blake Nelson. A guy forms a rock group. That's sadly all I remember. The book was okay, but obviously not good enough to really stick with me.

7. M or F? by Lisa Papademitriou and Chris Tebbets. This was a funny book about a girl who was too nervous to talk to the guy she had a crush on, so she made her gay best friend IM him. Yes, and that was the entire book. It was good, anyway, and I only picked it up because Liss checked it out from the library first.

8. A Step From Heaven by An Na. Jaewoong spent most of seventh hour once trying to convince us that An Na is his mother. That was why I read the book. All I really learned from it is that An Na lives in Vermont and Jaewoong is a liar. The writing style was sort of choppy and annoyed me, and I can't remember the plot to save my life.

9. The Rules for Hearts by Sara Ryan. It's the sequel to Empress of the World, so don't read it first. The Rules for Hearts starts where the first book left off, and it's a story about love, the theater, and brothers who are jerks, all with a main character named Battle Hall Davies.

10. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castelucci. All I remember about this book is that the main character got tired of being the most popular girl at her school. Oh, and she made friends with a girl who I think was a little person through a program at the local zoo.

11. Twice Told. It was a short story collection, and I apparently didn't write down the editor. The idea was very interesting: illustrators would draw pictures and send the same picture to two different authors. The book was full of very different stories about the exact same picture, and it was fascinating to see how different people's minds worked.

12. Boy2Girl by Terence Blacker. Sam arrives in England from the States, ready to escape his horrible parents and live with his cousin. Unfortunately for him, his cousin's friends are major jerks who dare him to pretend to be a girl for his first week at their school. He does, because he really wants to join their little posse, and he causes an uproar when he gets found out.

13. Valiant by Holly Black. The main character shaves her head. She also falls in love with a troll. Yeah. It's still a good book. There's a possibility you could read it without having read Tithe first, because it's about completely different characters, but I think you should always start at the beginning. It's a very good place to start.

14. Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. She wrote Speak. Her books are all a little depressing in their own special ways. This one was about a guy whose life sort of fell apart. Oh, and his father was a jerk.

15. Dangerous Angels: the Weetzie Bat books by Francesca Lia Block. This was actually five books in one, but I read it as an anthology so I'm counting it as only one. I want to live in a Weetzie Bat book, because they're all love and magic and happy endings. Also, there are people named Witch Baby and Weetzie Bat. What's not to love?

16. Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls by Bennet Madison. I'm not sure how this book ended up at sixteen, because I'm sure I read it first, but whatever. It's a fabulous book and I recommend it.

17. Switchers by Kate Thompson. This book is about two teenagers who are called switchers because they switch from human form to any animal they imagine. Also, they get to save the world. It was a really interesting book, and I cried at the end, but telling you why would give away a major plot point.

18. La Petite Four by Regina Scott. La Petite Four is a historical romance for young adults. It's about four girls ( La Petite Four) who have just finished their stay at finishing school and have been forced into polite society. Scary, yes? Parts of it were funny, but I didn't love it. Maybe the books the author wrote for adults are better.

19. Just Another Day in my Insanely Real Life by Barbara Dee. My god. I have forgotten everything about this book, this nineteenth book I read. Hold on while I go and see if it has a Wikipedia page to refresh my memory. Thank you, Amazon. Okay, this book is about a girl who writes a fantasy story in her journal to escape her insanely real life. It was a terrible fantasy story, though. I could write a better one.

20. Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. See, she writes depressing books. This one is about fever. Fever and dead people.

21. Harley Like A Person by Cat Bauer. Harley doesn't know who her father is, but she's convinced it's not the man who lives with her mother and calls himself her father. The book is about her quest to find herself and get people to quit saying, "Like the motorcycle?" when they hear her name.

22. Treacherous Love, edited by Beatrice Sparks. I picked this one up because it said anonymous. Dr. Beatrice Sparks, in case you didn't know, is the one who goes around making the diaries of anonymous teenagers who go through major crap into books. There's a book she edited about teen drug addiction, teen pregnancy, child molestation...not light stuff.

23. Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson. By the end of this list, I was picking up books just because they were pink or labeled humor, because I was sick of all this depressing stuff. My favorite part of Catalyst was when the main character started to sing the element song to a little boy who was not having it.

24. Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack. With a title like that, who wouldn't be curious? ...Okay, I admit that I am bringing all the depressing books on myself. It's all my fault. Happy?

25. Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn. This book is about a controlling guy who hits his girlfriend. Shades of Ed Cullen, I swear. I thought that through the whole book: Edward Cullen does that...Edward Cullen could use some time at this support group...Why is everyone in love with Edward Cullen?

26. The Night My Sister Went Missing by Carol Plum-Ucci. The sister went missing, in case you haven't guessed. Then the brother hid in the police stadium and listened to what everyone in the small town had to say about where they were the night she was missing. He learned a lot about his neighbors, and most of it was depressing.

27. Green Boy by Susan Cooper. I don't remember very much, other than that this was a sci-fi book about the environment and a boy who didn't talk. When I read the title in the notebook I've been using to keep track of my books, I thought it said Green Day.

28. Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater Dude by Rosemary Graham. Guess what? She dumped the skater dude anyway. It was good for her in the long run, you know. The book was all right, but the funniest part was that the author put up a fake blog for the skater dude (in the book, he dumped his girlfriend through a blog post) and a bunch of people posted like they thought it was a real blog.

29. Evermore by Alyson Noël. It's fantasy. It's about a girl who feels a strange connection to a handsome yet dangerous boy. There's even blood involved. But no vampires, thank god. And the chick has some useful talents like mind reading, not just the ability to trip over flat surfaces.

30. Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block. I love Francesca Lia Block because she can write a book about something and still write about everything. She is amazing, even if her books are creepy and depressing at times. Wasteland isn't my favorite thing she's written, though.

31. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher. Athletic Shorts, get it? It's a pun. Ha ha ha. This is a collection of short stories about characters from his other books. I was able to enjoy it, even though I hadn't read half the books. The best one was about the guy who had to wrestle the fabulous girl wrestler.

32. Perfect by Natasha Friend. How cool is her last name? This is an eating disorder book. The main character, Isabelle, is bulimic. She finds out that the most popular girl at her school, Ashley Barnum, is...wait for it...also bulimic! They throw up together. Isabelle had a weird girlcrush on Ashley, but it was a funny book and had a happy ending.

33. The Fold by An Na. Her again! I really liked The Fold. It was about a Korean American girl whose aunt offered to pay for the plastic surgery that would give her a fold in her eyelids like a white girl. Before reading this book, I had no clue that it was a major issue. Apparently it is. Cosmetic surgery creeps me out a little bit, but I still liked the book.

34. Midnighters: Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld. As far as I know, the Midnighters series was the first thing Scott Westerfeld wrote for us young adults. It's funny and interesting, about a group of teenagers who have an extra hour of time at midnight because they were born at exactly the right time. Oh, and they have special magic powers that only manifest during their special magic time.

35. Hot Lunch by Alex Bradley. This book was hilarious. I love it. Read it, right now. I only picked it up because there was a picture of a girl with blue hair on the cover (she didn't dye it. It just came out that way) but it was funny, in a sarcastic way, about a girl who realizes that she can't be a misanthrope forever. Oh, and she went to a hippie school. I call books about hippie schools research.

36. Stormwitch by Susan Vaught. I picked this one for the title. It was interesting enough, and about Amazon-like warrior women and racial tension in America forty years ago, but I didn't love it.

37. My Life as a Girl by Elizabeth Mosier. You know, as opposed to my life as a chipmunk. A girl goes into a flashback when the cute but totally wrong for her guy she dated all summer shows up at her college across the country. I couldn't take this book seriously because of the main character's name, Jaime. It looks like J'aime to me, and I'm stuck pronouncing it like that in my head and wondering what she loves every few pages.

38. Midnighters: Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld. Ooh, spooky. Darkness. I'm afraid to say I have nothing to say about this book. I can't even remember which number it is in the series. Also, I'm too lazy to look it up because I just had to look up number 37.

39. Nothing by Robin Friedman. It's another eating disorder book, but it's special because it's about a bulimic guy. He's also Jewish. The book is told alternating between his point of view and his sister's. She writes in that weird verse style; he writes like a normal person.

40. Notes on a Near-Life Experience by Olivia Birdsall. The main character falls in love with her older brother's best friend. This is wrong. None of the child's friends will ever be allowed to fall in love with me. Ever. And I will never take them to the prom. I loved the back of this book, which had a graph of how the characters connected to each other like Kiki Nordgren, my (bulimic) nemesis. My band is going to my called My Bulimic Nemesis.

41. Dead is a State of Mind by Marlene Perez. Shockingly, this book is the sequel to the one directly below it on my list. Don't ask why it's first. The books are about crime-fighting psychic sisters. And werewolves. And vampires. Unfortunately, no zombies.

42. Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez. Yay, vampire books. Fortunately, no one falls in love with the vampires, who are all cheerleaders. Not as cool as zombie cheerleaders, but cool nonetheless.

43. Fearless by Francine Pascal. This one said it was a super edition, which I mistakenly thought mean that it was going to be several books in one. It wasn't; it was a companion book. Fortunately, I picked up on what was going on pretty easily. The main character, Gaia, can't feel fear. She's just special that way. It's too bad she gets locked up because everyone else thinks she's a psycho.

44. Pretty Things by Sara Manning. I bought this book at a used-book store in P.E.I because it had sparkles on the cover. That is how shallow I am about books and judging them by their covers. It was a good book, though; funny and British. I love British books, because where else can you find grade-one wankers eating packets of crisps?

45. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Hey, it's about zombies. Also, a society with a cultish religion and star-crossed lovers. It was, you know, a little creepy and depressing, but so many books I read are. Oh, and New York got swarmed by zombies. Ha.

46. I Was A Teenage Fairy by Francesca Lia Block. Yup. Fairies. Like pixies, little winged people. It's not a particularly funny book, but it is awesome. I cried. You might cry too, if you easily get attached to characters in books.

47. Diva by Alex Flinn. Remember book number twenty-five, about the abusive boyfriend? This book is about how his girlfriend gets over him and goes on her way to becoming an opera singer. She goes to a performing arts school. Weird school: research. A lot of the book was blog entries. They annoyed me, because I am extremely picky about the way authors use text-speak in their books. It has to be exactly like what I see my friends writing. Otherwise, I laugh at it. Well, I laugh at it anyway.

48. Echo by Francesca Lia Block. I think if I looked at who the books I've read are by, she would come up the most. What I liked about Echo was the way that two characters were so in love they started to look like each other. That was awesome.

49. Girl, 15, Charming but Insane by Sue Limb. It's hilarious and British. The girl (fifteen, charming but insane) feels overshadowed by her perfect best friend, but she goes about her life anyway. I think I recommend it, even though I'm not sure what to say about it.

50. The Princess and the Pauper by Kate Brian. The princess meets a normal girl who (major shock!) looks just like her. They trade places. Their own goshdarn parents can't tell them apart, that's how goshdarn alike they are. I didn't get the book. I don't think there was much to get.

Well, that was the First Fifty. My hands hurt from typing them out. Also, my brain hurts. I need to go eat some ice cream or something. I will probably manage to write up the, um, Final Fifty by tomorrow night.

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.

Good Lord.

I am trying to say "Good Lord!" more often. In my head, it makes me sound like a crotchety old grandma who crochets lace doilies and is always "losing" her glasses and people have to point out that she's wearing them. I don't know what it sounds like outside my head, because I've never had the chance to go there.

The only one of my Summer Goals (the capital letters make them sound more impressive) that I seem to be anywhere near completing is my book list. I plan to read a hundred books I've never read this summer, excluding graphic novels of any kind. As of this post, I am maybe a fifth of the way through book #79, Shift.

I have a stately goal, so I thought I would share its fruits with you, dear elocutionists. I am considering exhibiting each of the tomes on this blog. I'm going to transcribe the register anyway, but there is a likelihood that I will also interline an epitomized compendium of each work for your viewing pleasure.

By the way, I found a thesaurus on the table next to me and used it to spice up the above paragraph. That would be why half of the words are probably used wrong. It took me a long time to write because I had to keep checking the thesaurus for every other word. This is why that one person said, "If you need to look the word up, it's the wrong word." Or something to that effect.

Here's the shorter (more succinct) version of what I just said, in correct (or accurate) English, without any interesting (engrossing!) words (utterances).

I'm going to write up my list of books on this blog no matter what, but Liss told me I should write sarcastic book reviews, so I'm considering writing a short review of all the books I can remember. Some of them I read months ago, which is too long for me to remember when I've read fifty books since then. You won't get a very good review of those. But I remember some of the books like I read them yesterday. In fact, I read three yesterday.

Tell me: is this a good idea? It would fill up the post a lot more than just listing books. That would make me feel more accomplished, and I wouldn't have to scribble some lazy paragraphs about I'm bored and hungry and I don't know what to write so I'll just whinge about my boring hunger. When I write long posts, I feel better. Also, my favorite complainers are happy because I've actually written.

Did you know dictionary.com Tweets? By Jove, I certainly didn't. This is yet another reason to get a Twitter. Unfortunately, I have some very strong reasons against getting a Twitter. See:

Pros:

• The webpage has a drawing of a little birdie on it
• People I know have Twitter accounts
• My favorite YA authors have Twitter accounts

Cons:

• I never update my blog or my Facebook status, so why would I update my Twitter?
• Twitter is verbing words like MySpace and Facebook verbed "friend"
• The character limit would block my creative expression, which is hard to summon up and easily blocked
• It's ruining the English language, just like Facebook, texting, and Miley Cyrus

Wow, making lists really does help solve problems. And here I thought it was stupid back in elementary school when they made us write lists. I have more cons than pros. That means getting a Twitter is a very bad idea.

And my Twitter username was going to be pseudocurses, too. If you are reading this and you have a Twitter, please help a young girl in need. Look up the name pseudocurses and see if some usurping youth has snatched it before I can. Thank you. Infidel.

I keep seeing people on Facebook who write 5 things i can grab from where im sitting, as if we really want to know what they keep in their filthy pigsties. Guess what? Just for you, I'm going to write five things I could grab from where I'm sitting, if I wasn't worried that I'd get all kinds of diseases just from touching them.

5 tings lolol!!

• Roget's College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form
• Book #79, Shift
• Holy Bible; the New Revised Standard Edition
• Robby's nasty bread crusts from lunch
• a French-English dictionary

There, wasn't that enlightening?