Night Class

A young woman returns home
cold: the darkness held at bay by city lights.
But where fear could stand lies her imagination.
Fending off boredom, and giving her safety.

One night, the bicycle beneath her is a quarter horse,
and she is a ranch hand, returning home from checking the herds
upset as she, he blows at the cold
mentally, she pats his neck, assuring him that home is close

The week before, she was a Trainer
a giant, tiger striped wolf striding alongside.
She keeps a hand on his side
Feeling his intense heat, and strong heartbeat.

Other nights, she is alone
and the eyes of an archer analyze her surroundings.
The dragons are a fearsome foe
but she knows how to read their signs.

As home approaches,
The horse, the wolf, the Kajiit all fall away.
For now her imagination may rest,
tucked away until next Tuesday evening.

The Time Has Come

Fate alone would have me discover NaNoWriMo the first day of November.

I've always wanted to write a novel.
I'm having hot flashes.
I told Alien about it.
I posted it on Facebook.
I'm writing on my blog.
This is as real as it gets guys.

I have a feeling that I'm going to end up with a caffeine addiction after this.  I'm scared.  I'm excited.  I'm going... to start writing.

Lessons Learned from Three Weeks of Marriage

I've learned a few things in a rather short amount of time, ranging from minor to profound.


Life Lesson #1:  Cactus loves cooking

This has been known for some time, but now that I'm responsible for feeding myself 24/7 (instead of showing up at the dining hall and demanding to be fed), this has become more apparent.  I don't just cook to eat either: if I did, I would make quickly prepared meals.  As it is, cooking has become an enjoyable task, that I'm willing to spend over an hour a day doing.  For big dinners, I've been seen in the kitchen for as much as twice that, chopping, sauteing, stewing, and of course tasting.  I seem to follow my family's example of following recipes only loosely if at all.  Since they have far more experience than I do, this has led to odd and rather bland meals thus far.  Fortunately, Alien and my friends are helpful as well as encouraging, so my culinary skills should see improvement.  At least I'm under spicing and not over spicing: less wasteful if nothing else.  And I'm still a pro cookie baker, so that has to count for something.


Life Lesson #2: Cactus keeps a clean house
My mother laughed at me when I told her this.  "Seriously," she asked.  "Are you sure you're my daughter?  The one that found Halloween candy in her backpack at Easter?" Yes mom, same girl.  But where she had done the cleaning for me at home, our apartment refuses to clean itself.  Alien helps, but being a chem e keeps him on a tight schedule.  So now, when I come home from class, I clean.  I clean before I read, before I check the internet, before I eat.  To be honest, the last is probably the reason I clean: I can't STAND a dirty kitchen.  I sweep every three days, and wipe down the counters and wash the sinks weekly.  I even cleaned out the fridge today.  Just because it needed done.  I cleaned my BATHROOM today, with no one telling me to.  I used to cry about doing that chore.  And if you want to know why an apartment is so different than having a dorm... don't ask.  It just is.


Life Lesson #3: Cactus STILL HATES doing the dishes
Yes, even if it means cluttering my kitchen.  I won't touch them unless forced with confrontation.  I pick them up off of the coffee table, night stand, desk, what have you, and BRING them to the kitchen, but the dishes are Alien's job.  Thankfully, he's a trooper, and more than willing to do them himself.  Having a dishwasher (the machine, not the husband) helps too.  But it seems to have flunked out of dish washing school.  It loudly protests to it's job for the whole duration of the washing, and then refuses to rinse used food out of the back right corner.  It leaves dried particles on all the glasses, and hard water spots have become part of life.  It does seem to have learned the "heat cycle" lessons though: everything that comes out of it, while possibly dirty, is certainly hot enough to kill lifeforms large and small.  With all of this evidence, I have drawn the conclusion that my dishwasher houses a temperamental dragon.  Excavations are scheduled for the future to find the creature to keep as a pet, or sell for a hill of gold.  The end result will be entirely dependent on how much grocery money we have when I find him.


Life Lesson #4:  Despite all other cleaning, Cactus' bedroom will always be messy because Alien shares a room with her now.

Since no one needs to go in there besides Alien and I, the bedroom has become a site of neglect.  This is largely due to Alien's ritualistic desire to throw his clothes at least five feet from his body, and ANYWHERE but the hamper.  In an attempt to coexist with the creature, I have made peace with the garment flinging, but have demanded that the bed be made at all times. He helped make the bed once, right after a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond where we bought disgustingly expensive and luxurious bedding, but this was largely because he wanted to test the sheets.  My further requests to make the bed have ended with him rolling about on the covers, cocooning himself, and inevitably throwing himself on the ground, laughing maniacally all the while.

I don't ask him to make the bed anymore.

The Final Countdown

I have no apologizes if I got that song stuck in your head.

I seem to have hit a lull here in the last days before my wedding.  It's like the calm before the storm no... the silence before the battle no, not that either.  My wedding shouldn't be stormy OR warlike.  But the waiting and quiet are still a tad eerie.

I must say, calm and quiet are NOT words most use to describe my parent's house.  Just last night it was filled with my whole immediate family (rare, even though there are five of us) my Uncle Cousin, RICHIE, and Code B were all over playing Tribond.  And while board games are fun, they also turn my whole family into Italians: loud, animated, and occasionally angry.  But for some reason, my family becomes crepuscular on Sundays, and everyone retreats for their afternoon nap.  Usually I'd be sleeping like they are, but I have ridiculous amounts of pent up energy from wedding planning and an uncustomary afternoon coffee.

Up until now, July has been a whirlwind of plants, ribbons, decisions, and tulle.  But now that the crafting is done (mostly) the dress is ready, and my make-up has been chosen, there seems to be an absence in my life.  And without Alien here to fill it, it's a little lonely around here.


Fun fact about weddings: even when you're the bride, other people keep existing.  Dad's birthday came and went in a quick detour for Indian food, and I probably wouldn't have remembered Older Brother's birthday if I didn't know we were going out for sushi tonight.  Neither of them has received a present from me which, however normal it is for a bride to loose focus on non-wedding events, makes me feel like a bad sister.


Very soon, I'm going to hit what Dr. M (my younger brother) calls the "theoretical zero point" when the honeymoon is over.  My life has been freakishly organized as of late, and I frankly have NO idea what happens on August 10th, other than Alien and I will be buying groceries.  This is likely to be an adventure, since up until now we have been surviving off of the college's food plan.  It's possible that our culinary monstrosities will make their way here, in text if not in photography.  And after that, I return to the dull and boring life of a college student.  Because, as we all know, college life is SO dull and boring =D

Self Declared Mandatory Update

I'm taking an English class (Writing and Communities) and a Philosophy class (Philosophy and Current Issues) at the moment.  And I decided to take up a hobby too (spinning).  And I'm reading through A Song of Fire and Ice.  Oh yeah, AND planning a wedding.

Pictured: My Summer

I don't recommend that.  EVER.  If you come to a fork in the road, choose one tine, or the other.  Don't smash them together into one bastardized eating utensil.  It makes for a very, very hectic summer.

Pic unrelated, but I ALWAYS wanted to see one of these

Philosophy has been incredibly underwhelming.  From 5:30 PM to 9:20 PM (yes, FOUR hours) every Tuesday and Thursday, you can find me sitting in a classroom, sandwiched between Alien and Captain Planet, wishing I was anywhere but there.  In class, we cover the readings we were supposed to read for homework.  The whole place is full of sheeple:  Going with the flow, and silent as the grave.  Until we talk about marijuana of course. 

 Everyone has an opinion about marijuana

Wedding planning has been a roller coaster of cake tasting, decision making, and budget breaking insanity.  Thank God for my mother.  She's become MORE invaluable (if such a thing is possible) by coming up with ideas, booking venues, and sharing inspiration, free time, and free SPACE (I certainly don't have room to grow fifty plants for centerpieces)  We've got just over a month now so things are speeding up, but the ride is a fun one to be certain.

Pictured: Mom's back deck

I don't know WHY I decided to take up spinning... A cunning saleslady at the Siouxland Renaissance Festival taught me how to spin wool into single-ply yarn.  Being a knitter, I was THRILLED to learn the new trade, and spent eleven dollars (of money I didn't truly have) on a spindle.  Knitting Mama gave me some spare combed top (wool prepared for spinning) for free, which didn't help curb the habit at all.

 

With this simple device, I shall turn fibers
everywhere into delicious bundles of knitted objects.

Antler (Earring's roommate) was getting all fired up about a certain HBO series that was based on a certain book series which he and his friends in western Nebraska seem to worship.  So I picked up the first book from the Library.  Truth be told, George R. R. Martin is a FANTASTIC writer, he just spices things up with a bit more sex than I care for in my reading.  That being said, he has a real knack for speaking as other characters, and drawing you into the world he created in his story.  So if you're 14 + and you can handle the occasional sex scene, I'd recommend it.

If everyone ELSE gets a picture I suppose Mr. Martin can too

Finally, we come to my English class.  Suffice to say, I can not believe how well the class, and our teacher EFR, has gelled in three weeks.  I'd say more, but I just poured my heart out into my contemplative response (we have ten journal pages due every Monday), so you'll get more on that later.

So go out, pick up a new hobby, read a book, or at VERY least, enjoy the weather =)

The Five-Week Summer Session of DOOM

This morning may have been my worst in personal recorded history.  And I'm not just saying that because this is the only bad day I've recorded in my personal history, though that is also true.  I'm taking an English class (which is now officially my major) with a very interesting classroom setting.  Our teacher (who would be reviled to hear me call her as much) is pursuing a dialectic form of teaching; allowing spoken thoughts to coincide and create new meanings for the larger academic conversation.  For now, let us call her Blam-o.

Blam-o knows what's what in the world.  She wants to make the world a better place.  She's a self proclaimed book nerd.  She plants flowers.  She's up to date on current events.  She writes daily.  She's recently taken up restoring old furniture.  She bakes cookies to share with her seemingly run-down neighborhood.  She's not afraid to tell it like it is.  She has exploded into my life, and she's likely to see over half her students drown in her sink-or-swim method of teaching.

I'm one of the drowning members.  Notice I say drownING.  I'm not dead yet.  But I've never felt so lost, so in over my head, or so alienated by the fourth day of class.  Sure it's a five-week session, and when the standard semester is sixteen weeks, I guess the stress gets condensed down as well.  But my three-week session of Short Stories with Dr. Cubs (a huge fan of baseball) never felt this rushed, this stressful, this time consuming.  Granted, it was a literature course, and Blam-o teaches writing.  Actually, Writing and Communities, so there's this whole happy-lovey feeling prociding over the classroom.  Because we're a *gushing* COOOMUUUU-NITYYYYY!

I'm not being that fair to Blam-o.  My first impression of her was actually quite positive.  She's an unmarried mother of three, asks us to call her by her first name, libertarian (without shoving it down your throat), fun to listen to, easy to talk with, and thrilled to be teaching this class.  My opinion has unfairly turned sour since I haven't been paying attention to the schedule.  Blam-o thinks that sending reminders takes away from our autonomy as scholars (you won't catch her DEAD calling us students) and as a result I've missed two reading assignments, and one full length project proposal.  And since she doesn't take late work, I don't know if I should bother with it.  Would it be more responsible of me to write out the proposal instead of shunning it since the grade will be meaningless?  Maybe so, but I have ten pages to write in my inquiry notebook and a first draft of a 5-7 page paper on a research project (that I started an hour ago) due on Monday.  What's the point of writing a project proposal I know she approves of, especially when I'm not getting points for it?

I've already come to terms with the fact that I HAVE no free time for the next four weeks.  Reading my novels from the library, playing Minecraft, Terraria, or StumbleUpon flash games, watching Outlaw Star with Alien, spending time with Earrings and his girlfriend: NONE of this can be happening if I'm hoping to pass English.  And the wedding planning train is chugging along at full speed, so I'm going to be forced to do that on top of this.  Oh well.  My life with Alien is more important than an English grade.  Sorry, Blam-o.

Alien and I are taking a philosophy course on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It's called Philosophy and Current Issues.  We're cramming homosexuality, egoism, and why-religion-doesn't-matter into our class today.  Next week we're talking about abortion, and the week after that, we're dealing with animal rights.  I'm a little ticked that Christianity is being slapped in as an afterthought in hopes of making "us religious types" shut up.  And why do abortion and animal rights get equal time?

The world may never know.

I'm torn now.  Yesterday I would have just taken a nap in hopes of sleeping some stress off, but I'm too worked up to do that now.  And my conscious telling me to work on my paper is eating me alive.  I suppose I'll keep reading for my paper then.

If I'm alive in four weeks, I'll get back to you.

EDIT:  I did live.  And I actually got A's in the Philosophy and the English classes.  I'm chalking it up to fairies and divine intervention.  There's no way it could have happened otherwise.

Voices, Facebook apps, Pokemon, and Sociopathic aquatic creatures

I have little people that live inside my head.  All miniatures of real people in my life.  I have a little Alien that says "You should tell me when you're sad, because I love you and hate to see you cry."  I have a little Older Brother that I talk through conversations with so I can avoid asking tedious questions.  Today, I have a little Javelina and a little Earrings whispering, "YOU SHOULD WRITE A BLOG POST"And the little Cactus in my head knows that they're right, so here I am.

I've had a relapse with Farmville.  Now I know what you're going to say, but there's a NEW farm for me to work on!  It's the English Countryside.  And it has little horses and little bunnies and a red deer that I won in a stupid balloon pop mini game (An online balloon pop game... How sad is that?) and, and... AND SHEEP!  Guys they have sheep breeding now.  I have my own bloodlines of the buggers and they're all kinds of retarded not-sheep colors.  But they are wonderful, and I love them.  And they have all of these really cool English and Scottish and Irish breeds of livestock from Shire and Suffolk horses to Sebright chickens to little black floppy ear pigs...  They're pretty.  And this is the only way I will ever own them.  Or have an orchard.  And the lambs are DARN cute, okay!

Woo, enough rambling.  Let's see... Topics for the day...

GUYS!!!

Guys.

I just remembered.

POKEMON DREAM WORLD IS UP NOW.

I haven't checked it out yet.  But it seems super cool.

I really enjoyed the new games.  It had a darker, heavier story line than the last games.  I really appreciated the weirdness and contemplation that came along with it.  My team is composed of the greatest pokes of all time.

Left to Right: Amber, Willow, Cheddar, Bobobo, and Tsuki
(I always thought Cheddar was a little prankster)

Now I know that Ninetails is a first gen, but DON'T YOU JUDGE HER.  She was wild caught in THIS game, so she counts.  And yes, there are only five on my permanent team.  The last slot is usually for a HM slave or whoever I need to help out against a certain typing.  It's the party's fault, really.  They're terribly choosy about who they fight with.  And really,

*soulgaze*

Would YOU argue with this guy?

*pause for distraction from bathroom radio and Little One playing in the corner*

Oh, I bought fish.  Moved my tank to Alien's room since I spend most of my time in here anyway.  Little One is a corydora.  He looks kind of like this shamelessly stolen picture from Google:

Don't recommend staring into that eye for long

I named him Little One after "The Little One" (or TLO) from a Starcraft video Alien watched once.  Why?  Because The Little One was a survivor.  And so is this little dude.  My recommendation for aquarists (totally a word now) everywhere: Don't move your tank, refill it from half full (evaporation is a sad way to kill a fish tank), AND buy four fish in the same day.  It does bad things to your ammonia levels.  And, if you manage to screw something up in the move (say, jack up the tank heater to somewhere around stew) you can kill your three adorable otocinclus in just under twenty-four hours.  And then your friends can come along and point out that the three dead fish are missing chunks from their belly.  And then you can remember that the corydora is a bottom feeder, and he probably ate the dead guys for sustenance as he battled against the raging sauna that was his life for the last eighty-three days (fish time).

"I will eat you when this tank renders you
medium-rare"

That can happen.  So I don't recommend pushing your luck

Epilouge: took in the three dead fish, got two new fish, two new plants, and a thermometer in two days worth of trips.  The new otos are happy, healthy, and in need of names.

So that's the brain vomit for the day.  If you're lucky, I'll have something within the next week.  We'll see what the voices tell me.

Laptops are completely worthless without the internet

“Come to Friday Night Magic,” he said.  “Bring your laptop,” he said

So here I sit.  8:18 on a Friday night with nary a whiff of accessible internet.  I suppose that’s a lie: there IS a whiff.  When the correct stars align, there will temporarily be a guest network I can connect to, but the tease won’t let me stay on long enough to load a flash game.  The other five odd wifi connections, including gems of names such as NESPHTU, linksys, and greenBean, are all protected with a password stronger than “password”.

“You could play some Magic if you want!  We have a spare deck if you want to enter!”

“Here, play this game with me!  It’s just against our friends, so you’re awful play mistakes won’t matter here!”

These are the bids I’ve been offered for the evening.  I had a book for the first two hours, but the last fifty pages I was hoping to busy myself with were just a short epilogue and some weak advertising from the publisher.  I had the brief joy of my novel being recognized by a stranger, who professed to own the whole series.  This interaction was ended by a particularly weak high-five, and a call for the next round of Magic to start.

At first I wasn’t too worried about my book ending.  Right up until I remembered that I had taken the next 350 page novel out of my backpack.  Wanted to “lighten the load” as I went up and down the mountain Alien has chosen to live upon.  Because I apparently have the stamina of a mouse with leprosy.

So while I kick myself in the shins for lack of forethought, I thought I would write up a post.  Which is refusing to be saved due to a permission error.  PIKACHU, I SWEAR, IF YOU CAN’T DO SOMETHING SO SIMPLE AS-

Okay, it’s working now.  Sorry for threatening you.

Where was I?

Oh right, Hobbytown USA.  So I’m stuck here for the next hour and a half, with naught to do but write up a post for you all, weeping occasionally.

Just went outside with the guys on smoke break.  Someone suggested I hit up the Barnes and Noble for internet.  A tempting prospect, but I don’t really want to abandon Alien here, since he asked me to come with so we could spend time together (ironic, since he knows I can’t keep up with the speed these guys play at.  And since the original plan was me coming here and bumming around on the internet [a solitary occupation as a rule])

I walked over to Earrings and Italian playing with the wind-up toys.  I made a triceratops walk an inch or so and then they left.  Decided that playing with wind-up toys alone was lonelier than sitting in a corner typing presumably to myself.

There’s something to be said about the camaraderie to be found within a large group of nerds like this.  Men and boys (and a female?  Maybe two?) can come together and manage to not only have fun, but also be civil to one another.  This isn’t always a garuntee, especially if you have any experience of nerds through x-box live.

Earrings just brought over a trailer of the new x-men movie for Alien and I to watch.  I’m convinced the meaning behind this was to show off his internet connection skills.

I’m eagerly awaiting the US release of Pokémon Black and White.  Once I have my paws on the newest edition in my drug of choice I won’t have to be bothered with petty things like “being bored without internet”  Because I may not have a book on me, but I wouldn’t be caught dead without my ds.

Which reminds me… I wonder how my Pokéwalker is faring.  I sent it through the washing machine, again.  This time it wasn’t just a generic Growlithe that took a tumble; it was Kenya, my lead Arcanine.  I have her sitting in a Ziploc bag of rice in my room, but I think I may have done myself in this time.  I know I can recover her through other means, but that just feels like cheating.  Kenya was my responsibility, and I’ll be darned if I can’t resuscitate her through rice-y dehydration!

I’ve been religiously avoiding the new Pokédex.  The Pokémon franchise was hoping that the new 161 would be a “fresh start” for trainers, old or new.  Personally, I think this is FANTASTIC.  It’s a chance for me to enjoy something familiar, with an updated storyline, and a whole new host of characters.  I have not, however, been able to avoid seeing the new guys entirely.  I’ve seen the starters, the teeny gen-required normal-flier (check the generations, they ALL have a normal-flier), the B&W legends (I heard one of them is FIRE-DRAGON.  First thought: redundant?  Second thought: Why haven’t they had this before!), and of course Zoroark, aka Pokémon’s answer to the Lucario fan club.  I’ve also been exposed to the Lightening Unicorn, the Stag-of-Seasons, Gear-mon, and Ice cream Cone With a Face.  And Turtle Bro, but that’s only because I saw him in our Poke-DnD campaign.  Oh, and I know the ghostly candle guy too, also from the campaign.  And Sandile.  CRAP, I EVEN KNOW THAT ONE BY NAME!

Dang.  That’s like (counts) 28 out of 161.  Maybe this won’t be as new and fresh an adventure as I was hoping for.  But it HAS to have at least 8 gym puzzles to work through, and those are always my favorite anyway.

Current time: 9:24.  Time wasted to date: 66 minutes.

Current time: 9:33.  Fonts tampered with, grammar checked, sanity lost.  Going to venture to the bathroom in hopes of finding something more to life than whiney tweenagers and bleak white walls.

Current time: 9:40.  Plank with bathroom key was acquired.  Bathroom was stunningly clean, but even bleaker than the current room.  A conundrum was posed to me when I realized there was a locked-from the-inside stall door within the bathroom.  Crawled underneath to investigate.  Discovered cleaning items, toilet paper, and two wicker baskets.  No portals to Narnia discovered.  Relieved and defeated, I returned the bathroom plank to the manager.

Current time: 10:05.  All friends present and accounted for, leaving this place for good.

Suffer from migraines? Short Attention span? Bad weather? Then KEEP READING!

It's days like this that make me wonder if i might have some mild form of attention deficit disorder.

It all started when I walked outside this morning had a migraine last night (we'll get to the morning later).  Having a migraine (for me at least) is like receiving sensory information from every fiber of your being simultaneously assulting your brain and demanding your immediate attention.  Bright lights are terrible, because they force you to take in every corner of the room with your ultra sensitive eyes.  And where little repetitive sounds are annoying to me on a good day, during a migraine, they are shout-at-inanimate-objects unbearable.  WOE be to the fool creature with a crinkling plastic bag that happens upon me when I'm having a migraine!  My main coping strategy for migraines, aside from taking meds, is focusing HARDCORE on a single train of thought.  This means, no joke, saying aloud whatever I am thinking.  This could look something like:
"I really ought to finish mom's scarf, because it was supposed to be finished by christmas I love christmas I'm so glad it isn't snowy anymore what should i wear tomorrow probably a tanktop I love tanktops I miss horse camp well not really I miss the horses This room is really dark but that's a good thing I wonder where Alien is with my medicine right about now."
Somewhere during this process I will have started shaking with pent up energy, so when Alien finds me I'll be lying in his bed looking all for the world like I'm having a seizure.  But then I take my meds, realize that I really had no pent up energy in the first place, and fall asleep where I'm standing.

The next day is usually an odd (probably hangover like) haze of slow thought processing and sluggish movement.

But not this time.

Today it was freaking BEAUTIFUL outside.

I don't know what the climate looks like where you're from, but where I live, it is unseasonaly balmy for February.  That means above 40.  In fact, the high today was (looks it up) 68.  Degrees.  Like, outside.

Nebraska, if this your way of making up for the disgustingly cold weather we had last week, then consider your apology ACCEPTED.

So I stepped out in my aforementioned tank top, ready to eat a live bear, solve racism, and go to my British literature class.  And you know what I saw on the way to class?

Coats.
COATS.
BEING WORN BY PEOPLE!

They must have missed the memo.  The earth is apologizing for the inclement weather of weeks previous, and they celebrate in the joy of 68 degrees of clear sunshine by wearing COATS.

If I was mother nature, I would have felt insulted.

The rest of my day consisted of attending classes with an unreasonably good attitude, reading more of Black Powder War by Naomi Novik, and searching the internet for something to hold my interest long enough to entertain my goldfish attention span.  So I wandered to my favorite flash game site, and clicked on the first thing I laid eyes on.  Which happened to be this:

Pictured: the crack cocaine of cute

In Sushi Cat 2, you are a small blue blob of neko, who wishes to be a large blue blob of neko.  To do this, you drop him with a pair of chopsticks into a gravity maze of adorable sushi.  It kept me entertained for almost an hour.

After which I had the unfortunate experience of finding this:

Pictured: an abusive relationship

If you've ever played TiTOL or TiTOLT, you'll understand the comparison.  It's frustrating, intriguing, clever, and ALWAYS obnoxious.
This kept my attention span for about another hour.

Now I know this is a terrible place to stop, but I was supposed to have Alien's oreo balls finished by Valentine's Day, and I kind of owe him for the awesome present he got me.  I'll talk about that later, but I'll say this much: it has to do with Minecraft.

I've done a bad thing

I'm spending a frightening amount of time reading Allie's blog, which I'm chancing to post here, in hopes you wont all go read her blog instead and abandon me.  But that's what I've been doing, and it really is quite funny, so I thought I'd share.

I'll make a real post within the week.
PROMISE
:D

Time for Confessions

See, I told you I was going to fail in my quest to post more often.  But I didn't forget about you.  No, I thought about you everyday, thinking, "Maybe I'll post today.  It wouldn't even have to be a new post!  You could just finish up that one about the oatmeal cookies or Japanese class.  Come on!  It will be fun!"

I can't make the "my-class-schedule-is-so-rigorous-oh-woe-is-me" argument either, because when it gets down to it, twelve credit hours just isn't that hard to shoulder.  Especially when I compare it to Alien's schedule, because I'm pretty sure he's taking at least eighteen credit hours and his classes are all way harder than mine.

But I think I've pinned down my source of blog-block, and it is this:

When I do something I have been told I am proficient at, I feel like I'm showing off.

I tried to re-write that sentence several times, and it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  So let's give you a scenario.


Cactus is going to worship night with Alien.  This is fine and good, because God calls us to fellowship with other believers, and Cactus REALLY likes to sing.  Problem is, she has been selected for several top notch singing groups in the past, so whenever she sings, she feels like she's bragging.  So Cactus and Alien arrive at the worship night, and a silly-ly (does silly have an adverb?) ridiculously obvious observation is made: Alien is carrying his bass.  Alien plays in the worship band, so he won't be able to hear her sing.  So Cactus stumbles through the first set because she doesn't really know the songs, but she enjoys herself  because she likes singing.

When Alien comes back, he asks her if they sounded alright, and she says yes, because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings, but she wasn't really listening for the bass line, and she's really bad at hearing the bass line even when she's paying attention.  But for now she said yes and Alien smiles, and she smiles back and they listen to the speaker for the next hour.

Once the speaker is finished, Alien goes up for the second set, and Cactus goes back to happy singing mode.  She knows the song this time, so she switches to alto line (because cactus has sung alto for a really long time and alto is even more fun than the melody).  After that song is finished, one of the girls standing next to her leans over and says, "wow, you have a

--PAUSE--

and says, "wow, you have a really pretty voice!" For stranger girl, this was an honest comment by which she meant nothing but to improve my day and the human condition as a whole.  For Cactus, this was a bombshell.  She thinks I have a good voice.  Does she think I'm showing off?  What if I sing terribly now and she wants to retract her statement, but she can't because of the laws of society?  I should stop sing-NO, I LOVE SINGING.  I shall only sing quieter.


So for the rest of the evening, I toned down my be-praised voice.  Because I felt like the compliment meant I was showing off.


Writing is the same way for me.  In third grade (I was like what, ten?) I won third place in a writing contest.  Which wouldn't be much of an accomplishment if the contest wasn't district wide and the other 37 prizes were given to snobs from the same private school.

I write quick, and I just edit as I go.  My friends struggle to make a page for reports and I can whip these off like nobody's business.  But putting it out there makes me feel like a show off.

In fact, the only reason I'm managing to type this now is because no one else is here around me.  The pause up there?  That was because Alien walked in the room and he started playing his music super loud.  And I can't focus when he does that but I didn't want to ask him to turn it down because he was doing homework.  And then Earrings and Italian wanted to play Magic, so Alien and I had to head downstairs to a study room because his room is too messy for company.  And too small.  Because it is a dorm room.

My blogging head space is a very fragile thing indeed.


UPDATE: Cat's out of the bag.  Alien, Earrings, Italian, and Javelina all know i have a blog now.  Italian saw His Real Name - Italian and he kind of lost his marbles.  So I told them all.  And the world didn't collapse in on itself.  So I guess I'll keep writing for now... I do enjoy writing =)

The Holidays Are Over

...and School is back in session

As a spur of the moment and far overdue resolution, I decided an hour ago (as of this writing), to try and keep myself to a schedule for posting.  I will fail at this, as I have with all other resolutions, including the time I decided to lose weight in seventh grade, and took "before" pictures of myself New Years Eve for the impending "after".  There never was an after.  I was back to soda and cheeseburgers within the week.

Got engaged over Christmas break (and it is CHRISTMAS break.  Not that I don't respect the rest of you, but I tend to vote with the majority).  Alien proposed on the 22nd while we were out looking at holiday lights.  It was very mushy gushy and I bawled and it was wonderful, but I'm not here to talk to you today about love and steak dinners and blue diamond rings (though they may have their day here at some point)  Today I'm here to discuss my guilty pleasure.  I play Facebook Apps.

Pictured: Treachery and Deceit

Even now I am restocking my supplies in Cityville (and isn't it always SOMETHINGville?  Zynga made half the stinking games, you'd think they would liven up the titles a bit). Despite my greatest efforts and Alien's... shall we say "discouragement", I can't pin down what it is about these silly fifteen-minute-a-pop games attracts me.  What I can pin down is this:

Why "Social Networking Games" are More Like a Boomerang Boyfriend Than a Legitimate Form of Entertainment

I feel as though I should start this section with the definition of a Boomerang Boyfriend, as it is a concept urban dictionary has failed to define.  Imagine a girl from your high school, middle school, or equivilant crowded young-person location.  She might be a girly girl, a woe-is-me emo kid, or even a preppy cheerleader.  The trait they all share is the astonishing inability to learn from past mistakes.  They home in on a single boy to claim as their own, and despite the way he treats her (be it complete ignorance to actual abuse), she just keeps coming back for more.  The boy she is dating is a boomerang boyfriend.  Facebook Apps are similar to these unfortunate couples in a few ways.

I realize my writing style may alienate some of the Y's out there, so just bare with me.  Or just replace the "BB"s with "BG"s

BB's and FB Apps are both masters of the Bait and Switch.

Face it, SOMETHING about the guy attracted the girl in the first place.  For the boy, it might have been good looks or a particularly effective pick-up line.  For the app, it  it's pretty colors and quickly earned levels.  Either way, it isn't long before it dumps you into a world of monotony.  At first it seems like a low time commitment, but the minutes add up.  Before you know it, you're skipping big time commitments, like watching your favorite soap opera, and forgetting to eat.  Eventually it shall be all consuming.  But the unwitting one within the situation is blind to this.

It's demanding.

Just like a BB, FB Apps love keeping you to a schedule.  The expect you to check in every four hours ON the hour, or there'll be hell to pay.  BB's punish time spent away with searing remarks and a harsher schedule to keep their girlfriend to, where apps tend to just do something silly like wither your crops.  But you planted those dang things, and you want the experience from them, cause it really isn't your fault Aunt Bert came to visit for the week and swept you off to the antique store.  But the BB and the FB App don't care.  All they know is they were expecting you, and you fell short of their expectations.

It isn't there for you when you want it.

On the flip side, a BB and a FB App isn't always keen on an spending an evening together.  Even though it wants you there when IT needs you, it just doesn't have the stamina to put up with you for too long.  A game isn't a very efficient form of spending your leisure time if it "runs out of energy" ten minutes in.  

They aren't really good for anything.

Apps use no strategy, very little problem solving, and absolutely no luck.  Really, they're just a filler in your life.  Similarly, you tell yourself that you're keeping a BB around because he's reassuring, and he's just misunderstood, etc, etc.  But when you get down to brass tacks, the BB isn't really DOING anything.  He's just kind of... there.

They irritate all of your friends.

Sure they'll tolerate the annoyance.  They won't be mean to your face, because they want to be supportive, since it seems to make you happy.  But in the end, they wish you would just drop the habit.  You know they aren't good for you, so why waste your time?

I have taken my third hiatus from FB Apps.  May I never go back to them.  Amen.