That’s What I Get for Being a Girl…

…with girly parts. Seriously, being a girl sucks. I know you guys don’t want to hear it, but hormones make everything miserable. And I do mean everything. This entire past week has been one big long pout fest over one thing or another with the occasional bright spot to soften the harsh reality that I am female and my body hates me. For one thing I got to actually play some D&D for real. Yes, I’ve probably told you that I started playing D&D a few months ago but that doesn’t actually count since the DM sucked really bad and the whole thing was one giant fail. Sound a little harsh? The kid licked me and I’m raging so there. This new D&D experience has mixed reviews. I’m fairly certain any hostility I felt towards the game or DM whom I don’t know very well is probably due to the fact that I happen to be female and, again, my body hates me. Besides that my character isn’t terribly well prepared and I suck at D&D apparently, so maybe when I gain some understanding of the game and it’s working and something resembling skill I’ll enjoy it a bit more. Until then, I’ve got another game tomorrow in which I am a Kender Bard… and now I sound like a total dork. The real bright spot, however, came on Thursday when I went back to my high school for a Literary Arts reading. Readings make me very happy, if I haven’t said so before. I love readings, going to them and reading in them and everything. I miss reading for readings but luckily, I shall get my chance soon…ish. According to my most favoritest teacher there will be an Alumni Reading at next year’s LAVA festival. That’s only fourteen months away. c: But seriously, I desire to write things and read them for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, it will be awhile before I can do that. Oh sigh. Going back to school did inspire me to write again, however. I’ve been kind of circling the idea of writing a short story for some time now and I finally got around to writing something that doesn’t completely suck. It’s not my best work or anything but at the very least it’s self-contained and people can read it without looking at me with big Courtney eyes and saying ‘Fffffarkas you should totally do something with this!’ \o/ Hurray for self-contained short stories!~ I’m not ready for something big just now. So I was somewhat productive this weekend. Not only did I actually write something but I also finished Rune Factory 3 which I have been playing for the past two weeks or so and will be reviewing for Friday, hopefully. I wouldn’t hold me to that, though, if I were you. Anyway, it took me until about 2 in the morning to beat the final boss but there was no way I was going to let him get away with stealing my wife! Now all I have to do is keep her happy for a month so she’ll give me babies. c: Yes, I realize how creepy that sounds. And I don’t care. So I actually accomplished things! Just not the things I was supposed to be accomplishing. Ah well, I am female and I feel that is a good excuse to do nothing for a weekend other than hide in my room so as to avoid biting the heads off of everyone around me. And before you say it, give me a day or two and I’ll be back in the kitchen.

 

Bottled Messages

Do you remember back when the internet was getting really popular? When dial-up was common and going online was the cool thing to do? I was in sixth grade and we were still on our first computer. My friends told me ‘hey you should get an AIM’ account. So with the help of my brother, I did. It happens to be the same AIM account I have now. This was my introduction to instant messaging.

We as a people have gotten kind of ridiculous with our need for speed and convenience. Now instead of picking up a phone to talk to your BFF you simply hope on the computer, pick the instant messenger of your choice and see if they’re on. If not… meh, it wasn’t that important anyway. Instant messengers are everywhere and it’s getting a bit out of hand. I have three on my computer. Why do I need three? I don’t know. I have the same people on all of them. Buuut one friend likes Skype better than AIM and one friend likes Steam better than Skype and so on. So I have to have all of them on if I want people to talk to me.

I’m not going to rag on all instant messengers. Most are actually really helpful. I talk to my friends more on AIM and Skype than I do on the phone, and maybe even in person. However, sometimes it can get a really ridiculous; specifically in the case of Facebook IMs. Facebook is one of those places where you really shouldn’t linger. Personally, and it might just be me, I prefer to get on Facebook, check my stuff and leave. Maybe I’ll creep on people, maybe I’ll play some Robot Unicorn Attack or some other random flash game but unless I’m waiting for something I don’t like to hang around. Unfortunately I have mild ADD and sometimes I wander off without closing the browser. And that’s when the trouble starts.

I hate Facebook chat. I dislike it greatly and with a passion. I hate going about my business and suddenly getting a message. It doesn’t matter who it is, it’s really annoying. Anyone can talk to you, absolutely anyone. You know those people who you’re friends with just to be polite? Yeah, those people can talk to you any time you’re on. There was a kid I added just because he was in my acting class who used to talk to me all the time for no reason at all. For a while I felt bad not responding but after a while I decided to screw it and log off any time he tried to talk to me.

It’s not just people I don’t like that bother me on Facebook chat, it’s anyone. Facebook should not be used for instant messaging. It’s bothersome when people that I like start talking to me because then I feel really bad not talking to them. Half the time I forget that I have it up and I’m off doing other things when they start talking to me. The little bottled message thing will be flashing and I won’t notice it for sometimes up to an hour or two. I feel bad about ignoring them unintentionally but hey, that’s what you get for talking to me on Facebook chat.  I will admit it’s nice when it’s someone I haven’t talked to in a while, but for the most part, what could you possibly have to say that is important enough to instant message me on Facebook?

Then of course there are the times that I forget to turn off my messengers and people start talking to me. I hate it when I’m doing something and just happen to have my computer open and suddenly people start talking to me. I know it sounds bad, but sometimes I just want to play some Rune Factory without pausing every three seconds to reply. It’s worse when I’m in the middles of something with other people that I need something on my computer. Like taking notes in class or playing D&D. Who talks to you at 10:00 in the morning on Skype anyway? And then I can’t not talk to them because I’ll feel bad if I don’t. This is my constant dilemma.

So this is how it is; instant messaging makes life easier, but it’s a huge pain in the butt. End of story.

 

It’s in the Cards

So, how many of you play card games? I’m not talking about Go Fish or Rummy 500 or Poker. No, those games are for sissies. I’m talking about Children’s Card Games! Like Pokémon and Yu-gi-oh and Magic the Gathering. Yeah, those kind of card games.

I was never big on Pokémon cards. I was in second grade when they were really big and it was one of those things that my brother had to explain to me why they were cool. I thought they were cool for the soul reason that he thought they were cool. He had a bunch of cards and what not. I had a grand total of maybe twenty and I thought that was pretty good. I didn’t have any rare cards or anything. I didn’t do the battles or whatever. I didn’t even understand how the battles worked. But I would watch the movies and the show when I could and collect the toys from Burger King, naturally. I was always more into Digimon than I was Pokémon, but they didn’t really have Digimon cards. Not real ones at least. They can make trading cards out of pretty much anything.

My brother, in the other hand, has pretty much always been into cards. He has never been a big sports fan, so baseball cards were never anything special in our house. However, he did have a somewhat impressive Pokémon card collection. He didn’t battle with them, not often anyway. I’m sure he knew how, and probably did every so often when he was playing with his friends. But I don’t really remember him playing very much. Then again, I was in first grade or so.

After the big Pokémon craze died down trading cards all but disappeared from our house for a while, leaving playing cards unchallenged. Sure, there were a few stray power up cards laying around that we somehow hadn’t managed to get rid of, but nothing terribly impressive, or important. Then came the Magic cards. It started with then my brother downloaded a Magic the Gathering video game on the Xbox 360. It was a fairly dumb simulation of a real match that you played against a computer. Nothing terribly mind blowing and it was only mildly interesting for a rather short time. Then we started hanging out with people at CCBC. Nothing good comes from socializing, of this I am convinced.

It always starts out so innocently. A bunch of us sit at the same table. This guy knows that guy; that guy knows this girl and pretty soon we have a group formed. Then someone brings in a box… This isn’t a normal box, mind you. It’s a Magic box… filled with Magic cards. And while he’s flipping through his cards another guy says ‘hey, are those Magic cards? I used to play magic all the time!’ and the next day he brings his cards in. Now we have two guys with massive decks of Magic cards and they start to play. The other boys say, ‘hey, that looks pretty cool. You should teach me how to play.’ And thus it spreads. No one is safe from it, no matter how much they try to resist. It infects the entire group until everyone is broke from buying Magic card Fat Packs and every lunch hour is spent comparing cards and making decks and every day after school you all go down to the local café and play for hours and hours an- *breaks record.*

So yeah, that’s how it goes. The sad part is, it doesn’t just take over your life it takes over your sister’s life as well. I used to go home occasionally. I used to spend some real time in my house, I really did. Not anymore. Brother goes out with his friends now and plays magic until all hours of the night. *sigh* I miss my life.

 

Hello Spring

Well guys, we made it. Winter is officially over and spring is here for the next four months. You know what that means don’t you? It means rain. It means small fuzzy animals. It means flowers and strawberries and lawn care. It means spring.

I’ve heard a lot of arguments for why spring is better than autumn. Spring is more colorful; things are coming back to life, rather than showing off before they die. It’s a happy, livelier time. Yeah, I still like fall better. My reasoning is this; spring goes from cold to hot, fall goes from hot to cold. You may be wondering, what’s the difference? Well, I’ll tell you. When you go from hot weather to cold weather it’s a nice relief from the heat. You get to bundle up and enjoy the cool air for a bit before it gets too cold. When you go from cold to warm it’s a far less smooth switch. You enjoy a nice, warm day here and there and then it slips back into the cooler temperatures, making you feel utterly disappointed. Then it warms up a bit more and you have to adjust the amount of clothes your wearing. If you wear too much you’ll be too warm, too little and you’ll be too cold. When the temperature goes the other way it’s a fairly easy transition clothing wise. The point is, spring is an awkward time for weather changes.

Still, spring is a pretty nice time of year. The birds are coming back from their migrations and finding mates, building nests, and defending them against big, mean, evil looking windows. Yeah, this is what happens during the spring. Birds look in the windows, see their reflections and decide it’s another bird mocking them that needs to be taught a lesson… or is threatening their nest… it’s hard to tell with birds. This happened quite often during my sophomore year of high school. We’d be sitting in the library and all of a sudden we’d hear a THUNK and all of us would jump. We’d look up at the window to find a male robin attacking the library windows on two sides. Turns out there were two of them. We named the fat one Job and the skinny one Sisu. We tried putting paper cutouts of birds in the windows so that they might figure out that they’re not actually attacking another bird… it didn’t work. So, when a female cardinal started attacking my dad’s truck windows it was kind of like being back in second year advanced fiction workshop.

One of the big things associated with spring is Easter. You know, bunny rabbits and jelly beans and chocolate eggs. Actually, I think more about the Palm Sunday service that I was in a few years back. I got to lead a real donkey down the center aisle of my church onto stage and make sure he didn’t eat the palm leaves. My church used to put on a lot of really cool things for Easter. Then the worship leader moved on and left us kind of high and dry for a while until we got a new worship leader. I’m not sure if he’s quite settled in enough to put on anything big this year, though. Ah well. Some of my most prized possessions were given to me on Easter. My mom gave me a cross shaped music box that plays What a Friend we have in Jesus one year that I’m completely in love with. It’s kind of crazy to think how little I was when I got it. I took it to school one day and it got broken in my back pack. I was so upset, but my dad glued it back together so it was okay. It’s lost a few little flowers that were on it, but the cross is intact and it still plays, so that’s all that matters. I also happened to get my puppy for Easter one year and, as you all know, I’m very fond of him indeed.

Beyond those I don’t have many thoughts on spring. It’s signaling the coming of the end of a school year. It’s a signal of hope that there is an end in sight; a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s especially good for us college students since we get out before summer really hits. Still, I’m hoping for some nice warm days full of sun so that I can run around with my parasol, maybe even wearing my kimono.

 

Luck of the Irish

I suppose since it happens to be the day set aside by the church to to celebrate the life if the first missionary to Ireland I should talk about something green? Yes, let’s talk about the Irish. Shamrocks and leprechauns and green bear and potatoes and the like. On second thought… let’s not talk about that.

Let’s talk kilts, shall we? That seems a much better, more appropriate topic to me. Kilts are, without a doubt, the single most amazing article of clothing that has ever existed ever. Why? Because everyone looks good in a kilt. Yes, everyone. You see an old man in a kilt; he’s automatically awesome. You see little kid in a kilt; it’s the cutest freaking thing ever. You see a hot guy wearing a kilt; your nose starts to bleed. Are you getting the picture yet? I cannot think of one person who doesn’t look good in a kilt. They are not unflattering in any way. It’s completely and utterly impossible. But, if you’ve been with me for a while you should probably already know this by now. Kilts are my favorite garment. And that’s that. There was a kid at my college who was wearing a purple kilt… my head nearly exploded.

So what else can we talk about that is Irish but not a clichéd stereotype? I know! How about banshees? Do you know what a banshee is? I was surprised how many people didn’t actually know what it was. The version I’ve read and the one I like best is that a banshee is a messenger of death. That part is common enough, but the part that I like is the origin of these spirits. See, they’re said to be either the ghost of a murdered maiden or a young woman who was killed in childbirth. Come to think of it… if a woman were murdered while having a baby, would she become the ultimate banshee? Traditionally the banshee’s cry is the signal of a coming death. When heard from far off it could be anyone, when heard close by it’s someone near you and if you see a banshee, it means you’re the one who is going to die. It’s supposed to be a hideous, bone chilling sound, the kind to make your ears bleed. When I was a junior, however, I decided take them in a different direction. I pretty much discarded everything but the death warning in general and the crying and turned the sound into a beautiful song, a sound to haunt. It’s one of my favorite stories. Maybe I’ll put it up for you sometime. They’re supposed to brush their hair with a silver comb, too, and if you find one on the ground and pick it up, you’ll be the next person to die. Mine is made of plastic.

Now, we could talk castles, or Celtic Knots or the Fianna… but that would take all day. I will say this, though, on the subject of the Fianna; Finn was kind of a dick. Seriously. He let his friend Diarmuid dye because the guy stole his girlfriend years before. It wasn’t even like he needed a wife or anything, he had tons of women, what did he need her for? And poor Diarmuid always seemed to get the short end of the stick anyway. He was probably the best member of the Fianna and the nicest and yet he was always losing women and getting cursed thanks to his dad. BTW it was totally Finn’s fault Diarmuid was cursed. Just sayin. Anyway, the Fianna were crazy badasses who ran around naked and fought Vikings. That’s pretty much what it comes down to. Celtic Knots were invented by monks. Irish monks were the only ones who bothered to write down history when everyone else was running around living it. Ireland is full of castles. There, I think we covered everything we need…

Now, I guess I should at least touch on the man for whom this day is named. Patricius. He was a Roman boy living in England when he was captured and taken to Ireland by pirates, probably, sold to a king, which was the same as a petty warlord back then, and made to tend the pigs. There he stayed, clinging to the faith of his people for some small comfort and stumbled into something much bigger than he could have possibly imagined; the salvation of an entire nation. He took the name Patrick after finishing his schooling as a clergyman and went back to Ireland after dreaming of the Irish people crying out to him for help. Patrick loved the Irish people more than anything else and he did everything in his power to help them in every way he could. In short, he was a really cool guy.

 

Late Night Baking

What time is the best time for baking? Late at night, of course, when you really should be getting ready for bed because you have to be up early the next morning. That’s the time you want to start your baking. It just feels right, you know?

I’m not strictly a late night baker. It just so happens that that seems to be the only time I ever get around to it. If I have to have something baked, whether it is brownies, cookies or cake, I always seem to wait until like nine at night before I get started on it. Sometimes I have a good excuse, most often… not so much.

My dad is the baker in the family. Most families it’s the mom, but not mine. Yeah, my mom cooks and will bake when needed, but it’s Dad who finds new recipes to try out just for the fun of it, and it’s Dad who has the cook book full of yummy treats his mother used to make. I find it kind of funny, almost ironic even, that I’m the one who inherited his cooking skills. My sister has always been the closest to him. She tends the chickens with him, takes care of the gardens and pretty much anything else Dad does. So you’d think that she would be the one to get his cooking skills. Apparently you’d think wrong. Part of it is probably the fact that she has no interest in cooking. She’s far too outdoorsy to be bothered. Her attention span probably isn’t long enough, either and… well she just doesn’t want to put the effort in. I, on the other hand, enjoy baking in every way. I like mixing things and rolling them and watching them take shape in the oven. And I especially love the finished product. ❤

I’m not a solitary baker. I would much rather bake with a friend than I would by myself. Not that I have to have someone else to bake with, there is something to be said about baking alone. When I bake alone, though, it usually involves rather loud random music, singing with cold vocal cords and some impromptu dancing. But that’s half the fun. However, I enjoy talking to people when I bake. I used to call my friend Brelyn whenever I would make brownies and chat with her while they were in the oven. She would laugh at me, of course, because she always does, but hey, it kept me amused.

I went through a baking phase in seventh grade or so where I would just bake things from a random cook book. It’s kind of hard doing that since one doesn’t always have all the random ingredients one needs. Some of them turned out really well, however, and then again, some of them didn’t. I made a hot fudge Sunday cake for my mom’s birthday that year. That one was actually pretty good, even if it looked rather funky.

Baking is one of those things for me that I wish I was really good at, but I feel vain claiming to be. I do make really good brownies, though. I have proof of that. My edges are rarely hard and I never burn them. C: My cookies, however, are my grandmother’s recipe so I can’t take credit for those.

 

Spring Break

So this week was spring break. Fun, right? Traditionally college students are supposed to spend their spring breaks doing something awesome, right? They’re supposed to go to Florida or Mexico or somewhere warm to drink beer and flash random people and generally be complete idiots. Wouldn’t it be great if that really happened? I’m sure it does somewhere, just not here.

I spent my spring break in bed. That’s the best place to be, don’t you know? I’ve been playing some Just Dance, I went to visit my Sensei with my brother in the new car. I was supposed to see some friends through the week but that failed. I knit an entire scarf and went to a lovely party for my favorite Kim and did absolutely nothing that I was supposed to do. That’s what spring break is all about really’ doing absolutely nothing.

The highlight of my week was Kim’s party. It was the one thing I actually got to plan and go to that worked out better than I thought. It involved me spending the entire night chatting with my friend Bethany who recently moved back from Chicago. We kind of lost touch but it was really nice to get back together with her and really reconnect. I really missed that girl. Naturally a lot has changed but it was like no time had passed at all. You ever have one of those moments where you feel like you’ve gone back in time? It was kind of like that, but better. We’re planning a Princess Party, just for the excuse to dress in prom dresses and watch princess movies while drinking tea.

That was the extent of my spring break. Pretty exciting huh? Sorry this is coming to you on Tuesday. A combination of stupid teachers, pizza adventures, book club and D&D prevented me from finishing yesterday. At any rate, here you go.

 

Child’s Play Thing

You know what I miss? Toys. I like toys, the kind you played with as a kid. Those wooden and plastic figurines that you ran around with making ‘pew pew’ noises. The kind that had buttons to be pressed, that lit up for about the first three months you had it before the batteries died. Yeah, I miss those toys.

Dolls were my favorites. I loved dolls growing up. More baby dolls than Barbie dolls; I liked to play house. I named my favorite baby doll Dolores, since that was my middle name and I thought it to be significantly better than my first name… I have no idea why. I would run around with her wrapped up in my pink blankie, which I still happen to have. I was never a big stuffed animal person, though my sister was. She would often steal mine from under my bed.

What I really miss, though, are the little toys, things like jacks and yoyos and silly putty. You know those generic plastic things you would get as party favors and the like? Yeah, those are what I miss most. Do you ever get a craving to do something you haven’t done in forever? I really wanted to play jacks a while back, but I’m never sure where one would find them? Do they still sell them in toy stores? Are there ever toy stores around anymore? There are tons of movies with old fashioned toy stores in them, the ones with the kindly old toy maker who just enjoys spreading happiness to small children with his toys. That kind of place would never get off the ground in this day and age. It’s really sad, but kids don’t really play with toys anymore. Everything needs lights and music and tons of buttons to press. What happened to good old fashioned wooden trains? Or cars you had to push yourself? Nowadays everything moves on its own. Where’s the fun in that?

I got a yoyo for Christmas. It was kind of a disappointing yoyo at first because it wouldn’t work. The string was tied too loosely so it wouldn’t come back up. After leaving it forsaken on the floor for a couple of months I finally realized that I could probably tie a tighter loop without breaking the thing open. And I could! I played with it for about two days before it broke. Then I made my dad buy some super glue so that I could fix it. My yoyo is once more yo-yoing. This makes me very happy. My friends find in greatly amusing how amused I am with a simple little blue yoyo. I don’t get it, personally. What’s so funny about a person loving a yoyo? I’m not terribly good at it or anything, that’s true enough. I can make it go up and down and that’s about it. But still, it’s a simple pleasure that keeps me occupied. What could be wrong with that?

 

Funny Story

So it seems that after everything decided to go horribly wrong for a week the next week decided to give me a break. This week wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t terrible either, so that’s an improvement. I got to read a fun book, tell a story in CV’s class, chill with some cool people and learn a little Japanese. All in all, not too bad.

We spent this week riding around with our friend Andrew who happens to live up the road from us. Lucky thing too since we had no other way of getting to school. We got super lucky this week, though, as my uncle’s friend just happened to be selling a 2002 Intrepid for $1,000, which means, I believe, that the insurance money from that douche bag a few years ago covered the new car. It’s a pretty nice car too; power windows and locks and a remote starter. It doesn’t have air conditioning, yet, but we’ve learned to live without that. It also doesn’t have a tape player which means the adapter thingy won’t work. So Brother will have to make some CDs to listen to in the car. That’s pretty easy for him it’s just a matter of choosing what to put on what CD.

It happens to be spring break, and you know what that means! I get to sleep in! And do pretty much nothing all week! And, oh yeah! My Courtney happens to be in town for one whole week! That’s pretty exciting right there. Now we just have to figure out what to do with ourselves during this time off. I would love to go back to LP for a day with a friend, rather than creeping on everyone by myself… however, Courtney doesn’t want to disturb them, so we might just… I danno, do something else? I can’t imagine what we would do, though. *sigh*

So after like a year of saying ‘we should get a Wii,” guess what we finally got? A Wii! Yeah, mom’s been saying we should get one for quite a while now. However, we never seemed to have the spare cash for it. Seems that changed recently and we finally got around to getting one alone with Just Dance; the first one, of course. My Sunday night was spent dancing away with my sister and mom. My sister has the most practice, having played it a few times before with my cousin Britt. I’ve played the game once before so I’m not too terrible at it. Mom is still trying to figure it out. She is, however, getting better. And that’s all that really counts. I think she hopes this will help us be more active and get in shape or something. I’m kind of afraid whatever fat might be left on my scrawny little body is going to melt away and then I’ll be left with just bones and skin and maybe the occasional muscle. Meh, we’ll see. The good news is, we can now watch Netfilx on the upstairs TV. c:

In other rather exciting news, we are now learning Japanese!~ I’m pretty pumped about it, especially since it’s in a cool, non-academic environment. It’s a small group of people who hang out at the Fountain Head Café who are really into Japanese culture, mostly consisting of anime. This is really exciting for me, since I’ve wanted to learn Japanese for good three or four years now. I tried to learn once from a tape type thing from the library and that kind of failed. I learned how to ask for coffee, though. That might be useful. I’m hoping to learn a bit more with a real teacher.