I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

I've really been meaning to post for ages. And somehow there's never time, bah. And I was doing so well, there, at the beginning of the month!!
I haven't posted anything "serious" in a while now. Hmmm. Should probably get on that......

Wow, life has been busy lately!!

Last weekend I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Somnite and Anilee -- it was WOOO HOOO exciting -- for the very first time!!! I have to say, guys, you both are EXACTLY what I pictured. Which is a good thing :)

A crazed week of still trying to finish up intense amounts of schoolwork among other pressing matters (application deadlines.... other commitments...plentiful meetings...lots of cleaning....) filled my last few days and as of right now, I am at an annual church assembly, which is pretty exciting -- I was elected the female delegate for my congregation. Today starts Day 2 (and it started bright and early, UGH!) and I have to say, I am positively fascinated by everything that's going on. We are voting and discussing some really major issues here, and I'm finding that I -- even as a youth -- actually have a voice. I'm being treated as an adult instead of like a silly little teenager and I have to say, it's an incredibly exciting and positively terrifying feeling all at once. I've been feeling very naive compared to most of these people and very unqualified to be voting and making these sorts of decisions. And yet, others are trusting me to do so and that responsibility is a little overwhelming!
Kind of funny, isn't it: I've begged and pleaded for eons to be treated like an adult and now that people are finally doing so and taking me seriously, it scares me out of my wits.

Life is confusing. Sheesh.

Well, we are off ISO Wawa....mmmm, cappucino!!!!!

For all you lexophiles out there....

I got this in an email today....it cracked me up!!!!!!!!

NEOLOGISMS:

(Neologisms are alternate meanings for common words.)

Arbitrator \ar'-bi-tray-ter\: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's.

Avoidable \uh-voy'-duh-buhl\: What a bullfighter tries to do.

Baloney \buh-lo'-nee\: Where some hemlines fall.

Bernadette \burn'-a-det\: The act of torching a mortgage.

Burglarize \bur'-gler-ize\: What a crook sees with.

Control \kon-trol'\: A short, ugly inmate.

Counterfeiters \kown-ter-fit-ers \: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.

Eclipse \i-klips'\: What an English barber does for a living.

Eyedropper \i'-drop-ur\: A clumsy ophthalmologist.

Heroes \hee'-rhos\: What a guy in a boat does.

Left Bank \left' bangk'\: What the robber did when his bag was full of loot.

Misty \mis'-tee\: How golfers create divots.

Paradox \par'-u-doks\: Two physicians.

Parasites \par'-uh-sites\: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Pharmacist \farm'-uh-sist\: A helper on the farm.

Polarize \po'-lur-ize\: What penguins see with.

Primate \pri'-mat\: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV.

Relief \ree-leef'\: What trees do in the spring.

Rubberneck \rub'-er-nek\: What you do to relax your wife.

Seamstress \seem'-stres\: Describes 250 pounds in a size six.

Selfish \sel'-fish\: What the owner of a seafood store does.

Subdued \sub-dood'\: Like, a guy, like, works on one of those, like, submarines, man.

Sudafed \sood'-a-fed\: Bringing litigation against a government official.

Three Things I've Learned Today...

...Which I feel are my responsibility to share with you all, so that you don't have to go through the pain and suffering of making these discoveries yourselves:

1. TV is evil. Ok, so not quite. (But sometimes it is. Spongebob Squarepants is an excellent example.) But really, it would be more fitting to say, TV is distracting. Don't watch it while trying to write. I was watching one of my all time favorite movies today, To Kill A Mockingbird for about the 40 billionth time. For those of who haven't seen the movie (to which I say - GO WATCH IT! It's one of the few movies that does the book it's based on justice), it's set in Alabama. Thus, all the characters have very Southern accents. Well, as I was watching this movie, I had my laptop out and I was also working on a story. At first, I was all excited because I'd been very productive and written a lot. However, I went back to re-read it and found that my main character -- a 15 year old girl who lives on a mountain in India -- was speaking with a Southern accent. Just like Miss Maudie and Scout and Jem. Ooops. I guess have a lot of editing to do *sigh*

2. Those with bad aim should not be trusted to put their own eye drops in. Seriously. Now, I have to put eyedrops in occasionally when my allergies act up, but that's only occasionally, and usually I can get by without making a total fool of myself. But today I woke up with pink eye (pink eyes, technically, since it's both of them) so I now have to put two drops in each eye every 2-4 hours. For the next five days. Which is a lot of drops. Which is a lot of opportunites to totally miss my eye and instead hit my nose, chin, and once (somehow) my ear. Yeah. Don't exactly know how that one happened....

3. Rainy days exacerbate procrastination. Seriously. Or maybe it's just me, which is also entirely possible...now, I LOVE rainy days, LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE them; don't get me wrong. And today was one of those perfect rainy days; it was cloudy and foggy and the rain was just cleansing and wonderful and refreshing, not depressing or annoying. But I am sorry to say that rain ALSO makes me lazy. It makes me want to spend the entire day curled up on my bed reading and writing and staring out the window and not accomplishing anything. Add to the fact that the two main things I needed to accomplish today -- Chemistry and cleaning my room -- are two of the most awful, intolerable and traumatic activities I can think of, and, well...it was hard to find the motivation to do either of them. But I tried. I did a little Chemistry, and, well, I DO still have all day tomorrow to clean my room.................

Bad Moods and Why I’m No Longer In One

I’ve been rather grumpy lately, for a variety of reasons. Yesterday I was freakishly crabby for a good portion of the day. Now, sometimes I can get myself out of those funks just by refusing to succomb to them -- “I am NOT going to be in a bad mood today!!!”. But usually I can’t. Yesterday I couldn’t. I spent the majority of the day denying the fact that I was in a bad mood but snapping at everyone who came near me and glaring at everyone who didn’t.
Finally, I admitted to myself that I was in a bad mood and needed to do something about it. So I did one of the two things that nearly always makes me happy.

Running. Yes, I know there are plenty of biological reasons that this works -- endorphins are lovely things, after all, and it’s a great stress-reliever and all that. But I also love running because it gets me out of the house; lets me be alone to mutter and grumble and glare all I want and gives me an opportunity to push myself hard -- and be proud of the results. And it’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re proud of yourself!
As I result, I was back to my insanely perky and happy self last night.

Today, for a bunch of similar reasons, I was back in a bad mood (it’s rather exhausting being a teenager, isn’t it?!) Because I don’t have the time or energy to run again today, much as I’d like to, I turned to the second thing that nearly always makes me happy.

Music.
What’s on my playlist, you ask?

MMSG’s Top Five Songs to Listen To When You’re In A Bad Mood:

1. It’s the End of the World as We Know It -- R.E.M. I was introduced to this song while babysitting one night, actually. I very dramatically announced for some reason, “it’s the end of the world as we know it!!” and all three kids burst into the refrain of this song. By the end of that night, I knew it quite well. It’s one of those wonderfully cynical and pessimistic songs that is great to listen to when you’re mad at the world.

2. Falling Inside the Black -- Skillet. You’ve got to love the loudness, intensity and overly-dramatic ness of this song. Ooh, it’s positively chilling. While we’re on the subject, many of Skillet’s songs fit this description; other favorites include Whispers in the Dark and Rebirthing.

3. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) -- Green Day. I’m not a huge Green Day fan at all, but for some totally inexplicable reason this song appeals to me. I have no idea why, because it’s so monotonous and depressing, and yet, sometimes that’s exactly what I listen to when in the midst of whatever drama I’m going through, and it cheers me up. Don’t know why. But it does. I’m teaching myself to play it on the guitar.

4. Me Against the World -- Superchic[k]. Ok, so this song might not exactly have the same appeal if you’re a guy, but still. How can you argue with the line, “They said don’t try to change the world, you’re just a girl; so it’s me against the world today….”. I love the feeling of determination in this song!

5. Life is Good -- Stellar Kart. As hard as I try, I absolutely cannot be in a bad mood if I hear this song. It’s much too happy and exciting and wonderful; but not in an overly-optimistic gaggy way; more like just in a, “Ok, maybe-the-world’s-really-not-coming-to-an-end-today” kind of way.

(And! Since I’m now in such a good mood and feeling so incredibly generous, a bonus song!)
6. Bethlehemian Rhapsody -- Apologetix. I LOVE Apologetix’s parodies; they absolutely crack me up!! While all of their songs are ingenious and hysterical, this one happens to be my favorite. I think there are two versions of it out there, though, for some reason. I like the David and Goliath version best, if that makes any sense. And again, it's hard to be crabby when you're laughing hysterically.

Humor and lack thereof

I'm not a funny person.

This depresses me.

I came to this startling realization today while reading an amusing blog. On Edge’s blog she has a link to Gretchen, and I clicked on it out of curiosity and found some incredibly fantastic posts. They just seem to exude humorous vibes -- there’s an underlying tongue-in-cheekness to it all that I love. And envy, I must confess.

I have never been a funny person, sadly. I’ve tried for years now, but humor just eludes me. I’ve finally reached a point where I’ve accepted the fact that I’m hopeless. Humorless. Unfunny. Boring. Humor must be something you’re born with -- you either have it, or you don’t. I, sadly, do not. I must have missed the humor gene. I can’t make great wisecracks. I am terrible when it comes to witty comebacks, because I just can’t think fast enough. Even sarcasm, when coming from me, tends to be misconstrued, misunderstood or simply stupid. And I’ve never had that great slapstick-comedy clownishness that just makes people laugh.

Which isn’t to say that people don’t laugh at me. They do. Quite loudly and quite often. But I think that’s more because I’m STRANGE, rather then because I’m FUNNY. There’s a major difference. I happen to be a very quirky person and this, obviously, causes some smiles, giggles and guffaws. Take the whole mismatched sock thing, for instance…..

But anyway, this severe lack of funniness has more far-reaching effects then just causing me to cross off “stand-up comedian” from my list of potential careers.

It affects my writing, too. Think about it. I can’t create funny, witty, sarcastic, amusing characters -- or, even more importantly, dialogue -- because I myself can’t up with that. How do you write in a character’s sarcastic, acerbic voice if you have no idea what she should be saying?!
And, naturally, lack of funniness makes this blog rather dull.

Can you learn to be funny, I wonder? Or I am doomed to a humorless existence for the rest of my days?

Any advice from the funny folk out there who are reading this would be quite nice.

My itty bitty attention span...

I have absolutely nothing of worth to say today, however I am trying VERY HARD to get in the habit of posting here more frequently. So the quantity will increase...but the quality, eh, might take some time to improve ;) But hey, baby steps :) Speaking of increased posting, did you notice? April happened to be the best month thus far this year, with 7 whole posts. Not exactly great, mind you but at least it's progress! Goal is 8 posts for May :)

As such, I will continue the tradition of many of the blogs I've been reading lately, and post a totally random post that has no relevance to anything :)

I mowed the grass today for the first time all season and I absolutely, positively LOVED it. Mowing the grass is my all time FAVORITE chore; I go out there and hop on the riding mower and plug in my MP3 headphones and spend an hour and a half singing at the top of my lungs and waving to neighbors who came outside to see what was causing all the racket ("Oh, hi, Mrs D! No, there's no dying cat out here...I just looooove this song! Was I dancing? No, of course not, you can't dance while driving a riding mower....! Yes, I'm watching what I'm doing...oh, no, that forsythia bush has always looked lopsided. I didn't shave off the side...").
It's quite amusing, I have to say :)

I have to say, as much as I despise summer (I truly do. Hmmm, I should do a list...Top 10 reasons why I hate summer...), I do love the fact that it means grass-mowing season is here!

And just because it looks like fun, a meme I keep seeing all over the place:

Rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4.Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you’ve posted your three sentences.

Tagged by: um, no one. I just felt like doing it :)

Book: well, sadly, my nearest book happens to be my Chemistry textbook. That's no fun. So, the second nearest book is George Orwell's incredible 1984, which I am reading for about the 40 billionth time.

"Winston, in addition to his regular work, spent long periods of time every day in going through back files of the Times and altering and embellishing news items which were to be quoted in speeches. Late at night, when crowds of rowdy proles roamed the streets, the town had a curiously febrile air. The rocket bombs crashed oftener than ever, and sometimes in the far distance there were enormous explosions which no one could explain and about which there were wild rumors."

And now, I tag Somnite

Oh, and one more thought. Oreos. Mmm, they're amazing, aren't they? In all honestly they're probably nothing more then pure sugar and artificial-ness, and yet....mmmmmmm!
I positively love just plain old Oreos. Now, all the other varieties -- mint, coffee, peanut butter, etc -- are fantastic as well, don't get me wrong, but the original Oreos are my all time favorite.
Yes. I like them even more then the beloved double stuff ones.
Quite frankly, I've never been an obsessive Oreo cream lover. You know how most people LOVE the cream and the commercials are always about fighting over the cream side? Not me. I love the cookie part the best; I'm a chocolate freak, not a cream freak.

Anyway, out of curiosity:

Best part of Oreos?

(If you are using a feed reader the above poll may not show up)



P.S. Iced coffee makes me a little hyper :)