Steamed Milk

So I set to work last night, turning my new yarn into lovely balls of yarn. I finished two (which takes about two hours) before deciding that was good enough to finish off my scarf.

Then I realized I bought all the wrong yarn. A good $20 wasted on the itchiest yarn in existence.

Another trip to the craft store and seven hours later, I've finally finished making all those stupid balls of yarn. Just as I was finishing up the last one, my mother says loudly "WTF we got a video game in the mail. I never ordered a video game. I'm gonna go contact them and send it back." It was at this moment that I stood up all dramatic-like (more of turned my head towards her) and shouted in my best crime-stopping voice "Wait! that's my video game!" (Actually, I went "Whu?" and she asked me if it was mine.)

Also, my shampoo arrived in the mail as well.

So my dreams of playing video games with lovely clean and healthy hair have come true! Tomorrow. Today, I'm beat from doing nothing but wrapping yarn around a yarn ball for seven hours straight.

Also, today the movies were Jaws, and some John Wayne western.

Intermittent

After squirming for a bit in my computer chair, I realized I had the itch to do something productive. I browsed a few websites with interesting craft ideas, but still found myself fidgeting. After fidgeting my way to the other side of my room, I noticed an old scarf I've been knitting on and off lying in the corner, dejectedly. So I worked on that until I ran out of yarn. My original goal was to knit the heck out of it until my yarn disappeared, but I realized this scarf is much too short.

Actually, I'm only about two or four more stripes away from calling it done and working on something better planned out. So it's obnoxious to run out of yarn so close to the end.

A lovely dinner with mum and a trip to the craft store later, and I have enough yarn to make three more scarves. Which was my original plan. Last fall. To make four scarves total. So with any luck, I'll get scarf number two done by this time next year. Or, maybe because I'm cutting the design in half, I'll be done in half the time. We'll see how well I stick to the plan.

By the way, the movie today was Cloverfield. I watched while I knitted.

Quaketh

So I spent a nice chunk of today hanging with a dear friend at her house. I suppose one might say we had some catching up to do, since it had been a couple months since we talked face to face. And I suppose what one with a normal social life would have done was gone over past events in their life. You know, to catch up. But I don't lead much of a normal social life, so instead we talked about the things that happened in the now. It's important to live in the present, after all; No use lingering in the past.

Would have been much more enjoyable had her brother not been there. He doesn't keep very good company at all.

I'm getting better at these ukulele songs I've been practicing. I'm even getting a hang of strumming without any sort of pick. It just took a bit of time to get used to such a quiet sound. I'm so used to instruments being loud. Now I just need to get in the habit of strumming correctly, with the right beat. I seem to keep falling back into the same old pattern.

Sucralose

There's nothing quite like a good movie to put you in a good mood.
I've painted my nails in an interesting way. Three colors this time around; black, purple, and white. It think it looks nice so long as you don't stop to study them too closely. But it's been quite a while since I've done anything to my nails that hasn't been solid colors, nonetheless stripes. So I spent about as much time fixing up my nails as I did haphazardly painting them. And then I spent a good amount of time forgetting how long I need to wait for them to dry, and now there are many small dings and large smudges to be seen. Oh well.

Which was why I sat down for a movie. I figured, a movie or a nice long TV show was what I needed to keep me still and distracted long enough for my nails to dry. And I made a good choice in watching Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? again. I always forget just how amazingly wonderful the music is. I also realized how longs it's been since I've last seen the movie when I drew a connection between the fast-talking guy and my 11th grade History teacher. They look and act so much alike that it kind of makes me wonder.

So I think I am going to spend the rest of my week sitting on the front step waiting for the UPS man to come. Two months ago I ordered shampoo over the internet from my usual store. They usually get it here within a week, but this time something happened and it's only just been sent out. During this period of shampoolessness, I found myself turning to my lesser quality backup shampoo. And then I ran out, and bought more backup shampoo. And then I ran out again. The main reason I order my shampoo over the internet and not just pick it up at the local salon, is that I require my shampoo to come in massively sized bottles in order for them to last a decent amount of time. I just have too much hair. So these smaller sized back up thingers aren't gonna cut it.

Also, I just ordered a video game that I am a little excited about. I hope it gets here within the week as well. Then! I can have clean and healthy hair while I mash buttons in front of my television screen.

ViewSonic

The first house I lived in did not have stairs.

This made my Slinky boring and unattractive to me.

So a couple days ago I walked into my brother's room to play a video game, only to notice that his computer had been scavenged and picked apart. I assume that because we've decided he is moved out for good, his stuff is free for the taking. I missed out on the stuff I could really use; namely a new mouse and keyboard. But his flat-screen LCD monitor was certainly still there. And now it is in my room.
Allow me to describe to you my old monitor: 1999.
I loved the thing dearly, and I refused upgrading countless times. I had carefully set the color balance so that everything would be perfect. But over the past couple years, there has been a bit of tension between me and my monitor. It was slowly getting darker. I had turned the brightness all the way up, but I still came across the occasional image or game where I felt blind. One month was particularly bad, where it seemed every image and every game I came across was dark and low-contrast. I decided then to get a new monitor.

And so, why not upgrade from something two feet thick to something two inches thick? Now the real estate behind my monitor is empty and useless, as opposed to filled and purposeful. But I can always hide stuff there from myself if I so wish. But this new monitor and I... We seem to have gotten off to a rocky start. The colors are all off ever so slightly, and I lost the tools I used to set the last guy. Lines sometimes wriggle and distract me, and everything is so bright that when I look away my vision is slightly impaired. I can no longer read white text on a black background without burning colors into my eyes, but I suppose a bit of color tweaking can fix that. But then there are also little spots of things crusted onto the screen itself that my brother has left behind. I have no idea how to clean an LCD monitor, and these spots are very distracting.

I suppose that with a bit of love and fine-tuning, this monitor and I can work our way into a beautiful relationship. But I was hoping for something I could love, flaws and all, not hoping for a project.

Magical

Lucky Charms are pretty okay for a cereal. But I have a problem with the new hourglass shape.

Actually, no. I have no problem with the new shape. I love hourglasses. But in order to make room for the hourglass, they got rid of the pot of gold. So now the song doesn't work anymore, since 'hourglasses' is four syllables, and 'pots of gold' is three. Also, my Lucky Charms are worth less than before, unless that is an antique hourglass used by the Queen of England herself to time how long she needed to bake pies back when she was secretly a ragamuffin living in the kitchens.

My Lucky Charms have been devalued.

But also, out of curiosity, what are the little oaty pieces that aren't marshmallows supposed to be? I can see what looks like an Ace of Spades, and a three-leaf clover that could also be an Ace of Clubs. Then there's an Icthus? I'm not so sure I'm okay with the idea of religion in my cereal.

Listless

For some reason I am just happy today. It might have something to do with how my mother finally wasn't home today and I had the chance to get all of these things done. It was nice.

I am a very handy person to have around. On a normal day, I have with me for you to use:

• Chapstick
• Breath Spray
  
• Pliers
• Wire Cutters
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Calculator
• Pens & Pencils of any type
• Compact Mirror
  
• The Time
• White-Out
  
• A Spare Book
• Cellphone
  
• Guitar Pick

I seriously just carry this stuff around with me. On an above average day I will also have:

• Toothpaste
• Floss
• Safety Pins
• Duct Tape (Used to be a must, until my mini roll ran out)
• Scotch Tape
• Camera
• Music Player (iPod)
  
• Screwdriver
• A small snack

I'll also have a toothbrush every day I have the mirror, but you can't use it. And to be honest, you'd be amazed at how often someone needs pliers. Usually much more often than someone needs duct tape, I've noticed.

Harmonica

Man, I am tired. For some odd reason, I could not get to sleep last night until well after 2AM. I went to bet at the usual 11:30, got bored and listened to music at about 12:30, stopped that at 12:45, and then looked at the clock at 2.

The strange part is that I decided that if I was still awake at 5, I would get up and stop trying to sleep. Wouldn't most people have gotten up to do something after an hour or two? Hm.

My mother has been sick at home every day this week. While I wish her well and only want her to get better, she needs to get out of the freaking house. I've been waiting most of my life for this summer break, simply because it is the first and last I'll spend where I'm completely home alone every day until my parents get back from work. Every year leading up to this, I was either mostly home alone with my brother or not home at all. I absolutely love being home alone in a house this size, but I haven't been completely alone all month.

It's not that I want to be lonely, it's that I want to be left alone. Also, I'm considerably more productive when I am completely by myself. I do all of the dishes, wash the car, and even clean house when I'm by myself. Today I sat around until about five waiting for my mother to wake up so I could do the dishes without disturbing her. I got fed up waiting, and did the dishes that have been waiting for a week to get clean. It just irks me to have someone else in the house. Especially when I have to be quiet so that they can sleep.

Sodium Benzoate

I am very bad with geography. I can never remember what country important cities are in. I'm likely to mix up Cape Cod and Cape Town. I am pretty clueless about the exact location of the states on the Eastern half of the US. So to combat this, I have a world map right there on my wall, all I have to do is turn and look at it.

Unfortunately, the entire thing is in Japanese.

But at least now I have a pretty good idea of the distance between Roshia and Arasuka. And I know exactly where Irinoi is! And oddly enough, this map tells me that "Jesus Christ" in Japanese is "Iesu Kirisuto." The more you know!~

So I've been trying to come up with interesting things to do in my area that doesn't involve going to Seattle. Interesting things within my town. And despite the fact that the waterfront is RIGHT THERE not even two miles away and is attached to a large body of salt water, there are no things usually related to water activities to do here. There is a bit of a beach, yes, at low tide. Only at low tide, because we built the town right on the edge of the water. But the largest public beach to walk on close to here is off limits due to the fact it has become polluted and toxic. Swimming is a no no, not only because you might mutate, but because the water is usually below freezing. You could go boating, but the water is often choppy and unpleasant.

So that leaves only stuff to do on the mainland. I suppose one could go bowling, or to see a movie. There's a shopping mall that's even closer than the waterfront. One could do some stuff that's just plain weird, like stop at a stoplight while you are driving on the highway. Or pick up eggs at the neighborhood farm and then go next door and buy gas at the neighborhood gas station. And then go next door again and check out the local naval base, provided you have proper ID. One could... go antiquing. Or get a haircut. We have a drive-in movie theater?

Man, the only thing to do around here is go to Seattle.

Underlying Music

How odd that I forgot to make a post yesterday. I don't know what I could have been doing to make me forget to write a post.

So while I was in Hawaii, I bought a ukulele. I had been planning it for months ahead, so it wasn't an impulse buy. I had only forgotten one thing, and that was to find a chord chart so that I might be able to practice while I was still on vacation. So I spent a day or two mindlessly strumming, before I realized that I was in Hawaii. Then I went downstairs and found a nice arrangement of How To Play Ukulele books with lovely chord charts in the back for me to pick from. Makes sense I'd be able to find such things so readily available.

I learned how to strum along to Amazing Grace before I realized that the book I picked out was bunk, and went from exceedingly simple chords to very advanced chords that went along with bogus songs the author made up just for the sake of having a song for that chord. So now I just keep the book around for referencing chords, since it has a positively gorgeous chord chart in the back.

I spent a good portion of today learning a song that was pretty much my whole reason for wanting a ukulele in the first place. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, just at the right level for someone like me. And I'm glad, I may be able to master it within the week. I just hope my fingers don't go raw from practicing, this is the first stringed instrument I've played where I strum with my bare hands.

Today, for some reason, my thoughts revolved around my cat. I still miss her terribly.

Fluxxing

There are some weird things about my house that seem like are only apparent to me. For example, my fridge makes the same noise as Doctor Who's Tardis when it is landing or about to take off. Also, the water that comes from our fridge tastes moldy, and the best tasting water comes from my sink in the bathroom.

Every morning when the sun comes up, all of the birds start chirping. This is also the time that the birds that live above my bed in the ceiling wake up and start making noise. There are these little vent holes that line the top of my house on the outside. At least, I think they're vent holes. Each of these holes are about an inch-and-a-half wide, and they're all lined with mesh screens to keep birds and buggies out. Of course, the screen just above where my pillow lies has been ripped open. Now a family of birds lives in my ceiling. I'm certain that there are multiple birds, and I'm starting to think it's an entire nest of chicks.

Then every night at midnight, the birds in my ceiling wake up again and start chirping, and mama birdie wakes up all flustered and flaps her wings against my ceiling. This goes on for 30 to 60 minutes. Every night.

Another odd thing about my house; If you don't use a shampoo bottle to hold down one end of the shower curtain, most of the shower water will leak and a large puddle will form. The tap on my dad's sink in his bathroom is backwards, and you turn it left to get cold and right to get hot. Every spring the year before there is a caterpillar infestation, our house is infested by tiny bugs that hang on threads and look like the Metapod Pokemon. The Upper East part of our house doesn't line up with the garage underneath it, and it is suspected that those three rooms were added on as an afterthought. When this house was built, my bedroom did not have a light. A closet light was later added, and when we moved in my father added a bright ceiling light. The light in my room also can't support three light bulbs in it. If I replace the third broken bulb, it will burn out in ten days. There is a dead crane fly in the dining room light, and it has been there since a couple weeks after we installed the light.

Not Grife

Everything comes out looking like bad pixel art.

Viewed

I have been watching too many movies. I saw Get Smart just last night. I was excited for the movie. I watched a Get Smart marathon on TVLand once, and decided I loved the show after my mother told me Don Adams (Maxwell Smart) was the voice of Inspector Gadget. I freaking love Inspector Gadget. I did enjoy Get Smart, and I do recommend it. I will be buying the DVD as soon as I catch wind it is on sale.

Then just today I watched Dark Knight. I am a fan of the Joker, so this one had my attention. The movie itself was pretty good and a lot of fun, but like a lot of hyped movies coming out this year, the ending dragged. The portrayal of the Joker was great, he was psychotic in all the right ways. He wasn't the Joker I know and love, but a fine replacement nonetheless.

Also, I was a bit psyched at the silent nod to the Scarecrow. I can never decide who I like more; the Scarecrow or the Penguin.

Ooh! Sudden flashback to Halloween!
I had gone to check out the haunted house attraction a dear friend of mine was volunteering at. To be quite frank, scary things don't scare me. They amuse me. So I was following along with the group, laughing the whole time. You know, waving at someone before they jump out at you, screaming really loud when nothing has happened. Doing the robot in the strobe light room. It was all good fun for me, especially since there were a few people there that were freaked out of their minds. There was this one kid, though, who was having just as much fun as me. He was all dressed up like the Scarecrow, and was long and skinny so he fit the costume perfectly. He struck this one pose just right, and I couldn't help but giggle. 'Cuz c'mon, it's the Scarecrow. We both kind of went "Hooray! Someone else who is not frightened!" and teamed up. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun.

Oh, something actually scared me, though, at that haunted house. This guy shoved a chainsaw in my face and I screamed really loud. I was in real danger, though--If he hadn't pulled that danger machine away just when he did, I might have lost both my hands.

Little Known Fact: When someone runs up and surprises Leamgirl, she has the direct opposite reaction of most girls. She doesn't squirm away, she turns and fights.

So I was reaching up to... I guess attack the guy with my wrists. After I had screamed. Then I busted out laughing, 'cuz it was hilarious.

Transcribed

Oh goodness, there's only an hour left in this day and I've yet to make a post!

So today is a day that I've been looking forward to. Excited simply over the date. Exactly six months ago I went ahead and marked the day on all my calendars. Because today was going to be happy, definitely a day worth waking up for. Hooray for today.

It's a shame that I'm still feeling quite down after yesterday. So today wasn't quite all it could be.

Not that it was a bad day. I was just hoping it could be a better day.

Memorandum

What a terrible day.

You see my cat, Sparkle, has gone and disappeared. About a week and a half ago, while I was traveling home from Maine to Washington. She's one of those indoor/outdoor cats, so it's not such a big deal for her to be gone a day. But my friend, who faithfully put food out for her while we were on vacation, says she hasn't seen our cat at all. And the cleaning lady, who comes once a week, commented to my brother this morning that she was a little upset she hasn't seen the cat at all, since they were just starting to make friends. Sparky hasn't come inside since I've come home.

... So I guess it's safe to say she's gone.

I know she didn't just up and run away, though. My cat and I were really close. Even when I'm gone on vacation, she doesn't get mad at me for more than a couple seconds before we enter that "OHMYGOD I MISSED YOU" stage. Honestly, if I could connect with a person as well as I did that cat, we'd be married with children by now. So there's no way she could have run off with the idea of leaving for good.

So what I'm hoping happened is, that she got kidnapped. And she'll show up at the humane's society in the next couple weeks. She's tagged and everything, so they'd give us a call if she showed up. Don't know why someone'd grab her, unless they thought she was a stray.

But what most likely happened is she got eaten by a coyote. We've been seeing baby coyotes on the side of the road all month, and wherever there's a baby, there's gotta be a mama. Not to mention that there have been a ton of missing pets in this area lately. Also, dad went and checked out the humane's society for me today. No such luck.

I had wanted to wait at least another week before thinking anything's definite, but... Mum and dad already talked to me about getting another cat.

Washington 2.0

Aaand back in Washington.

I think I've got, like, an orthodontist appointment, or something.

Hawaii

Now I'm in Hawaii.

Ta-Da!

Washington

Back in Washington.

...I'd really rather be in Maine right now.

Maine

I'm in Maine.

Fruity

I am in such an amazingly good mood today. And tomorrow is looking to be an even better day. You see, tomorrow I leave to spend a vacation in Maine.

I'm super excited.

The plane should be landing at about 2 PM, so I'll have a nice afternoon to spend--No wait. That's PST. Woops, I think I'll actually get there closer to 5PM. Maybe even later. Ah heh heh...

I'm mostly packed. I just need to get things like toothbrush and deodorant into the bag. I plan to take a nice shower first, though, so it'll be a while yet before I'm completely ready to go. Have I mentioned that since the plane takes off so early, we leave tonight? It takes a couple hours to get to the airport. So we're spending a night in one of the many hotels next to the airport. It's like I'm leaving tonight.

Oh God, I am so stoked.

I went with my mother today to get our armpits waxed. This is in preparation for our trip to Hawaii, immediately after we get back from Maine. I had been told it was just going to be our pits, which is pain enough for me. But as soon as we got there, mum was all "Are you ready to get your legs waxed?"
"What? Legs? You never said anything about legs."
"No, remember? I asked if you wanted your legs waxed, and you said it'd be nice."
"You never once said anything about legs. Only armpits. I never agreed to legs!"
So I got my legs waxed as well. It actually wasn't so bad. I just didn't want to do it because it seems like too much surface area to handle all at once. And it kinda was. Near the end there, I was just done. Didn't want it to go on any longer.
So now my legs are all smooth and hairless, with the occasional cluster of little red dots that'll fade in about a day. But my armpits! Oh God, my armpits! They're bloody! What the fuck?! It hurt like Hell this time around, and it's been two hours and they still hurt. I suppose it's a little better than last time I had the hair under my arms ripped out. Last time the hair had grown back completely and it still kinda stung. At least I can put my arms down today. I just need to take that shower and wash all that blood off...

I'm still bouncing off the walls in joy, though.