School is beatin' up on me.

It isn't making me sink into a deep depression or start completely losing it, but it's making me physically dead. I sense a sick day coming around the corner. Oh wait. I have tests just about every day for the next three or four weeks. Guess that won't be happening. So anyway, now I can complain about my physical ailments. For the sake of most accurately recording my life, of course. It all started on Sunday, when I woke to find that my stomach was not going to cooperate with the rest of my body. Namely, it was not going to allow much room for movement. Or breathing. Or thinking functionally. I don't think God really likes it when you curse while begging for pain relief, but it hurt, darn it. I just love 'that' time of the month. Fortunately, my mother went to get me up for church around eight and found me paralyzed in my bed, trying to figure out how to breathe when my stomach was not allowing for any below neck movement and got me some Advil. Which relieved the pain in about ten minutes, as a nice dose of Advil is apt to do. But I was still tired so I opted out of church. Turns out that this is fortunate because I was laying there, thinking about how much I love Advil for a while. And then I decided to get up. When I did? Oh my God, my neck snapped in two or something, right then, and I fell back onto the bed, due to not being able to keep my head up. At this point, figuring my body was at war against me or something, I dragged myself across the room to the ever faithful Google and typed in my ailment, begging the internet for cures. I couldn't finishing reading them before needing to put my head down again, but I figured out that you're supposed to take some meds and heat it. Because I was alone in the house, I could not get into the meds. Well, mostly, it was because I couldn't walk. But also because I'm a rule follower and would never take medication with consulting my parents first, I guess. Heating it was also not an option because of the lack of mobility. So I lay on my bed, staring at my walls for a while until I figured it was maybe a good idea to at least try to do something about this situation. I shifted around until my neck stopped screaming with pain, and then I got up and held it that way. I then spent about forty minutes trying to do french homework, giving up and going back to bed, ripping the tags off of old tee shirts so I can wear them inside out, and listening to Heatmiser. To make a long, extremely boring story somewhat shorter, my parents got home, gave me medication, and then made me do the rest of my homework. My neck hurt a little for the rest of the day - and still does now - but it was much, much better. And then, when I woke up this morning, I found that I didn't have much of a voice. In fact, I had none. So I got to school, trying to convince myself that the voice would come eventually, and found that it did not. Still. Which meant I got to hoarsely whisper so that I could finish an english project with my friend until the voice made an appearance halfway through first block. And now I can't breathe through my nose and the voice comes and goes. What fun. After a short, mostly unscarring visit to the dentist today, I also have some gums that feel as though daggers have been plunged through them. Oh, and a lingering scar from gym class last week. Apparently, I do not 'bear crawl' properly. Oh, and also? Today when I was putting in my contact, it shattered in two. I yanked the bigger piece out before my eye died due to having plastic forced into it at five am, but the smaller one is quite possibly still lost somewhere in my eye. Which isn't good. My eye hurts, my parents made me take out my contacts this evening because it hurt, but I'm sort of worried it's just lost inside my head forever or something. So, tomorrow, I shall be more careful, I guess.

That was so much whining, I don't even know what to say about it. Oh well.

I went to the library on Sunday to finish an english project with my friends. On the way there, I kind of noticed that it's the first thing outside of school I've done with school friends since the sixth grade and wondered if this means that I'm a total loser or just way more reserved than I used to be. And even though it was a project and therefore they technically had to be there, I still count it as something outside of school. Mostly because we spent half of the time stalking some cashier at the McDonalds across the street. I don't have all that much trouble finding people to hang out with during school hours, but I don't understand how anyone can meet their best friend in school. I mean, I met mine on a video game forum, so maybe I shouldn't talk, but it seems sort of random. And I'm bad at getting attached to people: I'd have no reservations whatsoever about leaving my current school for a better situation, should one arise. Makes me feel like there's something abnormal about my level of teenagegirlness. But perhaps it's a dellusional projection on my part and I shouldn't worry.

Piano is so, so fun right now. I haven't gotten a new song assignment in about three weeks, but the Chopin prelude I'm playing right now is the best thing ever, so I don't mind. Plus, I'm still playing the Bach Prelude I've had for months now, and I can honestly say it's my favorite piano song, bar none. Even out of the Smashing Pumpkins and such that I've figured out. I've improved it a lot, so that my sixteenth notes are no longer completely random and my dynamics are... there. And I can go extremely fast, even if it usually ends up screwing up at the end. It feels odd to play really fast, you don't think about what you're doing, your fingers just kind of know what to do and you can listen. Worth two and a half months or work or whatever I've put into this thing. My lessons have been moved to Thursdays, to fit my sister's gymnastics schedule. But that's fine with me because I'm not totally ready anyway.

Can't think of anything else I feel like informing the world of at this time.

Oh wait, yes I can. My mother's friend's mother - I know that's hard to follow - is an author, which is always striking to me because I've never even been close to knowing one before, and somehow, my mother set things up so she's reading my novel and giving me feedback, and I sent her the prologue and first three chapters on Sunday, even though I'm not totally done editing them. She hasn't replied yet, as far as I know. But I really, really hope that she doesn't tell me the idea has no potential, or I can't write at all, or give me some meaningless compliment because I vaguely know her, so she has to. That'd make the whole endeavour worthless.

Music this week has been Heatmiser, who is the coolest band ever, a little bit of Jawbreaker, Karmafish and Fragile New Virus, who are both unsigned yet amazing bands I found off of this new website called Jamendo or something, Veruca Salt (excessively loud, on the bus, of course), Smashing Pumpkins, Toadies, Babes in Toyland, The Wipers, Hazel, who are insanely cool, Heavens To Betsey, which continues my hero worship for Carrie Brownstein, Frente!, and a few songs by this band called Hot Water Music. Not very much stuff, actually. I've mostly been exploring a few new bands, feeding addictions to old ones. Don't know what to comment on, besides that my father is now a Smashing Pumpkins fan. Like, enough that he deleted his trance strip club stuff to put Machina on his little MP3 player. I don't know whether to be impressed with my own brainwashing abilities or saddened by the amount of music my father and I are starting to have in common. This kid I know's asssessment of the stuff on my iPod after he looked at it, today? "Wow, you have a lot of weird stuff on here". I didn't really know what to say to that, and since I have about four versions of 'Coconut Mall', I said nothing.

So much nothingness.

I'm insanely busy, but not with interesting things. Mostly, I'm just going to school. Coming home. Doing ten pounds of homework. Going to sleep. That's it. My life... gone. Not that I had much of one before, but what I did have got lost somewhere in the piles of geometry notes and french worksheets. I have a lot of homework this weekend. And when I say 'a lot', I mean a lot. I have to read a chapter from my biology textbook, answer the assessment questions, and make notecards to help me remember the vocabulary, and finish up the lab paperwork that I didn't have time to finish on Friday. Then I have to do three (yes, three) math assignments, make notecards to help me remember postulates and theorums and such, and study for the upcoming quiz. And then I have to get started on studying for my english test next week. And I have to make french notecards for chapter one, part two and study for the upcoming quiz on that. Basically, I'll be using a fair percentage of the world's stock of notecards this weekend. The only class I do not have homework in would be, surprisingly enough, history. History doesn't actually give much homework, but I end up doing a lot of homework for that class because I take ten pages of notes when everyone else takes about one and that takes some time. I learn by writing things down. Oh, and I have no journalism homework. I totally aced the test we had in there on Friday, fortunately for me, because my oh so intelligent project partners got us a B due to their inability to write a complete sentence and their overall giggliness. I hate working with people like that.

It's the weekend now, thank God. School isn't terrible, but it's very wearing. The only thing I'm doing after school right now is piano, on Tuesdays. Youth group is on Sundays this year. I'm still not 'getting involved', which I'm sure is going to maul my chances of getting into college, but that's okay. I'll figure something out later. Something that's not social or athletic or time consuming. The sad thing is, I love riding the bus. It's my favorite part of the school day. I've been using my father's old Walkman, bringing two or three discs a day, and it's working out swimmingly. 'Cept for when I have to change the CD in the middle of a bus ride. Mostly, I've been listening to L7's 'Hungry For Stink', which I bought along with Veruca Salt's 'Resolver' and Elastica's 'The Menace'. I think the L7 album is my favorite of the three. At first, I didn't love it, but it grew on me. 'Can I Run' is just about the best song in the world.

My thoughts aren't very cohesive today. It's raining outside and it's so, so pretty. Cloudy days are the best things ever.

I was going to go to some CD release show with a bunch of bands who's names I didn't know at all tonight, but then my friend got in trouble with her parents so now I'm not going, because my parents think I'll be murdered if I go anyplace alone. I'm, admittedly, not as sad as I would be because I knew who none of the bands were. The only reason I knew about the show was because this senior on my bus handed me a flier thingy, due to my tendancy to wear shirts with bands nobody knows on them. Well, she knew them. It surprised me that someone in my school knew who the Donnas were, but I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised. They're not underground or anything, and they're pretty poppy.

This is extremely short, but I don't know what else to say, and I sort of want to edit my novel, a little bit, today. It's already well past four, so I'd better get started. My mother's friend's mother is an author and my mother said she wants to see some of what I wrote because she read my little complaint letter... (which, by the way, the radio station has completely ignored. I'll be writing again soon.) So I think I should probably get some of the novel up to a level of decency.

Music lately has been a lot of Green River and some Mudhoney too, because I love Mark Arm and everything he does. A lot of Love Battery and Veruca Salt. During the school day, mostly L7. Some Smashing Pumpkins, I'm teaching myself 'Crestfallen' on piano so I'm listening to it again and again, Devo, The Distillers, a fair amount of Sleater Kinney, some Toadies. I totally forgot about them and was happy to remember. Nirvana, Babes In Toyland, The Go! Team, (I saw their first album at the record place last week and seriously thought about buying it, just because it was so cool that it was there). Chopin, I love all of the songs of his from Opus 28 that I've heard so far, The Birthday Massacre, a little bit of Lady Gaga, Moist, other scattered things.

That's it...

I don't really have a good excuse for not posting.

I don't. So I won't start with an excuse. It's been a little more than two weeks since I've posted, I think? And not even one little survey or post telling the world how I am. Which is fine, I guess, lots of other people do it but I like to try and post regularly. So now I'm posting and making it somewhat better. I wish I could say that summer's been so chaotic, I just haven't found time, but I've had time. I've just spent it occupying myself other ways. Want to hear about 'em? You know you do.

Firstly, I've been playing more guitar. I'm starting to get the skin shredded off the tops of my fingers again, which is cool, even though it hurts. I think I posted about this earlier, maybe, but I've been learning riffs and simple solos, and messing around with power chords, and it's all very fun. Because I'm not taking lessons, I can just let myself do whatever and not worry about learning specific things for the next week. I've learned all of L7's 'One More Thing' and Elastica's 'Blue', which is really easy, and most of Alice in Chains' 'Got Me Wrong' now. And Nirvana's 'Downer'. I want to learn some Smashing Pumpkins stuff, but Billy's insane at guitar, and I'm too lazy to deal with all of the things he does, so I had to put that aside for a while.

I've been playing piano too. I didn't have a lesson for about three weeks because we were both busy, and by then I'd made enough progress to get me ahead to the bridge of 'Psycho', which took forever. I could tell she wasn't sure that I was actually ready to move on, but was sick of making me play the same thing over and over. I don't know why I'm fine with classical stuff that is twice as hard as pop, but stumble over really easy stuff like this. It's annoying. I also got a new song assignment - Bach's Prelude Two in what I think is A minor, but I could be wrong. It's beautiful, if I get good at it, I might upload it to Youtube like I did with Movement One of Sonatina, but it's really hard. Well, not for someone who knows what they're doing, but for me. Especially since I've only had five days to practice this week, and one of them was sort of shortened. Thank God I still have today and tomorrow, I hate disappointing her and I still have no clue what I'm meant to be doing on Psycho, I only have about half of the right hand figured out on Prelude, and so... I have a lot to do.

Lastly, with the exception of hanging out with my internet friends, 'cause of course I'd be doing that, I've been writing again. For the first time in more than a year, excluding school assignments, it hasn't been fanfiction. I started a new novel, and it's at about twenty seven thousand words right now. I want to make it about fifty thousand at a minimum, but I guess I'll be done whenever the story line's finished. And then I can edit to make it longer. So much fun. My story doesn't... really... make sense, so I doubt it could go much of anywhere, but I'm having fun writing it and I've made almost ten thousand words in a day with it, so it's cool to have done that. I think that writing it has probably been the biggest cause in the random death of my blog, but oh well. I'm blogging now, right? And I intend to do at least three chapters today, even if they're not good chapters because I want to finish this whole thing by the time I leave for New Hampshire in a couple of weeks.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention this. I met my best friend. For the first time. In New Jersey (where, oddly, I came out of unscathed). It was pretty darn cool, to be able to hang out with someone who I've only talked to over the phone and over the internet before. I had to beg for it, because my father was really not too happy with the whole concept, but then she wasn't an old man, which meant he could go buy some cables at Game Stop and quit panicking, for the time being. We hung out at a mall for an hour or something, and then we (we being my father, brother and I) had to go. We saw my father's hometown, and this balloon festival thing where a disco band from the nineteen seventies were performing. And then we went to Great Adventure. We also saw Rutgers University, which is where my father went, and I've decided I am definitely not going there. Not only because it's in, well, New Jersey, but because it's huge. I can't handle the idea of taking a bus to get to each class, or wandering around miles and miles of paths. I have this little problem where I get really lost all of the time.

We went to PA over the weekend to see my grandmother, who actually lives in New York. I liked the city, even though my mother was afraid of it for some reason. There were so many hipsters, and if you know me, then you probably know how fascinating I find hipsters to be. I had a good time staking them out and envying their clothes. We went and did some historical things, and then we said goodbye to her and drove home. My favorite part of this vacation was probably, since I have had all interest in American history drained out of me by way of living near DC and having parents, was the mall that we stopped at on the way home. It was a gignatic, garish, tacky place that claimed to have more than two hundred stores. I loved it. I used nine dollars to buy Smashing Pumpkins' 'Machina and The Machines of God', which was one of their three albums that I didn't have yet. I still need Pisces Iscariot and Zeitgeist, but I'm not even sure I'll buy the latter because it's garbage compared to everything else they've put out and I already own most of its best songs. I also convinced my parents to buy me a leather jacket. I've sort of wanted one for more than a year, but yesterday I went on this obsessive quest through the whole mall and managed to find one that was frighteningly expensive to me, as I hate spending money, even when it's not mine, but was apparently pretty cheap for a jacket like that. It's brown, and it has some zippers, and I love it. Because buying stuff gives me a euphoria I don't think is normal.

Music as of late has been The Birthday Massacre and Marty Casey and Nirvana (mostly the Bleach stuff) and Steve Burns and Bikini Kill and Dinosaur Jr and L7 and Lily Allen and the Fastbacks and Love Battery. Oh, and speaking of Love Battery, I finally got around to putting Straight Freak Ticket, which I initially found to be subpar compared to their earlier stuff, on my iPod and oh my goodness, it's amazing. The melodies and such are more subtle, the guitar work is thinner, but it's so good. I can't stop listening to it. Every time I think that maybe I don't like Love Battery as much as I think that I do, they surprise me. I've also been listening to Smashing Pumpkins, of course. When I put up Machina, I'll have almost one hundred songs of their's on my iPod, which I think probably qualifies as obsessive since I, as I mentioned before, don't like spending my money on much of anything. I still need their singles and all that, but I guess I'll get around to that later.

That's all I have to say, for now.

Life is... monochromatic.

My mother told me I use too many big words in my writing so I'm prone to hyperbole. I intend to never use small words when I could easily use bigger ones again, partly to spite her, but mostly because I think hyperbole makes everything better. If I spelled that word wrong in the title, you can pretend it's irony, but it's really just me being too lazy to use spell check. I showed her my submission for the anthology at writing camp today - a submission that's already been edited by several people and handed in - and mocked me for my use of words like 'relentless' and 'bleak'. Words that are not exactly SATish in nature. She's in a funny mood due to jet lag and God knows what else, but it was sort of degrading to be told that such words sound funny or awkward in my writing. I'd like to think it flows smoothly enough and tells the story. Maybe I'm just an egomaniac...

Enough rambling. I have some stressful things coming up, and that means I shall be writing panicky, ranty posts and staying up way too late and bothering everyone to death. Just a warning, if you happen to talk to me on a regular basis, like pretty much everyone who's liable to reading this does. Tomorrow, we're meeting an old friend of mine (we used to be best friends but that kind of changed) at the Metro station and she's hanging out here for a couple of hours. Under normal conditions, I'd think of it as a blessing, seeing someone who I used to be very close to that lives on the other side of the country, but things got complicated with her around sixth grade, and we never quite patched it up. So, as it is now, it just means I have to clean my room, clear my internet history so as to keep her from being exposed to the number of 'Blind Date' episodes I've watched and gossip blogs I've read. And Wikipedia pages. And then I have to change my background so that it doesn't reflect my new found love for the way Axl Rose looked in the 1980s. Not the man himself, you must understand, I think he's an idiot and is completely full of himself, but he was gorgeous in the eighties. And I have to make sure my hair looks fine and I'm not wearing anything particularly unusual tomorrow too, which just feels like undue stress.

Next week, I have a total of ten hours of my life dedicated to getting used to my high school. Not a single one of my friends will be attending the orientation, which I can deal with, but getting up at nine to be barked at and led around school corridors? I am not such a fan of that part of it. I'm extremely directionally challenged, so I hope and pray that they will not make us find our way around.

On a more optimistic note, writing camp has been moderately enjoyable. Almost everyone there is nice enough, and I'm not as uncomfortable as I used to be. The college campus is quite pretty, but college students are a self centered, over confident bunch who I hope I never become anything like. They're always rushing around in their artsy clothes with cell phones attached to their ears, giving little sideways glares to anyone who happens to consider being in their way. I've noticed a lack of students in classes, which must be a pleasent change from middle and high school, but kind of bothers me. Why are they there if they're not learning? I don't get it. Still, the camp itself doesn't give me much stress any longer. The only part I fret about is sharing - I fear that my group leader will force me to go up and read something, which I would not enjoy at all. The twelth graders intimidate me with their fancy metaphors and wise sounding comparisons, I'll freely admit that. It's not just that though, it's an almost instinctive fear of standing before a large group of people. Which reminds me. I accidently worked that line from 'Polly' in to something I wrote today, and didn't even notice until I was reading it.

My mother's return from her Seattle high school reunion was accompanied by a Love Battery tape - 'Between The Eyes'! I was going to go for the CD, but now I haven't any need and a Kurt Cobain shirt (my seventh Nirvana shirt. I know I'm too obsessed, but it's kind of fun) and this disc of various grunge songs. I took advantage of her high school's locale and made her buy me lotsa music stuff. Oh, how I miss that town. I was never old enough to appreciate while I had it. And now I live with lawyers and ex marines and other people who are not especially fun. My mother's friend's husband knew Stone Gossard in high school! Isn't that unbelieveable?!

I wanted to bake, but there is nothing in the house. Sadly.

My mother thinks that 'pwn' is a suggestive term.

Music as of late has been Love Battery, Nirvana, Elastica, Screaming Trees, Britney Spears and The Birthday Massacre. Nothing of interest. I only write this part for myself, though, so I can remember what I listened to. Steve Burns has a new album coming soon! I'm going to scrounge up a few dollars out of my meager new guitar fund and buy it. I love Steve, I need to support him in his music career. There might even be a concert at some point, if the opportunity comes up.

I think that's all I have to ramble about, for the time being.

Edit~ Oh, yeah, my Blogger icon is me now. From the front. I'm very brave; compromising my safety this way. I don't particularly like the picture, but my blazer's in it, so that makes it good. Note the weird aqua tinge of the front of my hair.

A scattered sundries post of sorts.

Being too lazy to describe my now rather monotonous days in detail, I'll just write out something short with some of my passing thoughts.

I forgot to practice piano yesterday. I didn't even play 'Thru The Eyes Of Ruby' or a little bit of the impossibly rhythm lacking 'Psycho'. My hands did not touch those keys. I am in so much trouble next Monday.

'Don't Trust Me' by 3Oh!3 turns out to be one of the more awkward songs ever to be blasting in the car with a parent. My father did not appreciate the chorus. In fact, I don't think he appreciated the verses and bridge either.

Pandora internet radio has died and gone far below. It gives no more than four or five skips per station, and it carries over skip counts, making avoiding the really annoying songs it throws at you impossible. And when I get in a mood to listen to the specific Frente songs I cannot find anywhere else? It mocks me by playing no Frente on my... Frente station. Yeah, that makes sense.

I need to ramble about something else. Why is it that only thirty year old men talk to me on Youtube?! And my friends, of course. But mostly the older guys. I can't decide whether it's insulting, or merely odd.

My sleep deprivation caught up with me last night, so I wrote a confusing, poorly worded fanfiction chapter that made no sense and went to bed before I hit three thousand words, my benchmark of choice. It also had a plot that I didn't even want in my writing and generated excessive conflict. I got a really bad headache around two, so I went to bed. I was used to having three hours of sleep a night, so five was sort of refreshing.

I don't think I ever fully grasped how geeky I am. Until yesterday, when I was delighted about having writing homework. Of course, the happiness faded a little bit when I struggled more than I have with writing in a while and was ultimately unhappy with my finished product.

Picking up this post a day later... everyone liked my memoir. I suppose it was fine. I need to do some fixes this weekend, then email it to my group's leader.

I have temporarily given up my dream of owning a bass in favor of not having a glittery pink guitar any longer. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait at least a month for anything to happen since my old guitar has chipped paint and will only sell for about one hundred fifty dollars, which isn't really enough to buy a good guitar, or so it would seem. I want something about two hundred fifty dollars. Which means I'll be babysitting constantly.

I'm teaching my youngest brother how to read music and begin piano. It's fun so far, even if the experience is somewhat like one of those 'Miss Swan' skits on Mad TV. He's only six and can't really read very well, so I have to go quite slow. I want him to get better than my sister, because, well, she gets on my nerves with her center of attention mentality.

I figured out the opening riff to 'Thru The Eyes of Ruby' but I can't figure out the main riff for the verses. It sounds quite good once it's right, though. I want to work out seperate arrangements for the left and right hands that are more complex than just chords in the left hand and melody in the right. I know that's how guitar works, and that's what it's written for, but on piano it's boring once I've worked it all out.

My (incredibly lucky) mother is in Seattle today. She said Mudhoney played a concert there last night, which she, being stupid, did not go to. She was in Pike Place Market today, and bought me some things after my repeated desperate asking. I cannot wait for her to return home. Although, it is nice for her to not be here, namely because my father doesn't care what we do, and he lets us watch violent movies and buy Cheetos, which my mother hates. He also let me buy a forty dollar distortion pedal, which I somewhat doubt my mother would have enjoyed.

It's rainy here today. Beautiful and rainy. The trees look much greener when the sky is gray.

I listened to everything from Oasis to Duran Duran to 10 Minute Warning in the past days. Today, it was mostly Smashing Pumpkins and Candlebox, and Garbage. Oh, and Love Battery. I saw an interview where one of their band members said they didn't refine their sound 'til 'Straight Freak Ticket', but I think 'Far Gone' and 'Dayglo' are their best albums by far, so that's ridiculous. Just a random opinion tossed out there. Oh, and I've been listening to some Britney Spears - her old videos made her seem so innocent.

I think that's about all I have to say for now.