Was it Writing All Along?

Looking back, I think writing has always been it for me. You know, the big it. I only really started thinking about this today, but now that I've started, I remember wanting to be a writer for most of my life. When I was ten I wrote two mystery books (without much mystery in them) for my English class. I don't remember too much about them, but I remember the main character was a mouse who acted a bit like Sherlock Holmes, only she was a she mouse and not a he mouse. I also remember my Aunt saying that the ending was a bit of a let down. I'm not really sure what she expected from a ten year old; the most mysterious thing I could think of was that someone had lost something and Mystery Mouse had helped them to find it, which she often did just by poking around in their house.

This is not my Mystery Mouse but someone else's.

There were also many books which I started to write and never finished. Many, many books. Most of them were initially inspired by books like "Black Briar," by William Sleator, "Jacob Have I Loved," by Katherine Paterson, "The Babysitters Club" series, or anything by R.L Stein.

 

For some reason my books always started with the main character, who was usually a girl, looking out her car window and watching the trees go by while her parents drove her to a new home. Her family had always made her move, and she was always obviously and loudly upset with them. Ten years old and I was already completely unoriginal. How sad for me.

Thankfully, now I've learned a little about blogging and can write about anything, not just girls displaced by their parents' wanting to move to a new town. I'll probably still continue to be unoriginal, though.

The good thing is that instead of taking my cues from young adult romance novelists, I now get my inspiration from other bloggers who are usually very good at writing and often very entertaining. I follow these wonderful writers around much like that shy, dorky girl in high school followed the popular kids around, except I most likely will never be noticed because I'm the super shy girl who, at every school event, is hiding behind the big, fat guy and no one will ever know I'm there because no one ever wants to look at the big, fat guy. That and the popular people are now regular, everyday people who are gifted with exceptionally healthy doses of humor, probably from being an unpopular high school stalker. So we've come full circle, and THAT'S why I've finally decided that I want to be a writer like the cool kids.

Were you an unpopular high school stalker? Have you recently found your own big IT? Do you have any writing tips? Can you tell I'm fishing for comments? You can leave one, if you like.

Bicycling Irritants

People on bicycles annoy me. Make that adult people on bicycles annoy me. I'm not talking about kids who randomly ride their bikes in the street, or have someone on their handlebars, or have no idea what is going on around them while they are riding their bikes. All those things are pretty irritating but I know what to expect with kids. No, I'm talking about grown men and woman who know better and honestly need to come off it. Take a look at this news story, which was aired on KHON2 last week, and which helps to explain some of my loathing. "Elderly woman dies after being hit by bicyclist". That's right you pedaling reprobates, a bicyclist in downtown Honolulu blew through a red light and hit and killed an elderly woman who was walking through a cross walk.

The typical bicyclist in my neighborhood, only not usually this good looking.

Now the reason why this got me so upset, beside the fact that someone actually got killed, is that there are so many cyclists who ride around my town like they are God's gift to anything with wheels. Hell, they even think that they're better than four wheel users. I can almost hear them thinking as they peddle by, I'm so cool because I'm being healthy and Eco-conscious by riding my bike around and you suck because you're walking, or driving a car, or plain just not me. Earth to stupid snob on a bike, your being a pedal pusher does not give you the right to disregard the laws!

Now don't get me wrong, I love riding my bike. For a while I was even biking my way to work because I wanted to be healthier. I also understand that it's a fairly cheap mode of transportation and totally better for the environment compared to all those icky cars. I get all of that, okay? The only thing that I take issue with is that many bicyclists do not know that by choosing to ride a bike they have agreed to the responsibility to obey the traffic laws just like any other operator of a vehicle. Which means no blowing through red lights, signaling before making any turns, using a bike lane when available, paying attention to your surroundings (like not texting while riding), and riding on the correct side of the road. All pretty simple stuff. If you can do these things than good on you, go ahead and pedal for all you're worth..

I Need a Skyrim Patch

Why oh why am I not doing productive things like figuring out some crochet patterns, crocheting stuff, learning how to knit cute little baby beanies, keeping up with Pinterest, furthering my cooking skills, learning about new games, making cards, or starting on that DAMN scrapbook? Because I can't stop playing Skyrim!

Also, have you noticed that everything on my to-do is either very sedentary (that's your word for the day, look it up bitches) or has something to do with food? This is why I have to make time in my extremely busy schedule - read SHED-jool - to go to the gym and work out.

There are so many things that can be said about this picture.
It's all about the cup, the boobs, the burger king crown...

If I could do TKB and crochet at the same time without somehow getting my work all covered in stinky sweat I would totally do it. But alas, it is nigh impossible. Maybe if I completely covered myself in latex?

This is the only work out I usually get while crocheting

Anyway, I did manage to spill stuff on Brent’s pants that will make it look like he’s peed all over himself the next time he puts them on. I guess I could put THAT on my list of things accomplished for today. That + Skyrim = pretty loser day, if you ask me.

Cue Adam Sandler to tell everyone that only the cool kids pee their pants so that Brent doesn't feel bad.

Also I honestly can't find any reason not to play Skyrim right now aside from the fact that I think my weight gain is directly proportional to my level gain. Man this game is like freakin' game crack in a weird otherworldly Farmvillesque kind of way. Skyrim is all about life as usual where your usual life includes killing monsters and undead; crafting armor, potions, and food; and killing dragons who show up randomly as you're adventuring.

Just watch out for those arrows

It's the little things that make playing Skyrim the stupendous and engrossing experience that it is. Take for example the bard's college and the burning of King Olaf.

The bard's college is located in Skyrim's Solitude and is filled with broke, artistic, eccentric people; much like our Art Institutes.This special needs college calls to the outcasts of Skyrim, those without the ability or nobility to do anything but recite or sing. The best thing about joining the college is the opportunity to do some quests for the instructors. The quests themselves are not necessarily special, however the rewards are very, very worthwhile. Because these bards are completely broke your payment for services rendered comes in the form of experience (and no it's not THAT type of experience, you sick person you). Each instructor will give you different types of knowledge and you can gain skill levels in things like stealth, various schools of magic, and combat. Honestly some of the best rewards in the game.

Don't ask me who that guy at bottom right is, I don't know, but he is wearing dwarven armor.

The only way to enter the Bard's college is to save the ritual "burning of King Olaf" festival. This entry quest is not really important except maybe for the amassing of some good loot; what IS important are the correlations between "The Burning of King Olaf" and "Burning Man". Actually there are only two parallels here but I think they have significance. One, in both "King Olaf" and "Burning Man" they set an effigy on fire. Two, both are festivals put on by the dangerously artistic. See? I'm totally on to something here.

I had front row seats for the burning of King Olaf because I was integral in the festival's revival.

Did I mention that Skyrim also has great music? Here's a video for all of those people out there who, like me, need someone to invent a Skyrim patch so we can cope with the withdrawals. Also for anyone who looked up "Skyrim soundtrack" on iTunes.

 

By the way, I'm supposed to let you know that the music in this video belongs to Bethesda and composer Jeremy Soule, and it's taken from the game "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim". Also, you should totally check out the other videos from Malukah and her blog. She's a bard of the highest order and also my new music idol. Now, I've got to go purchase my Skyrim Soundtrack.

My Not-So-Idle Hands

I have been SCREAMING at my fingers for the past half an hour now trying to get them to crochet something comprehensible. I ended up with this feeble excuse for the beginning of a doily:

Yes, that is a doily on my bed.

Some days it feels like my hands have been taken over by a demon with no understanding of the basics of crochet. If only the devil in my hands were able to do something right.

How can I possibly be this effin' clumsy after 12 years of doing crochet? Now granted, I have been sick off and on for the past week and I am trying to do some extremely delicate thread crochet, but come off it hands! There are no excuses for this amount of sheer clumsy uncoordination.

My hands are like this, but hands, not feet.

All of this hand-hating made me think about other people whose hands might have betrayed them.
 

First, I have George Washington. Good 'ol Georgie could not tell a lie and chopped down his dad's cherry tree, but he left out the part about his hands being under the control of a cherry hating demon.

My next subject is another president, Richard Nixon. According to the Chicago Tribune, Nixon supposedly got in trouble one sunny day in Brazil when his hands flashed the OK sign as he was stepping off the plane. In Brazil, OK means "up yours" or "fuck off," whatever you think the equivalent to the middle finger is. I think Tricky Dick can reliably blame this faux pas on demonically controlled hands.

After these two worthy candidates I can only site characters in fiction and movies. Lady Macbeth's hands betrayed her murderous intentions. The poor lady not only was unable to get a good night sleep, but her hands totally gave away her guilty conscience by constantly trying to wash themselves of her role in her husband's act of regicide.

In "Idle Hands" Anton Tobias' evil right hand kills both of his best buds before he manages to cut it off. He still has to follow the creepy thing around for the rest of the movie because it keeps trying to kill Jessica Alba's character, the super cute spunky girl across the street, whatever her name is.

And lastly, but most certainly the bestly, Ash from the "Evil Dead" films. Not only does Ash's hand, and the rest of his body, get possessed by a murdering devil thing, but he manages to cut off his own hand and bionically attach a chainsaw to his bloody stump.

 

Maybe I can somehow graft crochet needles to my palm, since my fingers keep disobeying me. Although that may make me more like Edward Scissor hands than awesome evil-whatever slaying Ash Williams.

This IS The Doily I'm Looking For

Oh happy, happy day! I FINALLY finished that doily that, about two weeks ago, I said was only supposed to take a couple of days. Take a look! It actually turned out to be a doily instead of a sock or a beanie or a basket or some such thing. Coincidentally, you know what else was only supposed to take a few days and ended up taking WAY longer?

Felucia: Marshland

My "brief" tour as a clone in Felucia. (Hello Battlefront III? We're going on like 7 years now.) Thank goodness for Aayla Secura's chicky Jedi awesomeness.

Anyway, the main reason why this doily took so much longer than I expected was because - well, the further along you get in a doily the more stitches you have to make, and that means that it takes longer and longer for you to complete each subsequent row. It almost felt like I was creating some kind of wormholish paradoxical doily where the closer I got to completion the farther away I was from actually being finished. Honestly, I just SERIOUSLY underestimated the time involved in a project like this.

That being said, the end results were, I think, pretty well worth it. The doily came out beautifully despite paradoxical wormholing and its constantly trying to change into a pair of leg warmers. There were a couple of things, however, that I really need to work on.

First, I need better tools and a better proficiency for blocking my piece. I learned that washing and blocking are very important for the sizing and shape of the work and I'm sure they can be done a tid bit more conveniently than my method of sticking pins randomly into various stitches in the vain hope that they will magically give my doily a prettier shape.

 

greenolive

Second - I can't really remember what my second thing was. Never underestimate the power of a time-warping doily? Don't lose your crochet hook by sticking it into your messy hair and forgetting about it and then taking a couple of days to find it under the bed? (The hook wasn't in my hair for days, mind you. It fell out eventually and ended up as a dust bunny's jousting lance.) Maybe I should just try again. I think I'm almost ready for my next one.

Diet Sabotage

So yesterday was hubbie’s birthday and also a Monday night, which is our regular turbo kickboxing night.

I kind of wish I had her pants and obvious ninja skills

Brent is funny because he didn’t even think about skipping out on TKB for his birthday. Instead he decides that he wants to give everyone in our kickboxing class a special birthday treat – cupcakes. That’s right, we took cupcakes to our local 24 Hour Fitness. You should’ve seen us walking up to the gym with two trays full of 80 mini chocolate and vanilla cake batter cupcakes.

Sprinkles mean birthday goodness

We picked up a ponderously large group of drooling gawkers on our way in the door, not to mention a crap load of dirty looks. The most popular question of the night was an outraged, “Why would you bring cupcakes to a gym?” Brent’s birthday was obviously not a good enough excuse for most people. Fortunately, the workers at 24 Hour saved us from having to stand with trays in front of the treadmills, cupcakes held enticingly out of reach. Thank goodness for people who work out enough that they don’t worry about eating a mini cupcake or two.

As for the rest of the people in our class, you would think that a cupcake was the end of the world. It was like by giving out this one small treat we would send people down a never ending diabetic spiral of binge eating, glucose overdose, and straight fat injections. On the contrary, in my experience with my recent weight loss, it helps to do everything in moderation. Cutting out treats like cupcakes and cookies completely from my diet only leads me to gorging when I finally allow myself to have one.

Gorge-ous cupcakes

Anyway, our awesome friend Brandon was gracious enough to supply our diet sabotaging stunt with his amazing cupcakes. You can order your own from BrandonCakes if you happen to be in the area. My favorite flavors are Ice Wine, Bubblegum, Li Hing Lemon, Tie-Dye, Vanilla Cake Batter...

Generation Y Are You Such Sissys?

Have you ever been chilling on the internet and had an obnoxiously stupid turn of phrase pop out at you and say, “Hey, look at me! I’m a horrible, horrible phrase and I’m in your face with my horribleness?” This happened to me today. It doesn’t happen often (I think the last time was either retrosexual, emo, or Twilight lover) but when it does this shit sticks with me. The thing that really pisses me off about stupid words is that once I see them they are stuck in my head forever! There is no going back, dammit.

So today I was looking at Pinterest and this thingy popped up:

(Find this infographic at KellyAshworth.com with information from ThinkSplendid.com)

 

Um…what the hell is a millennial? Am I an idiot for not knowing this? Because this “infographic” seems to imply that I am. (Don’t ask me how a graphic can imply anything about me, my husband asks me that question all the time and I’m tired of it. Many things, including inanimate objects, can make horrible implications about you as a person without even knowing that they’re doing it…just like my husband.)

 Of course, after looking at this poster a bit, I finally realized that they are talking about the generation supposedly after my generation, and that made me even more irritated. Firstly, if I’m Generation X, why aren’t we calling them Generation Y? Well, according to Wikipedia, which also prefers to call them Generation Y, “millennial” is a phrase which the generation coined themselves. So millions of kids just spontaneously started walking around saying, "I’m a millennial?" I'm pretty sure that it was people in my parent’s generation that coined the phrase Generation X and that we had no effin' choice in the matter. I've decided to call the millennial generation, Generation Y are you such sissys? There you go sissy generation, you suck.

Secondly, my husband is considered a millennial and I’m not. How can you consider someone who was twenty at the turn of the century a millennial and not someone who was twenty-two? If you're going to use the word millennial to describe a group of people, shouldn't they be a group of people that were born around the millennium, say 1990-2010? They double suck.

 Thirdly - you have to actually read the infographic for thirdly. “They prefer whole foods over processed foods. They will spend more on ethically sourced meats & farm-to-table experiences.” Farm-to-effin-table experiences? How about a my-foot-to-your-face experience? Bigoted foodie hippies are what these kids are. They are the Hitlers of gastrointestinal anything; they want to take out all impure foods and leave only the “pure” Anglo-Saxon food. That's what I'm taking away from this infographic, at any rate. What’s next Generation Sissys? Passing a law against McDonalds? Oh wait, didn't they just ban the Happy Meal in freakin' California because mothers are afraid that their millennial children won't get that farm-to-table experience? (Totally not the reason but whatever.) They triple, quadruple times a billion suck. Screw you Millennnials, I don’t like your name.