Day 81- I Came, I Made An Account, I GOT COMPLIMENTED!

Only today did I notice a review I got on the Doors fanfic I posted on Rockfic. I'm going to have to post it here to properly gush.
"This is really, really good. I do enjoy reading these little slice of life fics; you manage to create a believable OFC with very little apparent effort and not too many details - that's a rare skill, and it's something we will always, always need more of! I'm not a fan of The Doors (although I like their music), but I really enjoyed this piece."
For those who don't speak the fanfic lingo, OFC means Original Female Character. 
When I first read it, I was literally as excited as when I found out there was such a thing as Rock fanfics. I practically screamed. If 1987 Paul Stanley invited me to kiss him, I probably would have an identical reaction.
For my first go, it's pretty gratifying. I always had a little scene I'd play out in my head, where I'd hear Jim Morrison playing the first Doors record, and I'd be confused because The Doors hadn't released a record yet. I'd ask him where he got it, and we'd engage in some sort of adult activity. 
As that was the highlight of my day, I have very little to write about. Hold up, not yet.
In these fanfics, I'm always reading about Axl Rose's deep voice, and I think 'I've heard his voice, it's not that deep', then I read one that mentions you wouldn't suspect how deep his voice is from his singing. Of course, I was intruiged. I searched YouTube for an interview with Axl. HIS VOICE IS SCARILY DEEP! I laughed my head off, and today, I played CJ the same video. Same reaction of shock, disbelief and humor. Hilarious to watch. That was a pretty good part of the day.
That's bout it.

Day 80- Real Talk

I think I've discovered why I'm so addicted to fanfics. They're my pain numb-er; my wrist-cutting, my alcohol. I read them religiously to block out the real world and forget about everything. They help me to avoid life. This could be seen in two lights: as shameful or practical.
I just can't take it. The incessant fighting, the arguing, the criticism. It never ends, so I'll keep reading the fanfics.
One might suppose I tell my friends my problems. That one should know my friends have problems of their own.
Screw it. Fanfics never hurt anybody except for the emotions of the people reading.
Whatever.

Day 79- 50's Poster Family

You've seen them, the families on posters from the 50's. The dad goes to work, the mom takes care of the kids and the house with a smile on her face. Since it's Sunday, Dad didn't actually go to work, but that's the only difference.
We started today with Melanie and I listening to records in the basement, then we went to church, picked up some sausages for lunch, talked as a family on the deck for an hour at least, waited for Dad to finish barbecuing the sausages, at lunch as a family on the deck, kept talking together, went mini-golfing, had ice-cream afterwards.
That's my whole day in a nutshell.
Well, afterwards, I went on to the computer and started reading some steamy GNR fanfics. (There's one where Axl's turned into a girl by an old fairy for being rude to her. It has gotten me actually laughing out loud. But it's only three parts long; first part-a prologue, second part-the story up until Izzy brings Axl off the street, third part-up until Axl wakes up and realizes he's a girl. Waiting eagerly for the next chapter.)
P.S. Sorry for not blogging last night. I was editing a video until 8:30, then totally forgot about everything else.

Day 78- ?

Day 77- Fridays Can Be Lame

Today is one of those days. Health class, social studies test, math and two periods of wasting time on computers.
So little happened, I read at least two fanfic stories on my ipod during the course of the day. (almost laughed out loud at one of them.)
Nothing eventful.
I'll just put a few pictures up to make up for it.

Day 76- I HATE BAR CHORDS!!!!!!!!!!!

For every music class for at least two months, we've been learning guitar. It's alright, but I just wish someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong instead of just guessing what I'm doing wrong. One example of this is STUPID BAR CHORDS!!!!!!!!!!!! Hands are just not meant to bend in that way. How in the world am I supposed to keep my index finger flat and my middle finger bent onto the G string, but still pushing hard enough to make a proper chord? IT IS NOT POSSIBLE!!
Second complaint: my strumming thumb now has a double blister; one from last class, which was almost healed, and a new one from today. There's even a hole in it, so now I have a pocket in my thumb. It can almost hold a Tic-Tac.
Third complaint: The site I tried posting a fanfic to won't let me put it on the site yet. I got a message saying that because I wasn't a 'validated author', that my story was placed in the queue for review.
Fourth complaint: I can't draw like this:

If I could, Robert Plant would be everywhere in my room.

UPDATE: Story is now ONLINE at this link:

http://www.rockfic.com/viewstory.php?title=The+Neighbor+Upstairs&storyid=22415&numchapters=1&category=The%20Doors&author=The_Elder&m=f&sort=date&ratinglist=&genrelist=&bandlist=

If you already have an account, leave a review and tell me how I did.

Day 75- No One Stopped Me, So Now It's Too Late

Two nights in a row. Two night where I've read fanfics until 10:30. Two mornings of waking up at 5:30 because I just can't take it anymore, and have to know what happens. I'm not reading any tonight, just writing it. I may get to sleep sooner, but I'll be gosh darned if I don't stay awake until 10:30 trying to figure out how my story's going to go. I've already got two fans waiting to read it, so that's a bonus.
I can't think of any other conversation to have with my friends anymore. They're all quiet and anti-social, so it's up to me to come up with a topic. We can't talk about our crushes like normal teenage girls, because out of the four of us that sit together, two are lesbians, one's trans and attracted to everything, and there's me.
Usually, we discuss Brin's friends. There's at least 7 of them, and they all have weird names. Brin keeps telling me to meet up with them, but due to overly strict parents, that's virtually impossible. The one she really wants me to meet is Charlie, who's apparently into KISS as much as me. Charlie has no mobile device, so I wrote him a letter. (SNAIL-MAILIN' IT, OLD-STYLE, BABY!)
I listed probably 30 random facts about me and explained my deal with classic rock. Brin's delivering the letter to him; she'll be our mailperson.
Kind of tired, and I have the second half of my exam tomorrow, so toodles.

Day 74- My True Calling

I have a probably unhealthy fixation with rock stars. BUT IM NOT THE ONLY ONE!
Let me elaborate... It's not entirely uncommon for me to write stories staring myself and a rock star. Won't quite mention which ones, though. Last night, after writing the blog entry, I tried to work on one between myself and Alice Cooper, then decided to see if there were any stories like mine on the Internet. Not only did I find Alice Cooper fanfic, I found an entire website dedicated to rock star fanfic. I've spent most of my last 24 waking hours reading Led Zeppelin fanfic. For some reason, all of the ones I've read involve Jimmy and Robert falling in love with each other. I won't lie: I am pretty turned-on by it. The people who write these are geniuses. When I post my first story on the site, I'll post a link to it. Still debating whether it'll be Jim Morrison, Alice Cooper, Robert Plant or Paul Stanley. I've started stories for all of them.
I only want to make a short post, because I'm right in the middle of a really compelling story, where Robert isn't incessantly optimistic, unlike all the others. It's interesting to see him in this light.

Day 73- Nothing To Do Has Its Advantages

Like yesterday, I went on a walk with Angus. It's a true miracle that he has nothing to do two days in a row. Nothing fun happened, just two buddies on a walk.
Concerning more pressing matters: I FINALLY MADE A COVER FOR MY YEARLY MIXED CD!
Every year, I make a mixed CD of my current favorite songs. I found that in the last year, I got all of The Doors' albums, 7 Alice Cooper albums and a slew of others. At the end of April, I combined all my favorites that haven't been used on a previous CD and burned them onto the new mixed one. Even though I only expected it to fit 19 or 20 songs, it fit 45, and had room for more. And not short songs, either. It fit on Stairway To Heaven and November Rain. (Keep in mind, to get November Rain, I specifically bought a 'Best Of GNR' CD. There is absolutely nothing illegal about this mixed CD)
So, the cover is made, and it looks AWESOME! So much better than my last cover.
My only regret about this CD is that I made it too soon after I got new music. 'Patience', 'Civil War', and 'I'll Wait' (by Van Halen), were all left off because I only discovered them a week or two after I burned the CD.
They'll wait for next year's, I suppose.

Day 72- Stallone VS Schwarzenegger: The Official Declaration

Since 1976, the question has plagued us all; who is the better action star? Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger? I have the facts, I took a survey, I have a valid educated opinion.
What defines an action star? The muscles? The tough-guy appearance? Getting the girl while mulching the bad guys with guns? It could be any of the above, but I prefer to think of an action star as someone who gets the audience on an adrenaline high and keeps them there, even if they're only talking to someone.
A few weeks ago, I took a survey amongst my classmates of Stallone vs Schwarzenegger. With Azyl egging them on in Arnie's direction, he won by a landslide. (Granted, they knew the Terminator more than Rocky or Rambo, or just didn't care and went with what Azyl said to get me to shut up.)
I don't consider that survey cannon. None of them knew what they were talking about. They're stupid millennials.
I think of the better action star according to just how much they embody the tough-guy persona. They're both badass well into their 60's, but I'm going to look at their not-so-tough movies: Rhinestone and Kindergarten Cop. A taxi driver-turned country singer and a cop-turned kindergarten teacher. How to describe these? Oy vey. That's how. They're both hysterical movies, but I laughed because they were so ridiculous.
Disregarding these films, the world will forever be plagued by this question. Every person has their opinion. Some like Arnie's smooth accent and one-liners. Others prefer Sly's slack jaw and adventurous flicks. (Not to mention how perfectly he pulled off Rambo. One of the best book adaptions I've ever seen.)
I can't give a full opinion, as I've seen far more of Stallone's movies. (What can I say? Sexy guy doing awesome stuff.) Someday, when I've seen more Schwarzenegger movies, I'll re-evaluate my opinion, but until then, ROCKY IS THE WORLD CHAMPION!

Day 71- Tuesday Deadlines Are For Wusses

I have a reputation of being crafty in both senses of the word. I alter cross-stitch patterns if I find they don't look right and I can crochet almost anything without a pattern. I was hired on Thursday to crochet a stuffed Typhlosion (Pokemon, for all you non-nerds) I told my client it'd be done by Tuesday. Yesterday, I said it was almost done. Today, I started.
It was a bit of a slow start, because Typhlosion's head is tipped back, so I had to make a 90-degree turn in crochet, no easy task, but I did it. (Give me extra credit, I also did it while making half of it in beige and the other half in blue.)
It actually only took 3 hours, if you only start counting when I stopped taking it apart. All I have to do is sew on the eyes. I even put in 56 different strands of yarn for fire on its back.
I had a rough day, so I deserve a slow clap.
*applause for Kat*
Thank you, thank you, you're too kind!
P.s. If I seem a bit nuttier than usual, it's because I watched The Shining alone. Like all Kubrick movies, it should not be watched alone. Cannot believe Jack Nicholson didn't even get a nomination for anything.

Day 70- Festivus

When I was back there in seminary school, there was a person there who put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with prayer. Petition the Lord with prayer. Petition the Lord with prayer.
YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!
If you know where those words come from, you are a true believer. But none of that matters today. I just like where those words come from.
Today was a fun day where there were no actual classes, just games and such. It was also favorite holiday day, so I dressed up fancy-like for Festivus. If you don't know what Festivus is, you may as well just skip today's post, because I'm tired enough as it is without having to go into the backstory of Festivus.
I spent the first hour of today doing nails (totally called out this homophobe who was saying that Matthew getting sparkly nails was 'gay'. I told him to stop being such a homophobe and get his own sparkles. So he did) I got a black star around my right eye and beat a teacher at the coin flip. Second hour, my class beat another class at kickball, tied them at soccer, and I beat Jamaal and Liam at 21.
Third period, I spent in the karaoke room, getting myself prepared mentally for the talent show later. Sammy G was the self-imposed MC for the karaoke room. No one actually wanted to sing, just listen. So there were only three people who actually sang: Me, Sammy G and Duncan. I sang three songs, starting with Doom And Gloom by the Rolling Stones, then Stayin Alive by the Bee Gees and finished with All About The Pentiums by Weird Al (not an easy rap, and I did it without lyrics) Sammy G introduced me every time, complimenting me in sort of weird ways. (Not going to complain. Angus didn't compliment me like that. Speaking of Angus, he always wanted to watch me rap in public, and he only stayed for Doom And Gloom.)
Then the talent show. I wasn't prepared. Alan and I had only practiced with the version with words, not the karaoke version. I was so nervous. We go up to the backstage, and we are told that we're running low on time, and they want to put the people who weren't singing on first, with the singers on next. Alan and I were singing Barbie Girl by Aqua, if I never mentioned it. WE RAN OUT OF TIME AND DIDNT HAVE TO SING! ITS A FESTIVUS MIRACLE!
P.s. I discovered I am extremely fond of ties. Tying them, and wearing them.

Day 1 before 70- Hippie Day

I apologize for the obscure numbering of today's title, but people are immature nimrods and will giggle if I put the number we all know today is. If you are one of the mature humans on this planet, feel free to imagine today's post numbered with the correct number. I apologize again for the immature nimrods of humanity.
Today was Hippie/Crazy Hair day for spirit week. My best costume of the week by far. Jeans, tie-dye, flowered bandanna, jangly bracelets, flowered necklace, silver pendant. It helped my costume that I have the perfect hair to be a hippie. It flopped over the bandanna perfectly.
I came into class all decked out in my uniform of peace and love and started playing 'Magic Carpet Ride' by Steppenwolf from my iPod as loud as it would go. I proped my feet on the desk and wished everyone who walked through the door 'peace and love, man'.
This charade continued on through the day, when I adopted the hippie dialect as my own. I even made up a new adverb ('cubular', like someone is acting square, but what they're doing is square. Pronounced like tubular, but with cube. Square, cube. Get it?)
At one point, it was announced that the grade 8s had a presentation in the mp room. Here's my reaction: "A presentation? Far out, man. That is, like, so totally groovy!"
(By then, I was amping it up to get on people's nerves)
That's all I really have to say about hippies.
Except I go to a class full of squares, that have, like, no school spirit, man.

Day 68- Fancy Wednesday

I've never understood why they decided to have a spirit day for people to dress up in gender-specific clothes and call it special.
Whether I'm genuinely frustrated at the concept or at the fact that I had no gender-specific fancy clothes to wear, I have no idea. I ended up wearing a dress that was passed down to Melanie years ago because nothing else I owned fit me properly.
*Think of me grumbling some nonsense here*
Moving on from nonsensical rubbish...
I've finally reached the milestone I've been striving towards in jazz band: not screwing up when Michael did! We were playing 'Skyfall', and I was ON! I was hitting notes in perfect time and the right notes! I did not make a single mistake, not even during the part that's supposed to be my solo (but isn't, because I was still a newbie when we got the song, and always practiced with Michael playing as well.) There's a little drum bit for the last two measures before the last one where no one plays. But then, a final whole note. I got that note HEAD ON! and Michael didn't; he slurred it upwards.
After the song ended, the band director immediately went to me (Michael and I sit next to each other in the band). "You slurred that last note." He says, with an accusing point. "It wasn't me." I said, "it was him" I pointed. Michael looked guilty for a moment and the director apologized.
Felt like I beat Usain Bolt at a foot race. (Never going to happen, but this is as close as I'm ever going to get.)

Day 67- I'm Many Things, But Basic Isn't One

Had I been born in the 70's that statement would have been a lie, but I'm not, so it isn't. We're in the middle of the spirit week at school, with today's theme being superheroes. Meaning, you dress up as a superhero. But, since Civil War and Batman V Superman and the Suicide Squad are big movies around now, everyone and their mother has a batman ball cap and a superman tshirt. Or they think they're big chiz nerds because they went to see Civil War. (I haven't. I do not plan to. Always been more of a DC kind of gal, myself.) I want to tell all the big-chiz thinkers that being a nerd does not mean you went to see one superhero movie. There's so much more. Like defending it to a near-fistfight against your best friend when they say it sucked. And to the rest of the world via your blog. (Batman V Superman DID NOT SUCK! It was an awesome movie! Ben Affleck lived up to my expectations and surpassed them! No one is ever going to be able to convince me otherwise.)
That, my friends, is how you nerd.
But I'm getting away from the subject.
No one today actually dressed up except for three people, as far as I saw. I even saw three teachers wearing a faded baby-blue superman tee. And don't get me started on the number of kids with gray batman caps. So mainstream. I might not have any superhero getup, as my parents don't really know where I got my love of superheroes, but I was not daunted. I donned a red cape and a mask from an old Incredibles costume (and a blue wig, but that got too tight and was making math impossible.) Admittedly, I felt a bit stupid with the mask up all day, but it made seeing impossible.
Tomorrow is fancy Wednesday, and I don't know what I'm going to do.

Day 66- Weeeeeeeelll...

Now, I could tell you, my faithful readers, about my day. I could give explicit details about gym class and Social Studies. I could tell the mildly humorous story about how every time Angus tried to score a goal during the game of soccer in gym, he slipped and fell right behind the ball and everyone would laugh. I could give great detail about the stupid geometry question we were supposed to know in math, even though we were told nothing about it. I suppose it would be possible to talk about how health class is getting more awkward and we talked about 'safe dating' and no one wanted to go right out and say sex, so someone said 'pillow fights'. Telling the tale of how we read more of the stupid novel in french class and how Mrs. Read is so lazy, she is making us write our own comprehension questions for the chapter would be plausible.
But I'm not going to.
Instead, I'm going to open YouTube and post a link to the first video that shows up in 'suggested videos'.
-1 TAB OPENED LATER-
Can't do that, I've already posted it, so, I'll give the second:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M4_Ommfvv0
-AFTER SCROLLING THROUGH THE COMMENTS-
Someone made a pun referencing 'Panama', so I think it would be appropriate to put it here:

NOTE FOR SELF: Book idea was had today.

Day 65- I Suppose 'The Revenant' Is The Right Title

After church today, I had literally nothing to do. I had already written a thousand words for the book, and I had written in my diary and listed all the CDs in my CD drawer. (There were some pretty obscure ones.) One of the CDs used to have a near-permanent home in the player above the computer, so when I turned on the computer, I would usually listen to it. The first song on it is the first one I ever memorized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtqwL-ZPhAA
I should let you know, my mother used to be my prime music influence, so I listened to a lot of female country superstars. Such as the Dixie Chicks. If I put one link to a Dixie Chicks song, I might as well put a second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojL_35QlSI
Also, keep in mind that I listened to these songs during a time when I didn't read into every word that was sung. They were just sounds I was imitating.
ANYWAY...
CJ texted me and asked if I wanted to go to his mom's classroom and watch a movie. So I did. I knew CJ had wanted to watch The Revenant as much as I did, so I brought my copy of the movie and we watched it. Bryn was passing by as it started, so we ran out of the school screaming what rebels we were and called out to her from the front of the school, forgetting that we should have kept the door open, so we accidentally locked ourselves out. Somehow, we got his mom's attention, and she let us back in.
During the movie, we just kept talking about how hot Leo still is. CJ brought me to a room with a giant collage of quotes and screenshots of Romeo and Juliet, another Leo movie. (Goodness gracious, he's pretty.) We decided that someday we'll watch 'The Man In The Iron Mask' together, because it has the most Leo per minute, sometimes two in the same frame. (He plays twins.)

Leonardo DiCaprio, if you ever see this blog post, just know one thing: NEVER STOP DOING WHAT YOU DO! Every movie you've made has just gotten better and better. Never stop.

Day 64- Lucy Striker, Gal Spy (A title in progress)

Today, I finally decided to hike up my pants and get some writing done. Since John had his friend over and it was raining, Melanie had nothing to do. Neither did I, since I had finished my coding project for the contest. I decided to make it into a kind of game. We've joked around with the idea of co-authoring a book before, but our ideas were entirely rip-offs and we'd always say we'd start writing 'tomorrow', a mythical day that never comes. The first thing Melanie did when I brought up the idea was lead me to the craft room where our plans for our last story were still written. I had made a point of putting that into a small paragraph and seeing if anyone could riddle it out. No one could.
For inspiration, I brought her back into our room and we watched an episode of the Simpsons, S23E06, The Book Job, where Homer and Bart put together a book-writing team. We kept thinking of what we could possibly write about and just kept putting whatever came to mind down on paper. (Well, I did. She doesn't really write fast, so I did most of the writing) I told her that maybe someone should die because all the best stories had someone die. She thought up an idea of a party. I said we should write a spy novel. She asked wether our protagonist was a girl or a boy. I didn't have the guts to say that I didn't think we should write about kids, until she threw out the number 11. Along that idea, our protagonist, who was later named Lucy Striker, became 7. By 2 o'clock, we had a cast of characters, a setting and a plot planned out chapter by chapter. We had also listened to "I'll Wait" by Van Halen at least 20 times. (Neither of us can work properly without music, so we randomly picked a CD out of my drawer, which turned out to be Van Halen's 1984. We hadn't written anything before I'll Wait, but by the end we had written half a page of ideas, so we dubbed it our thinking song.)
By 4 o'clock, I had written most of chapter 1, a total of 2000 words. Not a bad start for a rainy Saturday project.

Day 63- Patience

I have a pretty good reason for today's title, but I also had a pretty good day, so I'll tell about that first.
In my class, there are 18 kids. If there are kids sick, there are less. If there is a track meet, there's less. If there are kids sick AND a track meet, there are very few kids. That's what happened today. For the first two hours, we had only 8 kids in the class, as three of them had gone down to the brilliant lab for the first two hours. 8 kids isn't enough to get study questions for the math exam, so we watched Blue Planet during math. 8 kids isn't enough to correct our Soc. Studies questions, so we went to the computer lab. 11 kids, however, is enough to write the mini-quiz on the first two chapters of the book we're reading in french class. (Win some, lose some) 11 kids is a good amount of kids to play the learning game Kahoot! (Multiple-choice questions projected on the board, answers through portable devices. I'm known as the boss at making the quizzes) While playing all my Kahoot! quizzes, and having a relocation drill, that ate up an hour. 11 kids isn't enough to start something new in English, so we worked on the worksheet that were unfinished last class. (Already finished.)
During today, the most work I did was make a 28-question Kahoot! quiz from scratch. (Started in math, played it two and a half hours later)
Not bad for a Friday. The only thing that could have made today better was if I could have gone on a friendly walk with Angus, but instead, I worked on my entry for a coding competition that's due in half a month. It's mostly finished, but there's always one tiny mistake every time I run through it. And it takes, like, 7 minutes to go through it.
But it's okay, because, thanks to YouTube, I have a never-ending playlist of Alice Cooper songs with a few GNR songs thrown in.
One of the Guns N Roses songs that got put into the Alice Cooper playlist was Patience. I have it on a "best of" compilation CD, but never really payed it much mind. With the music video, it is improved. Now, I'm listening to it on repeat.
I'm not sure what it is, but I'm into singers with long hair. Having a whole decade of guys that fit my checklist is pretty appealing. Since their hair is all so teased and hair-sprayed, it's a pleasant change of pace to have a sweet-looking guy with straight hair. Patience is probably in my top 3 GNR music videos. I will post a link, because tonight, I'm actually on a computer instead of a dinky, tiny-buttoned iPod.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc
(Please click the link before reading the rest of the post)
Isn't he swoon-worthy? He's one of the only singers who can properly pull off the tender crooning and the raspy voice in the same song.
I swear though, if anyone comments bad-mouthing Axl Rose, I'm going to give you a guilt-causing retort that will make you reconsider your life. (I'm on the debate team, try me.)
Watching it again, I just noticed something: he looks EXACTLY like my old buddy, Annie, except she was blond. Annie looked like that when she whistled. She even had the same mannerisms. I think I just blew my own mind. When I go visit her this summer, I'm going to see if that's still the case. It's been three or four years since I saw her.

Day 62- It Ought To Be The Weekend

Tomorrow could not exist and I would be fine with it. There is nothing especially fun happening. Nothing at all. It's day 1 tomorrow, so we have two hours with Mrs Read and an hour with Mrs MacPherson; my least favorite teachers. (Although, not as bad as Mrs Bell, who made girls on their periods who had just eaten lunch run two laps around the school. Today. And I was one of them.)
My favorite part of today I can't tell about, because I was sworn to secrecy. Maybe someday, but not today. I only mention it so I can remember what day it was on for future reference.
I'd rather talk about Alan's new girlfriend. You remember my brother, Alan. Annoying and immature. I have no idea how he got a girlfriend or who she is. He told me, but she's in the English class, so I don't know her. I don't know what she looks like, even. He's trying to keep it a secret from mom and dad like I did with Angus, who, in fact, gave him advice on girlfriends. Alan had asked him based on one of Angus's short-lived relationships with Juliana. He still has no idea we were dating.
Note to self: shortcuts are fine, but not uphill

Day 61- Noodling

If I haven't brought this up yet, I'm in the school band. Two of the three: Intermediate and Jazz. Jazz band rehearsals were today, as it is every Wednesday. In intermediate, I play clarinet, but in jazz, I'm first tenor saxophone.
First means I'm the best player, and I get the harder music. Unfortunately, being first also means I'm more liable to be stuck with solos. I absolutely hate solos. I am an introvert; there is no desire for all eyes to be on me. Generally, there aren't solos written into the music, just a part to repeat for everyone who wants a solo.
One of our newer songs, Summertime, has a solo written in for first tenor. I had looked over second's part earlier that day, and the first and second parts aren't all that different, so I took first. (Plus, I wanted to run it into Mary's face that even though we started playing tenor at the same time and she practices and I don't, I'm still a better tenorist)
If I had the chance, I would happily switch to second tenor for Summertime. I do not want a solo. Alex, however, did want a solo, and didn't get one. The only issue is that she plays Barritone saxophone, which is in a different key than tenor. As a solution, I completely transcribed my solo into the Eb key. She lost the only copy of the transcribed solo.
During rehearsals today, it came time for the tenor solo. Alex didn't have it. I'm no good at figuring out things I haven't looked over on the fly, so I noodled. Noodling is a term used for improvising and just playing random notes. I noodled so bad, and all the director had to say was :"Watch your key signature". I wasn't paying attention to anything; just noodling. If I can fake something that well, I must be very able to noodle.

Day 60- I Give Up

I give up. I have been disappointed for the final time. They have wasted too much of my time. I am DONE WITH SCHOOL! Seriously. Life is too short to be this bored. I don't care if some of the kids are slow at things. I'm not. There are always kids like me, who actually do the work and don't screw around. Therefore, I have to pay for their chatterboxiness with my time. What did I do in my spare time? I looked through screenshots of Friends quotes. I took a survey of Stallone vs. Schwarzenegger. (5 for Stallone, 10 for Schwarzenegger, 1 neither and 1 "wha?") I marvelled in despair at this generation of people who don't know the Rocky theme when they hear it. I made a collage of Friends quotes pictures. I called out Mrs. Read for being a sham of a teacher. (Well, I told her the class preferred Stallone over Schwarzenegger and that was the one thing I learned that day, but close enough)
Now, I'm reading classic novels while listening to classic Alice Cooper.
I'm just in an all-around bad mood.
No one approach me.
I generally save my bad moods for when I'm alone or with my siblings, because my friends all have their own issues, and me being sour won't help the atmosphere. I'm not a bad person, am I?
I try to be good.
But...
It's so hard.

Day 59- Dad Needs To Get His Helicopter Liscense Revoked

I've probably complained about my daddy issues before, but tonight's takes the cake.
I was working on a mini version of my rock n roll cross-stitch. Brin had seen it and wanted her own copy of Kurt Cobain, so I was making his image on a mini square all night. I finished around 8:40, and was knee-deep in an episode of the A-Team. (I'd seen it before, but S01E13 is a real nail-biter) I figured I'd stay quiet for a while and just try to finish the episode. At 9:10 exactly, Dad yells down that it's bedtime in the same voice that he used when he had to call me twenty billion times when I was little. I get upstairs and tells me it's my final warning that 8:30 is my bedtime. That it is completely unacceptable that I stay up to 9:15 every school night.
Seriously, Dad needs to get off his high horse. He has less than 4 years before I make my own bedtime. I have at least 10 kids in my class who eat supper around 8. A few days ago, on a walk with Angus, he said he had to be home before 7, so he could eat supper. I chuckled a little and said I had to be home for 7 to go to bed. (7 actually is the official bedtime for my entire family, but I put up enough of a fuss that they let me stay up for another hour and a half, because even they have to agree that a 6 year difference in age merits a later bedtime)
I don't want to sound like a spoiled brat, but seriously, this is ludicrous.

Day 58- I Only Overshot Twice

Well, it's Mother's Day and a Sunday, so today was not my favorite day in the world. I have nothing against Mother's Day; it's all a very nice idea and all, but in my family, if we do not spend ever waking moment of the day with the parent we are honouring, it's cause for shame and a stern talking-to. If it only happened once a year, I would be fine with it, but our list consists of: Mother's Day, Father's Day, both birthdays, their anniversary. That's five whole days. (Dad's really picky, if we don't do as is commanded, we have to try again the next week, but he's only picky on Father's Day)
For some reason, the five youngest people in my family had a hankering to play tennis. We played for an hour after church, then asked Mom to take us to the actual tennis court. We have two courts in a fenced-in area, totally unsupervised, unmonitored, but people do just use it for tennis. The fence is pretty big, but I still shot two balls over it. The first time was an accident before we even started: I was playing against the block of wood put up against the fence so you can play against yourself and I served over the fence. The second time, we were actually playing, and I swung too hard on a ball I should have let go. (Only today did I graduate to a full-sized adult racket from my kiddie-sized, and they weigh different, so I was still getting used to it)
I'm relatively proud of how I played. I did not suck, so that's always a plus.
But tomorrow's Monday. The cycle lands on day 3, so we only have Mrs Read once. Clouds with silver linings all around

Day 57- Cross-stitch, Woo-hoo!

I'm a crafty type gal. In both senses of the word. I scheme and I craft. Today, I was dragged to a place I didn't want to go to to see people I had no desire to see. So, I brought a craft to work on, my cross-stitch. If you don't know, cross-stitching is making tiny, multicoloured 'x's on a piece of cloth with embroidery floss to make a picture. Since Christmas, I've been working on my biggest yet. It's the alphabet of rock n roll! A miniature image of a member of a band (or solo artist) whose name corresponds with a letter of the alphabet. I found this idea on Pinterest, but some artists I'm less familiar with, so I replaced them with other ones.
Today, I finished the hair on the guy from Metallica, finished Kurt Cobain, and started on Ozzy Osbourne. I've done all the people from A-O, excluding K, because the pattern put Gene Simmons as the member, and I found an alternate pattern for Paul Stanley online, and I haven't gotten around to printing it off yet.
My problem with this pattern is that the colour they used for light blond hair is so similar to the skin colour. I almost left off the Metallica Guy's goatee because I couldn't see it. (Looking it up, Metallica guy might be Kirk Hammet, but I am unsure)

Day 56- Physics

Angus and I have reached a truce. We do not hate each other, and are planning to remain friends.
But physics. For a solid hour and a half today, I tried to figure out how to properly position a camera on a tripod above a turntable. Unfortunately, physics does not allow it. The camera I was using has a tendency to have its batteries pop out, so the little door has to be pushed shut for the camera to work. My solution: a wood working clamp. More problems and solutions kept arising:
P: Clamp was too heavy for the screw holding the camera on the tripod.
S: propped it up with DVD boxes.
P: Not enough room on the camera for the clamp to work without pushing the stabilizer button
S: Screw it! Not possible for a camera that lousy to be put in that position.
P: no angle.
S: instead of having the camera directly overhead, position the tripod to hold the camera in front of the record, and slightly above.

All this is for a series of videos I plan to make and might put on YouTube: 'Listening To Dad's Record Collection', where I listen to dad's record collection and give my honest opinion. Could be fun. Afterwards, I'll do CDs.

Day 55- Break-up Pie

The coward didn't show up at school. I was totally prepared to give him a piece of my mind, but it's probably better this way. I've had time to calm down and realize that I don't care about him. Even if a part of me denies it, I know I can't be with such a spineless glob of jelly as that. But, I did treat myself to the traditional treats entitled to someone who was broken up with via a text message: break-up pie. A heavenly rhubarb meringue pie. A big ol' slice o' pie. It was sooooooo good.
One thing that wasn't good was the fact that we had to study that stupid song "fight song" in English class because it was 'full of figurative language'. We had to listen to the whole bloody thing three bloody times. When did English class become 'stupid music class'? We're supposed to be reading classic books and discussing them. Maybe a writing assignment. I generally like English class from year to year, but these past two years have been pointless. What have I learned? (Well, I learned about Rob Lowe, but I would have seen 'The Outsiders' eventually)
Once again, English class is stupid. I wish we had an assignment where we had to write a short work of fiction. A hundred pages, at least; but that would be our only homework.
School itself is stupid. Nothing I learn I will ever use, and what I will use, they make me keep practicing it for weeks on end.
It bores me.
So, now I'm learning Italian.
Sono Affamato

Day 54- Love Freaking Sucks

I think I was dumped via Snapchat, so I'm extremely depressed. Not because he dumped me, but because he was spineless enough to not only do it over Snapchat, but say he didn't have to do it in person because I'm the one who broke his trust. Pardon me for telling 7 people who I thought I could trust to keep a secret. We only had to keep it a secret so that he wouldn't be teased. Not only teased, but teased by people he doesn't even like. He values their opinion of him over a relationship with me. If I broke his trust, he broke my heart. I loved him, but now he can burn and rot in hell.

Day 53- No, I'm Not Crazy; It's Just An Absolutely Brain-Meltingly Fantastic Album

That is what I had to repeat more than once today. I'll give some backstory:
It all started long ago, when the batteries in the stupid man cave clock died. I call it stupid because the basement is not a 'man cave'; it's a 'Kat cave', because I spend more time in the basement than the collective population of males in my house. The clock itself is stupid because it comes from the era when the basement's walls were dedicated solely to sports, which I find stupid. (Now, we covered one of the pictures of Alan with the poster that came with Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. We moved down two of the same goalie, and replaced them with posters of Jim Morrison, KISS, and The Beatles.) So, the batteries died, and time started to have no meaning in the basement. We replaced the batteries, but now, I have to look at a clock with some butt-ugly guy making a grunting-type face whenever I want to check the time.
Now, as I'm in grade 8, I have woodshop once every 6 school days, and I have to make something out of wood. One of the options is to make a clock. Being someone in desperate need of a clock, I had to choose between a clock or a bigger CD rack. Do I live with the 5 layers of CDs beside the player, who do I keep staring at that hideous face for the time? I chose the clock. If I have time at the end of the term, I can make an additional layer for my CDs.
A clock made in woodshop is a rectangle with the numbers on one half, and a logo or design of some kind on the other half. Most kids choose a sports logo, or a number. I chose Led Zeppelin's 4 symbols. (It was a hard choice between them and the KISS army logo. I got talked out of that because there were too many colors.)
I printed out a picture of the four symbols and traced a circle around them, because the woodshop teacher is highly against squares. The whole time I was cutting out the circle: "What do they mean?" "Are they, like, symbols of a cult?" (yes.) "Why would you put something on a clock that no one knows what it means?" (Anyone who's anyone knows where the symbols come from)
The whole time, I was trying to convince the people around me who had nothing better to do that I was basically putting the name of an album on a clock. ("Who's the band?")
This is why I cry for this generation. They do not know of the symbols. How can any self-respecting human being not know what the symbols are?
In case you are one of the non-self-respecting human beings, these are the symbols. The four symbols. They represent music the gods wrote and the angels sang. They represent the four members of Led Zeppelin: (clockwise, starting from top left) Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and John Bonham. (Clockwise, that was a pun. Get it?)

Day 52- 2 Times In A Day, We're Getting Saucy

Angus and I, we're getting saucy. And before I write anything else, I want to take back almost everything I said yesterday. Before we even got to school, I remembered it was Monday. Last Monday, he had been unavailable for walking, due to football practice. So, this morning, I asked if it was the same case today. He said he didn't know. I was feeling pretty romantic due to the romance novel I read yesterday, so we skipped to second base for a minute. (If you don't know what that means, you aren't allowed to know.)
Today wasn't too eventful school-wise, so I going to tell about the second time as well.
I was finished supper and clean-up at 4:21. He didn't have practice until 8. Therefore, we had an hour and a half for a walk.
We talked and walked and stalked. There was this guy we passed who was wearing the same hat as Angus, and he was convinced that the guy was future him. We passed these other guys who were wearing flappy short shorts as they jogged. (Massive fun made of them. On the way back, Angus 'dabbed' in their general direction. They chuckled.) He spotted a bush of a flower and said it was lavender. I walked up the hill to the bush and confirmed that it was, indeed, lavender. At around 6, we were nearing the area where we generally make out. I asked him if he remembered how many layers had been in his way that morning, then said it was down to two.
I'm not going to give you people details, because this isn't '50 Shades Of Grey' I'm writing here; just an innocent romance between two teens who can only fully confide in each other.

P.S. I've decided that the Aerosmith song that ruined my weekend is going to be my wedding song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkK8g6FMEXE

Day 51- Aerosmith Ruined My Weekend

I like Aerosmith. They have catchy tunes, jazzy horns, and a lead singer who seems born to scream. They also have this song that filled me with more self-pity and longing than I already was. That is why they ruined my weekend.
Today started alright. I was forced to go outside for an hour, so I snuck out to one of the places where Angus and I go on our walks to read a kinky Scottish romance novel. (I don't know why, but only the romance novels about Highlanders get to me.) When I got home, I ended up finishing the 400-page novel on the same day I started it.
You'll recall, yesterday I said Dad was hosting a party for the grads at his university. Well, their parents came too. And they all showed up 80 minutes late, and stayed 2 hours longer than originally planned. The whole time, these random strangers were asking me things. At least two asked if I planned to go to the university they were graduating from. (I have no choice, Dad's forcing me to go)
So, as the party's winding down, I get this panic attack. I realize that Dad has been more of a help to these people's futures than mine. I realize that I'm a failure at almost everything in life. Then, coming upstairs, I suddenly think up this chorus of a song I heard in a movie once. I searched it in YouTube, found out it's by Aerosmith, and proceeded to cry my eyes out. Why? Because I'll never have that. For a relationship to work, both people have to work at it. I realize that Angus is a busy guy, and that to keep everything secret, we have to act normal. But it's getting tiresome to have to plan out our dates in the openings of his schedule. Almost every day, I text him, asking him to walk with me. Every time, it's either he can't, or 5 hours of silence, and then he can't. We haven't been dating for a month yet, but the 4 times we went out walking were the only times I can remember being truly happy. It hurts that we have to be so secretive. Even if it's just strangers we pass. No one can know, because when people do, they almost ruin it. (Shelby, you know who you are)

Aerosmith: I Don't Want To Miss A Thing