Day 164- Binge-watching

Since I've been so busy writing for the last few days, I've had no chance to watch the second half of the first season of GOT. Even though I already know what happens, it's still a nail-biting show. Seriously, even though it's 18+, it's brilliant. I love how well-made it is. The actors are perfect. Especially Kit Harrington as Jon Snow. He is exactly as I imagined him to be while reading. Except for the accent; that was simply a pleasant surprise. 

I spent an hour this morning finishing the second half of the next chapter of my story. Alan was being a whiny butthole, so I stopped there and went to have a frosted toaster pastry for breakfast. I mention this only because I have only ever had three frosted toaster pastries in my life, and this was the first one I ever had for breakfast. Then, I went to the basement (which is finally mine again, thank the heavens) and binged five episodes of GOT. No one said anything about it, even though I was supposed to turn off the TV at 9. After the five episodes, I watched Monty Python's Life Of Brian because Dad had been watching it last night, and I only got to see a few minutes due to a bedtime technicality. (Even as a teenager in summer, I'm still disciplined if I go to bed any later than 9. Sleep on the other hand, is in my hands.)

Day 163- Back On Track (Today)

I had a lot of time to write today, so I got to update my vampire story a few hours earlier than I usually do. This was the most plot-twisting update so far.
In case you didn't bother to read my story, here's the short version:
Axl was dating Stephanie Seymour, who was a vampire, but Axl didn't know. On one date, she bites him and drinks his blood, leaving his unconscious body on the bed. He has a painful transformation. Later that night, he sneaks out and bites a rabid dog, killing it from blood loss. He sneaks back to the apartment and almost gets off scot-free, but Izzy catches him taking off blood-splatter clothes after hours of screaming and coming back from the roof. Izzy assumes Axl killed Stephanie and warns him that he knows. Over the next 20 days, Axl repeats the pattern and drinks down a stray every night. Izzy sees him leaving every night and confronts him about it. Being in a closed quarters with a human and a thirst building is making Axl uncomfortable, so he tries to escape by punching Izzy in the face. This busts open Izzy's lip and blood spills. Axl loses all control and bites Izzy, much in the same way Stephanie did.
So that's the story. Between the time I posted the update and the four hours after, I got four reviews by four different people. Here they are, because I just love bragging about people loving me:

 Please for the love of all that is pure, make Izzy a vampire too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes!! Yes!! Oh my God, fucking YES! I'm so happy that you did this, thank you! I loved this chapter even before Izzy became a vampire (he is one now, yes?)? This line: "Izzy’s still a little wary of me, as he thinks I murdered Stephanie, Slash and Duff are just eye-fucking each other all the time and Steven, well, he’s an oblivious cream puff."I loved it, it was hilarious. The part about Slash's butt imprint was also genius. So there's a SLuff here, huh? Will they feature more in the story? Also, what will happen between Axl and Izzy? And how, if at all, will Axl be able to go back to drinking animal blood after he's tasted human blood? Please update soon!

I like this♡

Another great chapter! I really like how, when Axl drains Izzy, the narrative calls him "my meal", as though Axl is in total predator vampire mode. Then when Izzy speaks, he's "Izzy" again, snapping Axl out of his bloodthirst. An amazing touch! As always, I'm excited to see how this plays out; will Izzy survive and be the first member of Axl's coven? Or will he die, and Axl will have grief and anger and a dead bandmate to deal with?

Tomorrow, I might have something more exciting to write about. Maybe. As it's summer and I'm on my period, there isn't a lot of variation from day to day.

Day 162- Life Is Freaking Perfect (August 20)

I remember back to Day 26 of this blog. I was super bummed and just totally out of it. Nothing was going my way and life just sucked. Since then, I've gotten over an ex, and found a new calling where everyone loves me. (Okay, only the three people who left reviews)
But, seriously. People who's work I've followed since I joined the site telling me how great my work is. Is it just me, or does this blog kind of mirror a rags-to-riches story.? A kind of started-from-the-bottom-now-we're-here type of deal?
Thinking about it, it kind of freaks me out. Summer's almost over, then I go to high school. Naw, some people will see being a popular fanfic writer as something to be ashamed of. Screw 'em!
On the 20th, my aunt and cousin came over to spend the night. My cousin is literally the cutest thing. He's 4 and talks a lot more than when I saw him last. My aunt's kind of a board game freak and made one for us to play. It was a lot of fun, and my team lost by one dice roll.

I'm sorry I'm so bubbly. It feels so weird to be so happy. I hope that anyone reading this can be as happy as me.





Just watch- I guarantee two weeks from now, I'm going to be all depressing again.

Day 161- Life Is Better With Compliments (August 19)

Being me, I have a very difficult time getting any sort of compliment around my house. It's not like I go fishing for compliments, but when I live with a techno-wizard brother, a brother on the hockey team and a little sister who is the little sister and plays the 'cutest little one who's too little to do anything yet' role, it's slightly difficult to get any sort of love. My book was my claim to fame last January, but people have forgotten about that by now. I don't really care; I've stopped trying. Whatever I do, someone will outshine it someday. So, that's why I turned to fanfiction.
It used to only be a simple pass-time that I read vigorously. Then, I started writing it. Nothing ever got finished, let alone published, but then, I published one. You remember, the one about Jim Morrison, I put the review here. Nothing felt quite as good as someone giving me compliments for something that I liked doing. That's when I first felt the compliment buzz. When I published my second ongoing story; Sweethearts, I got three reviews, all adorably positive. What I noticed, though, is that the most popular niche by far is the GN'R stories, so I took it upon myself to write one. When I woke up the morning after I published my GN'R story, there were three emails alerting me of reviews. One of them was posted by my fanfic idol. She is literally the bomb. She writes these really eloquent Led Zeppelin fanfics, like novel-length. I love her work.
Long story short, I went full fan girl when I saw that one of my favorite writers of all time complimented my work. I squealed, bit my lip and did that weird wrist-flapping thing. I couldn't stop myself. I mean, this is what she wrote:

omg please continue this!!! This didn't go where I thought it would at all, and I couldn't be happier. I want to see Axl deal with his newfound "condition" and struggle with bloodthirst while masquerading as a human. And what about Stephanie? Will Axl go after her for revenge? Will she make her own coven of vampires? You've listed this as a slash fic, so I'm curious what the pairing will be and if it will remain a human/vampire dynamic, or if Axl will turn his human lover. The possibilities are limitless and I'm excited! 

If that isn't reason to go full fan girl, I don't know what is. I mean, this is like Jimmy Page complimenting my guitar playing. Well, I would probably faint if Jimmy Page complimented my guitar playing, because there is just no way to get enough oxygen to the brain if something like that happens.

 

Day 160- PUBLISHED!!!!!!! (August 18)

On the 18th, I published my story, and I have been resisting the urge since then to put a link to it here, but reasoned that I couldn't because I wasn't on a day where it existed yet. Now I am, so here it is:
http://www.rockfic.com/viewstory.php?title=Back+In+The+Shadows&storyid=23556&numchapters=3&category=Guns%20&%20Roses&author=The_Elder&m=f&ratinglist=&genrelist=&bandlist=
All day on the 18th, I was just trying to fix up all the chapters, so that I'd have two on reserve for days when the writer's block is bad and I really have to post something.
Please read it, because I'm so proud of how it's going so far.
Here's Bowie playing the cello:

Don't he look distinguished?

Day 159- My Stupid Vampire Story: Part 2 (August 17)

I went on a bike ride to the library on the 17th, so I got to write all day again. On the 17th, I finished my layout and totally figured out what was going to happen and where. I even got started writing. It was written in a rotating first person, with the first four chapters being from Axl's view. Most of it will be, because he's kind of the main character for the first half of the story.
I ended up getting chapters two and three finished, and having most of chapter one fleshed out, just needing some bits to connect all I had written together.
There was also an obscene amount of time spent on Pinterest, looking for images of exactly what I expected the band to be looking like at certain points.
There isn't much else to write about for that day.
Here's mini Spiderman and Deadpool in a donut:

Day 158- My Stupid Vampire Story (August 16)

On the 16th, it was raining all day, so I got to go on the computer for most of the day and was struck by a brilliant idea for a fanfiction: what if GN'R were vampires? That's never been done, right? (Actually, it has, but not since '04-'05) Most of the people on the site I go to don't venture very deep into the old fics. I venture deep for ideas and found a vampire fic where only Duff and Izzy were living after chapter 3 because they killed the rest of the band. I thought it was a little corny, so I started trying to come up with my own concept. I put it into a spreadsheet and plotted out what has to happen in each chapter, the characters in each chapter, possible dialogue to put in... etc.
On the first day I worked on this plan, I was having some relatively bad writer's block, so I only plotted out the first 9 chapters. I didn't quite know where I was going with the story, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be boring.

Seriously, I will do anything to make a Bowie reference.

Day 157- Valley (August 15)

As a yearly tradition, my family goes down to the valley to pick peaches. Well, Mom, Dad and Jon pick peaches; Alan, Mel and I wait around in the petting zoo, and play with the rabbits or whatever is actually still in the zoo. This year, it was goats. We were a little weary of goats, because sometimes goats bite little fingers. We just picked leaves of the trees and fed them. There were three goats, so we each named one. Mine, with the blue collar, was Ziggy. (Stardust, dont'cha know?) Alan called the red collared one Arnoldio and Mel called the one with no collar Munchie.
We spent a solid two hours with the goats. We fed them, petted them, tried to have a proper merry-go-round ride with them. (One of those old, run-as-fast-as-you-can-and-jump-on-banned-from-every-school-yard-for-the-rest-of-time types.) We got all three goats and the three of us onto it and for a while, too. Then, the owner lady threw in the goat who had escaped, the fourth, who I ended up dubbing 'Todd'. All in all, there were 7 kids on a single merry-go-round. After the three originals went down for a nap, I sat down on the stairs of the slide and Todd came up and put his head on my lap. We tried to get him to go down the slide, but he was wary of the slipperiness.
But that was only the fun part. We had to fit Oma and Opa into the van as well. 8 of us in the van. It was a long drive, too,so we were watching Corner Gas to pass the time. We went through a whole season. I must admit that it wasn't as funny when Oma was doing a dry spit-take every time an intended joke was said, even if it wasn't funny.
Oh, well.

Day 156- I Was Lazy (August 14)

Sometimes, when I'm lazy, I'll do things the more complicated way just to save myself trouble of doing it later. On the 14th, I spent the entire day on the computer, trying to make a classic rock compilation video to put on YouTube. I made it four hours long on software that wasn't compatible with YouTube. So, first I edited it for five hours. Then, I spent four hours waiting for it to convert to a YouTube-compatible format. THEN, I spent another buttload of hours uploading it to YouTube. THEN, I found out that without a phone number, I can't upload videos longer than 15 minutes.
At supper, when I was asked how my day went, this was my face:

Day 155- The Theater (August 13)

The best thing about the stupid Lego room, is that I complained about it enough that Dad finally let me go see a play at our town's summer theater. I had been wanting to for years, but this was declared as the first year I'd be old enough to do so. After seeing the play, I can fully agree with that judgement. The whole twist of the play was an extreme amount of incest. I can't tell the name of the play or anything else about it, because I saw the world premier, so there's only one town where its been performed. It was good, though. I laughed my butt off when the mental character shrieked at the top of his lungs at the celebrity he saw.
On the thirteenth, my cool cousin came to town. She's basically every girl in my class, but we're, like, best buds, so it's cool. I gave her the full story of my relationship with Angus, from the day I asked him out to the day he dumped me. We had a good chat and a good karaoke trampoline party. She's a fun gal, I like her.


I also like Ringo. I literally snorted at this picture.

Day 154- Camp: Awkward Gone! (August 12)

If one knows anything about me, they know I practically live in my basement. It is my habitat. That is why I was majorly peeved and not at all enthusiastic when Dad suggested we move out the pool table from the basement, bring all the Lego down and turn half of my habitat into a 'Lego Room'. I voiced my discontentment clearly. Unfortunately, I was given a 24-hour ultimatum to come up with a different solution of how to keep the boys' room clear of Lego. I spent half of my energy at camp trying to come up with a solution. There was no way I was letting anyone take over my habitat. It is an unspoken rule that the basement is the one place where I can be alone and have no one judge me. This is not what happened. By the time I get home, the only thing the Lego Room lacks is actual Lego. They moved everything and went ahead with the plan without me giving input. They did, however give me veto power over the music. Whoop-dee-doo. That is so not the point. The point is that I need somewhere to release pent-up anger by singing alone at the top of my lungs. I cannot do that when there are other people there talking and rustling through Lego.

My apologies for the foul language of the GIF, but it is literally how upset I am.
Now camp went well. I begged my family not to come, because I didn't want them to see me break down if that were to happen. We had two scenes planned out and fully rehearsed earlier in the week. While setting up the stage, we realized that it wouldn't be enough, so we set up two more. Our opening was called the 'Miss Universe' scene. We were all introduced and had our two hobbies listed; juggling and something else even lamer. This was funny, because no one except me could juggle. The other hobbies were things like 'sitting down', 'napping', 'drinking water'. I was last. My hobbies were 'juggling', at which point, I'd start juggling and everyone would expect me to fail, but I'd keep going and my second hobby would be 'and actually being good at it'. Our second bonus scene was the 'circus scene', where we all went out and showed off our juggling abilities. As soon as someone dropped their bags, they would stalk off stage, which left me standing there for nearly half a minute after everyone else left.
Then we did the monologue scene, and finished off the performance with our Midsummer Night's Dream Monologue.
I'm glad my family didn't come. Seriously. They had no business being there.

Day 153- Camp: The Nearly No Longer Awkward Fourth Day (August 11)

Out of all the days of camp, the fourth one was by far the most stressful. On that day, we tried to figure out a way to piece the monologues together. Which we did, by the way. On the other side, I tried to do some method acting for my really emotional monologue. That is not what happened. I started crying fake tears, then couldn't stop. I totally lost it.
On that day, I finally got the hang of juggling. I could throw with both hands and if I could have only stayed in one place long enough, I would have been able to call myself a juggler.
In our on-going game of circular full-body volleyball, we reached a streak of 95, and only missed it because Katie double-tapped.
That whole day, I was freaking out about the performance the next day, and was hoping to anything that I wouldn't break down again mid-scene.
Suffice to say, not my favorite day of camp.

Day 152- Camp: The Almost No Longer Awkward Third Day (August 10)

What I've never understood about my week at drama camp, and will most likely never understand, is why, for an hour every day, they made us juggle beanbags. Everyone would gather in the middle of the big floor and just try to juggle. Not me, though. I was smart and found a strategy that led to less frustration: I positioned myself next to the cutoff in the stage so that the floor came up to my knees and I didn't have to bend over every time I dropped the bags. I had the hand motions down, and could catch the bags all right, but my mind wouldn't let me throw the bag in my left hand the second time. It just wouldn't. I spent the entire hour trying to get a good beat going and be able to throw the bag the second time.
After lunch, the group sat down to work on writing our own monologues for the characters we had created the previous day. Had I known that these monologues would eventually be pieced together with everyone else's to create one big scene, I probably would have worded mine differently. But I didn't, so that isn't what happened.
During our slow parts of the day, we played a game called 'Mafia'. It was sort of a role-playing game of suspicion and betrayal. The way it works is there is a narrator who doesn't play, but tells the story. The narrator constantly circles everyone else, who is sitting in a circle. Before the game starts, all the players come up with a name for their town. Everyone shuts their eyes and the narrator selects one person to be the mafia, one to be the paramedic and one to be the detective by tapping each one a different amount of times. Our game of 'Mafia' went somewhat like this:
The township of Bunnybutt Cheeseburger has a mafia problem! Night had fallen and the mafia woke up. (Mafia opens their eyes) They decided to run someone out of town. (mafia points at one person to be run out of town) Then the mafia went back to sleep and the paramedic woke up. (mafia shuts their eyes and the paramedic opens theirs.) The paramedic chose to save one person that night. (paramedic points at someone) And the paramedic went back to sleep and the detective woke up. (paramedic shuts eyes and detective wakes up) The detective did some snooping and chose one person to find out about. (detective points to someone and the narrator gestures back what their status is; mafia, paramedic or civilian) And the detective went to sleep. And morning came. (Everyone opens their eyes.)
At this point, if the mafia and paramedic pointed at the same person, the person is safe. If they didn't, the person the mafia ran out of town is run out of town in ways the narrator imagines. Then, the remaining townspeople have a vote on someone to run out of town. They argue and pick two nominations out of the remaining people, then vote on who they wish to run out of town. The game ends when either the mafia is one of the two remaining people, in which case the mafia wins, or when the mafia is voted out of town, in which case, the town wins.

Day 151- Camp: The Mildly Less Awkward Second day (August 9)

After getting an idea of our personalities, our camp instructors took us out on a mini-field trip to help us crawl out of our shells of pure cowardice. We went to the little park near the place where camp was held. The little park was perfect, because it had a little performance gazebo as well as benches, a river and over 15 different trees.
In the park, they told us to rehearse the monologue we had gotten the previous day; the one that A Midsummer Night's Dream closes with. They told us to try and put different emphasis on each word in the sentence and try to make it have totally different meanings. So we did.
Next, they told us to take out our notebooks and create a character. Anyone we wanted. I already had a sort-of character I'd been trying to write a story about, so I used him. I called him Arrow, a magician from a different version of Earth who was sent to our world because his was supposed to be destroyed by the government. If I'm being honest, I was totally ripping David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth, except in that movie, he was an alien in search of water for his dying planet. By the end of the week, the only thing similar between Arrow and Thomas Jerome Newton were their accents and their hair.
As I will not remember these people in the future, I'm going to describe all the other characters I had the pleasure of acting alongside during the week:
Chelsea: Maureen, a 57-year-old momma bird who's son is getting married and she feels like he's still a little boy.
Emma: Susan, a 30-something soccer mom who is forcing soccer on her son so she can live her dream through him of making it to the olympics, which she can't do due to an injury several years back.
Taylor: Princess Alina, a 16-year-old descendant of a royal family of a country that no longer exists due to a spelling mistake. She is spoiled and acts like a princess, even though the country she is a princess of no longer exists.
Finn: Tyler, a 13-year-old wild boy who talks like Stitch and is constantly searching for his family.
After we had all explained our characters, we had an improv exercise called 'Park Bench', where characters come in, talk with whoever is sitting on the bench, then the person who was already there leaves and a new person comes in. It was kind of fun, but I'm not a good actress, and I'm afraid Arrow came across as a prim grammar school bloke.
Oh, well.

This is Thomas Jerome Newton.

Day 150- Camp: The Awkward First Day (August 8)

As awkward and shy as I am, I've got a huge panache for the arts. I love to sing (behind closed doors, with only me being able to hear), I dance (in front of mirrors) I adapt different accents randomly (no side note here; it's true), I'm very dramatic and expressive. I'm just not good at doing it in front of strangers. That didn't stop me from going to drama camp.
As soon as I walked through the doors, I was kicking myself for having decided to sign up. What business did these people have getting me to express myself.
We started by playing the name games; Me, Taylor, Chelsea, Emma, Finn and the instructors: Jeff, Katie and Melanie.
Name games; we wrote in notebooks for half an hour; stretches; vocal warm-ups; yoga; juggling (no rhyme or reason; they just told us to each get three bean bags and start juggling) we got an hour for lunch, then started reading through some scenes and monologues.
Now, a drama camp could work if there was at least one outgoing kid among us. Sadly, there was not. They were literally four other versions of me. Most of the first day was spent awkwardly looking around the room, hoping someone else would volunteer to go first. Long story short, the first day of camp was not the best day of camp.

Day 149- Buddies (August 7)

The 7th was the day Avril and Maureen came over. You see, their grandparents live about an hour away from us, so they always stop by when they visit them. Since we had already seen them this year, they only stayed for two hours. But that didn't stop us from having our annual game of Risk.
Risk, for those who don't know, is a board game of global domination. In the version we play, everyone is distributed an equal amount of cards, each with a 'province' on it. The board itself is a world map divided into 36 'provinces'. Everyone divides their little armies among all the provinces they're dealt. They give their cards back to the dealer, keeping one card, which is their 'secret headquarters'. Once that province is captured, the player that captured it takes the card. The point of the game is to collect everyone's secret headquarters. So, we played that for two hours. Alan had the most headquarters cards, but I had captured the most provinces.
As soon as Avril and Maureen were leaving, I got a telephone call from my old buddy, CJ. She wanted to hang out at some point. I had wanted to call her since I got home, but was hesitant as I knew she was going to camp at some point during the summer and didn't want to seem like the uncaring friend by not knowing when it was. I practically begged her to come over, because I had all the new music and clothes and sort of wanted to show them off. My unplanned afternoon suddenly became totally booked.
CJ showed up about an hour later. We talked like hooligans for a long time, never shutting up. She told me I had finally lost the bet we had made earlier in the year and I now owed her a box of Oreos. Then we conspiracy theorized about Brin, just joking around and things like that. For a long time, I had been forcing scenes from a movie called The Linguini Incident upon her, so we finally watched the whole thing together. (It's got Bowie in it, that's probably the only reason she agreed to watch it.)
We listened to records, watched vines, ate chocolate cereal dipped in chocolate pudding and just all around had a crazy time until she had to leave. I hadn't noticed how much I missed hanging out with friends until she came over. I really miss seeing them every day.

Don't tell anyone. ;)

Day 148- Things I Really Didn't Need To Know (August 7)

As a surprise to Mom, Dad told us that we were going on a day trip to Oma and Opa's house. (I'm part Dutch; Oma and Opa are the dutch words for grandparents.) I was less than enthused about the idea, as that meant they were going to make me feel guilty about something or other. I really needed a day to myself after two days of socializing and two nights of less-than-ideal sleeps. I was just exhausted. It was like I had sleep apnea or something. I don't, but that's what it feels like.
The whole time we were there, I was dozing off and on or reading Game Of Thrones, sometimes at the same time. In time for supper, one of the 48 sets of my great-aunt/uncles came over. Now, my great-uncle Tony has prostate cancer and next to no grasp of how to tell if someone is uncomfortable.
As I was reading GOT after supper, he comes into the room where I'm reading, sits down and starts telling me after his after-meal hot flashes as well as other things.
Now, I've watched A Clockwork Orange, Silence Of The Lambs, Cat People and Rambo. Never have I felt so sick as when Great-uncle Tony tried to tell me about his bodily problems.
Seriously, it would be less scaring to watch all those movies in a row than hear the exact words my great-uncle said.

Day 147- Two Anti-Social Weirdos Brought Together By Aerosmith (August 5)

I have a habit of waking up at 6am every morning, whether I want to or not. My buddy from Ottawa, however, woke up at 10am. Generally, I'd let her pull the 'teenager' card, but she had gone to sleep at 10pm. 12 hours is more than enough sleep for anyone. After waiting 4 hours for my buddy to wake up, we decided to play Guitar Hero: Aerosmith until she had to leave or someone told us to stop.
We ended up getting bored after two hours of it. For the rest of the day, we ate lunch and went thrift shopping, because I was out of ideas and she sure as heck wasn't coming up with any.
She left soon after, and I felt guiltily relieved.
Here's Bowie playing the recorder; don't ask me why:

Day 146- The Awkward Was Very Real That Night (August 4)

I've got this buddy from Ottawa, see, and the last time I saw her was 6 years ago. We already had little in common then. Now, she's a model, well over 6ft tall and we share even less common interests. For an entire evening did I have to sit with her and her family and try to make pleasant conversation. Like me, they are extremely quiet and only talk when they have to. I spent a solid few hours trying to find a common topic of conversation. Somehow, we had a full and pleasant conversation about our school talent shows.
Later that night, we talked about Apple games and David Bowie. My buddy likes David Bowie as well and has her own record collection a third of the size of mine.
But still.. the whole night, the two of us were like:

Day 145- Bear With Me... (August 3)

If you need a description of what I did on the third, re-read the 2nd's post, because I did the legit same thing.
I found adorable rock and roll Christmas cards in the bowels of Pinterest.

Day 144- More GOT (August 2)

I spent most of the 2nd lounging, because my surgery was still hurting my face. I got to eat pudding and listen to records all day without being judged. I also kept reading Game Of Thrones. Maureen and Avril were coming over in a few days for a short visit, and I wanted to try and catch up to where Maureen was in the series.
Browsing Pinterest, I found this adorable chibi doodle of GN'R, and I think it's melt-in-your-mouth sweet. Does my analogy make sense? Yeah, it didn't to me, either:

                                                                                                 

Day 143- Sure, "Wisdom" Teeth (August 1)

If there's one thing I learned in all my days of orthodontic guinea-pigging, the worst part is the laughing gas. Back in 6th grade, they removed some sort of bone mass from the front of my teeth. I remembered very little of it, because of the laughing gas. All I remembered was the unending nausea afterwards and the woozy, sleeping feeling.
For some reason, Dad was the one to drive me the two hours to the place where I was getting my wisdom teeth out. Usually it's Mom, but I think Dad had something he had to do in town, or something. About 15 minutes away from my appointment, I realized that this was the city with the record store in it; the nearest one to my town. I mentioned this to Dad and he told me to give him my wishlist, so he could look for them while the surgery was happening, because I'd probably want to just go home afterwards. So I wrote out my short wishlist of things I'd been looking for and one that suddenly popped into my head for no rhyme or reason.
The details of my wait before the surgery are a little fuzzy. I remember they gave me some sort of medicine, and I hated it beyond all comparison. (I would rather have my ears cleaned with a pool cue and be forced to listen to JB music for a week than ever have to have medicine ever again.)
Now, I'm told I was strapped in the chair and they put a gas tube through my nose. They started getting me talking. I remember giving them an obscene amount of details about the trip, but very little beyond that. Apparently, once I was nearing incomprehensible, I started talking about Paul Stanley and wouldn't shut up. I don't know if I actually talked about Paul, or what I said, and I'll never find out. This bothers me slightly.
Dad had gone to the record store while I was out and had found one item from my list; the random one that I didn't know I really wanted: Motley Crue's "Theater Of Pain". With all the fanfiction I had been reading, I knew quite a bit about the band, and one of their songs had shown up on the radio, which I realized I liked. It was entirely unintentional. But I listened to it and now I like Motley Crue.
Shoot.

Day 142- Yesterday, Today Was Tomorrow (July 31)

During my grace period between trips, I pretty much just vegged. In essence, the 31st was the same as the 30th. Here's a kiwi made from a kiwi:

Day 141- A Slight Amount Of Deja Vu (July 30)

Being as it is summer and I rank very low on the social totem pole, there are some days where I just chill for hours with some good tunes, a good book and the crisp air of the basement. I like solitude. Is it obvious? Not irritating-teenager, off-on-my-gadgets solitude; just quietly sitting by myself because I like the feel of total and complete serenity. There are days when I do absolutely nothing but this. As an apology for this post's length and the ones on the driving days, here's a picture of a pineapple wearing sunglasses:

Day 140- Finally Getting To Bowie And His Beautiful Voice (July 29)

It took long enough, but I finally got to listen to the four Bowie records I purchased during the month. I finally had an empty day where I could just lounge all day and not be bugged for it. They were... interesting to say the least. I loved them. All four. They all blew me away and back again. I had told myself for a while that if a Bowie song wasn't on an album I owned, then I wouldn't listen to it yet. That way, I would be somewhat as surprised as the people who got to experience it when it first came out. If I had already heard it, pity for me.

I am absolutely certain that this is my favorite album cover out of any of them. He could sure rock a dress.

Day 139- Winter Is Coming... You Know... Someday (July 28)

The cool thing about our library is that it has Lego on Thursdays. That was our main excuse for going to the library on the 28th. That, and they had free wifi, which we didn't, since our rotor was fried from the power outages. I eagerly read through the new fanfictions on the site and wrote down some new ideas on my google drive, since it can be accessed without wifi. While there, I decided to get a book or two or 25 since we had no TV or wifi.
In Ottawa, Maureen had mentioned that she was reading "A Song Of Ice And Fire", or "Game Of Thrones", to you non-nerds. The title sparked a memory in my tiny brain. I had borrowed the first book in that series at least twice, but never got the urge to read it, due to the non-compelling prologue.  If you'll recall, I've got sort of a thing for Maureen and a chance to impress her is a chance I should always take, so I borrowed it again.
After settling in the basement with a record and a perfectly stacked pile of pillows allowing me to read lying down comfortably, I started to read.
The book started slow, with the prologue still being confusing and a seemingly random cluster of characters populated it. It slowly got more interesting, with more characters being in more than one chapter. I got really into the story. I even tried to use it as an excuse to not have to go out and play with my siblings. ("But, Mom, there are son many characters being introduced and dying and it's only page 30. If I leave now, I'll forget them all." Flimsy, I know, but it was worth a shot.)
That night, while taking a short break, I saw an ad that caught my attention: a channel was airing the entire first season of Game Of Thrones. This excited me greatly, because I could now see how exactly Peter Dinklage played Tyrion Lannister. I had seen him host SNL, and was greatly surprised that he was on GOT.

Day 138- Procrastinating Champ (July 27)

For some reason, Wednesday is always boring, no matter what the month. It just is, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Do to the unfortunate power outage we had had on the trip, the vacuum cleaner was fried, and Mom had to turn off the basement fuse. The basement fuse. Mom turned off my habitat's fuse. Even if it was just for an hour and a half, I felt the effect of no habitat. It sent me into a near anxiety attack. I was just kind of rocking back and forth and singing under my breath. 3 times did I go down into the basement to see if the fuse was back on. On the third try, the lights turned on and I nearly cried in happiness. My first thought was to turn on a record and just scream-sing to it. When I have stress, I scream-sing; it's my bag. My first instinct was Appetite For Destruction, because it's vulgar and loud, and I was feeling like scream-singing something vulgar and loud. It worked perfectly. The rest of the day was spent procrastinating from listening to the Bowie records, because I wanted to wait until a time where I could listen to them all together.

Day 137- Just Call Me... Some Good Director Guy, I Dunno (July 26)

Over the course of the trip, I took a few movies. Mostly of things we saw, with a good part being of the Calgary Stampede. John took a lot of movies, as well. Every hour, on the hour that we drove, he filmed a short clip of where we were, what time it was, the lowest gas price of the day and a look outside. Watching all of them at a time is duller than dirt, so I had to edit out the lame ones and keep the interesting ones.
The entirety of July 26 was spent in front of the computer trying to put together a disc-worthy film combining my clips as well as John`s. What happened was a delightful hour-and-a-half movie composed of music and clips, with one of the best movie intros I've ever done. If it hadn't had any footage of us, I would post it here. But it does, so I can't. Shame.

Day 136- The Dream Police Got Nothing On Me (July 25)

Even after sitting around like a total slob all month, I was so excited to get down to my basement and just relax. Listen to my records, build my little lego set, maybe try to get a hang of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Nope. See, in my house, after a vacation, you work in the garden. Stupid plants.
Luckily, even Mom and Dad were tired, so they didn't make us do much. I got to go down and play my games and build with my Lego, and listen to all my non-Bowie records. I figure I'll listen to them all first so I don't feel guilty when I forget about them after I do start listening to Bowie on repeat.
This latest conquest brought the grand total of all the records belonging to me to 31. I listened to all of them without stopping. After the records were all listened to, I opened Guitar Hero.
This was my first time playing it, and I had no actual guitar controller to go with it. I sucked. After playing through the first song (Dream Police by Cheap Trick) on training 7 or 8 times, I played it on career and totally ruled. Heck yeah, I ruled.

Day 135- I KISS THE GROUND! (July 24)

After a near month of being on the road, we finally drove the 12 hours to get home. It was almost a pleasure to unpack everything and just be home. I had never noticed this before, but even the stupid pull-out couches in the hotel were more comfortable than my stupid bed. Finally home, and I still can't have a proper night's sleep.

Day 134- DRIving, Part 3 (July 23)

To Montreal. It was our last night away from home, and couldn't be over fast enough. On the plus side, we got to eat the world's greatest BBQ and be the focus group for their new sundae dessert.
Definition: Free Ice Cream Sundaes; Free water bottles; pricey, but the world's best BBQ, staying in a hotel which was hosting a swimsuit competition.

Day 133- Driving, Part 2 (July 22)

Back to Sault Ste. Marie. By now, I have lost my cherub-like demeanor and just want to be home and have everything be over.

Day 132- Driving (July 21)

We drove to Thunder Bay. My nerves started to shatter and I started going insane.

Day 131- Tinkertown (July 20)

We had one final two-night stop, which was in Winnipeg. Our full day was spent at a small amusement park, Tinkertown. It was small, but not small enough for all of us to be aloud to go off on our own, so we had to 'buddy up'. For some reason, I always get stuck with Mel. She is such a weenie, and refuses to go on anything cool. I am by far the most adventurous/stupid one in the family. Alan takes a distant second. I once went on a Tilt-A-Whirl 10 consecutive times.
Tinkertown was cute. It had everything one would expect of a small amusement park. It was only open for 5 hours, but it was a great 5 hours, the perfect way to end the perfect vacation.
In Tinkertown, there was a 'rocking boat'. You sat in the boat, facing the other end and it rocked back and forth.

This isn't me, it's just a picture of the ride I found online.

Later that night, Dad brought us to the mall in Winnipeg for supper. There was a Chapters near the restaurant. I went in, hoping to get my hands on a copy of "The Silence Of The Lambs", which I did. There was a copy there, so I carried it around the store browsing some more. Near the beginning of the fiction section, I saw something that nearly made me squeal. The James Bond novels. I had never seen one in person, they weren't even available on inter-library loan back home. I had been wanting to read one since Skyfall came out in theaters. I immediately returned the book in my hand to its spot on the shelf and oogled the books. The whole series was there. They weren't in order, so I didn't know which one to start with. I picked out the ones my favorite Bond movies were based on: Dr. No, Live And Let Die, and Goldfinger. After picking out my selection, I went to find Dad, to see if I was allowed to get all three. While talking, a clerk came up to me and asked if I had ever read the series before. When I said I hadn't, he told me it was better to start at the beginning and work my way through in order. I don't know why, but I listened to the guy's advice and traded out Live And Let Die for Casino Royale and Goldfinger for Diamonds Are Forever.  Of course, I didn't know the order, and actually ended up trading out my selections for ones later published. Oops.

Day 130- NO ONE BEATS THE PHOENIX! (July 19)

We were all still tired from driving all day, but the night was still young when we checked in to our hotel in Winnipeg. Young enough that we decided to have a little competitive family fun. Fun, as in,
LASER TAAAAAAAAAAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Laser tag is fun.
Dad bought us each two games. The games each lasted 15 minutes. We agreed to have one game be 'everyone for themselves' and for the other to be teams.
1st Game:
As soon as we were released into the sweaty game zone, we had ten seconds to hide. I decided to scope out the top floor first. There was a perfect, little secret corner on the top floor; protected from two sides, with one open to the rest of the top floor and the other overlooking the bottom floor. I sniped Dad at least four times from his 'secret' hiding spot on the ground floor. Once people realised that I had a 'spot', they all ganged up on me. I used my hair to its advantage, it properly covered my shoulder targets and obscured my back target. This resulted in many frustrated grunts when I heard missed gun shots from behind me, then nailed my would-be assassin right on the chest. It was beautiful.
I won that game. The Phoenix got the most points, which means I probably hit most people in the shoulders from my high vantage point. Mom got 'Most Accurate' and Melanie was awarded 'Most Enthusiastic'.
2nd Game:
As was declared earlier, we decided to play this game as teams. Our original plan was to have teams of two, to make three teams. This is not what happened. Three small blond kids walked in and declared themselves another team. We had a 3-on-3-on-3 battle. The blond kids were kicking our sorry butts, but Team Magenta (moi, Mom and Mel) ended up kicking everyone's sorry butts. Mom got the most points, but I got 'Most Accurate' and Mel got 'Most Enthusiastic' for a second time. The boys lost. They lost badly. Suckers.

After the game, we stopped off at a Greek diner for a quick supper before we went to see "The Secret Life Of Pets". People could argue with me for a while, but I still say Kevin Hart was the best part of that movie.

Day 129- Regina; Meh (July 18)

I'm going to be honest right now, Saskatchewan is a boring place. It is flat, and there isn't much to do for tourists. I was still exhausted from the Stampede the night before and the cumulative lousy nights sleeps since the beginning of the trip. There was nowhere I would have rather been than sleeping in a comfortable bed, so I opted out of going on the hotel's water slides and just relaxed that night.
The exciting part of that night was our trip back to the "Ice House", which was a pleasant burger joint.
I ordered the same burger as the last time we had been there. Dad got a pizza, because he was still a little wary of their burgers, due to his being under-cooked the last time we went. This pizza was slightly burnt on one side of the crust.
Long story short, we got a bonus pizza as an apology and finished all our food, the burnt pizza and the good pizza.
It was a good night.

Day 128- "That's When I Heard The Angels" (July 17)

I think that out of all the wacky places I went to during this trip, Calgary was the best. It was clean, it was friendly, it was exciting and it's the place where the angels came to Earth and started hosting brunch.
I was quite hungry on the morn of Sunday. I was told we were heading to Safari Brunch at the Calgary Zoo. I figured if it was a side-stop at a zoo, that there would be little selection, much like a crummy continental breakfast, with a few lunch-like options on the side. This is not what happened.
We entered the brunch room, and there seemed to be a holy glow emanating from the three tables of food that covered most of the gymnasium-sized room. Everything I had every imagined for breakfast, it was there. Everything I had ever imagined for a salad bar, it was there. (I seriously eat salad and enjoy it. Not to be healthy, but I'm more or less addicted to dressings and croutons. I once ate out a buffet's supply of ceasar salad.) But at the center of all this glory was the chocolate fountain, surrounded by fancy desserts I didn't know what to do with. (Long story short, I ate them.)
I had pancakes, waffles, danishes, cinnamon buns, eggs, sausages, bacon, fresh fruit (pierced with a stick and run under the chocolate fountain), two full-plate helpings of salad, adorned with every salad topping I had ever had,  and some I had never had (like shrimp), and fancy little desserts that looked like gelatinous chocolate volcanoes.
One cannot pass up an opportunity to eat the Calgary Zoo's Safari Brunch.
For most of the rest of the morning, we looked at all the cool animals. As well as idiotic animatronic dinosaurs and the display of animals we've all seen at home.
But that was only the zoo. If one goes to Calgary, they go to see the Stampede, which we did. Not all of it, as it is a several-day event, but we did see the final times of the chuck wagon races. Of course, this took place at 7, and it was only 2 when we left the zoo. We opted to go check out the stampede sights, such as the rides (which we didn't do), the games (which we didn't play), the food (which we didn't eat), and the sky (which started a torrential downpour two hours from the event and didn't let up).
As a joke, I suggested we just sit and ride the train back and forth from stampede park until it was a more rational time. As much of a joke as it was, that's what we ended up doing. It became slightly tedious after a while, and we just went for beverages at Tim Horton's. I spoke up quick enough and got a frozen lemonade (SCORE!). As another time-wasting trick, we spent a little time in a closing mall, which contained an HMV (DOUBLE SCORE!). They were having a 2/10$ deal, of which most of the David Bowie CDs were included. I took part in this offer and got his first album, as well as a three-disc collection. In short, 4/10$.
After that, we went back to Stampede Park and found our seats. It was bloody cold up there. The seats were high up, and it had just finished raining. The track was the muddiest mud I've ever seen. Alan and John were having a game of guessing the winners of each heat; they were right or in second place every time.
After the races, as this was the final night of the Stampede, we got to see the Grand Spectacular. It was a show of singing, dancing, acrobatics, flying pianos and fireworks. I can't really explain more than that. It was spectacular; you just had to be there.

Day 127- Alberta: I Like It (July 16)

Most of the day was spent driving, but after a few hours, the angels sang from high above the mountains of Banff, and we followed the joyous tunes.
Ever heard of the Banff hot springs? No? Join the club. I hadn't, either. I had seen the lakes in calendar pictures, but never heard of a full-sized pool heated to hot tub temperature by nature.
Like, nature.
Nature that creates bug bites and poison ivy and all sorts of deadly doodads.
Nature also made the most beautiful hour of my life.
 
Besides my beautiful time in nature, I also learned that Calgary is probably one of my favorite Canadian cities. It's really pretty and not crowded. Calgary is pretty awesome.

Day 126- Driving, BC Style (July 15)

As the day before was our halfway point, we started heading back east. I spent most of the drive sulking and whatnot. No one was letting me watch "Knight Rider" and I was having massive stomach pains from all the up-and-downing. Every hour, I had to give myself a pep talk to get through another hour without vomiting. You see, the GPS has the arrival time on its main screen, but it factors in time differences. This comes in particularly helpful when we gain an hour.
When we had about an hour left before reaching Golden, BC, I gave myself a final pep talk: "Okay, Kat. You've made it almost 9 hours in the van without vomiting, what's one more hour?" "10 minutes until the hotel!"
Turns out, there's a time difference between Vancouver and Golden.
That night, I had lasagna, because I had been craving pasta for weeks, but never had the opportunity. Here, I did. So I ate the lasagna, and it was real good.

It's handy to share a favorite meal with a classic cartoon character.