Postcards from Home, Part 1

The other day I was going through some overstuffed drawers of mine–that is, getting rid of all the crap–and I found a journal-type thing from my two one-week stays at the Girl Scout Camp Lakota. My journal entries were kind of, um…half-assed and stupid, but the postcards my parents pre-wrote that were given to me throughout those weeks are very amusing. Therefore, I will reproduce the text here. The signatures are omitted.

Monday
[front shows some weird modern art type thing with heads...and hands...and a parrot...and some guy with a top hat]
“Constance,
We hope this note finds you in great comfort. Please read it with an accent.
‘IT’”

Tuesday
I’m going to skip this one because it was less amusing than the others.

Wednesday
[front shows an Edward Gorey (probably) drawing of someone, possibly a nun (?),  sitting on a pole somewhere in the ocean or a bay or something wet]
Front of postcard:
“I’m sending you this card today
Because I’ve nothing else to say.”
Back of postcard:
“Dear Constance,
I’m (we’re) sure you have lots to say, because I (we) know you’ve been busy and you’re having lots of fun.
I (we) can’t wait to hear about all your adventures.
You’ll have to tell me (us) all about it when you (they) get home.”

Thursday
[front shows a capital A, lowercase a and capital B with arms and legs dancing or jumping or something, with a cat sitting in a cupboard]
Front of postcard:
“Great A, little a,
Bouncing B;
The cat’s in the cupboard,
And she can’t see.”
Back of postcard:
“Today, Tinka masters the alphabet. Tomorrow, the World!
___________
Constance,
We’re having a fine time running and hiding from the cats. Thinking of you, [signatures]“

Friday
[front shows a reproduction of a "Sierra Sue" poster]
“Howdy, Pardner!
How are you enjoying the view from the top of a horse?
Too bad we can’t fit one in our apartment. Spike [our dog] is as close as we get.”

I’m going to save the rest of the postcards for another day, but there’s lots of other amusing stuff in here. For example, at one point we were all given a booklet of blank pages with headings at the top, and filled them in during a lecture. Being lazy, I only did the drawing parts, which were taped into the journal. Of course, so were the headings of the other three empty pages, resulting in this:

“Horse Safety

Brushing My Horse
Constance did learn about these things, but was too lame to write any of it down.
-Mommy

My Camp Lakota Memories
^Also failed to fill out this page.“

Stay tuned for more random crap out of the madness that passes for sanity in my family!

Oh, and it’s my birthday by the way. So yeah.

Tags: awesome, bizarre, crap, I wrote it!, the joys of camp

Of Course I Remember This…Uh…

So, I could say that I just didn’t have anything to post about and I totally knew this existed, but that would be a lie. The fact is, I have nothing to post about that I can think of at the moment…so please enjoy this, courtesy of the Failblog.

Tags: awesome, Failblog, lame

Insult Dismemberment

I remember, at some point last year after I met Susan, I came to school wearing my orange pants (as I often do). I was standing outside Ms. Hsu’s classroom with Susan, waiting to be let in, and we were talking about–something, I don’t know. This one eighth-grader who was in my Algebra class, henceforth referred to as K, suddenly said to me, “Why are you wearing orange pants? Who wears orange pants?”

“Um…I do?” I replied. He looked bemused for a few moments, then said, fairly quietly, “Well, of course you would, Constance, because…you’re weird…” And I swear I could hear him thinking, Damn you, you ruined my insult.

K has not been the only person to do this. The other day in Core, the person next to me, henceforth referred to as M, said, “Only nerds like to read.”

“And?” I said.

“And…you like to read.”

“So?”

“So…you’re a nerd.”

“And?”

“You’re…a nerd?”

“Was that supposed to be an insult?”

M, who was beginning to look very uncomfortable, muttered “No, no” very quickly and returned to what he was doing.

I love ruining people’s insults. It’s so satisfying.

Tags: awesome, insult dismemberment, maniacal laugh, nonsense, school

Beatles Obsession

Exaggeration.

So I’m finally getting back to my standard Beatles-related things. Today I shall address my limited experience of the Beatles as a little kid.

First, Yellow Submarine. No clue how many times I watched it back then, but certain bits of it always stayed with me. I never forgot the Blue Meanies or the Glove, obviously, but there’s more. I retained some of the strangest things, too, like the “Nowhere Man” sequence and the part toward the end: “Arise, arise, arouse, a rose!…a rosy nose?” And “All Together Now”. Not surprisingly, I had vague memories of all the songs apart from “It’s All Too Much”. By the way, there are some weird lyrics in that. For example:

Show me that I’m everywhere, and get me home for tea

Then there’s Rubber Soul. I first heard that when I was I don’t know how old, and I fell in love with the CD. I never even knew it was by the Beatles. You already know about that “the world is love” thing, which is very entertaining now, but I had other odd experiences as well. At one point I was singing “Girl” under my breath (as I often do) as we were leaving for somewhere, and my parents thought it was really funny.

This would not be complete without mentioning Abbey Road, which you should not put in the CD player if you’re going to hit “shuffle”. I think we had it on tape when I was in…first grade? I remember listening to it in the car and my favorite song being “Oh! Darling”. I didn’t know the name, so it was simply “Song Number Four”. “Can we listen to Song Number Four, Mommy?” “Mommy, I want to hear Song Number Four.” “Skip to Song Number Four, please.” And I also enjoyed (and knew the name of) “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.

A strange thing happened when I slowly but surely got back into the Beatles in October. For years I’d had scraps of random songs floating around my head, having no idea what they were from. One day, I come home from school and, wanting a change, play 1.

BAM. Recollection. So awesome.

This is gonna be a realllllly long post.

I blame my Beatles obsession partly on Peyton and partly on my Spelling textbook. It’s Peyton’s fault because, on the way home from school, I mentioned I had a Beatles song stuck in my head. She said she did, too, and started singing “Help!” very quietly, skipping a line at the beginning. To my surprise, I remembered most of the song. At home, I pulled out the Help! CD and listened to it all the way through. Now my obsession was spread over two albums. What really turned me into a fully-fledged Beatles fan was reading one day, in my Spelling book, something about “Love Me Do”. I then realized I knew four of the lines to the song (which are actually almost all of it). Thusly I became the psycho you see today.

Tags: awesome, Beatles, memories

Lastday: 2:47 PM

Logan’s Run is awesome.

My ears are being destroyed by the screeching noises of my friend Susan. Now I’m going to make her write something.

My rat is trying to eat my toe? Um… Q!!!

Riiiiiiiiight.

Sooo. School is over. Awesomous. Also, tomorrow’s my birthday. Yay.

And…yeah.

Of all the random things I could say right now, I really can’t think of anything… Cherry pie! Ok, but that’s not so random, because you knew I was going to say something random, so you knew something was coming, which automatically makes it nonrandom, thus destroying every single thing I was trying to accomplish in the first place.

…pie rox.

I have awesome friends. Well, except for Lysander.

Hey!

And that’s it.

Tags: awesome, imaginary friends, school

Lessons Learned (And Other Stuff)

This is probably going to be my only serious post for a long time, and I got special clearance for it, so pay attention please.

I have learned a lot during the past month and a half. Some of it I learned from others, some from myself. But now I’d like to say a few things that I learned, because I feel like it.

I learned that acknowledging that I look good in certain clothes does not make me a stereotype.
I learned that it is okay to be good at things.
I learned that your friends won’t kill you for messing up, and not just because they’d go to prison.
I learned that cats have very sharp claws.
I learned that it’s fun to look stupid in public…most of the time.
I learned that I don’t have to go out of my way to be different.
I learned that it’s okay to talk.
I learned that people listen.
I learned that no matter what happens, someone is there to help.
I learned that you only live once.

While I’m at it, I’d like to say the following:

I want to thank Peyton, who is one of the awesomest people ever to walk the earth, for being my friend.
I want to thank all of CAYA for being spontaneous, goofy and “hella sacred!”
I want to thank my mom for making me laugh and ruining my self-righteous anger speech.
I want to thank my cats for running into mirrors, sitting on printers, attacking feet, and generally brightening my day.
I want to thank all the people who are nice to me when I don’t deserve.
I want to thank Terry Pratchett for writing awesomous books, even though he won’t see this.
I want to thank my imaginary crew, and I don’t have to tell them why.
And above all, I want to thank everyone who bothers to read my ramblings. You make me feel all fuzzy.

Just to give you guys something to think about, I leave you with this poem.

No Fun

I was a socialite but it was no fun.
All of the people talking away,
No time for thought
No time for rest
Just time for parties and talking all day.

I was a recluse but it was no fun.
No one to tell the important things to,
No time for friends
No time for life
Just time for brooding and sleeping away.

I was normal but it was no fun.
Doing things just like everyone else,
No room for change
No room for strange
Just room for following every new trend.

I was an outcast but it was no fun.
Changing just for the sake of change,
No room for cool
No room for trends
Just room for oddness and dull to no end.

Then I was me and I liked it much better.
Surrounded by archetypes, I was unfettered
No time for molds
No room for cliques
Everything I want to be, no more and no less.

Tags: awesome, lessons, stereotypes

Beatles and Fish!

What do fish have to do with anything? I don’t know; I only know that they’ve shown up in most of my dreams about the Beatles. Except the ones with the spaceships and the intestines…but never mind. The point is, obviously the Beatles and fish have some kind of deep subconscious relationship.

Or maybe I’m just crazy.

The first dream, which I have never told the full details of, started with me swimming in this awesome lake. Then these people came out into the water holding what were probably blocks of wood covered in fish, and scraped the fish into the water. The fish then came to life. I continued swimming in this disturbing situation for a while, and don’t remember stopping.

Later, I was in some kind of mall with someone who was my dad and yet wasn’t, and–you guessed it–the Beatles! From Yellow Submarine, of course. And for some reason they were all really tall. Anyway, then there was the elevator bit. This was when, as far as I can remember, the Beatles were in an elevator, and Ringo came up with the idea of standing on top to get to the next floor sooner. He was the only one who did this. After the elevator stopped we had to go pull him out. The other Beatles came out of the elevator first, of course. And they were singing something.

The thing I can’t stand is that I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT THEY WERE SINGING! Damn. And then I woke up with “Nowhere Man” stuck in my head, and no, that wasn’t it.

And so that I can shut up and talk about something else, enjoy this:

It’s the evil volcanic toilet! Dun-dun-dun.

Tags: awesome, Beatles, bizarre, elevators, FAIL, Failblog, fish, nonsense

Wings

I have “Band On The Run” stuck in my head because absolutely everything gets a song stuck in my head. Example: Two days ago my Core teacher was talking about taking the easy way out on the writing assessment. What do I hear? “Got a good reason for taking the easy way out…” Damn.

But this is why I have “Band On The Run” stuck in my head:

Last night, I’m eating at La Pinata with my family (of course) and my dad says something about making mistakes or “your first mistake” or something like that. I think nothing of it, but then I hear, “That was your first mistake…” So I’m sitting there hearing this, and I think, “What song is that from? No, no, no…What the heck? That’s not a Beatles song!”

Then I remember, wait, that’s from a Wings song, so I frantically scroll through them in my head. Unfortunately, I don’t know all the Wings songs on the one album we have (some weird “Hits and History” thing), so I’m stuck. I have that one line in my head all night.

This morning, driven by that single phrase, I was forced to listen to the entire Wings album (both disks) until I finally found “Too Many People”, which is actually pretty good. In the process, I rediscover “Band On The Run”, which sounds like it was written by an escaped lunatic (sorta), but is funny and I like it.

So at least I know what I’m putting on my iPod when I get it back.

Tags: awesome, Band On The Run, Beatles, La Pinata, nonsense, Paul McCartney, Wings

Word/Image Association

I associate words with other words and images in strange ways. Here are some lists.

Words
America/American = cheese
Jesus = cheesecake
Rome = pizza
quick = fingernails
click = cicada

Can’t think of images right now. I’m working on it.

Here’s my Yuletide haul:

Many chocolate coins (NOT made in China)
Marzipan potatoes
German sour cherry gummy candy
Dragon model
“Angry Little Girls” pencil and notepads and container of some kind
Grow Your Own Hanging Gardens of Babylon
“Keroppi” mini calendar
Log pencil
Mojo bag
Mirror box
Candleholder and candles
“You Know You’re a Writer When…” book
His Majesty’s Dragon
Brisingr
ERratum
The Fire Eternal
The Key to Rondo
Inkdeath
Dragonology Code-Writing Kit
Folkmanis Griffon puppet
Uglydoll OX

Can’t remember the rest. I already have His Majesty’s Dragon, too.

Bye.

Tags: awesome, books, first 10, holiday haul, image association, word association, Yule