...

I'm not very good at updating this regularly. If you hadn't noticed.

Ghost?

The detective leaned over to pick up the butt of a cigarette between two gloved fingertips. Just as he suspected-- the infamous serial killer who'd traveled all across the country, murdering people left and right without a hint of remorse-- the powerful, the dangerous, the terrifying...

The unfortunately nameless. Though the chain of murders up and down the country were undoubtedly committed by the same person, the problem was, nobody knew who this person was. He left no clues as to his identity-- no aliases, no signature way to kill-- just a cigarette butt at the scene of the crime. The cigarettes weren't smoked by anyone-- just burned. The detective wasn't even sure if this nameless person was a man or a woman. Sometimes, on his more intoxicated nights, he wasn't sure the killer was a person. Perhaps a group of people, or no human at all...

He stood and dropped the cigarette butt into an evidence bag. Now to the more gruesome part of the investigation-- actually seeing they way the victim died.

***

The seventeen-year-old girl's scream echoed for miles. The neighbors called the police, who arrived within minutes-- just minutes late. They entered the home to find the teenager's body sprawled in a pool of blood on the floor. Her neck was twisted around and she had stab wounds and slashes all over her body. Between her left index finger and middle finger was the still-burning end of a cigarette. 

Once again, the detective was forced to consider the possibility that this brutal killer wasn't human-- at least, not entirely. No person could escape the scene of a crime that easily-- and the part of the detective that had not been hardened by years of gory crime scenes and other glamorous aspects of the job wanted to believe no person could be so very cruel. He downed another glass of beer and tried to think of think of any possible way this killer could escape so easily. There was certainly lots of killing that occurred before the detective arrived. Stabbing that girl would have taken a long time-- the whole thing would have taken a lot more than the few minutes between the neighbors hearing the scream and the police arriving. And why--how--had none of the neighbors seen anything? Nobody in the whole neighborhood saw anyone enter the house except the teenager and saw nobody leave before the police pulled up by the house, sirens wailing.

The detective was out of beer for the night and has no desire to go out for more. He kicked off his shoes and almost immediately fell asleep. He dreamed about a ghost of a man who left cigarette butts with no DNA on them near the bodies of people whose DNA was spilling out of them. 

***

There was another body the next day. 

"It's a real shame," said the head detective. "He was a good man." 

"You knew him?" asked the junior detective. It was her first day on the job, and she was certainly having an interesting time. At this particular moment, however, she felt a bit queasy. She hadn't though crime scenes would be quite this messy. 

The head detective smiled grimly, opened one of the desk drawers, and pulled something out of it. 

"What is that?" asked the junior detective.

"The worst thing you will ever see," he replied. She doubted that a bit; she was standing in a puddle of blood and could see spatters of the same blood arcing up and down the walls. 

In the head detective's hand was a wallet. 

"I don't understand."

He opened the wallet and out fell a detective's badge and a cigarette butt. He caught both objects with his other hand. 

"This man," he said; gesturing to the body lying face-down on the floor, bottle in one hand, "was one of us."

The body of the detective was carried away in a black bag. Eventually, everyone departed and his house was left vacant. The rest of the police force tried to find the killer, but after months and months with no more murders to link together, they moved on to other things. The story of the mystery person, the ghost man who'd slaughtered the detective, became a campfire story told by teenagers to scare their friends. 

All this time, nobody ever figured out it was me. 

[This is a short story I wrote for my English class, entitled "Ghost?". Creepy, huh?]

First Trimester of Ninth Grade, Briefly, With Most of the Interesting Things Not Actually Part of the Post

So... ninth grade is not bad. Marching band is crazy fun. Also, just crazy. My classes are mostly good and lunch time is only 25 minutes, but it's 25 minutes of pure awesomeness. I no longer have any classes that I absolutely and totally despise with a burning passion (passion del fuego!), which is good. Even math is enjoyable.
I've been taking some pictures recently, because it's fun. I am by no means a photographer, but I do enjoy it. Some of the pictures turned out nice, and the others were deleted.
I have nothing interesting to say, but that's okay because nobody reads these things anyway. Blah blah blah, chicken nuggets.
I have a goat! I got it on the band trip the week before Halloween. It is not a live goat, but it is awesome. His name is Maurice James von Derricson III and he is legit. His beard is adorable and his face was sewed on crookedly, but I kind of like that. Band trips are fun, even when the bus is insanely hot on the way home. It honestly kind of amazes me that a group of weirdos, ages 14-18, can do something so incredible. Like, really, some of the craziest people I've ever met are all gathered together in one place every morning for two and a half hours (or just one hour, now that we don't go to school at 7:00) and instead of lighting things on fire and stuff like that, we can actually (mostly) focus and accomplish things. It's pretty sweet.
Holy cow, I used to regularly update this blog thing... Weird...
Eventually, I will upload some of the pictures I took. Hopefully it will be in the next three years, but I do tend to procrastinate a bit...
Ian has been in England for four months ish. It's kind of weird, because it sometimes feels like he was here just yesterday and sometimes it feels like he's been gone forever.
I need Cheerios. Seriously, I've been craving Cheerios for hours. WHY are Cheerios so good? WHY?
I am auditioning for drum major this year, along with many of my freshman buddies (Drew [Jroo], Mason, Ryker, Jarsden, McKenzie, and Allyn, specifically). I probably won't be a drum major next year, but I am having fun trying out and everyone tells me I'm doing well (and doing well is good), so I have no problem with that. 
Hmm, what else is a remotely interesting thing for me to write about?
I have no idea. Anyway, life is basically pretty good right now, though I don't really have anything to say.

I Am Very Bored

School starts in two days. Everyone asks if I am excited. 
Well, no, not really. It happens every year and will happen for three more years of high school after this one. I've been going to school since kindergarten. I'm ready for school, but I'm not excited. It's been too long since I've seen most of my friends, and I'm ready to get back to an exact schedule of classes all day and homework put off as long as possible, but I'm not really excited. 
School is just something that happens. 
And it's happening in two days. 

Ckzquaeirschzpleauodgjieaofne

 Ckzquaeirschzpleauodgjieaofne. It's so good.

A Poem

I wrote a poem at roughly midnight. Here you go.

The Spineless

Or, The Books We Dream About

These are the books we treasure--

The ones that have been read over and over

And over and over

For years.

These are the books we dream about--

The books we fall in love with

And get in trouble for reading class.

These are the books we will read until

We are old and grey,

The books we will pass on to our children,

And they

To their children.

These are the books we stay up reading under the covers

Into the wee hours of the morning.

Their ink is faded and they are lucky

If they still have

Any covers at all.

They have spines of duct tape

With titles scrawled on in Sharpie

And will, no matter what other great books we read,

Always be

Our favorites.

They have tattered, worn pages

Held in with shoddily placed Scotch tape.

These are the books that we buy multiple copies of--

And we wear down, wear out,

Every copy.

The good books,

The really good ones,

Are easy to spot

Because

They are

Stained and ripped

And read and adored

Until they are spineless.

You're welcome. 

Ellie's Birthday Tribute

One of my very greatest friends, Ellie Anne Anderson, turned fourteen today. Ellie is funny and smart and cute and talented and just plain awesome. Plus, her name is very easily nickname-able. She's been called Ellie-beans, Ellie-phant, Ellie-vator, etc.

Ellie and I have watched many movies, eaten many desserts, ridden (roden? rided? rode-odendroneded? Yes, that one, definitely.)  rode-odendroneded on many bike rides, written down ideas for many inventions and stories, and, among other things, shared many, many laughs together. Ever since sixth grade, when she said the word "phlegm" in an every day situation, I knew she would be an amazing friend, and she certainly has been. 

Happy birthday, Ellie. I'm so glad to know you and to have done so many wonderful things with you. I hope your fourteenth year of life brings a billion more fun things for you. An entire billion.  
Love, Olivia 

Procrastinationatory Things I Did In English

Once upon a time, Olivia was procrastinating. This was not an unusual thing for her to be doing; it was often a lot more fun than actually doing her work. She even made a blog post about it once. She was thinking that maybe she could do it again. Rebekah was reminding 5her5 to work on her essay. She was also typing the number five. That’s why it says 5her5. Obviously Olivia wouldn’t have done that because 5her5 is not a word. Rebekah says “This is seriously your essay?”

Yes. Yes, it is. It’s just the rough draft, though. The final copy will be much better. I will probably find a way to include dinosaurs in it. I just switched from third to first person. Oops.

Then Olivia remembered how much work she had to do the last time she procrastinated in the English lab. It was really not very smart of her to waste her time like this.

Oh, well. Again, it was more fun than doing the actual work. Besides, her actual rough draft was at home, so she couldn’t do very much anyway.

Apparently, almost everyone in Olivia’s class is also in a procrastinationatory mood. That is not a word, either, but it  is a better made up word that 5her5. It is very fun to say. It’s even better than just procrastinatory. Procrastinatory versus procrastinationatory? I mean, no contest, right? Olivia was very pleased with her new word.

Rebekah is not done with her essay. She actually wrote a real essay. But she’s not finished. She’s just done for now.

Kelly’s broken keyboard was devastating for her and rather amusing for Olivia, who was remembering to write in third person and past tense, not first and present. She’s proud of herself for remembering that.

It’s official! Procrastinationatory is a word!

jsflksjflkjfasdpfsdfnweickaifnewieadf;odsjflihafiudglksdjflksdjfklsjdfaofihjvoidjflsd is not a word, though. For some reason. If it was a word, it would be pronounced “bob”. Just like Jayne.

“vt444444444444444444444444444444444444444444zKMN V.” Said Kelly. That’s probably also pronounced “Bob”.  

In conclusion, Olivia knew she would have to do lots of extra work at home because she didn’t do it in the English lab when she was supposed to, but didn’t really care because it was so fun to goof off with her classmates. Kelly made frosting and not cake. 

 Suddenly, pineapple.

 

Own the Night (Part Two)

CHAPTER ONE [THE AWAKENING]     

Leila’s eyes opened, for it was midnight, and she was alive again.

She shook out her long, pitch-black hair. It reached down to her ankles. This was not very surprising, seeing how she had never gotten her hair cut. Not many barber shops were open at this time of night.

   Leila looked around the room. It wasn’t the happiest place ever, she had never really had time to decorate it. The four small walls were gray and dusty. The bed was too small, and it sagged whenever she sat on it. Her one room house was on the edge of town, or more like in the middle of the forest. It blended nicely with the trees, so anyone would have had to look hard to see it. The house was suspended 30 feet off the ground in the branches of a grove of tall pine trees. You see, she had been living there all her life. She had distant memories of food appearing on her table overnight, but those times were long gone.

   Leila wasn’t exactly the most cheerful- or lucky-  girl on the planet. She knew she had had parents at one time, at least she had a mother- she didn’t remember her dad-  but she had no idea where they were now. All she remembered of her life before the curse was a small, bright room. Her mother was holding her, and everything was happy, at least until the hooded figure came. Leila was the only one who could see him. He said a few words- ominous, chilling words- and after 57 minutes, Leila died.

At least, that’s what it seemed like. She didn’t die exactly- just disappeared. Off of the face of the planet. Never to be seen again. But she didn’t die. Ceased to exist, she preferred.

    Leila sighed. She’d better get down to business. She grabbed a brush off the windowsill and proceeded to brush her thick, dark hair. As she brushed, she hummed a simple tune. She had previously made up words, but she could never remember them, except for a couple words. She set down the brush and sang the few words she remembered. “And when you wish upon a shining star...” she continued humming. She rummaged around in the dark closet for anything to tie her hair up. There it was- her lucky pink ribbon. She had no idea where it had come from. She tied up her long black hair and wished she had a mirror.

A dark, sneaky thought entered her head. She could simply walk down the street, crack open the window, and...

   No. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t! That would be stealing. It wasn’t that important, anyways...

   Again she thought of the mirror. It should be about eight inches long, with a silver handle to match her eyes. There was a loud cracking sound. Leila gasped and whirled around. There, on the floor, sat the mirror she had been thinking of. She gasped again and scooped the mirror up off the floor, or at least tried to. The handle was searing hot.

   Leila pulled her hand away and stared at it. A long, thin burn was growing across the top of her palm.

“It’ll take a minute to cool.” said a voice. Leila looked around the room. There was nobody there.

“Hello?” she asked. There was no answer. She leaned down to pick up the mirror. The handle was cold now.

Own the Night (Part One)

I hadn't really forgotten about this story, but it was resting in the very back corner of my brain until today. It's called Own the Night, and it's a story I wrote with my cousin Claire. Her brother Isaac helped, too (he made up the backstory of the bad guy, among other things, and it's super cool), and Neil was supposed to but never actually wrote anything. Well, he wrote "I'm orange......ok?" and "…ºπWHºªππππππππ" and "CHAPTER THREE" (which still isn't finished) and "something", but that's it.
  It's only about two chapters long, but oh, well. Here's the prologue.

PROLOGUE

It was late at night when the woman opened her eyes. She got out of bed and walked down the hallway. In the dining room she found her husband hunched over the table hard at work. “You shouldn’t do that.” she said, and he turned around. “You need your sleep.”

He smiled. “So do you.”

“I just barely woke up. The baby’s coming.”

* * *

He hurried down the hall, worried. Master had called for him and he wasn’t there... It could result in something a lot worse than simply being late for work. The door to Master’s chamber loomed overhead. Not sure if his certain death awaited him, Riplakish sucked in his fears, squared his shoulders, and slowly entered the room.

* * *  

It was 12:03 AM. The baby had been born a few minutes before. She already had a bit of hair; jet black, curly,  and very soft. Her eyes were gray and shone like the moon. She was the tiniest, most beautiful baby the nurses -or any of them, for that matter- had ever seen.

Her mother cuddled her in her arms and tried to think of a perfect name. The baby cooed softly and closed her eyes.

“Leila.” her mother decided.

In a sudden flash of light, a strange hooded being appeared in the small room. Odd as it seemed, only the baby could see the figure. To all the others it was lightning in the storm outside.

The baby heard the man in the hood say something she couldn’t understand with a chilling voice. Everyone else simply thought it was thunder.

After the words stopped, the man vanished. Leila was taken away from her mother by a kind-looking woman with red hair who said it was time for her check-ups to make sure she was healthy.

  * * *

His mission was simple. When he heard the baby’s name, he had to go set the curse. Flash in, do his job, flash out. Simple as that. The master had been merciful. The conversation still spun in his mind...

“You are late. I could incinerate you for keeping me waiting this long.”

“ Master...  a few minutes, that is all. I was only a few minutes late.” he said it before he could realize that arguing was just going to get him killed.

“Fool.. a few minute’s time is enough time for an assassin to sneak in and do away with me.”

“I understand.”

“You have a mission. A very special child has been born. You must find it... uncover the curse. I have been waiting long for an event like this to come to pass.”

“Yes, master.”

He had then set off to find the special child, knowing that if he didn’t the master would not be so merciful as to just give him another assignment. He shuddered as the thought of death crossed his mind. Clearing his throat and ridding his mind of these thoughts, he had left to find the child and do his job.

                                        * * *

The nurses slowly stepped into the room. Their faces were grim.

“Missus, we are ever so sorry. I’m afraid that she never had much of a chance.” One of them said. It was the red-haired lady that had taken Leila for her check-up.

“What are you saying? It can’t be!!” the woman said, looking horrified. The heartbroken mother’s mind was racing. The nurses looked at her sadly, and another nurse spoke up, this one with long black hair in a braid down her back.

“Leila had heart failure. We are ever so sorry, missus. The baby was born too small and could never have made it. You were lucky that you were able to spend a happy moment with her.” she said.

The three nurses left the lady sobbing in her hospital room.

Sleep Deprivation and the Things That Follow

Something very frustrating happened to me today. It's actually been happening for a while now. It's called "being tired in the morning and all throughout school and then getting home and having way too much energy that is spent a little bit on homework and then on being bored because I already finished homework and practicing and I still have all this energy that lasts all night so I can't get to sleep until two and then I wake up and am super tired and start the whole thing over again", and it's extremely annoying. Sometimes it's fun because I get super weird and pretty much everything is funny and awesome, but mostly it's just annoying. 
That is all.

Glistening Palms (Wednesday, Part Three)

I'm finally going to finish this story. It may have an abrupt ending just because I really don't want to be working on this anymore, but at least it will be finished.

At 7:30 on Wednesday night we had a band concert. I got to the Junior High ten minutes early, even though I had ballroom, had to go back to the dance studio to get my phone, changed into concert clothes, and ate dinner. I was very proud of myself. When I got there, I put my clarinet, Colette, together, and hung out with my friends until we warmed up. I talked about high heels with Nephi, Memily, and Jessi, which was really fun and weird. My friend Kira texted me saying "Good lick" and then replied "Sorry luck" (Punctuation is very important. this later became a thing I say often. Good lick, sorry luck.) After we warmed up, we sat in the reserved seats and watched the combined brass piece, the combined sixth and ninth grade woodwind piece, and the sixth grade band concert. I felt kind of sad while watching the sixth grade concert because my little brother was supposed to be in it but was at home, sick (we later found out he had mono). Then it was our turn to play. We got on the stage and played the first song, an arrangement of songs from Wicked. As we were playing, I realized it was a but hot on the stage. I didn't say anything, though, because I get hot really easily and thought it was just me (hardy har har, ridiculously immature eighth graders. Goll.). After we played our arrangement of Pirates, Klingler (no, seriously, it's Klingler, not Kringle) said quietly, "It's really hot up here" and there was a murmur of agreement. I turned to Lillian and said, "Seriously," and showed her my hands. "My palms are glistening." I said. She smiled. "Mine are, too."  

And then we finished the concert and it was a lot of fun and I really like band. 

The (Very Abrupt) End. 

Yorkshire

On Thursday night (two days ago), my older brother opened a letter from the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He read the first paragraph to us. 

"Dear Elder Clifford:
You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the England Leeds Mission...
... You should report to the England Missionary Training Center on Thursday, July 17, 2014."

It was well exciting. For the next two years, my dad will, whenever possible, speak in a Yorkshire accent. Ian will, too, when he gets back. 
I'm not complaining.   

After he told us where he was going on his mission, we talked about how perfect it was for him, Wallace and Gromit, Hadrian's wall, and a little bit of Top Gear and Catherine Tate. Among other things.

Happy Birthday to Miss Auricomous Melomaniac (AKA Kelly Pyper)

Today is my friend Kelly's birthday. 

She is now fourteen years old. 

She got balloons today as a delivery in the office and then this kid asked if he could have one, which she thought was weird. They're her birthday balloons that she got for her birthday! The idea! What a ridiculous person he must have been for thinking he could have one of her birthday balloons that she got for her birthday.

Kelly's hair was curly today, in lovely little ringlets. Her hair never does that, so it was rather exciting that it did on her birthday. It even stayed in through all of PE! Anyone who knows Kelly knows that this was an incredibly wonderful thing. 

Kelly was hit in the head with some sort of flying ball in PE twice today, which was unfortunate. It was probably painful, too. 

I assume Kelly had a good time in band, though. She generally does, as far as I know. Band  is a place to have a good time, usually. Megan and I told Mr. Klingler that it was Kelly's birthday, and Mason ensured that he remembered so we would sing to her. Kelly had the wonderful opportunity of standing in the middle of a circle of boys who all knelt down around her and sang happy birthday to her. I could tell by the awkward way she stood, her breathless laughter, and the redness of her face that she wasn't at all embarrassed. (My computer for some reason insists on calling my band teacher Mr. Kringle instead of Klingler. It's actually pretty amusing. It makes me imagine him as Santa, and it's really weird but awesome at the same time. It would make that one scene in the book I wrote with Lillian in sixth grade a bit more confusing, though.) It's a good thing she wasn't embarrassed because Mr. Klingler was filming the whole thing. 

Kelly got a Kindle for her birthday. (It has a problem with Klingler, but it says Kindle is fine. Just so you know.) She probably got a bunch of other stuff, too, but the Kindle and the balloons are all I know about right now. 

Kelly also probably had a good time in advisory. I assume she did because she was laughing a normal amount. So she must have been having a normal amount of fun. 

I will close this blog post (that was a weird way to put it) by writing a message to Kelly in Kellivian, which is a language she and I made up.

Dearest Miss Auricomous Melomaniac, 

Asottishmalloryeverton hope youtube cavern cadillac t absolutely, totally, inconceivably, chron in all other ways amazingly fantabulously chocolate birthday. Ascottishmalloryeverton foe tie ken from experience, hypotenuse ascottismalloryeverton ist still confident in saying clam gourteen will be a grewat year steve youtube. Almost every feather in this (gorfot) is underlined in red chron oyster ist rather amusinf.

Well, wolf should umbrella foe do wolf's burplework now, though wolf is inclined to procrastinate. Wolf ist, hypotenuse, tryinf to break this (gorfot afain) gun hypotenuse nasty habit, chron will now leave youtube to cavern crab rest og t chocolate birthday. 

Love, 

Bolivia Clifford crab Grewat. 

PS Ascottishmalloryeverton fair realized clam this isn't as ridiculous as wolf wouldst geek t letter to submarinewolf in Kellivian wouldst be. Oh, foodly. Ascottishmalloryeverton will try afain next year, ascottishmalloryeverton suppose. Oyster ist still t lottle ridiculous, spool ascottishmalloryeverton will survive.

Procrastination

You need a title, maybe.

And a hook! The hook goes here. It should be exciting, which is why I put the exclamation mark. “And a hook” isn’t an exclamatory phrase; I just put the exclamation point as a reminder. You’re welcome. After the hook you put some stuff introducing your topic and your stance on the problem you’re addressing. Except it’s not really a problem, so never mind. Just state your stance. And borrow a literature book and a copy of Anne Frank’s diary to help you with your paper. It’s a good idea. And include the names of at least the Frank family so the thesis statement makes more sense. Okay, after you delete all this and actually start writing your paper comes the thesis statement, which is supposedly the hardest sentence to write but that you got approved on your first try. M should not have turned the Jews in the Secret Annex in to the gestapo because the concentration camps were terrible, he sent eight people there to save himself from jail, and he had a personal relationship with Mr. Frank.

One reason M shouldn’t have turned in the people in the Secret Annex is that the conditions in the concentration camps were awful and inhumane. Clearly I did not write a very good rough draft. I’m mostly just winging this. I don’t even know where my rough draft is. The concentration camps were horrible because of their lack of food and other necessities. A rather large number of Jews died in concentration camps just from lack of food. I don’t know how many, but I will definitely research that and put it in here. I’m going to have a lot of homework tonight and Thursday. Another way the concentration camps were awful was because of the disease. Another large number of people died because of illnesses-and some of those illnesses could probably have been cured had they been at home or somewhere with proper care. I’m not sure on that point either. The people in the concentration camps were treated horribly. I’ll put an example of that, too. This paragraph needs lots of examples. I can ask Ian about some of these things. He would know.

Better transition. M should not have turned in the eight Jews in the Secret Annex to save his own self from jail. I already mentioned the conditions of the concentration camps, so here I’m going to compare them to the situation of the people in jail. I imagine the jails weren’t uber happy places to be, but they were probably better than the concentration camps. My other example was to be the length of a prison sentence for stealing money. I don’t know, I’ve never tried to fight a flaming, rolling man while holding a bowling ball and a ferret, but M probably wouldn’t have died before his prison sentence was over, unlike seven of the eight people he turned in. Unfortunately, I don’t have a third example for this one. At least, I didn’t write one on my packet, and, as I mentioned earlier, my rough draft is both exceedingly lame and missing.

A final reason is that M had worked with Mr. Frank before the Frank family went into hiding. He knew who was in there and may have even known a little bit about what was going to happen to them. He’d already stolen from his boss, and instead of making amends and trying to be a better person (though he still would have been sent to jail), he sold out one of his coworkers, eventually leading Mr. Frank’s entire family to their death. Death is a good character in Terry Pratchett novels, but not necessarily the best thing to send someone to. Going to jail for stealing is better than essentially killing seven people. My brain is a jumble. :) Of noodles. That’s probably why Alex continued eating  ramen even after brains landed in it. :) Spalash perhaps. :) I always feel like an ood when I eat ramen. Serial killer. Goll, M. Goll. You should be ashamed of yourself and your family. Dishonor on your cow... I was going to put the whole quote, but then I didn’t. You may have noticed. I really should not be typing when my brain is like this, but I am anyway. I do it on my blog, too. But a blog is different. It’s not an English essay. I wonder what would happen if I turned this in with my rough draft. Mrs. Rector would probably not be very happy with me. This isn’t a very professional thing to turn in.  It’s better than rick rolling a teacher, though, right? No, actually, no it’s not. That’s awesome, and this is just bad.

In conclusion, I am a horrible person for not focusing. Then the frog jumped into the lava and died. The end. The moral of the story is, of course, don’t give your mom a love you should be saving for your horse! Thanks, Oedipus. Thanks a whole lot. Bananas. Ahem. M should not have turned them in because of the terrible situations in the concentration camps, he turned them in just to get out of jail, and he knew Mr. Frank personally. Ta-da! I have no focus. If I were in a movie like, I don’t know, karate kid or something, I would die. Because I have no focus, I mean. My pants are periwinkle and it’s Kelly’s birthday and it’s ONLY WEDNESDAY. I doubt I can survive the rest of the week. Just kidding, I know I will. I just won’t be at all happy about it. I’ll be happy this week, but not because there are still two more days until Saturday. Cheese is yummy. I still have to finish making my present for Kelly- and by finish I mean start. I know what I want to do, but I haven’t done it yet. Just like pretty much everything else I do- or don’t do... or something. I’ve ended almost all of my blog posts with “whatever”. That’s probably not a good thing. Waffles are delicious. They make me happy. Chocolate waffles are great, and so are normal waffles, and so are blueberry waffles.

I am a horrible procrastinator. This is probably obvious by now. The first paragraph was telling me to 

do stuff, but clearly I’ve given up on that approach and am now just writing stuff about myself 

because I feel like it and stuff. And things. And everyone and everything and lots and all those other 

words Mrs. Rector hates. Stuff. Qwertys.

Haircuts (Wednesday, Part Two)

Another awesome part of my Wednesday was ballroom. We finally finished our routine Orange Colored Sky and Jarsden and I actually sort of paid attention! He got a lot more haircuts from me, though. Haircuts, by the way, are like paper cuts, but they come from hair whipping in one's face. Last week I gave him a haircut in the eye, but I didn't this week. He did point out once that I got my hair in his mouth, to which I responded, "You got your mouth on my hair!" in a very annoying way. He also practiced his magic trick a lot more (he pretends to bit off his finger and then gags it back onto his hand. It's pretty weird). Other than that, though, we paid attention. Kind of. We paid more attention than we usually do, anyway. 

I was going to write a lot more about ballroom than this, but I forgot all the things I was going to say. At the end of dance, we got to have a doughnut. I picked mine, and then Kieran Scholes gave me half of hers (I'm not sure why) and then Aubrey Johnson gave me some of hers (because she didn't want it anymore). 

I also left my phone in the studio and had to go get it between dance and my concert. 

Seriously, what was I going to say? It was really good! 

Oh, well. I might think of it and I might not. 

The Team of Time-Traveling, Crime Fighting Ninjas

This is a story I am writing for my friend Meg.

Once upon a time in the land of Rexburg, Idaho, there lived a beautiful, talented young percussionist named Meg McKellar. She had extremely curly hair and brown eyes and loved to goof off and be awesome. One day, Meg was assigned a fifteen page story which she procrastinated on. It was due at 11:59 on February 13th, and she wasn't ready. She was instead writing Google+ messages to her friend Olivia.
She realized at that moment that if someone was writing a story about what she was doing at that moment it might not be very exciting. And if her teacher read it she might get in trouble for procrastinating, and we certainly can't have that! Meg decided to make a huge and sudden change in her life so as to make a better story for whoever was writing it. She figured it would probably be Olivia, the girl she was talking to on Google+, and that if she didn't do something exciting right then Olivia would make up some fantastical story about her that wasn't even accurate! She might even add an underlying message about "Meg, just buckle down and do it you'll be fine I promise"! We certainly can't have that, either.
She sprang into action. 
Meg ran to her closet, rummaging through her normal clothes, her church clothes, and her pajamas, until she finally found it- her squirrel suit! She hurriedly changed into it. Whew! It was really fuzzy and hot! Meg didn't mind, though, because now she looked like a squirrel with her usual human head. It was awesome.
Meg reached into the pocket of her squirrel suit* and pulled out a walkie talkie. She turned it on and said, "Cheese."
The other members of her team dropped whatever they were doing and ran to Meg's house. The first to arrive was Emily Derricott, code name Memily. She was wearing her pajamas and only had one hand with the nails painted. In the other hand she held a walkie talkie like Meg's.
"This had better be good," she said. "I was watching Downton Abbey."
Meg grinned. "Oh, I think it'll be great." she said. "It has to be, because if it isn't, Olivia will write something absolutely ridiculous in the place of this really cool thing we're about to do!"
Memily looked a bit confused.
"Olivia's probably writing my story." Meg said, as if that should clear it up. Memily nodded, but still looked as if she didn't completely understand.
"I forgot my costume." she whined.
"Memily, they're not costumes!" Meg exclaimed. "They're uniforms."
"But... but... they don't even match! How can they be uniforms if they don't even match? That's not..."
Meg hugged Memily to calm her down. "Whatever, Mem. I know it doesn't make sense, but we are a team of time-traveling, crime fighting ninjas and I'm wearing a squirrel suit."
"That's true." Memily said. "And your squirrel suit is awesome, but it smells like oranges. Is it supposed to?"
Meg shrugged. "I don't think it came like that, but oranges do smell good, so I don't mind." she replied.
Just then, the next member of their time traveling crime fighting ninja team arrived. It was Lillian Tietjen, code name Irving. She had changed into her superhero costume already. She looked like Isabella from Phineas and Ferb, but with hair like Sonic the Hedgehog. She had Meg's old bedazzled purse, inside which was her walkie talkie. "Hey, girls!" she said in her annoying voice. They all burst out laughing. "What are we doing today, Meg?" she asked in her normal voice, which was actually a very nice one.
Meg thought about this a moment. "I don't actually know." she said. "I haven't decided yet."
"But it'll be good." Memily added. "If it isn't good, Olivia will make up something absurd and inaccurate." they said simultaneously.
"Okay..." Irving said, still confused.
Their walkie talkies crackled and they heard the rest of the team give lame excuses of why they couldn't come help them.
"Slackers." Meg, Memily, and Irving replied. They then flew into the air and fought thieving raccoons and pandas for three hours until the space police finally arrived and arrested them. The raccoons and pandas, not the girls. The girls then traveled back in time to three hours and fifteen minutes earlier, back to whatever they were doing before- in this case, procrastinating an essay that was due at 11:59, watching Downton Abbey, and being annoyed by various younger siblings. 



*added after a run-in with a tall, skinny man with fantastic hair and a screwdriver and a ginger woman who were shouting about whether or not a wedding dress should have pockets. Meg decided pockets actually were quite useful and would be much more sensible than carrying a bedazzled purse everywhere, even though the purse was quite attractive with her squirrel suit. 


The End.


You're welcome, Meg.

IT'S ALIVE! (Wednesday, Part One)

Wednesday (yesterday) was a good day for me. Just so you know.

The day was pretty good overall, but I'm going to focus on advisory now and then if I feel like it I'll write about the stuff that happened afterwards. I might write about that tomorrow. But I'll only do it tomorrow if I don't do it today.

On Wednesdays we have a longer time for advisory. It's supposed to be assembly schedule so we can actually have assemblies on Wednesdays, but we don't ever actually do that, so I just get a free period of hanging out in the band room library with awesome people such as Kelly Pyper, McKenzie Ward, and Jonathan Dickson. And Megan Felt. And Mason Cameron. I could go on, but I won't because a) you probably get the idea and b) I don't really want to. 

Yesterday, in my elongated advisory time, I was really hyper and overly dramatic and incredibly lucky my friends went along with what I was doing instead of tying me up and calling the police. I will now tell the story of what happened yesterday in advisory (and possibly the stuff that happened afterwards). 

I was standing by some of the filing cabinets, just behind the door, talking to Kelly and McKenzie, when Kelly noticed I was standing on a piece of paper. "Olivia, is that your T-Shirt order form?" Kelly asked. I looked down and realized it was, then bent over to pick it up. I noticed a mark on the corner of the paper from my boot and knew that it must be dead. I smoothed it out and brushed off the shoe print. Sniffling and trying not very successfully to hold back my tears, I gently laid my paper to rest on my binder. (McKenzie left during this process, I think. I don't know exactly when, but I was talking to her and then she was gone. Sorry, Kenz, for not paying attention to when you left. I was paying more attention to the innocent piece of paper I had so ignorantly crushed beneath my boot.) As soon as I had uttered my last goodbye, Kelly, who had watched this all from the throne of comfortableness (which is what we call the chair in the library as of this moment), for some strange reason decided to throw a pencil in my general direction and the pencil hit me in the leg! How dare she! I turned to face her, appalled at her audacity to chuck a mechanical pencil at me when I was kneeling on the floor grieving the loss of my paper. Absolutely livid, I scooped the pencil off the ground, blindly tossing it in her direction. I was hoping for it to hit her in the leg, but in my anger I had misjudged where exactly her leg was and because of this error the pencil flew through the air way, way above where it was supposed to and instead smacked into Kelly's forehead. She looked a little shocked, but started laughing anyway. I started laughing, too, but that wasn't dramatic enough for me at that point. Still on my knees, I made my way to Kelly and grabbed her hand, still laughing hysterically. Gulping in air and trying not to die of laughter, I asked Kelly to please, please forgive me. "I know I don't deserve it... I hurt you in ways that... that cannot be forgiven..." 

While I was saying this, the door opened and McKenzie walked back in. The look on her face clearly stated that she had no idea what we were doing, wasn't sure she wanted to, and was confused as to how she became friends with  weirdos like us in the first place (no offense, Kelly).

We then continued our dramatic scene, Kelly still laughing so hard she could barely breathe. McKenzie got something out of her backpack and left. I again asked for Kelly's forgiveness for accidentally hitting her in the face with a pencil. She graciously accepted my apology and we resumed being normalish and doing normalish things.

It was then that I noticed the one lonely paper in the table, waiting to be sorted. It was in the Percussion 1 slot. Wondering what this random piece of paper was doing all by itself in the table of sorting things (which is what we call that as of this moment), I pulled it out. It was almost blank except for a rectangle with a bent line sticking out of it which was drawn just to the right of the center of the page. (Or the left. It really depends which way you hold the paper. I say right because of the way I was holding it then.) I asked Kelly if she knew the reason behind this paper being left in the table of sorting things. She didn't know. I asked if I could crush it. Then, without waiting for a response, I crumpled the bottom corner of the corner. Of the paper! I crumpled the bottom corner of the paper. Sometimes my brain and my fingers move at a different rate. It's very annoying. Anyways! Without hearing whether her response was a yes or a no, I crumpled the paper, remember? Okay, continuing. 

"Wait, you did say I could crumple it, right?" 

"No!" 

"Oh..." 

In stunned silence, I dropped the paper on the floor. "What have I done?" I whispered dramatically, sinking to the floor to scoop the paper off the floor, smoothing out the corner of the paper where I'd crumpled it. Kelly was fake crying, obviously horrified at the brutal murder of an innocent, lonely paper. I apologized, saying I thought she'd given me permission to crumple the paper. Starting to fake cry again, I rubbed the paper against my face, once again mourning the death of an innocent sheet of paper.

"Wait..." I whispered. Kelly looked up from her fake-crying/really crying because she was laughing so hard state. "It' still alive!" I whispered excitedly. "It's alive?" she asked, her voice hopeful. "It's alive!" I said. She looked very excited and triumphant. Saying it's alive reminded me of something else, though (the time Kelly picked up a jar with a dead spider in it only to realize the spider was still alive and screamed "it's alive" like they do in those cheesy monster movies), so I quickly changed my facial expression from joy to disgust, crumpled the paper back up and flung it away from myself, screaming horribly, "It's alive!" 

Kelly followed suit, curling up on the throne of comfortableness to get as far away from it as possible. "It's alive!" she cried in despair.

We huddled in the corner to get away from the wretched paper of death (which is what it's called as of this moment). Kelly then pointed out that I had touched the Wretched Paper of Death! With my bare hands! I realized this was true, and, unsure of what to do, held my hands in the air so as not to make physical contact with anything until I could decontaminate myself. I knew I would probably have to be quarantined for the rest of the week, just in case. Kelly suggested I should ask McKenzie if I could use some of her hand sanitizer (which smells heavenly, by the way). I started walking over to the door when McKenzie opened it and walked it, almost hitting me. "McKenzie!" I shouted wildly, much louder than I meant to. "Can I please use some of your hand sanitizer?"

"Um, sure..." she replied, still confused at my utter weirdness. While I hand sanitized my previously unsanitary hands with McKenzie's hand sanitizer (which smells heavenly, by the way), Kelly picked up her pencil (the same pencil we'd thrown at each other earlier) and braved the wrath of the Wretched Paper of Death.

It was around that moment that Mason walked in. I don't want to speak for him, of course, but I imagine the sight of Kelly poking at the Wretched Paper of Death with a pencil, doing anything she could to not touch it while I scrubbed at my hands screaming that I'd touched it was quite startling, to say the least.

I'm pretty sure he asked what we were doing and that's why we started laughing again. He then said something about the wretched Paper of Death carrying some horrible disease that would kill everyone, at which point Kelly and I completely lost it. She stabbed it with her pencil and ran to the corner farthest away from it with the greatest urgency. I followed, and we huddled in the corners of the library, laughing hysterically with looks of fear and disgust on our faces. 

Well, this story is getting very long. 

We commanded everyone not to touch that paper, or even look at it. Even mentioning the wretched Paper of Death could end the world. 

Jonathan entered the library, asking about the paper. 

To quote Kelly, because I don't want to write it all out myself, "We explained it to him, and mentioned that Mason had told us about the curse. Mason said he thought WE had said that and then we realized that the paper wasn't really cursed. We apologized to the paper before flattening it out and taping it onto the wall in a spot of unquestionable honor." 

So, in conclusion, the Wretched Paper of Death is now The Paper of Unquestionable Honor, as of this moment.

That's the story of what I did in advisory yesterday. As that is a very long story, I will save the story of the rest of the day for another day. Does that make any sense? Whatever. 

Good bye. 

To view Kelly's version of the story, check her blog, alliterationisamazinglyawesome.blogspot.com.