Apparently

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I don't know who the eff this is. Never comes up in quizbowl.

Reading

I'm reading Hardball right now, for AP gov. It has, quite possibly, the dorkiest book cover of a book that I've actually read. However, it has a Machevelli reference every third page, so there's a few redeming qualities.
If you have an E-reader, do you get that feeling of turning the last page and wishing there was more, feeling like you've lost something that you relied on? Or do you turn the last page and move on to the next book, leaving no time to mourn it's passing? That's the kind of thing that scares me about Kindles and whatnot. Maybe they take away our ability to apprechiate a single book and they merge stories together into a never ending series of entertainment. Do you reread things on a Kindle? And with self publishing, how will we decide what's good? Is it simply what's popular? And is genre simply liking the same things that other people like? Do you finish books as much with a Kindle, or is it another cause of Internet Induced Attention Disorders?
I don't know if it's good or bad.
However, I think reading with the internet offers a new chance for something that I would like to try: Serializing. Having subscribers and getting a new chapter out every week and having readers engaged, it's like television. I love the idea of literary television.
If I was to serialize a novel, it would be the lovechild of Pushing Dasies and Ugly Betty. In book form.
This blog post was kind of a poor argument. I need to work on that if I want to make a living serializing my writing for the world to see.

Three Years ago

I know exactly what I was doing.
And I still can't imagine who I would be today without Harry.
And as a...gift to you, and a convenience to me, I'm going to show you a documentary that I've seen...a few times.













If you want, I could give you fanfic recs too. You all care, deep down, I know you do.

The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create.
Chuck Palahniuk

Quote of the Month

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

Charlie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

"Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there -- I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television."
Andy Warhol

Nobody is perfect. Everyone has their own little idiosyncrasies. Some people call those imperfections, but no, that’s the good stuff.
Robin Williams

What time is it?

It's random picture time. As you're reading this, I'm canoeing and lamenting my non-existent arm muscles and scratching my numerous mosquito bites that cannot be silenced by any amount of Bactine.
So it goes.
I collect cute pictures from the internet because I'm awesome. Yeah.

Sometimes the lies you tell are less frightening than the loneliness you might feel if you stopped telling them.
Brock Clarke

It's final. I'm a dork

But...Middlesex. Page 497. "The chairs are by Mies too. You see knockoffs everywhere but these are original, warn-out by now, the black leather browning at the edges."
I should go to bed. Really now.

Again!?!?

Middlesex. Page 407. "An Eames chair stood behind the desk.By the window was a Le Corbusier chaise, made of chrome and cowhide."
I would like you to know that this is an awesome book, even without the furniture references.

omiroti!!!

I just turned into a thirteen-year-old quizbowler right there. You're either proud or astonished.
I'm blogging twice in one day (quite the mortal sin, in my book) to tell you about something that made me gasp and look for someone to tell it to. You see, I'm reading Middlesex, and on page 37, after they're talking about...well...sex, the narrator writes "As I sit here in my Aeron chair, think E.O. Wilson thoughts. Was it love or reproduction? Chance or destiny? Crime or nature at work?"
Did you catch the important bit? AERON CHAIR, yo! I just make sure to tell people when I spot a piece of furniture I recongize. You should be thanking me for this public service. You're welcome.
What, was that post kind of silly? You can have another picture. You deserve it.I can hear you now "What is that? Is that just some random picture you found on your computer?" Fine. Maybe it is. Here, have another one.I feel like that adequately sums up my life.

It's list time.

1.I'm on the PostSecret chat, and...er, well...I have a sort of strange fascination with the entire addiction and recovery forum. Is it just me, or do all the SI people want to recover, and the ED people are kind of mixed on recovery? Why is that? I would have thought that the ED people would be more pro-recovery than the SI people, because I've heard people other places be all like "SI is just how we deal with things, it's all good." but ED people generally are like "Yeah, it's bad, but...".
2.Drawing. Pukey. It was like...uber bad today. Maybe it's because I was sitting down and drawing on little paper? That's a good excuse, I think.
3.Camp. I'm going to camp next week. I'm going to end up with so many freeking mosquito bites. Right now, my legs are horrible looking, but it's too freeking warm out to wear pants*, so I went with shorts. And...someone asked me if I SI. No, but people used to comment on my legs way more. Maybe the scars are fading?
4.Stagflation. WTF does this mean? We learned about it in APUSH, but it didn't make any sense then either.
5.The concept of getting old and getting a job and getting married and having kids and moving back to this town is making me feel a little pukey right now. More than usual.
6.Earlier, I was all like "Imma draw something from a picture, but Imma make it look all Burtonesque!" and I looked on my computer for pictures and then I was like "Why are there almost as many pictures of Johnny Depp on here as there are of Alan Rickman?" and then the other voice in my head was all like "Why do you have any pictures of them at all?" and then the other voice in my head was likeand then one of the other voices was like "Yeah. Makes perfect sense now. Cheekbones."
And then that little voice that always hangs out in my head was like "Why does Tim Burton hang out with people who have good cheekbones when he, himself has rather unremarkable cheekbones?
7.Sometimes I think my life would be more awesome if I was an animator for Disney.
8.I need to fix my nails. You were curious, I could tell.
9. I think I'm going to go sculpt things. That's what normal people do at 1:40 in the morning, right? After they finish writing their blog posts, that is.
10. Alliterative August. It is so happening, bitches. I'm pumped.
11.Does studying literature make you a better writer? I'm not...that...sure. I mean, reading does, but does it have to be school stuff? I'm still deciding.
12.My bedroom wall is growing. In a good way, I think. I added a weird typographic experiment, another asofterworld comic, and a bunch of advertisments from SCAD.
13.One day I am going to move out of my parent's house and leave this wall behind. And likely several books.
14.I don't even have that many books! I never buy books! Why do they take up so much space?
15.It's because I keep my Euro binder on the shelf so that I can reference it in conversation when nessecary, I know it is.
16.I'm getting heroin-user-under-eye-shadows again. Possibly because I stay up late and blog. It's all for you, readers. It's all for you.
*this is one of the few times when "pants" means, you know, actual pants. Usually it means anything that I put on the lower half of my body that isn't underwear, socks, or shoes.

Just so you know

I just finished Guns, Germs, and Steel. This is an accomplishment, but realize that when I say that I finished it, I mean I got to the epilogue. Harry Potter taught me that nothing good can come from reading past the end of the book. I mean, Hermione/Ron? No. That's just wrong. Nothing good can come from that ship. And who thought that Tom Felton should have a beard in the film version? That was a really bad choice. He's hot. With that beard, he just looks gross. And Harry, give your children better names. The epilogue starts on page 403, but the book ends on page 518, so it's more like I finished the book, sans prologue and epilogue.
You know what this connects to? The other book I recently finished, Empire Falls. It was kind of dumb, mostly because nothing happens in the first 400 pages. If you're going to write that much backstory, call it a prologue so I know to skip over it. And also, a school shooting is taking the easy way out. Really? That was pathetic. It was just like "So, these people live in this small town and everything happens at this diner and they're going to merge with this bar so they can sell alcohol and there's this kid who's kind of messed up and btw, he dumped his grandma's body in garbage and then he shot up his art class (no one ever shoots up their art class. They go to the cafeteria and shoot up the jocks. Really, I learned this shit from wikipedia, where I learn everything else) and then our favourite main characters get the fuck out of Maine."
I can explain the plot of every book I've ever read in long, drawn out sentences.
The Art of Keeping Cool, which I read thrice before I realized that I'd read it before? WWII, kid's dad is in the army, he moves in with his grandparents and spends a lot of time with his cousin, finds out something that's not that exciting of a secret and kinda hates his grandpa for it, and his mom leaves stuff out of his dad's letters when she reads them to him and his sister.
Dude, it's been like four years since I read that book.
Anna Karenina, which is like 800 pages long? I'm Anna Karenina and I'm Russian, I went to hang out with my brother and make sure his wife doesn't leave him and while I was doing so, I met this other guy, Vronsky, who just happens to have the same first name as my husband and then later on, I move in with him and have a kid with him, and then way later, I throw myself in front of a train.
Catcher in the Rye, which every tenth grader in the universe is required to read? I'm Holden and I'm pretty angsty and I just got kicked out of my fancy pants prep school, and I'm going to New York and I'm wearing this red had and asking some questions about ducks because I'm the duck and what happens to me in the winter when the pond freezes over?
You're welcome for that bit of literary education that I just gave you, free of charge. I accept gummy worms as your thanks to me.
Also, if I eat a lot of gummy worms, couldn't it be said that I eat a diet of worms? Get it? Get it? Every time I think of that, I laugh my head off. It's my facebook status right now.
I might be a dork.
In other news, me wanting to go to church alone today turned into a three hour expedition to my grandparent's house. Sometimes, I get angry at my mother. I realize that I should never tell her where I'm going. How long 'till I move out again? Less than a year? Good.