Othering, buttoning and gerunding

How did Thursday happen? Where did my Spring Break go?

It went to my super secret origami project, syntax, letter writing, letter reading, facebooking, blogstalking, hairdoing, refining my Pandora "Mumford & Sons" station and other forms of delicious othering. The night is still young. I can still get so much done.

I know I'm totally not a legit blogger. I'm kind of a wannabe cool blogger. And since I have so much homework, I decided to procrastinate by making a button for my blog. The best instructions on how to do this are found {here}. That is what I call amazing technical writing. Easy to follow instructions make my heart glow. Thank you! So easy peasy!

You don't have to take the button. Really, you don't have to. You can wait until I have a published novel and 1,000 followers. But then you could say you followed me before it was cool to follow me... right?

But I remind myself why I blog. It's kind of like a journal, and a way to get my thoughts out. It's mostly for me and my own benefit. Writing has never failed to help me feel better. Ranting, praising, thanking, and in general just figuring out life. Writing is a great way to think.

I have a notebook I carry around with me almost everywhere. Some pages just have grocery lists. Other pages have little poems, or little lost thoughts. I love my little words.

Now for some homeworking!

-Meg

I'm Tired, Crazy, and I think I hate Facebook.

Who needs hemp of caffeine to get creative? Sleep deprivation works fantastically. My eye is twitching, as it often does-- and this is not because I am a witch (my Hogwarts letter never came, but I PROMISE I'm no longer bitter). No, I'm just mightily tired. When you add up the total hours of unconsciousness, I'm actually not doing too shabby. I get sleeping around 1 a.m. and rise at 8-ish or 7-ish.So that's 6-7 hours, right? Not ideal, but better than those nights where I got 2-3.

Anyway, There was a point to all this. I just forgot what it was.

...

Oh yes! Facebook! Facebook: I hate you. I despise that I cannot cast you off so easily as I would like. Once I saw this Nova documentary about these African women who wear these thick stacks of coil around their necks all the time. Eventually the neck coils supported their neck, so if they took them off, their spines would collapse. So they were totally dependent on these metal neck rings to survive. The crazy part is that their necks were so long and stretched out!

Anyway, that's akin to how I'm addicted to Facebook. Perhaps my relationship with Facebook is more analogous to an abusive husband or a drug or caffeine -- a substance that has been endlessly on my mind as of late. My body thinks it necessary to stay awake. But I haven't caved! (Yet).

I would get so much more sleep if I could just stay off Facebook. I always think it will make me happy, but it never does! I (kind of) like reading about people's lives and stalking people. I kinda like knowing that all my friends are just like me... chained to a computer. Like a drug.

-Megan

P. S. I wrote this last night. I mean this morning. You know, it was like 1 a.m. (Can't you just count it as the same day as long as you haven't gone to sleep yet?) Oh, and I don't think that's an African woman. Sorry. I think she's Asian... I don't know. All I know is that that documentary scarred me for life.

Salmon Cakes

I knew I there had to be a reason I stayed up late:

I call it the Matthew Chain.

Today was a good day, full of running, gardening, organizing, and taking over the world. But today also included cooking Salmon Cakes.

Not successful.

My mom will tell you they tasted wonderful, and maybe they did. She's probably just saying that because she's my mom and she has to.

The salmon cakes I had were drenched in cilantro dressing, so I couldn't taste them, not like I can taste much anyway. I opened the new bottle of dressing, and by accident I poured too much on.
This are they. Disgusting-looking, I know. My mom makes them much more beautifully.
This is the one that fell apart. Putting it on the Harry Potter plate slightly redeemed it.
The corn was boiling. This was at the height of my anxiety. I'm trying to make cakes out of mushed up salmon, mayo, and breadcrumbs, so my hands are messy and gloppy, and the water's boiling over the pot, and I'm trying to remember which cakes have been on the pan the longest and which ones need to be turned over... [I do not like cooking].

-just little old me(g)

Imagine that You're Me

You know you’ve been up too late because you start freaking out because not all your pictures are the same shade of sepia.

You realize that you’ve been staring at a computer screen for more than 12 hours today.

You realize, with some horror and dismay, that this is a typical day for you.

You try writing your essay by hand, because that’s how you like to write your first drafts.

You start wondering what the story would be like if told from the monster’s perspective, not Frankenstein’s.

You sit for a few minutes trying to remember if you’ve ever seen Young Frankenstein. Maybe once, at a party, or something.

You remember that Young Frankenstein is a Mel Brook’s movie. So is the Producers. You’ve never seen The Producers, but you’ve heard it. Once you listened in the bathroom while the boys were watching it in your room. You went in the bathroom to study grammar so you could focus, but you really ended up listening to the whole movie. From the bathroom floor.

You remember who those boys were, and decide to Facebook stalk them.

You try to switch your Facebook back to normal, US English; a language that you haven’t used for several months on that website. (UK English, then Spanish, then Pirate.) As you’re trying to find English (Why are they not in alphabetical order?) You come across Esperanto. You cannot help but wonder WHO IN THIS WORLD READS FACEBOOK IN ESPERANTO? So you do the logical thing and change your Facebook to Esperanto.

You notice that Esperanto’s a lot like Spanish. Which reminds you that you have to buy a Spanish textbook that costs $200 and is sold only brand new at the bookstore, AND NOWHERE ELSE!

You then fondly turn your thoughts to the new planner you bought at the bookstore, and the beautiful crimson 5 subject notebook with the U’s logo on it. You can’t wait for fall, because then you’ll be too busy to breathe. But you have your planner! And with a planner, all things are possible.

You rejoice because all things are possible. Like passing your English class. It can happen. You just have to write your essays! You’re half-way done with one of them, which is nice, but you remind yourself that you still really need to buckle down and get going.

You know that the only way to get going is to have a beautiful new pair of shoes on your feet to take you where you want to go! So you search the World Wide Web for the perfect pair of Mary Jane pumps. You find them.

You have to tell your sister and mom about them, and ask for advice on whether it is taking the risk to buy shoes online. You also have to ask if I should get the shoes in mustard or gray. (Two of your favorite colors.)

You decide you are almost ready to conclude this blog post, and thus begin thinking of a decent title. You struggle at this, and sarcastically remind yourself that this is why none of your headline suggestions will ever make it in print.

You have read the newspaper for years, and even now you study it with more fervor than ever before so that you can become acquainted with the subtle nuances of the art. So that you can be a good copy editor and page designer.

You suddenly realize how many incomplete sentences fill your blog post! Your soul is suddenly drenched in horror, repulsion, and trepidation. But you try to stay true to your word and not delete major things! So you leave them. Because that is what you said, even if it is wrong. Because sometimes you write things that are wrong, but you write them anyway, because they must come out of inside of you, so they don't boil and rot and corrupt you.

-Meg

p.s. Do you know what's ironic? I'm horrible at writing headlines because they aren't complete sentences, yet this post is riddled with half-formed, crippled sentences. WHAT IS THIS?