Ridiculous Thoughts

On the S&N forums I posted a bunch of writing exercises in the creative section and I think I’ll do one here. I’ve got a story floating around in my head but need more details. Maybe this will help. Anyway, I’m going to make up a person and bring them to life. Hopefully 😀

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There was a Mary in every junior high. The girl no one remembered. The girl who endured the jokes about her clothes from the rich kids. The girl who could never hope to be popular because she did everything wrong. She was the one who, when asked to go up to the board and answer a math problem, had an embarrassing stain on her jeans the day she got her first period. She was the girl who threw up at her desk during biology. Teachers may have felt a little sympathy towards her, but mainly they wished she was in any other class but their own. She was a chubby girl with horribly curly brown hair. No svelte, bouncy curls for her. Oh no, it was wiry and had a tendency to stick out in odd directions. Her small, freckled face was dwarfed in size by her thick glasses. Her vision was so bad, she couldn’t read the big ‘E’ on the eye chart. Her mother said contacts were out of the question until she was older and so, she suffered behind those god-awful frames. She looked rather like a wild-eyed owl dodging students as she made her unobtrusive way to each class.

When she entered the classroom, no one noticed. That’s not exactly true… the teacher noticed and gave a little grimace. One of the popular girls snickered at Mary’s hopelessly out-of-date clothes. Mary eased past the ‘cool crowd’ and slunk into her seat at the back of the room where she immediately piled her books as high as she could on top of her desk and hid behind them, lowering her head and staring at her desk for the duration of class. The teacher never called on her anyway, what was the point of paying attention? She would just sit here and write her little vengeance stories. Her stories were her escape.

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So there’s Mary. I have a vague idea of what I want to do with her but right now, it’s just *too* vague. I could add a little more depth to her as well. I think I want her to come out of junior high so traumatised and tormented that she vows she’ll get even with the nasty ‘popular’ kids one day. And so she writes little stories of how she gets back at them all. And as she continues on to high school, her stories get darker and more violent. And I could intersperse her everyday life with her fantasy world until one day, they merge together.

I’ll think on it.

I decided that this just isn’t a blog until I’ve done one of those personality-type quiz thingies. So I did a random search, found one, and answered it below. Everyone should do these because they’re fun. No really, they are.

1) What, if any, nicknames do you have? I don’t really have any. Unless you count my net name, which is really just my middle name. I used to be called ‘Blueberry’ though by some perverted friends of mine who thought I had a penchant for blueberry-flavoured joygel. (I don’t btw so get your mind out of the gutter :D)

2) What is your nationality? Born and raised in Yankeedom, family came over from Ireland.

3) What is your height? I’m 5’8″. No I will not convert that for you freaky metric Europeans.

4) What is your hair colour? It’s usually some shade of red.

5) What is your shoe size? My feet are annoying in that I’m the only female in the family with big feet. I wear a size 11 in women’s, size 9 in men’s. Everyone else is a 7 or 8. It sucks.

6) What is your place of birth? I was born in Grand Island, Nebraska.

7) Where did you grow up? I grew up, however, mainly in California. My favourite spot I lived in for about 6 years was Monterey, CA.

8) What is your current occupation? I’m a web designer.

9) Name your favorite: band, TV show, album, flavor/taste, car, author, flower, movie, food, singer, fruit, book, color, actress, cologne, cartoon, song, magazine, drink, number, actor, perfume, animal? Don’t have a fave band right now, Survivor, Chicago Soundtrack, hot chocolate, Jaguars, Tolkien, Birds of paradise, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, homemade veggie soup, Bowie, pineapples, Lotr Trilogy again, deep green, Nicole Kidman, Canel Christale, Spongebob, Gollum’s Song, Entertainment Weekly, Dasani, 42, Richard harris, Sunflowers, cats or dogs.

10) What is the one thing you would never do? Bungee Jump

11) What is the one thing you’ve never done, but want to? Surf.

12) What is the first thing you notice on a person? Probably their eyes, unless I’m talking to someone online, then I notice spelling errors 🙁

13) What one word would describe you best? Clever

14) What are your morals? What the hell kind of question is that? Uhhhh, don’t kill people? Be excellent to each other? Stupid question.

15) Name 3 things you really don’t like: 1 – It’s pronounced ‘Noo-Klee-Er’ Mr. Bush. Not ‘Noo-Cue-Ler’. Idiot. 2 – People who say ‘I seen that movie the other day’. 3 – Blatant bigotry.

16) What three things would you change in the world if you could? I’d go back and make sure Bush Jr. was never elected, for any public office whatsoever. I’d go back in time and make my father go to the doctor. And I’d probably fire whomever thought hiring Carrottop for 1-800-call-att adverts would be a good idea.

17) If you could only take three items to a desert isle, what would they be? A stack of my favourite books, suntan lotion, and a cell phone.

18) What are three things that turn you on? Sexually? Or just in general… Sexually speaking, it would have to be left up to your imagination because I’m not going to answer that. Generally speaking, I like it when a person actually listens when I speak rather than just waiting for their turn to speak. I also like people who have interesting things to say, I like a good debate – a good-natured one mind you, not one that turns into a fight.

19) What are three things that turn you off? Well I think I answered that one already – when talking to me, please be considerate and listen to what I’m saying. Don’t just nod your head and smile and then cut me off just to be able to hear your own voice.

20) What three places would you most like to travel to in the world? Ohhh, pick three spots in Europe and I’d be happy.

21) What three things would you most like to change about yourself, and why? I’d beef up my willpower, my metabolism and my ability to stand up for what I want instead of justifying my unhappiness in where I live by saying I’m staying to be close to my family.

22) Do you have any brothers and/or sisters? How many? I have a sister, and about a year ago I found out I have another sister, but I’ve only met her once.

23) Do you have a best friend? Yes. 2 of them 🙂

24) Do you use illicit (illegal) drugs? Nope.

25) Do you smoke? Not anymore.

26) Do you have any piercings? List them: Umm, my left ear is pierced three times, my right ear once. That’s it.

27) Do you have any tattoos? List them: No tattoos.

28) What do you feel your purpose in life is? If I knew that one, I suppose I’d be happier eh?

29) Describe the perfect man/woman: My perfect man knows how to fix computers and cars, will kill spiders without rolling his eyes at me, is affectionate without being smothering, and willing to leave me alone now and then and let me have my own space.

30) Who do you think is the sexiest woman/man in the world? Oh gosh, ummm, depends on my mood. I could drool over Joaquin Phoenix/Gabirel Byrne/Elijah Wood for hours really.

31) What do you look for in a person? Intelligence, sensitivity, sense of humour.

32) Rate yourself from 1 to 10: I’m a 10 and don’t you forget it 🙂

33) Are you a romantic person? I like to think so.

34) What do you consider romantic? Thoughtfulness is probably my number one romantic ideal.

35) Would you rather have a serious relationship, or a one-night stand? Well, a serious one, because there’s absolutely nothing satisfying in a one-night stand. Having said that, my idea of a perfect relationship is one that doesn’t involve me having to give up any shred of my independence.

36) Have you ever truly fell in love with someone? If so, how did it feel? Yes. Wonderful, heart-wrenching, painful, glorious, sexy, perfect.

37) Do you ever look in the mirror and make funny faces? All the time 🙂

38) What do you like to dress in? Comfy clothes on the outside, nice silky satin stuff underneath.

39) Say you were in a busy eatery/restaurant, what would you do if your friend/mate jumped up on the table, and began singing to you? Laugh good-naturedly and applaud when finished

40) Would you run 4 blocks nude for $100,000? Nope.

41) What are your hobbies? Movies, traveling, computers.. nothing horribly exciting but it makes me happy.

42) Do you like to read? Voraciously. If I don’t have a book going I feel naked.

43) What types of books? Depends on the mood again. I like thrillers, courtroom stuff, a bit of Sci-fi.

44) What authors? Tolkien, Grisham, Jean Auel, JK Rowling (she’s my hero), Ann Rule, Patricia Cornwell.

45) Do you exercise? Sporadically.

46) If you could be anyone in the world, who would you be? Nicole Kidman

47) Do you have an idol? If so, who? Yes, JK Rowling. Single Mom makes good 🙂

48) What types of music do you enjoy? 80s alternative, underground stuff. I despise Top 40.

49) What is your best memory? Your worst? Most memorable? Best – Probably any family get-together. Worst – Death of my mother. Most memorable? My daughter’s first steps.

50) What was the nicest thing ever done for you? The worst? Nicest – Oh my daughter does them constantly. She’ll draw a picture for me, write a story or make something out of clay for me while away at a sleepover. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know she’s thinking of me when she’s away. The worst – Probably the day my selfish ex-husband came home from class one day and told me he was divorcing me and taking my daughter.

51) Do you have plans to go to college? Been there, done that.

52) Have you traveled anywhere? Oh yes, I’ve traveled a lot around the US, and done quite a bit of the UK and Ireland.

53) If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be? Back to England.

54) Have you ever been arrested? *cough* I plead the fifth.

55) If you could be an animal, which one would you be? A slinky little cat.

56) Do you believe in a god? If so, who? Why? Oh man I don’t want to do a deep dark god talk here. I don’t believe in God. Why? I have my reasons.

57) Do you believe in the supernatural? No not really. I like the idea of it, and it makes for great movies (usually) but I don’t believe it’s real.

58) What is your outlook on homosexuality/bisexuality? I believe that if you are happy with yourself then that is all that matters. I haven’t got a single issue with anyone and their sexual orientations. One of my best friends said it best when he said ‘I’m not homosexual, I’m not heterosexual or bisexual. I’m just sexual’. Right on.

59) Have you ever been in love with someone that didn’t love you? If so, how did it feel? Ohhh back in high school I had a huge crush on a boy called Patrick Douthit. He of course, didn’t know I existed I’m sure he still doesn’t. But it was one of those ‘worship from afar’ things. Didn’t hurt too much – nothing compared to the pain of being in a serious relationship and getting dumped for stupid reasons like distance.

60) What, if any, phobias do you have? I have a fear of drowning. But I love to swim. Go figure.

61) What is your sexual orientation? Well I’m just sexual too, but only with blokes 🙂

Cold in the office again. If I crank the heat though I’ll bake so I’ll just type with blue fingers. Wish I had something interesting to talk about. I feel like all I do is blog about how dull my life is, when it really isn’t. I figured that it may seem dull by other people’s standards, but if you’re happy with what you do, then what’s boring about that? I actually enjoy working on websites and chatting with friends surfing in general. I enjoy going to the movies or renting them. Nothing, in my opinion, is finer than curling up with that certain someone, munching on red licorice and watching videos in the dark. Especially if that someone and you end up getting some during the movie and neither of you can talk about the film the next day because you have no clue how it ended 🙂

Oh there’s that subject of sex again… It keeps popping up, forgive me. I only mention it because there was a movie once that I’ve never seen the end of because my significant other and myself apparently couldn’t not have sex during it. I don’t know what it was (and no, it wasn’t a porn) but we’d settle down to watch it and pretty soon we would be under the blanket paying no attention to the screen whatsoever. I’m not complaning though, I’d much rather have sex than watch a movie (*gasp!* Did I just say that??) – well really, who in their right mind wouldn’t?

Anyway, enough sex talk. As I said, I’m happy. I might be happier if I were to move out of this stupid city, but I’ve come to accept the fact that I just can’t right now. I’ll look forward instead to the day when I can get out of Nebraska, and the cool thing about that is I can literally go anywhere I want. I think I’d like to try the east coast for a change. California’s cool and all but I don’t want to live there again. I’m thinking New England 🙂 But i also liked Chicago when I was there, and I’d be closer to my friend Kat… I dunno, we’ll see 🙂 Better sign off the blog now and get some work done. Cheerio 🙂

So I made this journal a bit more public. Not sure why, but maybe I have some sort of perverse desire to have total strangers peek into my life. This is still a hidden link on the main site but anyone who knows how to view the source can find it easily enough. And I’m showing up in search engines, confound it all. Oh well 🙂

Went a little bit mad with the tax refund money (after the bills were paid of course) and bought a few nice things. Felt really good to do that. I still have a nice chunk left that I’m going to hang on to for a while in case I have an emergency – and I’ve been emergency-free for a while now so I’m sure something bad will happen fairly soon. Went ice skating the other day and had a lovely time doing that. Bit scary though as I hadn’t been since I was around my daughter’s age and my sense of balance has evidently gotten worse 🙂

There’s just not a whole lot going on in my life right now. Kelly’s moving to London next month and while I support her in doing so, I can’t help but think she’s not being very clever about it. And I speak as someone who wasn’t very clever about it herself when she went. I didn’t have a job lined up before I went, neither does she. I didn’t have a friend to stay with – she does, but London is damn expensive. I DID have a 6 month work visa to start off with, she doesn’t and any job she’s likely to get will be crap pub work that pays you under the table. So she will be working illegally. I didn’t move over there during a time of impending war and the government didn’t crack down hard on illegal immigrants (well, they didn’t bother me when I was illegal for 6 months). Granted Kelly is not from any of the “axis of evil” countries, and she’s a blonde white girl, but she will still be in country illegally after her tour visa expires. I don’t know… I hope she works it all out, but a tiny part of me hopes she comes back.

Ah well.. I’m signing off before I get all sniffly.

I’m going mad. I really think I am on a slow dive descent into insanity. Or maybe it’s just cabin fever. I can’t tell. The kidlet’s been sick for the last 5 days so we’ve been stuck inside apart from brief forays to the store and the doc and I’m sick of the sight of my place. Ugh. I’m even looking forward to going to my office tomorrow.

Anyway, that’s my life lately. Sick child, endless teaspoons of cough syrup, enough kleenex to choke a horse, worrying, feeling her pain with every racking cough in the middle of the night. I hate it when she’s sick. We had such lovely weather this weekend. She should have been out playing in it, not laid up in bed. *sigh* Poor thing. She’s on the mend now though. Turns out it was a flu turned bacterial infection so we have some lovely antibiotics and she should be good as new very soon.

Anyway, it’s taking me forever to write in this so I must not have anything interesting to say. Offski.

Oh my fecking head is killing me. Is it stress? Is it lack of caffeine? Am I about to have an aneurysm? I don’t know. It just hurts like a mofo. Luckily, I get to leave work a bit early to pick the kid up. And I have money again after sorting out the finances. Damn tax refund was direct deposited at a bad time. Oh well. I wonder if I’ll be getting my federal refund. From what I could gather, the student loan eejits hadn’t put a hold on it yet but were about to if I didn’t apply for forbearance. So I did and we’ll see if I get the refund. I’m going on the assumption I won’t see it this year. That way I won’t be disappointed when I get a letter saying ‘Ha ha, we took your money. and after 6 years out of college you still owe us the same freaking amount you started with because out interest rates are outrageous.’ Bastards.

Still doing pretty well with the film site. Traffic’s picking up slowly but surely. I just wish I could get more people to join and use the forum. Now that I don’t go to the placebo boards anymore, I have less to read online. I’ve never been a surfer per se. I like to have my specific sites I check and interact on and that’s it. And they’re dwindling now. I’ve no desire to go to any of the old haunts so I’m looking for new ones 🙂 I found a Lord of the Rings board I like – well, I like the info I find there, I’m not wild about the forum software they use. I swear I’ve been spoiled by Phpbb and Vbulletin. They’re like the luxury editions of forum software 🙂

Anyway signing off. Need to get Foundation sorted out.

Man. I don’t know what kind of mood I’m in right now but it’s annoying. Everything irritates me, I’m sad, I’m broke, it’s cold out side, the roads are a bitch to drive on because of snow-packed ice, everyone I know is just as bitchy and irritable as me… I would love to chalk it up to winter blahs. Maybe I will. That seems to be the predominant theme in my head. It’s cold outside, it’s cold in the house, there’s frost on the inside of my windows, none of my shoes have a decent grip on icy sidewalks so I have to walk like an old lady if I don’t want to fall… my forums are dead. I can’t figure out how to drive traffic to my movie site without paying through the nose for it. I just have no patience really. It’s only been up a couple of weeks and is just beginning to trickle into the search engines. I should quit bitching and be patient, but I’m a taurus damnit. We aren’t known for patience.

Anyway just needed to vent. I’m done now.