I remember...

Today, October 6th, is the birthday of a very good friend of mine. Scratch that--it's the birthday of someone who was my very good friend.

I don't mean this in a five-year-old, you're not my friend anymore! kind of way. We're neighbors, and when we were four years old, we were really close. Okay, so my memory of four-year-old-me isn't super clear, but I do know that we spent a lot of time together. But, over the last few years, we've grown apart.

He (the nameless-friend, of course) is very sporty. I... Well, I'm kind of not. I don't think it was us growing up that drove us apart, I think it was inevitable. Even if we stayed perpetually four-years-old, we were always really different people.

The point of all this? Well, today as we walked into English, I wished him a happy birthday. He seemed a little confused--he said thanks, but more in a, you remembered? kind of way.

I've always remembered his birthday, because it's the same day as mine (nine months difference, but whatever). Sure, it might be a little strange, but oh well.

Some days, I remember more than I feel I should. The way someone picks at their nails, an stranger's phone number, the color of someone's shoelaces. It can be weird. But there are sometimes things about a person that stand out to me.

What do you remember?

Erika

small life

I don't like September. It's one of those months that has a bad reputation--the beginning of the school year, the end of summer--just like Mondays.

If we got rid of September and Mondays (as in, eliminated them. I don't know where they'd go. Check with the missing socks and the last original plot), I wonder if it would make people happier. Sure, maybe the psychological effects would last for a week or so, but then we'd move on to hating October and Tuesdays.

I was reading a blog post over at Book Bound (which is just fabulous, and really entertaining) where they talked about finishing your first drafts. What they said, though much more eloquently than me, was that you should finish all your first drafts. You don't have to publish them of course, but you'll learn so much that, trunk them or not, it'll be worth it.

Soooo, I'm back to my novel about super heroes. Novel might be a stretch--it's 12 pages and counting... Slowly counting... I'm just rereading what I already had, and I'm not stuck yet, but I'm afraid I soon will be.

So: September, Monday, writer's block. What else do I extremely dislike?

Canteloupe, shrimp, basketball. Swallowing so much salt water your throat burns. Incoherent blog posts. Grey's Anatomy. The fact that not everyone's life can be an Urban Fantasy novel.

In other news, have a great Friday.

Erika

sicksicksick

Hello,

The band, Port O'Brien, has a song called I Woke Up Today (weirdly enough, O'Brien is my gym teacher's name. Coincidence? I think not). It's a pretty good song, in my opinion. They're a folkish band who, according to their website, have been heavily influenced by the ocean.

If it was written about my life, though, I fear the song would go more like, I woke up today... and then I went back to bed.

I stayed home from school today because my head felt like someone had chosen it as the convenient location to blow up and twist around party balloons. This marks my First Cold of Fall. Wow, only six days into it and I'm sick. Pretty impressive, really.

Yesterday, I was outside in the pouring rain for about three hours because my town had it's first ever Graffiti Fest. There are a few big, abandoned buildings around town, and during the Graffiti Fest, the Arts Council and Skeena Diversity Society got permission to completely spray-paint over one of them. I left my mark on a concrete road barrier that was off to the side of the building.

Here I am, with my finished work:


Ugh, lovely rain-soaked hair and I-wasn't-planning-on-leaving-the-house clothes. So, I painted "Je t'aime" (I love you in French). Then it pretty much washed away in the rain, so painted it again.

At least being sick has given me lots of reading time. I finished Paranormalcy yesterday and The Demon's Lexicon today. Now I'm torn: I Am Number Four or Clockwork Angel? It's so hard to say.

So, what are you doing today?

hug o' war

Every Saturday, we try to change things up at The Bookstore (capital letters just so you don't confuse it with a bookstore--a simple, run-of-the-mill place I don't work at). This isn't really that exciting. We change the mini-displays so there are new books up, and write a new quote.

These are both my jobs. And I love them.

I love exploring the fiction section (which I'm not allowed to hang out in too much, since I know it so well already) and finding new and exciting titles. I love picking out covers that make me go oooh! and putting them out for everyone to see.

But most of all, I love writing a new quote. It's pretty simple: you pick out a quote, poem, or saying you love, write it on the store's big white board, and put it out for display. The quote can be about books, or something that makes you think, or something that makes you laugh. You can pick anything, and that's why I was so freaked out when, last Saturday, it officially became my job.

I didn't know where to start or what to expect. Would my boss be okay with what I picked? Would anyone actually be able to read my writing?

This was today's pick:

Hug O' War by Shel Silverstein

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles,
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

It made me happy, and my boss was happy, and today was a good day. Some days you go with something that puts a smile on your face, and that's all.

Love,

Erika

random post is random

I'm watching The Vampire Diaries, which I've just recently discovered I kind of love. At first, I pretty much ruled it out. Just another vampire story, right?

In many ways, yes. Human girl falls in love with vamp guy. But it has so much more--awesome dialogue, some serious violence, totally hot actors (what? It's true, visual aids do help), and vampires that are legitimately scary. They snarl, their faces go all black, and they kill each other. What more could you ask from a vampire?

Basically, you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover--or a TV show by it's main paranormal feature...? Yeah, no, don't even pay attention to that.

In other news, I was on Bing.com (just to look at the pictures, I swear. I'm a Google girl at heart) earlier and saw this, the pangolin:

Do you know that awkward moment, when characters on a TV show or movie are kissing, having a serious make-out session, or *fading to black*, and someone else is watching the show with you? Yeah, my dad's in the kitchen, and I'm watching the aforementioned Vampire Diaries. Wow, that's awkward.

One last thing, just to make this random post truly random: I learned in Planning class today that teenagers need exactly nine hours and twenty minutes of sleep to be properly rested. So, don't you be staying up too late!

Don't worry Damon, I still love you. Even if you can be totally psycho.

"I do believe in killing the messenger. Know why? It sends a message." - Damon Salvatore

Thursday has been a bit random. Not bad, just... random.

Love,

Erika