Nanowrimo

Today's the last day of Nanowrimo. I have exactly fifteen minutes to write the 20,000 words I've been neglecting. I think that the 50,000 word goal was a bit too ambitious for me.

I would love to say that I've been busy, that I haven't been able to carve out any time to write; but that's bullshit. I've been sitting around on my ass for nearly two weeks now, just procrastinating. Not even procrastinating anything too difficult, even just things such as "update blog" and "check on Figment". Although, in my defense, I did sit down once to write, but I ended up downloading a game-making program and beginning to make an rpg. On the bright side, I'm learning scripting.

I think half of my reluctance to write is the story itself. I'm a stone's throw away from the climax. Heck, I've just finished up a rather provocative scene, strife with complications and twists; the only problem is that I don't know how to fix it.

I've never been this far in a story to know what to do, so I've virtually written myself into a corner. There is nothing my characters can do to win, the events have become so hopeless. On top of that, I've neglected to end a relationship I've been meaning to end, and now with the sudden reappearance of another character, I'm afraid there's going to be a bit of a conflict of love. Nay, there is a conflict of love. I'm so clueless as to how to navigate these waters, I'm afraid that whatever route I use is going to end up being not very pretty.

As much as I wish to explain the dynamics to you, my dear reader(s), half of it is routed in some very irrelevant non sequiturs my subconscious dredged up when I dreamt the story in the first place.

Mind you, this is probably a good time to tell you: do NOT base a novel off a dream, no matter how cool the dream. All you will end up doing, is make a completely incoherent plot that hinges on vampires jumping into lakes to age and ghosts that turn into spirits with a parasite called 'Wothig'.

Dreams should stay as they are, in your head. Not in print.

It's currently 12:02. I've failed the Nanowrimo challenge. Oh well, there's always next year.

The Shower Incident

After days of silence from me, you may be wondering why I choose now of all days to do rapid-fire updating with three posts in a row. To tell you the truth, I'm slightly scared shitless to take a shower tonight.

Before you judge me too harshly, first I would like to say that I'm in a dark and creepy apartment, and that it is currently night, and I've been watching "American Horror Story" episodes for hours. Which isn't too difficult, seeing as each episode IS an hour.

Anyways, I think I will take this time to recount what is commonly known as (to me at least) The Shower Incident.

I've had many shower incidents over the years. They're episodes of pure terror while I'm taking a shower, primarily spurred on by images of the typical ghost/possessed-person crawl; that strange crawl with inhuman contortions and movements outside the physical range. Ever since I was seven and I saw a commercial for the Grudge 2, fantasies involving these things crawling across the bathroom and climbing over the shower curtain has terrified me to this day. And while not all the horror movies scare me necessarily, they certainly put me in a scared frame of mind, where I can swear something is behind me. Actually, right now I'm repressing the urge to whip my head around to see behind me.

But what separates The Shower Incident from the smattering of other shower incidents over the years, is the noise. For once, my fears had been proved to be true.

I was just taking a shower, not even in one of my terrified frames of mind, when I heard what sounded like three slow footsteps in the hall outside the bathroom door.

Thump, thump, thump.

I thought it was Mom coming in to check on us, as she does occasionally when we're up too late. As we often are.

Thump, thump, thump.

Thump, thump, thump.

The footsteps didn't seem to be getting closer.

Thump thump thump.

In fact, they seemed to start far away yet come closer by the end of each repetition

Thump thump thump.

And they were getting faster.

Thump thump thump

Thump thump thump

I tried to convince myself that they were a figment of my imagination, that there was nothing to be afraid of. That is, until I realized they were getting louder.

THUMP THUMP THUMP

THUMP THUMP THUMP

They were right outside my door.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMP

THUMPTHUMPTHUMP

At this point, I was so terrified, I did the only thing I could do: I leaped from the shower, grabbing a towel and shoving the door open.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMP

I felt all of ten seconds of terror as I realized the noise was in my younger sister's room, when I spun around and saw what was inside.

My sister was up, prancing around on a yoga mat while jazzy music was playing from the computer, a youtube video entitled, "Cardio Exercise".

THUMPTHUMPTHUMP

Hunger Games pt2

Considering my previous post, I think I will post an essay I posted on Figment a while ago because I was fed up with people bickering over whether Katniss should've chosen Gale or Peeta.



"Peeta could’ve been a cop-out, though if it were it was because he was definitely the more developed character. Gale did have going for him the “life-long friend”, whereas Peeta had going the decisively more confusing (for Katniss) “I don’t really know you, but we kiss a lot and I’ve been in love with you for a long time plus I’ve save your life a few times and you feel sorta guilty and angry about me in general”
 
But boys aside, what I really liked about this series was that she didn’t care. Not once did she go pining for either one; they were there to serve their purposes in her life, purposes which had nothing to do with romantic endeavors at all. The romance she feels came mostly from her confusion. Peeta? She faked love for him until she realized that HE wasn’t faking, which caused her to feel guilty and angry (as stated above) plus she was already feeling weird about him because he’d saved her life by throwing the bread; then to make matters MORE confusing, as she’s thrown into circumstances where both of their lives were threatened, she begins to care about his sake because after they’d been trapped in a cave together, risking their lives for each other and “faking” their love for each other the care just started to happen. Katniss had never been in love before, so care makes her confused and then (what do you know) Peeta is whisked away and tortured out of his mind to hate her. The direct contrast between his hate and his prior care makes her even more confused about her feelings.
 
Then, as for Gale; he was her rock, her dependable friend. She’d never been interested in him in the slightest, that is, until Peeta comes and throws her life (and emotions) into confusion and Gale becomes jealous. Here’s Katniss, guilty at not feeling anything for Peeta while he was in love with her, and now Gale comes along and he shows his obvious disapproval of something that she never wanted in the first place. Not to dismiss Gale, however, as he was most likely realizing his own emotions over Katniss by seeing her with someone else. After all, she was always irrefutably HIS, that is, until this stranger waltzed in and confused her. Gale probably doesn’t realize what he feels over her either, so that leaves the two of them just strange and distant, as though Peeta were always between them. And then, there’s the whipping scene; Gale’s confused Katniss with two kisses by now (or was it one? I don’t remember exactly), plus she still believes (or hopes more like) that her emotions to Peeta are purely platonic, AND Gale is her closest friend, right? Everyone expected them to get together and all that. So naturally as she sees that Gale is in massive pain, crippled and unconscious, she gets confused (in the same way that she was over Peeta when he gets hurt).
 
All of this winds her up into a girl who can’t tell what she’s feeling, even though she never wanted to fall in love or even be confused into thinking she is. As she’s completely torn between these two boys she didn’t want in her life like this, she turns to one then the other as each falter. Peeta’s gone? Gale is her number one companion. Gale designs the bomb that kills her sister? Peeta.
 
On the topic of the bombing, OF COURSE she would choose Peeta. Here’s what’s happening at this point:
 
Gale and Peeta are virtually neck and neck so far as her emotions go for them. She’s too broken by the games and the Captiol to go on her own with no emotional support anymore, and she refuses to rely on her mother, her sister, or Haymitch (well, who would rely on Haymitch for emotional support?) so that leaves the two people she IS willing to rely on, no matter how twisted her feelings are or how convoluted her reasoning: Peeta and Gale.
 
Then her sister dies. It may have been a cheap death, but it was world-shattering for Katniss; literally, her only reason for being alive (she wouldn’t have tried to survive a number of things if it weren’t for Prim) is gone, and Katniss feels irrationally that she should’ve saved her. She’s wracked with grief and hatred for herself and the Capitol, and she is DONE with emotional babbling from two boys she would’ve preferred never have cared that much about her in the first place. When she finds out that Gale set the bomb, she found something concrete and simple to vent all her anger and hatred and frustration into; she is NOT willing for second chances. Gale is completely out of the picture for her, and she finally can choose, so she chooses Peeta. Not just because she’s mad at Gale, remember, but because they’ve been through so much and care about each other in confusing ways.
 
As for why Gale drops out of the picture? I don’t really know, but I assume that Katniss wasn’t even giving him the time of day, he had no reason to stick around and watch the happy couple if he couldn’t even be friends with Katniss anymore (though, even without the bombing incident, I doubt they could’ve remained friends without teetering back into romance). IF he had managed to stick around and not become bitter about Katniss and Peeta (which I doubt given his already possessive ideology on Katniss), then she may have forgiven him and the ending would’ve been less happy-go-lucky and more turbulent. But as it is, Katniss can choose, and she can vent all her remaining resentments and guilts surrounding Prim and the Capitol (and possibly the man himself) in Gale.
 
So, all of this is why I say team Katniss all the way!

Hunger Games

Here comes the shameful admission: I love the Hunger Games. And the more I read them, the more I love them; it's an endless cycle of embarrassment.

Currently, I'm re-reading the series for the.... Third? Fourth? Some time after two, certainly. I forget how many times I've read them. And even though I read them repeatedly, I still have to tear up for certain parts.

I've hardened for the first book. When I first read it, I got teary with horror at the scene where Katniss is wrenching the bow and arrows from Glimmer (was that the name?). Particularly, the line where she says something to the effect of "and I can't do it, I can't do it, the whole event is so horrific..." (I don't remember the exact words, so sorry if this is incorrect). It still makes me shudder, but at least I'm not crying over it. Rue's death still makes me cry. I know, this is a popular death to cry over, but the singing, the flowers, the fact that she's twelve-fucking-years-old... It's hard to not cry.

In the second book, certain scenes make me break down every time I read it. Mag's death, for one. The fact that they have no time to grieve, that she just goes and does it, and poor Finnick... He just nods his head and goes with it, even though he breaks down later. Then, possibly the hardest death for me, even over Rue's, the female morphling from 6. I just got to that part now and had to set the book down because it just always strikes me.

She just... appears. Out of the blue. If she'd just died right then, another nameless tribute, I would be fine. Heck, even if Peeta did his whole spiel with the colors but she didn't react, I would be... Well not okay, but not teary-eyed. It's the flower she paints on his cheek.

She's dying, but that's not new for her; in a way she'd been slowly dying since she gave up food for morphine. The difference is that now she has someone to hold her hand as she dies, someone to coo to her about colors and paint, as though she were a child. And the image of her, painting some illegible shape with the only material she has, her blood, on the only canvas she sees, Peeta. It's so impulsive, so insane, so stunted and sad innately, completely child-like that it just brings me to tears every single time.

And I wonder, as I do with all of them, if she'd survived and lived outside the arena... who would she be?

A Trip to the Doctor's

Today was our "annual" (note the sardonic quotes around annual) doctor's visit. Turns out, I should be eating healthier and exercising more, which came as a surprise. Even though that the visit today was the first time I left the house in about a week.

The visit started with an awkward survey that I had to fill out with my mother, with questions such as "Do you or anyone you know drink alcohol often?" (yes) and "Do you always wear your seatbelt when you're in the car?" (no) and "Are you sexually active?" (hell no). Of course, this immediately made me think "What does sexually active even mean?" I didn't understand my own reference to Juno for several minutes, and spent them wondering what the heck I meant.

Survey was done, and then my sister and I were shunted through halls and hurried through the regular junk: blood pressure, height, weight, etc. I mentioned that I wore glasses, and then I was compelled to also admit that I wasn't wearing them, nor was I wearing contacts. The nurse who'd been asking plastered a slightly irritated smile on her face then said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to test you without them, hmm?"

I did the seeing test, while my sister did the hearing test at the same time to save time. This arrangement was perfectly fine, that is, until we both finished and switched. That was when I knew that this just wasn't going to word.

The hearing testers were these massive head phones that covered the entirety of one's ears to block out noise; or they would if they fit properly. The band was too big for my head (big surprise- nothing fits my head) so the head phones slid halfway down my ears. On top of this already awkward arrangement, my sister was a foot away booming out in her loud voice, "D, E, C, D, O, K...", so I was forced to strain my ears to catch the minute sounds being emitted an inch below my ears.

Needless to say they told me that I probably had a few hearing problems.

Aside from the rather disastrous test, there was nothing major wrong with me. However, it seemed that it'd been a few years since they'd tested my blood. As much as I attempted to impress upon my doctor that really, there was absolutely no need to test my blood for anything, she still just shook her head and said I was due for it.

I was number 174. The other people weren't taking too much time in the shot room, but every person who left had a massive gauze bandage taped to their inner arm, allowing the observer to too easily exaggerate the wound beneath the pile of absorbent fabric.

Waiting in the waiting room was possibly more nerve wracking than the actual shot itself; especially in the case of number 170. 

I didn't notice who'd gone in for number 170, but I noticed that whoever they were they were taking an awful lot of time; three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes... Right at the fifteen minute mark, when I'd begun to panic for number 170, a man was wheeled out in a wheelchair, completely passed out, with a large bandage (well, larger than the other ones) strapped to his arm. After he'd been wheeled out, they didn't call another number immediately after like they generally did. They waited another five or ten minutes before continuing to 171.

Needless to say it was slightly unnerving.

My blood was drawn with no fuss whatsoever, and the technicians in the lab seemed to be perfectly unfazed. But still, I had to wonder what happened to poor 170.

Stats

I don't really know what's worse. That all my stats look similar to this....

Or that everything they record was me.

The Next Blog

For years, my narcissistic take on life has caused me to repeatedly ignore the "Next Blog" button on the top of this page. Until today. I ventured out into the unknown, and this is what I found:

The first time I clicked it, I came to a highly advanced blog (certainly out of my league) consisting of hundreds, if not thousands, of posts, all of which were nicely presented in attractive little squares that flip over upon the mouse gliding over them. I believe the blog was called something like, "FairyDance", but I was so frazzled being attacked by an accomplished blogger that I immediately hit the back button and settled back into my own mediocre blog.

Eventually, I gathered enough nerves to click it again. This time, my eyes were assaulted by a sleek black blog entitled "Surf Dog's Blog the Art of Shawn Boyles". Approximately two things registered first: That "Boyles" was a really unfortunate name, and that he ended every post with a proclamation of "Cheers". This, along with his name being Shawn caused me to automatically assume he was from the UK. Naturally, I was forced by my own masochistic impulses to comb through his entire blog to find evidence of his origins; eventually, I did. One post was entitled "Welcome to Monsterpice Theatre", "theatre" being the operative word (spelling) here. Naturally, I did not look at his profile to find where he was from, because that thought only just occurred to me right now. Anyways, once the accent thing was sorted out, I began to notice the art; it's superiority to my own caused me to short circuit once again and hit the back button.

The next blog immediately caught my attention, even before it was fully loaded, as it was named A2W. First was a graph on the NBA average, which I scrolled past without a second glance. My previous assumption, having had been correctly proved, gave me the confidence to roll off another one: this was some kind of sports blog. Naturally, I was dumbfounded on seeing that the next post was a gif showing graphs on the last letter of boys' last names each year from the 1880s to 2012. All I could do was stare as it cycled through each year, showing the trends switching from y to d to n to d again and back to n, which from the 1960s just climbed and climbed as the other letters dropped down. After I'd stared at it significantly, I decided that it wasn't a sports blog, but a random poll blog. That was the only way to explain it. Therefore, the next post was naturally a map of Richmond. Ah, but not any map; a judgmental map. I've never been to Richmond, so I cannot say if it were accurate or not; but if it is accurate, then I must say I'd rather use the judgmental map than an ordinary one, because an ordinary one wouldn't outline where the Botox addicts in yoga pants lives, or where drugs possibly happened and definitely happened.

Curious, I then clicked the attached link, and was brought to a tumblr page wherein existed dozens of maps. Unfortunately, I haven't found one for Long Beach yet. I've found, however, a lovely and highly accurate map of Los Angeles, which I will post for your viewing pleasure. Though I suppose there will not be any pleasure if you are unfamiliar with Los Angeles, in which case, I've posted it for your viewing comfort.

I live in the direction of the Nouveau Riche Dicks, Surfers, Oil Refineries, and Republicans.

As so I do not discredit the author and be liable for copyright related suing and/ or guilt, here's the link as well: http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/78473663186/losangeles

Judgmental maps aside, I never understood what the blog entitled A2W was about, and I doubt I ever will.