I love Messy Mondays, but never have I loved them (it? him?) more than in this disturbingly apt video about homeschool.

Some of these were things I hadn't thought about in years. ("Other people weren't allowed to watch Power Rangers?"). So I typed it up and decided to mark which ones apply/applied to me.
(I was homeschooled from 7-15)

YOU MIGHT BE HOMESCHOOLED IF:

[X]1. you read more books in a month than kids with assigned reading lists read in a year
[X] 2. you ever use the phrase "Hey mom, can I take a break from school?"
[X] 3. everything you know about literature you learned from Wishbone
[X] 4. you're still working on school in the summer
[] 5. you ever had to wait till dad got home from work so he could help you with science
[X] 6. you ever did two days of schoolwork in one so your family could leave early for vacation
[X] 7. your treehouse has an awesome name like "The Fortress"
[X] 8. the first and only R-rated movie you ever saw was "The Passion of the Christ"
[X] 9. your parents skipped over the parts in classic Disney movies where there was an evil witch
[] 10. the Creator of the universe cares about football
[] 11. going to the mall to people-watch counts as a Social Studies field trip
[X] 12. you're used to your friends asking you why you don't go to "real school"
[X] 13. you own more than five animals
[X] 14. you know what the Silmarillion is
[] 15. the first adult fiction book you ever read was Left Behind
[X] 16. you're filled with fear and dread when you hear the word "Saxon"
[X] 17. having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card
[/] 18. your parents sat you down after watching "The Wizard of Oz" to explain that there's no such thing as good witches
[X] 19. your family votes Republican, but still watches PBS religiously
[X] 20. Harry Potter is a tricky subject for your family
[X] 21. you've read the entire bible...twice
[/] 22. your mom taught you language and your dad taught you math
[X] 23. you weren't allowed to watch Power Rangers...unless you were at your friend's house and he was watching it
[X] 24. if you've ever found yourself laughing politely at this joke: "Homeschooled? So does that mean that all you ever do is homework?"
[X] 25. you judge the length of car rides by how many episodes of Adventures in Odyssey it's gonna take to get there
[/] 26. your mom is genuinely concerned about the effects of GMO products
[] 27. gluten-free is the way to be
[X] 28. you can quote the Princess Bride
[X] 29. you can't even remember the last time you ate fast food
[X] 30. you know what a jean jumper is
[/] 31. you weren't allowed to watch movies that talked about evolution
[X] 32. you can solve Encyclopedia Brown cases faster than he can
[] 33. you save all your homework for the night before co-op
[X] 34. you cried when Mary Ingalls went blind
[X] 35. your hair has never been cut

FINAL SCORE: 27/35

I Am Bruised By The Transient Nature Of Things

(somewhere around the world a kitten dies)

crouching

backlit by the porch light

I feel the fluttering heartbeat in the breast of a duck

hands stained red

over holes shaped like bobcat's teeth

I once cupped in my hands the tiny fragility of a duckling

who dove and splashed in the kitchen sink

whose dainty fluffiness spanned the width of my palm and no more.

The fluttering stops.

Every moment is filled with the slipping away of things.

A breath

A name

A friendship

The knowledge of the knowledge of these is as much a dream as any. I grasp at them all.

Driving by my old elementary school

I am struck by the drab smallness

the empty schoolyard

Somehow, though, I still feel

that if I were to climb the fence

cross the distance of the playground

under the slide

There would be a small girl with yellow hair

weaving a necklace out of dandelions

freshly picked, already wilting.

the day that I dyed my hair I got a text from an ex-coworker asking how I would like to work at Kittico. (The way I described Kittico to my friends was "Cats. All the cats. All the cats, all the time, oh my god so many cats.) So, naturally, a lot of people assumed I dyed over the pink for the job interview. Nope. Coincidence. And technically I don't have an interview with them, just a tentative plan to go in on Monday and see what the place is all about...

People who met me in the last year probably think I change my hair all the time compulsively. They don't know that I used to have hair down to my butt and I never cut it and only rarely bleached it slightly lighter than its natural color (mainly because my mom liked it blonder). Part of it is that having short hair means it has to be trimmed all the time and it's slightly different every time.

They also don't know that I use hair color from the dollar store. My roots will be showing in a week anyway, so why bother with expensive dye if I'm just going to have to color it again?

Once when we were shopping together at Half Price Books, Livvi found a copy of House of Leaves and proceeded to buy it, telling me all the while how much I needed to read it. I said okay and borrowed it and attempted to read it, couldn't really it get into it, let it sit on my bookshelf for several months, then attempted to give it back to her only to be told I should keep it until I had read it.
So yesterday I finally sat down and really read it. It's a pretty good book. I don't know if I'd recommend it to most people because it's very experimental and I don't think most of my friends would have the patience for it. I liked it because I like horror (which it sort of is) and things with weird footnotes (which it has by the hundreds) and poetry (which it also sort of is) and I liked the challenge of the interconnected footnotes and reading upside-down and backwards and sideways and in circles.

Anyway, I had gotten about 60% through it by 1:30 AM, when I finally decided, reluctantly, that I had to go to bed. I was downstairs in the family room. I turned off the lamp and was faced with the realization that I not only had to go upstairs into my room in the dark, I then had to clean my cat's litter box and take the refuse all the way across the house and out to the trash can at the curb because pick-up was this morning.

And I realized my heart was pounding and my mouth was dry. In a way it was almost pleasing, the feeling of fear starting to rise up, the rush of adrenaline. I think because it made me into a child again, for a moment. I was never afraid of the dark per se, but I had (still have) a very active imagination and there was a definite sense of unease--uncanniness--Nichtzuhause-sein--not-being-at-home.

(Just now I thought of the phrase "Children know what adults forget" and I thought "Who said that?" So I googled it. Apparently no one of consequence said it. I was so sure I read it somewhere that I sat here for quite a while trying to figure out where I saw it, then I finally realized I had written it myself in my NaNoWriMo story. Oops.)

And I would say that while the book in itself is not frightening, it fueled my imagination and brought back that feeling, the strong desire to give in and run up the stairs instead of walking up steadily, at the same time knowing that if I did so the adrenaline would take over and I would have made my fears more concrete, wound myself up even more.

So I walked calmly up the stairs in the dark, closed the bathroom door so the light wouldn't disturb Abigail, who is sleeping in my room while she's at home, cleaned the litter box, carried the bag back through the dark house and out to the curb, walked back through the house. All the while very carefully not thinking about doors that appear from nowhere and familiar things that are suddenly, horribly unfamiliar.

And once I was in bed I listened to Disney songs and thought about everything that is not "house horror" (like body horror but slightly less viscerally disturbing) because I knew that if my waking imagination could be disturbing, my subconscious could come up with much worse. And it worked. I didn't start to have housemares until the end of my sleep, when nightmares really can't be that bad because the sun is already coming up and that critical early-morning period has passed.

Right now I'm reading Jerusalem's Lot, which is much more horror and yet somehow less likely to warp my dreams. And I'm wondering if the other editions of House of Leaves are actually things that exist, because if so I want the version with the blue and red text and the braille...

I began writing this shortly after attending the Dresden Dolls' concert over a year ago. I didn't get around to finishing it and thus posted hardly anything about the concert. Since I ran across it in my writing folder, I figured I shoulder finish it and post it, despite the fact that it's old now :P
I'm sure I could have remembered a lot more at the time, but hey, this is what I've got.

-------------------------------------------------------

The drive isn't too bad; about thirty minutes or so, though tense and made stressful by Janene being hyper in the back seat. At the same time, I can't blame her--we all manifest our excitement in different ways, and if mine is to make myself sick (I swear, concerts do something horrible to my immune system), hers is to talk about anything and everything while I clench the steering wheel with white-knuckled fists and occasionally say "Why are you still talking?"

The worst part of it is when I decide to compare the printed directions with my GPS and they disagree. Then I have to make the decision--trust our fate to Bing maps or to Garmin? I decide on the Garmin, even though the sound of it grates on me: the Australian accent is amusing, but the volume is far too high and it hisses loudly with every S.

He (the voice is male) gets us there eventually, though, and then it is merely a matter of figuring out where the end of the line is. I pull my dress on while standing in line.
"Can I take a picture of you?" asks the girl in front of me, and I nod absentmindedly as Elizabeth and Janene help me into the dress. She takes a few snapshots and informs me that they'll probably show up on Flickr, then turns back to the people in front of her and engages them in conversation.

It takes about an hour to get through the line. I spend most of it with the train of my dress wrapped around my shoulders; it's not too cold, but the wind makes it nippy. The guy who checks our reservation doesn't even ask for my ID. When we stumble into the tiny lobby, the crush of people is almost overwhelming. We follow the flow of the crowd and find ourselves in the theater.

There are no chairs. I don't know why I thought there would be chairs; I've never been to a concert with chairs, but there is always a faint hope. There is a giant screen over the stage with a small gap beneath it where feet can be seen moving around as the stage is set up. One of the screens at the side shows a live twitter stream. It gets flooded with spam as people figure this out.

I have never seen so many black and white stripes in one place.

There is a very strange scavenger hunt going on in the hour before the opening band comes on; tiny plastic penises are hidden throughout the theater, and whoever finds one gets a free item from the merch booth. They're from a novelty veil Amanda found while she was searching for a wedding dress; I know this from twitter, but most of the audience seem vaguely baffled.
"That's what you get for not checking twitter before the show," I think, idling holding the train of my dress away from a guy who seems to be in imminent danger of spilling beer everywhere. I only see two other people in the theater wearing wedding dresses.

The giant screen of twitter is only amusing for so long and it seems like forever before it is nine o'clock and the cover band come on. They are called Girl in a Coma. The lead singer has a nice voice and the guitarist has nice hair, and I enjoy the first ten minutes or so.
Every minute after that is torture. 
"Is it bad that I'm already calculating how many more songs we have to wait through if each song is three minutes long?" I howl into Elizabeth's ear.
"No," she howls back. "And it's twenty, by the way."
I'd probably be enjoying this if I had someplace to sit, but as it is I am physically exhausted from standing so long.

After Girl in a Coma leave the stage, we all share a sigh of relief. They change into sighs of exhaustion, however, while we wait for the sound check guys to finish setting up the stage. The people in front get excited by every pair of feet glimpsed beneath the screen, while we stare at them scornfully. "Pretty sure the Dresden Dolls don't wear white tennis shoes to shows," I mutter to Janene, then I see a pair of women's boots at the corner of the stage. I clutch her shoulder. "Oh my God, I just saw Amanda's feet," I hiss. "I can't see anything," she replies, and I forget the pain in my feet and am glad I'm wearing five inch heels.

I don't actually scream when they finally come on stage: I've pretty much lost my voice to my sore throat.
She's wearing a black bra and jodhpurs. He's wearing a black vest and suit pants.
They throw yellow flowers into the audience; Elizabeth catches one and I frantically stuff it into my purse for safekeeping.
And we're off.


Shortly after the first number (a haunting cover of Cosmic Dancer), a man screams from the audience.
"AMANDA! I WANNA HAVE YOUR BABIES!"
"But you're a boy," Amanda replies. "...I think."

During another pause, one of the gay boys directly in front of Elizabeth yells "Brian, will you wear my hat?"
He is dressed in red suspenders with no shirt. He waves a bowler hat in the air.
"He already has a hat," Amanda says, but Brian stands up and pantomimes a throwing motion. The boy tosses him the hat and he first trades it for his own, then stacks the two.
At some point during the next song he is drumming so enthusiastically the the hat flies halfway across the stage. Amanda fetches it and puts it on, to the delight of the audience. "I'm so happy right now," sobs suspenders boy, clutching at his boyfriend's shoulders in excitement.

I'm more a fan of Amanda's solo work than of the Dresden Dolls so most of the songs are unknown to me, and they come and go in a blur, but some stand out sharply in my memory—For example, a crashing rendition of Astronaut has many singing along and brings tears to my eyes; the drunk girl partway through Glass Slipper who is met at first with laughter and then with increasing annoyance;
(“I'm not asking to go dancing; I'm not that dumb anymore,” Amanda sings, and the girl responds enthusiastically: “No, you're not, goddamit!”
“It's exhausting--” Amanda continues,
“Sure it is!”
“--To keep smiling--”
“That shit hurts!”
“--when your toes are bleeding on the floor. It's a gory sort of story that's been told a hundred times before. Don't be sorry--”
“I'm not!” the girl yells cheerfully, and finally everyone is fed up enough to chorus “Shut up!” back at her.)
the cheers that start at the beginning of every song that sounds anything like Girl Anachronism and fade away in confusion when it turns out to be another song; the entire audience joins in when they finally do play it and the entire theater seems to be vibrating with the noise.

My entire body is exhausted, my feet aching from the five-inch heels, and I have to pick up the train of my dress repeatedly as it gets stepped on, but I don't care because I'm having the time of my life.
Amanda seems physically incapable of keeping still while she plays the keyboard—her legs especially move constantly, first curling up under her, then stretching to the side, then propping up on the legs of the keyboard.
Brian lost his shirt near the beginning of the show and the blue and red lights of the stage catch drops of sweat flicking from the ends of his hair as he bashes at the drums as if trying to beat them to death. He notoriously does not speak at shows and, true to form, we don't hear him except for the high, childlike voice he uses to chime in on “Pierre.”
“I'm confused,” I whisper/scream to Elizabeth. “Since when is Brian so...”
“Yummy?” she contributes helpfully.
“Exactly. I mean, he's a mime.”
“Well, it's not like he's a clown or anything.”

At one point they leave the stage and everyone groans in confusion. They leave us stewing for several minutes, but then the curtain rises and Brian is standing alone on the stage with a guitar. Amanda's voice seems to come from nowhere and then cheering starts in the back and everyone turns to see her on the balcony, her stage bra now studded with gold sequins. She flirts her way down the stairs, now kissing an audience member, now dancing with one. When she reaches the bottom she disappears briefly into the crowd, then reappears as she leaps to the top of one of the short walls that cross the room. She struts across it in our direction and then throws herself into the audience just a few feet away. We all rush forward and I actually manage to push through enough to catch one of her legs as she surfs the crowd back to the stage.

When the show ends, Amanda calls “Girls in wedding dresses, meet me out by the merch booth!” and we all stream into the lobby, where I join a small knot of girls dressed like me. There are only four of us and we huddle together as Elizabeth and Janene lean against the doors behind us, too tired to stand any longer.

“All right, everyone, let me through,” comes Amanda's voice finally, “wedding dresses come first!” she joins us briefly, smiling and chatting as she autographs one girl's poster and another's ukulele. I curse myself for not having thought to bring anything to sign. “Okay, once I'm done signing autographs, you'll be at the front of the line for pictures,” she promises, then turns to the rest of the people crowded around.

“She's so...small,” I say, somewhat shocked. “I always figured she would be tall.”
“I know,” Janene agrees. “But isn't she adorable?”

We sad against the wall in exhaustion, watching the line slowly but surely dwindle. There is so much hugging, kissing, and sobbing, that the atmosphere almost reminds me of a wedding reception. I watch as suspenders boy clutches Amanda's hands, weeping with joy. One man goes in stiffly with a handshake and ends up clinging to her, sobbing, as she hugs him and presses her cheek to his.
“It's like magic,” Elizabeth says in awe, just as Janene says “It's like a mime orgy.”
“Janene,” I groan. “But yeah, it kind of makes you wonder—is there anybody who could not love Amanda Palmer after meeting her? It's like she exudes love from every pore.”

When the new line finally forms for pictures, we are indeed mixed in semi-near the beginning. I am the first to actually meet Amanda and am surprised and delighted to find that she is about the same size as Janene. We hug immediately, which turns into a snuggle, and I can feel a dopy grin on my face that will definitely make for embarrassing pictures, but it's Amanda Palmer. “That's a beautiful dress,” she comments. “Did you actually get married in it?”
“I might someday,” I explain.
“Oh, you got it second hand,” she says, admiring it. “You look beautiful. Like a model.”
I suspect this is mainly due to the fact that my heels make me a full foot taller than her, but hey, a compliment from Amanda Palmer is nothing to sneeze at.
“So how old are you?” she asks, and seems shocked to hear that I had just turned 19 the day before.
“I feel like a dirty old woman!” she confesses.
“I don't mind,” I say lightly, and she laughs and snuggles her head against my chest mischievously, making a purring noise.
We hug one more time and I find myself kissing her on top of her head, like I would one of my friends. Her hair is damp and she smells faintly of sweat but also sweet.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too,” she grins, and then we separate.
I take charge of the camera as Elizabeth steps forward to meet her. They clasp each other's hands and Amanda's gaze is fixed on her face, as if the two of them are sharing a private moment. It is too loud around us for me to hear what is said, so I just wait until they put their arms around each other and turn to me, then raise the camera to take their picture.
Janene had said she didn't want any pictures but I take one anyway, though both their faces are obscured by their hair as they hug tightly.

“She's the same height as me,” she whispers as we walk away. “She's so small.”
“I know,” I reply, unconsciously mimicking our earlier conversation.
We stand by the door, reluctant to leave while Amanda is still there, and I begin to strip off my wedding dress, ignoring the photographer who snaps several pictures as I carefully step out of it, smoothing down the short polka-dotted dress I had under it. Now, with my black-and-white striped stockings and high-heeled black Mary-Janes, I look much more like a typical Dresden Dolls fan. Amanda glances over at my little strip show and winks at us.

We are hesitant to leave, but admit that we are tired (It is now after one in the morning) and so we head to the car, stopping to stuff the wedding dress into the back before we fall into our seats, exhausted.

The drive home is quiet, the silence occasionally broken by one of us saying, still in a tone of wonder, “She's so small.”
“She's perfect for hugging,” Janene says.
“I could cuddle with her forever,” Elizabeth agrees.
“Neil is so lucky,” I sigh. Then a thought strikes me. “Hey!”
“What?” Elizabeth asks sleepily.
“We just snuggled Neil Gaiman by proxy!” I announce proudly, and then we all laugh despite our exhaustion and lapse into happy silence for the rest of the drive.