Kick-Ass was, unsurprisingly, completely kickass

And Kickass should definitely be a single word. Spellcheck, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I realize that I should talk about prom, since it was last night. However, I've been busy, and I have a backlog of posts, so Kickass is getting its time.

I drove to the theater with Nyx, in separate cars as always, because we are good children who don't break the law. The best part of this is that I found this song on my ipod, which, even better, might possibly have the best music video ever.

I successfully parked, navigating through one of those booth things with a guy who gave me a little green ticket that I promptly lost.

We rushed in, as Camel had been frantically texting Nyx that we were going to miss the movie, only to discover that he was standing next to the ticket counter, hadn't yet bought tickets, and, when we made it in (without being carded as potential under-seventeens), the previews hadn't even started, and there were all of six other people in the theater. Before the film started, three more showed up: Jack and Bob (two of Camel's computer club buddies who coincidentally ended up at the same movie) and Richard, who was of course joining the three of us.

My favorite portion of the movie was how authentically awkward the geeky teens were. They didn't just have bad hair or glasses, although that they did. They just acted so awkward, making ridiculous faces, stating ridiculous convictions without a hint of irony...it was amazing. Yes, there was a fair amount of gratuitous violence, but it was still great. If you want a compendium of reviews, Jezebel had a good summary here.

After the movie, Nyx and boys wanted ice cream, so we walked around the downtown area looking for a place to get some. We walked far and wide, searching, down dark streets and streets with many lights, past bakeries and consignment shops, macking couples and gleeful friends, and still, we could find no ice cream. We surrendered and walked back towards the theater and the parking, at which point we discovered that there was an ice cream place right there, that we had, naturally, completely missed the first time around.

On leaving, I was pulled over by a police car before leaving the parking lot because my headlights weren't on. Then I realized that I didn't know how to put my head lights on, so I spent a minute or so messing with various buttons until something clicked and there was light. Then I went to leave the lot, but I had lost my green ticket, so I had to pay again for parking, but I looked so lost and confused that the people working there took pity on me and just let me leave.

Then I drove home and went to bed. What a great story.

There Was No School Today

So I went shopping, and I bought this amazingly fuzzy sweatshirt, and these t-shirts. Then I went to the Y and swam, and I ran into Richard's mother, who apparently knows who I am, and it was rather awkward. Then I had a piano lesson, then I came home and read some more of American Gods and wrote back to Andy and ate dinner and read some more and used the computer and wrote a blog post.

Well, since that's rather boring, let's do another English event.

Feminine Irony is the title of this paper, and it exemplifies my ability to make all essays about feminism, religion, or both.

During the Elizabethan era, England had a female queen. However, this is ironic because, incongruously, women had no other power, and the queen kept her power frequently by repressing her own femininity. Isn't that fun?

For one thing, if Elizabeth got married, she couldn't be queen, which pretty much sucks. Also, I used the line about denying her femininity here, not in the first paragraph. Oops.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet demonstrates that those gosh-darned Elizabethan females were weak, powerless, and repressed. Juliet doesn't get to choose her own husband. Then she offs herself. That is not fun. It is not fun at all. It is, really quite tragic. When I saw the show with Nyx, I cried for a good half hour afterwards, and then we went home and talked about how sexy the guy playing Romeo looked shirtless. He really did look good. Probably about as good as Norman, this guy from California who's going to RSI next year who's using a picture of his entire swim team in swimsuits as his profile picture, and they all look rather, uh, nice. What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah, Lord Capulet is a dickwad, right.

Oh, also, I need historical research in this paper. So, check it out, women were property of their husbands, and I'm going to back it up with laws and literature. Is that some great consonance or what? Anyways, I'm not going to bother with that sort of thing. I'm well above it.

Queen Elizabeth's situation was unique. Life sucked for everyone else.

After School Unadventurous Adventures

I left Spanish this afternoon with Gretchen and Avon, and we were the nearly last, if not the very last, people to leave. Avon went down the first staircase to catch her bus, and Gretchen and I sped up, soon overtaking Dino and Sonny, who, while moving at a reasonable rate, couldn't match what Richard calls Gretchie's ridiculously fast pace. We then proceeded to talk about Dino, but, despite his relative proximity, he didn't notice.

Then Gretchen ended up wrapped in some conversation with Sonny, Dino forged on ahead, and I followed far enough behind him that it didn't seem worth the effort to chase after him just to awkwardly disengage upon reaching the bathroom.

By the time I extracted my wallet from my backpack and journeyed downstairs in search of a bake sale, the lobby seemed almost deserted, and there was, alas, no bake sale. I located Nyx by means of her floral shirt (which is very pretty, by the way) and announced myself to her, Kathrya, and Tybalt by means of a request for food.

I was very disappointed to discover that Tawny's baklava, which had previously been in the locker she shares with Nyx, had been removed. I pulled out some pretzels, which Kathrya and Tybalt agreed didn't taste like "real pretzels," and Nyx left for the dodgeball game, and the three of us stood somewhat oddly in the lobby for a few minutes. Brian came by asking for members of his team, and a bit later, in a matching tee, Rodney walked past.

Rodney can be identified by the fact that, in my English class today, Ms. Seltzia mentioned tessellations. I said that they were my absolute favorite, and Rodney was, sadly enough, the only person in class who got the joke.

Kathrya, Tybalt and I eventually started walking towards the cars, and we saw Bryant walking towards us, and then we all turned around and walked out to the parking lot.

The only bit of the conversation I can remember is that something about Dino came up, and Bryant said, somewhat out of nowhere, that Dino has a really annoying voice. I then mentioned something about being really confused when he started laughing at me in the language lab until I realized that the audio system was making chipmunk voice, and there was a fair amount of me trying to figure out where to walk, because I didn't like being way out on the edge, because it's hard to talk across four people, but it felt sort of weird to drop back, so I think there ended up being a fair amount of weaving about, but I suppose it worked.

When we reached the vehicles, Bryant requested his ride to unstickered parking, and Kathrya and I both volunteered.

"You want to ride in the truck?" I asked. "It's pretty fun."

"It is," said Kathrya, "extremely cool."

Bryant consented, so we waved goodbye to the lovebirds (yes, I am going to call them that). I stood on that random black bar on the underside of the truck that is probably not random at all and meant for standing on to throw stuff in the back, and threw my backpack and lunch into the bed of the truck. Bryant seemed apprehensive.

"Do I need to put mine back there?"

"Just hang onto it."

"What do you do when it rains?"

"I don't. I mean, I haven't had a passenger when it was raining. Actually, wait, no, I drove Ginny home. She just held everything. It's a bit crowded, though."

He nodded, and I put in the key and rolled down the windows. As soon as power reached the stereo, Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone" started blaring at a somewhat inhuman volume. I turned it down a bit and pulled out of the parking spot.

"You mess with it," I said.

"This is fine."

"I hate this song."

He did something to the music controls that I didn't see because I was driving. Britney started singing "and I'm caught in between, counting 1, 2, 3-"

"Oh, that's loads better," I said.

He laughed and did some different button pushing and the music changed again, to something instrumental, familiar, and yet somehow out of reach.

"Should I go right up here?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'll go straight then."

I turned out of Paperclip, still trying to figure out what the song was. "It's Lady Gaga, singing, well, something, I just...."

"Bad Romance."

"Ah, yes. I probably ought to have known that."

I wasn't looking at him, but I could practically feel his shrug.

From there, we somehow managed to discuss both what house the blueprint on the dashboard was for (he read off my address, so I assumed it was my house, but it turns out that he actually read the builder's address label, and it was for a different project) and, after I took a turn a little bit too quickly, whether I was allowed to have passengers in the car.

I said that as long as he could pretend to be my twelve-year-old sister, we'd be fine, but I wasn't sure he could pull it off, and, oh, wait, my sister is actually thirteen, I totally know how old my siblings are.

I think I got a laugh for that one.

And then there was something about parallel parking, and then we were at his car, parked as crookedly as predicted, and he was gone, and I was coming to an intersection I wasn't accustomed to, trying to determine the best possible route to a pastry.

A Payson Develops a Sense of Loss

The show is finally over. Guys and Dolls is kaput. All the free time on my hands may send me into shock. I played the guitar for the first time in two months today. Of course, I could only play for about two minutes, cause my calluses had disappeared and my fingers were tired and it just plain hurt. I also played piano for about an hour, but not Guys and Dolls stuff. Just Debussey sight-reading. It was glorious.

The final show went fabulously. The only snag was that one of the sax's light went out, but it was between numbers, and I passed him a bulb to replace it, because the bulbs are under the grand, but the fixture was too hot, so I just passed him an entirely new light set-up, and he managed to get the whole thing up and running by the time Havana started. Which is good, because the band teacher plays cowbells instead of her sax during that song, so he's doing double duty. He actually used to play maracas, but the band teacher took them away because she thought he was being overenthusiastic. This is coming from the woman who badly bangs the cowbells for the entire song while her facial expression resembles that of a child who has just discovered Christmas. Or Hanukka, if you want to roll that way.

When we got to the pit party, and it was just the two random saxes and Joanne and Cammie and I, we overcame the general awkwardness by dissolving into hysterics over the cowbells. When Ida showed up to the party at her house, she was incredibly confused by how much we were laughing.

We spent a good amount of time gossiping. (Why is Harry so grumpy? Nobody knows, but Morgan thinks his looks would be much improved if we attacked his hair with a weed-wacker. Why the hell is Emily still all over Spencer? He's out and proud, but they still hook up, even though she has a boyfriend. What fabulous flutist has a bit of a thing for a different fabulous flutist? The world may never know.) Anita and Richard tickled each other extensively. Cammie and I interrupted each other constantly. I begin to understand why Vicky thinks she talks a lot.

Also, there are photocopies of Eccentrius's face on the floor of the band room. I, for one, am simply thankful that he didn't go the traditional route and photocopy his ass. Or arse, as Joanne and her mum would say.

A final conversation with Harry:

Tea: I put your music with your bag.

Harry: Huh?

Tea: You left it in the pit.

Harry: Yeah

Tea: By the way good job on the second act

Harry: Yeah

The Victim

Every English class has one. He (and the victim is typically male) doesn't pay any less attention than anybody else, but, invariably, when there is silence, he is pegged as someone who isn't paying attention and gets called on, and which point he stumbles out a response and goes back to trying to hid from the teacher.

Last year, the victim was Richard. We had four demo teachers, but the problem didn't truly become evident until the third one, who singled him out, calling on him repeatedly, trying to get him to talk. When the fourth one came, he eventually asked a question that no one knew the answer to, and he looked out at the class for someone to answer it. "How about you?" he asked, looking at Richard. The entire class burst into laughter. The poor teacher was very confused.

This year, the victim is Lyle (I don't know if this helps, but he's friends with Jeff and isn't related to Lisa (Lisa is a famous person, not a nickname) and was in all of my core classes in eighth grade). I'm fairly certain that Ms. Seltzia has called on him while he wasn't raising his hand once per class this year. To contrast, I have yet to be called on while I'm not raising my hand. Usually, he says "can you repeat the question?" before managing a half-hearted response. Today, she had put our next essay assignment up on the projector.

"... polire- that's Latin. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right. Does anyone here take Latin?"

"Lyle does!" somebody said.

"Lyle?"

"Huh? Yes."

"How would you pronounce this?"

He squinted at the board. "What?"

"P-o-l-i-r-e."

He looked confused. "That's Latin?"

The class laughed.

"Yes. But how would you-"

Ariadne couldn't contain herself any longer. "It's Polire! You're right!"

Lyle nodded. "Yeah..."

The Mummy

which I just watched, is a very good movie. Bit scary, though. I'm clearly not cut out for the horror genre. I was rather fond of Evie, though. It's always nice to see one of those action movies where the damsel in distress actually makes an effort.

Now, to go off on a tangent, I've recently noticed that boys grapple with their own insecurities. While we worry over Counties, they have their own fear.

Phil: So, last month I started doing EMT stuff, (I think he said EMT stuff, but it might have been something else, since EMT has absolutely no relevance to the rest of the conversation, although he does have a tendency to bring it up all the freeking time)

Richard: Uh-huh.

Phil: and anyways, the first day I go in, there's this big guy.

Richard: big?

Phil: Yeah, you know, like, big (he spread his arms in a wide gesture indicating weight)

Richard: Okay.

Phil: And he's like, I can lift you. I can lift more than you- two hundred pounds.

Richard: Wow. That's a lot.

Phil: I know, right? And then he's like, oh, how much can you lift, and I'm like twenty (as he said twenty, his voice went all squeaky and high)

Richard: Haha. That's why I hate fitness center.

Phil: Yeah, I can't lift, like, anything. It's so embarrassing.

Nyx Had A Dream

It went as follows:

First, i was sailing, with a bunch of people. we were in Hunter 420s, which is what we use on sailing team, but it wasn't the sailing team people. It was starting to get dark and a boat capsized, and when they righted themselves one of the crew members was missing. We spent a lot of time looking around for him but couldn't find him. (At this point I was in a motorboat with someone but I'm not sure who it was. Definitely male though.) Then the girl who had been sailing with him began to sail back to the dock, and when she started moving I saw an arm underneath her boat, which turned out to be attached to the missing guy. Still not sure who he was, mighta been Henry. The guy I was with on the motorboat jumped in and got the body and carried it back onto the boat. Then we went back to the dock (not one I was familiar with) and derigged all the boats. I don't know what happened to the body. Nobody was really sad though, we were all just kind of not really sure what happened. I don't think the concept of the situation had hit us yet.
Next, I was sitting outside my house on the glider with Kiwi. It was day time again. A loop of line, which i think was a really long dog leash, was staked into the ground near the oak tree in the front yard. There were more lines attached to it, and the other ends of these lines were attached to my bike helmet. For some reason I felt it necessary to put on the helmet and try to walk, but of course I couldn't because the lines were taut when I stood up. I kept straining at the ropes, and it was like some bizarre exercise machine.
Then I heard someone say, "And this is Nyx, strapped into her own yard!" I turned and saw that it was Lysander, talking to to older men on the sidewalk across the street. I unstrapped myself and went back to sitting on the glider, and as I did so he walked over and came into the yard. I asked him if he wanted his jewelry (i think it was heirloom or something) back, though I'm not sure why I had it. He had given it to me in a tacklebox which was also on the glider, but it was all mixed in with my beads and jewelry making supplies. Kiwi and I helped me dig through it looking for the jewelry, but Lysander didn't seem to mind the wait. When we finally gave it to him he left and went back across the street, where a black convertible was waiting for him with someone (maybe his dad?) in the passenger seat.
Then I went to your house, and you had just received a valentine from Lysander, even though we knew Valentine's day was still a few days away. It was a booklet made of unevenly-stapled red and pink construction paper, written and drawn on with crayons like a kid would do. Each page had something different on it. One page said Love.
Wondering if Lysander actually liked you or if he was just desperate for a girlfriend, I wanted to go check my mailbox to see if he had slipped one in there when I wasn't looking. (This is very reminiscent of me wanting to check my cell phone.) But I decided that it would be better to wait until the morning. Then I slept over at your house with a bunch of other girls and we gossiped about guys all night.
The next day was the first day of school, and of course I had already gotten to school and it was already 7:25 by the time I figured that out. I had not checked my mailbox. I also did not know what rooms my classes were in, but I knew that I had physics period 1. (There was also a while that we spent in the library and something happened but I forget what it was. Then I lost track of you and realized I had to get to class). I raced to the elevator to take it to the third floor, because I was riding on a library cart. The doors shut and opened again and an old lady in a wheelchair tried to come in but couldn't fit because of my cart. As the elevator went up I had the fleeting realization that if I had moved the cart over there would have been room for her, but I was in too much of a hurry to care.
On the third floor, all of the walls were black. Actually, the third floor was more like a train, which happened to be moving. Each car held one or two classrooms, and I passed from car to car (through the annoying between-car spaces) trying to find someone in my class - I think it was you. Finally I found a class and asked Vicuna if it was physics honors, and he said yes so I went to find a seat. The lab tables and benches were arranged on each side of the train car and looked like diner booths. I couldn't find any cute guys to sit with, but finally I sat down with Anita and a blond girl whose face I recognized but whose name I don't know. Meanwhile, the windowless train was still trundling along - quite loudly, I might add.
I looked around to see if I knew anyone else, and saw Tawny in a booth diagonal from mine. She appeared to be sitting on Benny's lap. But then suddenly they were sitting next to each other instead and he morphed into a girl so that was okay. Then I woke up.

it was only after the dream was over that I realized that a certain spare-brainless lab partner was not in my class. neither was Richard.

please interpret?!

My interpretation will follow tomorrow.

Punchline

A brief English class transcript

Tea: Richard! You were in my dream this weekend!

Richard: I was?

Tea: Yeah, you were trying to kill me.

Richard: Oh. Well, dreams do come true sometimes.

Tea: *Laughs awkwardly.*

Richard: *walks away*

Tybalt (Bryant's twin): Ow!

Tea: Hahaha! Gemma, look, Dino hit Tybalt in the head with a book!

Tybalt: What was that for?

Dino: I missed

Tea: That was definitely an untethered projectile

Gemma: Haha, what?

Tea: ASR joke. There is no one from ASR in this class, so it wasn't really funny...

Gemma: Oh.

Mrs. Leon: Okay, we have cows, but they aren't our cows.

Tybalt: I told Dino that, but he didn't listen.

Dino (with computer on desk): Heh.

Caroline: Can I have a cow now?

Vampires and Zombies and Spaceships, oh my!

This is another dream, courtesy of Tea's twisted subconscious. Enjoy.

My sisters (Genie and Shelby) and Mario and Nyx and I started in this dark graveyard at night, using our magic powers to keep someone else from reaching the gravestone we are guarding. The graveyard itself was a cross between the one in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Goblet of Fire, so I suppose, in that context, these actions made sense.

Everyone else had normal magic powers, spell flinging and whatnot. I was a good vampire, and the vampires in this dream didn't drink blood; instead, when they were killed, they became a spirit that had to take over a dead body or a doll. Dead bodies could be possessed indefinitely, but dolls must be replaced after only a few days or hours, proportional to their size. So, when a spell was about to hit Shelby, I jumped in front of her, taking the hit. I dissolved, leaving behind a rotting corpse.

The others, unable to fight them off without me, went home. I followed them, trying to find a new body. I got back to my room and try to find a suitable replacement. I considered my Spring Pearl doll, but she was rather tiny and won't last for long, so I decided to use one of Genie's porcelain dolls instead. Even so, I would need a new corpse soon. While I was floating, I found my Spanish textbook and workbook, which had been missing.

I found Dad and Shelby on the front lawn of the house. There was a fairly large crowd assembled, angry about the vampires. I heard Shelby say something about Mario, and I panicked that she was telling everybody that I liked him, so I made Dad shut her up. However, I didn't want to tell an angry crowd that I was a vampire, so I went looking for Mario.

I needed to ask him to go back to the graveyard and find my a dead body, but by they time I found him, he was already in the mudroom, preparing to leave. Abruptly, I hugged him, because I was happy that he was going to find me a body, and because, in dreamworld, I was into him too. He was surprised for a second, but hugged me back. I gave him a look that attempted to communicate "I like you. Please don't die." He squeezed me and said, "I don't know," before letting go, although I don't know if he was referencing the liking or the dying.

I passed Dora on my way back to my bedroom. "I don't think I like these vampires," she informed me.

In my room, Nyx and my sisters were sitting around. I tried to tell Nyx about hugging Mario, but then I realized that my sisters were listening, and considering Shelby had been talking about it ten minutes before, I didn't want to give her more ammunition. Nyx told be that she hadn't slept for two days and needed a nap. I had been dead that morning, so sleep wasn't really that big of a deal, but I figured a nap couldn't hurt, so Nyx, Genie and I squeezed into my teeny tiny bed and went to sleep. Shelby was supposed to keep watch, but she soon dozed off as well.

That was when the villain chose to strike. I woke up to see Richard (the boy in Nyx's lab group with the twin cousins who harass Gretchen) standing in the doorway. He looked pretty much like Richard always does, only something about him appeared vaguely evil. I rushed towards him, trying to fight min off, but he glided right past me. I tried to take over his mind (which vampires can do to each other) but I'd never been very good at.

"Look at her, trying to attack me. Ha!" he said, and pushed back, making me into his automaton. He then made me stand still as he hit me with a spell, killing me again. The porcelain doll fell to the closet floor, cracked and dirtied, as my spirit dissipated.

Dad then came in, and Richard informed him that they will be spared and I returned if they'll do Richard a few small favors. Dad agreed, on the condition that he got me back right away, and Richard informs me that there are a few dead bodies out on the front lawn for exactly that purpose.

Richard wanted us to steal three electrophorysis trays from my church. When we got there, they were in the middle of Bridging ceremony, but it was the weirdest church event I'd ever seen. A girl wearing a buttload of makeup was standing in the front, wiping it off, layer by layer, using little round handiwipes. We decided to get the trays by pretending we were supposed to be fixing them, so my sisters and I walked up to the front and took them.

However, just as I was walking back, the woman holding the handiwipes intercepted me. "Hold these," she said, and I passed the machine to Genie and accepted the wipes. I went to put them between my knees for better holding purposes, only to realize abruptly that I was naked, and I then proceeded to pass out.

The next thing I knew, I was clothed and on a spaceship with a tall, thirty-something black guy wearing what was, for all intents and purposes, Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

"We have to complete a quest," he told me.

"What?"

"A quest to increase your powers. The quest of the moonfrogs."

"I was thoroughly confused, but there wasn't really much I could do about it. We came to the moon, which was shaped like one of Mars's moons, but with a hole drilled through the middle. On the outside, there were winds and floating moondust, and I became worried that they'd put me out there. Even if I couldn't die, it looked rather cold.

Instead, we flew inside the hole. We passed through a weird field, and, suddenly, I was in a store with Dad, Genie, and Shelby. We had to put the correct items into our cart in the correct order, without running out of time. I got into a fight with Genie over whether to pick cheerios or rice krispies, and then I woke up.

Anyone who can interpret this wins a gold star.