I have passed through clumsiness and found new grace.

I am clumsy.
Very clumsy.
In spite of six years of ballet, which one might think would lead to an instinctive poise and grace, I find myself routinely stubbing toes, ramming elbows into walls, tripping over nothing and generally being a danger to myself and everyone around me. I knock books off the corner of my bed, stab people with a carelessly-swung outstretched finger, drop celery and chicken everywhere when making chili, spill tea on my laptop, drop my laptop on tiled floors (one panel on the bottom still doesn't fit quite right), practically anything you can think of.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I pass through to the other side of clumsiness and become unbelievably graceful.
It's rare, but amazing to watch.
For example, a few months ago I was rushing about the house for some reason or another at five AM, a time some three hours before my usual wake-up time. I somehow managed to trip over my own feet, tiny as they are, and plummeted towards the kitchen floor. Astonishingly, I managed to catch myself with an enormous step, though I should have already passed the tipping point. I was left with a feeling of accomplishment for the rest of the day.
Something similar happened to me this very evening. I realized that a show I wanted to watch was on, slammed my computer shut and leaped off the couch, turning a tight corner. I was very overbalanced, and should have fallen, but by grabbing and bouncing off of various objects I managed to reach the stairs completely intact. Am I proud of myself? Of course.
I can't really think of any other examples right now, which is actually kind of sad. But yay, me! I didn't fall down! :D

...I'm going to go back to writing that stupid novel. Why can't I just skip to the tiger mauling?

Writing is hard, you guys. :(

Hey, so, I'm writing a novel.
It's a nice little fantasy novel, and it and I get along pretty well, for the most part.
I'm hoping to finish it by the end of the year, actually...
That is, the first draft.
You see, I've been working on this novel for two years, give or take. I had about 30 pages at one point, but then I decided to change the setting, which meant I had to scrap the whole thing.
That was draft 0.5, because it doesn't really count as a first draft (imho) unless you actually finish it.
Anyhoo, I'm about 37,000 words into draft one, but I'm beginning to suspect that I'm a bad writer.
I don't mean in the sense that I can't write a good story - I like to think that I'm fairly skilled in that respect.
No, I mean that I can't seem to realize that writing takes work. My first draft has to be perfect, apparently, which means that I just wander off and let my book get lonely for weeks on end if I'm not struck with a blinding flash of inspiration. If I had a publisher, said publisher would be quite out-of-temper with me by this point.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm ridiculously lazy. "January?" I think to myself. "That'll never get here! I have plenty of time before my self-assigned deadline! Let's go watch 'Dumb Ways to Die'* again!"
I wrote all of 1,300 words today. That may sound like a lot, but since I'm shooting for somewhere between 50,000 and 75,000 words and this is the most I've written in weeks, I'm getting the sinking feeling that it's entirely inadequate.
I have all of two plot points for the second half of my book.
I still haven't ended Chapter IV.
I was severely tempted to skip over this whole 'romance' thing so I could just kill the love interest already (TIGER MAULING! :D).
In short, I have a loooooot of work to do.
And then, when this draft is finished, I get to send it off to the unwary friends and family members I've coerced into editing duties, fix it up a bit, find a literary agent, get this book published and start on that trilogy I've been bouncing around in my head for so long.
Oh, hey, life, what's that? I've still got to sort out the rest of you?
...If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hide in my pillow fort and watch Disney movies. Adieu (and yes, I know it means goodbye forever)!


*Oh, hi! Did you follow me all the way down here to see where the asterisk led? Well, this is the video that's been slowly taking over my life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw

To my little Teflon pot

Dear pot,
I'm sorry for your traumatic adventure of the other night. You've always been a good pot to me, boiling water and steeping tea without a care in the world. Without you, I would likely still be spending a dollar a day buying sweet tea from the convenience store down the road. But you saved me from that! You help me to make tea of my own, enough to last several days.
But the other day, I let you down.
I'm so sorry I left you boiling for an hour. My memory was never very good, you must understand. It wasn't until I smelled smoke that I realized my mistake. There you were, smoking on a hot burner, all your water gone, your Teflon coating melted on the bottom. Your once-silver outlines were blackened with soot. I poured water in you at once, but it was too late. You'd been in agony for far too long.
And so, my dear little pot, please forgive me for my inadequacies as an owner. I managed to clean you up yesterday, and you still made tea for me, as patient and industrious as ever.
I'll try to be kinder to you in the future.

Your apologetic owner,
~Miss Monday

Why French is better than English

French is a very... interesting language.
Its rules for adjectives are all over the place (some even mean one thing when put before the noun and another when put after it); their term for 'bra', when translated literally, means 'neck-brace'; and while 'grapefruit' is certainly not the most educated word for something that resembles a very large orange, is calling it a 'pamplemousse' making things any better? Oh, and while I'm on the subject, how is 'babyfoot' any better than 'foosball'?
And yet, for all its quirks and faults, I would far rather make casual conversation in French than in English.

For one thing, there's the issue of 'pants' or 'jeans'. We pluralize them because there are two legs, and say things like 'a pair of jeans'. This leads to awkward situations where one tries to communicate jean plurality, and must say things like "I bought two pairs of jeans," since "I bought jeans" is rather ambiguous. Or, when put into a sentence, it seems awkward at best to pluralize 'jeans', but not any of the other words ("A two-year-old tried to use my jeans as a hankie").
The French have it figured out. Their reasoning is that it is, after all, one item of clothing, and they sensibly leave it at that. While the hard 'J' of 'un jean' is rather at odds with the 'zh' sound other 'J's make, it is much easier to fit it into a sentence. "J'achete un jean," meaning "I purchased a jean," is much clearer than "I bought jeans."

Another issue that French handles much better than English is its use of multiple terms for the concept of love. For us, 'love' is the only word we have - and, in today's culture, it has been cheapened to a horrifying degree. One uses the same word to express a fondness for cheese danishes, or to confess a deep and abiding affection for another human being! How can that make any kind of sense?
In French, though, you have different kinds of love. 'Aimer' means to love a person or to like an object. So far, quite similar to English's 'love'. 'Adorer' means to love to do something or to adore a person, which also comes pretty close to our word. But after that, French goes deeper. They have 'aimer bien', to like someone, 'aimer beaucoup', to like someone a lot, 'aimer fort', to love someone a lot, 'aimer tres fort', to love someone very much, and 'aimer enormement', to love someone enormously.
French isn't the language of love because it sounds really pretty - it's the language of love because it keeps a love of a person separate from a love of cheese danishes.

And so, because of 'un jean' and all of the 'aimer's, I must regretfully admit that French is a language far superior to English.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go move to Canada, eh?

I have a love-hate relationship with my toaster oven

My toaster oven is a thing of beauty.
Most of the time.
Actually, come to think of it, it's not that pretty on the outside. It's old and crusty and rusty and the front window is covered in some kind of grease. But it has a good heart. I think.
You see, the two of us get along quite well, for the most part. It heats things up beautifully! It's easy to control, and doesn't require any time at all to preheat. I can roast hot dogs in it without needing a grill, cook fish sticks without firing up the stupid oven (which is like "I need at least half an hour before I can even start cooking, missy!"), toast bagels with ease... Pretty much anything you can name.
Unfortunately, it isn't always benign.
I think it might have all started when I accidentally set it on fire.
"How do you 'accidentally' set something on fire, Miss Monday? That sounds pretty intentional to me!"
All right, smarty, I'll tell you.
See, when I was younger, I would toast bagels in it with a paper towel under them. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, or even necessary. Anyway, most of the time it worked okay... Then, late at night, as I opened it and reached for my delicious bagels...
The paper towel caught fire.
I shrieked and ran around some and had enough sense to douse the flames with a glass of water, but my bagels were ruined. It was very sad. The toaster oven was okay, but I don't think it ever forgave me for setting its mouth on fire.

A toaster oven is a subtle appliance. It gets its revenge in ways that are not easy to recognize as malicious. For example, I will occasionally assemble a tasty row of frozen fish sticks inside and turn it on, then wander off for about ten minutes, waiting for when I have to turn them over. Upon my return, I find them still frozen, and realize that the toaster oven has somehow unplugged itself!
This probably has nothing to do with the certain someone living in the household that considers the toaster oven dangerous and likely to explode if left plugged in. No, it is clearly a plot on the part of the toaster oven to delay my dinner!
Sometimes, though, it lets them be cooked. This is only a ploy to trick me into being harmed, rather than just inconvenienced. You see, there is a strange little metal slat just inside the door, right at the top. It is positioned in such a way that if someone jerks their hand back suddenly (say, when their fingertips are scorched by the tinfoil), they will come in contact with a superheated mass of metal. This makes every attempt to retrieve or turn food incredibly perilous. Why, the other day, I burned, actually burned my pinkie finger! In two separate spots! There was sickening white skin over worrying red and everything... It hurt like the dickens, too!
Fortunately, the day was saved by a magical burn lotion left over from a long-ago visit to the beach. It turns out that it works just as well on regular burns as it does on sunburns.
Foiled again, toaster oven!

Cooking with Miss Monday

Cooking is not something I do on a regular basis. Most of the time, if I'm hungry, I'll do something with bagels or soup, or just go to the handy-dandy gas station, about a mile away, that sells tasty hot dogs and huge cups of tea.
But I digress.
Today, I found myself making a large-scale meal: rice fried with chicken and little chunks of egg. If I ever hosted a cooking show, it wouldn't be to instruct people on how to make delicious meals - it would be purely for the comedy that follows me when I set foot in a kitchen.
I spent what felt like half an hour picking apart what was left of a chicken. I fear I would not be allowed to come near any restaurant's kitchen, ever - I was a terrible, terrible, lazy chef. After rinsing off my hands, with no towels (other than the one sitting on the floor, soaked in homemade tea, which is a story for another time), I used myself as one instead, and transferred most of the water to my clothes.
The same problem arose when I got egg all over my hands, and my solution didn't change.
I'm so glad my slightly germaphobic little sister wasn't there to see it.
Anyway, the eggs took forever to scramble. They sat there for far too long, all smug and runny, and when I got bored and fetched a book, all of a sudden they were smoking and I spent the next few minutes furiously stirring them with a spatula, attempting to keep them from turning into a charred/runny mess.
Finally, though, I got them reasonably under control, and, since I didn't remember how my father usually did the next part, I just dumped in all the chicken and hoped for the best. I wanted to do the same with the rice, but unfortunately, it had other ideas... It huddled in its pot in a sticky mass, and didn't respond to my increasingly frantic attempts to scrape it out. All I got for my efforts was a few little lumps, and I was terrified that my other ingredients would begin to burn.
Thinking fast, I turned the pot upside down, held it over the frying pan, and shook it as best I could (pots full of rice are heavy!). All at once, it slithered out and fell in one clumped mass on the pan, exactly the way it always comes out of those little take-away boxes they give you at Chinese restaurants.
"YES! Who's a boss?" I cried. "I'm the boss!"
I sat there for a moment, looking at the mountain of rice.
"So... What now?"
The next few minutes were spent smashing it and cutting it with my spatula, and then mixing the whole mess together. My arms were exhausted (I have the upper body strength of a sickly hamster), but I was triumphant. I'd cooked my very first family-sized meal!
Now I just have to figure out what I'll do tomorrow night...

Blue Ridge, GA... Why are you so obsessed with bears?

 This is a post I wrote several weeks ago, then forgot about. I figure I might as well post it now. Enjoy!

Today, Saturday (the older sister) decided we were going to have an Adventure. After a morning of math and Minecraft, we hopped in the car and drove an hour and a half into the mountains of Georgia. Our destination: Blue Ridge, chosen for its mountainous location and its reputed 'cute little downtown'.
I'd like to say that the trip was filled with witty banter, but alas, I have nothing all too humorous to report there. Here's our travel montage instead:
Weeeee are the CHAMPIONS, my friiiieeeends! Laaaaaa! Lalalalala! Lalalalala! Lalalalala! And there's a creepy doll! That always follows you! It's got a ruined eye, that's always! Open! And there's a creepy doll! That always follows you! It's got a pretty mouth... To SWALLOW. YOU WHOLE.

Finally, the car trip was over. We had reached Blue Ridge.
At first glance, it seemed to be a bit of a disappointment. There were a few buildings along the highway, but nothing like the nifty downtown area we'd been promised. We visited a local diner, then headed back to the car and made our way to a place called something along the lines of "Huck's Mine".
There was no mine.
Fortunately, there were several nifty shops, which we visited systematically. They weren't all that similar, except for one strange thing...
Bears.
All of them featured bears in some way.
This one had bear jewelry, that one had a few stuffed bears here and there, one place had some bear book-ends...
And one shop was devoted entirely to bears. Bearskins, teddy bears, bears statuettes, bear paintings, bear signs, bear cards - anything remotely bear-related that you could possibly ever want. It was an ursidaeophile's heaven. Tuesday (the younger sister) was convinced that the owner was the descendent of the witch from Brave.
I think everyone would be just fine with it if they renamed the town to "Bear". Not "Bear Ridge" or "Beartown" - just "Bear".

A few other highlights:
- One shop featured a display of poop, along with a sign that said "Our poop now costs a nickel. You can't buy _ _ _ _ that cheap!" (sic). Immaturely, I spent a solid minute giggling over that one.
Really, how many swear jokes do you expect to see in a small town in the deep south?
- In one antique store, a red-headed ventriloquist dummy was prominently displayed. That's not a legitimate purchase, Store Owner - that's the start of a horror movie.