Book Recommendation

                You've probably read something by Shirley Jackson, or at least heard of something she wrote.  I read The Lottery a while ago, and it really stuck with me-like that nightmare from when you were two that still haunts you.  I also heard a little of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and my mother told me what it was about, it's not exactly a cheerful book.  Based on what she writes, I thought Shirley Jackson's life would be serious.  I was wrong. 

                I expected that Shirley Jackson would live alone in an old, dark, dusty house with a never-ending assortment of grim rooms at the end of a dark, twisting road surrounded by bears and wolves.  In that house, most things would be grey, there would be a musty smell in all of the rooms except the kitchen (which would have a burnt smell to it), and the heating wouldn't work very well.  She might have an angry black cat with one eye and a big scar, or a bite taken out of one of its ears.  Perhaps she'd have a guard dog as big as a car with bristling black fur and luminous red eyes and maybe a bark that could be heard for miles.  Even on the brightest days, the sun wouldn't manage to get through the thick trees that surround the house for miles.  If she had children, they would all wear dark clothes and spend their free time chopping heads off of dolls. 

                Yes, she had a black cat and a dog, and she did have children, but they were nothing like I would have imagined.  If anyone would have cut the head off of one of Sally's dolls, she probably would have called them a snick. 

                In Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons, Shirley Jackson writes about her life.  There's everything from when a bat gets into her house to Sally's missing blanket (I really liked that one), and Sally doing magic ("That boy still can't sleep."), and when her children played with water balloons inside the house (also a really good one). 

                My favorite by far was the story of Sally's missing blanket.  They all got sick and each person had with them their favorite drink-both adults had alcohol while the children had apple juice.  Each also had a pillow and their favorite blanket.  They headed off to bed but it wasn't long before Sally and Jannie wanted to sleep in their parents bed.  Their father was sleeping in the guest room to be more comfortable.  So they climbed into bed with their mother and went to sleep.  Eventually, Sally and Jannie were taking up too much space so she collected her drink and blanket and headed off for an unoccupied bed.  Through a series of bed changes for each member of the family nobody had the right pillow, blanket, or drink and Sally's blanket was nowhere to be found. 

                This is not what you would expect from horror writer.  It is funny, engaging, and enjoyable.  I wish there were more.  

Opinions

When I posted the open letter on my blog, it made me less likely to explode and furiously quote Harry Potter at that person.  (Yes, I would quote Harry Potter, and it wouldn't be very nice.) When I wrote the small rant about people looking at me funny when I was spinning, I felt better too.  The little silly things, like the letter to my library books and How To Tell If Your Best Friend Is Supernatural, were nice, and I could write them quickly so I could post at least one thing in each month. 

When I posted those light, carefree things, a lot of my friends said that they were funny, or they emailed with something like, "LOL!  That post was so funny!  You should write another like that."  Sure, when I wrote the open letter I didn't send out an email about how I had a new blog post.  I think I told only a few people, but that was it.  Reactions ran between reading it and relating and reading it and asking for a more happy post next time around.    

The thing is, most of the time I'm very serious.  The kind of serious that started at two when I discussed death for hours before my Great-Grandmother's funeral (and asked my mother to be sure to sit with me when I die) and continues to today when I read slightly depressing books where the description starts with something like "After her parents were killed, (name) feels like she can't go on."  Since I do really like fantasy, there will probably be something with a near death experience and possibly ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or demons.  Think-if this is what I read just because, what do you think my brain is like?  Okay, I'm not depressed or anything, but cute, silly novels that always have a happy ending and, of course, the right girl always ends up with the right boy don't hold my attention.  I have nothing wrong with romance, but if that's all the book is about I'm not going to read it. 

The same can be said for my music.  What I listen to can't exactly be called feel-good music.  Rock?  Yes.  Emo?  I guess.  Grumpy?  You bet.  Yes, I listen to Lenka and Taylor Swift.  Rarely yes, but I do listen to their music sometimes.  More often it's Superchick and Icon for Hire and Flyleaf and Paramore.  Yes the lyrics to Superchick can be upbeat.  Yes, not all Paramore is the kind of angsty that Flyleaf can be.  It's not totally impossible for me to be happy. 

I think I've made my point-the happy posts aren't always an accurate representation of me. 

Sometimes I wish that I didn't send out an email to all of my friends telling them that I have a blog.  That way I could bring it up in conversation sometime and just say, "Hey look at this blog.  I'm not sure who writes it, but it's really cool."  Yeah, I'd be saying that what I write is really good;  Yeah, I'd be praising myself.  But think about it, then I could write anything that I wanted and not worry about offending people.  Of course, my friends are very smart and they could figure out where they were mentioned, then I'd be called out as a liar, but, for a while, I would be free.  For a while. 

Sometimes I wish I didn't tell specific people about my blog because now I can't talk about how they say things that make me want to erase what I've written so far. 

Like when I showed a friend some of my angry poetry.  This isn't the same thing as Stardust or any of the poems I wrote when I started writing poetry.  These are the poems that would leave people with their mouths hanging open if they heard it.  This friend had bugged me until I showed her.  She repeatedly sent me emails urging me to send the file to her.  Finally, I read some to her.  She wanted to hear the grumpiest poem I had.  I didn't read it, because the event it was about was still too fresh in my mind.  She reacted rather poorly to the poem I did read, saying that it was really grumpy.  That made me want to scream.  Why can't you just be happy that I showed you what I wrote?  Only a few people have ever seen these poems, and those few were carefully selected because I thought they wouldn't judge me as much as other people.  That night I wrote a poem called Poetry Is....  It's about how writing poetry hurts and it isn't easy.  Here's a bit of the unedited version. 

Poetry is cutting my heart out of my chest with a dull knife. 
Poetry is selling my soul to make a few pennies. 
Poetry hurts. 
Poetry is letting everything I keep in the darkest pockets of my soul out into the world. 
Writing poetry is opening Pandora's box. 
A Pandora's box made just for me.
So there is no hope at the bottom waiting to buoy up the world.
Poetry is unlocking the misery that feasts on my heart. 
You do not want my pain.
Don't make me share my misery with you. 

Cheerful, isn't it?  Sometimes, in my "poetry diary" I even write little paragraphs to explain why I am disheartened that day.  I even admit that the poems I write sound morbid and morose.  Seriously, who would want to hear this kind of thing.  See the line of the poem that says, "Don't make me share my misery with you"?  That's basically saying "Don't hassle me until I break and read you these poems". 

So, before I get off on a rant about that, let me get to my point so I can at least stay on topic while ranting. 

I'm torn between posting my true opinions on things and continuing to post the light, happy things.  I think I can guess what a lot of people will want, but I also know what I want.  I've always tried to not be self-centered and I've tried not to do what I want just because I want to do it.  I've made a serious effort.  Maybe, like the girl from the open letter and the friend I mentioned above, I'll finally get sick of trying to make everyone happy.  And I do try to make everyone happy.  I just get sick of everyone's expectations sometimes. 

I'm going to try posting this and seeing how it goes over, see if I get angry ranting emails about how selfish I can be, or if I get understanding emails about how I shouldn't feel bad about posting my true feelings toward things.  Or maybe everyone will begin to doubt me when I say that I'm telling the truth.  Maybe they'll think I'm lying.  I mean, if I could pretend to be cheerful, maybe people will think I've pretended about a lot of things.  I mean, people never know. 

So here it is.  My opinion, true and complete without a lie or sarcasm.  I'm going to wait until next week to see the reactions, then I'll reconsider what I said about changing what I post. 

                "Thus I am saved from my own grim self."

                                                                -Holly Black, The Land of Heart's Desire  

A book review of Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

I wanted to like this.  Sort of.  My mom picked it out at the library, and she's really good at picking books I like.  And it's a book written in verse-I love poetry.  Yes, I admit, my standards for poetry are ridiculously high, but this didn't even start to measure up to what I normally read.  Maybe I've read too much Emily Dickenson. 

In Tricks, it seemed like all the characters were nearly the same.  They either do something their parents don't like, don't like their parents and fight with them constantly, or get rejected by their parents.  Then, four out of five of the characters run away.  Not just running away to a friend's house, no, they run away to Vegas.  Except for the character who already lives there, because he's in the right place to be able to meet other characters. 

For the first twenty pages, I liked it a little.  Then, after two hundred pages I was sick of it.  I made myself finish it because I had already taken so much time to read two hundred pages, I might as well finish it.  After three hundred pages, I put it on my windowsill and forgot about it for a few weeks.  A few nights ago I decided to finish it, just to get it over with. 

For a while, I even considered skimming the chapters about the characters I was interested in and seeing what happened to them.  I am glad that I read all of the book instead of skipping some, but only because if I hadn't read Cody's parts, I wouldn't know who Misty was, and she came up in other later chapters. 

Maybe I didn't like it because I couldn't identify with the characters.  At all.  Ever.  They would drink or do drugs, and I would never drink underage or do drugs.  Ever.  No matter what.  They were also very concerned about having a boyfriend, and one of them even ran away with a boy she barely knew.  Seriously, who does that?  That's the sort of storyline Lifetime Channel movies are made of. 

Also, I wanted a little bit more detail about what happened after the story ended.  Like, what happened to Cody?  Was Whitney okay?  And a little more about Ginger's future would have been nice. 

I don't plan on reading any other books by this author.  Actually, I plan on looking through my bookshelf to find Neverwhere and reading that again instead.  

A letter to my library books

                Dear library books (Anna Dressed in Blood, Lockwood and Co. The Screaming Staircase, Emily the Strange: The Lost Days, etc.),

                I am terribly sorry to inform you that my box set of the Modern Faerie Tales series by Holly Black arrived in the mail yesterday.  Since I've been waiting not-so-patiently for these books to get to my mail box, I will be reading all of them.  The only times I will stop reading them will be to do pointless things like sleep, eat, and drive places. (Because if I read in the car I get sick to my stomach.  I wish I had the audio-books.)  One of my goals for this year is to read all of Holly Black's books, so, since none of you are written by Holly Black, I'm not going to read you yet. 

                Another reason why I'm reading Tithe, instead of you, is because of one very simple reason:  It's fantasy.  I read fantasy even more than I eat chocolate, and that's saying something.  Yes, most of you have ghosts and one of you has feral black cats and amnesia, but I would rather read about elves with bluey-silvery hair which sprang from Holly Black's imagination.  I didn't even insist on plugging my iPod into my radio to listen to music (my normal reading situation) when I was reading Tithe last night.  I read until well past midnight (nothing weird there).  Yes, I did surrender to sleep until I had to get up and do something, but dreams of elves and magic and white cats filled my head while I slept. 

                I really am sorry.  Really.  But you know how I am when I get new books about faeries. These books are even better than normal books about faeries because these books are by Holly Black!  What did you think I would do!?!? 

                I can't say enough that I'm terribly sorry, but, in a way, I'm not sorry at all.  I'll really try to finish reading one or more of you, but if I can't finish Tithe fast enough (which I can, but if I get the flu or something and sit on the couch like a slug for a few days-just like on Christmas, happy day-I might not be able to read because I'll be sleeping like a slug.  But even if I have to sleep, I'm going to literally hold my eyes open and read.) I might have to return you to the library unread, but at least you will have lots of other books to keep you company. 

                I really am sorry, sort of...  Okay, I'm not as sorry as I keep saying I am, but I will read you at some point...  I think. 

                Blueshoe

                P.S.  Dear Spellcheck

                Bluey is a word, no matter what you think.  Also, all of your suggestions for what I might want to write instead of bluey are terrible.  What would bluesy hair be anyway?

Poem

This is a poem I wrote.

Stardust

We're made of stardust-

Stardust!

-Like dreams of faeries

and mythical beings. 

We're made of moonbeams. 

Like the shining, glowing pictures that light up your wall. 

We're made of earth stone,

sea breath. 

We're made of more than skin and bone and blood. 

I am stardust. 

Like a fairytale whispered to children before they go to bed. 

Like magic, recorded in books until it's better than reality. 

We are stardust. 

Forever one with the universe.

Our dreams are made of stardust. 

We see the world through floating, swirling, shimmering moon dust. 

We are stardust-

so much more than we seem.  

The ten best things about last week

                I always try to think up ten good things about every day.  Sometimes, one day is harder than others.  I can list more than one day in the past month that has only had a few "best" things.  So, since last week was not the best week of my life (my sister had surgery and was in the hospital), I'm coming up with the ten best things for the week.  Coming up with seventy things would just be way too much effort.  Not to mention time:  I wouldn't have enough time for writing about seventy things.  Well, here I go. 

                (BTW, they aren't in any particular order, these things were all awesome.) 

                One:  A sleepover with a friend.  When my house feels empty and my room feels colder than usual, the only thing to do is take back the words I said earlier about wanting to stay home and go to a friend's house.  It was even more terrific because we ate pancakes for breakfast and made up stupid Harry Potter fan-fiction where we were best friends with the main characters. 

                Two:  Staying up until twelve A.M. playing Rocksmith with my dad.  Even though I didn't know or like many of the songs, it was still fun to avoid sleeping for a few extra hours.  You might be scratching your head and asking why I wanted to avoid sleeping, here's why:  Judging by the dreams I've been having lately, lying in my bed wide awake until one thirty is still a better bet than sleeping.  (Also, realizing that if I just lived with my dad I would probably do this way more often.) 

                Three:  This might seem a little strange to be in the top ten things for this week, but I'm putting it in anyway.  Wearing my old horse-riding boots with brightly colored skinny jeans.  I also wore my Harry Potter themed necklace that says "I solemnly swear I am up to no good" until it broke.  I'm happy to say that I super-glued it earlier today and it's not going to break anytime soon.  Actually, it probably won't break in the same place ever again.  Even if the world ended in a fiery ball of flame, that bit of superglue and necklace would float through space for the rest of time. 

                Four:  Quoting my favorite books without anyone noticing.  This was much better than just quoting Fred and George (Harry Potter) without anyone noticing.  No one seemed to notice that I kept saying "All will be well" whenever I got nervous.  Actually, I tried to act like I wasn't nervous at all, so people might have not seen a connection.  Oh well.  I still loved quoting books.  (The quote is from Reckless by Cornelia Funke, by the way.) 

                Five:  Listening to Lorde in the car on the way to and from everywhere I went.  Seriously, that's one of the best things I've done all week.  I will never get tired of that CD. 

                Six:  Listing in my head all of the reasons one of my favorite book characters from one of my favorite books would not be a jerk in real life, but only saying one of them out loud.  I thought of a lot of reasons why that person wouldn't be a jerk in real life, one of them was that I've quoted them a million times over the past week, and the quotes all go perfectly with my personality and how I was feeling.  And I had dreams that I went through my bathroom mirror and ended up in a mirror world, so you can see how much this book has stuck in my brain.  (If you can't guess the book, look at my top ten books so far this year post.  It's my favorite.)

                (Getting harder to think of things to add to the list...)

                Seven:  Having a friend ask when I'm going to make my next blog post because she likes reading my blog.  That was AWESOME and it totally made my day.  This is that blog post I promised. 

                Eight:  Thinking about really weird stuff.  Here's an example:  "No matter how weird and irritating my life gets, there will still be a dachshund eating its own poo."  And another example:  "All soap-operas are the same.  Someone works for the police, someone breaks up with someone else, somebody starts dating someone else, and someone orders take-out.  I shouldn't even get started on the names!  Someone's always named Victoria, Ashley, or Emily."  These are just some of my weird thoughts.  Maybe that will be my next blog post...

                Nine:  Sleeping as late as I could without anyone freaking out.  That prepared me for Sunday morning when I was forced to get up at seven thirty. 

                Ten:  Looking for the attachment thing for the food processor with my dad for thirteen minutes and then finding that in was the cabinet we had both looked in many times.  Then eating the tofu and potato scramble we made.  Might not sound that fun, but it was really funny because we had looked in the cabinet about five times each and didn't see it. 

                So I guess, by some standards, I've had a boring week.  By other standards I've had a thrilling week and I should sleep late for the rest of it because I need the rest.  By my standards, I'm completely willing to sleep late for the rest of the week. 

BONUS THING!!!

Five things I learned last week:

                One:  I really don't like parking garages. 

                Two:  The Maze Runner is much better when I try to read it the third time. 

                Three:  I don't like the city, either. 

                Four:  I can balance two Hershey's kisses on my nose.    

                And finally, five:  My cat, Crookshanks, can eat really quickly.  It's almost unreal how fast he can eat.  And how fast he can barf it all back up.  Repeat. 

An Unhealthy Addiction

                It always starts innocently enough.  I say I'm just going to go watch some TV.  But that's where everything normal stops.  When I turn on the TV, instead of watching something that would make me a better human being, I watch something that even the weirdest people have probably never even heard of. 

                Goosebumps.

                Do I like it?  Of course not.  It's irritating and predictable and the characters are always so childish.  But if I really don't like it, why do I watch it almost every day?

                I would like to blame someone else.  Maybe my dad is to blame, after all, he was the one who thought we should have Netflix.  I could blame the lack of interesting TV shows.  But to be able to do that, I would have to finish watching all of the cooking shows I have recorded.  I could blame my sister.  She likes them too, well, that or she's a really great actor. 

                The funniest part is, they don't scare me.  I'm not just saying that to sound brave.  The only way they could scare me would be if I couldn't sleep (so pretty much every night) and I'd have nothing to do so I think about creepy things.  It doesn't make sense.  Four A.M., can't sleep, I'm sitting alone in a dark room and I think about creepy stuff. 

                But when I freak myself out, it isn't the pictures of the weird looking vampires from Goosebumps that I see.  I see the Other Mother from Coraline; I think too much about the man in the black suit from the Stephen King short story I read.  (It's in Everything's Eventual, I couldn't sleep for weeks after I read it);  I wonder if the shuffling in the dark is my cat or Capricorn struggling to free himself from my bookshelf; or maybe, reaching way back, Cluny the Scourge is making his rounds.    

                So what do I get out of these shows?  They barely entertain me, they don't scare me, they never tell you the ending.  Why do I insist on watching them?

                Maybe I have too much spare time.  But judging from the number of library books I have, I should be reading all day. 

                So if it's not that I have too much free time, and it's not that I secretly like them (because no matter what everyone thinks I still do not like them), what is it? 

                The special effects are terrible, I make fun of the plot lines (which, by the way, are terrible), but it's still one of the most watched things on my Netflix queue.  I even watched The Nightmare Room on Chiller-The Nightmare Room is like Goosebumps, but it's been made recently, at least, I think it was. 

                I should be writing.  I should be cleaning my room.  I should be doing something interesting.  I could bake soufflé, I could watch Doctor Who (seen all of the recent ones, can't wait for the Christmas special - perhaps no Goosebumps that day).  But no, I watch Goosebumps. 

                I'm happy to say that I only have a few unwatched episodes left, so soon I'll stop watching them.  I hope...