leif erickson says, "Bollocks."

The parents are complaining about how, so they read, the United States now has the twelfth highest percentage of people who go to college. Those other countries are kicking our ass!

So many Americans have such a freakin' complex about things like this. We're America: if we're not number one in all things, then the natural order of the world has gone awry. You know what I think? Number twelve out of two hundred-something is nothing to be ashamed of.

Is there any point in transferring to a more expensive school for its writing program if I can't force myself to write? A professional writes on demand, forget mood or inspiration. I know this. Nothing I learn can do me any good as a professional if I can't force myself to write.

So, a story.

mint waxed

Better dental health is now a priority of mine, at least until I forget how painful and bloody the flossing and teeth scraping part of today's dentist visit was.

The new dentist always says things like "See you next time kiddo" and "Open big." The dentist doesn't look much more than a few years older than me; only by logic do I know he is, because it takes a long time to earn a doctorate.

Time to contexualize some aesthetics.

I stole soup, but didn't narrate.

I should find out if my blogger can be updated via my PDA, like my live or dead journals can be. I should find out, because I narrate things to myself a lot.

Like:
Walking up to girls decorating crumpled newspaper with gold glitter and spray paint, you become excited. It's art! It's vandalism! It's crazy inexplicable! You tap a few buttons, turn down the bouncing, synthesized music you are listening to, because here is a competitor for your attention. "What is it?," you ask, "It looks fun." The blonde one tells you that it's a decorative pirate's treasure chest for a school event where, she explains in full-on spiel mode, there will be comedians and prizes like hundreds of dollars and the opportunity to go to Montreal. It doesn't get much better than that, she adds, and you're still not sure why a pirate chest is relevant, except maybe for the prizes, but then those RIC Programming types give away a lot of prizes, and they never needed a chest before.

And yes, sometimes this does happen in 2nd person. Sometimes 1st or 3rd, but never 1.5, which is what I decided a story I wrote awhile back is. In my head, I narrate the things that happen to me, slightly after they have happened. I think of sentence structure, strategic pauses, finalize the whole narrative and think it through again, then almost immediately forget it as I find something else to narrate.

Like:
Kris danced and twirled, like a snowflake flying through the wind, only on morning sun, whatever that was. Through a Horace Mann hallway with the same ubiquitous maroon carpet as every other hallway, she flailed a bit, assured herself the hallway was still empty, and snuck into an empty used classroom. A whiteboard! She would write something about a man from Nantucket, how once there was one, but leave it with an ellipses for someone else to finish. Yes. No marker. She dragged a chair back out to the hallway with her and stood on it, trying to see over the edge of a ceiling-less closet type alcove. Janitors' Closets I and II, she called them, them put back the chair and kicked a trashcan. This would help release her boyfriend from his class, which was running late by too many minutes, because the professor would look up and say, "What the devil was that!" and with her head raised would notice the time and release her boyfriend.

I love being a blue-haired freak, the downfall of society and corrupter of the young.