Chapter 24: Teddy is Good at Everything

I finally wrote a new chapter. Yay? I hope so. I started it a long time ago but then didn't finish until now. It's finished now. OK go.

Clang. Clang. Clunk. Silence, until…

“Noooooooooooooooo! You used your genius powers to cheat!” Blue wailed, throwing her air hockey striker across the table at Teddy in frustration. After the first game, Blue claimed Teddy won because he was red and she was white and red always wins so they had to switch and play again. In the second game, she was convinced the puck had been upside down and made her game all off so they had to turn it over and play again. The third time Blue was convinced the air hockey gods had been mad at her, or something she was sure made as much sense at the time, so they had to do a dance to appease them and then they had to play again. The fourth time she finally understood what was happening.

“Stoooop-uhhh,” she whined at Teddy, “using your genius powers to win isn’t fairrrrr.”

He shrugged and laughed at her, “I’m sorry. Would you like me to lose on purpose?”

“Lose on porpoise?” Blue shrieked, appalled at the very suggestion, “Why, how dare you, sir? To suggest I would accept the indignity of winning a game in a way that isn’t entirely fair. Madness, sir! Madness!” After her rant was finished, Blue waved her arms wildly and ran around the room. Once she’d calmed down slightly, she flopped face first onto the rec room couch, mumbling something into the cushions that became incredibly muffled.

“What are you telling the pillow, Blue?”  Teddy asked, glancing out the rec room window as he walked over and sat next to her. Blue pulled her head up from the pillow and followed Teddy’s gaze outside. Since it had warmed up, a few of the guys had taken to playing basketball on the court next to the rec room, including Malik and Pablo. They played shirts and skins, naturally (when Estela or any other females played with them they were automatically on the “shirts” team”), and on this day Pablo and Malik were both on the skins team. Teddy and Blue, therefore, had to stop and admire their boyfriends for a while before they could continue the conversation. They stared as their boyfriends continued not quite knowing how to interact with one another and managed to awkwardly bump into each other even though they were on the same team. Kip laughed and dribbled around them as they tried to decide whether to apologize or to just go on with the game.

“We know how to catch them,” Blue admired as she and Teddy laughed at the awkward half-pat Malik gave Pablo’s arm (the one he ran into) before returning to the game. Before Teddy got the chance to agree, Blue shrieked, “No! Stop being good at picking a boyfriend! And stop being good at picking a best friend!” Teddy couldn’t be sure whether Blue was referring to herself or Malik, but he supposed it didn’t matter. As far as Teddy cared, they were both his best friend and they were both fantastic.

“I’ve got it! You’re no good at basketball, right? Play me!” Blue demanded, and Teddy shrugged.

“OK,” he agreed. Leading Teddy outside, Blue ran into the middle of the basketball game and started swatting at the ball. Malik caught her around the waist while Pablo called a time out, and Teddy laughed. While Malik listened to Blue explain that she needed their basketball “for because Teddy needs to be pwned, bro!” Malik proceeded to explain that they were in the middle of a game and Blue should probably wait for the game to be over. She then claimed that if they were really good at basketball they could stop her from stealing the ball. This launched them into a playful argument, while the rest of the players wondered when they would get to start playing again.

Pablo walked over to talk to Teddy and started saying something, but Teddy stared at his naked torso instead of listening. “Teddy,” Pablo prodded, poking the blond in the head.

“If we weren’t in public I would—,” Pablo cut Teddy off with a finger to the face and an amused smirk.

 “I’m flattered and all, but those guys over there can most likely hear you, and things would get sort of weird with them if you continued on with that,” Pablo advised, though he was secretly very happy to hear Teddy say such things.

 “Ha!” Blue announced, running over to Teddy and Pablo and tugging Malik along with her. “you want to see who’s better at inappropriately propositioning their boyfriend in public?”

Pablo let out a half-snort half-laugh and rejected the idea, “I’m not going to explain why that’s a bad idea, Blue. We need to get back to the game now.” Blue pouted excessively as Pablo and Malik turned to rejoin the game that picked back up while they were away.

 “There’s another basketball right there,” Teddy advised, bringing a grin to Blue’s face, “and we can play at the open hoop. No need to steal a ball.”

 “OK,” Blue agreed. Soon, Blue and Teddy were swatting at each other and “playing basketball” together. It was hard to say exactly what happened, but Blue and Teddy were under the impression that Teddy won. Pablo and Malik finished their game just in time to see Blue sing obnoxiously at Teddy to distract him from his “free shot” which was “part of basketball” and “not made up.” Free shots were taken when the opponent stepped on your foot and you managed to step on their foot at the same time really quickly. Despite clearly making up their own rules as they went along, they somehow came to a consensus at the end of the game neither Malik or Pablo could follow that insisted Teddy won. Blue whined about it as the four of them walked back toward their dorm rooms, and explained her plan to find something Teddy wasn’t good at. When asked to define what “not good at” meant, Blue officially defined it as something Teddy lost to Blue at in direct competition.

 “Well I have some ideas,” Malik offered.

 “Malik has known me too long, that sounds like cheating,” Teddy rejected soundly.

Malik gave Teddy his sassiest eye roll, “That doesn’t seem fair.”

Frowning, Blue considered whether she would use Malik’s ideas. Once she agreed to accept his ideas, Blue banished Teddy and Pablo from the room so she and Malik could plot in peace. By the end of the day, they had a fairly cohesive list, and Teddy agreed to attempt one task per day until Blue finally beat him at something.

Challenge One: Racing

Planning time: “Teddy has never won a race in his life,” Malik offered as he and Blue plotted.

“I’ve never run a race in my life,” Blue replied, “but how hard could it be? On the list.” Malik was too dumbstruck by what Blue revealed to comment further.

Race day: The race, as dictated by Blue, who “would prefer not to run farther than about twenty me-tres” and “won’t accept corrections” to “pronunciation skills that” she “learned in elementary school,” was from the dorm building to a tree approximately nineteen meters away. Malik was in charge of waving the checkered flag Blue had drawn onto a piece of printer paper. Pablo was in charge of judging at the finish line. At Blue’s instruction, after a few things she called “stretches,” she and Teddy lined up on the start line she’d created by dragging her foot through the grass a bunch of times.

Starting the countdown after a nod from Blue, Malik waved the “flag” when he finished, and the pair were off. The first couple steps, Blue was pretty sure she was going to win. She was ahead sort of. Teddy was a couple steps back kind of. Suddenly, her best friend’s long, surprisingly gazelle-like stride overtook hers, and she started sweating. Game over, she decided, as she slowed to a walk for the last five meters to avoid sweating more, which she still sort of suspected was her brain leaking. Teddy crossed the finish line, and she scowled at nothing in particular and kicked a tall tuft of grass, falling off to the side of the finish line and not completing the race at all.

“Teddy wins,” Pablo stated, though it wasn't exactly necessary.

Challenge Two: Pogo Stick Jumping

Planning time: “You know those hoppy sticks?” Blue asked, tapping her face with a pen. The thought brought Malik back from his bafflement that Blue had never run a race, as he pondered what she might mean.

“Uh…,” he trailed off, thinking. Taking the opportunity to perhaps spark a thought in Malik’s head, Blue tapped his face with her pen. He laughed and swiped at the pen as he thought of the name Blue was going for, “Pogo sticks?”

Pogo day: Teddy found some pogo sticks from some kind of stash the principal apparently had (he believed they would become very valuable someday), and the pair faced off in the courtyard. Pablo was in a rehearsal this time, but Malik was very obediently supporting his girlfriend’s pointless pursuits and his best friend’s willingness to go along with them.

“OK,” he stated, with a referee title given to him by Blue, “each of you will get three attempts to bounce more times than the other. Teddy will start, because Blue insists that she’s a gentleman and gentlemen let their competitors go first.”

The blond frowned at the pogo stick, shrugged, and managed two bounces before falling off to the side and landing awkwardly. Snorting, Blue laughed and took her turn, sure she could get more than two bounces. She fell over entirely after one bounce. Teddy took his next turn then, and managed three bounces this time. Blue fell after one again. It all came down to the last round; one moment for Blue to prove she was better than Teddy at pogo bouncing, one moment for Teddy to not be good at something, one moment for Blue to be better than her genius friend. Blue threw pieces of grass in Teddy’s direction to mess him up, as he sighed and balanced on the pogo stick one last time, bouncing three times again. That was it, then: Blue needed four bounces and this endless competition would finally end after hours and hours of exhausting struggle. Breathing deeply, Blue put one foot onto the foot holder of the pogo stick, then the other, and fell over sideways, screaming out, “Noooo!” as she fell.

Malik and Teddy stared in silence until Malik declared, “With, uh…Let’s go with an impressive score of four bounces, Teddy wins!”

Challenge Three: Remote-Controlled Helicopter Driving

Planning time: “I wish being a pilot could be a challenge,” Blue suggested, “I could beat Teddy at that I bet…Wait, we could fly my tiny helicopter you gave me!”

“Blue, you can barely get it to stay up in the air,” Malik replied, but Blue chose not to hear him.

Helicopter day: A short obstacle course lay in front of the competitors, as Blue attempted trash talk at Teddy to get into his psyche. “You’re all thumbs, can’t fly this thing at all!” she taunted. Teddy decided not to remind her the helicopter’s remote was driven by thumbs only, as Malik handed the helicopter remote to him. He, as the impartial party in the matter, was also in charge of setting the helicopter up in the same place for both of them, atop a nice looking rock Teddy and Blue jointly decided on.

Once again, Teddy was to go first, since Blue was still in a gentleman kick (she was also holding all doors open for others, pulling out seats for other people, and forcing them to go in front of her in lines; she missed lunch a couple of days because she kept forcing other people into line even if they were walking past for an unrelated reason). Malik still had the checkered flag from the earlier race, and he waved it to signal that Teddy should start. After Malik stepped out of the way, the helicopter lifted off the ground, headed for the other end of the courtyard.

“You’ll never make it,” Blue trash-talked, “you were born to be a dancer, not a helicopter pilot!” Malik and Teddy shared confused eye contact, but Teddy managed to get past the strange statement and not crash the helicopter. Landing the tiny vehicle safely on the other side of the courtyard, Teddy grinned and smirked at Blue, who glared and stated, “You’re ignoring your destiny!”

Laughing, Teddy went to pick up the helicopter, and returned it to Malik, who prepared it for Blue’s turn. She grabbed the remote from Malik, and eagerly awaited the start signal. Once Malik waved the “flag” and stepped aside, Blue started pushing on the two joystick-like appendages sticking out from the remote. Flying into the air, the helicopter turned around and aimed itself straight for Malik, who tried to sidestep it but ended up with a helicopter to the nose.

“Teddy wins,” he stated, as Blue shrugged and laughed at his irritated face.

Challenge Four: Cooking

Planning time: “Maybe I should pick the next one?” Malik suggested, and Blue shrugged at him.

“OK, what do you think?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling.

“Cook something,” Malik stated, smiling like he had some sort of memory he should be sharing with Blue.

Once Malik recounted some adventures of “T&M’s Kitchen of Cooking,” he and Blue continued on in their plotting.

Cooking day: This time they were in Kakahi’s house, and the violin prodigy and her girlfriend would be the judges in the competition. Her younger siblings, Link and Gizmo, insisted they be judges in the cooking contest as well, claiming Kakahi and Estela probably wouldn’t be completely impartial like they needed to be, so they should balance it out. Also they were hungry. Link entertained everyone by playing the ocarina while Teddy and Blue cooked the dish Kakahi had chosen for them: cookies. They could be any kind they wanted, and all the ingredients they might want were provided by the rich Verde family. For the first time, they met Kakahi’s parents, who edged in on the contest as well.

Finally, Blue and Teddy presented their creations to the then six judges. Both batches of cookies (chocolate chip) looked sadly pathetic, and Blue and Teddy broke out in laughter when they saw each other’s shoddy work. The six judges received their cookies, and within a few minutes they made their decisions and turned their votes in to Malik, who was still entranced by Link’s ocarina. Once he was reminded he was the “host” of their food contest, Malik counted up the votes. Once he had the count, he taste tested the cookies as well.

First, he bit into Teddy’s cookie. It was decent, he decided. Next, he bit into Blue’s cookie. It tasted like salt, and he spit it back out. “Teddy wins, five to one,” he declared. Kakahi winked at Blue, telling her who’d voted for her, as Malik ate the rest of Teddy’s cookie and glared at Blue’s like it personally offended him.

Challenge Five: Turtle Whispering

Planning time: Once Blue and Malik were done laughing at Teddy using salt instead of sugar in his first ever batch of cookies (as if Blue would ever mix those two up!) they got back to planning. Suddenly, Shelly shifted in her cage, and Blue gasped, “Turtle whispering!”

“What is that exactly?” Malik asked, and Blue rolled her eyes affectionately.

“Oh, you,” she laughed, patting Malik’s head and ruffling his hair.

“What?” Malik repeated, fixing his hair.

Turtle day: Blue and Teddy sat on either side of Blue’s room, with Shelly the turtle placed in the center. This time Malik was sitting on Blue’s bed, only vaguely paying attention to the contest, while Kendall served as referee. “OK,” Kendall said, “begin the turtle whispering in three…two…one…go!”

“Here Shelly, Shelly,” Blue cooed, tapping the floor to try to attract her turtle to her.

Teddy stared at the turtle and then stated, “Shelly, if you come over here I’ll take you to visit Scamps.” The turtle, surprising everyone in the room, turned and walked straight over to Teddy. Blue was too busy blinking in shock at her turtle’s intelligence to move as Teddy scooped the pet up into his arms to make good on his promise.

 “Teddy wins,” Kendall mumbled, seeming just as confused as Blue, who started incoherently muttering about super intelligent animals. Malik was surprised as well when he realized it was over already.

Challenge Six: Math(ing)

Planning time: “I’m pretty good at mathing,” Blue stated.

Malik frowned at her and replied, “You know he’s a genius, right?”

 “But I get all As in mathing,” Blue informed her boyfriend. It was true, actually. One surprising thing Malik had learned about Blue over time was that she earned pretty impressive grades, and math happened to be her best subject. His only problem was that it was also Teddy’s best subject. Arguing didn't seem worthwhile, though.

Math day: “OK, multiplication tables,” Malik said, handing a sheet to Blue and a sheet to Teddy. “I’m not sure how else to test mathing, so…Here you go. First person to finish the front and back is the winner. Don’t look at either of them until I say go.” Teddy and Blue nodded eagerly as they prepared, and Malik started counting down. “Three, two, one…go!” The competitors started, as Malik glanced across the room to a couple of people he didn’t recognize and stared at them intently until Teddy declared himself done. Blue finished not too far behind, but it ended up being too late.

 “Teddy wins,” Malik stated, as Blue threw her pen toward her best friend.

Challenge Seven: ?

Planning time: “That’s probably enough, right? I should win after six probably, right?” Blue asked.

Not wanting to disappoint his girlfriend, but pretty sure she was wrong, Malik replied, “Why don’t you try one last thing?”

? day: Teddy walked over to Blue, not aware of what the contest would be this time, as he met her backstage in the auditorium. His best friend looked sad that she’d lost so many times to him. “You know this stuff doesn’t matter, right?” he asked, and Blue nodded.

“Yeah,” she replied, “it’s the principle, though.” The principle, Teddy supposed, was more to do with Blue’s confidence than some desire she had to crush his.

 “You’re better than me at a lot of things,” Teddy insisted, and Blue tilted her head and listened to him, “like being a good, genuine person, acting on camera, and most definitely being a gentleman.”

Grinning, Blue held her arms out to Teddy and hugged him, “You are good at all those things, too, Teddy. I love you. It’s because I love you that I must now crush you.” Teddy tilted his head to the side when Blue backed away from him and led him onto the stage. It took only a couple seconds for him to realize what was happening and turn very pale.

 “Karaoke,” Teddy mumbled under his breath, freezing in place. The spectacle that followed wasn’t fit to be shared, as Teddy made some barely audible sounds he insisted were singing while their friends watched. Blue easily out sang her best friend, and then opened the stage up to the rest of their friends to join in on the karaoke fun. As an act of revenge on Teddy’s behalf, Blue invited Malik onto the stage and made him sing a duet with her, which resulted in Malik hiding behind his girlfriend on the stage and trying to turn invisible.

They had fun, though, as Rashida and Pablo serenaded them all with a romantic ballad. The Twingers took over to sing some Spice Girls jams with Kip and Kakahi, and Gerda sang something in Swedish that she only laughed when asked to translate. Next up was Hakan, who made some attempt at rapping for the group, and Jenny brought down the house with a ballad. Everyone cheered, and Blue and Teddy made fun of Malik until Kakahi needed to take the karaoke machine home. The group walked back to their dorms, Blue mocking Malik’s and Teddy’s singing skills as they argued they were just taken off guard and could sing better if they had prep time. Despite this, they both rejected a plan for more singing later, and Blue declared, “None of us is good at everything!” as if it was profoundly important. At that moment, it kind of felt like it was.

Late Night Wisdom

I am stress-loopy. I have this crazy thing to lay on you. Lay it all out there, man. I like saying man lately. You man (I meant to type mad, but I'm going to just leave man there, cause come on man), bro? (Pronounce "bro" like "bra") Anyway, so I was sitting there thinking and something occurred to me.

Love is love.
Butt is butt.
Foot is foot.

Wisdom. Wisdom, man. What do those three things have in common? Tune in later maybe for the answer!

I apologize, I'm just on the edge of this at a point where I know this makes no sense but don't care.

Edit: Has been almost one minute, is later. What do they have in common? They all have four letters. Also they're parts of the body or something. Except love. But like, love is love man. It's love.

Edit 2: Is raining. Is thunder lightning? They're the same thing but not, you know? Like, what if I said thunder is lighting. Is that wrong? Am I the sound I make if the sound I make if a result of my existence? ...I might be some sort of genius philosopher. Look out! I declare that all gum is  impossible to generalize. Good day! No, good night. I should be asleep. I typed ass. It was funny. I didn't laugh. I'm on stress-crazy. I walk around twitching. Too late now. Too late to walk around twitching.

Life Lessons: Sticky Things and Tables

Today I thought I would regale you with tales of very interesting-interestingness. It's time for: Life Lessons (with Taylor)!

I am moving back home for the summer in about a week and a half. As such, I have been getting my stuff ready to move home and taking some stuff with me, etc. Yesterday I decided I should take my pictures down off the wall in preparation to be taken home today. I'm pretty eager to move home and generally fidgety about it, so that is why I decided they needed to go now. Unfortunately, removing them from the wall was not as easy as I'd hoped. I vaguely recall being warned (perhaps by Amy?) that the sticky items I was using to append my pictures to the wall would not, in fact, come off as easily as advertised. Despite the warning I received, I continued on in my rashness in putting the pictures up, convinced that surely if something was going to go wrong with these sticky things it would not happen to me.

This confidence in mind, I pulled on the sides of my first framed picture, and realized with alarm what was happening only after I removed it from the wall. I guess the wall was simply too attached to my pictures (haha, pun) so it decided to come with it. So now there are these horrible patches of wall where the top layer of paint has been ripped off and I get to fix that before I can move out. The patches created by the smaller painting are the largest offender, possibly because I was aware of their possibility at this point and trying not to create them. I do not think those sticky things I used to attach the pictures to the wall are worth it. They're just too strong. I'll probably add them to my list of nemesises. Nemesi? Nemesisi? Spellcheck doesn't like any of those, so I'm sticking with nemesises. Which really doesn't sound good at all. Nemesis is perhaps impossible to pluralize.

Damage from large picture

Damage from small picture

Lesson: Do not use those square sticky things. They are too strong.

My next life lesson is another interesting and not at all boring story. I was at work this past Tuesday, and one of the tasks I needed to do was set up two tables in the auditorium lobby. After achieving all I could in the auditorium without calling my boss and admitting that, although I claimed I could handle set up on my own, I was going to need help, I decided to go ahead and set up the two tables I needed to in the lobby. Then it would look less like I spent five to ten minutes trying to figure out whether there were any tables backstage. I set out to achieve my goal, knowing where tables are kept in the lobby. I went over to the tables and the realization that they were, in fact, quite large and heavy dawned on me. But, being the intrepid worker I was, I started dragging them across the floor anyway. Once I had situated them in the relative areas I expected them to be wanted, I began to set them up. I pulled all the legs of the first table out, and then the hard part of actually standing the table up came (note: this is much harder than it looks, tables are weirdly slippery).

I placed my foot underneath the table to get some leverage to help me grab it, and carelessly left it underneath the table. What happened next was utterly disastrous. The table was about as long as my arms are width wise, and it slipped from my grip as I tried to pull it to standing position and landed on my foot. I did not outwardly express my pain, but it hurt. A lot. I finished setting up the tables (very carefully) and half limped my way backstage to call my boss and request help with light focus (this means aiming lights to the best place for them on stage). My boss figured out what we needed to do with the lights while I finished setting up the sound and pretended my foot was fine.

The people using the auditorium arrived and my boss sent me up into the catwalk to move the lights around. It turns out, climbing ladders on a hurt foot is very painful. I considered that I may have broken my big toe because it really hurt, but I'm a pro at not breaking bones, so I decided against that. I spent the rest of the night half-limping when I had to walk (I was sitting for a while while two women gave a presentation), convinced my foot/big toe must look impressively injured. When I got home and took off my socks and shoes to inspect the damage, my foot looked mostly unharmed but slightly red. By the next day it looked just like any other non-injured day. I was pretty disappointed in how my injury chose to present itself. In fact, now if I want to show someone how I hurt myself, they'll just look at my foot probably and say, "I don't see anything." And I will be sad, because my foot still hurts but you can't tell at all by looking.

My foot looking totally uninjured (circle around where the at least bruise should be)

Lesson: If you're setting up tables, you should probably just ask your boss to help you. If you're too prideful to do so, do not put your foot under where the table might fall should you drop it. If you so choose to ignore my first two warnings, at least make sure your foot has the common decency to display the injury it received so others may comment on it and offer condolences such as "Ow, I bet that hurt," and, "Your foot must hurt," and, "You should be more careful with tables."

Bonus: My cat (Misha) decided he needed to grab my foot with his feet while I took a picture of it

Super Hearing Powers

It is my belief that as soon as I close my eyes to go to sleep I gain super hearing. Basically, I'm like Daredevil, except I didn't have to get blind first (is referencing Daredevil nerdy? I don't think so). Once I got on that thought, I decided I clearly therefore had the capacity to be an excellent superhero. I could go to the scene of a crime, lay down to take a nap, and hear everything! Fool proof. I would be right up there with the super hero who has x-ray vision as his/her only power.

(If I could draw this is where a picture of our super hero gang would go)

So the two of us, me (Super Sleep-Time Hearer) and x-ray superhero (Cancer Man?),  will travel around as the most efficient crime fighters ever! I'll hear the bad guys super hard, and x-ray superhero will give them cancer. Good plan? Yeah, definitely a crime deterrent. Naturally, x-ray superhero would be my sidekick. Maybe we could be joined by some other superheroes and form some sort of league for justice. I'm not sure of the details of the other superheroes right now, but I'm sure we'll be awesome at stopping crime.

This post would be at least ten times more awesome if I could just illustrate it. Maybe after finals are over I'll consider illustrating the adventures of Super Sleep-Time Hearer and Cancer Man. Anyway, what was the point of this post? Oh yeah, so I hear ridiculously well when I'm trying to sleep. I can feel my sanity fading as noises I hear continue and show no signs of stopping. Basically, I'd probably be pretty easy to drive completely insane in a matter of days if I was trying to sleep and stupid noises would never ever stop...That's probably Super Sleep-Time Hearer's kryptonite--insomnia caused by too many noises at night. Cancer Man's kryptonite is that he gives people cancer, so...He feels kind of bad about that.

This post brought to you by: the fact that I often can't fall asleep because of all the stupid noises I miraculously hear! They're like, right on the edge of audible too, which somehow makes it so much worse.

My Intentions

When I have to write essays I always begin with an outline. Even during class if I'm taking a Blue Book exam. Everything works out better when I have an idea of what I'm trying to say. What am I getting at here? I'm getting at the fact that I intend to state, right here, what I want to do with this blog. I have a few tags that I've used, and that's what I'll basically use as guidelines.

I understand not many people will probably be reading this. For that reason, I can feel free to express my own brand of weirdness however I feel like. These sorts of posts shall henceforth reside under the tag #Weird Waffles (Disclaimer: this tag has nothing to do with waffles).

I will continue to update the story that I have been writing from time to time. The story related tags are pretty self explanatory. All will be tagged with #Story Stuff. Updates will be sporadic based upon whether or not I can engage my brain enough to write story things.

Part of my nature is very concerned will actual happenstances in the world and serious issues the world face. Expect posts on any topic I want to discuss on that day in particular, including anything I might want to simply share my thoughts about and offer the perspective of someone who is admittedly very strange. Look for these sorts of posts under the tags: #Current Cares, #Peaceful Politics, and occasionally #Terrible Things.  I would note that most of what I say in these situation will be entirely opinion based, and I'm probably very open to broadening my knowledge base on the topic.

I love music and love sharing music with others because I honestly don't know how I would deal with stress without it. If I ever discuss music, look for it under the tag #Lyrical Lines.

Finally, if I ever want to discuss something marginally personal (since I have a thing about getting too personal, marginal is all I want to go for) I will use the tag #Feeling Feelings. This will be related to my thoughts about life or the world if I ever feel myself to compelled to post them.

As I see what sorts of ideas I have I may create more tags, then come back to this post to update them. I love but don't expect much in terms of input (comments). I intend for this blog to be a fun place to express ideas where other people can add their thoughts and ideas as well at their own purview.

Thank you for your time. I am old enough to understand that I'm still very young, so I'm sure my opinions will change and be shaped over time, but I hope this will provide an outlet for the constant racing thoughts about anything and everything in my mind. Expect sporadic updates at best, but please stick around for more if you enjoy what I'm saying. :)

Update: #Life Lessons tag has been added. It will be me telling stories of things that happen to me and what I learned from them. Expect most of them to be random/silly. Not necessarily funny, but I'll try sometimes.

Also, #Important Information is for tags like this one. Administrative stuff, I guess?

Pencil Toppers

Today I took a nap. As I was falling asleep, I became suddenly enraged about the existence of pencil toppers. Why? I don't know, I'm on sleepy brain. I haven't been sleeping well lately. In any case, as I was falling asleep, I started thinking about these things. I guess I should specify I was thinking about pencil toppers that are erasers. Anyway, I got really mad that they make really cool eraser pencil toppers. Because it's not like I'm going to use that to erase. Do I want to disintegrate the face of something I love? No.

Do I want to use these things to erase and watch as they fade into sad half-dead things?
Picture from http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/howell88/offer-detailHoemGhpuaRWB/Sell-Pencil-Topper-Eraser.html 

So then I came up with the pencil toppers/erasers of things you hate idea! For a while you have to sit there, looking at the thing you hate when you first buy it, but then, as soon as you need to erase something, gratification! The spider's butt is clean gone! Haha! Success! You get to act on your passive aggressive hatred of things, and no cute puppy's face gets erased (unless you hate puppies, but that's really just sad). A win win. So...Yeah. That's my idea.

(Disclaimer: I don't hate spiders, I just figured that was an inoffensive example that many people do, in fact, hate. I do not like spiders particularly, but I appreciate them for the work they do.)

This post brought to you by: tired brain! I should probably stop thinking when I'm taking naps!

[Insert Witty Title Here]

Hi. So I decided to get over my fear that if I put opinions online future employers will refuse to hire me. I'm looking into making this my only blog again. To explain why I made that other one would be impossible, as I have come to the conclusion I am not that great at putting my thoughts into words. I'll transfer over some of the posts, so don't let that confuse you. That is all for this announcement today. Carry on.

Chapter 23: Hair

Whoa! I wrote a new chapter. I know, crazy, right? It's a short one that pretty much summarizes my feelings toward mustaches and mullets. Enjoy!


“Blue, give me your hands,” Teddy said, holding out his own hands for Blue. His best friend scowled at him; this proposition could only mean bad news. For this reason, Blue wrinkled her nose at Teddy as he guided them to a seated position on a couch in the lounge on their dorm floor.
“What?” she whispered softly, hoping if Teddy couldn’t hear her he wouldn’t say what he was planning on saying.
“I know it’s important to you that I let you know about these things, so…I’m going to inform you that on Friday I’m leaving and I’m going to be gone for two weeks,” he said in one breath, and Blue’s bottom jaw fell open and left her dumbstruck. This was terrible news! Teddy continued on, assuring her, “I know it sounds like a long time but it’s not that bad. And I talked to Pablo and he’s going to make sure you’re well taken care of. Also you have Malik, of course. You’ll be in good hands. I’ll text every day.”
Blue considered accusing him of hating her, but she decided to go with that weird logical part of her brain she didn’t like to listen to that posed a different question, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to visit some schools and talk to people, and…It’s hard to explain, uh…Blue, suffice it to say, I’m going to Canada,” he said.
“Canada?” Blue shrieked. “I hate Canada!”
“It’s not Canada’s fault,” Teddy insisted.
Nonetheless, as soon as Teddy left “I hate Canada” became Blue’s mantra. Her other mantra during this time was, “Malik your face looks stupid.” The reason for this was because Malik had gotten some crazy notion into his mind that he should grow a mustache. Miss Allberry took a poll on it the third day she noticed it.
“All those in favor of Malik’s mustache being dumb, raise your hands,” she said. Blue’s hand shot up immediately, and Gerda, Austin, Rashida, Evan, Ewan, Estela, and Jenny backed her up. “All those who think it’s acceptable looking, raise your hands,” she requested. Kip raised his hand and gave Malik an “I got you, man” wink as he and Malik raised their hands, and Pablo and Kakahi backed them up.
Blue gaped at her two friends (Pablo and Kakahi, that is, she knew Kip was just being a good friend to Malik and probably despised the mustache too), who she never would have thought would betray her in such a way. The poll had been her idea, after all, so it was obvious which side anyone who was friends with her should fall on. Teddy had assured her Pablo would be her temporary best friend, after all. He was not doing a good job. Miss Allberry was far too wrapped up in her strange relationship with Hammy’s younger brother to press the issue, but she made it clear she fell on Blue’s side of the debate.
As the group walked back to the dorms together, Gerda grabbed Blue’s elbow to get her attention, and they fell into step as they walked back to the dorms together. The Swede spoke to her casual friend, “I agree with your feelings about the creature on Malik’s face. It is unsightly.”
“Thank you!” Blue shouted. Malik apparently overheard them and started walking away quickly, not wanting to hear the conversation.
“Why has he decided to do this?” Gerda asked, and Blue folded her arms and scowled.
“Well next week is his birthday and Teddy’s going to miss it because Canada is stupid and I guess they’ve been together for every birthday since ever and so somehow he thinks that means he should grow a mustache!” Blue explained, waving her arms wildly for emphasis.
“Yes, yes,” Gerda replied, “I do not understand. Hakan has seen this mustache and now has decided he should also grow one. I am wondering, is it a disease, do you think?”
“Yes!” Blue shrieked. “It must be! And now it’s spreading! We must put a stop to it!” The teen ran off in the direction Malik went, leaving an amused Swede in her wake. Malik just stared at her as she shrieked on and on about people becoming completely covered in hair head to toe and mustache diseases. When he didn’t seem to understand what she was saying, she grabbed a pair of scissors (there were no razors close, and this was symbolic) and made snipping motions. In the middle of her shouts, Hakan ran into the room without announcing himself.
“How do you like X’s mustache Malik? Awesome? EXTREME?” he shouted, pushing past Blue. Unfortunately for the mulleted teen, the girl was still making snipping motions, and one those snips found its way to his party in the back. Malik and Blue froze as the hair fell to the ground, staring at each other in shock. Hakan looked confused, before asking, “Why is X’s head suddenly lighter?”
Malik blinked and searched for a pleasant way to tell Hakan what had happened as Blue fled the room. The shrieks of despair Blue heard moments after confirmed Malik had informed him of the tragic events that transpired.
“I’m so sorry!” Blue yelled from down the hallway, but it didn’t soothe the whale-like wailing emanating from Malik’s room. Gerda ran past her down the hallway, saw what had happened, and walked back to Blue calmly.
“Do not tell Hakan I have told you this, but I would like to thank you. His hair was unsightly. Now I owe you and must take care of the creature on Malik’s face?” she asked, and Blue nodded exuberantly, snatching the opportunity up as quickly as possible. In the meantime, she decided to go find somewhere to hide from Hakan’s shrieks of despair, deciding to stalk Pablo’s dance class and glare at him about siding with Malik on the mustache issue. She’d glare at Kakahi later, of course, but she figured Pablo was an easier first target.
He seemed pretty confused when he saw her. Blue went into stealth mode then, sending him mean thoughts like how he should stumble a little bit or something. But not full out trip though. Because that sounded dangerous, and Blue didn’t want Pablo to get hurt, just be embarrassed. Then, as she stared at Pablo, an unsettling feeling sneaked up on her. She tried to ignore it, she really did, but images of Hakan sobbing and threatening to throw out all his cool gadgets and go into hiding due to depression flooded her mind, and she finally decided to go back and properly apologize to Hakan.
She arrived outside of Hakan’s room and knocked on the door. Kendrick answered it and surprised Blue with what he said, “Did you have to cut off his hair?” After that his words got a little anti-Semitic, so Blue just decided to walk away, finding Hakan wasn’t present in his room. Her next thought was Gerda’s room, so she walked over to it, took a deep breath, made her most apologetic face, and knocked on the door.
Jenny opened it, sighed, and pointed behind her. Hakan was sitting on Gerda’s bed, cradling the leftover part of his hair, though Gerda was nowhere to be found. Blue shuffled over to the distraught teen and sat next to him on Gerda’s bed. When he saw her, he waved her away and whimpered, “Be gone, heathen! X doesn’t want to see you! You killed X’s dreams and X’s hair all at once!”
“I’m very, very sorry X. It was an accident,” Blue mumbled, twiddling her thumbs and sticking out her bottom lip. Because that makes you look sad, right? Right, Blue’s an actress, she knows these things.
“That changes nothing! Do you have any idea how long it took X to grow that?” Hakan snapped.
“Probably, like…a few years, maybe,” Blue replied with a shrug, sticking to her pouty lip guns in case Hakan looked at her.
Hakan glanced up at last, and couldn’t stop himself from laughing, “You look dumb.”
“No way!” Blue shouted back at him, folding her arms and glaring. They sat for a moment as the heaviness between them finally lifted, and Blue suggested, “Maybe you could superglue it back on? It’s not like it grows from the bottom, so…”
“Yes! Good idea! X will find some superglue!” Hakan shouted, bolting from the bed and ostensibly running all the way back to his room. Jenny looked over at Blue and shook her head then. This was a little confusing to Blue, and she knew the obvious answer was that Jenny was showing disapproval for her idea, but Blue never trusted the obvious. Logically, Blue worked through it to get to her real meaning. Jenny was friends with Malik, Gerda was missing, Gerda was sketchy sometimes, therefore Gerda was going to murder Malik to rid him of his mustache! With the sudden realization, Blue ran out of the room straight to Malik’s room.
Not bothering to knock, Blue burst onto the scene, expecting to come across a murder in progress. What she came across instead shocked nay appalled her! Malik and Kip were sitting on their little futon, watching something on their tiny TV with unicorns in it! One of Blue’s rules when she and Malik started dating was that if Malik did anything involving unicorns he would tell Blue about it.
“How could you?” she shrieked. Malik turned to look at her, and she laughed as he did. “I can’t stay mad, even, when your face looks so ridiculous!” she yelled indignantly.
“For the record, I just texted you we were going to be watching this, so no rules were broken,” Malik insisted, but Blue didn’t really hear it, because she was too busy staring at Malik’s mustache.
“It’s like…It just grew up out of nowhere,” she mumbled to herself, approaching Malik very slowly as if the mustache might make a move to attack her, “Gerda was definitely onto something…Probably a disease…It’s crazy how Mr. Mustache looks awesome with his mustache, but you just look like a pedophile…if Teddy were here he would know how to solve this…Oh! I could Skpertize him! Bye Malik, I have to go Skypertize Teddy!”
Malik blinked over to Kip, scowling, “Do I really look like a pedophile?” Kip pulled a strange face and proceeded to hold his fingers up to convey that Malik did indeed look a little bit pedophiliac.
Teddy wasn’t online, but Blue texted him that she had an emergency, so he got online pretty quickly. Once she informed him of the problem, she carried her laptop over to Malik and Kip’s room, then faced Teddy toward them. Her blond best friend snickered immediately, and Malik glared.
“Malik, Malik!” Teddy said excitedly, waving at him from the laptop screen. His best straight boy friend waved back at him reluctantly, not excited to hear how he felt about Malik’s newly grown facial hair. “I mustache you a question, Malik,” Teddy said delightedly, “but I’ll shave it for later.” Taken by surprise by the hilarious joke, Blue dropped her laptop as she doubled over in laughter. Luckily, Gerda strolled in at that moment and caught it, looking confused and like she might even have caught it by accident. Handing it back to Blue, Gerda took a careful look at Malik and the arrangement of the room, and then walked out.
“Oh!” Blue gasped, “I have to go help Hakan glue his hair back on! Watch my laptop and discuss this mustache thing with Teddy! He, heehee…He mustache you a question, and he, heeeeehee, can’t shave it for later.” Blue handed her laptop to her boyfriend before she turned back around and ran back to Gerda’s room, where she assumed Hakan was.
As she went she could faintly hear, “Wait what’s this about gluing hair on Hakan?” from Teddy on the computer.
Rushing back to the room, Blue returned just in time to see Gerda pluck the superglue from Hakan’s hands and shake her head sternly. The Swede explained Hakan’s options to him as she set the superglue aside, “You can tidy up your hair or get extensions. I will cut it for you so it looks acceptable if you would like that.” Hakan pouted as he looked between his detached hair and the superglue Gerda took away from him.
Finally, he relented, “X guesses you can cut it.” Without letting Hakan see, Gerda shot Blue an appreciative smile and waved her out of the room. Since she clearly wasn’t wanted there, Blue trekked back to Malik and Kip’s room to whine about Malik’s mustache and missing Teddy. It continued much in the same way for the next week, proving Teddy failed to convince Malik to shave. Blue made a “no kissing with that thing on your face” rule, but Malik still refused to shave it off. Eventually Blue gave up on her campaign against it, but not before she made posters and commercials.
Blue showed Malik the commercial Wednesday night, two days before his Friday birthday (February 25th), and he laughed at it like it was a joke. It opened up on a warning stating, “Viewer discretion is advised. This video contains images that some viewers may find disturbing.” It proceeded to an image of Malik smiling with a cleanly shaven face and then some cheesy effects faded the picture into one where Malik had a mustache and the image was dripping with blood. Some music Malik suspected was intended for a horror movie played in the background. The screen faded out to black and faded back in to a somber-faced Blue at a desk.
Shifting some empty papers around, she spoke very seriously, “Recently a tragedy has struck Baylor School for the Arts. I speak, of course, of the rampant disregard for human decency displayed on the face of one Malik Green. The disturbance very nearly caught on with other students, for example Hakan ‘X’ Harjo, who almost didn’t shave for a week after seeing the poor example Mr. Green set. Luckily Mr. Harjo was saved this fate when his mullet was accidentally cut off. He now sees the light that mullets are bad, just like mustaches, and says of his new haircut, ‘X’s head is very light. Also, X requires less shampoo. Less shampoo is a plus.’ When asked why he didn’t grow a mustache, Mr. Harjo replied, ‘Well, Gerda said they might be diseased, so it didn’t seem right. Also, X can do more dangerous fire related things with less hair and no mustache, so X is happy.’ Mr. Harjo ran away from me after that, and later burned off his eyebrows. It is clear that his consideration of growing a mustache was the cause of this accident. Mustaches are an epidemic that must be stopped. Please don’t let your beautiful boyfriend turn into a Malik Green. He was so pretty…now look at him.” The image of Blue faded into another picture of Malik, this time drawn on with sharpie. A mustache was drawn on him, since Blue really only had that one picture of Malik with the mustache. Other additions to the picture included the blacking out of a couple of his teeth, an arrow saying ‘the abs are negated by the mustache’ pointing toward his stomach area, and an eye patch over one of his eyes.
Credits rolled at the end of the video, listing Blue as the writer, director, and star, the cameraperson as Gerda, the special effects as done by Hakan, and a little sentence claiming, “Paid for by the CAMRD (Commission Against Mustache Related Diseases).” Finally, the credits concluded by listing “the mustache guy” as Malik Green.
One appreciative laugh later, Malik asked Blue, “When did you make this?” Blue sighed, realizing she had failed yet again to convince Malik to shave. After this last effort, she decided to try what Teddy had recommended (did Blue mention she hated Canada?) and just ignore the mustache. Instead she planned out his surprised party. See Teddy told Blue he’d managed to rearrange his schedule to come back in time for Malik’s birthday and since Blue was basically a ninja, she arranged a whole party to surprise Malik with this fact on his birthday.
Basically she was an evil genius. Teddy arrived at Blue’s room just before the party was going to start, hosted at Kakahi’s house, so she didn’t get time to take a look at him before they hurried over to their friend’s house. If she had, she wouldn’t have been nearly so shocked when she realized Teddy had the saddest attempt at a mustache ever on his face.
“I know, I know,” he sighed, “now it’s clear I’m a bottle blond. Also testosterone isn’t my friend. I have a point with this Blue, trust me.” Blue trusted Teddy, of course, when his mind wasn’t being controlled by an evil mustache disease. As she closed her eyes and waited for Malik to show up, Blue could practically see the thing on Teddy’s face (barely a mustache due to Teddy barely needing to shave yet so a very awkward creature indeed) giving him orders to spread the disease to more people. After trying to picture everyone in the room with mustaches, Blue sighed and wondered whether Gerda had found a solution. A clicking noise got her attention, and she and everyone else pounced when Kakahi led Malik through the door of her house. Initially, Malik looked like he was either going to cry or punch someone, proving he wasn’t joking when he told Blue he didn’t like surprises. Then he looked excited to see Teddy, and he ran over to hug his blond friend but stopped short.
Malik stared at Teddy’s mustache attempt, wrinkled his noise, and looked disturbed. Despite this, he managed to lean forward and give his increasingly tall friend a hug. After that they had cake and ice cream and played games. Malik opened his presents from Blue and Teddy, the only two to bring presents, and a joke present from the both of them. The former were a set of coffee mugs with pop culture quotes on them, and the latter happened to be a pair of razors and some shaving cream.
As he stared in the box, Malik laughed quietly before looking up at Teddy, widening his eyes, offering Teddy a razor and taking the other one for himself. Kakahi dutifully pointed toward the bathroom and instructed the guys to clean up after they finished shaving because facial hair in the sink grossed her out. Blue figured out Teddy’s tactic while they were gone, namely that he wouldn’t shave until Malik did, and decided her friend could be forgiven for leaving her for two weeks. When the pair came back clean shaven, Blue pounced on her boyfriend, and he smiled into the kiss she planted on his mouth.
“Oh, I did miss that,” he sighed as they pulled apart. “If me having a mustache makes you feel how Teddy having a mustache makes me feel, I have to say…I’m very sorry. It was selfish of me. I love you, though, and eventually it was just funny to see what you’d come up with to convince me to get rid of it.”
Blue nodded, shot a thumbs up at Teddy, who apparently nicked himself while shaving and was pouting as Pablo comforted him, and turned her attention back to Malik. “Never again. Promise?”
“All right,” Malik agreed, “never again.”
And thus all was right in the land of facial hair once again, and the unsightly mullet Hakan thought he liked was finally, once and for all, taken care of. What happened to Gerda’s promise to help Blue out with Malik’s mustache? Well, in this case, never again was a bit more permanent than Malik had anticipated. When questioned, Gerda would pretend to forget English and act like she thought they were talking about sharing. Everyone was grateful to Gerda deep down, since she had prevented Malik from becoming “mustache guy” ever again, because mustache disease is a serious thing. If someone you know grows a mustache, be vigilant. If it appears to be spreading you know what to do: find the person who would look most ridiculous with a mustache and make him grow one. This will deter all others from the pursuit. Good luck and Godspeed in the war against mustaches. [This message paid for by the CAMRD (Commission Against Mustache Related Diseases).]