See below for genius

“That grown up thing is a joke. Whatever’s wrong with you now will probably still be wrong with you in twenty years.” -Isabel Spellman

Why no one but Izzy has figured this out I will probably never know.

I just blew my own mind

No one ever said you had to be good at something to enjoy the hell out of it.

That took me sixteen years to figure out.

I played soccer because I wanted to be good at it. I did not enjoy soccer. Before that I took ballet because I wanted to be good at it. I did not, according to the people who were old enough to remember great details of this time, enjoy ballet.

Before that, I was going to be a gymnast and was going to be good at it. Many a hissy fit was thrown at the Tumble Bus.

Freshman year I tried out Theater Arts because I wanted to be good at acting. I did not enjoy Theater Arts. The only sentence more hypocritical than “I really like my Theater Arts class,” to ever come flying out of my mouth was “Sometimes you have to give yourself a break.”

You know why I climb?

Because I enjoy it. That’s it. No strings attached. I climb because I can do it to a moderate degree, and the rest is…

You know, when I figure out what the rest of this obsession is made of, I’ll let you know. Obviously it’s one powerful something, because I don’t mind spending at least three hours a week sitting in a car in Tucson traffic, (worse than other traffic because in Tucson everyone moves at an excruciatingly slower pace ,) don’t mind getting gross and sweaty around people I don’t know very well, don’t mind ripping large holes in the skin on my fingers, (actually, I’m quite proud of them, due to a couple of my uncles teasing me for having soft hands and not working a day in my life, which was true up until a few months ago,) and don’t mind falling on my butt over and over before I reach the top of the climb.

Did you just read that right now? Maybe you should go back and check.

That’s right. I have beaten failure. Failure is the little bitch that kept me from enjoying any of my previous commitments.

And I just kicked its butt.

New Computer

Me and my sister just spent twenty minutes laughing our pants off.

This is why:

Thats Harry Potter in the background. In case you care.

Well

If you haven’t figured it out yet, then you don’t deserve to know. But in case you just forgot:

I DO NOT THINK LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING!

Logic has its place in the world. But not everything is Math class. Not everything has one answer, not everything can be solved with a reconfiguration of numbers, and goddamnit, not everything has variables that are easily manipulated!

I would be one of those variables. You try to manipulate me and your entire equation goes to hell in flames. You will not get a pretty answer.

Blog

I resent the term Blog.

It sounds too new-age, too chitzy, too much like the something you pull out of your pool filter when the Creepy isn’t picking up dirt anymore. It sounds like some teenage computer whiz sat around trying to come up with something clever for this crafty little invention, ran out of time, and came up with the word Blog.

Which is probably what happened, now that I think about it.

When I tell people I Blog, I always feel the need to add on that it’s more of a journal, more of a dumping ground for thoughts that simply no one cares about, including myself, and therefore must be cleansed from my brain. It’s a collection box for things I’m done with, for things I don’t know what to do with, for things I can’t figure out, and for things I need to postpone further thinking about. Blog just doesn’t cover all of that.

So now I’m on a quest of sorts. To find a new name for the Blog.

Suggestions welcome.

Swine Flu again?

There have been four cases of Swine Flu that are relatively close to me.

Maybe it’s time to stop making fun of it.

As they are walking out the door.

As my mom and my sister walk out the door, she reminds me to lock the doors. I roll my eyes, like I always do, because I always lock the doors. There is no need to remind me for the millionth time. Then she mentions, like it was some interesting bit of gossip she picked up from the grocery store, that there is a creep sulking around our neighborhood, specifically on our street. Breaking into cars, breaking into houses, and scaring old ladies.

The old lady may be a source of questionable reliability, but she’s not the only one who is mildly concerned.

It’s getting dark outside. My mother is leaving, taking my sister with her, and will be gone for a few hours. My father is out of town, my brother lives in a different climate zone. We spent all of English class listening to Titus Andronicus’ daughter weep over being attacked and having her tongue cut out. Through recent experiments we discovered that the neighbors cannot in fact hear a scream from the interior of our house. I have recently sustained a mild and rather stupid injury that would nonetheless inhibit extended periods of running away from madmen.

I locked the doors.

I also locked the windows, drew the blinds, and placed a knife from the kitchen within reach for while I’m sitting here, typing, and not standing alert in the middle of the room next to the phone.

Now I’m armed.

Ow

Me: “Shit!”

Crash.

Garland: “Crap Chloe, are you alright?”

“Ow.”

“Chloe, you okay?”

No

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

The Uninvited

Directed by Terry Erbe at my high school. Opening night was Friday night.

My little sister and her two little friends went to see it. They spent the night Friday and Saturday, making my life a veritable hell with not one, but three little sisters. Too tired to get out of the house and car-less, I was trapped.

But I found a way to make my Saturday night worthwhile.

When the short ones were joined by two of our equally short neighbors for a party on the trampoline, I carefully dressed in black and filled a large cup full of ice. Sneaking around the back, I pelted them with ice cubes. The best thing about the ice cubes is that when in contact with the trampoline, they melt as they slide around, making the entire surface slippery and hazardous to jumping.

They looked really funny, flailing around and falling all over each other.

Naturally, I had to return inside for more ammo. That’s when they picked up the chase. Various slipping in and out of windows ensued, multiple trees were scaled, and many a rock was hidden behind. They never caught even a glimpse of me, except for once. This was what made my Saturday worth it. When I was stationed in the tree fort, (more in the tree than the fort, those boards are ancient,) I happened upon a messy white wig that had been in the Dress Up Box a long time ago. After picking the sticks out and donning it, I looked remarkably like the ghost from the play that had scared the short ones so badly Friday night.

It was too perfect.

When I jumped out at them, reproducing to the best of my ability the scream that the ghost had expelled in the show and improvising with bug eyes, five small hearts momentarily stopped beating. Their facial expressions were to die for. I endured an intense chase after that, all the while laughing my head off. I’d just kicked five to one butt, and we all knew it.

The night ended with the short team looking into a window and seeing me, who had been dropping subtle hints that I was in the desert near the clearing via text messages for an hour or so, watching Bones on TV. More laughter followed shortly thereafter.

The Magic of Denim.

I love jeans.

They, along side hula-hooping while jumping up and down, are the essence of Chloe. I can wear a pair of jeans and feel

a) casual.

b) sexy.

c) awesome.

Kind of like a rockstar.

And it doesn’t even matter whether or not I’m actually any of those things. (Well we all know I’m casual, but the jury’s still out on the other two.) It doesn’t matter because I feel casual and sexy and awesome in a pair of jeans, and therefore can proceed accordingly with confidence in whatever endeavor I happen to be taking part in.

I love that they are the only article of clothing that I can experiment with my needle on, rip to shreds, splatter paint on, swim in, wear when dirty, and occasionally climb in that still retains their awesomeness.

You can’t go wrong with blue jeans. No matter your butt size, leg length, gender, whatever, it is physically impossible to look bad in a pair of washed out, boot cut jeans. (Note: this rule changes for skinny jeans- it’s a bit of a stretch. Pun intended.)

And it’s proven by the fact that I can own one pair of jeans for years. When they get too short, like a certain pair of Angels did, I wear them in a particularly violent game of dirt soccer where giant holes get slashed in the knees and suddenly they are three or four inches longer.

Magic. Or should I say, the Magic of Denim. As a side note, these pants have gone on to be legendary, known sometimes as The Pants.

I’m sitting here in a pair of Anchor Blues as I write. They’re a beautiful washed out shade of That Strip of the Ocean That’s Just Below the Horizon Blue, and I’m feeling especially rockstarish right now.

That is too a word. Look it up.