Bad Weather

I'm really sick of hearing everyone talk about how lovely the weather is. THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING, PEOPLE! CLIMATE CHANGE! There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that is NICE about this. So, I wrote a poem. Hope you enjoy.

It's March and the sun is shining brilliantly.
There's just a bit of breeze on the air,
But no matter for that. The bright sun
Contradicts the wind's sharp, confining draft.
"I love this weather," I hear you all say.
What, daft? Love it? Why?
In some once cold region of the world, the temperature drops,
An ice floe melts,
A seal drowns.
Nice weather for you, perhaps,
But look at Lady Katrina, whose temperate embrace wiped a city's slate,
Washed it down to its core and destroyed its people.
Ah, yes! What lovely weather!
And when the polar bears are extinct
And the salt seas boil the earth to a murky stew with our bodies as the rare,
Floating bits of meat prepared to be devoured
By America's lustful pocketbook,
Will you still think the weather is nice?

Sporadic garbage

I felt like writing in class this morning, so I came up with this sporadic garbage (this is true garbage, by the by):

Heavens above, I am TIRED today! That might have something to do with my three and a half hours of sleep last night, but I'm on my second cup of coffee and I haven't had that cheeful burst of caffeine-induced energy yet. I don't suppose I will at this point; only about a fifth of the cup remains and it's not getting any fuller.
I took a number of power naps this morning before leaving the apartment, and of course all of them helped . . . except the last one. I woke up one minute before I had to leave and, contrary to the other power naps, I was exhausted. Suck it up, Cooper, I thought. You brought this upon yourself. And, indeed, I had. Instead of meeting my original 2 AM deadline, I finished my paper at 5 AM and went to bed then. I awoke at 8:30 because I was in desperate need of a shower, then went back to sleep for about fifteen minutes. For me, these very short naps are pure gold. If I can get so much as a minute of sleep these dreary mornings, I am a happy woman. Doesn't take much to please me; just give me a pillow and five minutes on a day like this.
These crows keep following me around and it's almost forboding. Don't get me wrong; crows are beautiful creatures and they're incredibly interesting, but when you've got a good flock of them per tree with five trees surrounding you, you tend to get a little worried. Messengers of death, crows are, and when they hang over your head like a guilty conscience, you'll want to slowly inch away, too.
This morning was hazy and cold. It wasn't hazy in the physical sense . . . rather, it was far from it. The sun was bright and the sky was blue and cloudless, in fact. My head, however, was in quite a fog. I really need to stop with this lack of sleep bullshit, or my head may cave in from weakness. That aside, how would that look? If your head caves in, I mean. I've always wondered if it just starts at the forehead and collapses inward. Not that it matters, anyway. I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to see how that looks.
I work as a prostitute in the summer time. I may not sell my body for sexual gratification, but I sure do sell it for similar humiliation and hard manual labor. Every summer, someone quits rather abruptly and leaves me and my particular partner of that time high and dry. I lose a lot of weight working at that terrible hotel/restaurant/bar/patio/takeout every year because half the time I'm not even allowed to eat. And, before you ask, the pay is shit; it's one dollar above minimum wage. $7.50/hour? Why yes, I am a prostitute, or I'd might as well be for that kind of crap cash at about 40+ hours a week with no overtime! Crossing my fingers for a 50 cent raise this year, however unlikely that is. I suppose if this is the case, we're all just prostitutes, aren't we? We sell our skills and cheapen them in selling them, and after awhile they're not really useful; they're just there.
This book I'm writing in has a plastic flap that chafes terribly. It keeps rubbing against my arm and causing me some bit of pain. I guess that's my hint that I should suck it up and pay attention for awhile, but only fifteen minutes remain in this class. I don't know why I keep writing anyway; this is all terribly random and sporadic garbage, but I suppose it's my way of practice. I never practice, though. I do, and I am doing right now, so I guess I'm not practicing. I don't know. Like those crows are, I am slowly bleakening my own existence and I'm now predicting my own death. I predict I will die tomorrow morning by some means of an ice cream sandwich and a salad fork. We'll see whether or not I'm right.

Continuation of previous novel-doodle, only at a different point.

And then, the totally unexpected happened.
As I told you before, I had been rapidly searching for a roommate. These apartments don't pay for themselves, you know, and having a two-bedroom apartment all to oneself isn't exactly cost-effective. Well, after coming back from the job interview I was totally wiped and ready to take a seat down in front of the television with a large bag of salt and vinegar Lays and a can of 7Up, but these plans were thwarted.
I unlocked the apartment door to the sound of a blaring television screen. Funny, I thought, I was sure I turned on the TV before I left this morning. Indeed, I was sure I had. I heard the sounds of laughter and clapping; it was noon, and obviously the Price is Right was the show that was on. Being a fan of children's shows, I'd had the channel set to YTV before going to the interview, so the sounds of a gameshow were foreign and surprising to the ear.
I entered the apartment fully with a quizzical expression on my face. The expression became even moreso when I saw a person sitting on my couch, watching my television and eating my salt and vinegar Lays. At first, I was too shocked to even speak. After all, why the hell should I have to say anything?! This was my apartment, right?
. . . Right?
"Excuse me," I finally managed to say, dropping my purse on my foot as I did. I winced before I continued to speak, noticing that the person in my couch didn't once turn around or say anything in reply. "Excuse me," I said, a bit more forcefully.
"Hi, Francesca," came a husky feminine voice from the couch. I nearly swallowed my tongue.
"Uh," I sputtered, "I think you have the wrong apartment. My name isn't Francesca." The girl in the couch, for I could see more clearly now that she was a girl, dangled a key from her finger. Distinctly on the keychain was the number of the room; 2T.
"Where did you get that?" I cried in surprise. "Who let you in here?" The girl in the couch shrugged and let her hand drop lazily to the couch.
"The landlady," she replied. I stormed over to the couch to get a good look at this girl, keeping the door open and kicking the purse off my foot as I did so.
How odd . . . I remember thinking as I stared at the girl sitting there.

This girl was beyond abnormal. She had two-tone eyes; one of them was a bright blue and the other was a dull grey-brown. Her hair was shoulder-length and similarly two-toned. Instead of brown with blue streaks, as you might have thought, she had quite the opposite; her hair was a bright blue matching her left eye, and it had streaks of the same shade of brown as her eyes. She was short and thin and looked to be about sixteen years old. She has to be older than that, I thought. Why else would she be coming here alone?
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, so suddenly that I surprised even myself. Without taking her eyes from the television, all she said was "Your roommate."

Rabbits

Had a dream about writing last night which slapped me with another idea. I dreamt that I had been reading about rabbits and that they were all remarkably human; they sat in their little burrow and they drank tea and they talked about Mr. and Mrs. Johnson (rabbits) and the like. I remember being somewhat disgusted at the whole "they're so human" thing, so I decided to write a story about rabbits that were totally, 100% rabbity. The only difference would be that they would talk, but even then that wouldn't necessarily matter. It's difficult to make a group of characters interesting when they don't talk, but I'm sure it's been done? Don't know.

My rabbits were a family, though I'm not sure how often a family of rabbits, including mother, father, and babies, actually live together in a burrow. It basically followed the lives of the rabbits as stuff happened to them; one of the female rabbits (named Lucy, though I'm not sure I'd give them names, as that is a very human thing to do) , the daughter, was getting caught by a wolf or a hunter and one of the son rabbits came in to tell everyone else about it.

And before you all point accusatory fingers, I have never read Watership Down. :P

Ugh.

Early mornings hate me so
I wish I could die!
The doctor needs to see me.

This sums up how I feel this morning >.<.

Novel doodles.

I'm having a whole rainbow of novel brain-doodles right now, so I'm going to briefly write up something. These are just ideas and possibly the into to a book or something. I had a random idea while making breakfast this morning; my roommate was watching TV simultaneously. I also attended a panel by historical fiction writer Deborah Hale this past weekend, and I'm going to try out a few techniques she suggested. Let's see how that goes.

On the day of my graduation, everything went horribly wrong.
I was one of those people who was more than happy to be out of high school and everything. I told myself I wasn't going to cry, because I knew that high school was a personal hell. I didn't think I would cry . . . but I did.
I woke up that morning ready for anything that hit me. I was invincible! The world was my oyster because I, yes, I was about to be a high school graduate. Well, as soon as I woke up I tripped over my dog, who was strategically draped on the rug right beside my bed, and I sailed headfirst into the wall, receiving, summarily, a good smack and a very painful bloody nose. Okay, I thought, that's just one thing, right? I mean, I'm graduating today. What else could possibly go wrong?
I was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I didn't even knock on wood.
My boyfriend and I were to graduate together, you see, and my best friend, and the three of us are inseparable. It wasn't one of those friendships in which everyone is a different age, oh no. The three of us were of very close age; in fact, I was two months older than my friend and my boyfriend was two months older than I. To the day. So, you know, there wasn't to be any waiting for anyone else to graduate. The three of us had even been accepted to the same college!
So, of course, when I saw them holding hands in a line-up outside of the school in their grad gowns, I got a little surprised. The three of us had grown up together. There was trust there, man! I screamed at my mom to stop the car, and stop it she did. I stormed over to the two of them and immediately snapped ''What the hell is going on here?'' before they even saw me. The two jumped and spun around, then when they saw me, quickly dropped the hand-holding.
''What do you mean, Ellie?'' asked Cynthia with that stupid, sweet smile of hers; that smile that used to cheer me up when I was crying.
''You know PERFECTLY well,'' I shot back, casting a sidelong glance at Nick, whose face was red and whose eyes were downcast in a look of shame. Cynthia put on her little cutesy act and tried to play the victim. God! I thought, She always plays the victim!
''Ellie, it's really not like you to yell like this,'' she pouted. ''Please calm down.''
''You had your hands on Nick,'' I said bluntly. My shoutings had already acquired stares from the remainder of the grads in the line. ''Why did you have your hands on Nick?'' Nick glanced up at me and cleared his throat.
''This is my fault,'' he said quietly. I quickly turned on my supposed best friend to glare at Nick in reply.
''Oh?'' I said sharply, spreading my hands and smiling ironically. ''Then let's hear, Nick, all about it. Why were you holding her hand?'' Nick put his head in his hands and sighed, while Cynthia cast him a frantic glance.
''It's about time we told her, Cynthia,'' Nick whispered into his hands. Cynthia widened her eyes and gasped, glancing back and forth between the two of us.
''Well, I suppose it must be since you just let the cat out of the bag!'' Cynthia growled, giving Nick an angry shove. This pissed me off even more! First she was holding his hand, and now she's treating him like crap? Well, I got so angry I just brought back my fist and let her have one, right in the mouth, just as my mother ran onto the scene!
''You don't touch him!'' I screamed. Nick looked at me in shock.
''Ellie - '' he started, though I didn't let him continue.
''Shut up!'' I turned and slapped him ringingly across the cheek. ''Don't call me Ellie anymore!'' Nick winced and grabbed his cheek in pain. I felt my mother's hand on my shoulder and I took a deep breath as the sounds of whispers lighted in the air around me.
''How long has this been going on?'' I asked Nick slowly. Cynthia, fortunately, was too busy spitting blood and what may have (hopefully) been a tooth out of her pretty little mouth to reply, so Nick got the first say in.
''Six months,'' he replied quietly. He was evidently ashamed of what a cheating jerk he was, but that didn't stop me.
''Six months!'' I cried, anguish finally setting in as my voice broke and a lump welled up in my throat. ''Where the hell was I?'' Nick looked back up at me, his face contorting into anger and rage.
''That's the point, isn't it?'' he yelled back. I couldn't take that; I broke down into sobs.

All right, I need to go to class, so that's all for now. I just spat that out in an interval of about 20 minutes . . . I have to say, I kinda like it.