No one in the doll house was meant to be a newscaster.

Good morning, doll world. We have some very exciting news for you today. Of course, it's exciting every day! We aren't dead! We ate cereal! Oxygen and water continue to be the two most mandatory things for survival! Today's excitement includes: 

• Yule is coming up on Monday and Christmas is coming up on Friday
• Andie laughs and blushes whenever Rylan says something funny, which is one more reaction than what happens when Rylan usually says something funny, and two more reactions than the normal response to other stimuli like small talk and kleenex boxes and macaroni.
• The light in the picture is fabulous.
• I'm pretty sure Gwen is going to see the new Star Wars some time soon.

A dramatic entrance for standard Gwen content. Enjoy

*strides into stage, cape billowing*
*boots clomp to halt in front of microphone. Cape swishes*
H E L L O,  P E O P L E  R E A D I  N G  T H I S
I HAVE RETURNED FROM WAR!
What war?
THE WAR THAT IS SCHOOL.
Oh. You're a tad over dramatic aren't you, Gwen?
NO. HOW DARE YOU. I AM THE GOAT OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE. DO NOT QUESTION ME OR I SHALL SMITE YOU.

Tacos and Totoro

In a recent conversation with Donald The Local Fanboy, he mentioned that Twenty-One Pilots was having a concert and he couldn't go. "I'll be crying myself to sleep tonight, Gwen." He told me. "Not that that's unusual. But this time it's out of self pity instead of self loathing."
I made the usual noncommittal noise of acknowledgement with an ambiguous head waggle in response to this, but I did wonder about the self loathing.
I am sure that I am not the only one who lays awake at night remembering every rude, out of context, weird, insensitive, overly sensitive, misinterpretable remark or lack of remarks I had made that day. And the day before that. And the thing I said five years ago. And the things I can't quite do, the things I'm scared to do, the things I wish I could have done better, the awkward situations I wish had never happened. And future things that might happen and how doing things now can affect future things. And not doing things. These all seem like mild insecurities in the daylight, but at night when you cant fall asleep, they're all your fault and you're a horrible person and every person you've ever dealt with probably hates you.
Doing things.
Speaking to people.
ugh.

Here's a taco to make us feel better.
If that didn't work, here's some Totoro:

If that didn't make you feel better, I don't know what to tell you.


After reading Night Vale Horoscopes, I decide I had better make my own. SO I went outside tonight and spoke with the stars. Here is what they say about you.

Aries: please ignore the fact that your dog is licking the floor. It's none of your business what happens between your dog and the floor.

Taurus: You mess with the bull, you get the horns. Today would be a good day to invest in bull repellent.

Gemini: You know what they say. You know what we think. When did you learn to read lips? Even more frightening, when did you gain the ability to read minds?

Cancer: You like listening to My Chemical Romance. Never heard of them? Don't like them? too bad. You love MCR.

Leo: Today is a good day to eat animal crackers and watch The Lion King. Avoid Finding Nemo.

Virgo: Gravity hates you. The law of conservation of matter hates you. We wouldn't recommend studying physics.

Libra: Watch Finding Nemo. Show it to Leo. Enjoy the effects.

Scorpio: nanananananananananananananananananananana nanannananananananananananananananananananananananana batman.

Sagittarius: You need new shoes.

Capricorn: Tell your Internet friends you love them. Pack your bags for a permanent stay in Reality. Health insurance is not included.

Aquarius: You will find the meaning of life inside the esophagus of the next person you accidentally kill. You will cry. You will tell no one of the knowledge you have gained. You will stare at the sky in agony. You will wait for the end to come. It doesn't.

Pisces: Cuss like a sailor. Swear like a rock star. Curse like an eccentric Latin professor calling down the Ancient Ones.

Goat Overlord Of The Universe: the full story

In earlier posts and in the comment boxes of at least three different people, I have mentioned that I am the Goat Overlord Of The Universe. You are no doubt wanting to know why this is. FEAR NOT! Your thirst for knowledge will be quenched. {quenched is a good word. Like splinched and wombat and guacamole}

HAPPY HOOLLIDAAAAYS

My school has a Christmas tree. It's REAL! It smells like Christmas in the lunchroom.

hello, people who experience time!
I'm in an unreasonably good mood today, compared to the unreasonably bad mood I was in last week.
I'm taking advantage of this happy mood to make a happy post about HOLIDAYS!
Normally, in my cynical, negative mind, I avoid things like Christmas music and holiday cheer....UNTIL DECEMBER! And now December has arrived, so the Christmasing may commence.
Anyhow, I thought I could explain to you my various thanksgivings with my various relatives.
In the thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family, Barrett (younger cousin) and I formed a cult. That is what we do for fun. Initiation to our cult involves saying the silliest thing you can think of with a completely straight face. The first person to laugh gets pepper sprinkled on their head. We are unsure of why this is.

Wow look at this big empty white space I can fill!

and if I manage to fill it to meet my own expectations, I just may show it to you.
Preview:

Does your family have a lot of pianos?

Billions.

How many you got?

We have piano keyboards falling out

 the windows, playing of their own accord.

The day they became sentient, Cole 

was lost and hasn't been seen since.

 We're unsure if this was the pianos fault.

Jesus Christ have they learned to reproduce?

Martian goat kitties- free to a good home

Howdy, folks!
I hope you are all having happy days. Or at least not painful. If you can't do happy i hope your are somewhere comfortably neutral.
I'm doing ok right now. That changes about as often as the direction of a hyperactive kindergartner in a toy store, but as of this moment I'm pretty ok
Today in school, I was doing brilliantly as filling out worksheets.
1. {questionquestionquestion} show your steps.
      I drew some stairs
2. {questionquestionquestion} give a brief answer in the space provided.
      I drew a pair of boxer briefs.
And then I gave an answer that started out with a normal sentence, answering the question. In the middle I prophesied about the second coming of velociraptors, and concluded with another normal sentence. The teacher walked by, saying "good job using up all the space..." And then he looked a little closer. "That's a little dark, don't you think?"
I am a laugh and a half, I tell you.

Hootenanny worm wart oil enhancing melancholyizer

Hey there folks.

Ive managed to crawl out from my homework and books and tv shows and music to come say hi.

Hi.

Andie and Rylan also say hi. I took these before Halloween was even here, and now Halloween is gone. Im super great at keeping track of things. The leaves were kind of squishy from the rain so Andie had to do a dance to get them to crunch properly.

Hugs

I'll have a real post up soon, don't worry.

I've got to tell you something: I have no belly button.

That was a lie. Forgive me- I do have a belly button. It's an innie.

I was sitting in math today when my brain decided it would be a good idea to be really anxious. You know, you're sitting there doing nothing of consequence when all of a sudden you brain says "hey, don't you have something to be nervous about? Time to nervous! Wheee!" And you're stuck with butterflies and a tight throat for a minute or so till brain says "oh. Never mind." Anyway, that little nervous spell reminded me (for no reason I can think of) of several years ago, in 6th grade, when my grandpa was in the hospital with lukemia (blood cancer). And we would go and visit him as often as possible, several times a week. I thought about that time, perhaps concernedly, because as an 11 year old, Grandpa dying wasn't even a possibility. I had absolutely no worries about that. At school I thought about telling my friends, simply because that was a thing that people got upset about and telling people the big things happening in your life was a normal thing to do? But I didn't, because it wasn't a problem for me.

Copy and paste

Artists and authors and scientists and mathematicians,
eaters of breakfast cereals, watchers of rain, criers of tears and shedders of blood
I welcome you all to Copy And Paste, in which I spew onto the screen the recent goings-on of my mind. Despite the magnificent introduction to this post, it is no where near as fancy or profound as you may have expected. Nay, I reckon it'll be pretty odd. It's just bits and pieces from my Notes app.
But the oddness is is what you're here for, isn't it?
HERE WE GOOOO!

Shout out to the kids who kept nose-picking well into the 4th grade and developed that "if I cover my nose with one hand I can pick freely with the other" technique.
Shout out to the kids who have since discovered that doesn't really work.

I dream of Mexican food. (Gwen's digital scribbles inside!)

Ladies and Gentlemen and variations thereupon- Welcome to another Gwen cartoon, in which I see something brilliant and attempt to draw it. With my finger. On my phone. You will, I'm sure, excuse the lack of quality. The inspiration for this week's (month's? fortnight's? Oh, what the heck. Insert any space of time here.) cartoon attempt stems from an In Depth Narrative Completely Unrelated To The Post way back in July.

mildly exciting things to do on an otherwise boring day

Ive lost all sense of organization I've ever had, as you may have noticed. I have all of these half baked ideas squished into posts laid out poorly and interrupting each other. That's kind of how I think, I suppose. Good luck following this one. I started out just taking pictures for a photostory, thinking "oh, I'll  do the words later." and a couple days after that I decided that attention bust be brought to the Japanese maple in my back yard, and a few other times I just went out with the camera after school and took pictures without any purpose.

Due to the order that the pictures uploaded in, it looks like we're starting out with the maple tree. I'll just pretend that taking pictures of trees counts as one of the mildly exciting things to do on an otherwise boring day so we have a bit of a theme going here. Maybe we can be organized! Fake it till you make it, I guess.

Lunar eclipse

OK PUPPIES WHATS UP.
IF YOU SAID "THE MOON", THEN YOU'D BE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

My star guide buddy Brett and I took that picture last night. We used the fancy Takahashi (the 5 inch one

Ellie's writing contest thingabob.

morning reflections

I dearly hope everyone has had the chance to sleep in on a Saturday. To wake up slowly and see the gray morning light coming through their window, to hear the hum of the still sleeping house and the world outside, to appreciate the pillow cold against their cheek.

THREE posts in the space of ONE! WhAt A dEaL!

For today's post, we have many special features, including skewed timelines, uninteresting anecdotes, crude scribbles, monochromatic geek tees, and so much more!

We'll start off the trip with the mildly interesting anecdotes concerning things that have happened in my life the past few months.

Mildly interesting thing #1

     I had to go to high school orientation on the 3rd. The welcome presentation was more than a little bit lackluster, in which the principal attempted to read meaningless quotes from the Internet through a coughing fit. Then we separated into groups with name tags to be led around the school, which is huge by my standards. So I wandered around with my fellow freshmen, none of whom I particularly liked and all of whom were being so loud that I couldn't hear the tour guides so I still don't know where any of my classes are. I had cut my nails specially in case anyone I don't like needed to Dealt With.

*deranged cackling*

Tribute to Summer

Hallo, humans of the earth! I have started high school, so summer is pretty much over for me, but the weather outside is still saying "hang on, people! I have sunshine! And green grass! Don't give up yet, you still have some summer left!" So I went out and played in summer today, and my dolls went with me. Here are some of their favorite things that happened this summer:

Skateboards and newcomers

Recently Andie decided to stop using her skateboard as a table an actually take it outside to learn how to use it. Her first couple tries went all right, on the third she let it slide out from under her and wound up skinning her elbow, knee, and pretty much everything in between. It has been two days since the last incident.

In a sudden burst of confidence, she convinced Rylan to learn how to skateboard also. How great of an idea this is is debatable. Andie knows very little about skateboarding, being a beginner and all, and on top of that, they don't have a helmet of any sort.

Oh well. It's their own dumb fault if someone gets hurt.

"So you start off with one foot on the board and you push off with the other one like this" Andie said, gliding forward a few feet.

"Then once you get going, put your other foot on about... this... far apart, uh, perpendicular to the board. See?"

Rylan saw, but her brain immediately went to the "oh gee how will I remember all this what if i cant do this oh no!" place.

Even so, she did her best to follow Andie's instructions, which came at about a mile a minute "put that foot more towards the front, good, kick off! great! now turn that foot, no the other foot, perpendicular remember?, excellent, look where you want to go..."

Trying to shufffle her feet around while the skateboard was moving was scary as heck, so Andie kept her from falling until Rylan got her feet in the right place. By the time that was done, though, she ran out of momentum and thought that trying to to kick again and repeating that whole process would be a frustrating waste of time.

Seeing Rylan's frustration, Andie said "here, just grab my hands and I'll pull you along and we can work on kicking later."

"'k. What happens if we need to turn? Do I need to do that thing where you kick the front up and kinda twist? Is that even a thing you do? I haven't watched people skateboard much."

"Umm, i don't know... at all. I know about as much as you do, right now. I can only do wide turns. You just lean the way you want to go and it'll start to turn."

"Oh."

Andie began to pull her in a large, slow circle, but even that made Rylan feel off balance, causing her to panic a little bit and gasp "ohgodohgodohgod". This skateboarding stuff was freaky, having the ground moving beneath you.

So it was decided that rolling in a straight line would be the best for now, and soon they were whizzing down the sidewalk, giggling.

But coming up the garden path, Andie spotted a someone. An unknown someone. And when you are Andie, unexpected someones are a billion times more scary than having the ground sliding around beneath your feet. She let go of Rylan's hand and dove under the bushed, swearing profusely under her breath.

Andie watched to see what happened from the safely of the bush. Bushes were nice. Bushes didn't sneak up on you, asking for directions or how your summer was.

Rylan kept going on the skateboard, a look of sheer terror on her face, but she managed to put her foot down and stop, stumbling a bit.

The someone, who seemed to be a male, jogged over to Rylan, who had fallen from the stumbling.

"Are you ok?" he asked "did you fall?"

Rylan picked herself up, scowling. "I'm fine. Actually i'm an alien. A magnetic alien. I'm extremely sensitive to the earth's magnetic field. I was betrayed (she said this loudly enough for the bushes to hear) by the force that keeps me from sticking to the earth's crust, or worse, being pulled to the north pole."

The boy looked at her.

Rylan rolled her eyes. "Yes, I fell."

He nodded and stuck out his hand.

"I'm Alex."

"Rylan." They shook hands. "Gwen sent you, I expect?"

From the bushes, Andie remembered when she first met Rylan, and that she had almost stabbed her with a pen. She frowned at that mistake, wishing that she had gone for the handshake like this Alex kid instead of the near miss with her pen sword. Stronger than that wish was the wish she hadn't let Rylan fall off the skateboard. More bad words were muttered at the tree.

"Something like that. I don't know why."

"No one ever does. Big People are weird." Rylan was a lot more comfortable now that both feet were firmly on the ground. "Let's go talk to Lilly. You're probably living with us now."

Rylan led Alex up to the door. She paused, turned around, and said to the bushes, "Come inside, Andie."

"I don't want to get to know someone new." She told the bush.

The bush agreed politely, though silently.

Either that or it told her to get over it.

It's hard to tell with bushes.

***   ***   ***   ***

Yup.

I bought a doll from Ebay for $50 and cut it's hair, sewed a shirt, and gave it to my little brother. He named it Alex and has been taking pictures of him non stop. Its cute.

Giraffes and unicorns.

And guinea pigs. Did I mention them? They aren't giraffes or unicorns, so I suppose I didn't.

Then again, these guys are neither pigs nor from Guinea, so I suppose I will just have to cuddle Maria while she questions her existence as a guinea pig.

Shall we get down to business?

In which we explore a cardboard box and outer space.

I got a purple wig on Etsy and put it on Andie

so very anxious. Going back to school is not going to be fun for her after a nice long summer of not having to interact with people.

, but that really did not work, so now Lilly has it and I took pictures for that too, and magical wig swaps, but I don't know if I was feeling unmotivated or uninspired, or if I just had really boring story ideas.

THE POINT IS.

the dolls found a cardboard box, painted it, and Lilly got to decorate it. This is her room, she has a purple wig, and I gave her freckles now.

That about brings us up to date except for the time when Rylan and Andie visited the fish pond and yelled at the goldfish.

Blueberry with t-rex arms

I have no clever things to say in mind or any intention of making a coherent post whatsoever. I am terribly bored and even more tired, but by brain says "NOO! no sleepy. we post now. yees." So I'm like "Ok, brain, we can post. What do you want to write about?"
Brain: Win arguments in head. Yes. very clever. Ohohohohohho we go take pictures of squirrels now?
Me:  no, i don't think we'll do that. But we can take pictures of squirrels when it gets light out.
Brain: ok. squirrels good. Want cookie? You want cookie NOW!
Me: the cookies aren't even good
Brain: U WANT NOW.

that was interesting. That is how most conversations with Dumb Brain go.
Here, I drew a picture of Dumb Brain.

I can't seem to get rid of him.

Lilly holds a somewhat one-sided conversation with a troll.

preview:"We all lived in huts back then, and we would feed the cows wonderful smelling things yar... roses and chamomile and normal hay stuff, dry out the poos, and use them to fuel the fires in the winter. We didn't want to waste wood, because walking in the forest was a yar... lovely summer pastime, provided the great bears of the westnorth didn't come bumbling out from their mansions and decide they wanted you for an afternoon snack."

An encounter with dinosaurs

Today andie was having one of those days where doing chores is too hot and reading books is too boring and you don't really want to do anything but sit around eating otter pops. But just sitting there gives you ants in your pants. In a desperate attempt to amuse herself she wandered down to Rylan's room.

"RYLAN!"

Plums, and senorita elephant bum

Yesterday I was admiring the plum tree in our backyard that is growing very heavy with ripe fruit. They fit in your palm and are wonderfully sweet and juicy, but their skin tastes like tomatoes. Upon eating way more than I should have, I thought "OOH! MIRACLE OF NATURE! LET'S GO GET THAT ONE DOLL WHO IS A FOREST SPIRIT AND DO A SHOOT!"

the tomatoes are coming

So earlier this week Barrett's doll Saige came out to visit. She and lilly had been planning this elegant tea party and meeting of sorts for months. They made for fancy teas and matching cups and cute dresses and flowers, etc.etc.etc... 

Anyway, Saige arrived at the door at about 2 in the afternoon, and Lilly skipped over to the door and did an excelent job at showing proper manners, full of prim exuberance that plainly said "I want to be a princess, and I'd be darn good at it too." Saige, seeing how the game was to be played, replied to Lilly's chattering with an eloquent display of posh conduct.

Space adventure-an adventure in spaaaaace!

Remember a few months ago when I told you guys about going to the planetarium and observatory with my brother's Cub Scout troop?

Yes. And I told you I was going to become a Star Guide, which means I'll help out at Star Parties, telling the kids (and now we have adults and even seniors coming too) how to use the telescopes and helping them find things in the night sky.

On Tuesday I did my first star guide training!

Who the other star guides are:

A guy with a small head and a big nose, who's name I forgot. He was the first star guide and has been there for 4 years. He did some astrophotography using the observatory telescope and entered it in a big photography contest. 

Then there's a kid from my grade, John. He's the king of the nerds. Been there for two years.

Another newbie like me, a few years older, was positively shaking with excitement. I forgot his name too, which is stupid because we all had name tags.

And finally me, the first girl star guide. (Mr. And Mrs. Pauly have been trying to tell everyone old enough to use the telescopes but young enough to still speak "kid language" about how they could become a star guide, but it seems that only boys have wanted too, until now.)

What we did:

We went over what to do at each star party. The boring part was setting up the cones so the hypothetical people (this was a training after all) wouldn't try to park down the driveway.

When things got a degree more exciting was moving the telescopes out and finding where to put them and how to use them.

The coolness was bumped up a few notches when we had to align the lasers. These lasers are used to point the telescopes. When it gets dark, you can see its green line extending far away into the sky (we have to be careful of planes with those lasers. If you point it at them you get arrested and a hefty fine. These can damage your little eyeballs pretty badly.) and if you were paying attention, you'll approximately know where the thing you're looking for is supposed to be, so you move the telescope around until the lazer is pointing to the right place, turn it off, and look through. Bam! You found the wild duck cluster! Hopefully. Anyway, they have to be aligned so that where they're pointing is the same place where we're looking.

After that, we went down to the planetarium where Mr. Pauly (we'll just call him Tom, now, ok?) showed us all of the things we were supposed to be able to find, and help the people who come to the star parties be able to find. 

We had to find each thing using every telescope, so we could learn how to use all of them. So we (as in me and the other newbie) found Polaris, the North Star, the star that doesn't move, by simply pointing (with our handheld lasers, of course. Which are not to be used as light sabers. No no no.) Then we found the Summer Triangle, comprised of 3 bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair. (Just a constellation again, only need your eyeballs, nothing fancy) 

Deneb is part of a constellation called the Cygnus, and it is the tail of the bird, while Alberio, in about the middle of the triangle, is the head. Alberio is really a binary star system. Two stars are orbiting around eachother. When you look through the telescopes you can see the two "close" together. One is orange and one is blue.

Finished with Alberio, we found the wild duck cluster: hundreds of young stars 6,000 light years away. That looked pretty cool through the big telescopes. (We only got around to finding those few consolations and the mere two things through the telescopes because the clouds were starting to come and it was 11:00 anyway.) When I say big telescope, I mean small cannon. It was around 4 and 1/2 feet tall with a 15 inch diameter, if I remember correctly. It's just a big cylinder so it catches a lot of light. This one uses mirrors instead of lenses. Light comes in, hits the mirror at the bottom, is bounced back up to a small mirror in the middle at the top again, which bounces it to the eyepiece. It's really important to have those mirrors all line up perfectly, which is another one of our jobs before star parties.

There are lots of kinds of telescopes. Two of them are the big ones I explained above, plus two more similar to that, but a lot smaller and metal. Their lasers didn't like being cold, so we didn't use them much. Then there's the kind everyone immediately thinks of when you say "telescope"; the classic tube on a tri-pod. But fancier. The tube bit is fatter and shorter. There are knobs you can fine tune where you want to point it. When you get really fancy, sometimes you need counterweights. We had one that needed weights and a car battery, because it had a remote control sort of thing used to move it around. (It might have also been used for astrophotography, but I really don't remember. Lucky me there's another training in August.)

IM SO EXCITED.
We all have vests and landyards with the logo and our names. I feel so professional.
And there was cookies and coffee and astronomical exuberance, with Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Star Treck references flying thick and fast.
I had a good time.

~Gwen 

A lazy Tuesday afternoon

Preview:

"And old Johnny Dashwood was like "Oh shoot. Me ol daddys done dead and now I've got all this money on my hands, which I should totally give to my sisters and mommy 'cause I'm a kindly old dude. It really beats me why he couldn't have divided up the money so they and I could have equal parts and do just fine, but it's the 18th century, for god's sakes, we cant be fair to the womenfolk!"

It was rather hot yeaterday, but the somewhat comfortable sort of hot, not the "oh-dang-we're-stuck-in-a-pit-of-hell-I-think-my-eyebrows-got-singed-off!" sort of hot. In the afternoon it had cooled down enough to have an enjoyable time outside for any length of time. 

night

I wish

The night would wrap me up

So tightly

In a blanket of stars.

I would gaze at the moon

And smell the nighttime breeze

And hear the hooting of owls.

From beneath my comforter 

Of midnight blue velvet

And fairy dust,

Or scattered diamonds

I'd drift away

Into the cool stillness of the night.

A reunion

Today was a very happy day in North Dollworld. For you to understand the happiness, I would like you to remember this:

"Sit down. you look pretty in a skirt anyway."

Andie and Rylan have been pretty much inseparable ever since Rylan came to live with us. They had been having a great time together before I tried the eye swap thing. (which Andie is still mad at me for. Seeing rylan without eyes freaked her out.) I got one of her eyes back in, but not the other. I messed up the plastic backing and was not having much luck getting it positioned. But after a while Rylan told me "It's fine, stop worrying, I'll do it myself." Her plan was to embark on a quest to visit a sacred place aways south of here where a forest spirit dwells who might help her get her eye back in. (that redhead who's name is still unknown)

So she packed her bag and walked off into the forest alone, which I didn't document because Lilly and I were too busy keeping Andie from racing after her.  If you're questioning my judgement on letting one of my dolls wander off into the woods alone, i'll remind you that 1) Rylan is the most responsible doll I know, 2) nothing wants to eat a girl made of vinyl, and 3) you have no idea how many protection spells Lilly cast on her before she left. She was practically glowing.

The weeks without Rylan had been tough on Andie. At first she spent her time frowning at the ceiling, and then a few days crying at the floor. The rest of the time she looked a mixture of bored and sad. It got to the point where whenever she was doing something other than moping around I was like WOO HOO YEAH LET'S GO TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT GREATNESS!

That was a lot of unnecessary explaining. I can do it again in Caveman Talk if you want.

RYLAN NO EYEBALLS

RYLAN LEAVE

ANDIE SAD

anyway, on with the story