I continue to explore the strange and unfamiliar ritual of human interaction

ALL RIGHT HERES THE THING GUYS
Tenley reminded me a few days weeks ago that I have a blog and it might be cool of me to actually post things on it.
SO I HAVE IMPORTANT NEWS

(This glowing cloud was not the important news but it's still pretty important. All hail.)

Donald the local fanboy has joined drama club after school! And guess what else- HE GOT THE LEAD ROLE! The play is The Nerd, which I am not fond of and was written in the 80's and was what our new director, Mr. Sutherd (whose name is not spelled phonetically but I will do anyway because I can't spell), did for a play when he was in junior high.
Not excited about the play itself, BUT WE CAN BE EXCITED FOR DONALD!
What am I doing in all this nonsense? Brianna of the Hive Mind and I are going to be doing tech. She runs lights and I run sound. Nothing for us to do yet, though, because the actual actors are still figuring out blocking.



But yeah I have friends now, which is where lots of my attention is directed currently. Donald is my best friend, which is a new thing cause I haven't had an actual friend since kindergarten (Im a sophomore. Do what you will with that.) All my "friends" before him were just people to stand next to so I would feel less awkward. Im sure I've told you this before.
Anyway, we tell eachother everything, which is nice emotional solidarity, and do nearly everything together. A few nights ago we made fried rice and listened to The Killers. It turned out wonderfully, and then we took a walk in my woods in the darkness and discussed the possible existence (and variations on that existence) of a god.

My friends are such cuddly people. Donald and I were standing pretty close together under the trees looking up at their silhouettes against the light polluted sky, and his face bumped into mine. This was surprising, like, what are you trying to do here, dude? Do you want a kiss or something? Thought you weren't into that. ??? And then his voice came from inside his hoodie "Aahhhhh sorry I just wanted to put my head on your shoulder but I forgot I'm taller than you!" Other than that, we sit shoulder to shoulder thigh to thigh on the bus listening to night vale. Very comforting. Take the solidity of a rock and make it warm and soft.
In another event of cuddliness, Brianna was laying with her head in my lap and I was playing with her hair. A drama kid sitting in the window next to us asked me "Are you guys dating?" I was not prepared to answer this question. I turned to Brianna and asked "Are we dating?" She booped me on the nose and then said "I dont know", shrugging. This was a valid question for Drama Kid to ask, as we walk around school holding hands, and she likes to rest her chin on my shoulder and her hands on my hips, which is apparently considered dating behavior.
Im less convinced about the holding hands = dating thing, though, because Brianna, Donald, and I like to walk around town after school with all three of us holding hands.

Here have a lovely picture of Orange Boi painting at my house just after school started and it was still sunny outside. Having my feet in focus and not him was probably a poor artistic choice, but the colors are nice.

What other interesting things have happened? Hmmmm.
OH! I'm taking chemistry. We were talking about the properties of matter a few days ago, and one of the properties is Reactivity With Water, so Mrs. H. stuck some sodium in a bowl of water.
It fizzled madly and swirled around of its own accord, and then caught on fire. We thought that was going to be it, that was going to be the coolest part, but no. IT BLEW UP, FOLKS! A BEAUTIFUL UPWARD AND OUTWARD SPRAY OF SPARKS AND A MARVELOUS BANG.
John the Star Guide Buddy got a picture of the first few sparks just before the explosion.
Sodium metal is very reactive with water, so much so that it can't even be around water vapor in the air. It has to be stored in mineral oil so it won't blow up in storage.

I wish to tell you of something wonderful.

Putty is that wonderful thing.
Not like putty for patching up walls (though I am quite familiar with that since I tend to cut holes in the wall when I am upset.) I mean like silly putty, crazy aaron's thinking putty, or that stuff you get in the rock climbing section of REI to strengthen your hands.

I am an enormous fan of things with nice textures. Smooth erasers, round rocks that are almost matte, soft blankets, and such the like. I have also been known to stick my finger into a variety of food items and squish them, such as beans, steel cut oats, dry rice, egg yolks.
I also spend far too much time watching paint mixing videos.

But the most wonderful, squishiest, stretchiest, least messy thing my hands have come across is this putty:

I have several kinds. The iridescent stuff above,

and this heat sensitive stuff that's purple when it's cold and blue when its warm.

That was my loveliness for today.
What textures do you like? Do you spend a lot of time fiddling with things?

Hot chocolate is only deathly sometimes.

Donald the Local Fanboy is local once again, back in his rightful home state. And also in my home, a day ago.
While he was here, I introduced him to the art of needle felting, a therapeutic craft in which you take a fluff of wool and a barbed needle and STAB THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF IT until the wool becomes the shape you want.

Yesterday was also our last star party of the season. I ate pizza with the other star guides and solved puzzles with Vanessa, our newest recruit. This was her first year and she has done very well. As far as I can tell, I did very well too, speaking in front of people.
Braden, the oldest star guide, made us all new passports with harder to find targets. Things like the owl cluster and omega nebula.
I do not have pictures of those, but john did image the pelican nebula, and I thought that was kind of cool.

(There's a little 1 in the corner because he matched the photos up with the names when he sent them to us. The stars are a little blobbier than normal and the image is lesser in quality because he took this with the 5 inch 'astrovideo' [Not actually video. It just takes lower quality pictures faster so we have cool results to show guests sooner.] telescope instead of the proper astrophotography telescope in the observatory.)

A quote from Brett last evening: "I am always afraid to touch nature because I am afraid nature will touch me back...with more insects...ugh."
Speaking of insects, the night before, Vanessa and I had been making hot chocolate while the guests were in the planetarium, and a fly fell into her cup and died. But this death was not instantaneous, sporting the full show of frantic, soggy buzzing, its wings making swirly designs in the foam on top. A death that was quite a spectacle, if still gruesome.

Now that the star guide season is over, I am sitting alone in my house feeling kind of sad.

I believe I figured out the death frisbee thing from a couple posts ago. I started watching Sherlock recently and "death frisbee" was mentioned, in reference to a hat. I must have read it somewhere in my explorations of the interwebs, and it stuck in my mind enough for me to write it in my closet.

I would walk 2 barefoot miles and I would walk 2 barefoot more just to BE the man who walked 4 painful MILES to have 5 blisters (at your door)

I made a series of poor choices yesterday that eventually led to me getting squirted in the face with body fluid this morning.

Poor choice #1: Staying up until 2, partly because I am bad at sleeping, partly because working at the planetarium messes with my sleep scedule. (Had our first star party on tuesday).

Poor choice #2: Putting on flip flops instead of normal shoes to go for a walk with my family. I was too tired to put on normal shoes, as explained in poor choice #1.

Poor choice #3: Taking off said flip flops to walk barefoot on the pavement. I wanted to strengthen my hobbit feet. Which, evidently, I do not have.

Poor choice #4: Overestimating the strength of my feet. Mom kept asking me: "Do you want to turn around? Can your feet handle this?" I kept saying, "Yeah, we can keep going, it doesnt matter."
Well it did matter.

So I walked 2 miles barefoot over pavement, and it wasn't until then that I realized I had awful blisters forming on my feet. I didn't walk 2 miles back. Cole and dad had brought their skateboards, so i sat cross legged on the skateboard and put my hands in my flip flops to push myself back.

Also, by brother has been into My Chemical Romance lately, so If you can imagine me, long legs folded up across a skateboard, pushing myself along with hands covered in flip flops, singing Teenagers, then you are doing an awful good job of imagining.

When that was all finished, I had 5 very large blisters total and could not walk worth refried beans. I would show you pictures, but you probably did not wake up this morning and think " Wow! I really need to see giant blisters on the bottom of someone's dirty feet!"
Unless you are a foot doctor, in which case, congratulations.

BUT NOW HERE'S THE BEST PART! This morning I decided to sterilize a sewing needle and just pop the blisters. So i had one foot on my other knee bent around where i could see it, and it stuck the needle through the skin (it didn't hurt at all) AND BLISTER FLUID CAME SQUIRTING OUT AT MY FACE!

I know I gave away the thrilling conclusion at the top of this post, but still. It was wild.

Pie is always bittersweet

Berry pie is bitter and sweet at the same time, and I've never quite been satisfied with it. Pumpkin pie is all right, though.

On Friday I spent around 4 hours sitting on the floor with Donald (the local fanboy) and Colton (of the hive mind). It was Donald's last day of school before he went to Alaska, and our last full day of school. Someone who has poor schedule making skills decided the end of the year should have two half days. The spanish teacher was holding a fiesta in her classroom, so we skipped nearly every period to chill on the floor and eat enchiladas.

I am not used to having friends, or talking to people for so long. I had fun with it. You know what else I had fun with? Literary Arts Night, where I got up in front of everybody to read Petty Conversations For The Weak Minded. The spotlight was bright enough that I couldn't see anyone, only a sea of black in front of me, but I think I did fine because everyone laughed in the right places. 

I changed a bit from the last time you all read it, I had added "moist" as a pet peeve and leaned in close to the mic, saying "moist" in the creepiest voice I own. The audience lost it!

Look at me! I have friends* and can speak in front of crowds of people! Character development! (Or maybe I've always been able to do that, but now that I've had some specific examples fresh in my mind, my self perception has changed.) 

* I mean, I've always had friends, but I've never been able to keep them for more than 180 days, and I feel like Im actually going to miss Donald and my Hive Mind.

Take a look at this picture. Look at warm sunlight on soft blankets. 

Think up some happy thoughts for yourself. If happy thoughts won't come, neutral thoughts are ok. Or no thoughts at all. Just gaze blankly at it, idk, blank gazing is something I do all the time. If your brain is functioning like you want it to, try imagining yourself as a little teeny bug crawling over the wrinkles in the sheets. What would it look like from that perspective?

For my birthday I got a dragon that disapproves.

Of what does this dragon disapprove? Probably my attitude, most of the time.

Looking at this blog again, I realize that my header is not centered and it is fuzzy. This is unacceptable. I intend to fix that soon, and maybe even draw a new blueberry for it. That blueberry with t rex arms is a good person. They really try their best. It's not easy to be a fruit with reptile appendages.

Hey! maybe that'll be my next post! I'll make a backstory for my little blueberry. And make a comic for it, hopefully better than the one I did for Ellie's dream. My drawing skills have improved since then!

I can't really tell what's supposed to be in focus here. Just do me a favor and appreciate the colors.

I am experiencing a very strong urge to put words on here, to spill out all of my thoughts, but for some reason my brain is empty. I used to be good at blogging (or so I like to believe) but I had some problems in January and I haven't been able to find my groove since. I am trying. Not very hard, but that'll change soon.

I also intend to answer your comments and actually comment on your guys's blogs! I haven't been able to concentrate enough to do that consistently for several months, so after I post this you can expect to hear form me.