Mufasa!

I am back--unless you have been carrying me in your hearts this entire time, because it's impossible for me to come back if I've never left. And really, why wouldn't you carry me in your hearts? I am extremely good at shrinking down to heart-sized, lovable minis. If anyone else wants to learn this talent, consult a miniature Reese's cup. They are experts on being small. Or find a short person near you. Just don't call them short to their face. They prefer to be called short-stack or runt. Also, it is typical courtesy to ask them if they would like a child's menu, and give them a miniature Reese's cup. Short-stacks like miniature things because they fit in their mouths easier. Be kind to the runts.

Regardless the short people, I have something to announce.

I am writing a book. My extremely detailed outline is nearly finished, and I have decided I want to publish it on my own. I plan to have the first complete draft done by the end of the year. I would like volunteer editors to please step forward and post a comment, email me, or call me to reserve a copy of the first draft of my book. I would like feedback from people who read and people who don't read, people who like critically judging books and people who think it stinks to read stuff that isn't perfected. I need people like you!

Do I need to get an Uncle Sam type photo of myself?

Anyway, more posts to come.

Replacements

So I finally got new glasses. Or at least I got an eye exam and picked them out. I'm wearing new contacts too. Know how long it's been since I'd been to the optometrist before now?

4 years.

And I didn't do that on purpose because I like the number.

But the doctor said that my eyes seem to be stable now, that they haven't changed much over the past 4 years (woo hoo!) so he wants to check them in a year and tell me if I could get lasik surgery with my wacko shaped eyes. I don't want to get the surgery right now, but I would definitely start saving if I knew it was possible. So we'll see. (ha ha. what a pun.)

And how should I describe my new glasses? They are like that artsy-genius kid on Parenthood. They are like Clark Kent, but that doesn't mean I like superman. They are grey-blue-dark...something. They are nerdy frames and awesome! They will be ready in January, and I'll be able to get another pair for FREE because of the new year and a new insurance plan that my company is switching to. It's gonna be awesome.

AND YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY PIXIE CUT!

It has returned!

Though I'm not proud of this style of pixie. We let it be too long. Now I want to go uber uber short. Never done that before. And I'm tired of even short hair. I want a little mohawk too. Is it a faux/fo-hawk? Not sure...but I want it, I need it, oh baby, oh baby (change the it to you and name that movie).

So I'm gonna be suber uber neato burrito on days i wear my glasses and do my mini-hawk, and i'll be cute and professional with a normal pixie and my contacts. then i'll find sophisticated and bookish glasses in the new year. i'm replacing my self-images, for practically nothing. could be fun. wish me luck.

The Boys

I have some super cute cousins who live just a few blocks away from me. I want to share two things, one from each of them:

Aidan was showing me how to play with playdough. Here's an excerpt.

Aidan: I made a nest!

Me: That is one big egg.

Aidan: Yeah, that’s a egg.

Me: I bet you could fit three small eggs so you can hatch lots of birds if you wanted.

Jakob (from the other room): How about 16?

Aidan: No, five-teen. Brittany, will you help me?

I was sketching at my aunt’s house, and her son, Jakob, was watching me. I was adding different types of hatch-marks when Jakob asked me why everything was dirty. He pointed to my texture marks. I told him how they were supposed to show that everything I drew reacted differently to light and held colors in a different way and felt different, and those marks were meant to show that different materials felt different. Then I played a game with my sister, aunt, uncle, and friend.

Hours later, when we were done playing, I see Jakob at the table with crayons and scissors and tape. I go ask him what he’s doing, and he shows me a drawing he’s been working on. Then he tells me to feel the different things.

A cat with fur had fringed paper taped to it for hair. The cliff wall had a rock protrusion, a crumpled paper taped on. There was a den of baby cats with hay, slices of paper layered.

My favorite part was that the entrance to the den had fire launcher things…a piece of orange construction paper colored red and roughed up—this one he told me to rub really fast and it would get hot like fire, which was pretty much using the friction effect of sandpaper to help you feel the heat! He also made smooth metal by putting tape on purple, a slight ridge on a robot, and a gas can. I cannot remember why he wanted the robot and the gas can, but it was a big deal.

It came with an extra piece of paper. When I told him, “Whoops, you gave me two,” he replied, “That’s for if you want to make one.”

They are cute boys, huh? :)

...!...

See how the title of this post actually records and predicts history? No? Oh dang. I thought it was obvious.

Listen here, and I'll tell you the tale of the punctuation marks.

It starts with the ...

It's well known that three periods combined together mean that you actually aren't ending a sentence. It's less well known that they are called ellipses and have an grammatical purpose that is used and abused these days. (Click here to become less ignorant.)

And it's rarely known how this tri-period-combo came to be. Back in the days when punctuation wasn't governed, and . wasn't a period (hard to imagine, I know), the . was simply a ., a symbol. What was it a symbol for?

Anything and Everything!

One day long ago, a boy named Ellip and his sister (we don't remember her name, so we call her Sis) were supposed to catch fish and gather berries together to help their mother with dinner. Well, Sis didn't like anything to do with fish, and Ellip didn't like anything to do with berries, so they decided that Ellip would take care of the fishing and Sis would take care of the berries.

Well, long story shorter, things didn't go according to plan. Ellip was attacked by a bear that wanted fish, and Sis threw berries into the bear's mouth, which the bear choked on, then swallowed and tried attacking Ellip again, but the berries were poisonous, so Ellip didn't die, he just got mauled.

On the way home, Sis supported the limping Ellip she would sometimes forget what she was doing, so Sis would drop Ellip while her mind wandered elsewhere. Ellip would cry out in pain, and only when he regained her attention would Sis realize that she'd forgotten him. Then he would be angry. Wouldn't you be?

But the truth was, Sis never finished anything. She dropped Ellip so many times, that by the time they made their way home, there was no mark from the bear attack. In fact, it had been so long since the bear attack that Ellip and Sis had forgotten why it was taking them so long to return home.

And when they got home, Mother was furious. She had been worried. And starving. She was a twiglet when they finally got there.

"What on earth took you so long, Ellip and Sis?" She asked. [Not an actual quote.]

Ellip and Sis tried and tried to remember, but all they could say was "Well," and "We were getting food and then," but these were not sentences, and mother waited so long for them to complete their thought that she continued starving to death.

Literally to death.

And Ellip and Sis also continued to starve, because Death wouldn't take people who can't finish sentences.

Until one day, there was a woman who used the . to represent Anything and Everything. She would draw a . every time she became distracted with something. It was a way for her to recognize that her mind was wandering and she needed to stop. So she would carry a piece of papyrus around with her (she was Egyptian, of course) so she could remain focused.

Don't ask me how she came up with this method of keeping focused. History can only reveal so much.

The point is, the woman was so successful in using the . for distractions that she ending up having only 3 of them every day. She created the symbol for distractions: ...

How does the history play together? Well, Death invented grammar and punctuation, and when he saw the woman's symbol for distractions, he superiorly thought to himself, "Those old people, Ellip and Sis, they can't finish their sentences because Sis kept getting distracted with other thoughts. I bet if I can teach them the distraction symbol and get them to use it in a sentence, then I could finally claim them as my own!" and that is how Death claimed Ellip and Sis. He was so thrilled that he figured out a way to free people from sentences that had to be finished but couldn't be due to memory and distractions, he named the ... after Ellip and Sis.

So why did I share with you that *history? Because, now that you know that each dot used to represent distractions and loss of focus to the point of memory impairment, you can understand the title of this blog, right?

Right?

Hmph. I will tell you then, you not-so-brilliant-children-whom-don't-understand-obvious-symbolism. (But really, you are smart, unless you are reading this, because honestly, who in their right mind reads something this long and ridiculous?)

The exclamation mark (something exciting) is surrounded by ellipses (distractions and forget-tions).

For those of you who need me to spell it out for you, I kept getting distracted (NaNoWriMo, work, etc.) and I forgot that NaNoWriMo was over. All of that equals the ellipsis before the exclamation mark. The exclamation mark is me remembering to blog and actually doing it (something exciting). The ellipsis after the exclamation mark is a predictor of the future, meaning I will probably forget to blog again.

It was supposed to be a simple way to say sorry I haven't blogged in a while, but now I am blogging to add excitement to your life, but I'll probably get distracted and busy and forget to blog again in the future.

But lo, I have to explain so much to you readers.

Next time I will choose a simpler title. My apologies.

*may or may not be accurate.