Thank you, Sam Pratt!

For the friend suggestion.
At first I was like, wtf? But you know best, apparently.
Emma and I went "shopping" yesterday.
Meaning we complained about consumerism and America while wandering about the mall, where we went to three stores before getting stuck in Barnes and Noble.
Good times.
She bought me a book, which was nice.
Even though the book ended up being about the futility of the "intelligent design" argument and how Christians can (and should) square their beliefs with evolution, because evolution is right. Even the Bible says so.
Um, right.
They did make a couple of good points, I must admit, about proven fact and theories.
But I find it annoying that people that believe in evolution assume Christians believe what the people back in Darwin's day believed: that Genesis 1:1 meant that God LITERALLY created everything in the beginning, including every species of every animal ever.
Which I think is sort of ignorant. Because it's been proven that speciation and mutation DOES occur, but that doesn't disprove the theory that God made the earth.
And it doesn't prove that all those species come from a common ancestor (a sponge).
And it certainly doesn't mean that all existence exploded into being from nothing.
Which is sort of what the intelligent design theory is. But there's God involved, not...nothing.
So I wish a lot of people, especially my science teachers, would stop saying things like, "Adaptation happens! Mutation happens! Therefore, you're wrong! Oh, and we found fossils!"
And I wish loudmouth Christians who have no idea what they're talking about would stop standing by the old school Genesis 1:1 theory. Because it's not true.
And they certainly don't take everything else in the Bible that literally, such as Revelation.
It was weird to see how the book twisted the parable of the talents into a pro-evolution argument.
Just like the Catholics twisted an unrelated Bible story around their anti birth control argument. I still don't know where I stand on birth control, but I think their argument is absolute CRAP.
So whatever. My God is big enough for speciation and mutation and everything else. He made organisms infinitely complex, so of course he could have made it so animals *gasp* CHANGE OVER TIME!
And of course he's big enough for evolution, and some people use that argument.
But I'm still not inclined to believe we came from monkeys, even though that's easier to swallow than the "fact" that cows and whales are related.
Of course...
Anyway. Enough of that rant.
My dad thinks I might be in a cult.
Or at least dabbling in some kind of forbidden spirituality.
Because there was a test on this awesome personality profile thing I found that compared your personality to the personality you SHOULD have according to your zodiac.
And I already don't believe in that kind of thing. My horoscope is wrong half the time, and if not, why is it that my supposedly "Virgo" older brother is one of the most extraverted people ever? And my "Aquarius" dad one of the least friendly?
So the test showed that I only fit one of five Capricorn requirements. In short, I am the worst excuse for a Capricorn this world has ever seen.
I met a guy yesterday who put a lot of stock in the zodiac, and was like, "Yeah, well, we Libras get along so well."
Only I had to tell him I wasn't a Libra. And he said he never would've pegged me for a Capricorn.
Well, yeah, go figure.
Anyway, I showed my dad, because I found it fascinating...and kind of funny.
But, as usual, he focused on ONE detail rather than the whole picture, the whole picture being that I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE ZODIAC and I'd showed him the test because IT BASICALLY PROVED HOW WRONG IT WAS.
Actually, if it proved anything, it showed what a freak of nature I am.
But my dad decided to focus on the fact that the zodiac itself is "dangerous" and I shouldn't be dabbling in stuff like that.
?????
Ooooooooookay, dad. Thanks once again for listening.
He never actually listens to the stuff I'm telling him, only what he thinks he hears.
Argh. Frustrating.

And they wonder why I'm paranoid...

Just typing away in my own little world while my dad plunks away on piano.
But he's not paying attention.
Now that we have all this glorious free time, he's been thinking up all these projects we can do.
House cleaning projects, not Girl Scout crafts or anything.
We cleaned the windows yesterday. Weeee...
It involved a lot of Windex and Brawny paper towels.
I miss the old Brawny guy. Have I ever said that? He was a real man.
But anyway.
I cleaned the insides and he cleaned the outsides.
There was a frustrating point where he gave me really vague instructions on how to do something involving the vacuum, so, after spending an agonizing five minutes trying to figure out how to put the hose on (I figured it out eventually, lol), I vacuumed up all the dust and dog hair on the window sill.
How dog hair got on the window sill is beyond me.
But that's what I thought he wanted me to do.
But, apparently, I HADN'T done what he'd wanted and suddenly he's at me with all these detailed instructions.
And I got mad because if he'd wanted me to do all that, why hadn't he told me in the first place?
But his response was, "Well, I'm telling you now."
But I thought it was a job well done, and now he's telling me I haven't done the job at all. This wouldn't have happened if you'd told me in the first place!
"But I'm telling you now."
Ugh.
It's strange that we can't seem to communicate, even though we're more alike than different.
Thankfully, David Bowie was playing in the background and brought peace to the situation.
Half-Priced Books is my new favorite store.
My mom and I went on Wednesday, and we walked in to find a mini-Powells, with huge stacks of books, CDs, and stationary everywhere. There were hundreds of movies in wooden shelves that stretched halfway across the store. There was a music section with tons of CDs, new and old. I found Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Morrissey, the Beatles, Fall Out Boy, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, and Billy Idol, but ended up buying only one CD.
The teen section had more books than Barnes and Noble.
That section alone was bigger than the entire Used Book Store in Silverdale.
Maybe not.
But I found tons of stuff.
I ended up getting Princess Diaries #7 (the only one I needed besides the pesky 1/2 and 3/4 novels); two of my favorite books, "Chasing Redbird" and "The Boyfriend List"; "The Mother Daughter Book Club", which had cutesy tween illustrations on the cover and looked distracting; and David Bowie's "Changes"; and half a dozen books for my mom, all for only $32.
How amazing is that???
I haven't been this exciting since visiting Tacoma's Borders Books, where I bought two books for $7 each.
Borders is amazing...
...but Half-Priced Books is even better, I must say.
"Changes" is my new favorite song. Well, that and "Heroes". And "Diamond Dogs". And "Fame".
Ugh, my brother's friend is here and they're being irritating and pre-teen-y.
He was playing with Hillary, my Darth Sidious doll (long story).
Just playing around like it was totally okay.
It was not okay.
But I just kept my mouth shut and made grilled cheese.
It was a pretty delicious sandwich, too.