H-e-double toothpicks!! Ha ha ha!

James Patterson kind of disgusts me.
He thinks he's a much better writer than he really is.
"Maximum Ride" makes me too angry.
I somehow used to love it.
I somehow used to love a lot of things, though, so this isn't that surprising.
Ugh. He's so smug.
Max irritates the crap out of me.
And I'm tired of the whole "save the planet" theme.
Max is pulling a Bella Swan, too, which is always fun.
"I love Fang...wait, no I don't! Let's make out, Fang...no wait, I changed my mind! I hate you...but I hate your redheaded girlfriend more!"
Fun stuff. I'm trying to get through "Max" as quickly as possible.
"House of Leaves" is giving me the creeps - and I'm barely 30 pages in!!
I literally stared at my closet last night for hours, just in case something in there was waiting for me.
Then I fell asleep and had weird dreams.
Like this one: my high school decided to put on "Les Miserables" and I had the part of Valjean, but didn't know any of my lines.
So I just improvised the entire time.
I walked into a spider's web today. Grossest feeling ever.
I sort of miss being tall and lanky.
Yep, still "tall".
Lanky, tho, not so much.
Woohoo, body dysmorhpia!
I'll be throwing up if you need me.

Exploding volcano of passion

Lol, I just read a historical romance by Meg Cabot.
It was basically a rip-off of Princess Diaries. But she won't admit it.
And she wrote another romance with almost the exact same plot, word for word.
Seriously. Read these descriptions:
Nicola and the Viscount
It's only her first London season, but sixteen-year-old Nicola has made up her mind: Handsome, charming, poetry-reading Lord Sebastian is, simply, a god. So when the divine viscount starts paying special attention to her, Nicola is certain she's found her destiny.
Everything is perfect until the infuriating - and disturbingly handsome - Nathaniel Sheridan begins to cast doubt on the viscount's character...and on Nicola's feelings.

Victoria and the Rogue
Wealthy young heiress Lady Victoria Arbuthnot is accustomed to handling her own affairs - and everyone else's. So, when she's suddenly sent to London to find a husband, Victoria quickly finds a perfect English gentleman.
Everything is just as she wants it - that is, if the raffish young ship captain Jacob Carstairs would stop meddling in her plans.

Good times.
But the Nicola plot seemed suspiciously familiar.
A girl falls for a handsome, Aryan god, only to change her mind about him and go for her best friend's intelligent, dark-haired, good-looking BROTHER, Michael Moscovitz, er, Nathaniel Sheridan.
I was on the edge of my seat wondering how it would end! Would it be Sebastian? Nathaniel? Harold? Lol, I stayed up till 1:00 reading it. It had a completely satisfying ending...if you can call it that. But romantic cliches were plentiful and the historical anachronisms made me giggle.
And THEN, I find a preview of ANOTHER historical romance (sadly, not written by Meg Cabot) called "Catherine and the Pirate". The description alone was enough to set me aflame with curiousity...or something like that. It was hard to tell; I was laughing too hard.
Sometimes a girl does have her sights set on the right guy from the start, though. Take Catherine, of the next Avon True Romance, Catherine and the Pirate: she can't help but be attracted to Derrick. So what if he has an unsavory seafaring past? So what if he's her brother's best friend? So what if he acts as though he's not into her? That one kiss had to have meant something! Right?
They went on to describe it as a heartstopping, high-seas adventure.
"Nicola and the Viscount" had plenty of adventure. She was kidnapped by bad guys in broad daylight and locked in a tiny room in a London flat when she refused to bend to their will! Then, when one of her captors came in to torment her, she knocked him out with an ale pitcher and climbed out the window onto the roof! Grant, the evil cabby driver, began to pursue her, but felt himself beginning to slide off! Desperately, he grabbed Nicola's dress, bringing her down with him. Nicola thought she was going to die...but ending up landing in Nathaniel's arms. Grant fell into a water trough.
That's about as exciting as it gets around here.

Venting, venting, one, two three

Awesome. So I'm a terrible friend.
Because I get a ride home with my neighbor ONCE IN A WHILE, not every day, but when she does pick me up, it's like I have to race in order to guarantee my spot.
Because my other friend wants a ride.
Even though she lives 10 minutes out of the way, while I live across the street from my neighbor, so she's acting like winner gets a ride home when IT'S MY RIDE. NO ONE SAID YOU COULD GET A RIDE HOME.
But unless they say, "Get out of the car, you moron," she doesn't get out. And they feel bad for making her get out. I mean, it's not her fault....
Ugh. It didn't make me so mad before, because I don't mind walking, but when I'm expecting a ride home from school and all my friends have ALREADY LEFT and I want to play with the BABIES on my nice, restful RIDE HOME, it's frustrating to have my friend go, "So sad. I got here first. Have a nice walk!"
Today, she handed me a stack of CDs she'd borrowed from me (at least 15 of them), and said, "Yeah, it sucks that you'll have to carry those home. While you walk, I mean."
!!!!!!!!!!
And she offered to walk home with me to "help" carry them....
....but she didn't offer to give up her nice, comfy seat in the car, now, did she?
And apparently she's mad at me, so she feels good about taking my seat.
But whenever we hang out she acts like everything's fine.
Whatever. I'll just ride with my mom and/or walk until the end of the school yaer.
Thankfully I won't have to deal with it next year.
Sorry. It's just been irritating me all day, that she's been doing this, but whenever I show up at the car first, she CRIES. Okay, not in front of me, but she feels like crap. And she tells her mom. Who calls my mom.
Which is ridiculous.
So I'm the villain here. It's all my fault. Bad Lauren.
13 more days!
Awards ceremony!
CK graduation?
Can't go to that, even if I wanted to.
Soren's leaving. :(
Rosey's retiring. :(
"Bless Me Ultima" sucks, as does "Swing Kids".
Some stupid kids FREAKED OUT while we were watching "Swing Kids" today, because they commented on Count Basie's music, and how the Count was a "negro".
All 12 of them, NOT ONE OF THEM BLACK, kept saying, "Awwww man, that's JACKED UP!! How could they say that? That is SO MESSED UP! I can't believe they SAID THAT. It's a DISNEY movie!"
Hello? That's what they said back then!
And it's not like they said the other n-word, or "colored", or "coon", or anything like that!
And it was all the Filipino kids saying this. The black kids didn't CARE!
Oversensitive much?
Ha ha ha. I'm going to sign that petition. Because David Bose told me to.
Everything but marriage!

Be dumb! It works!

Excellent book.
Perverted and sort of icky, but at least interesting.
He was 23!!!
Elizabeth Gaskell was (and is) overrated. BBC seems to be in love with her, but she's not that great.
Not that I've actually read her stuff.
But I plan to.
And the movies I've seen based on her work, that apparently stay very true to the books?
Not impressed.
"North and South" was a lot better than "Wives and Daughters".
But it still seemed like she had to pull a rabbit out of a hat to get the desired ending.
And she made all these random subplots that never went anywhere.
Take "North and South" for instance. Her brother is a CRIMINAL and will be KILLED if anyone finds out he's in England. A drunk catches him leaving the train station and almost turns him in, but Fred pushes him down the stairs and he later dies, making Fred not only a mutineer, but a MURDERER.
And, as you're waiting impatiently, wanting to know what will happen to him, Margaret (the main character) makes a side comment about him being happily married in Spain, and that's THAT. You never hear from him again.
Seems like a bunch of unnecessary drama.
Ugh, I HAAAATED Margaret soooooooooooo much. She was like a homeschooler on CRACK - everything she did was offensive, and she made no effort to try to understand people and the Northern culture. And Elizabeth Gaskell's main characters are always praised for speaking their minds in a time when women had no rights and being revolutionary and forthright and whatnot, but you didn't get the impression that Margaret was outspoken or revolutionary - just irritating. And out of ALL the characters, she grew the LEAST. Sure, she changed her opinion about the mill owner, but only because he was so dang attractive (mmmmmhmmm), and every stupid decision she made was justified by her idiot father, even if she disobeyed him by INVITING HER CRIMINAL BROTHER INTO THE COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!
John Thornton was a much better male lead than Roger "Moron" whatever-his-last-name-is.
The ending was really epic. Margaret randomly inherits money from her father's old friend, after EVERYONE ELSE DIES (seriously, at least 6 main characters kick the bucket), and moves back to London.
But, when she's riding away in the carriage after saying goodbye to Thornton, he's watching her go, almost crying, saying, "Look back. Look back at me."
But she doesn't. Because she's an idiot.
Then she moves to London with her gross aunt and her ditzy best friend and the creepy stalker with GROSS sideburns who had been stalking her since the beginning of the movie, and was STILL pouting over her rejecting his proposal!!!
Then Thornton loses the mill, but he and Higgins are best friends, so that's okay. Margaret makes a lot more money and buys the mill and visits Milton, where Thornton's mom chews her out for rejecting HER son as well, and Margaret's like, "Well, he IS rather attractive..."
ANYWAY, the epic part: she's on a train back to London, and Thornton's on a train back to Milton from Helstone (long story), and they both have a delay and their trains end up right next to each other, so they both leap out of the trains and start making out on a bench, while Henry "Gross sideburns" Lennox pouts in his car. Then Margaret goes into the train with Thornton and its a wonderfully happy ending with icky sideburns going home that night - ALONE!
And that's pretty much been my entire Spring Break, so far.
Besides graduating my Sims from college (finally) and spending time at the beach with my family.
My grandparents have been married 57 years. 57 YEARS. That's a long time.
Beaches are awesome. Even when it's a balmy 47 degrees outside with freezing winds.

ZOMFG PRINCESS DIARIES FAN ART!!!!

Really? Is there really no one else in this world that didn't enjoy "Princess Diaries 10: Forever Princess"?
I mean, it's been a month.
You can't tell me EVERYONE liked it.
But apparently everyone DID.
So much, in fact, thtat they consider it THE BEST ONE IN THE SERIES.
Wow. Weird.
For 99.9% of the female teenage population, this book made them replace Stephenie Meyer with Meg Cabot as the BEST writer of all time!!
Yet for me, it did just the opposite.
I am most likely never going to pick up a Meg Cabot book ever again for as long as I live.
Well, not true. I'll probably reread "The Princess Diaries" series from time to time.
But I'm not really enjoying Meg Cabot's predictable style.
And I'm still bitter for having Mia end up with Michael.
Making J.P. out to be a creepy, self-centered loser was pretty lame and sort of immature.
And, as an expert on all things immature, I would know.
I've been seeing a lot of Princess Diaries fan art with pictures of Mia, Michael, Mia and Michael, and "memorable" quotes from the series.
So I was really bored...
...and used the Candybar 5 doll maker to make a Mia doll.
Yeah, really.
It just kind of bugged me!! They were making pictures of Mia with brown or black hair!!! Mia is blonde (with green streaks, apparently)!! And Michael ended up as a manly, broad-shouldered, stupid-looking jock.
What?? That's not what comes to mind when you think "sarcastic, demanding, selfish, intelligent computer geek".
That's right. I made a Michael doll, too.
And it was sadly the most fun I've had all day.
It was surprisingly hard finding a suitable outfit, though.
But we got there eventually.
Superfans were also making "Princess Diaries" playlists.
Which I scoffed at.
Until I realized I do the exact same thing.
Whatever. They added "Love Story" by Taylor Swift and a LOT of Katy Perry songs.
Geez. Who knew Katy Perry was a Princess Diaries fan?