when we arrive, sons and daughter, we'll make our home on the water. we'll build our walls of aluminum! we'll fill our mouths with cinnamon! Now.

DisneyWorld trip is in a week. I want to see everything I can without parental supervision. The rules are simple: stay in the same park as the parents, stay with the brother. You have a meal ticket, too (perfect prep for college)- 5 days, with 5 sit-down meals, 5 counter-meals, and 5 vendor-meals. And a continental breakfast. I plan on not having the optional 4 meals a day thank you.

I want to see if i can get an iPod for the planeride and next year. It's about time. I've lost my little mp3 that held 50ish songs, and I need something more substantial for next year. I'm looking at a yellow 8GB Nano. The Bumblebee, when stripes are applied.

I'll hopefully draw on the plane and in Florida, but mostly there will be rides and fireworks and family time.

Made stuffed shells- pasta shell stuffed with mozzarella/ricotta/pecorino romano and meat and smothered in sauce. It was the big 'Welcome Home' dinner for John-brother. Dad said that I'll be hosting Thanksgiving in the future ^_^.

Watched Princess Mononoke and Nauticaa today, and realized that the protagonist must bring balance to the earth in each Miyazaki movie. It's a beatiful connection to nature that I don't think america has as much as japan.

TF2 is my love. I've been starting with Scout and Soldier, because I like hitting things and blowing things up. I should try Heavy and Engineer and Sniper, though.

and there are trailers, but you should know that. language, guns, violence, be forewarned.

Heavy

Scout

Sniper

Demoman

Soldier

Engineer

Spy

Meet the Sandvich

tea

Before I left Art League (friday was the last day), I asked Ganes if I should do anything for AP next year. He sorta stared at me (I had done a lot of art already). He said that maybe I should do research on my concentration: Fairytales.

For 'Fairytales', I'm using less literary figures (Tom Sawyer, the Mad Hatter) and more for the cultural story collections and children's rhymes. Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, other rhymes (Jack and the Candlestick, Little Boy Blue). I still need to research where these all came from. I should look up Aesop, too, but there aren't many well-known fables (cept the tortoise and the hare).

Don't read Water for Elephants. I don't know why school wants me to read about animal cruelty, spousal abuse, a failing sex life, and more animal cruelty. But I do know that no book we've read in school contains anything about sex being a positive, natural thing. We've learned about incest and rape and pedophilia, but no book has sex in a positive sense.

The problem with this is that the world normally doesnt run on incest and rape and pedophilia. They shouldn't be teaching us that.

I got a lot of tea yesterday, from my aunt and from etsy.

mustard bread.

driver and i belted jesus christ superstar to and from art portfolio camp. I prefer the 2003 soundtrack, but he goes for Ted Neeley's jesus. It's all about those 70's screams.

Self-portrait day. Lower is a first draft (no mirror), with emphasis on my hair. I realize that people usually unconsciously make their favorite feature most prominent, but I wanted to show a difference between my major self-portrait in 10th grade (it's still on the wall of my school in pencil) and now. Now, I'm comfortable.

Baking- Dinner rolls (meh) and Mustard Bread. I'm not a mustard fan, but the picture looked nice, so I baked it. It's sorta yellow.

the rolls sorta got clumped together. The Mustard bread has that nice browning from eggwhite.

My Map! I don't have a name for the Continent, yet.

and close-ups. mountains:

and some of the fine river/ocean detail.

the sky is falling the sky is falling.

There's been so much thunder and lightning this summer over on the east coast. It comes in from the Great Lakes and picks up wind from the Appalachians and the heat causes lightning which causes thunder. I can't see thunder. I don't see where it's coming from, there's only a bright flash and a boom, like the sky is on fire. Maybe scarier than earthquakes, but I've never experienced one.

Julie&Julia was nice. I sorta wish I had some great time-consuming ambition that challenges my being. I guess I do.

as a note, I have been offered a date to next year's prom. unless some strange changes occur, I may well go to prom with my less-than-straight friend. I don't know if that last resort is a step up from my brother. I have other things to worry about.

Buying a bookshelf from a phone number in the paper. a 3-shelver for $25 is pretty good, but I still have to see it. It will hold some of my fiction collection.

Once upon a time there was a silly little girl in a plaid dress looking for any old silly little boy. A silly little boy came along and they became friends until he wanted to find a silly little girl in a striped dress. But of course, the silly little girl in the striped dress is already holding hands with a silly little boy of her own. So the silly little girl in plaid says to herself, plaid is only made of stripes, and I am just as fine as that silly little girl in stripes. No one is holding my hand. And no one is holding the hand of the silly little boy. Why should we not hold hands, for a little while?

Of course, social predicaments are more complex than that.

maps

A colored pencil project was started today. I decided to make a map, in total Tolkien fashion. I got to use every geeky earth science thing i've learned- volcanic isles, tectonic plates making mountain ridges, what sort of weather is needed for desert or rainforest.

I have fjords in the north (NotVikings), an area in the south based on India's tectonic plate predicament, and area based on the geography of california, an Iceland-based island, an Egypt place, and an Eastern Europe place.

i also got to go to the library to look up some cartography, just to make sure i'm not mixing up 16th century and 19th century. I am. But at least I understand what I'm doing, and I can just keep going. The style of the continents is really 19th century, but the writing is going to be in 16th century english. Best spellings in the world.

fictional maps are a great example of the art philosophy 'if its more detailed it looks better'.

try one, try two, guess it always comes down to, alright, okay, guess it's better to turn this way.

listening to Decemberists. Realizing how much I like history.

new people? how long have you been there...

I've been doing a lot of laundry, and I'm getting pretty fast with it.

From the art class:

Beautiful, of course. One girl asked 'what should go here' and I described a 5-eyed monster with big lips, and then I drew her. And I drew her at another angle later. And the fo-mohawk dude. faux mohawk?

shaun of the dead, i am legend. zombies that eat people freak me out.

i don't think i'll read war of the worlds tonight.

on a lighter note, i finally have a very nice Swiss army knife. I fully intend to use all 10 parts, even though my favorite (besides the main blade) is the toothpick. i don't know when i'll be able to use the bottle-opener.

I've started my summer reading (Water for Elephants) and I need to come up with a ball-point pen project.

I'll try to think about that princess who kills princes again, but with a different lens: after reading M*, I want to try to make a story with simpler characters and more complex character interactions. it's not gonna be interesting, but it's looking at what happens to them rather than defining 'them'.

*A graphic novel version of Fritz Lang's M (1931). Fritz Lang is very important. He made Metropolis.