Everyone should go do this

Yes, I know, it's a survey which is annoying. I myself have a phobia of surveys. But it's only one question, and your answer need only be one or two characters. And it's worth it. The results may or may not help us create an army of psychics.
Here's the link: http://archive.org/stream/physicsforentert035428mbp#page/n0/mode/2up

A Lesson from Annabel and Alex

by Annabel

Hello world!

As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, it’s been quite a while since my last posting. If you’re wondering why, I will answer absolutely no questions and what I was doing will forever remain a mystery for you to ponder moodily at coffee shops on rainy days. That’s right. Go get a fedora, an overcoat, and a five ‘o’ clock shadow. If you so desire, I do give lessons on brow-furrowing. Believe me, it’s worth the fifty dollars.

Of course, if you’re going to nag, I can tell you just a wee tidbit.

Don’t get cocky now. I won’t tell you much.

…Okay, fine. Sheesh!

Alex and I might have sort of become professional dancers.

How? Well, it wasn’t exactly a plan, per say. When you’re born to be a dancer, you just know. The music starts, you start flailing, loose articles of clothing start flying off in various directions, and you feel the eyes of every concertgoer slide toward you. It is your moment. You are shining. Your sunglasses fall to your chin, and you feel your arm begin to dislocate.

In other words, Alex and I decided to spontaneously attend a concert.

Of course, the rockin’ band, Davina and the Vagabonds (http://www.facebook.com/Davinaandthevagabonds) was certainly a big part of why the day was such a success. Try listening to that music without wiggling. I dare you. I DARE YOU.

Really, though, the second Alex and I got to that concert we were swing dancing in our minds. You could just feel the sassy in that music. Besides, we weren’t the only ones feeling swingy. At least four old couples were shakin’ it like orange juice. Okay, maybe only like the no-pulp kind. But they had swank, let me tell you.

Judging by our background in elderlyness, one would think that Alex and I would fit right in with this crowd. Perhaps we’d take slower, shakier steps than these young’uns, but we would certainly be able to handle ourselves. I mean, just look at our knitting.

HAH! What a cute idea.

The second we heard the first chord of our favorite Vagabond song, Alex and I completely lost control of our bodies. I’m not joking. One moment, we were sitting on a bench, watching the band and twisting our shoulders in anticipation. The next—well…

We went crazy.

It’s hard for me to remember details about this particular moment in my life. I’ve heard that artists produce their most brilliant work outside of time, with no knowledge of themselves or of the world around them.  The work, the beauty, is all that exists in their universe.

I now know that to be true.

I can vaguely remember a sandal flying off in some direction, along with a disgusted gasp from across the lawn. I definitely cracked my elbow. Alex might have hit me in the gut. My hair covered my face—was I headbanging? Arms windmilled around me and my legs twisted in opposite directions. Alex remained on her tiptoes for the duration for the song. What was happening? Was that grass I just saw? Grass exists? Did I accidentally kick that lady? What were people? What was humanity? I—

And as suddenly as it began, it was over.

Alex and I caught our breath.

You could just see the confusion on everyone’s face. The crowd stared at us. What are you?

I could have explained. I could have told them about our secret yearning to live in the 1920s, our deep appreciation of cartoon culture, our top-notch baking/dance sessions, or the fact that we were the same person. But none of that would have fully explained what they had just seen.

Shockingly, a man offered Alex a swing dance lesson. Hadn’t he just seen that we were masters? But Alex, being the gracious Mexican walking fish that she is, nobly accepted. As it turns out, the man knew all about the swing dancing scene and told us everything we would need to know.

Alex and I now dance every Monday night.

I understand that this post may be discouraging to some of you. After all, you will never be as swingtastic as we are. But do not despair! I have here 10%-Hilarity-approved dance instructions for you amateurs. Be careful where you whip these moves out, though—jealousy can be painful.

And thus, world, I bid you goodnight.

Meditation

~By Alex~
A few weeks ago, I posted a stop motion animation video. I’m sure by this point you’ve all seen it and appreciated it and duly noted the page turning technique and ooohed and aahed in all the right places.
If you haven’t, go do that now. Make sure to ooh and ahh.
Have you done it?
Now?
How about now?
Good.
The reason that I posted that video was actually an accident, because I was actually trying to put it on the only other blog on this account, which was actually my final project for my comparative religion course. But by now you've all been subjected to my voice (which is, I swear to god, a hundred times less nasally and annoying in person) and there's no going back, so I might as well give you a bit of background. As you all know by now, I did a science-y twist on Meditation and studied the neurobiology of Buddhist Mindfulness training. Now, for this final project, we had to do a ‘field trip’ because constructivist learning and pedagogical tools and synergistic solutions and cross-brain facilitators and yes. For my field trip, I decided to experience some meditation first hand and visit our neighborhood zen center (which apparently, is a thing).
The zen center is right in the middle of a residential area, so I dithered around outside for about ten minutes before someone politely albeit somewhat passive aggressively informed me that yes, this is the zen center, and that I should be pushing instead of pulling on the front door. I was surprised to find that there were a large variety of people already there, sitting quietly on cushions scattered around the room. Unsure of what to do, I claimed a cushion in the corner and observed the other meditators.
Next to me, there was a man and a very pregnant woman who appeared to be married. They both looked like they'd just stepped out of an organic farmer's market; the man had a scruffy beard, and they both wore flannel and touted eco-friendly bags. They seemed like the sort of people that would feel superior about the size of their compost pile. Next to them sat a slightly overweight middle-aged woman with hair dyed a shocking red, who wore a long, paisley dress and who I later discovered had an Australian accent. As I continued to look around the room, I found that the meditators were a truly eclectic conglomeration of people. There were some soccer mom types, clad in yoga pants and sweaters and constantly checking their cell phones, a pale, watery-eyed man in a suit who appeared to have just come off of work, and two young african american men with dreads and clad in sagging, ripped jeans who later revealed their names to be 'Miracle' and 'Mac'.
After a few minutes, the priest entered. He was a mousy, round-faced man with bright eyes and greying, curled hair that appeared to be precariously balanced on his skull. He was drowning in a strange combination of western business attire and oversized buddhist robes, and looked as though he wasn't entirely sure where he was or how he had ended up here.
As we went around and introduced ourselves, I soon discovered that everyone present, even if they hadn't been to the zen center before, had a well established home ritual of meditation. When it was my turn, I was forced to say that I hadn’t the faintest of what meditation was supposed to be like. The couple in flannel glared at me.
The priest, whose voice had a serene, musical quality, then began the guided meditation. He told us to 'get comfortable' in the lotus position. I, being the least flexible person on the planet, can’t twist my legs far enough even to sit cross legged, and therefore have no idea how one is supposed to ‘get comfortable’ with their legs twisted up like Pixie Stix. I tried to sit lotus style but only ended up kneeing the lady next to me in the stomach. I gave her an apologetic glance and settled for awkwardly folding my right leg under myself and letting my left extend out in front of me.
The priest asked us to focus on our breathing, inhaling and exhaling through the nose.
In.
Out.
Innnnnnnn.
Ooouuuuuuuutttt.
I tried to get into the meditation. I really did. I tried to focus on my breathing, but that backfired because I was severely congested so that my inhalations turned into loud snorts and my exhalations turned into low whistles. I tried breathing through my mouth, but that only resulted in my throat becoming dry, making me need to cough. I didn’t want to break into a coughing fit for fear of disturbing the other meditators’ concentration, and tried to suppress it. My face turned red and I started making involuntary strangled choking noises. Instead of looking Zen-like, I’m pretty sure I appeared to be having a severe allergic reaction. The lady sitting next to me looked genuinely concerned for my health.
I didn't know whether to keep my eyes open or closed, and as a result kept compulsively opening and closing them, trying to decide which was better. I nervously looked around at the people around me. The man across from me was staring at me inquisitively. Great, so now I’m deathly ill and crazy. I tried focusing on a leaf across the hall.
The priest, perhaps noticing my failing efforts  to concentrate, said, "If you have a thought, a frustration, a moment of self-consciousness, acknowledge that it happened... then let it go. Let it float away." This only succeeded in making me even more self-concsious. My brain is like the streets of Tokyo, a jumbled maze of thoughts and observations. As soon as I quash one down, another thought pops up. I try to stop thinking, and therefore I think about trying to stop thinking, and then I wonder what it really means to 'stop thinking anyway', if that's really possible from a neurological standpoint, and then I think about how thinking about stopping thinking is a really bizarre form of metacognition, and how did we become so self-aware anyway, and I wonder if dogs realize that they're thinking, if that's the difference between humans and other animals, and my originally well intentioned efforts at not thinking just spiral downhill from there, and soon I've forgotten all about my breathing and I've gone from not thinking to the evolution of metacognition to the character of Buck in Call of the Wild to what a terrible movie that would make to how bad The Last Airbender was. And then I would realize that I was thinking again and the cycle would start over.
That's my problem, with meditation, I think. I like thinking. I do it a lot. It keeps me from being bored. If you're supposed to live each moment in the moment, and concentrate on one particular thing and then nothing at all, when do you get a chance to introspect or contemplate or all of these other important things? What's the point of Nirvana if it means you can't think about the implications of quantum physics on philosophy, or about how there's no word for 'excited' in french, or about that trashy rom-com that's coming out next week? Besides, isn't letting go of thought and accepting things as they are what every dystopian novel ever has been trying to warn us against? You know, Billy Pilgrim and 'so it goes' and all that?
I think I may just be missing the point.
Anyhow, after the meditation ended the priest gave very nice talk in which he told us about his garden and then it was over. I left the Zen center feeling thoroughly dejected and stressed out. One would have thought I’d learned my lesson after my last attempt at Yoga.

It's a VIDEO!

By Alex
link for higher quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mz9UqYi5U0

Yoga Shenanigans

~By Alex~

My mom and I recently thought it would be a good idea to begin a mother daughter yoga class. This decision came about partially because I am the type of person that makes an effort to avoid every kind of sport (sports, coincidentally, also seem to make an effort to avoid me. I have tried everything from rowing to soccer but I have been almost painfully bad at everything. We figured that yoga would be the method of exercise in which I would be least likely to hurt myself and/or others) and partially because we are cute and cheesy and essentially do whatever the show Gilmore Girls tells us to. From this class, I have so far learned two things (neither of which entirely related to yoga):

1.     I am about as flexible as a #2 pencil

2.     I would be incredibly easily persuaded to join a cult.

Let me provide you with some context.

My mom and I prepared to proudly march into our yoga class with the gait and swag appropriate of the two out of shape beginners that we are.

So, we strutted proudly into the door and examined our fellow classmates. An old lady and a woman that had clearly just had a baby.

Hah! We thought, We shall impress them with our abilities! Our limberness and grace, unhindered by old age or convalescence, will be unmatched! We shall be the champions of Yoga!

This is where things started to go wrong.

We took out our new yoga mats, which had been so recently taken out of the plastic wrapping (I had been desperately trying to find scissors to open them in the car so we wouldn’t look like total amateurs) that they kept curling back up on themselves, and would only stay down if we spread our body eagle style on top of them. Coincidentally, there is no way to do this while looking graceful.

Then, I realized that the old lady next to me may be potentially the most frightening person I have ever met in my whole life. She clearly considered herself to be a yoga master, and she was determined to prove it to the teacher, my mother and I, and the lady who had probably been giving birth not even a month prior. She was a bona fide yoga professional and gosh darn if she wasn’t going to show every single member of that four-member suburban yoga class.

As soon as my mother and I entered the room, she started glaring at us, as though sizing us up for lunch. And as soon as we laid our embarrassingly new yoga mats down, she smirked like she knew she had gained the metaphorical upper hand, and started doing some very painful looking stretches. I’m pretty sure she was also breathing fire.

And this was all before class had even begun.

At this point, our yoga instructor came in. She was everything you would expect a yoga instructor to be; small, lithe, was probably a hippie in the 60s, and could contort her body in ways that aren’t physiologically possible, from a strictly scientific standpoint.

The class began fairly benignly. We did some simple stretches like crossing our legs, touching our toes (I actually couldn’t accomplish this), and rotating our shoulders.

I was on a roll. I was a leg crossing, almost toe touching, shoulder rotating FIEND. I was doing yoga and I simply was not afraid to show it. I raised my chin a little higher and raised my eyebrows at the petulant old lady next to me. Yeah. That’s what’s up. I ROLLED that shoulder.

Little did I know, I was being lulled into a false sense of security. Suddenly, the instructor stopped rolling and stretching and crossing and began slightly more complex things. Slightly meaning head standing and this horrible thing where you put your ankles over your shoulders and balance on your hands.

I fell over more than a little, and every time, the evil lady’s smirk became just that much more contemptuous.

My mom and I had accidentally signed up for the advanced class.

To make things worse, our instructor kept distracting me the entire time by saying things like ‘breathe in to your third eye!’ and ‘open up your seventh chakra!’. It sounded like she wanted us to join a cult. Either that, or she stole it from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Regardless, it was incredibly irritating, and I would have almost rather that she had not said anything at all.

But, as I said, I am incredibly weak-willed (cult joining, etc.). As the lesson progressed and my judgment became more and more blurred (due to the extreme heat in the room, the overwhelming incense, and my ever-increasing exhaustion from months of physical inactivity),  so my reaction to her hippie mantras progressed from mild irritation to dismissing it as an endearing quirk to acceptance: ‘yes, I will breathe into my chakras. My third eye and I have had a great time. Namaste, or whatever’.

By the time the lesson was over, my mom and I were completely worn out. As we were on our way out, the scary lady suggested with a thinly veiled snide tone that perhaps we should take the Wednesday class, as it’s much less crowded and it would really be more appropriate for our level.

We didn’t dignify that with a response.

Wee Little Annabel

Hello World! This is Annabel.

As you definitely don't know, I live in a room that most of the time rather resembles one of those modern artworks made entirely out of clothing. Daily functioning, including lounging, working, and even going to bed are made much more difficult by the swarm of mess that I call my floor. I cannot remember the last time I did not trip immediately as I stepped in my door. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and realize I've fallen asleep on a pair of socks and have lovely little ridged imprints in my cheeks. It is a truly lamentable situation.

But today is a day of glory.

Today, my room is clean.

During the harrowing process of organizing EVERYTHING, I uncovered a beautiful lost secret:

Fourth Grade Annabel.

With a brain complex enough to baffle even the most intelligent readers, Fourth Grade Annabel once filled pages upon pages with beautiful poetry and prose. In her unspeakable wisdom, she often revealed ideas so beautiful that even her modern-day counterpart, NOT-COLLEGE-Annabel (Me!) remains confused as to their origins.

For your well-being, reader, I will be posting various works over the next few days. Let me begin with a report my friend and I wrote about wolves.

Wolves

Pretend you are a wolf. If you were a wolf, you would not have to eat any vegetables. In fact, you would think they were disgusting. You are a carnivore, so you eat meat. You would not be able to just go to the grocery store and buy a pound of meat. You would have to use your sense of smell, your eyes, and your ears to hung. When you get close to your food, be extremely quiet. Slowly, slowly, slowly, BOOM! You got it! Everyone in your pack congratulates you, and the feast begins!

When you get home, you will either see seven other wolves, or maybe more than twenty! Now, if you are getting BORED OUT OF YOUR MIND with your pack, you can leave and become a lone wolf. If you do become a lone wolf, you will not see your family until winter when you mate with a wolf of a different gender. Now, you will more than likely begin a family of your own. If you are a female wolf YOU HAVE YOUR WORK CUT OUT FOR YOU. You are responsible for raising and caring for one to eleven pups. Since you are a mammal you will feed your young milk.

If you are wondering where you live, we can tell you. You live in something called a den, it is a hole dug in the ground. It is nice, cozy, and sealed with branches and leaves. Your fur coat will also protect you from the cold and camouflage you from your predators. Panting will help you cool yourself down. Your den and your coat provides you with the protection you need to live in the wild.

Your den is in your territory which is where you live and hunt with your pack. You can smell trespassers when they are on your territory. If there is a lot of food in your territory, you will probably live in a small territory. If there is a little amount of food you will probably live on a large territory.

You probably have heard that wolves howl at night. You would too, if you were lost. Now, if you did howl your pack would come and find you. The leader of your pack would come up to you first. He would say hello to you by rubbing his neck against your neck. He would be the strongest of the pack. Now, if you are not a wolf, that is another story.

K-Seitt!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have been humbled by another guest writer. Kevin S the Magnificent, the Buddy Ol' Pal, the Brilliant, has decided to grace our blog with his presence. And now, the message from His Royal Nerdness:


Please allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Kevin. I am a mutual friend of Alex, Annabel, Boy, and even Christopher.

And I don't even know how. Alex and I tried to explain it to someone one time, but afterward we just decided "Craigslist" was easier.

Alex was half-price in the "books for sale" section. Annabel was in "motorcycles". I think Boy had just gotten lost on his way to Ask Jeeves.

Once I saw Alex, Annabel, and Boy all in the same place, at the same time. Allow me to explain this phenomenon the only way I know how: using particle physics.

Quarks are these things smaller than protons, which are smaller than atoms, which are smaller than a loaf of bread (most of them, at least). And they come in categories called "flavors". ...because physicists' creativity far outstrips biologists' creativity (I say again: "spliceosomes"?). One of these flavors is called "strange".

That was the flavor of the aforementioned situation.

The reason I said "a loaf of bread" earlier is because I don't know how to pluralize the word "loaf". Is it "loaves"? That doesn't jive right with me, but I feel like it's right. In fact I'm 97.6% certain it is right. But that doesn't make for a very good story.

We went ice skating. Me and Boy and Annabel and Alex, I mean, not the loafs [sic] of bread. I use the term "skating" rather liberally, though. I would say that what Boy did was more along the lines of ice scooting. Anyway, we went ice somethinging downtown, and it was very enjoyable, especially because both Annabel and Alex were dressed identically in TARDIS dresses.

Did I not mention that bit? A TARDIS is a phone box that travels in time and some other things such as space, and I also don't know how to pluralize it. "TARDISes" bothers me on a strangely fundamental level.

So yeah, earlier, they had made identical TARDIS dresses in my dorm room. I probably should've mentioned that at the top. Coincidentally, "top" is another flavor of quark.

They came into my room, admired it as having attributes like "being able to see the floor" and "having a ukulele hanging from the wall". They then promptly began planning to construct their Halloween costumes, while removing their component parts from a bag that I'm pretty sure I didn't notice them bringing in. Sooner rather than later, I was awkwardly waiting outside my own room while they got changed in it.

To answer your un-asked question: My roommate is largely a myth.

Soon, after discussion, duct taping, Sharpie-ing, and an acoustic uke cover of the popular ballad "Friday" by voice of our generation Rebecca Black, we were on our way to pick up Boy from the train station.

He was a bit confused.

I was sympathetic to this emotion.

Even earlier, before Boy and the TARDII [sic] had come into the picture, we went duct taping. By which I mean Alex and Annabel went duct taping. By which I mean mostly just Alex wrote things on duct tape and stuck it random places. It was buckets of fun.

Then we went back to my dorm so they could make TARDIS dresses.

Did I mention that this is the first time I had met Annabel? We'd known each other for awhile, but she stepped off the bus at about 2:15 pm and I met her for the first time.

The spacetime continuum can make one's head spin.

I saw Memento not too long ago.

The other four flavors of quark are Bottom, Up, Down, and Charm.

On Pants, English Teachers, and other such Adventures

~By Alex~
Hello Annabel, World, and other such Entities! I'm writing a blog post!

What? You're probably thinking, We thought you had been eaten by wild cows! We wrote you a eulogy and everything! 

Well, sorry to disappoint. For the past few months I have been telling myself over and over that I was going to write a blog post, that it was going to be witty, and entertaining, and Annabel and I were going to be bona fide Superstars!!! with a capital S and three exclamation points. 

But then, as it always does, procrastination kicked in. But I've got homework! I rationalized, Besides, Annabel hasn't posted in a while. And I have to walk the dog, then fill out taxes. I've got way too many important things to be doing.

Well, now it's Winter break, Annabel has posted a grand total of four times, and I don't even have a dog. Or, for that matter, taxes. 

This year, I transferred high schools. It's a mystical new place, with mystical things such as "assemblies" and "tutorial" and "biology" that were nowhere to be seen at my previous public school. 

I am not a shy person (unlike Annabel, however I do believe that she gives herself way less credit than she deserves. The first time I met her she practically assaulted me with her likeableness. I mean really. How inconsiderate). However, I am the sort of person that is too quiet when I should be making an impression, and too loud when I should be keeping my mouth shut. I am also terrible at first impressions. 

I'll give you a particularly unfortunate example. 

On the first couple days of school, one of my friends invited me to go out canoeing with some of his friends so that I could get to know some of the kids from my new school better. I eagerly accepted, and got all ready to make an excellent first impression and oodles of new friends. I could wow them with my charm! My geeky, science related puns! My sometimes misguided obscure movie references! My terrible pronunciation of words!

It didn't turn out this way.

What ended up happening is that I sat quietly at the bottom of the canoe while the three boys (two of which I had never met before) made inside jokes and put on ridiculous italian accents. 

I kept trying to find an entrance point into the conversation, or think of something witty to say, but I ended up just looking sullen. Besides, my italian accent isn't very good, anyhow.

I was content with cutting my losses and having them think that I was just a little bit of a wet blanket, until, social disaster reared its ugly head.

One of the boys tipped the canoe.

I was wearing skinny jeans.

If anyone has ever worn wet jeans, you understand what an unpleasant experience it can be. The denim becomes a suction cup, sticking to the very pores of your skin, rubbing and chafing.

And we still had to plans to go out for ice cream afterwards, not to mention the half hour drive back home. 

We headed back to one of the boys' house to change, and I, thoroughly embarrassed, was forced to ask to borrow one of their pants. Even worse, I had to give aforementioned boy back his pants the following Monday, at school, in front of everyone.

As you can imagine, the first day of school, what with all it's introductions and how-do-you-dos and forgetting names and dreaded first impressions, was quite an ordeal for me, so by the last period of the day (english), I was thoroughly exhausted.

My new English teacher, who, for the sake of this blog post we will call "Mr. Beard", is quite literally everything you would imagine an English teacher would be. He uses words like 'syntax' and 'diction' interchangeably with 'walking' and 'breathing'. He makes english teachery jokes about Poe and Dickinson, even if he's the only one in the room that understands them. He wears sweaters.

He is the quintessential english prof, and I am convinced he was stolen out of the film the Dead Poets Society. My mother said it best: "Every time I see him, I want to stand up on my chair and recite O Captain, My Captain, by Walt Whitman."

I'd like to say that I'm a connoisseur of language and literature, but really, I just tell people that I am and then go home and read trashy romance novels, a la Paul Bates from Midnight in Paris. In any case, I am the sort of person that will use the word connoisseur. 

Anyway, on the first day of english class, I walked in, slightly disheveled from climbing the seven hundred sets of stairs that it takes to get to the English wing. Thoroughly exhausted from an entire day of making small talk, interacting with people, and god forbid, paying attention during long hours of hello-welcome-to-such-and-such-class-here-is-a-syllabus-and-a-joke-to-prove-that-you-can-have-fun-while-learning, I just wanted the day to be over so I could go home, collapse face first on my bed (dramatically, of course), and have a cup of tea. I tapped my finger on the desk impatiently as I waited for Mr. Beard to start explaining the syllabus. As expected, he started off the class with "I'm Mr. Beard, welcome to AP English..." I prepared to tune out, until I heard him say "You don't really need to know the syllabus, It's on the internet, go find it if you're interested." And the rest of the class was spent analyzing poetry and discussing the merits of oxford commas. Edgar Allen Poe puns were made. The purpose of grammar was questioned. Lives were changed.

I began telling Mr. Beard stories to my friends, my mom, my little brother. It became a running joke between a few of my friends and I that I have a teacher crush on Mr. Beard. Even my boyfriend (since boy has already been taken, we'll just call him boyfriend) has acknowledged my crush on Mr. Beard. In fact, he's completely okay with it.

Anyway, I've adjusted to my new school (and I like it quite a lot, in fact), and I hope that my new school has adjusted to me, as well (despite rocky first encounters).

Christopher

Hello, world! This is Alex!
The lovely Annabel has written TWO WHOLE blog posts in the last few days and the word on the street is that she's working on a third.
Well, Alex, you might be thinking, you need to up your game. This partnership is becoming a little unfair, isn't it? Annabel carrying all the work load?
You might even be thinking that me writing this update is a real blog post.
WRONG. I've recruited my kid brother to do it for me, because I'm the laziest of all the people.
Annabel briefly mentioned my brother, Christopher in her last post. Christopher may be 10% hilarity's biggest and only fan, and as such, he decided he has the right to write a small guest posting. So, here it is... hope you enjoy!
Note: I've only edited for spelling, as Christopher is 9 years old and does make the occasional spelling error
~~~~~

Hey everybody! It's Christopher! And before I forget, thank you Annabel for your compliment about me being the reason for the universe (which is totally true).

ANYways, since I'm posting this here on 10% hilarity, I'm not really 10% hilarity blah blah blah, I'm 99.99 awesome, and .01 very rare mistakes. I said that because I know that everyone makes mistakes, see I'm not THAT vain. Actually, in real life I'm not too vain.

Now, maybe if you knew me a tiny bit, you might ask: What is your favorite TV show? Well, I actually rarely watch TV, I go on computer or Wii most of my electronic time, and when I happened to ACTUALLY go and watch TV, I don't watch cartoons or anything, I like to watch cooking shows like Iron Chef America or Chopped when there's nothing to watch on YouTube or when I'm bored of Wii games.

But when I play Wii or go on computer, my favorite Wii game is Kirby's return to Dreamland (MAN that's so fun) and what I like to watch on YouTube is these thingamajigs called LP's. LP is short for let's play, an LP is when people play all sorts of games whether they're new to it or they've already played it. I like to watch LP's about Kirby's return to Dreamland (obviously). Now, I bet you're thinking : That's so stupid, why would people make videos like that?! well if you watch some, you might like them a lot like I do.

Another thing about me is that I HATE SODA, A LOT!!!!!!!! Why do people like soda? Now, I bet you're thinking, : WHY do YOU hate soda? well because soda is fizzy. ME NO LIKE FIZZY!!!!!!! And that's just the thing, why do people like fizzy drinks? The only thing fizzy I like is fizzy apple juice.

Anyways, I gotta go, so I hope you liked my first ever post on 10% hilarity, so I guess this bye now,
so bye ( And by ze way, I'm waving my hand at you right now).

YOU WILL NOT REMEMBER THIS POST.

I'd just like to take a moment to talk about terror.

Most of us confront terror only once or twice in our lives, and those confrontations are some of the more memorable experiences, each second dragged out like math class on a Friday. We overcome our fear and move on with our lives, stronger for our confrontation with danger.

This is not even close to my predicament.

Imagine, reader, if you, for some reason, decided to force yourself into a situation that caused you paralyzing, crippling, eye-boggling fear. Now imagine you knew from experience that you would not get over this fear, then please, and I know this is a stretch, picture forcing yourself to do this repeatedly--once or twice a month.

Who would do such a horrible thing? Who would willingly face danger without the incentive of increased emotional fortitude, knowing for certain that the results would be invariably terrible? What a disgusting individual. What an obsessive, truly tortured soul.

...Oh, hi. That's me.

Before I go into the gory details of my psyche, I believe no further judgment can be passed without full knowledge of the situation.

Remember Boy?

Yes, the chocolate milk fiend.

Here is the source of my torment:

He has friends.

I know. Honestly, I'm shocked too. I'll give you a little time to absorb this.

And the thing is, they're not normal friends either. They're this bunch of jovial-looking guys who are tall, nice, funny, and absolutely terrifying. In order to protect their identities, and to protect myself from remembering that I don't know anybody's name, I've given them nicknames that they will hopefully never see. They are:

Higgins biggins, Beardy Workface, J-cheese, The-one-with-the-nice-girlfriend, Flippy-hair,  Glasses+Enthusiasm, I-don't-know-who-you-are, I-don't-know-who-you-are, I-don't-know-who-you-are, I-don't-know-who-you-are, and I-don't-know-who-you-are.

As you can tell, they should probably be on a pirate ship. Whenever Boy describes his experiences with them, I always picture them singing yo-ho-ho on a tilting floor, their voices all scratchy from screaming at neighboring ships.

...It's probably the hair. They have lots of hair.

Well, except for Beardy Workface, which is probably why he scares me just a little bit less than everyone else. But don't get me wrong. He's still horrifying. And he compensates by having a fake beard in his profile picture on Facebook, which is the reason for his nickname anyway. He has a nice girlfriend too, but I can't have two The-one-with-the-nice-girlfriend-s. That makes no sense.

Anyway, Boy knows them all through his SUPER-SECRET-CULT-IN-ALL-CAPS-CAUSE-IT'S-IMPORTANT. Because they're all a part of it, they're very chummy and familiar and palsy-walsy and close and all those good little adjectives that make people feel warm and fuzzy. Of course, this means there are SUPER-SECRET-CULT-SECRETS-IN-ALL-CAPS-CAUSE-THEY'RE-IMPORTANT, which are apparently either above or below me or are in a parallel universe in which I do not exist. I tend to gravitate toward the latter.

Every time I go visit boy I get all excited and decide 'Yeah! I'm going to have mutual friends with Boy! I'm going to be social! I'm cool! People like me! I've got my awesome socks on today! Everything's possible!' So we stroll right on out into the real world, arm-in-arm with feet kicking up like we're in a dandy old musical. Birds begin singing when they see us coming. I am a social butterfly and nothing can bring me down. We get to the SUPER-NOT-SECRET-CULT-HIDEOUT-IN-ALL-CAPS-CAUSE-IT'S-IMPORTANT and rap on the door. I open it right on up, giddy smile on my face.

...Then I shrivel and die.

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

I'm shy.

Once I finally realize this, I lose my ability to speak. The Hair, as I collectively call them, becomes all friendly, welcoming me into their SUPER-NOT-SECRET-CULT-HIDEOUT with smiles and handshakes. My mouth dries out to reinforce my shyness, making my teeth stick to my lips every time I try to smile. I'm pretty sure they think the resulting monkey-grin is actually how my face is supposed to look. I am intimidated. My voice cracks. I'm not a boy. That's not supposed to happen. Or am I a boy? Am I still in puberty? What day is it? I think I just accidentally winked. Am I a sleaze? Do they think I'm a sleaze? Why can't I swallow? I don't even remember.

My entire sense of self goes swirling out of me until I am a shell, stupid and blinking at the people with large masses of hair around me.

I convince myself that I don't understand what anyone is saying. If someone addresses me, I have to ask 'What?' about four times before I can even come up with a response. Either the pirates think I'm deaf or idiotic. Personally, I would suggest they each get a parrot for their shoulders so they could say everything at only half as many times. I wonder if this will ever end.

Finally, an exit. I am invited to play MarioKart, and I jump at the opportunity to be completely silent. I could just drive alongside these people, refusing to converse for concentration's sake. Maybe they'll think I'm one of the computers.

Unfortunately, I am good at MarioKart.

After winning the second time in a row, I realize that winning means that people notice me. I get a congratulations from Flippy Hair, who excuses his poor playing with the fact that he is a pirate. Pirates are bad at MarioKart? Okay then. Time to fit in. I play poorly for the next two rounds.

Then---

Horror.

Boy has to go to the bathroom.

MarioKart is done.

I am alone.

Half-crazed, not conscious of my own thoughts, I flee toward the only thing that I know--Boy. The only pirate that will never intimidate me, he is my safezone.  I find him as he is just opening the door to the bathroom, and subtly slide in behind him.

'Annabel, what are you doing?'

'I just. They're people.'

'And?'

'And everyone left.'

'Uh...'

'Just. Let me stay.'

Like a good boyfriend, Boy let me stay, making fun of me the whole time in whispers. I looked away while he peed, then we waited for everyone near the bathroom door to leave. I figured people would just think he was slow.

...Turns out he told everyone about it the next week. Thanks, Boy. What a champ.

Hiding in the bathroom with Boy made me feel, for the first time, safe, and suddenly I remembered I existed. My tummy, which also existed, started growling and Boy soon understood that it was time to go get food. At least we had a legitimate excuse. As we said goodbyes, I surveyed the Hair's faces to see what they thought of me, and was surprised to find a divided opinion among the faces that were actually discernible through beards and floppy cuts. Either the pirates thought I was very strange, which was an accurate assessment, or I was completely boring, which made sense since I couldn't talk. Still, though, none of them knew me. My mission to get mutual friends had totally, completely, utterly and catastrophically failed, but all I felt was relief.

The next time I visited the SUPER-NOT-SECRET-HIDEOUT, it was Boy's birthday. After spending the entire day with me, the pirates decided they deserved some of Boy's birthday time, which was absolutely true. I waited a couple of hours for them to have their SUPER-SECRET-MEETING and pretended to write essays in Starbucks. When Boy finally emerged, I was relieved. He hugged me and told me wonderful news: we were going over to the SUPER-NOT-SECRET-HIDEOUT! I could make friends! I could be a social butterfly! But as soon as we caught up to them, a familiar feeling took hold.

Once again, I remembered that I was shy.

This time I made an effort to speak when Boy asked me if I wanted a bite of the cupcake the SUPER-SECRET-CULT made for him. They actually looked pretty good, and Boy's even had a little candle sticking up. But because I am mean to Boy, I acted all disgusted and said 'EW NO!'

Beardy Workface looked hurt.

Sometimes, when I feel uncomfortable, I just insult everyone around me. Unfortunately, this makes everybody more uncomfortable, myself included, and I actually prefer to pretend none of this ever happened.

Maybe if I block it from my memory everything will be fine. I'm sociable, right? I'm cool. People like me. This'll be great. Boy and I can have mutual friends! I'll put on my awesome socks!

Oh. Oh wait.


So it begins.

Post Script

I've decided to be awesome and do a ton of updates this winter break. Also, I don't believe I fully explained my photo. My badassery within the photo speaks for itself, but its other content perhaps leaves a little to be explained:

I love chocolate milk.

This is a fact with a long history and many little chocolate-colored plotlines flowing out of it. This is a fact that has driven many of the most harrowing experiences of my life. This is a fact that has made my life mine.

Let me begin by informing my audience that chocolate milk was, for a long time, a rather forbidden food in my home. In my mom's world, chocolate milk is classified as a soda. I know. I don't understand either. I've asked, but she always begins by talking about sugar and then I get all distracted and start having daydreams about cakes and marzipan.

Mmmmm.....marzipan.....

No, I'm not fat.

........

......

...Yet.

Okay, what were we talking about?

Right, Chocolate milk. So, as a soda, chocolate milk had certain restrictions placed upon it. I was allowed precisely one soda a day on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The other 4/7 of my life was horribly, tragically, unbearably free of delicious chocolate dairy drinks.

This absence broke something in me. What was once a beautiful love affair became a bitter resentment toward everything that kept me from my one love. And there were reminders everywhere.

Take, for example, television. Since I am a child, I watch only kids' channels, which are saturated with commercials for saturated foods, like the 'cheesiest' mac and cheese and the 'chocolatiest' cereal. These make my face water--my mouth, my eyes, the whole works. My brain stops thinking and two words start throbbing across it:

I.......wanttttttttttt.........


(Side note: I only watch TV right before dinner, to distract myself from the fact that I'm hungry. It works really well, actually. Nothing calms hunger like watching a dinosaur made of cheese dive into a bowl of cheesy noodles. I highly recommend it.)

Worst, though, was Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. One episode involved a character named Cheese, who said "I like chocolate milk" over and over again until I couldn't even think straight. Never had I felt so much empathy for a cartoon character. As his mouth moved, apparently made of two bowls that clacked together, I could just feel his anguish, his utter despair over the lack of dairy beverages in his life. His stupidity, even his obnoxiousness, was irrelevant. Cheese and I shared a common goal.

The torment didn't end with television. My boyfriend, who we will just call Boy, soon discovered my predicament when he began drinking chocolate milk in front of me on Skype. Delighted with his new ability to make me wriggle with hatred, and having the protection of being halfway across the country, Boy began to dig up any excuse to drink chocolate milk in front of me. He would pretend he was going to divulge a very important secret, building up over hours at a time. Then, when the big moment came, he would simply look me in the eye, and take a huge swig of chocolate milk right there in front of me.

Boy has since suffered my wrath.

Later, when I was in Alaska (yes, Alex wasn't lying--which is frankly rather shocking) I went without any dairy at all (excluding milk powder and questionably sweaty cheese) for forty days straight. Around day 16, a bush plane came in with a new supply of food for my fellow campers and I. Among the goods were two packs of milk from my good friend's parents, one plain and one---swoon---chocolate.

We did not talk about the chocolate milk for the first day. It sat in our bright blue tarp among chicken-flavored texturized vegetable protein and bags of wheat flour, a diamond in the rough. I flirted with it throughout the day, trying to keep from staring. I batted my lashes at it. Whenever I accidentally let my guard down and did look at it, I looked away as quickly as possible so as not to frighten it.

In other words, that chocolate milk and I had a very respectful courtship.

But alas, once again chocolate milk rejected my advances. My good friend was homesick, and since the chocolate milk was from her parents, she wanted to drink it herself to feel a connection to them (we'd been in the wilderness for weeks at this point, so if any judgment is to be passed over my friend I suggest the judger not talk to any of his or her family or friends for forty days and report back to me later).

It was beginning to seem that chocolate milk and I would never make it.

But do not fear, dear readers, for this is a story of triumph, not defeat.

I beseech you, take another look at that picture from yesterday.

Notice the victory in my eyes.

Yes, my friends.

I have finally won the affection

of the one

the only

the beautiful

chocolate milk.

Letters to Alex

Dear Alex and the World,

World, you are everywhere, and don't worry, Alex is somewhere within that everywhere. Alex, though, you're in Switzerland, and it is WAY too far away from me. Google maps can't even find directions from me to you, cause guess what? There's a freaking OCEAN in the way. Disgusting. Theoretically we could both row halfway but that might take a little longer than just waiting to be reunited in January.

The waiting, though, is equally horrendous. I've tried twiddling my thumbs, but I get all confused about which thumb is going in which direction and sometimes they collide and I usually end up just sitting on my hands out of frustration. To cope, I've been dipping my nose shockingly far into books. I'm in the middle of One Hundred Years of Solitude, which, by the way, is particularly beautiful, but I just finished Walden. If my writing strikes you as the least bit snobby or narcissistic, please forward all complaints to Henry David Thoreau, the one man who managed to live a very humble life with, I imagine, a self-satisfied smile larger than the Cheshire Cat's. My writing's getting smugger just thinking about it. Of course, he certainly had some lovely sentences, but the problem was with what was in between them--offensive rants usually about how the rest of society was in the wrong for wanting to do everything from socialize to have ice water. I mostly agree with his message and all, that nature is beautiful, simplicity is grossly underrated, and people cut life's corners for efficiency's sake, but I don't believe I'm the only sane person in the world because of it. Anywhoo, this is probably pretty dull for those of you who don't read 19th century books because you can't stand superfluous words, or even words like superfluous. I understand. Moving along.

Look! A picture!
I don't do pictures.
But guess what I do do?
1. Make lists. Look at me, all organized-like.
2. Try new things, which means
3. Follow through on my New Years Resolution to try new things, which means
4. Follow through on my New Years Resolution to follow through on my New Years Resolutions, which means I
5. Kill two mosquitos with one slap. (I don't do birds, mostly because I don't know what a mockingbird looks like and I'm afraid that if I kill even one bird, let alone two, Atticus Finch will come after me and give me a stern talking to--and as a great admirer of Atticus Finch, being on his bad side would completely destroy my sense of morality.)

Alex, aren't you proud of me? I did so many good things up there. I'd list them, but that'd be redundant because I've already made a list and my writing is brilliant enough to stand on its own. Oh my god. I'm turning into Thoreau.

Okay, I wanted to write a letter to Alex because it's Christmas and she's eons away, so I'm going to do it. But I will keep it short, because I know very little about Switzerland but I don't want her to know that.

Alex, are you eating lots of chocolate?
Alex, are you eating lots of cheese?
Alex, are you speaking lots of languages?
Alex, stop being hit on.
Alex, say hi to Christopher!

That is the end of my letter. Wasn't it insightful? I sound so knowledgable. What a job well done.

By the by, for those of you who don't know Christopher, he is the reason for the universe. Any questions? Good.

Well, Air Force One is on TV, and since I'm a sucker for propaganda, that means it's time for me to sign off. Until next time, you beautiful world. And to all a good night.

Splendidly, Happily, Magnificently Yours,

Annabel

Adventures in Williamsburg

Hello world! Don't you look just lovely today.

So Word On The Street says I'm at college. I'm not one hundred percent on where Word On the Street gets its info, but I'm actually just in a magical place sharing a house with lots of people and going to the same three self-serve restaurants for every meal and letting older people tell me things and reading books and going on quests and climbing on roofs and things and writing papers in which I always, for some reason unbeknownst to me, argue against an omnipresent imaginary cynic.

So get it right, Word On The Street. College is for chumps. And I am certifiably unchump.

This magical writereadabsorbeatsleepdiscusss place is in the mysterious, unexplored land of Virginia. And I'm saying that not only because this is my personal introduction to Virginia but also because I'm in Colonial Williamsburg and sometimes I get confused about what century it is.

Perhaps, before continuing, I should describe the cast of characters who live in my large house with an abnormal number of tiny rooms.

1) Audrey, the girl whose bed is in my room. She likes horses. Sometimes in her sleep she turns into one. Don't tell anybody.

2)Lindsey. If Lindsey wrote an autobiography, it would be on graph paper. But if you can distract her from her studies you find that she is quite bouncy and probably will be the next Iron Chef.

3)Crystal, who has one of the nicest voices I've ever heard and is so fashionable that she has more heels than any other type of shoe. In fact, I'm not sure if she owns any shoes that are not heels. She loves sugar, which makes sense cause she's a total sweetie. Also, she can kill you with a fan. Watch the fuck out.

4) Leonymae.

Coolest name ever? Check.

Kickass attitude? Check.

Love for pink fluffy cute things which completely contradicts her kickass attitude?? Check.

Don't even worry about it. Tiny Leonymae has so much awesome in her, I don't know where she keeps it. Probably in her ridiculous supermodel hair.

5) Catherine--the insane one.Don't let the bows she wears in her hair religiously  fool you. She is not cutesy innocent. She is CRAZY. Skwak-like-a-bird-crazy. Act-drunk-when-you-don't-ever-drink-crazy. We can pretend it's endearing for the sake of this blog. I fear her wrath.

6) Jenna, who lives on the foreign second floor, is one of those people who is so talented that a role on Glee would suit her if she were a little less sane, though she seems to be in the process of slowly going crazy. Swears have been peppering her normally-pristine speech like hiccups as of late, not to mention her episodic maniacal laughter. Next stage: Glee.

7) Molly, the dashing one. I like to pretend that I'm a good friend to her but somehow I end up insulting her every other sentence. I think I told her to go die once.

8) The bajillion other people in this house that for some really rather disturbing reason I DO NOT KNOW WELL ENOUGH. Really. We live together. How does this even happen?!?!

9) Bernardo. He is a mouse. He is rotting from the inside. Any questions? Good. Moving on.

In this mysterious land I've discovered that my S.A.A.D. is becoming more and more problematic. I've started baking cookies and going to Jo-Ann fabrics, which (with the addition of a cute little frilly apron and orthopedic shoes) would put my age at around 83. But yesterday I went and saw Santa. He didn't ask what I wanted for Christmas. Santa, that hurts. You know what I wanted for christmas? For christmas, I wanted Santa to fucking care about me. Bitch.

So that makes me a cussing 2 year old and 83 year old. But the fact that I just used the word 'cuss' instead of 'swear' probably puts me back in Victorian times again, so the whole scale is just completely off and I need to go lie down for a minute because I'm not sure if it's 1711 or 2011 again. Uhg. I'll keep you posted.

What's my age again?

Note: This post is written by both Annabel and I, so pronouns might get a bit confusing; in order to clear things up a bit, things that I write are in italics and things that she writes are in normal font.

~

So, I was looking at my driver’s license today and I noticed that, according to it, I am 18 years old.

This is incorrect.

I don’t act 18. I don’t think like an 18 year old; though, to be fair, thinking is a rare occurrence anyhow.

No. 18 is definitely wrong.

But, the problem is, I’m not sure what age I actually am. I’ve got a general idea of the range, however- I am definitely somewhere between 2 and 87 years old. That’s pretty broad, I know, which is what makes my life so confusing. I know I’m not in the middle of this range, though, because I’m not old enough for a midlife crisis and I’m too old to be writing letters to Justin Bieber (or am I??? more on this to come…). So let me amend that statement:

     I am either 2 or 87 years old.

This isn’t my problem alone. Perhaps if I were the only one enduring this perpetual sense of age confusion, my suffering would be intolerable. However, Alex also suffers from this addling disorder and can relate to my turmoil.

Take, for example, our experience the other day. We had finally reunited in Boston after Annabel’s Alaskan camping trip, and we had some touring and catching up to do. We felt appropriately independent when her parents left us to fend for ourselves in the unfamiliar city, and we had grandiose plans of touring modern art galleries, walking arm in arm through Harvard square, and lounging around the Boston Common. I took it upon myself to decipher our route to the art institute, and with our map in hand we were off.

We felt pretty mature… or at least, we did until Alex asked,  “Is that blue stuff on the map over there… water?”

As it turns out, Alex has the map reading ability of a four year old.

Needless to say, it took about five minutes for us to get completely and utterly lost.

Time: 11:00 am

Approximate age: 7 years old

It wasn’t long before we found that we both have the stamina and gumption of elderly ladies. After about a half hour of wandering around aimlessly, we were both exhausted, and had all but given up on our glamorous dreams of roaming the city. We were feeling quite sorry for ourselves at this point. Annabel was feeling stomach sick from the seafood we had eaten that morning, My feet were practically bleeding, we had no clue where we were going, and to make matters worse, it was about six hundred degrees outside, even in the shade. 

We quickly found the most comfortable looking park bench and tended to our aches and pains.

Time: 11:30 am

Approximate Age: 77 years old.

Things were looking pretty grim … that is, until I spotted some kids playing around in a fountain nearby. An idea took root in my head. Within seconds, I had grabbed Annabel’s arm and bounded over the grass into the jets of water.

“Alex!” Annabel exclaimed, thoroughly scandalized, “you’re going to get all wet!! Not to mention you’re the only person here over the age of five!”

I honestly couldn’t bring myself to care.

Time: 11:45 am

Approximate Age: 5 years old

This pattern of drastic age swings continued throughout the day. At one point, Annabel pulled out her knitting (approximate age: 60) and we both sat listening to classical music for a bit (approximate age: 85). Not even fifteen minutes later, we were engrossed in the Disney Channel TV series Phineas and Ferb (approximate age: 10)

That night, we were invited to go to a concert with some friends who are about our age. But, by the time we got there (me still sopping wet from the fountain and Annabel with her knitting needles), given the day’s confusion, we weren’t quite sure if we fit in anymore.

Time: 6:00 pm

Approximate Age: ?????

Here's a graph

Warning: The age confusion that we have mentioned in our post is actually a form of Severe Addled Age Disorder (hereafter referred to as S.A.A.D.). S.A.A.D. is a very serious illness, and should not be taken lightly. If you think that you, or someone you care about may have S.A.A.D., you should contact a doctor or specialist immediately. To learn more about S.A.A.D., or find out how you can help, please visit this website