Famous? Perhaps...
In Ruff Draft, we're always printing out new instruction pages on how to do things with layouts. We'll use these pages for years, and I have no doubt that Mrs. A will still be passing them out ten years from now to new newspaper staffs. There are now two different ones floating around with my face on them. One has to do with putting pictures on a page and what to make the pixels, and the other is about making mug boxes for reviews and opinions. The latter was made today and it's not a bad picture of me, I have to admit. I feel so very important...
I've discovered that driving relaxes me, if for no other reason than that I am alone and I am getting away. Having the windows down and the moonroof open with wind brushing through my hair, the radio tuned to the music I like, and a flat stretch of road before me has a soothing effect. It's not the best "hobby" since it's obviously considerably dangerous since I can't control what other drivers do, but it's something, at least. Driving isn't, however, my new "relaxation activity" or whatever. This is just an observation I made today.
I went by the stables again and talked to the new trainer. She said that I can lease a horse, but they don't give lessons anymore. Considering the amount of money it requires (about $400 a month, sometimes more), I'm thinking that's out of the option. Maybe if my parents weren't in the process of looking for a new car for me, putting my sister through college, and casually looking at houses in Florida, then it might be more likely.
Of course, another thing that is usually a good distraction for me is just writing. I sit at my laptop and I type whatever comes to mind, with music going, of course. Music is really always present in my life. At school, I have my iPod. At home, I have radios in almost every room and several songs on my computer. In the car, I have several mixed CDs to listen to so that I don't have to flip through the radio. I'm even in the process of putting songs on my apple laptop for the newspaper staff, so that I'll have songs with me when I'm working. Addicted? Maybe. I find myself constantly pulling out lines of songs that just hit me, too. I've got at least thirty away messages that are just one or two line lyrics, no caps, barely any punctuation. Right now? and just like the movies, we play out our last scene from Alien Ant Farm. A sad song when you really examine the lyrics.
I'm feeling better--finally. Not 100% yet, but getting there. Of course, it probably didn't help that it started raining at the THUD game last night. They ordered the players to the locker rooms because of a lightning threat, and made the viewers hang out in the covered concession areas. My friend and I considered leaving, but I had parked down the street and would have gotten soaked getting to the car, so we stayed until they started the game again. It was still raining though, so we wound up getting wet anyway since we moved back to the stands. And we lost, too. First time in 7 years, if that tells you how depressing a loss it was. 18 - 0 when my friend and I left with five minutes left in the game. We got thirteen points in those last few minutes, but it wasn't enough to win. Just enough to save our dignity.
I can't decide how to end The Gang. I want it done in a few chapters, and I don't want it to end perfectly happily, but not depressing either. I would like for the last chapter to be short, different, and impacting, but I doubt it will be because after playing with different endings for a week or two, I'll probably just get fed up and post something half-hearted. And on the note of writing, I can't decide what to do with Annabelle Mathews either. I wasn't really sure where I wanted it to go when I started it, which is probably my problem.
However, I do feel somewhat accomplished because I finally got the initiative to send in those four short stories to the Seventeen contest. Haunted, The Leather Jacket Boy, Touche, and Carrier Pigeon. I still haven't finished Pretty Girl, but I've got another few months before they're due. I was finished with those four though, so I sent them in. I'm always paranoid before I do something like that though. I've heard horror stories about people who send things in to contests and do one tiny thing wrong and thus don't win. Example? My journalism advisor entered a story in a contest, and she was called later by the professor who was judging it and he said something along the lines of, "I wanted you to know that your entry was really good. Don't be discouraged because you didn't win--you would have if you hadn't stapled the pages."
However, I have a tendency to believe that most judges would be a little more lenient than that.
Oh my, I need to end this entry. The kitten has developed an interest in what I'm doing, and thus has come quite close to deleting the entire thing twice now. He meows hi, by the way. Speaking of Tanner, he must be the strangest cat on Earth. We bought him cat treats the other day, thinking that we could start weaning him off wet food and to dry food by giving him them with his food. We pulled out the can, shook it around, tapped the lid, got him interested. Then we pulled one out and dropped it before him. He sniffed it, pushed it with his nose, sniffed it again, and then twitched his tail and walked away. What kind of a cat won't eat cat treats?
<3
Tiffany