10 things I love most...about my best friend

This is a total copy of my mother's most recent post. My mom. What a wonderful person. Not just because she's my mom, she has other good qualities too. She hot-glued a costume together for me this year when an old ally of hers didn't return the pedal for her sewing machine. (It's a jack-o-lantern with a Moutain Dew cap (for my stem.) I could make a list of all of the things I like about her, and I will, because that's what the title says.

1) She has an aptitude for writing. You could give her something to write about and she would have a story in 5 seconds. If you don't believe me read her blog. But she doesn't talk the way she writes, in my opinion.

2) My mom has a killer sense of humor, though I may not understand it sometimes because she's a grown up and has learned more stuff than me and uses it in her jokes.

3) She is really pretty.

4) She helps me when I'm sad and consoles me when I am encountering a tough situation.

5) She is always willing to help. She helped us practice songs in Primary when Sister King was absent and she made fun games. She volunteered to help in Physical Education in my sister's class and was surprised to hear that she had to take over the whole class with no help. Second-graders!

6) My mom is very artistic. She paints robins and made a creative journal with peices of colorful paper and paintings, BUT IT IS NOT A SCRAPBOOK! It's a journal.

7) She is an awesome dancer and ballet teacher. She's taught me well and I can intimidate my friends with my knowing of French ballet words.

8) She takes me to see rodeos and concerts with her.

9) She makes fun of Sarah Palin and McCain adn is one of the very few supporters of Barack Oobama in our red county.

10) She's my mom. Who wouldn't love their mom for going through hours of labor to have them? NO ONE!!

Yes, she is the best mommy I could have. She's funny and watches Saturday Night Llive and other comical news reports with me and she supports Obama. SHE IS THE COOLEST MOM EVER!!

Boasting.doc; Microsoft Word

I usually write free-verse but I think this poem is funniest if it rhymes. I know this isn't, um, professional, but someday I'll write as well as the pros. I was inspired by Shell Silverstein and my mother's good friend, Guy Mayhem.

Boasting

I can fly

Seven feet high

On my trapeze.

So you can go eight

Well, that’s just great

But you really have to hear

That I can wiggle my ears.

Oh, no.

You can wiggle your nose

Back and forth and up and down

Side to side

And all around town.

That’s quite swell

But everyone knows

That I can balance

On my toes!

Oh, dread.

So you can balance on your head.

That is quite an amazing thing,

But I can dance and I can sing,

I can stomp and I can shout

I can laugh and run about.

These things you can do, too

Instead of sit

And brag about you.

What?

What is that terrible thing you say?

You think that I should go and play?

Instead of sit and tell great lies

Of how I can go

Seven feet high?

Well, where did you hear

Such trashy talk?

I think you should take a walk!

Go cool off and get some air

And let us never go back to there

To that state

Where best friends hate

And never, ever congratulate

Each other.

Even still you seem to think

That my brain has got a kink.

I’m sick of you, I really am, you’re a mindless, stupid dope

You think that you are better than me

(Well, you only hope).

So go away

I want to play

Alone.

I’m going to find a new friend

And our friendship will never end.

Oh look, here comes someone now

I think that I

Shall take a bow

Then I’ll look up

And I will say:

“Hi, do you want to play today?”

And they’ll reply, “Yes,

Of course I do,

I was hoping

That you’d play, too.”

Then we’ll trot off together,

Like best friends do.

I’ll then jump up and down

And I’ll touch the sky,

And I’ll nudge my friend and say:

“Bet you can’t go that high.”

box.txt; Microsft Word

Hiding inside my little box

Concealed by these stone walls,

Slipping away with each minute,

Trying to pull myself out.

I call to them, "Hey,

Grab on to my arms

And release me from my gloomy cell!"

But scoffing, they turn away.

And still,

I lurk in the dark,

Not knowing what awaits me.

All I see is pitch-blackness,

Surrounding my trembling body.

I reach out

Expecting warm, welcoming hands to grasp me,

But I feel cold ice,

I feel only dark, gloomy air

Not moving.

Still.

I walk,

And wait,

For someone,

Anyone,

To relieve my pain of not knowing.

I desperately need to escape

This unwelcoming pit,

This box

Which has swallowed me up.

I always ask questions,

Maybe too many,

And that is why they have banished me

Into this world

Of sadness,

Sorrow,

Treachery,

And deceit.

No one but me is here,

Struggling to understand

The meaning of things,

Feeling, feeling

In the dark.

I wish,

I wonder,

And never know.

Freezing stone walls

Block my access to the outside world.

There is no comfort

When I am lost.

I can't see,

Or hear

Let alone understand

What is happening.

But someday, I will step out of this box,

And light will fall upon everything,

And I'll see everything,

Hear everything,

Understand everything.

Nothing will be nothing,

I will be something.

Pathway

I have finished a new painting of a pathway leading to an open sky. My friend thought it was a mountain and so I'm not as proud of it as I was last night while painting it as the third presidential debate played on television.

I asked my art teacher about it and she said that if she had been the artist she would have drawn the mud and stone path going diagonally across the paper. It would have made more sense that way.
I learned about anatomy and proportions in my lesson today and I drew a sort of map of the face. It is scary and cool.

Costume

I'm trying to think of what to be for Halloween--October seems to fly by so fast! Originally I wanted to be Barack Obama, because we found this freaky mask of him at Wal-Mart. But my mom took my idea and said, "No, you get to be Joe Biden." I don't wanna be Biden! As cool as Joe is, I still wanna be Obama!
So then I decided that I should be a pumpkin. But then I thought, Crap, I got rid of my orange turtleneck last year! I was thinking that I could wear green pants, the orange turtleneck, and an orange hat with a stem on it and then stuff my shirt with pillows. I thought it would be cute... but then Mom said I might look pregnant. My idea was spoiled.
I have no idea what the crap to be!!
When we got the Obama mask my mom was bummed that there wasn't a Palin one so she could make fun of her on Halloween. Since there wasn't one she "had no choice" but to take my Obama idea. Errg!
Last year I was a medieval princess thing with a green dress and a white veil. But about three other people had the same costume! The year before that I was this dumb mermaid with pink hair. I looked retarded. I wanna be something cool this year!
I remember years ago that I had a plan to be Alice in Wonderland, but I think I ended up being Elmo or something. I could be Alice this year! I could totally get the whole blue dress, black bow, and I won't even need a yellow wig because I already have the right hair color!
And the way Alice is illustrated in Lewis Carrol's book is about the way she looks in the Disney film.
Then all I need to do is go find some random lost cat and say it's Dinah. Yes! I'm finished.
Where am I gonna find the cat?
I really wish Dustpelt were here. He'd be perfect!
I've never been something scary for Halloween. I remember last year in school there was this girl dressed as Edward Scissorhands... no, way too scary and old.
I was a bat one year, maybe I could be one this year?... no, that was five years ago, the costume won't fit anymore.
Hmm.
I think I'll settle for Alice. Better go find Dustpelt!... er, Dinah!

I finally found a pic on Google that looks a little like Dustpelt. He was as old as the other cat but his eyes and fur were like this.

My New Drug

This is supposed to be my best friend now.

My mom got the prescription today, on the twelfth of August, although your screen will differ. It is probably at least a few months after I started taking this medicine. If my dad looks at my blog and sees that I'm taking Fluoxetine he'll freak. He has some sort of grudge against meds. When Ethan started taking Risperdal we had to keep it a secret from my dad. He was so mad when he found out. He chewed my mom out last week in our living room. I hate to think of what he would do when he found out that his other kid was taking meds. So I'm going to wait to post this, until he figures it out. I don't want him to freak again...

Now it is the seventh of October, and I told my dad about the Fluoxetine last month. He was probably mad but he hid it pretty well. I told him not to be mad at my mom for getting the prescription and he said he wouldn't. When I told my Mommy that I told him about the medicine she said yeah, he was probably mad.

But I still take it and it works. I don't worry half as much as I used to. It's generalized anxiety disorder and it sucks. But sometimes I want it back--as I have told my mother, I feel like it is a big part of me that can't leave.

I used to worry about ticks and how people thought of me and my appearance and all of those teensy weensy things that don't matter to a lot of people. Okay, maybe the appearance thing does, but all of the other tiny things.

I describe it as a box. Well, I described the depression that came in the package labeled "anxiety" as a box. To be more precise, I call it a purple box because depression is the color purple. I am trapped inside the box and I can see out of it but no one can see into it. I am invisible, but nobody else is invisible.

So no one can see me. So I get sad. So I get so sad that I become depressed. So I have low self-esteem. I feel that everyone is better than me. I get jealous. I get even sadder. I never socialize outside of school. I feel lonely. I get sadder.

This is what the anxiety does.

I distinctly remember the day my mom learned about the box. we were pushing Barrett in his stroller down to Second East and somehow the subject of worrying came up. We talked, and my mom inferred that the box is anxiety. I thought it was just depression and I didn't know what was making me sad. But she explained that the disorder was the cause of the depression which was the cause of the box--it all lead back to my disease.

I love being rid of the box. It is definitely gone. But only with the help of my "best friend"--Fluoxetine.

To express my sadness back in he "box days", I wrote poems about it. I might post one. Nobody ever read them, except for my dad when he came to visit. He, of course, had no idea what I was trying to say. The wording was vague. It hardly made sense to me, the authoress. It had only made sense when I was writing it.

At the end of the poem I wrote about escaping from the box and being happy. And that has happened!

I just really hate the taste of the liquid medicine I take. I don't take a pill because--ha ha--I'm scared that I will choke on it. An example of my many ridiculous worries.

I'm almost writing this like I'm writing about another person. It's kinda weird. Because I laughed at myself for being worried.

I feel safe taking liquid medicine, so I guess the idea of changing to a pill still scares me because I know that there is liquid meds available that I won't choke on... I guess that still doesn't make sense.

But the best thing is that I have escaped the box and am happy, all thanks to my, er, "best friend."

Cave Falls

Barrett is telling me to stop taking pictures because the batteries are almost dead in the camera.

We visited Cave Falls in Yellowstone National Park this weekend. we originally planned to see Horseshoe again, but my mom had that "I need to see somewhere different and explore" feeling, I guess. But it was so beautiful there! The trees were so orange. I mean, they were just these masses of orange leaves, they were so beautiful. My mom could only say "wow" throughout our drive. I loved the quaking aspens. They looked like they were shivering and their bright orange pigment was so pretty.

Sorry that Ethan isn't in the pictures; he didn't want to go so he stayed at dad's house. He was being a little mean to Leigha and me anyway.

Me. I look a little silly in these pics because I was too tired to bathe that weekend. I didn't bother putting my contacts in either which only added to my greasy ugliness. But hey, at least I brushed my teeth.

This is Leigha, the more cautious member of our team of travelers.

One of the many cows we saw. It's pretty funny because we were so entertained by them even though you see them on farms every day. they got right up close to the car and we took pictures of them, giving us an hour of nonstop entertainment on the drive to Yellowstone.

Mom in front of the falls. She was really happy to be out there considering how sad she's been lately. She always is a little happier if we go out near Horseshoe. Nature is her source of happiness. Look at that smile!

I am so glad that she is a little happier now. I ask her frequently after family expeditions if she is a little happier than she was before. each time she replies, "Um, a little," but this time I think she was a lot happier.

And Mommy, I'm sorry if you feel that I copied your post.

Lodgepole pines. We drove by them on the way there and it looked like rows of bars. It gave you a sense of... isolation.
This is the road to Cave Falls; sorry it is so blurry but I took this picture through our bug-coated windshield. Look at those orange leaves!
Barrett and me. He was being funny because we were taking photos and we had taken a really cute one and we were saying "awww". So whenever we took a picture of him he said "awww!"
Me in front of the cave. Leigha was too scared to go close to it and we had to hold her hand or carry her to get her anywhere in the forest. It was a little hard to see next to the waterfall because of the mist--that's why I'm squinting.

A random tree stump I saw. It was just cool how it was uprooted from the ground.
Sweet little Barrett (awww!) He's in a very cute pose on that rock.
Bear and Leigha (Barrett's saying "awww" again).
Mommy and Bear. I love this picture!
The river by the falls. This was just about when we first saw it. It came into view and all we said was "Whoa..."
Overlook of the forest. You need to go there to see it yourself!
All 4 of us, trying to crowd into the picture.
The exploring trio! (All with different odd expressions on their faces.)
Bear Bear, Cave Falls explorer going home, laying on the shoulder of his almost happy mother.

Dustpelt

I went to basketball camp today! A I was an hour late because we couldn't figure out where it was at. It was at the high school and so we went there and I played basketball and I practiced and had a lot of fun.


Oh, and on Thursday when Mom was working om Bye Bye Birdie at the high school we found a cat and he was so cute. At first I thought it was a girl so I called him Willow, but then I actually checked and it was a boy. Then I called him Dustpelt for his gray-brown fur. He sort of looked like this, but his coat was a lot paler and his eyes were more green-yellow. He looked a lot tamer than this cat too...so I guess this picture isn't that good to describe him. It was the one that looked the most like him on Google. He had short fur like this, though.

for his brownish-gray fur. I wanted to keep him so I put him in the van. Ethan told Mom and she get all mad and I was forced to leave Dustpelt on the sidewalk. *sniff*.

Then I told my Dad about him and he said that he wished I could've kept him so we could have a pet kitty. I'm sad I don't have a kitty.