Death and Fiction

It was a dark and stormy night. Okay, no, it wasn’t. It was night, and it was dark, as nights tend to be, but it wasn’t stormy. It was actually a rather warm and pleasant summer night, and I was killing people.

Oh, they weren’t real people. At least, they weren’t real by the conventional standards, though they were plenty real to me.

It was my habit to claim the computer in the twilight hours of the weekend and write. The little kids went to bed early, and sometimes my parents did too. It was at this time, from eleven at night onwards, that I chipped away at the stories I wanted to tell.

Stirak I thought tearfully as I unplugged my headphones from the inspiring music on the computer. Okin. These two soldier boys were characters in my latest story and the victims of the week. I’d just written Stiral’s tragic death scene. Okin was slated to die as soon as I could write a few pages to separate their untimely ends. These things had to be properly spaced throughout the story for maximum emotional impact. On the reader, that is, though it seemed to be having maximum emotional impact on this author as well.

I wiped away tears as I sat on my beat-up chair in the half-lit family room, staring at the words on the buzzing white screen. Drained, I could do nothing else. My senses were numb with grief at the death of my soldier boys. They were so young! Stiral just sixteen, Okin only fifteen. I was only fourteen, myself. I wouldn’t want to die next year or the year after. And Stiral was so brave and so dutiful… Okin was so witty… Their fictional friends would mourn them. Their fictional families would go without for the lack of their fictional payrolls. They would never again till their fictional fields or go on to marry and have fictional children. There were so many fictional girls they would never fictionally kiss!

I hiccupped sadly at the thought.

Get a grip I scolded myself sternly. Sure, Stiral and Okin were my characters, but they weren’t even main characters. They were characters I’d created for the sole purpose of dying, to add a dimension of reality to the exciting climax battle. I’d known they were going to die. I’d planned for them to die. The stroke of my fingers on the computer keys caused their demises. I was their creator and their killer, their mother and their murderer. Stated that way, the situation had real potential to become a Greek tragedy. It was certainly messed-up enough--almost as messed-up as Oedipus Rex.

They were so young… they were too young to die…

I sniffled as I slowly saved my document and turned off the computer. Sighing heavily, I stood and went to turn off the light above the turtle tank. It was a real energy-waster, that light, when nobody really cared about Little Brother's turtle anyway. Little Brother didn’t even care, though he claimed that he did.

As I was about to turn off the light that warmed the neglected turtle, I saw something in the tank, something beyond the reflection of my own red-rimmed eyes. Sure, the turtle was there, but it was the goldfish swimming near his face that drew my attention. Even as I watched, the turtle snapped the goldfish up between his brutal jaws and crushed it.

A thousand images rushed through my mind: Sprinkles, my own pet goldfish whose life had been suddenly and prematurely snatched from existence when I was but five, dead. Fictional Stiral, dead. Fictional Okin, soon to die.

“No!” I shrieked, hammering my fist against the turtle tank. “No! Let it go! It deserves to live! Let it go!” I sobbed, pleading with the turtle for the goldfish’s sake. Too much life had been lost tonight already.

My shrieking had no effect on the turtle whatsoever. Eventually, I fled to my room. I threw myself onto my bed and, bereaved, grieving, and inconsolable, cried myself to sleep.

In Which the Tourists Become the Tour Guides

Context: This post is about the sixth day of my New York City trip, which was our fifth day in the city.

On Sunday night, Dr. Godfather texted Older Sister and mentioned that his best friend's son had just moved to New York City for an accounting internship and that the kid was nervous about the whole thing. Dr. Godfather asked if we would be so kind as to meet up with his best friend's son the next evening and take him sightseeing.

Now, Dr. Godfather has worked with our mom for ages, he's an especial friend of our family, and, as a former native of New York City, he offered us extensive advice in planning our trip. We felt obliged to help him out, but that obligation didn't keep Older Sister from freaking out.

"What if Dr. Godfather's best friend's son is weird? What if he's a creep? What if he's really awkward?" We listened to her worries on Monday morning as we all prepared for the day.

After a breakfast graciously provided by our hotel, we took the subway to Battery Park. Near Battery Park, we boarded a ferry heading for the Statue of Liberty. The sky was gray--not rainy, but oppressive in its coloring. It was a little claustrophobic, like the curved dome of the IMAX screen at the Clark Planetarium. And Lady Liberty was, well, green. Smaller than expected. Difficult to see up close. But the ferry ride was lovely all the same.

The second, and final, ferry stop was at Ellis Island.

I once visited Dachau in Germany. The misery that place had seen was palpable. I could feel it everywhere. Likewise, last summer, my family visited the martyrdom site of the prophet Joseph Smith. Once again, I could feel the tragedy in the air. Whatever your personal beliefs may be, innocent men cut down in their prime is always a tragedy.

For some reason, I was expecting to feel that at Ellis Island. I'm not sure why. People did die there, and some families suffered the personal tragedy of parting forever when unhealthy members were sent back to the old country. But a lot of good happened at Ellis Island, too. As not-so-great as the United States could be in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was infinitely better than what many people left behind. Parts of Ellis Island were definitely unfair and unpleasant, but the overall feeling I got from its halls was hope.

We did a walking tour of the entire museum. This was no small feat, considering we'd pretty much walked the length of Central Park the day before. The end of the tour found us collapsed on a wooden bench in the long upstairs room, listening to the description of the Kissing Post without actually walking over to see it.

We'd estimated that Ellis Island would take up most of our day, but in reality they only have the one building open for exploration. It was not quite lunchtime when we finished our sightseeing and caught the ferry back to Battery Park.

Earlier, we'd seen food stands in Battery Park selling churros. Now that we were done with our tour, we decided to purchase some. Eagerly anticipating the joy of hot fried dough coated in cinnamon and sugar, we forked over our money to the churro stand guy.

So what are churros like in New York City? Well, NYC is famous for all kinds of food: the best cheesecake, the best sushi, the best coal-fire pizza, Manhattan chowder, black-and-white cookies. But they aren't famous for churros, and that's because New York City churros are the worst.

Not joking. It was the worst churro I'd ever had. Maybe New York City lacks sufficient Southwest influence, but they don't seem to understand the concept of fried dough. Our churros were baked, dry, and heavy. They had cream in the middle, which was a nice idea in theory but which didn't really work, and there was only a little sugar sprinkled on top. There was no cinnamon. There was no hot, dripping, greasy goodness. Our disappointment was tantamount.

Little Sister got a chocolate churro with an Oreo cream dipping sauce. She gave me half of hers, and I gave her half of mine. Hers was better than mine, but it was still a blight on the hallowed name of churro.

We then forsook Battery Park and its terrible churros in favor of Wall Street. Stock market Wall Street. Let's-occupy-it Wall Street. National Treasure "heere on the wall" Wall Street. In fact, we stopped at Trinity Church. Whether there actually are catacombs with secret passages beneath this church, I do not know, but we examined the burial grounds behind the church. I walked around three-fourths of the cemetery, appreciating the history and thinking quiet thoughts. The next day, I learned that Alexander Hamilton is buried in the fourth of the cemetery that I didn't explore. I will forever regret not seeing his grave, because Alexander Hamilton is a boss.

We decided to eat lunch on Wall Street, which is fancier than it sounds. Our joint of choice bore the name "The Variety Café," which it lived up to exceedingly well. There was a buffet of all kinds of hot food, including several different kinds of Asian cuisine (score!). There was also soup, sandwiches, salad, drinks, desserts, and so on and so forth. The other diners included what looked like business people, with their slacks and ties and laptops, and the staff included a friendly soup guy who asked us where we were from and told us about his experience skiing in Alta.

After lunch, the 9/11 Memorial. There, I found the misery that Ellis Island lacked.

9/11 is an American tragedy that I actually lived through. I remember the panic and the general confusion of a nation aghast. I remember seeing things on TV that I didn't understand but which people told me that I would remember for the rest of my life and that I should share with my children and grandchildren.

Now I was up close and personal.

Older Sister accompanied Glory in her meandering while Little Sister and I went on ahead. The museum descends into the foundations of the original World Trade Center, so down we climbed, meeting horror after horror after horror. Twisted wreckage; children's clothes collected from the downed planes; papers that floated on the wind from the gaping holes in the towers.

I got sniffly as a matter of course; Little Sister was still in the grip of her cold so she was extra sniffly. In the middle of the museum was a labyrinth-like structure that had a display that told the entire story of 9/11. It was very cool, but difficult to navigate.

Towards the end, Little Sister said, "Hic." Which looks harmless enough in print but which was actually a big ginormous hiccup. Little Sister had suddenly contracted a case of the loudest hiccups the world has ever heard. Ridiculousness ensued as we tried to find an exit so that we could rush out and leave people to their quiet personal mourning.

Our plans that night were to eat dinner at the Shake Shack and take in the view from the Top of the Rock. With much reluctance, Older Sister invited Dr. Godfather's best friend's son aka Peeta to join us for dinner and our tourist excursion.

Peeta said he would head to the Shake Shack and that we would know him because he was wearing a suit. Sure enough, when we arrived at the line stretching out of the Shake Shack and into the streets of New York, there was a guy in a suit saving us a spot halfway through the line.

They don't call me Awkward Mormon Girl for nothing. I find interacting with other humans to be quite awkward, so I was surprised at how well all of us got along with Peeta. He chatted with us amiably as we waited in line and ate our food (my burger was too salty; my concrete was to die for).

On the way out of the restaurant, Little Sister got the hiccups again. An extremely alarmed Shake Shack worker thought she was dying and offered to save her life by performing the Heimlich on her. Little Sister said, "I just have weird hiccups," which led to the worker expounding his philosophy about mortality to us. He said that he ate too much Shake Shack food, which was bad for him, but "I'd rather die happy than skinny."

Peeta acted like this conversation was a matter of course. He even joined us for a picture with our new Shake Shack friend.

We then headed to the Top of the Rock, which for all you yahoos means the top of the Rockefeller Center. As we headed that direction, Peeta mentioned that he'd been to New York City before. In fact, he had friends living in New York City whom he was planning to hang out with later that night.

It occurred to us that Dr. Godfather wanted Peeta to look out for us more than he wanted us to look out for Peeta. Sneaky Dr. Godfather.

At the Rockefeller Center, we took the elevator to the top and gazed out over the lights of the city that never sleeps.

New York City. What a place.

Elegy Mourning the Things We Cannot Do for Each Other

Here's some of the last poetry I wrote in college.

Here’s mourning all the time I spent on you,
and here’s me laying all my love to rest.
So rest in peace, all feelings misconstrued—
you simply couldn’t stand up to time’s test.
I’ll bury all attempts to be your friend.
I’ll stick them in a silk-lined pinewood box.
I’ll bring my foolish efforts to an end;
I’ll stab them, give them plague or deadly pox.
I’m sorry that your life is sad and bleak,
I’m sorry for the thoughts inside your head.
I know my feelings won’t be what you seek—
I hope this time they’re well and truly dead.
Each time our friendship is resurrected,
it takes more from me than I expected.

There's 104 Days of Summer Vacation

I've written before about how Phineas and Ferb's mission to live summer to its fullest has inspired me to not waste summer.

Last summer, I even had a strategy where I planned one fun activity every Friday all summer long.

Now that I'm an adult out of college, I don't have summer vacation. Every day pretty much bleeds into the next. I miss the magic of summer, which may never come to me again.

BUT. My little brothers and sisters still have summer, and I would be a terrible sister if I didn't help them make it as great as possible.

Here are a few tips on how to summer (yes, I am using it as a verb. Get over it):

Treats: I like food. Like, a lot. Half the fun of life is getting to eat great food. When it comes to treats, you don't always have to spend a lot of money. For example, Arctic Circle has a sale on 79- and 99- cent cones all summer long, every summer. Also, it can be funner and less expensive to make some treats yourself. Storebought lemonade is nice, but homemade, fresh-squeezed lemonade is better. On the flip side, sometimes spending a little more money makes something relatively normal seem special., like ordering delivery rather than picking pizza up from the store yourself.

Timing: When you do something can make the normal seem fantastic. For example, try going to McDonald's at one in the morning or seeing the midnight premiere of a movie. Schoolchildren can't do those things on a normal schoolday, but they can during the summer.

Time-consuming: You can do that super -complicated Star Wars puzzle. You can read for hours or lie outside on the grass and watch clouds. You can play Monopoly for four hours. In the school year, ain't nobody got time for that, but it's summer now. You can slow down. It would surprise you what a novelty relaxation can be.

How do you summer?

A Series of Unfortunate Events

It's hot here. We're hitting around 80 degrees Fahrenheit each day, sometimes even 90.

I had a problem with the air conditioning in my car, so I went to Jiffy Lube and got it fixed. I didn't, however, have my driver's side door fixed.

Four months ago, my driver's side door gave up the ghost. It doesn't unlock; it doesn't open. Every time I get into my car, I have to get in through the passenger side and climb across the passenger seat and usually dislocate the windshield rear view mirror with my head.

"Well, why didn't you just get your door fixed when you got your air conditioning fixed, Awkward Mormon Girl?" Well, because I went to New York City. And bought new summer clothes. And I got a new phone and I'm getting a new laptop. But I don't have money for everything, especially not to fix one broken door when I still have three perfectly serviceable ones.

I do, however, have a little money to buy lemonade from the enterprising children on the streets of Hometown. Lemonade, mind you. Not that weird Kool-Aid some kids sell. I hate weird Kool-Aid, and I love all children except for the children that sell weird Kool-Aid.

Today, I was driving home from the temple in the blazing heat, wearing a lace dress. Which sounds light and breezy, but which I was actually given for Christmas a year and a half ago. The lace is lined with a fairly thick fabric, and the dark gray color does the opposite of discouraging heat. In addition to being warm, this dress gives me the problem all dresses do these days, which is to say it doesn't exactly stay put when I climb over the passenger's seat to get in and out of my car.

As I approached my neighborhood, I happened to see two girls about Baby Brother's age running a lemonade stand: fifty cents a cup.

At first I drove right past them, but then I considered that the price was right and that I was very thirsty. I decided to go back.

This decision required a lot of commitment, because when I drove past the lemonade stand had been on my right. I had to not only turn around to get back to the lemonade stand but turn around a second time so that I could pull over on the right side of the road.

A week ago, Pepper and I were driving in her car. She pulled over so we could buy lemonade from a lemonade stand. The children accepted payment and offered the lemonade through the passenger's side window. It was sort of like a mirror of a drive-thru, and quite easy.

I guess I was expecting similar service this time around, but neither of the lemonade stand girls came to take my order. They instead glanced at my car in bemusement.

I was like, "I guess I'll have to go to them," but then I realized that meant climbing over the passenger's side seat in my lace dress and Sunday shoes.

So I gestured to the lemonade stand girls: "Come here."

They didn't come there.

That was when the part of my brain that isn't involved in making decisions, but probably should be, said, "They probably think you're a kidnapper."

"Aw, man," I said when the rest of my brain realized the part of my brain that isn't involved in making decisions but probably should be was right. So I climbed across the passenger's seat and dislocated the windshield rearview mirror and got out of the passenger's side door with much climbing up of the lace dress.

I walked to the lemonade stand with as much dignity as I could. The children looked somewhat terrified.

Feeling the need to defend my status as a non-kidnapper, I explained myself: "My car door is broken, so I thought maybe you could come to me, but...it's okay."

"Oh...sorry," said the girls. But it didn't seem like they believed me. Probably because you know who else makes excuses for suspicious behavior? Kidnappers, that's who. So there really isn't that much difference between kidnappers and non-kidnappers. Except for the kidnapping part.

So instead of viewing my excuses for suspicious behavior as evidence that I was a non-kidnapper, I'm pretty sure that these girls took my excuses for suspicious behavior as evidence that I was a kidnapper. They seemed quite anxious for me to leave. They didn't even bother counting the handful of coins I used to pay for my lemonade.

I took the plastic cup they thrust at me and walked back to my car. Somehow, I found a way to get in through the passenger side, climb across the passenger seat, and once again dislocate the windshield rear view mirror with my head, my skirt riding up all the while, without spilling a single drop.

I consoled myself after going through this harrowing misunderstanding: "At least I got some lemonade on this hot, hot day."

I took a celebratory sip. The lemonade was actually weird Kool-Aid.

Try Central Park; It's Guaranteed

Context: This post is about the fifth day of my New York City trip, which was our fourth day in the city.

"We're going to spend pretty much all of Sunday in Central Park," Older Sister said. For months, she said this. That was the plan. Early church, and then Central Park all day long.

But by Saturday night, Little Sister had come down with the cold. Not a cold--the cold. The cold that had made its run through our entire family over the past few weeks. The cold that I was getting over, and Older Sister was in the midst of, when we boarded the plane on Wednesday night. The cold that now was in the possession of Little Sister.

So for Little Sister's sake, we slept in latish on Sunday morning and then took the subway uptown to the eleven o'clock ward in the Manhattan temple.

After church--Central Park.

First of all, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there aren't any trolls in Central Park. Not that I saw, anyways. I also didn't see any beaming Disney leading ladies singing about love or any Baby-Sitters Club baby-sitters hanging out with their charges.

What I did see was a lot of trees. And grass. And people. AIDS Walk New York was there the same day we were, and they came right into the park. There were also lots of ice cream trucks. Central Park is basically a small wooded country that has been colonized by ice cream trucks.

We wandered around the park for a while. We saw Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial. There were signs everywhere at the memorial requesting that visitors not play music or ride bikes or skateboards. Naturally, no one obeyed those rules, and the entire place looked like a musician, biker, and skateboarder convention.

We saw the Alice in Wonderland statue. There were children all over every inch of that thing and no way to convince them to move long enough to let me climb up on it. Jerks. But I did enjoy the Alice in Wonderland quotes on the ground around the statue.

We saw a man making huge bubbles out of soapy water. We stopped to watch and to let Glory join him in his bubble-making fun.

Unfortunately, we didn't see much else. Within a few hours, Older Sister had grown disenchanted with her plan to spend the day in Central Park. Well, all of us had, but especially Older Sister. She hadn't realized that everything in Central Park was so far apart or that it was all so hard to find. To find anything, we had to use Older Sister's smartphone and its magical capabilities. However, Older Sister's smartphone plan only has so much magic that she can use each month, and she was worried about running out of said magic.

I'm going to make a quick observation, which is that Central Park needs some map kiosks with paper maps, like they have at Disneyland or the zoo. And if Central Park already has maps somewhere within its expansive borders, then there needs to be some other maps leading to those maps.

One thing in the park we did find without too much trouble was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you've ever read From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, then you know this museum as the one to which Claudia and Jamie Kincaid ran away.

It is a lovely building, with tons of stone steps at the front. There were tons of Halal food carts around the museum. Lots of people had bought food from the carts and were just sitting on the stone steps, eating casually, as if they weren't just eating lunch on the steps of one of the most famous museums in the world! Well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, so we bought ourselves some lunch and ate it sitting on the steps of the Met. Like you do. 

Then we went inside. Many of the displays were very European, by which I mean that there were lots of paintings and statues of naked people. I saw a lot of this a few years ago in Europe, and I can only conclude that art without clothes was just all the rage in the Renaissance. 

While Glory wandered around freely, my sisters and I buzzed around looking at French furniture, entire Egyptian temples, and Faberge eggs that once belonged to the Romanov family. This sounds easy, but it was actually a lot of hard work. When reading From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I used to think that it required a small suspension of disbelief to accept that two children could live inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week without being detected. Well, I'm sorry I doubted you, E. L. Konigsburg, because a small elephant could live inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week without being detected. The building is not only huge, but labyrinthine inside. I could only navigate for us using the paper map that the museum had so thoughtfully provided at the entrance. (Seriously, Central Park. Get your act together.)

After the museum, we walked up and down the length of the park, trying to decide where we wanted to go/figure out where everything else was. This proved fruitless, so somewhat disappointed with our Central Park experience, we walked the 5,000,000 blocks to FAO Schwarz.

Okay, there were not that many blocks. But by this point, we'd been on the go for days, and we were all pretty tired.

However, we all perked up somewhat when we saw the Plaza Hotel, that lodging of the rich, the famous, and little girls named Eloise! We had to go inside, so we did, and immediately became acutely aware of just how poor we are. We snapped some pictures in the elegant lobby, then checked out the hotel shopping. This made us even more acutely aware of our poverty. 

Then after the Plaza: FAO Schwarz.

FAO Schwarz is just a toy store in the way that Willy Wonka's is just a candy factory. FAO Schwarz was one of the destination spots I'd insisted that we see, and it was practically worth the trip just to see it.

Little Sister and I were excited. Older Sister and Glory were not very excited, so they collapsed on the floor while Little Sister and I ran around the entire place.

There were musical instruments! Gigantic stuffed animals! Books! Dolls! Candy of all kinds! Legos! Board games and puzzles! Baby clothes! Barbies! Knick knacks! Gryffindor scarves! And the Muppet Whatnot Workshop, which is exclusively at FAO Schwarz! Little Sister and spent several minutes watching new Muppets be made for young Muppet fans (or, I suspect, the uninterested children of not-so-young Muppet fans).

Little Sister and I explored almost the entire store. One of the escalators was down, so we used it at stairs, but then we thought that it was moving and sort of freaked out and actually clutched each other fearfully. Because a moving escalator is terrifying? I don't know. Little Sister was sick and probably somewhat delirious, but there's no excuse for me.

Before we left FAO Schwarz, Older Sister and Glory finally rekindled their inner child enough to actually look around the store. There was even some excitement and wonder in their eyes.

The success of FAO Schwarz, in my opinion, made up for the not-so-great experience in Central Park. I felt very pleased as we took the subway back to Times Square, picked up dinner, and are in our hotel room while watching I Love Lucy. It was still fairly early, but we were beat.

We began to prepare for bed.

"Sweet mother of FAO Schwarz!" Glory cried in some moment of mild distress.

When we laughed at her, she defended her choice of exclamation by saying, "She was a sweet woman!"

Then Older Sister became far more distressed than Glory had been.

"Dr. Godfather just texted me," she said, referring to a family friend who grew up in New York and who had helped us plan our trip. "His best friend's son just arrived in the city, and Dr. Godfather wants us to show him around tomorrow..."

The Novelist

The summer after Best Friend Boy left on his mission, I was lonely. I was uncertain of the future. I missed Best Friend Boy, and I knew I would not see him again for two years. I was somewhat distressed, and so I decided to write a novel.

I spent most of the summer isolated, locked in my room with my laptop. And while Viola and Etch-a-Sketch and Shutterbug and all the rest dealt with their own lives, I dealt with the lives of fictional characters. I spun my own problems into a tale whose plot doesn't represent my life at the time yet somehow encapsulates what I was thinking and feeling perfectly.

You probably wonder where I'm getting at with this. What I mean to say is that right now, I'm lonely. I'm uncertain of the future, and I'm somewhat distressed.

Maybe it's time to write another novel.

What I've Been Up To

Last night, I got an exceedingly angry-looking iPod message from the one and only Little Sister.

Little Sister: POST ON UR BLOG

Little Sister: DAGNABBIT

I assure you that I have every intention of posting on my blog. Currently, I'm working on a post about the Sunday I spent in New York City.

BUT. Practically every second of my life is scheduled every day, and it's been exceedingly hard to write.

Like on Tuesday. First I worked. Then I came home and briefly exercised before practicing for a luau that we are putting on in front of a significant portion of Hometown.

Yes, a luau. My mother's family, who is about 75% British and 25% Danish, is made up of professionally trained hula dancers. I am also a trained hula dancer, although far from professional. We have all danced many times together in various locations around Utah, we haoles.

Anyways, my mother and her brother take these luaus very seriously, while the rest of us take them not-so-seriously. (I suggested to Little Sister that, given the circumstances, we could call them Jew-aus. She was not terribly amused, but her reaction was nowhere as horrified my mother's would have been had she heard me.) The point is--we rehearse for these things. I don't know if your family just gets together and rehearses stuff, but mine does.

After rehearsal, I made dinner. It was chicken satay with a peanut sauce. It ended up well, except for the fact that the wooden skewers ended up being more decorations than anything. I was unsuccessful in affixing them in a way that would actually hold the meat's weight.

Also, the recipe called for fish sauce. The Internet warned me that fish sauce smelled bad, but I didn't believe the Internet until I smelled it. Forget bad. Fish sauce smells like pure evil.

Later, I was narrating my cooking skills out loud because it's a lifelong dream of mine to have my own cooking show. As I scraped half a cup of peanut butter into the pan, I said, "This is where things get weird!" Then I remembered that things had already gotten weird when I added the fish sauce and that I was essentially lying to my imaginary studio audience. This is why they'll never give me a cooking show.

By the time I'd quickly eaten dinner, I was late for institute. By the time institute was over, I was very late for my improv comedy workshop. By the time my workshop was over, it was time to go to bed and rest in preparation of doing pretty much the same thing the next day.

The point is, I haven't really had time to write a poorly written blog post, much less a good one. But I'll update again soon. I promise, Little Sister.