One Sentence

My brother is an arrogant, inconsiderate, rude, narcissistic, manipulative bastard.

That is all.

Comments are better than being related to my brother (Really though, no need to comment on this. Haha.)

Love, Maria

No Tears For The Dead Today

Have you ever had something horrible happen and everyone around you was crying or in hysterics, and you just sat there calmly amid the ciaos? Have you ever been in the middle of a tragic situation and were frowned upon for taking the news in stride? Have you ever been looked at because you weren't crying, a look that clearly said, "You must be some heartless alien?" Well, today, I have.

My grandfather died yesterday. Yesterday was Memorial day.

I learned this news this morning (the day after Memorial day, of course.) while eating breakfast. My mom woke me up and told me that my father wanted to talk with me. I was worried, thinking of all the things I have done recently he might not approve of. My guesses went from him finding out about my obsession with Harry Potter to his reading and disliking something on my Bucket List (there are quite a few things on there to which he would object to, i'm sure.). Going downstairs, I heard him complaining to my mother about his teeth, whilst I made myself some cinnamon toast. Once I had sat down with my toast and mug of coffee, he began shifting around nearby papers and napkins, which alerted me to the fact that he was about to have a heart to heart with me on something. I was only slightly worried about being found out for something once I saw the look on his face. My little sister, Hayley, was sitting next to me eating her breakfast. As soon as he had told us the news, she was clearly struggling to hold in her tears. The very first thing that she asked was, "How did he die?" and that was obviously the very question my dad would rather not answer. "Well, Hayley, my dad was getting quite old..." Then my sister spouted off about twenty more questions, not unusual for a talkative seven-year-old, and my parents promptly answered them.

After he had enough with Q and A with my sister, my dad motioned to me to follow him outside. My sudden fear of being caught at something flared up again, but died down once he pulled out some chairs and went into more detail about what happened yesterday. My mother had come outside too, and both she and he were getting red eyed and emotional. Apparently, my grandfather didn't die... naturally. They were going on about how awful this was, and why they didn't want to tell Hayley, and all this stuff. I was sitting calmly in my chair, not a tear or emotion in sight. My dad and my mom did very poor jobs at looking in my face for any trace of sadness or tears or anything. Now i'm sure they think i'm a freak, haha.

Truth be told, while I loved my grandfather dearly, I am, in fact, not sad that he has passed away. It's unfortunate, but I'm not shaken. It's a bit odd that I'm not sad. I am surprised at my lack of emotion, I'll admit. Oh well. No tears for the dead today. The cool thing is that he died on Memorial day, which I think is really awesome. He, my grandfather, wanted to be cremated though, which I don't think is awesome. I'm actually kind of peeved at him because he had said that he didn't want a funeral service, so we aren't going to be having one. The one time I can attend a funeral and be a legitimate be a mourner, someone who really knew the person, and he doesn't want one! ARGH!

I probably shouldn't be talking about the deceased in that light, but whatever. It's still true. I want to throw him a funeral and then go to it.

Well, no other thoughts to share with you that I feel I can share with you.

COMMENTS ARE BETTER THAN DYING (Though, I wouldn't exactly know...)

Love,

Maria

P.s. I'll have my first book review up shortly. I've been putting off writing it, but I'll have it for you all soon, I promise.

New thing I am going to do on here...

Hello everyone! It's a lovely day today. The sky is grey-ish blue-ish, the birds are singing, and I, dear friends, am blogging! :D

I had an idea last night. Wow. Splendid way to start a paragraph, Maria. Yes, it's true. I actually thought last night. Hear the crowd gasp! Anyway, back to my thoughts--so I was thinking that I read quite a bit. I am always on the prowl for a good book and am regularly given a look of disbelief when I walk out of the library holding a stack of 7 or so books. The downside of reading a lot? You waste a lot of time reading books that end up being a load of rubbish. While I don't have a solution to this really, I do want to help the lot of you from this disappointing fate. It's always irritating when you start a book with high expectations and then discover it's mediocrity. What I have decided to do is this: every time i finish a book I will give you all a review of what I thought of it along with a Barnes & Nobel summary, a star rating of the book (by me) on a scale of 1 to 10, and a picture so you can be sure of what book I am writing about. Hopefully I will be able to keep this up :)

I very excited about this. Well, that's all I have to say for now. Thank you for reading!

Comments are better than reading a pointlessly stupid book

Love,

Maria

New Music!!! :)

I just wanted to very loudly point out that i have changed the music on the left of my blog here

<---

I CHANGED THE MUSIC PLAYLIST!!

There, now you know :D

Here is the playlist, in case you can't see it (i had a chick tell me she couldn't figure out how to see all the songs, so this is for you Vanessa ((fake name)). I hope this helps.):

1. Kill All Your Friends -- My Chemical Romance

2. Heart Shaped Box -- Nirvana

3. Wake Me Up When September Ends -- Green Day

4. Creep --Radiohead

5. The Bird And The Worm -- The Used

6. Soldier's Poem --Muse

7. All I Wanted --Paramore

8. Can't Get No (Satisfaction) -- The Rolling Stones

9. Kountry Gentlemen -- Family Force 5

10. Yellow Submarine -- The Beatles

By the way, I was going to post this last night, after my other post from last night, but it didn't work for some reason. When I tried to make the playlist again I completely forgot the music I had put on it other than the first song, so I ended up putting it on here now because I just now remembered the songs. Quite a bit of a hassle for a simple blog playlist but, hey, it's music and therefore it's worth it :)

COMMENTS ARE BETTER THAN MUSIC!! (Not true.)

Love,

Maria

That sleazy sexy beast at QuickTrip ;)

I’m pretty sure the title says it all. No? Well it differently whispers it all, yeah? A slow, seductive whisper. The kind of whisper only emitted from that greasy specimen of man (or woman, i guess, if you are a guy who's reading this...) who works at QuickTrip and always asks “is that all?” while shifting their eyebrows up and down, clearly proud of their ability to move their face so expertly. Yeah. That’s EXACTLY what my title is all about. Did you get that? Yes, no? Anyway! I am going off topic here.

Have you ever had a band that you absolutely adore and they won’t ever come to your area? Even worse, they will come to the state over but not your state (I don’t know if that’s actually a problem for some of you. For me it is. My parents don’t like me traveling with my friends without an adult, and almost all the adults I know, including them, would completely bring down the whole experience.). This happens to me constantly. EXAMPLE TIME! (<-- Imagine I sang that…because I did. I have a habit of saying ((and sometimes singing)) what I type out load.) A wonderful, and very famous, band named “Muse” is going to be coming close to my area very soon. Close to my area. Just close. They are coming to my state, but it’s a city that’s very far away from where I am, so (of course) I can’t go. This is especially irritating because I was going to take Jade to the concert for her birthday. BANG BANG! That was shot down right away. Another example is the artist “Regina Spektor.” She doesn’t even bother coming near me. Nope. She’s off and away from America. Thanks Regina! Great show, I’m glad you made sure I could see it!! Sarcastic? You bet!

Graveyards, cemeteries, and funeral burials; What do these things have in common (other than being generally splendid.)? I am going to be attending them on Thursday. Oh yes. I think we both know what’s happening here. Quite obviously I am letting you know ahead of time that I will be dead on Thursday. You smart person. Yes, it’s true. Life’s lost its luster (try saying THAT five times fast! I couldn’t do it.) for me. It’s going to be a white tie event and—This is not as funny as I meant it to be, so just forget about that dying thing. I’m going to procrastinate and die later ;) Thursday is the day that you go and mourn the dead or whatever. I don’t recall what the holiday is called at the moment, sorry. But the reason I am bringing up the fact that I will be hanging out in the cemetery is that I will be able to cross off an item on my bucket list: Read a book in a cemetery. Yes! Not only am I going to be chilling with a bunch of dead relatives but I will also be getting a thing on my bucket list done. MULTI-TASKING FTW! I’m just a little sad that Rosie can’t come with me though. Reading in a cemetery is on her list too, but, sadly, she is out of town. I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU ALL THAT 'CEMETERY DRIVE' BY MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE JUST CAME ON, WHICH I FIND HILARIOUSLY COINCIDENTAL.

Speaking of Rosie—I miss her. She has no idea how much I love her. (She doesn’t read my blog, so I’m going to get really detailed and sappy right about now. Feel free to skip to the “Comments are better than…” part of my blog. Seriously, this is a major “Dear Diary” moment coming on. You might puke of love and emotions. Turn back now!! You have been warned. ) Rosie has gone to ______ for two weeks, and I now realize just how much I depend on her. She is my survival at parties, she helps me through dinner with my family, she listens to me for hours on end when I have to talk about my life and how wonderful/awful it is, she encourages me in my artwork and stands up for what I have drawn/painted when my parents question it, she keeps my temper in check, she tells me what looks good and what looks bad on me and supports me when I try something new with my look, she lets me shower her with the music I listen to, she stops me from saying things at the wrong times, she takes me on “frapiccino/movie excursions” when we both need to just relax, she lets me come into her room at 3AM and tell her whatever is on my mind, she holds my world together. I miss her so much. It’s really pathetic actually. Ever since she left I have spent nearly every minute of every day in her room, wearing her clothes (mostly just because mine were dirty…), texting her short messages even though I know she can’t text back—that’s how bad I’ve got it. It’s so sad. She left me her laptop, which I am using right now, and I get on it the moment I wake up. Leaving me her laptop was a huge shock, actually. She doesn’t let anyone use her laptop, it’s her most sacred possession, and before she left she said I could use it as much as I wanted but no one else could. I’m not sure if she meant it to be so sweet a gesture, she probably didn’t think about it like that at all, but it means a lot to me. Tonight was the worst night I’ve had so far with missing her and all. I had a really bad day at work today (I’m not going to go into that though because I would want to get really detailed with you and it would end up being really long and, most likely, boring.), and majorly screwed up in my boss’ eyes—personally I think my decision was a good one—and then, after talking with my mom about my day, she told me that he was regretting hiring Casey (my coworker) and I. My mom told me that he wasn’t sure hiring teenagers was a good idea. This made my day all the worse. I got onto Facebook and got onto chat with Jade. She let me complain but halfway through my short version or the story she had to get off. That was it. I needed—correction, need—to talk with Rosie so bad. I seriously began to tear up. Life sucks without her, plain and simple. There is no substantial Rosie substitute in this world. She’s a one-of-a-kind sister and the very reason they came up with the saying “Best friends forever.” She is amazing and I love her. I wish she would come home quickly.

With that embarrassing paragraph typed out, I will be leaving you all now. Thank you for reading :]

COMMENTS ARE BETTER THAN MUSE

Love,

Maria

Sweet revenge, Harry Potter style :3

I am blogging here today because two things have happened that both made me very mad, so mad that I feel the need to share my madness with you...and a bit of my revenge too.

The first thing that completely pissed me off is that my best friend Jade’s sweet sixteen party is coming up next month. I am super excited about it and have a pretty kick-ass present for her which I had to connive with her mother about a little bit (A very very little bit. The only thing her mom has to do with it was I called her and just had her confirm that Jade would like what I chose. Lol.). Anyway, so she sent out a message telling the invited guests when the party was and all the things that come along with an invitation. Well, I recently got a job working at a ball park, and, as it turns out, the day of her party is one of my work days. I wasn’t too worried though because I figured I could fix something up with my boss. It’s a ball park after all. He could easily call one of my coworkers to fill in for me. My job’s not hard. Sadly, my mom didn’t see it this way. I talked to her about the party and she said that she would not let me miss work. I get off my work at 8:15, so she said I could go to her party after my work. But if I do that then I will efficiently miss all the fun things at the party! I was really annoyed with my mom at this point. She just wouldn't budge! I suggested my sister Rosie work in my place, because she works there too, but my mom said she wouldn’t allow that. And now I have to miss more than half of Jade’s party which I have been looking forward to for quite some time now. ARGH!!!

The next thing that happened today that made me suddenly want to blog was as follows: I went downstairs, chipper and singing (I was singing “Yellow Submarine,” in case you were wondering.). I was going to get a cookie. I had been watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (I’m actually going to talk about this later on in this blog, I think, so remember that I’m mentioning this…) online but the movie had to load a bit more and I thought, “Hey! Why don’t I get a cookie while I’m waiting?” And that’s why I went downstairs. When downstairs, I discovered that my parents had planned my dad’s secretary, Jamie (fake name with the same first letter as her real name, yada yada yada. You know the drill.), would come over for dinner with her daughter Catlin who is my little sister’s best friend. I was a little bummed out because I knew that I would then have to wait a little while to finish my movie; Whenever we have company it is mandatory to stay downstairs at all times and be “hospitable and conversational.” Bleh. Still, I was going to have a cookie so everything was still fantastic in the land of Yellow Submarines :) As I went on my way to the pantry to snatch myself a delicious cookie, my song transformed from a Beatles original to a Maria extravaganza.

♪We all live in a yellow submarine!

A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine!

Oh, we all live in a yellow submarine!

A yellow subma-rine!!

Oh! I am a'spinning

A'spinning, a'spinning!

Yeah, I am a’spinning! Woo hoo!

I’ll get myself a cookie! ♫

At the last line my mom interrupted my opera solo and said, “No! No cookie. We are about to eat dinner.” I thought this was a supremely stupid reason to keep me from my cookie. Just one was not going to ruin my appetite, not that I ever have one anyway (I am notorious for never being hungry, ever.). “But just one Oreo—” “What did we say?!!” my father interrupted me, being sure to sound acutely angry with me, as always. Having both my cookie dreams and my pride crushed from being dictated by my parents so fiercely, I was put off with them both. They just had to push it. My mom ordered me to set the table for dinner, a chore I resent among the worst of jobs simply because I ALWAYS have to set the table and no one else ever gets asked to. My dad stopped me halfway and yelled at me because apparently we were actually eating outside and the table outside was already set anyway. Then I had grumpily said, “Well I’m eating inside,” keeping my place at the kitchen table set. And that’s when he pushed the envelope and drew me over the edge. “No you are not! You are going to eat outside with us just like everyone else!” He then told me to get an extra chair for outside. Have you ever been to blaringly furious that you started to cry because you just couldn’t get your emotions out? I was at that point. Not only were they making me work and miss half of Jades party (Which is ridiculous because I know I could easily have my friend Casey fill in for me at work. He’s mad at me because I sort of stole his job, so I know he wouldn’t mind doing mine because it's his favorite.), but they were making me eat outside too! I absolutely HATE eating outdoors. No. Hate is not strong enough of a word. I loathe it, I abhor it, I am repelled by it, I despise and detest it; there is not one person in my family who does not know this. My father knew what he was doing. So I went outside and set up the extra chair, trying to hold back my stupid tears. Then I stormed up the stairs like the emotional teenage girl that I am, screaming, “I have to wash my hair!” to my too cheerful mother who was singing for me to stay down with her.

So those are the two reasons that have fueled my longing to blog right now and share my anger with all of you. I know you all have been furious with your parents at one point or another, so I know you will understand. It’s this kind of treatment and consideration for my feelings, though, that makes me even happier and prouder of my next point: Harry Potter. All my life I (my siblings as well) have been forbidden to read and/or watch the Harry Potter series. Needless to say, I have always felt a strong desire to read and watch them because I wasn't allowed. It wasn’t until I was about eight years old that I genuinely wanted to know the stories, though. At that age I had been up late past my bed time (which was 9, so it was probably around 10:30…maybe. I don’t know. I could be getting these times all wrong.) and I was watching ABC Family. They were playing the second Harry Potter movie ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.’ I had just turned on the tv so I didn’t know what was going on. I remember vividly though that the scene I was watching was the part where Harry is in the girls bathroom talking with Myrtle the ghost. At that age, it was the coolest movie I had ever seen. There was a ghost and she actually looked REAL! Holy cow, this was the best thing since they invented pop tarts!! (I really loved those when I was younger.) And then, while staring lovingly at the ghost girl on the screen who was currently moaning about someone throwing a book through her head (Ginny, she’s on to you!), my dad walked in. Crap. The tv was shut off, I was crying and grounded, he was livid, and I went to sleep dreaming about how unfair it was that I couldn’t see what happened next. Who had thrown the book at Myrtle? Why does she complain all the time? How did she die? What happens next?! Well, years later now, I said, “Screw it! I’m going to watch it anyway!” My older sister Rosie and I had both decided that we were going to read and watch the movies. She was going to read the books first, and I was going to watch the movies first. Mostly I wanted to watch the movies first because I STILL wanted to know what happened with Myrtle, but also because I have a wonderful little gift where it doesn’t matter if I watch the movie first or not, I still imagine the characters in the book as I want them to be. So there was no worry of the movies ruining the magic of J.K. Rowling's books. So here I am today, watching the most recent movie ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.’ My opinion of them is that they are all wonderful movies; except for the one I had seen at age eight (the second one). Ironically, I liked them all except for that particular movie. I find it funny, actually. I just don’t like that one because I feel that the graphics on the snake at the end were really pathetic and it sort of ruined the whole movie for me. But all of them are extraordinary and I can’t wait for my books to come in at the library :D This is all made even sweeter because now my unknown act of rebellion is basically an unknown act of revenge on them for not letting me go to Jade’s party. Ha ha ha. I win!

Well, that’s the end of this blog. I’ll talk with you guys soon, perhaps.

Comments are better than Boggarts (psh! As if! I just have to say that, even though they are supposed to be really frightening, I think Boggarts are just about the coolest creatures ever! Them…and Dementors. I just LOVE them.)

Love,

Maria

My day: A Blog by Maria

My day can be described in about four different adjectives and emotions. It was lovely, annoying, sleepy, and euphoric. Now, may I have permission to explain each of these? Why thank you, Kind Sir or Madame :)

I shall go in order of when each adjective presented itself to me.

Sleepy. I am tiered. Last night I never went to sleep because I had to stay up all night and burn CDs. Why did I have to burn CDs, you ask? Well, my library has a 10 CD limit and I had CDs that were going to be leaving the next day. Ah! So I had to stay up and burn this music so I might get more music. Because I got next to no sleep, I was exhausted all day today. Ugh. Not sleeping wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that I have insomnia. For those of you who don't know what insomnia is, it is a thing (I'm not sure if it would be correct to call it a disease or condition, so for now it's "a thing") where no matter how much you sleep, it's never sufficient enough to recharge your body. You sleep restlessly. You don't get a lot if sleep. Yada yada. You get the point. Well, because of my insomnia I get very little sleep on a regular basis, so losing my sleep last night was just the icing on the cake :/

Lovely. This is in my list because of Jade. Wow, you know what? I just realized I talk about Jade ALOT on my blog. Whoa. Dear me, I hope I'm not turning into some psycho in love stalker. (Jade, it's not true, I swear. ...Or is it? Dun Dun Duuuuun!) ANYWAY. So it was lovely because I got to hang out with Jade at school. I was in a bad mood because of my loss of sleep and everyone was annoying the crap out of me, but she must be immune to my cranky tendencies and, unknowingly, she kept we from killing a few people. Pat yourself on the back, dear Jade. Good job ;)

Annoying. As I just said, I was really annoyed with my classmates today. Three exactly. Who? Let me tell you... Wesley, an arrogant pig who has pride and condescension just oozing from his pores. April, a spoiled brat who thinks she knows everything. Alice, a bitter sore loser who blames everyone and everything--except herself. Get over it people!

Now let me go into more depth on why they annoyed me so. Wesley. Not much explanation needed for him. Wesley makes it a point to be a know-it-all (even though he’s really not as smart as he likes to believe himself to be.) And we all know how annoying someone is when they are condescending towards you. April gets on my nerves constantly, that is one of the reasons we aren’t friends anymore, at least not according to me. You can’t have a friendship with someone if they constantly annoy you. Well, today April must have been hanging around Wesley too much because she had caught to Condescending Flu too. For every single class she would tell the teacher that the reason her test score is so bad is because she just got back from her family vacation and, thus, hasn’t done her school in a while. So I comment and say that she could have studied while she was on her vacation. Then she turns to me with this cocky “I know how it is and you don’t” sort of air, and says, “No, Maria, I couldn’t. I was on vacation.” April draws out the last sentence, as if she were talking to a deaf five year old boy with an attention span as long as his pinky finger. Completely fed up with her attitude, I haughtily tell her, “Yes, you could have studied, April! You simply chose not to.” I said this as slow as she had, enunciating every syllable. She puffs a proud laugh and shakes her head at me. “Yes you can, April. Every single vacation I go on I bring all of my school work AND get it done AND enjoy my vacation!” GOOD LORD!! There isn’t much I need to explain on Alice. The description says it all. Our school had organized a debate and Alice was my debating partner. I did not care whether I won or lost, which was good because we ended up losing (lol.). Alice, on the other hand, is extremely competitive and completely forgot her senses once we lost and were taken from the competition. She threw an absolute fit. Next thing I know, I’ve been sitting with Alice for an hour listening to her tell me in detail everything that I did wrong. And today, she decided to complain to the teacher about the whole thing. She was saying things like "the whole thing was a stupid idea," "the judges were unqualified and completely idiotic," "her partner, me, was the most horrid thing to walk the earth" (I was right next to her, by the way) and so on an so forth. GET OVER YOURSELF!

Euphoric. This made its way into my day in a very simple manner, yet it was wonderful. What made my day euphoric was that a miracle happened: I aced my Science quiz! Science is my second worst subject (next to math) so this was wonderful. I am so proud of myself. This was really unexpected too because I didn’t even read the thing the test was on. OH HAPPY DAY! I’M A GENIUS!!

Comments are better than finding out you’re a secret genius :)

Love,

Maria