Capped Column Snowflake, Magnified by Electron Microscope

This is absolutely astounding! Amazing!

No, a capped column snowflake has nothing to do with fiction writing, and neither does the agave cactus:



















I like how the cactus is planted in a hole in the floor. If I made a hole in the floor, someone would get mad and make me pay for the damages.

Also note that I changed my colors from a sissy pink to some kind of burnt orange color. I am very fond of a burnt orange color. If you are one of those rare people who do not like the burnt orange color, do not be alarmed; I will probably change the burnt orange color to something else in a couple of weeks. Maybe a nice blue. Blue is always good.

Masterpieces.

Masterpieces were created today.

No writing. My writing is not masterpieces (this is not even correct grammar; screw grammar!)

Other endeavors, however, are masterpieces.

Masterpiece 1= Exquisite meal.

Exquisite salad (spinach, iceberg and romaine lettuce; cottage cheese; tumeric, coriander, cardamon); exquisite soup (potatoes; jalepenos; corn; milk; cilantro; pepper; chili powder; flavored with Cholula); exquisite bread (toasted French bread; unsalted butter); exquisite Ole (tequila, Kahlua, confectioner's sugar; cream); exquisite ice cream (Breyer's Bubble Yum Bubble Gum Ice Cream; Breyer's A&W Root Beer Float Ice Cream).

[Explanation: No, not gourmet dinner, but a collection a wonderful things. Soup a bit spicy; perhaps too much jalepeno. A light dinner, perfect for the lighter appetite. Reminiscent of Mexico.]

Masterpiece 2= Painting 1
11x14 canvas. Dark chocolate, gold, white acrylic paints. A symphony of sorts.

Masterpiece 3= Painting 2.
11x14 canvas. Lavender, yellow, white acrylic paints. Looks mathematical.

Masterpiece 4= Painting 3.
11x14 canvas. Blue, red, coral, lavender acrylic paints. Perhaps a sandstorm.

Masterpiece 5= Painting 4.
8x10 canvas. Begun early autumn 2006. Blue, purple, silver acrylic paints. Fish? Scales? Alien? Vase?

Today was productive. Fun. Tomorrow may be the same.

Entry 6: Crap I read

I read some crap today. It was a story called "Cat People" by Ann Beattie. Being a cat person, I thought this story would be excellent. However, it was not. It did not seem real at all.

First of all, there was a cat who got on these old people's nerves, so they chased it out of the house and started throwing stuff at it. Stuff like fruit. The cat went into the neighbor's yard, where a hot model was floating in the pool on an inflatable raft. The cat accidently jumped into the pool, and the model's bikini top was ripped, exposing her breasts. Then, the other neighbor's alarm went off, so the police had to come turn it off. Then, somehow a parrot that can count to 15 escapes from its cage. Then the police think that they are shooting a porn movie, because the model is topless now.

Then, the old lady comes and tells the narrator to take a kitten. The old husband drowned his four...the old lady was trying to give her four away.

The whole story seemed unreal. I am now disappointed.

Entry 5: Stuff I have read, stuff I have written, insomina and ADD (I need vitamins!)

It is Friday morning. I sit here looking at the computer. I am tired. I am fatigued. My back is cramping up. I need to sleep.

But first let me update you on what is going on in my life right now. Well...nothing much. Nothing is really happening in my life. It is at a standstill.

Wow. That was easy.

Next topic: some stuff I have recently read. I tried to read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," but only got about five minutes into it before I realized that it was not as interesting as fiction.

I saw a random book laying around my room. It had some stories in it. I read "Natasha" by David Bezmozgis. It was about a stoner boy and his cousin Natasha, who was from Russia. They had sex. She was only 14. She knew some pretty crazy sex tricks. It was a great story. Great.

I read "Until Gwen" by Dennis Lehane. It was about a dude who gets picked up from prison by his father, who is like a criminal and scam artist guy. The father had killed the dude's girlfriend, Gwen. The father takes the dude out to the place where the body was buried and tries to kill the dude. The dude had put superglue in his father's gun, though, so it didn't fire. The dude whipped out a knife and made his father dig into the grave, using his hands. The body was there. Then the dude kills his father with a shovel and buries the bodies and goes off. It was crazy. It was crazy good.

Hmm...reading is a great activity...a great past time. When I am old, I am going to sit in a chair and read. I will have a glass of milk and a bowl of grapes. Grapes are good. They contain antioxidants.

I enjoyed reading Raymond Carver. So simple. So moving and touching. So genius. I liked the one about the blind guy who smokes pot for the first time with the narrator.

I enjoyed Josip Novakovich. My favorite story was "Night Guests." I also liked "Spleen" and "The Stamp." Neighbors was good, but it got sort of boring after a while. It's strange that he almost dies in the end.

Well, let me tell you about the story I wrote for class this week. It is called "They All Looked the Same." I didn't know what to call it, so I picked out a line from the last part. It could be philosophical or something. The collective "we" does not include good people like "Juan." The world sucks now. You can't go anywhere. The cops will even beat you down with clubs and sic their dogs upon you. I don't know why I always right from the 1st person. I am not like the narrator. I am not sexually indescriminate. If a building were burning, I'd be the first one in. I got your back.

I only started writing it Monday night, sometime late in the night because one of my friends was visiting from Colorado and my day was spent doing other stuff. Then I completed it little by little on Tuesday and Wednesday night. I think I have insomnia, as you probably have heard many a time. I also think that I have ADD. There is no "H" in the ADD for me because I am not hyperactive. I am just attention deficit.

Just for you, I will report some things here, things that I found I wikipedia.com. Check out the site here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhd

I exemplify many of the symptoms of ADD. Here they are, with the numberings from the site, and with small explanations:


2. Trouble keeping attention focused during play or tasks (It takes me like four hours to complete a simple assignment because there are so many other things that look fun to do)

4. Failure to follow instructions or finish tasks (It takes me like three months to get something done, like schedule something with someone. It takes me like three weeks to do simple tasks)

6. Frequently losing items required to facilitate tasks or activities, such as school supplies (I always lose my fucking pens. Where the fuck do they go? Also, when I am rushing to go somewhere, I always pick up my keys but then lose them while I look for something else)

7. Excessive distractibility (see number 2)

8. Forgetfulness (see number 6)

9. Procrastination, inability to begin an activity (I only decided to start writing my first story after class last Friday. I only tried starting my rhetoric paper tonight, when it is due tomorrow at noon)

13. Easily frustrated (Rhetoric is not my forte. After many attempts, I decided to scrap the paper. I might withdraw from the course and take linguistics in the fall instead. Rhetoric is bad news, let me tell you!)

14. Easily distracted (see number 2)

Conclusion:

As is evident, I have many of the symptoms of ADD. It sort of sucks. I have insomnia and ADD. Plus, I am allergic to that stuff they use to dilate your pupils. it is called tropticamide or something like that. At the eye doctor, they put that stuff in my eyes and then when I stood up five minutes later, I heard a buzz in my ears that got really, really loud, and then my vision started going. I was sweating muchas, so then I had to sit in a chair and prop my legs up. They gave me a coke. Some little kid came in to get his first pair of glasses and saw me sitting in the chair. He was scared then, and begged his mom to take him home. It was strange. Strange, indeed.

Well, I guess I am going to try to go to bed. I read something about how you need to sleep between the hours of 10 and 2. For some kind of physiological reason. I need to stay strong.

That reminds me, I need to go to the store and get some vitamins tomorrow.

Picture.

Entry 4: Insomnia

After a week of not being able to fall asleep until about 3 o'clock at night, I have come to the conclusion that I am afflicted with insomnia. I am tired, let me tell you, but I can't go to sleep. Since I have all this extra time on my hands, I sit around and do things that I consider to be "time-wasting" activities, such as playing Tetris for an hour and a half straight.

And then you ask a question:

"How, Charles, how does this pointless rambling concern fiction writing? Wasn't it on Friday in class when you were rebuked for including pointless things in your blog?"

And then I mumble out an answer:

"Yes, indeed, but I could not restrain myself from typing this fourth entry, which no one will probably read, because the symptoms of insomnia cause my thoughts to scatter around like coffee grounds on the linoleum, thoughts which cannot be contained and therefore must be let out in some method; in this case, the blog is the innocent victim upon which I direct my late night ravings."

Now, you ask:

"Are you going to stop writing these pointless entries? Not only are these incoherent posts annoying, but they waste space on the internet."

To which I reply:

"The internet has no limit. It is limitless. It has no capacity. It is not like a certain Italian restaurant in Helena, Montana, a restaurant that displays a gaudy red sign in its entrance stating "capacity 33." The interent is not a fucking equation, not like:

which I do not understand but is nonetheless exciting to look at, as it is a piece of art. Like a piece of modern art with a twist of lemon."


And you retort:

"This is a bunch of crap. Your argument lacks structure...it lacks sense! What the hell is wrong with you?"

And I explain:

"Well, I am greatly effected by insomina. And, it does apply to writing, for if I wrote something late in the night, it would probably exemplify similar characteristics as my previous answers to your questions, creating a foundation for a piece of writing that will look like a decrepit old man. But watch out, because this old man has been reported to use his cane as a weapon."

Entry 3: The Third Post

Perhaps you already know, but one of my lucky numbers is three. Therefore I have decided that it would be in my best interest to post an additional post tonight, making for a total of three (3) posts in one sitting. Since this is my lucky number, I believe that I will be extra lucky today (Thursday). Yesterday was Valentine's Day...and I wasn't lucky. I should have posted this last night. Again, if you have read this far, you deserve a small amount of money for your effort.

Entry 2: Third Person

You ask:

Why is Charles up so late when he has to get up at 7:00?

I answer:

Charles was going to go to bed a couple of hours ago, but then he decided to watch a movie and eat popcorn. Then he decided to plug in the ol' gameboy from way back when and play tetris. Charles chose to play the "type B" game, on level 9, on the other thing 6". Charles played very excellently, and there was music from Tchikovsky's Nutcracker and then a rocket ship that launched, then the word "congratulations" came across the screen. Charles must have done well. Charles must have done well.

You ask:

Why is Charles talking in third person?

I answer:

Why the hell not. Why do you talk in first person? Do you really want to talk in first person? Do you think so highly of yourself that you always have to be first?

Entry 1: The Blog is Created

"The Blog" was created at 17:34 on the 13th of February 2007. If you are not color blind like my friend Jeff, you have probably noticed that pink is the background color of my Blog. Pink, mind you, is the color of the True Playa. The color of a Flamingo. The color of the sky right before dawn.

Perhaps you have observed that this message was posted almost twenty minutes after the conception of this Blog. The delay in time can be easily explained. I always get hungry around this time, so my brother yelled at me from the other room to tell me that we were going to order pizza. The coupons for Dominoes expired two months ago, so we had to settle with Pizza Hut. I used to work at Pizza Hut a couple years ago, so I was not really excited about the pizza that we ordered. But it is all good. I will get over it.

Well. This was more boring than I thought it would be. I highly doubt that anyone will actually read this Blog. I highly doubt that anyone has read thus far. If you have read everything I have written, you deserve to be rewarded with a small amount of money.