Cheerios suddenly hold more appeal for me than they should. . .

I haven't posted for the last 11 days. What have I been doing, you ask? 

Honest Gabi: Dude, nobody cares. 

Teenage Gabi: I spent a lot of time discussing the futility of life with my depressing conversation buddy. Then I cried bitter tears of regret, anger, and lack of faith in the human race.

ADHD Gabi: How can tears be made up of a lack of faith? How can tears be made up of regret? HOW CAN TEARS BE MADE OUT OF CHOCOLATE MILK? 

Scholarly Gabi: I wonder if you could transplant mammary glands for tear ducts. You'd have to insert a sac to hold the chocolate flavouring, too.

Teenage Gabi: My tears weren't chocolate, dumbass. My tears were regret, anger, and a lack of faith in the human race.

Girly Gabi: You didn't actually cry, you just gave me really red eyes. Ugly red eyes. Like, how selfish could you be?

Nice Gabi: I think that everyone just needs a big hug. 

ADHD Gabi: I like chocolate. Can I have that instead of a hug, or maybe some marshmallows?

Hippy Gabi: Marshmallows have gelatin in them. That's derived from dead animals.

ADHD Gabi: I don't like dead puppies. I still like chocolate, though, and oranges, and chocolate oranges!

Teenage Gabi: If it was dark chocolate it could be like the depths of my soul. 

Normal Person Gabi: SHUT UP ABOUT THE DEPTHS OF YOUR SOUL. Like, you aren't even a large part of Gabi as a Whole, but look at all of the dialog you get! Then look at me. I'm normal, and regular.

ADHD Gabi: Teehee. You said regular!

Normal Person Gabi: Yes. Go away. Anyway, I make up this gigantic part of Gabi, and look at the number of lines I get! 

Nice Gabi: Well, would you like to recap the last 11 days?

Normal Person Gabi: Oh! Well, sure! School finished, and then - 

Overachiever Gabi: You bombed an exam. You forgot that part. 

Scholarly Gabi: I'LL NEVER GET TO BE AN ASTROPHYSICIST!

Nice Gabi: It's okay, sweetie. 

Girly Gabi: Astrophysicists never get hot guys!

Normal Person Gabi: Can I continue? I had some social plans, went up to the cottage with my best friend, and that's about it.

Honest Gabi: That was so freaking boring. You need us to do some talking, or the readers will fall asleep.

ADHD Gabi: YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE PILLOW FORT*. IT WAS SO COOL. AND THE COOKIE DOUGH.

Honest Gabi: The cookie dough was gross, and you probably gained three pounds. 

Girly Gabi: Eeewww.

Coach Gabi: THIS IS WHY YOU NEED ME AROUND MORE, SEE? GET DOWN AND GIVE ME 100!

ADHD Gabi: I forgot how much I like trampolines.

*So our fort actually completely pwned any of the pansy forts in the link, although considering the large age difference between the builders it may be excused.

* * * * *

Anyway, I'm sorry for the big gaps between my posts lately, but get ready for a larger one.

I'll be leaving for overnight camp in a couple of days, and will be gone for the next two months. On my return, I will be mystified by the way in which a cursor moves when the mouse is moved. 

Bye for now!

-Gabi

P.S. If I'm not back by September, I was probably eaten by mosquitoes, bears, or bitchy girls. Don't worry about me.

This post ranges from wave-particle duality to the blatant abuse of meme generators.

I was walking towards a subway station a couple of weeks ago, or maybe away from a subway station, but that's inconsequential. The weather was perfect, and the description will sound clichéd, but it was sunny with a cool breeze, the right number of fluffy clouds in the sky, and a you-won't-get-sweaty-but-you-should-still-wear-shorts kind of temperature.  


I was strolling in a way that's overused in literature but not used enough in real life. Then I saw a young woman walking around, holding a parasol. This is amazing enough on its own. Of course, this woman must have been even more amazing than that, because this was a rainbow parasol. 


Accessories like that always fascinate me. Parasols especially fascinate me for two reasons.


Poetic Gabi is reminded of something that probably has a fancy word to describe it. I'll just call it elegance.


Nerdy Gabi likes that they work like umbrellas except with light, and anything that can work with something that behaves like particles but isn't - I just found out that that's called wave-particle duality - is pretty awesome. Even though anything visible can manipulate light, they call attention to it. 


The fact that the parasol was colourful fascinated me just as much. It reminded me of those boxes of Crayola crayons with 64 colours and those built in sharpeners that were always so exciting. 


Anyway, when I saw Parasol Lady, I stopped in my tracks to stare at her creepily. 


I think I should stop writing now, or I will get weirder, and that wouldn't be good.

This really, really isn't funny. I should get more sleep, or less sleep, or something.


-Gabi


P.S. I got a guitar case for my beat up and probably more than secondhand guitar. Thais helped me name the guitar Ricardo and the case Stevie. I am hoping that this will make me 100 times sexier. Ha. 

Secret: I only fill in this box after I've written my posts.

I've realized that sitting at the computer for the sole purpose of writing a blog post does not work for me. I have to actually want to write. I don't necessarily have to have a fully formed idea when I start, though. Most of my interesting posts don't.


Some of my fully formed ideas really don't work out well. These are all posts that have been sitting in my drafts or would be if I had been around a keyboard at the right times.


I have/do want(ed) to write about:


1. Peanut butter filled pretzels. Every time I eat them I immediately think of how blatantly American they are. Then I stare at their guts for awhile to figure out how they got the peanut butter inside.

2. The sarcastic brilliance of Let Me Google That For You. I'd love to be that passive aggressive, but multiple inner Gabrielles yell at me for how inefficient that particular brand of aggressiveness is.

3. The Orthodox Jewish community. I think about where I want to stand in this community almost as often as I think about -
Scholarly Gabi: Epistemology, right?


Teenage Gabi: The futility of life.


Musical Gabi: ♫ musiiiic! ♫


Coach Gabi: My core muscles.


Girly Gabi: Cute guys!


Uh, sure. 

Realistic Gabi: Girly Gabi was right on that one. You suck.

Anywhoooooodle. I feel like that particular topic will be too dry to go on about without frequent gags like that, and Teenage Gabi would be unhappy about that breach of her seriousness.

4. My lovely neighbour, my wonderful best friend, and I wrote an article called Your Vagina and You the other day. It's a bit, um, not suitable for my current audience. Or anyone, really. I think that Jessica (who I still have not actually spoken to. Thais tells me I should. IpromiseI'monlysortofastalker.) and Lola would have enjoyed it. Speaking of those two, check out their blogs!




So do you see how this post was really about nothing? Mostly just an excuse to ramble and practise my writing.


I'm going to go change my browser language to English (UK) now, because it keeps underlining my words in red squiggles.


-Gabi

My blog's carbon neutral now! :D

By following links on other peoples' (much better) blogs, I found out about this awesome initiative. This organization, the Arbor Day Foundation, is planting trees to carbon neutralize blogs. I'm trying to figure out how they're awesome enough to do this, and I intend to ask them in the e-mail I'll be sending them shortly. 

Also, I get a pretty icon!

I love this initiative because the environment is really important to me, and nature's always been a part of my life. 

My family used to drive up to The Cottage every weekend. (Canadians say The Cottage to refer to any cottages at all. This particular The Cottage belongs to my grandparents.) I can remember being woken up as a little kid by birds chirping and the lake washing back and forth, and everything smelling like life. 

My grandfather (or Zaidy) then made me hot chocolate, served with some coffee snuck snook sneaked in and a wink, while my grandmother (Bubby) fussed over me like a true Jewish grandmother. I usually had eggs or pancakes.

Then I went outside and looked at things, often with Zaidy. Zaidy would show me trembling aspens, and tent caterpillars, and we'd make maple syrup, and look at birds' nests.

The nest of one particular bird left a particularly large impression on me.

A ladder was perched on the side of the work shed. 

"This is a robin's nest, Gabrielle, and there are eggs in it, ready to hatch," he said, "You can look inside but be careful not to touch anything."

So I climbed the ladder, my grandfather's hands supporting me. Perched precariously, I peered inside the nest. There were beautiful, wonderful eggs, each holding a tiny little avian life inside. They were the colour of the sky, mottled with white and tiny flecks of brown here and there.

I slipped.

I reached out to grasp something.

The nest.

The eggs shattered into a bloody mess. 

I cried.

This is kind of funny, seeing as I still have next to no coordination. I should really laugh in retrospect. But those eggs. They were such a perfect shade of blue.

This post has been more serious and, in all likelihood, more boring than my usual posts, but I have an actual message here.

Go for a hike. Look out for fairies. 

Stop to smell the roses. If all that's left is concrete, plant flowers yourself.

Look at a tree for a while. There's a sort of poetry in those things.

There's way more you can do, of course. Do at least that. Feeling close to nature is important.

With every generation we get further from our roots, further from our ancestors who ran around in loincloths and ululated and stuff. Yeah, the loincloths weren't that pretty. But their forests, prairies, and jungles? The most beautiful things in the world. 

My vampiric skin is going to die from the sun, but I am going to work outside.

I think that bad colds are one of the most wretched things ever. I've been walking around the house with glazed eyes and a tissue box acting as an extension of myself.


The problem with colds is that they aren't quite bad enough to miss anything important for without sounding like a half-arsed excuse. Even internal Overachiever Gabi doesn't like it, which is frustrating enough.


Body: My head hurds, and my nose is sduffy. Also, I dond thik thad my brain is functioning pwoperly.


Overachiever Gabi: Shut up. Deal with it. Drop and give me twenty.


Body: Bud. . . everyding. Id all hurds.


Realistic Gabi: Seriously, Overachiever. We're supposed to be in pain here.


Body: Yes. Let me get fat.


Scholarly Gabi: To get clinically overweight you would need to have a body mass index in the 85th percentile or above. That would mean you would have to have a net gain of calories. If you would like to do it in a week, you would need to have the right amount of calories, that is to say, two thousand six hundred elevendy twelve -- I mean, 2 and 5-- NO WAIT. BANANASMONKEYSDUCKS ERROR


ERROR


ERROR


ERROR


ADHD Gabi: OMIGOSH SHE'S DEAD?! WHAT?!


Musical Gabi: ♫Dingdong the witch is dead!♫


Nice Gabi: This isn't the right time for singing, darling.


Body: I feel a sneeze coming. Id's coming. Gedd me a dissue. ACHOOOO!


ADHD Gabi: Your boogers look funny. Kind of like lemurs. REMEMBER ZABOOMAFOO?


Musical Gabi: ♫ME AND YOU AND ZOBOOMAFOOOOO♫


Teenager Gabi: I've been trying to feel sorry for myself over here. Go away. And can I give ADHD Gabi some Ritalin? Please?


Girly Gabi: Can I join you? Sniffling is so, like, unattractive.


Overachiever Gabi: Will somebody please resuscitate Scholarly Gabi? We have some math work that needs to be done.


Coach Gabi: YES. I KNOW CPR. I ALSO LIKE TO IMAGINE THAT I CAN LIFT CARS OVER MY HEAD. BODY, GO LIFT WEIGHTS.


Body: I'm. Frigging. Sick.


ADHD Gabi: I like waffles. I had some waffles with ice cream on them last night. And sprinkles. At a bar mitzvah. Isn't it funny when old people dance? I like flowers.


Scholarly Gabi: I'm surprised at how interestingly you managed to leap from thought to thought.


Nice Gabi: She's alive!


Motherly Gabi: Let's just give her some chicken soup and she'll perk right up.


Hippie Gabi: I'm a vegetarian.


Body: Can I go do sleep dow?






     Anyway, that's my brain. I think I'm going to roll with Overachiever Gabi for a while and try to get some work done.




 But first, PHOTOS!


I took this picture at the park near my house. I think that whoever did this is really awesome, but needs to learn how to spell Chewbacca.

And this person's house made me really happy. It feels magical, which is too rare in cities. I want a magical house one day.

<3 Gabi

Despite what the preview might show you, this totally isn't an erotica. *looks uncomfortable*

I leaned over, biting my lip and almost holding my breath. My hands worked as I tried to manoeuvre in the right ways to get full access to the darker parts of my subject. The girl beside me looked at me, lips turned up in a smile. 

"You're good at stripping, right?" 

"Yes, actually. But you should probably take care of attaching stuff while I'm doing that."

After a few twists and turns and manipulations, we locked eyes. 

"Almost there. . ."

"Yes!" 

There was a dazzling burst of light. 

I was wiring a circuit, what did you think? 

Whilst trying to twist two wires together inside a box and failing miserably, I was asked if I could switch to stripping the plastic coating off of some wires, because I'm a good stripper, while she attached the light bulbs to each other. Then we stuck on the battery, and the light bulbs turned on. 

We only realized the hidden depths of our interactions afterwards. 

A second conversation with a guy who's kind of a dick phallus.

Him: (referring to another kid, joking) So, Gabi, do you think I should kill him?

Me: Depends on the weapon. You need to optimize the amount of pain experienced by your victim in the process.

Him: O.o Okay. . . 

Me: You see, it has to be painful enough for them to really suffer as they slowly die, but not too painful, because you need to be able to justify yourself in court.

Him: O.o

Me: You have to be careful when taking vengeance on people!

Everyone else in the room: O.o

Me: Nobody gets my sense of humour. I understand!

After these two snippets, I feel like I should be writing nerdy sadomasochist erotica or something.

I can do terrible, erotic things to you with my erlenmeyer flask and Geiger Müller counter, b*tch. 

Or maybe I should never, ever do that.

******************************************************************

On another less creepy note, happy Towel Day! It's a day in honour of Douglas Adams, who was brilliant. He has also greatly contributed to those funny post titles I sometimes have, the ones in quotation marks that I'm not superhuman enough to come up with.

******************************************************************

Question:

Where do animals go when it pours, on those days where every nook and cranny is filled with rainwater? I've been told that the answer lies in Bambi, but as I was not subjected to that in my Disneyless childhood, I'd prefer to keep avoiding dying deer. 

-Gabi

I was a weird kid.

Today my class went on a field trip to my city's excellent science centre. It brought back memories.


You see, being the child I was, I spent a lot of time in that building. It was the coolest place in the world. When I couldn't fall asleep as a kid, my mom told me to imagine that I was sleeping in a huge fluffy yellow bed in the middle of the science centre amongst model tornadoes, the miniature rainforest, and the freaking awesome bat cave.


The science centre was home to a lot of my firsts.

• First purchase bought with my own money (a pocket sized puzzle for $1.99)
• First time getting lost (I was having fun in the physics area while my parents checked every corner of the Human Body section possible)
• First really bad word. 

Wait, what? Bad words at the science centre? The story goes like this:


One day, we went on a family outing to - where else? - my childhood's third most prominent landmark. (The most prominent was the Jewish Community Centre, the second the hill at my park that apparently resembled the hill in Teletubbies.) There was a temporary exhibit showing at the museum about the five senses. 4 year old me walked into the exhibition hall, looking something like this:

As Young Me without any pupils attested to in her thought bubble, the giant thing to throw my voice across the room to my brother was exactly what it sounds like. It was large, and yellow, and funnel shaped, and there was another identical one across the room. 

We soon got to the lovely pastime of rhyming nonsense words by changing the consonant sound up in words with the same endings. Then, the fateful moment. We arrived at the ending 'uck'. 

"DUCK!"

"GLUCK!"

"CHUCK!"

"MUCK!"

"BUCK!"

...

"F*CK!"

I like to imagine that the entire room went silent at the sight of a young toddler in ugly fleece clothing dropping the F-bomb in the middle of a haven of science. Mom and Dad certainly did. 

On our rushed way out of the science centre, my parents explained to me that I had said a bad, bad, word. I asked them what it meant.

"Oh, really bad things. Even I don't really know what it means. Just don't use it, sweetie."

I proceeded to whisper it to my entire senior-kindergarten class the next day, and was the coolest kid on the playground for an entire week. 

Moral of the story? If you're going to swear in public, do it as a young child. Then it only embarrasses your parents.

-Gabi

PS: I have, in my digestive system right now, a tomato from a tomato plant grown by NASA for studying Mars. NASA. MARS. *nerdgasm*