Today, the strange, tappy extensions of the things on the end of my arms shall beat out the misadventures of a man who has overly internalized philosophical quandries several times a day, who is increasingly angry and bitter, who just barely recognizes the connected implications of not feeling full familiarity with your own voice and the level of insulation you provide in your mind between the trivial parts of your everyday activities, habits, and flaws, and your more personal moments, who is disturbingly enough nostalgic for different periods of time all at once despite being nostalgic for times before all but the earliest of these times and recalling still being nostalgic for these earlier times in days long past, who has dreams that he wishes he could relive a million times over, or as you know him, me. I am back in a good amount of black, folks, and I warn ye, steel thine selves for an onslaught of utterly bitter postings in the following days that shall surely be quick to sully thine soul with fires of doubt and evil thoughts within the following days. Not to mention, mine comrades in this, the precipitous art of understanding what little thought can be stretched into a sharing of feeling and life, the ability to switch between the ways I write in faster than thine great-aunt Gilda was hastened to the hospital beds upon a most mortifying discovery of a horrendous pox upon her innards. Uhuh, boys, I's plungin' my head into the BZP blog community and I'm keeping it in there without coming up for air. Don't you love it when I start off introducing the subject of the blog entry, only to deviate into sentences and sentences of thinking you can't quite follow?

Alright... Yesterday was my sister's tenth birthday, which of course is GREAT. It also means I turn fourteen the next Friday, which, despite compounding my usual disturbingly early and uncommon fears about my mortality and my longing for various moments in the past, is a wonderful thing. However, my sister's day at elementary school yesterday sucked. Nobody, none of the numerous classmates who she had known for years or her friends, or her acquaintances from previous years, remembered it was her birthday, and nobody at all said 'Happy birthday' to her until her birthday was mentioned in the announcements. And this is my sister, who, from what I can tell, most people that she interacts with daily know well. The common information exchanges that precede the eventual familiarity with an elementary-school classmate always includes birth dates. And she had six inches of her hair cut for something called Locks of Love, a charity organization, and her friends derided her for it and weren't supportive of her choice... They were saying things like 'Oh my god, what did you do to your hair?!' 'Your hair looks awful!' 'I liked your hair when it was longer!' and similar disgustingly shallow things. Their insensitive remarks demotivated her to the point that she didn't even try to point out that she did it for charity. She came home crying. That is AWFUL... My sister is very connected to all of her friends. They make up her social network, they are the people her age that she trusts and likes. My sister came home extremely happy about her haircut on Thursday. And then her friends launch a barrage of comments denigrating her for it. An unexpected, emotionally devastating attack. I love my little sister, and to hear about her friends (who mean tons to her) doing this to her, and to hear about what a bad day she had at school, I was horrified. I've suffered this sort of betrayal myself, and it hurts deeply. I can't understand how my sister's friends could make such a big deal over hair, though, since hair grows back fast. My sister took it in stride, though.

Later that evening, we went to the Texas Roadhouse for dinner, with two of my sister's friends that she doesn't see at school (and thus, not among the ones who got all hive-mindy and belittled her), and though I enjoyed being with my family, and seeing my sister cheer up, I was uncomfortable with all the noise and the crowdedness... My sister embarassed me, but hey, birthday license. She had a lot of fun. I can't say the same. My steak was awful. Never go to Texas Roadhouse for steak, but unfortunately, due to the place's Southern theme, it's their main focus. Besides all the peanuts they have everywhere in the restaurant. So therefore, any alternative dishes I could have chosen would have been woefully prepared, as I know from experience. And they play country all the time. My father and I, who had driven to the restaurant separately (because my mom was picking up my sister's two friends), left early, because we both didn't like the place.

Also, a bunch of books by John Stark Bellamy II arrived, which my mom ordered because he's a Cleveland historian, and after picking up one of his books on Cleveland crimes and disasters at the Cleveland airport on the way home from a visit to my mom's side of the family in August, I developed an interest in his work. I have a great interest in history, and I love reading up on it. My mom's interested in history, too. She's done historical work for our church and our town. Now, John Stark Bellamy's work is engrossing. The guy delved deeply into Cleveland history, and there's enough material that he's produced numerous thick books full of it.

Oh, and I've settled into semi-routines at school. More on school soon.

Today, my sister and I went out to breakfast with our dad. I was kind of irritated there, because my sister couldn't stop talking, and other factors contributed to a growing level of frustration. However, the breakfast itself rocked. We drove on up to Salem, New Hampshire, to go look for video games for our new Wii. Oh yeah, we have a Wii. It is so much fun that its every inch of content is filled with victory. So, we stopped at Best Buy first. My sister chose Mario Party 8, and I chose Super Paper Mario. I also picked up an Oingo Boingo 'Best-of' album, since I'd been meaning to get an Oingo Boingo album for ages, and I got the White Zombie CD Astro Creep 2000. Oh, man... So, the Best Buy was our last stop. We joked and talked and stuff on our way home, and it was a pleasant trip.

After we got home, I started listening to my Oingo Boing album. I love the songs on it... "Just Another Day" and "Private Life" are powerful, emotional songs... Anyways, soon after, my sister convinced me to join in for a game of Mario Party 8. Not knowing how long it would last, I had her choose the 15-turn version, on the Battle Royale setting of the normal Party game. I played as Luigi, and while it was fun, oh so fun, it was a little frustrating. The minigames could be ridiculous. However, most of them ROCKED TO THE EXTREMENESSES TRICEFOLD WITH A MUFFIN ON TOP. Wii Sports is cool, but it gets annoying after a while. Have you tried Wii boxing, or the training setting for Wii boxing, for that matter? The sensor bar, no matter what position, will repeatedly fail miserably to detect punches and thrusts and whatnot. Our mother observed my sister and I thrusting both the Wii Nunchuk and the Wiimote in the sensor's direction, as we jumped up and down furiously, trying to get the sensor bar to notice just ONE throw. She said it was hilarious. However, this does nothing to reduce the not-very-fun-ness that is Wii Sports after continual attempts at even a facsimile of real entertainment, once the novelty fades from it. Mario Party 8, however, is fantastic. WOOP WOOP MUCH THE ROCKAGES FOR NINTENDO. However, the sound on our Wii doesn't work, and we can't figure out why... But hey, my day's pretty much been full of good events.

Now, for those of you wondering what could possibly be blasphemed onto this series of tubes the Internet next, let me give you a sneak peek: I will be ranting about school, I will be ranting about teachers. I will be talking about stupid people on the internet. There will be mention of media sleep deprivation commercial submersion mechanisms. Steel yourselves for a detailed vision of a future chock full of 'censorship in the name of family values'. Something GMan this way comes, indeed...