Power of the Pen

If you could, please take a moment to wish my fabulous cousin Katie good luck on her Power of the Pen try-outs tomorrow-- I will attempt to hide my jealousy that I am no longer the best writer in the family!

For those of you who aren't from 'round these parts (although Power of the Pen might be a national thing? But I don't know, because I got my ass kicked at the state level, so I didn't really progress much beyond that), Power of the Pen is a writing competition open to seventh and eighth graders, in which the writers have a limited amount of time to write a short piece based on a prompt given at the start of the session.

My own Power of the Pen story is a tragic one-- in seventh grade, I was felled the evening before the local round of competition by a vicious stomach flu that left me unable to compete. On a side note, that same night I ate a homemade pizza, and, convinced that it had poisoned me and robbed me of my one chance to finally kick ass at a (admittedly nerdily academic) team "sport," I swore off pizza for the next four years.

In the eighth grade I made it to the aforementioned state level, only to be positively crushed, leaving me embittered. Oh, I still wrote-- most famously, I went on to complete the infamous John Boston novel, quite possibly The Worst Novel Ever Written By Anyone, Ever-- but it wasn't really until college that my urge to use writing as a form of ass-kicking-ness returned.

Based on the story that Katie read me tonight, though, I have no doubts that, if such a thing exists, she will make it to the nationals. And I will ride on her coat tails to glory!

Good luck, Katie!

Do as I do

Not unlike Pen, I, too, have noticed a general malaise among our Blogs of Note (except, of course, for Ashley, who continues bringing the awesome like it's her job)-- I, personally, have been rather neglectful of late, because I have been too busy doing the following things:

• Getting root canals
• Having my kidneys ultrasound-ed
• Watching the 3rd (and alas, final) season of Arrested Development
• Reading books about girls who had sex in high school, probably in a belated attempt to cover up for the fact that I wasn't one of them
• Attending my butthead cousin's soccer game

Et Cetera.

But more than that, I have been experiencing a general malaise, based largely on my growing belief that, despite the fact that I got into graduate school for creative writing, I am not even kind of creative. I base this belief entirely on the fact that I have never once created a catchphrase.

I am so jealous of people who create catchphrases. Like Daisy's "I less than three..." That totally depresses me. Because I'm like, that's a really awesome catchphrase. And I totally didn't come up with it.

Oh, I'm big on appropriating other people's catchphrases. To the point where, the other day, I had to ask Marita, "Did I come up with the word 'ween?'" Because I really thought I did. But no, I didn't.

And it doesn't help that, around the office, people do an imitation of my boyfriend's catchphrase, which is just the word "sure" spoken with a Wisconsin accent, but still, it's totally catchy, and he came up with it, and he doesn't even work here.

And it's not just catchphrases-- I am also super jealous of T.'s discovery of the Church Sign webpage. Because that thing is totally rad, and I totally can't use it now because it's T.'s thing, and I don't want to be a copycat. So not only have I never come up with a catchy catchphrase, I can't even find awesome webpages to use for awesomeness, as T. did.

So far, the only even remotely creative thing I've done is figure out that I can post to my blog by e-mail, as I am doing right now. But that's not really so much creative as it is devious.

But in an effort to revive the blogscene and ease my own mind, I will attempt to blog more often (and less about my teeth). The way I see it, every entry I write is another chance that a phrase I use will become catchy. And isn't that all we ever dream of?

My cousin is a butthead

Hooray, Katie, good work in the game today against Shaker B! I'm glad I got to come and see you play, and see your sassy haircut and whatnot. However, I am still angry that you called me a butthead. Because you're the butthead!

Love,

Butthead