How to get an Affectionate Kitty

This is for all you people asking.

Haha just kidding, no one's been asking. But I do have a super-affectionate kitty, and I know people whose cats aren't so affectionate. I've always wondered why this is, so I got to thinking about it, and now I've made a set of super easy-to-follow instructions on how to get a kitty just as affectionate as mine!

Things you'll need:

• A kitty (male or female)
• Cat food and a place for the cat to do their business
• An animal shelter or friends willing to take on unwanted kittens
• Older siblings (3+, 4 recommended, males also recommended)
• 10+ years

Writing Prompt Response #2: Coffee Pirates

My second flash-fiction prompt response. This one took a bit longer because I wasn't so sure where to go with it, and it came out a bit longer as well (~3k - I don't really feel like the length did it justice, because I wanted to explore the characters a bit more, but any longer and it really wouldn't have been flash fiction anymore).

Instead of listing it at the end, here's the original prompt: A band of “pirates” in Seattle frequently raid coffee shops as part of an international coffee bean heist. But they're terrible at it.

Writing Prompt Response #1

((I texted a few close friends some time to see if they could give me some writing prompts. This is my first flash-fiction response to the first prompt I got back. The original prompt will be listed at the bottom.))

Markus had mulled it over in his mind and had decided that he did not like this, not one bit. He'd been stuck in this too-small tank for far too long, in an environment which he thought must be either too warm or too cold, and he was starting to ache in his fins from lack of movement. The water had developed a sort of staleness and Markus was starting to feel hunger growing in his belly, a feeling he never particularly cared for.

Unfortunately there didn't seem to be any feeders nearby. It was also dark and darkness was another thing Markus had never particularly cared for.

Markus thought back on how indignant he'd been when the feeders had loaded him into this uncomfortably tight tank and felt reassured that he had been right all along. Of course he was. Nothing good could come out of this strange game.

His mother, for whom he had never felt any particular fondness, had assured Markus that this was a routine transfer, that they'd be giving him his own space, and that this happened all the time and everything would be fine. Well everything wasn't fine, thank you very much. Markus had no idea where he was and it occurred to him that maybe the feeders didn't, either. Markus was lost - that's what it was. He had never felt lost before - well, he'd never actually left home before - and he thought sensibly to himself that he didn't quite care for the feeling at all.

Markus was, as far as he could tell, a shark, and being lost seemed beneath him.

When the world finally did flash into light, Markus could see that his tank had developed a sort of grittiness. The still water must have collected some dirt, or - he shuddered - dust. Vague figures appeared beyond the tank's surface, and Markus fixed them with a stare filled with as much reproach as he could manage. It did not do, he thought, to leave a perfectly innocent and harmless creature such as himself in a place such as this. He resolved to forgive them only after he had been fed.

Markus did get fed, but it was a strange sort of meat that he didn't like the taste of, and it was hard to get at in his confined tank; he still felt hungry afterward, and not very forgiving at all. When they finally changed his tank, it was cleaner and fresher, with moving water, but still too small and he shook his head in disappointment. Markus reminded himself that he deserved more, and pledged not to forgive the silly beings until they'd given him such.

The feeders got his tank moving again, as Markus reasoned that they must finally be on their way to his very own new water space. He applauded, as it were, his own ability to cope with what had happened, and promised himself never to do it again.

Not too long later - though much longer than he would have liked - Markus felt himself dropped into a pool of clean, fresh water. He waggled his tail in pleasure, happy to see he had quite a large area in which to swim, and then noticed he was not alone.

His new tankmate was a girl - it figured - and she haughtily informed him that he was late. Not wanting to start out on a bad note, Markus explained that it wasn't his fault, that he in fact had been shipped through the Chicago docks and that someone had misplaced his forms and forgotten to tell everyone where he was. She gave no reply and Markus wasn't sure if she was unimpressed with his narrative or if she just didn't care.

The next day a crowd came over to stare at him. Markus swam around the tank and their eyes followed him, and there was no place where he would wait peacefully for them to go away.

He looked at them unhappily and thought to himself that he really did not like this, not one bit.

((Original Prompt: A shark gets lost in Chicago.))
((So, I started writing this without planning ahead - which is always a fun way to write - and realized about halfway through that I had yet to mention Chicago, and there was never really a good way to work it in. I also considered doing another more magical-realist, with an actual shark just swimming through the air of actual Chicago, lost and asking for directions and such. I may yet do that.))

Re: Your Brains Flash Essay

A week ago one of my English teachers gave an assignment - and I'm cutting that sentence of here to explain that, yes, I have to English teachers I mean professors (man, so many things to remember in college). One of these professors I've had before, so I'll call him Professor One, but this is my first semester with this other professor, so I'll call him Professor Two.

Last week Professor Two assigned everyone to bring in the lyrics to a song we really liked. We're working on a poetry unit, and the idea was to look at the lyrics without the music, and critique it as a poem.

We were to bring in those lyrics at our next class on Thursday, and I spent the rest of Tuesday trying to think of an appropriate song, then most of Wednesday trying to convince myself not to use Johnathan Coulton's 'Re: Your Brains.'

If you haven't heard this song before, click here to listen to it on Youtube. Johnathan Coulton is a relatively well known comedic musician on the internet, and this song is probably his most famous.

I finally did bring in the lyrics to this song on Thursday, and we were asked to write a short 'flash essay' on the lyrics. I think Professor Two thought our songs would have a more serious tone, so I had a bit of difficulty writing about this one, especially since it's a simple narrative with no complex imagery to explain. A friend of mine asked that I let her read what I wrote, so I'm posting it here; remember, it's not that great, as I wrote it in only a few minutes, and for the most part it's unfinished.


Johnathan Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains" is a straightforward narrative about a zombie attack, told through the eyes of a zombi-fied office worker, politely asking a friend to come out of hiding so the zombie horde can get his brain. The song is meant to be satirical, suggesting that Bob, the narrator, is not the stereotypical mindless zombie.

The first few lines of the song really set the tone. It starts "Heya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall/Good to see you buddy, how's it been?" At this point, a first time listener would expect something entirely different from the real message of the song. The character Bob is also making himself out to be a gentleman from the beginning, an illusion quickly crushed by the next lines, "Things have been OK for me except that I'm a zombie now/Really wish you'd let us in."

The song continues to try to paint Bob as the caring gentleman, especially in the chorus, which says "We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's going to eat your eyes/All we want to do is eat your brains/We're at an impasse here, maybe we could compromise." The song achieves a wonderful hilarity by being straight-forward and sincere, ignoring the dark implications of the setting.


That's all I wrote in class, and unfortunately Professor Two didn't read the essays -though there's a chance he will later in the semester. If he does, I'll polish up my writing and try to obtain the same satirical tone Coulton wrote with (and, of course, share it with you all here).

Life on Mars and Other Things

Last year I managed to do pretty well with my regular treadmill sessions. I think I clocked almost an hour a day six days a week for the entire last six months, which may not sound like much but was definitely more than I had been managing before. After my brother's wedding in October, however, my treadmill sessions started to become few and far between.

Around New Years, someone I was following on Tumblr mentioned wanting to get back to exercising regularly, and I decided it was high time for me to return to regular exercise as well. I'd built up a small list of things on Netflix that I could watch while on the treadmill, so I couple of weeks ago I picked a TV show at random and started walking.

Happy Chinese New Year!

This is the year of the Dragon (Jan 23, 2012 – Feb  9, 2013), according to the 12-year Chinese Astrology cycle! Factoring the 60-year elemental cycle, that makes this the Yang Water Dragon.

I hope you understand that today's blog is a total cop out. I was going to do today's week Tues/Thurs until I realized I needed to wish you Happy Chinese New Year today; essentially, regular posts coming on their regular days this week, excluding today.

Phil the Flying Shark

I'm not a huge bragger; I don't find joy in bragging about things that I have or so on. In fact, despite being a generally happy person, I feel a bit awkward whenever I talk about things that make me happy.

I'm going to break that habit for a moment, however, to explain how incredibly stoked I am about my new pet flying shark.

Sorry for the low quality - cell phone cameras, y'know.

Notes to Friends: Part 2

Part 1 can be found here.

Dear Treadmill,
I know we've had a sort of on-again-off-again kind of relationship, and I hope I'm not confusing you. To be blunt, you're really boring. I'll keep hanging out with you because I know I'm supposed to, but, despite how rude it may seem, I'm going to be texting Laptop the entire time.
Sorry,
Kenna

Dear Piano,
I hope you don't think I'm ashamed of you; I'm not ashamed of you. In fact, I make sure everyone knows about our deep love for each other! I'm just a bit embarrassed to be showing that love when others are around. Don't worry; I'll fit in extra practice time whenever I can, and when I'm confident enough we'll show everyone how beautiful you are!
With much love,
Kenna

Dear Pool,
In case you ever wondered why we stopped hanging out, it's because going to see you takes more effort on my part than I'm willing to spare. I hope that doesn't come off as rude, but seriously - I have to get all dressed up just to see you? Also, you're a bit high-maintenance. Sorry, but I don't think this friendship is going anywhere.
Sincerely,
Kenna

Bram Stoker's Dracula

According to my Tumblog, which I updated sometime right after starting the book, I spent a little over a month trying to read Bram Stoker's Dracula.

In the book's defense, I have also been working on NaNoWriMo, so I've had my mind on other things, but as I also had most of the month of October to try to read this extremely well known novel, I don't think this escuse really counts. As it turns out, Dracula really is just one of those stories it takes me an unnecessarily long time to wade through.

NaNoWriMo '11

Happy Halloween, dear readers! I hope everyone's having a great time dressing up, trick-or-treating, going to parties, or whatever it is you do to celebrate!

Halloween marks the last day of October, as you well know, and the last day before the writing craze NaNoWriMo begins. I don't mean to detract from Halloween here, but NaNoWriMo is a bit higher up on my list of priorities - and by 'a bit' I mean that I've been planning my novel for months, while I don't even have a Halloween costume this year (in case I need to go out, however, I can just grab my Hufflepuff scarf and say I'm studying charms and herbology).

HUFFLEPUFF.

Sarcasm Hand

The problem with sarcasm is that it isn't always easy to detect.

In speech, sarcasm is relatively easy. There's a certain inflection used when being sarcastic, stressing words to point out how obviously untrue, and thus sarcastic, a statement is. This becomes less clear when being sarcastic with a person you don't know very well, but most people tend to shy away from sarcasm with anyone besides friends.

Sarcasm becomes more of a problem in writing, because there isn't any good way to point it out. For example, I could write the statement "I love that movie," visually stressing the word 'love' with italics, but there's no clear way of knowing if I stressed that word because I seriously do love that movie, or if I stressed that word because there was obviously no way on earth I could love that movie.

Friday Comics: Philosophy

I intend on drawing 'Friday Comics' most weeks, and I promise this isn't a cop-out just to keep from having to write full blog posts (though it will be when November rolls around). I probably would have written a full post today, if this hadn't happened while I was drawing  last week's comic.

If this had happened, it would have been pay back for drawing a comic during his lecture.

Friday Comic

I always used to wonder how they decided where to place the borders between countries and states. Now I know.

Adventures in Cat-Training

We recently bought my cat a scratching post. She's been getting older, and goes outside less often, so she had taken to scratching at our furniture. Our old couch was fraying at all the corners where she'd attack it, so when we got this new one a few months back, we used a special kind of double-sided tape to keep her away; the fabric on my piano bench was also coming apart, though now it's been reupholstered.

I've also noticed my cat's claws getting caught in things. Cats, unlike dogs, can retract their claws (well, except for cheetahs), but when my cat stretches out in front of the doormat, she flexes her claws into the fabric to hold herself steady, and finds herself pulling the carpet up with her as she tries to move. Something had to be done.

Treadmill Reviews: Fullmetal Alchemist

Walking on a treadmill, if you've never done it before, is actually quite boring. We happen to have one in my house, and it's become one of the few ways I can get exercise reliably, but the only way I can stand to use it is if I sit a laptop on the top tray and watch TV shows. And of course, when I watch something interesting, I want to tell you guys about it.

The show that I've been watching these last few weeks is the newest anime adaptation of a very popular Japanese manga, Fullmetal Alchemist. I read the books years back when I was in high school, and I didn't mind going through the story again in anime format because I already knew that the entire thing was and would be incredible.

Avast! These be Strange Waters!

 Aye, and they'd have to be, too; today's tide bring in one of the best holidays ever: International Talk like a Pirate Day! That's right, landlubbers, ye heard it here. It's the one day a year dedicated to the fierce, rogue, sea-loving pirates, when everyone around the world can affect an accent and dress up for school or work (assuming, of course, you've explained yourself to your captain).

I'm pretty bad at Piratey lingo, so I wont even pretend to try to keep it up for long.

Intense

Of course, you understand, I keep hearing 'In Tents'.

I know it's a stupid joke, but I'm not exaggerating; every time someone uses the word 'intense', I think of tents (such as 'that movie was in tents!' or 'this book is in tents!' or 'that was an in tents car ride'). When I'm in mixed company, I refrain from actually saying anything, but I always think it in my head.

I was hanging out with friends today, which is why today's post is short and late. My friends are leaving for far off colleges in a week or so, so we're trying to fit in as much "chillax" time as possibly before we can't anymore. How did people handle this before in internet? Well, I guess they wrote letters, right?

Wisdom Teeth Extraction

I got my wisdom teeth removed today. They're gone. I'm not 100% sure what they were doing there in the first place, since it seems like everyone just wants to get them out eventually. I'm sure a five minute Google search would lend me an answer, but I find I don't actually care enough to go look it up. Ah, 21st century.

I got to the dental surgery place a bit early, after driving myself and my dad there in his truck - which is a stick-shift, by the way. Remember how I said I never wanted to have to drive manual transmissions? It's because I hate them, and I think I'm going to either die or kill someone else when I'm in them. A few minutes ago, I looked up "pros and cons of learning to drive stick-shift," and you want to know what the best 'pro' reason was? "A lot more fun to drive."

It's totally not.

Vacation Time: Results Show

Monday, August the first, my parents and I set out for our official summer-vacation-get-away thing. The goal, I believe, was to visit my brother in Utah, see a few people in Idaho, and get to know said-brother's future in-laws in Oregon while we scouted out places to eat in Portland for the upcoming wedding. My own personal goals, meanwhile, were to work through some of my 'to-read' backlog, figure out our new car radio, and drive at least one leg of the trip without mom yelling at me (she's a very nervous passenger).

The drive to Utah took about ten hours, and I drove the first three. The road goes straight through the Mojave Desert, which is relatively pleasant to look at but pretty boring to drive through. Add that to the fact that I didn't know where I was going, and I was kinda stressed (I'm not used to using the overdrive button, so there were a few people riding my tail, and mom was finicky throughout), and by the end of my shift my back was sore and I was ready to stop.

Like this, but with no clouds. Ever.

Visiting Twin Peaks

Last Monday, I sat down for the first time to watch the pilot episode of what is arguably one of the most memorable shows in TV history. Twin Peaks, which aired from 1990-1991, probably wouldn't be considered one of the best shows of all time, but anyone who happened to see it might remember how this campy, bizarre, unconventional show changed television expectations