Y'all come back now, y'hear?

Hmm--no other choices?

Your Linguistic Profile:

55% General American English

20% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

And look at this:

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Okay, I guessed on one or two, but still, try it yourself and see how you do. (I'd expect all the H-burg kids to get perfect, being smart and living near the capital and all...)

Poetry by Dythandra

Your Secret Admirer

You shouldn't be surprised; being so very... trusting.
I mean, you left your backpack just sitting there
When you went to the office to get the message.

You didn't understand the message they gave you--
I didn't mean you to--just call the number your "mother" left.
I know what you will hear--and how long it will take.
I worked hard on that recording.

Your mother should have checked in the back of her van
When she and her boss snuck away.
My recording skills are unparalleled,
And I can pick a lock in 20 seconds.

I should care that you were traumatized,
The sounds of her indiscretions captured and revealed.
But I will be there to comfort you eventually...
When I am finished with the last shreds of your confidence.

Your backpack isn't uncommon. I found 20 at Walmart.
I only needed one, and now it magically hangs over your chair
So no one notices my rummaging.

The treasures are considerable; some of the photos I recognize,
and then I cut out their eyes--they don't deserve to look at you.
I hesistate and then I program my number into your phone.
I name it "Destiny". You will understand soon enough.

You should've been more careful at the party last week,
Unattended drinks are so very inviting.
How beautifully you slept.

So very peaceful--the vial of blood around my neck,
Liberated as you dreamt.
Have you even missed the lock of hair?
My cousin's barbie wears it so well, hanging over my bed.

Now it's back--your belongings safely stowed,
My decoy again beneath my desk.
It's too bad just as you return to class,
Wiping the tears from your eyes,
The Vice Principal will suddenly appear.

How will you explain, the bag, its contents?
Surely there's too much there for personal use.
You must be a dealer--it's so very simple.

Don't be afraid--the contact number for your mother
Now rings my cell.
Trust me, my love.
Soon you will understand. Everything.

The Cynical Career Counsellor Predicts Your Future as a

Financial Planner

Investments? Let's see your transcript. Hmm... it's pretty clear you aren't going to be getting an honors degree in economics, but I think you'll be able to eventually work in this field. You'll be a financial planner.

You won't do it at first. Like most financial planners, you'll piss away the first eight to ten years after high school taking a variety of different community college courses--none of which lead to anything and most of which you drop before completion--and you'll try your hand at all manner of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs. You may be the guy at the cell-phone kiosk; you get to wear a suit and pretend to be professional, or maybe you'll work as a travel agent. It will be about jobs where you can act like you're white collar without actually having any real academic qualications and where you can fake your way through your day with a mediocre grasp of the fundamentals of your business.

Eventually after you achieve little more than a bad credit rating you'll decide to try yet another comission-based career, and that will begin your foray into the world of financial planning. You'll go to a weekend training seminar and be given a very basic introduction to the field, and then sent home with books and videos which you'll intend to read but never get through. All you will bother to learn is how to pitch the investment products and collect your comissions.

Transglobanationalamericorp Securities and Investments will provide you with glossy brochures with meaningless graphs and then you will enter the lonely world of the "cold call". You will go through your personal phone book and harass every friend and acquaintance you've ever had to let you come and give them a "free no-obligation financial consultation". Only the lonely elderly ones will let you visit; dozing through your prattle about some prospectus that even you don't understand is small price to pay to have someone finally listen to the stories of their latest hip replacement surgeries.

Luckily for you, some of these old folks will actually have money to invest, and you soon realize that soliciting the nearly dead is your best chance for success. After some time you realize that your beater Geo is not a suitable base for operations and you lease a small mall office you can't afford but gives you a more substantive presence in the community. This move begins to widen your client base and soon you can afford to hire a secretary and add a few more suits to your wardrobe.

Unfortunately, there are two pitfalls that destroy most ill-educated financial planners: stock market crashes and corporate crime. One or the other will come eventually, and whether it's an unprecedented downturn in the market that instantly halves the worth of all your clients' investments or simply the sordid tale of some corporate executives who vanish to obscure tropical islands after siphoning off almost all your clients' assets, you will never see it coming until it's too late.

There's a reason that the only people who are described by the adjective "registered" are financial planners and sex offenders. It's because when something awful happens, the lynch mob needs to know where to easily find you. You will have assured your clients that they are protected by the "International Investment Insurance Fund" which you discover too late is merely a phone recording in Nigeria.

You'll be thankful for your office's back door when your secretary informs you that the angry clients have arrived. You escape and get out of town as the unhappy investors have to satisfy themselves with trashing your office and defacing your photograph. Unfortunately you too had tied up most of your savings in the same funds you pushed on your clients, so you have no nest egg with which to finance your flight to Belize.

Your clients never recover most of their money, but they do develop a phone tree to make sure they inform each other when it's your shift at the drive through window and they all are sure to show up with their cups of urine to toss your way in memory of your financial planning career.

Poetry by Dythandra

Suicide Girl

The joke shop's going out of business sale
set the wheels in motion.
It was lovely--a human arm, soft, malleable--
A replica just made for mischief.

I planned the details with careful glee.
My webcam--listed on a creepy site
"Hot girls live" or some such trash
Trolling the net for degenerates.

I hook a few, size them up, throw a few back
I show them nothing, but tell them lots
Stories made up to keep them coming back.

My name? Of course, I say.
I offer them a name to tantalize:
Tiffany Bennington. She comes to mind so easily--
The prototypical cheerleader from down the street.

The Inquisition has nothing on
what my imagination inflicts on her...

The time arrives--I've prepared my watchers well.
"Something special tonight" I promise.
They see my lace and settle in to wait.

Preparation is my strong point.
The bottle of sleeping pills, emptied
Replaced with tic tacs.
And nearby the arm--my treasured find.

I tease them for a while--I know they hope...
But what I offer isn't what they dreamed of
Just a second--"it's showtime," I type.
Then I adjust the camera, down--focusing on "my arm"
The resolution isn't great, and time lapse is my ally.

The creepy pervs are likely halfway there,
When suddenly, the unexpected happens.
I disappear, then my arm, a blade, a cut...
A trail of "blood"

Next the camera shifts back.
I smile thinly,
the bottle opens, my hand extends,
I shake free the "pills" and down them
With a shot of my father's whisky.

"Ta da!" I type.
Then the camera falls
As I slip from chair to floor.
A moment later it ends.
My broadcast fades to black.

My experiment's begun.
Are these voyeurs beyond the pale? Will they?
Dare they? Might they call for help?

Minutes later, my answer comes.

Wake up Tiffany.
I see you have visitors.
Too bad the state finals are tomorrow morning,
You've got a long night ahead.

Poetry by Dythandra

Neighbors

The list is long
My sins, their bleating, my consequences...

The anger simply builds.

It spirals out of control--the house shrew next door
Screeches her antagonism to the one who bore me

"She's out there every afternoon, suntanning without..."

Well, can I help it if her Prince Charming's a perv?
I see him watching me and I just smile and wave.

Of course I'm not really there to tan. SPF 150 for me.
Pale is an investment.

Tonight I'm persona non grata. One step too far, the parentals say.
I guess when I sober up I'll either blush or giggle. Maybe both.

The tequila went down smooth, and the walk home was more a stumble
With a purpose.
I looked at their porch, bleary eyed,
And somehow recalled their weekend trip to the lake.

I'd seen their son--a pretty boy a year my junior--
Take the key from under the rock many times.
In the darkness I found it easily.
The lock was my silent ally, and I drifted inside.

It hadn't just been the tequila tonight, and so
The munchies took my hands, and placed them
on cupboard doors.

I tried a bowl of cereal, but it was dry and I hate milk.
The chips--promising, but salt and vinegar--too bad.
Then I found it--half a cheesecake
The purge will come later.

I eat my prize and wander to the tv room.
There it is--a game cube and my favorite challenge
And soon I'm blasting creatures with abandon.

Too much abandon, and the china vase is toast.

I try to pick up the pieces,
But bending over makes my head swim.

I stumble down a hall, find a bedroom
Posters of Rose McGowan stare at me
Strangely comforting.

An hour later--but a moment in my time
I hear a scream. Too slow I rouse myself
They are upon me.
I play at being confused--
"Why are you in my room?"
They call the gendarmes anyway.

Just before the uniforms lead me home
I hear the shrew calling the alarm company
At least they like me,
That's two new clients this month.

The officers pass me to my mortified parents.
"What's your excuse this time?"
That one knows me too well.

I look up at him and grin.
"I'm Goldilocks, dammit!"
Goldilocks.

Pity the bears.

Poetry by Dythandra

Note: Yes, this was once "Poetry by the Emo Child" but as Alex so accurately pointed out, she's not entirely emo. Another friend creatively assisted me in coming up with the nom de plume for our young poet.

The Hell It's Not Art

"Create" she said.

I looked at her, standing before us, self-assured.
So many before had stood there, in front of me.

Stress leave is often unexpected.

Still, perhaps this one isn't like the others...
She hasn't looked twice at the snakes,
twisting from the eyeballs of the corpse on my shirt

Maybe she'll be the first
Not to call my parents
(Like they'll be surprised)

I go home and begin my quest.
Art for shock's sake--Dali paved the way
And I know what works.

I get my sack and head out to the yard
It's been there, growing more artistic each day
So disrespectful to call it road kill
What once was crow.

Amazing, the power of a backyard composter
And a few of nature's most perfect little critters.

Ooze--my favorite.

I take my little avian pal,
And pile the parts that can be pried away from the ooze
Inside my bag.

Then it's off to my room.

My fine feathered friend
Provides all--the paint, the canvas, and...
Some new little friends who wriggle into my life
When I drop Mr. Crow to the floor.

I won twice with the masterpiece.
A hurried "A" scrawled as she rushed by and out the room,
And her bagged lunch she handed me later.

Somehow she wasn't so very hungry.
I think I will like being an artist.

Let the Hating Begin

I've posted the cast list for my musical on my school web site. There are a number of kids who had substantial speaking roles last year who are chorus this year. I know there's going to be a lot of disappointment among some--those who didn't get in at all and those who got smaller roles than they hoped--and some excitement among those who "won" bigger roles.

As of now, 19 speaking roles and 32 in the chorus. I think there's about 13 in the pit, give or take a couple.

Now if the strike ends soon we can get down to work. I wonder if I should hide my car the first few days back?

and still more

...of our silliness here:

http://www.oakbaytourism.com/palmtrees/palmtree.htm

Yes, my children. Palm trees.

It confuses the eskimos all to heck.

:-)

Uh yeah, about the climate

Methinks from the comments on my last post that it's time to clear up a few misconceptions.

According to this page, the climate of Harrisonburg gives temperatures something like this:

January average high: 40 degrees F
January daily low: 20 degrees F

It also gives average precipitation around 3 inches per month which would give about 36 inches per year.


My city, here in "frozen Canada", from this site.

January average high: 44.6 degrees F
January average low: 37.4 degrees F

We get an average of 3.7 inches of rain in the month of January and it drops to a half inch in July--averaging out probably to around the same as your rainfall, although by the university it's under 30 inches and out towards Sooke--which is an hour out of town to the west, it is more like 50 or 60 inches.

I can guarantee you get more snow than us, although I haven't looked it up. Snow is rare here. We just don't get as hot in the summer--July 2004 we hit 96 but that's very rare.

How can you stand it?

;-)