Snapshot *ching ching*

Reaching into the archives for something I wrote, but never posted, because I don't feel like using my brain today.

These were little snippets of fanfictions I wrote a few months ago. They're based in the world of Harry Potter, but you won't need to be familiar with HP to get these. These two are just snapshots of kids -- high school kids figuring out love and life. (Methodology for writing these two was: put your ipod on shuffle, and write a piece for each song. When the song ends, stop. The title of the song these are based on is the title.)

I’m In Love With My Car by Queen

Sirius rode a Windflyt broom, which was about the standard of Hogwarts quidditch players. James rode a Cleansweep seven, and he was the envy of most of the Hogwarts Quidditch players.

He spent hours polishing it, and he’d been getting charmed polishes and waxes for it for his birthday (and Christmas, and whenever he could winangle someone into buying them for him, really) for ages.

James was in love with that broom.

So was everyone else.

And that, Lily thought, was why they liked him.

Take You With Me by Maria Mena

Around the year that Lily decided that James had matured enough that she could begin to give him the time of day, Sarah Clintock decided that she had matured enough that she no longer had to try to give Sirius Black the time of day (at least not every minute – not any more). She stopped watching him when she was sitting in class, and she stopped hoping to bump into him whenever she was in the same side of the school as Gryffindor tower.

One year later, she began her Auror (police) training, and she saved his life during what was supposed to be a harmless street exercise.

She couldn’t decide whether she was going to let him give her the time of day yet.

Post-Apocalyptic Bread

This weekend, the Rapture wasn't, and I tried out making yeast bread. My experience with yeast consisted of once making home-made pizza, but I now have a half-eaten cinnamon swirl loaf in my kitchen, and three loaves of bread (two white, one cinnamon) in my freezer. I didn't try the white bread, because we have a loaf of store-bought bread already open, and I didn't want to waste it, so we'll probably thaw that out sometime around Wednesday. The cinnamon-swirl bread was really good, though, and simple (though time-consuming) to make. I used the recipe from The Good Book (also known as FIELDNAME, which I only wish that I were being paid to promote, and I do recommend it because it is the best cookbook ever), and it was perfect. If you ever make cinnamon swirl-bread, make sure that you use as much of the cinnamon-swirl mixture as you think you can possible cram into that bread. I thought mine would turn out overdone, but after tasting it, I think I could have put more in there.

While I was working on the cinnamon-swirl bread, which I made Saturday, I kept joking with my family that I really shouldn't have doubled the recipe, because there would be no way that we'd be able to eat both loaves before the world ended at six.

Then, of course, the clock struck six, and we realized that, obviously, we were just all awful people, and that was why we hadn't been raptured. That's the truth, you know, because obviously it's been long enough since Jonah's flood that the rapture couldn't be any time BUT now.

Duh.

All jokes aside, I do wonder how the people that really believed in the whole thing are feeling today. Betrayed? Confused? Scared? Really wishing they hadn't quit their job, sold the house, and stopped contributing to their children's college fund? Probably. I really feel for those people. Their faith is the most important aspect of many of their lives, I'd wager, and to have that faith crushed in an instant would be mentally and emotionally devastating. I read about one church that had been actively trying to make sure that the Camping's followers would go to them afterwards, as an attempt to help them recover from the emotional trauma that I'm sure many of them are suffering right now. It's sad though... You wonder how somebody could possibly believe something like that, but we all have our little unreasonable beliefs. I'm just lucky that I'm stupidly terrified of small dead rodents, instead of buying into end-of-the-world movements.

On a more positive note, we played Frisbee yesterday, which was fun. Frisbee is cool because I can throw Frisbees reasonably well when I try, and I can occasionally catch them, too, which is not the case in most games of catch. In any case, it's been a beautiful weekend, contrary to the weather reports from even as late as Thursday.

A Productive Day

Today was a productive day. My mom went to have a dress fitted, I cut out the pieces for my dress, we got glasses (both of us did), and we spent some time at Target. I really like Target, and I think that it's infinitely better than Walmart... And I got sunglasses and underwear (yep. You sure did need to know.), and we tried to buy The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Romeo + Juliet, but they didn't have either one, and that was sad. I also bought a hat that reminds me of a bowler hat, except that it's made of a hemp-like material.

In any case, it was a beautiful day, and after we got home from our errands, I went outside and went running. I took a meandering route, and I really have no idea how far I went. It was, however, a productive run, because I found a 9/11 memorial (I'd seen the statue and the flags, but I never realized what it was), and I found a park (which I'd driven past a gazhillion times, but never really registered), and I found a river. A creek. A stream. Whatever.

Also, I got hit on.

Picture: A young girl, hair frizzed from being crimped and then brushed and put in a ponytail. Blonde. Wearing a blue-turquise wifebeater and black yoga pants, jogging on footpath by the side of the road. Sitting on a sign for the Community College across the street are five young men wearing clothes that are, collectively, too large. One is wearing a polo shirt of a matching color to the young girl. He leaps off of the sign and runs across the road to meet her.

Jose: Hey, I see you're jogging.

Me: Yes. Yes I am.

Jose: We're wearing the same color shirt.

Me: uh-huh.

Jose: Where are you jogging to? Mind if I jog with you?

Me: Nowhere in particular, and go ahead. (note: girl maintains a rather disinterested tone, because even if Jose is kinda hot, she has a boyfriend and doesn't want the kind of guy who hits on random joggers)

Jose: So... what's your name?

Me: I'm Alice (note: girl's name is not Alice. She is a filthy liar.)

Jose: I'm Jose.

Me: Nice to meet you.

Jose: So, do you jog often?

Me: Almost every day.

Jose: Ah... Do you always come this way?

Me: Not usually, no.

Jose: Oh. Well, I live right over there (gestures largely at the community on the other side of the street from the park along which I'm running), so you can feel free to come this way any time you want.

Me: mmm.

Jose: Well, bye.

Me: See ya.

I admit, I was rather frosty to the guy, but yesterday they brought in a guest speaker to talk to us about abusive relationships, and last year we talked about date rape, and the moment this random guy crossed the street to come to talk to me, I started envisioning the cops finding my body in the river (which I found today) three weeks later.

Which would suck.

So I acted kinda frostily, and he ended up leaving me alone, and he didn't even ask me for my number.

I think I'm starting to figure out how to not accidentally flirt with strange men. Productive day, yes?