Towards the end of last week, I received a book -- Nightmare Academy by Dean Lorey -- in the mail! That in itself isn't terribly odd, what with my birthday being next week and all, but what is odd is that the name of the sender doesn't ring a bell. It was apparently sent from a public relations firm, so it's entirely possible that someone I know in the publishing and/or communications biz had the book sent to me as a gift through someone else, but I dunno. Or perhaps someone I don't know visited Scary-Crayon and sent the book to me for the purposes of a print review! It looks like it's in the vein of the Harry Potter series, so maybe someone wanted to see if I like it more than its hated cousins in the children's fantasy genre.

At any rate, please drop me a line if you had anything to do with the sending of the book so that I can thank you properly and stop pondering the manifold possible chains of events that led to the arrival of this book at my residence. 🙂

In other news, because today is my mother's birthday, I am currently in the process of baking my first cake! It should be ready to come out of the oven in ten minutes or so -- I'll be sure to take pictures and let you know how it turns out. If it tastes anything like the batter, it should be fantastic.

All for now, then!

"What are you?"

That is what the neighbor kid said to me today. An odd question, to be sure -- even more so because the kid can't be more than six years old. Under different circumstances, I might have asked what he meant, but the kid's age (if the kid had been ten or so, it might have been worth discussing, but at this point the kid is still clearly kinda stupid) and my being in a hurry prompted me to simply smile and wave.

As I walked to the mailbox, the kid shouted it after me several more times.

I grew increasingly annoyed. Did the kid even know what he was asking? Did he understand that his question was potentially highly offensive? I didn't know. But as I returned to drop off the mail before dashing off to the store to try and beat the rain (I failed), I looked up to answer the kid's inquiries with a final smile in his direction.

Instead of repeating his question, he instead voiced a statement that suggested that perhaps he recognized the potentially offensive nature of the question after all:

"You're ugly."

And that is how not running over and punting the annoying neighbor kid down the block came to be added to my list of charitable deeds.

That is like the luckiest kid ever.

Because of a fairly stupid oversight, too. 🙁 Oh well -- it was a good run.

And so it begins again...

I feel like breaking down and sobbing right now. Why must everything suck?

But at least I have my Freecell streak.

P.S. The blog has been upgraded to WordPress 2.1.1.