happy!

You guys!

They published me on TeenInk RAW! I'm so happy. I was just starting to wonder when I'd hear back from them, and I did! I've been published. Yes.

I love getting published. I adore feedback.

Here's the link toTeenInk RAW. I can't give you the direct link to my poem because then you'd know my name and where I live. Look at it this way--it'll really be honest feedback if you comment on my poem without knowing it was mine.

Thanks for reading and bye.

back to cool

That's what they say!
And speaking of speaking (man, can you tell how much I have always wanted to use a segue as cheesy as that?), my little brother just started at my school and says it's the best school ever and he never wants to leave.

I have just one thing to say: !

Actually I have a lot more than that to say. I got into the car with my mom and just started blabbing and didn't stop for ten minutes until she forced me to listen about my brother's first day. So first of all, I have what my last-year social studies teacher calls "the dream homeroom." I have several friends in there, and all in all, it should be great. In fact, it's one of the few things I'm optimistic about. My ex-teacher also said the funniest thing. She told me that the popular girl, let's call her Grace because there are no Graces at my school, actually has a lot in common with me once removed from "certain social influences." This is to me a fascinating concept because I have never been popular and find it close to unimaginable that I could be friends with the popular girl. However, my mom had a friend in college who was just that type--popular pretty cheerleader--and they were practically inseparable. So I'm interested in this possibility.

finally I can nap

I have finished The Chosen!
I have run three miles in 30 minutes without stopping!
I have had a fully efficient and effective day, which, believe it or not, has only been going on for five hours so far!

Also, I have used up my daily reserve of exclamation points. Phew.

the houses may be prefab, the mindset may be postfab, but I'm fab for all eternity

I am kidding.

I know it means prefabricated. God.

Develop an appreciation for humor, wouldja?

Well, I went to MoMA on Thursday--for those of you like my friend who came with me and had never been to MoMA, that's the Museum of Modern Art in NYC--and saw a couple of awesome things there. I've been dying for some intellectual activity ever since I got back from New England, and I was only too thrilled to go. All I did for a month was walk and bike and hike--and of course, forget the book I was supposed to read for summer homework. The only museum-resembling place I got to go was the Loon Center, meant a hike, which was only supposed to take us about 45 minutes but ended up taking three hours when we got lost.

So anyway, see the first picture? That's something I took on my phone of the description of one of the housing units, System3. The structure, my least favorite, captured my mother's eye because of the text here highlighted: the units may be STACKED. Stacked! How thrilling! I've always wanted to have the freedom to stack my living space.

My favorite was Burst*008, the one created with a computer formula, but I didn't get a picture of it, and I don't believe in finding pictures on the Internet from things at which I was physically present. (Of course, if I could only be there in spirit, bring on the Google images.) Instead, I provide ici a photo of the Micro Compact Home, 76 square feet of living space. I thought the irony of me liking that one was harmonious with the irony in my life: similar to the way I prefer the tiny house, my favorite friends and guys tend to be short. Even my sister, my life consultant, is short for her age.

Sorry. I know it can get dangerous when I talk about irony.

Well, I'm going to go figure out how to scan drawings onto my laptop, because it's making me sad that the latest ones on here are from January. Don't worry, the reasons for that are not because I've stopped drawing, they are that

a) MY BAT MITZVAH, HELLO, NEED I SAY MORE?

b) midterms/final tests/projects/4th quarter report cards flung me into a time-sucking pit of stress

c) suddenly I decided I wanted to join the track team

and

d) after that whole crapload of work, I was off and running on a long summer of travel.

But I'm back now.

But now I'm going to the scanner.

So bye.

how does it feel to be a problem?

Yeah, I'm asking you! The pressure is on!

No, but actually, that's the title of this book I heard about yesterday on my way home on WNYC. The full title is How Does It Feel to be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America, and it sounds great. They interviewed the author and one of the subjects--I don't remember her name, but her story is that she won for high school president at 15 against all odds and then was forced to resign because her religious beliefs wouldn't allow her to attend the dances, and she was supposed to be present at every school event.

This guy supposedly just asked around his Brooklyn neighborhood in the Arab community, and, by word of mouth, it turned into enough stories to write his book.

So... here's the WireTap article. If for some reason you do read it, not that anyone who reads this blog would want to, but if you do, please tell me how it is--I still have to finish my summer reading. That's me, the bad student.

I love my dad

There are two wonderful things my father did for me today.

1. He drove me home, at longest last, from New England back home. It was an eight-hour drive, but I'm thrilled beyond all possible expression to be here.

2. He presented me, God bless him, with a copy of the 2009 Poet's Market!!!! Over 1600 listing for presses, magazines, journals, contests and more! WHERE AND HOW TO GET YOUR POETRY PUBLISHED! Oh, I am so happy.

"Fill in the U.S. for both the fattest and the most coked up nation on Earth."

That's a quote from this article, Highest Traces of Cocaine Found on US Bills.

Ironically, I am feeling too creative to post right now, so check out the list of poetry and prose websites on the right. Sorry and ciao.

women with babies

Right now I am reading The Cider House Rules, which I love. It's John Irving--I love him--and it is about obstetricians, or birthing doctors. There is a lot of medical stuff in it, which I don't love but don't mind either.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is because--if you haven't noticed already, most of my posts are spurred by sudden anger or other emotion--I am mad. There is a women a computer computers down with a very loud crying baby. Why would you bring a newborn to the library? Just have some consideration for other people, please.

part of my short story, "Why I Am Iris" - middle

That night, I dreamt my parents got divorced. It was bizarre, a mix of Little Manhattan, which I'd just watched, and my mom and dad's fight over Bailey. It had been the middle of dinner when the dog's leavings had been spotted on the front hall rug. My dad loved that rug. He'd bought it as a Christmas (which we celebrate for fun) present for himself, along with the cell phone for my sister and new curtains for me. My mom and I, however, hated the rug with a passion and wanted to get rid of it, expose the beautiful, golden hardwood floors with honey-colored diagonal slats that ran a constant throughout our entire house. To put it simply, the rug was ugly and reminded us of stewed tomatoes; the floor was pretty and reminded us of caramel; basic human instinct appeals towards physical attractiveness.

My dad was to this rule, as with every other, an exception. He went for tattered Converses, paint-spattered jeans, leaving cobwebs trapped inside the windows because they provided "character." He adored the tomato-sauce rug with the polluted-ocean border and was terrified to remove it lest the wood floors' glow become diminished by thunking backpacks and stomping feet. When he spied, out of the corner of his eye, the dog turd on the carpet, he got that look in his eye. The look he got when talking about putting his dad's huge old Poughkeepsie house on the market, the look he got when my sister talked back, the look he got when my brother left the seltzer uncapped or I didn't say hi to him after he got home from a week in Boston. This was what we liked to call the don't-look-at-me-like-that look. If only looks could kill.

So he sent the death glare to ten-week-old Bailey, eating the strap on Hannah's flip flop, and stormed over.

"Do it how the vet said," my mom piped up. My dad, of course, grabbed the thing's neck so hard that I screamed. I am not a scream-y girl, but when I heard Bailey squeal like that, I admittedly got scared. He shut Bailey in the crate and returned to his seat at the head of the table. At this point, my peaceful night of chicken and rice became Dinner Theater.

"I would really like it if the dog were paper-trained," Dad said angrily, eyes glistening.

"Well this is how I'm doing this," Mom replied, still calm. "I raised four dogs, all paper-trained like this. I know what I'm doing."

My dad's face hardened. "I'm getting sick and tired of my house getting ruined by the damn thing." He was pulling the man-of-the-house card. Don't do it, I mentally cautioned him, don't do it, she hates that, don't...

"Fine. Do you want me to put down the paper and station myself in the kitchen and watch it all hours of the day? 'Cause that's great. I'd do it. I have nothing else to do." This is what happens, I telepathically told Dad. She has unearthly amounts to do. Don't even go near that nerve. She's gonna kill you. Or worse, she might even cry...oh Dad, please...

He rolled his eyes at the speed of quicksilver. "I just don't see much of an effort being put into it."

That was it. Right to the chase. I could sense what was about to happen. "You don't see much of anything." Ouch. I felt a vibe; I knew Hannah and even little Nat were both thinking about Dad's other life in Boston, how much he was never home and we missed him, how much Mom must have missed him. It was almost like she was a single mother. I remembered how, last winter, Dad had promised to tell his boss Mary that the traveling had to stop or he would quit. Since then, the flying back and forth had increased so much that every single week, without fail, Dad spent two, three, maybe even four nights a week in Boston. Whatever happened to promises? I could kill Mary.

Mom went upstairs. I looked at my chicken. Nat looked at Hannah. Dad had the look.


So the day after that fiasco, when I woke up from the divorce dream, I ran downstairs to make sure my dad's other promise hadn't been broken: that he would not repeat his parents' actions and put us through the turmoil of divorce. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Dad bent over an Ampad Evidence legal pad. His arm rested at an odd angle. I tilted my head to further examine it. I must have turned my head too much, because he glanced up momentarily and yelped, knocking over a carton of orange-mango juice with his weirdly bent elbow. He let out a colorful streak of swears. "Sorry," I offered.

"Jesus Christ." Apparently he'd spilled most of the juice onto his lap.

"Don't use that language, please, Brett," my mom sang, appearing in the cupboard with Bailey in her arms. She'd walked from the landing to the kitchen by using a short stairwell we'd dubbed the "secret stairs." I never understood why it was ten steps shorter than the staircase we used to get from the same landing to the front hall. I probably never would.

"Don't let the dog—" Dad stopped short at Mom's warning glance. "There's decaf in the second coffeemaker," he sighed with a tone of slight defeat.

"Great." She smiled and put Bailey down, who promptly dove into her Ikea food bowl. I walked around to the kitchen table and pulled a chair over to the cabinet with the plates, reaching for the highest shelf. I needed to wake up. Hopefully pulling a muscle or two in my arm would do the trick, since I couldn't make my own coffee and obviously no one was offering.

"What the hell." Hannah made her charming entrance.

I jumped down from the chair. "Iris, your father hates when you do that," Mom said drearily. Was this supposed to be news? As four- and two-year-olds, my sister and I had been disallowed to even jump up and down for fear of knocking down the plaster on Dad's precious basement ceiling. Thus I ignored her.

"What the hell yourself, Hannah." I punched her carelessly on the head. "What are those, like, swim shorts or something?"

"They're called Soffes, idiot." She kicked me in the back. I grabbed my spine in pain.

"I know they're Soffes but those are, like, obscene. Where'd you get them, Maggie?" Maggie was her tiny, scantily clad best friend.

"Shut up," Hannah retorted, all-knowing. She selected a coffee granola bar and pulled off the wrapper lazily.

"Hey...those are mine...I need caffeine..." I halfheartedly tried to grab it from her, but Hannah crammed it in her mouth. "Twit," I groaned.

"Butthole," she responded, mouth full of coffee beans that were rightfully mine. "Whereza ice cream?" she demanded, opening the freezer. She found it and commenced eating Rocky Road with a tablespoon.

I resigned myself to position of eldest-child bottom-feeder.

Mom had ignored the entire interaction between me and Hannah but thankfully picked up the word 'caffeine.' "Iris, would you like some coffee?" My eyes widened. "Can you make it yourself?" I opened my mouth to respond that she knew I couldn't make my own. "I mean add your own sugar and Lactaid and whatever." I nodded dolefully. "Here." She handed me a steaming mug of coffee and a sack of sugar. I dumped as much as would fit into my cup.

"Thanks." I started up the stairs.

"Go get dressed," she yelled after me. I sighed and jogged up the three flights of stairs to my attic room.


School that day was uneventful except that I fell up the stairs on the way to science, making me late for the test. Luckily my entire class was also late because the school administrators obviously had no idea that they were putting one huge clique together in the same science class. Except me. I was not part of this clique. But that was probably good for my health in the end.
When my mom pulled up the car at home, I jumped out of the passenger's seat and flew over the porch stairs to check the mail. Frantically, I flicked aside Oriental Trading, Pottery Barn, ShopRite coupons, Vanguard bills, and various other unwanted junk until I got a paper cut on my thumb. Sucking on the bleeding finger, I looked down at what had slit me open: a tiny envelope. "Yes!" I called out to my mom.

"How many today?" she asked, climbing up the porch steps—with much effort, due to the four bags of grading I had not helped her with.

"Um..." I turned over the envelope. "Crap." I hate when she does that, I thought.

"What's wrong?" She turned the key in the door.

"Nothing..." I muttered. Hannah skipped through the front hall, kicked me in the shin, and leapt over the couch. "You know," I called to her, grabbing a piece of cold pizza, "I really appreciate that you open the response cards for me."

"No problem."

"I mean, why would I want to know who's coming to my bat mitzvah? I mean, like, duh." I sifted through the trifle bowl containing the 'yes' response cards, looking for the one that had come today, whose envelope had been left out on the porch. Aha—oh. Into the 'yes' bowl, Hannah had put a response card saying that the Anand family of five could not come.

"I know you love me," Hannah said in a singsong voice. "And also, hey, did you notice the envelope I left out there?"

"Ya think?" I shoved my bleeding thumb in her face. She shoved an exaggerated toothy smile right back in mine.

"Help me." She walked backwards on her heels, sort of dancing, to the dining room table, where a red binder completely obliterated by the name 'Hannah' and a myriad of smiley faces lay uncomfortably underneath a math textbook with a tie-dye Book Sox cover. "Now."

"No." I heaved my backpack onto my left shoulder and began trudging upstairs. Nat's iPod lay on the third stair. I swiped it; mine had gotten destroyed in the washing machine.

"You suck," Hannah yelled up to me.

"Love ya too." And as was customary of my sister and me when we were trying to get back at the other for something minor, I taped the picture of Kevin and Brennan, the dorky family friends who were the same ages as us, onto her bedroom door. Above it I scrawled the words 'Hannah + Brennan' in a heart. It was immature, but even the slightest, most ridiculous suggestion that we would like one of the Hughes boys irked us to no end. I smiled at myself and went upstairs to work.

reading and running, la de da

OK. I know I haven't been posting, but my mom decided that my siblings and I are not allowed on the computer at home anymore, or at least until next year. Fortunately, my dad is IT director of a worldwide lawfirm, so he's got my back. So let's get to the point, shall we?

I just finished reading White Noise by Don DeLillo, and I have to say I found it to possess many killer lines. Almost every page had at least a couple of punchlines. But I have to leave soon, so there's not too much more I can say about it.

Also, I just started track, and I love it.

Have to go. Thanks and later.

French fish fiche

Today was an interesting one in terms of April Fools' Day. I have my own take on it: I don't know what to do. My sister is very talented at playing April Fools' jokes on people; she once came back from spring break on April 1st and told everyone that the "splint" on her finger was from slamming her finger in a car door over break and that she was getting it off that afternoon. So the day after April Fools' Day, when the finger was once more bare, no one doubted that her joke was true. In fact, she came out from the whole fiasco with a vigorously signed false splint.

However, I was never able to come up with a good one. Even my mother is better than I am. One April Fools' Day, she convinced my father that he had a tick. Of course he was terrified, but even though he didn't know it was a joke until later, he wasn't all that freaked out because his entire family--they're from the country--has Lyme disease anyway. Not to be mean, but he'd just be fitting in.

Luckily for me, though, this year's All Fools' Day (did you know it's sometimes called that?) put forth a widespread joke opportunity: French class. I'm pretty sure all of the French classes in my grade had a worksheet with fish on it to color in, but I'm also pretty sure that only my class got so into it. Granted, people from other blocks were sticking fish on my back, but that's beside the point. My fish was covered--my own brilliant handiwork--in MY INITIAL! It was extremely fantastic. Even when there are no fish to color and cut out--and hopelessly mangle--we are an enthusiastic bunch.

So if anyone except me is looking for something to get out of this post...I bet you didn't know that April Fools' Day used to be New Years.

blogging articles

Sorry this took so long, but there have been many small children in my life lately, and you know how that can be.

Why Blog? Reason No. 92: Book Deal
Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog
So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?
After Suicide, Blog Insults Are Debated
Washington Doesn't Sleep Here

Wondering about the above list? For your information, it's just a few recent--from the past 30 days--New York Times articles. They're all about blogging, in fact. And the Times isn't the only newspaper that's picked up on the blogging phenomenon; many other publications are too. I only picked the NYT ones because I wanted to emphasize the magnitude of the amount of articles out there recently.

Amazing, huh? Check out the book deal one--it's about one of my favorite edgy blogs.

taking advantage

Sorry, but I had to take advantage of the five minutes I have and the fact that I've posted very little this month.

I know I told you I was charmed by White Noise by Don DeLillo, but I've found a new love. It's not just the son's addiction to crystal meth, not just the father's addiction to his son's addiction: Beautiful Boy by David Sheff is an addiction in itself. And I don't say that lightly; I haven't read a book this enchanting in a long time. All the other ones I've read lately have just been forced upon myself.

My mom started reading it before me. She's on page 81. I've got about that many pages left to read. THANK YOU SO MUCH, MOM!! I LOVE THIS BOOK LIKE MY OWN SISTER.

Oh yeah, and I just saw The Nanny Diaries--cute, but the ending's so unrealistic.

the new black

Actually I prefer black to the new black, whatever the new black is.

But I wanted to talk about new things, and I figured the stupidity of this title would grab people's attention. I've just started learning Hungarian Dance on the piano, and it's a really fun piece. It turns out that there are all these twists and trills along the way of a tune that's been saturated into tasteless simplicity for countless cartoons and Disney movies.

Also, I'm reading White Noise (link later), which I'm finding to be a serious page-turner, and I haven't even gotten to the plot yet. This kind of addictive quality in a book's beginning really attracts me and is a definite plus.

As always, I'll keep you updated.

sick but excited

Well, this was set up to be one of the most boring days ever...until, that is, my mom brought home the Utne Reader's article Feminism 2.0. This piece is concerned with the booming portion of the blogosphere now devoted to feminism. Apparently, there are some major sites and then a menagerie of more minor ones. Some bloggers write about pop culture, some about abortion, some about equal rights for both sexes. Some of these journals are for GLBT communities. But throughout all of them, there is a string of feminist vibe. Check out the article--it's a fast, absorbing, fascinating read, and it's got me hooked on this whole idea.

-oh yeah it's the smart one

murder on the orient express

I'm hungry. Hopefully the carton of strawberries I'm working on eating will suffice.

My sister's dress rehearsal for her play, my mother's adapted version of Murder on the Orient Express, went interestingly today at her school. I sat behind the 8-by-8-foot sheet, stapled to a wooden frame, projecting this image onto the sheet throughout a production that was slightly over an hour long. Around me were four fifth-grade boys, walking back and forth in front of the projector, irking me to no end. Everyone kept forgetting their lines and speaking in mouse tones, but all in all, it was pretty funny, what with all the stuff they improvised.

Hey, if I get a chance, do you think I should try to go for middle school president?

hepatitis c scare

I was watching the news last night with my mom, brother, and sister--my dad is away on a business trip--and as we were trying to find a channel that had something about the elections on, not just weather or health food, we found CBS News and their shocking broadcast about the Hepatitis C scare at a Las Vegas medical center. (The article can be found here.) Apparently, the clinic has been using previously-used syringes. Six patients have already been found to have Hepatitis C, and 40,000 more have been informed that they could have it, or even HIV.

And it doesn't stop there: as these conditions can be transmitted sexually, there is widespread danger already about the high numbers of other people, people who weren't even patients at the clinic, who could have HIV or Hepatitis C.

I find this unbelievable. I mean, of course I do, but really it just makes me mad. What are we as a country if we can't monitor the actions and procedures of our medical treatment centers and make sure our doctors aren't breaking the Hippocrates Oath? After all, this is violation of the first rule, do not hurt a patient [knowingly].

Please, please respond, I am so eager to hear your opinions on this incredibly horrible story.

our domain

Aha, they've finally printed it: girls are more technology-savvy than boys. Especially in the blogging department, where the numbers are very feel-good towards me and other teenage girls.

The only area in which male use surpasses female is that of video posting, and that's not because women lack the technological talent, but because video posting is more about impressing others than expressing oneself. Teehee.

Check out the Times article:

Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain - New York Times

To all my female blogging friends, blog on!
And thanks once more to Dad for showing me this article.

books and movies

Don't worry, this time there's a reason for the title of the post being "movies."

BOOKS:
-The Hotel New Hampshire The end, even if it wasn't ugly or big or violent enough, even if it didn't have enough fatalism or barbells or did "not merit so much as a moan from Screaming Annie," despite all these supposed flaws, it was definitely right.
-1984 Just started this one, as opposed to just having finished the previous book, but I'm convinced that it's got just the right amount of confusing to make sense. (I wonder if I can say "just" one more time in a single sentence.)
-Discordia: The Eleventh Dimension I read this all today. It was pretty short and very difficult to read but easy to get through, if you know what I mean. This book was written by my the mother of one of my mom's favorite old students; the mother's name is Dena K. Salmon (how cool is that?). Actually, it hasn't even been published yet; what I got to read was a sort of pre-edition, a draft, a mock-up. I liked it very much all the same.
-Jane Eyre Look, maybe there was a rather interest-renewing murder right where I left off, but Brontë is going to have to try just a little harder to keep my attention span on its toes. I have to abandon this one until there's really no reading material left, at which point I will finally burn it and make a beeline for that great used bookstore in Princeton.
-The Mayor of Casterbridge Tom...Tom...Wake up, man. Where'd you go? I thought you'd changed. I thought this novel, maybe, was going to get the plot going before the last three pages. It did, too, and I was so proud, even optimistic for once in my life. Unfortunately, though, I have hit a wall. Hopefully, this dull and wordy section is just a bump in the road, as there were many of in Tess. So to be fair, and also because I otherwise love your work, once I finish 1984, I'll give this one an honest second chance.

MOVIES:
-JUNO Yes, I saw this a while ago, but I finally ripped the soundtrack from my mom's officemate's CD to my laptop, and I can't stop listening. Unfortunately, I can't transfer the songs to my iPod either. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
-27 Dresses I have to say that my least favorite dress in the whole thing was that of Katharine Heigl's character at her own wedding. I'm sorry, but the overly heavy overcoat-like layer of embroidery just does not do it for me. I prefer the Southern Belle dress; at least that one's got a sense of humor.
-South Pacific I'll admit it, I've seen it roughly a quadrillion times, but my grandmother and I, what with the combination of my deep and unnatural mind-craving to hear the earworm My Girl Back Home and her slightly nauseating nostalgia for the flick, we just had to watch it.
-Schindler's List Sorry, sorry, the list is getting long, but believe me, I'm omitting some. (Obviously I've had nothing to do over President's Day weekend but sit around like an oaf, eating and watching movies.) All I can say is that I'm honestly not as much of a night person as the me that watched this movie until 2:30 in the morning without having had any coffee whatsoever since noon that morning--and I'm especially not the me who cried like she was mourning the death of her own mother watching the part at the end where Schindler's Jews today put stones on his grave. If you haven't seen it, you're either living under a rock or you're full of pitiable ignorance. Or, of course, both could be the case.

I'll try to make links out of these tomorrow, but right now, I've got a dystopia and a Winston to catch up with.

movies

Hello losers, winners, and those of you in 2nd place...and apparently, thanks to Megan at http://lablover12.blogspot.com/ , hello to President Bush and his FBI. (Shout-out to Mike at the White House.)

Sorry I haven't posted for almost a week; there just hasn't been too much going on. But a great artist, especially a great writer, can make something out of nothing.

This week turned my crew for the school play into something dismal. What used to be a seemingly vital job--props for Macbeth--has become basketball with the gym teacher. "If you want to join the guys," he says, and play basketball for an hour, the other two girls in Props and Painting and I are welcome to do so. Otherwise, we can just sit there and watch the kids who are actually in the play rehearse. It's only kind of amusing, because the director guy yells so FRICKIN loud whenever he gets a touch angry about something, and then everyone is completely stiff.

It's embarrassing.