I'm back from art camp and it was full of funness. I know, you're thinking, "And she took her own sweet time with it, didn't she?" with a Scottish accent. Admit it, you are.

Let's take it one day at a time:
SUNDAY- Arrived. Got unpacked. Waited for roommate (stayed in dorm room, by the way). Gave up. Went to introductory meeting. Met Cheryl. Had nasty sloppy joes for dinner. Walked to art building for first time. Made "baroque" chalk drawing with an assigned group. Looked more like street art. Roommate never showed, had double room to myself. Please note that they reccomended we bring small fans for our rooms. Please also note that the rooms were freezing.
MONDAY- First day of classes. 2D Design: We went over the color wheel while listening to "variety" radio station (Celine Dion). Acrylic Painting: Bright, cartoony paint colors and my own lack of talent with a brush make for unconvincing landscapes. Drawing: Doing faces in preparation (spelling?) for self-portraits. HATE self-portraits. Nasty lunch and dinner. "Got to know" councillors... which is being lectured at and shown their artwork. All of them are art teachers. No sign of roommate. I tell everyone she's just invisible and very quiet.
TUESDAY- Have given up on any food except for cold cereal and what I can buy at the bookstore. 2D: Started designs, more work on color wheel. But had headphones. Painting: Have given up on color mixing and brushes. Fingerpainting. Teacher loves it. Drawing: SP coming along nicely, actually. Had lunch at McDonald's. "Met" some faculty member. Walked back to the dorm. Had dinner. Walked back to the art building for open studio. Walked back.
WEDNESDAY- Met cool girl named Nina who loved anime and was very nifty, although she was a freshman. She reminded me a lot of Brad, actually. I hope I didn't offend either of them with that....2D design: painting the design. Painting: Now I work with wet paper. It looks all cool and watercolor-y. Drawing: SP looks like me. But I have to color it. I CAN'T COLOR!!!!!! We had a camp-crossover night (there were also theatre, dance, and band camps staying there). I did art and theatre. Art: Two of my councillors, Frank and Greg, dressed up in khaki and talked in Australian accents. They gave us a presentation on Pollock (paint-splatter man) and Christo (he wrapped stuff). Then they took us hunting for Tess, a Chevyus Blazersaurus (Frank's car wrapped in butcher paper... but they even gave it horns and a tail). We threw paint-filled balloons and sponges at it. Theatre: Who's line. Very cool.
THURSDAY- Same stuff, but we had a box lunch and a jazz concert. I bought their CD because I enjoyed it muchly. The guy selling them commented that high schoolers have too much money and if we were in college, we wouldn't be shoving twenties at him. Arranged for a bowling team for the bowlin tournament. Suggested we be the Pirates. Then, we had Performance Art. Basically, the students are given a chance to take over the stage, talk, and get to know each other. Diane, a really cool girl with a bull-ring style nose piercing (I was scared of her, at first, but she's quite nice and really cool) shared one of her favorite songs with us. Two boys played and sang for us. I liked the song with the bass best. Then, I decided to go up. I don't know why, I just did. It was really cool. I just did whatever off the top of my head. I ended up doing this weird, stand-up sort of thing. It basically went like this:
"Hi, I'm Caitlin Anna McGarrigle. I would just like to share something of myself with you. I'm... well, my mum's African-American and a little bit Native American, and my Dad's Irish. People never expect this. They all think I'm hispanic. I'll be at work, ringing up some customer, and sometimes someone will just walk up and start speaking Spanish at me. It really breaks my heart to see their faces when I'm like, (here I grin nervously) 'No habla...' No, I've got other problems. Like, I think I'm girly. I look pretty feminine. (I was wearing a skirt, so I smoothed it pointedly) But I used to have kind of short hair, so... well, let's just say if I had a dollar for everytime someone called me my older brother, Weston.... who has a beard..." I made everyone laugh. You have no idea how... ecstatic I felt that I could make a roomful of 60 perfect strangers laugh at me (my jokes...). Some even walked up to me afterward to tell me how much they liked it. Yay! Happiness. Joy wiggle. Frank told me it was the opposite for him: his family was from Guatemala, but no one believes him. I think that's hilarious. There was also an all-camp dance afterward, but all the dance girls were making it quite weird (12 year olds in short shorts...grinding with each other...) so I split fairly quickly.
FRIDAY- Our costumes were all done for the bowling tournament: striped socks, bandanas on our heads, and skull-and-crossed-pins tee shirts. We didn't win, but it was cool. Then our parents came. The councillors handed out diploma-type things that said "Be it known that so-and-so completed art camp." Dad made me go back so he could get a picture of me shaking Greg's hand. Then we went to the gallery and looked at my stuff, then we packed up and went home. Hallelujah. My mum and da are proud that I never once called home (truth is, I just didn't have the time). But at least I didn't get homesick. Did I mention we spent over 15 hours walking all week? The art building was a half hour from the dorm, and we made the walk (there and back) at least two times a day.

MY SCHEDULE FOR SEMESTER ONE:
EB gym
1- French 5/Bonahoom (thank god)
2- Psychology/Johnson
3- Humanities/Osing (is this a good thing? I can't tell)
4- Lunch
5- Statistics AP/Meager
6- Crafts and Design/Doucette (Did you know I live about two door away from her?)
7- Chemistry/Kash (I hate non-earth science, so this should be fun... NOT)
8- I'm not sure. I think it's a free period first semester. The only thing scheduled it Law second semester. So I don't know.

I think my writing style is degenerating. It might just be me, but is it breaking down? I sound like a rambling idiot...wait, never mind. I am a rambler.

I think that's it for now. Ja ne.

Argh, my computer kicked me off before I could finish, so now I have to write this whole thing over again. Here goes:

Today I met Isaac Adamson. Nestled between Psychology and Self-Help at the Evanston Barnes & Noble, Dad and I sat down for his reading, Q&A, and book signing.

This is all well and good, but Dad and I made up fully HALF the crowd there. He read the first chapter of Hokkaido Popsicle, took two questions (and answered both very quickly), and moved on to the signing. I was the second and last person in line. Sigh.

Despite that, he was very nice and listened to my havering on about how much I loved his books, and how I had won one of the advance copies earlier, and couldn't think of anything to say, so just thrust my copy at his face and said, "Would you mind signing this one, too?" because he had signed the advance copy for me before sending it. He talked to me all nice-like, and said he hoped he hadn't bored me too much during the reading, and was quite cool, although he was almost as stuttery-nervous as I was. He's a cute little dork-boy (my favorite kind), although a bit on the hairy side (I could see quite a bit of his chest hair poking through the top of his shirt).

Dad said he could tell I took a lot of my writing style from Isaac's, and also that I had probably made his day by showing up. I felt so weird.

I have had two revelations recently:

1) I am an unobservant person with no tolerance for things that don't interest me. Dad and Eric Freund (spelling?) independently informed me of this. I had kind of been wondering how I ended up in English honors when I could never pick up on all the little symbolic doo-hickeys my teachers claim are in our books. Now I know I don't notice them because I never notice anything. It makes me feel better to know that about myself.

2) At the Gardens, we are constantly at war with the algae that grows in the larger fountains. The smaller fountains aren't nearly so bad. We fill the little ones with tap water. The big ones we fill with hose water. WE PUT FERTILIZER IN THE HOSE WATER. What is the point?!?!?!

I saw Mr. Osing today at Ethnic Fest. He freaked me out. I introduced him to my parents. Whee. Creepy. Mr. Osing's a decent fellow, but no teachers should be let off school grounds EVER.

No one ever believes me when I say I listen to jazz and blues, not even my family. Sigh.

I go to art camp tomorrow. I don't know if I'll be able to contact anyone while I'm there. I get back the 26th, so I'll tell you about it then.

I really do not understand how my father can talk to me like a rational adult when I insist on wearing couch cushions on my head during our conversations. He asked what kind of father he would be if he didn't treat me respectfully. So I stacked another pillow on my head just to make sure he really felt that way.

I'm allowed to bring my music to work on Sundays because I never have anything to do during Summer, Fall, and Winter. Obviously, The Mister T Experience (a punk band who brings you such hits as: I'm Like Yeah And She's All No, and Even Hitler Had A Girlfriend) and Yuko Sasaki (Japanese idol singer... So cute!) would not go over well with the customers who would also have to listen to it, so I usually bring in my Ella Fitzgerald (did I spell that right?), Louie Armstrong, etc, etc. Bob always finds it amazing (apparently, it's beyond my time. It's beyond his, too *cough*), and my fellow teenaged coworkers have just accepted that I'm incredibly odd, but recently I got to weird-out a customer with my taste in tunes. It went down like this:

(The E&D Blues is playing on the stereo. Listen to this song, by the way. Tis good.)
BOB: (turns music up) Feel free to dance while waiting in line.
LADY: (Laughs)
BOB: Caitlin's choice.
LADY: (Looks at me) Somehow I doubt it.
ME: I bring it from home.
LADY: Really?
BOB: (Sounds vaguely proud) Caitlin's a person all her own.
LADY: I have a young man at home who would never listen to stuff like this.
ME: (Banging fist on counter) Kids today.

It was really cool.

I don't know if I've ever told anyone this, but I am utterly in love with the most useless, time-wasting game EVER. It's called Harvest Moon. The entire object of the game is to run a successful farm, make friends with the villagers, marry a girl, and start a family.

See, you inherit your dead grand-pappy's old farm in the middle of this hick-village in the boonies of Japan (of course this game is Japanese. Who else would have thought of it?) You've got three years to turn the farm from a muddy ditch to something valuable or else they run you out of town, and apparently this includes:

-Building a nice house
-Planting a butt-load of crops (and flowers <-- why???)
-Raising chickens, sheep, and moo-cows
-Catching excesses of fish and keeping them in a pond in the yard (You never eat them once they end up in the pond. What's up with that???)
-Making friends with every villager, not matter how creepy they seem (and they are. So very creeeeeeepy)
-Marrying one of the 5 beautiful teenaged girls in the town (I'm reasonably certain my character is a teen, too, but that makes the game seem even wierder)
-Having a son

Yup, you do have a kid, and it's ALWAYS male.

Anyway, I was in my third year. I had until the last day of Winter (the "months" of the year are actually just four 30-day seasons: spring, summer, etc. ???) to get my act together. I was actually pretty happy with my game, accept for ONE thing: I had married Elli. She was this chick who worked (WORKED, instead of bumming off her 'rents) at the hospital, had career aspirations as a midwife (??? Highly domestic, but acceptable), and had a wonderfully no-nonsense attitude. I adored her because she was so cool and independent (she was also the easiest to talk into marrying me, but that's a different story).

Right, so we got married and GUESS WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?!?!?! She QUIT her job at the hospital to spend all of her time at home. She started calling me DARLING. She accepted me (rather, the character in the game) as the head of the household and was completely servile to me. AAAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! WHY DO YOU MOCK ME SO, CRUEL FATE? WHY????????????? YOU DAMN DIRTY APES!!!!!!

Ahem.

But other than that, I was ok with it. I had only one season to go, and I was fairly certain I would be allowed to stay in town. And then I accidentally saved over it. I swore like a sailor, pitched a fit, and had to be subdued by my little sister.

I've been wondering. Are only friends and aquaintances (spelling?) reading this? Or are actual people from the Outside World looking at this page right now, as we speak? Are there people out there who haven't seen my raving face-to-face? Is someone out there who hasn't yet heard complaining about how everyone tries to guess my ethnicity Jeopardy-style (The answer is: Caitlin. Question: Who is that Hispanic girl behind the counter? BUZZ), or how much I hate it when the guys in the landscaping trucks stare and whistle and honk at me? Wouldn't that be weird?

How the hell did you find your way here?

I had so much to tell the world, only now I've forgotten most of it. Just to let those of you who care know:

-Princess in Waiting, the fourth PD book, comes out April 2003. Go to www.megcabot.com for a hilarious sample.

-Carnivorous Carnival, Book The Ninth of A Series of Unfortunate Events comes out October 29th.

-Isaac Adamson, who writes the fabbity-fab Billy Chaka adventures, will be in the Evanston B&N at 3:00 on July 20th. I'm going; are you?

-At the beginning of their career, certain members of N*Sync toured with their moms.

-"How did you know we needed help in a battle with the Penguin at the Glue factory, Batgirl?"
"I used the one thing you couldn't possibly have in your utility belt, Batman."
At this point, Bats reaches for said belt in alarm.
"A woman's intuition."
This is an actual line from the old Batman show. I love it.

-Weston ended up calling the toad Alphonse because he could think of anything better to call it. Sing with me: We are the champions, my friend....

I feel like a bulletin board.

Or maybe the marquis should read, "WE NOW TAKE CREDIT CARDS" on one side and "AND RARELY GIVE THEM BACK" on the other.
There was something else...Hmm...oh yeah. We were driving by a furniture store and their marquis read, "MAN WHO FELL INTO UPHOLSTERY MACHINE IS FULLY RECOVERED" God, I love that. I am laughing very obnoxiously right now. You can't hear though. And the dental hygienist (or, as I like to call her, the gentle hyena) said I have perfect teeth. The sad truth of my middle-of-the-year birth is that I get trips to the dentist as birthday and Christmas presents every year. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeping dentists.