Chloe

So, most of you guys know that I've been gearing up for cross country this summer, and I'd like to share a story with you that has sort of affected our team and our coach and the way we do things.
A couple weeks ago, Coach told us about a little girl named Chloe who is four years old. She has cancer. I'm not sure what kind of cancer she has, but it's heartbreaking to think of a girl that little and sweet having to deal with this. You can find her family's blog here and the crew that's helped get her an air conditioner here.
So what does this have to do with us?
On our run Monday, I ended up in the back with my coach and asked her how Chloe was doing. We also discussed  an idea on how to help her and her family out by doing a sponsored run. We would ask for people to sponsor us per mile we run. It would probably be during a whole week of practice, so we'd have like a "Chloe Week" or something.
Our Coach told us to keep in mind that we run because we can, and that it's really a blessing that we can go out and run for a few miles.
Guys, this is really important to me. I'm sorry if this is a bit of a break from my usual humor, but this is a serious thing for me. So thanks for sitting through this and stuff, there will be some comic relief sometime this week.

Sitting Upon a Sweater

I'll warn you now that this blog post will probably be extraordinarily random. It may also be short and pointless. Whereas my last post was quite lengthy and revolved around one topic with several subtopics, this will have no general topic. I'll just ramble on and on, because I really wanted to blog today, gosh dangit, and I couldn't think of anything intelligent to write about. So here we go.

I'm sure you noticed my odd title. I actually am sitting upon a sweater, because I couldn't find a pillow and my butt hurts. So I grabbed a sweater. Sweaters make very good butt cushions, as a matter of fact. 

There's a callous growing on my pinky from my cello playing that hurts every time I press the "a" key or the "shift" key or anything else I type with my pinky, but usually it's just those two. Did you know that pinky is underlined in red as a misspelled word? Pinky. Pinkie. Oh, there we go, apparently it's supposed to be spelled with an ie. 

I saw Winnie the Pooh yesterday, and it was so cute. I drew a picture of Pooh and Christopher Robin today. Here it is:

Ain't that just the cutest thing? I got whatever quote is on it from an internet site that is supposedly made up of Pooh quotes. I think Christopher Robin said this one, but I'm not sure. When I was little, we had this book called "Cooking with Pooh". Think about that for a second. Say it out loud to yourself. Get it? Okay. Moving on.

This callous is killing me, man.

I haven't really seen any other movies lately, but I really want to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. Oh wait, I saw Captain America. With a boy. Gasps. It wasn't a date, I pinky (pinkie) promise. 

Yesterday, I ran 2 1/2 miles and then rode a tandem with my dad for 16 miles. Today, I slept until 9:30 and watched Rizzoli and Isles.

Thursday, I'm going to a Taylor Swift concert. I am SO PUMPED. So pumped. You're jealous. 

I'm just going to refrain from using my pinkie from now on. this is going to be hrder thn i thought. ok, screw this. but it's kind of fun. but nywys, moving on.

Using my pinkie again. Still hurts. Y'know, I never get any comments on this blog. I have four followers, and none of you ever comment. C'mon!

I just got a text. From a boy. Just a sec. 

Ok, I'm back, not that there was any actual time taken up. So, I'll let you all get on with your lives now. Sorry I have wasted a chunk of it with my incessant word vomit. 

Somebody please comment on this. It would make me feel so special.

Alan Rickman is "Da Bomb"

I know you're all probably sick of Harry Potter by now. Honestly, since it basically took over my life last week, I'm ready for a break myself. But I figured maybe some of my exasperated feelings over seeing Facebook posts and Youtube videos would be resolved if I wrote it out, and then I figured I'd share it with you lovely people. I was going to organize this, but I guess we'll just see what happens.

Here are some small things that have been on my nerves. I don't know if any of you people have ever heard of LeakyCon, but I think it's basically this big old Harry Potter conference that's supposed to be really awesome. I want to be there. It's on my bucket list to go. Anyway, I keep hearing about it on Youtube and it grates my cheese to know that I probably won't be able to go until I'm like...in college. Another thing is Luna Lovegood. She's definitely one of my favorite characters, but she's also EVERYBODY'S favorite character. There are tons of people who think they're just like her because they're quirky and different. This only annoys me because Luna is so much more than that. She's one of the bravest and wisest characters, and I feel like sometimes some people don't see that and only focus on how she's funny and weird. I know there are others who know how awesome she is besides the obvious, but people bother me.
I saw the latest Harry Potter movie at midnight, just twelve hours after I finished the last book for the second time, and it was amazing. Being there with my friends and all those other die-hard fans was so much fun. And here, I think, we have come to the core of my problem. Sure, I got emotional. I knew it was going to be sad. But I didn't really cry at all, and I'd been preparing myself for weeks for the onslaught of sobbing it was sure to cause me. Then I'm sitting in the theatre while Harry walks calmly to his death (oops...spoilers.) and I'm just barely tearing up. That morning, when I read the book, I had to take a break because I literally couldn't read it any more. And you all know (Well, maybe not, actually...) that I am in love with the Weasley twins, and I didn't even tear up when Fred died. Maybe I had just built up everything in my head, and even though it was amazing, it just wasn't as monumental as I thought. I know, I know, I'm horrible, but maybe it was just the atmosphere. I'm going to see it again sometime soon, and maybe it'll be different the second time around. We'll see.
That brings us to the atmosphere in the theatre. It was awesome. I have never been to a movie where the audience is that silent. We all clapped when Molly killed Bellatrix, there were cheerings when Ron and Hermione finally kiss (my favorite part, just because I've been waiting for it since the last movie), and all whispered "yesssss" when it cut to the epilogue. Then again, I think with the audience and the atmosphere, I didn't get into it as much as I could. When I watched the Order of the Phoenix on Wednesday, I started crying when Sirius died just because I'd gotten so involved in watching it. I've never cried watching that movie before. Maybe it was my friends, because I've been known to sob during Titanic, and when I watch it with my friends I don't even really feel like crying. I know it's weird to not be able to cry in front of your friends. I felt like I was more involved in the atmosphere than in the movie (who's keeping track of how many times I've said 'atmosphere' and 'audience' in the last paragraph?). So I'll go again, maybe with only one friend, maybe like a loser by myself, maybe with my mom. I can't go with my Dad (sorry, Dad) because whenever I watch movies with him and it gets to awkward parts I'm always worried about what he thinks, so going with him would not help me to get into it more.
This all doesn't mean that I'm glad I went. Being a part of it was just as awesome as the movie was. Speaking of the movie, I've decided that the actor who is the best in all eight movies is Alan Rickman, who plays Snape. He's particularly fantastic in the last one, just because nobody ever sees the side of him that he has to portray. In the end epilogue scene, Albus Severus Potter is like the cutest eleven year old I've ever seen, except for maybe Rupert Grint when he was that age. Harry and Ginny's aging makeup stuff is actually pretty good, but Ron and Hermione's is kind of weird-ish. Like you can totally tell that it's make-up, kind of thing. Daniel Radcliffe literally looks like a middle-aged man. That scene was the only one where I was close to totally losing it. I like the way they did the Chamber of Secrets thing, just because they only talked about that in the book and never really showed it. I thought it was hilarious when Voldemort hugged Draco, just because it was so awkward. I was slightly disappointed in the ending battle scene between Harry and Voldemort, because it was really drawn out and when he finally defeated him nobody was around. It was kind of anticlimactic, or something.

So if you're still here, probably sick of my prattling, thank you. I only have one more thing, I promise. This has been built up as the end of something, but I don't see it that way. When I first started reading the last book this week, I cried a lot more in the beginning because I kept thinking about how it was going to be over in a few days. I know this is going to sound corny and sentimental, so brace yourselves. Harry Potter is not something that can end. It's meant so much to so many people, and we can still watch the movies and read the books over and over again. The best part of all this is that we've done it with people that love it as much as we do and can share our sadness and our happiness with those people. Something this big doesn't just end. To quote Albus Dumbledore, "It's not really goodbye, after all".

My Internal Monologue is a Bitch.

I've sort of recently taken up running (like, two months ago and I still can't make three miles straight), and it sucks so much. It sucks in that good way like vegetables or other healthy foods, though, where you know it's good for you so you kind of make yourself eat it. Making myself eat running is hard. Wanna know why? Take a gander at the title. Pair that with the fact that my body is physically stubborn, and it's a recipe for disaster. This song comes to mind every time I think about my internal monologue. Ironically enough, that song came on my iTunes when I was typing this, and I was like, "OMG, it knows!" sort of. I didn't say OMG. I don't say OMG. Anyway, speaking of iTunes, my frickin' iPod has been missing for weeks, no matter how much I stand in the middle of my room and yell ACCIO!!! at the top of my lungs. So, back to my internal monologue. I don't even know if I'm using the correct term here, but I don't even care. I was running today (well...walking, at this point) and I start telling myself that at the next corner I'm going to run all the way home (which didn't happen, by the way). In my head, this bitch is yelling at me like "Come on, Erin, you ran waaaay longer than this yesterday. You can do this. I don't care what anyone else thinks, you can kick everyone's butt at running," and I was like, well thanks, internal monologue, and then she goes "You are so tougher than this. You should be a freaking beast right now. What happened to that?" Great. I guess I'm just frustrated with myself or something, but I need to shut off that voice in my head that comes on whenever I run alone. Yesterday, our cross country team took our first team run, and I made it 2, probably 2 1/2 miles slightly sporadically. I mean, I'm not conditioned enough to run the whole way yet. So there were walk breaks. I've never had so much to talk to my doctor about. I keep sort of freaking out that I'm not going to make it, like "I'm asthmatic! I twisted my foot! OMG!" (see above). Then my internal monologue starts up again and goes, "You're fine, ya wimp. You're just out of shape." Which is probably mostly true. I can't run by myself, otherwise she gets to me, and my body's all like "Just watch me walk, skank." So there you go. I'm having an internal conflict or something. Add that to the list of my problems.