Sunday Confessional: I Used to Hate Cats

It's true. Before Damien and Demitri and Vladimir, I hated cats. The reason? Big Fat Kitty. She is the meanest cat I have ever encountered and seeing as she was the first cat I ever encountered, she spoiled my attitude towards cats.

Big Fat Kitty is a Beast with no personality. When I was little, I would just pet her head and then she'd turn and bite me. I feared and hated her. Since she was the only cat I had contact with from age 1 to 15, I really didn't like cats. I hated them and their sharp nails and fangs. They were villainous creatures to me.

Vladimir

And then I met Vladimir.

Vlad in our cabinet

Vladimir was a stray four-week-old kitten that my aunt saw (along with his four brothers and sisters) in my deceased grandmother's backyard. The next day my mom, aunt and I went to the house to look for the litter of kittens. We were just about to give up when I looked over the brick wall separating my grandmother's property from the neighbor's and guess what? 10 little eyes were staring at me.

I locked eyes with the little gray one that soon became my first beloved cat. After taking them to the local shelter, we took in young Vladimir.

My first day with Damien and Demitri

We still don't know why Vladimir died 4 months later but it was probably a disease or something that he caught his 4 weeks as a newborn in the wild. My mom, sister and I were so devastated that we went to another shelter and adopted Damien and Demitri (then named Dewey and Huey, respectively.)

After learning how cats are actually fun and cute from Vlad, Damien and Demitri, I became converted into a cat person.

I still love dogs and I love Jasper and Delilah (my own dogs) dearly but... now I could say that I am completely in love with cats.

New Senior Project?

I've decided instead of trying to complete something I've done these past 7 years, that I shall spend the next 9 weeks of senior project time creating a business instead of finishing a novel. My business is going to be an online vintage shop and I think the name will be Zombie Vintage: Good Style Never Dies. What do you think?

I've already done more than enough thrifting for the shop and I'm now on the search for mentors. My senior project demands that I have at least two mentors to help me along the way. I've sent an email out already and I'm hurrying to try to find mentors before Monday because if I don't have two willing mentors by Monday, I'll have to go back to writing the novel. Which isn't a bad thing but I want to do something totally out of my area and starting a business would definitely be just that.

My friend is working on the logo because she's a much better artist than I could ever be, but here's my first idea for it:

Weekend Plans

This weekend is four days long! Yay! Thank you George Washington and all those other dead (and/or old) guys!

However, even with a four day weekend comes at least two days worth of homework so maybe I shouldn't celebrate that much. At least I'll be able to sleep in, though.

Mom and her boyfriend are going to Reno for the weekend so I have reign of the house. If I were my sister at my age, then that would have been a formula for a party but, being the socially awkward, friendless weirdo that I am... that ain't gonna happen.

My weekend is going to consist of:

• Watching The Big Bang Theory (recently found it and I'm in love with Sheldon)
• Finishing a Political Science take-home test
• Starting a Political Science study guide
• Writing a 3 to 5 page essay on the ethics of human nature
• Finishing another 3 to 5 page essay on employers using social media networks to screen potential employees
• Starting a 10 page essay on...
• Coming up with a topic for my 10 page essay
• Working on my outline and first chapter for my senior project novel
• Catching up on the 354 unread blog posts on Bloglovin'
• Writing my next "Sunday Confessional" post along with a couple other posts for this coming week

It's going to be a busy weekend!

When Every Boy You Meet Assumes You're a Sociopath, Valentine's Day Goes Like This:

The Lovers from The Golden Tarot

Wake up. Normal day. Jaded ranting to my mother. Go to bed.

So that schedule must mean it's Valentine’s Day. The day of love and couples making out in overcrowded restaurants. Even with 4 ex-boyfriends, I have never had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day. My first boyfriend broke up with me two days before Valentine’s Day (and we got back together two weeks later) and the rest of them were less than six months and usually from the end of summer to winter. I’m seventeen, I’m testing the waters.

Anyway, I don’t consider myself jaded. I mean, why would I be jaded when the yearbook staff decide they want to sell rose grams and I have to help out due to the guilt that I only sold two? I stabbed myself multiple times with those freaking thorns trying to de-thorn them but that didn’t make me bitter…

Okay, maybe I’m a little bitter.

But I’m not bitter because some boy didn’t buy me anything on Valentine’s Day. I actually hate when boys buy something for me because it feels like I owe them something afterward. It makes me uncomfortable. However, I wish a boy would just say “happy Valentine’s Day, sweetie.” That’s all I want.

But seeing as most boys either see me as a sociopath, a weirdo, or something to avoid, that probably won’t happen…

Oh, pessimism and I have a love/hate relationship.

At least I have my writing… kind of like Jane Austen who remained unmarried her entire life, living precariously through her character's romances...

Flash Fiction: Butchered

I just wrote this a couple months ago and thought I could share it. Seeing as I'm going to be a fiction writer, it makes since to put some of my fiction on my blog. Constructive critism is good! It's just a short little standalone.

Butchered

by Hayley Callaway

Dear dad,

Grandma didn’t want me to write this but she doesn’t need to know about every letter I send. I told her I’m a part of this pen pal exchange with a girl from New York so I could get a stamp from her. She’s afraid I’d do exactly what I’m doing now.

I’ve given up on trying figuring out how you could mutilate girls not much older than me and then come home and watch movies, help me with my homework and pet my hair when I was going through my fits of insomnia. Sometimes I think that the sleeplessness I go through is because of Claudia Dougherty or Brittany Louis or Tara Neiman. They didn’t think I should have the comfort of a good night’s sleep when their murderer was in the other bedroom. I don’t know if they were torturing me or protecting me or if they were doing it at all. What I do know is that I’ve been able to sleep ever since you got arrested.

You’d think I’d have lost sleep over the agony of knowing half my DNA comes from the Bellfield Butcher. But now that you are in prison and either justice has been served or safety has come, they let me sleep.

Grandma and Grandpa changed my last name to theirs before enrolling me in the high school here. They figured I’d been traumatized enough. I’m now Etta Fluberg, which doesn’t sound a whole lot better than Etta Pope but it’ll fit.

Dad, I’m not going to ask you the obvious question about if you would have ever done those things to me because I don’t want to know. And frankly, I don’t think you know.

Thanks for being a good dad even if you were never a good person. Consider this my goodbye and please don’t ask for me or my forgiveness especially not in fifteen years when it’s just before your execution. It’s not me that has to forgive you.

Sincerely,

Etta.

Sunday Confessional: Long(ish) Hair on Guys

Despite the fact that only 1 of my 4 ex-boyfriends had long hair, I have a thing for long hair on guys. Of course, not to the extent that it goes past the shoulders. After it goes past the shoulders, it just looks dirty then. No matter how clean it is, it will just look dirty to me for some reason.

I don't know what's up with my obsession with hair because that's always the first thing that I notice about a person. I can forget a person's eyes or smile (my sister has a thing for lips) or clothing but hair leaves an impression on me.

My first "boyfriend" (not included in the 4-count) had a bowl hair-cut so I've always been into boys who had long-ish hair. From then it manifested. The first time I watched TV and thought that a guy on there was "hot" was when the Disney Channel aired Life with Derek with Michael Seater. The 12-year-old me swooned.

Source

My next long-haired TV crush would be Jerry Trainor, the brother from iCarly. Although, my crush on him was purely for his hair. Once he cut it, he was no longer attractive to me.

Source

Finally, my last and most recent crush would be Matthew Gray Gubler from Criminal Minds. However, I'm surprised that this liking to him is less shallow than my one with Trainor. Even when he cut his hair, I forgave him based on his humorous videos online. Seriously... have you seen the one where he hypnotized a chicken?

But I'm getting off topic.

I mean to say that I like guys with long hair and the first thing I notice on a guy is if his hair is a little messy but still clean-looking and if it is long or short. Call me shallow because that is one of the features on a person that changes the most, but I still am attracted to it first. I am a person that needs to be attracted by features and then, once I get to know that person, those features are just the icing on their personality.

So, features (including long hair) + personality = AWESOME.

Currently...

Being: lazy.

Reading (for fun): The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

Reading (for school): The World is a Text by Jonathan Silverman and Dean Rader.

Watching: Billy the Extermintor and Law and Order.

Playing: Free Cell.
Writing: Scholarship essays.

Eating: lots of McDonald's.

Excited for: Starting to post more on my blog and possibly getting an iPhone.

I'm planning some new posts for this blog here. I've been so busy with scholarships and my English 1A and Political Science classes but I'm going to try to post more.

Thanks for sticking with me!