A few minor differences.

I'm now going to list the slight differences between Florida and Ohio.  There aren't many.  You know.  They are two very similar states.  But anyway.
1.  When people from out of state drive through Florida... what am I talking about, they don't drive through Florida, they drive TO it.  When people from out of state drive through Ohio, they'll see corn.  And more corn.  And cows.  In fact, the most memorable thing for them about their drive was that they saw COWS.  Multiple times.  Wow.  Or maybe they'll remember that there are a lot of "C' things.  Corn, cows, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland.

2. If you say you're vacationing in Florida, even if it's just for family, people will say,  "Ooh, lucky!  Are you going to Disney World?  Are you going to the beach?" If you say you're vacationing in Ohio, they'll make a face and say, "Oh.  Do you have family there?  What's in Ohio?"  Well, actually, the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame is in Ohio, along with 2 big amusement parks and a great lake, thankyouverymuch.  But people don't think of that immediately when you say Ohio.  They think corn, cows, and boredom.

3. When it's 50 degrees f in Florida in the winter, people wear winter coats and complain about the cold.  In Ohio 50 degrees f in the winter... well actually that almost never happens, we'll get maybe one day a winter.  But people walk around in t-shirts when it does happen.

4. When it snows in Florida, it makes the news.  When it snows in Ohio, no one cares.  The one time we made the news for snow there was 21 inches on the ground.  And even that didn't get talked about as much as Florida's 1/2 inch.

5. In Florida every person has an outdoor pool.  In Ohio that's a rare happening.  And hotels?  Never.

6.  When people retire, they move TO Florida.  Where are all those people moving FROM?  Ohio, of course.

And... that concludes my list.  But I'm not trying to put Ohio in a bad light.  I actually really love it.  But Florida just gets all the hype.  Seriously, half of my friends are there right now.  And where am I?
Ohio.  "There's no place like home for the holidays......."

The LUIGI Brothers

Think about Mario and Luigi.  No, really, think.  I mean, if they were real wouldn't Luigi want them to be called "The Luigi Brothers?" Just once?  Mario always seems to get the spotlight.  There are a ton of games with Mario and Luigi in them out there, but Luigi is always player 2.  I mean, what's that all about?  If you walked up to someone and, "Yesterday I played a game with Mario in it," or something along those lines, they'd understand probably immediately.  But if you walked up to someone and said something like, "Yesterday I played a game with Luigi in it," it would most likely take them a few moments to figure out, and then when they did they would probably think you were a little weird.  Why say Luigi? They'd ask themselves.  It would have been much less confusing to just say Mario.  When school is back in, I'm going to say that to one of my friends.  I played a Luigi game.

Look at how cute it is!

Lookitlookitlookitihavenolifelookitlookitlookit
It is a tiny cute violin!!  I made it out of these really small lego looking things I got for Christmas.  I actually play viola, but I guess at this size violins and violas are the same thing.

I'm not really the world's best photographer, but at least you can tell what it is.  I tried to take a picture of it next to my actual viola, but since I was holding my laptop to take the picture in one hand, I couldn't very well control where I was putting the violin.  And I sort of... kind of... dropped the miniature bow inside the viola.  I'm shaking it.  And it isn't coming out.
Oops.

My opinion on time zones

They are weird.  Necessary, I know.  But they're so... wide.  And they don't even come close to following the lines of longitude they technically should.  But I kind of like them, too.  I know it sounds really nerdy, but I think they're kind of interesting.
Also, their weirdness just gave me bragging rights.  We were in the car on the way back from a restaurant with my grandma.  We're in the same time zone, but because New York is in the Eastern portion of the time zone and where I live is really close to the next time zone West.  So, since it gets dark so much later she made a comment about that.  It's really a long story, but we were arguing about where our time zone ended and the next began.  I said it was an hour drive and everyone else said half an hour.
Guess who was right.  Guess who.  *jumps excitedly and points to self*
Yeah... I'm getting waaay too excited about this.  But my mom owes me a dollar.

A time zone map, because there is no other way to make this post less confusing.

A QUICK UPDATE:  About that dollar..... yeah, my mom no longer owes it to me because about a half hour after I posted this I almost dropped my stocking hanger.  I caught it on the way down, but it still smashed against the fireplace and part of the hat on the snowman chipped off.  It can be glued but my mom said the deal was off. >.<

Good morning, everyone. I have earned Angel status for today.

It wasn't even 9:00 am yet when my morning started by the phone ringing, and my mom yelling to me from the bathroom, "McKenna!  Wake up and get the phone, it's your aunt!  Everyone else is busy." 
So I kind of stumbled out of bed thinking, Great.  My brain is still foggy, I feel terrible (I actually did get the flu), and I sound terrible.  Also, I really didn't want to talk to my aunt because she's one of those people where you can never get a word in, and when you do she just presses what she said first back on you or contradicts you, or says something else that turns into a mostly one-sided hour long conversation.
Long story short, I wasn't prepared.  She said to me, "I had a bunch of meetings today but they all got cancelled, and if you guys want to do something with the rest of the family today we're available.  Tell your mom that."  Then my mom got out of the bathroom.  I happily walked up to her.
"My mom just got out of the bathroom if you want to talk to her."
My mom started looking really angry and shaking her head.  I swear my aunt has x-ray vision, too, because she said, "Oh, I'm not sure I'd want to bother her.  Does she look mad?"
I glanced at my mom, who was glaring at me.  "No.  I'll just tell her what you said then.  Bye."
So my mom just walked away.  But guess what?  I can do no wrong in the eyes of my mom for the rest of the day.  I helped her avoid talking to my aunt and probably, having to see her today, and I avoiding having her see my mom in a bad light.
It's gonna rock.

In which I post a short (ish) piece of writing

One of my amazing friends on Nanowrimo told me that I should post some of my writing on my blog.  This is the first chapter I wrote in my novel for Nano.  It's unedited so it might seem a little sloppy but I'm still working on it- suggestions are welcome!

August 12, 2027

            The August air hangs over my head, hot, heavy, and stickily humid.  It’s dense enough to fully envelope me, so I’m surrounded with an ominous sense of change.  A cooler breeze blows lightly at me, carrying with it a faint, tingling electric charge.  The sun shines as I walk across the yard to the shed, brown grass crackling under my Converse, but dark clouds are beginning to peek over the Western horizon.  I click the key into the lock and twist, and then creak open the wooden door.  I fight my way through the mess, all of it smelling like a mixture of dry, dead grass and gasoline.  Finally, I make my way out and push my bike across the yard, the breeze just barely stirring my dark blonde hair.  I study the clouds.  When I’m home from the park in a few hours, the clouds will be directly overhead.  And soon after, it will storm.

            I push off the ground with my left foot, bumping noiselessly across the yard.  And the world is still.  I smile silently to myself.  This is my favorite kind of weather. 

            Lee is waiting with her bike in the front yard, her straight, pale hair cascading from beneath her helmet to halfway down her back.  She squints at me through the sun.  “You ready?”

            I adjust my helmet.  “Yeah.  Let’s go.”

            It’s only a mile to Clancy Park, through our little South Dakota town, past houses with neat yards.  Everyone’s grass is better watered than ours, but I don’t know why, because since the drought got worse there’s been bans on water usage.  But after tonight the drought will finally be over, and maybe they’ll lift the bans, and refill the town pool.  It’ll be nice to swim again before ninth grade starts and it gets cold out.

            The longer we are at the park, the darker the sky gets.  After almost two hours, the sun suddenly blinks out as the clouds smother it, surrendering itself to the storm.  Thunder rumbles in warning, and a more noticeable wind blows up a puff of dirt from the playground.

            Lee looks up at the sky.  “We should probably go.  It’s going to rain soon.”

            I sit down on a swing and rock back and forth gently.  Creak, creak.  Creak, creak.  Another dirt cloud rises and blows away as I scrape the ground with the toe of my sneaker.  It is dustier than a baseball field.

            “I don’t know.  Maybe it will pass.  Just give it a few more minutes.”  The truth is, I can’t wait for the rain to begin.  I am sweaty and covered in dirt, and I love that moment when the first drops of rain begin to fall, love to be standing there and let the water land on my clothes and skin and cool me off.

            But already, Lee is shaking her head.  “No.  I’ve always hated storms.  I think we should go.”

            I frown. “Fine.”

            As I roll my bike back into the shed, the sky is completely obscured.  It is only eight p.m., but the neighborhood is as black as midnight.  Inside the shed it is impossibly darker, and I’m moving past large, hulking masses that I can’t even see.  I bang my knee on something, hard, as I move my kickstand down, and I curse the darkness.

            Crack!

            Suddenly, there is light, everywhere, and too much of it.  It is so white and bright that it blinds me.  Part of the shed roof collapses inward and crashes to the floor in flames, missing me by inches.  The air around me sparks, crackles.  It smells singed and charged and full of a strange kind of smoke, and I can feel a jolt of energy hit me.  The pain is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.  I can’t describe it.  I can’t move.  I can’t breathe.  I try to scream, but either nothing comes out or the enormous amount of sound me swallows it whole from my throat.  And just like that, the white is gone, replaced by the orange and blue of flaming wood and the murky gray-brown of smoke.  A loud, sudden roar adds to the noise, and I see the lawnmower engulfed in bright flames.  The tank, full of gasoline, explodes.  I am thrown off my feet, flying through the hazy orange air to land on a dusty, burning floor.  I can no longer see the purple clouds above me, even as I lie on my back.  Well, I think I’m lying on my back, but not sure.  I’m too disoriented by this point to even tell something as simple as that.  The burning gas finds my nose, choking me further.  The heat is more intense than the sun, but I find myself shivering as the flames reach me, and begin to sear into my skin.  And finally I can describe the pain.

            I’m going to die, I think in my fried brain.  This is what death feels like.

            I close my burning, dry-yet-watering eyes and let myself surrender to the flames.  They will take me, but I am prepared.  The pain finally, blissfully, fades into nothing.

            And I know nothing.

            I see nothing.

            I feel nothing.

            I hear nothing.

            I am nothing.

            But it isn’t the bliss I expected.

            It is, simply, nothing.  

            Nothing.

So I got a first aid kit for Christmas....

My cousin bought it for me, and the really sad thing is it's probably one of the most useful presents I'll ever receive.  I'm a total klutz, always have been always will be.  It has about every type of Band-aid you could possibly imagine, and 3 antiseptic wipes.  There's 42 pieces, but I guarantee it will all be gone in a month.  *smiles*
Ok, I'm about to go on a really depressed rant so if you don't want to hear that kind of thing on Christmas or at all, don't read it.
And I'm sick.  Earlier I was just really tired but I was still kind of hoping I wasn't coming down with anything on Christmas, but now... yeah.  I have my fingers crossed I'm not getting the flu.  It's early and there's still relatives here (that I'm avoiding because of my current state), and I would just crash now but it's too loud. XP
And my other cousin, who's 20, went back to acting like I'm a little kid.  Even when I was 13 she told me, "You're old enough to understand things," and actually talked to me but today as soon as my uncle (he's 28) showed up, she started telling him only little bits of things, typing in her phone and only showing it to him, saying, "I'll tell you later," while raising her eyebrows at me, things like that.  I mean, what happened?  It's been over a year and a half since she first told me I was old enough to know and understand stuff.  But she just kept blocking me out of the conversation and talking about things that happened when I was either not born yet or too young too remember, although she's closer to my age than my uncle's.
*sighs* I'm sorry.  I needed to say that stuff.  And there you have it, the first mostly negative post, courtesy of a very Charlie-Brown-ish feeling McKenna.  I know I sound pretty hypocritical by this point from one of my other posts but... I don't know.  Maybe it is possible for a non-depressed person to be down on Christmas.  Noted, world.

A Christmas to remember

Merry Christmas!  Hope it's going great for everyone, and have a good day too if you don't celebrate it.  I got the book Ender's Game, which I am sooo excited to read, and lots of other cool things.  We got up early and my dad made pancakes and it's been great.
But you know what will really make this Christmas memorable?
The fact that I just spent the past 25 minutes with my hair stuck in a curling iron.  Yes, you read that right.  My grandma had this really cool curling iron with bristles (if that's what they're called) around the barrel, like a brush.  Well, my hair is really thick.  She tried to curl it for me and the thing got stuck.  And we couldn't get it out.  It was a long and painful process which my mom will probably tell my kids in 20 years.  *facepalm*  She and my grandma couldn't stop laughing.  Anyway.  It's still going to be a great day, even if the reason I put my hair in a ponytail everyday is confirmed- my hair has a mind of its own.

Adventures in wrapping Christmas presents

I'd bet that I'm the only person who can set out to wrap gifts and end of with a muddy paw print on my back, tape in my hair, and little shreds of paper all over the floor.  See, I have a dog.  This dog is a big dog, too.  He weighs 90 pounds, and like all dogs feels some dire need to bark out the window at random intervals, even when there's nothing there.  Well, I was lying on the floor with the tape, scissors, and wrapping paper and the dog comes over, steps around the paper, but in doing so ends up putting his wet paw on my back.  Then he stepped on the tape dispenser, got a piece on stuck his foot, ripped the roll out of the dispenser, and when I was trying to unstick him he shook his foot and the tape got stuck to my hair.  Don't get me wrong, I love my dog.  But... *shakes head*.  Anyway, the little bits of paper were all my fault.  I'm really bad at wrapping gifts.  I kept trimming the wrapping paper down until the entire living room was a mess.  It looks like a warzone.  And I have to clean it up!!  And my brother wouldn't help me wrap, just added to the mess by putting candy wrappers on the floor.  It's been a long day.  And it's not even halfway over.
Ooh!!  But I'm so excited!!!  Tonight, we're going to the airport and picking up my grandma!  We only see her a few times a year because she lives in New York and I'm in the Midwest, but she's flying in for Christmas!

"A Charlie Brown Christmas"- in the form of a random thought by Mckenna

So last night my mom, brother, and I watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas", the one from 1965, and in my opinion the best.  But I have one thought running through my mind about it- it's common knowledge that Charlie Brown is chronically depressed.  But even on Christmas.  And even Snoopy laughs at him.  I don't understand.  Can't... he be happy just one day a year?  Well, it isn't that I don't understand depression.  I've known people who have had it, but Charlie Brown is a cartoon.
Although, I do like the ending.  A lot.  When his friends stopped laughing at him and made his sad little tree look like something amazing, it really helped to portray how much friends can do for someone.  And Charlie Brown was smiling, then.  I know it isn't real, but the ending makes me happy.  Every year.

What this blog is about

Hey, everyone, I'm McKenna.  The title of the blog is pretty self-explanatory.  My life is crazy.  It's up and down and swirls in circles, just like the life of any teenage girl.  This is the place where I can post the neat stuff that happens to me, and I love to write.  When I grow up I want to be a Marine Biologist so I might occasionally post about that, too! :) I'll try to keep the sad, depressing posts to a minimum but I can't promise 100%- everyone has a bad day once in a while.  It's high school.  But anyway.  I digress.  Today I am so excited!  It was the last day of school before Winter Break, and I don't have to go back until 2014!! 
I also am creating this blog because I need another place to write.  I kept a diary for most of 2013 and sort of trailed off about a month ago.  I ran out of time, interest, and motivation for it.  Nobody would ever read it but me, so I stopped seeing the purpose.  But with this new blog set up and all ready for 2014, I'm hoping to be inspired and pushed through by you- the readers.  Please follow if you're interested!