Have You Ever Wondered...

Do you find it difficult to classify yourself? Is it hard for you to determine if your main interest lies in the realm of math and science, or in the world of art and literature? Wonder no longer. Take the following simple quiz to determine where your loyalties lie.




What is the image above meant to portray?
a. A computer memory circuit.
b. An abstract coloring page.

{If you answered a, you are a math/science person. If you answered b, you are a very unscientific artist, and you are my type of person.}

Just for the record...the correct answer is A. But we artists are happy with our own portrayal, right? ;-)

Dancing to My Own Beat

(Another result of a writing prompt.)

It was Halloween night, around 10:30. The double doors swung inward with a bang, and in stepped what looked like Carabosse herself, in all her tawdry finery and gaudy makeup. A hush fell over the crowded ballroom as the glamorous newcomer stepped down four steps and onto the dance floor. She wore a smirk and looked straight ahead as she made her way across the room. She came to a halt next to the preps, who were all dressed up as Cinderellas or Rapunzels, and stood looking around at the rest of the frivolity.

The music started playing again and the buzz of conversation grew in volume. I casually made my way over to the punch bowl, where I was within earshot of the preps and the new arrival.

"Way to look like a goth, sweetheart," one of them was saying to Carabosse. "You don't exactly fit in with us."

"I'm trying something new, genius," Carabosse said, shifting her weight to the other side and flipping her long, dyed-black hair over her shoulder. "Different can be good."

"Different like evil? Come on."

"All right, cookie cutter Cinderella, let's see how many dances you get!"

Cinderella smiled her sweetest smile. "It's on," she said.

This was too interesting. I stayed by the punch bowl, looking nonchalantly around, keeping my ears tuned in to the preps' conversation. Ten minutes, then twenty, passed, in which I consumed three more glasses of punch than was really necessary. Finally, one of the geeks broke from his group and nervously approached Carabosse, egged on from behind by his equally geekish companions. "Since you seem to be without a partner," he began awkwardly, "would you -"

"Uh," she interrupted, holding up one of her bejeweled hands, "thanks, but no thanks." The rest of the preps dissolved into snorting laughter as the geek abruptly turned on his heel and acted as if he had been going to get a drink all along.

"Thanks for your support," Carabosse snapped at the preps.

"What kind of partner do you expect to get when you look like the wicked witch of the west?" Cinderella simpered, sipping daintily from her glass of punch.

"Well, I don't see guys lining up in front of you."

I finally sat down, tired of their pointless conversation and way too full of punch. I sighed and checked the clock; it was 11:03. The party had started three hours ago and I hadn't been asked for a single dance yet. I glanced down at my cocktail-length dress, which was made from pure white satin and accessorized with cubic zirconia jewelry. It was simple, but elegant. Or so I had thought before I saw all the other elaborate costumes the different cliques had concocted. The preps were all dressed as fairy tale characters. The athletes had reluctantly agreed to put on dresses,, all in bright shades of orange and red. The goths were in black. At least the cheerleaders were covered. The geeks were...the geeks. And then there was me.

I had never really belonged to any group. I had always tried to make my own statements and start my own trends, but being myself had never earned me much popularity. The most notice I ever got at school was a brief smile in the hallway, usually from one of the other noncomformists. But we never really associated with each other. I guess we were always too busy being different to notice that there actually were people out there who were like us.

"Excuse me," said a voice. I looked up. It was one of the - hold on. Which group did he belong to?

"Would you like to dance?" he asked. "I noticed that you weren't really talking to anyone. We might be about the only two people here without a clique."

"Well," I said, taking the hand he offered and standing up, "maybe we should start our own."

As we walked onto the dance floor, I couldn't help smiling to myself. Maybe being different had its merits. After all, Cinderella and Carabosse were still standing on the sidelines, watching as the music changed and my partner and I began to dance.

Someone Else's Love Story

(Background: this is the result of a writing prompt. Therefore, it is a rough draft and kind of weird. Enjoy. =D)

Falling in love was the first mistake I made.

At the time, it had seemed like a sensible idea. After all, I was fresh out of college and had my whole life in front of me, and my inquisitive relatives always wanted to know who that "special someone" was for me. It didn't take me long to get tired of their constant questioning and speculating as to who that lucky guy would be. So I went out into the world with the intention of finding that guy and giving him some of that well-deserved luck.

I found him, all right - all gorgeous twenty-six years of him. But sometimes I still wonder if I was ever really in love with him. It felt like it, but I was always on such an emotional roller coaster that I never quite knew what I really thought of anything. But he was exactly the type of guy that all my inquisitive relatives had always dreamed about, so I claimed him before any other girl had a chance. I guess I should have brushed up on my cliches first. Maybe I would have remembered that haste makes waste.

Well, here we are, six years later. I'm standing next to the grave of my ex-fiance, barely noticing the drops of rain that run down my face in the absence of the tears I would have shed. The rain is turning the dirt I'm standing on into thick mud, and my shoes are going to be ruined. But I don't care. I inhale slowly and deeply and take a look around the cemetery. Even the trees are dead and lifeless. How did it come to this? Why did I ever believe all of those fairy tale stories about how love was supposed to be? Snow White and Cinderella must have been liars, or idealists, or both. Life never happened that way for me.

My relatives were wrong. My love story cooled down fast and died way before its time. If I've learned anything, it's that life is too short to waste it on trying to live up to anyone else's expectations. Next time I ought to pay more attention to what I want and not try to live out my great-aunt's ideal romance. If I had done that the first time, maybe he and I would never have had that last argument that left us both distraught. Maybe he never would have run that red light if he had been thinking clearly. Maybe he would still be alive and able to make another girl's dream come true. He never fulfilled mine, but I couldn't hate him no matter how hard I had tried. And now it was all over and done with.

Now the tears are coming. I close my eyes to try to shield them, but it doesn't work. They fall anyway, mixing with the raindrops that soak the stone cross at the head of the grave.