Lucy Maud

It is 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday and I am awake.

The real shame of it is that I have been up since 7 in the morning this Saturday, and it seems like an awful waste to be up since 7 in the morning on a Saturday. Saturdays are very rare and I only get one after 6 other days of waking up too early, it's a shame to spend it this way.

Anyway, I tried to talk myself back into falling asleep, but it didn't work. I have this dreadful fear that I'm becoming an adult, the kind that always says, 'When I'm up, I'm up". I don't want to be up when I'm up. I stayed up 'til midnight last night (or is it this morning?) doing homework, then up 'til one or so reading, and I had great hopes of sleeping 'til noon and then meandering around the apartment sipping coffee and wearing pajamas.

Instead I am up since 7 in the morning, drinking water, cleaning my room, writing a blog, and I just sat down a bit ago to read 'The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery'.

I love those journals so much, but they also make me feel a bit ashamed. I think L.M. wrote them when she was 15 years old and at 15, even considering how silly and stupid most 15 year olds are, she was already about the funniest and cleverest little thing. I have 7 years on her and am not even half as funny or clever.

I felt the same way the other day. I bought the C.S. Lewis journals on ebay (ebay will be my financial ruin...) and reading them made me feel like an absolute dunce. The worst part is I am pretty sure that C.S. was smarter than I am and a better writer when he was 7 than I'll ever be. I do not think it's fair. I am bitter that no one taught me Latin when I was in elementary school like they taught C.S. Maybe I would have some hope of being as smart if someone had taught me Latin. At least that's what I tell myself.

Anyway, I am in the middle of L.M.'s journal and Nate has just written her a love letter, and for a 15 year old boy, he is quite the accomplished love letter writer. I wish people still wrote love letters like his. Nowadays love letters are nonsense, and so are love songs I think. A bunch of silly words that rhyme---I have seen more sense in a box of Sweethearts Conversation Hearts than in some love songs.

Here is Nate's letter:

'Well, Polly, it must be done. I at first intended to write quite a lengthy epistle, setting forth my poor opinion of myself, my very inferior personal endowments, my happiness, or rather ecstasy if your note proved favorable to my wishes etc. etc etc. But I have altered my plan of arrangement and resolved to give you hard, dry, plain facts, for they may possibly appear as such to you, but they are nevertheless as true as gospel. Here goes: --Of all my feminine friends the one whom I most admire---no, I'm growing reckless--the one whom I love (if authorities allow that word to come under the school boy's vocabulary) is L.M. Montgomery, the girl I shook hands with, the girl after my own heart.

Yes, Polly it is true. I always liked you better than any other girl and it has kept on increasing till it has obtained "prodigious" proportions. Oh, wouldn't I like to see you reading this. But i must conclude or you will say it is very lengthy after all.... from, Nate'

Not one rhyme and still it was quite the little letter. Someday I will write a love letter and use the words 'prodigious', and 'epistle'. I think I would feel quite accomplished.

Well last night Amanda came over to bring me a prize for finishing my homework. Then I forced her to listen to me while I read her quotes I had typed out (I have a bad habit of writing down the funny parts of conversations, I have a very entertaining one on the topic of lint rollers if anyone is interested). She tolerated my nonsense and then I got to work finishing the last batch of homework. I am afraid I have been conditioned to expect prizes though, because now I've finished again and have a very funny feeling, like I deserve a toy or candy for my efforts...or a biscuit.

Well, I have rambled long enough. It is now 9 in the morning and I have yet to have coffee or oatmeal, which is very out of character for me. And since I have always aspired to be a person of consistent character, I am going to go make coffee and oatmeal and hopefully continue to develop myself into a person with character (because, you know, oatmeal and coffee are foundational to having consistent character).

C.