The Contest is Coming! The Contest is Coming!

You're probably getting tired of all the teachers in my life coming out of the woodwork of my world, but check this out . . . my daughter's English teacher just found me!

Are there any other teachers in here? Cause if so, please raise your hand now!

For all I know my kindergarten teacher's probably reading this too (unless she's dead, god rest her soul--notice I used a lower case letter g so as not to be blasphemous).

Can't a CTD just have a little breathing room to stretch out and not worry about her grammar and usage and what she's going to say at the next parent/teacher conference?

So my daughter's English teacher is this super smarty-pants-cosmopolitany-hoity toity writery-type. When she was a little snot-nosed college student she was all famous on campus--always somewhere reading her mind-blowing works of genius and accepting awards and such. And then she was the editor of the college literary magazine, which was elitist, if you ask me (you know how these writer types are.) Anyway, long story short, I didn't appreciate the huge red REJECTED stamp across my submission, MARIKO!

That's all I'm going to say about that.

Okay so I just got off a conference call with my long lost cousin, Emily--aka Sewl, or Cewl Sewl, as I called her when she was a kid. We are ironing out the details of our upcoming Spook-a-Rama Super Scary Hairy Ghosty story contest.

Here's how it went.

First we couldn't agree on anything. We tried to figure out how to combine our names. She suggested Crash-n-Sewl, but I said, why not Crash-n-Cewl? You know, for the alliteration effect. She said that sounds more like illiteration to me. No one will get it. (personally, after our conversation I wanted to call it Crash-n-Crewl, but that's just between me and you. She wasn't this rude when she was 5 years old.) Anyway, Crash-n-Sewl it is.

Don't you think it's ironic how now that she's all grown up and married to a Brit and living in North Carolina and all Mommified and artsy-fartsy, she thinks she can talk back to me.

And what gets me is she started her Art-n-Sewl blog like 3 days ago and she's already got 76 comments on one of her posts. And half of them are from Provo. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter, I roll with things, but she's NOT even from Provo!!! She doesn't even like Provo!!! It just goes to show that Provonians are prejudice against Crash Test Dummies. I hate to call them out, but all they care about is crafts.

So anywho, then we were trying to decide on contest rules. She made one thing L.O.U.D. and C.L.E.A.R. That I am not eligible to win this contest like I won (fair and square) my $1,000/1,000 hit give-a-way. Kind of harsh considering writing is my life and I have so many creepy other-worldy stories to tell. First of all, my dad was a drug addict, which was the pits, but it did add to the freaky paranormal activity in the house since he allowed his protective aura to get so thin. He was also a priesthood holder so he had like a double supernatural phenomenon going on. Plus, our neighbors boarded up their windows because we had snakes and rats for pets. We were practically The Adam's Family.

Although I know I could win this contest (unless Mariko were judging it) if nothing else, I'm a rule abider, so I agreed to bow out gracefully.

Next we talked about prizes.

Sewl said she would donate an original painting (art).

And one of her adorable hand-sewl'd cupcakes (sewl).

So then she said, what can you donate Crash? I said, maybe I can write an original poem or maybe sign over the copyright to a poem of their choice. And then the phone just got drop-dead quiet. She finally said, anything else? I thought for a minute and said, maybe I could donate some REAL cupcakes that you actually have to BAKE in an OVEN, that actually TASTE YUMMY when you put them in your mouth. I didn't even mean that in a rude way. I honestly was trying to think of something I could contribute. But she hung up on me. Well, first she said, Call me back when you grow up Crash.

I'm like 10 years older than her. HELLO!

But one thing we agree on is our obsession with the paranormal arts. We both had sorta border-line semi-psychic/semi-psycho-ish type parents. Sewl used to live in this creepy pink house in St. George for a while that Brigham Young had lived in back in the pioneer days. There were all kinds of hidden doorways and stairways and secret rooms, probably for all his wives. And I think some of his wives spirits still stomp that house. One night we were having a slumber party and we heard these strange cat-fight-like sounds in the T.V. room. We crept down the creaky hidden stairway and through the long secret corridor and listened. We both swear we heard a woman crying and saying "I get to sit by Brigham." Then the next morning we found popcorn scattered all over the floor and the power button on the VCR was ON! I kid you not, it was soooooo F.R.E.A.K.Y.

I know I turned that VCR off!

As for me and my house . . . Lets just say I read Amityville Horror 113 times and every Friday the 13th my eyes popped open at exactly 3:15 a.m. (I only had to set my alarm once in 1980.)

There's so much more, but the thermostat just dropped below freezing and the hair on my neck is standing up. That means I'm about to get a visitation.

Yikes, gotsta go flip on some lights.

Start writing your stories people! Contest details coming Thursday!