Laurence Olivier Wants You To Upgrade Your iTunes

Wow, it's been a busy week. For starters, I have a new computer. It survived the electricity thing, and then I kinda more or less drop kicked it. Into the pool. It was an accident, and not really as hard to accomplish as one might think. Anyway. My new computer is tiny. Like, about the size of a hardcover book. It was cheap. It didn't come with much memory at all, and the reason I haven't posted for a while is because Mycroft kidnapped it for some sort of upgrade. Maybe a bulletproof casing. Even though he could do that in like a minute, I think he's been holding on to it in the hope that I'll decide I don't want a computer after all. He seems to think giving me a computer is morally equivalent to letting a rabid hyena babysit a toddler. He finally mailed it to me this morning, and I've been monkeying around with it. It talks to me. The computer, I mean. It constantly nags me to approve esoteric functions and back up my data, and it's very supercilious about it. If I say no to something it wants me to do, it asks me if I'm sure twice, explains why my choice is wrong, and then reminds me five minutes later. And it speaks in Laurence Olivier's voice, which is why I haven't destroyed it yet. I'm not sure if I owe Myke, or if I should kill him. I mean, I was totally fine with a normal computer. This is like owning a toaster that can do your dry cleaning. It's great, but confusing and not entirely necessary.
In other news, I am bald. Well, not entirely. I have something that could be charitably described as a pixie-cut-in-training on my head. It turns out that there was an awful lot of damage from the electricity and heat of that evil hairdryer, and I had to lose pretty much all of my hair. I bought a new hairdryer, but I haven't had the nerve to use it yet. Also, I have no hair to use it on.

How Not To Use Cryogenesis

Well, it finally happened. If I could find a time machine, I would set it to earlier this evening, and bash my hair dryer to pieces to prevent this atrocity from ever occurring. There was something of an incident. It turns out, cryogenesis and hairstyling have never before mixed for a damned good reason. I had the coolest hairdo ever, and I pinned it in place with carefully applied ice instead of gel. I took a bajillion pictures, which I will carefully delete from my camera blah blah blah because I'm not an idiot who leaves evidence around. I'm just an idiot. I shocked myself while defrosting my hair. My eye is still twitching, and it's been hours. My hair is... there are no words in the English language to describe my hair. Let's come up with a term that means "resembling a poorly groomed yeti due to cold-induced brittleness and electric shock". But don't put my picture in the dictionary beside it, because I don't want to go down in recorded history as the person with the worst hair day ever including people with lycanthropy.
Uh, gotta cut this short. Still carrying a residual charge and my laptop is freaking out. Ow.

Back to Blogging

Water is blissfully back to normal, and I've been busy. Babysitting, looking for plants that can withstand ice, weeding the garden (weeds cannot withstand ice, as it so happens), looking for a place a little bit more private than my pool to practice cryogenesis now that my little sister has decided it's swimming weather, and wearing my awesome black leather vest. I've been unable to post because of the weekend rush of parents trying to escape their offspring. You try posting with kids looking over your shoulder and howling about bedtime stories. Seriously, the Gregson boy must be Nosferatu, judging by his sleep cycle. I've been making sure to order garlic sticks with the pizza, just in case.

On the good news front, they finally arrested Dr. Wilde. That creep was hanging out at a zoo. The monkey exhibit, of course. Some supervillains are just extraordinarily hard on endangered species. Remember Snow Leopard a couple years ago, who was all "Snow leopards are my totem, so that gives me the right to wear a costume entirely made out of their fur"? Yeah, the clip of Goldenrod smacking her seven ways to Sunday is one of my YouTube favorites. Snow leopards are just too damned adorable. And there's another great cryogenetic name I can never use, thanks to that jerk. Not sure what happened to her costume. Isn't it a felony to even touch something like that?

Rampant Consumerism

Water still not normal. My sister decided to risk it anyway and take a shower, though I notice she didn't wash her hair or face.
I went out thrift-shopping with a couple of high school friends. Most of my college friends live far, far away in mystical lands with real snow. I've kept in touch with Lisa and Taylor since I graduated high school. Everyone makes those empty promises to keep in touch for the rest of our lives, and gets all emotional and affectionate once yearbook signing rolls around and they don't actually have to see your face ever again. But Lisa and Taylor actually meant it.
We hit up some of the small local stores. Taylor has an uncanny gift for finding them. We tried on hats, laughed over outrageous dresses, and offered scorecards for the pants we found. I found a gorgeous silk jacket. It was deep blue, with silver dragon embroidery on it. Too big for me. Lisa is wearing it now, and I am contemplating stealing Linda Farrow's shrink ray out of the police lockup and using it on the jacket, because I want it. Sigh. Lisa looks good in it. Blue is not my color, no matter how much I want it to be.
I looked through bathing suits and raincoats and winter boots. Nothing worth having. What fabric stands up well to repeated submersion in ice? Does one even exist? Why don't any professional cryogenetics donate their gently-used costumes to thrift stores and save me the trial and error? I feel like I'm constantly reinventing the wheel here. If I ever make it to the big times, I'm going to write a book. Cryogenesis for Dummies, or maybe Everything You Wanted To Know About Your Superpowers But Had No Wise Old Mentor To Explain To You, or Stuff Nobody Bothered Explaining To Me That Could Have Made My Life As A Cryogenetic Much Easier If Only I Had Known What You Know Now You Lucky Reader.
I did get a cute leather vest, though. I need to replace the buttons, but it is totally awesome.

That Funny Taste

Still on a boil water restriction. You know that saying that a watched pot never boils? This might just be me being paranoid, but I think it takes longer for water to boil when I'm around. Is that possible? No, it's just me being paranoid. My cryogenesis can't reach all the way across the kitchen. I'm jumpy around water when other people are around. It's the easiest way to get caught out.
I wonder if this happens to other cryogenetics. I mean, there's no big book of superpowers. There have been a handful of studies, but they're all science gibberish and mostly focused on how much damage we can do to bystanders. There's no cryogenetic support group. I can talk to Myke about superhuman stuff, but I can't ask him if stuff suddenly tastes like peppermint for no reason. Even if I ask another cryogenetic, I probably wouldn't get answers. It's not like we all have the same origin or power level, and some have secondary powers so that really throws off the equation. If something goes wrong with my powers, I don't know if I would even know. For all I know, the peppermint thing is a side effect of a lump of ice building in my brain like a tumor. Or something. I've sworn off all homemade frozen goods for a while. Just in case.

Convenient Cryogenesis

Someone took out the entire county's water supply today. Well, technically it's still there. There are just things in it that aren't water. The news crews were awfully vague about what precisely went wrong, which means it's probably something governmentally hush-hush. Or maybe some M'lar skinny-dipped in the water towers again and nobody wants to make a big thing out of it.
Of course, I found out about this contaminated water stuff in the middle of a shower. So I had to decide between walking around with chlorinated skin and sudsy hair, or using cryogenesis on the sly. What do you think I did? Yeah, I lied to my sister and told her I was already clean and just stealing all her hot water. She's pissed that I got in the shower first, since she didn't get a turn, but since it was contaminated water anyway it all evens out. She's been mocking me, saying maybe it was radioactive water and I'll get superpowers from it. Ha. Ha ha.
Technically I don't really need to take showers. I can make enough water on my skin to keep clean. But I like hot water and the way the water hits my skin, so I take normal showers unless I've touched something extraordinarily gross and I need to get clean immediately. Please don't lecture me about water conservation.
I focused the water out of my hands. All the practice with the sno-cones and stuff helped me pinpoint my cryogenesis. It took forever to wash my hair, since I use very sudsy shampoo and I can't make more water pressure than a faucet, and I was holding back a bit because I didn't want the water to freeze in my hair or get out of control and turn into another sheet of ice. I can make ice a heck of a lot faster than water, for some reason.
I also used cryogenesis to brush my teeth. It saves the drinking water for the rest of my family, who actually need it. And it's not like anyone is checking my water consumption and I need to misdirect them. My family doesn't actually think I have any secrets from them. It could be worse. I could have to deal with the crap Mycroft puts up with.

Sugar and Snowballs

Did you know that cryogenetics and frozen treats have a long and honorable history? It turns out DuBois ice cream was started up by a cryogenetic. I may have to buy some caramel chocolate chip ice cream as a gesture of solidarity with my people. I guess I was reinventing the wheel with my experiments with ice cream and freeze pops. It seems really freaking obvious in retrospect, doesn't it? Yeah, I really need to research the history of my powers some more, or I'm going to wind up looking really stupid in the superhero arena.
I've been thinking of how I can use cryogenesis in my ordinary life if I go public. Whether or not I go pro, I'm going to be a cryogenetic 24/7 for the rest of my life, and I might as well turn that to my advantage. My powers (and a jug of syrup) can win me love and acceptance at any barbecue or picnic. I can drive my own little ice cream truck around and listen to the jingle all day. Hey, a girl's gotta dream.
I'm totally paying my respects to my superhuman heritage (figuratively, of course- my power isn't hereditary) by my quest to create the perfect sno-cone. This has required some rigorous experimentation, of course. There are a lot of variables, such as temperature and granule size. I stayed home while my parents and sister went out, put on a swimming suit and sunscreen (just because I can create ice doesn't mean I'm immune to skin cancer), hauled a jug of grape syrup and a plastic cup and spoon outside, inflated the big rubber ring and floated around the pool idly practicing my cryogenesis. I generally don't go swimming when there's someone else nearby, because the water gets cold awfully fast, and people would wonder why I'm the only one without blue lips. Of course for me, every weather is swimming weather. I practiced making tiny grains of ice with each hand, and crunched into the results to test their texture. The ones that passed the test got doused in syrup and eaten. I dumped the rejects into the pool, where they vanished without a trace. I'm thinking I need to spend a lot more time in the pool, especially since we have a hedge right next to it where I can hide large chunks of ice. The ferns are already full of hail balls, and my mom wonders why they're looking kind of wilted. Oops. I water them as often as I can to get rid of the evidence. My mother sees this as a budding interest in gardening.
My tongue is so purple right now. For the record, the ultimate sno-cone is soft and powdery on the inside, with a crisp (but thin) shell. It's really hard to compensate for the syrup and the sun, but I am a consummate professional, and diligently practiced until I got it right.