SPACE ARTIST FROM MARS!!!!

My sister just did a major clean-up of her room. This is always a bit of an adventure, and this time around she found 1.) a toy lightsaber, 2.) a small music box that plays a weird song none of us can place and 3.) an old journal of mine from when I was 7.

It's this last find that had the most entertainment value (despite the fact that my dog hates the lightsaber and will scurry around in hilarious ways if you turn it on around him). THE THINGS I WROTE. It's like a small composition book full of WONDER. It reflects very strongly my 2nd grade obsession with Mars, aliens, and space--or more specifically, my desire to become something I called a "space artist".

On the off chance that you were wondering, no, there is no such thing as a space artist.

I am going to now write up a list of highlights because I can't afford to forget any of this. Please excuse the poor spelling, but I think that the bad spelling is the maraschino cherry on top of the Shirley Temple that is this journal.

1.) "Tomarow is rousasona. I do not slabret rousasona. I am lucky. No school for nothing!"

2.) "Dinosors were extingct 65 million years ago [such science, mini-Caitlin! Good work.] Not all dinosors were big. Some were very small. Some ate plants. Some ate meat. Some were gross looking."

3.) "Pretty soon I am going to Mars! I will see a lot of stuff. I will go to sleep now. zzz. Today is the big day! Wow! Our rockit ship is cool! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, blastoff! Outer space is very pretty. I see mars! IT is red! We are landing. Hey! I see sines of life here! Yikes! Aliens at 2:00! Don't go. We are the frist people to see aliens. We are even the frist people to land on Mars. Beep, beep, come with us. Wow! You live here! Back to erath."

4.) "This is a space creecher. A space creecher gets arond on a speeder bike. If the space creechers are in danger and can't get away, they use the force. If a persin (wich they call humins) is smart enaf they can understand the talk of the space creechers."

5.) "Tomarow is my sister's birthday. I am not glad. She is going to be one year older and one year annoyinger. She is not going to invite any of my friends."

6.) "I am going to be an outer space artist when I grow up. Today I am going to go to our space ship. Come on Mike. Mike is my robot. He steers the ship. We are takeing off. Wow! We are high." [end of entry]

7.) "Hello, my name is Caitlin. My bouet is called the Oshin Oxtra [why? No idea.] We explore outer space. My crew is men and wemin. Our ship is made of tinetaneum. We eat things that look like eyeballs. We find aliens."

So you see, 7-year-old Caitlin had very few things on her mind besides her promising career as a space artist (even though--and this is an important point--I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT DRAW) and her annoying little sister. I spent this evening reading parts of this book aloud to my parents and laughing myself into tears.

I left the best part out, though, because I never, ever, ever want anyone ever to read it. It is basically Star Wars-Animorphs crossover-fanfiction. It is...amazing? Priceless, in an uncomfortable way. Just imagine the Animorphs using the force and having adventures with Han and Leia's kids and you've got the glory.