Here I am! I'm here! At home! On the internet! I'm so excited!

It was not without problems, of course. The woman I talked to at Mediacom completely misinterpreted every single one of my thousand questions. Sarah is still without internet, but thanks to Uncle Tim, has a bootlegged cable outlet. Shhhh! I'll have to call tomorrow and find out if we can still work this out. So as promised, my first order of business was downloading AIM. My screen name is MmeAlbertine. My Buffy Guide name with the 'd' was taken! WTF?!? Who would do that? The darn name is so unique, I end up being able to use it a lot. It has to be someone from the WD. *glares*

Max is packing up Mike's stuff to take out to him. I can see it all over the driveway. It's upsetting me more than I'd like to admit.

Okay, so the promised Very Special Post. I mentioned a couple months back how much I used to enjoy writing. As I was organizing my stuff, I found my Trapper Keeper with some of my old stuff in it. This is the very first story I wrote (and kept, I guess), probably circa 10 years old. Reproduced exactly as written. I hope you enjoy it.

Brian the Sailor

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who wanted to be a sailor. Every day he would dream about sailing across the sea. His name was Brian. When he was fifteen, he bought himself a boat. Brian named his boat the Maryanne. He went sailing every day, but he didn’t go far. One day he kissed his mother goodbye and he set off across the sea.

Two days later, Brian ran into a storm. A bad one, too! The Maryanne was tossed about. Brian was almost tossed overboard. That night, the storm ceased. All was peaceful once more.

About a week later a great sea monster attacked the Maryanne! It tore off one of the masts and left. Brian and the Maryanne were stranded for days. Finally, Brian fixed Maryanne and they set off. Sometime soon they sighted land. They landed in England. Brian asked directions to a café. At the café, he met a girl named Susan. They soon became good friends. The time came when Brian had to leave England. Brian and Susan hated to leave each other. So Susan decided to come with Brian on his adventures. He agreed. So the set off on the Maryanne.

They decided to go to Africa and then they would go to India. When they landed in Africa, all they saw was jungle. But, after careful looking, they saw natives hidden all over. Suddenly, the natives took them captive. They led Brian and Susan to a hut and placed guards at the entrance! They carefully devised a plan to get away. The guards fell asleep. Brian and Susan made a run for it. The natives chased them. They got onto the Maryanne and safely sailed away.

“On to India!” cried Susan. On the way, they came into a city of Whirlpools. Brian carefully steered around them. When they thought they were out of the whirlpool city, Susan looked up and there was a whirlpool! “Whirlpool at one o’clock!” she shouted. The Maryanne missed it by two yards.

Later, they landed in India. They spent a couple of hours in the Taj Mahal, and Brian bought a necklace for his mother. Then a few days later, they sailed towards the Pacific Ocean. They sailed carefully through the Philipines because they heard there unfriendly natives living there. “Whew” thought Susan when they were safely past the last island.

The sail across the Pacific Ocean was peaceful. When they were getting close to the United States, the current took them up towards Alaska. So they decided of they were going that way, they might as well go there.

In Alaska, they met Eskimos and even saw a few penguins. They also got chased by a polar bear, but they sailed off just in time. They were safe! But that’s what they though! The bear jumped in the water and started to swim after them. When it got too warm for the bear, he turned back.

What a happy reunion Brian and his mother had! He asked if Susan could stay with them. His mother said “no” but when Brian showed her the necklace he bought in India, she changed her mind. Brian married Susan and everyone lived happily ever after. Except for the natives in Africa.

THE END