" "

I'm taking this down because I'm tired of dealing with the unreasonable crap that my blogging incites. This is my writing, and nobody has the right to censor it or suggest that I do so. And yes, I realize the irony; I'm taking down my blog b/c people keep complaining and giving me bullshit. But I don't want to deal with it, and since nobody is getting the clue that I shouldn't have to, I'm taking the steps to end it now.

I am irritated that friends couldn't just leave me alone, and read my writing for personal writing. I gave you all a chance to hear some of what I really have to say, and I got a lot of crap for it. I didn't read your blogs and then tell you that what you said was stupid, or that something in your life paralleled something in my life, and thus you shouldn't mention it. I respected your personal writing, and I enjoyed it for what it was, a chance to look into your hearts and souls and see something I can't see on a daily basis. I did not receive the same courtesy from some of you, and I think that was very poorly done on your part.

In short, I'm angry and disappointed. Once again my friendship has not been returned with the respect that I was expecting. So, if any of my friends want to talk to me, they can email me or call me. This will not be put back up, and you will not get this chance to know me this way again.

Triple Excellent

Some of you may not know Yair, in which case, I pity you. Yair is a regular (ie, daily) loiterer in our store. He's a young kid whose mom works in Chik-Fil-A, so everyday after school, he comes to hang out in the store. Normally, this sort of action would be discouraged. But Yair is totally awesome. Yair does such hilarious things as chatter to himself, talk to the demo units, and become morose over inconsequential things. The kid is a basket case, and he is inarguably the best loiterer ever.

So he comes in today...
Me: Yair, what's up?
Yair: I'm having a triple excellent week!
Me: Triple excellent, huh? what's so awesome?
Yair: And yesterday was the bestest day ever!
Me: What happened yesterday?
(we have Marvel vs. Capcom 2 in our demo)
Yair: Well, I was playing this game. And guess what? I'm the number one high score! It's so awesome!
Me: wow...
Yair: there's no memory card in it though, so I have to start over every day.
(Yair turns the demo unit on, and starts to play. This means there are no scores on there except for the preset computer ones. Yair plays it for a while, trash-talking the computer the entire time. 15 minutes later:)
Yair: O man! I'm number 6! AWESOME! (does a little dance)

I hope that, whoever you are, you're having a Triple Excellent week, too.

Denturistic.

So I have a recurring nightmare-theme of losing my teeth. For some reason, I have a terrifying reaction to the idea or suggestion of losing my teeth, and I'm not sure why. As a kid, I really hated going through that stage. I hated everything about it; the wiggling of loose teeth, the blood, and the gaping hole where something should be...it was so disgusting. And last night, again, I dreamed of losing my teeth. It was one of those regular dreams where I was walking around, talking to people, and all of a sudden teeth just started falling out, and I kept spitting them into my hand and trying to hide what was going on. It's so bizarre. I mean, granted, most of my dreams are bizarre, and are usually generically themed with loss of control, or imminent death, but this tooth thing is flat out weird.

So I'm interested...I know recurring nightmares are common...so what's your recurring nightmare? Mine is teeth, and the losing of. What's your demon that haunts your sleep?

The Fire Lord's Wife

Dream: I've been chosen to be the bride of the Fire Lord, our godlike lord and overseer. This is exciting, and as I am being led to his residence by his stern minions, I am both thrilled and terrified at the idea. Not for any normal reason, but because the Fire Lord is the font of technology. He's a technological deity, and as his wife I will have access to all his top-of-the-line computers and such. This is my passion, and no amount of hardwork or education could have given me what the position of Fire Lord's wife will.

His residence is the same dark, forboding building I remember it being from the glimpses in my youth. His minions push me through the door and then leave, bolting it behind them. I am left inside, alone, terrified. There are a thousand things vying for my attention. I'm a virgin still, and the idea of being anyone's wife is frightening. But even as scared as I am, I can see something is not right with my surroundings. The house is sterile, full of technological equipment and barely anything else, but that's to be expected. It seems, though, as if it is in a vast state of dissarray. There is dust and decay everywhere, and there are thick shadows in the corners. The place seems alive with malice, and my fear intensifies.

The Fire Lord appears, and he is a shock to me. He is not the god i imagined. He is a tall man, but he is old. His hair is white, and there are dark secrets in his eyes. He does not smile. He grabs me by arm and drags me into a hallway, where I cower beneath his dark gaze. He says things to me, things I do not understand at first. He tells me he is a prisoner here the same as I am, and that the house is not safe anymore. He tells me of dangers, and to stay hidden and quiet. He leaves me for a time, alone in the dark house. I can feel the malevolence of the place as if it were a tangible thing. Cold dark beasties hiss nasty things in my ears, and follow me from room to room. It is a long and panicked time I spend there, and I lose track of time.

The Fire Lord returns, with his compatriot who does not have a name. He is a serious looking man of slight build, but he radiates concern, and it's evident he is not one of the Fire Lord's (or my) imprisoners. They gather me up and we escape out a back entrance. And then, to my shocked horror, they get on motorcycles, and the Fire Lord sits me behind him. It's terrifying; there's so much wind, and the cycles are excruciatingly loud. All I can do is dig my fingers into his clothing and hold on, face pressed against his back as my hair is whipped around me.

When the cycles stop, we are in the middle of a forest. It's Fall apparently, the ground carpeted with brown and gold leaves. We are being followed already by a nameless evil, and the men abandon the cycles and rush into the woods, me in tow. There is a path there, and we follow it deep into the forest. Our footfalls are muffled by the leaves, and the forest is menacingly silent. I am wracked by bouts of terrible, bone-freezing fear. My entire life has fallen around me. And now these strange men are leading me away, making me a refugee in my own country, leading me deep into a foreign forest, and there's no end in sight. We walk through the woods for a long time, and it all looks the same to me. The path changes, but nothing else does, and my panic and despair are rising. Finally, I stop walking and burst into tears.

The Fire Lord and his companion begin to argue. The companion is angry; he wants them to abandon me here if I won't keep walking. He says they owe me nothing, and that I am only a burden. The Fire Lord disagrees, and sounds compassionate, but I am too scared to care. He comes to me and grips my elbow and looks into my face, and he tells me that there is an end to this journey. He knows it is frightening, and I will never have the life I used to, but he says at least it is a life free of captivity. A free life, to do with as I will. He tells me that if I want to take this chance, I have to come with them, but that I am free to stay if I wish.

His words calm me down, and when they start walking again, I follow. Slowly first, but then faster, until I am leading them down the path instead. I am increasingly urgent to get to our destination, to see this end, this amazing free place that I cannot comprehend. I would be running, but the leaves are slippery beneath my feet, and I am afraid of falling. The wind blows stiffly in our faces, and I open my arms and life my face to its touch. This is free wind, I tell myself. This is freedom. The Fire Lord's companion tells him that he thinks I'm insane, and the Fire Lord chuckles and shakes his head. I ignore them, and hurry onward.

The path ends in a sheer rock face. On closer inspection, there is a ladder of sorts carved into the stone, rough handholds and footholds scratched into a crease in the rock. The Fire Lord says it is the only way up. It looks dangerous. One lost grip, and a climber will fall straight down to the ground. There is no chance of not being injured should we fail. But I have already set my life on what lies over that cliff, so I leap at the wall and start up the ladder with a vengeance. I try not to think about what will happen if I fall. There's no point in thinking about that. If I fall, it's all over anyway. The climb is impossibly difficult, but I push onward. I can hear the men below me, inching forward. At last, amazing to behold, an end to the rock appears beneath my grasping hands, and I pull myself over the cliff onto the top of a mountain of leaf-blanketed earth. I am on a ridge, and below me, in the valley...my free life waits. The leaves are deeper here, and as I clamber down the steep slope, I am almost wading through them, pushing them away with my hands, swimming through an ocean of fallen leaves. Hope rises, warm and ebullient, in my chest. As I come closer to the Destination, I notice things in the leaves; books, all of them, my favorite books. Books from when I was a child, and an adolescent. All the written words that, when read, made up who I am, there in the leaves in this strange forest. The hope bubbles out of me in laughter, and it is the first free laughter I have ever felt, and I rush forward into a Free Life.

Shameless Solicitation

Hey there, bestest people in the whole wide world! *insert huge innocent grin here* You may remember me from such blogs as this one, and that other one. But that's not important. Tonight, I've come to talk to you about a subject close to my heart: cancer. Leukemia and Lymphoma, to be precise.

Some of you may know a certain "misplaced yankee" by the name of Jimmy Barnell (James Barrell to the uninitiated). Well, his esteemed and excellent girlfriend, Heather Elliott, is currently abusing her poor body with regular bouts of crazed marathon running. I know, she's crazy. But she's crazy in a good way. She's doing all this unnatural physical activity to prepare for a real, honest to gods, marathon on april 28th. This marathon is part of an effort to earn money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. And to do this marathon, Heather needs money. In fact, she needs like $4500 worth of money.

I'm not rich. You're not rich. None of us go home at night and roll in mountains of money. But, I'll let you in on a secret: money adds up. Amazing, I know. So, I'm not asking you for money. That would be wrong. And if I were asking you to contribute money to this worthiest of worthy causes, I wouldn't be asking you to do it in copious amounts. Maybe like $10, maybe $20. It wouldn't be much, but it doesn't have to be. In the tried and true words of our annoying parents, "a little goes a long way".

To learn more about what you can do for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fundraiser (LLS for short), email Heather herself at jhelliot30@yahoo.com or donate money at http://www.active.com/donate/tntenc/tntencJElliot .

WOAAAAA

i dreamed that james was my fairy godfather, and he could grant me wishes O.O

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fungus

Do you ever feel like you're standing on the edge of a high cliff? Like, as long as you don't look down, you'll be fine. But as soon as you see it, you'll fall off it and never be able to get back.

I've been waiting for a yes or no from a job I applied to. My plan, if it can be called that, was either to get a yes, and turn in my 2 weeks here, or get a no, and look for another job. It's getting harder and harder to wait, though. I love my store very much. I feel like it's mine, and collectively ours (the group who works there). I take pride in how I run it, and how much I know about it. But my extreme loathing for the company that runs it is building up, and one day the dam is gonna explode, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I fairly blatantly have a "problem with authority". People telling me what to do gets under my skin, fast. So a certain amount of irritation is to be expected, and I work past it most of the time. But when my corporate bosses tell me that because I'm a girl I'm unfit to have managerial responsibilities, that whips me into a red hot fury, the kind that people don't escape from. I'm not exaggerating, by the way. A District Manager of a neighboring district told us that female employees who feel uncomfortable closing alone don't deserve to have the responsibilities of a management position. Nothing in any of our job descriptions say "willingly put yourself in obvious danger to make payroll costs cheaper for your bitchass company". And gender has nothing to do with whether someone deserves a position or not. But, that's the company I work for.

I do realize that there's a lot of bullshit that you simply have to swallow at any job. But there's a line, and they've crossed it. And there really is a point where I have to either leave and keep my dignity, or stay and hate myself for staying. And I think that point is nigh.

/sigh.

I could use more quality time with my loved ones, I think. It's so easy to lose track of time in relation to my....relationships. Worst sentence ever -.- Optimally, I'd like to hang out with my friends at least every other day. But there's always work, and it always gets pushed further and further...

I'm standing on that cliff, and I'm terrified to look down. I'm afraid of what waits at the bottom.

Epiphany

I am burning with fever. My body hurts in ways I've never imagined; I can bearly move outside for the pain inside my joints. My world has shrunk to my family's tiny apartment. I am lying in my bed, in neverending agony. I close my eyes, and behind my eyelids a vision unfolds.

I am walking up the stairs to the apartment above ours. I can feel the sun on my skin, and the rough wood beneath my bare feet. I look through their kitchen window, and it is uncharacteristically dark inside. It seems odd, but I can't stop myself from walking forward. I turn onto their porch, and the doors are flung wide. I step inside, and in that brief moment I see the rooms. They are shrouded in shadows. Everything is there, all the furniture and appliances, but they are still and dark and silent. There is a snow globe on the table in the living room; I can see the snow falling in it, but not what's inside it. Other than that, all the traces of personality are gone.

I turn to look at my hosts, for there are hosts: a woman and a man stand in the apartment. The woman is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She is short, shorter even than I am, and I am only 11. She is wearing some sort of antiquated dress with lace and ribbons, and she has the most beautiful golden curls that fall down her back. She smiles, and opens her arms to me, and says "We've been waiting for you." I go to her and embrace her; I can feel her arms as she hugs me, and the smoothness of her curls on my fingers. She feels good, like home and love and belonging. I step back, and look at the man that stands behind her. He has no eyes, but if he had them, we would have been locking gazes. He is very tall, and dark; in fact, his form is made entirely of dark things, shadows and death. But he protects her, and they belong together, and I can see all that in an instant. I have no battle with him; we nod to each other, and they both step back.

Ahead of me is the short hallway that is in the apartment. There are 3 doors, 1 directly in front of me and 1 to either side. In the real apartment, these doors lead to a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. I know in this shadow place that is not the case. I also know, without being told, that I am meant to choose one of these doors. When I look to the left door I feel heavy malevolence; behind that door lies Death. When I look at the right door I feel something utterly mundane; an even and uneventful existence. Neither of these particularly appeal to me, although they would both me easy enough choices. The center door though...the center door is almost indescribable in its appeal. It feels like happiness, and other things, all together...it feels like wonder and magic and amazement. As soon as I know this, I am being pushed towards it, and light begins to glow around the door's seams. The light grows and grows until the door is pushed open, and I fall into it. Everything is white light...

I open my eyes, and my body still hurts and the fever is pounding its way through my body.

Itinerant

Do you ever feel like you wanna strap on some boots, get a wide-brimmed hat, grab a walking stick, and strike off across the moors/plains/hills/whatever? Just travel and see the world, nothing but the clothes on your back and your trusty stick.

El Mar Caribe

2 Dreams: In the first dream, all my friends who are parts of couples have children. I am the lone childless spinster, but I have the joy of babysitting my friends' offspring. The dream shows me all of them, and tells me their names, and shows me the beautiful person inside each tiny being.
In the second dream, I travel once again to St. John, the island I was raised on and will always be my home. I stay with my pseudo-brother Jesse, and it is like old times. We play together, and go swimming, and exploring in the wilderness. The weather speeds by; sunlit days, violent storms, monsoon rain that brings short-lived rivers and waterfalls. Nothing monumentous happens. It is just a dream of a life I used to live. I wake up, and am happy.

A Worthy Cause

http://www.shaqfu.com

Spring in small towns

I went to visit my grandmother today, in the Halifax hospital in Roanoke Rapids. It was a beautiful day for a drive, the beginning of another wonderful warm season. My grandmother seems to be doing better, which is good. While I was around, I decided to visit my great uncle as well, who was in Jackson itself, the family seat, a horrendously small town in the middle of nowhere. I lived in Jackson for about 8 months in my adolescence and it was a terrible experience. I don't like it very much, primarily for the residents who seem so adamant about not evolving with the times. However, there is a lot of joy to be found there, provided nobody actually tries to engage me in conversation, which, since I'm a stranger there, isn't likely anyway. While I was never able to appreciate the people who lived there, the land itself is beautiful. And in eastern america, beautiful untouched land is harder to come by than you might think. And because it's a small town untouched by the advances of time, spring there now is exactly like spring there was 10 years ago. 10 years here, in chapel hill, is a long time. A lot has happened in those years, and every passing year brings huge changes. In Jackson, every undeveloped and unfarmed piece of earth is covered in wildflowers; buttercups, violets, daisies, jonquils, even forest lilies. I walk through the town now and can pick a bouquet identical to the ones I made so long ago. The graves I visited have not been crowded further or overgrown; my bouquets decorate their stones just as they did before. I went to my great uncle's mill, and sat in the rickety interior with the old men, listening to the idle gossip and feeling the breeze blow through the door. The mill doesn't actually grind corn anymore, as it once did when I was younger. Other than that, it hasn't changed.

Spring, and summer, and the warmth and return to life that they bring, fill me with a pure and utter sense of happiness. If there is sunlight, warmth, flowers and green things, I'm at peace. It's what I imagine a religious experience is like; the sensation of being filled to the edges with a power other than yourself, being so happy you could disintegrate and STILL be happy. I smell of sunshine, sweat, and fresh air, and it's the best feeling in the world. I am still warm from the sun on my skin.

But just because I feel happy doesn't mean I'm not me; I am still full of dark thoughts. And being in a place like Jackson and the surrounding countryside makes me wickedly happy. Rural areas are filled with desolation. Decrepit buildings being devoured by time and nature. Cars rusting away to nothing. The remnants of past human development being conquered by the inevitable force of nature fills me with joy. One day, far far in the future, the streets we drive upon and the houses we live in will be broken and destroyed the same way. Trees will push through the asphalt, storms will melt the buildings, and everything will fade back into trees, and sunshine, and flowers.

Somehow knowing that makes the thought of living so much easier to bear. The mistakes we make will be erased by time and earth. It's as if nature/god/goddess/whatever has forgiven us in advance for what we will do. "Go ahead and fuck up. I'm just gonna destroy it eventually."

And by the way, if you haven't already, watch the "ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny" video from Newgrounds. It's so awesome!

fyi

I am mad at you, now. Now, when it doesn't matter, and it changes nothing.

O RLY

This is an artist's rendition of my family tree. Assuming the artist can't draw or use MS paint at all. Ahem.

So, it's story time again. Many years ago, when I returned to the mainland US and got aquainted with my extended family, it happened that my mother's cousin did a genealogy thing of their family tree. (It's worth mentioning that my mother's name is Price, and my father's is Gray.) Well, there amongst the Price ancestors was a bunch of Grays. Interesting, but hardly proof of anything, since they are both popular names. About 5 years later, I went to Nebraska to lay to rest my father's father. While going through his belongings, I discovered an old black-and-white photograph of a family reunion. This was amazing, since my father and his siblings claim to know nothing about their extended family or the origins there of. All the people in the photograph were named, and amongst all the Grays was a family of, you guessed it, Prices. Well, that was too coincidental for me. So when I returned home I told my mother we were inbred. She shrugged it off.

Two days ago, my brother got a phone call from a woman named Linda who claimed to be a family member and was looking for my dad. There's no Linda in either of our families that we know of. Later, he checked his messages, and there was one from Linda for my father, asking if he'd gotten the DNA test done yet. My brother freaked out, thinking maybe he had an illegitamate sibling or something, and called my dad for explanations. Here's the deal: Linda, a complete stranger, decided to do a genealogy of her family. Well, turns out she IS a distant relative. Her family and my dad's family are branches of the same bloodline. She also uncovered a scandal that we had been unaware of: my father's parents were COUSINS. Not 1st cousins, but cousins nonetheless. And, to make it worse, they were from Raleigh, North Carolina! So. We ARE inbred. And possibly in more ways than one.

Interesting....

You think I'd be more freaked out, but meh.

In other news, my grandmother is in the hospital. If things go south, I'm probably gonna end up out of town for a few days. I really don't want things to go south. >.<

42

So, what's the meaning of life? What's our purpose, what are we supposed to do in that space between being conceived and dying? Why are we alive in the first place?

I do not believe in the christian God, and I do not subscribe to their purported ideas of creation and a greater plan. To my humble and surely sacrilegious self, every animal and plant on our planet has a base life purpose: to propogate their species. Everything else revolves around that one goal, that one meaning. The species must be kept alive, which means that one must eat and find shelter and fight enemies, and one must produce young. To be sure, the human species started out that way as well. We fought tooth and nail, we adapted, and we reproduced. Now, fast forward through the centuries to modern times. We have built, through millenia, a System, a way of life, that enables us to survive from Day 1. There are standards of life, yes. There are levels of qualities of life, yes. But in "modern" countries, the fate of our species as a whole is no longer a huge issue. It's a given that we'll survive. To be honest, at this point in time, we'd be better off if people would stop reproducing so damn much. We've made it so easy to live that it has actually become a problem.

So our original life purpose has been destroyed, by ourselves. The civilizations, the societies, the religions, the schools...all the things that were created to better our odds of survival, what purpose do they serve if survival is no longer our primary directive?

Rewind again. Of all the animals that walked the earth, mankind rose to the top, so to speak. Somewhere along the evolutionary chain, we stood up, we got opposable thumbs, and we got some massive brainage. Somewhere along the evolutionary chain, we became sentient. With our sentience, with our new sense of self-awareness (and by that i mean not simply awareness of self, but awareness of self in relation to the Whole), we CREATED. We thought, and we applied our thoughts to reality, and we thought some more. We created philosophy, and medicine, and science. We took the natural world and filed it and ordered it into a zillion separate folders. We labeled notions and molded them to our wills. We literally bent the world beneath our will. And with this power of human creation, we wrote ourselves out of natural law.

Now, our most primitive and base concerns are superfluous. Medicine saves our offspring, the government feeds us, and the land is one huge superstructure of shelters. The unity that was created from the need to survive is no longer necessary. So the question is, what is life's purpose when the world we are born into is meaningless?

I would say we have made great progress since our days as hunters and gatherers, but I am not sure that is true. What constitutes "progress"? If, back then in the distant past, a man was asked "what is your purpose in life?" and he had been able to actually answer, are we truly more advanced now? Ask the average person today what their life purpose is, and they would be lost for an answer. Even the life goals of the modern world serve no real purpose. With no immediate concern for our future as a species, we've become self-absorbed, to the point where none of our "achievements" have any bearing on the future after our death. Unfortunately, a side effect of being sentient is realizing that there IS a future after our death. But, should we be concerned with the future at all at this point? Other than the fact that we're killing our planet, none of it has any bearing on US at all. WE'll all die before our inaction has any effect. So what does it matter?

So then, we're back at the beginning. What's the point? Why get married and have children when the arhaic concept of "marriage" is no longer necessary, and children are a dime a dozen? The world is overpopulated. And for that matter, we can raise a child on our own, or with a dozen partners, or with our immediate families. The need for a protector has expired, the reason for families gone. Why do we live in cities? The only threats to our safety are other humans, and really those are all problems we started anyway. Why go to school, get a degree, and go into a field? Name me a field that's useful in the future. Name me one professional field that isn't contributing to the destruction of our home and our species. Even medicine is killing us off, in the long run. Eventually we'll inadvertantly create a supervirus that will be unstoppable. But there's no way to stop it, either. It's like being on a train and knowing that the tracks end over a cliff. There're no brakes. So if we're all doomed, and our achievements are paltry and useless, what could possibly be the meaning of life?

And here sits our society. On the brink of International Existentialism. We've all come to this realization, whether we've admitted it or not. Humanity has thought itself into a corner. The value of an individual life has decreased vastly. Really, what is 1 in billions? The people who face this question, in one form or another, come to the conclusion that nothing matters, so why not just do whatever makes you happy? That's a good reason for living. To be happy. To love. To be loved. Whatever.

But even then, that's apathy. And isn't apathy and selfisness contributing to the problem? Thousands, millions, billions of human souls lose the unity that made us the power we are on earth. And if we aren't part of a greater whole, what are we? Individuals, lost and without purpose, devoid of meaning, and in the end, forced to create our own.

After all, creating is what humanity does best.

unbalanced

For an entire year of highschool, every pen I had exploded. And not the normal, out-the-tip, ink explosion. My pens exploded out the back end. Without fail, for the entire year. I must have gone through a record number of pens. I have assumed that this sort of ritual bizarre happenstance means I'm out of balance with something; my chi or whatever isn't jiving with the...technology? pens? I don't know. But it can't be pure "chance" when it is so systematic. After that year, the pen problem ceased, and now me and writing instruments get along swimmingly.

As I've expressed previously, my apartment is having an aquatic issue. The ceiling continually leaks. I'm starting to get accustomed to seeing that tell-tale water stain in the plaster. And it really has gotten out of control. It's sort of slipped into it's own terrible realm of surrealness. And tonight...tonight, as I'm leaving work, I see a group of guys staring at the mall ceiling. (It's been raining all day here) And there it is: the tell-tale water stain. The mall ceiling is leaking! Drip, drip, drip. The all-too-familiar nightmare sound of water where it isn't supposed to be.

So what am I to surmise from this? That, by some odd coincidence, the mall is leaking after years of never having that problem? But if it isn't some sort of coincidence, then what is it? Some sort of cosmic force fucking with me, just for the hell of it? Am i out of balance with WATER, or something? Maybe buildings? Honestly, I'd try hard to fix it if I only knew what the hell was wrong with me.

Maybe it's some sort of sign that I need to change something in my life. Make a new decision, turn a new course. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to the cosmic directions.

F'ing Mornings

My bathroom ceiling is leaking again. This is beyond stupid. we've gone into the realm of ethereal stupidity. The apartment complex is making this up to me, somehow. -.-

The Dying Place

Dream: In an underground city, a monster hunts. It is killing the residents systematically. The killings become more frequent, until the city dwellers have no safe place to go. The death is spreading uncontrollably. The monster's movements become more purposeful, more focused.

The dream drops me into my body. I am in the underground city, and I am afraid. My family is with me, my mother and my brother. There is a way out, a portal to the Outside that has recently opened, and my mother is telling me how to get there. She is telling me how to avoid the portal guards, where to go once outside, and how to keep from getting separated from my brother. I am panicked, so it takes me longer than it should to realize that she is not coming with us. I confront her about it, and she tells me only she can defeat the monster. It seems as though she may die doing so, but there is no other way.

There is a confused montage of city streets, alleys, and corpses. My mother is pale with fear, but she soldiers on. We reach the edge of the city, and there are living people here. Pale and frightened, but alive. They are making sporadic dashes at a hole in the rock, a portal of light and muffled sound. The luck ones slip through; the rest are grabbed by giant men in armored suits, and hauled offstage screaming and weeping.

This is it, this is the way Out. My brother and I crouch hidden in the wreckage of a building, daring glances outside when we can. My mother's whispered good-byes are cut short by a shiver of fear, and the monster crests the horizon. I am surprised beneath my terror, for it is only a man. A giant evil man with hands staned with the blood of city dwellers. He is coming towards us, and we cower in terror, sure these are our last moments. My mother leaps into action, leading him away on a chase through the city. I hope she defeats him, although I can't imagine how.

The portal is still, everyone hiding from the monstrosity. We rush towards it, clambering over the stones. My brother enters first, and I push through after him...

The light is blinding, and the noise overwhelming. I am pushed aside by desparate hands, but I barely notice. My vision clears, and I am in a large room full of windows. There are lines of desks and a border of turnstyles, and a large door on the other side. I spot my brother talking to one of the people at the desks. They are taking readings from his hands with instruments. I follow the line of refugees to a desk. A man asks me questions, while plying my hands with cold instruments and needles. My brother is getting a pass, and heading out the door. He spares me one glance before leaving. The man with the instruments is frowning at a screen. There's something wrong with me; they aren't going to let me go. They will drag me off with the rejected people, and I will never be free. I'll die here, the same as I would have died underground. I pull away. There's a desk between me and the man; he grabs at me, but I take off running. I push through a turnstyle, through frightened people, and out the door, into a wide world with a wide sky. I am lost as soon as I step outside the building. I find myself across a road, and I lay down in the ditch, breathing heavily, clinging to the belief that my brother will find me here.

I am free. There are no more monsters or armored men. Yet I am still afraid, and lost, and alone. I listen to the cars pass, and feel the sunshine on my skin.

Just shoot me now.

*ring ring*
Me: "Thank you for calling Gamestop, this is Sarah, how may I help you?"
Caller: "Do you have any Wiis?"
Me: "No."
Caller: "Bitch!"
*hangs up*

ZOMG

(For those of you who can't read on account of my shitty picture-taking skillz , it says "ZOMG HAPPY BIRTHDAY")

Happy birthday Nicolai von Quante, Esquire the III.

(Unicorn courtesy of yours truly and Mattholomew Shetleezy, artiste.)

Palatial Relations

Dream: I'm half-demon, and you're half-angel. A long voyage lands us in an old cosmic safehouse, together with a brood of crossbreed friends and fiends. We are staying the night, awaiting the arrival of our savior who will lead us to the next step of our voyage. The night is windy and the pasttimes of our companions bore me, so I decide to go for a walk. Maybe the night air will clear my head, help me think, help me figure out what I'm doing here. You tell me to be careful; I wave goodbye as I walk out the door. I draw my wings around me to keep the wind away; I have wings, sometimes. Just as I have horns. When the cosmic tradewinds blow around me, my visage changes, and sometimes the full demon side can be seen.

I walk away from the house, down the road, that road that only leads AWAY. The way back is always longer than the way AWAY. The night runs around me like watercolors in the rain. Gradually, the landscape changes, and I find myself in a foreign place. It's a festival, a themepark for the damned, a literal Freak show. Like so many of our destinations, there is only IN and no way out. I am forced through it, bombarded by sights and sounds and feelings. I browse a gypsy woman's wares; she urges me to feel the cloths. The strangeness keeps coming, and to the outsider, the Other, maybe it would not be so strange. It is normal, people selling things and other people, people performing terrific feats, people people people. It is the humanity of the place that terrifies me, and all I can think about is how to escape, how to get away. I am no closer to understanding what I'm doing here, with you, but I know that I don't want to be HERE in the world that confounds me. I am frantic now, straining against the neverending current of bodies. A fortune teller grabs me with her eyes. She is large, larger than the damned people, more real to me. She shouts at me, fortunes, knowledge, and as I hear her words they are taken away from me by a greater force. She is shouting silence and ignorance at me, and I am locked there by her gaze. The river of bodies breaks me away, and I escape the festival at last, running and running. But I cannot escape the fortune teller's invisible words.

I come home, and it seems like Home now, the safehouse, and the hoard of cosmic bastards that I call a family. You were worried, and you welcome me back. You want to know what happened, and I try to explain, but all you do is stare at me with that worried look, even when my back is turned, even when you think I can't see. Time flies by like a river, flows by like a bird.

For a second, I am outside myself. I am Other, the great observer that IS. I can see now why you are worried, why things are different. I am not myself anymore. I am silent, I stop and listen to things you can't hear, and I stop to watch the things you can't see. Something has made me tragically different, and the space between us can not be bridged. It breaks my heart to watch us float away. It is ironic in the deepest sense that it is not the massive racial differences of our birth that have split us, but the simpler issue of Life and the act of living it.

My heart breaks, and the pieces fly away on the cosmic tradewinds.

Identity Crisis

My apartment wants to be a pool.

I respect entities who want to "think outside the box", and are willing to challenge conventional notions in order to get what they want from life. But I'm not sure I can get behind something this life changing. I mean, for one thing, it's one apartment built into an entire apartment building. Really, how would you walk away from that? That's like being a siamese twin and wanting to be a bird. Just doesn't work.

This has been going on periodically since we moved into this apartment, but recently it's become an epidemic. Thankfully the main rooms have been spared from the deluge. But it's annoying to have to get the ceiling replaced, in the same place, multiple times. Yesterday morning, I woke up to find our kitchen ceiling leaking water, mushy bits of plaster decorating the tile floor. Today, the sound of pouring water led me to the bathroom where water was raining through the light fixture. The light fixture!! Name me one thing about that situation that could be described as "positive".

The woman at the rental office assured me that they would make all the repairs necessary. Well, duh. That's not really my concern at this point. I figure I'll give it two more waterfalls before I get medieval on their asses.

As for the apartment itself, I figure it can be a pool after we move out, that way I can visit it in the summer, and perpetrate our relationship in an optimal manner. Just please, spare the expensive electronics.

Dingus Day

One of the most bizarre american holidays is about a month away now: Easter. Unless you're a church-going christian, or you have kids, easter means nothing to you. Doesn't mean anything to me either; just another long weekend that us retail workers don't get to enjoy.

So, in the spirit of International Chocolate Day, I'm scratching Easter and making a motion to celebrate a new (and actual!) holiday: Dingus Day!!!! This will occur on easter monday, april 9th of this Year of the Scorpion. This notion owes its entirety to dear Michal, who mentioned it to me in a previous post. Anyway, I'm sort of taking the idea of Dingus Day and making it into something new and amazing, so if you're offended...uh, sorry?

Dingus Day, the real one, is celebrated in Poland and the -slovaks. It makes as much sense as Easter does; ie, none at all. It consists of boys dousing girls with water, and girls whipping boys with ribbon whips. Or vice versa. It's sort of disintegrated in modern times into people dousing other people with water, and the whipping has sorta been fazed out.

So our Dingus Day, the new and improved "Easter", is a celebration of water, whips, and life in general. There are a few rules: 1) no buckets or hoses, since those are geographically limiting; 2) Dingus Day applies to all locations, inside and out, so "i'm at work" is no excuse; 3) any whippings can not be actually physically damaging.

I'm thinking about making some Dingus Day t-shirts. Pretty exciting. So remember: CELEBRATE DINGUS DAY!!

Do these pants make me look fat?

I've been working my old research job recently, which means I'm around the general public in a more normal role than customer/salesman. I have more time to observe, and interact in a normal sense, and it has me thinking.

Does what a woman wear affect how you treat her?

I think a lot of women have the idea that clothing choice has a large affect on how they are regarded by the world in general. And yes, if a woman dresses in slutty clothes, it's natural that she gets more sexual attention. But, along the same lines, is she considered less of a human being and more of a sex object? Can a woman be considered both? For instance, does donning a middriff shirt lessen the human regard at the same time that it raises my sexual allure? And if so, why can't it raise one without lowering the other? Is it unheard of for a woman to be a sexual object AND a human being, AT THE SAME TIME? I know how I feel. I'm pretty safe in my feelings on the matter, and I rarely contemplate what other people think about it. But now, I'm interested.

In the same vein, if a woman wears a business suit or slacks, is she taken more seriously by anyone other than herself? Does it REALLY matter? For a man who sees a woman in a halter top and starts acting like an ass, would it matter if she were dressed professional? Would he still treat her the same way if she was "attractive" to him?

There are a lot of preset ideas about propriety for women, and i'm sure men as well. I've pretty blatantly ignored them for a very long time, because it's never seemed like it really mattered. I think I'm treated differently than a woman who is taller, shorter, heavier, older, etc, than I am. It's not fair, but in life that fact holds very little water. There's no way I can win on the age issue. An older woman is granted more respect as a human being than I am. I can't change my age, and I can't change how people perceive me. It's certainly not fair to assume because I'm fairly young, I know less than someone years older than me. Or, for that matter, that because I'm young, I'm more physically able than someone older than me. That's totally untrue in most cases, but still assumed. It's also not fair to assume that because I wear skimpy clothes, that I'm a slut, or that I'm trying to to get sex. I like skimpy clothes, and I look good in them. You can admire me all you want, but you better still listen to me when I talk, or our dealings are done.

Prejudice is a bizarre thing to experience. We live with it every day of our lives, in one form or another. Yet even after 22 years of it, it's still weird, and I can't accept it. For men, it's impossible to imagine what it's like to be a woman. There are some levels of culture that people choose to associate themselves with that thrive on prejudice of all types. However, I've tried to remove myself from most of that, and still, here in the Real World, there's a base level of prejudice that I am forced to experience on a regular basis. And I'm a white woman. One of those strange mixes of European culture that ended in lumping me with a Majority for no apparent reason. But, all I have is sexism (and agism) to deal with. Shit, imagine throwing racism in there too. It'd be a never-ending battle, and it would totally and utterly suck.

The question for you, then, is this: does appearance vastly affect the way you regard and treat people of the opposite sex? (appearance including dress, weight, general attractiveness) And be honest. Anyone who reads this is a friend, so, I won't think less of you for what you have to say. I'm generally interested to know what your answer is.

............................................................

On a completely different note, there's a lunar eclipse tonight! How INCREDIBLY exciting! It's full moon AND a lunar eclipse! It's going on as I type this, so chances are, if you missed it already, it's too late. Lagrimas para ti. Exciting night ^^

Resumizzle

Objective: Escape retail hell, and get paid lotsa monies.

Profile: SWF ISO non-shitty job with good benefits, good sense of humor, and lax dress code. Likes long walks in the rain, swimming with her clothes on, and chocolate. Also likes being obeyed, so underlings are a must.

Work Experience:

Fall 2003-present Gamestop Register slave
-Bullshit buffer.
-Customer doormat.
-Corporate whore.
-Underpaid and overworked.

Fall 2006-January 2007 Waldenbooks Register slave, again.
-Customer doormat…again.

Fall 2000-present Whit Inc.
-General Gofer.


Skillz:
-Makes a mean brownie/cake/cupcake/cookie.
-Masterful misinterpretation of dress code.
-95% of replies are sarcastic and uncalled for.
-Ability to turn almost anything into a “your mom” joke.

Reasons you should hire me:
-I “have a lot to offer”
-I “have more skill in my pinky” than most of your employees have in their whole miserable bodies.
-I’m AWESOME!!!!! (what, you didn’t know?)

The Orient

Dream: I'm a princess in a kingdom made of stone. My mother is the queen, and we are a divine family. Royalty runs in our blood. There's a colliseum of stone in the center of our kingdom; monstrous concentric circles of stones, tiered. There is a gladitorial competition, and I am allowed to watch it from the top tier, an honor reserved only for members of the royal family. When the competition starts, the stone circles rise high into the air. Because I am their princess, the stones will not let me fall to my death. I am safe in the rocky embrace, and I watch the competition sprawled haphazardly on the windswept surface. The competition ends, and there is much rejoicing. The stones tilt sideways, forming a colossal slide, and it carries me back to earth. I return to my mother, who is enthroned, and surrounded by worshippers. I am the idyllic child, perfection itself, solely because of my genes. I am perfect, and beyond reproach. I linger on the edge of the crowd, and as the ceremonies end, my mother prepares to disembark. But she does not rise, and when questioned, she replies "I must wait for The Orient. He is the true ruler here. He must place the crown upon my head." And then it all comes rushing back to me, that we are holy only because The Orient decides we are. We are not perfect, we are mere mortals risen to glory by the proud and immortal Orient, a force as deep as the stones themself. The dream comes crashing down around me.

Stay away from my mom!

So, look. I did the whole resume thing. It was overly traumatic and probably turned out horribly. But. Regardless of whether I get hired at this job or not (cross your fingers), it's good to know that there are people who have faith in me when I don't have faith in myself, which is often. So, yea. Thanks to Joe, Michal, Matt, Crish, Carlos and Bobby...Nick, James...Ed... anyway. It means a lot to me to have friends like you guys. And I just want to say that my stint at Gamestop, whether it comes to an end soon or not, has been worthwhile and enjoyable only because of my coworkers. You guys are fantastic, and I truly love our team, and I'll miss you all when you leave. Mass exodus starts with Matt in a little over a week...we'll see how it progresses.

As weird as it is, since the very idea of going into the unknown terrifies me, it also thrills me to no end. I'm leaving this job, this year, no question. Maybe I'll end up somewhere obvious, maybe I won't. But 3, almost 4, years is WAY too long for me to be in one place in life. It has to change!

So, all in all, I call this chapter of life that is drawing to a close...I call it a win. I met some great people, held a steady job, and made some friends who genuinely care. Teh winnar is meh.

Quickie

Real fast before I go to bed:

Dream from last night:
I'm in the middle east, sort of, which I know nothing about, so this dream was totally misplaced. But anyway, i'm part of an underground plan to take over a neighboring country that is presently being ruled by an evil dictator. But, my home base is in Armenia (dunno where that is, but the dream had it near Turkey). More importantly, it's in the Armenian version of a Chik-fil-a. And the locals dunno it's the base for my awesome plan, so they keep trying to get actual food from me, which is making me angry. And I'm gathering soldiers there and keeping them in the basement or something. But the How of me gathering soldiers, is that I apparently can open a time-space continuum teleportation rip in the universe Thing, between the Armenian base and my hometown. But I can only do it if I'm in the throes of some emotion; really angry, really sad, really aroused... And at one point this guy is like "well that kinda sucks. what if you're not upset or something?" And I just laughed at him and told him that if anyone was qualified for this power, it was definitely me. And there we go.

Insomnia

I've been asked to write a resume and submit it to a company. It's an exercise in futility, since they wouldn't hire me anyway. I have exactly 0 things to offer anyone. Still, the very idea is keeping me awake at night. All I can think of is how worthless I am, and how anything I put down would be a lie. Knowing me, this will continue until it's too late, and I will have sabotaged any possibility I had at escaping my current position. This is just fundamentally something I cannot do. I can't praise myself. It's not built in. I can't reccommend myself. There's always that part of me that's saying "look, I'll be honest. There's thousands of people better qualified than me." Logically, I'm sure there's something I'm good at. But all I can see is that I suck at everything. This just circles around in my mind until I want to gouge my eyes out, or something. Welcome to the real world, Sarah. welcome to something you can't handle.

Eyes

So, the poem I posted earlier got a semi-positive response. This has spurred me into posting some of my personal favorites from lifetimes ago. (To all would-be-thiefs: steal one of my poems, and I'll send Vladamir Lorch and his electric whip of doom after you. so just don't bother. you don't wanna see Vlad in action).


.........................................................................

When the sun shines through me now
(with dazzling spears of gold)
There's nothing I can't see,
And on the stream of memory
(of the not-yet and the o-so-old)
My ship sails to the seas.

When the sun shines through me now
(with dazzling spears of gold)
There's nothing that you see,
Where I was is empty now
(an omnipresent hole)
And nothing becomes me.

.............

O when the moon glows in the black
(and turns her face to sea)
I see a path of light,
And when I steer my ship that way
(my vessel and me)
We find only silky night.

When the moon glows in the black
(and turns her face to sea)
You see a path of light,
Where only dreams and waves sail
(for you cannot see me)
Into the darkest night.


If it sounds weird, just read it without the ( ) parts.

Badassitude, rediscovered

"Badassitude" is the word of the week. If you can't figure out what it means, it obviously doesn't apply to you.

I'm going to try something new. Adding a little extra to my posts, a dream section. We'll see how long it lasts.

Dream: Last night, I dreamed about a rampaging axe murderer. I was running away from him, trying to stop him while not being killed. I failed, and he was coming at me with his axe, and i knew in that dream way that I was going to die. I steeled myself to die...and all of a sudden, previously unplanned and unbeknownst to me, I lunge at him, disarm him, slam the axe into his groin, spin and yank it out, then slam it into his throat. Then I'm left standing in a pool of blood with his axe, totally shocked. Then I wake up.

Vladamir Lorch and the Scorpion Prince

The day is dying. A faded sun sinks slowly below the horizon, bathing the wasted land with meager rays of rusty light. It is that silent time after the day walkers have crawled into their homes, and before the night creatures have begun to prowl. A subdued wind blows half-heartedly from the west, pushing tumbleweeds idly across the parched earth. A more persistent gust tosses a tangle of weeds up against the only building visible for miles, a long and squat mongrel of plaster, wood, and aluminum siding. A slightly crooked wooden door hangs on ancient hinges, slightly off-center and topped by a fading hand painted sign. The once-jaunty letters spell out "Hellion's Haven" underneath the patina of dust and age. Yellow light squeezes through the cracks in the wooden door, gasping in relief in the more natural light (or lack thereof) of twilight.

The tavern, if such an uncivilized and ill-conceived business could be named such, is unnaturally quiet for it's ilk. There's a pall on the place, as if all the unhappiness and troubled times from the surrounding lands have converged there; pulled up stools like weary travellers, too tired to be troubled to do more than eat and drink in heavy silence. There are no windows, only a crooked chimney and some holes beneath the eaves to let the smoke out and the air in. Suddenly, somewhere, a clock chimes the hour. The sun finally slips below the horizon with an almost audible sigh of relief. The light of day flees in fear before the coming dark.

The door flies open, banging against the wall with a muted thud, pouring sickly light into the night in a thick beam. The flood of light dims, and a figure is silhouetted in the crooked frame. A moment, and the man (for it is a man) steps into the night, letting the door creak closed. A small and lonely lightbulb flickers on above the sign. Every few seconds it sputters off and on again. In the weak light, the man gains definition.

He is tall and thin, with wide bony shoulders, and powerful long legs. His face is shadowed by a well-worn cowboy hat, but a pointed black goatee and a generous nose of hawk-like profile can be made out beneath its brim. The man shrugs into a threadbare trenchcoat, shoving his callused hands into deep pockets to check the contents. He pulls each item into the dim light for a second, and then replaces it; a wilted leather purse, a vial of glowing liquid, a wicked looking dart gun, a packet of dried meat. He touches his belt for reassurance as well, removing everything once and putting it back into its straps and holsters; two full canteens, a gigantic pistol, 6 clips of ammo, an electric whip, a long-bladed hunting knife. Satisfied, he steps forward into the chill desert night. Something rattles with every stride; look closer, and a double-stranded necklace is observed, made of the spoils of battle. Great serrated teeth, thin bones of various length, what looks suspiciously like human ears, and at the bottom, the greatest prize of all: a scorpion stinger the length of a big man's finger. For this is no ordinary bounty hunter; this is Vladamir Lorch, who wears around his neck the last legacy of the great tyrant, the Scorpion Prince. Vladamir Lorch, who defeated the legions of Scorpion minions with only his pistol, his whip, and his incredible store of badassitude.

Vladamir Lorch strides fearlessly into the darkness. The idle breeze whispers in the scrub, spreading tales of his prowess far across the barren lands.

20 lives to save 200....

Those are odds I can live with!

Anyway...

I'm bored with the way my life is. This is no secret, because I complain about it often. But I don't know how to change it. It's like the very ability is outside the realm of my understanding. But, regardless of how much my life bores me, I've got this time, so I figure I should do something with it. Which brings me to today's post. Stuff isn't falling in my lap anymore, so, I'm going to start doing everything I've always wanted to do before I die, just to fill the empty time. So I'm going to make a list, and post it here, because I damn well want to.

Things I want to do before I die:

-Write, and get published, at least one book.

-Tour the cathedrals in Europe. Any cathedrals will do. So long as I get to see Gaudi's stuff in Spain.

-Go to New York; visit the art museums, see some broadway plays, and go into Macy's.

-There's some city in New England that has a festival where they light the river on fire. So, go experience that. First, find out what city that is.

-Go to Montanna and drive the "Going to the Sun" road in Glacier National Park.

-Fill a vial with glacial run-off in Canada's Glacier Provincial Park. Keep the vial in my room.

-Make a prayer out of trees, flowers, or bushes, and watch it grow.

-Get married in Las Vegas.

-Get married a second time (to the same person, optimally) on a cliff in the caribbean, and have the reception on the beach. Wear a bikini under my wedding dress so I'm ready for swimming. Also, make all the drinks into holy versions of their former selves.

-Visit Ayer's Rock in Australia.

-Go shopping in a typical Asian city. Buy the most bizarre clothing and crap I can find, and wear it frequently in the US.

-Translate my poems into another language, while keeping the cadence the same.

-Start a food fight in a crowded restaraunt. Get tossed out, but not arrested.

-See the aztec (or mayan?) temples in south america

-Visit stonehenge.

-Tell my brother that I love him, no matter how much of a delinquent he was or is.

-Ambush my coworkers with waterguns.

-Have a baby. Or two.

-Raise aforementioned child(ren). Love them with all my heart. Teach them to give daps.

-Do a Zoo Tour of America. Make a definitive decision as to which zoo kicks more ass.

-Learn to take compliments!

-Bake a wedding cake.

-Make a wedding dress.

-Stick it to "The Man"

-Die with as little regrets as possible

-Be proposed to. Seriously. By someone who isn't a total douche. And wants to get married.

-Drive through Death Valley

-Explore Utah and New Mexico via car.

-Kayak in the Everglades.

-Dance on a table

-Have sex on a beach

-Have a water balloon fight in the street


That's all I can think of for now. But that's a lot. Enough to keep me busy for a while, at least. Anyone who wants to join me is always welcome.

Thursdays

Thursday, when the earth was frozen
And the ground crunched 'neath my feet,
Wind berated me for walking
Down this cold and barren street.

'Tis these mornings, bright and arctic,
When the shadows reach towards west,
That I truly feel your absence,
And I learn to love you best.

Thursday, when the sun was shining
In deceptive winter skies,
My blood ached for truer weather
Not this season full of lies.

'Tis these mornings, bright and empty,
That find me sad and lonely,
When I truly feel your absence,
And I yearn to love you only.

Bionic Holiday

So, consensus says...Valentine's Day is a stupid holiday. So I've taken my superior qualifications in holiday-revamping, and made it better! faster! stronger!

I give you...International Chocolate Day!

Pure genius, eh? A celebration of chocolate and how freakin' sweet it is. No need for phony cutesy imitation-hallmark cards, or even a significant other! Just a chocolate feast, and a day to devour it in. I think everyone will agree that this is the best holiday they've ever heard of. Chocolate = Awesome.

In observance, I've spent the morning concocting a chocolate recipe to end all chocolate recipes. It's amazing, and I could spend all day licking chocolate out of pans and off my fingers.

Now, for the summer, I'm thinking we should change the 4th of July to National Jello Wrestling Day.

The Apex

My bedroom sits at the apex of Destiny and Music from 2002.

This is a powerful claim, but lo! Behold my evidence! Every Friday morning, at 8:15 AM, my bedroom is inexplicably filled with the sound of the Gorillaz, Cake, and other bands I listened to in highschool. Where does it come from? Not from my computer, phone, Zune, or any other music device in my house. I have no neighbors that border my bedroom. The only answer: it comes from the very AIR around my bed. And before you swear I've finally gone insane, Ed hears it too! What mysteries lie within my bedroom? What ancient truths is destiny trying to convey to me, through music??? And why, why of all the bedrooms, why was MINE chosen?

Tune in for more Music from 2002, same bat time, same bat channel.

Flying Solo

I worked with Shaun today. At one point, he's walking around the store with his arms held out at his sides, making a low-pitched "vrooming" noise.

Me: Shaun, what are you doing?
Shaun: Flying.
Me: Can I fly with you?
Shaun: No way.
Me: Why not? Come on, it'd be fun.
Shaun: I fly solo. I'm my own copilot.

And there you have it.

I've had worse weeks, but not by much.

It's true. This week categorically sucks. Per the usual, I've got nobody to talk to about it, so like a fool I'm gonna write about it on my blog, of all damn places. Suffice it to say, I could do with my Prince/ss Charming arriving any minute, and whisking me away into a life that isn't nearly so shitty. I feel like I've given a lot, and received very little. And I guess I'm just a selfish bitch, but dammit, something in exchange would be nice. When I was younger, I'd wash the dishes, and Mom would come home and yell at me for not vacuuming the floor. I'd say "but i washed the dishes!" and she'd say "and what, you expect a medal for it or something?" Well no, but I at least expected not to get yelled at about the fact that I didn't do something else. I do a lot for people. I really do, or I try to. But then I get yelled at for not doing something else! Like everything I did earlier was pointless, or worse, not good enough. Why should I bother then, why do anything at all? And because I'm a glutton for punishment, it always comes back to this: I feel like it's the right thing to do, and I like doing stuff for people! I like caring. I just wish it was reciprocal.

Good things happen to good people. That's fantastic. The world should always work that way, and since it doesn't, it's even more fantastic when it happens. But hell, maybe this makes me a bad person, but sometimes I have to tell myself not to be bitter. I don't begrudge the good people their good things. But I'd like good things too, sometimes. Of course, since I'm a bad person for feeling bitter, I guess I don't deserve good things. Vicious cycle.

I asked a friend if he would make different decisions if he started life over again. He said he would. I don't know if I would or not. There's a few things I can think of, but, overall it all played out how it was meant to play out. Even starting over, I'd still be me. The person I am makes bad decisions.

How can I want things I've never had? Maybe I read too much. Plus, I was raised on Disney movies. That's probably a huge cause there. Although, I really like the Disney movies, and maybe that's a problem too. I am quite fond of the idea of "true love", and happy endings, and inner beauty. That seems like a good way for things to be. I'm a hopeless, incorrigible, something. I don't know what, but something. Whiny, stupid bitch, maybe.

Ed thinks because I'm depressed it means I begrudge other people what they have. That's not true. I'm glad that Shaun and his wife love each other so much, and that they're having a second kid. I'm also sad I don't have the same thing. I'm not saying I want to take it from them, I just wish I could be in that sort of life too. What the hell is wrong with me that I can't be happy with what I have.

I think the problem with no longer being suicidal is that I don't have a way out anymore. Yes, I could die, but am I going to? No. And because of that, I'm trapped here, no matter how bad it gets. And chances are, if it does get good, I'll die then, because fate has it out for me. Sometimes I think I should have just done it earlier, then I wouldn't be here now feeling like shit.

Maybe it's time for me to turn into a zombie again and start taking antidepressants, again. I hate those fucking things, but maybe it would be a nice break.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something."

Sotto Voce

That's my new Term of the Week. It's one of those modern phrases that derives from a foreign language, directly, so makes you sound super smart when you use it. Bonus! (Italian, meaning "under the voice") The english definition is "in a low, soft voice so as not to be overheard". This is a useful term, peoples!

I don't really have much of import to say. My mom's birthday is tomorrow, and so I get to make a cake. Yey. This past week Matthew, aka the Devil, introduced me to a game called Viva Pinata, which has consumed my soul. I seriously can do nothing but play and obsess over Pinatas. It's a disease, and there is NO CURE, except to get the next pinata on the list and make it reproduce. Excelllllent.

Any game where I can play Creator and produce monstrosities such as Four-headed snakes = totally awesome.

So I, along with others of the Group, saw Pan's Labyrinth tonight. Yup, it's super bowl sunday, and I don't give a shit, and gladly neither do most of my friends. Praise everything that I'm not forced to watch *shudder* sports. Anyway, I saw Pan's Labyrinth on my vacation, so this was the second viewing for me. It really is a fantastic movie, but just in case you don't know what it's like, there are two warnings: 1) It's in spanish with subtitles, and 2) It's very gory and violent at times, NOT a children's movie. But, it's really excellent. I'm a lover of stories, and always have been. Stories are like chocolate for me; delicious and sustaining. There are good stories, and bad stories, and there are also, rarely, True Stories. Pan's Labyrinth is a True Story. Not as in it really happened, but in the fact that it represents life as it really truly is, and not how it should be or how Disney fairy tales represent it. Good people die, and bad people live on, and the little ripples that each person makes in life expand and expand, and can wreak great havoc. It's a beautiful story, and a true one, which makes it all the more beautiful.

This somehow reminded me of one of modern fiction's most excellent books, Wicked by Gregory Maguire. It takes a well-known villain, the Wicked Witch from the wizard of oz, and gives her a life story. It begs the questions "what is wicked? what is evil?" In the end, we're all people. I think sometimes we lose sight of that, that there's a common thread of humanity that runs within us all.

I'm getting all crazy introspective again. It's starting to seem like I'm always this way. I think it's the cold weather...soon as it gets warm again, I'll be too busy absorbing the sun and the heat to think about anything else. How I long for summer...

Home-comings, Overheard conversations, and sundries.

So I've returned from vacation. I'm alive, mom's alive, the car is unharmed, and I still have enough money to pay rent. We call that *ding ding ding* a WIN. We visited Charleston, Beaufort, Savannah, and Tybee Island. It was not a route I would have chosen for myself, since I avoid the South like the plague (yes, I realize I live in the South by some people's calculations. Shut. Up.), but it was very beautiful and I'm glad I got to go. I don't think I'd go back to South Carolina again, because it scares the shit out of me, but Georgia is a definite return spot. I have many pictures, snippets of which will pop up in this blog forthwith, and many stories, all of which I'm willing to share. I'm contemplating printing out my digital photos (shocked gasp) and making a travel log like I used to. We'll see how that turns out.

I'm making plans to go to the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, both of which are in DC. Cherry Blossom is the first two weeks of April, Folklife is the weekend before and after the 4th of July. If anyone wants to accompany me, I'd be more than happy to have them along, although I wouldn't reccomend the folklife festival if you have an aversion to hot weather.

On the topic of overheard conversations...here's a gem:

Person 1: "I had the God of War 2 video running until some mom complained and I had to take it out."

Person 2: "Did you tell her that when Jesus comes again, he's going to have a big fiery sword and be lopping people's heads off?"

Person 1: "Yea, I told her he was the only real answer to the Zombie Menace. She didn't buy it though."

If you're like me, you now have a visual of Jesus, resplendent with fiery sword and real gliding action, lopping off the heads of hordes of vicious zombies. Our savior, for real.

So I saw my cousin, briefly, on my way home from the vacation. He's getting married in July, and we were discussing his wedding plans, and it came up that I'm legally allowed to perform marriage ceremonies. So there's a slight chance that I could end up marrying him and his fiance, which would be awesome. However, my extended family would be horrified, so I'm sure it won't happen. It also came up that I can legally (contemplate this for a second) make Holy Water. I'm thinking about marketing Holy Water with the slogan "The power of Christ compels you, bitch!" Punk Holy Water, Holiness with Attitude. . . I like it. Get-rich scheme #456. And also, if there's ever a serious Vampire problem, I'm your woman.

Here's a song.

I lied. It's not a song. But, I came across this splendiferous (80% sure that's a real word too.) word today, and I feel like it needs a post of its own.

Y'all ready for this?

Ahem.

Estivate (verb): To pass the summer in an inactive or resting state.

Yup. That's its only definition. Now, my question is, who thought this up? Who actually spent time creating a word to describe that phenomenon? Was it needed?

I'll leave you with these words of wisdom, brought to you by Lobster Magnet: "Right claw north! LEFT CLAW SOUTHHHHHH!"

Doilies in D Minor, Part II

Or, How I Went Crazy in a Sane World.

Should anything untoward happen to me, there is nobody who will know my story. It is my vanity that makes me want people to know it. Even if it is only 3 people who happen upon this blog, at least my story will be read. And it is not only my story; it's the story of contemporary America. America likes to pretend the world still works according to antiquated ideals and rules and laws, but it isn't true. The youth of today is rotting inside out. And it's not the drugs or the sex or the rock and roll that's causing its decay. It's something more general, more surreptitious. It's the quality of life that has emerged in our horrifying country, something that has crawled out of the wreckage of the brilliant ideals America was built on; the blissful suburbs, the morals printed in the glossy pages of magazines, the democracy, the "work ethic", the "patriotism". These are imaginary truths that unfortunately are granted far more creedence than they deserve in this day and age. And so the other truths are neglected and forced into the shadows, and America's future rots in the gutters and the streets and in the Juvenile justice system. America as a whole should do itself and its children a favor, and stop focusing so much on how life is supposed to be, and take a good luck at how life is instead.

-------------------

EDIT: My mother wants me to remove this, because I've hurt people by writing the truth. I'm removing it as a favor to her, and because my intention was not to hurt anyone. The point is this: I don't write out of bitter revenge. I'm very good at exposes, but I don't do them, because contrary to popular belief I don't like hurting people. I don't like the way that society and culture IS. There are a lot of people who are content to say that yes, it sucks, but it's just the way it is. I'm not one of them, and if that knocks me down to petty complaining, I'll take that rather than bland acceptance. Life is not about the lesser of two evils. There should never be a point in life where it's ok to say "yea, this sucks, but o well." I don't like this culture, society, or government. I think there needs to be a change, a drastic change, an avalanche of changes. Everyone asks me if I have an idea, an utopia in mind, some perfect plan. Nope. Things don't change or get better by being the same. Stagnation is not the fast track to evolution. The best way to get things moving, in one way or another, is to introduce something new to the situation. It's like a chemistry experiment with no instructions; just throw ingredients in, and see what happens. I'm throwing my piece in, and what I have to offer. Things don't have to go my way. I don't even have a way, per se. But shit, they need to go somewhere other than here. If you agree, don't be afraid to throw something new in to the well-oiled gears of this American machine. Rules are made to be broken, right? We wouldn't be here if it weren't for some whackos crazy new idea 200+ years ago. Look at the world through a new lens, and see where that takes you.

"I wouldn't want to overdo it with positive feedback."

That quote is precisely why my district manager is an asshole. I'd go more into depth about how much i despise him, but I'm way too angry for that right now. So i'm gonna move on to a safer subject, and feel assured that you're hating him with me.

Nick made some sort of crazy "my opinion matters" list for 2006. He inspired me with his boldness to make a list as well. However, I'm not Nick, so my list isn't gonna be about video games (much), and will focus more on my primary hobby, reading.

I read a lot of books this year, and because I feel guilty qualifying them, I'm just gonna list the excellent ones and why they are awesome.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson: First and foremost, the best book I read all year. It's a stand-alone fantasy novel, and it's the most original fantasy story I've read, ever. It also has one of the most realistic and strong female protagonists I've seen since...well, since Phillip Pullman's series, His Dark Materials. All you need to do to fall in love with this book is read the first page. It's two paragraphs, and it will make you buy it, I swear.

I managed, at last, to read through The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. It's totally bizarre, and it hurt my brain to read it. I don't reccomend you try it unless you have a grand history with hallucinogenic drugs, or are schizophrenic. Maybe both. It's about conspiracy theories, and at the same time human nature, the evils of society and government, and the evils of anarchy. I'm glad I read it, but I honestly still dunno what it was REALLY about. It's written in 3rd and 1st person, and it skips through narrators, viewpoints, geographical and temporal locations, all without any warning. There are singing dolphins, too. And a computer that marries a sea monster. My head hurts just thinking about it. As a redeeming factor, there's lots of promiscuous sex!

On the subject of conspiracy theories, I finally gave in and read The DaVinci Code. I actually wasn't very impressed. It seems to be one of those pop culture things, where I'm not sure how it got popular to begin with. As an author, Dan Brown leaves a LOT to be desired. In short, he's a good storyteller, but his characters suck. Any attempts at character development are just embarassing, and any dialogue not involving his research is lifeless and boring. To his credit, he does a lot of research for his books. But, it's not new research. He reads nonfiction, builds up fantasies about the topics he's reading about, and then writes them into a story. I also read Angels and Demons which was better, but nothing great. Brown takes erudite learnings and turns them into pop culture fiction, and it sort of takes the magic out of it for me. That sort of knowledge shouldn't be fed to the common idiot, because then you get people who say "Dan Brown invented the Freemasons". No joke, I just heard this the other day.

DaVinci Code intrigued me, and offered little to sate my curiousity, so I went to the source and read Holy Blood, Holy Grail. This is where Brown got most of his research from, and if you were interested in the topic, you should read this and just skip right over DaVinci Code. Conspiracy theories aren't really my thing, but religion and the study thereof is a hobby of mine, and this was delicious to read. The prospect of the fundamental basis for modern Christian belief being proven wrong is interesting, and the theories this book embarks on are fantastic. It also touches on the history of medieval Europe, which is something I love reading about. And, to my delight, it puts a lot of emphasis on the Feminine Divine. Female divinity and Christianity in one...such sweet sacrilege.

On another topic, I picked up Herman Wouk's Don't Stop the Carnival, a novel based on his exploits in the Caribbean in the 1950's. It's very funny, and I was pleased to see that the ambience and the mechanisms of the Caribbean haven't changed much since his adventures and my more recent inhabitance. The book includes both the ridiculous humor of the islands, and the tragic incidents that make up day-to-day life there. I would highly recommend this for anyone who is looking to visit or move to the Caribbean, just to give you a general feel for what you're unwittingly walking into.

I have managed to introduce Christopher Moore and his myriad titles to my little "group" of people, and I'm thrilled with the results. For anyone who doesn't know, Christopher Moore is a fiction writer with a sick and absolutely wonderful sense of humor. My favorite part of his books is his ability to illustrate the relationships between people with as few words as possible. A few quips and silly lines of dialogue, and the reader has no problem believing the humanity of the characters. He has a new book coming out on the 23rd of this month called You Suck! A Love Story and I aquired an advanced reader's copy of it that has so far cycled through 3 of us, and is available for more. I think it's one of his best books, along with A Dirty Job (about an unsuspecting father who becomes death...sort of) and Lamb (the story of Jesus as told through his childhood pal, Biff). I also read The Stupidest Angel right before Christmas, a holiday story with zombies that has a psychotic ex-B-Movie actress who thinks the Sand Pirates are out to get her. And Roberto, the fruit bat from Guam who wears RayBans. It just gets better, I swear.

I read more, I swear. These are just the highlights that sort of defined the year for me. I have spent more of this year reading than I have playing video games. That's a good thing, I think, because I love reading very very much. Plus, I've mastered multi-tasking to the extreme. That's right folks; I can successfully main-heal in FFXI and read a book AT THE SAME TIME. I rule! Unfortunately, I'm still playing FFXI. I can't seem to tear myself away from it for good. I like my character, dammit, and I love some of the people I play with. And I'm really really good at my job! That shouldn't mean so much, but it's nice to be able to do something I know I'm awesome at.

Point of interest: There's going to be a blue moon in May!!!! Exciting!!!!

"I Rule!"

Story time.

When I was a little girl, 7, 8, maybe 9, all those years blend together...I was living in the Caribbean, in the "gut house", my paradise. I had a birthday, as happens once a year, and it was at my house. Lots of things can be said about my mother, but, above all, my mom can make special occasions fantastic. This year, she'd invited nearly every girl in my class at school. Everyone was supposed to dress up in their frilliest dresses and bring their favorite dolls (dressed in their frilliest dresses too, of course). And they did, and we all sat around the table on the deck in our beautiful dresses with our beautiful dolls, and we made crowns to wear, and we ate cake, and we were all beautiful happy little princesses. In the gut house, me and my family lived with a single dad named Bill and his son Jesse, who is one year older than me. Bill and Jesse, and my dad and my brother, had all been kicked out of the house for the day. It was just us girls.

It started raining after the cake. And Caribbean rain is not like the rain here. It's torrential, it's warm; it's a blessing from the sky, and it falls mercilessly upon the islands and the ocean, sometimes without warning. And so it rained on my birthday, a beautiful torrential monsoon. We were all little girls in pretty dresses; we were all Caribbean girls, and it was raining. And so we went out to play in the rain, because rain is wonderful. Most of us didn't make it out the door fully clothed; mom didn't want us to get our pretty dresses muddy, so, since we were practical children, we took them off and left them laying on the tiled floor. Some of us kept our panties on, but it wasn't mandatory. I think that was the best birthday I have ever had. There's something about running through the rain with your friends, most of you butt-naked, feeling the mud squish between your toes, and laughing. Always laughing.

And, at the end, Jesse and Bill came down the driveway, and we all ran screaming and naked through the rain into the safety of the house. Except for me, who, at the sign of a car, ran around the back, scaled the deck (naked, mind you) and let myself in the back way, donned my dress, and opened the front door as prim and proper as I could be.

It was raining today, and I jumped in a puddle on the way to the bank. It got my skull socks wet, and I could feel the muddy water trickling into my shoes. I will never, ever grow up, and that is just the way I like it.

Look who's crying now.

I want to thank all the people who have offered to listen if I needed to talk about the Ed situation. Chances are I won't take you up on the offer if you're asking, since chances are you're friends with both of us. But, the thought is appreciated, very very much. I am trying to do the honorable thing, and not put anyone in a situation where they feel like they have to choose sides. So, thanks for putting your shoulder out there for me to cry on. It'll stay dry, I promise.


In other news, my dreams are back. It was a nice reprieve, but apparently nothing to get used to. A few nights ago, I had a very detailed dream about someone killing my newborn daughter while I watched helplessly. That one lost me about half a night's worth of good sleep. If I had a dream deity, I'd thank them in a very sarcastic manner. Last night, I enjoyed a very long and involved episode in which my sister (which I don't have, by the way) was deemed psychotic, and so abducted by "doctors" who were going to give her "therapy". They imprisoned her in an underground pit, and tortured her mercilessly. She escaped several times, but each time, they reclaimed her and dragged her back down to hell. And I knew, and nobody else would believe me. I kept trying to rescue her, but they always got her back, and they wouldn't hurt me or let me join her or take her place. All I wanted was for her to be safe.

I could do without my dreams.

When I was in college, my best friend tried to kill herself. She was in another city, and although I called the police who took her to the hospital, I wasn't there in time to help her myself. To atone for the guilt I felt at my absence, I decided to clean the evidence of her attempt out of her apartment so she wouldn't have to do it when she was released. It was a lot of blood, and I will never forget it. The nightmares started after that, and they have never gone away. I do not believe in divine retribution, and even if I did, I do not believe any divinity would punish me so much for being late. It seems I have done a very good job of punishing myself, for whatever imagined transgressions I've committed.

Bad things happen, in abundance. Horrible terrible things, counterparts to all the beautiful wonderful things that make up life. In the end, I think the major damage is done by ourselves, though. The bad things happen, and we choose how they effect us. I make bad choices, with good intentions. The bad things bruise me and scar me, more than they should. Long after the pain is gone, the scars and bruises remain. Has my life really been so different, so much worse, than anyone else's? Probably not, in the end.

Welcome to the Year of the Scorpion

That's right folks. It's officially 2007, the Year of the Scorpion. I hear some dissension. "No Sarah, It's the year of the Pig in Chinese culture." Well, fuck you nay-sayers! We've seen signs. Just look around you. The scorpions are there. They're eating your foodz, and steelin ur dataz...They're hiding in your celebratory crackers, merging with your jewelry. We can compromise if we must, and it can be the Year of the Pig-Scorpions, or Scorpion-Pigs. But don't steal the scorpions' thunder. It's their year; don't be afraid to acknowledge it.

So this year, ye olde 2007, do as the scorpions have done before you, and rock out like you've never rocked before.

................

The first excitement of the year has pounced upon me, like some giant pouncing thing. It has come in the form of knowledge. Creepy, philosophical-theological knowledge, disguised in my fantasy books and my MMO of choice. Now, I am a big fan of mythology. I've studied a lot of western religions solely for the cool stories. Deities are excellent characters, and mythology is a fantasy dork's dream come true. One thing I've neglected, to my disadvantage, is Christianity and its predecessors. This is because of some bad blood between me and Christianity; things were said, and we haven't spoken in years. I have never read the bible; excerpts, yes, but not the whole lengthy tome itself. I have a general idea of the stories etc, apparently a better idea than many people I know, but I haven't made any efforts to study it. So, I don't honestly know the nuances of separation between the Christian sects, or even between Judaism and Christianity (sad, I know). I realize not many people have played FFXI who are going to end up reading this, but, I'm sure you've all played a final fantasy game at some point along the way, and are familiar with their versatility of monsters at their disposal. I've recognized a lot of the names they use; Ifrit, Fenrir, Cerberus, Mandragora, etc etc. All taken from various mythologies worldwide, and ingeniously used. I've always been impressed by the amount of research that went into the mobs at some point. In the recent Final Fantasy games, there's a mob called an Ahriman. It's a giant eye thing with wings. You know what I'm talking about; they confused you in FFX and made you kill yourself with your big sword. Those jerks. Well, in FFXI, there are Ahriman too. Not to bore you with the details, but in the high level Dynamis (-.- raid for you WOW noobs) story lines, the second to last boss is an Ahriman mob called Angra Mainyu. He's an asshole, but I've faced him several times and lived to tell the tale (go me). I never thought to look up his name; I thought it was something made up, or related to a previous game I'd never played. Well, completely unrelated to FFXI, I'm reading a heavily theological fantasy series currently, and encountered a God named Angra Mainyu while reading. Coincidence? I think not. So, I wikipediad it. Well, like I said, anything related to the creation of Christianity I tend to ignore. So, I've unwittingly tuned out Zoroasterian thought. Turns out Ahriman and Angra Mainyu are from Zoroaster himself and his mighty, and completely unexplored by me, writings. So get this: Angra Mainyu is the nemesis of the light and creation god Ahura Mazda in Zoroasterian thought. Ahriman is another name for Angra Mainyu. I'm thoroughly intrigued and wish to learn more. If anyone has any suggestions as to a good and unbiased source on Zoroaster, I'd be much obliged. It sounds way interesting. Ahura Mazda is the god of the sacred fire, the creator of empirical truth, and defender of that which is observable. Angra Mainyu is his adversary, the polluter, the lord of anti-creation, and characterized by chaos and the "lie"-destruction of empirical truths. Angra Mainyu's mantra is "ill thoughts, ill words, ill deeds". This is all fascinating to me, but what I think is really cool is that the Ahriman abilities in the final fantasy games are all formed around inflicting chaos and confusion, which seems extremely apt.

And, here's a word of the day/week/whateva:

Hypostatize:
-construe as a real existence, of a conceptual entity
-To ascribe material existence to.
-to treat or regard (a concept, idea, etc.) as a distinct substance or reality

This is an excellent one, so I'm upping it to 15 points for correct usage in a conversation.

Ok, good night. All hail the scorpion!