A Little Rant..

Hmm...

Actually, now I dont know if I feel quite like it... it's a beautiful evening... sweet and clear and warm... there's a breeze that you can hear in the trees and in the windchimes my mom collects and hangs above our new deck...

Yes, our new deck... I don't think I've even blogged about that..

Perhaps, yes, perhaps blogging is better for those long, dark winter nights, when a person should be working hard on cleaning or writing papers or other such boring things...

Blogging wasn't meant for summer evenings like these...

But already my scalp is sunburnt, again... as are my shoulders... and I spent about six hours outdoors already.. hmm...

Steak on the grill... corn on the cob being boiled.. ice cream waiting for after dinner, as well as a wonderful looking cherry pie...

Yes, tonight I feel like part of a truly all-american family... although only in the positive, idealistic sense, nowhere near the harsh, real-world reality.

Tonight, my life is so sweet I can barely stand it...

In twelve hours, when my alarm clock is ringing to get me up and send me to work I will not be so happy... but that doesn't matter...

It's frightening, but wonderful to have things feel so perfect...

I think it is the reality that I'll be moving away back to Salem again soon that makes me truly appreciate what I have right now, right this minute..

*Ahem*... excuse me...

It's suppa-time!

Announcement To The World...

Homestar Runner is not funny.

I repeat, Homestar Runner is not funny.

Either that or there's something wrong with me...

One of the two...

Gorged...

... on coleslaw, BBQ ribs, and chilled fresh blackberries...

Oh my.... oh, my....

*Settles in for a slow digest*

Quiet Days....

Warm, quiet, sunny days like today are wonderful...

The nights that follow are even more beautiful...

Peaceful, calm, quiet, and smooth... things couldn't be any better...

Sweet Dreams...

I had a dream this morning, after waking up and dozing off again (since another stomach-ache period last night was filled with nightmares).... and that dream was sweeter than the reality of my life... it was so wonderful....

In the dream I was in the SSC pool with Nancy, and it was crowded... we were swimming around, since everything was busy... the basketball hoops, the diving boards, everything... we were swimming around, trying not to bump into anybody, when, from the other side of the pool I see Stacey swimming towards me... we swim/run to each other, splashing around and laughing, and we hug each other. In the dream we hadn't seen each other in a long time. So we start hugging and we're laughing and happy, splashing around in the pool, goofing off and teasing each other... we swim down to the deep end with Nancy, catching up on news and just constantly laughing with that light-hearted laugh...

All of a sudden somebody jumps into the pool and splashes us. We squeal, as some girls are prone to doing... we were still wiping the chlorine water out of our eyes as Blake surfaces, his head tipped back, water running off of his face and chest, pushing his hair back from his forehead. (Yeah, it was like a cologne commercial.) It was so unexpected, so... beautiful is too feminine of a word, but I'm in a semi-hurry at the moment...

And I put my arm around the both of them and we were laughing in the water with each other, splashing around, talking over the voices of everybody else... suddenly it seemed as though everybody else was leaving the pool, and soon we had it all to ourselves but it felt full because we felt so good...

We busted out the water basketball, and Blake was going off of the diving board, and everything felt so perfectly fitted, seamless.

.... And then I woke up and reality sunk in, and I have a shower to go and take, errands to run and then work to go to...

Disguised?

My aunt went to the hospital yesterday for chest pains... for a sixty year old woman with recurring medical problems, that's not good. Mom called me to 'talk about what's going on.' Those 'need to talk' talks are never good... she told me that my aunt went in for chest pains and that there was a 65% blockage in her heart... that's the bad news. The good news is that angioplasty (sp?) opened it up, she did not have a heart attack so no permanent damage was done, and the blockage wasn't cholesterol but some sort of waxy buildup (sorry for getting so scientifically technical here) that isn't as damaging and is no longer there to hurt her heart.

Blessing in disguise. Mom said the doctor said that she'll feel a lot better overall now, with all of that improved bloodflow and a healthier heart. Plus, after being in the hospital and going through her procedure, she isn't feeling any discomfort, and mom is bringing her multiple books from the second hand book store...

Going from being so scared (mom sounded so much like she was going to tell me about a soon-to-be death in the family) to having somebody's quality of well-being greatly improve is a happy phone call indeed.

Two Badger Enter...

... One badger leave...

Well, those crazy badger kits have settled their fussin' and a-feudin' and I'm off for more desperate attempts at writing passable poetry...

Goonight, goonight...

Like Badgers...

My stomach is making sounds similiar to what I imagine a full-badger cast of Mad Max and the Thunderdome would be... my stomach is the Thunderdome...

Thankfully I can't feel what's creating such a wild rumpus in there, but man, I'm going to be unhappy when I do feel it...

Yeesh...

Just, you know... had to share...

My Room...

My room felt so cold just an hour ago.. it felt dark and stale and empty and lifeless...

Now my room feels full and warm and snuggly... just full of that life that felt so absent before...

It's nice...

Being alone is great. Other times, it's so great to feel life all around you.

[Did that sound sick and kinda Freudian to anybody else? In retrospect it does to me now... hmm. Oh well.]

The Beginning Stages Of Deterioration

As the day and night wear on I slowly begin to deteriorate... my hair frizzes and tangles, and the broken pieces around my part stick up farther and farther, as if they're going to catch a signal from space... my eyes droop, I smile less. Skin grease makes the thick lines of eyeliner crease, run, and smear, giving my eyes a punched-out, dim-witted look. My foundation wears away and my skin shows through, blotchy and patched and uneven. My clothes lose their fit, crease at the armpits, and usually have food on them. My perfume wears off, and my deodorant destinks on precarious ground...

And you should see me when I wake up in the morning...

A Streetcar Named Desire...

Hmmmm....

It makes me feel horrid.

... Must be good literature, then.

Bad Day At Work...

Whoops... I screwed up today... a lot...

First, I forgot that I opened today... which makes sense since I walked by the front desk and went, "Man, whoever is supposed to open this morning sure is late." Yeah... that was my ass's name on the schedule...

So, that means that an R.A. had to open up the front desk... not so much a problem, since he was scheduled to work anyway, right after me, and he wasn't inconvenienced any... excepting that he opened with his own keys, leaving the rest of us desk workers worried and wondering where the 'lost' keys were... in fact, they were just left at security... thankfully Ashley was nice enough to pick them up for me...

So that was a bother for everyone, who already had to deal with the door handle falling off. That's right, the door can't be opened from the inside, because turning the lock means that the handle of said door falls off, leaving the person inside standing like a moron, holding a door handle to a door that now won't open... yeah, we have to jump over the counter to get out if the door is closed on us...

And the open door is apparently an invitation for strange men to wander back here. Thankfully my boss shooed them out with a whiteboard eraser, because I was too befuddled to move...

Then some poor guy lost an important package and I can't do a damn thing to help him, and somewhere, on the inside, I know he blames me, although he was quite polite about it...

*Sighs*

At least I work with really cool people...

What's Good Poetry Alcohol?

Because I need it tonight.... mmm-mmm, do I!

So please, somebody deliver it...

It might stave off my bad mood.... it's been creeping up on me the last half an hour or so... a mixture of writer's block, withdrawl from my Mountain Dew addiction, and people... but it's always people... you know, one of these days I should just be like, "You know, they're just people. Just like me... I'm no different whatsoever." But somehow, nope, can't do it... can't fathom them... like, take this one guy... I purposely do not speak to him. In fact, whenever I am forced to speak to him, which is always forced, totally beyond my control, I'm as brief as possible and try to avoid looking at him for as long as possible.... for a brief period of time he got pissy with me because he thought I said something negative about him and he removed the link to my blog. Turns out I never said it about him and he relinked me. What the heck... I don't talk to him. Don't like him... never did. In fact, he never really even liked me, so why link me? Don't ask me....

Now, I realize that this isn't anything earth-shattering, and that there are a whole lot worse problems in life... but it bugs me... it's just one of those little things that's like, "What the crap?" He knows I don't talk to him, in fact, he knows exactly how I feel about him. He links me anyways... duuuuhhh.. how come?

So yeah, just little things...

A bottle just shattered on the sidewalk. Hmm. Nice. That'll make going out in sandals more fun... well... fine, I'll wear shoes until I get where I'm going then put on my sandals.

Now, another person that I just flat-out don't like is purposely not-talking to me... anybody know what I mean? I mean, making it a point to talk to everybody around me, or to interrupt my conversation to make a comment to a person that I'm mid-sentence with but not even acknowledging me... making it a point to sit near me and the person/people I'm with just to show me that they aren't talking to me... nice... let's talk about obnoxious.

And at Applebee's the other day, a girl sitting right behind me was shouting about how cool it is she was and how many men liked her and asked her out all the time... it wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't been overshouting the conversation I was trying to have with somebody else...

Oh, oh, and then, this one time-when I was six....

Heh. Yeah, that was me making fun of me.... seems like I should have a sense of humor about this and brush it off... so, I think I will...

Besides... Blake is in town this week...

Off To Work....

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go...

Somebody come visit me? I'll give you free drinks.. heheh....

Man... kind of a crappy day today... not sure why... just is... kind of moody and pissy....

Ho-hum... I need ice cream...

Perhaps work will improve things... getting my taxes done would be great, but I seem to be missing one of my W2's... and that's no good, that's no good at all...

Austin Powers, #2 and Lucky Charms are making me feel pretty good, though...

I want a can of pop after seeing a Dr. Pepper commercial.. you could see the carbonation, the little bubbles popping and fizzing... that's what got to me... bah.

Off to work now...

Here's Another On The Topic Of Goths....

Goths that dislike each other.

Thinking about a couple of the goths I've known, something occured to me. Goths that don't like each other, attack the gothnicity of the other.

In some ways, the gothic subculture is a relief from the cattiness that can be found when most people get together for periods of time. It's human nature, either inherent or socialized, and just happens. Goth as a whole, not necessarily specific individuals, is a very accepting subculture. As I've said, I've seen everything from African-American and Asian-American goths to goths in wheelchairs, goths with weight problems, goths in all sorts of shapes, sizes and personalities... it's kind of a catch-all group, good and bad... you can see it in the types of goths... I've linked to it before, but goths have come up with lists of more than a hundred different types of goths.

Goth is maybe one of the most diverse subcultures out there... until you piss off another goth... and then it's on.

When a goth pisses off another goth, there are extensive, degrading rants about how one person is more goth than the other, their favorite bands are more obscure, they smoke more cloves, they've been goth the longest, they are less of a conformist, and their blacks are blacker.

... it's an interesting phenomenon...

It's.... telling...

Old School Like The Old School...

Veruca Salt... Volcano Girls...

Oh wow...

Hearing songs like these are like smelling scents from your childhood... like opening up a container of Play-Doh and having all of those memories rush back to you... it's like Play-Doh of the ears... except all of a sudden Nintendo 64's Mario Bros is coming back to me, a small boom-box on the floor next to the television set, white carpeting, spiked red hair, Sailor Moon, my spiderweb boots, the smell of lemon, Rocko laying out on the deck...

Wow...

Goth Commonality..

An idea just struck me as I was playing with a slinky... strange, but true... yes, a slinky. Is that a brand name, as in Slinky? Well, anywho... so I'm playing with this slinky, and laughing to myself and thinking that I should name this new-found slinky friend of mine... while thinking of names for my slinky I went through several options, including Mr. Slinky, and Sir Slinks-A-Lot. (Clever and original, oh, I know it.)... but then it didn't seem to fit me oh-so-much, so I tried to think of a goth name for the slinky... and that's really when the idea hit me... one more common behavior of goths (other than loving off-kilter art and eating chinese food), is that goths like to goth-out the people, animals and objects around them. This is reinforced by several memories I have of gothing-out friends, my brother, even my own mom (anybody that knows her would laugh hysterically at this, but now I lack motivation to explain it all), as well as trying my spiked collars on my cats, attempting to dye my friend's horse's mane purple (instead I was allowed to put in feathers and glitter, whoo-hoo), and, as some of my readers may have seen, the infamous devil duck with his pierced bill. (For those of you that haven't, it's a little rubber ducky that's all red, with dark eyes, horns, and an evil smirk on its bill, that has had a metal hoop pierce it's bill.)

Seems like every goth wants to dress up others as such... and, failing that, most goths will have a gothic doll or two, gothic throw-pillows, or gothic friends for the life-sized gothic makeovers of each other.

Sometimes I really want a gothie friend to mix and match outfits with, to dress up and go out with, to go to concerts with, do gothie crafts and sewing projects with, and various other gothie fun time activities that my non-goth female friends won't do or can't do, and my male friends (goth or not) won't do because it threatens their masculinity, or can't do because, let's face it, not many men have the same size and taste of shoes as I do...

Tsk-tsk-tsk...

But strangely, for a few weeks over the spring, I kept having dreams, one night after the next, in which I had a sister that was just about my age...

I wonder what I miss sometimes... but then I remember that I'd hate the snot (I'd probably not get along with myself) because we'd have similarities.

Hmmm... strange. Food for gothie though...

Now... I feel the need to play dress-up... at least with myself... *Sniffle*

Exhausted...

I'm exhausted, covered in cat hair, cat scratches, have a smile on my face and already hate the idea of having to sleep alone tonight... unless you want to count my dog snoring on the floor next to my bed, and two cats at my feet... but I don't count it...

I usually love my time and space alone, but somehow tonight it isn't what I'm looking for... tonight I wish it was winter and I was in front of a fireplace with hot cocoa, a blanket and that my special sweet someone... heheh...

Loneliness set in even though he had barely left my driveway...

A nap should do me good, but I can't take one now... the blinkers (or turn signals, as some like to call them) on my car aren't working properly and so my car needs to be dropped off...

But so tired...

It's a hard thing.. I woke up this morning and was happy... nothing more, nothing less, just happy.... things were right where I wanted them to be, even though I was only sleeping on an air mattress in a near-strangers apartment, everything was just right and I was happy... tomorrow morning will not be the same...

Hrumph....

White Breaded Bitches!

Who's the ping-pong master?

Eh?

Come on, answer me...

Who's the ping-pong master? Who's the ping-pong daddy?

Yeah... that's right!

That's right!

It's.... yeah... it's Phillip...

*Hangs head in shame*

But I valiantly fought off my scarf while playing and survived! (I harbor a suspicion that my scarf has it in for me....)

An Evening Of Memories...

Bad memories are much like gnats. They show up at the most beautiful of times and no matter what you do you can't seem to get rid of them. (And by 'you' I mean 'I'.) They get in your eyes and nose and ears and mouth until you want to scream with frustration. You can't escape them. You can hardly tolerate them. All you can do is keep moving. (Unless you're Cassie, then you lap at them with your tongue and try to eat them. But that really ruins the tone of this posting.)

Sweet memories are like standing knee-deep in a lake and watching the little fish swim by your feet. Slick and shimmering, they come when they want, go when they want, and if you try to catch them they simply disappear. So instead, you hold your breath and watch them, hoping that they'll stay.

When I let my eyes move up from the screen of my computer and level out my vision, I see a little tiny rubber figure of Spyro the dragon. He's small enough that I can set him on a quarter and his little rubber bottom doesn't go over the edges. It's funny how I got him...

One day at work (which was, at the time, the local grocery store) a little boy, probably about five or six, comes up behind me, tugs on my shirt tail and says, "Miss? Miss?"

"Yeah, sweetie," I say, turning around to face him. "Need something?"

"Here go," he says, holding out his fist to me, dirty knuckles facing upward. "I found this."

He dropped a little, tiny rubber figurine of Spyro the Dragon into my palm. "Aww.... are you sure you don't want to keep it. I mean, Spyro's pretty cool. He even has his own video game and stuff."

"No, no," he said, "I found it and I want to give it to you."

"Oh, wow. Thank you, sweetie. Spyro is so cool. That was very nice of you."

The little boy gave me a big smile, feeling good at his generosity (or so I assume) and walked off, chest all puffed out in pride.

Somehow, out of everything on my mind, that's the memory that surfaced at the moment... little Spyro, who I sat on my cash register for a month afterward, who finally came home to grace my desk and give me a sweet little reminder that some people in this world truly do have hearts, instead of a false front of one.

That was four years ago. Now I wonder where that little boy is.

4th Of July!

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Americans..

And just a happy day to everyone else.

*Glee*

How I love this day...

It shall be filled with fireworks, laughter, ice cream and my mom's homemade apple pie...

Oh boy, oh boy!

No Doggie Date...

But that's alright, I had an interesting enough night myself and couldn't have taken another outing...

This here's another posting about my pup...

Let me tell you, she's definately a confused dog. Most dogs are excellent judges of character. My last dog, a black lab named Rocko, had impeccable taste in human kind... who she liked and who she didn't...

Cassie on the other hand, has self-esteem problems, most likely a nasty history of abuse (she was a stray for a while before we had her, and who knows what before then), and can't ever seem to keep her head on straight...

Jeremy came by a while ago, and like a good dog, she barked at us all to alert us to his new presence in our yard. As he approached, Cassie continued barking so hard that her front legs were lifting off of the ground. Her hackles were up and she was nearly foaming at the mouth, long after we let Cassie know that he was a friend and that the family knew he was there. (She sometimes has difficulty grasping that.)

Jeremy unrelentingly approached and Cassie, still barking furiously with her hackles up, started to wag her tail... her tail lashed back and forth as her barking slowed to a steady and threatening growl. Jeremy stretched out a hand and began to pet the top of her head, yet still Cassie growled as her tail lashed back and forth, almost hard enough to knock herself over...

And she has something against shorts, is a joke that's going on at my house now... Cassie at first hated Blake, but after a little while has decided that he's okay and she can sit by him and allow him to pet her. They got along fairly well the last time he was here, and Cassie rarely even barked at him... she let him pet her, and when he stopped, shoved her snout under his palm to remind him that she wasn't finished with the attention yet... but that was while he was wearing pants... the day got warmer and Blake changed into shorts. The moment that Cassie saw him walk out of the bathroom with shorts on (only moments before he had just walked in wearing pants) she freaked out and hasn't quite trusted him since..

Who remembers Herriot's story of the monstrous dog that wagged his tail before he viciously bit people? Herriot used to examine him while the dog was growling and wagging his tail and almost lost his face? But in the end that tail saved many homes from being burglarized because the men that were robbing homes trusted the dog's wag and not his growl?

Okay, so perhaps not the best of descriptions, there, but those who read the story should know it....

I wonder what James Herriot could have said about my dog...

Simplicity Patterns, Huzzah!

*Twitch*

Can't take it...

*Twitch-twitch*

Must.... sew!

*Gasp*

It's been... *gasp*.. far... too... long....

*Gasp*

*Exhale*

Doggie Date...

My poor dog is tired of staying home, with only a couple of acres to run around on... so I came up with the idea of a doggy date... so tomorrow Cassie and I and a couple of friends of mine are going to the beach, solely for the purpose of bringing Cassie to play...

This is not, of course, a new idea, but I simply wanted to reinforce this great idea... we shall bring dog biscuits, maybe a pigs ear and some doggy toys...

How fun...

But let me tell you one thing... beach and goth do not mix well...

It takes a creative mind to goth it up beach style...

Well, that or those Hot Topic gift bag things with the towels, flipflops and whatnot... Emily the Strange...

I myself am in need of evil flip flops... and by calling them evil flip-flops, I mean flip-flops that are morbid in appearance, because all flip-flops are naturally evil in nature, simply because I almost kill myself every time I try to wear them... damn klutzy-goth being taken advantage of...

Just A Little Bit More Sleep... Just A Little More...

So tired... ten a.m. comes too fast for me... oh, definately too fast, especially since I decided to try being nocturnal and go out and not sleeping last night... so... five hours of sleep under my belt, and whoo-hoo, time to get up and go for a hospital appointment..

Ooh! I'm nervous...

I need a strong cup of coffee...

*Shivers*

I get away from myself sometimes.

Now I must pee.