Round the Fire

New Digs

2006-04-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

Check it out!

For reasons more fully explained over there, I'm shutting down 'Round the Fire. I'm not deleting it, but I am moving myself over to the new place. Iffn you're one of the say, two people out there with a link, you might want to consider updating.

It's official

2006-03-18T19:35:00.000-08:00

I'm twenty-three, and I'm a failure.

I know I promised more posts soon, but...I don't really have it in me right now. I'm sorry. I'll get it together as soon as I can, but right now...I'm not really ok.

Real posts coming soon...

2006-03-12T09:15:00.000-08:00

I promise.

Meanwhile, this was swiped from over at Pammy's place.

You Are Mint Green

Balanced and calm, you have mastered the philosophy of living well.
Your friends seek you out for support, and you are able to bring stability to chaotic situations.
You're very open and cheerful - and you feel like you have a lot of freedom in life.
Your future may hold any number of exciting things, and you're ready for all of them!

What Color Green Are You?

2006-02-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

So I got news about my little cousins.

Looks like there isn't much chance they'll be sent to live with us afterall.

I'm happy they aren't coming, but I sort of wanted that reason to be because someone or other decided it would be better if they were sent to some nice family in Oregon or something, far away from their blood family and any influence. I'd be perfectly happy with that. Instead, it's because their skank of a mother moved to a different state. Turns out her record doesn't really go with her, so this is starting out as a first offense (and explains why she stopped having to take the drug tests). Why a first offense of this magnitude isn't enough to start serious action is beyond me, but that's apparently the way it works.

So she discovered a loophole. Move to a new state before you run out of chances and start all over again. Destroying your children in the process.

Hmm...

2006-02-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

The Wild Rose
Random Brutal Love Dreamer (RBLDf)

Colorful, but unpicked. You are The Wild Rose.

Prone to bouts of cynicism, sarcasm, and thorns, you excite a certain kind of woman. Hoping to gather you up, she flirts and winks and asks you out, ultimately professing her love. Then you make her bleed. Why? Because you're the rare, independent, self-sufficient kind of woman who does want love, but not from a weakling.

You don't seem to take yourself too seriously, and that's refreshing. You aren't uptight; you don't over-plan. Romance-wise, sex isn't a top priority--a true relationship would be preferable. For your age, you haven't had a lot of bonafide love experience, though, and this kind of gets to core of the issue. You're very selective.

Your exact opposite:
The Dirty Little Secret

Deliberate Gentle Sex Master

The problem is them, not you, right? You have lofty standards that few measure up to. You're out there all right, but not to be picked up by just anyone.

"You're never truly single as long as you have yourself."

ALWAYS AVOID: The Dirty Little Secret

CONSIDER: The Sudden Departure.

Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid - Free Online Dating.

2006-02-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling...scared. Anxious. And a lot selfish.

A few years ago, I found out a cousin of mine had a daughter. He'd knocked up a girlfriend, and they were both on the verge of going to prison on drug charges. If they did, their daughter needed somewhere to live, and my mother was the only safe option in the family. My cousin doesn't know her name, doesn't know she's still alive, and didn't even know what state she lives in. She said she'd do it, but only if she was allowed to adopt her, and only if parental rights were terminated.

They live in a different state, and their state hemmed and hawed, and decided the mother could stay out of prison and keep her daughter...provided she passed either monthly or bi-monthly drug tests.

Surprisingly enough, she cleaned up her act and stayed clean. The little girl is now three, I believe, and she just had another daughter.

Who was born with severe fetal alcohol syndrome, and addicted to who knows what. Turns out they decided when she got pregnant that she didn't need to keep taking the drug tests, and she took that as an open invitation to pick up right where she left off. Both of her children were immediately taken away, and it looks like her rights are going to be terminated. His already were, and he's not the father of the new baby anyway.

He's apparently making threats towards whoever takes his daughter (great time to start having any paternal urges), and that means the one option is...my mother again.

My mother is in her fifties, works full time, and does not make enough money, let alone have the energy, to deal with a three year old and an infant. Which means if the parental rights are terminated and she adopts...I get to live with her and be another mommy or auntie or whatever.

Every reason I don't want this to happen is purely selfish. I've only had a few precious years on my own. Not counting the dorms or the time with roommates, I've only had two years. I have plans for my life, things I want to do. I want to be on my own again. I want to go back to school...there are so many things I still intend to do.

Yeah, me, me, me, I, I, I.

Still, I have my life to live. I always meant to adopt, and I have considered taking in difficult cases. But I figured it would be on my time scale. When I decided I was ready. That, and I always meant to adopt from Romania (I've been talking about it since I was in fifth or sixth grade). I never expected it to come in the form of familial obligations.

I felt awful for being upset at all, but I decided I have some real grounds for it. I didn't do anything to get in a position of putting my life on hold. I didn't ask to help clean up the mess left behind from a selfish, thoughtless bitch.

Technically, I wouldn't have to do anything at all. I wouldn't be adopting, it wouldn't be a requirement that I put my life on hold to help out. I'm sure there are people who could just continue about their lives, but I don't think I'm among them.

Of course, if it comes down to it, I'll do it. I won't hold it against either of the children, who are innocent victims of this entire situation. I would be very sorry to see all the plans I've been working on put on hold for about twenty years, or possibly even put beyond my reach, but...that's life, I guess. Sometimes there are more important things than what you want.

That doesn't mean I can't be sad.

2006-02-13T21:10:00.000-08:00

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love.
You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart.

Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!)

Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic

What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays

Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

This seems strangely appropriate right now.

I've been doing a whole lot of thinking, and right now, I'm not especially proud of myself. I've also decided that I need to get a better handle on when to follow and when to discard advice.

I mentioned here just after Halloween that I met a lady when I went to the retreat. We exchanged numbers, and she made a point of telling me she wasn't picking me up. Considering what happened afterwards, I don't think she should have bothered.

I wasn't really sure it was right after our first kiss. But I went with it, because I'd never really been in that position before. And after all the whining about no one ever wanting me, it would seem really hypocritical to avoid the first possible relationship I'd ever had.

...Except...well, sometimes things just aren't right.

I talked myself into the whole thing because I didn't want to back out and enforce the comittment issue theory. I also talked myself out of remembering you shouldn't commit, or start to commit, to someone you don't have any real feelings for.

There isn't anything at all wrong with her. She's sweet and we get along well. But you know how sometimes you know someone, and like or love them however much, you'd just never really get that spark? I hate those things, chemistry, "love, but not in love." Except I don't love her. It takes a lot longer to love someone than just seeing them once every week or so and usually watching movies.

Someone at work said he was on a disappointing date, and he went in for a kiss, because sometimes, "it's all in the kiss." I don't think I've ever kissed anyone and been really excited by it, and through her, I've mostly learned that I find necking awkward and boring.

I convinced myself that if it might be different if I waited. Saw where things went. Which I'm more than happy to admit was stupid of me. I don't think I've been leading her along. We've never spoken of the future, never shared any feelings or deep confessions of emotion. I told her specifically after she expressed interest in more than friends that I'm not in a place where I want or need a deep or serious relationship. I think I've done a lot more leading myself around. Doing things I didn't want to in the name of not repeating past mistakes.

Oh, no, I made whole new mistakes on the opposite end of the scale.

When she kissed me, I went along with it because in the past, I had closed up and run away, even though I had wanted to be kissed. I refused to consider that maybe, it just wasn't a match. When she asked if I wanted to date, I accepted because I had avoided such possibilities in the past. I overlooked the ways we didn't fit together because I didn't want to sabotoge something I never did make myself believe in. And so when we were on a date and she asked when our relationship would become more physical, I went along with it.

I've said before, I hadn't slept with someone because of any particular philosophical, religious, or moral reason. Things just hadn't been right. And I refused to listen to the part of myself that reminded me I knew this wasn't right, either.

Honestly, it was, rather like making out, boring and awkward. And a little painful.

Like I said, I'm not proud of myself.

Part of me keeps saying I'm just frigid. Can't let anyone close, can't enjoy myself, can't let go. Can't be excited, can't get caught up in the moment...

Except...wrong person, wrong place, wrong time...and all the wrong reasons. You shouldn't just go along with things because you should have in the past and chickened out, ruining something with real potential. You can't prop up something that doesn't have your heart in it in the name of proving something.

I don't honestly know what she wants from me, but I don't think I can provide most of it. Can't be a fuck buddy, don't want a serious relationship, don't want to waste time in a less serious relationship just in the name of not hurting feelings. I would like to stay friends, but no part of me could blame her if she wanted nothing to do with me after all this.

So I need to have a long conversation. Or maybe a short one. Face to face, and sometime after Wednesday. I refuse to just disappear--people have done it to me, and it's shitty and cowardly. I won't have such a conversation over the phone. That's only marginally better than doing it through email or IM. We don't have any plans for Valentine's, but making a call to arrange such a meeting on that day also seems viscious. I don't know how well versed she is in Roman holidays, but doing so on Lupercalia, on Wednesday, is no better.

I hate being that girl. The one who has to sit down and say it isn't working. But I'd rather be her than the one who just disappears. Or who just keeps playing along to keep from hurting any feelings.

I don't need to figure out what to say. Just how to say it.

By the way...

2006-02-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

I'm glad you didn't really leave, Pammy. The blogworld wouldn't be the same without you. And I would have really missed you.

2006-02-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

I listen occasionally to people who talk about wishing they were in high school again. And I honestly think they're insane.

Or possibly suffering from some sort of memory loss.

I mean, seriously, being sixteen sucked. I suspect my high school experience was a little stranger than most, but I also avoided some of the highest points of hormonal drama. By a strange mix of luck, I never had to deal with dating, high school sweethearts, first loves, and the inevitable endings of all those.

Ok, it's not always inevitable. I know there are people out there who married their high school sweethearts. Those are probably the people who wish they could go back and just possibly aren't out of their minds.

High school was one important thing. It was an object lesson in the power of belief. I think if my best friend of the time and I were to sit down and write everything we went through in high school exactly as we believed it at the time, it would have a real chance of getting published. As fantasy.

I don't know if I'll write about much of it here, or in any medium. It's mostly a privacy issue. Not mine. Of the people involved. And I'm pretty sure the stories are unique enough to be easily identified.

I do know it doesn't matter how believable any of it is now. I look back and can't believe most of it myself, and I lived through it. What matters--and what's most scary--is how very much we believed. And what happened because we believed so much.

High school wasn't really that long ago. I'm still closer to it than I am to thirty. For another few months, anyway. But looking at what's changed since then, I can't help but wonder how I'm going to feel when I am thirty and I look back at now.

I hope I'm a little more proud of myself.

2006-02-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

So I'm in the kitchen, chopping up candy bars to try and make martian cookies from vague childhood memories. Martian cookies were basically rice crispy treats with Mars bars thrown in...hence the "martian" bit. Since my childhood memories are at their absolute best only half lucid, I wasn't sure I was going to get anything edible.

Anyway, I was shucking the bars and tossing the wrappers in the trash, then chopping them and tossing them into a pot. So I picked one up, shucked it, chopped it, and tossed it...into the trash.

I stood there for a moment after I realized what I had done, just because I was too stunned with myself.

The pieces stayed in the trash, I continued, and the final product isn't too bad.

2006-01-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

Vashka died this morning. She was one of my rescued ferrets, and she's survived by her sister. The cause was simply old age, and there is no cure for that. But she was a sweet little ferret, and I'm going to miss her sorely.

Work is going well, but it turns out I now have a job where I actually have to work all day (gasp!), and don't have access to the internet (double gasp!!). So I have to find time for blog writing when I'm not at work, and between losing Eris and now Vashka and a few other things, I'm afraid I haven't been much in the mood for writing.

That'll probably change soon. I'll try to post again, with far less depressing news.

2006-01-17T14:05:00.000-08:00

I got a job!

I got a real job this time, too, not just a temp job. At a medical billing place. That has two cats living in the office.

Naturally, I'm completely thrilled. It pays what I made at the last place, but this time I have a chance to get pay raises and promotions, and the company will pay for classes so they can have me fill more advanced positions.

I promise, I'll post again before too long, and it won't have anything to do with jobs. I've been boring even myself lately.

2006-01-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

Still no job.

I did have (what I hope was) a great interview at a really cool place. I can deal with working anywhere that has two cats living in the office. And it's a job I can do really well. I'm sure it helps that they planned on interviewing six people at once, and three of them didn't show. That left me with a girl who was severely underqualified, and who admitted she didn't intend to stay with them for very long, and a lady who volunteered lots of information they aren't supposed to know about you (Oh, I'm married, have two kids, all I really do is take care of the kids and go to church. Because I'm a good Christian woman. And I want a job because I'm tired of running the business with my husband, and I just want something to do during the day).

I don't know what the other interviews were like, but I'll find out if I did well sometime next week. Then I might get a secondary interview.

I really hope I get a job soon. Because I would seriously crawl through broken glass to avoid having to start applying to work fast food again.

2006-01-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

Still no job. Still no new assignment from my temp agency, either.

You know, I'm not that unemployable. Though I was told by a couple of potential employers that I'm just too creative. I still have bills, damnit. And those do need to be paid. Which I can't currently do by writing or knitting, which are my primary creative endeavors (well, the ones potentially worth money, anyway).

What exactly is the problem with employing a creative person? They can do the job you want, they can maybe get it done faster and better than other people, and they maybe have things to do once they leave work besides watch TV. Is that really a problem?

2006-01-10T10:36:00.000-08:00

Someone found this blog by searching Google for "Imbolc groundhog recipes."

Please, please, please tell me you were looking for recipes for Imbolc/Groundhog's Day, which fall within a day of each other.

Of course, if you were looking for instructions on how to cook a groundhog, I'm sure the same rules apply as for squirrels. And those recipes might be easier to find.

I'm just sayin'.

2006-01-05T11:09:00.000-08:00

You know something?

I'm not okay.

Everyone keeps asking that lately, and you're not supposed to admit that no, you aren't doing all right. And right now, I'm not.

I'm jobless. Well, not technically. I'm still employed with my temp agency, even if I'm not drawing a pay check. And I'm waiting on what? Another assignment in another office, doing work that I hate. I'm not doing anything with my life I always expected to do, and I don't really see a way out of this right now. I'm just trying to pay bills, and make it month by month. The business I quit school to try to start is dead in the water, and I don't think I can save it. And I still need to fess up to that to my investor. There were two people who believed in me, and I have to go to them and tell them I'm a failure. I'm 23, and I'm already a failure.

I will be all right, mostly. I have a few plans, things I'm going to try to work up to doing. And they're things I can do in my time after I get home from whatever office. I can keep paying my bills, and maybe...maybe before too long, I'll have something on the side I really love. I can work in offices until I die, as long as I don't let office life eat me up and kill the things I really love about myself. And I don't know...maybe, if I work hard enough at them, those side plans will eventually be big enough to be the things I'm really doing.

I am only 23. I have more than enough time to put my life together.

I guess it's partially a New Year's thing. Other people have specific months or holidays when bad stuff just seems to pile up. For the last few years, New Year's seems to be mine. Last year, I dropped an entire pot of boiling water into my lap. I still have a pale scar on that leg, too, one year later. And now I've looked at what I was going to try to do last year, and see I got none of it done. Business is still dead in the water. Still living with the roomie. Maybe I really am happier with myself, though. Right now is not the time to contemplate that question. I don't remember what specifically happened the previous year, but I know the year before that, my cat flew off the handle and attacked me.

And that really brings us to this year. I have two cats: Keegan and Eris. Keegan is a fat orange tabby who isn't too bright, but is very affectionate. Eris was my baby, a beautiful grey tabby Norwegian forest cat with the occasional orange spot. There was something wrong with her, in a chemical embalance kind of sense. I honestly think she had the feline version of paranoid schizophrenia or something. She was moody, she didn't like most people but me, and she was prone to come up and beg to be petted just so she'd have an excuse to claw your eyes out.

Towards me, she was a sweet, affectionate cat. She loved to sit in my lap and purr, she liked getting attention, and she was pretty good about knowing when to stay out of my way. She had a soft voice, and didn't meow very often, and never very loudly. She always seemed to know when I was upset and needed a little help, because she'd come and sit in my lap and lick my chin. When I found Keegan, who was a very tiny baby, she was kind enough to decide she'd tolerate him.

But like I said, there was just something wrong with her. She visciously attacked me no less than four times. Twice, she managed to bite or scratch me badly enough to leave scars. Once, she attacked me at the front door, and I had to go over to a friend's place, since I couldn't get into my own house. She attacked my younger brother from behind once, leaping on his back and clawing the hell out of him while she tried to bite the back of his neck, and she once attacked my father from under the bed and shredded open the back of one of his legs. While one of my friends was sitting on the couch, not even near her, she once just walked over and casually clawed open her hand. When she got in that kind of attack mode, her fur would stand up, her tail would lash, and her pupils would blow up large enough to hide any color in her eyes.

And when it was all over, she would realize what had happened and come to apologize. She'd be especially clingy and affectionate for sometimes days afterwards.

I protected her for ten years, even while she was acting like that. I don't think most people can really understand what it's like. I imagine it's rather like having a viscious dog. He likes and protects you, but kills neighborhood animals and attacks strangers or sometimes even friends. If Eris had been a dog, I would have been legally obligated to have her put down years ago.

On New Year's Day, she finally crossed the line. A few friends were over, and one of them brought her nine year old daughter. The daughter was sitting on the floor with her back to a door, playing with one of the ferrets. Eris came in from another room and jumped on her from behind. Luck and thick clothes prevented her from drawing blood, but the poor kid was covered in bruises all down her back, and naturally was terrified. We chased her off, and Eris actually tried to attack the kid again. Keegan came running off to fight Eris away (my fat orange protector, who would have hauled ass to hide if she'd actually fought back).

We got Eris chased down into the library and shut the door and took care of the kid. I had promised after Eris' last attack that if she ever went after someone who wasn't related to me, I would have her put down.

One of my best friends was over, and she promised to go with me to the vet's.

It would have been easy if Eris were just in viscious attack mode all the time. But when everyone was gone and we let her out, she came and asked for attention and purred sweetly. The next morning, I spent several hours just sitting with her on the couch. She wasn't completely calmed down--her pupils were still huge.

So she was loaded up and taken in, and the vet did her damnedest to talk me out of my decision, even though Eris had been brought to that same vet for viscious behavior in the past. When we let her out of the carrier, she purred and rubbed against the vet and was her usual charming self. I think the vet was convinced Eris was a normal cat, behaving in normal cat ways, and I just didn't want her anymore.

Well, she thought that until she tried to give her a shot to knock her out. Then she needed an assistant to hold her down, and she tried to go after them as soon as they let go. She was supposed to be unconcious in five minutes or less, but after almost fifteen, she wasn't even slowing down. They weren't able to catch her to administer a second shot, and had to wrap her in a blanket. She struggled and screamed and hissed and threatened, and the vet was awfully pale. She fought so hard that she broke the second needle, and got out of the blanket. They had to chase her down a second time, and when she was all wrapped up, the assistant looked at me and said, "You're doing the right thing."

They were going to gas her to knock her out, and it took three doses before she was finally so sluggish she wasn't moving. But she was still growling at anyone who got too close to her.

Except me, of course. When they brought her in so I could say goodbye, she stopped growling and just went to sleep while I was petting her. She always trusted me, and she almost always calmed down for me. I know I did the right thing, but I felt really rotten, saying goodbye after I signed her death warrant.

It took a long time before they brought her back in her little box, so I could bury her at home. I don't know if it was because they were having trouble giving her that last shot, or if it was because she just refused to die. I think she was expecting to get to come home after that one shot, and I feel so bad about having to hurt her and make her so mad just to kill her.

And now she's gone, buried in the front garden. In spring, I'm going to buy a rosebush to plant over her grave. It seems very appropriate for her: something beautiful, but dangerous if you aren't careful.

I'm not really ok with knowing I killed a pet of mine who was perfectly healthy. I'm not ok with knowing I killed her because I just couldn't handle having her around anymore. I'm not ok with the fact that I was never able to find whatever magical cure would have fixed her problems and let her be the sweet, loving animal she normally was.

My mother and one of my best friends went with me to the vet. Both of them were with me the day I picked out Eris as a tiny kitten. Both of them were with me while I signed her death warrant, and took her home to bury her, ten years before her life should have been over.

I'm not really ok with anything right now. And there are some things I really can't fix, no matter what I do. I know I have to just pick up, leave behind the things I can't make right, and keep going. Because things will be ok again.

2005-12-30T07:19:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling like shit for the last week or so. I've even been going to bed early, and it hasn't been a whole big help. So, I woke up this morning with a nasty headache, and I decided I'd go ahead and call in sick.

Strangely enough, the lady I talked to at the temp agency asked for my number, just in case my usual contact needed to talk to me. Turns out the place where I was working was ending my assignment today.

They hadn't even fucking told me. I worked for them for just shy of a year, and I watched how they treated everyone else when their assignments ended. They hadn't kept a temp as long as they kept me, and they didn't even have the curtesy to let me know I didn't even have a fucking job anymore. What were they going to do? Greet me at the door this morning and tell me to get my things and go? Or were they just going to call on Tuesday morning before I left and tell me not to come in anymore?

I could have used the pay, but you know, I'm kind of glad I didn't go in. After the way they've forgotten about me and ignored me with everything else that's come up, I'm glad I didn't have to sit in that place one more day.

I just hope I get another assignment soon. Or I'm going to be really, really screwed soon.

When I was little and went to the state fair...

2005-12-24T14:49:00.000-08:00

I always wanted to be able to buy taffy right off of the puller.

2005-12-22T20:55:00.000-08:00

One of the myriad reasons I didn't post here very often in November was the unexpected guest I had for most of the month.

Just after Katrina hit, the roomy and I posted our info on HomesforKatrina and KatrinaHousing and a few other places. A few people contacted us, but we were unable to help (one was a single woman who needed space for herself and her thirteen cats, the other was a family who needed space for all five of them and their nine cats. With two anti-social cats already in the house and city laws prohibiting owning more than a certain number of any animal, we had to turn them down). And after those two queries, no one seemed interested in lodging with us, and we sort of forgot about having the ad up.

Until we got a call late in the evening from a guy who asked if we were still offering space. He'd been staying in a hotel paid for by the Red Cross, and they wanted him out before morning, and he had nowhere to go. We still had space, so I cleaned up and got the couch ready for him while the roomy whisked off to pick him up. He got his computer set up, and we arranged to get an extra bed the next night so he wouldn't have to sleep on the couch. Although if I were him, I would have opted for the couch anyway. We have a futon with a really nice Sealy Posturpedic mattress. Best bed in the whole damned house, and we mostly just sit on it.

Over the course of the next month, he reminded me of why I'm not interested in men, and won't be rooming with one ever again. He ate all of our food, and though the state of Oklahoma had given him more than three hundred dollars a month in no-strings-attached food stamps, he never actually bought any food he didn't immediately consume himself. He stayed up all night playing Diablo or watching movies with the volume cranked up and swore loudly when the game wasn't going his way. He had no idea how to turn off lights, and he left space heaters on even when he left and there was no one in the house. Since one of my cats is in the habit of catching herself on fire, and I have a vague paranoia about my house burning down, that really ticked me off. And ran up the electric bill by an extra two hundred dollars.

Still, I would be inclined to look on him favorably if it weren't for how he left. He was a nice guy, and everyone has their annoying habits. His annoying habits just happened to be the right ones to prevent me from sleeping when I needed to work (you know, to help pay for that roof over his head) and otherwise step on my nerves. And I was never looking for groveling gratitude or anything. I mean, he was in a really shitty place and he was doing his best to cope.

On Saturday evening after Thanksgiving, he got an email from FEMA informing him that if he was on his property at 10 o'clock in the morning on Monday, they would have a trailer for him. So he immediately started looking for a way home. All the flights were booked solid (it being Thanksgiving weekend), and the buses and trains would take too damned long to get there. He called his old place of employment and discovered that not only was his last paycheck waiting for him, but he could have his old job back. With a nice pay raise.

Which was all great, except he had to get there somehow. Calls were made, favors were called in, and nothing was working. So my mother said if he could get the gas money, she would just drive him there already. He had no cash, but he had a paycheck waiting for him, and he could wire the money back as soon as he got it and cashed it. That sounded great, but promises wouldn't buy the gas on the way, and she just didn't have enough money.

I did. Well, technically, sitting in my checking account and waiting to pay my car payment in a week was enough money. I couldn't actually spare the cash, but I could pay for gas as long as he got the money wired back to me before I had to start paying bills with it. I got his phone number, and we got his address so we could mail him the stuff he accidentally left behind in the flurry of packing.

I had to go along for this trip for two reasons: I was fronting the cash, and my mother was not going to leave behind her puppy, so I had to hold the poor dog. And it ended up being the trip from hell. 27 hours straight, no stops, no changing drivers (since my mother absolutely had to take her car instead of mine, and no one's ever bothered to teach me how to drive a stick shift). We could have taken more time about it, but we had to be back in time for work on Monday.

We rolled into New Orleans early Sunday morning, and stopped by the guy's house so he could get a quick look at the damage before we dropped him off at a friend's (unharmed) apartment. New Orleans was both better and worse than I was expecting. The French Quarter looked exactly like I remembered it from last year, and already had drunken tourists stumbling around Bourbon Street at 10 o'clock in the morning. There was a lot of trash piled up from gutted houses, but the damage wasn't as obvious was what I'm used to seeing. Tornadoes knock everything down. Floods just sort of ruin everything inside and make the building look mostly untouched.

After a long stop due to an accident in Texas just outside of Dallas, we finally got home at almost 2 in the morning on Monday. I have to say, the last twenty miles or so from the extremely familiar territory of Norman was excruciating. I can't imagine how my mother, who had been driving without stop the whole time, must have felt. And we still had to go to work by 8.

In the end, I kinda agree with all of this. I mean, it was my choice to help, and I was glad I'd been able to offer a helping hand in a time of need. I don't need a whole lot, but a single "thanks" would have been nice.

As soon as we left, the guy apparently felt the need to change his phone number. And he gave us a fake email address. And he gave us a fake address. Guess we get to keep the crap he left behind, then.

And no, he never wired me the money. Ungrateful son of a bitch.

I did manage to get my bills paid, no thanks to him. Great way to say thanks for the help and the ride home. He might as well have spray painted OK SUKS! on our door before he left or something.

I had to take this one.

2005-12-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

You scored as The Sprightly Elfin Femme.

Cute and irresistible, you inspire and foster the little kid in everyone. Also, you make the best cookies and cutest knit hats.

The Sprightly Elfin Femme

65%

The Bohemian Dyke

60%

The Granola Dyke

55%

The Vaginal-Reference-Making Dyke

50%

The Student Dyke

50%

The Femme Fatale

40%

The Surprise! Dyke

40%

The Stud

35%

The Quasi-Gothic Femme

35%

The Little-Boy Dyke

15%

The Pretty-Boi Dyke

10%

The Hipster Dyke

The Magic Earring Ken Dyke

What Type of Lesbian Are You? (Inspired by Curve Mag.)
created with QuizFarm.com

2005-12-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

How evil are you?

You're an introspective intellectual.

What Sort of Intellectual Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

That's it.

2005-12-12T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've started hearing it again this year, so it's time for a yearly rant of mine.

The Winter Solstice is NOT the first day of winter. It's midwinter, which by default cannot be the first day of it.

I'm not talking about what your actual weather is like, or how the seasons swing wherever you live. Because you cannot set on official day for all over somewhere as big as the US. I'm talking about traditional seasons. And the solstices are midsummer and midwinter, respectively. Spring and fall started in the equinoxes (which hasn't changed) and summer and winter actually changed on Beltane and Samhain. May 1st and November 1st.

I've gotten it out for this winter, so I'll shut up now.

2005-12-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

You know something?

Being single rocks.

I mean it. I used to completely hate it, but I've come to notice a lot more of the perks than the drawbacks. Plus, I've gotten over a lot of the things I thought were drawbacks.

My biggest problem was never getting to do anything. Couldn't go to the zoo, see any plays, go to the movies, eat out much of anywhere but fast food, and even then, use the drivethrough instead of going in...there's a serious hitch in those problems. You aren't banned from going by yourself. As a matter of fact, I've discovered that I love going to the zoo alone, because I can dawdle around and do what I want. Going alone to a play is better, because you're supposed to be quiet anyway. And I was forced to eat alone when I was on business trips, and I discovered if you go into a semi-nice restaurant alone, waiters and waitresses actually tend to be more nice to you than usual. Of course, the drawback (if it is one) to being treated extra well is that the tip gets bigger, making the meal cost more.

I think the movie thing partially depends on what kind of movie. With the exception of only a few of my friends, I would rather not watch horror movies with anyone. Last time I was in a theater with a group of people was for 28 Days Later. I had a shivering gay boy hanging onto one arm and screaming at all the cheap scares, and a girl on the other side shouting, "This is so stupid! This movie is dumb! Why are we watching this? Oh my God, this is so stupid." There's something to be said for a quiet theater, and if you're going to go and not say anything, then what's the point of having to have a companion?

Yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear anything about missing all of the movie because you're otherwise occupied. I refuse to pay to see a movie just to miss the whole thing due to sucking face. There are other places you can do that for free.

Then you get to living by yourself. I like being able to go out and not come home until 9:30 the next morning, and I like being able to have dinner at 5:30 or 11:30, depending on when I feel like it. I like being able to do stupid things like have cake for breakfast (Bill Cosby said it's a balanced breakfast) or ice cream for dinner (add fruit and nuts, and you've got three food groups--dairy, fruit, and protein...add cake and there's fiber, too. No, I don't do that often, or else I'd fall over and die). I like being able to sign online and just leave my computer there while I either play around online or get up and clean house or do dishes or watch TV or whatever. I like being able to run around naked while the blinds are all closed, and sleeping until 3 pm on weekends if I feel like it. Or, conversely, waking up obscenely early to go out and do something silly without having to try to talk anyone else into going with, or jumping around trying to make them hurry up. I like going out to meetups and hanging out with people I may have never met before until late without it mattering to anyone.

I've even gotten to the point where I like Valentine's Day alone. It's like the late winter Halloween, at least in a cheap and plentiful candy sense. Besides, there's something a little hollow about a yearly planned romantic day for people to forget about and upset each other with. And to drive up the price of flowers by an obscene amount.

So...about the lady I met at the retreat.

We spoke on the phone a few times, and she invited me to a ritual with her circle. I met her at her place and got a ride over to the actual location.

The lady who was hosting the circle was the former high priestess, and had stepped down to allow a lady she had trained to take her place. From the story I got, she voluntarily stepped down. But she spent the whole time throwing the kind of quiet hissy fit only really acceptable from a thirteen year old. It was almost surprising when there was no actual lying on the ground kicking and screaming style fit. The other lady--the new high priestess--was really quite nice, and after the ritual was over and she was done pouting, the former priestess was pretty nice, too. I'm not sure my personal style really meshed well with theirs--dancing to raise engery? You want me to what?--but that's not something to hold against anyone.

I think, in the end, my only actual problem came up with the roommates. The former priestess had two roommates--two gay men, that sounds familiar--and they were asses.

Honestly, if there's a discussion about pets and someone mentions having had a type of pet being discussed, there's nothing wrong with asking what happened to the pet. However, is it ever acceptable to find out the pet died two weeks before, and respond by laughing so hard you literally fall out of your seat?

If I had driven myself, I would have walked out right that moment. I already know I'm not going back. I refuse to subject myself to that kind of treatment, ever. They thought it was funny that I was upset, and informed me their hysterical laughter just meant I'm family now. Er...no, thanks. I wouldn't mind seeing the other ladies again, and I understand from the lady I met at the retreat that she wasn't really friends with the two guys. They just sort of came with her actual friend.

After we got back to her place, the lady and I sat up until way too late just talking.

That was on the weekend of Veteren's Day. We talked a little on the phone again after that, and decided to get together on Friday after Thanksgiving and watch a movie. I had gotten a copy of Ringu 0 through Netflix, so I brought it over and we watched that. As a side note, I think the only problem with watching foreign movies is how hard you have to concentrate in order to catch all of the dialogue, and in the case of Japanese horror movies, you still end up sitting there going, "Huh?"

After the movie was over, we sat around and talked more. It's honestly hard to say what we talked about half the time. I think that's what happens to most deep conversations. But in the middle of it, she looked at me and said, "I just need to get this out of the way." And the crawled across the sofa to kiss me.

Without going into detail, I'll just say that there was mention of my staying the night. I declined as nicely as I could. I mean, I'm not really caught up on insisting on marriage first (in my case, impossible anyway), but I do need to know your last name. And I'm still kind of stuck on the whole clean blood test idea, regardless of precautions.

Funny thing is, I just got really happy about being single. I keep hearing people say that they always meet someone about the time they stop looking, but is anyone ever a little disappointed by timing? It's kind of ridiculous.

I'm really good at picking people apart, and most of the time, they don't even remotely deserve it. I don't know exactly how old she is, but I'm fairly certain from the way she talks that she had graduated from college when she had her daughter, who is now 9. I was 14 the year her daughter was born. Part of me wanted to take it personally when she talked about how she always gets over anyone between one and three days after a breakup.

I immediately slapped myself about both of those. First off, I've never had a problem with age differences in relationships. And second, she and I have now seen each other four times. If I were to call her tonight and tell her I never wanted to see her again, I would expect that to not really have much effect, at least not for long (except possibly a little while going, "What the fuck was that about?"). I don't have any problem with her being a mother, and her daughter and I get along well.

I have to admit to being a little nervous about her being bisexual. I've found, both personally and through things I've heard, that bisexual men tend to end up settling down with other men, and bisexual women tend to chose men for serious relationships. Of course there are exceptions, but that's not the point. And she's at least had real relationships with women, rather than using them as experiments or for flings before going back to some guy. That puts her well ahead of most of the bisexual women I've known.

So I've had this weird mix of misgivings regarding how it seems like the whole thing can't go anywhere followed by worries that it will. Had this happened a year ago...hell, less than six months ago, I'd be completely into it. My wants and needs have changed a lot in the last six months or so, in large part due to a conscious effort on my part. I put all this effort into changing, and I'm happy now, and I'm supposed to go back to all the stuff I tried to cut out of my life? I simultaneously want to cheer and pout.

In the end, I've decided I'm stupid. I can see what's going to happen with this and enjoy the ride, or I can chicken out, back out, and then lose any rights to complain about being single and take it when friends tell me I have a problem with comittment (I have a problem? What problem? That I can't find anyone who will?).

Now this is gonna kill me...

2005-12-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

I'm getting hits from the Bellevue Blackboard. And, of course, since I'm not a student, I can't see what's getting linked or why.

This may, of course, fall under the broad umbrella of "sometimes, you really don't want to know."

2005-12-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

I had a good time at the rest of the retreat. After my tent fell on me in the middle of the night, I slept far too late on Saturday. I missed the omlette breakfast and the nature hike, but I also got to sleep after the sun was shining on my tent and it turned into an oven. Considering how cold it had been during the night, that was a beautiful thing.

I staggered out of my tent after dawdling for a while arranging my stuff and getting some water to drink and generally avoiding any actual human contact. I'm only really good at human contact for so long at a stretch with only a few very rare exceptions.

When I got out, a few people remarked that I had been looked for. That was surprising (what, we go to the same class every day and I didn't show up yesterday and you noticed? How did that happen?), though I guess silly. I mean, I was in a tent instead of a cabin, and I slept until almost 2 after having spoken to people the night before.

Just after I was up, a lady ran up and told me that she'd been looking for me. My first thought, naturally, was What did I do? Turns out she'd heard me laughing by the fire the night before and explaining to someone else why my weird meter is broken...if it ever existed. I guess it says something that a lesbian retreat brought me around the most normal people I've voluntarily been in close contact with...ever. She said she was pagan, too, and I think she mentioned playing SCA and a few other things. So it seemed like we ought to get together sometime. We traded numbers and she left after quickly introducing me to her daughter, then she had to be off. And I thought, "Great, maybe I've actually started to make a friend."

Yeah, yeah. I get to keep my award for utter obliviousness.

I carved a pair of pumkins for the contest...in this case, I fitted a pumpkin inside of another pumpkin. The outside one was a cave mouth, and the inside one had three bats. I was pleased with it, even though it didn't win. There were a lot of great pumkins, and it was really pretty pleasing to walk around and get a good look at all of them.

I'm not above pouting over losing, but I was also in the costume contest. I dressed as a highwayman. I had one these great little black ankle boots and a black skirt along with a loose-sleeved satin tunic with lace at the sleeves and throat. I also had a long black vest trimmed in gold and a red sash. I added a fencing foil and a red velvet mask, and I put together a great cavalier hat (I ought to take a picture of the hat. I think it would make Captain Jack proud). Funny to think not so very long ago, if I had been wearing breeches instead of a skirt, I'd have been wearing the very height of masculine clothes.

Well, I might have needed a wig, too.

Anyway, I won best costume. It'd kinda seem unfair for one person out of more than a hundred to win both the costume and pumpkin contests, so all pouting was kept to an absolute minimum, and lasted maybe an entire ten seconds.

The best part of the entire weekend was when I ran into the bathrooms to wash my hands while I was still wearing my costume. I had taken off my hat and mask, but I still had on the rest of it, and when I saw myself in the mirror, I thought I really really like...myself. For the first time in more than a year.

Working in an office had made me changing a lot of things. I don't wear my old jewelry, I don't wear the same kinds of clothes, and I wear my glasses while I'm there. I look at myself in the mirror at work, and I really don't recognize myself. But I sure did when I had that costume on.

There was a great concert after the potluck dinner, and afterwards, the musicians promised they'd head out to the fire and continue playing. I went over to the fire and they didn't show up for several hours. In that time, the fire was taken over by two drunken campfire nazis.

I think you have those people in every large group like that. It's hard, you've got a bonfire, and instead of letting people just sit around and talk and toast marshmallows or starting up PPP (which may actually just be something I expect due to filksings and SCA-folk. You either Pick a song for someone else to play, Pass your turn, or Play a song, and it keeps stuff happening without anyone having to take over the whole thing), they just have to try to make everyone join in and sing songs. Even though they personally can't sing, and don't remember all the words to any of the songs.

After a while, it got to be too much, and I just went to bed. Apparently, the musicians arrived moments after I left. Kinda like lighting a cigarette to make your waitress appear with your dinner.

I got up early on Sunday and got everything packed into my car, and even managed to get my tent down again without injuring myself. I ignored the auction (no money, so why bother?), but someone gave me three tickets for the raffle, which was sweet. Then, when it was time to go, there were a lot more people to bid farewell to than I ever would have expected, and I was happy when I finally headed home.

2005-12-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

You know, I've been thinking about the pharmacists who keep popping up in the news. The ones who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions, because it violates their personal or religious beliefs. What brought it to mind this time? this article.

No matter how I look at it, this bothers me. Is it all right for a vegetarian to become a waitress, then refuse to serve meat dishes? And then go on to lecture anyone who orders anything with meat about how they're comitting murder? Is it acceptable for a scientologist to become a psychiatrist, then refuse to write prescriptions for patients? For that matter, is it acceptable for a pharmacist who happens to be a scientologist to refuse to fill prescriptions for Zoloft? Can a car salesman refuse to sell a customer an SUV because they think it produces too much pollution? If you're a member of PETA and believe keeping a pet is cruelty to animals, should you get a job at a pet store. Or for that matter, if you're a member of PETA, should you be working at a store that sells fishing lures and bait?

You know, I am perfectly fine with everyone having their own opinion. You can talk about it, stand around with signs, protest, start blogs, create webpages, whatever. But I do have an issue when you take your own beliefs and try to force those beliefs on anyone else. You have every right to not believe in birth control. You do not have any right to prevent someone else, especially someone you don't know, from getting it.

If you really, truly cannot fill a prescription without feeling as though you are violating your ethics, you should not be a pharmacist. Period. End of story. You have no right to lecture women trying to get birth control, and you especially have no right to refuse to do your job and fill a legal prescription. Especially for something like Plan B, which has a narrow window of time in which it must be used.

You know, I'm trying to be calm about writing this, but it really makes me mad. It actually makes me more upset than when I'm told some bullshit like "Of course you have the right to get married. To a man. Any man you want." Right, and I guess you'd be absolutely thrilled if you were told you could only marry people you have no real desire to spend your life with.

I am utterly sick and tired of the pro-life "You've made your bed and now you lie in it" attitude. I don't care what your ideal world is, because we aren't living in it. You can dislike the behavior of other people, but that doesn't give you the right to punish people who aren't breaking any laws, and are trying to obtain something to which they have the legal right. In the case of Plan B being an early sort of abortion, I have to wonder, which is the lesser evil: a fertilized egg never getting to implant, an abortion, or an unwanted child who may or may not be able to find his or her way to a safe and happy adoptive family?

In my case, I would by far rather the egg never be given a chance to implant. And if a woman does become pregnant but doesn't want the child, I deeply admire her if she has the courage to put her child up for adoption. Almost more than I admire the people who adopt that child. But no one other than the father should be involved in that woman's decision. If the father isn't avaible or wants nothing to do with it, then it is only the woman's choice. It is in no case the pharmacist's choice.

Brie Soup

2005-12-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

About two years ago now, three of my friends came over so we could celebrate Imbolc/Candlemas. We were trying to form ourselves into a coven, which in a lot of ways was ill-conceived from the beginning. You can't start a coven/circle/anything at all with people who can't bring themselves to show up except when it's personally convient for them.

Anyway, we decided to make our food somewhat traditional. I'm sitting at work right now and trying to scrape my memory, but I believe the traditional foods are cheese, apples, bread...stuff you winter over with. It's supposed to be a celebration for the very end of the worst part of winter and the first hopeful signs that spring is around the corner.

Somehow, in America, this ended up being Ground Hog's Day. Same basic idea, though. Is winter over or is it continuing for a few more weeks?

Cheese ended up being a little difficult, since I'm in love with sharp cheeses, and two of the others didn't mind them, but the third wouldn't touch cheddar to save her life. I was trying to make a cheese soup as the main course, and couldn't find many recipes for anything that didn't involve cheddar.

Finally, I found a recipe for brie soup that saved the day. You always know you've found a good recipe when it calls for real butter, heavy cream, and cheese. And of course I didn't leave it alone.

6 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup unsalted butter
8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
12 ounces Brie cheese
1/2 cup white wine, dry (such as a Savignion Blanc)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup carrots, julienned or grated
1/4 cup celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh portabello mushrooms, finely chopped
1/4 cup white onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons Herbs de Provence*
salt and pepper to taste

*recipe follows

The reason everything needs to be either unsalted or low sodium is because you can properly control the flavor of your food if you add it all yourself. Always use real wine instead of cooking wine, and do yourself a favor and grind your own peppercorns. For a prettier soup, rub out and discard the gills from the mushrooms, and for a strong cheese flavor, allow the brie to ripen (sit out at room temperature) for 3 to 9 hours before cooking.

Over low heat, melt the 1/4 cup of butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour. Mix it until it's smooth and allow it to cook until it starts to turn golden. Add the broth and whisk vigorously. Allow it to come to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, skimming off impurities as they rise to the surface.

Allow it to simmer until it's been reduced to 2/3 of the original quanitity, then strain through a fine seive. Return it to the saucepan and add the cheese and wine. Allow the cheese to melt, stirring occasionally.

While waiting on the cheese, melt the remaining butter in a skillet and add the vegetables. Cook vegetables until the onions are clear. When the cheese is melted, transfer the vegetables into the broth and allow to simmer until the vegetables have reached the desired consistency.

When the onions are clear and the cheese is melted, transfer the vegetables into the broth. Simmer until the vegetables have reached the desired consistency.

Warm the cream in a small saucepan over low heat, then pour it into the soup and stir. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and herbs, and garnish with chives before serving.

Herbs de Provence

3 tbs dried thyme
3 tbs dried savory
1 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp fennel
1/2 tsp lavender

Combine herbs. If desired, grind in a mortar and pestle. Store in an airtight jar.

This soup turned out to be extremely filling, and went quite well with a mozzeralla bread I made. It went pretty well with the cheddar bread, too. Interestingly enough, the friend who railed against having cheddar ate most of the cheddar bread. We drank honey milk and had strawberries dipped in honey and chunks of different types of cheese.

Afterwards, we gathered up every candle we could find between the four of us and locked the cats in a bedroom (to avoid repeats of the two times Eris has caught herself on fire) and lit every single one of them at once to burn away the last of the winter's cold. We set aside shares of everything we ate as an offering and left it out for the night, then buried it the next morning.

I keep thinking about that soup. It sounds sooo good while the temperature is finally falling.

And yes, I know, everyone who lives north of here hates me because we've just hit freezing temperatures for the first time this year, and everyone south of me is laughing because it's cold here.

Attack of the Armadillo

2005-12-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

I realized I got so caught up in NaNo that I never wrote about anything that happened on the retreat.

I did actually go, despite last-second nerves that plagued me. I had terrible thoughts about getting lost and never finding the place, losing tires (a constant paranoia of mine), no one wanting to have anything to do with me, not being able to get my tent up, forgetting important things, freezing to death during the night (or day, for that matter)...you name it, I managed to come up with it to talk myself out of going.

Naturally, I was wrong about everything. It was fairly comfortable during the day, especially while sitting in the sun, and I had enough blankets and such with me to keep from freezing. I didn't forget anything, and when I arrived, I was greeted by people I'd met at other events. When I said I'd need to find someone to beg into helping me set up my tent, a complete stranger piped up, "I'll help."

I thanked her and told her I'd go find a good spot to put my tent, then come back and find her. We were out by a puddle pond, and I trotted down to see if there was anywhere nice by it.

Just my luck, someone else had gotten there earlier and already set up in the one good spot. I tried trotting along the shore for a ways to see if there was anywhere else, and kept hearing a loud rustling. I looked around for the source, and finally saw some brush shaking. I shook my head and thought, "That's got to be the most oblivious rabbit in existance."

I got much closer, maybe two whole paces away, and I glimpsed grey through the brush. Seemed like an odd color for a rabbit, so I watched. And after just a few moments, out trotted an armadillo.

He didn't seem to mind me in the least. Really, he had more important things on his mind, like digging and snuffling through the leaves. I saw a documentary about them one time that said, "If ignorance is bliss, armadillos are the happiest animals in the world." Or something like that. Either way, I buy it. He wandered along by the shore, doing his thing, and ignored me while I followed him just a couple of steps behind.

He even walked in front of me. By walked, I mean casually sauntered. I thought about trying to touch him, but I had visions of the scar on my grandfather's hand from the time he caught a squirrel by the tail dancing through my head. And I honestly know nothing about armadillo teeth, but I know they have some impressive claws, and they carry leprosy sometimes. It would be just my luck that I'd have managed to find the world's only rabid, leprous armadillo with anger management problems.

So I watched him wander off into the woods, where there was more noise telling me he was probably meeting another armadillo. I considered continuing to follow him, but the sun was starting to set, and I still had a tent to pitch.

Ah, Moby Tent.

My godparents camp a lot, and every few years or so, they'll invest in a newer, better, bigger tent. Moby Tent is bigger than my dorm room was, and I think their current one is probably bigger than my first apartment was.

Incidentally, the prisoners at the county jail have bigger cells than we had dorm rooms, and the size of the dorm rooms actually violated the Geneva Convention. I guess they got away with it because we were there "voluntarily."

Anyway, Moby Tent is a big, square tent with a screened front porch and two rooms. There's apparently a trick for putting it up by yourself, and I think I could possibly manage now. But having help is really key. I hate to imagine putting the damned thing up all alone. As a thanks, I let the lady who helped me use the battery-powered air mattress pump I brought with me.

By the way, if you're ever helping someone put up a tent, and they're trying to fit two poles together, jamming one into the other without their expecting it is not helping. And in my case, involved cutting off a good portion of one fingerprint. Since she got me a bandaid, I forgave her without sniffling and whining too much.

I was really quite pleased. I mean, that's a lot of space for one person all alone. I piled my clothes and other such nonsense into the left-hand room, and set up my air mattress and blankets and pillows in the right-hand room. And I left my ice chest and chair on the porch.

So that night, I was curled up under my two blankets and sleeping bag, and I was trying to sleep. I woke up because it sounded like it was raining, and my last camping trip gave me bad thoughts about rain and tents. Turns out it was just a tree above my tent shedding things, and I had more important things to worry about. Like the fact that my tent had collapsed on me.

The wall with the door out to the porch was still standing. That meant the center pole was still up. And it was cold, so I rolled over and thought, eh, I can sleep like this.

Except the tent fell lower, and the center wall started swaying. And it occurred to me that if it fell all the way, I wouldn't just have to find and get through one door. I'd have to find two of them, and struggle through two rooms. Shit.

So I got up and worked my way through the door to find the front corner of the tent on my side had managed to slip off of the tent stake. On a related vent, who the hell created those pathetic little bent pieces of aluminum and decided they'd actually work as tent stakes on a tent of that size? Give me a break. I got through the front and grabbed the corner, pulling it back onto the stake. I went back inside and dropped something heavy in that corner to keep it down, then went to inspect the fallen side of my tent.

Just the one corner had laid down, and it took a whole lot less work and wrestling to get it back in place than I had expected when I woke up with my tent on top of me.

The bonfire was still burning, but I was all alone. Not a light burning except the bug attractors at the restrooms.

By the way, I'm all for comfort while camping, but it still kinda strikes me as cheating when you have buildings with electricity and flushing toilets and showers. Really, add in a satellite dish and you've got more amenities than my actual house. With a lot less noise and a lot more stars overhead.

Since I was up, I made a trip up to the restrooms and took a little while to wander around and look at the stars. Lucky me, I don't live in a horror movie, so I got to go back to bed, and my tent behaved the rest of the night. And no rabid, leprous armadillos came creeping in to wreak some kind of twisted vengence on me in my sleep.

2005-11-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

Wow. I really haven't updated here very often in the last month, have I? I claim NaNoWriMo as my excuse this month. Seriously, I did a lot of writing. I know no one's reading it, so if you're actually here reading this, then you can just take my word for it.

I have to admit that part of me (at times a big part) wanted to just close this blog down. People who I've asked to not read it have tracked it down, either through deliberate effort or by accident, and them and people searching for a misspelling of spina bifida and a porn star also going by the name Samira (note to self: next time I'm picking out a name to use online, check for fairly prominent porn stars who might be using that name) are the vast majority of the people coming here.

Seriously, if you're actually reading this and you didn't get here hoping for porn or information on spina bifida (or, possibly, any information about a Danny Kaye movie), then I love you.

I stopped the urge to just shut the blog and call it quits by reminding myself of two very important facts: 1) I am neither an angst-ridden sixteen year old who feels the need to cut her wrists for not getting enough online attention (which I could easily get from sixteen year old boys who think they can pass as women while in lesbian chatrooms), nor am I a ten year old who is young enough to get away with taking her toys and stomping home, and 2) I'll happily admit there's a strange sort of self-esteem connected to hits and comments. There's a kind of 'someone out there cares' mentality attached to it, even if they're a troll (but not a spammer). And the author in me really craves attention and (yes) praise. But the writer in me just wants to get things out. I started a blog for the possible attention over the guaranteed nothing from a private, written journal, but I honestly wanted to write for me. There's a lot more of a boost from knowing stuff I wrote for myself is of interest to other people than there is in writing for other people and link whoring and generally begging for lots of attention. This blog is for me.

That, and I really don't do a whole lot of things that attract readers. And I don't update often enough. Besides, when I read blogs, about 95% of the time, no matter how much I love a post, I don't comment on it (it's this need to have something worth saying when taking up comment space, I guess). Maybe 4% of the time, I'll leave a comment somewhere, and 1% of the time, I'll link to something. The problem is that linking requires posting, and I just mentioned the whole not posting enough thing.

So I'll pout more about the fact that no one out there read my novel (which I probably ought to take down in a little while anyway. Maybe about the time I start going over it to edit and re-write it), and otherwise get over myself. This blog is for me. It's to throw up my thoughts, so I can go back later and look over what I used to think, and either be reminded of it, or laugh at how my perspective has changed. It's to toss out ideas so I won't forget about them, and keep quiz results I thought were interesting enough to keep around.

And if there's really anyone out there reading this, then that's bonus. And I hope you're enjoying what you find here. But primarily, this blog is for me, and it's not going anywhere.

2005-11-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

You know, I realize there's some kind of battle constantly being waged between the irresponsible, selfish parents of the world and the reasonable child-free.

I say irresponsible, selfish parents and reasonable child-free for a reason. Because by and large, the reasonable child-free (people who have chosen not to have children, but who also don't have a problem with the fact that children exist anywhere) are very respectful towards good parents who are putting forth honest, decent efforts to raise their children. I'm not talking about the child-free nutcases who would like to see all children eradicated, or who hate the very sight of any children poisoning their personal environment. And I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't have used the word "parents," because I refuse to think of the kind of people who I have in mind as real mothers and fathers.

I'm currently fluxuating back and forth as to whether or not I want to have children. I'd like to adopt, but that'll only happen if I have a real life partner, and increasingly more of me is starting to think being a spinster wouldn't be half bad. But unlike a shocking number of people I know, I actually rather like children. At least, I like decent kids, even when they misbehave. Otherwise, I'd never have managed to last as long as I did working at a museum in the kid's room.

More and more, I think of one little boy who came into my room. He was two, I think, and he was really a pretty darling kid. But he got to one of the activities and picked up to plasticised bugs (insects in bricks of plastic) and started bashing them together. I walked up and touched the back of his hand, then took the blocks and told him he couldn't do that, would he like to see all the great toys for boys his age right over this way? And his father gave me this horribly dirty look and informed me, "He's only two. He can't hurt anything."

My first thought was that he had to be a first time parent who had never seen a child before in his life. Seriously, did he not realize how much destruction a small child is capable of wreaking? Hell, I know how much havoc puppies and kitten can cause, and human children tend to be stronger and have those handy opposable thumbs.

That attitude has come to drive me inside. Children are capable of doing wrong (how many people have seen a chocolate smeared child with one hand in the cookie jar who would profess until death that he or she was most certainly not sneaking cookies?), especially this parent's children. My daughter was hitting this other kid, and when the teacher walked over and separated them to save the other kid, she was clearly physically abusing my daughter. My son might have soiled and ruined a mattress, but since he was staying at someone else's home, they should have to replace their own property. My kid might be in the middle of the floor in the resturant, screaming and kicking and blocking the line, but I have the right to enjoy my meal, and no one has the right to tell me to control my child. It isn't fair to expect a child to be still for fifteen minutes.

There was a lot of that attitude in this article.

Personally, I fully support the owner who posted that request. And I'm just as behind every parent who decided to no longer visit his establishment.

I honestly cannot remember how many times I've been in a resturant with people who had babies or small children with them, and their kids never caused any sort of disruption. They brought their own items to keep the kids occupied, they didn't ignore them, and if there was a problem, they dealt with it appropriately. Same thing in stores. By and large, most children might not be perfect, but they've been raised properly, and even when problems arise, it's handled.

But look at what some of these "parents" have to say. I'll happily admit that you shouldn't automatically be treated like a leper for appearing with children, since everyone deserves the chance to prove themselves in one direction or another. But what about the demands that everyone else just deal with misbehaving children? If you know you can't handle your kid for fifteen minutes in public, then you shouldn't be taking the kid to a mostly adult-oriented location until he or she is old and/or mature enough to handle the situation.

If you force your child into a place where he or she is going to be bored and miserable, then you aren't being fair to your child, yourself, or any of the people around you.

50,000 Words!

2005-11-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone's still here reading or not...I know I've been neglecting this place.

It's because all my writing energy has been going into this. It still doesn't have a title, but I wrote on twelve days, and I've gotten over my 50,000 words. Woo-hoo!

Now I've set up the personal challenge: actually finish the story, and I get to reward myself.

You know, I'm curious...

2005-11-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Why do all hotel rooms have Bibles in them?

And why are they always Gideon's Bible in specific?

2005-11-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

Just out of curiosity...

2005-11-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

Is anyone here reading my NaNoWriMo effort? (I'm half-way done! Yay!).

If so, would you happen to have any thoughts on a good title for it? Because I'm blank.

Horse Latitudes

2005-11-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

I still remember, when I was younger, trying to remember the word "Doldrums." I asked my parents what the other name for the Horse Latitudes was, and they looked at me like I had extra heads, and convinced me I had made the whole thing up.

I had completely forgotten about it, or else I probably would have researched it years ago. But I assure you, I was happily cackling from the moment I saw that phrase mentioned here.

I knew I wasn't crazy.

Ok, ok, I knew I hadn't been imagining that, at least.

Here goes.

2005-10-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

With four hours left until the official beginning of NaNoWriMo, I decided to go ahead and create a blog to post my (hopefully) 50,000 words.

El Capitan now has had a taste of what my unedited writing is like, so he may warn you off of this, but if you'd care to, I'll be posting my daily writing there (except probably on weekends).

For one month, at least, it'll update a lot more often than I do here.

Hey, look at that!

2005-10-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's my first blogiversary.

I shall celebrate by getting out of town for the retreat for the weekend.

Too Late

2005-10-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Back in college, mostly during my junior year, I hung out with a bunch of folks who were great at tearing people down. I'm not really sure why I even persisted in hanging around them.

I take that back. I know exactly why I did. I was a junior in college and I had finally actually made some friends. That made it awfully easy to overlook a lot of things. It took me about a year afterwards to realize part of why so much of what I'd once cared about seemed so pale. Me? I couldn't sing. I mean, maybe I was a little ok, but Lynn, she was great. Write? Well, maybe I scribble a little, but Lynn, once more, was the real talent. Knitting? It was kind of cute that I'd taken it up, but Caitlyn was the one who started it, and I was just kind of a follower. I should be sure to forget I had started knitting more than a year before she did, and showed up with a project weeks before she looked at me and said, "You know, I should really learn how to do that." Smart? Eh, maybe a little. But Sarah was brilliant.

The list went on. Anything I thought I was good at got torn down, and I got a full explanation of why it was stupid, since these other folks were so much better. Which is the stupidest damned attitude I've ever heard of, looking back. Why the hell can't multiple people in one group be good at the same thing? And for that matter, why does anyone feel the need to tell anyone else, ok, fine, maybe you're a little good at this, but so-and-so's so much better than you.

I ended up with one talent no one could trump. One final aspect of my personality I got to keep, and I got to be good at without lectures about how much better everyone else was, and without resentful glares for making attempts, or pats on the head to let me know how cute I was.

This is one of those things where I have to let my fruitcake side out a little to play. Back in highschool, my friends and I started doing some energy work. It's not magic, though like some technology, it can be hard to distiguish between the two. Gather up some of your essence, aura, power, whatever it is, and focus it between your hands, and you can capture it. Feed it up into a little ball. And if there are other people who are sensitive to it, you can pass it over to them, they can add their own to it, and keep it going.

We found out all kinds of things. Build one up and stick it in someone's head, and they'll get high for a little while. For free, and no way that's showing up on a piss test. Get people who don't believe to stick their hand between yours and it'll make their fingers tingle. It's a great way to pass a lot of time, and it takes no time at all before you're giggly and hot and kind of dizzy.

We also found out I could fix things using that energy. I was kind of the group psychologist anyway, but we found out I could do a literal sort of lay the hands on it and be healed kind of thing. With little things. Bruises, muscle strains, migraines...wave the hands over it and it stopped hurting, and the bruise healed days faster.

I've had vague thoughts before of seeking out some kind of training, but the charleton to genuine ratio on that kind of thing is staggering, and then when you get into the folks who think they're genuine...

And I always had the vague thought that maybe I was one of those fakes fooling herself, so I kind of shied away from a real search, and thus from doing any serious work with anything. I mean, genuine energy healing is a complicated business. You don't want to shove a bunch of energy into a cancer to make it better. You need to know how to pull the energy out of it so it'll shrivel up and die while giving strength to the body. Real diseases get pretty complicated, and illness--how would you kill a virus but not the body, or strengthen the body without likewise invigorating the thing killing it? Bruises and stuff are pretty easy. Shove some energy in there to help the body do the necessary cleaning and mending and you're done.

I kind of got used through my junior year to make believers out of people. See here? Feel her hands. Yup, freezing cold to the touch. Now pull your hand back an inch or two. Feel all that heat, kinda like holding your hand in front of a candle? That's energy.

Lynn was once helping her current beau move, and got attacked by the U-Haul. I was never completely clear on the details, but something happened including the ramp jamming into her thigh and giving her a real beauty of a bruise. Deep black and wandering out to bright purple, with a good fist-sized lump to go with it, and a steady pain to make sure she wouldn't forget about it. Naturally, she had to show off.

We were sitting inside our usual lounge and I was beside her when she was looking at it and complaining. We'd been doing a lot of energy play in the past few days, so it seemed natural to give a little push and pass my hand over the thing.

Lynn yelped and jumped off of the couch, then made everyone come over to look. While my hand covered the bruise, it visibly shrank in size. The purple edges had contracted in all the way to what had been the beginning of the black, half the swelling was gone, and according to her, it didn't hurt anymore. For the next few days, it was my duty to repeat the procedure, though while I was thinking hard about it, I didn't manage to do a lot more than, according to her, make it stop hurting.

I left the group and turned hermit-like over my senior year, partially to nurse a battered heart, and partially to try to rebuild myself. I'd managed to work my way into a serious funk, and even before I was too conscious about it, I knew I'd never get better if I stayed hanging around people who, by and large, made me feel unwanted or worthless. I look back now, and I hate being the girl who was desperate enough for company to insist on hanging out where I probably wasn't wanted.

My pets really helped the transition between always being out doing something with someone to just staying at home. One of the cats, Eris, is evil incarnate, but she likes me. The other, Keegan, is brainless and sweet. And finally there was Astrael.

She was a beautiful little tri-color hooded rat with pink eyes. She was soft and she filled up my hand and liked sitting on my shoulder and chittering in my ear or licking my fingers or getting her "cookies": these multi-berry flavored flat yogurt drops.

Picking up one the "was"?

I went to give her her nightly treat Monday and found her sitting just outside of her purple tube, not moving. I reached in to see if she was alive, and she was warm and still breathing, but when I picked her up, I was horrified to see blood all around her eyes and nose.

I kept her in my lap to warm her up, and she tried to do a little running around. Under her front leg, her tumor had made a reappearance. I gave her a cookie, and she nibbled at it a little without a whole lot of interest. A little research did tell me it wasn't blood around her eyes and nose, but the standard rat discharge, which has a chemical in it that makes it bright red. So, not a good sign, but definitely not bleeding from the eyes and nose, either.

I determined that I'd give her plenty of food and water and her nice bed, and check on her first thing in the morning. If she wasn't substantially better, she'd be whisked off to the vet as soon as they opened.

Tuesday morning found her worse, and so I called in to work and straight to the vet we went. Only to find out their exotics vet wouldn't be in until fucking noon.

Ok, they saw her, saw she was obviously in a lot of distress, and told me I could either leave her behind or bring her back at noon, and they'd be waiting for me.

So I was back home by 9:30, with Astrael.

And she was visibly getting worse. I could hear her breathing, with this awful sort of clicking sound, and she was grinding her teeth. That's a little like cat's purring. It either tells you they're really happy or really distressed. I finally called an old vet we'd stopped visiting when they stopped treating ferrets, but they wouldn't look at a rat. I tried the 24-hour emergency clinic, and they could take her, but their exotics vet wouldn't be in until 3. It was just barely past 10, and I wasn't sure she'd make it to noon. I called my mom to say I just didn't know what to do, and she promised she'd call me back.

Half an hour later, she called. Astrael at that point wasn't moving a whole lot, and she was having to open her mouth to gasp for breath. My mom told me they were waiting for me at one of the PetsMarts in the city...one of the more distant ones, but I could take highway most of the way there. She told me later that she had to call almost thirty local vets before she found someone who could take her immediately, and PetsMart should have been an obvious choice, since they sell rats. Hell, I should have thought of it on my own, since I originally got Astrael from one.

At this point, it's kind of important to point out that land-wise, OKC is one of the biggest cities on the freakin' planet. Oklahoma City never built up, but out. We've got urban sprawl down to a fine art. With no traffic, it can still take almost an hour to cross from one edge of the city limits to the other, and the city itself covers one entire county and moves into I think six others. You don't have a north and south side of OKC. You have northwest, southwest, northeast, and southeast. And central.

I called the vet I was supposed to be seeing to cancel the appointment, then hauled ass to the PetsMart in question. They were indeed waiting for me, and the second I got the paperwork filled out, I was escorted to an examining room, where I was quizzed on her condition and we got her official weight. When I set her on the scale, she just laid there on her side and gasped for air with this terrible rattling, clicking sound. When I picked her up again, she kicked hard with her back legs and flew out of my hand, and I caught her, but then she just laid on her side in my hand, and I was left alone with her to wait for the vet.

While I was waiting, I looked down at her, and in the different light, I saw something that just sent spikes through my heart. She hadn't been blinking, and there was a dried out film over her eyes. I looked at her, stretching her mouth open and putting her entire body behind each breath, and I thought, No one can fix this. There's no making it better.

I knew even before the vet walked in that we weren't going to be able to make this better.

The vet, after a brief examination, had the same impression, and gave me a choice: We could give her x-rays and ultrasounds and bloodtests, but it was one of two things: severe pneumonia, or her cancer had spread to her lungs. The pneumonia, at this point, was too advanced to fix with antibiotics, especially since she was a geriatric rat, and the cancer just couldn't be cured. I was all alone in the vet's, alone for the first time to make a decision with a beloved pet in my hands, suffering.

I knew better, but I had been waiting to be told she just needed some antibiotics, and she'd be fine in a few days. But she wasn't eating, I couldn't get her to drink, and she didn't seem to have any real awareness left. I made the decision, and the vet gave me the release form to sign and a little time to say goodbye.

I cradled her, and I just said over and over again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't fix this, I'm sorry I couldn't get you to help sooner. I'm sorry I didn't notice faster that you were sick, and I'm sorry I didn't take care of it the moment I knew something was wrong.

I felt bad for not taking her straight to the 24-hour clinic, because maybe it wouldn't have been too late to make it better then. I felt bad for not getting her straight to a vet first thing in the morning. I felt bad for not knowing sooner, when the infection was first getting her. And I felt horrible for not being able to hold her and pet her and just magically make it all better.

It's stupid and it's self-defeating, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking it. I should be able to fix this.

Instead, I handed her over to the vet, and watched while she was put on oxygen, then an extra chemical was added to the mix to make her fall asleep. Once she was out, I was sent away, and she was killed with an injection to her heart. Then I got her in a little cardboard box, and I took her home and buried her in the lavendar garden.

And I keep thinking about that stupid bruise, and thinking maybe I couldn't have saved her. But I should have been able to make it enough better that antibiotics and real treatment could fix it. I should have been able to stop her from hurting in those last moments. I should at least have been able to comfort her.

I should have been able to fix it.

Cool

2005-10-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

I was a little worried I'd find out I'm Hitler or Napoleon or something, so this is pretty cool:

Vercingetorix
You scored 75 Wisdom, 58 Tactics, 53 Guts, and 46 Ruthlessness!

Leader of the Gauls, a chieftain of the Arverni. He was the leader of the great revolt against the Romans in 52 BC. Julius Caesar, upon hearing of the trouble, rushed to put it down. Vercingetorix was, however, an able leader and adopted the policy of retreating to heavy, natural fortifications and burning the Gallic towns to keep the Roman soldiers from living off the land. Caesar and his chief lieutenant Labienus lost in minor engagements, but when Vercingetorix shut himself up in Alesia and summoned all his Gallic allies to attack the besieging Romans, the true brilliance of Caesar appeared. He defeated the Gallic relieving force and took the fortress. Vercingetorix was captured and, after gracing Caesar's triumphal return to Rome, was put to death.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 93% on Unorthodox

You scored higher than 26% on Tactics

You scored higher than 42% on Guts

You scored higher than 47% on Ruthlessness

Link: The Which Historic General Are You Test written by dasnyds on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

2005-10-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

This is, other than the sea lions, one of my favorite exhibits at the zoo. You can buy little cups of nectar to feed the lorikeets, and if there haven't been many people through, you get swarmed.

These guys were especially eager to get to the food. While the one on my shoulder was creeping down hoping to surprise the others, the one on my left hand is getting ready to attack the other two. You can see the evil look in his eye.

It's a good thing the one on my right wrist was getting ready to take of anyway, because about half a second after this shot was snapped, the one heading down from my shoulder goosed him.

They had a real fondness for landing on my head, and I just knew at any second they'd be decorating my hair.

Sexy

2005-10-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

Your Hair Should Be Orange

Expressive, deep, and one of a kind.
You pull off "weird" well - hardly anyone notices.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

RIP

2005-10-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

My mousie didn't make it.

I got him on Wednesday, and he was doing fantastic until Sunday.

On Sunday, he didn't seem to be doing well. He wasn't moving, and didn't respond very much when I touched him. He seemed cold, so I held him to try and warm him up. I had him for hours, and he just got worse. Eventually, he was lying on his side, gasping occasionally for breath.

I'd never held a pet--or anything--while it died.

I gave him a quiet burial, and cried a lot more than a pet of only five days probably usually gets.

I never even got a good name for him.

2005-10-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

This little guy was hiding under the broken crock pot the ferrets claimed. He sat still while I caught him in a mason jar, so I made an emergency run to PetsMart to pick up the food dish you see (that's the small hamster size that fits in the palm of your hand, if that gives you an idea of his size), a house, bedding, and treats. And he's very quickly and happily making the trasition to pet.

Oh my...

2005-10-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck read an email from me on his show today.

I was listening at work, and when I realized it was my email, I almost jumped out of my chair, then did that guilty look around to see if anyone had noticed. Not that it matters. I haven't come out at work, but that's more of a "Why?" thing than a hiding thing. I don't have a girlfriend to bring to company functions, so why should anyone care?

Still, having a letter in which I say I'm a lesbian read on national radio was a little disconcerting, even if he didn't share my name. Which I thought was extremely polite.

Anyway, here's the text of the email I sent:

Dear Glenn,
You talked about the "growing bisexuality trend" today, and I thought you might be interested in my thoughts on it.

If I only told you that I'm a lesbian, then you might assume I'd be very happy to hear this news. But I really feel just the opposite. I've never even dated a man, and I've always known I preferred the company of women. I don't have any problems with men, and I never have. I'm a real rarity among people of my age--at least according to statistics and my own experience. I'm a libertarian, I vote regularly, I write to my congressmen, and I've written to the president. I don't drink to excess--or even to the point of a "buzz," I've never done any drugs, and I'm 23 and a virgin (meaning I've never had sex of any definition with any man or woman. I'm not saying that in some weasely 'I've had oral sex, but that's not really sex' kind of way). I'm sure there are lesbians and bisexuals out there who take full advantage of there being more and more women willing to experiment with their sexuality. But I'm looking for something a little more serious in my life.

Since you had a discussion sometime ago about older virgins, I would like to add that I'm not a virgin because no one in their right mind would come within ten feet of me. I'm a virgin because I refuse to have sex with anyone until I truly know my partner, we've been in a committed relationship and both abstained from sex with anyone for a minimum of three months and have come through with clean STD tests. It's remarkably difficult to find anyone willing to be in a relationship that doesn't involve sex right off the bat, and I've turned down one night stands with friends on several occasions.

One reason I don't like the bisexuality trend is because just dabbling in any kind of sex for the sake of seeing what it's like trivializes something that contains a lot more mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical importance than most people seem willing to admit. Am I really supposed to think sleeping with a friend of mine because she thinks she might like sleeping with women if she tries it will make me feel anything but used?

I've seen too many women with their hearts utterly broken because they were used in an experiments. It's crushing to know someone and have a crush on them, but know you can't get anywhere because she's straight. I've known six or seven women now who had such terrible crushes. So you have a woman who thinks she doesn't have a chance, and is floored when the object of her affection tells her that she feels the same way. Then, after they've slept together, her crush says, "You know, I wanted to try it, but I was wrong. It's not for me. Guess I'll go back to my boyfriend now." That's one of the reasons I refuse to sleep with anyone until we've been together for some time. It takes more than idle curiosity to be able to stay in a relationship without sex.

On four different occasions now, I've been given extra reason to be proud of my standards. I've met women and arranged for a first "get to know you" date. Those times, I've barely even known the name of the woman in question. Luckily, all four of them let me know by the end of our first date that they were either married or had been steadily dating one man for two or more years. One of them had children. Even though they assured me that their husbands/boyfriends were perfectly all right with it, I made sure to get away and not look back. One wanted me to know we could have all the sex we wanted, as long as her husband could watch, and the others said they had been curious about sex with a woman for a long time, so their significant others had given them permission to find a girl and screw around. They seemed confused that I was disgusted, and I'm so glad I found out early. I can't imagine how dirty and used I would feel if I had been dating a woman for months, and found out by accident, or because I really wanted to know why we couldn't go to her house or something like that. God forbid I might have slept with someone who was already married.

I wonder what this behavior says about society today. I'm not even talking about the bi-curious trend. Too many of the women wanting to satisfy their curiosity seem to not care if they're sleeping around on their supposed significant other, and far too many don't seem to care if the women they use to satisfy that curiosity are hurt by their lack of emotion. It's intensely selfish and self-centered, and the people involved just don't seem to care what damage their leaving in their wakes. Until, of course, it eventually blows up in their faces.

I learned, for my own emotional health, to avoid getting involved with any woman to claims to be "bi-curious," and to be wary of people who wear the label "bisexual" until I know if they're looking for sex or for a partner. And I, for one, cannot wait until this trend passes, and the women I meet are less likely to just be following a trend.

Take care,

Samira Sashenka
Oklahoma City, OK.

2005-10-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

You're Lili St. Cyr!

What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Style

2005-09-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have this pet story, full of disreputable characters as the good guys and complicated plot twists and multi-line action. It doesn't have a lot in common with my usual sort of story, which tends to be more of an emotional action/growth tale than an actual adventure. And I work to keep myself away from the written D&D game kind of works.

It was actually started while I was in high school as a collaborative effort with my best friend at the time. She and I had already successfully finished two other novels (one being an utter piece of crap that was a joy to write and the other possibly having a salvagable plot underneath all the angsty teenaged shit that no one wants to read, but everyone writes), and that one was the second one we created from thin air.

The first one was all my eighth grade history teacher's fault. We had to do a report where we dressed up and pretended to be a famous person from history and told the class all about ourselves and what made us famous.The problem was that my best friend and I shared the class, and we agreed that the only two women really studied in the class (Queen Elizabeth I and Pocahontas) just weren't interesting enough. Besides, all the girls in the class were going to be split between those two figures. We needed something...well, unique.

Had this happened in high school or college, it would have been easy for us to find other interesting women to portray. Elizabeth Bathory comes to mind, just because that would be the sort of report I would have loved to do if only because it would scare my teacher. But we felt like we had to stick with people we had actually studied. The assorted explorers were fun, but cross-dressing was sort of frowned upon, so we decided we were sisters who had stowed away on Martin Frobisher's ship.

We got good grades, and enjoyed making up the histories for our characters. So much so that we decided to write their story.

But actually having them stow away on Frobisher's ship would be boooring. And would take waaay too much research. So we made up a world and made up our ship and oppropriated words we had no business using and made our character identical twins with entirely impossible features and had a fabulous time with the whole thing.

We had so much fun with the first one we didn't even care that it didn't have a real plot. Oh, there were subplots and deviations galore, so it was interesting anyway. And when it was done, it was exhilerating, but it was also sort of a let-down. So we found all the story beginnings we could and traded them, and whittled them down to our favorite. Or really, her favorite. And we took it from there.

Somehow, every collaboration we tried in which we used one of our existing ideas has come out of her work, and she's dismissed mine with a sort of disgusted look. And neither of us has been happy trying to work in the confines of just one person's idea and world. We've tried it at least four times now, and only finished the first one.

But our third work together was undoubtedly the best. We created the world together, we both got to create our own characters, and we took the story and ran.

While it had the same basic problems as the first (subplots, subplots everywhere!) it also started to gather momentum and form around a real, solid plot. We finished the first novel, and liked it so much that we started on another one.

But that's when everything fell apart, for a number of reasons. I found out she had (probably entirely unconsciously) lifted her character and a lot of plot elements out of a pirate movie that had come out not long before we started the story. We agreed when we "broke up" that I got ownership of that book and the beginning of the next.

I've been working on it since then, polishing, developing, and expanding on characters, writing out unnecessary or plagarized subplots, and developing the real plot. There isn't much of her work or even her ideas left in the story now, and her character has greatly changed and evolved since then, so there isn't really a whole lot of her left in the woman, either. She's asked for me to dedicate the book to her and include her in the acknowledgements if I ever actually finish it and then it (miracle of miracles) gets published, and I've agreed.

The reason why I should never become a full-time author is pretty obvious when you look at how I've worked on this book. I got the original story typed up and saved on disk, changing and editing as I went, and since then I've printed the whole damned thing out a few times and gone through clipping, adding, and editing in long-hand.

After we started the second book, we decided it was going to be a trilogy. Since then, I've knocked off the third book altogether, and the first two have become one cohesive story. I'm only two or three chapters shy of really getting the first half out and polished off.

It's only taken me about six years.

But I like working this way, when everything really comes together. I like that I've had time to realize what I thought was a short story taking place in the same world really belongs as part of the plot in the second half. Otherwise, I'd have forced the whole thing out, and I don't think, in my mind, it would ever have been right.

Hell, I might have wasted time trying to write the third book.

2005-09-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of days after the laundry nonsense, I called a different friend to ask if she was free the next night. She asked why, so I asked if she wanted to see a movie with me. She hesitated and said that her mother wanted her to go over and install anti-virus stuff on her computer, so could she call her mom and call me right back?

I have zero problem with that. First off, unlike, "I would rather do my laundry," she didn't say it an any way that could be taken hurtfully. We're in that amazing, "It's not what you say--it's how you say it" world. And beyond that, I know her mother quite well, and know that's pretty likely. Before she hung up, I told her that if she had other things to do, then that was fine, and would a different day be better? She said she wanted to talk to her mom really quick first, and she'd let me know.

She called back just a few minutes later to say going out would be great. She's only begged out of plans we've made twice--once because a family member had a stroke, and once because she'd just found out some elderly family members were being abused by another family member. In both cases, she let me know the day before our plans, and I told her to take care of business, and I'd be there if she needed any moral support. Because life happens, and I understand that. There's a big difference between, "Sorry, I can't make it, something's come up," and just not showing, then shrugging and mumbling something about deciding to do other things at the last second. Likewise, there's an important difference between turning down an offer politely, which is always an option and never a big deal, and being cruel or rude about turning one down.

I strive to be a dependable person. If I say I'm going to do something or be somewhere, I do my best to do just that, or at the very least give a day or more's notice that I'm not going to make it. There are acceptable reasons to not show on time, or even not show at all (although the only acceptable reason to not give a call or something within a day afterwards is if you're in traction). Like I said, life happens.

But being a friend instead of an aquaintence means doing just a little more than hanging out when it's easily convenient and making promises just so everyone will be happy right this moment. I do everything possible to meet my own standards. I'd never expect anyone to live up to something I can't personally reach.

Gratuity

2005-09-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

My last year of college, I had a friend who liked to go out driving when she was upset. Sometimes, she called to ask if I would go along, and we usually ended up at some diner somewhere.

One time, I offered to take her to IHOP, since she had paid the last few times. The procedure sort of worked out like dating rules: whoever issued the invitation paid. But I was a hermit who never talked to anyone of my own volition, so I wanted to pay. She said she wasn't hungry, so she just got coffee, and I was starving. IHOP was running their "never-ending pancakes" thing, and getting that was actually cheaper than just buying a regular plate of pancakes, so I went for that.

I will never understand the people who can get more than one plate of pancakes, though. I've always found them to be extraordinarily filling, so one plate has always been more than enough. So I wouldn't have gotten more, but I might have liked more to drink, and I know my friend wanted more coffee. But we never saw our waitress again.

As a matter of fact, we were there long enough that the shifts changed, and we never once saw the new waitress. In more than two hours. I had ordered something that could have included getting more food, and both of us had refillable drinks, but the waitress never even once came by to check on us.

I had never left a bad tip before. Regardless of what some people seem to think anymore, the standard tip is supposed to be 15%. And for average service, I always leave at least that. For good service, I'll leave between 20-25%, and for shoddy service, I'll usually drop down to 10%. I understand perfectly that most waiters and waitresses are making less than three dollars an hour, and moreso that they have no benefits and just as many bills to pay as me, if not more. The problem is that tips seem to have gone from gratuities to requirements, regardless of the service you receive, and that's completely wrong.

I had never done it before, but I left a bad tip at that IHOP. I left a penny behind, since you want to signal that you aren't just a jerk who doesn't tip. And I honestly felt bad about it. But any kind of service at all will still get that 10% tip from me, but not even seeing you for an hour and a half means you didn't do your job. I don't get paid when I don't bother to show up for work, so I don't see why I should pay someone for not working at all.

Someone actually told me that I should have dropped the penny into my cup, so she'd have to fish for it. I think that would have crossed the line from stating that your service sucked and into just letting everyone know you're a total asshole.

From there, I despise required gratuities. You know, when they just tack it onto the bill for you…I know that more than just your waiter or waitress gets money out of those tips most of the time. It goes to the busboy, who might be doing a fantastic job where the server is falling down, and it goes to the hostess, etc. And I look around while I'm in a resturant to check out how everyone is doing. Was the hostess friendly, are the tables getting cleaned off quickly, and is the waiter or waitress not by too often, but they're also running their butt off to get to everyone in their area? That all factors into my tip.

And at that IHOP, there was a table next to us that sat with dishes all over it for more than half an hour. It really wasn't a stellar experience on any level.

Kinky Vampire Sex

2005-09-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

And a post with this title just to see what sorts of google hits I'll start getting now...

I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I've actually had some serious discussions before about whether or not having sex with a vampire counts as necrophelia.

It always seems to depend on the vampire. Most of them seem to sort of pick up from where they left off in life, and other than the unfortunate liquid diet, they're pretty life-like, especially depending on how recently they've eaten. However, a number of them sort of "die" during the day, so sex with a daytime vamp would be necrophelia, but sex while the vamp in question is awake doesn't count. I mean, just because they will die later in the day doesn't mean anything. Everyone is a potential corpse, so if you look at it that way, everyone is a protential necropheliac.

By a similar token, I don't think it counts if you're with a partner who sort of kicks off the middle of things. Necrophelia (anything ending in -phelia, really) sort of needs more deliberation, and a lot more enjoyment I would imagine anyone thus surprised ever gets.

While vampires seem to be something of a grey area, I think it's safe to say that zombie sex is definitely necrophelia. Just…interactive necrophelia, which seems a little different from the usual fetish. I would think that normally, zombie sex would be ill-advised anyway, what with the whole mindless devouring of flesh thing. But I'm sure there are stories in Anita Blake fandom that include it.

Debating beastiality and lycanthropes seems more clear-cut than vampires and necrophelia, too. Afterall, the lyc in question is either in full human form, in which case it's not, or they're partially or fully in their animal form, which pretty definitely is.

Either way, those debates are pretty light-hearted, and nowhere nearly as disturbing as articles like this one.

2005-09-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

On an entirely different vein from the last post, I'm really very proud of myself.

I'm proud for not just sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and instead making plans. I'm proud for sticking with what I wanted to do instead of bending over backwards and renewing the DOORMAT tattoo on my forehead.

And I'm really proud of being brave enough to go to a retreat that'll be absolutely packed with people I don't know. I mean, come on, doesn't this sound fun:

The plans are coming together for the biggest Retreat yet. Just a few of the events planned are a pumpkin carving contest (bring your own pumpkin), costume contest (for 2 legged and 4 legged), a silent auction -- among other things you can bid on a sailboat that has been donated -- and the usual raffle with loads of goodies.

Saturday brunch will be served by our own gourmet Chris and she is promising omelets, etc. There will be outdoor activities earning the winners points toward a prize from the raffle table. And there will be indoor games tournament activity, as well. There will be a special 20th anniversary retreat t-shirt to mark the occasion and hopefully tie-dying; however, finding a tie-dye artist is proving difficult.

Don't forget the potluck, as it is always the best meal of the year. On top of all the things we have planned, there are a golf course and hiking trails at Eufaula, fishing, nature center, and plenty of wildlife to watch.

Bring costumes for you and/or your dog for the costume contest -- Jeannie Flanigan will bring makeup and other additional costume items for your use.

I figure at absolute worst, I'll hide out and read books. Which in and of itself doesn't sound too bad. I mean, if nothing else, I've been wanting to go camping all summer.

Enough

2005-09-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

I got a call yesterday, during which my friend informed me that if I wanted to go out to a movie with her sometime, if I could just tell her before the actual day, she'd be happy to do so, and I told her no, thank you, that's all right. I'd go on my own. I mean, among other things, when I mentioned movies I intended to see, she spent the entire time with a disgusted look on her face. She and I have different tastes, and it's not really fair to drag someone to something they won't enjoy, and irritating to hear about how much it sucked afterwards. Like I said before, when I mentioned wanting to find a movie buddy, I wasn't hinting at her for just that reason. And further, after she talked me into the possibility of going with her, I only asked about that night because I had already been planning on going.

She demanded to know what kind of crazy person would rather go to the movies alone than with a friend, and it didn't seem worth saying someone who would rather either go alone, or with someone who stands a chance of enjoying the movie in question.

She then informed me that I often assume wrongly that people don't want to hang out with me, thus proving she flunked her mind reading class. I didn't want to go to the movies instead of with her because I assumed she didn't want anything to do with me. I didn't want to go with her because she really doesn't like a lot of the movies I do.

Shortly thereafter, she called me again to inform me that it's not fair for me to be mad at her because she wanted to do her laundry, and continued into other details about how I'm unfair, mean, and utterly wrong to feel the way I do.

I just said, "Ok," and hung up, and only momentarily felt bad when I heard her start to continue.

First off, nothing ticks me off faster than informing me that I'm wrong to feel the way I do about something unless you have an actual point. And she completely missed why I was upset, or even if I was anymore, and she had no interest in any reason other than what she'd assumed. And the fact that I'm wrong, unfair, and a total meanie.

She also wanted to know if I'd cancel the plans I'd already made for Halloween. Herland is having a retreat, and I decided I'd go. Afterall, last year passed and I didn't hear a word from anyone I knew about anything going on, so I spent the holiday just sitting at home handing out candy. I figured if I don't throw the party, then I'm not invited, so I decided I wasn't going to just sit around hoping for an invitation this year. What a waste of time, right? So when I found out that I can't volunteer at the zoo for just the holiday (or at least, as near as I can tell, I can't. It seems a little late this year to get in on it, so I figure I'll try talking to someone in person, and reserve it for next year), I decided I'd go on the retreat. Which costs money, which I already paid.

And, typically, since I made plans, she asked if I wanted to go to her Halloween party. And I apologized and said I'd already made plans. She looked stunned that I had plans, so I elaborated about not wanting to repeat last year, and definitely not wanting to just sit around on my butt feeling sorry for myself when I could just take care of myself and find something to do. So she pouted and told me I'd been invited to her party last year, and hadn't shown up.

My answer was, "Really? No one told me."

I'll assume it was an oversight, because I know the only party I heard about was with a local pagan circle, and I wasn't interested since they were a) insisting on a theme and b) that theme was "the wild West." Er...sorry, the furthest on themes I really like for Halloween is "wear a costume."

I'm sure she's now mad at me, and that's fine. She's welcome to it. I just wasn't in the mood to listen to a litany of my faults, especially since most of it involved incorrect assumptions about my thoughts. I'm tired of especially her and my roommate having grand revelations involving how I'm feeling, because none if it involves actually asking me anything, and always seems to involve assuming the worst and ugliest out of me. And I've had enough.

Eek!

2005-09-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

So I'd just walked in from watching Land of the Dead, in a nearly empty theater. My only company came from four or five teenaged girls who were sneaking from theater to theater, so I was frequently alone to enjoy the entirely too loud, badly projected movie (nothing wrong with the actual flick, plenty wrong with the theater).

I was starving, and headed straight into the kitchen to start something to eat. I wanted to make macaroni and cheese (I'm a real gourmet, donchknow), so I needed to fill a pot with water. And just as my fingers touched the tap, a little brown streak shot from behind the dish drainer, behind the sink and within inches of my fingers, and onto the other side of the counter and down the hole for cords.

I immediately jumped back like I'd been stung and squeaked out some sort of high-pitched gasping/shouting/shrieking/screaming/girly eeking thing.

My poor roommate thought I'd hurt myself.

I managed to avoid any thoughts of zombies, since the average zombie is not mouse-sized, mouse-shaped, and mouse-colored.

Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, I got home from work last week and found the door to the bathroom still tightly closed, and an untouched live trap in the middle of the bathtub. Lots of mouse leavings to prove I wasn't hallucinating, but miraculously, no mouse.

I'm taking my toys and going home.

2005-09-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

So there.

A couple of friends were over, one of them supposedly my best and oldest friend. I mentioned that I needed to find a movie buddy to visit the dollar theater down the street with. This wasn't actually a hint towards her, since we'd just gotten through discussing the fact that we have very different tastes in movies. But she said she could go.

I countered that we don't like the same movies, and she shrugged and said that it didn't really matter. If she was picking the movie, she was really picky, but if someone else was doing it, she didn't really care.

Talked into it, I glanced at the clock. I'd been planning on going tonight anyway, and she was over to visit, which usually lasts into the wee hours. So I asked if she wanted to go--it was starting in about thirty minutes.

This is where we reached this magical place. You see, there are four and twenty ways of saying you don't want to go that are diplomatic, understandable, and not an actual big deal.

There are just as many ways that are deliberately hurtful or rude, or at least blunt.

However, as I've explored once before, "I'd rather do my laundry," is just plain cruel.

For that matter:

Bad taste: Using the exact same bullshit excuse twice in a row.

Just plain cold-hearted: Preceeding to explain about all the other people that were important enough to put off the task, thus being really sure to drive home the point that you are not important, interesting, or loved enough to bother over.

I would have happily accepted that she needed to get it done, so why don't we go on Tuesday or Wednesday thing had it been before the stories about who else she'd been putting it off for. I don't even care anymore if it was entirely innocent and not in any way meant to hurt me, and I don't care anymore if I'm just being childish, because either way, I don't deserve having to feel that insignificant and unwanted. Not around people that are supposed to be friends.

So what did I do?

I went to the damned movie.

Saw Land of the Dead. Not a bad zombie flick, if you like the undead. It was a lot heavier on plot, world development, and characterization than a lot of others are.

Though I guess if anyone is equiped to put out a good zombie movie, it would be Romero.

2005-09-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

I guess no one wants to see the story I finished. Just out of curiosity, what turned you off? The necrophelia, the incest, the vampires? The combination thereof?

I'd pout and say I'll just let you know when it's published, but...er...I've looked for markets for a lot of my work, but even if that one's a masterpiece, I don't know if there's a home for it.

I agree

2005-09-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

I've started countless posts about Katrina, and the relief, and opinions, and everything else. And I've come to a conclusion.

I can't do it. I'm heartsick with what I've seen, what I've read, and what I've heard. I'm encouraged and relieved by some of the things people have pulled together to do, and sickened and irritated by the fingerpointing, the blaming, and the whining, and the blocking and ass-covering while people still need help.

Want to fix this? The first thing to do is get FEMA out of the way, and let all the charities in. Stop the fingerpointing until the people who want to be saved are saved, the people who want to stay are supplied with water and food, and all that's left is cleaning and rebuilding. Stop with the red tape, stop with the beaurocratic BS. It's costing lives that don't need to be lost.

But I'm done. After this post, unless something amazing happens, I'm just not putting it up here. This isn't really a political blog. I think about posting news links constantly (Spain legalized gay marriage--full marriage. California took a big step towards it, but the governor might veto it even though he says he thinks it's right, which is one of the dumber things I've heard lately, in the middle of a huge, stinking pile of BS. A girl in Africa was saved from rapists by lions. All sorts of things). And I just don't. It never turns out to be what I really want to say.

So, while I'm reading, researching, listening, and doing my best to track down the family that was supposed to be living with us by now, I'm not going to post about it. There's only so much anyone can take.

Therefore, I'm going to say one last thing: I agree.

And I'm done.

Before I forget...

2005-09-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

"Of course crystal balls are standard issue. I mean, most of the boys don't really know how to use them, so they sort of end up being expensive projectiles when they're in tight spots, but you never know when seeing the future will come in handy."

2005-09-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

So guess what I got over the weekend? The Magnetic Poetry Erotic Edition, of course. So my best friend came over, we pulled out the chalk board, and played with it (the magnets). This was the closest to actual art/poetry we came up with. The rest of it's...er...have a look.

H spent most of the evening slowly building this one up to the masterpiece you see. She was extremely pleased with herself, as I'm sure you can guess.

I would like to say I had nothing to do with any of these. And mostly, I didn't. These are by and large all H's brain-children. But I added touches here and there. I'm sad to say I'm responsible for the "ate" and the "labia candy."

This is actually meant to be two words: "Gimme breastises!"

This was the last thing we did before calling it a night. It sort of got assembled over the hour or two we were moving words around, and we decided we liked it. All in all, it made for an interesting evening. I've got to get more of those sets. I'm thinking adding the Shakespearean set, the Romance set, and the Book Lover's set should make for some interesting poetry.

There's always hope

2005-09-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Just look here and here and here and here.

Disasters like this bring out both the best and the worst in everyone. So for every looter, for ever sniper, for ever price gouger, there are undoubtedly hundreds or thousands of good people reaching out to do their best. Those are links to things countries and corporations have offered. To link all the amazing things individual people have offered would be staggering.

I think, regardless of the government's response to this (I will say only this in that regard: if it takes nearly a week for us to get organized enough to call out just the National Guard, then we are in some really deep shit), the strength of America lies in her people. And together, we'll manage to help everywhere ravaged by Katrina pull through.

That's interesting

2005-09-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

So, I got up this morning and went about the usual morning routine.

Except Keegan, who learned his lesson about going in the bathtub this winter, was perched on the edge of the tub. I thought it was odd, but not too strange, until something started moving frantically, and he fell off and went to hide.

Yes, I have a very fierce cat.

There's a little tiny brown field mouse in my bathtub.

I stuck a live trap in there for it, with a peanut butter cracker, closed the bathroom door tight, and left out a bowl of water for the cats--who usually exclusively drink from drippy faucets and the toilet.

I'll let you know what happens after I get home from work.

2005-08-31T18:54:00.001-07:00

I am utterly heartbroken.

I know how I feel is absolutely nothing. Nothing to the people actually suffering, the people who have lost everything, and perhaps everyone.

I heard talk today mentioning that they're discussing not even rebuilding New Orleans. Can you imagine, if you lived there? If your home and life and family and business were all there, and now there's talk of not even trying to help you put your life back together. Sorry, it's all over. Move on. There's just a lake here now.

The sorrow I feel for the lost city I love so much is tertiary to the reflected pain and horror for the people and lives and hope and happiness all blown and washed away. I keep thinking about those three days I had in New Orleans little more than a year ago, and of all the people I met who were so friendly to the naive Okie tourist so in love with their home. I think about the bartender in the little bar on St Peter and Burgundy that saved my ass when I was absently wandering my way past heat exhaustion and into heat stroke, and the hotel across Burgundy with the man who was so kind about humoring me when I didn't know a damned thing I was doing. I think about the woman who lead the tour through St Louis no 1, and the lady in the art gallery whose friend had a cousin in Oklahoma, and did I know her? I think about the sweet man who owned the mask store who told me about his time in the war and showed me his beautiful masks, and how his business partner crafted exquisite masks from leather. I think about the wonderful little bookstore I stumbled into, with the owner who was thrilled to know I wanted to open a bakery, who racked his brains for bakeries I could visit while I was in town. I even think about the man with the upside down pentagram tattooed between his eyebrows, who told me I was beautiful and that he hoped God would go with me. And I wonder if they're all physically safe, all the people I saw I knew or never even exchanged a word with, and all the others I could not and never would know.

I can't imagine what it's like to be somewhere else in the country, with friends and family anywhere who you just can't reach yet.

I wish I could open my home to people who need the space, and I wish I could be certain that my trust wouldn't be misplaced. I wish I could go there and somehow make a difference.

I don't have a lot of money. I have a little, and while I'm trying to save that in order to pay off my car early, that seems so...unimportant in the face of so many who have lost so much. I had nothing at all in the aftermath of September 11, and in the aftermath of the tsunami, and even in the aftermath of the flurry of hurricanes last year. But now...now I'll donate what I can, when I can find somewhere I trust. I'm not even looking for any sort of tax write-off for it. I can see how it's added motivation for some people, but I just want to find somewhere worthwhile that'll do the best with what I can offer.

update: I've been listening to the radio at work, which was obviously a bad idea since I keep crying at the news. And I've heard people saying they won't donate to any relief effort for this, because they've seen people looting. Because, apparently, no one has ever looted after any other disaster, and because some people are lower than scum, then clearly they should also punish the people who haven't done anything wrong.

I also heard someone complaining about not enough coverage being given to the stampede in Iraq. I'm sorry, but we sort of have some real problems right here at home that need our attention more. And yet I'm sure there'll be still be outreach to Iraq.

Finished!

2005-08-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a botanist. I actually took ten different science classes during my four years in high school (physical sciences, biology, physics, chemistry, sociology, intro to psychology, developmental psychology, meteorology, astronomy, and environmental sciences), and I took Latin since, you know, Latin and science still seem to be on pretty good terms.

During that time, I discovered and enjoyed forensic anthropology. I found it and loved it before it started getting really popular, even though it had caught on before I graduated. I applied to OU wanting to be a botany major, even though I liked my sociology and psychology a lot more than the environmental sciences class (which was admittedly partially because most of what we did was read Silent Spring and watch "environmentally themed" movies--ie Dante's Peak and Soylent Green). So when I was going to the student orientation and browsed over the list of available majors, I pounced on criminology.

I even got a chance to tour the crime labs here in the state. I was really ready to graduate and get to work.

Of course, my major is no longer a full major. It's a "track" in the sociology program. Great.

Beyond that, I like to think people aren't really the miserable wretches they keep proving themselves to be. Watching coverage of looting after a disaster, and the horrors that go along with war are bad enough. Making a habit and even career out of dealing with the worst excuses for humanity was bad for my soul. When I went to the crime lab, I saw boxes full of completed rape kits. Each box had something like twenty or fifty completed kits--that means a rape was reported, and an investigation was made. It was late November, and all the visible boxes were the ones just from the year to date. The ones from previous years were in storage. And there were just boxes upon boxes upon boxes lined and stacked and piled absolutely everywhere. It was staggering, and worse when I realized most rapes go unreported. And that was just for this state. We don't really have a very high population here.

So I've tried to open a bakery. I gave up on college for now (couldn't even get the degree I wanted and they kept raising tuition. That, along with a few other problems, combined into a big "fuck this") and devoted a year of my life and a lot of money into trying to open it. So now I'm a twenty-three year old college drop out who's already a failure at her major life ambition. Yup, I skipped all through youth and mid-life and straight into pathetic failure.

There are lots of other things I've considered doing for a living. I used to want to take to the ren faire circuit. I could be a musician (yeah, right), or I could just be a ren rat and watch people's booths for them, and hitch rides between festivals. I've toyed with thoughts of getting my real estate license, and with opening a store filled with nothing but products crafted by Okies. I've considered going back to school for an anthropology degree and trying to get a job at a museum, or being a teacher (elementary) or professor (college). I've thought about going back to sociology, and specializing in folklore and its impact on culture. And I've thought about being a full-time author.

I still toy with thoughts of being an author, but I've accepted the fact that I enjoy not having to force my creativity. That's one thing you hear over and over again: if you're going to publish for a living, then there's no sitting around waiting for the muse to strike. And I like putting things down when I run out of juice and ignoring them for months (or years). I like just not writing when the mood isn't really with me. I like sitting down to throw out my story in huge chunks, and I like finally wrapping it up to my satisfaction, rather than hurrying and just ending it out of necessity.

There are plenty of people out there who feel differently. Who either always have those ideas ready, or who enjoy prying it out of themselves. People who do great with quotas and deadlines. Different strokes.

This is my very round-about way of saying that I finally finished a story.

I think that story is going to eventually get me investigated or something, being as how it's a product of watching too much news and reading too many serial killer profiles and hitting some mental overflow level. I can't believe a story involving a hangman, vampires, necrophilia, and violent incest came out of me.

But it's out, and I'm running it through the initial edit to clean it up.

So, anyone out there want to try critiquing it?

Little research

2005-08-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

I've given that lump on my jaw some serious thought, and even some research.

After that research, I've decided I won't go to the doctor, despite El Capitan's touching concern. Why?

Well, between my age, gender, and smoking, drinking, and eating habits, my odds of having any sort of mouth cancer are extremely low. Like, astronomically low. And at closer examination of the lump, it's in the wrong place and has the wrong appearance to likely be a tumor or cancer. That makes the odds even lower. So it looks like I've got a really good chance of being perfectly fine.

And if I'm really, really, really unlucky, and I'm not fine, then there's a whole different set of odds. Most likely, if I have cancer, and it's in my mouth, then it got there after it metastasized from elsewhere. So I'm probably already screwed, and after looking at survival odds in that case, then there's not a whole lot doctors could do but try to drain my already empty pockets. And I'm not thinking most doctors will really be too keen on expensive, agressive treatments when I don't even have insurance they can try to drain. Yeah, I know. My opinion of doctors is actually hovering somewhere around the lawyers with TV commercials anymore.

So I can either keep an eye on it and try to do something to take care of it if it seems to be more important than it's acting now, or I can go to the doctor and spend money I don't have to either find out I'm fine and wasted that money, or to find out I'm totally screwed, and have no money to do anything about it.

So basically, there's a really excellent chance that I'm fine, and there's no reason to go to a doctor. Or there's a small chance that I'm not fine, and most of that small chance is that I'm too screwed for help anyway.

I know it probably sounds stupid. I'm not usually a gambling sort of girl, but right now I'm thinking I'll be better off taking my chances that I'm either all right, or just better off ignorant.

2005-08-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Katharine Hepburn

You scored 28% grit, 9% wit, 57% flair, and 19% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.

Hehehehe

2005-08-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

Check it out!

2005-08-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of a scare over the weekend.

I developed a canker sore on the left front side of my mouth. It was my own damned fault--I bit through the inside of my lip and didn't rinse with Listerine soon enough afterwards (side note: if you have problems with canker sores, using Listerine religiously has dropped my incidence of them from one or two almost constantly to one or two in a year. To heck with benefits for your teeth and gums, that alone is enough to win my loyalty. I've tried a lot of other mouthwashes, and haven't had the same results).

Anyway, while I was poking at it with my tongue (how can you resist? Why is it that you always get the urge to pick at things that hurt instead of leaving them the hell alone?), I found a swollen lump on my gums, towards the back. I did some interesting contortions to manage to see it in the mirror. That definitely didn't look normal. So when I saw her, I pointed it out to my mother. I think spouses take the place of parents in this respect once you're an adult--hey, honey, does this look normal? She looked worried and said it looked like an abscess.

My first thought: shit! I don't have insurance, how the hell am I supposed to be able to afford that?

So I spent a hysterical evening rinsing my mouth out with a rosemary and sage infusion and packing it with salt, which totally kicked the canker sore's ass, but had no real effect on the mysterious lump.

The first information I could find had dire mentions of root canals, and I flipped. There was so no way I could afford that nonsense. My dad assured me that he would help, and afterall, that's what savings are for. Dad to the rescue.

However, the more I read lists of symptoms (which are mostly identical), the more I thought this couldn't be what was wrong. I never had any pain from any of my teeth, which still didn't hurt if I prodded at them (unless I did it too hard, which is just stupid). My face didn't look swollen, the lump wasn't hot, I'd never experienced any heat or cold sensitivity, I didn't have a fever, and I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to be able to feel around at an abscess and not have it hurt.

I also found it's kind of hard to find decent pictures of them online. The few I found that looked at all like what I had in my mouth were accompanied by pictures of people with badly swollen faces and all kinds of other problems. I couldn't find any descriptions of what it's supposed to feel like if you feel at it, but I also think most people wouldn't let anyone poke that, since it's supposed to hurt like hell. But the lump I've got is hard in the middle, and the swelling has gone away, leaving just a small, hard lump.

I should probably go get it checked out, but since it doesn't seem to be life-threatening, it can wait. Besides, my recent experience with doctors has left me a little wary.

In August, I think, before my junior year of college, one of my cats attacked me. I'm not talking about a little scratch or an irritated nip. I mean a full-on, going-to-kill-you attack. Keegan was a little kitten at the time, and I was just stepping out of the bathtub and wrapping a towel around myself when he tripped me up. I almost stepped on his head, which would have been disastrous, but I managed to fall and instead step on his ear. He let out a scream, and I can't blame him.

He tore out of the bathroom and towards the bedroom, squalling all the way. I dropped the towel and ran after him, just positive I'd hurt him horribly. Eris, who normally would have rather pretended he didn't exist, had all her hair standing up, and glared when I ran past. I didn't pay any attention, and so wasn't expecting it when Eris hit my back in a whirl of claws. She got my back and all down my legs before I threw her off, and she ran under the bed, so I jumped on top of it. Keegan was hiding behind the bed, and when I bent over to check on him, he hissed at me. Like the hiss was a signal, Eris launched from under the bed and jumped up. Her claws caught in my shoulder and elbow, and she bit my arm just above my elbow. I let out a shriek and she ran away, and I just sat on the bed shaking and crying and bleeding.

I didn't realize at the time that she'd bitten me. I did know that my kitten wouldn't let me close enough to check on him, and my other one had definitely clawed the hell out of me.

Eris came into the bedroom a few minutes later, looking alarmed and mewling apologies. The moment she reared up on the bed to check on me, I belted her with a pillow, because I sure as hell wasn't going to let her anywhere near me again. Keegan turned out to be fine, and I tiptoed out and called my dad to tell him what had happened. I don't think he realized what had actually happened, because he laughed at me.

When I went to the bathroom to collect my towel and get something to put on all the assorted new slices and holes, I checked on my arm. In the mirror, the punctures looked more like a vampire bite, and I was already bruising up.

By the next day, the bruise was all swollen and hot to the touch, and hurt. My mom picked me up for the weekend, and when I showed her, she expressed concern. We treated it as best we could over the weekend, and on Monday, I started making calls, trying to find a doctor in Norman who was on my insurance and who I could get to.

I spent hours on the phone, and got absolutely nothing. I was told by one that they weren't accepting new patients. Another was so rude that I didn't care if they would let me in or not. I got in touch with the Norman Regional, and I was informed that they could squeeze me in for an appointment in late October. I pointed out that my arm would have rotted off by then, and was she sure there was nothing they could do? Well, she could work things around and get me in with a nurse, but not doctor, in two weeks. I pointed out that I had an infection, and I needed maybe ten minutes. Someone who could write prescriptions needed to walk in, look at it, say yes, that's an infection, and write me a prescription for some good antibiotics. So she told me I should go to the emergency room. I told her that the emergency room was for emergencies, and if she would just try to help me out, then I wouldn't need to waste anyone's time in the emergency room, where there were hopefully people with more urgent problems than me. She told me she couldn't help me and hung up.

So I did what any 20-year-old college student away from home would do. I called my mom. She got the numbers for the doctors from me, and called back fifteen minutes later to tell me my appointment was the next day at 10:30, and you're welcome. Mom to the rescue.

Since I had to go in, she added that I should ask him about what I could do about my ankles. I had hurt them both some time before, and instead of getting better, they'd been steadily getting so bad that I sometimes could barely walk. A friend was threatening to refer to me as Gimpie until I got to a doctor. She also said I should see if he would have my thyroid checked, since I needed to get that done, too.

I went in and saw him, and he told me that there was nothing wrong with my ankles. No, no, the pain and that snapping sound with every single step was perfectly normal. And I should stop wearing braces, because even though I could walk better for longer with them, I was really just weakening them. I could go to the lab and get blood drawn, but I'd want to wait about two weeks, until the infection had cleared up. Which really looked pretty good. Seemed like I'd gotten it beat, so I could just go home. No prescription, forty bucks please.

By the next morning, the infection had moved down into my elbow, and holy gods, that fucking hurt! I've had some pretty serious migraines, and the pain really doesn't compare. I called the doctor every fifteen minutes from the moment his clinic supposedly opened at 8 until I finally got ahold of them after 10:30. I told him what was wrong, and he promised to call in a prescription for me, where did I want him to send it? I told him, gave it about an hour, and walked the five blocks or so to the nearest Walgreen's.

Where they told me they hadn't gotten a prescription for me yet. But I could call them and check until they got it, to save me anymore unnecessary trips. It took him until five o'clock that evening to finally call my prescription in, during which time I hurt so badly I couldn't hardly do anything.

But the antibiotics were good, although they came with five pages of possible side-effects listed out, and they totally kicked the infection's ass. All was well, and in about two weeks I headed over to the lab to get the bloodwork done.

When I got there and handed the note from the doctor over, the technicians actually laughed, which is always alarming. He had only written "Check thyroid" on the sheet, and they assured me that they weren't laughing at me. They just needed to know what tests he wanted them to run.

I waited a week and called him to ask if he'd gotten the results. He said that he had about three days before, so he guessed we could make an appointment. I got charged another forty bucks to go in for five minutes and get told, "Yup, you have a slight imbalance. I'll write a prescription."

That was it. No explanation of what that means, nothing about how I needed to make a follow up appointment, nothing about what to expect from starting on the stuff, nothing.

I tried to make an appointment, but getting ahold of anyone there was almost impossible. I ran out of the pills, and never managed to make a follow-up. I just gave up, and never went to see him again.

My insurance policy was changed a few months later, and so I found a different doctor and went to see her about the thyroid thing, and mentioned the ankles. She also told me there was nothing wrong, without even looking to see if I had feet. She also sent me to the lab, although she did specify what tests she wanted. She gave me a follow-up appointment, and when I went back in, she said, "Yup, you've got an imbalance. Go back to the lab in three months and we'll see if it still isn't normal, and then we'll talk about what we can do about it."

Right about then, my insurance informed me that I hadn't been insured previously, and that was a previously existing condition, so they wouldn't pay for anything. I pointed out that I'd been insured by THEM, but they would have nothing to do with it. I ended up having to pay over $250 for the information that maybe she'd eventually get around to treating me.

I didn't go back, and I haven't actually been to a doctor since then. And I got old enough that I couldn't stay on a family member's policy, and I haven't had the money to get one of my own. That's a choice I made personally--it just doesn't seem worth the money. And I figure I'll be able to get the help I need if something does come up by pointing out that I'm paying real money, and what an insurance company wants doesn't matter, since one isn't involved.

I have no real desire to see socialized medicine get implimented here, even though I'm one of the helpless uninsured. Afterall, if there's that much of a nightmare with doctors to be had in our current state, how much worse would it get with socialized medicine?

I shudder to think.

2005-08-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

I heard something on the radio today, and I couldn't decide if I wanted to reach through and slap the speaker or just laugh. He called in to a political talk show, and said, "I'm an independent, so I never voted before."

Um...being an independent means you don't vote? Since when? Do other independents know about this?

If so, I hope none of them have anything to say about politics. Because, afterall, if you didn't vote, you have no right to complain.

Over and done

2005-08-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

As of Monday, it has been a month since my lunchtime date, and Thursday or Friday will make it a month since I last heard from her.

I really thought it went well, but since she disappeared, I'm assuming I'm mistaken.

Last week, my phone rang just as I was getting out of work, and I actually pathetically hoped it was her.

The thing is, I have no particular desire to see her again. Nope, randomly disappearing for a month without a single email or call or any other hint as to why clearly says that I'm pretty meaningless. Even if it something terrible happened, I'm not too inclined to want to pick up where we left off. I'm not saying if something unthinkable happened, I still think I should have gotten lots of attention. A one line email, or a thirty second voicemail, would have been plenty. Really, l'm pretty patient and tolerant. I don't even need a reason. "Life's crazy, so sorry, I'll get in touch when I can." That would have been plenty, and I'd be happy to work out what to do if we did get in touch later.

However, a month of just nothing tells me either that she thinks this is a nice way to brush me off, or that I don't mean enough to even remember.

Why I was really hoping that phone call was from her was because I would really like a reason. "I just forgot, you're not that memorable" would kind of sting, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. I don't especially want to hear, "It's not you, it's me," either. Friends haven't been any help since, to listen to them, I'm a fantastic catch anyone would be lucky to have. Of course, saying things like that is sort of a friend duty. But since roughly the same thing has happened with everyone I've had any sort of relationship/proto-relationship/whatever, I'm pretty sure I can't just blame everything on the other person. Something has got to be coming from me, and I wish I could get a clue as to exactly what seems to so quickly drive people away.

Maybe it's just that I'm a little too quirky for most people to handle on a more intimate level than "friend."

Or maybe a friend of mine was right in what she said about two years ago, and the people I've met pick it up where I don't feel it. Maybe I'm just not "dateable."

Regardless, I went through my phone and deleted numbers, cleaned out my address book, and made sure my assorted profiles have either been deleted or at least hidden. And really, I feel better. I have more important things to do with my life than date. I need to save up to pay off my car so I can live on my own again, and I need to spend more time making friends. So, disappointing though this outcome may be, perhaps it's for the best.

Before I head off to work...

2005-08-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

I had a dream this morning that I woke up, brushed my teeth, and went to pick out clothes for the day.

Then my alarm went off.

It's really no fair when you have to drag your ass outta bed twice in one morning.

2005-08-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

Check out waht I did today. Look like a normal loaf of bread, right?

But inside you have...layers of pesto, mozzerella, sun-dried tomato turkey, black olives and sun-dried tomatoes, and asiago.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

2005-08-19T05:19:00.001-07:00

Oh. My. Gods. I canNOT believe I did that.

I bought roses over the weekend. They're lovely, dark red roses with paler red stripes. They don't have a lot of scent, though, which is a real pity. My only water-tight vase currently has bamboo growing in it, so I found a glass that was the right size and put them in that, then put them on the shelf above my desk.

Last night, I was playing with one of the cats with a kitty fishing pole--you know, one of those plastic rods with a feather on a string on the end. He caught hold of it and wouldn't let go, and I was tugging, and he suddenly gave up and the feathers shot up and landed behind me. I didn't even think. I just jerked the pole to fling the feathers, and suddenly there was a crash and I was soaked.

I turned around just in time to see my monitor wink out as water poured into it, and splashed down to fill my keyboard.

D'oh.

So I turned the monitor off, then had a somewhat more brilliant idea and turned off the powerstrip, since some moron somewhere along the line decided computers don't actually need 'off' switches.

My roommate's computer died a while back. There's a long, involved story about why it can't be fixed, and she refuses to just delete and reinstall, so it's currently taking up space. So she let me cannibalize it for the monitor and keyboard, and all is well for now.

Obviously, I need to test out the monitor once it's had a little time to see if it still works, and if not, I'll have to buy my own monitor before I move out.

But that was on the same level of brilliance as when I dropped the cinderblock on my foot on Sunday night.

2005-08-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

I know you can go out and buy salsa verde very cheaply and easily (well, you can here, and I haven't made any extensive explorations of grocery stores outside of Oklahoma), but trust me: this is stupidly simple, and so very good.

And infinitely better than anything that ever came out of a can.

So, try this.

Assuming, of course, that you have a food processor or a blender, anyway. Otherwise, everything I said about it being easy is completely null and void.

Go out and get:

1 pound of tomatillos
1 fresh habenero pepper
1 small white onion
1 garlic clove
1/2 cup of fresh cilantro
1 lime
1 teaspoon salt

Husk and cut the stem end off of all the tomatillos.

Slice and remove the membrane and seeds from the habenero (most people wear gloves for this step).

Peel the onion, and if necessary, cut in halves, quarters, or whatever will fit best into your blender or food processor.

Peel the clove of garlic.

Juice the lime, and set aside 1 1/2 tablespoons of it.

Got it all?

Dump it all together into the blender or food processor, and puree until smooth-ish. If it doesn't all fit at once, then throw in the tomatillos and cilantro first. Then everything else should fit with relative ease.

Pour it into a bowl and let it sit, covered, for one hour, and then enjoy, either poured over anything you'd use salsa on, or with tortilla chips.

You can, of course, adjust the proportions, and add more salt or use a different kind of pepper if you're not really into heat. This salsa actually comes out very cool tasting and refreshing, and I adore the green taste from the tomatillos and cilantro. I'd hesitate to add more garlic, personally, but that's because I like the flavor without letting it overwhelm everything else.

And I used one huge clove.

This isn't exactly a recipe for one, but I still eat all of it anyway over the course of about a week or so. I'm going to eventually get around to cutting it down, and using it for things other than dip (I'm having happy thoughts about chicken enchiladas).

All Worked Up

2005-08-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

On my eighteenth birthday, my mother took me out to do two things. I registered to vote, and I got a living will.

Cheerful birthday.

I turned eighteen in 2000, and in plenty of time to register and vote in the presidential election. I've done my best to keep up with all elections, state questions, and other votes that have come up since then, and everytime I move, I make sure to change my registration as soon as possible--usually at the same time I update my driver's license now that I have one (I registered to vote almost four years before getting my driver's license). I voted for right to work, and against the state question banning cock fighting (not because I oppose cock fighting, but because the question was extremely poorly worded, making any farmer who happens to have more than one rooster in violation of the law, which is dumb-assed), among other things. I kept forgetting to get one of those 'I Voted!' stickers each time, because I want to get a collection of them to cover my computer with.

I'm always happy to discuss politics, or in the case of issues where I'm not entirely clear, sit back and listen to other people until I've got enough fact to form an opinion. I'll calmly debate hot-button issues like abortion, capital punishment, gay marriage, euthanasia, and even religion without a problem. I'll discuss birth control and animal fighting and vivisection without getting too heating.

But if there's one thing that hits my worst temper buttons every single time, it's arbitrarily demanding rights be removed from someone. Any rights. And just because you don't happen to like how they use their rights doesn't count unless that use is someone infringing upon your rights.

I remember reading somewhere that the most important part of the freedom is protecting the rights of those which whom you do not agree.

I'm completely sick of coming across posts in the blogosphere suggesting that women either shouldn't have ever gotten the right to vote, or that the 19th amendment should be repealed or was a mistake, most particularly from people who otherwise complain about the government stepping on their own rights. It's barely worth discussion with the (lots of assorted explenitives and assorted names deleted before deciding upon--) people who bring it up, and if it's one of the posts I find on a first visit to a blog, I usually don't return. I'd like to some of the posts, but I honestly don't want anyone to get the (one or two) hits from me. I haven't heard a single worthwhile arguement for why women should be given fewer rights than men. Afterall, if women vote with their pussies, men are just as guilty of voting with their dicks. I have just as much of a problem with people who vote by their religion, or blindly by their party without deeper thought.

And there are plenty of both who actually manage to vote with their heads instead. You can't draw lines so simply as by gender, race, religion, orientation or any other superficial attribute.

Now, while I hate it when someone says something about removing rights from anyone, I am willing to defend their right to say it. I just have the right to not have to listen to it, and to disagree.

But the moment someone goes beyond talking and to action is where my acceptance ends.

2005-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

I went back to Herland on Saturday for the game night, and brought a plate of my raspberry brownies for the potluck. Chocolate always seems like a good bet for potlucks, and I haven't struck out yet with those brownies.

I learned how to play Scrabble (knew the basic principle, hadn't ever actually played before), and then went with a few folks, and they taught me how to play pool. I sucked royally, but no one seemed to mind, and there weren't any desperate attempts to avoid being my partner, which was nice.

I also found out that they play soft core on big screens in the club. No one seemed to really be watching or interested, but it surprised the hell out of me when I looked up and saw it behind all the dancers.

2005-08-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

Pesto Pizza

Adventurous and hedonistic.
You live for new experiences and tastes
And you're not the type to have your pizza the same way twice
If they can put it on pizza, you're up for trying it!

What's Your Pizza Personality?

New Doors

2005-08-12T05:24:00.000-07:00

They're putting in a new door for one of the offices in the building where I work. It's in one of the suites rented by some other company, and I don't know what it's going to be for. But they took down a picture, drew an outline, and cut the actual hole, but haven't installed the frame or door yet.

I was walking down the hall towards the opening the other day, and couldn't help but smile. The lights inside had been turned off, so I couldn't see the ladders, paint, plastic sheeting, fan, or any of the other nonsense piled up in there. Just a big black opening in a wall that had been solid just a few days before.

I remembered all my childhood fantasies about finding and opening special doors to somewhere else. Had it stayed so dark as to mask everything in the room still when I'd gotten up close to it, I might have had to step through, just in case.

Update.

2005-08-12T05:23:00.001-07:00

I sent that email I was contemplating. I wasn't as careful with my wording as I'd normally be, but it has been almost three weeks since I last heard from her. And I want someone to actually tell me they hate me instead of just trying to fade off into nothingness. And I'm tired of taking hints, being disappointing, and wondering what would have happened if I just said something.

Well, I said something this time. Here's hoping.

The real thing.

2005-08-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

There are friends I have who I would do anything for. My best friend went through a rough time recently, and I actually called my bank to see if I maybe had enough money to manage to either drive up to see her, or hop a flight, depending on which would be more affordable. I could have only really managed to drive up, see her for a few hours, and drive back, but I was ready to do it.

Except that, after paying the car insurance that was due about a week later, I had less than a hundred dollars.

I still almost made some calls to see if I could pull it off anyway, and had the situation been more extreme than it was, I would have.

I have a friend here in town who I would drop almost anything for if she needed me.

The thing is, I know both of them would do the same for me. There's no describing what a real friend is worth. Someone who knows you and understands you and loves you anyway. Someone who actually thinks you're important, someone to whom you are worth something.

Whenever aquantances remind me of why they aren't real friends, no matter how much I whine or complain here, I still think of those two, and I smile. I don't know what I'd do without them, and I hope I manage to be worthy of their friendship.

Sigh

2005-08-12T05:22:00.001-07:00

So a friend of mine drove in from out of state on Monday. Told me she was coming on Friday, and got my contact information. We planned to meet up and go to the zoo before she has to leave on Saturday, and I asked her to give me a call when she got into town.

So, Wednesday night well after I went to bed, she called to ask if I would take Thursday off to hang out with her.

Um...too late. I need a little more notice than that to get off of work.

She called again, after I was at work, and swore and said she'd been lookign forward to seeing me, which I'm not entirely sure I believe. She wanted me to go along with her and a few people we knew while we were all in college together to Thunderbird for a bonfire.

Sounds great, but I have to work on Friday, too, and I have no real desire to see the people who are going to be there. Last time I spoke to one of them, it was because she had blown me off on a meeting after I'd driven from out of town to see her, and another spent the whole time we were "friends" manipulating and hurting me like it was funny. I don't really have a problem with the other guy, honestly, and I've missed her. I was really looking forward to getting together with her.

But I know how the lakeside visits always go, and I know that if I go, there'll be no easy getting a ride back home. I'm pretty sure they prefer me to be awake at work, not reeking of smoke and sleeping under my desk. And I can't foresee any real enjoyment if I go out there.

She and I had planned to actually meet up and go to the zoo and do some catching up. I guess I'm just not important enough, though. And I'm trying to get rid of that DOORMAT tattoo, which means I need to stop doing things that add an extra layer of ink, like blowing off work the second she called just because she forgot about me until the last minute.

Funny thing, there was actually a Miss Manners or Dear Abby question regarding something a lot like this just a few weeks ago. The answer was to regretfully decline the last second calls, since you do have a life and plans that can't just be tossed aside at whim, but to let the offending party know that if they get in contact with you sooner next time, maybe you can make plans.

The advice wasn't given directly to me, but I'm going to take it anyway. Everyone deserves better, but no one will get it if they don't stop letting other people walk all over them.

Home Safe

2005-08-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

The shuttle is back safe and sound.

While I'm sure my joy can't hold a candle to that of...oh, the astronauts and their families, I still celebrated their safe return.

I Did It!

2005-08-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

*Hold for applause*

*Cough, shuffle feet, wait*

*Start anyway*

I'm so proud.

On Saturday, I actually got myself together and visited Herland.

It was even the perfect day, since they were having a work day, and asked if you had a few hours to come over and help them with some cleaning/painting/other work. What better time to introduce yourself than by volunteering to help out?

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought so, but there were lamentably few people who actually turned up to help. This seems to be a problem everywhere, no matter what you want people to do. When I was trying to help get the Celtic Society going at OU, we decided to put together a cookbook separated into recipes from the seven Celtic nations. Well, originially we were going to just have a bake sale, but that turned out to involve a buttload of red tape, and we didn't have the time or finances to handle it. So I asked people to find Celtic recipes and send them to me, and I'd work on verification, tinkering, alterations, testing, formatting...you know, most of the actual work. So long as people contributed.

It reached the point where I was sending emails to the official society emailing list filled with links to pages full of recipes. I said just look through the pages and send me links to individual recipes for things they thought sounded good. They didn't even have to copy and paste. I'd verify whether or not they were legitmately Celtic in origin, and use the recipes they found as springboards for developing stuff for our cookbook. I'd found publishers, and I'd worked out out how much it would cost. I promised I would format the cookbook, proofread it, everything. Just send me the freakin' recipes.

Nothing.

Not a one.

So I saw the work day notice, and I thought it was the perfect time to go. I was optimistically thinking they would have a better turnout, but came to learn all the people who were there were me, another new lady, a couple of regulars, and board members.

Well, that is better than the Celtic Society. Our benevolent dictator wouldn't even send me any links. Neither did the secretary, treasurer, or official revolting peasant.

But I digress.

I started out cleaning the garage alone, but the new lady joined me, and we got it pretty well spiffed up. Then I moved inside and couldn't find anything to do, so I assisted the ladies who were mudding the ceilings and walls in the kitchen, and eventually moved outside again to help a lady on the porch sorting books.

Now that rocked.

Seriously, they considered it a major favor to them to sort books?

I took notes of a few I either must buy or at least read.

And I had fun talking to the lady who was pretty much in charge of the sorting process, or listening to her muttering about what to do and where to put what. And afterwards, we went inside, ate homemade ice cream that was discovered in the freezer, and chatted with a couple of other ladies, and I was invited to go back for the game night next Saturday.

I think I'll try to go.

Invasion

2005-08-09T20:34:00.000-07:00

This post, well, the beginning of it anyway, reminded me of my second apartment.

That charming apartment was the place where I discovered that if you crush several hundred little black sugar ants at once, their gore smells like nail polish remover. And that taste doesn't come off your fingers for days, no matter how much or how dedicatedly you scrub them, with any combination of safe or not so safe for skin chemicals.

That was also the apartment where I ran out of patience and stopped carrying spiders outside to live free. Fuck that. I had a serious daddy-longlegs infestation. I mean, no matter where I sat in my apartment, I could probably look around and see no less than three of the little bastards. Occasionally, they lurked in the corners, but most of the time, they were so certain of their safety that they just set up camp wherever they felt like it.

And, of course, if I put them outside, they could just walk right back in through one of the numerous visible cracks or holes in the walls. And not a single one of them, no matter the breed (and besides the overwhelming daddy longlegs, I commonly found wolf spiders, little hairy grass spiders, brown recluses, and any of a number of other, smaller varieties), ate those fucking ants.

Mostly, it reminded me of one spider in particular.

The apartment was set up pretty interestingly. To get to the bathroom, you had to first pass through this little room with a closet-like thing, and the linen cabinet. I called it my dressing room. It had the only two doors in the whole apartment that didn't lead outside. One was on the closet, and one was the actual door that lead from the livingroom into the dressing room. The closet door had a fancy plant hook on it for some reason. I guess someone who lived there before me thought it was prettier than a more utilitarian robe hook.

So one day, I was throwing on my clothes and getting ready to bolt to class. I was already running late for no good reason, and I glanced up and there was one of those damned daddy longlegs spiders on the door, right below the hook. So I grabbed my shoe and slapped him once, then dropped the shoe, put it on, and ran out the door.

When I got home, I discovered he hadn't just fallen off to the floor like usual, where either I could sweep him up and throw him away, or one of the cats could get a quick snack. Nope, he was plastered flat to the door, perfectly below the hook, with all his legs sticking out. It was too perfect, so I left him as a warning to the other little bastards.

He was actually still there when I moved out, legs still curling away from the door.

Things written on Post-It Notes on my desk right now

2005-08-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

*Work related stuff that makes no sense if you don't work here*

*The new door code*

One with the new code to get through the door written on it.

The girl with the broken smile

Dancing with the devil's beautiful daughter

The raindrops were so heavy that they threatened to wash away her dreams.

You give up a few things chasin' a dream

I don't need to walk on water when I know I can run on wine.

Time sweeps the dust of Hope from her hands

The Wheel of Random Retribution

I have a few decisions to make.

2005-08-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm debating how to word an email.

Among other things, I'm a little afraid that I'm just going to stick my foot in my mouth.

Y'see, I met someone (online, of course. Where else would I meet someone?), and we decided to get together on my birthday, since I was playing hooky, and she got off work early that day. We were originally going to go to the zoo together, but she remembered within minutes of making the arrangement that she was supposed to meet with some out of town friends that night. No problem. She told me ahead of time, so I just went to the zoo that morning, and met her that afternoon for a few hours.

I thought it went great. No one did any long-winded whining or complaining about exes or other ways they'd been wronged (gotta save something for the second date, right?), there weren't in-depth life stories, no one had to hold up or took over the entire conversation. We had a lot in common, and I thought she enjoyed the afternoon. We discussed what we'd have to arrange in the future, and promised to call or email.

I sent her an email, and we exchanged a couple.

Then, last week, she just disappeared.

I waited, and sent her a very neutral email checking to see how she's been doing.

That was three days ago, and there's still been no answer, and I'm debating whether I should say anything else, or just take the hint.

The problem is, I don't know how much I'm painting this with past experience. So far, everyone I've met has either disappeared before our meeting in person, after a few calls, or has disappeared immediately after the first meeting, or has straight-out ditched me on the first meeting. It might sound strange, but I kind of want a long, angry or rambling message telling me why. I don't even care if it's really personal and nasty towards me. I'd just like to know what's going wrong, even if the answer is, "You're fat, you have no fashion sense, you talk like a freak, your writing is too formal, and you're boring and have no personality."

I know I keep saying I'm going to give up. But I have this nagging little point of hope. It's the same thing that keeps me thinking the best of humanity, despite rather constant evidence to the contrary.

But you know what? I think I'm really going to take down my remaining profiles, even the ones only looking for friends. In the case of two of them, they cost too much, and no one's going to fork out that much money to answer profiles. At least not for long, considering the sort of response rate you seem to get. I don't think I've ever heard anything from those anyway, so they're just taking up space somewhere.

One of them is actually free for women to use (awfully nice for lesbians, at least), and is where I've met the most people, but considering what's come out of it...I think I'm glad I never paid for the service.

So I think I'll delete all of them. I'll try visiting Herland (I tried last week, really, but I called ahead of time to find out exactly where they're located, and found out they weren't open), and maybe going to some of the social events they have, and I'll try getting out to more local pagan gatherings. I might not meet anyone or make any friends, but the results will be no worse than the internet method has been, and I'll actually be out of the house.

That's one decision down. Now I have to decide if I need to send one more email or make one more call, and if I do, whether or not I'm going to ask directly if she's decided it won't work.

(Update: I only actually managed to delete one of them. The other two were only allowed to be hidden, so I figure if I just don't go back for...probably a year or so, they'll get purged from the databases.)

Just thinking.

2005-08-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned here before that I was once stalked.

At the time, I laughed when I used the word and figured there wasn't an actual problem.

As I've mentioned before, sometimes I can be really dense.

I don't know why Dawn latched onto me. Honestly, I'm a little mystified as to why anyone would have a crush on me. Maybe I should take them a little more seriously than the friends who've told me I'm not dateable, and not really that human, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe it was mostly just that I didn't hold her poor reputation against her, and didn't hold her at arm's length.

At any rate, she's always been pretty co-dependent, and though we never dated, she started always being close. It started out easily enough, since our whole group always gathered together in the same spot every morning. We'd stand around and talk until it was time to get the class, then whoever had the same lunch would gather together and we'd either go to that same spot, or take over a corner of the courtyard. We had four class days, and she started walking me to my first class every day, even though her first class was in a different building. When we got to lunch, she wouldn't just sit with everyone, she's sit next to me, and then she'd lie down with her head in my lap, and hold me down if I tried to move. She would walk me to my third class, and meet me as soon as I got out of that one to walk me to my fourth class. She would then meet me as soon as school let out to say goodbye. When I got home, she would IM me as soon as I signed online. If I didn't sign on, she would call to chat. And if someone else was online, thus tying up the phone line, she would walk over.

Somehow, I was ok with all of that. But it got to where, at assemblies, she would sit in the bleachers in front of me and lean against me to keep me in place, and when I tried to get any distance, she started holding me down. Quite literally on three occasions in one day, at which point I realized it was time to do something.

Not the easiest thing, but the best solution I had at the time was to just cut her out of my life. She was friends with everyone else I knew, and there was no real way to completely avoid her. So I just ignored her.

She did show up on my doorstep once, and when I didn't let her in, just sat there for two hours until my mother got home and let her in. She then sat in one chair and glared at me for three hours, and finally decided to leave. I think everyone thought it was really easy for me, knowing how badly I was deliberately hurting a friend, and might be where some people I know got the idea that I'm cold.

She did finally give up, and I shortly thereafter graduated. We didn't talk at all for more than two years when a mutual friend of ours got a job in Reno and was having a farewell party. We met for the first time in years, and I took her outside just to talk. I wanted to let her know that I was sorry for what had happened, and I hoped she understood. She told me she did, and actually gave me all the reasons I'd had before I told her them, and told me it was one of the better things that had happened to her in the long run.

Please remember we were both under twenty at the time, and it was possible for something to have a "long run" in only two years.

We hugged and agreed we could be friends again, and the air was clear, and went to head back inside. I stopped to give her a hug, and went to kiss her cheek, and she went to do the same thing at the same time, and we sort of met in the middle.

When that was over--which was actually pretty awkward, since we were both standing there thinking, "All right. Any second now, someone's going to step outside to smoke and walk right in on us"--we kind of looked at each other for a minute, then decided we still needed to talk, but not outside where we could be interupted.

So we went back in and borrowed my friend's bedroom so we could talk. And nothing more interesting happened than talking. We went over what had happened, and what we'd gone through in the past. We discussed the fact that we lived in two different cities, about 45 minutes apart, and neither of us had a car at the time. But we decided it would be worth a go.

Investigation of city bus schedules revealed it was possible to take buses from one university to the other, so one of us could hop a bus and the other could meet her, and we could trade weekends to visit each other. And we both had phones. It was a local call. No problems, right?

We didn't see each other again. We talked on the phone a few times, worked out the bus thing and costs, and emailed a few times. Then one day she told me she'd decided to pursue a relationship with an ex-boyfriend of hers, and wasn't I happy for her?

I told her that was fine, but I wanted nothing to do with her anymore, thanks all the same.

That relationship lasted a few months, I think, largely because he was in the Navy and only saw her two or three times before he ended it "for good." The next time I saw her, she wasn't particularly subtle about hints that she wanted to get back together, and likewise the time I saw her after that. But that last time, she also slept with a guy she met that night, on my couch, after I'd gone to bed.

It's undoubtedly a good thing we never actually got involved, but I look at that occasionally and think, "She dumped me. How pathetic does that make me?"

I've also whined that if I couldn't even get a date with my former stalker, then why am I surprised I can't meet anyone now?

That was my second and last kiss, and was more than two years ago. I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

Ok, there goes nothing...

2005-08-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

I know I've been seriously slack about posting anything lately. Mostly, I've been writing things, and then discarding them.

Usually, it's because I'm just not happy with whatever I wrote. Or because the ideas just didn't line out on paper the way I wanted. In those cases, the ideas aren't discarded, just the posts. Or because I realize I'm whining about things I just shouldn't be putting that much energy into, or should just be getting over or admitting I'm not actually the aggrieved party.

But more and more often, I find myself hovering over 'delete' because I just don't want the information contained in the opinion/anecdote/essay/etc where people I know can get to it.

That sounds kind of funny, not wanting the people I know to hear or have access to thoughts of mine, when I don't mind perfect strangers who stumble across this site looking for long-nailed dominatrixes, how to euthanize horses, spinabiphida (actually spelled spina bifida, if you're one of those people), or porn stars with the same name as me. But perfect strangers can read it, take what they like out of it, and the worst thing they can do is send me nasty email or troll my comments. Which, incidently, no one's ever done. Not even talking about abortion, capital punishment, gay marriage, euthanasia, or sacrifice has really elicited a response. However, people I know personally can see things involving other people I know, and they can either know or assume I'm talking about someone specific, and they can send links or the text of that post to the involved parties.

I wouldn't normally be so paranoid, but someone I had always expressly trusted took a venting email I sent to her, and forwarded it to everyone I was venting about. Then was curious as to why I would be upset.

The end result was that one person never read it. I told her what had happened before she got the message, and she just deleted it. I told her everything that was in it, anyway. Another read it, but felt bad. She understood what 'venting' and 'ranting' mean, and got what was directly related to her, and shrugged it off. We're still friends, anyway. The last took every single word personally, and what I had thought was a pretty good friendship sort of imploded from there.

This isn't to say I wouldn't have told all of them exactly what I was thinking. But you rant and rage and get all the venom out of your system, and then you calmly approach whoever you're having issues with to discuss things rationally. Unless, of course, you have no real relationship with the people in question, and don't care about sending them off from there. And my saying that I had a problem (with plans being made and consistanty called off or forgotten about) might have ended up ending the friendship anyway. The problem was that my choice on how to say what I wanted to say and when was robbed from me, and someone I trusted took personal things and aired them out to other people.

This person apparently has issues with letting me have any privacy. I started out with my first blog on livejournal, and asked her to not seek it out. She tracked that one down and read it, so I moved. And she found that one. So I went off to blogspot, and once again, she visits here. According to sitemeter, at roughly the same time everyday.

She says it isn't her, but I'll just give a tip to anyone secretly reading the private thoughts of someone they know: it totally gives away your game to get upset over/bring up things mentioned on the blog that haven't been mentioned in person.

So more and more often, I find myself hesitating to say or share something, because I don't know if she would hesitate now to send links, copy and paste, or just repeat over the phone or in person, should she decide she needs to intervene. And I shouldn't have to do that. I shouldn't have to skip around from site to site, and I shouldn't have to worry about her showing up.

And you know what? The real friendships have survived her anyway.

Oh. My. GOD!

2005-08-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

It's raining.

In Oklahoma.

In August.

If you know anything at all about Oklahoma's weather patterns (so to speak), then you'll understand why this is freaking my shit out.

Dreams

2005-07-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

When I was very small, my dearest ambition was to go to Mars. I believe this was before I actually knew people had been in space, and before I knew men had been to the moon.

My real goal was to dig for dinosaur bones. I didn't care so much about them on Earth, but damnit, I wanted to dig for them on Mars. I wanted to be an "astropaleontologist," a term I coined at five, I think.

My first grade teacher was completely clueless when it comes to encouraging children. She couldn't even nod with that glazed smile most people reserve for children who want to be firemen, astronauts, and ballerinas. No, her route was shrieking hysterics about how I would die if I tried to go to space--didn't I know all about Challenger? I got some pretty in-depth lessons on the dangers of shuttles, and she put the fear of space travel into me.

I've always hated her for it, and hated myself for being so easily convinced to give up my dream.

The problem is, I never completely gave it up. I still look up and think that's where I want to be. I have plans somewhere--pages and pages--of details that would need to be worked out for a self-sustaining space colony in a hostile environment. When I was in high school, there was actually a competition revolving around designing a colony for Mars, and we weren't allowed to work solo. I got stuck with a group of people who thought the idea of going to space was ridiculous, and who thought I was a geeky moron who should have my mouth taped shut. Needless to say, our presentation sucked, we didn't come close to winning, and people who were luckier in their classes (other teachers did permit students to either work solo or select their own partners) won the trip to Goddard.

And for just one flight I would take the Goddard Passage
To ride of flames of freedom past the moon and on toward Mars
Leaving far behind terrors past, both dark and savage
And take the Goddard Passage to the stars.

Yes, I watched the launch, while playing Fire in the Sky for my office (found here, since I didn't have the foresight to bring my copy of To Touch the Stars with me). Working for a defensive contractor does have its advantages, among others the fact that we have people working for NASA, and not anyone in the room who wasn't excited at another successful launch, even if for different reasons.

And yes, no matter the risk, I think it's worth it. What's far more important--the people who have earned the priveledge of going know the risks far better than we, and still think it's worth it.

For the gods do not give lightly of the gifts that they have made
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid
Though a nation watched her falling, the world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory riding fire in the sky!

Now the rest is up to us and there's a future to be won
We must turn our faces outward, we will do what must be done
For no cradle lasts forever, every bird must learn to fly
And we're going to the stars--see our fire in the sky!
Yes we're going to the stars--see our fire in the sky!
I'll remember 'til I die, a fire in the sky!

Whine and ye shall recieve

2005-07-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

So I bitched about people at work completely forgetting my birthday, but kept it pretty much to myself, and on this blog.

Then, one of the ladies in my office felt badly that I'd been forgotten, so her husband made a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies, and she gave them to me. I shared them, and it's 10:35 and they're almost all gone.

I guess sometimes, a little well-justified pouting can go a long way.

I take that back. Someone walked up and ate the last cookie while my back was turned. That's just rude.

Ok, I don't really take it back. One rude person doesn't spoil everything, and I had cookies. I wrote her a nice thank you note.

2005-07-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to meee!

These were all my combined birthday/early housewarming present from my dad, since he knows what's really important in life. Besides, I have a tendency to end up in really scary neighborhoods, and the .22 he gave my on my 21st birthday, while lots of fun in the range, isn't so hot for self defense. The instructions are all in Spanish, but I think I'll manage to deal.

Now that I'm done whining...

2005-07-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I should say that I had a lovely birthday, despite being utterly forgotten in my office.

My dad took me out for the traditional birthday dinner on Thursday, to a place called Gaucho's Grill. The big dinner they do involves different people coming by your table with an assortment of meats on swords. After you're given rice, black beans, mashed potatoes, collard greens, two sauces, and grilled bananas. Oh, and there's pineapple on a sword, too. It was very cool, even if I realized mid-bite that the bananas looked uncomfortably like slugs.

Since I was completely forgotten, I had absolutley no guilt or qualms about calling in sick on Friday. I slept in a little, went to the zoo and fed the sea lions and lorikeets, ate a huge ice cream cone, and bought stuffed bats (two of 'em at once!).

I spent a long time watching the sea lions. I saw the early Fins and Feathers show, then bought three trays of fish to feed them, and hung around watching everyone else feeding them. A guy who worked at the zoo saw me in the show, then saw me feeding them, then saw me there half an hour later. He walked over and asked, "Let me guess...you like sea lions?" I gave the affirmative, we chatted, and he said I really should volunteer for the Haunt the Zoo. I can either show up to help carve pumpkins, or dress in a costume, hand out candy, and talk about animals for anywhere between one and seven nights. Or all of it.

I say the idea kicks ass. It's better than sitting around being depressed due to a lack of plans. I'm going to look up the paperwork and requirements and see about having something cool to do on my favorite holiday.

Then I went and met someone as soon as she got off of work, and we had our first date, and she got me lunch for my birthday. We went to Chik-Fil-A (I'm nothing if not a cheap date) and had a fantastic time. And have since spoken to each other, which puts it amazingly ahead of all but one other burgeoning relationship in my life.

I also got an e-coupon from Borders that was good only for the weekend of my birthday. I took it as a sign, printed it off, and visited Borders. Where I found a vampire encyclopedia I've wanted for the past oh...nine, ten years...on their clearance for 8 dollars. With the 30% off. Very cool. Went by Barnes and Noble the other day, and they still have it at full price, so I'm very pleased.

All in all, not a bad day.

Gotta get it off my chest

2005-07-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

I am invisible.

Or I don't matter.

Even when I try not to be. Even when I try to call attention to myself.

So, a few weeks ago, my boss took all of us out to lunch. And birthdays came up. R mentioned that his was going to be on the 19. M's was the 18th. C's was the 21st. I laughed and said that was amazing, since mine was the 22nd. So we all discussed having four birthdays in the office in one week--we were only missing someone for Tuesday.

On Monday, they bought a cake for M. On Wednesday, I was told I should bring something to eat on Thursday, to celebrate the three birthdays of the week. I blinked and brought something, and then C asked if mine was going to be the next day. I said yes, and people looked at me like I was insane and wanted to know why I hadn't told anyone.

I managed to avoid applying my forehead to my desk or keyboard, and just smiled and shrugged.

Then, today, someone else baked separate cakes for everyone had had birthdays in the month of July. Seven people. Not me.

I'm not saying necessarily that I wanted a cake (odds are, I'd be allergic to it anyway, so really, it would have been worse if she'd gone through the effort), or a card, but, y'know...not getting completely forgotten would have been nice.

And it's not like it was a deliberate snub. Those say you still, on some level, matter.

By and large, my friends didn't remember, either. I should be used to it.

But now, it seems, would be a good time to start taking bets on how long it'll take anyone in the office to notice when my last day has come and gone. I might be the fat chick who sits in the middle of the floor in the front of the office, but no one notices.

I'm going for a minimum of a week before anyone wonders why I won't have been showing up anymore.

All right, I'm done. Sometimes, you just have to whine.

2005-07-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

While I was waiting in line to get Bruce Campbell's signature, I didn't know my phone had fallen out of my purse in my car the day before. So all during the day at work, all during that evening, I didn't know I'd gotten several urgent calls. I stopped answering my cell phone at work and in public places from certain people because they had a bad habit of calling to chat...even though they knew I was a) at work, and/or b) couldn't use up my daytime minutes on inane shit that could wait until after 7.

On top of that, for some reason, my voicemail wasn't getting saved, so I didn't even know I had messages.

As soon as I got home, my mother was waiting for me, and she looked very unhappy with my arriving at around 8, instead of the usual 5:30 or so.

It turns out that the one time I lost my phone and didn't check my messages, people had a legitimate reason to call me at work.

My great-aunt passed away on early Friday morning, and I was completely out of touch.

Yeah, I feel like a winner.

I am also never again going to think, "All right, someone had better have died," when my phone rings while I'm at work, or busy doing something.

I did get in touch with my grandmother, whose sister was the one who had passed away, to make sure she was doing all right. She seemed to be handling it pretty well. Better than my grandfather, oddly enough. At least it wasn't a big surprise--she'd suffered several strokes and declining health over the past few years. She was still able to live more or less on her own, in an assisted living center, and passed away while she was still herself, without lingering painfully or slowly fading away.

There are worse ways to go.

Signings

2005-07-15T17:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I went to get Bruce Campbell's signature (or at least, his excuse for a scrawl) on my copy of his new book.

I'm not going to make any attempt to claim I actually know the guy, since between the two times I've met him, there's been probably a collective 45 seconds I've actually spoken directly to him. But I have to say, he seems like a very nice guy. Since I'm enough of a geek to regularly attend cons (or at least, I used to, when I had some vague form of money), and both of my parents did the same, I've gotten to know some authors well enough to be on a first name basis. A few of them saw me grow up, and are happy to lord it over me now. So I've gotten to hear about the cramps, blisters, and other pains of long signings. It's been my experience that most authors and actors (at least, of the sci-fi/fantasy variety) are pretty happy to have fans, friendly with them even when it's kinda painful, and are happy to give out signatures, even after the cramps have set in. There are always exceptions, of course. People who don't seem to realize that, creepy and annoying as fans can get, they won't be making their living, thin though it may be, without those fans. There are authors who won't sign anything, ever, and others who treat their fans appallingly.

Then there are the folks who just sort of deal with fans. They'll show up for their scheduled signings, but they'll charge for every autograph (above and beyond the purchase of a picture/book/poster/DVD/video/etc), and they'll leave the second their time is up, regardless of how many people are now standing in line.

For his first book signing (for If Chins Could Kill, where I first met him), Mr. Campbell actually stayed until everyone who had come got a signature. Since I was in one of the last three or four groups of people, I was very grateful for that. And even by the time the end was getting closer, he still made a point to let every individual sit down and have a word or two while he signed. He didn't start rushing people through. Of course, that might have been self-preservation moreso than rushing--there's more time to rest the hand between signatures then. When I saw him on Friday, even though line tickets had been handed out for a week or so before the signing, he still promised to stay until everyone who showed up got a signature. Like I said, very cool of him.

There were some people, the first time around, who were disappointed because he was only signing copies of his book. Since it was a book tour, and the stop was in a bookstore, I didn't personally see anything even remotely unfair about the rule. This time around, he would sign one item, so long as you had a book. So you could bring a poster/DVD/t-shirt/etc, and you could either get your book or your memoribilia (or copy of his other book) signed. I also thought that was pretty fair. I don't know if other people felt that way, but I really hope they did, as he could have just come in, signed nothing but the book, refused to personalize signatures, and left as soon as his time slot was up. And he made an effort to be friendly to everyone who got a signature, which I think is above and beyond the call of duty. Especially after three hours or more of writing your name over and over and over, ad nauseum.

If, by some small miracle, I ever manage to get published, and then there's ever anyone who actually enjoyed it enough to want my signature, I know I'd be thrilled to give it. I wonder sometimes if all or most authors and actors start out the same, and some just get angry and bitter along the way. Or if they assume, by the time they have fans, that they've paid their dues.

Thinkin' about it

2005-07-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

When I was out at the Pride Festival, I found out there's a place in town called Herland. They said they're a "Sister Resource Center," which is always something that makes me wary. But I did some looking, and very easily found their web site, here.

I absolutely have to call and find out exactly where they are (if you've ever been through the Strip in OKC, then you understand why I want directions instead of just an address, and MapQuest was no help whatsoever. I think they're actually located in someone's house, which makes finding them even more interesting than usual), if for no other reason than because they're part bookstore.

I only recently discovered that there's more to lesbian fiction than the erotica. With the exception of one book I bought by accident (long story, and yes, I was disappointed when I found out it was porn instead of what I had expected), I don't really have a whole lot of interest in anything of the sort. I would like to be a lot more excited about lesbian fiction than I am, but I recently heard or read something that said, "Someday, anthropologists are going to look back on the writings of the 21st century, and think all lesbians were private detectives." I had a look, and true to what they said, if it isn't a touching coming of age/out of the closet story, then it's a murder mystery, with only a few exceptions. I read Tipping the Velvet, which was fabulous, and I must read everything else by the same author. There's a humor novel called Venous Hum, which ought to be worth it if for nothing other than the cannibalistic, undead vegetarian. And I'm rather hoping Herland will have a better selection than Barnes and Noble or Borders--both of which have infinitely better selections than my favorite local stores. Normally, I'd just special order it through the favorite local place, Full Circle, but I save special orders for books I actually know for sure that I want.

So there's one reason to check them out. Next comes the list of social activities. They have movie nights and a dinner club that might be interesting, as well as concerts and other reasons to get out of the house and pretend I have a social life. I've said before that I'm clueless about how to meet people and make friends outside of the school environment. I'm not going to get too excited, especially given my history with women's organizations, but I can at least check it out. You never know, right?

I'll probably post about it if I ever develop guts enough to actually go. Or even call for directions, for that matter.

Asking for Dane Geld

2005-07-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"

--Rudyard Kipling

England has, in the past, made their opinion clear about such demands and threats. If they've weathered the IRA without caving for so long, then hopefully they retain the fortitude to say the same to another group of terrorists, who aren't so close to home.

Considering

2005-07-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

So, I mentioned my plan, and Carole very kindly pointed me towards Find Your Spot. I took the quiz, to see what they had to say.

The site gives you twenty four of your "ideal" cities. The first time I took it, I ended up grudgingly throwing out the results, because I knew I was trying to sway the test.

So I waited a little while, and took it again, this time just answering honestly, and these are my 24 cities, in order:

Little Rock, AK
Baton Rouge, LA
New Orleans, LA
Las Vegas, NV
Honolulu, HI
Sacramento, CA
Natchitoches, LA
Alexandria, LA
Portland, OR
Hartford, CN
Blatimore, MD
San Bernadino, CA
Shreveport-Gassier City, LA
Monroe, LA
Washington, DC
Providence, RI
El Cajon, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Lafayette, LA
San Diego, CA
Orange County, CA
Fayetteville, AK
New Haven, CN
Charleston, WV

So that makes 7 out of the 24 in Louisianna, and six in California. That makes a little more than half of my spots between two states.

I really don't think I'd be too happy in California, or anywhere too far north (snow and cold, are you kidding me? I don't like how cold it gets in Oklahoma). Besides, I've now actually been north of the Mason-Dixon line. Oklahoma may not be the South (or anything else, for that matter. I swear if you ask people who are solidly inside any region of the US, none of them will include Oklahoma when asked what states are in their region), but it sure as hell isn't Northern, either.

So, just because I know me, I know I wouldn't be happy too far north, and I know I wouldn't be happy in Las Vegas or Honolulu (I do have a budget, y'know). That leaves me with eleven choices:

Little Rock, AK
Baton Rouge, LA
New Orleans, LA
Natchitoches, LA
Alexandria, LA
Shreveport-Gassier City, LA
Monroe, LA
Washington, DC
Lafayette, LA
Fayetteville, AK
Charleston, WV

I don't think I'd be too thrilled in DC, either. But now, Louisiana takes up more than half of my list, and that was without my trying to influence the test. Actually, when I was trying to influence the test, I got several suggestions for Texas, and Oklahoma City was actually on the list. And there were only two suggestions from Louisiana: Baton Rouge and New Orleans. So I might as well start checking them out. Incidently, while I was trying to sway the test, my top three answers were exactly the same as this time around.

I also actually looked at my payment book for my car. Turns out I was given a three year instead of a five year loan. Making it five years would have dropped my payments (though, considering interest, maybe not by much), but I can handle these payments. And it means I'll be finished paying two years sooner than I had thought. So this moving thing could be a serious consideration two years sooner than I expected.

Much thanks to Carole for the pointer towards this site. There's a lot to consider I might never have even thought of before I picked up and left.

Just Thinkin'

2005-07-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

I'm just curious: do all sex offenders target children?

No? Really? You mean there are rapists who actually attack adult women and men, who wouldn't ever touch children?

No way.

From the way people talk about sex offenders, you would think the only people who ever get convicted are the ones who have targeted children. So what's the point of telling a guy who attacked elderly women exclusively that he can't live within a certain distance of schools and parks. Does that somehow make anyone any safer than they would be otherwise? Because that's not limiting his distance from his target group in the least.

What about some guy who targeted college girls?

How about guys who exclusively haunt gay bars, and attack men there?

Or what about some guy who got busted for doing or getting done by his dog/goat/horse/whatever?

What about women? There are female sex offenders, aren't there?

Well, there are women who do horrible sexual things to men or women, but not necessarily children.

Or is it just that if you aren't a child, then it doesn't matter if you're a victim? Considering the way a friend of mind was treated after she was raped while she was in high school, I can't say that question actually has an obvious answer.

I'm not defending anyone who has ever sexually attacked anyone else. I'm just saying that treating people under one blanket isn't really going to help much. Although, admittedly, it'll be harder to keep track of who's not allowed within two miles of schools or playgrounds, who's not allowed within two miles of livestock, who isn't allowed to own dogs, who isn't allowed within two miles of retirement homes/communities, who isn't allowed within two miles of gay bars, and who isn't allowed within two miles of colleges and universities, etc.

And then, when you get down to it, sex offenders who are out of jail (or were never in jail) do sort of need to live somewhere. What step are we taking next, putting them all in colonies, sort of like sending criminals to the Americas or Australia? What would it take to get shipped off? One strike? Two? Three? What about people who are falsely accused, see they can't get out, and take a risk with a plea bargain, and so now have a record? And if that really is the next step, is it one we actually want to risk taking?

I'm not sure there's an answer. But the questions do need consideration. Because blanket policies will never actually accomplish what you want, no matter what you're talking about.

Happy Independence Day

2005-07-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

Every Independence Day celebration should hand out copies of the Declaration and the Constitution.

Just a thought.

Pride

2005-07-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

The last weekend was Gay Pride Weekend, or whatever you're supposed to call it. I think this year, around here, it was supposed to be something ridiculous like the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Trangendered Pride and Unity Weekend. And whoever came up with that needs to be shot.

I didn't go to the parade, although clouds were looming, and I giggled about it raining on the parade. It didn't--I just couldn't find a parking space after I left the zoo, and I ended up realizing I'd be cranky and angry if I did manage to find somewhere and hike in. So I went home, to spare myself and everyone else.

There was a festival over the weekend, and I did go on Saturday. I spent a while talking to the libertarians, who gave me a paper copy of the world's shortest politcal quiz and a copy of the Declaration and the Constitution and its amendments. I almost declined, but the copy I already had doesn't have the Declaration (although I do have a replica of it), and is harder to read. I didn't realize there was an active libertarian party around here. They sure as hell never have any canidates on the ballots.

I intended to go alone. I'm not sure what I expected, except maybe to talk to a few people. You never know when you'll run into someone who could be a friend, and honestly, ever since I left the 'forced into the same building every day for years' environment of high school, I've been pretty clueless about how to make friends.

Of course, that wasn't to happen. My mother decided to accompany me. I feel bad for complaining, since I don't doubt there were plenty of people who would love to have a mother so accepting of them that she'd even go to Gay Pride with them. I guess it's just that there's rarely anything I can do, especially if Itzl can go with her, that doesn't involve my mother going with. She throws fits and pouts at me and tells me she knows she's a horrible mother when I want to do something on my own--including grocery shopping. Is there a distinguishable difference, when you're an adult, between being a mama's girl, and just not being able to get away?

I did meet a business lawyer out at the festival who was horrified by the behavior of the jackass I hired to help me incorporate. Since I'm going to dissolve the corporation, and re-incorporate later, when I'm actually ready to open, I'll talk to her. And she can help with the lease, when I finally get property to rent for it, too.

If I'm still in Oklahoma.

I didn't really have any intention of meeting anyone to possibly date while I was out there. I feel like something more of a catch than I was a year ago--I have a job, a working car, something of a plan for my life...but I still don't have my own place, and I just don't feel like I need the bother in my life. And as long as a relationship sounds like a bother, I'm pretty sure I don't need to be in one.

The point turned out to be moot. I look older than I really am--I've been able to pass for late twenties since I was about fourteen--and my mother looks younger. I ended up carrying her dog, and she held the leash, and apparently our outfits matched (I didn't notice...I was wearing a denim skirt and a black shirt, and she was wearing a blue dress with a denim shirt. I didn't know your outfits are coordinated if you both happen to wear one of the most common materials in American casual dress), so people thought we were a couple, and she had me on a leash. So, with the exception of a guy running one of the booths, people wandering around gave us the same sort of space they gave other couples wandering around.

I did find out that there's an Oklahoma lesbian organization of some sort, along with the libertarian party, and there's a lesbian book store. I need to go by the bookstore and see if they carry either of the other two books by the author of Tipping the Velvet. I just finished it, and I liked it so much that I'd love to read the other two, one of which is apparently a gothic novel.

It's nice to see books that aren't lesbian dectives, pulp fiction, or touching modern high school coming of age stories, which are most of what Barnes and Noble and Borders carry around here.

Very Nice

2005-07-02T19:56:00.000-07:00

I never did find anyone to go to the zoo with me.

I didn't go on Memorial Day for two reasons. The first, and perhaps most important, was that there was no way in hell the place wasn't going to be crowded beyond belief. The second was that, especially after being told none-too-gently that my company wasn't desired, I knew I'd just pout all day and not enjoy it.

But they had koalas, on loan from the San Diego Zoo, I believe. And the last weekend was the last one they'd be around, and I wanted to go see them.

Besides, I knew there was a relatively new Lorikeet exhibit I'd never seen, and I hadn't been in almost two years.

So, on Sunday, I went by myself. My dad would have gone with--he hasn't been to the zoo in far longer than me--but he had to work, and my mom wouldn't dream of leaving her puppy alone that long. Not with his separation anxiety.

I'm very glad I went alone.

I know there are people who woud be utterly miserable going anywhere like that by themselves. Sometimes, you just need someone to share the moment with. But I liked being able to ramble around wherever I wanted, and I liked going to the Fins and Feathers show, and standing to watch the sea lions for nearly an hour afterwards without having to worry about anyone with me getting bored. Likewise, I found a nice bench in an aviary and just sat there for 45 minutes. After about twenty minutes, when no one was around, some of the birds would walk right up to my feet, or fly by so close they'd brush my hair.

Since the last time I went to the zoo, they've started selling fish, so you can feed the sea lions. I blew part of my lunch money on it, and even got a second tray, so I could feed them again.

I'm not sure I can explain my fascination with sea lions. I know precioius little about them, and honestly, they aren't particularly photogenic. But I love watching them swim, and being able to throw food to them when they poked a head out of the water to gaze hopefully up at me with big brown eyes made me smile.

I used to have a story about a little girl who was found on the beach and raised by a childless couple after a search for family yielded nothing.

She never felt quite in place, until her school made a trip to the zoo, and she saw the sea lions. So while no one was really looking, she jumped over the rail to them. A search all over the zoo never found her, but there was mysteriously an extra sea lion in the enclosure. It came when I'd been reading too many stories about selkies, and went to the zoo, and wanted, like always, to jump into the water with them.

It never really came together. Sometimes, the words just won't line themselves up, and the results are never satisfying enough to leave on paper.

I think sea lions are my favorite animals, next to bats. But, like bats, I don't especially feel the need to collect pictures and drawing and shirts and stuffed animals and figures and other things of them. Although I do collect stuffed toy bats, I'm pretty picky about the ones I like. Most of the Halloween bats out there are repulsive.

The zoo, sadly, no longer has its flying foxes. I guess I'll have to go to the Tulsa Zoo, and into the rain forest exhibit, in order to see bats. I don't know of anywhere close with flying foxes. I guess I'll have to look into it now.

The lorikeets were really enjoyable, too. You can buy nectar for them--though I had spent all my money on the sea lions, and will have to save that for next time--and when you walk into the exhibit, they land all over you, and drink the nectar.

I enjoyed myself emensely.

So now I'm looking into buying a zoo pass. I drive by the zoo on the way home from work everyday, and I found out that you can't get in after 6, but you're welcome to stay until sunset. And with how much it costs to get in now, it'll be paid for after five visits. If I bring a guest once or twice, then it's paid for in just three or so visits.

And I had forgotten how much I love it there. I'd like to drop in after work, and just wander around to see the animals in the evenings.

And I actually decided to do it. My pass should arrive in about two weeks.