Give Me the Backseat

Life is such a drag sometimes. Sometimes you get to the point where you aren't sure if everything you are going through is worth getting out of bed in the morning to go through. Why can't we just sit in our rooms forever? Time wouldn't pass and nothing would ever change. There wouldn't be anyone yelling at you. No one would die. You wouldn't have to age. There would be no reason to cry. I want to get in the car and just keep going for all eternity. The wind across my face and the radio playing. It's the greatest moment and it just doesn't seem to ever last long enough. It's the perfect time to think. It's calming. I can't figure out the source of its therapeutic properties. I only know they are there. I'm tired of getting up, tired of getting to my feet after being knocked down and then pounded into the ground. I just want to ride in the backseat for the next eighty or so years.

So, you've probably noticed that

I am quite obsessed with Greek Mythology. So, dork that I am and nerd in love with Greek mythology that I most certainly am, I have the Disney movie Hercules. I decided to watch it this morning at like eight a.m. because I didn't sleep a wink, literally, last night so why bother "sleeping in", right? Obviously when you watch Disney films as a kid, you really don't notice the adult humor they throw in, the accuracy of mythological or literary references, etc. Now, I do, because I am indeed the Queen of Dorkdom College Student that watches Disney movies. It was partially accurate. The Odysseus, Achilles, Jasonesque rant was right. Hercules' heritage? Not so much. The movie has him as Zeus and Hera's son and his mortalness due to Hades. Hercules, originally a Heracles was the son of Alcmene, someone else's wife, of course. Hera tried to kill Hercules, actually. Disney fails to point out Zeus's constant infidelity but has no problem showing Aphrodite, Hephaestus's wife, coming onto Phil. Lovely, Disney. For the record, Hades was not such a insane evil villain. In fact, he was no worse than any other God in the pantheon. He just never got along with his brother Zeus. Not to mention, as a God he can't be ugly. The only unattractive God was Hephaestus, son of Hera. (Are you noticing that they are all related?) The falling in love with Megara part is accurate. The mythical Hercules did do that. But, eventually Hera tricked Hercules into a terrible rage and he killed Megara and all of their children. With the help of Hermes and Athena, he eventually became a God, having been promised immortality by Apollo, and even though Hera made him miserable the entire time. Hades had nothing to do with Hercules being a mortal dude. And the taking over the world and Olympus thing? Didn't happen. Then Herc married Deianira, who accidentally poisoned her husband with what she thought was love potion. Unable to stand the pain, hunky guy throws himself into a fire pit to burn alive. Luckily, Zeus asked Hera to give up her grudge because he thought his son has suffered enough. She agreed and ol' Hercules joined the Gods. Though, I'm doubting Hera was happy about it. Disney didn't tell it quite like that. And they made Hera a very sweet little dainty woman, which she certainly was not. A perfect match for Zeus because of her strength, stubbornness and temper, the character was a little...off. Lol. Aphrodite was done quite well. The Titans were not. They were not so creatureesque. They were like the Gods, powerful and humanoid. Not to mention, not all of them were imprisoned. Plenty served Zeus. Despite inaccuracy, I love the movie. It is witty, amusing and the Greek Mythology, though somewhat...skewed...is still a major plus for me. Gotta love the Hydra who thinks he can eat Herc. And of course the awesome Hades super pissedoffness at Hercules's continueing defeat of his monsters. Not to mention, that Hades's servants are consuming Herc's merchandise. The temper is great. The references are fun. "Pandora had the box. The Trojans got on the wrong horse." Its great.

Yes, this was kinda like a review. I'm sorry. I didn't sleep last night. I have no idea what could have come over me.

Haunting the Haunter

So, the first question is, do you believe in ghosts? If not, you may find this following post to be a little weird. Now, I'm not going to say that there is or that there isn't. I am merely going to present evidence, a list of strange occurrences at my home over the last month or so. You've probably seen a ghost-related show or two. Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, Haunted America, Most Haunted, etc. Now, when you watch these shows, some of them bother to stop and try to explain some of what happens. In Ghost Hunters, this is called debunking. Most other shows aren't quite as happy to show the viewer that half of their experiences can be debunked. Which makes Ghost Hunters more credible than other shows. Now, the things I am going to list, some I can explain and others I cannot. It all started about a month ago when I first began digging toward the back of my property. This may have absolutely nothing to do with the occurrences, but is nonetheless the first event that comes to mind. Around this time, my dad and I started joking about having a poltergeist. We've been saying that on and off for years as every six to eight months we have a month or so long period of strange luck around the house. Things go missing. Things reappear in strange places. Things fall over or slam shut in the night. Things open by themselves. Just little things you don't think about much. Other times, there are nights (don't laugh) usually falling close to the end of the waxing moon in which we have been known to see large shadows, dark forms moving about, hear unnerving sounds, etc. Recently, I have been the only one home most days which makes some of the things that happen creepier. Before, we could individually blame someone else living in the house as the culprit. As it stands, I cannot very well blame my dog for moving things around on me. One, she is a small dog and no matter how good a jumper she may be, chances are she is not going to find her way onto counters and tables to pick up things she could care less about and place them in various spots around the house. Two, in recent years she has become more of a napping dog and she rarely leaves my side. The other dog in the house is also unlikely to commit such deeds as he never leaves my dog's side. And, he happens to be half the size of my little Shiloe. Some of the things that have most recently made me jump out of my skin include a shovel that I keep in the backyard appearing on my bedroom floor, a sleeping bag rolling itself up without the help of human hands, a flash of white that seems to like 1:00 a.m., and all the flashlights in the house, which had new batteries in them since we had had a birthday campout at my house the week before, having died sometime within the same day. On the flashlights thing, you could easily say that they died because we had used them at my campout. We used only two of them (there are six in total) and only when we left the tent since we had a large tv that provided plenty of light for seeing. You could also say that I have no idea when they died. We each keep separate flashlights in our room, in case we need them. I had checked them all the day before because my sister hadn't wanted me to take down the tent, so I left everything in there so she could go inside the tent to watch tv. She didn't use the flashlights, btw, since she only went in during the day. So, I know they died sometime in between five that evening and seven the following evening. I wanted to use a flashlight the next day because the lights starting flickering and then went out for about an hour. Things that people see can rarely be proven since it is unlikely that you will be carrying a video camera that is on around with you when something occurs. So, I see little reason to list the many things I have seen, except maybe a couple favorites. The first favorite being that I glanced toward my desk, on which were my workgloves, and wasn't really paying attention. It looked like my gloves stood up, took a long step, and fell over. I turned, confused by the movement. They had been on top of a box and were now on the surface of the desk. The second thing was when I was taking the dogs out, at maybe around midnight one evening, I saw what looked like a large dark mass in the shape of an animal crawling slowly on top the stone wall toward my backyard. The dogs started barking, so I shooed them inside and then came back out with a flashlight. (this was not one of the house flashlights in case you were wondering, its the one for the backroom when we take the dogs out at night) The mass was still there but it had stopped moving. I shined the flashlight at the wall and there was nothing there. I considered what could have made what looked like a moving shadow. I really didn't expect to see any shadows since it was extremely dark and there is absolutely nothing on the other side of that wall. No trees, no buildings. Nothing. Not even grass. The only light came from my house, and it was a dull glow just around the sidewalk in the backyard. The wall is out of range of the light. The only light was the moonlight, which was very pale and it was somewhat cloudy that night. I really had no idea what I saw. But it had to be something or the dogs wouldn't have started barking in that direction. As of now, I have only "debunked" one of my houses occurrences. Every door in the house opens and closes on its own. I can explain the bathroom and office doors. When you close one, the other opens. Likewise, if you open one, the other closes. This happens because they are on opposite sides of the same room from each other. My door can sometimes be explained by the open window. However, it does the same thing when no windows are open and we have no vents, so that one I haven't quite figured out yet.
I have been told and have seen myself what appears to be an older man walking about the property and sometimes into the house. He seems to be a kindly old fellow. The only older man that I can remember from the realtor's storytelling was the one that was killed here when he owned my house. I doubt it would be the same guy as the one she mentioned was murdered and put in a truck in the attic, above my closet to be more precise. (There is, oddly enough, a crack in the roof of my closet as if something heavy were sitting atop it. It has been growing steadily worse over the years, which is especially strange since according to my parents, the one time they dared go up there, there was absolutely nothing up there. I wont go up there and my mother refused to ever do so again. She never told me why.) Personally, I'm hoping that the roof never falls through and reveals something was indeed sitting over my closet.
Well, that'll have to bring my weird rantcapade to a close. Gotta go do dishes.

Blogtastic

On a third but of equal entertainment level, which I assume is mild at best, I have come to the realization that there is indeed truth to some of the points of the single dad cliche. Now, don't get me wrong, I totally love living with one parent. When we had both my parents, it was always miserable around here. Since mom left, the miserable percentage of 99.999999999% has reduced to around 49.999999999%. I quite enjoy the new number. One thing I am not so fond of is that dads, with the exclusion of fathers in the food industry, don't always know what to do in a food crisis. For example, last night all the power to Galt went out. (Galt is the tiny little hicktown we know and love...well, I love it) There was no food in the house and dad needed to pick up dinner. My poor dad can never remember my sister and my likes or dislikes, or even what we are allergic to. Sometimes, the exact date of my birthday slips his mind. (He remembers Kallie's because its a week before his) So, he finds a store that the manager let him in, even though it was closed. He buys a bag of bbq chips and three large microwave burritos. Now, I despise burritos, with a passion. Kallie never eats just one. And dad was out of soda. Dinner ended up consisting of burritos, chips, waffles and milk. Now, I care for neither burritos or waffles (at least not at night). It was close to 9 o'clock at this point. I didn't get dinner. Though I grabbed some crackers around midnight, after dad had gone to sleep. I couldn't grab anything earlier, as I would have had to admit that I was still hungry because I hate burritos and gave mine to my sister. Considering his foul mood, I didn't consider that option. The point of this rather lengthy rant is that I really feel like a college student. Sit in my pajamas, playing on my laptop and eating strange conjunctions of food all inbetween classes, which I take only two days a week. Now if I just had a car to complain about my inability to afford gas for.

Failure to Launch

So, I was planning on finally taking my permit test this morning. I got up early, after staying up until one in the morning studying, only for my dad to realize suddenly that I couldn't even take it because my mother had absconded with my birth certificate when she left. Not to mention, my SS card. And my library card, but that is somewhat less important. So, I'm at home, twittering and blogging because I have nothing better to do. On a secondary note, I only added Twitter today for the sole purpose of locating my friend Sharkey who is basically unreachable. ALL THE TIME. And I figured I might as well finally give in and add that damn thing, giving one more site possibility of catching her online. Yes, the anti-sheep has gone sheep.

I swear On The Grave That Will One Day Be Mine

Cupcake is indeed afraid of the dark

It's Tool Time

So, a couple days ago, my beloved friend Morgan decided it would be fun to climb out my window. The window sill snapped off, clean through. Left the nails behind. The wood is the same wood that has been there since my house's construction began in 1938. It was bound to happen. So, I hide it from dad and then today I went out to fix it. As I was nailing the board back in place as temporary, since what it needs is a new board, the screen moved forward and screws rather than nails. Dad drives up early behind me when I'm like half way done. First he laughs at me because I'm a girl with a hammer and whether I can use it or not, I probably look like a girl when I'm fixing things. He laughs and goes, "You been sneaking out at night?" I smile and say no. He basically called how it happened, just not who did it. So I told him Morgan was trying to open the window and it snapped off and she felt totally bad which is why I fixed it without telling him. He kinda just smiled at me and took my hammer to put in the last nail. For the record, guys, some girls can fix things.

Physics Be Damned

Ooh, I could kick myself. How pathetic is it when you're going back through your own blog entries out of boredom? I have other stuff to do. I just don't want to. *kicks*

Because I Threatened This

Cupcake is afraid of the dark

So I Can Howl at the Moon

I swear this new sleep schedule is going to kill me. It was "bad" enough after I graduated because then I was able to fall into a more comfortable sleeping pattern for me. I like being up at night and sleeping during the day. I was like that as a kid too and thats why mom always used to call me her Vampire child. So when I didn't have anywhere I absolutely had to go anymore, I went to bed around three or four am and got up around one or two in the afternoon. Now, I have a to-do list that's keeping this fat ass up too many hours. Bedtime is five to seven am and out-of bed time is anywhere between eight and twelve. It's a cruel sleep schedule. And then there are those nights where I get to the point that I've stayed up too late to get up early and can't go to bed without missing my early wake-up. I think the circles under my eyes are permanent. Oh well, it's not like I have beauty pageants to win. I don't think the handful of people I see are going to care. Especially since on a normal day I see my sister who likes walking around in single-article outfits and Dad who probably thinks after all this time that I just naturally have dark circles under my eyes. They match my dark soul, I imagine. I like looking creepy, so looking dead should help my cause. I'm kind of rambing right now but I'm also half dead so for all I know, I'm typing this and the keyboard is three feet away. Let's pretend I didn't stop to check.

Dictionary 2

the Russians: the imaginary assassins we blame the bumps in the night near Mark's house on (AMANDA and MARK)

pinwheel: a very odd term for virginity (AMANDA)

fangirl squee: high-pitched squeal emitted over books, movies, shows, mangas, and other various fandom related activities (AMANDA and KATE)

(ws) WIP: work in progress

Crazula: this is a fandom nickname for Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender, originated around Season Three when she started going a bit wonky

The Dictionary to End All Dictionaries

Not quite as boring as it sounds. I promise. A year and half or so back, a couple of my friends and I came up with the idea of making a little dictionary for some of the strange things our close friends say and write. More than once I've been told by an "outsider" how weird it is stumbling upon one of our conversations because they have almost no idea what we are talking about a good portion of the time. And God help the adults that come across us. You take our own personal little language and sprinkle it with modern slang and its bound to sound alien. So, I've been working on a more complete form the last couple of months. So, I thought I would treat my...like three?...readers to a few of my favorites.

KEY:

(ph)-phrase
(MH)-a Michael word (Big Mike has a little tendency to spell like a three year old. No, I take
that back. That's insulting to three year olds) It's ok, Michael, we love you anyway.
Except Mark.
(LC)-something that exists or is used in the Lady Camille Series, my funny short stories series
(HP)-Harry Potter Related
(SK)-relating or pertaining to the wonderful Dark-Hunter world as written by the Author
Goddess, Sherrilyn Kenyon
(SW)- Star Wars related
(IY)-InuYasha related
(WS)-Writer Stuff
(AW)- Aspen Wylde, a novel written by the Warren Sisters

(explanatory character) word-definition (possibly the creator or primary user(s) of this term)

Prandea: Mark's imaginary empire, which he would like to think governed us over the course of roughly a year and a half. It died several times. I killed it twice. Good times. (MARK)

Qua?: meaning "What the fuck?" (SAM)

The Brainwave: this is the mythical magical connection between members of "The Group". It originated from the fact that on more than one occasion, various members would speak the same thought at once. Or begin finishing eachother's sentences. Or even filling in what the other wanted to say without asking for prior confirmation that they were correct and being correct. (AMANDA and KATE)

The Group: Our name for our group of friends. Clever, right? It consists of the Originals and the Adopted, as well as those that simply refused to go away until they had eventually grown on us. Much like a fungus. (AMANDA and KATE)

ish: meaning "Well, a little", "kinda", or "not really but somewhat" (AMANDA)

(ph) "It's so Harry Potter Brokeback Mountain": meaning "It's so fantastically gay" (DIPPY)

(mh) goob: "good" (MICHAEL)

Scale of One to Edward Cullen: Twilight-based rating system *gag* (MORGAN and KATE)

browsing silence: this is a special type of silence that Morgan can identify over that phone which includes the person on the other end browsing through a book or manga (MORGAN)

(sk) Simi: actually means "baby" in Charonte but though her name is really Xiamara, she believes her name to be Simi. She is the Charonte companion and adopted daughter of Acheron (SHERRILYN KENYON)

(lc) Baba-Mobile: a shower-curtained bathtub driven by the retired Death Goddess Baba Yaga in the land of Galtonia (AMANDA)

(aw) Poofy Room: the term Artemis, Aspen's feline familiar, uses in place of the term WTGS shuttle as written in the world of Aspen Wylde, a novel written by the Warren Sisters) (AMANDA)

(ws) Fanon: fan-created fact that is not supported by the official/original source. Ex: that Qui Gon's master was Yoda

(hp) Voldemort: Voldy was the big baddie of Harry's world (J.K. Rowling)

badassical: the one-night stand resulted in this bastard love-child between Radical and Badass

confuckulated: TOTALLY screwed up

Solstitute: a whore at a Solstice Festival (SAM)

Pansyitis: if you don't get what that "illness" consists of, get out. Get out now. (AMANDA)


To Be Continued...

Haunting with the dead

Now, before you call me creepy or send me an angry message about how it's sick and wrong to go to a cemetary for "the fun of it", read my explanation. Cemetaries are home to beautiful, though admittedly morbid, artwork. There are clear cultural ties and ancient styles. I'm not haunting with the dead by dressing up as a vampire and skulking through the headstones hoping to scare the visitors. And for the record, I have never stepped on someones grave. We walk carefully around every single one. No rudeness, no vandalism. Just admiration at the artwork. And respect for the dead.

Sometimes we see a first or last name that we rather like when we are touring the cemetaries. I don't see it as disrespectful to borrow a name here or there to use in our writing. Why can't it be a small gesture to honor their memory? Cemetaries are such a great Taboo in our culture. Not all that long ago, the trip before my last, someone asked me rather angrily why I would be taking a picture in the graveyard? Sometimes there is a particular piece of art that strikes me or a name, which I have nothing to scribble down on. I don't see this as disrespectful either. We truly mean no harm by it.

And so, because I feel that it is in no way wrong, rude or harmful, I have decided to post some of the pictures from my last trip to a cemetary. They were above, if you didn't notice.