One More for the Road

"It wasn't until later, when I was washing the blood off my hands, I even knew they were dead."

That quote has been stuck in my head and its a good quote and may it now get stuck in your head. I have two blogs for you today and they will both go in one entry because I don't like posting two separate blogs in the same day. Nothing against those of you who do, I just find it easier to keep it in one blog. The first one is: Why I Hate Dogs and the second one is: Farewell, My Friend. Neither are fictional storied created by me so if you are one of the people skipping my blogs when they are stories you can keep on reading.

Why I Hate Dogs

Okay, so I don't hate dogs. Maybe I should re-title it to: Why Cat's are still better, but it's too late so we're sticking with Why I Hate Dogs.

This weekend I was forced (by major guilt trip) into house-sitting for my mother despite the fact that I think she has the most obnoxious pets on earth. That may be an exaggeration, but they are the most annoying pets I've ever had to deal with (with the exception of Tiffany, but that's totally Hutch's fault not the dog's). Back to my story.... so I'm house-sitting this weekend and my mother has two cats and a very annoying dog that I have to take care of. Because dogs are too stupid to be trained to go in a litter box I have to be over at my mother's house a minimum of three times a day to let the beast out to do its duty. This also means that I have to sit outside and watch the beast because otherwise it will run out into the yard and come right back to the door without peeing.... yes this dog is that stupid. On top of having to escort the dog to the grass to pee I noticed that she wasn't eating anything for the first day. I'm assuming she was partly depressed over the fact that the people who actually like her had left her care up to me. Eventually she did eat.... Half of the bowl in one sitting after starving herself for a day.... and promptly threw up in the living room. That included half of the rawhide which she had apparently swallowed in one piece. So, yum, who doesn't like cleaning up puke at 10 pm? Finally, on my last night of dog watch I spent the night. I had to be to work at 8 am and I was not going to get up an hour earlier just to escort the dog to her pee location again so I just stayed there. Unfortunately this meant I had a dog trying to spoon me all night. Not only did the beast take up half the bed she took to barking and growling in her sleep. I considered kicking her to make her stop, but I'm pretty sure that would have resulted in me being bitten in the ass so I suffered with a maximum of two hours sleep and smelling like dog in the morning.

And what annoying things did the cats do while I was there? One meowed a lot, the other hide the entire time and they got litter on the bathroom floor next to their litter box. Gee, which one sounds like the better pet to you?

Farewell, My Friend

My camera is gone. Forever. I didn't have it for very long and its sad to see it go, but it did its job well while it was around.

On the up note, I will be purchasing a new camera shortly after my birthday this year. For interested parties I will be taking birthday donations to the camera fund. Sweet. I will be getting a digital SLR this time. Even sweeeeeter. I figure if I'm not getting my bad boy back I might as well upgrade to something way cooler. Look at how cool this camera is! So, even though it would have been far more convenient to have my old Sony back in a couple of months I will be more than happy to upgrade. I know I probably don't need something so extensive since most of my photo taking is stuff that could easily be taken with the Kodak I helped purchase for my roommate (that she never uses I might add) for her birthday, but hey, I like taking good pictures and now that I've had one good camera I can't seem to go back to mediocre. So, even though I don't think anyone who reads my blog are people who actually get me birthday gifts, know that I only want gift cards to Best Buy (it's just easier that way). So anyone interested in the full tale of where my Sony went head on over to my Myspace blog where I can freely unravel the whole tale because that one is slightly more private :)

Two short blogs in one fabulous entry. I hope my stream of consciousness didn't hurt any one's brains.

Randomness III

Okay, so I lied. Apparently I will be making up for last month's lack of blogging and I will be putting up a few more blogs than normal. Not by any design of course, just because I have more to talk about than normal and very little to do while at work. So there it is.
I went up to Vermilion for St. Patrick's Day and realized something completely horrible. Downloading Joni Mitchell's entire discography was probably not the smartest thing I've done to my poor iPod. I'm the type of person that likes a random mix of my music at all times. I don't really listen to one artist for a significant period of time and nothing else. Since random in iPod land isn't really all that random I tend to stick with alphabetical order by song title. This gives me the most random order you can get from the iPod -- unless you've downloaded someone's discography who has been around since the 60s. Then its a really bad idea to have in alphabetical. After hearing 8 different versions of "Case of You" I got pissed off because I thought my iPod was repeating one song. Nope. Have about 12 live albums or greatest hits albums makes it that you have the same song repeated multiple times. I guess it's time to edit my iPod list and possibly delete some of the repeats.
My dad called not too long ago -- well that's not true. I called him. For his birthday. Anyway, he asked me two somewhat strange questions that I now feel the need to mention in blogland. First, he asked me about "that Delilah song" (Plain White T's for those of you who didn't turn on your radio for about two months at the end of last year/beginning of this year). I tell him it's by the Plain White T's and that I used to like it until I heard it four times in one day on the same radio station -- and since I rarely listen to the radio that means they played it about twenty other times that same day and I just didn't hear it. He mentions that he really likes the song and that he's wondering whether he would like their other music too. I casually reply that I'll look some of their music up on-line to see if he would like anything else they've done. I've come to the conclusion that he would, in fact, not like a single other song off that entire album. I'll burn him that song with some Joni Mitchell and call it a day.
The other odd thing he asked me about was (and I quote) "what's this yoga stuff all about?". Apparently, dad has been living in a cave for the past decade. I tell him the basics of yoga, blah blah, its an ancient practice that works on a person's strength, flexibility, and balance and helps with breathing and meditation techniques (and I'm basing this off of what my yoga instructor says not any actual research done on my part). I ask him why he wants to know and he mentions that there is a class at the Y and he was wondering if it would be good for him. I tell him its good for everyone, but that doesn't mean he's going to like it. So I tell him that I will give him a video that I started out on so he can try it before he pays for a class that he won't go to.
I forgot my nine year old sister's birthday. I'm special. I called her two days later and she didn't seem too pissed about it. I told her I'd give her a birthday gift when she gave me cookies. Yes, I'm holding her birthday present hostage until I get my GS cookies. Totally appropriate. Did I mention that I haven't actually gotten the gift yet and that they will be coming into town shortly to deliver cookies so it's more my unwillingness to pay for shipping when I know they will be up here than the fact that I'm actually holding a gift hostage.
The doctor has been out of the office for a little over two weeks now and I'm already dreading their return. Not because of the work, but because before they left our nurse was kind of being a great big bitch to me. I don't know if that is going to be the same when the return or if vacation time relaxed them and they were just stressed out about packing and flying and whatnot. Either way I'm hoping for the best, but kind of expecting the worst. Oh well, we will see next week.
Have a good day :P

The Power

I'm depressed.
I finished yet another book. Soon my books will push me out of my home. I'm not depressed because I finished the book, although that is not completely out of the reach of possibility. Often I have been depressed to finish a story. I know I'm not alone when I say I rush through a book to get the whole tale and then am sad when there's nothing more to read. You grow attached to these people that you're reading about and you want to know where they go from here. I'm depressed because the book that I just finished had the power. The power to suck me it. The power to make me care. The power to make me cry. Not that making me cry is a hard task to accomplish. I cry during TV, during movies, watching a Campbell's soup commercial. I've cried about a character that I killed off. I had the power to keep them going and I killed them off and then cried about it. Of course me being a typical crazy girl it's socially acceptable for me to cry at Campbell's soup commercials.
This book really got to me and that is not an easy feat. Normally I can relate to a character just enough to spin a world of imagination in my head to play out the story. Once the story is done I can put the book on the shelf and say, 'that was good, what's next?' With my most current read I actually attached myself to many of the characters. A few hours ago I threw my book down in anger because the character was being a child and acting stupid. To the point that I wanted to reach into the book and slap her. Then I picked back up and connected again. Feeling happy with her, feeling angry with her, feeling sad with her.... truly attaching myself to this person that doesn't exist. And when one of the characters died (even as I knew he would from the beginning) I felt that emptiness. And then the book was over and it stuck with me. So I decided to write to you about it.
It's not even the connection that moved me so much when I thought about it. I've connected like that before. So much so that I couldn't read the sequel of a book because I was too upset about the ending of the first. It doesn't matter which story I'm talking about because it's really just the power that gets to me. The power of the author to make me care about her imagination. I want that power. I want to make people have emotions towards something that doesn't exist except in my head and now their's. It's not real and it doesn't make the world spin. It doesn't affect daily life and its not going to be there when you close the cover again, but for those moments you cared about me. About my imagination. I want that.

In the Cycle

Anyone who fancies themselves an artist will understand the cycle. You know the one, I promise. It's the constant cycle of inspiration one moment and writer's block the next. It doesn't matter if you are a painter, a poet, a writer, or whatever else you want to call yourself. We all have our moments of dead time and our furious moment of enlightenment. We all feel a little bipolar at times. Caffeine induced hyperactivity on Monday and "maybe if I stab myself with my pen I'll get inspired" on Thursday.

I constantly have ideas racing through my head for the next great story, but I often can't muster up the energy to put it to paper (or computer in most cases anymore). I've been stuck in the "self loathing" part of the cycle for a while now. I hate everything I write, I find fault in everything I draw and don't even get me started on my painting disability. (This one is already being disposed of via my cousin who promised to take it in. Hey, canvases are far too expensive to just toss into the dumpster I have to find homes for them.)

Mostly, I've not been happy with the one story I managed to finish. Yes, I am talking about the one I post chapters here on my blog. I haven't felt the need to post a chapter on here for quite some time. If you read my blog you'll notice a surprising lack of blogging throughout the month of February. Other than the fact that I loathe the month in general I didn't want to post any more chapters and so I neglected the whole blog for a month. And no, I don't plan to make it up by posting fifteen blogs this month. I'm just stating the obvious fact that I haven't posted much since January.

Well now, as the weather is warming and my mood is inevitably improving, I've decided to pull myself out of my funk for the hundredth time and start again. That's why I painted the picture above. I may find faults with it in all the details, but the fact that I did it in less than two hours suggests that I may be getting the blood flowing back into my mind and my fingers. I've been downloading lots of music to my iPod the past couple of weeks (so much so that there is more music that I don't know on there than what I do know). During the time that it takes to put on iTunes and then transfer to my iPod I've been pulling open Word a lot. It's all been random, both the story I choose to write and what part of the story I'm writing, but I figure its better than not writing at all. I even e-mailed myself what I started last night so I can continue to do that instead of playing classic sim city and getting all pissy with the earthquakes burn down half of my city. By the way, I can totally understand why people stopped playing the original sim city now.

So, I don't know if I will go back to posting chapters of my story on here or if I'll ever post any bits of my other stories that I've been working on, but know that I'm still trying and hopefully someday soon there will be a book that was poured onto the page by my leaking brain.

What Happened to February?

I got lazy and pissy about writing. I've been writing more on some of my other stories, but as for the blog I just get sick of people saying they want to read my stuff but when I tell them they can read it on my blog any time they never check it out. Don't bullshit me. I don't care enough. If you want to read what I write read it if you don't, quit pretending. You're wasting my time. Now that I've got that out in the open let's get down to some serious bitching. I've had enough extension drama (meaning not my own personal drama, but people I know and their drama that affects me indirectly) to fill up six blogs, but I think I'll start out with my own personal drama first:

Speeding Ticket
I'm fond of driving about 70 mph on the express way as often as possible. You see, when you hate people as much as I do you don't want to be around them or their crap-ass vehicle. The problem with this is the express way is only 55 mph on the majority of it -- well what I drive of it. Well, as I'm sure most of you understand, you do something bad often enough eventually you'll probably get caught. The last time my lead foot was caught was about 5 years ago... possibly more and that's mostly because I didn't know the speed limit on that road. Still my fault, of course.
Less than a week ago they had a "selective enforcement" (all of you not part of the police force can read 'speed trap') on Dodge between 144th and 132nd. Since I was topped off at about a nice round 72 mph I was pretty positive The Man was pulling off the shoulder just for me. Lo and behold my psychic ability did not fail me and soon the lights were flashing. Oh well. Here's my ticket.
$160 or $90 + a loss of 8 hours that I will never get back. It was a toss up. A serious toss up. In the end I opted for the brain dead class. I'm sure there are worse ways to waste two evenings and I'll let you know as soon as I figure out what exactly that would be.
Last night was my first torture course and I was greeted with assholes and lonely old people who show up because they have no friends and want to torture the rest of us. Assholes first: Our instructor (a pretty cool guy so far) notes at the beginning of class to not say anything that could be considered offensive to anyone else in the class. So as we go around the classroom saying our name and why we were there A-hole in the back of the room decides to point out that the three women next to him were all speeders proving that women are worse lead foot drivers than men (unquestionable proof, indeed). Now this may or may not be true, but seeing how half of the class was female and the was bound to be at least one of them to take offense to that comment this caused a problem that should have never happened. First there was a number of disgusted sighs from all the women and all the men who know better than to say something so asinine. So after he reveals that he ran a red light one of the offended girls in the front of the class decides to announce "Well, I guess that proves that all men are f'ing color blind."
Nice. And this all could have been averted had the a-hole listened to the teacher in the first place. Color blind and deaf and apparently a little slow.
Then we have the lonely old person sitting directly in front of me. Every time this woman opened her mouth my ears were assaulted with five minutes of nonsense. She was one of those people who felt wronged because she got caught doing something wrong, but didn't want to pay the consequences -- because there was no way that man could have radar-ed her vehicle and pulled her over at the same time! Of course she doesn't deny that she was speeding, just that there was no way he could have caught her doing it. The most logical assumption. And when our far too patient teacher tried to explain anything to her she would continue to talk over him.
Every other time our teacher spoke she had something to add -- and ten minutes later when she finally ran out of breath the class could continue. Irrelevant topics were often brought up by this witch and we were unable to get out as early as we should of, I am certain, because of her babbling. Look, I know your old and don't have any friends left, but I have better places to be and more interesting people to listen to. Shut the F up.
Ahhhh, I feel better.

That's it for personal drama.... on to more exciting tales! Actually I don't plan to write any specifics because I don't feel the need to hand out personal info to the world unless necessary. So just a few random comments for all the drama makers out there:
My cousins: I love you both. "We can work it out"
My Uncle: Thank you again for the program.
My Best Friend (female): Breathe!
My Best Friend (male): You're still a great big dork and that's okay. Go make the world fatter.
My Ex: You're dumb. It's okay, just accept it.
My love: thank you for listening.

That's all. Have a nice day.