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Don't judge a book by its cover... This isn't about tube anemones.
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS SQUIRT THE JUICE INTO THE EYES OF YOUR ENEMIES... |
| ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** People sure have a lot of opinions about washcloths, towels and sheets: whether to use them, how often to change them, when to replace them, how nice they should be, and on and on. What an interesting subject. I know some people are going Whaaat?, but whatever. Those people probably didn't just almost electrocute themselves or get flattened into street pizza by a rig cruising the interstate at night with no headlights. So yes, I find the subject fascinating. Sheets must smell fresh and clean and be free of stains and or deposits/fluids of any kind. Not going to be gross here. My dogs sleep with me and my little old man doesn't have any teeth so he drools like crazy, so my sheets get washed almost on a daily basis. I have what you might call an obsession with towels. I don't know what it is or why. I just love towels. Big, fluffy, soft towels. I have so many, and none of them match. I don't care. They're big and fluffy. I throw one in the dryer before I take a shower and then when I get out its all warm and smells awesome so I just walk around wrapped in a big soft hug as long as I can. Towels are wonderful. They can be used a few times because I'm obviously clean when I use them. I don't use washrags. I use a shower glove. Washrags are gross and my hands don't work quite right, so shower glove is the way to go. I do use hand towels, but I don't have special ones or anything like that. There's one in the kitchen for after hand washing, one for wiping dishes dry, and a stack for messes. Those get used once and into the washer they go. Damn. Its 6:00. Goodnight. Or morning. Or whatever it is. Flies and honey! |
| ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I wanted to tell Larry a little bit about my life on Tuesday night, partly to scare him away, and partly to show him what life can be like when you make elephantine mistakes like he wants to make. I didn't get the chance, but I did bring it up. Now I regret it. He'll remember and press me until I either tell him or make up some lie to pacify him. The thing is, I'm not so good at making up lies anymore. And I don't think there's a single thing I can do to scare him away. I'll just have to be cold and talkative, but at the end of the night I've taken so many pain pills that shit just seems to fall out of my mouth. In brighter news, kind of, got my car put back together and he runs like a champ! Enlisted Anthonys brother, who I'm still friends with. He's the God of putting cars back together. If I knew how to post pics I'd put one on here. He looks like shit, but who cares? Not me! We belong together, both of us badly damaged and held together with zip ties, bungee cords and duct tape. I love my poor car. I'll be sad as hell when I have to get rid of him. But halfway through working on it, Troy pops up with "Anthonys just gone crazy." I said, "How can you tell?" "He brought the truck back (he'd been borrowing Troys truck to work, and planning on buying it), and he quit his job." Again, I asked, "How can you tell?" "No this time it's different. He's not staying anywhere, and when he came by he was mumbling to himself, but I think he was talking to you." I was skeptical. Remember, Anthony is master of manipulation. "Did he put you up to this?" I asked. Troy seemed genuinely surprised. "No. He's gone. Nobody knows where he is. I just thought you might want to know." Let me tell you I felt about an inch tall. And great. One more life of many that I have destroyed by passing through it. I had hopes for him. Hopes that he would be better off without me. I'm so sorry my love. I'm still thinking about that scalpel. Mike still seems to be clean. Libs went back to Arkansas to take some chickens to someone. I guess that's a euphemism. Except she at least took some chickens. I still can't look at her right. I can't really talk to her. She ruined everything. A decision made affects not just one but many. I wonder if she had realized I would have this reaction to her cheating on my brother, would she still have done it? What a weird and complicated thought. No light, no light in his bright blue eyes, I never knew daylight could be so violent, a revelation in the light of day, you can't choose what stays and what fades away... |
| I am who I am, so I just do what I do. I don't try to be anyone or anything other than me, and if that makes for a bad first impression, so be it. I generally do. I say what's on my mind, I don't guard my expressions, people who know me well enough to know when something they deem as crazy is about to come out of my mouth, they jump in and try to save me. As people get past that first impression of me they generally come to like me for that very craziness and outspokenness that irked them in the beginning. Of course there are those who do not value me, and that's fine. I don't value them either. They are plain as milk pails, and just as unique. There are millions of them, and only one of me, and those who are precious as rare gems to me are treated as such, and vice versa. First impressions are overrated. I do have a funny story about an accidental awful first impression, I think I wrote it down in here somewhere. My best friend Libs and I went to a concert at a pretty small venue and as we walked through the building we noticed the singer of one of our favorite bands walking around alone, just scoping things out. God he was delicious...mmm...anyway, sorry, uh where was I, oh! So we decided to walk up and get his autograph. As we walked, I formulated all these brilliant things to ask him, he's a brilliant man and doesn't tolerate stupidity, so I decided to ask him about one of his experiences working in an asylum as a young man. Libs is getting his autograph and saying nothing, but smiling. He smiles back at her as he hands her the ticket stub and then I hand him mine with what I hope is a sexy smile. We lock eyes for a moment before he looks down to sign. I open my mouth to ask him my question...and out comes the dumbest Scooby-Doo high school cheerleader laugh ever. I clap my hands over my mouth in horror as he looks up with an expression of confusion, a half smile on his gorgeous face. I take the ticket stub back with numb fingers, and our eyes lock again, mine full of agony, his sort of dancing with mirth. Then he just grins this enormous, mind blowingly radiant smile and walks away. So yeah. First impressions are overrated. |
| I haven't written lately. Obviously. Noteworthy things: a man at Vaughn Foods (the place that reeks of rotten cabbage and makes me want to gag and cry every time I drive by) walked in and stabbed two women, beheading one of them, before an ex cop shot him. I I think this speaks volumes for concealed/open carry laws. They think the guy is an Isis sympathizer. What is Isis? As far as I can tell, it's just another copycat terrorist group. Everyone's like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I live across the street from there," or "Oh my God, I can't believe that's only five blocks away from us," (And let me tell you, it was a real doozy trying to get down 12th street for a few days. It was like tornado delivering. You'll get it when you get it. Shut up.) But really, this sick shit goes on all around us, every day, all day long. All day long. I'm depressing myself again. I've been in a very black place lately. A drinking heavily and listening to sad music place. You know that place. You can't even write there, even though that's the only thing that keeps you sane. But maybe in that place you don't want to be sane. Or perhaps you just don't have the energy to be sane. All you can think about is how the scalpel would feel slipping into your skin, parting those molecules so easily that you wouldn't even feel but a pinch. Sliding through meat and muscle to come home in the tube of your vein. The warm spurt of your life force splashing across naked skin. It could be over with two quick movements, cold for only a moment, and then numb. And then no more. No more trying to forget. No more lurching forward to grasp your chest as your face contorts in pain at the memory of the lost. No more curling into a ball and screaming into a pillow when your skin feels like it's been doused in kerosene and lit. No more valium chased with shots of rum to fall asleep and sleep dreamlessly because you can't tell anymore which part is the dreaming and which part is the waking unless one part is just blackness. Just no more. I am a plague. I am a poison. No one can convince me otherwise. Everyone I've ever loved is worse off for me having loved them. I've been spending an uncomfortable amount of time with Larry. By the end of the night I've taken so much pain medication just to function that i'm a blithering idiot, and he's the only one around to talk to. It doesn't help that he adores me and actually asks me about my life. He is overly concerned with my preoccupation with suicide. I don't hold back, I never have. I have been an open book. I remember once when Anthony and I were just starting out and I started talking about when I was in labor with my youngest child, and my water broke, there was so much it was making a river all the way into the bathroom. They had to call a janitor to mop it up. Then I had to be cathed because I couldn't pee and it filled one of those pink square tubs to the top. The nurse had to walk so gently so she wouldn't spill any. Then after I had him, the afterbirth came out and the doctor held up the placenta and it had probably almost another gallon of liquid in it. He said "Wow! Look at all that! I'll bet you feel a lot better!" I said "Well yeah, I just lost what, 30 some-odd pounds in a matter of minutes? You bet your ass I feel better!" Anyway, Anthony was real quiet for a second, and then he said "Why in the hell would you tell me something like that when I barely know you?" And my answer was, "How else are you supposed to get to know me?" He said "Well I guess, but maybe like, my favorite color is blue, I like horses, shit like that first. You don't just jump right into I peed a gallon and my placenta was full of water." I remember just shrugging and saying "Take me or leave me. I am who I am." So the point of that was that I just say what's on my mind. He asks and I answer. I do not want to become attached to this guy. I can't afford it, mentally or spiritually, but he gives me something that I'm lacking. We have a connection, and that worries me, because sometimes that connection is worse than sexual cheating, you know? He is married. I don't want to be the thing that ruins his marriage, especially when I have no intention of having a relationship with him. I can't. I think my broken heart is just broken for good this time. They say time heals all wounds and blah blah and bullshit and crap, but I'm just done. Unless some weird miracle happens, I'm just done. I don't want to lead him on either. I can't be selfish and allow him to fuck up his life for something he can't have. I am a plague. I am a poison. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Day 676: September 25, 2014 Prompt: Explore the idea of manipulation. Is it ever okay to manipulate someone? What if they never find out or get hurt by it? What if it's the manipulation of consumers by a company? First, big happy happy birthday wishes to Noelle ~ TY Anon!  , Brother Nature , and ArizonaHeat . Goodness! Birthdays all around!!I have become intimately acquainted with many of my character flaws in the last few months. The man I lived with and loved with for many years turned me into a person I did not like at all. When I realized that, and made peace with the fact that he could not or would not change, the only option was for me to change. I left him behind, though I still love him as much as I ever did. As much as the moon and stars, and all the fish in all the seas of the earth. He was a master manipulater. He could get me to do nearly anything, with either the kindness and tenderness that I so yearned for, or with the anger I so feared. He had other ways as well, subtle as a breeze, so subtle I didn't realize what had happened until much later, and then I just felt like shit for being so stupid and blind to his trickery. By the end of our relationship, I had become as uncaring and disconnected as he, I didn't give a crap about others, or the way my actions would affect them. I had become a master manipulater in my own right, and nothing mattered except that the end result was that I got what I wanted. I was as good, if not better, because I have social skills, which he lacked, and I had people fawning at my feet, waiting to do my bidding, waiting for that kind word and pat on the head. I was his only follower, because anyone he couldn't manipulate quickly got that anger and kicked to the curb. I was pretty much the only person who could stand him. I guess that should have been an early clue... When I realized what I was doing, along with many other character flaws I won't get into here, I made a vow to myself to become a better person. I know that was a long ass intro back story just to say that I don't think manipulation is a good thing at all, but I wanted you to understand where I was coming from. I almost feel violated when I know I'm being manipulated, a violation of trust. I will do what I will of my own volition. I vow not to manipulate others to do anything, even if I think its something that's best for them. I will state facts, and give them my opinions and research, and leave them to make their own decisions. They are adults. They may disappoint me, they may hurt me. Its their decision, and I will not interfere. I feel better for it. And if I want to drink a Coke, I will, because I like to drink Coke, it tastes good sometimes, especially icy cold on a hot August day, and if it makes me fat then it will, and I don't appreciate them trying to manipulate me into not drinking it by telling me it will make me fat. Fuck them. Again, I'm an adult, capable of making my own decisions, and I will drink Coke, and smoke a cigarette, and eat hamburgers or whatever, because I want to. Manipulation is never okay, whether it hurts someone or not, whether it's 'for the best', or whether or not they ever find out about it. It's using someone, plain and simple, it's lies and bullshit. --------------------------------------- Unrelated and relating to my life, Libs went camping with Krissy, and still doesn't know that I know about that by the way, so mike and I were here by ourselves for a week again. I know he hasn't been smoking that spice shit, so that's awesome, and we have actually been sort of connecting and having a bit of fun. Today we collaborated on a story idea that I really like. I think it's going to be quite fun to write, hopefully after I get the car put back together I can start. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how he will like it. Strange. Got the radiator and door handle today, think I'll go get the headlights and grill Friday morning. Door handle tomorrow before work, have to put in a tag light on the truck, maybe go ahead and do the backup light too. Still wondering if I should go ahead and get a hood for the civic. We'll see. Laaaaaary is so in love with me. I told him there's no chance. He's married and I abhor cheaters, liars and thieves. He wanted me to drive his new civic on delivery, I did. I couldn't help myself. It's so beautiful. I'm sticking to my plan while still reminding myself that I don't make plans because every time I do something shits on my head. Fix the civic, save money, trade in the civic and a good down payment, buy a new civic, take a week and a half off and bug out to Arizona. Yeeesssss. The plan that's not really a plan, God. Please don't take this away from me. I need it so badly. Please. Night guys. Flies and honey. Maybe not kill the flies this time.  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Prompt: Do you think it is possible to heal on our own, or do we always need to reach out for the comfort of other people in order to fully heal? What an interesting question for someone who is pondering that very thing quite deeply today. Well, every day really, but it seems like today for some reason I've really been wondering that. How strange. I don't believe that it's always necessary to reach out to others to heal ourselves. A cut doesn't always need a band aid. Sure, it helps keep out dirt and allows the cut to heal a little quicker, but it's not absolutely necessary for the process. A severed limb, however, requires a skilled surgical team, emergency surgery, perhaps a donor, and even then it may not be a success. It may require a prosthesis. Physical therapists, hours, weeks, months, years of intense therapy, learning to cope with the loss of that part of you, the never ending pain, medication, support groups... I think it just depends on how big the wound is on whether or not I have to reach out to others for the comfort I need to begin to heal. But sometimes the wound is so bad that I won't reach out, because I don't want anyone to see how huge and disfiguring it is. I don't want them to know the extent of the pain it causes me because I don't want it to affect them, so I just wear long sleeves or cover it with makeup as best as I can. They don't make prosthetics for the soul. So while I probably should reach out to a whole team, I just wear my masks and long sleeves and provide what comfort I can for others instead. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Okay, well in true Spook fashion, I screwed up again, but luckily I was actually able to fix it. Somehow I had my blog set on private, I don't even know how I managed that one, but whatever. Hello there! I looked through the sights at the creature before me. Huge flat ears, bigger than my head, flapped back and forth in the deafening heat, trying vainly to disturb the flies that surrounded its massive gray head like a buzzing black halo. It's eyes looked back into mine, magnified, somehow delicate with their fringe of long lashes. It stamped a flat forefoot and shook it's head, sending up a cloud of dust. I watched all this through the magnified lens, holding my breath so my aim would be true. I reflected on how this enormous African matriarch could crush me as easily as I would crush a spider underfoot, and how perhaps the spider might view me the same way. My hands were beginning to shake. If I didn't take the shot soon I might miss the chance forever. The elephant bent and took a long drink from the edge of the river, and I took the moment to wipe the sweat from my forehead and take a deep calming breath. Now or never. I peered down the sight again, took one more deep breath and held it, aiming for the old females wrinkled face. She looked up at me again, though I was far enough away there was no way she could have seen me. It was the perfect moment. I took the shot. The digital camera made no sound as it began to take ten frames per second of the majestic old pachyderm, and perhaps she did know I was there, because she put on quite a show, spraying water into the air, over her back, slinging her trunk from side to side across her flanks, delighting in the coolness, and the momentary departure of the ever present flies. Finally she raised her trunk and trumpeted, the sound rolling across the savannah, before turning and slowly disappearing into the trees like a mirage. |
| If I was to become the person I really want to become I have at least a million bad habits to break. I curse like a pirate (which I'm convinced I was in a past life, so that one's going to be real hard to break), I take the Lord's name in vain in ways I don't care to discuss, I still smoke on occasion, when I'm really stressed so...okay, I still smoke a bit. I tell little white lies to spare people's feelings, and I am a raving werewolf to the people I don't care about. I think this list could just keep going, but I'll stop here in the interest of you who aren't reading this anyway. How would I break these habits? Cursing...well I rather like cursing, it helps get the rage out without having to hurt anyone physically, and there are a few words I especially enjoy because they can be used as any part of speech. And if you throw in a couple of random nouns in the string of tirade it comes out pretty hilarious and you laugh. Laughter is the best medicine, isn't it? So should I even stop? I don't know. Serenity prayer and counting red balloons helps sometimes, but at other times I just end up yelling "Red balloons! Red balloons!" And for some reason that seems to scare people more than me going off on a weird cursing rant. Maybe it's not a bad habit after all. Taking the Lord's name in vain. I ask forgiveness each time, but sometimes I feel like it's not enough. Sometimes I'm able to stop myself and end up saying something like "Jesus cheese", so I think I'm making pretty good progress on that front. I'll keep working on it. I stopped smoking for almost two years, and then on May 20th of last year I went through half a pack with a stranger named Loyd who saved my life by letting me jump in his tornado shelter. I've been doing the vaping thing for a while now, but when they sell you those things, they should tell you that when you look death in the face and he passes you by, vapor just doesn't cut it. Then I didn't smoke again until may 31st when the same thing happened. That time I got stuck in a friend's tornado shelter with her asshole cop ex husband who wouldn't let me out until he thought it was safe. There was a leak, and we stood in a foot and a half of water for two hours before I noticed that water had started pouring in through a bad seal. I said "We're going to drown like rats down here, so you can stay, but I'm leaving." I smoked a pack after that one. Then when I left the love of my life and my only rock went on hiatus from my life and left me with my stupid asshole brother last month, I started smoking a pack a day again. And still vaping. I don't know what that equals. I've gotten back down to about 8 a day, so hopefully I'll be done for good in a few weeks. As long as I don't get too stressed. Ha ha. I think most people tell little white lies to those they care about to spare their feelings. Is that a bad habit, or just something you shouldn't do? Or what? I don't want to hurt anyone I care about. The raving werewolf. I have totally come down on that. I used to be an absolute force of nature, like holy shit, here she comes, run for your life. Now those who know me know I'm mostly just blowing off stream and I'll be me again in a few minutes. But its still not cool. I think more deep breathing exercises are in my future. |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** First, a moment of silence for all those lives lost on 9-11-2001, and all the lives lost since fighting to restore our sense of right and wrong. On September 11, I woke up late and went downstairs. The kids still just babies, sleeping peacefully. I didn't turn on the TV. For some reason I've long since forgotten I called my sister at work. The receptionist answered and when I asked to speak to Libby, she said "She's still out getting gas." I thought that was a little weird but whatever. I asked her to please have Libby call me when she got back and hung up. Made a bowl of cereal and sat down to watch TV, but when I turned it on there was some weird show on. I changed the channel. Same show. Wait a minute. What the hell's going on? Blur blur...people jumping from an unimaginably tall building, looking like broken kites...blur blur...the first tower fell...blur blur...a plane hit the second tower, or maybe I have those two reversed, I think I do, blur...my mother called me, sobbing. She's stuck on the people jumping. I do my best to console her through numb lips. Libby finally calls me. The thing about getting gas makes sense now because they jacked the price up to almost six dollars a gallon. Can they do that? Lines are half a mile long. Is this the beginning of WWIII? I don't know. I climb the stairs to my childrens room and watch them sleep, their eyelids almost translucent in the early morning light, chests rising and falling with each strong breath, and even though I usually treasure my alone time I can bear it no longer and I gently wake them with kisses. They smile and greet me with whispered "Mommy". "I love you." I say, struggling not to sob wildly. They stretch and yawn and say "I love you too!" And hug me tight, so tight. If the world does end, I think, let it end now, in this moment. But it does not. Catharsis. Ok. Now then. Would I volunteer to go to Mars if it meant I could never come back to earth. For one thing, whoever goes to Mars better not come back to earth! There are things there that have been waiting eons to get here, and if we bring it back, it will be the end of humanity as we know it. The surface of earth is but a tenth of the planet, and the same holds true for our red and deadly brother. Vast caverns full of pure fresh water lurk beneath the surface, and that would seem ideal, right? Well it's a trap. The things that live down there cannot live on the surface, obviously, because of the war that happened millennia ago between them and the Deifa, the angel like beings who ruled from a crystal tower on Olympus Mons. Mars was once as beautiful as earth, but the Others, the fallen ones, used it as we do, to their own whim and fancy, taking whatever they pleased, killing and destroying, poisoning and polluting. The Deifa finally had enough and banished them to the underworld, where they would never see the sun, or hunt the creatures, or pollute the waters again. But the Others had devised a weapon of terrible strength, and decided that if they couldn't rule Mars, then neither could the Deifa. They set off their horrible weapon, turning all to ash and dirt. What they didn't know was that the Deifa had known of their plan and had sadly left to find another home. The Others began to change in their underground prison, to grow scales, their skin thickening, their bones twisting. Some grew horns, some melted away. The strong became the kings and their story was passed down through generations, and each generation became more and more full of rage for the Deifa, who not only banished them, but poisoned and abandoned them as well. Their whole lives became dedicated to war and vengeance on the Deifa, who they knew would someday return to finally release them from their underground prison. On that day, all hell will literally break loose. So no, thank you, I'll stay right here. And so should you. |
| If you're having a bad day, not a phenomenally bad day, like someone died, or you got in a wreck and lost your job, or the love of your life is God knows where because you made them go there, not that kind of bad day, just the kind where nothing seems to go right, your shoes got wet, your boss yelled at you, simple bad day stuff, then picture this and it should make you feel better. A 36 year old woman who should be in the prime of her life. Instead, she has lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, asthma, and who knows what other as yet undiagnosed crap. She can barely move on a good day, but hey, there are so many pain killers floating through her system that she shouldn't feel a thing. She does though, just so you know. She's in a stuffy, dusty ass laundry room, on her knees, digging through a plastic box of old chicken shit and newspaper. There's a bowl by her side. Why? She's digging for worms. Meal worms to be precise. See, somehow, magically, mealworms began living and breeding in the shit tray beneath a chicken cage, and when she finally talked her sister into cleaning the goddamn thing, they were discovered. Stupidly, her sister had been buying them and having them shipped through the mail. For some reason they are somewhat expensive. They are worms, you fucking assholes. Anyway, the stupid sugargliders eat them, so they decided to dump the whole thing in this plastic box. Well, this poor woman, who is in so much pain she could scream, is stuck taking care of all her sisters 'beloved' animals while her sister is off nutting out somewhere for the last three weeks. Fucking worms. If she doesn't come back soon, she's going to be short quite a few of her 'beloved' animals. So when you think your day has been bad remember this: you could be diseased and on your knees on a cold concrete floor digging through chicken shit for worms. Have a nice day.  |
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I was never sick after a flight, real or imagined, and I have flown countless times.