Yeah, I Actually Wrote That

Survey!Time: I wrote this over a 4 month period genius

2012-01-30T06:32:00.000-08:00

Getting to know me, getting to know some about me, getting to like me, getting to hope I like you...

1. When was the last time you were told you were cute?

Since I have a vagina, I get told that every day; it doesn't matter if I am or I'm not: guys say it mostly as a device to lure you in. I've quit falling for it.

2. When was the last time you were truly, completely happy with your life?

Spring/summer of 2008 was the best time of my life, until it wasn't. I was 19, had a slamming figure (21 inch waist with 42 inch bust), was making the best grades I ever did in college, and -- most especially -- I was in a very good place with my personal relationships. Family, friends, l'amour. All of it was wonderful. And my youngest sister Ellie and my first ever (and only) nephew Aiden were the best babies there ever was. My heart and life were so full of love, and I was so loved, it was like living in a dream of perfectness. But the thing about good dreams: someone always wakes you up from them.

3. When’s the next time you will see the person who absolutely takes your breath away?

I'm never letting anyone have that power over me again. I'm too old, too grumpy, and jaded enough to know that if someone wants you bad enough, you'll take THEIR breath away and they won't stop until you know it.

But in perfect!world, I would be capable of such a girlish sensation and I would have someone who made me that happy in my life.

4. What are you most looking forward to tomorrow?

Being alive another day. That's supercool.

5. What is your relationship status?

I'm going to give you a vote of confidence and assume this is obvious.

6. Do you think you will be in a relationship two months from now?

My last relationship taught me that love isn't enough. And also that when guys get depressed, they assume they have fallen out of love -- in less than a week, because THAT'S possible -- and then leave you feeling like you've been gutted and left for dead in a lonely, rainy alleyway.

Two conditions would have to be met to ever induce me into being in a relationship again. #1) I would have to be really in love and really happy; now that I know what it feels like, I can't go back to less-than. #2) The potential partner would have to assure to me (and preferably prove to me) that they were committed to commitment. That they would talk to me if they have a problem instead of taking unilateral actions that rip my heart out, kill his soul, and make people think we're both fucking lunatics: him for what he did and me for caring that he did it.

So, no. I don't think I'll be in a relationship in two months time.

7. Do you hate anyone at this present moment, if so how many?

I can actually say with all honesty I literally don't hate a single living soul. People like Hitler? I don't think they ever had a soul. People who antagonize me? I think they're so pathetic, I sometimes literally feel sorry for them. Yeah. I actually practice what I preach, suckers. I bet you didn't think I did, but I do.

8. Would you like to punch anyone?

Definitely. Punching does not go against my moral code/philosophy of life, etc. Punching can actually be very good for the soul.

9. What is your background on your phone?

I will always love Repo! The Genetic Opera. (And Blind Mag most especially.)

10. Are you a mean person?

No. I'm opinionated and let people know it. There's a difference. In truth, I rarely say things out of meanness and anger. I mainly say negative things as an expression of my disappointment in someone or something.

11. Is there anything you want to get tattooed on you?

I used to want "amor vincint omnia" (the saying, NOT the painting). I don't jive with that philosophy anymore, though.

12. Would you consider yourself tall?

I consider me 5'5 1/2". The question is: do YOU consider me tall? Because height is all about perspective. My 21-year-old sister thinks I'm really short; my 4-year-old sister thinks I'm super tall.

13. What’s your relationship with the person you last texted?

I haven't texted in over 24 hours (as my life resides outside of my phone). But it was my step-uncle. And the jerk never texted me back. (I have multiple step-uncles by all sorts of situations imaginable; this one is my step-uncle via his younger sister marrying my older father.)

14. Have you ever had someone pick you up off the ground and carry you?

I will assume we're talking about since I was six. And yes, surprisingly.

15. This time last year, who did you like?

Myself. And the feeling was mutual.

16. Are you wearing any jewellery?

No. I have six piercings and I usually stupidly let them grow up and have to re-pierce. Myself. Manually. Without those fancy piercing guns, antiseptic, or any of that wimpy shit. (To quote Jerry Trainor, "I phone it in.")

17. Is it possible to be single and happy?

Certainly, temporarily. I mean, I know I am -- temporarily. But let's be honest: humans are social creatures and at the end of the day, no one wants to die alone. It's not pretty when they don't find you until you can be smelled from down the block. And that shit happens. It happened to someone's grandmother I know.

18. Do you find piercings attractive?

Depends who the piercings are on, where they are at, and why the pierced one got pierced. There's nothing unsexier than doing it just because you thought it was "hardcore". I mean, that's about as unattractive as it gets.

19. Ever been called names?

I was literally called the "dead lesbian" by several classmates. In person. To my face. They said they thought I was dead and it would've been better if I'd died. And as for the lesbian thing, middle schoolers call anyone gay whether they are or not. I'm not gay, but my good friend was; since she was, well, obviously I was too. Because that's obviously how it works.

20. What’s on your mind?

You, baby. Every night. Especially right now, because it's late and the lights are off.

(No.)

21. What’s on your bed right now?

Bed things...

22. Do you like your phone?

Fuck yeah. It calls AND texts. I don't need internet on it. Like, I'm not even being sarcastic. Phones are phones. You only need internet on them if, for some reason, you need portable internet and can't get a portable PC or tablet. But in most cases, no one should NEED internet on their phone. (I'm wise. Listen to me on this matter.)

23. What would you say if somebody told you they hated you?

"I guess that makes you one of those human beings I've been hearing so much about."

24. Are you one of those people who hate crying in front of others?

I hate crying period. I once went 13 years without crying. (See above post about summer 2008.)

25. Would you date someone taller than you?

Seeing as how I'm not only female, but I'm only average height, that's mainly my only option. (And I actually prefer taller-than-me, believe it or not. Makes me feel all cute and dainty.)

26.If you could see one person right now, who would it be?

Honestly, my dad: I miss him like crazy. Stupid local NASA not having jobs. *prods government*

And he's the only male adult blood relative I have. (Aside of cousins or grandfathers I don't know.) I get sick of being surrounded by nagging vaginas.

27. Where were you last night?

Where I was.

28. What is today’s date?

October 28, 2011. See? I know shit.

29. Who was the last person to call you baby/babe?

Aside of my parents? Probably my ex. Because I would only find it non-condescending in either of those contexts. If some random guy called me babe, I'd probably neuter him.

30. When you’re at the grocery store do you use the self checkout?

This is Alabama. We don't have those. I didn't even know that shit existed til just now. But I mean, this is Alabama; if that shit DID exist here? People would just steal the groceries and lie and stuff them in their coats/purses, because folks is poor in this fascist Tea Party economy that will become the reality for every other state in America unless Democrats, Socialists, Moderate Republicans and everyone who's not a Tea Party lunatic gets out there and votes. Come on, guys. We don't have to agree with each other's individual politics; we just have to unite against our common enemy.

31. Anyone crushing on you?

Probably. I'm saying that just because I'm a girl and guys are very much the way I said in #1.

Here is where I left off and then started writing again four months later. Enjoy.

32. Has anyone ever sang to you?

The first time I was ever sang to (or at, really) was by a car of Mexicans in the Target parking lot. My mom was all like, "SHE'S THIRTEEN YOU PERVERTS!!!!" They sped off *really* fast.

33. Has anyone ever given you roses?

No. Not at all.

34. Who do you text the most?

My dad. This is the future, after all.

35.How do you make your money?

I'm a professional writer. People pay me to write things. It's pretty freaking awesome.

36. First person to text today?

I haven't text'd anyone today. All these months later.

37. What is your favourite color?

Purple. It is the color of gods and royalty. It is my color.

38. What color are your eyes?

Green. Slightly greener than emerald green. My dad's are the color of the Grinch's. His mom's are practically the color of limes. These are the only other green-eyed people I know. But, we apparently get progressively deeper in hue.

39. What is a compliment you receive often?

"You have such pretty eyes." "You should only wear red lipstick." "I like your jugs; can I see them?" (The answer to the last one is no. Unless you discover me at a nude beach, then it's whatever.)

40. Who was the last person to say they loved you and when?

My mom. Yesterday. My mommy loves me, guys! Unlike most assholes, I'm actually proud of that fact.

41. Do you like your parents?

I love my parents. Their DNA combined to make me. And I think I'm pretty awesome, so they're at least half-way awesome by default. (Just don't tell them I said that; I have to keep them on their toes.)

42. Do you secretly like someone?

I don't secretly like anyone.

43. Why did your last relationship end?

See my answer to question #6.

44. Where is the furthest place you’ve traveled?

San Diego, California -- or la Jolla, California, or Los Angeles (whichever is technically farther). And it was wonderful. The air smelled so clean, even in the city. And the wind on the beach at night was so welcoming. And the waves weren't pissing about; they were strong, and cold, and wanted to knock you over like they were testing you to see if you could be one of them. It was amazing. Southern California will always have a place in my heart. One day, hopefully I can go back there, to see my Doublekin. <3

45. Which do you prefer, to eat or sleep?

Sleep. I have lupus. I need my sleep. But I don't really *love* it, ya know? I don't love to eat either. I only do both to sustain me. In fact, I think the reason the steroid weight has been so hard to come off is because sometimes I don't get the required 1200 calories to keep my metabolism working. (I'm doing better about that, though, and have proudly lost 13lbs this month!)

46. Do you look more like your mum or your dad?

I literally look like an exact blend between them. My hair is a medium brown with both red and blonde highlights (Dad is a redhead, Mom is blonde). My nose is wide like Mom's and long like Dad's (that was unfortunate). I have the Cupid's bow of Dad's upper lip, but the fullness of Mom's lower lip. My eye's are wide and big like my mom's, but have little corners like my dad's. I have the disappearing eyelid of my Dad's Native American side; I have the small chin I got from my mom's family of "little Irish washer women". I look like both of them. And I'm proud of that. Even with my ridiculously huge nose, because only a nose like that could balance out my ridiculously huge lips and eyes. = >D

47. How long does it take you to shower?

I've gotten it down to 15 minutes. But I prefer long showers.

48. Can you do splits?

Yes, I can. Take that, lupus.

49. Are you flexible?

It asks me this after the above? But yes. I am flexible. I'm also freakishly double-jointed. I scan twist my arm around almost three full times.

50. Can you speak any other language than English?

With very degrees of fluency: canis est in via (Latin -- and I'm kidding; I know more Latin than any of them). I took French for two years. And I also wrote some papers on the evolution of old English to Middle English to modern English. So, it's safe to say I thoroughly speak English to the more than usual degree.

51. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?

6 1/2.

52. Do you wear your seatbelt in the car?:

Always. Anyone who doesn't is asking to become a vegetable when the next drunk comes careening down the road. (And don't give me that smartass bullshit about liver lacerations -- it almost never happens. It's practically an urban myth. It mainly happens to people wearing the lap bands over their stomachs like they ain't got good sense.)

53. Are you scared of flying?

Nope. I've flow on a plane before (see the above trip to various parts of California). I know how the whole thing works. Fear is only two things: ignorance or severe phobia. And I have neither one regarding planes.

54. What do you sleep in?

Pajamas. What do you you sleep in?

55. Who was the last person you kissed?

I don't kiss and tell. Mainly because I don't kiss and know. (I kid, I kid.)

56. Do you like funny people or serious people?

Funny people who can be serious when the times call for it. Those are my people. But funny > serious. You have to laugh at life, or else it'll eat your soul.

57. What jewellery do you wear all the time?

None ALL the time. But I'm a big fan of jewelry. I probably wear necklaces most often.

58. What do you have planned for tonight?

I'm gonna watch stuff. On TV. Maybe on the iPad or PC if it's Netflix. (My TV is from 2002 -- I can't beam Netflix to it.)

59. Do you prefer myspace or socialsplash?

I don't even know what socialsplash is, so I'm going to let you infer my answer from that.

60. Do you have a favourite item of clothing?

That gray marled dress I have, the one with the belt. It makes me feel so Pan Am.

61. Do you like messages or comments better?

Depends the nature of the subject.

62. Last movie you saw in theaters?

I don't even remember. It's been that long.

63. Last thing you ate?

Grits.

64. What was last thing you drank?

Coke. (Which I almost never drink! So yeah. Odd!)

65. Are you happy right now?

No. That's why you gotta see the humor in life. It bridges the gap between the sucky times. Keeps you sane. Or, as sane as a person can be.

66. What were you doing at midnight last night?

Reading Weeds fanfiction. I'm not kidding.

67. Are you left handed?

I'm ambidextrous. I mainly write with my right hand, but I *can* write with my left. However, I can *only* use the mouse with my left hand. My write hand can barely work it at all.

68. What was for dinner tonight?

I had a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner last night.

69. What is the last thing you thought about?

What I had for dinner last night.

70. When is your birthday?

July 28th. (The awesome day, mentioned below.)

All this stuff actually happened: The 19th Birthday Saga

2012-01-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

My nineteenth birthday was an epic. As in, an actual epic...like "of Gilgamesh" or "Beowulf", etc. There weren't any monsters or demons -- at least that weren't human. But there was a multi-day celebration, threatened childbirth, stolen melons, and the promise of a new tomorrow.

To really understand this story, we'll have to start at the beginning. No, not the beginning of my life -- that is for the autobiography I'll ask you all to buy in thirty years. No, rather, it's the beginning of another life. Or, the beginning of the beginning of that life. Basically, I'm taking you back to the day I found out I was going to be a big sister for the second time.

March, 2007

I remember my mom looking particularly nice that day, nicer than usual. So, it was only fitting what occurred occurred. I was on the couch at the time, playing my guitar or something -- I forget. I just remember her, standing in the kitchen archway, talking on the house phone. That, in itself, tipped me off. I mean, who calls on the house phone? Even in 2007?

The phone call she received was to tell her that my dad and his girlfriend were having a baby. This was March.

I was spare you my reaction at the time. Instead, I will jump ahead a few short months to...

July, 2007

By July, my dad's girlfriend is NINE months pregnant. (You got that math, right?) And my world has changed. My parents are finally divorced and all the sudden, I'm meeting new people, primarily from the world of my soon-to-be-stepmother.

One person I meet is my soon-to-be-aunt, M. Auntie M (get it?). Aunt M is exactly one year younger than me -- to the very day. This means that, when I would turn 19 on July 28th, she would turn 18. While we got along swimmingly, it was a strain being born on the same day. Who gets which relatives at the family birthday dinners and so forth. But there was something else that we hadn't counted on...

This was our response when my dad and her sister told us, "Girls, the baby is probably gonna be born on your birthday. Isn't that exciting?":

(I was really into slouchy tops and skinny jeans back then; I thought it hid my 19in waist and made me look fatter. I was a dumbass. And yes, I was the skinny one with the long hair. Now Auntie M is the skinny one with the long hair and I'm the curvy one with short hair and glasses. It's a circle.)

And you can understand our pissed-off-ness right? I mean, we had a reason. We had FINALLY gotten used to the idea of sharing our people on our own birthdays and then there's a fetus threatening to destroy the peace talks, the bridges we've built, all with a simple birth.

We weren't selfish people. We were teenagers and a lot had been asked of us. You can't look me in the eye and say you wouldn't have acted the exact same.

July 28, 2007

By my our birthday, my dad had been camped out on his girlfriend's couch. They sat there, waiting for the baby to pop out at any minute, because it could. Technically, she was 2 centimeters already, so it really could've happened.

But, because he loves me, my dad pried himself away from the waiting-for-birth couch and went out to dinner with me, my mom, my sister who was not a fetus/17, her boyfriend, my dad's side of the family, and my mom's side of the family. See, we adjusted very quickly to being what I like to think of as a mature blended family. No jealousy. No hating. No crazy divorce battles to the death. Just love, respect, and tiramisu...because we were at an Italian restaurant and, of course, one must have tiramisu on one's 19th birthday.

This dinner marked the beginning of the Carriean Festival where I am not only the center of the attention, but the narrator of the story.

After bidding adieu to my family, I met with my friends, Ems (who is NOT my friend anymore) and J (who is my very dear friend indeed). Back then, we were the three musketeers, and as people who call themselves that are wont to do, we went out in search for action.

We didn't find any.

Instead, we found ourselves going to what was, at the time, the local watering hole. We couldn't drink, but there was music. Good, rockabilly music. And we had an awesome time. Ems told the band it was my birthday, they said "happy birthday", and it was embarrassing, but mostly harmless.

We pretty much danced the night away...

(This trapeze dress was just another failed attempt for me to hide how skinny I was. It was especially a fail when it shrunk in the wash and barely covered my bum. And here, Ems can be seen wearing the "fake butt" I got her the previous Christmas.)

...except for one other thing: at the bar on my birthday there, we met some people. Some people, we already knew. Others we did not. One person I had not known previously was B. I'm not the most social of people -- in case you haven't noticed. So, when B informed us that the same band (well, two bands, really, I think) would be playing the next night at a different location, Ems and J enthusiastically agreed that we would see him there. I had no say in this. But, it was cool, because it was my birthday.

July 29th, 2007

My soon-to-be stepmother still hadn't popped yet, so I felt perfectly confident in going out again that night. To this day, people will say my friends and I had ulterior motives for going to the next gig, to see the same dudes play. But really, and I emphasize this fact: we were invited. By B.

The 29th was not as docile as the 28th. After all, it was the second day of a weekend long festival celebrating my life, which is no small thing. The 29th, things got wild. Well, wild for me, at the time, anyway.

It was bloomin' hot that night, but it was muggy. Not long after we arrived, the bottom fell out of the sky. And the venue was small; it couldn't hold everyone at once, so people had to go back and forth, in and out. But I don't think anyone minded. It was the cool, relieving sort of rain shower that only seems to come on a lucky summer's day (or night, as the case may be). It was a renewing rain, a revigorating rain. It was a rain that wiped away the small amount of makeup I'd bothered to put on. And it was fun.

B introduced us to his friend K. Ems and J were so social, it was great fun for them and me? I took pictures. I didn't hardly know most of the people, but it was just a day I thought I'd like to remember. What I didn't know at the time was, it was a day I really couldn't forget if I wanted to.

Because Ems ~~was~~ is an idiot. Ems, in her very own lude awakening, decided it'd be awesome if she let people draw whatever the crap they wanted on her bare arms. And when I say, whatever, I mean whatever. She ended up with some nice things, a phone number or two, anarchy symbols, but also not so nice things; some of them, I didn't know what they meant -- but I knew what a swastika was. And she had them ALL OVER HER FUCKING ARM. What made this worse is that blondie is of German decent. And, of course, this made no impact whatsoever on her. She proceeded to keep making friends.

Meanwhile, J and I became known as the chicks who were friends with Swastika Girl -- and that is NOT something I would ever want to be known by. (J and I actually have much love for the Jewish people and find genocide abhorrent.)

So, with swastikas all over her dumb white ass, you can imagine the kind of friends she made. There was one in particular that just wouldn't stop following us around, some high school punk I refer to as "Heroin Boy", partially as a homage to a Regina Spektor song, and partially owing to the fact I found out -- months after these events -- the POS was a heroin addict. At the time, I really just thought he simply wasn't right.

So, things are winding down and everyone's leaving. Ems volunteers me (yes, I had to drive, because I'm the only one who can find shit) to drive Heroin Boy home. I didn't feel too good about this, but, at the same time, I didn't want to be responsible for the stranding of some dopey, seemingly harmless seventeen-year-old boy.

B and K were older than us and, of course, male. I ~~choose to~~ believe it was those two things that prompted them to offer their services as escorts home. They felt the need to make sure we got there safely, what with the new, unwanted passenger aboard. And THANK GOD K took Heroin Boy in his car, because I just don't think I couldn't handled it. Ems road with them. And, I mean, K had to have nerves of steel to drive those two. Meanwhile, it was me driving J and B in my Corolla -- my vehicle at the time.

Like that, we caravan'd across the bridge back to the town where me, Ems, and J lived. At first, we stop at Ems house. There, she informs us that the party is just getting started, that Heroin Boy doesn't live on this side of the river, he lives on the other side of the river that he just left.

We all looked like this:

(I forgot to mention that the rain had completely soaked us all, but me most especially, rendering my black bra entirely visible through my creme-colored top.)

See, we couldn't really be angry. We lost the right to anger when we didn't properly interrogate the intoxicated idiots that were guiding our journey. It was our own damn fault.

And disappointment leads to hunger. So, before heading across the river, we caravan'd to McDonald's.

Back then, going to McDonald's after midnight (and it was about 3am by this point) was an adventure. Back then, McDonald's after midnight was the venue in which people would show off their pimped out rides. We're talking lime-colored cars with some kinda rims, leopard prints seats -- these rides were all kinda pimp'dness you could ever imagine...rims, rims EVERYWHERE. And they would show off these rides by circling the McDonalds, the lane that goes outside and around the drive-thru, making sure everyone sees how awesome their shit is.

But we were used to this, so we paid little attention. Instead, my attention was drawn to K's car that was in the drive thru line in front of us. K was, once again, forced to carry Ems and Heroin Boy. Heroin Boy was in the backseat. This proved to be a big mistake. Because he did this:

(Yes, I understand I have no idea what the back of a hatchback -- or any type of car -- looks like. But don't focus on that. Focus on the stupid.)

We're in line at McDonald's and all the sudden, the dumbass sticks his body out the side of the window, faces us, and starts talking to us with the biggest grin on his face. He was just talking away and waving his arms like an excited kid. And we had no idea wtf he was saying because our windows were rolled up.

But I swear to you, it was the most hilarious shit ever. He had no idea whatsoever that we couldn't hear him. And he was smiling so stupidly. Some of us may have peed a little -- that's how much we were laughing. It was so funny. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. My crude drawing doesn't give it justice.

What was he saying, you ask? Well, apparently, he was professing his love to me. It was so fucked up.

So, we finally make it back across the river as the fog rolls in, and we drop the kid off at his house...

After he is safely inside, the dudes steal a melon from his front porch. I drive off real fast. I ain't no thief. Even melon thievery goes against my code. However, I don't mind, and encourage others to do it, if it jives with their respective codes -- and it did.

So, we go back to Ems house, and everyone but me and J thinks it's perfectly safe to eat some weird yellowy watermelon off of some random porch. And they all eat their water melon and me? And, being the old biddies of the bunch, J and I were tired. We kindly bid adieu to our new friends, who helped us drop off some messed up high schooler, we change into our jammies, and I fall asleep on Ems' couch, simply because, despite everything, I didn't want to go home for some reason.

July 30, 2007

Early in the effin' morning...

My phone is going berserk. And not a little berserk, but a lotta berserk. And I'm groggy and tired, and had a maximum of three hours asleep, but something deep inside of me says "ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE, DIPSHIT." So, I do.

Me: "Helllooo."

Mom: "OMG, where are you? Where have you been? Do you know what time it is?"

Me: "I'm 19; I don't have to tell you were I am, and --"

Mom: "THE BABY IS COMING. GET YOUR ASS TO THE HOSPITAL ASAP."

Me: "Do I have time for a shower?"

Mom: "Maybe."

So, I rush home, shower, and throw on a shirt. The shirt I wear is, naturally, the shirt nearest at hand: it was the shirt B had given me the night before, of the band that had been playing. So, with that reminder of events past, I rush to the hospital, drive all the way to the top of the parking deck until I find what is literally the last place. I rush inside and say, "BABY -- I'M THE SISTER. I HAVE NO WORDS. WHERE?!"

Somehow, they understood my request and pointed me in the direction of the labor area. My dad and his girlfriend and her mother were already inside the delivery room. The rest of the family, and some select friends, waited outside the door.

At first, Auntie M and I contented ourselves to slump down against the sterile wall and mull over the fact that this worked out nicely, that we didn't have to share our birthday with someone else, and the joy that that someone else was coming RIGHT NOW.

But our excitement was too much. Being eager, happy teenagers, we couldn't settle for sitting on the floor like hospital vagrants; instead, like nosy Nellies, we each pressed an ear to the wooden door that separated us from the birthing process. And all we could hear was screaming. Lots of screaming. Eventually, that screaming was followed by words of comfort. After all, her mom had two kids (her being one of them) and my dad already had two kids. They were old pros at this. It was my soon-to-be-stepmom that was the noob, and, of course, the noob was giving birth. All the screaming was perfectly understandable. Even with an epidural, I imagine pushing something bigger than a football out your lady parts has to be rather...uncomfortable.

But, finally, Soon-To-Be-Stepmom's screams gave way to a smaller, high-pitched scream, a scream I instantly new belonged to a beautiful baby girl.

And, in no time at all, this happened:

(This is what happens to my hair when I let it air dry in hospitals. But, that day, I didn't mind.)

In a way, you can say that my youngest sister is a belated birthday present. Not just for me and Auntie M, but also for Dad, who was born on July 22nd.

And there you have it, folks. The story of my sister's birth and the saga of my 19th birthday, all rolled up into one long, oddly shaped package.

P.S. The end of the birth story/19th birthday story is just the beginning of another story: the story of the birth of my nephew, whose impending arrival was announced just two days after that photo was taken.

Circles never end; the wheel just spins.

Why having lupus is as attractive as voluntarily sticking your hand in a meat grinder

2012-01-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

What is lupus?

Lupus is an autoimmune disorder wherein your immune system goes batshit crazy and attacks all your healthy tissue at random, whenever it feels like it. Your immune system has declared war; you are the enemy.

(I took this pic in 2009, before my diagnosis, wondering what the weird rash on my face was. Now I know.)

Why it sucks

Think of your immune system like pawns on a chessboard. A lot of people take them for granted, but they're actually very valuable pieces. They're the main line of defense. And, normally, they can't attack their own sovereigns. But lupus changes the rules. When you have lupus, your pawns decide they CAN attack their sovereigns. They leave the enemy pieces (foreign viruses and bacteria) alone and go after YOU until all you're left with is your king hopping around the board by himself hoping to God he doesn't end up in check.

That and the fact that you could die at any random time from any number of conditions a person your age simply shouldn't have. I once read that being a lupie (that's what we call ourselves), my chances of having a stroke are six times that of my peers. At the time I read that, I was smoking. Reading it made me smoke more as a faulty coping mechanism. That's hard news to digest.

What it feels like emotionally

It feels like your body has it out for you. It feels like your body wants to destroy you (and it kinda does). So, any time something ELSE goes wrong (like you get the flu) or you get a complication (whether it be a mild rash or something serious like kidney failure) that's just like adding insult to injury.

And I used to be this being of the sun. I spent my whole days outside; my skin was like copper, my hair was bronze and gold. I ran wild and free and never wanted to go inside. I was so damn alive and I didn't even know it.

But now, I can't be in the sun anymore. I live life like a vampire, always in the darkness, in the shadows, never seeing the sun. Now, I'm so white I glow (never would've guessed THAT was possible), my hair has gone dark, and I'm anemic. If I step into the sun, my skin will burn and blister because of lupus. Before lupus became a problem, I literally never had a sunburn. Never.

And knowing you could die young...that is the worst. Because I almost did die young. When I was 12. My appendix died inside of me and fell off. I developed peritonitis, kidney failure, septic shock, blood poisoning, and the beginnings of respiratory failure. Just one of those problems can kill a person. Septic shock in particular has a low survival rate. To have them all at once and live is almost unheard of. I'm a fucking walking miracle. And I'll never be the same again.

You know that song "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry? That line in there about the "sharp knife of a short life" -- I don't think I've ever heard it said better. There is no sharper knife than that.

And it doesn't matter what religion you are or if you're religious at all. You are meant to be here. You're meant to do what you want to in this life. And the threat of it all being cut short -- like a constant gun to your head -- is the worst feeling in the world.

What it feels like physically

I was told by the doctors and nurses when I was twelve that my near-death experience was the most painful thing I would ever feel in my life. (They were right.) They also said my experience was one of the most painful things that could ever happen to a human being. My experience was literal torture. (After all, acute kidney failure is drowning in your own body. You can't breathe. You can't think.) And I had no painkillers, no nausea meds -- NOTHING. I was literally tortured by butchers until my parents found surgeons who would listen, who had the education and skills to recognize what was wrong with me. I actually was saved by the best pediatric surgical team in the world. Otherwise, I'd be dead.

On an every day level, it feels like your bones are breaking. Your stomach hurts. You puke way too much. And you're generally treated by doctors who barely understand what's wrong with you. (Lupus is very mysterious. They have no idea what even causes it.)

And as much as I've gone through. I'm the lucky one. Every day is painful, but I had only one truly bad and dangerous spell. (At least, that I know of.)

Out there, there are kids younger than me dying of heart attacks and kidney failure because of a disease most people are unaware of. Out there, there are mothers who are literally physically crippled, yet pull themselves together to take care of their children. Out there, a million people aren't getting proper treatment because we just don't know enough about lupus to cure it.

Awareness

Toni Braxton, Lady Gaga, and Felicia Day are a few people who have an audience, who've used it to raise lupus awareness. Even when they mention it in passing, celebrities raise so much awareness about it -- I don't think they have any idea. Lupus doesn't have as many celebrity patrons as many other illnesses. Like I said: it's mysterious, but not sexy.

If we had more patrons (and patronesses), we would have more awareness. More awareness = more funding. More funding = more research. More research = a possible cure.

I understand you're broke. I'm broke as shit because I can't do the volume of writing (my profession) that I used to do. But there's one thing you can do and that is pass on knowledge. Pass on this blog. Tell someone to read it. You know what Captain Planet says, right? "Knowledge is Power!" Well, yeah...Captain Planet is always right. (And I'm not just saying that because the 90's were my wonder years.) Listen to the captain and...

Spread some knowledge; save a life.

What I wrote in my signature for SignOn.org's petition against the racist language in Alabama's constitution.

2011-12-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

In honor of Alabama having the longest constitution in the world, I wrote them a long telling off, because they seem to like long things. I don't know if the people in power will read it, but I know I felt better for typing it. I'm just one, but if you join me "e pluribus, unum" will actually have tangible meaning.

What I wrote:

As an American citizen, I believe that the true power of a state should be with its people and not with an elite ruling class. Those we elect are chosen by us to represent our needs; we do note vote them in to form an oligarchy government wherein our needs and views aren't heard and NEVER respected.

Furthermore, I am personally and morally offended by the use of racial language in Alabama's constitution. Like most Alabamians, I have African American ancestry, despite my outward appearance. And I'm proud of that heritage. That racist language makes me feel less than; what do you think it does to those who are obviously African American? Those whose ethnicity is more obvious than mine?

A large percentage of our great state is referred to as LESS THAN in our own constitution. It's time to show the world that, whatever Alabama's past, we are now a state of ONE, where race has no dictation in law, where it isn't categorized and used to label people in an offensive and archaic system.

To be blunt: the racist language in our Constitution makes us look ignorant and backward. The real Alabama isn't like that. At least not the Alabama I was raised in, an Alabama where I didn't even know about racism until I learned about the Civil Right's movement in elementary school. THAT'S the Alabama I know; that's the Alabama the world should know.

If the language is not reformed, it'll just reinforce the concept that we are a state of ignorant rednecks. And I, for one, cannot accept that as our collective legacy. The question is: Can you?

And I meant it, by golly. You should all sign the petition. Do it HERE.

How I Spent Thanksgiving 2011: Complete with Crappy Art

2011-11-27T23:18:00.001-08:00

How I normally spend Thanksgiving:

When things are normal (read as: not absolute shit), my family follows a strict holiday routine. The only thing that changes it is death (ie it was once at Great-grandma's and is now at my grandma's, etc), or, of course, moving. So, how it stands in recent years, with all the death and then my dad and them moving to Virginia, our once complicated shuffle is now this little, simple, thing: We go to Ma's (dad's mom's) house to have "dinner" which is what you people call lunch. Actual dinner usual follows now that my Mom's mom, being widowed, doesn't host Thanksgiving. She instead comes with us to Ma's, because unlike 99% of the losers out there, we are a FUNCTIONAL BLENDED FAMILY.

Why I didn't spend Thanksgiving normally:

My dad's sister came down with some raging stomach flu and no one wants food in the same room as someone like that.

So me, mom, and her mom thought:

Why don't we just have a small Thanksgiving ourselves? And that's what the plan was. Grandmommy (mom's mom) rushed to the store to get all the fixings we would need, and we would go have it at my sister's house.

However, on Thanksgiving Morning:

It became apparent that our "new plan" wouldn't work.

Yes, I was infected. With what, we didn't know, but I aimed to find out...

And then I worried over my findings for roughly 48 hours -- like this:

After she finished being apathetic, Mom decided that I had Boston measles, lately known as Fifth Disease. (I want to point out that both names are nonspecific and are as pointless as each other.) And, since having lupus like I do, that could be a bad combination, it was decided that I would go to the doctor. And, since there was a possibility of Scarlet Fever, I also promised Mom I would mention I had a sore throat.

This is what happened:

You are probably asking yourself:

"Why would a young woman who used to have to clean out her own guts be afraid of having her throat swabbed?" The answer: I honestly don't know. I just know that having things stuck down my throat bothers me, whilst having my tissues and meat be ripped out and prodded on whilst awake does not.

Flashback to 1995:

I personally loved Mom's hair then, back before the apathy really kicked in.

Flashforward to the present, to my DIAGNOSIS:

I got reflective after we left:

All in all, I decided to go with the biggest pro of all: I was alive. So what if I had a rash that made me look like I had some dreaded pox? I was, despite being presently ill and having lupus, over all healthy-ish. And that was good enough for me.

After I reflected, we got some food:

And then all hell broke loose.

And that's where I will leave you...for now.

(Scroll down for notes and inconsequential bullshit.)

P.S. (or B.S., depending on your opinions): All this crappy!art was drawn on the computer, by my hand, but still on the computer nonetheless. I haven't quite gotten the knack of not having a rougher surface to use as a control, which, as you can tell, leads to sloppyness. However, I find this sloppy psychotic-kindergartener-ish style charming in its own way, and I hope you do too -- until my talents improve.

Also: I got sick and tired of coloring these cartoons, because I'm not a cartoonist. Also, coloring on the computer is even weirder than line drawing. Sometimes, when I color on paper, I use awesome medium like mascara and eye shadow and nail polish. Why? Because I learned some of these badass skills from Gladys Perint Palmer the Great. (I added "the Great" part, but isn't she? Also, if you actually take the time to Google her, you will understand how prestigious this all is...and when do *I* ever give a crap about prestige? *taps head*)

Best OWS Pic I've seen in for yonks!

2011-11-19T08:37:00.000-08:00

This was originally posted by @ScottBaio on Twitter, and I highly enjoyed it.

Here it is.

What I commented about it?

OMG! I love that! Anyone who tries to stop #OWS is the evil Empire. Those who #Occupy are the kick ass good-guy rebels. - Carrie Eckles

Yeah, I actually wrote THAT.

My post to my Congressman in regards to the piracy bill

2011-11-16T16:12:00.001-08:00

And here it is:

As an American it is my legal right to freedom of speech, and expression. This law takes away from my fundamental rights as well as those of any other American, including yourself. I would personally never endorse a member of Congress who would even consider backing this bill. I don't know anyone else who would either. It is wrong; it is unjust.

Instead of diminishing our rights as citizens of this fine nation, please work with your colleagues protect us and our domestic freedoms. We depend on you to do the right thing.

The second the Internet is censored is the second we become a nation with conditional freedoms. That is not what the founders of our nation would've wanted, and that's not what any of your constituents would want either. Please think of us, we who depend upon your representation of our interests, in regards to this matter.

And then it was signed, and yada, yada, yada. There are petitions and other things. This is how I sent my little letter. And it also gives better info than what I just did.

Me covering Beth Hart's "Favorite Things"

2011-11-09T10:14:00.000-08:00

I first heard this song like...in 1998 maybe...and I loved it ever since. I recorded this awhile ago. When I was still a smoker. You can hear the raspier quality.

Favorite Things -- Beth Hart cover

(You can stream it right on the link -- no download necessary.)

Yeah, I actually sang that: me covering Coldplay's Viva la Vida

2011-11-08T23:12:00.001-08:00

No autotune. Not even a good mic. Just me. And these recovering vocal chords. For your listening amusement.

Viva la Vida Coldplay cover
(That link is to streaming/downloading. I recommend stream it. It's not worth downloading. I really am just looking for something for streaming only.)

EB wounds offensive to Facebook?

2011-11-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

EB wounds offensive to Facebook? | EB Info World

If illnesses are offensive on Facebook, I suppose all of my fellow lupus survivors who have pics with butterfly rashes on their faces are the next to go.

Facebook is the most comment social network platform in the world, unfortunately. It's not practical for us to give it up in protest. What is practical is for everyone to say they won't stand for this bullshit. And then make Facebook apologize to and compensate this poor woman. Because I think Facebook only understands money and public shame. So, shame on you, Facebook. And all I gotta say is I can't wait for the mass media to jump on this bandwagon, because then -- THEN -- Facebook will actually feel the shame, advertisers will pull away, etc. That's how you effect change people.

And yes, I'm rambling. But this topic deserves some ramble time.

Facebook "rape pages": beyond tasteless jokes

2011-11-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

One current event issue that hasn't been getting a lot of press in America, even though it involves Americans, is the Facebook "rape" pages. What do I mean by Facebook "rape" pages?

Personally, I would like to link you -- just so you can see with your own eyes -- but Blogger actually has a TOS thing about even linking to hate pages. And that's exactly what the "rape" pages on Facebook are. So, instead of linking you, if you haven't seen them, I want you to Google the phrase. You owe it to your sisters, girlfriends, wives, and mothers -- and most especially YOURSELF, if you are a woman -- to know what this page is, because only then you will see that it's not just a joke.

Because that's the thing. When I first read about this issue, it was a link someone posted on Twitter through a feminist website. So, I didn't take it seriously. I'm not what you would call a "feminist". I shave, bathe, and I like it when men open the door for me. Because the thing is: I'm a Carrieist. I think I'm better than everyone else. And as for other women -- I don't think they're equal to men: I think they're better than men. I mean, we birth them, change their diapers, cook for them, do their laundry and -- all the while -- most of us work full time jobs just like they do (only for less pay). So, not only can we do whatever men do, we can do more. And when we do what they do, we usually do it better.

So yeah. While women are better than men, I am better than all humans. Obey me. And obey me when I say men would be nothing without women and should worship the ground women walk on.

But the people from the Facebook page: "You know shes playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway" don't think so. In fact, they think women deserve less respect than inanimate objects. I mean, after all, they don't rape people's cars or chairs, do they? But it's okay to rape women, according to them.

But who is "them"? According to this article from The Telegraph, the author of the rape page is, apparently, a British schoolboy with ties to British, Australian, and American hackers. People offering support to this page and pages like it are called in this article and others "cyber anarchists". But that's wrong. See, calling them "cyber anarchists" implies that they are exercising an anti-government philosophy and using these hateful pages to demonstrate that in a free society, they can say anything -- even this.

But no. No, no, no, no, no. Any true anarchist knows that anarchy means you don't want other people to rule you; the implication is that you, yourself, as a human being, have the innate moral compass to move about in society by doing no harm to others. That's what actual anarchists believe. All these "I'm gonna do whatever I want because I'm an anarchist" shitheads aren't getting it. They corrupt a non-violent philosophy and use it as a platform to do whatever they want -- and doing what they want isn't a good thing, judging by the rape content on these pages.

Another thing: the page I mentioned is rife with grammatical errors and if there's one thing I know, it's that the only thing that has worse grammar than a 13-year-old American schoolboy is a 13-year-old British boy. And that's what's scary. This screwed up little kid claims he's just joking. But the fact that he thinks this is a joke -- which I rather doubt -- is in itself not okay. And what's also not okay is the fact that this page is attracting real sexual predators. It's a fact. Real predators are visiting this page and it's become a meet up for them.

And what happens if you let people on the page know you disagree? Well, read the article by The Telegraph. Though, I find it very pathetic that while I blog and Tweet using my real name, this kid -- and many of his cohorts -- don't even do that. They are cowards. They have to hide behind the internet to say these things, because they're scared of what would happen to them, scared that people would hate them, if people knew who to blame. If you can't say something and put your name on it, you don't have a right to say it at all.

So, why does this page even exist? Simply put: Facebook loves getting the ad revenue off of it. It gets a lot of hits. That's why, even though this and pics of breastfeeding both violate their TOS, the pictures of breastfeeding gets taken off -- not because a partially exposed boob is more offensive and not because it's okay to publish hate stuff about women. Really, it's because Facebook is so freaking greedy that they will allow a page to violate their own TOS provided it brings in a shit ton of revenue. Because that's the thing folks: no one but a close circle of family and friends cares to see your breastfeeding pics, but people love to see something that's horrible whether they agree with how bad it is or not.

So, instead of saying "Facebook allows this because they hate women" we should be saying "Facebook allows pages that promote hate and violence to women as long as it makes them money". And that, my friends, is the real issue here.

And still, we all use Facebook because we can't be assed to go back to MySpace.

Whatever it was, it wasn't my sister: The Doppelgänger

2011-10-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

Merriam-Webster defines a Doppelgänger as:
1 : a ghostly counterpart of a living person
2 a : double 2a
b : alter ego b
c : a person who has the same name as another

My story concerns the first definition.

It was 2004 and my sister was going to Chicago with her then-boyfriend to visit his family who lived there. To the frustration of many of live here, flights to Chicago are hard to come by at our little airport here in Muscle Shoals, so we -- meaning the whole family -- were forced to wake up at 5am, and then drive the ~~alleged~~ two hours to Nashville, TN, which has to have a nice, big airport to support its main industry of country music and BBQ restaurants.

~~(There needed to be green birds, alright?)~~

Now, friends, I'm going to tell you up front: I'm not a morning person. I'm not a morning person after living 23 years on this planet, going to college, and having two little sisters who screamed through the night as babies. Everything that should've conditioned me to, and prepared me for, getting up early actually made me do the opposite. Why? Because I'm that rebellious. If someone tells me not to touch the lit sparklers, I'm going to do it anyway -- just because they told me not to. (That's a true story. It was my third birthday. I got a bad second degree burn and my Mom put Bactine on it while the whole family told me what an idiot I was.)

So, yeah. I'm more apt to stay up 'til 5am. I never get up that early and I certainly didn't that morning. While the other denizens of the house were scrambling to pack and eat breakfast and all sorts of normal, last minute things like that, I was blissfully unaware of the fact that it was now half-past five -- until my dad flung my door open and said in his gruff morning!voice, "Carrie! Get up!"

Past experience had taught me that when his voice sounded precisely like that, only two things could happen if I didn't wake up: I could be left alone for several hours, the food all gone (because that's always the case when you're left alone as a kid), and left to my own devices which, if there was food left, chances were, I would decide to fry it and get oil in my eye. (I don't learn.) That, or the other thing could happen: they could wrap me up in my blanket, throw me in the car, and drive off while I'm asleep and none the wiser.

At first, you're thinking "that doesn't sound so bad," but that's because you're not really thinking about it. When that happens, you wake up in Tennessee, probably around the area where all the Mennonites are, and you disorientedly ask, "Where the fuck am I?", because you really want to know, only to have Dad shout, "Don't cuss!" and not offer any explanation. Then, of course, there's the fact that it's fall, nearly winter, you're wearing shorts, a tank, and no shoes, and they literally expect you to still go inside the airport.

So, since both of those scenarios would be bad things, I decided to open my eyes. As I said, the door to my bedroom was wide open, and me, in my bed, was on the other side of the room, where I could see directly out of it. My parent's room, being across from mine, could also be seen when their door was open. And their door was open that morning, slightly. I couldn't see into their room, but the opening was definitely more than a crack.

I glance down for a quick second as I peel the covers off of me, but look up when I hear a noise, a single patter-like noise, the noise of one bare foot hitting the floor. I look up and see my sister standing in the hallway, in the space between my room and my parents'. But immediately, I know something wrong. The noise I heard, the single pattering sound, was due to the bizarre gait she had, like someone hobbling. She had her side to me; her long dark auburn hair, curly and thick, hung down to her waist and blocked her visage except for the tip of her button nose -- it was all I could see of her face. But despite that, I knew something was wrong.

She wore a white linen nightgown, one I'd never seen before, which covered her legs down to her mid-calf. Even so, I could see how her feet were positioned oddly, pointing in an odd direction as she traveled in that slow, hobbling gait. And her posture -- she was hunkered over, making everything just seem and look a lot worse.

(Forgive the fact I can't draw well on the computer and go with it.)

My heart pounded wildly. Instantly, I think she's badly hurt, I think maybe she fell -- from where, I didn't know -- I just knew that's what came to mind, because I thought for sure she had leg and back injuries and probably some kind of brain injury, because she was moving so odd, it had to be neurological.

So, yeah, I panicked. I gasped, jumped out of bed, and ran to her. I make it to my doorway in about three strides, because I bounded in my terror. But when I reached my destination, I felt a wind on my face, neither hot nor cold, a wind that felt like nothing, but mostly, I noticed the fact there was nothing there.

And so then I wonder how my sister made it down the hall so fast, because she's obviously severely injured. I run to her room and I cry out her name, thinking for sure that I'm going to see her severely injured. But what I find scares me in a different way.

My sister was in her room. But she wasn't hurt. She was sitting on the floor, putting on her makeup. Her hair was bound, pulled up in a tight, folded over ponytail. She was wearing bluejeans, a pink sweater, and boots. She looked nothing like what I'd seen just two seconds before.

~~My sister will want me to tell you that she DOES have boobs now.~~

She looks at me like I'm crazy. And I think I've gone crazy. She asks me what's the matter, but I tell her nothing; she's about to get on a plane and go on a week-long trip, and I don't want her to worry about my sanity.

Meanwhile, I decide to write the incident off. I was obviously having some sort of waking dream. After all, I was old enough to know that the mind was a powerful thing. I knew a lot back then.

But there was something I didn't know: what I saw that morning was nothing compared to what was to come. The thing that wasn't my sister would soon come back, but not just for me -- but for many others who cared for my sister. This was only just the beginning.

The Bell Witch: When family legend gets too close for comfort

2011-10-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

The Bell Witch is a famous Tennessee folk figure; the tale is often thought to be a lesson in mass hysteria and the power of suggestion. A non-human entity with the power to manifest as animals, she wrought havoc on the Bell family and the residents of Robertson County; Major-General Andrew Jackson, American hero and later president, fled the Bell estate after one night in her company. The events that took place during 1817-1821 made the Bell name infamous.

But we shall skip to the end of their story:

After the Witch succeeded in killing old John Bell, she decided to leave, promising to come back ever so often to check up on the family: my family. My great-great-great grandmother, Caney (short for the bizarre American Victorian-era name "Canarisa Lousia"), was a Bell. And now, you're probably thinking, "SURRRREE. Three greats. Like that's possible." Hah. My family actually keeps their records. And, like me, my grandmother was sent to stay with HER grandparents a lot. Her grandmother was Caney's daughter. And that's where my story begins.

The first time my grandmother ever even heard of the Bell Witch, she was four. She was sitting on her grandmother Mary Agnes's front porch. After all, it's summer in Tennessee in 1943; there wasn't anything else to do to cool off. So, they're sitting there, and my grandmother says something childlike and innocent. She can't remember what she said; all she remembers was her grandmother's violent reaction.

"DON'T YOU EVER SAY ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN!" she shouted. "You're a Bell -- you can't say things like that! Do you want the Witch to come after you?"

And, child that she was, it made my grandmother pause. Why would what she said, coupled with who her family was, summon a witch? In her mind, she had a picture of the Wicked Witch of the West of the Wizard of Oz fame...green, ugly, corporeal -- and most importantly -- fictional. She couldn't imagine the invisible force that tormented her family over 100 years before she was born. And being a human like any other, she quickly forgot the thing she couldn't imagine, and made a point never to think of it again. Until 2001, anyway.

It's early spring of 2001 and I'm still laid up from my recent near-death experience and subsequent surgery. I can't get up off the couch, because an 8 inch gash has my abdomen completely open, guts and all. I'm stranded, 12, and bored. So, what does a kid do when they've seen every rerun their ever was? They read. A lot. I went through book after book after book until I came to Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffery by Kathryn Tucker Windham.

I knew perfectly well who Jeffrey was, of course. The librarian at the elementary school I attended grew up as a neighbor of Kathryn Tucker Windham; I had spent my formative years hearing of the exploits of the author's famous, friendly ghost. But the other ghosts in the book? I didn't know them. I also didn't know that one of them knew me.

It's nearly midnight -- like it really was, this isn't for effect -- and I'm reading the ghost book. I come to the story of the Bell Witch. I read it rather quickly and I think it's eerie, but I find it captivating, because I'm a kid that loves a good ghost story (and I still do). As I reach the last couple of paragraphs in the Bell Witch story, I begin to feel very nervous, like I'm sure somebody's watching me from behind. But I shrug it off. I know that's paranoid, crazy, and everything else irrational; and I spend an abnormal amount of time concentrating on those last few paragraphs, the last few sentences, desperately attempting to ignore that weird feeling. And then it happens. There's a huge BANG on the window behind me about six feet up. And when I say a "bang", I mean it sounded like someone threw all of their force at hitting the window. Except it was high up, too high for even my dogs to reach via jumping. And the noise was so loud, so insistent that my mother immediately hopped up and ran to look out the window, in case it was a prankster or a psycho or something. Surprise, of course, there is nothing there.

And then I start to freak out and I tell her what I was reading when it happened, and this weird look comes over her face: the harrowing look of dreadful knowing. You gotta remember: this was right after I almost died. I knew that dreadful knowing face very well, because it was all over my family and the doctors as they looked at me and knew, more likely than not, I was not only going to die, but it would be a very painful and very miserable death. (I am happy to announce, if this story isn't evidence of the fact, that I am indeed alive and sometimes very much so.)

So, yeah. She has The Look. And that's when I hear the story for the first time about what happened to my grandmother as a kid and the personal, family details of the Bell Witch haunting, etc. Was I surprised to be related to the Bells? Not really. After all I already knew that, through Caney's mother's side, I was also descended from Mary Queen of Scots. I had already accepted the fact that pretty much everyone has a famous (or infamous) relative, unless they come from a way-to-small gene pool.

But being related to the Bells didn't affect me. After a couple of nights of nervously awaiting The Noise to return (which it didn't), I then settled back into my normal routine where I didn't constantly worry over a spirit that, as far as we knew, hadn't bothered the family since 1828 (which was when the Witch made the promise to Lucy Bell, John Bell's widow, that she would occasionally visit her descendants for the rest of time).

I successfully didn't think about the Bell Witch until 2005, when my dad and I decided to go to a movie and picked a random one simply because it wasn't a chick flick. And, alas, it was An American Haunting.

So, I'm 17 years old, I'm sitting in the theater, and I'm like, "Holy crap -- did they just say John Bell?" And as the movie progressed, I saw the other characters of the legend -- Betsy, Lucy, and Richard Powell -- fall into their legendary places, and I watched a highly fictionalized version of events where John Sr. was an incestuous daughter-raper, Lucy was a murderess, and the Witch was a poltergeist brought on as an expression of Betsy's repression of the fact her father had raped her. Yeah. It was really fucked up. And in horrible taste, because it takes people who really lived and fallaciously accuses them of some of the worst crimes imaginable. (There is literally nothing worse than hurting one's own innocent child, especially in such a twisted manner.)

What do I do the second I get home? I call Connie. And here's the thing about Connie: when we met, we quickly became the closest of friends, despite a decade's difference in age and living on opposite sides of the continent. Something about her was just like it was already a part of me, like we'd been friends for all of forever. Come to find out, several years later: we are cousins. Even though her parents are from the Philippines and my dad's family has been here east of the Mississippi for 400 years on the English side and thousands of years on the Cherokee. Against odds like that, we both descend from an Irishman, a Kennedy, and English nobility. (So, because we are double kin -- literally -- she calls me doubekin really fast and it's super!cute.) In short though: she's the Christina to my Meredith. We're as mentally connected as twins. So, when I call her, I say..."

"Oh my GOD. You'll NEVER believe what I just saw."

"An American Haunting -- I saw it too."

"Oh my GOD," I say, "I cannot believe --"

"--Me neither --"

"--it's ridiculous--"

"I know, right?"

And we go into this belligerent thing where we're finishing each other's sentences which are mainly protestations about the gross falseness of the movie and how crazy it all was. This goes on for awhile. So, I'll skip all the in between which you'd have to be a doublekin to understand and get to the next main point...

There is an unearthly howl outside my window. Not like a dog, not like a cat. Not like a wild dog or a wild cat either. (I live in the suburbs -- panthers, coyotes are in the country.) It's something that just sounds horrible. It's kind of like a shriek -- not from pain -- but from something else. Again, unearthly is a good description, because it was simply bizarre and I've never heard anything like it since -- until night before last.

My Twitter friends who were up around 3am CST that night know what I'm talking about because I freaked out about it on there. I was sitting, once again, with my back to the window. And kind of up high (which sounds weird, but that's what it sounded like -- higher than my head) there was bizarre snort. All my dogs were inside. And it wasn't like a normal snort. It was really freaking weird. It was like a very low sound that was a cross between a pig noise and a horse noise -- it had those qualities. It was just freaking weird. To make things worse, a friend on Twitter who'd been talking to me about this -- her lights and flicked on and off. Yeah, probably was a power thing -- but you never know. All I know is, when I went to bed again, I heard the shriek.

And that recent incidence: for some reason, I instantly thought of the Bell Witch being the cause; out of all other supernatural explanations, she's the one I instinctively chose. (Though, granted, it could just be past experience.)

So, is it the Bell Witch? Or, could it be, perhaps, the calling card of another family legend, an older legend where the witches are really witches and goddesses as old as time have form and walk with man. (Among other things.) That legend...that's a legend for another post.

Until then, sleep well my fellow humans.

They're OUR Bitches: My View on Politics and Why it Should Be Yours Too

2011-10-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Democracy as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

1.a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

Could it be any clearer? Let me break it down into modern terms.

We hire politicians via voting. We pay them (far too much) via taxes. We are their bosses; they are our employees. But it's more than that. We hire them to represent our interests on a national level, because all of us doing it at once, in person, would be far too confusing. And since they are specifically hired to do our bidding, they are, in effect, our bitches.

But everyone seems to have forgotten that. Instead, when they vote somebody in, they think they're voting for an autocrat that rules them and makes their decisions for them. If you think a democratic government rules you, then you need to read the definition (several times if need be). Instead, the real point of a democracy is that we, the people, create an administrative body to represent us on a national scale. They do our grunt work to keep society flowing smoothly. Laws should be for the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Any law that tells you what you can read, who you can talk to, or where you can go, what you can wear -- that's a dictatorial law of an autocratic fascist and you really shouldn't even listen to it, because it came into being by your bitch (aka politician) usurping the job you gave them for their own agenda.

Now, I don't mean to tell you what political party to believe in. That's not why I'm here. The reason I'm here is to educate you on how a democratic society works and to tell you -- whatever your political affiliation -- that in a free country, you are the boss.

It's time for us, as Americans, to take our country back. From this moment on, I challenge any and all politicians to go to work for me, for their people, and not themselves. And I challenge the American people to remember their place, to remember that you rule this country.

We live in the best country in the world. But it often doesn't seem that way. The reason is this: We forget why we're here, what our ancestors fought and died for. We forget that this was supposed to be better, we forget that we're supposed to be the best. Anyone not willing to stand up with me and adopt this philosophy is already beaten and you might as well just go ahead and lay in that hole in the ground, waiting for them to pile the dirt on you.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think my little blog post can effect overnight change. But I hope that this idea takes hold, that you share it with your friends, that they share it with theirs, and eventually Americans, on a massive scale, are reminded why we are here and of the power they posses.

So, be a human and pass this on. If you don't pass this on, I assume you like being the bitch of your bitch and I'll remember to buy you a blindfold, gag, and some fuzzy handcuffs for Christmas, because you're apparently going to need it.

Mandy F from Mind Candy likes my blog!!

2011-10-22T17:41:00.000-07:00

Check it out, lovelies!

(Click me.)

Hey you! Be a human: the compassion post

2011-10-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

As I was eating my breakfast yesterday morning, I stared at the battered, lifeless corpse of former Lybian dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and had an epiphany: people really don't recognize the moment that they become hypocrites.

I firmly believe the rebels had a right to be pissed. And they had a right to oust Gaddafi. All people deserve to be free and live in dignity, served by (not ruled by) a government of their choosing. But when I saw Gaddafi all battered and dead, I realized something even more harrowing: the rebels had become Gaddafi. And isn't that the way it goes? We turn into the thing we hate, because instead of rising above it, we think to give it a taste of its own medicine.

I was talking to a friend on Twitter yesterday. And, in the midst of my disappointment and shock, I actually said something wise and mature: "The only right way to fight oppression is to fight smarter and better and righter -- not violenter." Violenter is not a word, but the rest are, and I think I made a good point: our evolved brains are supposed to give us the ability to rise above of oppressors mentally, physically, and -- most importantly -- emotionally.

As people opposing Gaddafi's ridiculous autocracy and ethnic cleansing, the rebels' main job was to get him out of power (and hopefully not tear the country to ribbons while doing it). That was their original goal. But then, how do you explain Gaddafi's battered body yesterday? Easily: it was hate. It was anger over him and everything about him and the fact that he was the enemy. Why is it that hate is the most human trait there is, yet it's the one we're supposed to rise above? But that's the thing: every human, no matter what their beliefs or culture knows that hate is wrong. They know what it does. They know that hate festers until it's all there is. Fear is the mind-killer, but hate is the soul-killer. We all know it, but we still let it get the best of us.

Overwhelming anger and passion is the only way an average person could actually go through with killing someone. (Psychopaths and sociopaths obviously operate differently, but we shan't go into them now.) But when you're full of hate, you change. Killing becomes less of a big deal. It becomes less justice and more vengeance, and you've probably forgotten the real reason you were angry in the first place. That dudes who were parading Gaddafi's corpse were all like "Fuck yeah! We killed that sonbitch!"

Yeah, you killed him. Now what?

Because that's the thing: killing him during a raid is just vengeance. You showed everyone (especially Gaddafi) that you were pissed off. But you forgot why. If he was put on trial and had a sentence according to the local legal system, the whole world would've seen why the rebels were angry. They would've showed everyone that Gaddafi's a bad guy, he did bad things, and they refuse to be ruled by that. Execution under law is a political and social choice of a people. But Gaddafi was just killed out in the streets; what was done to him, he'd probably had done to others in the past, but that doesn't make it right.

And, when you kill someone: you just became a killer. You just became the thing you hated. The bullied became the bully; the beaten child beats his children. And that, my friends, is the worst kind of hypocrisy there is.

But with all that said, I sincerely hope the Libyan people find peace, because they deserve it. Everyone does.

That awkward moment when this was overdone

2011-10-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

I chuckled the first couple of times when I heard "that awkward moment when" comments. Some of them were actually funny -- until it became a thing. Now that it's a thing, people think it's cool to come up with their own "that awkward moment when" phrases. But here's what happens when it becomes a thing: every moment gets awkward.

"That awkward moment when..." is the knock-knock joke of the 21st century. Yeah, it was funny...once. How to remedy the awkwardness of "that awkward moment"? You actually use your brain. The day wit, observation, and comedic timing die is the day my soul dies too.

So, to put this to bed once and for all, here's one more...for the road:

"That awkward moment when you read this."

Reasons I won't date you

2011-10-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

Don't think of it as me being a snobby bitch. Think about me, being harassed by weirdos that have done this crap. And also, if you're a guy, listen up, because this is just generally good dating advice.

Here be reasons:

1. You wear socks with sandals or sandals/flipflops at inappropriate times.

Unless you're an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, sandals are NOT appropriate evening attire. That's thing number one. Thing number two: socks with sandals is just WRONG. Anyone with a brain cell knows it. If you don't, then you're not anyone, and all of us who are ones will shun you. (Interpret that how you will.)

2. You get in my personal space when I don't even know you, haven't invited you there, and clearly have no intention in doing so.

I once knew this guy that would just edge closer and closer to me if we were somewhere out in public at the same time. He would just keep edging in until he would be a foot away or less -- right up in the middle of my personal space. And then -- and then -- he would talk to me. The way it made me feel was like he was bearing down on me in an odd and skeevy fashion. It was so off-putting. I would literally say "Dude, you best be backin' up." Did he invade my personal space next time? Yes, he did. He didn't learn. And I eventually started avoiding places he would be simply because the only other option would be to kick his ass and get charged with assault. Creepy dudes aren't worth being arrested over. And that, my friends, is maturity.

3. You've been in a serious relationship with my good friend -- even when she's definitely over you.

This explanation is multilayered. I've had friends that are all like, "Why don't you date my ex? I think y'all'd make a cute couple." Here's why.

Firstly, if you were with my friend, I know all of your faults. You're a naiviot (naive idiot) if you think I don't. Not only do I know all the faults she told me, but I know all the faults that she was too blind to see out of her love for you.The second reason: Any girl with self-esteem isn't going to let a penis that has been in her friend's vagina into her vagina. (But that's not to say dating in my world automatically equals sex -- I'm not that easy.) Lastly, the friend is never okay with you dating her ex deep down, even if she can't stand him or is normally above such clichéd behaviors. When it comes to amour, no one is above clichés.

4. You talk down to me.

One of the easiest ways to piss me off is to talk to me like I'm an idiot. Just ask my family. They treat me like an idiot all the time. But here's the difference between family and prospective dates: you can't choose family. And they actually love me, despite their attitudes.

But when a stranger treats you like shit, they don't love and they never will. So, yeah. If you tell me things like, "Go make me some muffins, darling. The men are talking," and then puff your cigar smoke in my face, I will probably (figuratively) kill you. I'm not going to lie. I will probably take my muffin tin and beat you upside the head until you cry. And then I'd laugh. And then I'd tell you to make the muffins yourself.

5. You talk down to others.

You ain't a man if you do that. At least not a real one, anyway. Seriously, some intelligent person actually had something to say about it:

"If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." - JK Rowling

A good rule of thumb is if Jo Rowling said it, it's probably right. At least, I hold stock in that.

Only a small man on the inside treats someone poorer than him, less brainy or shorter than him like they're less human than him. I was raised to treat hobos with the same respect I would show the Queen. I think everyone else should too.

6. You've never dated anyone before.

I'm simply too old to break you. I'm 23. I'm not 15. I can't be training boys to know how to be boyfriends at my age. They should already know that shit.

7. You caress me oddly during a normal conversation.

This has happened before. And it is so weird, I thought it deserved a whole separate talking point from the personal space issue. If I meet you and we're talking about something nonsensical like did Nero really own a fiddle, and then you caress me...like slide your hand up my arm, my thigh, or even -- yes, this has happened -- my boob, I will make you cry. Seriously. If I'm in a good mood and it's NOT one of my more intimate parts, you might get a warning -- might.

8. Poor hygiene.

This is supposed to never be a problem -- I mean, don't you guys have mothers? -- and it definitely should've been stomped out by middle school. But, alas, it is a problem. Guys can be really gross. And if I can smell you from a foot away, you're too gross for me. In fact, you shouldn't stink at all. I don't mind the smell of sweat and activity so much as just that gross, fucking nasty smell dudes get when they don't bathe enough. That's what really bothers me. And it bothers every other girl too. (Or at least it should. A lot of girls don't have good self-esteem, so they put up with it. But they shouldn't.)

9. You're a Republican.

I'm pretty open-minded. I don't care what religion you are. You don't even have to be religious or spiritual at all. But I cannot abide Republicans. The current ideals of the party are so crazy and heinous that Lincoln is simultaneously rolling over in his grave AND looking down from heaven and crying.

Yes, you assholes, you made Lincoln cry. Be ashamed.

To me, to even be a Republican, you have to either A) be a wicked moron, B) be uneducated, or C) let your parents think for you ala "Well, Daddy always voted Republican." Either way, you need to read some sort of book. Whether it's like an educational text book on the core beliefs of different parties or else a holy/spiritual/touchy-feely book about human compassion. Just SOMETHING. Because being a Republican is about as wrong as you can legally get.

10. You have no confidence.

I'm a nice person. I'm really nice, despite all my talk of Republicans (who are non-persons). But honestly, if you have no confidence, I probably won't notice you. And that's not because I'm a bitch -- it's because, you're in some kind of shell that makes you unrelatable and often unnoticeable.

Then there's the other type of no-confidence guy who just sits around complaining how bad their life is, how loser-y they are, and then uses that to try to gain a sympathy date. That's just dishonest. You tell your troubles to your friends, your agonies to your aunts. You don't moan to girls you want to date. It's really not sexy.

So, there you have it, folks. Ten reasons I won't date you. And that's just ten. There's actually a lot more. And again, I'm not a bitch. I just have some really nifty qualities like self-esteem and standards. And those are just two reasons why I'm awesome.

(Oh yeah. And I did all of that "art". Can't you tell by the three-year-old-ish skills and humor?)

The one where I say things to piss you off: My view on Steve Jobs' death

2011-10-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

I wanted my first post to be something lighthearted and altogether more exemplary of what the majority of this blog will be like -- but that's not going to happen.

Unless you've been frozen in carbonite , you've probably heard the sad news that Steve Jobs passed away two days ago. And yes, it's very sad news. He was a genius, relatively young, and he died way too soon. My deepest sympathies go out to his loved ones, who no doubt miss him very much. (And I really do mean that.)

But, do you see what I did right there? I reacted normally to the death of a stranger whose work I respected; I reacted normally to the death of a fellow human being. But what's getting me is all the abnormal reactions other people are having. I'll elaborate.

I first heard about the news on Twitter. Like the rest of my generation, I find it much quicker to read a 140 character or less tweet about said event than to watch CNN anchors drone about it six hours before they actually get to the point. And, since I learned about this sad news on Twitter, I had the unique opportunity to instantly see the reactions of everyone who was commenting on Jobs' death. The first couple of condolences were normal, sober, and well-expressed. (i.e "I'm very sad to hear about the passing of Steve Jobs.") But as I continued reading, it became apparent that people who never even knew Steve Jobs were freaking the fuck out. "OMG. I can't believe he's dead!" -- which is, granted, rather normal.

And I get that. Everyone reacts differently to death. And the death of someone you look up to -- even if it's someone you've never met -- is very hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. You know, I can understand it. And with that said, I can move along to my point.

There is a line between being upset (including very upset) about the passing of someone iconic in their field and between turning that being upset into a yuppy trend, a bandwagon for others to hop on just so they can feel included in this tragedy. Further more, I saw a lot of celebrities who probably didn't care one wit about Steve Jobs tweeting vehemently about his death. And I mean, I can't say that with a categorical certainty -- that they didn't care -- but I can say that a lot of them seemed to be using it as a platform to get attention. That is Thing Number 1 I saw very wrong that day.

And then there is Thing Number 2, which I found even more disturbing. And it may seem like a small thing to a lot of people, but just humor me, follow along with my thought train for a moment, and THEN see what you think...

When I was reading through my Twitter feed, I saw a tweet done by Alyssa Milano:

This tweet came after a usual sort of sympathy tweet, where she spoke her sentiments from her heart. This tweet however, is merely a well-meaning gesture that's actually rather shallow. And what thought did this tweet provoke in me? I thought to myself: Why is she using her celebrity to get her followers to do a tribute to someone who's already died when she could instead be using it to raise awareness for the disease that killed him?

I have lupus. Right now, I'm doing rather well and I'm grateful for that. But I've nearly died from it before. And if I ever did die from it and I was looking down from above, I would want a celebrity to use their power and influence to help save others from my fate via raising awareness, charity work, etc. My spiritual, spectral self would probably appreciate sincere comments, but empty gestures? Just no.

And I want to make it clear I don't think Alyssa Milano was doing this as a purposeful thing to gain attention for herself. I mean, she could've been -- I'm not her and don't know what she's thinking -- but whatever the motive, I wish she knew that a better, more meaningful tribute to Steve Jobs would've been something to raise awareness. After all, one of the greatest things Jobs is known for was his innovative spirit. He saw the world going forward. He saw new ways to look at the world, to make daily life easier, to make entertainment more entertaining. And since he had that way about him, I think a greater tribute than an empty gesture would be to carry on his message, you know? For instance, helping solve what caused him to die -- even in a tiny way -- is an innovation. And aside of the tribute aspect, I think, even in death, he'd want the rest of us to use every opportunity to just keep moving forward.

Welcome

2011-09-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to lie: I've always been weird. I've always had a unique way of looking at the world that people find funny because A) it actually is funny, B) they think it's funny that I think things like that, or C) they think I'm being ironic in the pseudo-intellectual way.

I've never been afraid to say what I think, either. Even if it's taboo or inappropriate. The only way I edit myself is I try not to be mean to someone who doesn't deserve it. The good news is, I don't really have to do that because I usually don't think mean things about nice people anyway, because I myself am a nice person.

And all of these things about me have always been things about me and probably always will. But here's the thing: quitting smoking (which I highly recommend) has brought them out more. All the energy I put into chain smoking in bars and at my computer can now be focused to my mind -- like it was back when I was a kid, before I ever started smoking. And I was a really interesting kid. So, yeah. Most of this stuff is going to be dumb, but you know what? Dumb can be good for the soul if it's in the right doses.

(In other words: this is a coping outlet that we can all enjoy together. Yay!)