The Weird Left Zombie Leg

I'm not near as flexible as I'd like to be. One arm carries some sort of damage from an injury that I got about seven years ago. Both legs act like rebellious teenagers. The right one sticks to the rules and doesn't ever go out of its way to stretch unnaturally. The left one, which also has a fussy knee joint, breaks all the rules. I can even stick my left big toe in my mouth, if I wanted to. I don't though. Can never equals, should, does, or want to.

That's the one I have shoved up against my desk right now, my Doc Marten boot hovering above my knee and close to my right hip while my left knee is actually above the keyboard. It's a weird situation. I tried actually putting both heels against my desk, but a rolling chair kinda makes that hard. I'm actually sitting basically with my left leg in my lap. My weird zombie left leg, just sitting here, not looking or feeling like it's even attached.

Can you tell I'm having an ADD type of morning? 

The Third Book

I filled in the blocks last night on my chart, and I only have like five days of this left in which there is any way to track myself writing and posting and stuff. I think maybe I should make a similar chart for planning my wedding and workouts. I like feeling accomplished each day that I write something, so I'll probably keep this up.

It's a dim and dreary Saturday, perfect for a cup of coffee and a nice thick book about dragons or vampires or magic schools. I love days like this. It was a cloudy, gloomy day one January when I finished the second draft of my second book. I didn't start typing it yet. In fact, that one was never typed. I do still have the notebook with the second draft in it, as well as the notebooks, tied together with yarn so I could easily reference, that contained the first draft.

I'm not sure when I started work on the third book. It was sometime my senior year of high school, I'm sure. What I'm not so sure about is what happened between my perky, cheerful, cliche-ridden second book and the beginning of the third one. I can specify one point where the story turned. A character died. Not a main character at that point, but the man died of cardiac arrest after running into the throne room and declaring that war had begun. Sometime after that, I decided, while a classical station was playing in my room, that a central character, a blind girl who was an archer, would die in the third book.

That was before any of the third book was even written.

The story took a darker turn. Not in a bad way, of despair and hopelessness, but I definitely reached back to my roots with it. I was raised on spooky stories and legends. I liked to be spooked. Not terrified out of my mind, but I appreciated a good chill now and then. Note that I didn't like horror movies, and didn't watch them. My first experience with the genre was Jeepers Creepers, which was disappointing. That whole movie was based on a Batman arc where Batman mutated into a bat thing. Seriously. It was bad. Give me zombies any day.

While the book didn't turn suddenly scary, my mind held on to the ghost stories and legends and pictures of spooky houses. It was random as far as the stories go. There had been no foreshadowing of this part, no mention of it in passing, no gun on the table when one went off. Suddenly, my two main characters were exploring this creepy old house in the countryside, because they'd heard rumors, and there had been disappearances.

I didn't hold back. Dust, dirt, freaky graffiti on the wall, broken old toys arranged meticulously on shelves, and an old doll that stared. I still think it was a legitimately creepy scene, like a good H.P. Lovecraft story.

And it was nothing like the original. At all. Somehow, between finishing the second book and starting the third, it all changed. The story, the tone, the scale of the story. Suddenly it was dark and intense and urgent. The main character questioned at all why she did anything that happened in the first book, and whether it was pointless.

I never finished that book. By that time, the work had changed so much that I simply decided to start over in college. I remember passing the time at the bookstore job I had, writing down book stuff when I wasn't outlining reports for my correspondence class, sometimes on paper circles in the cafe, when I didn't have my little notebook on me.

Thing is, I know exactly where the book was headed. I knew that a lot had to be done to get there, and that a lot had to be rewritten to provide the characters a way to arrive there.

So I started over.

At some point, I think I let my writing grow up with me. When I started, I was the same age as the main character. I think the story wasn't ready then, just as the rewrite isn't quite finished, though for different reasons regarding both.

I'm glad I didn't finish the third book, but I sure am glad I started it.

More Badness

Not the good kind, either.

Here's some more of the strange weirdness I wrote when I was fifteen. Tonight it will be short.

----------------

[Here we pick up in mid-paragraph. She just petted the dog's head.]

That day, Anya's parents were away shopping in the next town with her baby sister, so there was nothing to do. [Is anyone surprised at the potential child abandonment going on here?] Then, Anya remembered the woods. she had been wanting to explore them ever since she had seen them a couple of weeks ago. [For reals, what is with this family?] Those woods appeared to be the only good aspect of the move. [There is something wrong with these people.] And since there was nothing else to do [kudos to young me for totally thinking of the audience and reminding them of things over and over], Anya put on her shoes. [How exciting.] At least there's the woods, she thought. [THESE PEOPLE NEED A HOBBY.] Probably the only good thing about moving to this town. [*sigh*]

Anya walked out of the house and toward the woods [JUST IN CASE YOU FORGOT], with Tiki [he's her dog] following. She found a trail and followed it. [Maybe she'll find the bodies?] Anya loved to explore places just as her mother had. [Oh dangit, another one.] Perhaps even more so, and she had gotten lost more than once. [Mom was apparently the brains of the operation.] And every time that Anya had gotten lost had been slightly frightening. [No crap, Sherlock.] But still Anya loved to explore.

She strolled slowly [repetition just to drive the point across], looking around the woods [not even gonna bother here], and suddenly [DUNDUNDUN, or ELLIPSES!!!], though Anya had thought the path continued, she was in a clearing. A gray, dead looking clearing, filled with rocks, shriveled fruit on the branches of a gnarled, ancient tree, and some gray vines. [I actually like the way the tree sounds.] But, in a few seconds, the place brightened astoundingly [ASTOUNDINGLY GUYS], and everything in the clearing turned a slightly blue color. [The heck is "slightly blue"?] The wrinkled fruits plumped up and turned a deep, royal blue. [LSD is a heck of a drug.]

"Wow," Anya said in awe. This place had smelled old and stale; now it smelled good, but not a heavy, flowery smell. [Totes glad it didn't smell like old lady perfume.] Something fresh hung in the air, something like lemon, but earthier. [So Lemon Pine-sol, I guess.] Anya picked one of the fruits off the tree and inspected it. "It looks alright," she muttered to herself. [I knew the psychosis was a family thing.] So she took a small bite. [Because that's always a great idea.] The taste was wonderful; sweet, spicy, sour, cool, and oddly warm all at the same time. [Apparently it tasted like General Tso's Chicken.]

"Well, Tiki, we've found somewhere to go when we get tired of that house," Anya remarked to her dog. [Gee, Anya, bitter much?] So that day, she and Tiki stayed there in the clearing. they were playing with each other, jumping around, [what the heck kind of game is that?], when Anya tripped over a rock, turning it over, and fell. She sat up, laughing to herself, thinking how stupid that had been. [Good, because in real life, all of that that happening at one time would pretty much just, like, explode a human ankle.] But suddenly [DUNDUNDUN] there was a loud creaking noise, like some ancient, rusted door had just been opened once again. Anya got up and turned around. In front of her was a door. [Because we didn't see that coming.] Or a large hole in the shape of one, anyway. [So a door.] Beyond stretched a long, dark tunnel. Even though it gave her spine chills, Anya was curious. So she whistled for Tiki [and I don't know why, because he was literally right freaking there], and the two of them stepped inside.

----

Okay, that's all I can take for now.

Keeping Up with Me (And a Preview!)

Okay, this 30 posts thing is harder than I thought it would be. I did write a chapter yesterday, and now I'm frustrated as to where it should go, because I don't like it much. It's literally hard to visualize, which usually means nothing good. Once a scene become tedious and boring to write, or a character stops speaking for long periods of time, when they started off well, I know that's just about the end for that scene or character. I recently dropped a character and I feel a little relieved.

I also feel a little spooked.

It's not a superstition thing. This character was just too easy to replace. Dropping her tightened the story up. Thankfully, none of my other characters have been able to shut up for the time being, so I'm happy. I now know where this chapter is going.

But writing this novel was so much easier when the whole thing was terrible.

Speaking of which, I think I'll post another excerpt tomorrow.

I need a good laugh.

Remakes, or I Think I'm Old Now

So this past weekend, Season 7 of Doctor Who premiered. We get BBC America. Naturally, I commandeered the TV for watching a little Who. I won't spoil it for you, I promise, but there were Daleks (the name of the episode mentioned them, so really, not a spoiler.) After that, I watched Sherlock Holmes (the 2009 movie.) The night before, I had started watching The Hitcher (from 1986) on Youtube, and finished that movie up.

That's quite a lot of input into my poor little brain. I ended up having some dream in which there was a suicide note and I was turning into a Dalek. Pretty tame, actually. I had a dream with bandaids that made me gag, so I'll take the Dalek thing over that any day. (I hate bandaids.)

Lately I've been on an 80s kick. That happens every couple of years. Literally I will possibly soon be all about the 90s, which is when I actually grew up. But the 80s fascinate me right now, and coincidentally, a lot of my favorite movies were made then. I'd read some good reviews of The Hitcher (the original) and checked it out.

It was a decently creepy movie. There was gore, yes, but not a lot of it, no more than anything I've seen watching any of the crime shows I watch. It wasn't a slasher flick, in other words, but very psychological.

But they made a remake in 2007.

Sean Bean played the antagonist.

I haven't seen that one, and I don't really want to. For one, I can never really take that actor seriously as a bad guy. He's too human. He might play a criminal, but he's never unlikeable. Also, 2007 is possibly one of the worst years you could have picked to make a movie in which a lower antagonist is the absolute isolation of the highway, with no cell phone and no one you can trust. The original was scary because if you were driving alone, then you were really driving alone and unconnected.

So I wonder how the approximately million remakes coming up will hold together. I mean, they already remade Footloose. I don't know if it was any good, but it appeared to be all about country music and line dancing, with all the fun of a CW "next week on" promo. Pretty in Pink is most likely next, and I've already heard that they're remaking Dirty Dancing, though that may be just a rumor. (Hopefully a rumor, because it would probably be just pretty much one of the Step Up movies, and uhm, ew.) They've already remade Red Dawn. I saw the trailer, and it looks to be pretty good, from a technical movie standpoint. But is it believable?

*sigh*

I feel old. I'm defending movies older than me.

I'm gonna be like one of those kids I knew in college, who were born at the age of like 85, only unlike Benjamin Button, never got younger.

Someone get me some sugary cereal now. I need to grow down.

Oh My Word, Here I Go...

*ahem*

When I was fifteen, I started writing a book.

It was bad.

Here is an excerpt, with commentary included. It serves as a warning to younger me, since twentysomething me is currently DeLorean-less.

-----

Years ago, on a farm just outside of a town called Coleville, in West Virginia [not a real place. I stole the name from combining a movie with the wrong way my last name is spelled all the time and I had not at the time ever been to WV.] there lived a girl named Susan Miltons [I'm really bad at surnames]. The Miltons family was a relatively small family, with one boy, Johnny, and two girls, Susan and Linda [I swear I stole the names from an American Girl book.]. their father was a very hardworking man who was absolutely delighted to provide well for his family. And the family surely was well provided for. [What is this crap, young me? Really?]

Susan was a young girl with an adventurous spirit. She felt that she must have one, because Linda and Johnny were more content to do homework and see their friends. [Susan was apparently a loser with no friends. Or a serial killer. Criminal Minds would probably be all over that.] Susan loved to explore the thick, beautiful woods on the Miltonses [???] property. The trip was sometimes [only sometimes?] inconvenient, because Susan had to go around the field [corn, if you were wondering], but once she was finished with that obstacle [apparently Susan was fat, too], Susan explored to her content. [I guess young me wasn't into pronouns.]

To Susan, there was always some new place to find. Sometimes it had been an unfamiliar clearing. [How exciting.] Other times i had been a new path that wound through the woods, leading to some mysterious end that Susan never quite found. [Maybe that's where the bodies were hidden?] One unfortunate time, Susan had found the trail to the railroad tracks, and the train was just speeding through. [Dag.] But there was one consistent thing about Susan's explorations. She always took her loyal dog, Teddy, with her. And one day, Susan found another new clearing. But this clearing was very extraordinary, and more astonishing than anything Susan had ever seen.

It was a beautiful day one October, when Susan was twelve. [I think I legitimately thought people would get confused if I used "she" once, instead of the name.] The air was cold, the sky was the deepest blue, and it was Saturday, which allowed the whole day for fun. [No duhrr.] So she [freaking finally] went exploring, and Teddy followed loyally, as he did every time, his tongue hanging out, his fur blowing in the breeze. The leaves were changing, and falling, and not a cloud was in the sky. So the young girl and her dog strolled to the woods.

This day, Susan chose a new, smaller path than the others she had seen before. [My grammar sucked too, if you haven't noticed.] The path was clear, nearly perfect, not covered by thorns like most of the trails in these woods. Up ahead was a bend in the path, and when Susan and Teddy went around it, they found, instead of another path, a clearing. But this clearing was  different than others. [Those sentences are just gross.] Everything in it was a different shade of brilliant blue. The rocks were blue, as was the piney cover on the blue tinted soil. [Sorry, I forgot about the acid trip part of the story.]

"Oh," breathed Susan. "Teddy, it's so amazing." [Poor Teddy...I'm so sorry for what you had to put up with.] Teddy looked happy; no, ecstatic, as if he had found some hidden happiness in that clearing. [SUBTLE FORESHADOWING DUNDUNDUN.] A small fruit hung from one of the trees, and Susan looked at it, but decided against eating it. But she made a decision about the clearing itself. This was her special place. I'll come back every day, she thought. Or at least I'll try. So, after playing there for a long while with Teddy, Susan headed home.

****************
 [It gets better.]

Susan did indeed try to go back every day. Even when she explored other places, she found time to go to her special clearing. [Was anyone concerned at all about this child spending hours in the woods unsupervised?] It was a place of peace, somewhere to play and to dream. No other place was like it. But even so, special as it was to her, there was something even better about it that Susan herself would never discover [SUBTLETY.] So these happy years crawled by lazily, and Susan and Teddy became closer in a strange way as they visited the clearing. [I'm sorry, but just no.]

The day came when Susan turned sixteen. [This is apparently known to happen occasionally.] As this birthday had approached, she had stopped going as often. Other things, like friends, [finally], school [also finally] and cinema [Cinema? Really?] replaced the clearing as important to her. And then, Susan stopped going at all, and forgot all about this beautiful clearing. [Morality tale: avoid puberty at all costs, because you may be in danger of getting a life.] Teddy never did, though, and he went back every day, because, not only was he used to the routine, the dog [because I know you totally just forgot what species Teddy was] knew that something was more special about this blue place. [did no one care that the dog wandered off too?] But the clearing, as Susan stopped going, turned from a bright blue to a dull, dead, faded gray. [Being a teenager will also kill the local flora. Apparently.]

Susan graduated from high school two years later, went to college, and got married to a man named Charlie McKail. They moved far away from Coleville, to a larger town named Wilson, hours away from Coleville. [In North Carolina.] Susan and Charlie had a daughter, whom they named Anya Leona McKail. The family lived a nice life in Wilson. [Good to know.] Anya went to a good school [also good to know, because schools in NC err on the side of suckage] and Susan and Charlie had very good jobs. And all this time, the clearing grew grayer still. [I imagine it eventually just turned clear.] And Teddy, the loyal dog, died, as no one in our world lives forever. [Crap, that's depressing.] The years passed, with the clearing lying, forgotten, in the thick woods around Coleville.

[Here's a tiny excerpt from a bit down the page. Anya's parents are discussing moving to Coleville because Susan's parents decide to give her a house or some junk like that.]

"Mama, we can't move," Anya objected. "I have friends here. Do you know how long it took me to make friends? [In Susan's footsteps, I suppose.] What in the world's wrong with Wilson?"

-----

A lot Anya. There's a lot wrong with Wilson.

Panic!

I really really really really cannot stand the thought of not being able to move my elbows. The thought of being stuck in a pipe or something, or somehow having my arms pinned, makes me mentally panic.

Now do understand that this is more than just discomfort. The first two minutes on an elliptical are a little uncomfortable, at least until I'm good and warmed up. I can't sleep at night if I'm too hot. I probably will never again make the mistake of ordering a bubble tea with whole milk.

But if I were caught with my elbows pinned to my sides and unable to move, I'd probably just start screaming. Even when I don't feel like doing much at all, my body still craves the option of moving.

There's only one other feeling in the world like it.

That feeling is always when I'm trying to work on my book. Recently, I've spent more energy blogging than actually working on my novel, and it does frustrate me. Being a little unsure of where to go next always feels a little untidy, but that's okay. I usually whip out my teeny little notebook for those moments, or run ideas by my fiance. It's a method of talking things out, and it usually really helps a ton.

I'm talking about those moments when my job is a little quiet and I have a moment I could use to focus. I sit in front of my screen and re-read the scene I just wrote. Then I place the cursor where I want to begin...

And usually that's when something makes noise. For no reason. Or my favorite times, when little kids scream. In short bursts.

Over and over again.

That's when I panic, because the noises don't stop. Door alarms sound, or UPS delivers something, or the phone rings and rings and rings, sometimes three callers at once. And I can't figure out, in earnest, where to go after getting five seconds to my mental self, and I start to hate the scene and I remember it being so much better when I wrote it down in the notebook five days ago, because I was listening to music I like and was therefore able to provide myself with a mental sanctuary. Then I sort of start to hate this character that's just visually there but said a whole lot more and her brother's important, and I like him but without her, there's no connection. And then I think "Oh crap, this character might be ripped off of Simon Tam" even though he's really honestly not. And then I wonder if I should just get rid of this character because she's been around since literally 2002, only back then she was twelve inches tall and now she's all emo, but I really love the attitude there. Oh my word, I could transfer that to another character and make her awesome, but the brother thing is a problem but I really really love that character and oh hey, they could have muskets and tricorner hats or maybe I can just say True Grit plus Lord of the Rings plus Twilight plus The Hunger Games plus the 1980s and nukes! OMG GUYS GUNS ARE COOL.

Not that any of this discussion actually occurs in words.

My brain doesn't have the attention span for words.

Well, now I feel better.

Thanks!

How to Pray Poker at Bob Jones University

No, that's not a typo. When I was at Bob Jones University, I learned how to pray poker.

In January, my fiance taught me how to play a simple game of poker. Just recently, my brain realized how similar a game was to the nightly prayer groups at BJU.

BJU is a fundamentalist university where giving prayer requests is the way to get the best gossip. Each night, except for Saturdays, the students gathered at 10:30 (and yes, there were two bells to tell you when it was and when you were late) to pray together. There's really nothing wrong with that, except for the whole bell thing, and it was a really good way to get to know people on your residence hall, because there would always be a lot of socialization. It was also a good way of uplifting your fellow students.

But, especially in a place like BJU, human nature prevails hard. People love to hear themselves talk, even the shy little missionary kid from Brazil (who speaks no Portuguese, oddly.) And we, as the human race, are fascinated with gruesome stories.

Here's how it starts.

Imagine you're hanging out with your friends, and you start telling them a story about this massive papercut you got from a book jacket once. (That actually happened to me when I worked at BAM. It hurts more than you'd think.) For some reason, the papercut story seems to give others both permission and fuel to share their numerous injury stories. It will escalate, usually with "well, I sawed my finger open while peeling a mango." (That happened to me too. By the way, I also used to play Monopoly alone.) Then a third friend will share the time he was running and tripped and gashed his knee open on a rock and needed like 58 stitches. Eventually it comes to a point where someone gets distracted and the conversation turns to other things that don't belong in any of the Saw films.

The same thing happens in prayer group at BJU, and I am not kidding. It's tweaked a little, though.

Let's just say I had, like five papers due in a week. (It was actually possible during my studies, as one semester I took 20 hours.) In prayer group, I'd say something like "I'm feeling kinda tired this week and I have a ton of projects coming due, so just I'd appreciate some prayer." Simple, right?

So the next prayer request would be a little worse. "My allergies are really acting up, and I can't see and it's driving me crazy, and I have projects due too."

And that's where the poker part came in.

Because the next one would be something along the lines of "I see your allergies, and I raise you the flu, plus my gramma has a cold."

And the next one. "Flu? Yeah, I've been really struggling with accepting God's will in my bronchitis this week. It's just...so hard..."

Each prayer group averaged about 12 people, so you can imagine how long this would go on, and people would really stretch, with things like my best friend's down the street neighbor might have skin cancer, because cancer wins points in the contest. Eventually, it'll get to "my dad's fifth cousin had his face chewed off in Miami, so just pray for him."

I finally figured out this game in the spring semester of 2009. It was my return to school after taking a semester off and working at BAM. One night, I was in prayer group after a phone conversation with my mom. Some friends of my brother had been in a pretty bad car accident, and one of them was airlifted to a trauma center with, among other injuries, a fractured skull and a ruptured spleen. My brother was pretty upset, according to my mom. The guys in the accident did end up okay, but that night, it was a major thing.

So after the obligatory requests about projects and allergies and struggling with stuff, it was my turn.

I mentioned the guy who'd been badly injured, making note of the ruptured spleen, because it is a serious, very traumatic injury.

Everyone in the room, seriously, went "Ewwwww."

You really would think I'd just eaten a booger in front of them.

But I was the last to give a prayer request.

I won the game with the mention of a ruptured spleen.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you pray poker at Bob Jones University. 

Dealing With It

One thing I think I've always been afraid of losing is my health.

Please don't get me wrong and tell me how you struggle with your allergies, because most people an intolerance or allergy to something. Milk, for example. A bowl of cereal with dairy milk keeps me full not because it's an amazing source of protein and nutrition, but because my stomach just has never liked milk and I probably should avoid it. I deal. Or the ones who talk about how distressed they are because they have all this debt that accumulated because they spent way too much money when they were unemployed.*

Maybe don't be so eager to play grownups when you know you can't afford it?

We live in a world where people can collect disability for a cloudy day making them sad. I kid you not; my parents actually know someone who is on disability for this very reason. Truth is, many of those that society would normally call "disabled" reject the title and prove that they are very able, even when it's so hard.

Case in point: a good friend of mine, who I roomed with in college for a year, was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In her 20s. While in grad school, working as a GA.

Dang.

I'd always been pretty aware of Type 1, because one of my uncles has had it for pretty much as long as I've been alive. I literally do not remember a time when I didn't know the bare bones, kiddie explaination for diabetes. You couldn't have sweets and you had to give yourself shots. Later, when I read The Babysitters Club books, I wasn't all that moved or freaked out that one of the characters had diabetes. Maybe that was a "very special episode" for other kids, but in my family, it was just dealt with.

My cousin's daughter, who I either six or close to it, has Type 1 as well. A lot of my family has Type 2 (including my dad, who is now on insulin.)

Every single one of these people just deals with it. It is part of their lives.

It still scares me a little.

I go to the gym as often as I can. I run on one of the elliptical machines there, and I enjoy that high I get from it. I was sort of a hippie about food in high school, and I'm a little paranoid about the things I put on my face. Heck, I get a little freaked out when I think about cheese too hard.

Watching this friend go through this as a twentysomething is downright scary. (She blogs about it at The Clumsy Juggler. Have a read!) Soon after I found that out, my dad found out from a former next-door neighbor that his son, a year younger than me and either a firefighter or a paramedic, had also recently been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

And these people still deal with it, and go on with their lives, making the adjustments. Yeah, it's stressful. I admire everyone I know who deals with a disease that can become life-threatening very fast.

So please don't whine to me about your minor, non-life-threatening allergies. I promise. You'll be fine.




*This isn't a blanket statement. My own fiance has nasty allergies and a deviated septum, and a lot of my good friends have them. This is more about people who love attention and crave it. I know some of those too. Owning a house? No problem. But 22 might not be the best age to take on a mortgage on a house you may not ever fully pay off. That's all I'm saying. Get an apartment.

So What Now?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."-C.S. Lewis

The Supreme  Court has decided today to uphold the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

What now, indeed?

I don't want anyone to require me to buy health insurance, even if I were wealthy and could afford the best coverage. Say what you want about the rest of it.

I don't like being told what to do.

I do not give a crap about the assurances that "oh, only about 6% of people will be paying the fine, it's okay."

Uh, no, it's not okay.

I don't want to be required to buy something or face paying a fine if I don't. That's officially robbery. Actually, it's more like extortion.

Am I being dramatic?

I don't think so. The government needs to get their greasy fingers out of my freaking pockets and back off.

Bring on the zombie apocalypse. It's probably cheaper anyway.

It's Got to be On Purpose

I opened the local paper recently to a story about a local comic book artist, Brian Wingrove (here's his site!)

My post is not on this. It's more about the local paper in question. Now really, I have nothing but love for the publication. It's pretty informative, if small, but I still read it mornings at work and try to see what's going on in town. Even though the size has shrunk in the past years (like literally the paper is not as wide) I continue to be a reader.

But dang, they suck at proofreading. 

I think it has been getting better lately. Maybe. The writing's certainly improved, because they used to have one article writer who probably could have used a writing class. I haven't seen her name lately, but when her work appeared in the paper, a typical paraphrased quote looked like this.

"Mr. Smith said that his wife had said that her aunt said that the intruder had shown up around dinnertime."

And see, that's okay. Easy mistake, just takes a little work to correct.

It gets better.

There's also the section for letters to the editor, written of course by the community, on various topics. I will never forget the one that was printed a couple of years ago.

The letter was praising this medical facility for being so helpful and caring during a patient's last days. She'd had a terminal illness and the family was sincerely thanking the staff at this place.

According to the paper, the deceased was afflicted with lunch disease.

I must say, I have never heard of lunch disease.

Okay, you say. Typo. Sure. Someone was hungry when they typed that.

Now, Brian Wingrove's comic series is called "Intermezzo" and is a reference to the humorous content. This short article that appeared in the paper had a picture of Mr.Wingrove holding up a couple of copies of his comic, upon which is clearly printed "Intermezzo" across the top. In big letters. Yellow ones.

And sure enough, next to the picture in the paper, they talk about his Intermezza comic series.

That is not a thing.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that it's done on purpose, to add "charm" and "quirk" to the local paper.

I applied once for a proofreading position and was never called.

I like to think it's because my resume was too perfectly spelled.

Titles and Covers and Elves, Oh My...

I hate sci-fi and fantasy.

I'm a hypocrite. I know.

I didn't really realize this until sort of recently. Like last week*

Now let me back up a bit. I obviously don't actually hate the genres as a whole. They really are the most interesting to me. I love the Harry Potter books, liked Twilight, have published a small collection of short sci-fi stories, and am currently working on a novel with its roots in fantasy and its leaves in the stars. That's not hate, but I'm really good about making overstatements.

So last week. I was at the library, poking around and looking for something to read that would satisfy my very picky nature. (I ended up getting Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker, which I know I probably won't finish, and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which I really liked. When they do the movie, Alan Rickman needs to play Silas. So anyway.) I had read something on io9.com about a couple of books that looked to be hard sci-fi. The second one had lovely cover art, and it was newer, and the library had it. I figured I should start with the first, so I found it on the shelf and took a look at the inside of the cover.

It took me about two seconds to slide it back on.

Why?

The blurb was way too freaking long.

While that sentence makes me sound, well, lacking, I have a valid reason for thinking that. This book's description, coupled with cover art that reminded me of bad mass-market sci-fi coupled with Harlequin romance, only if the characters were electronics instead of people, were a major turnoff.

I didn't need to read the whole plot of the book on the cover. It didn't tease me or invite me in at all. The art was, eh, about as interesting as my microwave with its broken turntable (so not much.) The length of the blurb threatened to tell the entire story. Suddenly the novel became a hard sci-fi infobook.

I don't read textbooks anymore. I barely read them in college.

Worst part was, this was done by a publishing house. I'd react the same way with the fantasy books at the library. All of them will have an elf, or bow with arrows, or a leather bikini, or maybe a centaur. Possibly a blatant ripoff of hobbits. All that is pretty much why I avoid high fantasy like the plague. Yeah, this makes it really hard for me to describe with any helpful accuracy what sort of books I like to read.

Well first, it has to be attractive. There are a lot of movies that I haven't seen (and most likely won't) for the simple reason is that they just didn't look that interesting. I really could not care less how they "made you think about...life." Uhm, well, yeah. A lot of movies do. First time I saw The Matrix, I was a little freaked out for a couple days. Not from the movie. It's still one of my faves. But just because I sat in Geometry class wondering if my pencil was real, doesn't mean it's a cinematic masterpiece. It was just a fun movie, and it got my attention.

Second, it has to entertain. If a book goes on incessantly about the politics and religious practices of vampire elves living in a 23rd century version of New York on a distant planet, I don't care if the setting is really cool, I'm done if there's no plot. Even the most interesting characters are boring if nothing ever happens to them. Pride and Prejudice didn't get popular because Lizzy Bennett spent the book pondering life while working as a waitress. It has an actual plot.

So writers, if you've chosen the self-publishing route, as many including myself have, you're gonna be doing a lot on your own, unless you want to hire some talented friends. This means cover design, and blurbs, and all that.

Please make it interesting. Deign to use a one-word title if it keeps things mysterious. Get a friend to read your book and help you if you need to. Avoid long plot summaries. Good food isn't interesting because the person eating it is full from consuming the meal. It's interesting because it smells good and teases the eater.

Be a tease. Leave a lot to the imagination.

You may find you sell more books that way.

*This happened longer ago than a week. Several weeks. I just remembered I had this post.

Sorta Traditional

My fiance won't be seeing my wedding gown until my personal bouncers (or ushers or whatever) open the sanctuary doors at our wedding.

Superstition!

Nope.

Every wedding magazine and every site like OffbeatBride.com and TheKnot.com and others like them are mostly focused on how nontraditional weddings are becoming. Yeah, there are some on there that do follow the conventional wedding template, with a ceremony and a fancy reception with a pretty cake and all the attendants dressed alike, but people are more laid-back about those these days, and it's sorta nice. I like looking at the funky weddings. They do give me ideas for how I'd like me and the future hubs' wedding to be. (We do draw our biggest inspirations from Doctor Who, however.)

It just seems to me like these days, if the wedding isn't held in some field or a hideous asbestos/mold-ridden "loft" in downtown somewhere, it's just not stylish or relevant. And suddenly, a normal sized wedding (or what I would think of as one) is considered "intimate" at 100 guests. Which is weird to me, because I don't think I know 100 people well enough to want to invite them to my wedding. Shoot, there's people I do know that won't be getting an invitation. This isn't because of crowding, by the way. Mostly it's from behavior I've seen in other people's wedding photos.

My venue of choice for the ceremony is my church. The reception, I hope, will be held at my hometown's first high school. It's been converted to apartments for the elderly. The stunning architecture in the energy inefficient, tree-kicking auditorum has been there since the 1920s. My dad went to school there. Now they've leveled off the floor, but the smalltown auditorium where Elvis once played (really!) is my choice. And it's pretty. And it's not outside or hazardous to one's health.

I'm making the invitations for myself and there's no recycled paper or twine or burlap involved. No folks, in my house, we actually like color. I'm having "cheap" food, but lots of it. And I mean real food, like sandwiches and chicken and mac'n cheese and all that good stuff. I'm even considering a tower of yeast rolls as centerpieces, but I haven't decided yet. I just love bread. (I think that's why I liked the character of Peeta in The Hunger Games so much...the bread thing.) But I am sorta serious about the yeast rolls, if it works out.

I just ordered my dress this weekend, and it's everything I was looking for and it's beautiful.

And my fiance will not see it until the wedding day. He won't even see a picture of it on someone else. I don't even dare describe it, because I want to surprise him, maybe with the fact that I clean up good, if I do say so myself.

Though I did send him a particularly lovely photo of me holding a too-small dress up to myself and making a wonderful face at the camera. 

I'm pretty traditional. I think that's an understatement. But only sort of, enough that I think the guys in the party should wear black Converse for the wedding, because tuxedo shoes are apparently horrible. I won't be writing my own vows because even though I'm a writer, self-written vows all sound the same. "You are my rock/everything. You've been there/stood by me/picked my nose for me when I was sick, and you're awesome/I love you." Oh my word pull my teeth now. I had briefly considered the vows from The Corpse Bride (it's one of my favorites) but really, the traditional ones are fine. I'm not marrying words, and I'll probably have a case of the giggles anyway. I laugh at stuff. I'm sure my cousin's kids will make me laugh. Someone may fart. I don't know! It's all uncontrollable.

I do love a good surprise.

And I still plan on having a lightsaber battle photo shoot with the chicks and dudes in the bridal party. Like for reals.

Why Bob Jones University Is Bascially a Zoo

So I've posted a couple of times about my alma mater, Bob Jones University. The name may trigger your brain because they recently made headlines for kicking out a Christopher Peterman because he watched Glee. I think the real reason he was kicked out is worse, because it just shows the pettiness that the University dips into. But this is not about the school's weird policies itself.

I'm here to just totally pick on the student body.

Mostly those above the Mason-Dixon line.

So to all of my dear Yankee friends, do bear with me. All's fair in war and humor.

I've been out of school for two years now, but experiences at BJU are so burned into my brain that I can't help but use them. On top of the gross cafeteria food, really really bad roommate situations, and my skillful dodging of rules*, I took in a lot of observations about people in general and noticed this one thing that stood out glaringly.

BJU students, especially if of the Northern persuasion, tend to act as if they're in a zoo. 

Note I said tend. Not all do.

For example, I once used "orange" in a sentence when talking to someone I knew from Michigan. Before I was finished uttering my sentence, she set about repeating (several times, I might add) the way I pronounce the word. I can't really replicate it here, because I'm no linguist, but it is Southern, like myself. See, I chalked it up to being sheltered in a teensy Christian school (like many of my fellow students there), but an odd thing occurred.

It kept happening.

And not just to me.

"I don't understand why it's so hot..." Sweetie, it's August. Summer's hot in South Carolina.

"Your accent is so funny." Gee, thanks, yours too. Coen brothers heard of you lately?

"Why do you drive so slow?" Honey, that's a cop car, it's the end of the month, and the state needs some fast cash. You do the math.

"Haha, he's so gee-yetto." Oh dear. Who snatched you out of Minnesota?

And most interestingly, all of this was said with a tone of wonder, like children watching a lion sit around and do nothing all day.

I blame the BJU textbooks. The grammar one I used at my Christian school actually said that pronouncing "fire tower" as "far tar" (which I have never once heard, ever) was bad grammar. Uhm. No. That's not grammar.

Also, the textbooks made the battle of Gettysburg look sorta glorious. I'm no expert, but I know enough to know that Gettysburg sorta sucked for both sides.

Hmm...maybe it is the books after all.

Book Review: Trials of Fire (Divine Order Saga)

Back in November, I purchased Trials of Fire by Richard Hein for $.99 on Amazon. The author had put it on sale, and it looked pretty cool. I downloaded the book to my Kindle and began the long, ADD-laden journey of finishing it. I'm easily distracted.

Trials of Fire is the first in the Divine Order Saga. If I remember correctly, the book will soon be available in print as well. It's a fantasy novel with its roots in the steampunk genre.

The story begins with the graduation of a few twentysomethings from their training for the religious Order, after which they are able to basically act as the will of the gods that they worship, armed with swords. They're a little like the Jedi, only the swords are your basic magic weapons. The main characters set out on what seems to be a routine investigation into some local disturbance, and along the way pick up and shelter a girl who appears to be on the run from the law. There's magic, battles, and all that good stuff. I won't spoil it for you.

But this is a book review, so I must critique. While an interesting concept, the book probably could have used a second eye during the editing process. There were many places where easy-to-catch typos just ran rampant. It seems that find and replace was employed with one of the interesting wording choices, because it was consistent but didn't fit quite right, which leads me to believe that it was a mistake, rather than quirky in-story dialogue. There were often times in the end of the book where "there/their" mistakes, and similar, appeared. A few times, whole verbs were absent from the story. Instances where characters "seemed" to do this or "seemed" to feel that way just occurred too frequently.  As a reader, I found these things pretty distracting, and that's never good.

As far as story, it was solidly plotted and does leave some questions open at the end, welcoming a next installment in the series. I did notice that the author took great care, several times and very conspicuously, to mention that there hadn't been a war in a long time. It was a little ham-fisted. I didn't find the descriptions of battle very interesting, but this probably rests with me. I'm not a fan of reading about sword-fights. It's too much like watching something in slow motion, and often I'm lost simply because I know almost nothing about swords or using them in combat. Admittedly, this is a bit of a nitpick.

If you want a nicely plotted steampunk homage to Star Wars, you'll probably like this book. It wasn't quite my cup of tea, but with some tidying up in the grammar department, it would be pretty decent.

Reflections of a Future Terrible Parent, Part 2

Continuing from Part 1. 

I'd never really labeled myself as anything beyond being a Christian. I went to a Baptist church back then. We started going because my cousin would go to Awana with her friend, who went to that church. I started going to Awana, and it just naturally happened that we started attending, because my dad grew up there. His parents had become Christians in the 1960s and that was the home church they chose. They still go there. The church also basically ran my school, but I was never aware of it beyond simply knowing. They felt separate and as a result, I never really felt that close to the church. I went on Wednesday nights, and later we'd start going more regularly on Sundays, and I did get involved more in high school. That was pretty fun. But I never labeled myself a fundamentalist. My clothing was decidedly unmodest (my shorts went mid-thigh and I wore a bathing suit to a mixed swimming pool) and my family wasn't that big into hymns. For awhile, I only believed in the King James Version of the Bible, but for no other reason that I had been told it was the best. I don't believe that anymore, and I'm ashamed to say that I made that declaration without any sort of backing or research, checking around, or even reading it  much for myself. Despite all this, I was still pretty normal, and I was never a fundamentalist.

My reading tastes varied, as I mentioned before. I didn't delve into the classics, though. I read teen lit, and a lot of it. I'm sure that a lot of it was vapid and shallow, and I know some of my friends would raise an eyebrow and issue an intellectual disclaimer that the movie version was cute, but sort of silly. All this to say, I didn't grow up reading Pride and Prejudice voraciously. Fine if you do. I more enjoyed Treasure Island and Journey to the Center of the Earth. To this day, I still haven't read it. I might. Pride and Prejudice came with my Kindle app, and I own the 2005 movie (which I did like quite a bit. But it, alas, has "too much drama." Or something.) I still read a lot of YA lit. I liked Twilight (sorry to block your potshots here, but that doesn't make me unintelligent either.) I think part of the reason I do like the genre is because my local library didn't have a lot of it to offer that I liked then, and I was often too embarrassed to venture into the children's section. I'm writing a YA novel. Jane Eyre, as I understand the story, freaks me out a little. I mean, ew, the guy locks his schizo wife up in the attic and starts skirt-chasing a 20 year old, who likes it. That's officially grosser than Twilight right there.

So I won't make my sons or daughters read the classics because they're "good for them." I will train them to make the right decisions and to analyze everything, just like I do, and just like my fiance does. I didn't need ten thousand rules growing up because my parents taught me to think.

I said before that my mom went back to work once I was old enough to babysit my brother in the afternoons. I never got paid; it was just something normal that I did, every day, because my mom sacrificed a lot so we could have a private education. By no means did we live outrageously; our household was a frugal one. There were plenty of summer vacations, because building those memories is so important to my family, even today.

My junior year at BJU, I had this roommate who was mostly a very sweet person, but very sheltered. She was engaged to a man (and they're married now) who very much considered himself an authority in her life, in such instances as not letting her speak to any of her male friends. (I won't even touch on that. Make of it what you will.) Well, somehow there was some discussion or other in the room one day, between me and her and my two freshman roommates, about women working in WWII. (My great-grandmother was one such woman. I'm very proud of that.) I don't remember much about what happened through most of the conversation, but at the end, the older roommate said "But I believe women should have just stayed home after the war" in a condescending tone.*

And now, I can only think how spoiled rotten she was. She wasn't alone either. I know myself that stay-at-home moms do stuff, all day, especially if the kids are very young. It's a hard job. But I have known so many people who hold a quiet judgment for women like both my grandmothers, at least one of my great-grandmothers, and my mom. In a crowd of tenth generation Christian future homemakers and preachers' kids, I know I stood out, having come from a long line of women who worked and sacrificed a lot to give to their families.

So I will not hesitate to work if it means that my children will otherwise not eat or not have decent clothes.

That brings me to another point. See, growing up in a regular school, even if it was a private school, helped me understand people. Now, that's one thing that's not so unique at my alma mater, but there still are a lot of people in this country who are homeschooled. The US is pretty cool about that sort of thing, and I'm glad. But I'm also happy that I was never homeschooled, and it's very likely something I won't be doing.

I can hear the resounding "whys" now. I've actually been asked that, and in a confrontational manner. As if I hadn't thought it through. As if I had no idea what I was talking about.

But I have thought it through, and I have several reasons for not wanting to homeschool my children. For one, I don't want them to get a lopsided education. I only studied chemistry in college for one year, and, spoiler alert, I wasn't good at it. Same goes for math. Now, if there's something concrete I can focus on, like learning by doing stuff hands-on, then I'm good. That's why Physics was easier for me than Chemistry. Not easy, just easier. I still struggled, but I understood it better. I'm even convinced that Calculus could be conquered if one uses objects instead of concepts. But see, I don't know that my kids will learn the same way I do. They might, they might not. I don't want them to get an education so heavy in history and literature that they miss out on math and science and lose any opportunity for a calling. Even if I were to be a stay-at-home mom, my future husband, who is good at math and science, would be at work all day. I wouldn't be satisfied having my kids learn from a DVD. If it's obvious that one of my kids will love math or science, but has no way of learning past the most basic concepts, then there is a failure somewhere. Not everyone can major in English and love it. I sure wouldn't. Props to y'all who do. I believe an actual teacher needs to be there to help where I couldn't. If times are tough from a monetary perspective, I will work too. I've been told that there are bad influences in schools. And that all goes back to raising your child right.

So, I say again, I also will most likely not be homeschooling my children.

What I don't look forward to is the quiet judgment. I already know someone who looked quite surprised, and somewhat unpleasantly so, that I'm a whole two months older than my fiance, because "the husband should be older." Too late, I guess.


I'm not trying to insult anyone with the things I believe and the things I will do; I simply ask that the favor is returned. I'm not horribly altered because my life didn't have fresh baked muffins**, classes at home, and crappy old literature all the time, every day. I had a normal childhood and a normal adolescence. Yet still, I've had people, even friends, tell me the same thing a few times: "I didn't think you'd be a nice person until I got to know you." I don't even know what to say to that.

There's probably lots of other ways I'll manage to be a terrible parent, but I don't care. I learned from the awesomest. Cheers to "terrible" parenting.



*She also, for some reason, thought that my Dad's parents did not have a big wedding because they weren't church-going people at the time, and that it just wasn't important to them. My grandparents were poor. They couldn't afford a fancy old-money wedding, and were married by a minister in his office at his church. Same goes for my Mom's parents, who did attend church regularly. Tsk. Spoiled.

**I can bake the heck out of a chocolate chip cookie, though. Just sayin'. 

So Far...

If you found your way here via a link from another site, then it is entirely possible that you already know about Weirdly Awesome NC, a really cool blog that's just recently started up. I only wish it had existed when I was about eleven years old, 'cause seriously yall, I would have eaten all that stuff up. I'm promoting it here today because the writer has been so kind as to link to my site from hers, specifically to my pictures of the whirligigs. Follow Weirdly Awesome NC on Twitter @WeirdAwesomeNC.

So I've been pretty busy lately. About a month after we lost Minnie, I adopted a new puppy, by the name of Pippa. She's a handful, and so full of energy, but it actually makes me glad I don't have to change diapers or deal with little hands grabbing for stuff. But I do like to believe that a puppy is practice for parenthood. I believe this because I remember my own childhood, and my brother's. One single instance involved a bottle of baby powder and making it "snow" in one of our bedrooms. Hint: it wasn't me declaring an indoor snowday.

I've also been pretty hard at work on my book, and I'm experimenting with digital publishing first. Horror Vacui is my first attempt at such. Marketing is really what worries me, once I get everything finished and ready to go. I hear tales of authors spending in the thousands for marketing. I'm gonna see what I can do with Twitter and things. I do like having this desk job, because it helps me get things done when there's downtime at work. The book's come a long way since I was fifteen years old and the text was based heavily on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I know looking back that it wouldn't have ever been ready to publish then. Not even three years later. It needed a ten-year slow cook for every influence in my life to add flavor. I avoid directly taking things. Elves for instance. I have no elves in my story. I don't want them there, frankly.

I'd rather have guns. I've found myself wondering if my story can be truly considered fantasy. There are no fairy godmothers or prophecies from elven seers in times past, but there's also little to no modern technology after a certain point. Broadswords and bows are few. Discussing this with my fiance was a little inconclusive. I didn't grow up reading the numerous mediocre clones of J.R.R. Tolkien. His epic work was the only one of its type I've enjoyed. There are other books with swords and bows and arrows that I couldn't finish. If it can't be called a fantasy novel, then what?

I can't figure it out, that's for sure. Everything I write is in some way flavored by my entire life, not just the books I've read in the past three, five, or ten years. I did not destroy the book's original foundation. I just changed what was built on it.

Unlike many of my friends, I grew up reading Goosebumps and The Babysitter's Club. (Many friends of mine went to college with me, and more often than not, adult students of Bob Jones University had more sheltered childhoods. I like to imagine that many of my fellow students at BJU had stay-at-home moms. My mom chose to work so that my brother and I could attend a private Christian school. I have been judged and probably pitied for it, but I've never felt anything but grateful.) I read many YA books, including ones that the pseudo-intellectuals of my generation now deny they ever read. Yeah, I read shallow, vapid books. Recently, I enjoyed Twilight. Twice. I watch TV as well as lots and lots of movies. Zombieland was kinda gross but pretty funny. Legally Blond was hilarious and I still enjoy it. My brother, when he was young, kept the movie Back to the Future on loop, just about. I've seen the original Star Wars more times than I can count, and I really get a kick out of Dumb & Dumber.

Mash all of this together, and all of it, along with my personality, temperament, beliefs, and personal convictions are what make me. It will very naturally bleed into the things I create.

I refuse to label myself. Why limit my work?

Horror Vacui: Short Story Collection I Wrote

And here I present a short story collection that I've written. Most of it was practice, from dialog rolling around in my head. It's more character centric, though it is sci-fi. I suppose you could say it's about interactions that fill the empty spaces.

The picture is a link, but if you have some trouble with it, click here to get to the book. It's only 99 cents on Kindle, and the Kindle app is free to download. I hope you enjoy it.

Fun With Felony Arrests

Fried Slice: Fun with Felony Arrests!

Since the election of a new sheriff in 2010, our local newspaper, the Wilson Times, has been listing felony arrests at least once a week. This includes names, pictures, and the offense for which an individual was arrested. It's always pretty interesting to read. Most of the offenses are for stuff like, obtaining property under false pretense, or possession of a substance. And yeah, it's never three or four pictures. There's a real crime problem in my hometown, and I'm grateful for the new sheriff taking care of it. He's doing a great job of cleaning up our little wretched hive of scum and villainy.*

But it's the pictures that always get me.

They're not particularly sad, or tragic. Usually one of two facial expressions appears.

First there's annoyance.

And understandably so. These individuals were hoping not to get caught, and they did. Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but basically, a simple concept.

Then there's the ones who have a mixture of embarrassment and shame.

 

Also understandable. Things might have moved too fast in life, and before they knew it, they're in deep water and they never meant to be. Oops, right? YOu've probably seen faces like that if your local paper does like ours.

But, as with anything, there's always the inexplicable third group. It's a fringe that I personally will never understand in any instance it occurs.

Once in a while, among the sullen faces in the felony arrests section, there's some clown with this face.

I really don't get this one. People with this face are apparently convinced that they are indeed getting their portrait done. There's no hint of sarcasm in their expressions. They're just thrilled to have been arrested. Just happy to be here, they say, 'cause life is gooooooood my friend.

Ah, the idyllic South. Nice, ain't it?






*Yep, went there. Don't judge.

A Darn Good Reason to be Straight Edge

There are a few reasons why I choose to drink only non-alcoholic beverages and avoid any mind-altering substances. Mostly personal preference, partly my beliefs, and, most importantly, a desire to maintain an assassin-like awareness of my surroundings at all times.

But early yesterday morning, a very sober me found the real reason I avoid alcohol and other substances that have even the slightest effect on the mind. How, you ask?

Simple.

I assaulted my television.

I have a small television in my bedroom. It has about a 19-inch screen, and I've had it for about 11 years now. (I think it was the result of a Black Friday sale when I was in 8th grade.) It sits atop a chest of drawers directly in front of the end of my bed. Each night, I fall asleep with my TV on, and I did the same last night. Usually, I don't have a problem. Sometimes, reruns of Family Matters will wake me up, but mostly I sleep through the night with no problems.

For some reason, yesterday morning, I woke up with a dire need to change the channel. I mean, whatever was on the screen seriously had to go, at that moment, no question.

I'm not sure what the entire sequence of events was, but somehow, the remote disappeared from my notice and my half-asleep brain decided that it was entirely logical that the television had to be unplugged, and it had to be done right that minute.

My brain decided to go on an acid trip all by its lovely little self, without my permission or help, apparently.

In this brave new world, the cord for my TV had miraculously grown longer and was now plugged in somewhere behind my bed, the side of which is pushed against the wall. I began frantically looking for the origin of the cord, starting with the TV itself. I looked behind it, and felt all around it, grabbed parts of it, but none of the wires felt at all right. I even turned on the overhead light.

That's when it got interesting.

As I leaned over the wooden chest of drawers, I unknowingly exhaled into a tiny flower pot that still had some dry peat mix at the bottom. This particular peat mix was composed of dirt, bark and, one might suppose, evil.

Without warning (mostly because I didn't know it was there) a bunch of the peat leaped up and took up residence in the nearest mucous membrane, that being my left eye.

This is what I looked like.

Just an approximate representation.


Somehow, despite all the acid trippery that my brain had decided was terribly appropriate, I had the presence of mind, after attempting to use my eyelashes to extract the offending organic material from my eyeball (and surrounding tissue), to do a good old fashioned eye wash, and to do it using sterile contact solution instead of tap water.

While I was accidentally remembering all those lab safety tips I never used before, my brain clicked on and said, as I removed the last tiny spawn of evil from my eye, "what the heck was I just doing?"

I did go back to bed. By that time it was just before 5:30 a.m. I changed the channel and went back to sleep.

Moral of the story for me is that I really should keep my mind and body clear, since I apparently attack electronics if compromised at all.

'Cause who knows, next time I might roundhouse kick the flat screen downstairs.