Catch Up Post!

I haven't written very much lately, which is silly because I have things to write.

Some things I've been doing:

1. I went to the Long Beach Aquarium and fell head over heels in love with a deep sea isopod. It's just SO cute, like a scaly kitten. I bet it likes hugs.

2. I went to Catalina Island for a day, and had the BEST time because I got to be on a boat. I LOVE being on a boat and I spend every second being thrilled and leaning way over the guardrail. I got the craziest boat hair. Full of tangles!

3. I'm being courted by a very nice man named Alexander who calls me Princess and let me name his new truck Potato.

4. I finished the Queen of Egypt book series by Michelle Moran. Actually, I think only Nefertiti and The Heretic Queen were companion books. Cleopatra's Daughter didn't seem to be- and it was also the weakest of the three, even though it was really good. I think what I'll read next is Poison Study and its two sequels.

The ear saga continues...

I wrote about my watery ear and how it hurt and how FUCK WON'T SOMEONE JUST MAKE IT STOP? And lo, it did not just magically drain itself and so I had to use wax softeners which was painful and made a crackling sound. And my ear wax melted and drained out and I had to be careful not to get it all over my loved ones because it was STICKY. So that happened for four days, and then I had to use a giant syringe of warm water to flush out my remaining chunks of ear wax and I'm writing about it because I'm the most alluring thing on earth.

But then... oh! It felt like there was water stuck in my goddamn ear ALL OVER AGAIN. So I used the Swim Ear drops and it burned and hurt and I felt like I was going to pass out from the pain, which hasn't stopped, and now I'm just going to leave my ear alone.

I've been kept company by The Other Boleyn Girl, and a new book that is eerily similar to The Other Boleyn Girl- Nefertiti by Michelle Moran. I've been in the mood for books about cunning women. All the best books are about cunning women, in my opinion.

I (h)ate everything.

Last night I made a decision that I didn't want to make and don't want to stick with, but I have to. Then I went and tried to eat enough to fill the gaping hole where my heart used to be. And then I woke up with heartburn. OH HOW THE COMEDY PRACTICALLY WRITES ITSELF. Also, there's water in my ears that won't come out, and I want someone to just suction it out for me, and I never sleep because of the all-night horrorshow I'm fortunate enough to experience in my dreams and that's catching up with me. My god, I'm just so sick of my watery ears. Apparently nothing bad can happen, even though I was freaking out last night that I wouldn't get it out before infection set in and I'd go deaf. I'm pretty sure that clawing at my ears was bad for them, though. I'd like to channel my whining into writing, but I have terrible PMS and I'm dead inside, so that seems like a pipe dream.

I watched The Walking Dead and it was mildly scarring because it's really a scary show, but also really fucking sad. Like, those zombies? They're dead. They had lives and families and now they don't, and I wonder if it hurts and if they're just hungry and in pain all the time, with no way to stop it and no idea WHY this is happening to them. And it's upsetting because it's NOT and us vs. them kind of situation- everyone on that show is the victim of a horrible tragedy. Also, this is why I'm no fun to watch zombie things with, because it makes me sad and upset for everyone, even the people who shamble around decaying and looking for food.

Toxic

Last night I backcombed the hell out of my hair (because it looks best when I've damaged it horribly). Didn't take it down when I went to bed, and then today I went swimming in a saltwater pool, so basically I have a huge salty matted mass at the back of my head.

I also did a lot of thinking. Some of the hardest things I've ever had to do were deciding not to talk to someone, either temporarily or permanently- but you know that even if you say "It's not forever", there's a chance it will be. I don't like not talking to someone, or not returning texts or reminding myself that no, I am NOT going to call. I remember when I was younger, if someone was being an ass, my mom would tell me not to talk to them, and I could never make myself. As I've gotten older, I've realized that my mom was right, and sometimes, it really is the best way.

Being right doesn't make it easier. I'm not someone who connects easily, so when I find someone who, for whatever reason, I connect to, I don't want to let them go.

But what if that's the best option?

Happy Fourth! (Fifth??) I saw fireworks! I'm like a firework with my short fuse and explosive personality. Today I realized that I'm not single because of my looks, it's 100% my personality. I'm kind of an acquired taste or... god, can you even acquire a taste for honey and rattlesnake venom?

I was mean to someone I care about (even though every single nerve I have is set on FIRE just from admitting that I care). I feel pretty justified right about now, but I'd bet I feel differently when I get up in the morning. I usually do. I don't like being cruel, like really cruel, not just bitchy and snappy like I often am. It means that my feelings or my pride or something was hurt and I'm just lashing out. It's not the right response. It isn't mature or really even in line with my code of ethics. It's not even something I usually do.

Usually, I just say goodbye in my head and walk away.

I do that when I feel like someone isn't worth my anger, or the effort it would take to explain or try to repair the damage between us. When I don't care to lash out, when I don't want to let any additional venom out into the world, because cruelty poisons the well we all drink from. Being a scumbag is bad for EVERYONE, and when you mistreat someone, they take it with them and it affects them, even if they don't know it. So, no, being vicious is not my first choice. But sometimes it's unavoidable, when I don't want to say my silent farewells; when I don't want to move on without looking back.

DOME

I like that show Under the Dome, which is about a town trapped under a DOME, of all things. I like how during the first episode, everyone kept saying it was like a wall or a fishbowl, because apparently no one knows how a fucking fishbowl works. If it's upside down, you've read the instructions incorrectly. But I digress, and I'll get back to talking about how annoying I am to watch TV with, because every time someone mentioned a thing that WASN'T a dome, I corrected them.

And now, during the second episode, no one can stop saying the word "dome", and y'all, I get SO EXCITED every single time. Someone even used the exact phrase "under the dome" and I was like I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. Because they are UNDER THE DOME and the title is UNDER THE DOME and dome doesn't even look like a word anymore. I barely recognize it as a thing. It's more like an abstract concept, like religion or Australia. Like, I know it's there, but sometimes I have a really hard time believing in it.

1. I saw World War Z! The zombies were particularly disturbing because they sound and act like birds of prey. Birds are frightening, even when they aren't zombies. The movie was VERY different than the book, but that's pretty okay with me. I don't require my movies to be the exact same as the source material, because if I wanted something the exact same, I'd just reread the book.

2. Big Brother 15 started, and these people are some of the dumbest I've ever come across. I do not think they're edited to seem dumb, which is actually really depressing. You see, back in the day, people on reality shows often had somewhat interesting personalities. That's why they're called television "personalities". They would have weird habits and sometimes they'd even have career aspirations beyond "acting". They'd be able to come up with decent strategies and be capable of discussing something beyond cute boys. I can't believe I'm actually mourning the death of semi-intelligent reality TV, but really, I just wanna watch something besides a bunch of bros talking about their abs.

3. It's been so hot here that it's REALLY hard to go out and get some exercise, which is bad for business. I do a lot better when I'm active. So I'm going to try to go for a walk tonight and hope it's cool enough to avoid spontaneously combusting.

Bittersweet Symphony

Today I put together some bookshelves and then I figured out how to install new doorknobs. I was surprisingly adept at it, or maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe I just didn't give myself enough credit before.

It's interesting to find out that you can do something you couldn't do before.

Like walking away without getting the last word. Walking away without fighting to the death. I used to want to try to force things- now I'm much more content to sit back and wait until things reach their logical conclusion, because things that need to be forced mean less than nothing to me.

I never used to understand how utterly worthless words are. It feels blasphemous to say, as a writer. Yet here I am, realizing that words have no inherent value. They take on meaning when there's a driving force behind them.

I like to think that my words have value, because I treat them as if they do, carefully choosing each one. They don't come spilling out of my mouth, and I mean what I say. It has little to do with wanting to be trustworthy or honest, and so much more to do with never wanting to realize that my words are completely devoid of any meaning or worth.

"I have no heart, I'm cold inside"

This picture* is my favorite thing. I went on a long walk and giggled every single time I thought of it, while I did amateurish baton twirls with my hook-ended stick, and people gave me plenty of space on my walk. I never look scary, but I can TOTALLY look crazy.

I peeked at Supermoon, which was unimpressive. I am unimpressed, Supermoon. GO HOME SUPERMOON, YOU'RE DRUNK. I'm also unimpressed with the ice cream I'm eating to fill the void where my heart used to be, but since there's a whole bunch of it in my freezer, I guess I'll just eat all of it. Otherwise it's just wasteful, and I may be dead inside, but I don't let perfectly good, incredibly disgusting ice cream just go UNEATEN. It's s'mores ice cream, so there are graham crackers and I guess when I picked it out, I conveniently forgot that I hate graham crackers. But I hate everything, and it's hard to keep track. Ooh, sometimes I won't even KNOW that I hate something until it's mentioned, and then I'm like, "Actually, I DO hate that 'innocuous' thing that you're forcing upon me. Please take your blueberries and go." I didn't even know I hated blueberries until JUST NOW. I've even eaten them recently, though I didn't like a single moment of it.

The title is taken from Queen's Save Me, which speaks to me. For someone who bitches about music a lot, I sure do like to name things after songs. Books, too. I make literary puns and no one gets them. I've been thinking about doing a reading liveblog, but I'm not sure what I'd live-read. Everyone's done Twilight. If I could find my copy of Wuthering Heights, I'd do that, because I LOVE Wuthering Heights. I read it when I was like 14 and was like LOVE IS CLUTCHING YOUR BELOVED'S CORPSE because somehow that message is appropriate for teenagers. Everyone flips out about zombie shooting games and, like, I never liked video games, but everything I read in high school was about death or husband stealing or both. It was the start of my obsession with Anne Boleyn, which remains intact today, and is totally a subject for a different post. OH MY GOD ANNE BOLEYN'S LAST POEM, I HAD IT MEMORIZED AND I'D QUOTE IT.

*I don't know how said picture will be formatted.

I'm Just Bothered

I'm moody and tempestuous, which is kind of average for me. There isn't even some kind of mental condition I can blame. It's mostly just being a cranky bitch, because the sun is too bright, and I feel weirdly anxious and kind of bored while not caring to DO anything about it. I should write, since my book is my one true love, but my book won't take me for ice cream topped with gummy bears, even though I'm WAY past the age where that's considered acceptable. I just really like gummy bears, especially when they're cold.

I suppose my ennui comes from being mildly upset of things that are decidedly NOT my business. The kind of vague feeling that lives in the background and has no name. The only way I can describe it is, "Well, this just sucks." Because if you're pissy about things that aren't your business, you can't get indignant or properly furious, because you're the one with the problem. And you don't even realize you're upset until you start getting annoyed that someone else sounds happier than you are, and you want to ask your mom if she's too busy with her boyfriend REDBOX to return your calls and then you realize that YOUR boyfriend is a book that you aren't even writing so fuck everything. This is all because I am an ARTIST and a CREATIVE INDIVIDUAL and I FEEL so MUCH and [insert more whiny bullshit here].

I'm writing just to prove a point.

I carry a big wooden stick with a rusty hook on the end when I walk- her name is Zelda and she's my beatin' stick. I live in a Walking Neighborhood, so a lot of the people around me ALSO have sticks. They're all inferior to Zelda, but I always feel like people with sticks just fucking Get It. They understand me as only a stick person can.

Also, men hate the stick and frankly seem kind of put off when some girl in a full face of makeup and carrying Zelda smiles at them, like they wouldn't WANT a pretty lady who could fuck them up.

My favorite thing about Zelda is that she looks like some kind of post-apocalyptic weapon- she LOOKS threatening, so I don't actually have to BE threatening. I feel the same way I do when I'm walking with someone I trust to keep me safe- a swagger in my step, a confidence in my own safety. I don't usually have those things. Strangers are threatening when they get aggressive, and I am afraid of dogs. I often feel like a mouse trying to evade hawks.

Not so with Zelda.

Wrath

I had a dream that I was hopelessly in love with someone, and he totally broke my heart and also killed my horse and I'm still kind of upset (read: horribly fucking offended) about the whole thing, which makes no sense, but I'm a woman and I don't let something stupid like "making sense" fuck up my being angry. I really loved that horse. He was my everything, and he was beautiful and he had a shiny coat and wore hats and took me everywhere I wanted to go and nuzzled me and someone KILLED HIM and I'm tearing up just thinking about it. (Note: I do not have a horse and never have.)

So anyway, there's that, and I've had a headache literally for days and I just want someone to take it all away and just FIX it, for fuck's sake. This morning I was getting increasingly annoyed by the noise from the coffee maker until I realized that I was the one making coffee, and then I was just annoyed for no reason. The only thing for such a mood is pop-country music and even the love songs sound pissed off, like all these romantic verses are just being spat out. It almost sounds better that way. Maybe love just sounds better when it's angry. Taylor Swift would totally agree with me.

Angst

Angst is defined as a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity.

To me, angst feels a lot more like enthusiastic despair or melancholic anger. It feels like the world is too bright and too loud, like everyone just needs to maintain a distance of at least three feet and use their "inside voices", like I just need some quiet time because my head hurts and there's never time to cry properly and life is moving at a horribly uneven pace, where things are happening too fast and too slow. I feel like being mean and lashing out. I feel like writing horror stories full of characters that everyone but me will love, just so I can fuck them over. I feel like being spiteful. I feel like hating everything.

I feel like apologizing when I've been too mean. I feel like sending out cards- "Sorry I've been vile!" I feel like sucking the poison out and having a cupcake and going for a walk and listening to something happy and feeling like myself.

It hasn't been possible today. Today I've been a vicious, whiny, irritable, overemotional mess. Maybe it's hormonal. Maybe I'm just having an off day.

If I could shed it like a silk nightgown, I would.

I'm still up because there is no god, but also a little because at some point in the evening, I was like, "You know what sounds tasty? Sugar." But anyway, I managed to tear myself away from the sugar and spinach dip (I'm like a fucking crack addict with the spinach dip) long enough to post this, mostly in honor of a very special person who asked me to write more, but also because the ice cream is out in the garage fridge and it's way too scary to go out there and get some. I should move everything except for, like, celery and diet coke out to the garage and I'd lose a million pounds. Fuck Weight Watchers, the best diet is FEAR.

Anyway, I had intended on working on short fiction pieces to submit to publications that accept that kind of thing, but now I have a REALLY good idea for a much longer (as in, this could turn into a series) piece. I love/hate the word "piece". I hate it but I seem to just love love LOVE using it. I'm tired and I have to get up in a while and give a cat an IV drip. That cat is getting a raw deal. I should ask my vet to move in with me. I don't care if she's married, I can love her better because the bond forged by giving a cat subcutaneous fluids is a special one indeed.

Fuck.

1. I suspect I'm as bitchy and mean as I am because a few days out of every month, I'm in horrible pain that I wouldn't wish on anyone, even people I hated, even though I wish all kinds of terrible things on people who deserve it. I almost want to have children because the idea that this is all for fucking nothing makes me want to scream, except I don't actually think "having children" is a solution to anything, ever. EVEN TO JUST WANTING CHILDREN. I don't even know. People breed too fucking much.

2. I actually swing wildly from psychotically mean to overly affectionate and incredibly loving. I imagine it's a lot of fun to live with me.

3. I watched some of the Haunting in CT documentary (because apparently that shit was based on a true story). No one was clawing at the walls, so I was mostly just irritated by the whole thing until I saw Ed and Lorraine Warren, because I really just love them. I bet they would've been a lot of fun to go on some kind of double date with. I wonder if when mediums die, do ghosts react the same way I do when my phone isn't working?

4. As I write this, the Aleve is kicking in so I feel nicer. Sometimes when I feel remorse/a desire to be nicer, it feels like someone reaching into my solar plexus and tearing out whatever they can grab. It happens when I'm being a jerk and it hits me that wait, I actually WANT to be nice to this person and OH GOD NO NOT THE FEELINGS.

I don't even know why this is a post

Went out to dinner last night, had a lovely time. Wore my corset, so I enjoyed how I looked, but not nearly as much as I enjoyed my companion.

I am so beyond rusty, it's not even funny. It's like my post-relationship brain is like a post-baby body, because that shit did NOT just snap back to how it was. I have no moves, because apparently my brain fucking broke and now I have to BE MYSELF, which is moderately terrifying because I actually want to be myself for the first time ever. So I WANT to share myself, but my way of sharing things is to force them on people, and my ex did NOT like that, so part of me is like "OH GOD I AM SO SORRY FOR MAKING YOU LISTEN TO WEIRD THINGS THAT I SAY." But I know that is absurd, so I just keep SAYING weird things and I don't think it'll ever stop even though I actually DO know how to hold my tongue. And then I think about all this stuff when I'm watching Revenge and I'm like, "You know what? Victoria Grayson totally would want me to just be myself, the way she was with that artist dude from way back in the day before she married for money." All my best ideas come from fictional characters. I don't even know. I'm way less anxious these days with way more disorganized thoughts. But BETTER thoughts, like if you had a box full of beautiful, tangled chains. How poetic. I have the soul of a poet. I keep it trapped in a ghostly mirror. Frankly, this post is garbage, but it's also very honest, except for that part about having the soul of a poet. I would never trap something in a mirror, in case it got out and tried to steal my life.

In My Life

I've often described myself as having "low music tolerance". I can't talk when music plays in the car. I sometimes just CAN'T tolerate music playing... it's not because I hate music. I love it. It's just that sometimes lyrics (like all words) affect me deeply. Words are NEVER just background noise for me. They set the mood and influence how I feel.

The song I've been particularly affected by tonight is Ozzy Osbourne's cover of "In My Life". The song was never a favorite of mine. The lyrics seemed depressing- I felt like he was singing about all the loss he's been through, and I didn't understand why he would sing about past loves in a song that was, ostensibly, being sung to his current love. And then I heard it with new ears- he's NOT singing about loss, or about past loves. He's singing to the person he loves and telling her that every single thing he's been through has made him love her more. It's made him see her as even more precious. He's not denouncing his past, he's not saying it doesn't matter- he doesn't have to, in order to be deeply in love with this person.

It's possibly the most beautiful love song I've ever heard. Everyone has a past, and everyone has scars. Your memory isn't erased the moment you meet "the one", and if it were, you wouldn't be able to realize how impossibly wonderful that person was. I used to think that shucking your past was something you did when you met someone right for you, but that's not what love is.

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more

I woke up at 4am because I had literally the dumbest nightmare ever- I was out on a date with someone I really didn't like, he was getting pushy and stalker bananas toward me and then there was a HUGE interlude about how there wasn't enough hot sauce on my burrito, and frankly, even now that I'm awake, that's still the most upsetting part of that dream. This is particularly weird for two reasons- one, I frequently have very intense nightmares about stalking, date rape, etc, and they're horrible and really fuck with me; and two, I don't even LIKE a lot of hot sauce on my food. I like some, but I'm never ever like, "THIS BURRITO IS SEVERELY LACKING IN THE HOT SAUCE DEPARTMENT" the way I was in this dream. And now I'm awake and the goddamn birds are singing outside, and I don't even have words for how much those smug chirpy pricks irritate me sometimes. A while back, there were these mockingbirds that stayed up and sang all night long, which seems horribly unfair because one of the nicest things about nighttime is that there are no birds. Plenty of coyotes, but nary a bird. I can understand the beauty of a nice-looking bird, but in general, they unnerve me. They stare, you know. And they communicate in loud chirps that I can't really understand, but I suspect that they're signalling each other to attack.

On Writing

Today I wrote a short story/flash fiction kinda deal. It felt nice. I like being able to write again, and now that I've started, it's very hard to stop.

Something that's always been a stumbling block for me is feeling something like stage fright, while also being terrified that no one will come watch the show I'm putting on. "What if no one comes?" I think. "Or what if they do?!" It's stifling.

But I have a solution. I write to someone, the way I'd sing to a friend in the audience, even if I'm perfoming for an entire stadium. I never thought about it until now, and now that I have, my words are back, and I can write again.

This one's for you, wherever you are

Like three years ago, I bought a corset that JUST BARELY fit, and then I gained a bunch of weight that didn't come off until recently, because I eat maybe once a day and I take a lot of walks. But being nauseas all the time* has a plus side, because the corset fits! FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I BOUGHT IT. My jeans fit too, which basically means I'm reasonably satisfied with my body, even though I do want to lose more weight. I bet that super pretty retro bathing suit I got last summer fits too. I wore it once and now I have no pool, and I can't even sunbathe because I'm so alarmingly pale. Like "can't use camera flash" pale, because my skin reflects light and I look like a ghost. Sometimes I get interested in sunbathing, but what will that even do to my skin in the long run?! I don't actually burn easily, but I'm paranoid about sun damage causing premature aging. REALLY PARANOID. I carry a parasol and wear a giant hat if I'll be in the sun long.

Also, I packed up all the things my ex gave me and put them away, because at least then they aren't on my nightstand. It was weird, but less weird than looking over every morning and seeing a Valentine's card from him next to the remains of my dead cat. So now it's just my cat that's on my nightstand. And my body lotion. I'm not really sure that I'm doing any of this right, kind of like how I wasn't sure I was doing things right when I started dating him, or when things got more serious, or any of it- but I have to do what feels right. Sometimes that's the hardest thing to do, because doing what feels right often also feels like doing what requires a lot of justification. I've been analyzing this stuff a lot in my "pre-writing" phase.

Ooh, so this is way less hideously personal, but earlier I went for a walk and this guy and his 10-ish year old daughter had these two HUGE dogs and were kinda just hanging around this path. I suspect they were waiting for me to leave (incidentally, I was waiting for THEM to leave, because people need to fucking quit it with their dogs**). And then I notice that the dog the guy has, the bigger dog, was off the leash and GROWLING... at someone's fence, because the guy was kind of making the dog stay by the fence? I don't even know; it seemed like a socialization thing, but possibly also a creepy-ass dude thing.

*I suspect I'm nauseas because instead of saying things like, "Why, YES, a salad and grilled fish sounds delightful!" I want stuff like hot wings and oreos. And also soda.

**I don't hate dogs, but people in my area seem to really not give a shit about keeping them confined. Like there's this Chihuahua that I had to chase out of my house the day I moved in and this other dog that's basically leash-free all the time. And like I said, I don't hate dogs, but I'm definitely afraid of them, and I've had experiences that make that fear seem WAY more sane than not being afraid; but even if you don't give a shit about my fears, you should care about your beloved family pet wandering into the street or a pack of coyotes, or fucking up and biting someone and having to be put down. I'm very passionate about this and so I sound like a PSA, but please, keep your pets where they belong. It absolutely IS your fault and SHOULD be considered abuse/neglect if your "free range" domesticated animal gets itself killed because it was wandering.