Let's See If I Waited Long Enough

Hello.

This is basically a trial to see if blogger is working again, finally. It really had better be since I feel like I've waited like 3 weeks.

In other news, it appears that we of the OMGJ Blogs are coming to the end of an era. Jeremy hasn't blogged since the beginning of May. XV is in a "hey everyone I've disappeared" phase. Mark is, well.. Mark. Trev is probably too annoyed/horrified by the amount of Comments left on his last entry to try again anytime soon. And I am almost the same.

It's all well and good to get comments on blogs when they are fun to read. But I really don't care for having to pick through a bunch of sort of embarassing-and-painful-to-read comments in order to find the ones that are sincere and not some bizarre act. If I wanted to do that, I'd go to an Internet Forum, you know? And I'd rather not turn OFF comments because that's just boring. And I don't want to have to selectively delete comments, as that takes effort. So people are commenting and other people aren't wanting to make comments as a result and I am not really feeling like dealing with that scene.

Is this the END of the Octoblog? We will have to see.

Also, creating a new blog and posting there to avoid people would be pointless since I am doing this blog for OMGJ and not so that I can have a place to express myself private-publicly.

Madness

This is just a quick note to point out that the last post was originally entered on Sunday, but it did not show up until Wednesday because I decided to Comment while Viewing it. See, you can look at them from the Dashboard, but not from the actual Octoblog.

This confuses me.

These "errors" are still happening, but I may have found a ridiculous way around them. Have I ever mentioned that blogging is not my favorite activity anyway?

Annoyed

Okay I am definitely annoyed at blogger at this point. As far as I can tell, the entry that is up on Octoblog won't let you comment on it. In fact, according to my "dashboard" it doesn't even exist. I replaced it with another entry which hasn't gone up either. But everytime I try to publish, I encounter "errors." And quite likely as soon as this entry is published, everything will change to make it look as though my complaints make no sense and are retarded and incompetent and bitchy.

Bastard blogger.

Blogger Needs to Recognize

So, I was going to update this on Wednesday, but there are always ERRORS whenever I try. Thank you for being marginally irritating, Blogger. I mean, I generally dislike the act of blogging anyway, so to make it difficult or frustrating really helps my attitude on the matter.

Anyway, this is what I had written:

So I was lounging on the couch this afternoon, watching this silent film from 1920 called the Golem, or, some German equivalent of that, completely sprawled out. And the front door opens and this middle aged black lady strides in. She is a stranger to me.

I say "hello!" in a friendly, and not even slightly bewildered way. Perhaps, a trace of surprise was around, but still, it was no "OMFG HOME INVASION!" shout.

She looks utterly shocked and says "Is this an apartment?!" to which I respond "Well, it is a house, anyway." She covers her mouth in embarassment and horror and turns to leave the house. It turns out that she was looking for a realtor's office in the town I am in, and saw our sign on the porch and figured that our house must have been the realtor's office. This struck me as very funny and she was invited in so as to give her actual directions to the place.

My boyfriend comes out of the other room to see what the commotion and stranger's voice was about, and to see who would enter our home without knocking. She explained further that her sister had a house to sell and that she, personally, was from Cincinnati, and that oh lawsey she was so sorry to just walk in without knocking and so on. It did appear to be an honest mistake, and she was nice.

It was fairly random, but somewhat humorous. I can't imagine what she must have thought when she was expecting to see a realty office setting and instead saw some girl watching one of the strangest silent films made. It will probably be one of those anecdotes she pulls up every few social engagements when everyone is trading personal stories of humiliating moments. Later, she will probably eventually ask herself "what kind of people leave their front door unlocked, anyway?!" I think it mostly has to do with expecting no one to actually just walk right into your house like that. And laziness. And forgetfulness. It's hard to tell if that lock is locked or not.

Good times.

Brave Is Not A Word I'd Use to Describe Myself

So lately, I have had this thing about insects. I just don't want them around me or in my home at all. They are too fast and crawly for the most part. Spiders are pretty bad, but worse are roaches and house centipedes and silverfish and such. Ugh.

I actually sprayed insect poison all over the house a week or so ago, along the baseboards and windows as an additional protection against insect invasion. Normally, I rely on a forcefield of pure willpower to keep them out. It doesn't always work out very well, sadly.

And the worst is when I find insects in my bedroom. Ever since I was a kid, if there was a spider on the ceiling way off in the distance, I would just go to the guest room or to the couch in the living room and try to sleep there, after the tremors and sporadic flailings went away. Because, of course, I can't ever actually kill any of these offending insects! Oh mercy lord no.

See, the killing aspect, it just is not my style. They aren't harming me. They have their role on the planet. And I don't want to get close enough to them to actually physically touch them. What if I failed? What if I missed and it got ON me? What then?! I will tell you that nothing good would come of that at all.

I think that actually stems from the time when I was like seven and decided to kill a spider with a tissue, but the spider was WILY. And EVIL. Because it dodged around the tissue and wound up running up my arm. I flailed wildly, it was thrown from my arm, I cried a lot. Such was my trauma. I think it must have been a magical wizard spider. Dark wizard spider...

Anyway, I just went in to go to bed and as soon as I walk into the room I know something is.. not right. I look at all corners of the ceiling. Nothing. But then I see it, there on my bed... on my PILLOW. A dark oval shape. A dark oval shape that should not be there at all. Long antennae! I panicked at first. A cold dread choked me right in the throat/heart area. Did God dare to place a roach on my sleeping pillow? In some sort of practical joke meant to break me. That would of course be the ONLY explanation.

But wait! It moved! I see gigantic hopping legs! Why it is only a cricket! Crickets are nice. Crickets are pets in China and consciences to puppet boys in cartoons! They are slow and gentle and do not spit on you like grasshoppers. Hurrah! By the way, I'm not sure why some insects are regarded as friendly and sweet while others are seen as horrors. Take the butterfly, for instance. People love those things, apparently because they have pretty wings. But have you ever really looked at the body of one? Crazy spiral tongues and legs EVERYWHERE. Ugh... I shudder to think of it...

Anyway, after my initial relief I was faced with a new problem. How was I going to get it out of my room? I toyed with the idea of just leaving it there, because I am definitely going to sleep on the couch anyway since my bed and pillows betrayed me like that. But I thought it might be beneficial for it to live outside where it can eat cricket food. I hatched a plan.

It seemed to me that if I could somehow trap it in a glass, and then put a plate or something over it, then I could just take it outside easily. But I realized that it was easier said than done. I didn't want to hurt its legs when I slid the plate under and I CERTAINLY didn't want it to escape when I lifted the cup slightly. And, once I started thinking about it, I didn't want it to leap up at me when I came at it.

I determined that a mere glass was too small of a weapon, so I went into the kitchen to get something larger. When I came back with the cooking pot and wearing big yellow rubber gloves that went pretty high up my arms, in case it tried escaping up my arm like that spider did, I would only have to have the mental scarring related to the image of it running toward my face, and not also the trauma of feeling its little horrible legs on my skin.

By the time I got back, it had crawled to the center of my pillow and was basically just watching me. I started to talk to it, explaining that I didn't want to hurt it and to please not jump at my face or move at all. Even though it was perfectly still and very small and a CRICKET, I could not bring myself to advance on it. I was petrified by some strange terror that doesn't make any actual sense to me.

After a few times of going back into the living room and giving myself pep talks, I came into the room and put this gigantic stew pot over it and picked up the entire pillow and took it to the living room and set it down and opened the door and tried to fling it outside. Naturally, the cricket had a frightened death grip on my pillow and I had a bunch of terror. I imagined it would jump back inside and skitter at frightful speeds and since the door was open, I imagined that a million other bugs would run in after it. So I said "oh PLEASE go outside and away from me." I think my voice actually shook with emotion.

Of course then it crawled onto the porch and I shut the door quickly. It was sort of anticlimactic and boring, the whole ordeal. Unless you were me.

My pillow is now next to the dirty laundry hamper, those yellow gloves will need to be sterilized somehow, and I am still full enough of adrenaline that I may not be able to sleep for a few more hours again. I kind of feel nauseated anyway. It's just their insecty legs... They are so horrible.

I Live Next to a Bar

Yes, and anyone out there in Internetland who has also lived next to a bar can feel my pain.

Living near a bar or bars offers you a place to drink or play billiards if you are the type. You can hear bar bands playing covers of music that you may or may not enjoy hearing covers of. For example, no matter how many times I hear someone cover a song by the Doors, I find myself wishing that the singer of that band would suddenly be afflicted with a thousand frogs blasting out of his throat.

However, I generally feel that way about Jim Morrison, too, when I hear any Doors songs. Yes, I said it.

Anyway, bars can lend a festive atmosphere to any neighborhood on any night of the week (until about 11pm), depending on the size and population of your city. I used to live in a part of the Cincinnati Area where every single night there were very very active bars and clubs. And where I live now, it's mostly only active on Friday and Saturday night.

And honestly, considering the size of this town (anywhere from 2000 to 5000 strong, depending on who you are talking to), the Friday and Saturday nights are unpredictably intense. So much so that I am glad that all the other days of the week are practically dead. On those nights, only the old alcoholic farmer types are patronizing the place. But on the weekend, there are many Young People.

That's right. Young People.

And starting at around 11pm, the Young People become out of control. Now, I'm not going to say that the women "go wild" as was the trend of a few years ago, and may still be going on to this day, although I await the sad, sticky, scab-covered Girls Gone Wild bus, or the generic Party Party Girls van to pull up one day, as a last-ditch effort to inject some tired old town with an exotic nightlife and party fun.

But the kind of out of controlledness these people engage in generally includes "fistfights in the parking lot" (which is right outside my living room window), "vandalizing my neighbors' garden and property," "defiling the children's swingset with vile sex acts - right out there beneath a streetlamp in the backyard" (I cannot see this from anywhere in my house), "throwing beer bottles into the yard, making it a game to shatter them into the tiniest pieces possible," "urinating in the parking lot!" "fistfighting in the backyard," and "having loud, violent breakups with the girlfriend."

One night, an angry drunk man was spooked by the wailing of the police siren and darted through our yard, since it is of course a playground for the inebriated. Last night, I heard a man throwing up not once, but FIVE TIMES. Oh it was a pleasant serenade for my ears.

My complaints are mild, however, as compared to what I have heard my neighbors give. You see, how can I explain this.. If the bar, neighbors' house, and my house were all a part of a right triangle, my house is a whole hypotenuse away from the bar, which actually takes up the entire side, we will call it side A. My neighbor's house sits behind my house, for some odd reason that I will not go into here, and right next to the bar. It basically IS the right angle, my neighbors' house. So they are RIGHT THERE. And the bar's small fire escape - wait no, I'm sorry, you aren't allowed to stand on fire escapes and take in the fresh night air. It isn't a fire escape, sillies, it is a back deck patio thing, alternative exit, which just happens to be made out of the same materials as a fire escape, and looks exactly like one.

Apparently my neighbors had a young dog a few years ago. It was tied in the backyard, to its small humble home. Apparently, when the drunks decided to walk into the yard, they could see the dog, so every weekend, they'd chuck beer bottles at it in some sort of ignorant hillbilly sport that makes me want to break some offending jaws. Finally, they kicked the dog and broke its rib, and the neighbors decided it was for the best to send it into the country, to a relative's house who had a safe fenced yard away from these drunk people who are just searching for a good time.

The best part out of all of this, you know, you ask questions such as "Can't you erect a fence to keep them out?" Well, they climb over the fence. "Can't you put up a sign that says "No Trespassing, Redneck Scum"?" According to some fucked up law, drunk people can't legally READ when they are drunk, so warnings and the like, they do no good, and you will still be liable if a drunk person wanders onto your property and falls into a pond and drowns, trips over garden decorations and breaks his ankle, or happens to fall into a carefully crafted and well-placed tiger pit with neon signs warning strangers away all over the place. No. Drunks can't read or comprehend. They are allowed to do anything they want whenever they want and if they are hurt, it is no one's fault but yours.

At least, this is what the lawyer said when the neighbors consulted one.

What madness is this?

Now, I have never been a fan of being around drunks when I am sober. Nor have I been a fan of being around "rednecks" ever at all, sober or not (me or them). I do not mind overhearing Springer-esque rantings of an angry couple, or two fellows screaming at each other and using profanity. I find it amusing to hear drunken dames screeching and dropping F Bombs, because they sound like crazed foul mouth hens running around without any brains at all. Oh, how funny they sound. But I do mind it when they bother my neighbors and run through my yard, or spread their foul diseased hillbilly germs via urine, vomit, or (shudder) sex liquids on anything I may come in contact with. And it makes me angry that apparently nothing can legally be done.

So, give me suggestions. I know several city lawyers must read my blog, as well as Senators and Congressmen.

What can be done?

Like Really Soupy Wet Sand

Hello, sweet blog readers.

I am having a very slow time waking up today. I have a seasonal headache. Well, it may be described more as a right-behind-the-eyes ache. My eyes are also dry, I think. They definitely kind of wish I would stop looking with them and just close my eyes for a while again instead. The good news is that these are my only physical complaints.

I am still in the midst of a thousand and one projects. I have started making very cute small sculptures out of a product called Sculpey and then painting them in the ways I like best.

Recently, I have been drawing pictures of the staff writers for the Swankpuppy. Yes, that IS still on its way. It just turns out that creating a website takes longer than we ever expected when everyone involved with it has dozens of other things that they must do. However, once it goes public (it won't be completely finished by then, but it will be close) we will at least be motivated to work on it more regularly. I promise. We are all excited for its opening.

Also, I am still working on the ideas and content for amandawood.net . I had an idea a month or two ago and then like a week ago I scrapped all of that and had this inspiration for a completely different look. I think I had a dream about it that changed my mind.

Speaking of dreams, are any of you educated on them? I only know a very little about sleep/dream patterns and such, but I realized this morning that I almost always wake up in the morning while I am still dreaming. I can remember the dreams because it is literally like... Like when you are watching a television show and are deeply immersed in it and then suddenly your friend switches the channel to something completely different. Only the teevee program was your dream, and the switch of the channel is you opening your eyes, and the new, completely different, show is you being awake and looking at your room. It doesn't seem to have a smooth transition at all.

On top of that, I dream at a constant rate. I think I have way more than three dreams every night. Or at the very least, they are uncommonly long, detailed, and pretty exhausting. And I have dreams about really weird slimy mushrooms either growing off of me, or being found under my skin. They really hurt when I dream-remove them. Once, when I was like seven years old, I pulled off a mushroom it hurt so much that it made me wake up and when I looked at the place it was in my dream, there was a really old circular scar. WHAT'S THAT ABOUT?

So, yeah, I think part of my being constantly tired is just all the dreams I have. But they are generally so interesting that I don't want to make them stop.