Fairy Dreams

Last night I dreamed that the woods behind my house were about seven billion times bigger than they actually are, and that I discovered an elaborate and widespread fairy civilization in them. The trouble was, only certain people could see the fairy things, and to everyone else it would just look like I was talking to the air. So I set out to convince people that the fairies existed, because once they believed, I wouldn't look so crazy.

I started to talk to my father about it, and he initially thought I was kidding, then crazy, then eventually he began to understand that there was more to this than my imagination, so I took him out to where the fairies were and showed him, and with effort at first, he saw them.

He wanted to tell my mother, tell the world, but I explained that he couldn't, that people would say he was crazy, and it would take the same amount of determination to convince any adult that the fairies were real that it had taken for me to convince him, and for some people, like my practical, atheistic mother, it would be impossible.

"Just because you get inspiration out of it doesn't mean that inspiration went into it." ~Hemingway

I have some things I'm afraid of that are rational. Things like car accidents or getting sick. But I've noticed something-- rational fears aren't the ones people think about all the time. It's the irrational ones that always pop into our heads.

Or maybe we notice them more because they ARE so ridiculous. But either way, I catch myself worrying about irrational things way more than rational ones.

I'm afraid that people can see me through pictures of them. Like, if I have a photo of someone on my desk, they can see me through the eyes of their photo-self. This even applies to magazine covers. Consequently, all the photos in my room face away from my bed, so that the people in them aren't watching me sleeping. If they do face the bed, they face the foot of the bed, where the curtain blocks the view (I have a four-poster bed). I turn magazines over if they have a person on the cover whose eyes I can see-- if their eyes are closed in the picture, they can't see me. One exception to this is my picture of Ryter and me, which sort of vaguely faces my bed, but not the head of it. I try to overcome this fear, as it is rather annoying to have to find just the right location in my room to get dressed in. But I still turn pictures around sometimes.

My other irrational fear comes up any time I either have weird food cravings, gain weight in my abdominal area, or have my period a little later than I expected. I have this irrational fear that I am pregnant. This would not be irrational were it not for the fact that I am not having sex, thus, pregnancy would be highly unlikely. I suppose it's conceit on my part, clearly, I am saintly enough to deserve the next Immaculate Conception; but still. I fight the urge to take a pregnancy test despite KNOWING I cannot, can NOT be pregnant. When I do finally become sexually active, I will make sure to inform everyone, so that they can buy stock in pregnancy test manufacturers, because I guarantee that no amount of oral contraceptives or condoms will prevent me from peeing on that stick every few mornings.

Does anyone else have any irrational fears?

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I saw No Reservations with Shrewd tonight. It was a very good movie, and if you like chick flicks you'll like it. If you like chick flicks and cooking, you'll love it. Shrewd adored it; then again, for dinner tonight for just the two of us (my parents have thankfully gone to to the Cape for two weeks and the Brother is in California with his drum corps), she made salmon with cheese polenta topped with tomato and orange pepper sauce, and spinach on the side.

I love it when my sister cooks, she's so much better at it than I am. Plus I always feel like I'm in some schmancy bistro, except the cook eats with me and monopolizes the conversation, and I have to help clean up afterwards.

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New additions to the blogroll!

The Comics Curmudgeon is a very funny blog about newspaper comics and how ridiculous they are. Check it out.

I've also been reading The Dilbert Blog, which is by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comics, and is also quite funny but also often philosophical in nature.

And then there's the perennial geek favorite, Wil Wheaton's Blog.

I've also discovered Rock, Paper, Scissors, Gun, a very well-written personal blog that I've been checking out lately.

Then there's two blogs written by medical types, one by a med student called More Cowbell, and the other by a doctor called Doctor Anonymous.

And finally, another personal blog by someone who can actually write, called Living with Multiple Personalities. Check 'em out!

My frustration knows no bounds.

So this morning I realized that I had left my purse in Ryter's car when he visited last night (that was fun, we made pizza and he was quite pleased when I told him "You can put anything on it" and even more so when I said, "Uh, sure, you can put crab meat on it..." Final result for me was mushrooms, black olives and smoked oysters. For Ryter, it was Mexican taco cheese, onions, goat's cheese, a little bit of cheddar, anchovies, and crab meat. And now it's his favorite kind of pizza...), and thus after the craziness that is working at a store with only ten days before it closes, my dad and mom took me up to his place, and once I procured the bag and Mummy met Jesus, Ryter's pet lizard (Hey-ZOOS, not JEE-sus), we all went to Newick's to get some dinner.

It actually went very well; Daddy seems to be warming up to Ryter and there was a lot of sci-fi talk, and then we got into talking about the 60's (Quote from my father: "We started in this one English class reading all this hippie literature, and then moved into Marxist doctrine...") and stuff like that. Then I bought Ryter some fudge at the gift shop and he bought me a stuffed lobster and we dropped him off at his apartment before heading home.

Now, a warning-- below this line is me angrily emoting for quite some time, so feel free to not read it.

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The WHOLE way home, we were talking about Ryter; this was not my doing. It only started because my mom was wondering how anyone could afford to rent anymore if a studio apartment in Durham was $900. I pointed out that a) it's a very nice apartment and close to the school, b) his landlady is very lenient, and c) he's living alone, and most people starting out have roommates.

This diverged into why he doesn't have roommates, and it all went downhill from there.

The main thing in the conversation, though, was that Daddy's biggest problem with Ryter is one of the reasons that I love him so much-- he's very easy to read. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and I can tell exactly how he's feeling almost all the time, and he'll tell me why he's feeling that way. Thus, the fact that I have issues reading people's emotions isn't a problem, and I know when he's happy and relaxed and thus I can relax as well.

Daddy's problem with this-- "It's not a normal relationship, and it's not preparing you for future relationships where you WILL have to read people."

Uhm, excuse me?

I don't want a "normal" relationship, normal relationships are hard and one half is usually unhappy with the other, as far as I can tell. One of the reasons I love spending time with Ryter is that when I'm around him, I'm not constantly on edge or wondering what he's thinking about (it's usually aliens or paleontology), and I can actually relax and enjoy myself. I can feel safe in the relationship and not like I'm constantly wondering when he's going to dump me.

Guys who have "normal" relationships are usually jerks, and if they aren't jerks they're treated like shit by the girl, and if neither of them are jerks they never actually discuss or work out problems. I am happiest in my "abnormal" relationship, but my dad thinks it's something bad.

And then there's the bit about "preparing me for future relationships..." I do not consider this a training relationship. I'm not dating Ryter to learn or work on my people skills. I am dating him because I like to be with him. Will this be the only relationship I ever have? I don't know, I don't really think about it. If I have to, probably not. But I would never treat a guy like a "training boyfriend." This relationship has no obligation to prepare me for anything, and I'm actually really insulted that Daddy would think I am the kind of girl who would do that to a guy.

I mean, I've known those girls, and especially those guys, who have a first boyfriend or girlfriend so they can figure out the whole dating thing and then trade up. They're usually really bitchy and immature, and they wind up hurting that first significant other when they decide they've learned enough. I would never do that-- I date people because I like them, not because I think I'm not experienced enough and I want to learn the ins and outs of dealing with people.

And then there's the fact that Daddy is concerned that Ryter cares so much for me, and actually half-joked today, "So when you do break up with him, make sure you do it in a public place with your own ride home and you come straight home, lock the door, barricade yourself in your room and warn the police."

Because apparently I'm dating an ax murderer?

Honestly, I was so insulted and hurt by that one I really didn't know how to reply. How do you reply when your father tells you, even in a joking tone, that he's worried that your boyfriend would attack you if you ever broke up? I have NEVER been afraid of Ryter, not since the day I met him. Afraid he would dump me, yes, though he's good at allaying those fears. But afraid of him? Never. And yet every other week I'm desperately afraid that Daddy's gonna kill me for some little thing I screwed up. Of the two of them, Ryter and Daddy, I would honestly expect Daddy to hit me before Ryter did, and if you knew my father you would know how much that means.

(To be fair, I don't think Daddy dislikes Ryter as a person, I think he just doesn't like the dynamic of our relationship. Not that that's really all that much better. Oh, and my mom was asleep for most of this conversation, and didn't really say that much when she was awake.)

My parents come from a time when the lack of internet meant you didn't talk to your significant other every day unless you lived with them, so they see that Ryter and I talk all the time and they interpret it as "clingyness," despite the fact that I do it right back. They can't comprehend the idea that we might actually just genuinely like each other and trust each other and want to spend time together, because apparently, that's not a "normal" relationship.

So tell me-- why the hell would I WANT this elusive "normal" relationship???

And the Brother talks to his girlfriend every night he's home on the phone, not even the internet while doing other things-- WHY AREN'T THEY PESTERING HIM???

Victory!

I HAVE FINISHED IT.

Now, I no longer have to be annoyed by people who try to give me spoilers.

Plus, I don't have to THINK about Harry Potter again until the fifth movie comes out.

Sweet.

I wanted to chill with Socrates...

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

How'd I wind up in Purgatory? I've always been destined for Limbo!

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

It's okay, I'm a flaming geek too

Thanks to E-Dog's Everything Page I have discovered a Simpsons website where you can make a Simpsons version of yourself. Thus, I created the following image of myself and Ryter:



Then I showed it to him, and he protested that I had "[made my]self hot and [made him] look like a huge flaming geek."

I pointed out that he was a huge flaming geek but decided to redo it anyway. Take two:



Actually, that is a bit closer to his body type, after a bit of photoshop manipulation. The first one makes him look like a leering teen, like he's about to grab my boobs. The second is more "sexy heavy-metal rocker dude" and less "high schooler with a mouth-breathing problem." And I changed myself a bit too. Oh, and yes, this is as close as I will get to posting an actual picture of us...

Still want votes on the new blog layout!

Well?

What do you think? Better, worse...?

A gift of my twisted mind

Last night I had a dream that everyone was accusing me of a brutal murder I did not remember doing. They all said they had seen me covered in blood and carrying the severed head of the victim, but while it was true that I had in my possession a hooded sweatshirt covered in blood, I could not remember committing murder and I could not remember ever holding the head. The thing was, I wasn't in jail or anything-- I was at home, but watched like a hawk, and no one trusted anything I said, because they thought I was a criminal.

Meanwhile, I had to try to prove my innocence to people who remembered things differently from me. In the end I figured out when the murder was supposed to have taken place and that I actually did have an alibi at the time, a fact I had forgotten because I honestly did not remember what I had been doing on the precise date (this is a minor annoyance to me on TV shows-- when they ask for an alibi, what if you can't remember what you were doing on a specific date?) I proved my innocence right before I woke up. Like, I had almost proved my innocence when the alarm rang but I hit the snooze to make sure it was all settled.

The interesting thing about this dream is that it felt very real, so much so that I was desperately afraid the whole time that I would discover I actually had murdered this guy and rather panicky about the whole thing. When I woke up it took me a few minutes to remember that none of it had happened.

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I'm going to do a site redesign (the url will be the same-- that's about it). I need to figure out a theme, though. And a title. Any great ideas?

Boop boop be doop

IF you listen to country music, you may know this song by Brad Paisley, which I heard for the first time today. I am really torn about this time. On the one hand, FREAKIN' HILARIOUS, especially since Shatner's in the video; on the other, should a guy like Brad Paisley, which is to say, obviously attractive and not a geek in the faintest sense of the word, be singing about/making fun of the "...5 foot 3 and overweight/...scifi fanatic/...mild asthmatic" stereotype?

Aww, screw it. Watch the video, it's cute.


Brad Paisley - Online lyrics

I'm always bad at these during the summer.

So Monday I was driving along, speeding, as I often do; I then drove over a little hill in the road and saw that a car was crossing my path. I braked. It was insufficient. Next thing I knew I felt the jolt of car hitting car.

She had been pulling into a parking lot, so she continued, and I pulled in as well, getting out and running over to apologize and ask if they were okay. The woman got out and started not-quite-yelling at me, saying, "Didn't you SEE me? How fast were you GOING?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, are you okay, is your car okay..."

WE rounded to the back of her car and checked it out-- a little dent in the bumper and a lot of paint from my car. "Oh, that's not too bad," she commented. "I don't think we'll even bother to get that fixed."

"There's a piece of a light over here," her daughter, who had been in the car, commented. "Well, it's not from my car," the driver replied. I then checked my car.

Unlike her large SUV, my little Contour had two broken lights and a bit of a dent in the hood on the passenger's side. "Oh, that's not too bad," I commented, in my youthful ignorance. "I can get that fixed. It's my fault, anyway."

"Okay," the woman replied, calmer now. "Hey, don't I know you?"

I paused, studying her face. "Oh, right, I think I do..."

"Yeah, from Girl Scouts? I know your mom. You bridged to Adults last year, you were the oldest girl at the ceremony. I'm D- S-."

"Oh, yeah!" I replied, remembering, thinking, Right, this is the woman that called the house like 20 times a day...

"So you're okay? I don't think I'll bother with getting my car fixed, but if my husband insists, I have your number already. WE can sort out insurance then, if need be."

I nodded, apologized again, put the pieces of the light in the seat beside me and drove home.

One call to my mother and an estimate later, I was getting a much better idea of how "not too bad" the car was- $481 bad. Turns out that the lights needed replacing, the plastic piece behind them was cracked and also needed replacing (and that one couldn't be bought at a discount like the lights), and the pressure on the hood was bad enough that it would all have to be banged out, and that was just to make it pass inspections.

I waited for my dad to get home, panicky. I expected the worst, because my dad tends to flip out when I screw up. I thought for sure I would have to pay for the damage, and get yelled at, and I couldn't think how I could afford it since they cut my hours at Discovery and I can't get cleared by a doctor to work at the daycare (stupid clinics). Thank GOD my dad understood. My folks have agreed to cover it in exchange for me being generous with chores and more careful next time.

So that was my adventure of the week...

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Oh. And I love him.

Sharing something random...

This (Warning-- foul language) is exactly what I would want to do if I had the guts. Alas, I think shouting "I'M F---ING HIV POSITIVE" in a crowded grocery store, even if it would teach a young mother a valuable lesson about teaching her children not to bite random strangers until they break the skin.

Though really, if that happened to me, I might be really, really tempted, gutlessness or not. Better to scare the shit out of her for a few weeks until she knows for certain that her kid isn't positive, and make her understand the danger and at least keep tabs on her kid until he outgrows that phase, than to have him go bite someone who's actually HIV positive and have her learn it the hard way.

Wouldn't swear that much, though...

It's something in the water

For some reason over the past few weeks it seems like EVERYONE is telling me stories of people who got pregnant and then their deadbeat boyfriends abandoned them. I get that as a college student, my peers are going to be exposed to lots of alcohol, but really, is there something about being in college that makes all the women super-fertile and the men deadbeats? And why does everyone feel the need to tell me?

Bah!

Curiousity

Have you ever had a question that you always thought you knew the answer to, but then when it come up in your life you start to second-guess the things you thought you understood?

On my bathroom wall we have random little sayings; one of them is, "A philosopher always knows what to do until it happens to them." I guess I'm a philosopher. (I also get advice from my bathroom wall. This is perhaps bad.) And now I have a question that I figured I knew the answer to, and suddenly I'm not so sure.

So I'm posing a question to whoever reads this blog, at least, whoever reads this and the question is applicable:

How did you know when you were in love?

It Came From Planet Nabisco

I was tagged.

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
6. There is NO rule 6.
7. Failure to follow through with this meme will result in being run over repeatedly by the karma bus.

And without further ado, here are eight random facts/habits about MOI.

1. There are very few foods I dislike the taste of. I won't eat certain kinds of meat, and I've conditioned myself to dislike the smell and become nauseous if I taste it, but that's not a natural dislike. I don't like coffee, whole almonds (though that might also be psychological), the pulp in orange juice, or chicken livers. That's all that comes to mind.

2. I had a mole on my left arm when I was young that was almost a perfect circle, very normal-looking. I hated it with a perverted passion and the older I got, the more obsessed I was with it and wanting to be rid of it. I started to scratch at it, and eventually I was making myself bleed. My mom finally gave in when she realized how obsessive I was about that one thing and decided to let me get it removed for psychological reasons. Now, instead of a 2-mm-wide mole I have a 1 1/2 in long scar, and yes, I prefer it.

3. I inherited my grandmother's singing voice. She and her three sisters were very well known for their singing abilities. When they got together, it was like angels singing. Alas, those angels were more the "fire and brimstone" kind of angels than the "heavenly choir..." I always wanted to learn how to sing. I am capable of hitting five notes, and they're not even in order. I don't even have a full octave.

4. I have never sneezed just once that I can remember. It's always five or six times, sometimes as many as fifteen in a row. My classmates in high school used to start counting when I started sneezing to see if I would break the record.

5. When I was in first grade a classmate told me I had hairy legs. Thus rose another obsession-- I won't go longer than 36 hours without shaving and leave the house, even if I wear long pants.

6. Underneath my bed there is a large pink stain on the carpet from when I was five and used to play with this very soft, very heavily dyed piece of pink clay. That one piece of clay would always stain my palms pink and also got the carpet, my old sheets, several articles of clothing, and some of my brother's legos.

7. A girl asked me out once. We were both about 14. That was awkward. For me.

8. Music affects me more than it does most people. The beat, that is. The melody only marginally affects me, but the beat changes my heartbeat ever so slightly to match it, which changes the way that I feel. Consequently my idea of a great song is one where the way I feel inside matches whatever they're singing about. This is why I dislike my brother's drumming-- because a beat that strong and loud affects the way I feel, and most songs he play make me feel angry or at least apprehensive.

I'm cheating and tagging some LJ people too... But alas, not enough people read this blog to make it easy. If you don't want to be tagged, pretend you ducked.

Nate from Nate is a Blog
Amishav from Chai Expectations
BEAJ from the Atheist Jew
Katie
Tink
Andy
That's six, I know, but I honestly don't know that many people who both read this and have their own blog/journal.

But Yesterday Was Better

Happy Fourth, all.

Today was the day when I finally thrust Ryter headfirst into meeting the fambly. Extended family, that is, though he spent more time than ever before with my dad and he very very briefly met the Brother.

Every Fourth of July, my uncle, who was born on the first, has a big birthday/Independence Day party. It's like ideal for him because he's really into American history and especially the Revolutionary War. The birthday fact might have lead to the liking history fact, but who knows. Anyway, my uncle is an avid beachcomber/yard sale aficionado/junk collector and his house reflects that, much to the chagrin of my aunt (father's sister). But they have this big party and everyone comes, and we go every year and see the same people we see at the New Year's brunch. This year, my aunt said I could invite my boyfriend, more as a "Let's see who [Basiorana] is dating!" than a "Maybe she'd like to invite him!"

But the thing is, it worked out really well, because Ryter can't stay at a social function, especially with people he needs to censor himself around, for very long, and to be perfectly honest, as much as I like to see people, I really prefer to stay like three hours, max. When I'm there I say hi to people and talk to relatives if they talk to me, but I can only answer "So, how's school?" fifteen times before my head explodes. So it meant that we brought Shrewd down, we could leave her there to return with the 'rents and head back ourselves. And Ryter did very well, especially since it was like 25 people and I know maybe ten names. He talked with my aunt about schools (my aunt's a high school guidance counselor) and to my uncle about historical fiction and the other stuff he's writing, and to my mom about the Shadowrun game we're playing (yes, I'm playing a role-playing game with dice and everything, don't laugh, it's pretty cool) and role-playing, Dungeons and Dragons-type games in general. Then it got later, we got ready to leave, and there was an incident with a cookie that resulted in an emergency run down to the nearest Brooks (luckily, that wasn't very far) for some Benadryl. Nuts.

But he was okay, he just kind of felt crappy and his face got a little puffy. The swelling was down by the time we got back here. He promises he'll recover. I just feel really, really bad, mostly about the fact that it took so long for me to get out of there and head down to the Brooks with him-- but I really needed to say good-bye, at least to my grandfather, aunt and uncle, and my folks, who would have wondered where the heck I was.

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I had to abandon him here, though, to go pick up my brother, who just got back from a week-long tour with his drum corps. He's just back for one night. On the way back I learned that he was most looking forward to showering on his own, after a week of group showers, or at least tripling up with other guys.

Ew.

He's also so much darker than he was when he left that I swear he must have secretly changed races on me. And they gave him a name: [The Brother] Of-The-Pit. Also, With-The-Rubix-Cube. That's how they identify him: [his name] Of-The-Pit, With-The-Rubix-Cube. Shrewd says "The Pit" is his tribe. I'm not so sure.

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The Brother went to shower alone while Ryter and I hung out and then, once the rest of the family returned, set off half a metric assload of fireworks from a bucket of sand in the street. We didn't destroy anything and the lawn only started smoking once, but it was cool anyway. I love New Hampshire-- this was totally legal...

Plus we have leftovers to launch some other time, probably from a beach somewhere. That will be awesomeness.

We went out to the 99 with my parents and Shrewd afterwards, so my dad finally will stop saying how he doesn't know this strange boy I'm seeing.

My mom and Ryter talked a great deal of the time. My mom really likes Ryter; they have a ton in common with the sci-fi love and more importantly, he can articulate himself and isn't afraid of her just because she's my mom like the Brother's girlfriend seems to be most of the time. She thinks he's awesome.

My dad's final verdict? "He's moving so fast that he's got about five minutes left to live, and he'll get more done in those five minutes than most people ever get around to. He's very high-energy. But he seems like a nice enough guy, and he wins serious points for winning over your mom so completely." I think this was very, very comforting to Ryter-- Daddy tends to be intimidating, even if you don't know him.

But it went well, it all went well. He made an excellent impression. It was a pretty good day.

You have been floundered.

A telemarketer called from India today. "Hello, is this [insert my family name here]?"

"No, they're not here."

"Oh. Who am I speaking to then?"

"Uhm, I'm their daughter."

"Oh... you have a very sexy voice..."

"Uh...o...kay..." *Click*

I'm all aloooooone...

Today was quite a day... It started when I woke up at 11:03 and was supposed to be at work at 11:00.

I rushed out the door, using perfume instead of showering and frantically calling my manager to tell her I wasn't going to be on time... She didn't answer the phone, so I was really freaking out because I thought I might have the wrong number and wasn't going to be able to contact her.

So I finally got to the mall and rushed in and the store wasn't open. Like, it was locked down and everything. I was confused. My first reaction was, "Holy shit, if the manager's the only one there are they not allowed to open the store?"

But I couldn't see my manager at all, so I asked at a nearby kiosk, and found out that she had apparently got all the way there and realized she forgot her keys, so she had to drive an hour round trip to go get them. This sort of incredibly convenient coincidence happens to me all the time, which is why I believe in a god...

So instead of being half an hour late I was half an hour early, and got to relax with a muffin and a Coolatta and laugh at the people who looked very, very confused that the place wasn't open yet.

But my manager, alas, was pretty frantic about the whole thing, so she had to work in the back room the whole morning and I was basically alone in the front of the store for the first hour. And then another guy didn't show up at all for his shift, no phone call, nothing, so I had to stay an extra hour. But I got a DVD about mitochondrial Eve so it's all good. Today was really, really not my manager's day though.