NOTE TO THE FAITHLESS... I AM NOT A GOTH

It's official. This test told me so. :)
I have to admit that it's hard to type when I'm laughing so hard. A big thanks goes out to Algernon for bringing this test to my attention.

Apparently I'm not a goth, but my "gothic daddy" is, oddly enough, Nick Cave. Just look how horkin' hot he is. I think I have his eyes. :)


who's your gothic daddy?
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12/23/02
12:53pm


IN SEARCH OF CARROT TOP AND OTHER AMUSING CHRISTMAS TALES


It's been an eventful past few days... which explains why I haven't written all that much. Somehow things seem to be coming together. Now I have people to hate Florida with, instead of moping at home alone. :)

I can't remember if I mentioned Anna Young before, but I will take the time to do it now. Again, if necessary. Can we say amazing woman? Yes, I knew that we could. :)
Seems life has a funny way of sending us down a path and just when we think we went in a HUGE circle, we find out that the people we were looking for were at the end of that path all along. At the end of this FLA-la land path waited Anna and friends, which seemed to be the most unlikely place I would find people so much like me. I'm glad I found them, though. Anna is one of those people that can bring life to a room and spark everyone up. Gotta love that.

We hung out and went to Independent Bar (formerly Barbarella's, which I think is a LOT cooler name, personally) and she introduced me to some of her friends. Tybalt is an amazing musician (listening to the CD he gave me the other day, and I have to say, HE MUST GET SIGNED!!). He's one of those laid-back sexy goth guys and you can see talent swirling in the air around him. Awesome guy.

Annabelle and --crap.. I can't remember her name, but she was a gorgeous little blonde girl-- they are natural goths. I was amazed. Ended up chatting with Annabelle a little bit at Anna's pre-Christmas Christmas party last night.

And so.... it all leads up to this:

At the party I unfortunately got SUCH a neck ache, and it started travelling up into the base of my skull. Yes, a migraine waiting to happen. I was having such a good time, too. The whole experience was just flowing together, from the images of Baracca on the television, to the black light paintings, and snippets of conversation ranging from meditation and language evolution to metaphysics and time travel. By the time I left my head was swimming with inspiration and disjointed surrealist poetry.

So on the ride home, with my head bursting with words yet to be born, and flinging poetry out the window of the car on the tips of cigarette ashes, watching the cherry of Chuck's cigarette as it dipped and swayed into the ash tray and back to his face, I was watching the night fly past. The wind screamed and tore at the doors of the car as if trying to wrench them from their hinges. And if I looked down, I could pretend I was flying through the night.

"Carrot Top lives around here somewhere," Chuck said and my train of thought was derailed. I swear the caboose hit me on the way off the tracks.

"Mmmm...," I said.

We drove on, and I started to piece back together some of the thoughts and inspirations, wishing I had a notebook and pen. Always the irony of not having pen or paper that I get the urge to write. I think back on one time that I only had a pen, and I ended up writing the entirety of my short story "The Vigilante Psychic" all over my arms, hands and legs. I learned to be ambidexterous again. Friends asked what the hell I had done to myself, and I said it was my grocery list.

"Right in there, I think," Chuck broke in again, and pointed to one of the many developments of the Wang. They all look alike to me. Same cardboard cutout pre-fab houses, same concrete sign at the entrance. I could drive past a hundred and think we had gone in circles a hundred times.

"Mmm....," I said again. It seemed like a good, solid, non-biased answer that could be interpreted any way he saw fit. The underlying truth was hidden: I'm terrified of Carrot Top. I fear him more than clowns. He twists my mellow and makes me fear the very word "Stand-up comedian". What's even more terrifying than seeing Carrot Top on the TV is that he lives so damned close to us that I might see him walking down the highway one of these days. And what do I do if this happens??? There is no duck-and-cover drill for hiding from a stand-up prop comic... is there? Will I be forced to dial down the center if he catches me at a payphone???!!

The inspirations flitted away and into the treetops as I opened the door to get out of the car. I watched my ideas as they soared into the night above me. At least I didn't have to think about the threat of Carrot Top anymore.

12/20/02
11:34pm


SURROGATE SEX PARTNERS, INC.


So here's my idea... for those who may be lacking something in their love life...

SURROGATE SEX PARTNERS.
not getting enough bang from your buck? Surrogate Sex Partner.
partner too tired, has serial headaches? Surrogate Sex Partner.
partner not quite into the kinkier things that you might be into? Surrogate Sex Partner.

For your every sexual need, without the muss and fuss of an actual relationship. Some people might call these "whores" and "prostitute", but these partners DON'T GET PAID. They're there because they wanna be. And the best part is, after they've done their thing: THEY GO HOME. Say goodbye to fights, say goodbye to disinterest. With Surrogate Sex Partner you can trade in for a newer model and no one's feelings are hurt. It's not cheating if your partner's cool with it.

Surrogate Sex not for you? Need the guilt and blame instead?

SURROGATE SEETHING BITCH
All the hell of a bad relationship ANY time you want it.
partner not placing enough of the blame on you? Surrogate Seething Bitch
partner not fighting enough for your satisfaction? Surrogate Seething Bitch
partner not jealous when you flirt with others? Surrogate Seething Bitch
Surrogate Seething Bitch comes in male and female models and is guranteed to piss you off or your money back!

Still not enough? Need something more?

SURROGATE PSYCHO
All the psychosis and stalking with only half the relationship!
for those nights when your partner just isn't scaring you enough... Surrogate Psycho is the answer!
partner not insanely jealous of your every friend? Surrogate Psycho
partner not crazy enough? Surrogate Psycho
partner not stalking you? Surrogate Psycho
partner not trying to burn down your house? Surrogate Psycho
want a dangerous one-night stand? Surrogate Psycho

Our Surrogate Psychos are raised on the finest drugs and alcohol, then watered with high lead content and mind altering drugs. When they reach early maturity we set them free under high-power lines with no adult surpervision, guidelines of society, or knowledge of right and wrong. Surrogate Psychos come in male and female, and are acquainted with every loophole the law will allow, so that we can guarantee that you will either need a restraining order, be slapped with a restraining order for something you didn't do, or your money back!

Oh yeah.. .and by the way, in case there's any Darwin candidates reading this: it's fake. I made it allllll up. There are no Surrogate People. So there. You'll just have to make due with the singles scene.

12/10/02
3:50pm


DO GOTHS HAVE TO ALWAYS BE GOTH?


I came across an article, oddly enough, about this very blog that you are reading. From people in the land Down Under (aka Australia, for the geographically impaired). I'm still not sure how to feel about the whole thing. Seemed slightly amused, which is good, since I am all about the humor.

Read the Article and Decide for Yourself

Ms. Sinclair notes that in my picture (the article is dated September 25th, so she's referring to the old version of this blog) I'm not smiling. Heh heh heh..... horrid irony of ironies. At least The Pants got an honorable mention. *GRIN*

To anyone expecting some sort of angst-ridden entries of a teenie bopper goth grrl, afraid you're going to have to look elsewhere, my friends. Note the word Smiling in front of Goth. I am a paradox, and I like it that way. Catch me drunk and you'll get the depressed homesick story, and maybe even my eye-witness account of The Thing That Happened in New York Last Year, or possibly my own rantings about guns, Goth, and government. That's the beauty of being the Smiling Goth, you never know what's gonna come out of my mouth at any given moment.

On a side note, I usually don't go off the deep end unless we're talking metaphysics. Yes, metaphysics. Not Stoner Physics where people stare wide-eyed through a cloud of reeking smoke. Real, hardcore, Einstein-based physics and metaphysics. I WILL give you a headache. I even use visual aides.

I suspect that a lot of people venturing into this blog either assume I'm going to go into suicide ranting, or talk about how bad high school was (it was HORRIBLE), or about the many issues pertaining to goths heard 'round the world. Or maybe they're Christian fundamentalists looking for some bizarre proof that goths are evil, something they can bring back to the congregation as PROOF. What brave soldiers of JC they are. Look at them skulking in the ether-bushes trying to catch me unawares. *Smile*

I'm too damned old to play high school goth, believe it or not (damn the eyes of the walleyed teenager that carded me at the club). I'm oldschool, baby. I'm Generation X, and damned proud of it. Underneath my polished black vinyl exterior and new car industrial scent is a core of oldschool Punk Rock (I still hold the Ramones to be in the punk genre, so myah).

And as for The Pants.... you gotta love The Pants. She's a fuzzy ball of fearsome. *Grin*

But seriously, not all goths are morose and death-obsessed. There's quite a few oldschool goths with a sense of humor (albeit we laugh hysterically when people on crutches or in a wheelchair fall down a flight of stairs, but come on, who DOESN'T? It was in Naked Gun for gawd's sake!). I refuse to live up to my stereotype, goth-dammit!!

Now go to my site and buy something for a christian for christmas.

12/09/02
5:15pm


THE GOTH THAT STOLE CHRISTMAS


OK... So I spent all day coding up a shopping cart for the site. Now the least you can do IS GO BUY SOMETHING!!!!

The new and improved ONLINE STORE at Smiling Goth Productions. See what all the hype is about!!

Oh yes, and always remember: get a Goth a gift!

12/06/02
12:40pm


COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT....


So it just hit me that I've been spending more and more of my time doing absolutely nothing. Nothing. Me. Even when I'm sitting around APPEARING to do nothing I have a pen poised in hand and a notebook in front of me waiting for me to channel a story into it from the mysterious ether of my sub-consciousness. Lately, however, I've fired up the computer and chatted with everyone, but done NOTHING. I look for jobs, but no one's hiring. I sit in my pajamas and stare out the window at the wind-ripped surface of the retention pond outside. Maybe all my thoughts are being sucked out into those murky depths, eaten by the turtles and seaplants that lurk under the brackish water.

I'm afraid of dying here, to be honest. Afraid that if I stop being creative I'll lose everything that makes me who I am. I fear the lack of change on the wang. I stare in frustrated disbelief at the content lackies surrounding me, happy in their mundane existence, unknowing and uncaring that there might be more to life than mindless overwork without pay, liquid sunshine, and a choice of clubs that all play the same music and cater to the same crowd. I wonder at how people can honestly go about daily life with no challenge and be happy. Every day I realize more and more why people come to Florida to die. They jump into the safe little box, throw on their blinders, and it's a straight, unquestionable line to the grave. Granted, not EVERYONE on the wang is like that, but a LOT of them are. At least on the shaft of the wang. Dunno about the head and balls of it.

As we were driving through a town I can't even remember the name of, there was a mural on the side of a building-- some bar, I think-- and the mural was a plane crashed into the side of the building, done in Florida pastels. Underneath the plane was written "9-11-01 We will never forget. God Bless America!" Is that all it was to the people living here? A fading memory? Something to fill up their newstime with? Something to gasp about and claim that their distant cousin or friend's cousin worked in the Towers?

Seeing the mural made up my mind. I definitely want to go home. Home to where we're all haunted still, be it by memories or ghosts, but haunted, which proves we're still alive. Home to the REAL. Where the amount of bullshit is a corporate formality and not to be taken seriously, but if you stand by the coffee maker you'll find the truth. Here they spoon-feed bullshit, and power-trips, and expect you to swallow it for less than half the pay with almost the same housing costs. The mantra is "If you don't like it, there's the door."

Sad thing is that that "door" only opens up to an exact replica of the same room you just left. It's a state where the businessman is king, and fuck all the worker people. You don't like it? There's the door. Bully tactics of small businesses that think they're big. Capitalism at it's worst. There's wetlands red tape all over the area, yet there's no requirement on cars to have catalytic converters or to even be inspected. The area is filled with endangered wildlife, you would think they would do more to protect it. There's only so many letters to my congressman I can write.

12/02/02
6:12PM


JESUS WALKS INTO A LADY...


OK.. So this one is for Adamantium and his dealings with the public. Stop if you've heard this one before...

Lady walks into Adam's place of work and asks him for a print of Jesus and a lighthouse. He's telling me this story and I'm thinking she wants separate prints, but NO. She wants a print of Jesus AND a lighthouse. She describes this picture to him and apparently it's a stormy sky, saying I suppose that Jesus is NOT a fairweather friend, and he will be your lighthouse on rough seas, and la la la. Yay, JC. Poor guy hasn't suffered enough, now he's gotta be sold in prints of him and a Maine lighthouse??

I told Adamantium to tell the woman that it is historically IMPOSSIBLE for such a picture to exist, that Maine and modern-day lighthouses were nowhere NEAR discovered/invented at the time of Jesus-- not to mention FILM for a print. Adamantium did the more professional thing and sent her on her merry way to the Christian bookstore around the corner instead.

Sooo... the holidays are almost over...I'm still stuck on the wang and can't get home for Christmas since NO ONE IS BUYING MY FUCKING BOOKS OR PRINTS OR DONATING TO MY CAUSE!!!! You think that fucking site is FREE??

Do me a favor, seriously... Go to my site and click that Donation button. Even a dollar will get me one step closer to home for the holidays. If you've enjoyed my writings, donate, dammit. If I made you laugh or feel like part of a crowd, please... help me out. I'm out of a job, I'm out of patience, and I want to GO BACK TO NY!!! :(

OK.. I'm done sounding like a charity case... even though I sort of AM a charity case... but I always did depend on the kindness of strangers. I should get my own TV telethon... Send The Smiling Goth back to Gotham!! I promise not to interfere with regularly scheduled shows unless they're dumb.

11/25/02
4:08PM


PUBLISH ME, GODAMMIT!

I'm no media whore, but when I see stupid shit getting published (I will use Stephen King's Everything's Eventual as an example, since he's big enough that even the dumbest yokel will know who I'm talking about) where the author brags about how he didn't have any intention of actually being taken seriously, and blah blah blah, and WOW, look at all that MONEY, har har har, I get upset. I get upset for four reasons:

1) It takes away the hard-won accomplishments of the original electronic authors. Like a WalMart moving into a small town. Sure, the customer got their dollar's worth, but has anyone seen many mom-and-pop shops anymore?
2) He got all the credit, dammit. There were e-books around before Stevie decided to try his hand at it, and all of a sudden he's the guru and spokesman for the electronic publishing industry?
3) If he hadn't pointed it out and seemed to BRAG about the fact that he is now a cultural icon, I think I would have gone on loving his work (even if it IS Tabitha's in a few cases).
4) PUBLISH ME, damn it.

The reason I'd like to get published? It's a simple one. So I can collect autographed copies of my own books.
It would be kind of funny.. I can see it now.. all the books signed 'To: Suzi, Keep on Truckin'. Bird is the word. ---unintelligible signature that somehow reads "suzi" '.

How funny would THAT be? Friends come to the house and they look through the library and happen upon, lo and behold, all of my novels. They get that look that says they know something's up, but they aren't quite sure WHAT yet. They take one of the books and open it, and there's the autograph. And ALL of them would be signed exactly the same way. :)

I was actually toying with the idea of autographing all my books anyway, even if I didn't write them. Just to throw people off.

I am a few steps away from being legitimately published (i.e. "legitimately"= "paid for my writing"), I hope. I submitted a story to an anthology, and just finished the final edit of a story about a vampire cockroach. Yes, that's right, a vampire cockroach.

Also on my plate is a brand spank-me new sex advice column I'll be femmedomming at Legion Studios . So send in your questions HERE or email Derrek at Legion and I'll do my very best.... To answer them, of course.

Talk to you soon!

Suzi

11/22/02
12:40pm


WARCRY OF THE DICTATOR?


Well, kids. It's coming. Fast and furious and Gawd knows when, but SOON, and it's coming right for us. War's ugly sunset is clouding the horizon and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Baby bush and co. are hellbent on starting a war in the middle east, and they're trying to justify it with the threat of terrorism. I don't sympathize with either side. I hate equally and equally do I hate. Do I point fingers? Hell yeah, one in particular, stuck in the middle of my hand. I point it right at the people who helped the assholes to begin with. The threat was always there, and now they've let it grow up and become a full-blown outbreak. Congrats, the U.S. funded the terrorists to begin with.

I'm sure this entry will have someone screaming at me, but it needs to be said, regardless of what viruses a certain person in the Washington, D.C. area may send my way (by the way, whoever you are, I have your IP addee and I WILL report you if you send me another one-- don't make me have to find out who you are). It's called freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. If we don't have those, we have what jr. wants to make this country.

Honestly now, how much spying DO they need to do to fight terrorism? They already know WHO the terrorists are, and knew it for quite some time before last year's events, so now they have to start invading the privacy of U.S. citizens??? I disagree with that. Will I open the door if they decide to knock it down? Sure. I have nothing to hide. Ask and ye shall receive. Will I let them read my private thoughts in the name of 'protecting the people'? Probably not. As much bitching as I do about everything I think is wrong, I'd probably be put away because SOME of my thoughts might be considered non-patriotic. Well, duh. EVERYONE has non-patriotic thoughts at some point. Some folks talk shit, others write it down and eventually just throw it away. I think it's wrong to start invading the privacy of people who are just average people because Big Brother says it's a good idea. How many people say shit they never intend to act on? Millions, if not BILLIONS. That's why it's called 'talking shit.' It's a form of venting, and it's HEALTHY. And now this guy comes along-- a man who's run businessES into the ground, by the way-- and says it's in the name of PROTECTING THE PEOPLE that he wants to start intercepting emails and things like that?? Bullshit. And here's why:

What if, for example, this journal entry of me venting my frustration and fear is read by agents hired to filter out all the terrorist things that could POSSIBLY be communicated. I've posted this publicly, I know people might actually read this. BUT... what if these folks read it and find for whatever crazy reason that I'm un-American for posting it. Me. Born and raised here, and exercising my right to free speech and expression BECAUSE I AM American. We have the right to disagree with government actions, that's what makes us America. But with everything jr. is trying to do, suddenly this entry is un-American BECAUSE it disagrees with him. And I'd be in trouble. Scary, isn't it? A paranoid law, a couple of the wrong keywords in my content, and suddenly free-speaking lil me could be a threat.

My question, and my fear, is that this attempt at war with the middle east is just a diversion to something far bigger and scarier.

11/08/02
9:42am


MORE FROM THE DESK OF THE SMILING GOTH


I think Pants got her paws on some chocolate, because now she's running around like a maniac attacking anything and everything, including yours truly. Can't say I enjoy being attacked by an insane hopped-up cat, it isn't pretty. She apparently likes the sound of my fingers typing at the keyboard... and attacks it. Stupid cat.

I had to give her a time out. I know, how stupid does that sound? I gave my cat a time out. I just hope she doesn't tear my bedroom apart.

In other news.... I finished the synopsis to Nemesis yesterday. What a draining experience that was when coupled with having to write an About the Author. Then last night I pushed myself even further and did some site collaboration. So, it's finally up and running: http://www.JavaAddicts.com

Go. See. Feel. Love.

11/06/02
9:09pm


LIKE GIVING CAFFEINE AND SUGAR TO AN OVERACTIVE CHILD


As appealing as that above statement IS, I doubt I'll get the chance to put it into practice any time soon. No one lets their little darlings wander unattended near my door long enough for me to find out if a huge chocolate bar will have the same affect as crack on my ADD (that stands in this case for Attention-to-other's-homes Deficient Disorder) neighbors' kids. Damn them for thinking of me as anything but the quiet girl next door. Neighbors like that make me wish I WAS evil just so I could torment them with their own superstitions. Maybe I'll start studying evil on weekends so I can get my evil-from-home certification in one of these fine categories:

TV/VCR Repair
Air Conditioning
Auto Repair
Pure Unadulterated Evil-Doer
Weird Crazy Cat Lady
Witch in the Haunted House
Accounting

or get any of these other popular degrees:
High School Diploma for the Home-schooled Basement Dweller
Un-wed Teenage Mother

I feel an almighty bitch-fest coming on... sad thing is, I have no reason for said bitch-fest.... Unless of course you consider thatmy nice peaceful somewhat middleclass apartment building is going downhill fast. Besides those assholes who leave their dog messes EVERYWHERE the dog feels like shitting except on THEIR lawn, the ghetto truly IS next door. I can hear them at all hourse of the day-- I think they have like ten kids in a two bedroom apartment-- running up and down the stairs, screeching and tripping. More than once I have almost tripped over THEIR toys on our shared staircase. As if the nice quiet time erradication wasn't enough, I can hear some pounding drumbeat of what I fear may just be "The Ketchup Song" playing over and over again. I'm not innocent, but I don't play the SAME song over and over again, no matter how catchy. What are they running over there, some sort of at-home Payola scandal? But, as always, it gets WORSE. Scattered amongst a pile of ratty-looking shoes, they have a baby carriage up on blocks on the PORCH--which is also partly MY porch-- for gawd's sake. A BABY CARRIAGE. Like I want my guests seeing that as soon as they come to visit. Geeze. Meanwhile their screened-in porch is empty. I mean EMPTY. Oh wait, except for that cheap-ass tiny little chime that they have dangling from the beams. So why can't they just put the carriage out on THEIR PRIVATE PORCH? I'll tell you why: they don't want to see it. And neither do I.

So help me, I really am going to go on a rampage of dogshit gifting one day. Included in that gifting I'm going to have to put a baggy in the carriage (I know they're expensive, hence the baggy, so the baby won't actually be forced to sit in dog doo). But the message will be sent: throw your shit where _I_ live and you will face the consequences. If you don't like YOUR mess in YOUR yard, what the hell makes you think _I_ like it in MINE?

And for those dog owners who think it's someone else's problem: how would you like it if I emptied my cat's litterbox on your doorstep? At least the litter-coated kitty presents will give you a fair warning and the added ability to scrape it off your shoes. Your precious Fluffy's piles are landmines waiting to happen to the unsuspecting moonlight stroller. Not to mention I have light beige carpeting all throughout my apartment, much to my dislike. You try getting dogshit out of carpeting. Even worse when you don't own a dog.

Look into the dark souls of most angry people, and you will find someone that looks a lot like that angry person's neighbor standing with their finger on the lightswitch.

---------- END RANT ----------

Oh, and for posterity's sake, I have offically submitted a story to a competition. The hopeful outcome if I get accepted is that I will be included in an anthology. The main theme was absinthe... of which I know only in theory how to make it, and that it will give you some nasty seizures and hallucinations. Never took the stuff, personally, and never made it. Even had Roman wormwood growing in my yard, just never felt a need to poison myself or anyone else. I'd chop up a little bit (and I mean a LITTLE bit) of the stuff and throw it into salads. Helps the digestion.

So in order to write the story I scoured every out-of-print text on herbology that I had in hopes of finding some description of the symptoms of absinthe intoxication. There was nothing worth using, unless you count the repeated phrase "CAUTION: Consult a physician before using this herb. In larger doses it can cause symptoms of poisoning." Well duh. Apparently the stuff is addictive (I can't imagine why, considering it has 75% alcohol content), and you get your basic visuals, etc. Some sites I found had personal stories of individual experiences with the stuff. Most of the stories were from little gothlings who wouldn't know absinthe from NyQuil (and I suspect a lot of the experiences WERE from NyQuil, to be honest). So I finally followed link after link after link, found enough information on wormwood and its effects when combined with the ingredients for absinthe, which were mostly poisoning symptoms, oddly enough, and wrote the story. I admit it, I faked the orgasm of experience and fudged some details I had gleaned from some friends who had visited the seedier side of New Orleans and Europe and actually tried the stuff. Based on my own knowledge of the ingredients and how they WOULD taste when combined, I also fudged the taste-- which oddly enough WOULD taste a lot like NyQuil, just with a LOT of sugar.

So anyway. I sent this story in to this competition, and now I'm absolutely tweaking with nerves, which could explain my sudden bursts of rage, I suppose. I have no one else to take out the stress on, except my online journal. Hmmm. And of course my not-so-fictional neighbors (who are still blissfully unaware of my projected anger, by the way).

11/03/02
3:42pm


WHAT LOOKS LIKE A PENIS AND IS COVERED IN ORANGES? .....FLORIDA.


So weird shit happens when you live on America's wang. I admit it. I'm surprised more people don't use the greeting "how's it hanging?" But I digress.... On to the story to end all parties.

Dante and I are sitting at home, spending the ever-popular and mostly obligatory and unavoidable "quality time" together. The phone rings. It always happens that way. If the damned phone wasn't worth a small fortune, I'd throw it out the window. Watching Dante discover all of the phone's technological goo-gaws and gadgets is like watching evolution in progress. :) He told me that for someone who hates technology as much as I do, I picked a good phone. Well, duh. If I'm going to make monthly payments on a piece of plastic to be able to communicate with the outside world, it better damn well tell me who's calling and take messages! For the price I would have liked it to answer itself and open the door for houseguests, but that's apparently asking too much of Sprint. They keep telling me they're a phone company, not a servant supplier. Damn them all.

So anyway. Derailed my own train of thought once more. The reason for the phone mention is that I got the WEIRDEST call. In fact, I keep GETTING this call, and have gotten it repeatedly for the last five months. So. Roughly five months ago, I get this weird message on voicemail asking for some guy Daniel or David, or whatever. It sounded like a little kid who could barely speak English, much less figure out that they dialed the wrong number. We kept getting these messages about once a week. I started to get pissed, since after the third one I was itching to stay home just so I would be able to answer the phone and tell this kid he had the wrong number and stop calling.

I finally manage to be home one day, and I tell this little-boy-sounding person that they have the wrong number, no one by the name they're asking for lives here, and the number was changed. They say thank you and I hang up the phone. And I KNOW this has happened to at least everyone in their natural life: within two seconds, THE PHONE RANG AGAIN. Same weird voice, still asking for someone named Daniel. Now I do something which, in retrospect is rude, but more than deserved: I LAUGH and I tell them, "You STILL have the wrong number. Hitting redial doesn't make it right the second time around." To those who hit redial as a solution to a wrong number problem: STOP IT. It's mildly annoying the first time you call, imagine my wrath the second time.

This wrong number has continued for MONTHS now. I was starting to suspect the thinking capacity of a person, even a child, who could consistently call the wrong number and ask for the same person. Needless to say, I came to many unkind assumptions.

It finally made sense the other day when the SAME PERSON called AGAIN, asking for Daniel. I told them, "You have the wrong number." They said thank you, as usual, and hung up. Dante and I went to the store, and when we got back there was a message. You guessed it. Our stupid little redial-pushing child-sounding friend. Apparently her name--yes, it's a she-- is Irma, and the message she left on voicemail this time was pathetic at the very least of its worries.

She seems to think her ex-boyfriend lives at MY number, and I must be the new girlfriend who is wicked and keeping him locked up or not giving him the messages because I'm jealous. A-HEM. Wicked? Yes, thanks. I admit to that. But honestly, if I was really dating her ex, wouldn't I have pulled a Jerry Springer long ago and screeched into the phone, "He ain't your bebbe's daddy, so stop calling here, you skank boy-sounding ho!"

I mean, seriously. It's just bad taste to go calling up your ex's house--especially if he has a new woman in his life-- and begging him to take you back. Even more pathetic to leave a sorry-ass whiney message on someone else's voicemail because you lack the higher brain function of hand-eye coordination enough to dial the right number in the first place.

So what did I do with this absolutely heart-wrenching outpouring of emotion from some stranger left on my voicemail? I saved it, of course, and now use it to entertain guests at my parties. Think of it as a Don't Drink and Dial public service announcement.

10/31/02
4:53pm


HAPPY HORKIN' HALLOWEEN


I'm back to my pseudo-gothique self, and IT FEELS GREAT. I so was not blonde. Couldn't even pretend to be, although I had the hair. Dante just did my hair blue-black, red, and left some platinum streaks in it. So now I look my age, instead of the 16 I've been pulling off for the past decade and a half. :) It isn't all bad. Now I won't get carded.... as much.

Found myself hopped up on Nestle Crunch bars today... right now. How can I resist-- or ANYONE for that matter-- when they call them "Fun Size"???!! Honestly. So 1 bag of Nestle Crunch "Fun Size" chocolate bars, 1 Grande Starbuck's Mocha Frappacino, and three Reese's Nutrageous (also "Fun Size") chocolate bars later... and I'm literally shaking. And they market this stuff like it's CANDY-- oh wait... I guess it IS candy. :) See what sugar will DO to you????

I've been playing Public Relations/Marketing Director for a local business these past few days, and wow. I feel now like I know what evolution must have faced when it reared its head. The folks at this business are of the mindset that the internet is some sort of passing fad, that for their purposes, it's just not necessary. I tried pointing out the free advertising angle. Didn't work. I tried talking up the virtual tour. Didn't work. I was basically told since it's not for a national market, the website is pointless. Free advertising and a place to showcase all the great things you have to offer is.... Pointless??

I felt somewhat like the first evolved human to hold up fire, and all the cavedwellers around me ran into the back of the cold damp cave instead of reaping the benefits of the flames. Also felt like I just offered the wheel-- no strings attached, since I'm not charging these nice folks to help them out-- and the cavedwellers just held up their hands and said, "No thanks, we'd rather do it the hard way."

I just don't get it. I don't understand how some folks, even in this day and age, who ARE computer literate, can honestly think that just because I create a page to be viewed in Internet Explorer means I've waved my e-wand and made it go live, too. I talk about the web around here and people look at me like I'm a witch. Funny... they don't LOOK Amish.

I guess it wouldn't be so upsetting if I was getting paid for what I'm doing... but come ON. I said I would do this just as a favor to the business, and it's FREE, so why are they holding me back???? Arrgh.

I'll feel better tonight after I've given some trick-or-treaters bags of gravel and told them it's Rock Candy. >:)

10/21/02
11:11pm



SOME PEOPLE HAVE SO MANY ISSUES THEY HAVE A YEAR'S WORTH OF SUBSCRIPTIONS


Today was a bad day. I can say this in retrospect. In general it's been a pretty bad week, even. And I'm not just saying that as the resident Gawth. It really was a pretty crappy time had by all.

The scoop du jour (in a nutshell): this dumbass cokehead that works at Dante's place of work is messing shit up for everyone else. Most people would blame the cokehead, but I blame both the cokehead and ESPECIALLY management. The Management has successfully shunned every employee in that place due to favoritism for the cokehead.

Said cokehead has been through one month of rehab, and went out to the same scene that got him into it to begin with. One word: duh. The guy is either a complete idiot, or an idiot savant. Jury's still out on that one. Here's a Darwinism Candidate in the making though. He's got four kids by three different women, AND he's a cokehead just smart enough to stick thugs on innocent people to get the money he should have paid them. So the guy said no to birth control and yes to drugs??? Back asswards, that's what he is. My main issue with him is that not only is he an asshole worthy of divine annihilation, but he's making life miserable for people I actually like.

In Dante's case, Dante has been nothing but nice to the guy and given him the benefit of the doubt, despite my advice to shun him like a social leper. This guy has stood Dante up when Dante was doing him the favor by taking off work so he could drive this cokehead's sorry ass to a class. Not only does the guy not call to say, "Hey, I'm hungover from last night's coke binge, not going to the class, sorry." but he doesn't even answer the door when Dante knocks. Classy. Really. Fucking. Classy. Where can I get a guy like that to father some illegitimate children for me?

So the latest in the noose of events is this guy went out on a cokebinge to end all binges and doesn't even have the courtesy of showing up to work the next day. Management says, "He is sooo fired." Apparently the guy has habit-- other than coke-- of just not showing up, or showing up late. Doesn't call or anything, just figures everyone else will cover for him. So this past time, a call comes in the middle of the end of the day from a "hospital" claiming they have an amnesia patient claiming to have been assaulted and doesn't remember anything except the name of the place he works at?? (ahem--bullshit!) They describe the guy to the receptionist and she asks if his name is the cokehead's name. Sure enough, wouldn't ya know it? His memory came flooding back! It was truly a miracle.

The next day Dante was in high spirits because this mental midget is finally out of his hair, right? Wrong. He gets to work, and there's cokehead waiting to talk to the manager. Instead of punishing this asshole for just BEING an asshole, this woman calls her action "humane" and not only takes him back, but takes away the customers Dante was supposed to be dealing with that day! Not only THAT, but gives him back his old wages, and takes away the commision Dante made on one of cokehead's customers. So now, the receptionists look like idiots because they had had to call all of cokehead's customers to either cancel or reschedule his appointments, and then they had to call the customers back again and say, Nope, sorry, we were wrong, he's here.

So now what we're looking at is a VERY ugly situation of a manager sacrificing the needs of the many for the needs of the one (Sorry to sound so Star Trekkian, but Spock has some good philosophies on occasion, especially when you apply his logic to a corporation). The manager has now successfully lost all of her employees' respect because she just let this scumbag walk all over her for apparently no good reason, AND she just alienated herself from her employees by showing them that she doesn't care about how THEY feel because she's too busy making life easier for an employee who doesn't appreciate her help, nor does he want it. Not only that, she sent a bad message, basically that the employees don't matter as much as this worthless excuse of a team member who contributes NOTHING to his workplace.

Kind of makes you wonder why any of those employees bother to keep showing up in the first place.

10/21/02
11:46am


AWAKE AND DREAMING


I feel like I'm still asleep today, like I never woke up.

I am still smarting from the nice rejection letter I got from the publishing company I sent my novel to. It wasn't a "This book sucks" letter, more of a "We're not accepting manuscripts at this time" letter. So at least I know for the moment that my book DOESN'T suck.

This morning finds me vaguely miffed about the situation in the world today. What kind of a country is it when a homeless guy can get kudos for being overweight (apparently grossly overweight) and homeless... and seemingly lazy, yet folks like myself who actually are trying to find jobs and trying to make something of themselves, and who ask for nothing but respect get the poopie end of the stick. I ask again... what kind of country is it? I feel for the supposed homeless guy, as I feel for anyone who ends up on the street. Hell, I've even hung out there back in my college days. Seemed to be the only crowd who accepted me at the time. And here comes this guy who claims he's a size 2X men's (which, by the way, is HUGE), and who attributes it to sitting around on the computer. I have yet to see a homeless person who is THAT big, honestly. And folks, New York homeless folks should be getting the coats right about now, not a guy in Tennessee (temps haven't been NEARLY as low as they are already in NYC, not to mention this guy's got some natural insulation going on).

So my point is: this guy knows HTML, or at least can learn, since he's doing this journal thing. He's got a checking account, since he has a PayPal donations button on his site, and he seems to be able to string a sentence together fairly well. He's also been getting some spotlight, apparently a lot of it, and interviews pay, so why is he still on the street? Call it my doubting New York nature, but I question this "homeless" man's validity. And I'm sorry, but attributing his woes to Social Anxiety Disorder is bullshit. I have it, too, along with a side-serving of manic depression. I swallow a huge overwhelming ball of fear everytime I go out of the house. People TERRIFY me. And get this, yesterday, to face my fears a little bit more (aggorophobia, here we come) I went to the MILLENIA MALL OPENING WEEKEND. The horror.... the horror. I faced fears undreamt of. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I didn't buy a damned thing, just walked through the ENTIRE mall, hoping I wouldn't have a panic attack. THAT is social anxiety, not the fear of a job or fear of being more than you currently are. EVERYONE faces that once in awhile. Some days it's hard as hell to even get out of bed. People write to me at the website and bitch that I haven't updated it. First of all, I'm the only one working on the site, it's up to me to edit all the content, as well as put it all up there. There's a LOT of pages up there to edit. Pile on top of that my depression at not getting a job, and you have a very upset woman who can barely make it out of bed in the morning.

I'm dealing with my chemical imbalances. It's hard. Some days are harder than others. Today I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience, as if I'm ready to drop at any given moment. It's almost like my feet aren't quite touching the ground. I don't sleep well. Thoughts never stop going through my head. I should probably be taking my medication, but I don't want to have to depend on a pill to make everything better. Just me being stubborn and paranoid I guess. Not to mention the stupid pills take away everything that I am. My creativity goes away, my personality goes away, everything that makes me ME goes away. The question is a big one for me: Take the pill and be "normal" and numb to everything around me, sacrificing myself for artificial happiness, or don't take it and struggle with the high's and low's of my condition? I deal with it because what society considers normal in me is a thoughtless zombie who performs tasks with no idea from day to day of why they exist.

I'm going to start re-writing my second novel today. My insomnia will most likely come back with a vengeance, and I will be a slave to coffee to keep me going through the days. I know my moodswings will most likely be worse as well. Life is filled with sacrifices, I guess. I would rather sacrifice myself for creativity than for normalcy any day. I just hope my art outlasts a politically correct gimmick.

I guess what pisses me off more is the irony of life. Struggling artists, be they writers or what-have-you, toil away and do what it takes to keep creating, sometimes starving and living in their studios. Very few get lucky, and the true artists seem to be passed over for some of the craziest crap to ever be called "art" (cough-cough PISSCHRIST cough-cough). Where's the charity then? People turn up their noses at the art because they don't like it, even if it's cheap, yet these are the same people who will reach into their pockets and shell out a 20 to give to someone on the street. At least the artists did something to earn the money. I suppose it's the same irony that lets a 100-year-old person or a wealthy person win the lottery while someone just put in their last dollar in desperation and hopes of winning.

THIS IS DEDICATED TO ANYONE WHO KNOWS THE PAIN OF SACRIFICE TO GET WHAT THEY WANT, AND WHO WAS CAST ASIDE FOR A FLAVOR OF THE WEAK.

10/20/02
10/20/02
10:52pm


BEFORE YOU DIE....


I saw The Ring.

CREEPY. I haven't seen a movie that kept me this on the edge of my seat in a long time.
The imagery was amazingly eerie, the story was a good one, and wow... what a twist to the end. Didn't see that one coming.

I'll be honest, there was a point toward the end where I thought it was going to go the route of a cheese fest and be the Feel-good-hit-of-the-season, but it yanked it back from the teetering edge and slapped another scream out of my mouth. I wasn't the only one screaming though, I heard a few gasps and screeches from the theater seats above and behind me, thankfully.

So, if you like creepy, go. If you're one of those people that has nightmares from looking at a bad hairday, stay home. This PG-13 isn't for you.

Other than that.... I'd like to give a shout out to my lil bro, who was kind enough to send me email. And TJ, sometimes I FEEL like a pretend person, too. ;)

I live in a virtual world and people wonder why I'm virtually insane.....

10/12/02
4:36pm


IT BEGINS ANEW....


So starts the beginning of the second book of the trilogy dealing with Nemesis.
Also had my first publisher rejection for Nemesis. Not that it was an awful heart-breaking experience, they just told me that they aren't accepting submissions. Oh well. On to more publishers and/or agents to be rejected by. I'm starting to think I should include a photograph with my novel, then maybe whoever opens the envelope will either be astounded by my presence or disgusted by my goth-ness. During this debate, the head person will walk by and say, "My GOD, she's exactly what we are looking for!"

And that is how I wish it was to become a published author. :)

So far the folks who I sent a copy of Nemesis to said it was amazing. All good reviews. I even put in an AWESOME club scene that's set in the old Limelight of NYC. Pre-Ghouliani days, when it was still amazing and, well, open.

The sad thing is, this second book that I'm starting the rewrite on now, Lamia, is even BETTER than Nemesis. And the THIRD book is even better than both of them (it's called The Tower). Still making up my mind if there's going to be a fourth book to the trilogy. Kind of a Douglas Adams move, I know, but oh well. As it is, there's stories IN the stories to begin with.

I wasn't far into writing Nemesis, the original version, in my senior year of high school in the LOVELY year of 1993 (did I mention I HATED high school?) So anyway, wasn't far into the story when I started to HEAR the main character in my head. As if my own suspicions of being crazy weren't bad enough, now they were founded. I finished the original draft in nine months, and it FELT like I gave birth after that, believe me. My teachers looked it over and all agreed it was a very skippy story. I agreed and put it in The Vault. It didn't come out again until 1995, when I was cleaning out some stuff under my bed at my parents' house and came across the manuscript. I had actually forgotten all about it at that point and I brought it back to college to read through it. Then I got engaged. The manuscript lounged around various parts of my dorm room until my ex-fiance found it. He said a few derogatory words about it and threw it under my dorm bed. I was hurt, and once again, left the manuscript where it stayed until my ex-fiance and I broke up.

It's amazing how pain and suffering can actually enhance focus sometimes. A broken heart can put out a damned good novel. It was all I concentrated on for a long time. There even came out of me a comic book and a screenplay based on the story, along with a sequel to the novel. Funny thing is, my final rewrite came based on that comic book I had made of the original story back in 1996.

So now, 2002 rolls around. Nemesis has begun the circuit of publishers/agents, Lamia is starting a fresh rewrite, and The Tower is soon to follow.

I look back at all I've done and I start to wonder if maybe I've actually DONE something with my life, afterall.

10/10/02
10:10pm


CATCHING UP WITH THE SMILING GOTH


Wow... where to begin? I guess the first part would be what I like to call.....


THE STINK OF THE OCEAN CANNOT BE OVERCOME BY LYSOL

Been MIA because I've been on the road. We went to Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, stayed in South Beach at a lovely hotel called The Park Central, which was right across the street from the beach. We could see the ocean from our room window, and hear it when we opened the windows.

So everything's going wonderfully on our lil trip. We splurged BIGTIME and ordered room service, which was amazing, and enjoyed the room. Mostly the KINGSIZE bed. What a wonderful thing THAT was.

The next morning we get up in time for the sunrise, we take pictures and play tourists. We walk along the beach and collect things that look like coral, feel like a sponge, and smell like mushrooms. We put these things into the drycleaning bag from the room, along with some very disappointing sea shells. I hate to say it, but New Jersey's beaches are a lot nicer than the ones in Miami, Florida. Better shells, too. So anyway, walking along the beach, collecting the skeletons of the sea, then decide to go for breakfast. We head back to the room, shower and change, and leave THE BAG on the dresser. Breakfast was wonderful. Got to eat in earshot of the ocean. An hour later we head back to the room. And that's when we notice it. THE SMELL.

It was subtle at first, sure... but as we packed, we closed in on THE BAG, and the smell grew stronger. Kind of smelled like something died. Without thinking I grabbed THE BAG, and it unwound, releasing its foul stench. I gagged. Dante laughed at me as I ran for the bathroom, then opened the bag and took a whiff. He started to dry heave. Why is it that as the 'advanced' species, we tend to explore with great zeal that which nauseates our co-inhabitants? Yet another case of 'Honey, is this bad?'

Then Dante made THE DECLARATION: How about you pick the shells you absolutely CAN'T live without and we leave the rest here?

So now I had to OPEN the bag of death and pick through it. One tends to get a really good grip on what is truly necessary when one is holding their breath and trying not to vomit. Out of a bag of shells and things, I took home two pieces of coral. Two SMALL pieces of coral. It's better this way. I know this now. All the money in the world couldn't have made me clean that room after we left that bag wrapped up in the garbage.

And now for the second part....


HOW MUCH FOR THAT VOLKSWAGON RABBIT CONVERTIBLE IN THE PARKING LOT?

So these past few days I've been playing housewife without the house and without being a wife, which I guess makes me an apartmentwench. Either way, as if being a SMILING goth wasn't enough to cast me out of the goth community, now I'm blonde AND have been going in the sun. I have the most unfashionable non-goth thing of all: TAN LINES. Faint, but more than I've had since I was a kid. Believe me, I'm as shocked as anyone.

So on my walk to the pool yesterday, I saw it. A car that had my name written alll over it. A 1985 Volkswagon Cabriolet (aka Rabbit) Convertible Wolfsburg Edition. And the price is right. I would need to get a driver's license, of course, as well as driving goggles. Maybe even driving gloves....

The cool thing is that it's my size. I'm not a person of stature, in fact I'm damned near vertically challenged, so a nice cute small car is exactly what I need. Who knew I could find the car I always wanted in the parking lot of my apartment complex? Or did the perfect car find me???

9/27/02
12:57am


INSOMNIA, FRITZ THE CAT, AND SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON

This is just the lowest I think I've ever gone in an attempt to fall asleep.
I'm switching channels back and forth between Phantasm: Oblivion and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat. Just shoot me now instead of putting me out to pasture.

OOOOOhhhh waait!!! The Phantom of the Opera starring Julian Sands is on! I am saved!
I don't think Julian Sands is capable of a bad movie. Strange movies, yes, but bad? Hardly. The eye candy factor alone is worth every second of his screen time. Yum.

And in this version of Phantom, he's not horribly disfigured, he was just raised by rats. And wow, what a good job those rats did with him. It's not Gaston LeReux, but it's just as skippy. I honestly couldn't even tell you anything about the rest of the movie except that I believed Mr. Sands was truly the Phantom of the Opera.

I was chatting online with a friend of mine, and realized I seem to attract some of the most poetic people ever. Or the most sensual, or both. It's all good. I like that. Keeps me sane. And speaking of insanity... Check this one out. This is why I stay up at night and fight sleep until I'm exhausted.


WEIRD DREAM
9-26-02


I'm at a party, and it's a huge party, and there's all these people all over the place.
At first I'm having a good time, hanging out with a few people that I know and chatting with new ones.

At some point we opened a window that looked more like a sliding glass door, and a bat got in. Chuck was trying to pet it, and I had to keep pulling him away because it looked like it had rabies.

I walk away and out into the party, and I'm having a good time. People are taking pictures, and a friend of mine is there. We hang out and have our pictures taken. I pose next to a statue of a smiling wedge of cheese, and comment on the cheesiness of it all. I think Kevin Bacon was the one taking the pictures.

The party seems almost like it's held in a mall, and there's got to be about two hundred people walking around. The colors are very vivid, and people are wearing costumes, but I can still see their faces. There's no masks.

I have a drink, and as I'm at the bar getting my drink, I see this chick (who looks like she's got nothing real on her, and a very obvious nose job) with MY wool sweater hidden under about three other coats from the party. So I tell her to give me back my coat. She denies it's my coat, saying it's cotton. I'm like, no it isn't, it's wool. We start to argue, and the bartender just looks at her and says, "Give the coat back."

I take my coat, and say, "It's a shame, for someone who spent so much money getting their face changed, you can't afford to buy your own coat."

I walk through the party, feeling vindicated, and Kevin Bacon is walking around trying to be the "life" of the party. He grabs me and he's hanging all over me, and at first it's funny. I push him off and keep going. I see a man sitting on a couch, watching the party, but not really interacting too much. I wonder who he is. He's dressed in dark clothes, but not black clothes. He doesn't seem to be having a good time, more like he's there to observe.

I walk past the man, and I can feel him watching me. I start to look for Chuck, and see him as he walks around a corner, headed around the bar toward where I had come from.

I pass through the area again, looking for Chuck, but I can't find him. I seem to remember we had two bats get into the house and he had been trying to play with them like they were our new pets. I assume he went off to get rabies shots.

As I'm going through the second time, I see the man sitting on the couch again, and he's watching me. I figure I'll go over and talk to him, see what's up. As I'm making my way over, Kevin Bacon once again appears out of nowhere and grabs me. He whispers in my ear something about me putting it out there and he's gonna take it. It wasn't intelligible, he seemed drunk, but I got the meaning and it scared me. He put his arm around my neck and pulled me close to his mouth, saying something in my ear.

I look at the man on the couch, and even he seems disturbed by this behavior. He looks as if he's about to get up to help me, but doesn't. Kevin Bacon has now started to pull at my clothes, and I tell him to get off me, but he laughs. I feel embarassed, ashamed, and angry. I tell him again, and smack him, but he hangs on. So I finally punch him in the face to get him away, and he falls off me.

The man on the couch salutes me with his drink and a small smile. I'm so embarassed that I run away without ever talking to the man. Now I just want to go home, and the party seems to get more out of control. People are dancing all over the place, most of them completely drunk. I run into my friend that I had been hanging out with, and we're sitting off in an alcove. She's trying to calm me down, and Kevin Bacon comes in. He walks up to me and apologizes, and I'm afraid he's going to try to get even.

Outside of the alcove the crowd starts to cheer, and Kevin Bacon is distracted by the cheering and goes to look at what's going on. My friend and I walk over, pushing our way through the crowd, and we see that they've made a milkshake fountain. It was some kind of chocolate vanilla mix. For some reason I feel insulted by this fountain and I look to see if Chuck can see this, but I don't see him. I tell my friend I'm going to look for Chuck.

Now I'm running through this insane party, trying to find Chuck, and see him at the end of a hallway. He's having such a great time that I feel bad telling him I want to go home. I walk over to him and decide at any rate, I'm going to stay by him the rest of the night, that way I won't get into any more situations.

The dream changes, and Chuck and I are looking at the Brady Bunch, and they're digging in the yard outside the house. They end up either hitting a water line or break open the septic tank, and all of this nasty muddy water gushes out.

Then there was something about someone getting into the house through that open window that let in the bat, but I don't remember the details. I think the phone rang at that point.

9/24/02
11:48pm


SCOOBY-DOO LOGIC


Weird title, I know, but it must be said.

Ghosts that laugh like loons in TV shows. What does it mean? Seriously. You ever notice how the evil ghosts on Scooby Doo laugh ALL THE TIME. They are some of the happiest people shown on television. My question is what is UP with that? Do I need to wait until _I'm_ dead so I can start laughing like that? Or does it make me evil BECAUSE I laugh like that while I'm alive? Think about it. Evil seems to laugh a lot on television. Does it enjoy its work? I'm thinking, yes. Yes it does. Evil has a lot of fun with what it does, AND it enjoys the work. Is this sending an adverse message to the youth of today, namely that happiness is evil? Hmmmm.....

It's not just a Scooby Doo phenomenon, either. Apparently it's a well-known fact somewhere in history that evil ghosts laugh uncontrollably and at the wrong times, and with no good reason. Is there nothing better in the afterlife, or is there some really great joke about life that they finally get the punchline to when they die, so they laugh and laugh and LAUGH? Maybe they were happy in life and decided to switch career paths. They could be deciding to branch out in another direction, like, say, a pious church-goer decides to branch out and work the dark side for a while. Just for a change of pace. Or maybe they all realized life was this really sick joke, and they DIED LAUGHING. Oh, irony. The very thing that killed them is what they have to do for eternity. Someone's got a sick sense of humor.

And if there is some unwritten rule that ghosts have to laugh maniacally, why do real hauntings not laugh? Maybe they're not getting a paycheck for their appearances?

Or... What if there's no real haunting anywhere? It's just ghosts assigned to work the circuit and it's a different ghost every time someone sees it, and the psychics are running around confused because there's ten ghosts in a house, and the ghosts are all laughing and sitting around the poor psychic playing Marco Polo??

When people say I have issues, I say, "No, I have SUBSCRIPTIONS."

9/23/02
1:01pm


COMMUNION WAFERS: BREAD OF GOD, OR RE-PRESSED RICE CRISPIES?


OK, for all you church-goers who have experienced Communion. Haven't you done the math? Honestly. With what the church gets, not to mention the tax exempt status, you'd think they could afford to give you at least a light lunch in the name of God during mass, I mean, Jesus gave the people fish and loaves of bread, not thin little wafers of what tastes suspiciously like rice cakes.

But no, you sit there, never realizing until much later that the entire mass is actually a throwback from ancient witchcraft. Think about that one. Altar cloth, two white candles, a symbol of the faith, a bell, a book, a goblet, cross-buns... just think about it. Not to mention the four elements used in ceremonies: Incense, earth, water, and candles. Got all your basics for a nice coven right there. Only thing missing is a circle, and the priest saying, "Blessed be." at the end of the mass.

But I digress. I was raised Catholic, so I remember all too well sitting in masses on Sundays, back aching from those hard wooden pews, and STARVING. The priest would drone on and on about Jesus and those loaves of bread, and the fish, and I'm like, Hey, _I'm_ hungry, too, how about a filet-o-fish for me? By the time communion came along, I would have eaten the church pews, I was so hungry, so those tiny little wafers were pretty damned tasty at that point. As I got older I wisened up, though. Apparently it's not christian to ask for another body of christ or something... so I started to eat BEFORE I went to mass. No longer was my mind weak with hunger, and when I got the communion wafer I could analyze it. It tasted a lot like a certain breakfast cereal. Rice Crispies, in fact. And you're not supposed to CHEW the body of christ, so I had to sit there with this thing stuck on the roof of my mouth, waiting for it to dissolve. And the whole time I wondered two things to myself: Will the Host REALLy turn black and fly out of my mouth if I didn't confess before communion? was my first question, and the second was Does Jesus know he tastes like Rice Crispies?

As I got older I stopped going to church, needless to say. Yes, I still believe in a Supreme Being, just I have my own thoughts on the subject. It was just a lot more convenient for me to stay home on Sundays and eat a bowl of Rice Crispies, and listening to the three wise men, Snap, Crackle and Pop, I found they sounded a lot like the priest. I guess I was just born to be a heretic.

9/22/02
8:31pm


WE'RE ON THE WAY TO BEING GAWDS


The NyQueen rides again! Screaming brilliant into a haze of cough and cold. Huzzah.

I know you'd laugh too, but it's not that funny anymore. Is it real or is it Photoshop?
Oooh.. the questions that float in the flow of our existence. Is this right or is it necessary? Oh, I could go on and on.

So here's some fun stuff I came up with last time. Granted, it's no Footie Pajama Trauma, but hell, it might be poetry worthy. At any rate, it isn't often I get to pull out the old NyQuill and put my thoughts to electronic paper in this way.

Dreaming dreams of forgotten things
Dead ghost streams
Leaves of skeleton trees
To be beyond the screams
In knowing is the Knowledge
Automatic writing
Words of dead men tell no tales
on bathroom walls
Secrets of Crowley in bathroom stalls
Preaching LaVey on street corners
Pushed by dead ears
away from the mainstream
Abstract and irrevocable
words of mindless drivel
dripping sliding into useless consciousness
Downward through the caverns of discontent
into the spiral
Into the fire
Rabid thinking
Thoughts unpurged
And impure
Defragging the frag
Out of my mind

9/22/02
1:28pm


FOOTIE PAJAMA TRAUMA


Maybe my siblings and I were the only ones to suffer this torment, but did anyone else out there have this happen as children? They were called BLANKET SLEEPERS. I swear, someday this will be put into my memoirs....

My parents were and still are good parents, I love them dearly. I just don't know what they were thinking putting small children into footie pajamas. ESPECIALLY when they KNOW we're gonna have to pee at least once in the night. And it's not like those pajamas were comfortable... it was like wearing fuzzy burlap! Yes, now that I'm a grown-up, NOW IT CAN BE TOLD!

The only thing worse than the blanket sleeper was getting into one after a bath. EEEeeeeewww. Like nails down a chalkboard it was. That nasty material would stick to me, and if I was REALLY lucky, my grandmother would put LOTION all over me after the bath. I never had the heart to tell her that it was worse than torture to be gooey with lotion and stuck into a blanket sleeper. Or should I say, stuck TO the blanket sleeper.

The worst part of the blanket sleeper was finally adjusting to the scritchiness, falling asleep all nice and warm, and then having to go to the bathroom. For the un-initiated to the blanket sleeper, there's a zipper that runs from the crotch to the neck. For boys, I dunno what they were thinking with that zipper placement, all I gotta say is, thank Gawd I didn't have body hair at the time. This zipper thing is supposed to make the sleeper more convenient, except no one stopped to think about the fact that if you're WEARING one of these things, it's because it's COLD. So in order to go to the bathroom, you have to unzip the whole thing and pull it off. So now you're nekkid and trying to pee on a cold toilet after this pajama just had you at 100 degrees. Riiight.

The only ones who seemed to be thinking were the inventors of the original footie-pajama. You know, the ones with the backdoor to them, so you didn't HAVE to take the whole thing off. The ones made of flannel and cotton instead of polyester. The ones that wouldn't melt onto you if you happened to spill really hot liquid on yourself, or melt into your skin if your cousin happened to have a magnifying glass and the sun was shining... but I digress. My point is that blanket sleepers were evil. The original cotton/flannel footie pajama is awesome.

So while I know my parents had the best of intentions, I suspect the intentions of the inventors of the blanket sleeper.

NyQueen Additional:

Congratulations KEITHMEISTER!!!!!

One of my bestest best friends Keith R. Stevenson has earned #1 image on This Week in Pictures on MSNBC.com.

Check it out, he's the one of the policeman carrying the kid out of the burning building:
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/theweekinpictures/default.asp

Aka the Number 1 voted picture for the week. If only that kid had been holding an American flag....

9/20/02
7:01pm


THE UNSEELIE COURT

OK, Eric. This one's for you because you have kindly reminded me on several occasions just how I haven't given your movie an official review. So here it is... the official review, which will be posted to the website under the Reviews section as soon as I get off my deathbed. Who knew when I did such great book reports as a kid and great movie review in college that I would end up doing reviews as a full-time hobby? The irony, man. The irony.

All info about the Unseelie Court can be found at www.wyndfeather.com.

Title: The Unseelie Court
Release Date: 2002
Company: Dreamdancer Motion Pictures

First and foremost: this movie is an intellectual flick. There are no kickboxing sequences, no Jackie Chan fighting moves, and no leaping through the air like a japanimation while something explodes in the background. There is no Vin Diesel in this movie. And that's why I liked it so much. Because I HAD to pay attention.

The start is very unassuming, visually a beautiful film, and a damned good script. And here's the part that I love: the whole time it tiptoes gothically around being David Lynch-esque, but without stepping over the line. The whole scene is set on the rainy night, thunder and lightning set the mood like only good ghosts stories start. The ideas and beliefs of the main character are pushed to creepy levels through use of imagery and camera technique, driving his points home to the viewer in thunder cracks and lightning flashes.

Truly an artistic and beautifully done film, which is what I expect from Eric. :)



In other news....

I FINALLY UPDATED THE WEBSITE!!!! Go, view it and love it, at SmilingGoth.com.
As soon as I'm feeling better I'll update it even more. Did I mention my hella-cold? Oh yeah... summer colds SUCK. I've been on the sofa bed for the past three days. I get up to bathe, obviously, and spray everything in sight with Lysol (useless bit of trivia here, did you know Lysol used to be a feminine hygiene spray? Mmmmm... smell that fresh scent! And no, I don't use it as a feminine spray.)

I've been basking in the glow of the Fields of the Nephilim album. I have to say I'm LOVING it still, although I think Dante might be getting tired of it. His loss. I have to hear him snoring the same snore every night, so the least he can do is listen to the same album over and over until I get tired of it.

Since I got sick I've had the chance to observe comedic disasters. Like vet collars for dogs after they get stitches. Dogs with cones around their heads are HILARIOUS. It's like a person on crutches falling down a flight of stairs. Of course, if I was on crutches and fell down a flight of stairs, I might not find it funny until it was over.

Did I mention I went PLATINUM BLONDE? Strange coincidence, after I went blonde I got sick. As if my goth-ness is rejecting the new hair color. Dum dum DUM!!!!

And Nemesis is almost finished at long long last. It only took me a decade to get all my issues with it sorted out. Being stuck in bed has left me with a lot of time on my hands, and I can only read so much Harry Potter before I run out of books. Soo... let me get back to re-re-re-editing the damned thing so I can send it out to a publisher.

Any bands of the industrial-goth slant who want to be reviewed on SmilingGoth.com, email me and I'll send you the addee to send the promo copy to.

Ciao fer now!

Dayquil-NyQueen

OK... The official review... Thanks for your patience.


BAND: FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM
ALBUM: FALLEN
RELEASE DATE: 2002


It's been a long time, but it's finally here. Rejoice at the dawning of a new release from across the fields....

For those truly faithful Fields fans, this is the illegitimate lovechild of Zoon and Elyzium.

For those who might be hearing the Fields of the Nephilim for the first time, or who are considering listening to the Fields of the Nephilim for the first time, this is a dark masterpiece that resurrects some of the old work, dragging it into the light of the new millenium and transforming it into something far more frightening. "Darkcell AD" and "One More Nightmare" are two resurrections and truly treats for the Halloween season, pulled from their shallow graves and reanimated to do the bidding of their masters. Play it for the kiddies!

The other songs on the album are hard-edged, melodic, dripping subconscious poetry into an erotica of musical ambience. The driving grinding beat of "Thirst" lends a direct contrast to the brilliant simplicity of "Darkcell AD", while such songs as "Subsanity", "Fallen" and the revamped "One More Nightmare" demostrate the new, bolder direction that the Fields of the Nephilim are taking.

For those expecting a "goth" album, you will have to search elsewhere. It's much more. This latest release just shows the natural evolution of the Fields of the Nephilim into the new millenium, and proves that there's still magic in the music.

9/17/02
1:18am


A GOOD DAY IN A BAD WEEK


It's one of those days when all I have is cleaning to do. I don't bother checking the mail anymore, since there's nothing of any interest to me in it anymore.

I printed out Nemesis, tried to start reading it to make sure it was ready for its trip to the publisher, but couldn't find the energy (did I mention I cleaned the entire house today?). I took a step back instead and worked on other stuff, so that when I look through Nemesis again, it won't be so fresh in my head and I can be more impartial when I read through it. Bleak and oppressive for the hundreth time reading a book I wrote, I know....

BUT...

A light at the end of the tunnel!!!
I got an advance copy of the new Fields of the Nephilim album "Fallen" for review. So here's the pre-review: EXCELLENT!!!!

It makes me wish I had ten thumbs so I could hold them all up. For FON fans-- and I mean TRUE FON fans, like the ones who own a copy of Zoon, too, it sounds like a marriage between Zoon and Elyzium. Hard-edged, melodic, dripping subconscious poetry into an erotica of musical ambience. How's THAT for a description? And yet it doesn't do the album justice. This latest release just shows the natural evolution of the Fields of the Nephilim into the new millenium, and proves that there's magic in the music.

For the full review, you'll just have to visit my website. :)

And that should be done by the end of this week, if all goes well. I've been bad, I know. Horrible, in fact. Depression will do that. I'm pulling myself out of my emotional mire, though, and dragging the nightmares out with me to throw against paper like a Jackson Pollock of horror. I can hardly wait for the creativity to begin.

9/14/02
3:30pm


OBLIGATORY OBLIGATIONS


Did you ever find yourself hungry, but not hungry enough to make something to eat, so you find a can of frosting in the back of your cabinet right next to the peanut butter, and you open it, eat it, and wash it down with a glass of milk?

No? Must just be me.

It was all in celebration, though. I finally finished re-re-re-re-editing Nemesis. I hate being a perfectionist, especially when now I wonder if maybe the original final copy was as good as it was going to get to begin with. Oh well.

In other news...

Yeah, so Wednesday marked my 1 Year of Pain and Sadness. I went out and dyed my hair blonde. Figured maybe if I could look the part I could feel the part, too and start giggling a lot. Life is kind of funny when you watch a plane fly straight through where you would have been working had you taken that job on the 98th floor. Maybe not so funny ha-ha, though. I've face the limits of my own mortality so many times, but never have I had to watch it over and over again on television. My count on near death experiences is up to.... 14, I think. Maybe more. I lost count.

And as for those two guys that got stopped on I-75 yesterday. All I have to say is DUMB. I can see it from the woman's point of view, calling the cops when she overheard something about bringing things down, and mourning 9/11 and 9/13, but at the same time I have to wonder at the intelligence of the two guys who were talking like that to begin with. Two middle-eastern type guys, chatting away about 9/11 and mourning on 9/13, and bringing things down, and they expect that no one will call a cop??? That would be like me dressed to the teeth in goth gear in a Denny's on the anniversary of Columbine and chatting about "They make me so mad I just wanna blow 'em all to hell." I mean, COME ON. Granted, I could be figuratively speaking, but some folks might get edgy. And I doubt the cops would be so accomodating in my case. Looking different for religion is one thing, looking different because you can is something else entirely.

The one bad thing I see coming out of this is the complete lack of privacy issue. Now we can't even express ourselves in a restaurant for fear that some panicky tourist might call the cops. And I can't even put up links to some fun conspiracy THEORIES (for entertainment only) for fear that some asshole will send me a slew of viruses.

Thank you, Big Brother will see you now.


But I digress...

Let's talk about my downstairs neighbors for a lil bit. Some of the fun of living southern is that you have warm days most of the time, which seems to invite people to grill things. My downstairs neighbors are no exception, apparently.

Yesterday, I was minding my own business, and Pants was cavorting as only the Pants will do. My downstairs neighbors dragged their grill onto their porch (we have barbecue pits in the development, so I don't understand the need for a porch grill), and they fire it up. Pants is jumping around the porch, sniffing through the cracks at the tendrils of smoke coming up, and prancing about excitedly. I'm in the middle of editing, so I don't pay too much mind.

A few minutes later, my cat runs through the door, a thick tendril of smoke following her. I get aggravated, since we have no meat in the house and the grill smells wonderful, so I shut the door. Pants climbs to the top of her cat tree and doses, glaring occasionally at the porch. I ignore it.

I finally look up when Pants is sitting at the door, staring onto the porch and looking at me in a way that makes me question whether she might be telepathic. She catches my eye and turns back to the outside, not like she wants to go out, more like there's something interesting going on. I look outside and wonder when it got so dark before I realize my neighbors are burning something. My entire porch is full --and I mean FULL-- of thick white-gray smoke to the point that I can't even see my tacky blue and white striped beach chair, which is pressed against the sliding door.

I'm understandably upset by this, as is the Pants, who looks at me as if to say, "See, woman? Do you see what they've done to my porch??"

I have no comfort to give to my sad-looking cat, so I give her a Pupperoni treat to keep her quiet. What can I say? The cat likes dog treats.

I got revenge on the neighbors the only way I knew how in this situation. I over-watered all my plants. Rained out their lil grill party real fast, and put out whatever they were burning.

9/10/02
2:02am


THE BEGINNINGS OF AN END.....


It's late, I'm tired. I've been playing at sun-bunny and I have a tan/burn to show for it. The sun drains me. I don't know what I was thinking other than how I wanted to go swimming and feel like the vacation I'm supposed to be on. Likely. I updated a friend's website today. It gave me something to do and I felt like I had been useful to someone. All good.

Just finished the second Harry Potter book, the Chamber of Secrets. It was good. Very nice --hmmm. I swear I just saw something go streaking across the floor. At first I thought I was overly tired, but then Pants came chasing after it. Pants on the prowl. How cute.

Crossing the crossfade. Hair triggering the endless void stuck between my ears. I swear I was only CLEANING it and it just went OFF. Not a safe thing to go walking around with a mind full of ideas these days. Man, I need a better place to dwell instead of in my own head.

How the hell did the West Nile Virus get alllllll the way over here? Last time I checked the Nile was a river in EGYPT. I only assume there's no West Nile River hiding in the States, but I could be wrong. There's a West New York, New Jersey, so why not a West Nile, Florida or something like that?

Fragmentation, not just for stories anymore! I either need to get some sleep or get back to work on stories that will pay the bills.

9/09/02
12:36am


A LIMO RIDE FROM HELL

Wow. That's all I have to say to start things off. My first limo ride, and what a long strange trip it was. But I suppose I should start from the beginning....

Dante called me up in the middle of an afternoon recovery from watching small spawn of a toothpick I assumed to be woman running aroun a swimming pool and having "lovebugs" landing and copulating all over me. How dirty did I feel? So Dante calls me up and says, 'Hey, there's a party tonight. Do you want to go?'

Sure, I say. Let's. It'll be fun. Haven't been to downtown yet, and this one club sounds promising. He calls me back mere minutes later and says something about a limo. Keen, sez I. I've never ridden in a limo before. The time draws near, I put on my makeup and dress to impress, and we walk over to where we're supposed to be meeting the limo.

One hour of sitting in an empty parking lot later, and having the imprint of a parking block delving across my ass, the limo FINALLY shows up. With a life-size Minnie Mouse doll buckled into the passenger seat. I'm skeeved. Not necessarily because I have anything against Minnie, although I always found her high-pitched bitching akin to nails down a chalkboard, but because it's a WHITE limo. Tacky. Now I know why stars get miffed if they don't have a black limo come pick them up, because let me tell you friends and neighbors, the white limo is truly tasteless.

Even worse was the trip. A mere 20 minute trip turned into the ride from hell. You can SEE the lights of downtown from my house, and yet our driver couldn't have found his way out of a pair of footy-pajamas. The inside was a porn star's dream, complete with tacky mirrored ceiling, a set up for a drink bar with glasses, napkins, and a deliberate absence of alcohol. We got over it. One of our party rolled down his window and lit up a cigarette, and the limo driver told him it was a no-smoking car, to please put it out. Once the cigarette had been thrown out the window, the driver ROLLED UP THE GUY'S WINDOW AND LOCKED IT. Yikes.

Being the folks we are, we try to be cool with this treatment, and we ask for the radio to be turned on so we can start getting geared up for the night. The driver informs us that the radio doesn't work. What about the CD player? That doesn't work either, yet the guy had Eminem's greatest hits playing in the front of the car. He informs us that the televisions work, however, so we ask him how to turn them on. He ignores us for the first three requests. Finally we manage to harass the remote control out of him, and all we can watch is The Littlest Vampire. The ride was quickly becoming like Disney on wheels. A nightmarish hell of Minnie and clean-living. Gag.

We tell the driver the club we want to go to, we give the guy directions all the way there, and the only thing we finally requested adamantly was that he put up the driver's window that separates the driver from the passengers. He informs us that the window will not be put up, that it's company policy.

Honestly now, it was just too much. But wait, it gets even... worse....

We ask him to pick us up in the spot that he left us at, at 2:30am.
We go out, we have fun, and at 2:30 we wait for the limo. Dante and I watched this guy drive by not five minutes before, and the guy kept circling the block without slowing down. 2:30 came and went and our driver was MIA.

3am came, and we finally got a taxi van to take us all home. The antics were mild considering, but we all were somewhat expecting the taxi guy to yell at us for something. The taxi ride didn't need directions, it had a working radio, working windows, ability to smoke, ability to act like maniacs, and at less cost than the limo. Oh yeah, and the taxi was on time.

I felt a familiarity in the limo, it was strange. I was recognized when I went out, which was stranger. But a word of caution to anyone renting a limo: if you have to give the driver directions and they still get lost, get a cab. They never made a good movie about a limo driver, after all.

9/01/02
12:53pm


ONE SMALL STEP FOR ME, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR JUSTIFICATION


One of my former students emailed me. That one email made my experience worthwhile. At least I know one person that I made a difference with. It does my heart good to know that.

The world is not a particularly friendly place and compassion and understanding seem to be foreign words, despite what happened last year. So much for the wakeup call. All we did was hit the snooze button.

I guess after I got the email my goal became a little bit clearer to me. It was always there, stuck in the back of my mind like a dreamthought, but now it's finally up front. Nothing so dramatic as saving the world, I don't have those means, nor does the world want to be saved. How many people have said that's what they wanted to do, though? I think every Miss America has said something akin to World Peace, but how many of them actually go out and attempt to accomplish it? None. Pretty words are fine, I write a lot of pretty words in my spare time, and I have a lot of decent ideas, but I actually set out to accomplish my nice thoughts. That one email shows that I actually DID it, and shows that I can KEEP doing it. My goal: spread more understanding, and CARE. Treat human beings like human beings. Accept them for their talents and not reject them for their failings-- unless of course the failings outweigh the talents, I guess.

Geez.. Golden Earring "The Twilight Zone" just came on We Are the Eighties.

8/30/02
10:06am


REASONS FOUND, BUT NOT ENOUGH...


As strange fate would have it, I wasn't writing enough, and so I lost my job. Weird, huh? It's like something decided that I was meant for writing, and so it conveniently took the decisions out of my hands, since I would have stayed on the job and done my best either way. Oh well. Now I have a lot of time on my hands.

Soooo... I can take a hint, Fate. This whole week I'll be keeping myself busy updating the website (yes, all those who sent in submissions, you will finally have your work showcased!) and writing. I've decided it's time to send my novel to an agent or publisher. The web site just isn't selling enough to even keep it running anymore. Now it's all out-of-pocket expenses where before it kept itself running. Sigh.

BUT the great thing is, the site will be revamped and resurrected COMPLETELY. AND it'll have some truly kickass writers and artists featured on it. So I'm pretty psyched. That and I'm hoping to add a cartoon segment to Inanna's Lair. She's been keeping me laughing through my pain and heartache of yesterday. Crazy lil crackhead that she is.

OK. So as not to waste this time I have been given, I'm off for now. In parting I say what everyone has told me: this is setting up for something better.

I hope they're right.

8/24/02
7:10pm



THE BEST BOOK IS A BLANK BOOK




OK. So I've been waiting, impatiently I might add, for the Fields of the Nephilim site to finally open and go public. I guess now I know how folks must feel when I don't update the site as often as I should. D'oh.

While I wait for the new FON site to be up and running so I may again immerse myself in fun factoids and trivia about one of the best goth bands EVER to grace the scene, I also attempt to overcome my writer's block, which unfortunately has left me with a need to re-edit my first novel, NEMESIS, yet again.

Oh well. The best book truly is a blank book. At least then I can make a story for each blank book I find. I can literally write the story according to the cover. How cool is that?

Since the website got up and running back in October of 1998, I've met some awesome people I normally would never have gotten a chance to. My friend Eric from Wyndfeather.com is one person that I can truly say has talent. He sent me a copy of his movie, The Unseelie Court, and I have to say, WOW. Buy it. Go to his site and BUY IT. Keep that boy in business, dammit! It gave me chills, it made me think, spirituality and horror all in one neat lil package. I can only hope when it comes time to make NEMESIS it'll come out half as good as Eric's production.

But like I said, today is the day of writer's block.

Dante just came walking in with foil stuck all over his hair.. HAHAHAHAHAhahaahahaaa!!! he looks like that crazy guy that walks the streets of NYC. Wow... no aliens will be reading Dante's thoughts for a while.... LOL. I am told I must get ready so we can go shopping... grrr...
Writer's block, we shall meet again!

8/20/02
7:51pm


THE SEARCH FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE......


So I'm watching Tech TV, and they're busy interviewing some lil old guy who's all about finding intelligent life on another planet. My question is: Why not start on our own planet?

There has to be more than just some friends and me representing the intelligent life on the planet, right? I'm hopeful that someone else besides Dante and I are noticing the rainbows and pink clouds when they show themselves. I also like to believe that the other intelligent lives on this planet are in positions to make a difference, however small it may be.

8/03/02
12:21pm


FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY....


That is my caveat for those who try to take me too seriously. I'm nicknamed The Smiling Goth, which in and of itself is a paradox.

I'm watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I can't help but feel the rage toward evil Lucas and his psuedo-attempt at movie-making. The first set of movies he made the excuse of technology not being up to par with what he wanted to do... in 1977. Ummm... just an observation, but Kubrick managed to make a damned realistic film over a decade prior to Star Wars, with even less technology. I stand by my Lucas Lack of Talent argument, since now he has the "technology" to do what he wants, and he STILL can't do it right.

End Lucas rant du jour.....

On to bigger and better things, like Italian desserts. Oh yeah, I'm talking Tiramisu and cannoli. MMMMMMMmmmmmm..... If you've never tried them, go! Find thee a GOOD Italian restaurant and experience the heaven. I mention this only because I have found an EXCELLENT Italian restaurant in Florida, of all the places. It has the completely steriotypical name, and an atmosphere that screams stereotyped Italian-American (although there were no red and white checkered tablecloths), but the service and food are anything but ordinary. Goodfellas is the name, if you ever find yourself in the Sunshine State in Orlando. It's incredible. This review brought to you by an authentic Italian-American who was raised on real Italian cuisine (don't worry, there's no fluffy bunnies being served up at Goodfellas).

Other than that.. life as I know it. Work work work. And gardening. Dante and I made a trip to Lowe's, and bought about two carts worth of plants, dirt, and flowerpots. My porch has become a jungle. A jungle that Pants LOVES. And of course, that cat tree we got her. It's 8 feet of hilarity, with three shelves of chaos built in... and it's treated with CATNIP. My cat is truly insane. Between playing in the jungle and climbing the cat tree, she's almost in kitty heaven. Right now she's sitting on the porch, staring up at the largest plant as if she's chatting with it. For all I know she could be.

7/29/02
11:15pm


HEY, HONEY.... IS THIS BAD?



Oooooohhhh.... and I'm back! Seems this lack of sleep thing has started to take over my creativity, too. I've been trying to make up for it in online shenaqnigans, but to no avail. Until tonight, of course. Good ole Puff Chrissy of LegionStudios.com informed me that I'm in print with my Angry Fudge Experience in the illustrious and locally famous Too Square Magazine. Woo hoo!

But on to my topic du jour. I could go on about the lack of respect that youngins have for their elders these days, but that would so twist my oh-so mellow. I could tell the story of Pants and her new Cat Tree, but I might just save that for later. It's funny. But tonight, the story is the story of A Good Watermelon Gone Bad.

It started about 20 minutes ago, and sent me into a nauseous spiral of laughter. For about the last two weeks, I recall a watermelon being quite at home on the kitchen counter. I don't remember WHEN it got there, or even actually BUYING it, but there it was, and I accepted it as the mystery-melon it was. Tonight, Dante decided to cut into this mystery, and I cringed at his all-too-often-spoken next words, "Hey, Suzi, can you come here a minute and look at this?"

I'm comfortably wrapped in a blanket on the couch, computer on lap, and I sooo don't want to get up. I ask him the ever-popular response that I save for just such occasions: What's wrong? Dante becomes Mr. Mysterio and won't tell me what he wants me to look at. All he says is he "isn't sure" about something-- which could be anything from his discovery of that fungus container we had hiding in the back of the fridge to an all out rush to the hospital over a deep knife gash to the hand....

I finally dragged myself off the couch only to find that there was a massacre in the kitchen. The quartered carcass of a watermelon leaked all over the counter, the inside meat looking a little less than healthy. In fact, if watermelons could get cancer, it would look like the carcass splayed before Dante on the counter. He turned to me and gave me The Look. Then he said, "What do you think? Is this still good?" Why do they ALWAYS ask that?? When there's a black film forming on an otherwise pinkish fruit, why is there a DOUBT? I know the watermelon didn't ask for a second opinion on its diagnosis.

I'm going to miss that mystery-melon hanging out on the kitchen counter.

7/21/02
9:33am


POP CULTURE IS NOT A CULTURE, DAMMIT



My bitch du jour.... Watching VH1 of all the things, and I really have a problem with the band Creed. Aside fr4om the nifty BRYCE/Maya video backgrounds in the latest video, these guys bore the SHIT out of me. Would they like some cheese with that whine? Oh wait-- they have the market cornered on cheese.

So let's check out this lead "singer" who sounds an awful lot like another band, but Creed doesn't even come close to the talent of the other band who will not be mentioned in the same paragraph with evil Creed. So we got this pseudo born-again Christian (and don't argue it, the band's name is CREED, fer gawd's sake) so we have the singer/whiner, whose "troubled" life is like cake compared to most of the rock stars out there. In the interview this guy's bitching because he didn't get along with his upper middle class family. Wah. So he leaves, and sleeps on the floor in an apartment--at least he HAD an apartment, but this guy's bitching because he had to sleep on a cushioned carpet. Wah. Somehow I can't bring myself to feel pity, since I was living next to poverty at some point, and damn close to starving so I could pay the rent (although I had a GREAT figure at the time, sadly), and this guy's crying because he had a nice apartment and had to sleep on the floor. Dude, it's called McDonald's-- work at it. Lazy bastard.

So he's STILL whining about something or other, and even though he's got the personality of a clay flower pot, America is eating it up. WHY? Because it's the watering down of America. The people who love Creed are probably the same people who believe we shouldn't rebuild the World Trade Centers bigger and better because "they'll be a target". Fuck that, sez I. Build them twice as high, go with the blueprints and it'll be the BIGGEST memorial in history, and the christening moment will be to throw that sorry-ass lead singer from Creed off the top of them.

In closing, STOP THE WATERING DOWN, America!!!! Leave that to movie theater soda.