A Reflection on Chess

Which piece is my favorite?

Let us start with the king. The seat of power, and an object for all of his servants and inferiors to protect. He is guarded, loved, and protected. The King loves feeling at the center, warm and surrounded, keeping darkness and enemies at bay. I am not the King.

How about the Queen? The Queen is reckless, a player of the board, knowing and cunning but overall resistant and strong. Attack one flank and she guards the other. Everyone loves and admires her, but at the end of the day, if you look past her power, you find boldness and little else. I am not the Queen.

A pawn, then? A Pawn watches silently, more a listener than a speaker, willing to sacrifice himself or herself, an idealist, a compassionate soul who always has the interests of the greater good at heart. Pawns are oddly rare. I am not a Pawn.

A Rook, maybe? Bold and sturdy and an effective point in a any strategy. Wise, not cunning. Resourceful, not quick thinking. And often lost to traps and innovation: archaic and outdated as it is sturdy. No, not a Rook.

A Knight, perhaps? Outspoken and witty and artful, the knight catches his enemies by surprise, pinning them into position when they least expect it. They are knowledgeable. They are patient and knowing and they are ever aware of the battlefield, biding their time for the victory. No, not a Knight.

That leaves us with the Bishop. Who is the bishop? An underloved character, certainly. Strong in some areas but completely incapable in areas. And yet, completely able to make sound strikes out of nowhere, using all resources, making no hasty judgements yet quick of mind. I think that I am a Bishop.

an anonymous letter to a person of confused relation

___________,

Let me start by saying that this is a recent development in the grand scheme of our acquaintanceship and an old development in the grand scheme of our... what, camaraderie? I like you. You are the first person in a long time that I've truly liked. Not for your eyes or your hair or your musculature or your voice or your height or your weight or your smell, not for pheromones; I like you, the person. I like the way you speak and the way you think as far as I can see into your mind. I like your ideas, your mannerisms, and your disposition. I like your niceness and kindness, your laughter and the way you truly exclude nobody. I like how reasonable you are, how you can agree to disagree, how you never get angry at a person for nothing. I like you as a person.

I'm not exactly sure when this started. I do know that in eighth grade, when I was having a lot of trouble making friends and I sort of just drifted along, you were a bright spot in my day. Not because we were best friends. But because you said hello to me after you knew my name and you smiled at me. At Castle smiles directed toward me were rare. It made me so happy, that you were such a happy person. I didn't have a crush on you in eighth grade, mind you. I just made a happy acknowledgment that someone cared enough to toss me a "hi" every now and then.

A really big part of me wants to send this letter to you anonymously and hope that you know who sent it... that I can show you my thoughts and you will recognize my writing style, my voice. I don't know. I think you'd feel complimented if I actually sent this to you. But it wouldn't affect your feelings towards me (such that I'm not aware of what they are in the least) because you aren't an emotional girl like I am.

I'm trying to make this as honest as possible. I hate strong words that sound cliched and... weird. Like the phrase "my heart broke" (totally irrelevant here, by the way; just an example). That is little more than a dramatic exaggeration. And yet there are few ways to say things without those ugly, overused words. For instance: every time you make the heart sign at me, I will admit it, my heart does a little skip and I grin from ear to ear and I do a heart sign back and I don't know why. I just want you to like me, maybe? Maybe you already do, even though it's pretty obvious you have... something with the girl who sits next to me. Maybe just a strong friendship. I don't know. I don't even know if you're single or taken. You do very little to hint at that. With another boy I had a mild crush on - a while ago, and not as... truthfully? It's hard to explain - I just waited and waited until I confirmed that he was going out with someone. (He was such a flirt, too. I hate when you let yourself be led on and then are surprised when it doesn't go anywhere.) I can't see that happening with you.

Are you going out with her? Maybe I'll just give a fuck, and ask. Maybe you will get the hint that I'm interested for a reason, even though I'll do my best to cover it up. You're intelligent like that.

I like that you're intelligent, too, and that you never play stupid, not even to make a point. I like that you express yourself in wonderful, productive ways. I like that you are kind of geeky without being nerdy. I like that we are so very similar. I like... I don't know. You. I like you, period.

And now I feel weird because I haven't said anything about you as a body and that's apparently what I'm supposed to talk about in weird anonymous love letters. I don't know. I like your hair and your height and your eyes and your... quirky? smile. I like your hands. And your nose. I'm an artist by nature; I notice weird things like the shape of people's noses. I have an appreciation for things that I'm not sure you would find complimentary because they're kind of weird. You don't go up to a person, or at least not a guy, and say, "Wow, I really like the shape of your lips!" (I do, by the way.) So understand when I don't say things like that with any passion because I don't consider them separately, I consider a body as a whole thing (it's been trained into me) and not only does talking about your body in general come on way too strong but it's not, for once, the reason I like you. (But there's your obligatory physical compliments. I'm done with that now.)

I have little else to say, except that I'm hopeful.

Sincerely and resignedly,

_____________

P.S. I know a "crush" is "serious" when I can't rationalize it away.

The Sexual Fluidity Project: A Survey

Jessica, 15, Female, Confused

Beliefs:
What does normal mean to you?
When most people think normal, they think "average." As far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with that definition. Being normal isn't something you should strive to be, but it's not something you should strive to get away from, either. You are who you are.

Do you believe sexuality can be fluid?Definitely. I know that personally I can't really put a label on my own sexuality, past "having one," because it changes. Sometimes from moment to moment, and sometimes over the course of years. And that's okay, because the only reason sexuality isn't considered fluid is because most people speak English, and we need words to describe ourselves, and that means labels, which aren't necessarily a bad thing but aren't necessarily a good thing either.

What does sex mean to you?Sex is an intimate act between two (or more) people. To me... I don't know. I wouldn't have sex with someone I didn't love, or at least know very well. That might be how I was raised, or it might be my sexuality. I don't know.

How do you feel about labels?Labels are just words. Like I said earlier, they aren't inherently good or bad. We need ways to describe ourselves, because we can't just transmit our thoughts to each other's brains. Until technology goes that far, labels are a deeply rooted part of our culture and language. I don't have a problem with that, except that I can't find a label to describe myself, so I can't explain myself very well. I'm "Jessicasexual:" a certain set of criteria that apply only to me.

Identity:How would you describe your sexuality?Confused. I don't know. The closest, I would say, is pansexual. I can be attracted to both boys and girls. But with men, I am attracted to them physically, and then warm to their personality, and with women, I'm attracted to them emotionally, and warm to them sexually. There's a psychological theory that we are taught our sexual identities in the womb based on a pheromone that you're given as a fetus: if you're given estrogen, you're attracted to girls, and if you're given testosterone, you're attracted to guys. I'd say that I'm "supposed" to be attracted to guys, because my biological urges make me look at guys first. But if I know a girl, and like her, sometimes I just start seeing her in a different light. I can't help it. And as for transgenders, intergenders, genderqueers, etc., it's all about the personality with me, and I can develop a physical attraction, much like I would with a girl.

Do you feel like you were born with a sexual identity?Yes. I don't disagree with the psychological theory I was talking about earlier. But I also think that there are other factors, because based on that theory bisexuality can't exist. I don't believe that, not at all.

How long have you been aware about your sexuality/sexual feelings? Have they ever changed?I've become confused only very recently. For the longest time, I thought that I was straight. But every now and then, sometimes with my best friends, I'd get crushes on girls. This was, I'd guess, somewhere way back in elementary, when everyone gets crushes but they aren't sure what that even means or how to act on it. And then, recently, I began to take mental notes on when and how I was attracted to someone, either sexually or romantically, and as the scientists would say, the results have been inconclusive.

Are you emotionally attracted to a gender different from the one you’re physically attracted to?I'm emotionally attracted to any and all genders. It's just the order of emotional and sexual attraction that's confusing.

Environment:Do you feel accepted in the community you live in? If not, do you see this changing in the future?Absolutely. I go to a high school where there's an honor code and a general environment of acceptance that basically says, you accept everyone for who they are. My parents have always accepted me and done their research on anything I was or believed or declared myself to be. The rest of my family doesn't need to know, because it'd start up unnecessary drama, and that's okay, because people don't advertise that they're straight to their extended family either. Whenever my friends and I talked about something related to sexuality, I always said things like, "Well, assuming I'm straight, then..." or "If I were to end up a lesbian, I'd..." and I don't think they understand it, but they certainly don't beat me down for it.

Did you have an experience as a child that made you feel like you didn’t fit in?

Growing up, did you feel pressure to stick to certain gender roles?

Can you talk to your parents about your sexual orientation?

Was sex talked about in your household?

Has religion had a positive or negative effect on how you came to terms with your sexual orientation?

Why Google is going to take over the world.

When we go onto the internet, we don't think, "I am going to use a search engine." We think, "I am going to Google it." Google does not own most information; they simply mirror it, redirecting you to the website that will (maybe) have what you need.

Think on this. What happens when some evil CEO gets bribed by... Apple, say? Now you look up "computer" and no PC sites show up on the first page (and who ever goes past the first page?). Or they start making new products which take over the front (and more!) pages. Now Google has their own computer company, and it's all that shows up in the search engine. It's all you can find now!

"Google +: an alternative for Facebook." And you search Facebook and this little ad looks you in the eye.

NO ONE IS SAFE.

/this has been brought to you by the Society for Imaginative Conspiratorial Thinking and Suspicion Towards Large Companies in a Satire-Filled Fashion, But Seriously, This is Kind of Scary.

Ritual for the Juno or "Higher Self," based from the Correllian Tradition

Materials

1. lavender or fresh linen incense
2. dull green, bright blue, crimson, black, white, sunny yellow, mild orange, and violet blunt candles (total: 8)
3. a chalice (glass) of pure water or whatever beverage I prefer at the time
4. image of the Higher Self, or a representation (imaginative = artwork or realistic = photograph)

This will require an individual altar which may be temporary (may not take place on the all-purpose altar).

1. Light the candles in the following order, from left to right: white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, black.
2.  With each candle, feel a part of the Self manifesting and attaching. It does not matter which parts signify which colors and vice versa. An example, for concrete assignments, might be:
• White = the Lighter Self
• Red = emotion
• Orange = masculine energy
• Yellow = spirit
• Green = feminine energy
• Blue = mentality
• Violet = magic
• Black = the Darker Self
3. Invoke the Higher Self. ("I call upon the Higher Self, the Juno.")
4. Visualize the Juno. She is me, grown and aged slightly, wise but emotional, pure and white, a girl.
5. Speak to the Juno. This should be akin to conversation. This breaks the Veil between the Self and the Higher Self.
6. Offer and chasten the chalice of water (etc.) to the Juno, dedicating it and purifying it. Then drink it. Imagine the light of the Juno filling the water, the glass. Visualize it moving through your body, passing the Juno's strrength and wisdom into you, reassuring you.
7. Meditate on the Juno, the Higher Self.
8. Complete the offering with words of thanks and devotion.
9. Extinguish the candles in the opposite order in which they were lit.
10. Cleanse the chalice.

Omg I am now a TRUE NEOPAGAN.

I just realized this.

I'm sitting in my room, a candle for my evening ritual glowing and incensing the air of the room with the smell of vanilla-scented wax. I'm listening to the Pagan Radio Network, a song called Secret Garden by Windancer, which hums and throbs pleasantly and mildly in the background through these speakers. I am saving up for a new grimoire. I have a pet rabbit who walks in and out of my circles as she pleases, named after a flower. I have ritual honey sitting on my desk, goddess research lying on my dresser, and an altar by my bed with an offering basket, vase, and pedestal (with aforementioned candle) on it. That aside, I'm doing an eve3ning ritual, in my regimen.

How odd.

The next entry will be a mock-revision for my Juno ritual. LIIIIKKKEEEE a hipster.

omg new skates

New roller skates in neon blue! Sure-Grips! OMG I AM SO EXCITED. Speed-skating practice at the track? YES.

I was called by Hecate last night.

I was just reading my correspondences book (It's called The Wicca Handbook by Eileen Holland and I recommend it) and I just... I think, happened to glance across her name. Earlier that day I had been at Barnes and Noble. The one we have locally has this whole wall dedicated to journals. Half of them are these beautiful (though expensive) leather-bound notebooks, with intricate design...

I was flipping through these today, just casually, and it occurred to me: These would make beautiful grimoires (for a lazy person such as myself who can't and won't bind her own). So I came home later, before I was going to do my nightly meditation/protection (which I have actually been doing... I've decided to go ahead and give Witch School: First Degree by Lewis-Highcorrell a chance, even though I have no intention of following Correllian tradition. It just seems like a good regimen... something I need, religiously). And I'm reading this correspondence book, I think because I'd thought, Hecate. It just popped in my head, I don't remember why, and I was looking her up, and I found she was the goddess of witches and I just heard her, in my ear, saying, It's time for you to make an honest grimoire.

Weird. But true, as far as I believe. So now I'm saving up for a BoS at B&N, instead of a gorgeous custom wand from Etsy. It's alright. This one will be purely for spells and chants that I write myself or need to remember. No correspondences or anything, just useful spells and spell-chants.

So I'm familiarizing myself with the community.

LOLOLOL

No one here, no one home, no one helping: more religious babble

1) I went to a church today for the first time in years, a decade maybe. It was Universalist Unitarian. They sung hymns and shared their life activities and talked. A speaker came to the front and talked about jobs and unions and how we should care for all workers' conditions and lives. A chalice was lit, and then put out.

Everyone was old. Fifties on up, with a few exceptions. I was very misplaced there, only fifteen years old; the next person on up was twenty-three, and another visitor, here with the rest of her (mostly aged) family. But later, when we were discussing things - the labor unions, ethical eating - at a potluck lunch afterwards, I felt like part of a community. For real. My mother didn't know the things I was talking about. I had a genuine, intellectual place in the group. That was nice.

2) I've talked to my mother about paganism again. I told her about a little pagan shop I knew of. I looked on Witchvox again. It's not there anymore.

3) I can't learn any more from books. All there is is Wicca. I now own a Witch School book in the Correllian tradition. I am not sure if I like it.

A Vacation

My family and I are crammed into a car for over eight hours. This isn't so bad. I'm in the back right seat. My little brother is beside me, on the left, and my mother in front of me, in the passenger's seat (my usual seat of choice). My father is in the driver's--driving, obviously.

I occupy my time with my old limited edition DS Lite (my brother the same, with his... what, DSiXL? Something). I'm playing Pokemon. It's a Nuzlocke challenge on Pokemon Black. Everything dies; I have a trainer's touch of death, apparently. I become upset. I write everything down in a notebook so that I can make it into a comic later.

That becomes boring. It's dark outside now. We pass through Atlanta, Georgia. I marvel at the city. It's so alive. Cities fascinate me, having never lived in one. On the road I live on, a car goes by about every two minutes at most. We're in the deep country, our house. But Atlanta breathes. I think about going to college here. There's an art college. Does it have sciences, video game design? I doubt it. I'll look into it.

I fall asleep. When I wake up, our family has found a cheap motel off the side of the road. We park our car by the door and go into our room. It's standard. A bathroom next to a refrigerator (the "kitchen" in these places), and two full-sized beds in front of a television. It's gross, a little too bright; the paint on the wall is a yellow-cream, and is directly over a brick pattern that is fairly obvious. I take a restroom break, brush my teeth, and collapse in bed. The place is fine, except for a permeating smell of... must, but something about it make me wary. I sleep on top of the covers, that is, until I wake up in the middle of the night freezing my ass off.

We set out immediately. I've barely even changed from my unattractive-but-comfortable garb yesterday: from a t-shirt and cotton pants, to the same t-shirt and pajama shorts. We eat at a little hub called the Huddle House. I can't help but compare it to Waffle House (which we've seen tons of on the way down to Florida); worse food, less business, and with an understated sort of fifties theme that doesn't seem to come together just right.

We continue on our voyage. We've crossed the Florida-Georgia border now, and we're closer to Orlando, closer, closer. We can't check in until three, my dad reminds us, so we take a detour to Daytona. We drive by the racetrack (my family are fans; I don't particularly like it, but some of it is mildly interesting) and then down to the beach, where we park, run into the ocean, get our feet wet, and laugh until we have to run back. It wasn't worth it. My shorts are wet thanks to waves of varying size and my legs are covered with sand. "Maybe we can come back sometime this week," my dad suggests. My mom has a stomachache. My brother has gotten carsick twice on this trip today.

When we check in, there are a lot of maids going in and out of our rooms. "We're sorry," they say in Mexican and Korean accents. Why don't any white Americans work here? Is it that kind of job, the kind we don't have in our northern, mostly-white state, the kind that only immigrants do? "This room hasn't been rented out for a while. We're cleaning it now." This room is owned by my grandmother's boss, who lent it to us for a week for free. If he hadn't, it would have cost us over six hundred a night. It's a suite. I've stayed in it once before, with my grandmother.

My family is surprised at the size. When we enter, there's a den to the left, with a futon and a TV. To the right, a kitchen, with a counter, a microwave, an electric stove with four places, a refrigerator and freezer with ice/water dispensers, a pantry. In front of us, a dining room with a chandelier; beyond that, a living room, and a door to the balcony. Off to the right side, a master bedroom with a huge bathroom, which has a large bath and a shower, and a separate room for the toilet, as if to show off how much the owner was spending for this place. Off to the left, the room I'm staying in: a hotel room inside a hotel, the two full-sized beds and the television. I make my brother sleep on the futon. A room to myself is wonderful.

We go to the grocery and stock our kitchen, that first day.

The next day, we just lazed around. We went to the hotel pool and laughed and pushed each other. I tried to teach my brother to swim. It rained.

After that we spent a day at Sea World. "We've done Disney," my mom reasons. "Let's do everything else this time." I agree. Disney was boring. But Sea World is more boring, with all the aquariums that I've seen before, last year with my grandmother, for my birthday. The Kraken is a good roller-coaster, but just a roller-coaster, the kind you find everywhere. The Manta is better, with cool aquariums in the waiting line and a novelty: lying on your stomach, feeling like you're going to fly into everything. Journey to Atlantis is good, but I almost pass out in line because of the heat. I am miserable.

We go home. The next day we go to Universal Studios. That's my favorite. I'm so excited. "It's my third favorite place in the world," I declare to my brother, smiling. "What's the first?" he asks, and I say, "My room." "What's the second?" he says, and I reply, "The internet." He protests. I have to explain how the internet is a place (all of that data has to be somewhere).

Islands of Adventure makes me sigh with glee. The Dr. Suess place is whimsical, but not particularly entrancing. My brother wants to ride something... a "High-in-the-Sky Suess Trolley Train Ride," I believe. Boring, but I humor him. We go to the Lost Continent next. Harry Potter is better at night and we can't get in now anyway, so we go around to the Marvel area... my favorite in the park (maybe tied with Harry Potter). I look in the comic store, do the sky-drop (Dr. Doom's... something) with my brother, take a picture with Cyclops. I miss Rogue, when she's out. It makes me upset.

We leave to actual Universal and do all sorts of things there. We watch shows, ride rides, whatever. Lunch/dinner is at the Nascar restaurant in Citywalk. It's surprisingly good. I have pot roast that's better than what we make at home. I can't fit all of it into my stomach. My dad eats the rest. I laugh a lot. My mom gets another stomachache. She's been picking fights the whole trip; I don't think she's used to all of us being together all of the time.

We go back to Harry Potter. I ride Dragon Challenge with my dad. We wait for the front line, but get pulled to the very front of that line because we're a party of two. Afterwards my dad laughs and high fives me and says, "That's my favorite ride this whole trip."

Our feet hurt so much that I'm hopping from heel to heel and they're starting to go numb, but we still but two Butterbeers and I drink mine. It's sweet, like liquid ice cream, so good, maybe too sugary--my brother can't even finish his, because he gets a stomachache. We go into a Hogsmeade shop. It's great. But I soon find that everything is... expensive. My mother humors me and purchases a Gryffindor scarf for me. I debate between Gryffindor and Slytherin for a long time, holding each one up. "I'm really a Slytherin, according to, you know, the internet," I sigh. But I've been proclaiming myself a Gryffindor my whole life before those online tests, and, well, red and gold look better on me than green and silver, and I decide one test can't change who I've been for my whole fandom career. This is a big decision to me. I get the Gryffindor.

On the way out, our feet hurt so much, so god-fucking-damn much, but I get a poster from the comic shop anyway. It's Spider-Woman. I'm a nerd. It's over twenty dollars less than the scarf.

We go to Daytona Beach and I get a sunburn. I put on so much sunscreen that I look eight shades paler than I really am, but I burn anyway. But I'm naturally dark, so it goes away by the time we go home. We spend one day at the beach before I decide I'm done.

That night, we go crab hunting on the shore. We find one. It makes me smile, and freak out, squealing like the girl I am, when it scuttles toward me. We laugh and go back to the hotel. I eat a Milky Way. That night my mom and dad stay out on the balcony. In the morning, when I drop my wrapper into the trash can, I see nothing but Diet Coke cans and beer bottles. I realize that I never want to drink as much as they do.

We spend one day just relaxing before we go home. I spend all day watching a Let's Play of Silent Hill and looking up the plot on the wiki. I stay up until four in the morning doing this.

The next day, I'm tired. We're in the car. I play Pokemon Black, continue my challenge. Everyone sleeps for two hours then wakes up, not at the same time. I get tired of Pokemon. I try to sleep. I wake up. We go to Starbucks. Wendy's. Over the course of the day, we eat at two gas stations. I drink a melon-berry smoothie and half of my brother's frappe when we go to Starbucks again for my dad, the driver, who needs a pick-me-up. I'm not supposed to drink much caffeine, but I drink half of his. It's a mocha-coconut. Too much coffee for him. He was expecting more chocolate.

On the way back we stop at an outlet mall. "We should do some back to school shopping, maybe," my mom suggests. I end up with more than all of my other family members combined. Since it's an outlet mall, everything's cheaper than a regular store. My mom asks if I like Charlotte Russe. I wouldn't know, I say; I've never been. I get a dress and a belt and a pair of skinny jeans. My mom takes me to the next store and the next. And I see an outlet Fossil store. I freak out so very much that she actually takes me in. I find a purse that I saw in our mall for two hundred bucks... for forty-five. I'm so excited that my mother actually buys it for me. I spend the rest of the trip putting things in it. There's an outlet Rue 21, too; I get a minidress and some leggings and some shoes that I've wanted forever. It's sad, but this was one of my favorite parts of the trip, this side stop at an outdoor outlet mall.

We go home. We sleep on the way. My mom and my brother are asleep, my dad is driving; it's too dark to read my school book by, so I turn on my DS to the main screen, the white one, and hold it to my chest. I need to sleep but I can't put down the book. It's "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah. I usually don't like nonfiction, but this is pretty okay. When I finally finish it, I stretch out and sleep on my brother's pillow, which I steal from under his head. My dad's decided to push through the night and go all the way home in one day. I only sleep for an hour before I wake up in the driveway.

Everyone pulls their luggage from the trunk and carries it in. I don't remember much, and when I woke up this morning all of my stuff was still in the car's trunk. But I went to my room that night and collapsed in my bed, my clothes still on, and had the best sleep I'd had in a week.

All the useful things I did this summer

• I had a birthday, making me officially older, which is good I guess.
• I snagged myself a car, a '99 Mustang, red.
• I had a friend who moved out of country over.
• And we watched both Harry Potter musicals.
• I got a tan, though I'm not sure how.
• I figured out how to genuinely love one of my best friends, with whom things have been falling apart for some time now.
• I rediscovered Tumblr. Tumblred forever.
• I started a Nuzlocke comic and quit within the first panel.
• Rediscovered Twitter. Twittered forever.
• Found a bunch of new music I like.
• Kept up on a personal blog for once (this one, to be exact).
• Began and kept up on a gaming blog (Mnemosynister, remember her?).
• Slowly recharged my creative batteries (they're still nowhere near full, but it's better).
• Procrastinated to extremes on the three books I have for classes this coming school year.
• Worked at the zoo.
• Made a friend who had previously hated my guts, on being partnered together one day.
• Made a friend who is male and really cute, and also a nerd like me, but absolutely nothing will happen between us because that is life.
• Attempted to get a job.
• Did not get a job.
• Became addicted to hip-hop and mixed music (dj music).
• Finally became "physical" about practicing for roller derby.
• Scored 20 free admission tickets to the local rink.
• Got really fat, probably.
• Went to the doctor several times, and began to take more pills than the average 70-year-old, including anti-depression medication and three different kinds of vitamins.
• Had to give away my Fiona-turned-Finn (my black mixed-breed rabbit) because of the complications of having a boy rabbit that I thought was a girl.
• My Zinnia did not, in fact, end up having babies, which is both good and so sad (BABY BUNNIES!).
• Played through a lot of games I had wanted to before but didn't have time for (Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect, Pokemon Black Nuzlocke challenge, and lots of flash games, among others).
• Documented them using the free version of FRAPS.
• Learned to effectively use acrylic paints.
• Wasted my time on the computer from when I got up to when I fell asleep, not counting food breaks, on a near daily basis.
• Got some scars on my hands, thighs, legs, and arms from my rabbits. They will be there forever; there's no healing these. Little bloody rascals. Little carnivores.
• Put in gauges, to my parents' chagrin.
• I am currently at size 14 and my mother believes that it is large enough, and that I should not go bigger.
• Acquired a pair of Pokemon boxers, a hand-knit scarf, a purple quilted purse, and a pair of sunglasses.
• Had a child with my best friend, a red rubber bouncy ball that we drew a face on, which we named Carrie Cherry-Cakes (due to her deep blush, which encompasses her whole face).

And this is only a fraction of the INCREDIBLY USEFUL things that I achieved these past two months!

Off on vacation,

So from tonight to the 29th you'll be hearing very little from me. My family and I are going on vacation in Florida. Sooooo yeah. Sea World, and also apparently other places. I don't even know.

Also I've got to convince my mom that we need to drive to the Disney marketplace so that my little brother can see that huge Lego store, because that place is the shiz.

Oh, and Universal Studios. I've been once before... last year, actually, I think, thanks to my grandmother and some other assorted stuff. The comics place. And the Harry Potter place. Seriously, that stuff was awesome. It was like living in HP-land. And when they offered us Butterbeer... and when the choir came out... and when I saw wands for sale! FANGASM. NERDGASM.

Anyway. Off we go.

dreeeeeams

I had the most weird-ass dream last night. A bunch of my friends and I went on a bike-riding spelunking expedition - we biked through a cave. We'd get through one and then have to do another; every once in a while, someone would die, and we'd have to start over, at the very first one. In the bottom of this first one was this... glowy artifact. And then we'd start all over, with everyone back again. Like a video game.

So we get through the caves, and we're tired and suddenly we're going down my street, and I see my house, except it's on the wrong side, and I live right next door to Luna Lovegood. It's the middle of the night and Luna sees us from her porch, which is all lit up. And by Luna I mean that actress. The one with the incredibly blonde hair and pretty voice.

So my mom isn't out here for some reason, but someone's hurt. Luna and her dad (who looks like absolutely nothing at all, like I can't even remember what he said or what he wore) patch them up. Then we spend the next fifteen minutes arguing over who is going to marry who. I say that it's mandatory to marry someone and if my best friend won't marry, I'd totally marry Luna, so I propose to her (I'm a girl, and also straight, or at least as far as I know), and anyway I persuade her to accept and we go biking down the road again, back into a cave.

AND THEN SUDDENLY, I'm in Toys 'R' Us and nobody's there, no friends, no fictional characters from Harry Potter. Except one of my friends from freshman year pops up and is all like, "Why are you in a wedding dress?" And I'm like, "Well, it's my wedding, duh!" And then we go into an aisle and make out. (This one was a guy. Jussayin.)

I AM TWELVE AND WHAT IS THIS. (Not really. I'm actually quite older than that, but still, WHAT IS THIS.)

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Well. I can only hope this is true because that's the kind of guy I'm bound to end up with like eight times in a row. Pfffblthththbt.

Why Gamers Make Better Lovers

While gamers may not be portrayed as the most social or physically fit people, there is one area in which we excel at. What area is that exactly? Sex. I believe that the life of a gamer equips them with skills that increase their performance in the bedroom. Here’s why:

- All of those hours spent smashing the buttons of controllers didn’t go to waste. While you’re pulling the right trigger to kill Covenant aliens and figuring out the correct button combination to defeat Bowser, you’re crafting your hands into fine-tuned love machines. Who wouldn’t appreciate their partner being equipped with strong fingers and dexterous hands they can use for hours on end?

- A gamers mind works in high scores and achievements, which transfers over into the bedroom. Their competitiveness will encourage them to get better and better with each play through/session of love making. Combine that with their goals to unlock personal achievements, such as “Last Longer Than Her Ex” and “Do It On His Parents Bed”, and you’ve got yourself quite a determined lover.

- If someone spends their time completing seasons in NBA 2K11 or trying to solo Onyxia in World Of Warcraft, chances are they’re going to have a lot of free time on their hands. Therefore, they’re going to have a lot of free time to get down and dirty with you. That is, of course, if you can tear them away from whatever they’re playing.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnn

My friend Amani may have gotten me addicted to this

You remember those old songs, and you realize

that even though your mom used to sing them to you, they're fucking horrifyingly sad.

"Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?
Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?
And did I hear you say he was a-meetin' you here today
To take you to his mansion in the sky-eye?

She's forty-one and her daddy still calls 'er "baby"
All the folks 'round Brownsville say she's crazy
'cause she walks downtown with her suitcase in her hand
Lookin' for a mysterious dark-haired man

In her younger days they called her Delta Dawn
Prettiest woman you ever laid eyes on
Then a man of low degree stood by her side
Promised her he'd take her for his bride"

Wikipedia says it's about a woman who was cheated out of her virginity, basically. I think it's pretty damn clear that what it really means is her lover died and she went crazy.

Flashfic: Comatose

I like to think that if I were in a coma, it'd be a little something like this.

I'm on my way home from work. My phone buzzes with updates from social networking sites and text messages from the few friends who text me nowadays. I'm such a social recluse that I can barely bring myself to respond to these for fear that my few friends will be surprised I'm awake, or not busy, or not too tired to chat. That's another category of why I don't talk to people much anymore: I don't like talking about how I don't talk.

The subway is a grimy place to be. I'm new to New York, and I'm not used to the inherent ooze that touches everything here, so different from the grassy farm I grew up on. The smell of cows used to be more familiar than the smell of car exhaust and human sweat. Now, I'm not sure which I prefer.

And I miss my dog. He was huge and slobbery and brown and shaggy. My sister had christened him "Pancake" when we'd adopted him, to my dismay, back then. He'd been jovial and comforting up until his premature death one hot July evening as a truck broke three of his ribs and maimed a handful of his internal organs. My sister had cried for hours, hiding in her room until she came out and declared that she wanted chocolate-chip pancakes for dinner, and my mom made them. We painted a gravestone and set it outside over a patch of earth that we liked to pretend the dog was buried in. In reality, we had no idea where his body had gone. Landfill? Museum of domestic animals? Medical waste? Had he donated his remaining organs to science, or to needy dogs around the world? As children, we could only speculate.

In this city there are no real dogs, no big dogs who leap up to greet you and give you slobbery kisses when you walked through the door. Just annoying lapdogs, bred for show and not personality or usefulness.

This was usually what I thought about when I was on the subway. As I stepped off, I wondered why. I thought about myself more than other people thought about themselves, or at least more than others cared to admit that they thought about themselves. I thought about my memories, mostly, of what it was like before I wandered this deathless gray city on a mission that seemed to consist of "work, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat." I remembered more colorful things that seemed vaguely surreal in their colorfulness, as if they were almost too real.

I bump into a couple people on my way onto the street. I used to be paranoid that everyone who touched me was a pickpocket or a homeless drunk with contagious diseases. Now... well, I'm not sure. Those things do exist, unsurprisingly, but now that I live in it, so to speak, I'm not sure what I think of it, or even that I think of it at all. My sister, I'm sure, would be offended by every other person she saw on the street. "That woman is too well dressed for the sidewalk... it's like she's showing off." "It seems like every dumpster in every alleyway on this street has a hobo living in it!" I remember thinking her comments used to be funny, her tiny prejudices about everything from taste in belt buckles to the way a person smiled, but I can't actually recall that feeling of being amused. Maybe because it was so long ago, or maybe because I've grown (figurative) gray hairs since then.

I think about my mother and father too. My father was never around much, but I can vaguely remember superficial details about him: his sandy brown hair, his clear blue eyes, his dazzling white smile when he was pleased because you'd done something right. He was a banker... or maybe he was a lawyer. I couldn't remember. In retrospect, it seemed unimportant. My mother, on the other hand, seemed omnipresent in my memory. She was always bandaging something or hugging someone or scolding you or making dinner for you.

I absentmindedly run into someone, a scrape of shoulders, and I mutter an apology as I try to elude eye contact. It's a girl, about my age, maybe a little older. She looks like she's an artist for a living, maybe illustrates children's books, maybe paints murals on restaurant walls. My "sorry" comes out stuttered and strange, as awkward as I really am deep down inside, a bit stilted and a bit off-center. I'm not sure if it sounds authentic.

"You have to wake up," she says with an expression that seems to accept my apology. She keeps walking. I don't understand. I've never felt a connection with another person, not once that I can remember in my whole life; I haven't developed those subconscious skills that help you read a person, derive what they're thinking from their face. Even if I had I doubt I'd understand what that meant. She was probably an existentialist: live each day as if it might be your last, a penchant against monotony. I'd take the advice to heart. I'd also probably secretly admire her for the next year of my life, long after her face had faded from my memory, for her will to help a random stranger who looked a little lost in his own mind: I have to wake up.

My apartment building was a little red, but only a little. It was also rather brown, and overall not very standoffish but not very subtle either. It stood, in stark contrast to the dead sidewalk in front of it, but in boring unison with the brick buildings surrounding it. Glancing through the glass front door to the doorman at his desk, I found that I didn't want to enter yet, didn't want to fall back into my daily and nightly routine of wake up, go to work, come home, fall asleep. I wanted to break free. I wanted to go somewhere else and do something new.

I passed a small bookstore, an 18+ shop with neon lights in the display, an outdoor cafe. The cafe is one I've never been to before, despite its closeness to my place of residence. I act on a whim and walk under the trellis of roses that marks its entrance from the street. A sign to the side says "seat yourself," and I do so at a table for two to the side. I wonder who sat here before. A couple who would never work out because the girl was too picky and the boy wasn't ready for commitment? A washed-out grad student with a cheap laptop, blogging about the unnecessary evil of money and post-secondary education?

Judging by the pigeons plucking pastry crumbs from the ground near my feet, I would have guessed the latter. Grad students like their pastries.

A waitress passes by with nothing but a menu and a smile. The former, she sets nonchalantly on the table in front of me; the latter, she tosses to me like a child's toy, neglected and superficially cheerful. I finger through the menu and pick out a nice dinner for myself. A vegetarian salad with portobello mushrooms and onion dressing, a small serving of potato soup, and a chilled turkey-and-spinach salad. I know right off the bat that I'm not going to be able to eat it all, but I want to spoil myself with the idea of variety. There was no sampler platter on the menu. This was my equivalent, my way of telling myself to find something that I enjoyed, and to enjoy it.

The waitress returned, retrieving the menu as I held it out to her. "You're in a coma," she said cheerfully, in that sociable manner all waitresses seem perpetually locked into. Her smile doesn't falter as she nods like I've just told her something important and walks off again without taking my order. I am confused, more confused than I feel inside my own thoughts sometimes. What's happened here? What sort of social dynamic is taking place that random strangers are telling me things that make no sense?

She returns shortly with the exact meal I'd picked out, like I'd told her my order after all. "Enjoy," she says, the last syllable falling off the rest of the word, as if it takes energy for her to be happy. I understand her completely. In that moment, I want to reach out and say, I know what you mean. I don't want to be human either.

This city is so dirty.

I ate more than I thought I would and now it's getting late. But I want more, I want to go somewhere I've never been. Without a bike, with no money for a taxi or a trip on the subway, and in such a small neighborhood, my options are limited. But I end up wandering toward the river. There's a little children's park nearby, which despite the late hour and the orange sunlight fading into purple and blue is still not empty. I'm sure the nearby parents won't approve if I sit on one of the swings like I did when I was a child, looking into the sky and dreaming about growing soft, feathery wings and flying away, to somewhere where nobody could ever touch me, where evil and wrongness and error hadn't stuck their grimy taloned fingers and polluted everything there was to touch.

So I watch from a park bench. There's a little girl with blonde pigtails who repeatedly tries and fails to cross the monkey bars, her feet flailing as she struggles to propel herself to the opposite side. A female teenager who is what I can only presume to be a babysitter smiles and chats to another girl with mismatched socks while simultaenously carefully watching a daredevil little boy from across the gravel playground. He yells "watch me!" as he jumps from an upper story of the fort.

There are other children too, some without watchers, maybe stragglers who haven't noticed the time or who don't have parents who care where they are. Everything seems to coalesce into a choking haze - the air, the smell of the city, the buzz of everything and anything that makes noise here, the footsteps of the cautious and the confident as they progress toward their apartments and their houses, eager to find a warm bed to collapse into so that they can sleep the night.

Like a fog, a sense of intense wrongness settles down onto me and everything around me. Infecting. Polluting.

A boy walks over and stares at me with wide, anxious eyes. I notice that a green ball has rolled to the ground outside the playground gravel and it right up against my elbow. Understanding the child's shyness, I lift the ball from its resting place at my feet and stand to walk it over to him. He takes a few steps forward until he can snatch it out of my hands, which are far older, far more callused.

Where do I work again?

I hand it to him carefully, gently, as if he is a deer or moth to be frightened away at sudden movements, and he grabs it and a smile lights his face. I am reminded of the people waiting for me to get home back at my apartment, their smiles and their worries and their laughter...

Who are they? Am I married, do I have children? Where is my family? I don't have a family...

I try to remember my mother, my sister, my father, but they fall apart like wooden dolls crudely fashioned of twigs and loosely-tied string. I can remember that my father was strong, though I can't see him in my mind, powering through his work or pulling his weight at home. I can remember my mother was kind, though I can't recall her ever explaining a grandfather's death to us or comforting us after a traumatizing first day of school. I can remember my sister was witty, though I can't remember ever bantering with her or any of the jokes I'd thought she'd told.

If I have a wife, I don't remember her. Yet there is a masculine diamond ring around a finger on my left hand... I don't remember putting it there, kissing anyone - ever, or seeing a woman I loved in a white dress as she paraded proudly down a wedding aisle to the tune of the marriage songs churches are so fond of.

I am brought back to the present as the boy smiles, green ball in hand, and says thankfully, "This isn't real."

I stand as he gallops away. He has all of the energy that I lack, that this place drained me of. I meander back to the cold sidewalk and make my way home, but all the while, I purposefully meet the empty, glassy stares of every stranger I meet on the street, and I search them for the answer to a question I'm not sure that I know how to ask.

The doorman greets me as I enter the building. His lips move but I can't hear anything he says.

The elevator lights but makes no noise as I climb in. All there is is the sound of my footsteps, and that gets fainter and fainter as I head toward my gray refuge from the life outside home and work.

I have a ring but there's no wife or child to greet me when I open the door. Just silence. Just grayness, blending all of the world together into a sad ocean of empty fog. There is nothing here. There is only grayness. There is only emptiness. There is only patience, and waiting. There is only an entrance to the emptiness, no exit, or at least not one that I can see.

How did I get here?

How do I get back?

So I have this virus on my laptop.

This old girl (her name is Florencine) is just too clunky. This has gotta be the eighth virus she's gotten. This one's well made (is it bad that I have an appreciation for nice viruses?) but unfortunately for me, that means it's clingy and persistent. It's this one.

I am so irritated.

Dear virus creators, stop modeling your visual viruses after virus prevention programs. It was creative at first, but now everyone and anyone can see them coming. This one is good, well made... few to no typos. But you overdo it just a little. Also no virus creator names their viruses "email worm" or "secret trojan." Nobody. Think: if you're naming your virus "XP Antispyware 2012," why would they name theirs something totally obvious? Pfft. You guys don't think.

Also why aren't people hiring me to help them build and write viruses and help with terrorism and stuff. I mean I do this stuff better than they can. Not that I've ever written a virus. Ahem, hem. 

I have also been tumblring all night. I've renamed, resloganed, and reskinned Rebellious Rockette. Same URL for convenience, but now the tumblrblog is called "Space Rebel."

I've been reading pettyartist's Nuzlocke challenge comics all night and watchin' stuff like this. And now I'm convinced I want to erase my save on Black (good-bye, Darmanitan! ;-; I loved you so...) and start a Nuzlocke Challenge. If so I'd like to learn how to record DS gameplay but I haven't watched this video yet so I'm not sure I can do it on my budget.

Also I am addicted to Odalisquia, and my new favorite (barring Extraordinary, which is her only non-oneshot) my new favorite is Truth and Lies, which is kind of quick and feel-good with just enough darkness and reality to make me really feel the story. Oops, happy!rant...

This is just about everything up in my tabs right now. An update on what I'm doing, and also reminders/links that I'll want again, because I suspect this virus is about to take down my Firefox.

(God I love Firefox. It's nigh invulnerable to virus interference. But I'm not taking any risks here.)

I am so mad

So I got onto 4chan for the first time in my life.

And I get a message like this:

"You have been permanently banned from all boards for the following reason:

Being underage.

Your ban was filed on April 16th, 2011. This ban will not expire.

According to our server, your IP is: 74.112.212.15. The name you were posting with was ReimuHakurei!!jfioGdYT+nh.

Your appeal was reviewed and denied. You may not appeal this ban again."

What the hell?!

I've never used that username, never even been on 4chan, never appealed a ban, never been banned (by anything, ever). Do I sound like the kind of person who'd name themselves something animeish like "Reimu Hakurei"?

I am so mad. And so confused.