Score One for My Team

You guys know about my love/hate relationship with Netflix, right? Specifically how I hate myself for loving it so much? Well now I love it even more! I think it's so cool that they are making their own original shows now, because they don't have to follow all the stupid rules that network shows do. I just finished Hemlock Grove (all the episode that have been released so far anyway) and it was fantastic! here's why:

1- It's just so fucking weird, how could I not love it?
2- The characters talk like real people, none of this censored for TV shit.
3- All of the characters are just so incredibly fucked up, which automatically makes me love them.
4- It has, by far, the coolest and most disturbing werewolf transformations I have ever seen.
5- You know how pretty much every show has that one girl who everyone wants? Like, for some inexplicable reason ever guy who sees her just falls in love with her? Well, in season 2 that girl is a (thoroughly) tattooed vegan! This gives me a great deal of hope for my future.

Seriously, how often does the weird, tattooed, vegan, girl get the guy?.......or both of them?

 

No!

You know what I fucking hate? When I check my email and my inbox is overflowing with what turns out to be shit ton of emails all just asking me for donations. I mean seriously folks, you should all know by now that I don't have any fucking money. If I did have anything to donate, I really wouldn't need you to send me emails asking for it. If I want to give money to some organization, I'm pretty sure I could pick one all on my own. I'm mean, I'm always happy to sign your petitions and everything, but stop asking me for money! In all likelihood, I'm never going to have any. So just move along will you?

There are few things quite as irritating as finding a whole inbox full of these obnoxious buttons. 

Well That Explains a Lot

You guys know my weird stuck together toes that I posted a picture of a while back? Well, I recently found out that it is called syndactyly and, much more interestingly, that Celtic myths associate it with selkies. Selkies are creatures who can transform from seals to humans by shedding their seal skins. Supposedly they would often remove their seal skins and dance on the shore at night. The article I found that mentioned the toe thing contained this line that felt very familiar to me "Seal people are said to be cursed with a constant longing for what they do not have: when they are swimming in the water as seals, they yearn to be on land, and when they walk on two legs as a human, they long to be in the sea." So yeah, maybe that's why I'm never satisfied with anything; I'm a fucking selkie. 

New Favorite Product

I have a new favorite product that I thought I would share with you guys, Dr. Woods soap. I have been using it as hand soap, body wash, and shampoo. It's really great stuff! It has made my skin look better than anything else I've tried, and it's a lot more affordable than most of the other things I've tried as well. And it's cruelty-free and vegan (naturally). Plus it smells fucking amazing! It's kind of weird, like nothing else I've ever smelled before. It's sort of dark and earthy, but still slightly sweet. Not to get overly poetical about soap, but it reminds me of a forest full of night-blooming flowers.

I tried to find an image from Firefly of Wash talking about Jayne getting "poetical about his pecker" so I could say "at least I'm a step above Jayne" but I couldn't find one. So here's what the soap looks like instead.

 

Weird-Ass Weather

The weather the last couple of days has bee the strangest I think I have ever seen. On Saturday evening, the sky turned all yellow and there was an exceptionally bright rainbow accompanied by thunder and lightening. Then yesterday there was apparently a tornado spotted somewhere near here. In Mannington the entire sky clouded over with the exception of one tiny spot of sun off in the distance. One corner of the sky had a solid mass of dark clouds while another had these weird, almost greenish, cloud formations. Then it got really cold all of a sudden and there was a long, continuous clap of thunder that lasted for a good minute. Finally it poured the rain for maybe five minutes and then it was all just over. That is, except for the off-and-on drizzle which was still enough to knock out my internet.

Mayhap it was a reality storm. 

Not a Flattering Comparison

You know what the one thing is that keeps me sane most of the time? Stories. Whether it's the ones I read, or watch, or write for myself in my own head. I love them. I love that feeling that I get from losing myself in some other world. The farther they are from my own life, the better. A lot of times, I feel like I know fictional people better than I know any of the real people in my life. 

Not only do I love stories, but my brain seems especially proficient at keeping track of them. I don't care how long it's been, if I really connect with one I will remember it, in great detail, forever. And no matter what, I'm always looking for more. More excitement, more adventure, more characters to care about much more than anyone should. I collect stories. I'm always searching for new ones, because a story is one of the few things in this world that, once you have it, you can keep it forever. 

I'm kind of like Metatron. 

Hitting People Doesn't Count as Socializing?

Well, my kickboxing class got cancelled last night. There went my one and only social activity for the week, which is really pathetic for a few reasons. 1- It's generally just me and the instructor, so that's really not very social. 2- Even though it's just the two of us, we don't actually talk about anything but class. 3- Anyone who considers kicking and punching people to be a social activity is probably rather severely fucked up. 4- Even without all this other stuff, it's depressing as shit to only have one social activity. My point here is, I have got to come up with at least one other thing to do for fun so that my class getting cancelled doesn't completely remove any chance of me interacting with other humans for the whole (and any chance of me having any fun, for that matter).

Mayhap I should try Gilbert fun. 

Finishing What I Start

I have this weird compulsion to always finish books that I start, even if I don't particularly care to. Incidentally, I also feel like I always have to read everything in the book, even things that are not particularly important, such as introductions, acknowledgements, whatever. I'm always trying to force myself to read informative type books interspersed with my various horror, fantasy, sci-fi, stories. Sometimes I find them really interesting but other times I don't. Unfortunately, by the time I realize I'm not that interested in them its too late. I have already committed myself to reading them, and I refuse to admit defeat. So I end up leaving them laying on my night stand and reading little snippets of them at a time until I finally reach the end. I have a book there now that I have been working on for at least two months. Every time I look at it I berate myself for not having finished it yet, but I just can't read more than a couple of pages before I get utterly bored and go back Sandman which, despite my best efforts to drag it out, I have almost finished.

He calls to me. 

A Break

My recent internet connection issues have led me to a decision. I am going to try taking a break from some of my online activities. Being without the internet always forces me to find other things to do, and this makes me realize how many other things I actually have to do. I'm still going to try to keep up with important things like this blog (although I suppose it's importance is debatable), and email. But I am going to try to lay off a bit on the more frivolous things, like say scrolling through Pinterest for hours. The things is, as much as I may enjoy it, I always have something more important to do. I have about a thousand books I want to read, there is always a shit-ton of stuff to do around the house, I'm always telling myself that I should write more, I have all these projects I keep wanting to start, etc. So, at least for the time being, I am going to do my best to restrain myself from any purely time-wasting online activities.

DELETE!

For the past two days I have not been able to get my internet connection to work properly. I mean I suppose technically it was still working (sometimes) but it's been so slow that it was fucking unbearable to deal with. Now I'm fairly used to that at my house because, as I've mentioned about 80,000 times before, Hughsnet is complete bullshit. However, yesterday I couldn't even get the internet to work at my mom's house and her's almost always works. This led me to think that the problem may be my computer and not the connection. Seeing as how I know nothing about how to clean up a slow computer, I just went on an aimless rampage and deleted anything that didn't look vital. For the moment it seems to be a tiny bit better, maybe.

A Tad Worrisome

I just finished watching Wilfred on Netflix today and I fucking loved it! Now normally I just cannot get into comedies. If I am going to become invested in a story it pretty much has to be intense, and depressing, and disturbing; otherwise I lose interest. So I was rather excited when this show turned out to be all of those things and completely hilarious at the same time. You know how I posted  a while back that I could only laugh at things that are awful? Well Wilfred is one of those things. There are always terrible things happening and they really shouldn't be funny but they are, they just so are.  Also, I find it a bit disconcerting how much I relate to the guy who spends all day talking to a dog, has no idea what in his life is real or imagined, and who may or may not be utterly insane......

I don't care if he's real or not, I would totally hang out with Wilfred. 

Never There When I Need You

Our internet here has actually been working fairly well lately, compared to how it was over the winter anyway. That is unless I really need it, in which case it will pretty much inevitably refuse to work, even if there is absolutely no reason why it should not be working. The single thing that will damn near guarantee that the internet will not work is me having a truly awful day. If I happen to be miserable, and furious, and just desperately need to look at stupid shit on Pinterest in order to salvage some tiny bit of my sanity I will definitely not be able to do that.  Anyway, that's why this post is late.

"My god why hast thou forsaken me?"

The Wonders of HD

If you ever need a good self-esteem boost, may I recommend watching your favorite shows in high definition. My dad has a Blu-ray player, which is supposed to make everything look more realistic and vibrant. You know the only thing I notice though? Everybody kind of looks like crap. Did you ever see that episode of Family Guy where there was the really hot news anchor who suddenly looked horrible when the channel changed to HD? Well that's pretty much how it is. You can see all of the tiny imperfections in everyone's skin. I was seriously amazed when I realized how bad some of these actors' skin is. I mean they cover it up really well with makeup, but with Blu-ray you can see every cleverly concealed pimple on every person's face. So yeah, if you ever want to feel better about yourself by seeing super attractive people look less attractive, you should totally get a Blu-ray layer. If you don't want to do that then you probably shouldn't get one, because it's actually really distracting when you're just trying to pay attention to the show.  

Seriously, why do we want this?

No Power in the Verse Can Stop Me!

Sorry this is so very late. I forgot my computer at my mom's house last night and I just couldn't bring myself to drive clear the fuck back to Mannington to get it.

Anyway, I had kickboxing class last night and I feel like I'm really starting to get the hang of it. There is a kids' class right before my class, and last night the guy who teaches my class and another guy I had met once before were teaching the kids' class. When my class (which still just consists of me and the teacher, by the way) started, the second guy just sort of hung around, talked to us a little, and watched. At one point he said to my teacher "She's in better shape than anybody in our class." Thinking he was just being an ass, I kind of laughed and said "You mean the kids' class before this one?" and he said "No I mean our real class." Then he told me that it was a shame that Friday was the only night I could come, because I would show up everyone in the other classes. I then proceeded to barely restrain myself from grinning like a dumbass and doing a happy dance. The point is, I feel like River Tam right now and it's fucking wonderful!

But Seriously Though

I have been thinking more about my whole age based on accomplishments idea, and I really think the Powers That Be ought to consider it. I think it would solve a lot of problems in people's lives. First off, it would help out the people like me who are almost certainly not going to figure out what they want to do with their lives until it's too late to do anything with their lives. Secondly, I think it would encourage people to more carefully consider their life decisions. I think there would be a whole lot less unwanted pregnancies and poorly thought out marriages if you knew you would automatically age five or six years because of it. Plus it would give people a chance to avoid that whole awkwardness of being the super immature old person. If you don't want to act like an adult, then you shouldn't have to be one.

Then again, perhaps I should stop complaining about getting old because........

We Need a Better System

You know what I think? I think a person's age should be based on what he or she has accomplished in life. Like, if someone has a really bad year and their life really doesn't progress at all, they shouldn't have to get older. We should all just stay the same age until we do things that help us to be more qualified to be adults. For example; someone who lives with her dad, doesn't have a relationship (or any prospects for one, for that matter), only has a (very) part-time job, has no social life, and generally just has no fucking clue what she is doing with her life should not be allowed to be 27. You know who should get to be 27? People who are married and have kids and shit.

I'm basically just a baby. 

The Value of Time 3

Since I consider time to be so precious, it seems to me that the best thing a person can do to show someone that they care about them is to make an effort to spend time with them. When you really love someone, whether romantically or otherwise, you genuinely want to spend your time with that person. You want to be with them even when it's not convenient for you, and even if it means doing something that you might not otherwise have chosen to do. Now, I'm not saying that if you love someone you have to spend every waking moment with that person, or that the two of you have to do everything together, or that you have to do a bunch of shit you hate doing. All I'm saying is that the more you care about someone the more you are willing to do just to be near that person. Conversely, if someone never goes out of their way to be around you, it's a fair assumption that they don't really give a shit about you. This is something that I am trying very hard to remember in my life.

The Value of Time 2

To continue my previous post's discussion of time, I think the reason I am so bothered by my time being wasted is because I have very limited options when it comes to way of spending my time that don't make me feel like I'm going to go insane. The thing is, I pretty much hate everything about this world and that makes living in it somewhat difficult. I need to keep my mind off of the fact that nothing is the way I want it to be. There are really only two ways I have found of doing this. 1-Stay so busy that I don't have time to think about anything. 2- Find some way of escaping from the world. Now, if I can find something productive to do that will keep my brain sufficiently occupied that's great, but that's rather hard to do. So when I'm doing things like reading, watching Netflix, or browsing Pinterest for an exceptionally long time, what I'm really doing is saving my sanity. When someone removes these two options by forcing me to do something boring, pointless, or tedious it feels like an assault on my very soul.

Apparently this is from Richard II. I haven't read that one, but I may have to now; it's a pretty good quote. 

The Value of Time

I have been thinking about time recently. There are a few different things I want to cover, so I think I'll split this up into a few different posts.

One of the things that irritates me the most in life is people who intentionally waste other people's time. And I find that I get overly furious at people who intentionally waste my time. I know I don't have much going on in my life and, to all of you, it probably seems like all I do is waste time. Perhaps you're right, but here's the thing; our time is all we have. Time is life. When you use up time, you are literally using up a piece of your life. I don't really care if I have anything important to do or not, the last thing I want to do with my life is waste it on someone who places no value on it. If someone doesn't have respect for your time, then they really don't have respect for your life.

I know this probably sounds hypocritical coming from me, because anyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to be late....frequently. I know a lot of people don't understand this, but that in no way indicates that I don't care about other people's time, only that I severely mismanage my own. I don't actually get angry at people for being late, because I understand how that happens. It's the people who just don't care is they take forever to do things. The people who just never seem to be in a hurry, and who can clearly see that you are and just don't fucking care. I don't care how much time I have to spare, if I notice that I am holding someone else up, I move my fucking ass.

This ^ is from the movie In Time, which I thought was kind of eh, but was still worth watching because it was a fairly interesting concept. 

Tastes Like........ Molecules

People are always giving me a hard time about what I eat. To be fair, I do eat pretty weird things at least compared to the average person. Even above and beyond being vegan, I am extremely picky about my food but not the way other people are. While most people choose foods based on what they like or what they are in the mood for that day, I'm calculating the nutritional value of different foods and trying to fit as many nutrients into my meals as I can. I honestly don't care if I like a certain food or not, if it's healthy (and vegan, obviously) I'll learn to like it. In fact, most of the time, I don't even think about the actual taste of the food at all. I recognize it's nutritional value and like it, or don't like it, based on that.

So basically....

That's Okay No One Does

Tonight in my kickboxing class we (and by "we" I mean "I" since I was the only student there) learned how to block kicks. This was cool except for the fact that it meant being kicked in the shin, in almost the exact same spot, like eighty times (this was actually the goal, by the way. You block a kick by intentionally getting kicked in the shin. Sounds like a great idea, right?). Anyway, now I have this weird splotchy bruise covering the better part of my shin. Worth it! When I told my mother about this she said "I will never understand you." This is true.

Miracle?

I just finished watching Torchwood: Miracle Day. I think this was, quite possibly, the most original idea I have ever seen for a crisis. The basic idea was, for some reason people just stopped dying. No matter what happened, they just didn't die. They still got sick, still got injured, still got old, but just kept living. At first I thought "Well, that's not really a bad thing." but the more I thought about it, I realized that it is probably the worst thing that could possibly happen to our world.

The season pretty much covered all of the social, economic, religious, and political implications of people living forever, which were fairly frightening. To me though, the most horrifying aspect would be the thought of being trapped in a state of extreme illness or injury forever. I can't actually imagine anything worse than being so physically damaged that I should die and knowing that I never will.

I just thought it was kind of cool that in every other show the "Big Bad" is always something that kills people and Torchwood went "Yeah, but if nobody died that would be even worse." And they were right. Anyway, it was really good and you should watch it.

Plus, how can you not love Captain Jack?

 

Envious Cats

My cat Kaya has been living with me for quite a few years now, and he has always been what you might call a rather reserved cat. He's never been much for playing, or running, or cuddling, or showing any emotion at all besides annoyance (I swear I think he must be a distant relative of Grumpy Cat). However, since Impala moved in with us, I have begun to notice some odd changes in Kaya. He always seems to be watching Impala, studying his behavior, and he frequently gets a look of intrigue and jealousy on his face. As if he sees Impala enjoying himself and thinks "Why can't I do those things?"

I think I mentioned to you all a while back how Impala sometimes likes to attack his own tail while screaming at the top of his lungs? Well, shortly after Impala started doing this, I caught Kaya attack his own tail. He wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about it, and when he realized I had seen him he looked embarrassed and immediately stopped. He apparently decided this game was just not for him.

Impala also loves to have his belly rubbed, whereas Kaya has always seemed to find the idea of rolling onto his back highly degrading. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he decided to give it a try and it turns out that he really likes it. Now most of the time when I go to pet him, he rolls over and stretches out so I can get to his belly.

Here's the weirdest one though. Impala's favorite pastime is wrestling with my hand. He likes me to scratch his belly/neck/face and he will grab/bite/kick my hand (I know it's probably a really bad idea to let him do that, but it's just so fucking cute!) Anyway, Kaya hasn't done anything remotely like that since he was a kitten, and he didn't even really like it then. A couple of days ago, I reached out to pet Kaya and he suddenly flipped over, grabbed my hand and started rolling back and forth while kicking me with his back feet. It was the most physical activity I have seen him do in years.

He still isn't particularly fond of having his picture taken though. 

Some Weird Species of Morning Person

I feel like everything I try to do in my life depends upon a delicate balance between time and motivation. I wake up every morning with all these ideas about things I am going to do that day. I don't know why this happens. I've never thought of myself as a morning person, and I'm certainly not in a better mood in the mornings, that's just the only time that I feel like doing anything. The problem is, along with all the things I want to do, I also have certain things that I actually NEED to do in any given day and those things tend to have time constraints. Unfortunately, my motivation also seems to have time constraints. There is a point in the day where I suddenly realize that I have lost all will to accomplish anything, and whatever I manage to make myself do after that will be half-assed at best. So my entire life ends up being this strange game of trying to do as many non-crucial things as I can before I have to do the crucial things.

I was looking for images of obnoxious morning people, but I found this vaguely menacing yet somehow adorable moth instead. Enjoy. 

Fuck This Day, Repeatedly!

I honestly think there are some days when the Powers That Be, just try to see how angry I can actually be before I have an fucking aneurysm.

First of all, our internet was out last night and this morning. This is probably the most efficient way to send me into an intense rage. It takes about three seconds of a page not loading for me to be ready to throw my computer through a wall.

Then, I had to clean up cat vomit, because I seem to spend about half of my life cleaning up some sort of bodily excretions anymore.  

The best part though, was when I let the dogs outside and they immediately cornered a cat who had gotten inside the fence. Now, Riley Pug is about the least violent dog who ever lived, but Chuck is a fucking asshole, and my dad's dogs are complete murderous bastards who immediately started trying to tear the cat apart. So I had to literally grab them and throw them away from the cat then hold them off long enough for him to slip back through the fence. All the while they're lunging forward and growling at me for having the audacity to take away their new chew toy. Fucking assholes!

And to top it all off, while I was exercising my bracelet got caught on my earring and jerked it right out of my ear. It's okay though because it only bled a little bit. Though I did have to crawl around on the floor and look for the damn thing because it blended in with the carpet.

Basically what I'm saying is........  

Something In the Air

Do you every just get this weird antsy feeling for absolutely no reason? It's almost like something really important is about to happen. Then nothing happens. I get this every once in a while, but usually it doesn't last very long. This time I've been feeling this way for days and it's really staring to piss me off. The weird thing is though, it's not just me. Impala has been flipping the fuck out for the last three days. I mean, he's always pretty crazy but the last few days he has been absolutely insane. Like running laps around the house and viciously attacking the recliner insane. To be honest, I'm about ready to attack the recliner myself.

Also, sorry this post is so late. 

   

I Swear I Don't Have Leprosy

I spent the better part of the day today helping put up hay. To go off on a bit of a tangent for a second; I always wonder if that is a phrase that other people understand, or is it one of those backwoods WV things that the rest of the world has no idea what it means? In case it's the latter, "putting up hay" is walking around gathering up freshly baled hay and loading it into a truck, trailer, etc. Anyway, that's what I did today and, let me tell you, I am going to look fucking awesome tomorrow. 1-I ended up with a ridiculous sunburn. And 2- I found that the easiest way to lift the bales up higher is to sort of roll them up and push them with my forearms. Since I wasn't wearing sleeves, this eventually resulted in the entirety of my forearms being completely covered in tiny scratches. The scratches are so close together that you can't even tell that they are scratches, it just sort of look like my skin of rotting off.  

Kind of like this, but way less attractive. 

This Is Why I Don't Like Holidays

As you all probably already know, today was the 4th of July. Since I had no interest in this fact and no special plans, I had intended to go ahead and go to kickboxing class. No one had said anything to me about it being cancelled when I was there last week, and I didn't receive any emails to that effect. Still, I decided to check their website just to be sure. Their "daily class schedule" still listed classes all day. So, naturally, I got ready and drove clear the fuck to Morgantown. Guess what I found when I got there? The entire mall was locked up. So yeah, that was pretty damn annoying. Thanks, national holiday.

On the upside, it does give me a good excuse to post a gif of Dean and young Sam setting off fireworks. 

In Case You Never Hear From Me Again

I'm fairly certain my room is haunted. My light has been flickering for two days now. At first I thought the bulb was just loose, but I tried to tighten it and it wouldn't tighten. Then I thought maybe it was in the process of burning out but, like I said, this has been going on for to days now and it still hasn't burned out. So at this point, I'm thinking there are two remaining possibilities 1- My room is haunted. 2- There is some sort of serious electrical problem. Either way it's not looking good for me, you guys. Perhaps I should sleep with a bag of salt and a fire extinguisher just in case.

Why Do I Only Laugh at Things That Are Awful?

On a (somewhat) related note to my post from yesterday, the things I find to be funny frequently make me think that there is something seriously wrong with me. In general, I don't like "happy" things; they tend to annoy the shit out of me. Most things that the general population finds funny have absolutely no appeal to me. The only things I actually find myself laughing at are things that are; disturbing, depressing, incredibly stupid, incredibly inappropriate, just plain weird, or all of the above.

I laughed harder at this horrifying picture than I think I ever have at anything else in my life. 

Don't Judge Me

You know how, when you find something you really like, you automatically want to introduce other people to it? Like if you find a new favorite song, you want all of your friends and family to listen to it so they can love it as much as you do? Then do you ever suddenly become self-conscious and overly protective of said song as soon as you play it for someone else and realize they don' like it as much as you do?

I'm fairly certain I get a little too emotionally attached to my favorite forms of entertainment. All of my music, books, movies, TVs shows, whatever, mean more to me than they really should. Music especially has always been a very personal thing for me; I honestly find it difficult to answer the question "What kind of music do you like?" I mean, that's supposed to be one of those super easy conversation starter questions right? Not for me. I tend to say things like "Oh, a little bit of everything really." or "I like all kinds." because I can't bring myself to actually discuss what I really like in fear that the other person will give me a hard time about it and then I'll end up hating them.

When I do try to share my favorite things with other people, they tend to not understand at all. Then I start feeling like I have to either defend it in some way or pretend that I don't like it as much as I actually do, which feels like some sort of a betrayal. If someone goes so far as to insult something I like I have a very difficult time not getting disproportionately angry at them. I don't know if other people feel this way or not (if I had to guess, I would say not) but if you insult something I love you might as well be insulting the very core of my being.

I think Dean knows where I'm coming from here.