My New Favorite Mythical Being

My dad and I have been watching Beastmaster lately. We used to watch it back when I was a kid, and I liked it then, but I was pretty skeptical about whether or not I would like it now. I must admit, some of the acting is pretty bad, and most of the special effects are really bad, but the writing is good, the fight choreography is cool, and I really enjoy the overall theme of the show. It's very much about protecting animals and the planet, and living in harmony with nature. They have even (on multiple occasions) compared killing/enslaving animals with killing/enslaving humans, which I find pretty exciting.

Anyway, there is this one character, named Curupira, who is a demon responsible for protecting the forest and all the animals who live there. She basically loves animals and the forest and hates humans. She frequently kills people who come into the forest and kill the animals or disrupt the natural order. Here's the best part though; she's not a villain. She kills someone nearly every time she shows up, but everybody kind of just acts like "Well yeah, they shouldn't have fucked with her forest."

Well, after I saw her on the show, I had to look it up and she if there was a real legend about Curupira, or if the writers made her up. Turns out there is a real legend, though apparently the real Curupira is male, not female. Still, most of the basics of the story are the same and I love it!

You want to know the weird thing though? I took a short hiatus from reading Deadpool to read Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid, and guess who was mentioned? I don't know why that happens to me so often. I hear about some random thing I've never heard of before, and then it just keeps popping up all over the place.

You Know What? I Don't Even Want to Know This Time

Okay, so you guys know about my whole thing with all the weird recurring themes in my life that seem like they should mean something but I can never figure out what? Well here's one for you. What exactly is the symbolic significance of creatures with mouths where their eyes should be? Yeah. You know I mentioned a while back that I was reading The Sandman? Well, I just finished the second volume, The Dollhouse, and in it there is a character called The Corinthian. He basically just looks like a regular guy except for the fact that he has mouths where his eyes should be. Kind of creepy, right? You know what's even creepier? The fact that the night after I first read about the Corinthian, my dad and I watched an episode of Angel involving this weird slug-looking demon. You know what I didn't notice about this particular demon the first time I watched this episode? That it happens to have mouths for eyes. Holy fucking shit, Powers That Be! What are you doing to me with this shit?

Well...... Maybe I Am

Do you guys remember, a long time ago, I mentioned the idea of taking training to be a bounty hunter? I suddenly remembered that a couple of days ago and thought "Why didn't I do that?" Well, to be honest, the reason I didn't do it was because it sounds kind of stupid when you say it out loud (or type it). However, when you compare the prospect of becoming a bounty hunter to the prospect of continuing to work doing things that bore the fuck out of me and hating everything for the rest of my life, it doesn't sound quite as stupid anymore. At least I don't think it does. So yeah, I think I might really do it. I'm going to wait until spring because 1-The closest place to do it is in New York and I don't want to pay for it and then not be able to get there because of bad weather or whatever. 2- Maybe I will come up with a better idea, but I doubt it. I think if I was going to come up with a better idea, I would have by now. Anyway, I think maybe for tomorrow I will make list of all the reasons this isn't as ridiculous as it sounds.

Just.....Weird

I have pretty much been bitching about everything for the last several posts, and I'm certain you are all getting sick of it, so I am going to TRY to lay off that for a little while. Instead, today I am going to share with you this weird experience I had. Someone pinned the picture below \/ on Pinterest the other day. I know it's the most random picture and I'm not ever sure why he pinned it but, when I saw it, it looked so familiar. Like gave me cold chills, and intense deja vu, familiar. I have no idea why. I left it open in a tab for four or five days and just kept looking at it every once in a while hoping that eventually I would figure out what it was about it that made me feel like I had seen it before. I never did figure it out, and it still makes me feel strange when I look at it. I mean it's a picture of a store that I have never shopped at, according to the pin it's from 1960, and based on the palm tree it's nowhere near where I live. So what the fuck do I recognize about this picture? Oh well.

Laziness?

I feel like everyone around me probably thinks that I am this lazy useless piece of shit. I think I mentioned before that I have been doing some work on these rental houses in Fairmont? Well, right now, I'm supposed to be removing a wallpaper border and then painting in some of the rooms. I have been going over and working on it for two or three hours a day, instead of just working a few full days and getting it done. I know that would be the logical thing to do, but here's the thing; I just can't make myself do that. I can think "Okay, I am going to go peel wallpaper off the wall for a couple hours." I can't think "I'm going to get up super early and then spend my entire day scratching at a wall." This is causing the job to take forever, and I know I should just hurry up and get it done, but I can't. I don't know how to explain myself to people, because I know how that sounds. It sounds like I'm just being lazy and irresponsible. I can work. I can work hard, I don't mind that. I actually like hard work, but I want it to mean something. I just have some much meaningless shit in my life that I can't handle anymore and, I'm sorry, I just can't find meaning in scraping wallpaper. I have gotten to the point where the thought of spending an entire day doing one more thing that I don't want to do makes me feel like I'm going to spontaneously combust (Is it still called that if you see it coming? I guess that wouldn't be very spontaneous.). I just feel like I already spend all of my time trying to pretend that I don't hate everything as much as I do. Fucking hell! Why does it have to be so hard to find any kind of work that doesn't feel like meaningless bullshit?

Quest

I find myself much more capable of dealing with my bullshit life when I feel like I have something to look forward to. In fact, if I don't have something to look forward to, I pretty much just turn into a giant fuming ball of red-hot rage. Unfortunately, I just haven't been able to find much of anything worthwhile in my possible future lately. So I've decided to just make a plan and pretend like it's going to happen even though it, almost certainly, won't.

I mentioned before that, some day, I really want to do a Sam and Dean style roadtrip to various haunted places around the country. Well, now I've started reading American Gods and they're on a roadtrip too, because apparently roadside attractions are the holy places of America. If you read the book it actually kind of makes sense, seriously I swear. So now I thinking "I have to do this!"

I have also mentioned that, partly because I never think I will have enough money to buy (or even rent) a house of my own, I want to buy a camper to live in. So, here's my new plan. Find a way to save up enough money to buy a camper (and a car to pull it with) and then go on a quest to see all of the haunted and/or holy places in America.

Who's in? 

Seeing the Patterns

I have a compulsive need to find patterns in things; to find some sort of meaning in the chaos. This sort of ties into my other post about empathy and trying to understand people's behavior, but it goes further than that. I look for patterns in everything, not just people's behaviors.

Now that the CD player in my car is broken and I have to listen to the radio (grrrrrr), I sometimes notice that two or three consecutive songs will have common themes or very similar lines, and I wonder what that means. Then I realize that it's just a fucking radio and it doesn't mean anything. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm supposed to get something from it. I think I have mentioned before how I tend to have the same ideas, or images pop up in my life over and over again. I'm sure it's just that, once I've noticed it once, I'm more likely to notice it again. But it doesn't feel like that. It feels like it should mean something.

That's one reason I get so invested in different TV shows. The patterns (usually) actually do mean something. I get such a thrill from searching for the meaning in mundane events and trying to predict what they are going to bring about. Often times though, I end up reading into things even more than the writers intended. Then I get disappointed when no one acknowledges the fact that three seasons ago someone said something that relates to that thing that other person mentioned this season. Battlestar Galactica has been both perfect and terrible for this purpose because they make it seem like everything is significant but never actually explain why. The whole time we've been watching it I have been analyzing everything and predicting what those things are going to mean. We are now into season four and I have still received absolutely no confirmation whatsoever.

You have no idea how much time I have spent thinking about why they used All Along the Watchtower. I have read over the lyrics about a hundred times and come up with some sort of relevance for every one of them. I would be willing to bet that it doesn't mean even half of what I think it does. 

It Looks Like the Powers Have a Sense of Humor

So, yesterday, I broke out the old Tarot cards for the first time in over a year. I decided to be really serious about it this time (don't you laugh at me), so I went outside and sat under my favorite tree and really focused on being open to any suggestions the Divine Powers might have for me. By the way, I have taken to referring to them as the "Divine Powers" when I'm being sincere and the "Powers that Be" when I'm being sarcastic. Anyway, I ended up with a layout that, while still not especially helpful, did seem somehow intentional and more than a little snooty.

The first position in the layout is called "what covers you" and it is supposedly the issue you're facing. My card was the king of wands. I started reading about him and realized that he was basically....well....me. Last time I tried to do my cards, I was trying to choose a card to represent me, which is something you are supposed to do before you start your reading. I finally just gave up on that because none of the queens really seemed that much like me. So the Divine Powers were like "You see, here's your problem. You're basically a guy." The next position is "what crosses you" which is either an obstacle or a benefit, depending on the context. My card was the ace of pentacles, which is all about money. I think that one is pretty self-explanatory. The next card "crowns you" and is all about the way you think about your situation. My card was the king of swords and his whole deal is about making people follow the rules. So, to me, this refers to my distaste for rules and my desire to live outside of conventional society. The next card is "at your feet" and indicates everything I have done that has led me to my current situation. It was the queen of swords who is all about following the rules. I interpreted this as meaning that I have been letting other people influence me and my decisions for too long. Next is the "near future". I got the knight of swords. He is this charismatic, dare-devil type. The way I saw it, this could either be someone who will come into my life, or someone I could become. Either way, I'll take it. Then came the "near past" which was the page of swords. This one talked about a kid with a dysfunctional family life who never felt that he/she had a real home. Seemed fairly accurate. Next is the "most important aspect". I got the ten of swords which is about pain and despair. I found that one pretty self-explanatory as well. Her comes the kind of funny part. The next position is called the "world to you". Guess which card I got? The world. I kind of feel like someone was getting sick of giving me insight and was just like "You want me to tell you what the world to you is? Really? It's the fucking world!" After that was "hope and fear". My card was the hermit, which was also funny because it was actually both my hope and my fear depending on whether I looked at it literally or symbolically. Literally, yeah I'm pretty fucking terrified that I will end up being a hermit for the rest of my life. But when you read the description of the card it actually represents the light at the end of the tunnel. The last card is the "out-come" and is supposed to be the answer to the question at hand. Mine was the ace of wands, which talks of new beginnings, fresh starts, and positive changes. I'll fucking take it!

By the way, yes I do realize that I obviously didn't shuffle well enough. Hence the king, queen, knight, page and ten of swords all in a row. That doesn't make them any less accurate though. So there.

These are my cards. Aren't they pretty? 

What More Can a Girl Ask for?

As I've said about a million times (sorry about that, by the way.) what I really want out of a job is purpose. I want to be able to say that my job means something. However, considering the fact that it may be entirely delusional to think that I could find such a job, I've given a lot of thought to what kinds if things I'm looking for in a regular, just for the money, job. I've come up with;
1-I want something physical to do. I can't handle just sitting around all day.
2-I want to be able to take time off if I want it.
3- I want to be able to work evenings so that I don't have to get up at 3am just to get ready.
4- I don't want to have to have a separate wardrobe to wear to work.
5- I want to stay busy.
6- I want to have enough free-time to do the things I actually care about.
7- I want to do something I'm good at.
8- I want to be able to feel, at least, okay about what I do.
9- I don't want to have to deal with animal products.
10- I want to be able to make enough money to get by.

Then I realize that, except for that last one. I pretty much have all of that at Goodwill. And then I think ......

Ripped Apart

I feel as if I am constantly trying to rip myself apart. Every aspect of my being is eternally pulling, shoving, fighting, against all of the others. How can these different facets all exist within the same person, especially when they hate each other so? I have the mind of an artist; striving for creation, for expression. I have the soul of a monk; longing for fulfillment, for meaning. And I have the heart of a warrior, searching for challenge, for victory. These people, these archetypal concepts, that dwell within my consciousness are in a never-ending battle for dominance, for control over my life, my choices. My mind tries to create things of beauty, but my soul asks "what worth is there in beauty?" and my heart bellows "where is the adrenaline rush?" My soul dreams of building a better world, but my mind  cries "I will wither away!" and my heart demands "I must have an enemy to conquer!" My heart tries to make me strong and fearless, but my mind asks "what will that leave behind when you are gone?" and my soul asks "what impact will that make on the world?" I don't know how to please them all and I fear that to satisfy one is to sentence the others to death.

I realized today that it had been quite a long time since I posted any disturbing poetry. This one is a work in progress. 

Is There a Company Somewhere That Hires People to Go Around Kicking the Shit Out of Factory Farmers?

I could be wrong here, but don't most people have a dream job? Doesn't almost every person on the planet have a job that they want to do, even if it's completely unrealistic? I truly don't know what I would do, even if I could choose any job in the world. I have given this a lot of thought because, if I could find it, I would do ANYTHING to get it, but it just doesn't exists. I want to do something truly meaningful, that will allow me to help animals (and maybe people) but that is also exciting. When I say exciting, I really mean life-threatening. I want a job where, at the end of the day, my soul is fulfilled and my heart is pounding.