Thursday, January 24, 2013

In Case of Possession, Do Not Break Glass


I’ve been contemplating an episode of Lost Girl because it’s just that kind of show. If you are not aware of it, what you need to know is that there is a succubus and crime fighting. Obviously, there is a lot to think about here, but what I was specifically mulling is a recent episode (SA!) where somebody had something evil invade their body and promptly asked to be killed, so that the evil would die with them. If it seems like I’m making fun, I’m not. It’s awesome.
However it did raise the question, why do people always ask their friends to kill them just because they’re a teensy bit possessed? When I hear anything along the lines of, “You’re going to have to kill me, it’s the only way,” I think, Really? Is it the only way? Was I not paying attention to the part where every other possibility was exhausted? Yeah, it may be sensible as a last resort, but there’s no reason for, “Oh shit. I just realized there’s evil inside me! Somebody kill me now.” Once in a while I’d like to see something along the lines of, “Oh shit. There’s evil inside me. Get it the fuck out!” Or perhaps, “Please restrain me temporarily while we consider our options.
I guess if you put some deep thought into it, you could come up with a metaphor for the evil in humanity, or in the world, and how there has to be self sacrifice in order to finally rid ourselves of said evil, and ok, that wasn’t that deep, but it is a metaphor. But screw metaphors, because I really just want to think about this on a knee-jerk, surface, kind of level. And on that level, it’s ridiculous. Because what if the evil is something with which our hero (or throwaway character) could coexist? Because some bad shit is really bad, but some bad shit you can kind of live with. And I think that needs to be discussed before anyone jumps to please kill me.
If it was me with the evil inside, I’d certainly take a moment to think it through. I’d want to know, is the evil really awful or is it just mildly annoying? Is it the kind of evil that does things like put the juice carton back in the fridge with one sip left, a sip it purposely didn’t drink so the carton would technically not be empty because the trash is full and the evil didn’t want to start a horrible chain reaction that would lead to the evil having to take the trash out right now? In that case, I’d have to sympathize with the evil because I do that anyway. I’d have to say to the world, “Sorry, live with it. I have many other fine qualities in spite of being currently full of evil.”
                And on a more practical note, if the thing inside me was so evil and so strong that the best option was asking a friend to skewer, behead, or shoot me in order to get rid of it, then wouldn’t it be able to overpower and prevent me from raising the alarm in the first place?  And if I did get the initial warning out because I managed to catch it by surprise as it was settling in, wouldn’t it simply counter with a casual, “You know what? I’m fine. False alarm. The evil is totally under control. In fact, I think the evil actually left. Anybody want to grab some breakfast? I think I saw some tasty orphans running around outside.”
However, if the evil was so easy to override that I could speak up to request a preventative killing in spite of the fact that the evil has gone to a lot of trouble to take me over by climbing either down my throat or up my whatever, then I could probably keep it in check until someone could work out a less drastic cure. And I would definitely want the chance. To keep it in check, that is. Because having a friend kill you is pretty final. And hard on the friend. One would assume. Of course, in a world with succubi, werewolves, and possessing fae, it is possible that death wouldn’t be completely final. But it might be. Especially for the mortal.
Of course, if I’m ever possessed by Cathrynn Brown I’ll have to reconsider.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

And Not Just For the Porn


Last week, I fell in love with the internet. It was a long time coming, I know, and that may have something to do with the fact that I’m technologically challenged, and have until recently only used the internet to shop and email. Now, I know this is all stuff everyone else thought about like ten years ago, or whenever the internet, you know, started, but for me these thoughts are shiny and new. Come aboard.
I never really thought about the internet before I started the blog. Well, before I started looking at the stats, really. It was just there, magically bringing me Amazon and pictures of puppies that aren’t mine. I’m horrible at making significant connections with humans on a day to day basis, I feel forever awkward and disconnected, and I have, let’s call them reservations, about saying what I really think in front of anyone whom I haven’t known for at least twenty-five years. (Except for when I’m drunk, because alcohol is as magical as the internet but in a very different way.) That’s why I think it’s amazing that when I write something here, there are people in Poland who will read it. And who sometimes say something back. And since it’s a blog, my blog, about what’s in my head (hence the clever title) it’s something very specific but yet not so specific that no one else gets it.
I know there are people who can’t walk in to a room without making a friend; I am not one of those people. And I don’t know for sure that I have nothing in common with the people I meet in the flesh, but it’s so exhausting trying to figure that out. Not to mention the stress that’s followed by the drinking, and then I’m comfortable, but the results are not necessarily positive. This is better. This is something not based on proximity or a blood relationship. And this is not about not liking my family, I like most of them. But I also don’t have much in common with most of them.
So that’s what it is, this magic of the internet. I look at my stats and see that people have read my blog in Canada, France, Sweden, South Korea, Italy, and Germany, and more. Hi, Denmark. I’ve never been to any of these places, but somewhere out there are people who understand why it’s incredibly fucked up to stand too close to strangers, and who might get excited (in a good way) by a SWAT team outside their door. It’s fucking amazing. To me. Excuse me while I catch up with the world.
That’s why I’m in love with the internet. Not really because of what I’m putting out, although I find it’s easier to say stuff when you don’t know who you’re saying it to, but because of what I’m getting back. I almost didn’t post In Defense of My Mess, because I was pretty sure I would be judged, and harshly. But it turns out lots of other people are messy too, which is awesome; as are they. Which is why, I’m kind of in love with them too and maybe with you as well, out there reading. Or maybe I’m just in love with the idea of us. And yeah, some of these commonalities don’t matter much, but they matter more than proximity.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

At Least They Didn't Stone Me


           That was a spoiler, I know, but I needed a little reassurance. Today I finally, after a month, got up the nerve to go down to this local bookstore to see if they want to carry my book, because it’s a book and they’re a bookstore and it all seems very fitting. And ok it wasn’t a month, it was months, many of them, because it takes a while to work up the nerve to go someplace where they’re going to laugh at you and throw rocks. Yeah I know that’s an unlikely scenario, but it’s not an impossible one.
           But I’ve been putting this off and off, and I have decided today is the day. I take a shower and I put on the new perfume I got for Christmas. I’m wearing my best bra and my lucky, Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die, tee shirt so now I smell good, look adorable, and feel only mildly nauseous. I manage to get myself down there with my promo postcards, and a copy of my book for their consideration. I end up parking right in front of the store, which is not ideal because someone might see that my car really needs a wash, and decide they don’t want to carry my book based on my automotive sloth, but there’s no place else because it’s busy downtown. And of course, I park poorly because I’m nervous.
           No one throws rocks at me. No one laughs. They are closed for inventory. For four days. Maybe it’s a sign. A sign that everything is topsy turvey and vice versa. That my lucky, Hello my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die, shirt is not lucky at all. It may even be unlucky. I wish I had a better idea about the shirt, but it’s new and it hasn’t done anything really spectacular for me yet. I can say I've never been exsanguinated while wearing it, but that’s true of all my shirts.
           It’s hard to tell if this is a sign, or if it’s just something that happened. It’s probably just something that happened, because I usually don’t believe in signs. But there are times when I want to, times when it seems so obvious and reasonable that when a door that should have been open is not, it’s because that door is not meant to be gone through; ever. I resist, because I know if I start officially believing in signs I’ll be three steps away from becoming young William Shatner stuck in a diner with narration by Rod Serling.
           The problem is this seems a little bit like a sign. Plus there was an actual sign. On the door. Which seems like a sign that this is a sign. Although the sign (on the door) did say when they would be open again, so maybe that’s the real sign. That I should go back. The metaphysical sign, not the paper sign, which it indisputably is. If you don’t think this paragraph makes sense, just skip it.
           If it is a sign it seems like a bad one, but I can’t know for sure. Maybe if the store had been open a conniving employee would have thrown rocks at me, taken my book while I was crying, and kept it for his own nefarious purposes, never passing it along to the owner. So maybe it was an amazing cosmic intervention, saving me from the mean employee so that my delicate spirit remains unbroken, that I may someday venture out once again to the bookstore. But it’s hard to say. I do think that if the universe is going to go to that much trouble on behalf of my delicate spirit, it might find it easier to just have the mean bookstore guy step in front of a bus. Or see the error of his ways. (Now that I’ve written that I can see it's probably easier for the universe to have me drive to the bookstore an extra time than to completely transform or kill an imaginary someone.)
I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I’m referring to the lack of stoning. But by now, I was supposed to know how it turned out. I was really hoping to secure a, “Yes, please!” or a “Fuck you. Bitch.” (I don’t know why imaginary mean guy had to call me a bitch, I was already leaving.) But no. Inventory is my undoing. Curse you thieves! And people who can’t subtract! (I believe those are the two main causes of taking inventory.)
           In a few months, I’m going to have to do it all over again. Unless I take this as a sign. 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Grab-Ass With the Homies or How Mom-Speak Ruins Everything

    Sometimes (read usually) when we are hanging out and there is alcohol involved (read usually) my sister and I regress to the age of seven. We stick our tongues out at each other, throw food, and run around like maniacs smacking each other on the ass. There are also tickle fights and sometimes wet willies.
                My nephew is our minion. Each of us tempts him to harass the other. Of course since he’s three he’s always more on his mother’s side, but just you wait Henry Higgins until he turns into a teenager. You’ll be sorry. Of course by then I’m sure he’d rather be flayed than tickle his mother, but whatever.
                Our mother, when she’s there, is usually the odd one out, not because we purposely exclude her, but because she doesn’t know how to play. Also, the grown up is strong in that one, so she’s always somewhat appalled by the antics which is not the way to be. And she’s sober, which is really not the way to be. But mostly it’s because she doesn’t know how to play.
                At our second Christmas this year (because not everybody we love can be in the same house at the same time because that would be Against Christmas) my sister and I were drinking and smacking asses and having as jolly a time as you can have smacking asses outside of a locker room without it being weird, when our mother said, “You never let me play with your bottoms. I want to play with your bottoms.”
                Awkwardness immediately ensued, and of course we stopped because it was ruined.
                Words matter. They can hurt. And more importantly they can cause uncomfortable mental images of your mother playing with your bottom. Which I guess is its own special kind of hurt. For the proverbial record, I know she didn’t mean it in the horrifying-bad-touch-creepy way it came out. She just wanted to join in the madcap moment. But it’s like a guy who you wanted to kiss you asking if he can. It kind of destroys the moment. Even if he doesn’t actually say he wants to play with your bottom. Although of course he does.
                The moral of the story (as if you needed one) is if you see an ass that needs smacking just do it. No discussion needed. 

Sunday, January 6, 2013

In Defense of My Mess


I don’t clean. Not literally, but certainly in spirit. And I probably come as close as one can to literally not cleaning while still avoiding the evil eye of the health department.  
On the table beside me are roughly twenty books stacked four or five high. Some of the stacks are askew and everything else is piled on the books or clinging to the edge of the table. Everything else includes but is not limited to, the ear buds for my phone, my election booklet (still trying to figure out if I did the right thing, but only through osmosis), three remote controls, some pens, a chip clip, a folder of cd’s which I still use because I am technologically challenged, a folder of papers, a composition book, the price tag from the last bra I bought, a pet dental pamphlet partially chewed by a wayward pet who was either trying to destroy the pamphlet so I couldn’t make the appointment, or trying to prove that his teeth are healthy and capable so I wouldn't make the appointment.
It’s not that I hate cleanliness. That would be weird. It’s just that I have better things to do than waste a day (or more) cleaning. Because I have trouble just giving a quick tidy to the kitchen sink. It starts with wiping down the kitchen sink and then twelve hours later I’m on my hands and knees, wedged between the toilet and the tub trying to scrub the grout with a sponge that is falling to bits because it’s also having a really bad day. (Yes the sponge. In theory I have more, but in practice I fall short. Don’t worry, it always starts on the dishes and ends with the toilet.) The whole time I’m desperately trying to talk myself into stopping. Phrases like, You’ve done enough, Who cares? This is stupid, and The cleaning chemicals are eating your hand skin, inundate my thoughts. But the rebuttals are just as prevalent. Stop crying. You don’t clean enough. Other people clean practically every month. You’re almost done. All you have left to do is polish all the power cords and dust the books. And maybe scrape all the melted wax off the candle holders; that seems pretty necessary. I said, STOP CRYING.
When I finally finish I get to shower, and it has to be a long shower because I’m so grimy, but that's ok because it feels great. Until I get out of the shower and find that there’s something I missed or something I forgot. I’m clean now, I just got out of the damn shower and I don’t want to touch more grime, but almost everything is spotless, and I'm so close to perfection that I can’t leave one random dirty thing, which means I do have to touch more grime and my shower is ruined and now everything is horrible again. Also, once everything is clean, I don’t really enjoy the cleanliness. The first five minutes are nice, but then I get caught up in the torment of not wanting to touch anything or use anything because it was such a nightmare to get it this way. When I’m in this state I totally understand why they used to put plastic on the furniture and leave the pets outside. Sorry pets, and don't worry, I'll never be that person, I just understand.
The last time I cleaned everything it took me an entire week. I mean, I pried myself away to go to work, but every day before and after I cleaned, and I still had to spend my whole day off finishing. I did this because I was expecting company. Who was here for fifteen minutes tops. It would have been worth it, it was for my first interview ever about the book, and I didn’t want the reporter to be so appalled by the mess that she decided the real story was, “Crazy Woman Lives in Pigsty, Claims to be Author.” I don’t know why I was so convinced she was going to want to Woodward and Bernstein me, but I was. And if she wasn't trying to expose me for something dire surely she'd want to do a ten page spread of my entire apartment. Of course, it was option none of the above. She never saw anything but the living room, and I cleaned everything else for no good reason.
It’s not as bad as it sounds. I do dishes all the time. I don’t keep food that’s growing new parts, and if I do, it’s quarantined in the back of the fridge until I have time to walk it out to the dumpster. I clean the toilet regularly. True, I have to set myself up by flinging comet all over it so that the next time I’m there I have to clean it in order to pee, but so what. Not wanting harsh chemicals on my ass is valid motivation. But I try not to bother with the non-essentials. I haven’t made a bed since the last time my mother made me, and I was caught in an avalanche of books just this morning. And now I’m kind of hoping that someday, that’s how I’ll die.