June 29th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
(Rants)
I must stop thinking about how much I would like to imprison my neighbors in a pit of their own filth. It stormed last night and afterward Eloric and I went for a walk, wandering around town, exclaiming to each other about how lovely it smelled outside after the rain. And it did smell nice- in some places like pine, in some places like fresh flowers, in some places like rich earth. Then we got to our yard- it reeked like wet dog and excrement, like an open cesspit stuffed with offal and dead dogs. Never mind that we don’t own a dog and don’t crap in our own yard. Our wonderful neighbors, the ones I’ve fumed about before, are still not cleaning their dogs’ kennels, leaving them to plod around in a small confined area filled with at least three inches of their own filth on the ground. And it smelled that way over 75 yards away on the other side of our house.
Why these people are allowed to live, I do not know. Why they were allowed to breed and keep their children, I am unsure. But they have 5 dogs, all penned up, living in a soup of their own urine and feces. There is NO EXCUSE for them to do this to their innocent pets. One of their dogs died from living in the fetid stew and Animal Control came out to remove it. They did not cite the owners for inhumane living conditions- they just looped the noose around the dead thing’s neck and dragged it out of the pit. I suppose the officer used the noose because he did not want to touch the filth. I have also called Animal Control since then, since our county has no Humane Society, because it is absolutely disgusting, what they make those animals live in, but no dice. I guess I’m just up in other people’s business where I oughtn’t to be. /sarcasm
I hope my neighbors get all of the karma coming to them for this. I am so disgusted with them. I don’t have the words. oigho’ier8ierujnvgbkjndiuhdvjnvnkm!
June 27th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
(Artistic, Fannish, News, Rants, Wild Foods and Medicines)
I’m still e-mailing affiliates from my fanlistings. I think some of them may have bounced because I was e-mailing members, then affiliates and apparently my host has a cap on how many e-mails you can send out per hour. No way of telling which ones bounced and which ones did not… I guess that will happen when links to my fanlists stop appearing on other sites, eh? It is so tiring because now I’m down to the ones that I had put in manually and quite a few owners don’t list their e-mails on their listings. *grrr*
A media promotions company/person contacted me on Friday about my David Gray fanlist, inquiring if I would help her pimp the movie The Peaceful Warrior, since Dave has a cut on the soundtrack. If I would, I’d get a copy of the soundtrack in CD form. So I thought about it for awhile and decided it wouldn’t be selling out too badly as the soundtrack does have Dave on it, as opposed to having nothing to do with him at all. And it’s a single I don’t yet have, not to mention the collectable value because of where it came from. So I decided- what the hell- I’ll do it. I have a page to code for it and a little graphic to put up- not too bad. $19 for maybe 1/2 an hour’s work.
This is the second time I’ve been contacted by er… entities… with an interest in my work. The first time was by Photoshop Creative Magazine, who were interested in using some of my brushes at Aquired Taste. Which I also agreed to, since I’m such an attention whore. *L* So there’s a CD out there with 5 sets of my brushes on it. That, incidently, was the FAME I was speaking about about 4 weeks ago. I had forgot to update that. My bad.
And in P3Rv news- This is totally unfair. Boobies aren’t supposed to spontaneously go up a cup size after one’s early twenties if she is not *coughhackrnnnggg* and hasn’t had any saline implanted without her knowledge. Yes, I know it is the Alesse but I was my former size for nearly 15 years and now my body pulls this, this, this horrible prank on me. I figured it out yesterday when I went bra shopping. I thought I had gone up a band size but no- I am sporting fscking fleshy air bags! It never did this before I went vegetarian- they stayed the same. Do you know how hard it is to find *here you are perverts* 36DD brassires offline, ones that don’t fscking bankrupt a person? Bloody hard! *rantfumepokewithforkowthathurtsdamnyoubreasts*
Other than that, I made some golden yarrow flower essence yesterday and it turned out quite good. Like other yarrow essences, it does remove the influences of others’ energies, clear the personal energy, and balance it. It also seems to strengthen the solar plexus and lift the mood. Pretty good for flowers from my parents’ yard, a $1.50 bottle of welsh spring water, a dash of brandy, and some sunshine. Heheh.
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:34 pm
(Witches Weekly)
If you were given the opportunity to talk about witchcraft and paganism to the local community via television, what would you want to say? What sort of topics would you feel were important to pinpoint to non-pagans?
Since I’m already discriminated more than I like by being Pagan and thrust into the public eye, I think I would have to give that oppertunity a pass. People hereabouts are VERY bigoted against non-Christians of any stripe but particularly Pagans. I have absolutely no desire to subject myself to that sort of treatment if I can help it. And it’s not cowardice, it’s being sensible. There are few who would be willing to shoot themselves in the face twice who aren’t in the least bit suicidal.
Reality aside, if we were talking about a theoretical local community and not my own, I would start out with a simple explaination of Paganism and magick and then go right on to the tolerance teachings. I would then do something like a basic history of Paganism, traditions/paths of the religion and its practice in the modern world. I would debunk stupid myths perpetuated by Hollywood in the past few years and try to tackle superstition.
I would try to draw connexions between prayer and magick, church services and pagan ritual, the carrying of crosses and medals to the carrying of talismans and pentagrams and so-forth. There are a lot of similarities if people would be willing to see them.
However, having seen what I’ve seen- I’m pessimistic. To speak out in such a way is to invite such negativity into one’s life… and if there’s anything I’ve learned since being outted some 8 years ago, it’s to pick my fights. This is a fight I do not choose to fight as it very well could screw up my life. Perhaps if I lived in a larger community. But it’s not something I’d choose to do here and now.
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:43 pm
(Nature, News, Thoughts)
I am physically ill.
We had a tornadic storm with 80+ mph winds about half an hour ago and it broke off half of my parents’ 250+ year old maple tree, my favorite local tree but at least it didn’t hit their house. I love that tree and now it may die. It also knocked out a large limb of one of my neighbor’s tree. Right now, I’m pretty sure everyone is OK.
Some of the cats went into the basement but others couldn’t be bothered to reassure me that they were going to be safe. Thurien flat out refused to stay down there and tore back up the stairs… not that I blame him- our basement is more of an unfinished root cellar than basement.
It may sound silly but I’m sick with pain for the trees. I’m relieved that our property is OK but the trees- you can’t replace those, not if you’re not filthy rich.
I’m going to go cry more now and try to convince my parents to tar the wound on their tree and try to save it.
June 20th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
(News, Thoughts, Writing)
OK.
Everything is as back to normal as it usually gets for me. Mostly. The ankle that I tore open on the stone before the cottage isn’t as throbbingly painful; thanks to Birgit, all of my fanlistings have been restored after my idiot DB mistake; everything’s going relatively well.
I must get things cleared up with the old host but other than that, I think I’m good to go. Yay!
And I’ve managed to start writing prose again, after a 4 month hiatus. On paper. The only time I go digital is during NaNoWriMo or when the nature of the writing seems to call for it. I haven’t managed much yet but I’m just glad to be writing again. I feel… desiccated without it, as if some vital elixir has been leeched from me if I go long without writing. Which also reminds me: I need to start thinking about my NaNo subject for this year. Hmnnnmm… Perhaps Eloric will allow me to write of this year’s D&D campaign. Then again, I may just wing it. Blar. I have to start thinking NOW. Maybe I’ll finish this year’s.
June 18th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
(Fannish, Rants)
I’ve been giving myself carpal tunnel, trying to get all of my fanlists moved as efficiently as possible. I’d run into some problems yesterday as my new host does things just a bit differently than my old host, so there was nekkid bondage man arse all over the place until I figured out that some of my settings didn’t transfer over quite like I thought they should have. Lots of people got to see nekkid bondage arse- I use it to scare away all of the little gits who direct-link to my fanlists. It is not pretty bare S&M bottom, either- which is the entire point of it being my d-l graphic. Which reminds me… I need to update the text on that.
I’m in the process of mailing all of the members and affiliates, which I’m doing bit by bit as I don’t want to be done to death as a spammer. The painful thing about this is that some of my affiliates have moved and I didn’t get a notice- because while I admit I’m slow to change the affies, I do change them. Just not speedily. I had a bit of a lag there while I was on all of those painkillers for the dental horrors, so some of the fault is undoubtedly mine BUT- why can’t people put their danged e-mail addresses on their fan-lists or their collectives so I can make sure I have the right one? I know I need to go through and make sure mine is all over my fanlists. But Geez. I’ve had more- that is not my list-s and WTFs this move than with the last one. I am dreading manually mailing all of the affies of the Coffee House listing as I know I won’t be able to find all of the addresses. Then I’ll get more WTF e-mails. And we’ll agree not to talk about updating all of my joined listings. *faint*
And the move seems to have messed up some of the categories from Member to Affiliate and vice-versa. This is getting maddening.
And, for some reason, the blessed nameservers aren’t changing for aquired-taste, though I’ve updated the confounded things- as instructed. I’m getting vexed.
In other news- I tried making Adais the other day and botched it up. They say you can grind the pre-soaked dals and rice in a blender. I think that is a lie. This is starting to discourage me as I *really* want to make dosais. Maybe I’ll try it again with a recipe that says you should soak the dals and rice overnight. I think those might grind up better. I know it was supposed to be a coarse batter but maybe my idea of coarse and the book’s idea of coarse are two entirely different things.
And Eloric and I broke down and got seasons 1-4 of Coupling. We always laughed so hard whenever we caught it on BBC America, so it was a good investment.
June 12th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
(News)
Back from the trip. It was a blast.
I was a bit disappointed that they have renovated the coffee house. It is looking more in line with a Starbucks (not that there’s too much wrong with Starbucks) instead of an eclectic coffee house that has its own personality. They took down the chalkboard that used to have the drink descriptions on it in 4 shades of chalk and replaced it with a platstiboard… thing. I was so shocked, I actually asked the girl behind the counter when they did it as I hadn’t been there in a year. Turns out that they only did it a month ago but still. The place has lost a lot of its charm and character with this er… upgrade. Coffee’s still good… atmosphere… declining rapidly. Soon they’ll get rid of the thrift-store chic tables and chairs and fix the holes in the floor.
I bought 16 pounds of assorted dals at the Asian Market. *L* Well, you can’t get them here that I know of and I need a cart load of urad dal for all of the recipies I want to try in Lord Krishna’s Cuisine. I could get them online but why pay shipping when you’re right there? I got my spices but totally forgot the chickpea flour, the besan. Man. I needed that too and I even put my hand on a bag of it, thinking that I’d get a bag or two just in case but then decided that I just must be recalling a recipe that hit me as good but that I couldn’t have. But I got the Ting Ting Jahe candy I’ve been wanting since I ran out from our trip to VA Beach. The damage? $35.00. That’s why I love shopping at asian markets.
The herb store was great as per usual. The only think I really have to say about it was that I picked up some wild lettuce in case I should ever have a horrid flare again.
The thing that saddened me was that they finally knocked down the historic hotel in town and that the used book store seems to have gone out of business. I kept looking for the hotel but all I could see was a barren piece of land and I couldn’t get it into my head that it was truly gone. The windows of the book store were all papered up like it was closed and the closed sign was up. The only other thing I can think of was that they could have been redoing the interior but I don’t find it likely.
My birthday was great. Eloric got me some pretty turquoise underthings *RAWR!* and we went out for a lot of coffee.
Now that I’m back, I have that wand I mentioned on 43Things to make and that’s about it.
June 8th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
(News)
I’m thinking about getting a new domain name. Everything’s still up in the air at this moment. On the one hand, it will be a pain, moving all of the fanlists and whatnot but on the other hand *eg* it might solve a particular problem I’ve run into recently. We’ll see. Either way, I think it is time for a change. I’ve had rasaofleaves.org for about two years and I think I’ve grown since then.
Here are a few ideas:
- notquitezen
- evergreening
- greenzen
- unzen
- word-forest
- arhada
I’m not sure what I’ll do. On the one hand, I like the zen ones but then I’d kick myself if I abandoned trees. Decisions, decisions.
I’m going on a bit of a vacation for a couple of days- My birthday is this weekend. I’m going to the city of my alma mater. It is good that I can go there now and not worry about running into some uncomfortable situations as would have happened last year. Oh wait- last year was the worst of all. I’m thinking about my anniversary vacation. Anyway, it will be nice not to have to put up a facade and worry about fallout later. *eg* But gods know that the situations are being perpetuated long-distance. I am quite looking forward to it: the herb shop, the coffee house, the book stores, the asian market, the mall. I even get to stay at a nice hotel- isn’t Eloric a doll? We are going to have such fun. It is a bit of a drive but then, that’s fun too… when I’m awake.
So I’ll update stuff and answer e-mail on Sunday or so.
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