Disorganized Religion

And no, I am not inquiring just because of the Fourth of July; I tend to light most of my fireworks closer to the Fifth of November. 

But having a trunkful of Roman candles, bottle rockets, M-60 firecrackers, shells, and whatever else I happened to grab at the Fourth-of-July-Buy-One-Get-One-Free sale at the fireworks tent is quite invigorating. And whatever the doctors might say, I see absolutely nothing wrong with lighting them off. To those against these bits of pyrotechnic wonder who would invoke the law: if I blow off my hand, it's my own fault. And I won't. Besides, to be punished be the law, one must first be caught by the law. And again, I won't. 

Happy belated Fourth, all!

Maybe Julie London's getting to me. Which seems likely, because I've been to "Cry Me a River" for the past three hours, during which I've been completely unable to sleep. And now I'm crying, which is just wonderful.

I don't like admitting that I cry. I do, frequently. I cry every time I read Where the Red Fern Grows. I cried the first time I saw Titanic. I cry at the death of a blackbird.

I cry in public, little silent tears that I try desperately to keep inside, and succeed only in making my nose exceedingly stuffy.

I cry in private, curled in a ball on my futon, great heaving sobs while my tears soak into my pillow.

Half the time, I don't even know why I cry.

I suppose it's cathartic, in a way. I've always expected too much of myself, and disappointment at my failings tends to build up inside like air being pumped into an already full tire, and crying is the only thing I can do to keep from exploding. 

I'm not sure if the explosion would be literal or metaphorical. I'd rather not find out. 

When I'm not feeling like exploding, when I'm feeling entirely empty, I sometimes think that it would be just so easy to slip out of the world. To become, if it's possible, something like autistic. Where the world comes through in patches, and in between it's something bizarre and indescribable in the words this world uses, because it's like nothing this world has ever seen. 

And then I feel a little less empty, knowing that I can control that, keep myself here just a bit longer. And I have a reason to. It's not much of a reason, but as long as I have people who want to talk to me, I have a reason. As long as my work is appreciated, I have a reason. As long as I'm sure that people would notice if I were to slip away, far away, I have a reason. 

And I'm not sure why.

Maybe it's because I give. I give everything I can and even then it's not enough and as long as people need me, I have to continue existing. Maybe I'm just selfish.

Maybe if I cease to exist, the whole world will cease to exist. Someone once said something like that. I don't remember who. 

I will slip away, someday. I don't know when. Not for a while. But when I do...

Maybe that's why I write, why I write these strange little things, and poetry and stories and fanfiction. Because words outlive. And maybe I have some strange connection in my mind between the printed word and some African concept of immortality, or some repressed memory of my early childhood, but I know that something of me will remain. Even when everyone who knew me is dead, when we've all slipped into the collective anonymous cache of ancestors, someday in some distant future, someone will read my name and I will live still.

But right now...

Life is not so definite. Life and death are not so black and white. Shades of gray, that's all they are. And I'm living in them, floating in between. Hoping maybe I'll make it to an end of the spectrum before I'm sucked into the black hole of the other. Maybe I'll find that the black hole is exactly what I've always been searching for, but have not yet found.

 Oh, ninja. Ninja, easy. And no, it's not just because I love Naruto far more than any sane person over the age of ten should. And it's not because I adore martial arts, though that's true too. 

It's because pirates, real pirates, not that Pirates of the Caribbean crap that Hollywood is jamming down our throats, were/are generally an unpleasant lot. Of course, I'm not saying that ninja are a whole lot more pleasant in terms of personality. Both can kill you. Both probably would kill you. But I'm guessing that after months at sea, those pirates smell pretty vile. And when in doubt, I go with the nose. 

Furthermore, at the risk of being called morbid, I would add that in the event of either group slaughtering me, I would pick the ninja, because I'm fairly sure that they are adept at the quick and quiet kill. Of course, in terms of torture I'm sure they are also well-versed, so if I'm trying to hide something, I'll go with the pirates. Hopefully they'll have no idea what they're doing at accidentally kill me before they intend to.

And now I will go back and answer the first bit of this prompt. 

My regrettable decision: letting myself get out of touch with old friends. After nine years in the West Salem School District, I applied for open enrollment and started high school at Central, which I'm pretty sure several of my old friends saw as the ultimate act of betrayal.

I can justify my decision to leave, and I have many times. But leaving isn't what I regret. If I had the chance to do it over a hundred times, I would go to Central every hundred of them. Not only has Central brought academic opportunities into my life of which I had never dreamed, it brought into my life the best friends that I have ever had, people to whom I am forever grateful and whom I will never forget. You know who you are.

But however wonderful those opportunities and those people are, there are people whom I miss, friends who I've let go of too soon. I'm trying, slowly, to reconnect with them, and I'm having a certain degree of success. But there are bonds that, once broken, cannot be reforged, and for that I am truly sorry. There are people I've hurt, and I'm sure there are people I don't even realize I've hurt. And all I can say now is that I never meant to, and that I am so, so sorry. And I miss you. 

Given the chance to do it again, I'm not sure how I would do it. Perhaps my biggest character flaw is that I can recognize problems, but I often can't (or won't) solve them. And so I can't guarantee that I would do it any differently. But I can hope, and I would like to think that I would sit down with the people I really, truly cared about, and tell them so. And tell them that however far away I go, or they go, I don't give a damn. You will always, always be my friends, and I will always love you.

And damn, did that last line sound very Dolly Parton. My sincerest apologies.

...flying at your head? Down by the bay...

(Everybody hum now!)

Well, no, actually, I didn't. Though I did see one flying around my sister's ceiling light this evening. A bat, that is. Even though we're not down by the bay, which would be a bit mosquito-y for me. 

No, instead we have lovely bats, and the one in question is hiding, again, for the second night in a row. Last night I left my light off as it began to grow dark, and subsequently realized that in the dark, I wouldn't be able to see small, dark, flying mice as they zoomed predatorally toward my face. So I didn't go to bed and instead stayed all night on the beanbags in the living room, drifting in and out of consciousness to the sound of the X-Files theme music, which may explain why I am exhausted beyond all reason.

It does not, however, explain why I am not in bed sleeping off this exhaustion. 

But I can't, see, because I let it get dark before I turned my light on. Again. So in some corner of my twisted little brain, I'm convinced that a bat is hiding in my bedclothes waiting to jump (fly?) onto me the minute I slip under the covers. 

So obviously I can't sleep.

No, instead I'm online contemplating the fact that I am a complete and utter wuss. Which is so much better.

 On countless occasions I have in fact wished to be of the opposite (male) sex, generally when writhing in agony from (pre-)menstrual cramps. 

I have similar experiencess when I witness male classmates being chosen over myself for activities, answers or other mundane what-have-you, just because they have penises. What's so great about penises, anyhow? They must be a pain in the ass to keep sanitary. Internal genitalia are much more convenient. 

More often than not, I've actutally wished that men were women, just so that they'd stop giving me crap about how I should just "tough out" those lovely, debilitating cramps, and so they'd stop all the other shit they dish out to half the population, and then make us think we deserve it.

...whatever Elphie is planning on dishing out in Wayward Boys. Just for the record. And I'm sure I could have split this up into various comments to her posts, but I think this concentrated dose will be far more effective.

A Warning to All Others: most of this will likely be unintelligible to all but Elphie. 

Ehem. Shall I continue?

Anyhoo, Tonks is a lovely person who has done nothing whatsoever to warrant the treatment she is receiving from my dear friend, not even marrying Remus. However poorly-executed that bit was by JKR, it is not Tonks' fault. And R/S and R/T are NOT mutually exclusive. Plus, I thought it was rather sweet. 

Certainly it is not enough to warrant poor Tonks being forced by yet another fanfiction writer to hook up with Charlie, toward whom I am generally indifferent, but right now am beginning to cultivate a burning resentment. And it is most certainly unfair to then kill Charlie, leaving poor Tonks grieving. Again. Like she was all the way through HBP, even if it was a mediocre work of fiction. 

A quote: 
"As I was saying, it further mangles canon by shipping Charlie/Tonks, and so she's out of the picture (thank God). "
-Elphie 

That was unnecessary. I love Remus, and I love Sirius, and I doubly love them together, in all their angsty goodness, but the Tonks bashing is going a bit far, you cruel, cruel woman. 

And a completely unrelated quote:
"Audrey should be Luna Lovegood's lesbian lover."
-Elphie

That made me laugh hard enough that it almost redeemed all of Elphie's Tonks slurs. 

So I think it evens out, really. 

...

LONG LIVE NYMPHADORA TONKS (LUPIN)!

I find it rather funny that I use kittens to indicate my mood when today my father gave a man (the president of a certain Humane Society, I should add) advice on how best to kill his neighbor's cat. 

In all fairness, the cat was caterwauling at all hours of the night, and the creature also managed to kill two chickadees, a rose-breasted grosbeak, and a red squirrel in the course of an hour. My reaction: that must be a serious chunk of cat. My father's reaction: how are you planning on getting rid of it? 

The man had intended to buy a shotgun, which obviously is not the best choice for someone who lives in town, and seeing as he had never before shot a gun in his life, no one foresaw that particular plan ending well. His wife was leaning toward rat poison, which just seemed a bit cruel and unusual. Plus, one hefty vet bill later, the neighbors would still have their cat and know that their neighbors were anima-cidal. So my father suggesting strangling the poor thing. 

Which, of course, I found appalling. I was somewhat consoled to hear that he first suggested that the man in question buy a BB gun and scare the cat with it by shooting it a few times in the behind (three pumps, nothing serious), but of course, my brother tried to do the same with a chipmunk yesterday, and poor Chippy is now decomposing on our compost pile. So it's not exactly a precise science, and besides, the Humane Society President thought this a little cruel. That, or he was just looking for something more permanent. 

So my father told him to lure the troublesome feline into his lap with some hunks of liver or what have you, and then do the old grip-and-twist. Or, if the man were too squeamish, a bungee cord appparenly works quite well, though it takes a little longer.
 
And people wonder why I turned out just a little bit strange.

First of all, no offense intended to serious journalists. 

Actually, I'm directing this at the idiots who are unwilling to put definitively on paper the fact that yes, we did cause global warming. No, we're still not doing a damn thing about it. And no, nothing we can do at this point is really doing to change that. Joie. 

Which is why this year's policy debate resolution really frustrates me: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives in the United States. 

For the following reasons:
1. I disagree with the establishment of government in the first place. But obviously I can't do a lot to seriously contest this.
2. Alt. energies aren't going to help us all that much, and we won't realize this until we are up to our ankles in water, crushed under a glacier, or dying of thirst in the middle of what used to be Lake Michigan and wondering why our hydropower plants on the St. Lawrence Seaway aren't saving our lives.
3. This entire resolution is so poorly worded that every single case will be a hotbed of useless topicality attacks that must be answered regardless.
4. This is so damn coercive I almost can't look it in the face.
5. I adore kritiks, but no resolution should be this open to this many.

So. 
You've just been subject to a rant which probably, unless you're involved in the deep, dark, sordid world of underground (though not really) high school policy debate. 

Thank you for your patience; your normally scheduled programming should return shortly.

For Father's Day, I boycotted celebrations. My father's side of the family can't quite grasp the fact that not everyone in the world gets their kicks playing football, cheerleading and dairy farming. 

Apparently reading just isn't normal. 

I suppose I'm being a little harsh, but I don't really care. I must sound like a real bitch. I sat at home while the parents and all four siblings sat out two and a half hours with my father's family. But the last time I had breakfast with my paternal grandparents, the conversation went something like this:

Grandpa: So, that's a nice ring.

Me: Yeah, I like it.

Grandpa: Did one of your boyfriends give it to you?

Me: Pause. No. I don't have a boyfriend.

Grandpa: Not ever?

Me: Longer pause. No. I'm just not really interested. (Kind of like I'm not interested in sharing my love life with my sixty-five-year-old grandparents.)

Grandma: Directs icy stare in my direction.

Grandpa: Well, do you have any male friends?

Me: Yeah, sure.

Grandpa: Well, they don't...swing the other way, do they?

Me: Blank stare. (You've got to be kidding. Yes, most of them, in fact. And they're very nice people.)

Grandpa: Well, better to have male friends than too-close of female friends, ya know.

Me: Chokes on pancakes.

Grandma: Another icy stare.

Grandpa: Well, you just stick to boyfriends, now.

All this in a public restaurant, for the love of all things holy. So I avoid them whenever possible.

Of course, when the family returned, I was once again met with the ice stare, which is apparently genetic. Either that, or Grandma's been giving my four-year-old sister lessons. So I spent an hour and a half coming up with a poem to give my father as a present. As I told him, something cheerier might have been more appropriate, but I don't do fluff. It's obviously unfinished, but so far:

Sing, muse, of dying twilight

A gilded age’s funeral mass

A world of hollow beauty

And a soul of shattered glass

 

The glories of the morning

The grandeur of the eve

Hewn from one another’s grasp

By innocent poet’s dream

 

A silent splendor, grown unchecked

On backs of firing squads

Whose only crime before the court:

Feigned prayers to unseen gods

 

Whose dreams glistened in the daylight

And haunted darkened streets

Sins uncounted lingered darkly

And fires smolder in their wake

 

For off’rings, mothers’ graves unearthed

To feed their gluttonous pride

Their walls rise in gleaming marble

Reflecting arson firelight

 

A cacophony of soulless laughs

Races through the hallowed halls

Empty thrones glare loudly downward

At subjects’ adoring curtain call

 

While critics sit in lonely towers

Call curses on marble halls

And dreamers sleep ‘neath stone and stair

Await a lone cock’s call

 

The poet kneels in ruined sanctuary

Seeking refuge there in vain

And restless slumbers in a darkened pulpit

As dawn breaks once again

 

Cities built of sandstone bricks

Illuminated by rose red dawn

A single cry splits dusk from day

The poet sobs the sorrow’s song

 

A single crack in marble walls

Sends tremors to its heights

Towers stand as keepers fall

To dunes ‘neath sun’s white light

 

The unconscious poet smiles soft

Blood runs in rivers red

As an empty city greets the eve

And the moon’s rise greets the dead

 

                     -Dunechild

                     June 16, 2008

    

So I hope someone enjoys it. I'm too tired and frustrated to do anything besides criticize it and dream of sleep.