Dreams

Okay, so I know I had at least four good dreams last night and at some point I was semi-conscious enough to tell myself to remember them.  That did not work out as planned.  At this point, I only remember a little bit of two of them. 

In one, I remember that my mother's ophthalmologist(the one who did her eye surgery) was in it although I don't think he had much of a role.  He was in sort of a surgery area and I was with a group of people passing through.  He was going to go off to lunch and he wanted us to clear out.  I did not want to clear out because I was interested in the body parts that were laying around on some metal tables.  I think there were some internal organs and a brain and a severed head that had been skinned except the skin was still covering the skull kinda like a latex mask.  I though that to be pretty cool and I remember pulling it off the head like it was a mask and examining it.

In the other dream, I remember having some sort of dispute about a tire at one of those national chain tire stores.  I was really pissed because the manager was lying to me and telling me some bullshit story and trying to scam me and I wasn't falling for any of it.  I was in full Regina mode with great wrath and I threatened to put their stupid store out of business and the whole chain for that matter.  The manager was like, "Oh, how do you plan to do that?"  And I was like, "You'll see, it's called word of mouth.  I'll tell everyone I know to never give this store business and what a bunch of lying bastards you are.  I will put it out all over the internet!"  And that's about all I remember of that one.

So waddya think?  I know that I have zero tolerance for lying and that really gets me set off.  I have no idea what could have triggered me to have a dream like that.

They must know me.

Stupid shit that I had to see today

I swear, one of the most idiotic programs on TV has to be the Dr. Oz show. This is not a show that I would choose to watch but unfortunately for me, ABC seems to be the channel that is permanently on in the waiting room at the doctor's office where my mother has her appointments and her appointments are always at the time of day when that stupid-ass show is on.

This dumb-ass show always seems to give contradictory advice from week to week. One week it's red wine is good for you because of the resveritrol and the next week it's bad because of the alcohol. It's always some 'do this' then 'don't do this' shit. And I also have to wonder where these idiots who produce this show get their information.

Another thing they always have on that show that irritates me to no end is these infantile mock-ups of everything. They just can't explain things in plain English. I guess their target audience is just too stupid to comprehend the spoken word without a ridiculously simplistic accompanying visual and some idiot from the audience to help in the demonstration. I'm not a fucking child and I don't need the accompanying puppet show. Damn that shit annoys me! Everything has to be so fucking dumbed down. There is no hope for this country.

Today's subject was "leaky gut" or some such thing. They had some moronic female supposed doctor on saying something about the digestive tract being a long tube that nothing escapes from but when you have leaky gut some things can escape. This is one of the most overly simplistic, moronic and misinformed things I've ever heard. Did this idiot actually go to medical school? And if so, is this the kind of retarded shit that they are teaching in medical school these days?

First of all, I'm petty sure I learned about the digestive tract and its function in basic anatomy class back in junior high. The beginning of the digestive tract is the mouth and the ending is at the anus--your butthole--and anything that goes into the digestive tract is disseminated throughout the body. That is why sublingual tablets and suppositories work. They dissolve and get into your blood stream through the digestive tract. This idiot was trying to make it sound like shit goes in like it's an impervious PVC pipe and then comes out the other end and nothing happens in between.

Kali. In. A. Kayak. The half-truths and misinformation on this show are unbelievable.  Don't even get me started on the subject of the actual digestive process or the subject of mycology.

I'm really glad I'm at that perfect age in my life (Why, yes! I love being the age that I am!) where I am cynical and sceptical of all things and don't just believe shit that the TV is telling me.

Anyway.

My next gripe is with idiots who wear their pants' length too long so that bottoms are going under the heals of their shoes and are being stepped on. Let me let you all in on a little secret. If you are buying off the rack and the pants are too long there is this thing called a HEM. It is not that complicated. If you are too brain-dead-stupid to HEM your pants-- i.e. take up the extra length--then there is someone called a SEAMSTRESS or a TAYLOR who you can pay to do that for you. You can generally find one at a dry cleaner's shop. It's well worth the few bucks you'd pay them to prevent you from ruining your pants and looking like a total dumbass and having me mock you on the internet.

That is all.

Bizarre Dream

I swear, I have such weird dreams that if I came up with some of that stuff consciously I'd be thrown into the loony bin. I had another set of doozies last night. One thing I'm not even sure I dreamed but it was gross and crazy and I don't even think I'm going to go there.

Now the other thing, which was weird but not that bad, was I dreamed of a merman who looked a lot like Ray Stevenson. This merman didn't have a fish tail and scales but his nether region was grey and more like a manatee in texture and the tail was definitely shaped like a manatee tail. I was swimming in some water, I have no idea where, which is unusual since I don't swim very well, but I was out in the water all effortless and not drowning when this merman comes up to me. Then he starts speaking to me in Italian. He was all smiling and friendly and he seemed like he wanted me to go with him. Well, I don't speak Italian and I had no idea what he was saying so I responded to him in Spanish with, "Yo hablo un poquito Español ." I don't know why Americans always do that to Italian speakers--just automatically respond in Spanish--the two languages aren't that much alike. So that didn't dissuade the merman. He continued to be happy and speak to me in Italian and beckoned me to go with him. I don't remember much more except there was a passing boat with some people on it and we smiled and waved at them.

Anyhoo.

Today I had a bit of an unexpected project waiting for me when I went out into the back yard. It seems that with all the wind we had last night that a bit of fascia on the bottom edge/corner of the roof got blown off and took out the plastic shade on the security light that was just below it. That light has probably been up there for 20 years so the plastic light shade was likely very brittle hence it being smashed into a hundred pieces. Anyway, not much I could do about that.

When I got out the step ladder to take a look at how I was going to put the piece of fascia back on, it was clear that the wood up there was pretty rotten and had termite damage so the nails in the fascia just pulled right out. Seems the last two companies that re-roofed the house didn't bother to replace that rotten/damaged wood and instead had just put new fascia over it to disguise it. So this turned into a three hour project for me. I had to pull out all the rotten bits, getting termite dust and rotten bits all over me, and find some new stuff to stick in there. What a pain in the ass! I had to drag out drills and circular saws and rummage around the dungeon basement for supplies and run back and forth multiple times to get all the crap that I needed and cut wood all while the old woman sat in a chair and asked me stupid questions the whole time. Aaaarrrgh!!!!

I'm still not quite finished with it. I had to paint the new exterior pieces before I nailed them up and it started getting dark before I finished. So I have two pieces to nail up there tomorrow. Boooo!!!!!

Elegant

Our one day of cold weather is scheduled to be here this Sunday!  Woo-hoo!!!  Actually, there was quite a lot of rain yesterday and today ahead of the cold front and it is a bit cooler now as the front is passing through.  Tomorrow should be nice as well as Monday.  I LOVE me some cold weather!

In honor of the cold weather I can now break out my "nice" clothes.  I love wearing nice things but unfortunately it is almost always hot here and you can't wear nice things when it's hot and humid.  I went digging in my closet and found my Regina Mills-esque stuff. LOL  I have this one black satin vest that is really awesome.  I think I bought it at a thrift store for like $2.  It's a Brioni for cripes sake!  And then there's my black velvet jacket.  I always get groped by strangers when I wear that thing.  Put those together with my black pin-striped pants and some fine Italian-made leather shoes and I'll be stylin'!  LOL  God, I miss wearing my silks and cashmeres, too!

Anyway, it has been a while since I've been shopping for anything nice so I decided to Google Sym's clothing store.  I used to get so many awesome designer clothes there.  Well, guess what?  Much to my chagrin I found out that Sym's went bankrupt!  Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!  All their stores have been closed.  That makes me so sad.  I bought such nice things from that place--lots of seriously expensive designer things at deeply discounted prices.  Even some couture things.  Ah, well...

I continued my search on the web and found this...

...and this.

They're from a place called Good Goth.  The jacket is pretty cool although I'm not crazy about the lace trim.  And the boots look awesome even though I usually don't like high boots since most of them don't fit me right.  They'd be better if they were real leather.  I hate that "vegan" crap.  Give me some carnivore boots!

Anyway, designer stuff isn't what it used to be.  The good stuff used to come from here or Italy; now most of it is made in China.  I just can't bring myself to pay a lot of money for something that is made in China.  They treat the workers there like shit and pay them slave wages.  Then they have the nerve to sell it here for a lot of money.  It's disgusting.  At least the stuff I have is of the timeless classic variety and I don't have to worry too much about keeping up with trends.  I'd rather be elegant than trendy.

Valentines: Once Upon A Time Style

Well I finally got around to making up some Valentine's Day cards as promised.  I wasn't too sure I was going to be able to since I've been in a bit of a creative slump the last few days.  I was concerned that I had made a promise as empty as Regina's heart.  But fear not!  The Great Xul has pulled it together enough to at least half-ass it!  I hope someone enjoys these.  I myself am going to do Valentine's Day in the Evil Regal style--alone and resentful and maybe try to destroy someone's happiness.  ;P  'Cuz as Regina says, "Not having someone, that's the worst curse imaginable."

***Updated***

Seems I didn't have to choose.  Looky!  LOL

Missed Opportunities: Marketing FAIL

I’m going to give you all a break from my bitching about my psycho old people and switch gears a bit to one of my other favorite subjects—Once Upon A Time. In fact, I’m going to make an appeal to the powers that be at ABC/Disney.

Dear Muckety-mucks at ABC/Disney,

Whoever it is that you have working for you in your marketing department really sucks at the job. They are really missing the boat when it comes to merchandising with regards to the show Once Upon A Time. This is a very popular show and there are many people who would like to show their support for this show by buying merchandise. However, there isn’t much merchandise to be had.

For example, one of the themes of this show is True Love. Now, next week is Valentine’s Day. Are there any Once Upon A Time themed Valentine’s Day cards or merchandise to be found? No, I don’t think so. If there are, I certainly haven’t seen any. Your company is missing a golden opportunity here.

Also, I haven’t seen any of the usual standard merchandise for this show. No t-shirts, posters, etc. What are you paying a marketing department for if there is no merchandise being marketed?

So I implore you, do yourselves a favor and hire me. I am an artist and very creative and witty and I can come up with some awesome designs to make us all some big moolah and to please all the Once Upon A Time fans out there.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Xul

PS You can check out my demotivators as a sample of my work.
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Unfortunately, I am busy this weekend doing “stuff” so I don’t have the time to make up some awesome OUAT Valentine’s Day cards. I’ll probably try to make some after Sunday night. I already have a couple good ideas in mind.

O.o

One of the many, many things that my mother does that aggravates me to no end is when she exaggerates things.  In my opinion, exaggerating is the same thing as lying.  For example, today I had to color my hair because I was starting to get the badger look.  I tend to get very white on the sides and then a little bit in the widow's peak area and then the rest is just sorta salt and pepper.  It had grown out maybe 2 or 2.5 inches, enough to be very noticeable, and was time for a coloring.

After I had got it all colored and was waiting for it to set, my mother has to come and yammer at me about something.  Then she has to bring up that my early greying is hereditary and I get it from my father. (As if she doesn't have the same greying pattern, or her side of the family for that matter.  All one has to do is look at pictures of her side to see that they grey the same way.  But of course, that fault has nothing to do with her.) Anyway, I mentioned something about the first time I colored it was the hardest since there were greys(actually, they're white) that were grown out really long and it's easy to miss those.  Subsequent colorings are easier since I really only have to get the hair closest to my scalp. That's when she jumps all over me, "Oh no!  It wasn't grown out just two inches!  It was THIS MUCH!!!" Then she holds her two index fingers out about a foot apart.  Now this is just so fucking ridiculous on so many levels.  Firstly, I look in the mirror every day and I'm pretty sure my eyes work just fine.  It was only two inches.  I just was in the damn bathroom coloring my hair.  I was just looking at it.  It was two inches.  But nooooooo!!!!!  I'm wrong!  Don't believe my lying eyes!  My mother says it was grown out a foot, dammit!  So it's a foot!  Seriously, if it was grown out a foot my hair would be almost completely white.  It would have looked bizarre.  I swear, she has such a warped perception of things.

Another thing that she does is get names and quotes wrong.  Then she will tell someone that *I'm* the one who said such and such, but getting all the details wrong.  It makes me look like the idiot because she tells them that I said that.  NO I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT SAY THAT!  One thing I'm gifted with is an excellent memory, especially for names.  I don't get names wrong.  I don't pronounce names wrong.  I don't call people by one name that I just pick out of the air when their name is actually something else.  That's shit that my mother does. It's all so very irritating.

I have been reading on a PD support site recently.  Whenever my mother gets especially annoying I like to go read posts at that site so that I know there are other people who have to put up with the same sorts of bullshit. One of the things I learned about is something called The Imposter Syndrome.  Now I have a name to put on a way of thinking that I've had for a long time.  Seems there's a name and label for everything these days.

Another thing that I found interesting was this thread.  Seems a common trait in PDs is to not take any interest in teaching their children simple things like grooming.

And this gem:

Are your parents consistently respectful towards you?  Abide by your boundaries?  Allow you your choices and your independence without rebuke?  Not insist that you be at their beck and call?  Not believe "you owe them"?

If you answer "yes" to these questions, then you likely don't have pd-enmeshed parents.  If you answer "no", then you've a dysfunctional family situation, and dynamic which can't be fixed by confrontation, or by constructive discussion. Any action other than more "put up and shut up" capitulation by the aggrieved adult-child will likely cause more anger, rage, and FOG.  This realization is what causes many of us to slip into "limited contact", and sometimes into "no further contact", without confrontation and without protracted discussion of issues, because we realize we really don't have "voice" in this destructive family dynamic.

^This.  It's called validation.  It's nice.

What is this?

One of the many odd things that my mother does from time to time is to feel the need to point out if a man "checks me out."  She says this with a great amount of disdain.  I'm not sure why she feels the need to do this.  I don't particularly care to feel objectified, and I don't like if someone leers like a pervert at me .  I'd rather not know about it.  I'm not sure what it is she gets out of telling me.  What is her damn problem?  Does she think that I'm her property and how dare someone look at her property?  Is it because she hates men?  I've always felt from her comments and attitude toward men that she hates them.  Or is it that she's jealous that someone is looking at me and not her?  I'm fairly sure that she's NPD and an aging one at that, and that is something that is difficult for someone with that particular PD.  It's just so weird and uncomfortable.

Just like today at her acupuncturist.  He made the comment to me that maybe I should come there and start taking acupuncture so I wouldn't have to be bored out in the waiting room while waiting for my mother to finish her session.  Then later after her treatment, she had to bring up what he said and then say, "Oh, all he wants is to put his hands on you!"  Well, I didn't take it that way.  Maybe I'm just oblivious when it comes to men and their intentions.  Or maybe she just feels the need to imply a sexual intent to every interaction I have with a guy.  It truly creeps me out.

I think she's projecting her "man issues" onto me.  PDs love to project. 

Heh.

This Is why I keep a pencil and paper under my pillow.

Writing. And writing about writing.

I'm trying to avoid some horrible, sophomoric effort here(concerning my fanfic). I'm not good at expressing feelings. I've had to hide my true feelings all my life. No matter what they were, with my family my feelings were always wrong. I shouldn't be happy, shouldn't be sad, shouldn't be upset, shouldn't be mad. Be one way with my family and another with my friends. And even with my friends I wasn't truly myself. Putting up a false front of pretense most of the time, trying to portray myself as mentally tough and sometimes cold, when in reality I was nothing more than a walking, talking entanglement of fear and insecurity. And hypersensitive. Using sarcasm and jokes as a defense. I've often been described as a brooding, artist type. And why would I possibly be brooding?

Dammit! Always! She keeps interrupting me. Any time I have some creativity going it is always interrupted! She had me trapped in my bathroom while I was having great creative thoughts and if I didn't write them down they'd be lost. So I had to resort to writing them down on a piece of toilet paper with my lip liner while she yammered on and on with her banal nonsense. GAH!

Okay, back to why I was brooding. I was brooding because every day I had to deal with the internal conflict I had. On one hand, everyone thought I was some great genius, this great intellect, but inside I knew the truth. I wasn't this super genius. I felt like a moron. Inept. A fraud. I knew that I wasn't perfect or the smartest one in the room. And why did I feel this way? Well, mommy dearest, of course. She was always presenting me to everyone as some great genius. I was THE. BEST. EVAR. THE. SMARTEST. EVAR. Always telling me how I was smarter than all the other kids. How everything I did was better than the other kids. How the hell could I possibly live up to this? I was supposed to be the best at everything but there were kids who were better at some things than I was. I knew that I wasn't The Best and The Smartest and I always had to face her criticisms on everything when I didn't live up to her impossibly high standards. She constantly criticized my every mistake to the point where I no longer wanted to do anything. It's still that way when I'm around her. She's the ultimate motivation killer.

Anyway, back to the business at hand. I've always had these high standards to live up to. It's hard not to be hard on myself. I'm writing a fanfic for my own enjoyment, but I don't want it to suck. I can write really well if need be. I am actually good at most things. I want my writing to be good. I haven't had much practice in expressing my feelings. I think I write decent dialogue, but is it realistic? I need more practice on describing scenes. (I'm not so good at that. I'm a 'cut to the chase' sort of person. I like my information in bullet points. I don't like beating around the bush with things. Just get to the point already! That's not always so good with fiction writing.)

Since I haven't had much practice in writing certain things, I decided to consult a book that I had read years ago, that, if I recalled correctly, was beautifully written and had won some award. Well, I looked through it. Hell, with a little practice I could do that! I just need to work on writing more detailed descriptions.

This post is funny. I would never keep a diary because some nosy person would definitely read it. But on the computer? The internet? That's kryptonite for her. It's funny that I'll put my feelings out for all the world to read, just as long as one person in particular doesn't see them.

Scents

I was tempted to post an excerpt of my fanfic tonight, but instead I did a bit of editing and revising.  It's probably not the best fiction but it's not the worst either.  I'm trying not to get all Harlequin romance novel with it.  I actually went and looked at some of those today.  Most are crap.  But then again, peeps make money off that crap.  That Fiddy Shades shite started out as a fanfic, after all.  Wouldn't that be something?  Making moolah off of OUAT inspired smut! LOL

Anyway, aside from doing my editing, it was a fairly boring day.  There was a foul and mysterious odor in my bedroom so I decided to change the sheets and wash the comforter to see if that would mitigate it.  That didn't seem to help much as I'm still detecting something and it's driving me mad.  Now there's a layered scent effect--clean bed linens with some weird odor still lingering.  I've always had an acute sense of smell but now it's getting annoying.  All these different scents.  I keep dragon's blood in my drawers so my clothes will smell nice but now that scent is annoying me. I've tried burning a spruce scented candle that I have(I still like the smell of that) but that scent isn't lingering.  BAH!  Madness!

Speaking of scents, did you see the story of that dude who found the whale hurl on the beach?  Yep.  A big hunk of ambergris.  Who the hell was the first one to go around sniffing whale hurl to determine that it smelled nice?  There's some really nasty crap that's used for expensive perfume.  Give me some nice eucalyptus and citrus.

So what do y'all like to smell?