The Death Goddess Diaries

I have a blog? Oh yeah....

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:18:35 GMT

There's been no cosmic upheaval or clash of the gods to precipitate this lack of updates. No, a far more powerful force has kept me from Livejournal. Maria.

This weekend was the production of Amahl and the Night Visitors which Maria's mom, Aurora Delacroix, put on at their church. I was dragged in to be a shepherd. A dancing shepherd. They made me dance.

I-I need a few days to recover. The next couple of posts should be about the Heavenly Host and the 2nd Annual Asshat Awards. I'm nominating Maria.

Spiritscape 3

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:32:40 GMT

I think I've said everything I can about the Spiritscape in general. From here on, I can only talk about the individual levels. One of them we've already talked about at length; Hell. The Heavens and Purgatory are also parts of the Spiritscape. In fact, even the reality you live in is part of the Spiritscape, though most mortals are cut off from feeling it or being aware of it at all.

Recapping from my last post, The Veil separates most of the powers of the Spiritscape -magic and psychic abilities, etc.- and its' dangers -dragons, demons, fairies, the undead, etc- from humans for their own safety. Occasionally things still slip through and some people can see these things which they should no longer have the capacity to do. Consider these "glitches in the Matrix."

In conclusion, I suppose you can think of the Spiritscape as the intangible force which links and overlays all worlds and imbues creatures with the power to transverse and/or see them.

*Rereads above statement* Yeah, I think that's as clear as it's going to get.

(Writing through human incarnations is so tricky. There's so much to remember and their bodies aren't capable of holding it, even for the few moments it takes for me to pop in and jot this down. Maria's better than most but still, it's so frustrating when you KNOW you know something, but your human word processor lacks the RAM and language settings to hold and convey that knowledge.)

Did I promise a post about Possession? Oh right, I did. Hmm. I should probably get on that... Oh well. I plan to talk about the Veil next, since it's so important to the Spiritscape. Oh, and I have to tell you about the Heavenly Host. Okay, order of upcoming posts:

The Heavenly Host
The Veil
Possession.

(And completely unrelated, the Asshat Awards 2009 are coming in December.)

Spiritscape 2

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:15:42 GMT

Happy belated Friday the 13th! Those of us working in the Elite squads and in or around the Hell of Scissors have the weekend off. Yay! Bring out the pancakes! Maria is entertaining house guests tonight, so you're spared from her blogging for the moment. Feel lucky; last I saw her, she was mumbling about some twit named Taylor the Latte Boy. Some days, Maria scares even me.

Back to the Spiritscape:

Even more interesting is the Spiritscapes role in human life. Magic is contained in it, separated from your reality by the Veil. This wasn't always so. Once, humans could control and understand the magic of the Spiritscape. While monsters and other horrors could come out of the Spiritscape, escaping from other skins or layers, humans had the tools with which to fight them. However, people eventually became careless with their use and study. Eventually, with the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Dark Ages, people had only an instinctual understanding of the magic that came to them.

By the time of the Renaissance, magic had begun to fade from the world. Some people retained a bit of magic and the knowledge thereof. They became the witches and, nowadays, psychics. The Veil was a layer of Spiritscape which was created to try keep those creatures of the Neverworlds - dragons, hydras, leviathans, etc - from entering your reality of Earth and which also keeps humans from achieving the 'mass consciousness' foretold by the flower children of the 1960's and 1970's. If you view this as a negative thing, consider that whenever the Veil has trouble, collapsing in part and the like, there's some school shooting or mass killing, yada yada yada.

Spiritscape 1

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:47:27 GMT

I have honestly been making an effort to update more frequently. But this is a problem when the nature of ones journal deals specifically with the intangible; accurate descriptions are at a premium. But I want at least SOMETHING on here vaguely related to, well, anything. So here it is, a brief, garbled description of the Spiritscape

Describing and explaining the Spiritscape is akin to describing or explaining creation. You know what it is, but when you sit down and try to put it into words, you are overwhelmed by the sheer hugeness and complexity of the question. To start, the Spiritscape is about the size of creation....maybe a little bigger.

You know what? I'm going to simplify this as much as possible.

You, yourself, a human, the person reading this post, lives in reality. Reality itself is subjective but you're in your version of it right now, there, the end. Now imagine your reality as a bubble, or better yet, an onion skin. Imagine that it's a really, really BIG onion, but with skins the size of a regular onion. I promise there's a point to this. There are, in this massive onion, innumerable layers of skins. Your reality is just one of those. The rest of those skins are layers and levels of the Spiritscape. Some are closer to you than others. The Dreamscape is one of the closest skins, thus almost everyone can reach it. Within the Spiritscape are the lands of faerires and other magical creatures. Magic itself resides within the Spiritscape.

Now to make this even more confusing, imagine that these layers aren't really separate. They overlap and interact with each others. Pockets and portals exist within your reality, linking the many layers of the Spiritscape to the place where you can reach them, even if you aren't aware of it. Thus you have your Pied Pipers taking children away to magical lands and Rip Van Winkle stepping out of his reality and sleeping it off for however many decades.

I will give this more thought later. We're still cleaning up after that meltdown over Samhain and while Maria has lain off the 20 Questions, I now have to contend with the up and coming 2nd Annual Asshat Awards. Oh so many nominations, so little time to beat them all.

Also, Maria is in the mood to guest post again. God help me.

Updates Pending

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:06:07 GMT

I was working on a post for Halloween, but because I had plans, the Veil decided to collapse for a few hours. This did not help my already exhausted state, as Maria has been running me ragged asking about the Spiritscape and demons. Maria is writing a book. It might be good. I'll care after I've slept. And had some waffles.

Sometime this week I'll be posting my belated Halloween entry about possession.

Now to go find Zachary and curl up with him somewhere.

Atlantis and Lemuria - A Preface

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:39:49 GMT

Ok, guys, this has been coming up lately, and since the Heavenly Host and its' associated hierarchy is taking a little more time to organize than I'd anticipated (Josh ran off with my notes, I just know it) I figured now would be as good a time as any to clear this up.

Yes, there was an Atlantis and Lemuria.

Yes, they were where you think they were. Atlantis was a floating, manufactured 'continent' in the Atlantic Ocean which then sank and briefly became an underwater city before it too collapsed. Ireland is where the smart Atlantian's went, briefly ruled, and then essentially said, 'fuck this world, let's go wreak havoc in the Spiritscape.' Lemuria was an actual continent in the Pacific Ocean which got its' fool self blown up. The last remnents of it's civilization live on, slightly distorted, in Indian, Japanese, and Chinese culture, as well as in parts of Southeast Asia and a very little in Russian folktales and architecture.

And the big question - Why Can No One Find Indisputable Evidence of Their Existence?

BECAUSE THIS WAS SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS AGO!!!! The fact that ANYONE remembers them is astounding (though the Atlantian's descendants, the Fey, have always been pretty good about slapping people into remembering whenever it seems like they're about to forget). You can say that 'oh, well, the dinosaurs left evidence and they were around even longer ago than these civilizations, so you must be wrong.'

My dear, stupid naysayer, the dinosaurs did not blow each other the fuck up with war machines that make the A-bomb look like a spark of a match. Added to that, there are oceans where these countries were. Think of the Titanic. The Titanic has been submerged for less than a century and is nearly completely deteriorated. There are other ships that have been submerged for longer that seem to be able to hold on considerably longer. Depth, temperature, and salinity all aid in the duration period of anything underwater. Added to that, the places that survived being blown apart sank into subduction zones; places where the ocean floor sinks under tectonic plates of the continents and is melted back to magma.

I'm attempting to persuade Mathias to write a brief history of Atlantis and Lemuria. He lived through them and was involved in their destruction while I was still a child during the wars.

Expect a brief overview of the Heavenly Host and the Spiritscape whenever I can get around to it.

Maria Meeps 4 U - Japanified

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:36:00 GMT

So, in return for services rendered, Sachielle is forcing me to explain the term Japanified as used in her Hell; Yeah, It's That Bad - Part 1 post.

To explain Japanified, I will start with an example. Sophie Hatter from Howls Moving Castle, book version vs. movie version.

Sophie Hatter from the book is spunky, antagonistic, opinionated, and gives Howl much needed kicks in the ass every couple of pages. Sophie Hatter as written by Hayao Miyazaki is quiet, demur, and only gets her dander up when it comes to house work. Book Sophie is a typical feisty teenager. Movie Sophie is a mail-order bride.

By Japanified, I and Sachielle refer to the act of putting a distinctly cultural/religious/ethnic/etc spin on a story that would have been better off without it. We singled out Japan as our focus because we see this phenomena coming out of Japan most often in pop culture. Bleach was one of the examples Sachielle used in her post and I'll expand. In the universe of Bleach, the shinigami collect the souls of the dead from all over the world. Yet their uniforms and appearance are almost universally based in Japanese culture. The same goes for architecture in Soul Society, philosophies and social structure. The show is pretty good. But I think it could have and would have been even better had they creator and writers done a little more leg work and incorporated a wider range of death myths and traditions. At least in their aesthetics if nothing else.

So yes, we just insulted an entire culture just to make a point badly. *le sigh* And Sach wonders why she never gets invited to the bi-millenium Demigoddess sleep over parties anymore.

Comments, questions, and complaints should be filed below. .

Also, I'm writing a book! You should go read my scraps and not quite chapters and character stats and inane late night ramblings here. And please leave comments. It's nice to know I'm not just talking into the vast vacuum of internet space.

Hell; Yeah, It's That Bad - Part 2 (with a cameo from Karma!)

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:52:09 GMT

Picking up from my last post...

Hell As A Whole is not a source of evil...usually. This is not to say that things don't slip out from time to time, or that those in charge don't use their powers for personal gain and profit or, in my case, for the Hell of it. But Hell was devised initially as a depository for evil. This is still its’ primary function.

Normally, bad karma and the weights of sin are supposed to be worked off during the reincarnation process. As Neil Gaiman said in American Gods, it takes a LOT of sin to earn a ticket to Hell. But Souls of the Body can, especially when they've become independent of the Over-Soul, incur more bad karma than can be dealt with through life. These souls usually cannot be allowed to rejoin the Over-Soul, as they can warp the Over-Soul, and consequently the Soul of Essence with all that negativity. Purging/redeeming the Over-Soul of those transgressions can be a long and painful process, and the Over-Soul never comes out quite right. Case in point; my sisters’ idiot soul mate.

Also, many souls take what they consider the easy route, where they incarnate, live up 'the good life' with all manner of partying and debauchery, and delay purging themselves of their transgressions until after death i.e. Hell. The problem is, when they reincarnate, they rarely remember their past lives and almost NEVER remember Hell, so they make the same mistakes and incur the same karma over and over again, until the Hell Fire warps them so badly, the Over-Soul must be thrown back into the cosmic melting pot from which we're made and reconstituted. These souls, by the way, are the people we meet who are assholes but everything seems to go their way. That's because Hell burns off the bad karma, but leaves the good karma pretty much intact.

Sometimes you encounter Over-Souls who are older and/or stronger than the average, who tough it out and work their karma off in a series of truly terrible and difficult lives. The purpose of these lives is almost solely to work off the sin and avoid Hell; any additional goodness achieved is a sign of true skill. But there aren’t many Over-Souls that incarnate on Earth who can withstand that sort of life without getting into more trouble. Adding to the difficulty setting is that, as I mentioned above, very few people remember their past lives and what they did, so they don't remember WHY their lives are so hard or why they're 'being punished by God.' The fast is, God has very little to do with karma and the principles surrounding it. Karma and balance are older than God and God, in whatever form you envision it, is subject to the rules of cosmic balance like all things.

One of the trickiest and most annoying things about decoding and deciphering heavenly mandate is that there are very few, if any, hard and fast rules. There is always an exception; someone or something for which the rules must be bent or outright ignored in favor of fixing the problem. Believe me, this annoys the minor gods and goddesses something fierce and it will pop up again and again over these lessons. Luckily, it applies to you too, so take heart. But Karmic Law, or whatever you want to call it, is constant and immovable. You can change when you get rewarded or punished. You change how you get rewarded or punished. But you can't avoid it forever. It's older than forever and it will get you.

But I digress. Back to Hell.

Hell does it's job, but it has a habit of doing it sloppily if not downright badly. Satan has gotten a weeeee bit lazy over the millenia. Also, there are A LOT of people involved in the running of Hell. Anubis is the only one who has been there as long as Satan and is really the only deity with a clear head on his shoulders down there. Hades does a fair bit of work too, but he's involved more with souls who wander in certain spheres of the Spirit Scape; even more so since he and Persephone hooked up. Cute couple, by the way. He really gets a bum rap for how that whole courtship went down.

The Maxians and the demon are frequently at odds with one another. The Maxians are among the Heavenly Host as mortals like to call it, while demons are, well, demons. And then there are the second and third generation Aberrations. And the COFFEE. The LAST thing ANYONE working those hours wants or needs is overheated decaf.

So, in summation: Hell is really really really REALLY big x infinity. Being that it's huge, there are a lot of employees. These employees tend to clash on a regular basis. Upper management is asleep at the wheel.We all go to Hell at some point, though the usefulness of visits is questionable in the long run. Karma is gonna get ya, instant or otherwise.

To be tackled next:

The Spirit Scape and Other Places In Between
The Heavenly Host

Any and all questions should be directed to the comments. Will be answered when Maria stops pestering me for details about demon possession.

Hell; Yeah, It's that Bad - Part 1

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:13:30 GMT

Stow your whining. I'm here, I'm posting. The rest will be posted whenever the Hell I get around to it. You want more posts, find me two more editors by September. Onwards:

Before I begin, let's set a few things straight:

Hell is one of the few places which human mythology has had the courtesy to get right. Dante, Lovecraft, the Twilight Zone, you name it, has captured and portrayed a small piece of Hell. In fact, anything you see, read, or hear about that has to do with the horrors of Hell is correct. We'll get into the hows and whys of this below.
That being said, Hell is BIG. People frequently underestimate just how big Hell is. In fact, trying to compute the sheer dimensions of it would probably cause your minds to implode, or at the very least ooze some form of Hell jelly.
There is a Satan. Ever seen that Keanu Reeves movie, Constantine? Satan is a lot like that. He is also the only full time staff as he hates having anyone else around long enough to learn the ropes.
On that note, Satan also has sons. Quite a few of them. Most of them are blithering idiots.
Like Egyptian mythology states, Hell is guarded by cats. Cat people, actually. They're called Maxians. We'll talk about them in another post.
Bleach and Death Note have some truth to them too, but they're ... Japanified. Maria will explain what I mean later.
All the Death gods and goddesses which you read about do exist. They don't all serve at the same time, however, nor is it the only job they do. Over-Souls aspiring to higher level jobs in the celestial hierarchy -captains in the Heavenly Armies, Sentinels, Elites, Demi-Gods, etc - often do temp work in Hell, myself included. Usually, we tend to the admittance of sinners, maintenance, record keeping, and dumping the coffee.
The coffee isn't as bad as you might imagine. But it's close.
During my brief stint temping in Hell, I was known as Belit Sheri, the book keeper, and my older sister was Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld. Feel free to check the Epic of Gilgamesh for references.
There are evils in the universe which even Hell is not equipped to deal with.

The Strange But True Stories of Maria D: Alarming Alarm Clocks

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:32:17 GMT

Hiiiiiiii people of the internets! Before you start complaining, Sachielle has, not one, but TWO posts almost ready to go. But she and Mathias got into a little disagreement about stuff, so they're reworking the posts to avoid....well, a repeat of what happened two weeks ago. I'm filling in for the moment, coming to you with another real life tale of oddity and annoyance.

About 3 years ago, I began the tradition of harassing an old, college aquaintance of my mother's who now lives in Taiwan. Before you judge me, allow me to tell you why I started heckling him. You'll see it's all for the greater good.

I found Mr. T in December of 2006, a month before my 18th birthday. I was wandering the depths of Google images, looking for really weird Hello Kitty merchandise(I was a teenager; Sanrio products are still acceptable at 17-18). Among the thousands upon thousands of pictures, there was one of a woman in a giant Hello Kitty costume...and I recognized the URL beneath it. Tales of the tragic Mr. T had peppered my childhood, as he'd been a huge influence on my mom's life as a friend and school mate. So when I saw that this bizarre photo of a giant Hello Kitty costume was in his gallery, I had to know why.

At the time, he lived in Taiwan(I think he's still there, though there was some government pressure to remove all foreign workers from Taiwan a year or two ago) and kept a sizable gallery full of sites and scenes from all over Taipei. Included in this gallery was a folder full of images like the Hello Kitty costume and numerous stuffed toys. In short, the gallery was geared towards kids. And while I thought the gallery as a whole was pretty artsy-fartsy and pretentious as I explored the other folders, for 5 seconds I didn't really have a problem. Until I found out that directly after the 'childrens' folder was another full of some tackily done nudes. Were it not for the folder preceding it, I wouldn't have had too much of a problem. Was the nude folder tacky? Yes. Inappropriate for a business sight? HELL yes. But it would be his problem, not mine. My mother had warned me that he was more than a little oblivious *cough*stupid*cough* about common sense stuff.

As it was though, he had positioned kiddy stuff next to, let's just say it, porn. I had to say something. So in a somewhat snarky but very straightforward email, I let him know that if another young person like myself stumbled into his gallery like I had, and had a watchful parent notice the successive nudes, said parent might not appreciate his organizational skills or respond as kindly as I was, not to mention that a man in his late 40's with a doctorate is going to have a hard time getting anyone to believe that the positioning was accidental or not made with some ill intent. Because, quite seriously, the content matter and the placement thereof made him look like a total pedophile. He didn't appreciate my commentary of his art and blocked me, but at least he put a lock on the pr0n gallery. I think I was proved right though, since less than six months later he removed that folder completely.

Anyway, after this, I began the annual tradition of alternately mocking him and pointing out really stupid errors on his websites. Which in turn ended up strengthening a latent psychic connection between us( I said he'd influenced my mom's life? Well, he influenced mine too. Pop-tarts is all I'm saying). It made it's strongest appearance earlier this year, with the not-quite-death of my - wait for it - Hello Kitty alarm clock.

(I got the alarm clock when I was 14! Lay off!)

The clock had been on the fritz for a little over a year, so I was anticipating that I'd need to go shopping for a new one soon enough. However, since my mom and I are/were on the same schedule, I could procrastinate and rely on hers to get us both up. There my alarm clock sat, set but unnecessary, allowed to go off whenever it wanted regardless of the time appointed. It wasn't until my school vacations that I began keeping track of when the alarm went off. The time periods were usually the same.

Now, I have a habit of playing with the World Clock tool on my cell phone. I don't really use it for anything, but every now and again, I'm struck with the urge to check what the time is in various parts of the world. No reason, just an odd quirk. But I recall that, sometime in April, while I was playing with the world clock, I had to get up and turn off the alarm on the defective Hello Kitty clock. It had been set for 7 that morning (I think). And the time in Taiwan was (take a guess, I dare you)

7!!!!

The Clock in Question

My first reaction was not wtf, but, unbelievably, annoyance. I was annoyed that he dare intrude on my life through my clock. Because, of course, the tragic Mr. T was behind it. He felt my thoughts bend towards his existance as I plotted new ways to heckle him. I was a month or two behind my usual heckling time period when the clock started malfunctioning. It could only have been him. and to test my theory that Taiwan and it's resident(s) was trying to possess my clock, I tracked that every time my alarm clock went off at a time other than what I'd set it for, it would go off at the Taiwanese equivalent!!! 7 AM state side would go off at 7 AM or PM Taiwan zone. And ditto for any other time I set it out.

Oddly enough, I was not, at the time, freaked out by this. Now, looking back, I think this deserves a healthy batch of fear. The Hello Kitty clock has been given away and all desires for Sanrio Products have been sanguined from my soul. Even the adorableness of this

The Contender to the Throne

could not inspire me to get another one. No, as it is, I have postponed buying a new alarm clock, waiting until I found that perfect blend of cute but stylish and (vaguely) mature. But in light of my mother's now dead alarm clock, I must make my decision faster than I would've liked. And that, boys and girls, to make a short story long, is why I was so late to my first class this morning.

;-)

-Maria

Souls: A Primer

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:26:30 GMT

Yes, I'm back. Feel free to express your gratitude and elation in the form of Belgian waffles.

Back to business as usual.

There are four types of souls; (in ascending order) the Soul of the Body, Over-Souls, Souls of Arch-type, and Souls of Essence. There are a few others, but trying to define and explain them is more work than they're worthy of and routinely gives me a headache. The important thing to remember about the others is that they aren't important to you. The other four, however, are fairly critical when it comes to understand the afterlife and our relation to God.

When the topic of souls comes up, most people think of Souls of the Body. The Soul of the Body is our conscious mind, the force that moves and motivates us, acts as our conscience, and acts as the first link from the world of the incarnate to the worlds of the discarnate. The Chinese and Japanese refer to it as 'chi' and 'ki' respectively. New Ager's call it Spirit. And when we die, if we don't go to Hell or the Heavens, the Soul of the Body is what becomes a ghost. Most people have Souls of the Body, but not everyone. We'll talk about those people later.

Over-Souls are the next step up. If you have a Soul of the Body chances are good that you have or at least had one. People are connected to their Over-Souls to various degrees; the average being that tingling awareness urging you to get off the highway and backroad it home, just before you find out there's a three car pile up a few miles ahead, and the more than average being psychic. There are some people who have no connection to their Over-Soul whatsoever and, though some people try, there is nothing that can be done to change that. In established theology, Over-Souls fill the role of Angels, with some choosing never to incarnate and spend all their time acting as gaurdians or fighting in the Armies of Heaven. The best analogy I can think of to describe the Over-Souls relation to the body incarnate is to compare it to playing video games. Life as we know and understand it is a video game to Over-Souls, and they play it with certain objectives in mind. These objectives differ based on what is being played for and, yes, what level the 'player' is on. Some players are better than others. People with psychic abilities or even magic have Over-Souls who are more in sync with their bodies. Most people's Over-Souls are good enough players to at least guide them in the direction of their desired goal. Then there are those people whose Over-Souls are horrible players and either stand back and watch the train wreck or abandon ship and leave the Soul of the Body to fend for itself. We can these 'wasted lives.' Also, Over-souls can play as more than one person or character at a time. Most have one or two, some talented Over-Souls play more than three people at a time, and I've met some VERY talented Over-Souls who played five incarnates at a time. Perhaps my youth and inexperience is showing, but it gave me a headache to watch. Consider this also: Over-Souls are not so very different from humans. We feel the same emotions, think the same thoughts, make the same stupid jokes and eat the same food. For the most part we even look and dress the same. Our largest difference is our proximity to the creation(God/Goddess/Source/ whatever). We feel and cannot ignore the divinity of our center as we are that much closer than you to the God within ourselves. And so, when we turn to evil, it is so much bigger and the distortion is so much more permanent. Often, the evils that distort us are brought about by the evils commited by our human selves, whom we often have so little control over. We'll go into greater detail with this later.*

Souls of Archetype are self-evident. Much like literary archetypes, these souls are not so much people but roles. The hero, the heroine, the maiden, hunter, crone, sage, trickster, etc. Every Over-Soul corresponds to a role, whom they are at core. ** Because there are only so many roles, there are obviously FAR more Over-Souls and even MORE Souls of Body than there are Souls of Archetype. This is not to say that there is only one soul per role, however. There are at least three souls who are Tricksters, and a half dozen Heroines and Heros respectively. Souls of Archetype lack the nuances of personality inherent in Souls of Body and Over-Souls; as they move closer to the creation, they loose those traits of individuality, embodying a more uniform nature before becoming one with God/Goddess/whatever.

Which Literary Archetype are You?

Souls of Essence can be best imagined as Dust from Phillip Pullman's His Dark Material. There is no individual. There is no seperation of us from the divine source of our creation. We are a swirling mass of golden light at the center of everything, holding the universe in place. We move to the edges and sing and dance, and when we grow tired we retreat into the mass and rest while other beings in the light move forward to take our place. In this place, we are God.

Next time - Hell: Yeah, It's That Bad

*For the record, I am an Over-Soul. And I'm in sync with my person to the point that she had to give me a live journal to express myself with. Take pity on her, readers. I'm even more annoying in person than I am on (electronic)paper.

** A trickster named Mira. I hate her so very, very much.

Delays

Mon, 18 May 2009 21:16:52 GMT

It's finals time here at Casa de Miele, which is why my next post has been so delayed. Next week should be better. But starting in June, I'll be teaching so, again, entries will probably be less than forthcoming. At least until July. I'll still attempt to post something once a week, though i can't promise it will be on track or topic.

Speaking of tangental conversations, I never did tell you about Dharma did I? Well, that's a tricky subject. I may have to hold out longer than I would have wanted to introduce her. Or maybe Maria will tell you the story. Decisions, decisions.

Books I Need To Live

Wed, 06 May 2009 04:29:11 GMT

The Seer and the Sword by Victoria Hanley
In a Dark, Dark Room by Alvin Schwartz
Tailypo by Joanna C. Galdone
Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden and Cities of Gold and Spice by Catherynne Valente
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen
Horror at the Haunted House by Peg Kehret
The Mermaid Summer by Mollie Hunter

To be updated regularly.

Story-time With Maria

Tue, 05 May 2009 19:27:25 GMT

The RAG shop in Berkeley Springs, WV is haunted. Well, not the building itself, but some of the items inside. My mom told me about it, and she's yet to be proven wrong about this sort of stuff.

The RAG shop -short for 'Recycled American Goods' - sells used clothes, furniture, books, toys; pretty much anything that isn’t old enough or pretty enough to be antique, or even really valuable, but which might still be useful to someone. And the building matches what it sells. It’s old, but not old enough to have much history. Certainly not when compared to the revolutionary buildings and houses which sit behind and across from it. It's been there for years and mom and I have shopped and sold junk pretty regularly. So when mom told me it was haunted, I didn't disbelieve her, but I was pretty surprised.

The store closed about two years ago. We weren't very surprised; the women who ran it had no idea how to price their furniture and leaned towards the higher end of the price scale. Then they tried to expand, having multiple little shops within the building. The plan made little sense and was the final nail in the coffin lid for a business which had been fine a year before.

When we heard that it was reopening sometime last year, mom and I were pleased. Aside from some furniture prices being wack, they had some really fun junk finds (and I used to love raiding the used book section). But, for reasons unknown, there was never any time, reason, or will to go and check it out. This went on for a few months; we'd plan to walk down but always be sidetracked at another store, or decide we didn't really need anything there, or we'd just ... not be able walk those last few feet down the sidewalk to get to the doors.

Necessity finally intervened in February. We needed a small tv to fit in the booze-cabinet-turned-tv-table in the downstairs living room, and there were no electronics stores in the tri-state area that had one in stock that would fit (with the exception of clothes, mom really doesn't like buying things online. Products must be seen in person to be assured of their functionality before purchase, especially electronics and miniature tv's). So, on their way home from another failed tv expedition, mom and my brother decided to try their luck at the RAG shop. They had sold used electronics before they'd closed, odds were likely they still would.

Mom felt it as soon as she walked through the door (probably because the furniture is right there in the entrance, just looming and being its' creepy-ass self). This sense of being cussed and shouted at. It was really unpleasant, and no small bit disconcerting, mom told me later that night, since we'd been in that store dozens of times without ever feeling anything that hostile before. It came from a set of very old furniture; a couch and a set of three chairs. Mom and my brother guessed they're from sometime around or shortly after the civil war. This is assumed because the yelling and cussing and mean, nasty, hostile vibes of bad juju come from a little old southern lady who sits on the couch in her with linen nightgown and sleeping cap, with a rifle in her lap, informing anyone who'll listen that she hates niggers, Jews, Catholics, those dirty Mexicans, Yankees (I'm assuming she doesn't mean the baseball team, but I wouldn't be too surprised if she was), and a number of other things. She then cackels and cheerfully annouces that she will gladly shoot any of the above mentioned peoples if they don't get off her land.

Mom found a tv there, bought it, and she and my brother got the Hell out of there.

I've gone by the store since then, and while I haven't seen anything, I can't help but feel uneasy. I also wonder how many others feel the same way. It's been months since that furniture set went on sale and no one's bought it. I'm starting to wonder if anyone ever will.

Death 101

Sat, 02 May 2009 03:18:09 GMT

Death has been a subject of dread and fascination among mortals since its' inception. It's easy to understand why and you can probably find dozens of other blogs which tackle humanities morbid obsession with my friend and yours, Muerta. I'm here to talk to you about what it really is.

So, not to do my impression of a cheesy psychic or carnival gypsy, but, there really is no such thing as death. It's merely a transition. A painful one but all births are.

If you want the science of it, look at it this way: energy cannot be created or destroyed. The energy of your body in the physical sense, your body/corpse/mortal coil/ etc., continues after death by decomposing and becoming nourishment within the earth(and so on and so on. I know this stuff gets covered in high school biology). That intangible essence of person which leaves the body, either as a result of or causing death and which we refer to as the Soul, also continues on. Why? Because as I mentioned above, energy cannot be destroyed. It just changes shape.

But where does it go? What does it do? Does it get a harp and a white robe? Does it go to some giant hall where it eats and fights and drinks beer and hangs with valkyries? Does it go to Hell? Does it go anywhere?

This is where it gets a little trickier because we have to deal with souls.

Next lesson - Souls: A Primer

Purpose

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:39:34 GMT

First things first, Maria needs a hug something fierce. Go here to deposit hugs, sympathy, and little black kittens.

It's taken me a while to decide what I want to use this journal for. People (theoretically) read this, and honestly I don't want to right about the various mundane events of the day anymore than you want to read about them. I didn't start a live journal with any intention of actually using it. Maria started her own blog and decided that I needed one too. But not a blog spot account. Oh no, she already has one so I need an LJ.

In case you can't tell, I'm rolling my eyes right now.

But I think I've come to a decision. I'm going to tell you what's really going on.

Lesson 1: There is a God. And It is nothing like what you believe.

Interesting Conversations

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:36:56 GMT

I am, once again victim of Maria's whims. In this case, it's to keep her company in the cafeteria until her journalism meeting starts. While trying my hand at Garden Solitaire, I hear the couple beside me arguing. And, I kid you not, the girl is accusing her friend/boyfriend/whatever of cheating on her with his classes.

There are not enough pancakes in the world for me to be able to deal with this place.

Stephen King is my hero.

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:58:30 GMT

Long have I loved Stephen King. He is one of the very few people in the world who can reduce me to a drooling fan girl and I have no shame about this. He has, somehow, earned even more street cred with me for slamming Stephenie Meyer. I think he could've been harder, but he's Stephen fucking King. Any disapproval is a nail in her vampire-devoid coffin. Stephen King, if you ever want a devoted toadie, I'm waiting by the phone.

There's something wrong with me

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:41:59 GMT

Normally I watch the Superbowl with Maria and May, but there was a "Ghost Hunters" marathon on the SciFi channel that we HAD to watch. Personally, I think we made the right choice. However, while channel-surfing during commercials, we were caught by this.

I think there's something wrong with us. We couldn't turn away. We just sat there. And watched. And immediately went to Youtube when it was over to see if anyone had uploaded it. Please send help. Or cupcakes. We like cupcakes.

Good-bye 2008. Take the trash out while you're going.

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:46:36 GMT

Maria is getting sloshed in preparation for the New Year and I'm exploiting her current condition to make her write that blog she promised me a week ago. It's a little funny; she's wearing a blue felt top hat and purple-tinted sun glasses. Between the head attire and her new haircut (which she insists doesn't look like Alice Cullen's) she currently resembles Willy Wonka. It certainly amused the ladies at the Thai restaurant she and her family had dinner at. They invited me and introduced me to Dharma whom I think I may end up liking even more than Maria. 2009 will be interesting indeed.

Maria is slow but she's working. As proof, have a look at the artist and her work.

The dresser and the bottle.

The furniture is a team effort between Maria and her mother. The bottles are all her's. She's done some others which I love. The butterfly one is still in process and will eventually be filled with something. Maria is thinking about liquid gold glitter. I'm thinking maybe silver or green. The prices are negotiable, or so she tells me. Go over to her site and see for yourself. http://www.mariameeps.blogspot.com/

AS soon as she's done, I'm off to Balaneshk to dance and party with Araba and Zach like it's the apocolypse. Have a happy new year and I'll see all of you in 2009.

EDIT: As promised, I bring you my first lolcat: How The Cat Stole Christmas

A Blessed New Year to All, (especially me)

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:43:17 GMT

A Very Merry Christmas to all! A recap of festivities will come later, possibly in 2009.

Things DEFINITELY coming in 2009:

Tiramisu and the Questing Threrefore.

The Mr. Potato Head Look-a-Like Contest.

House of Deo cards and gifts.

Maria rants about the Red and Black.

The Continuing Adventures of Obama.

A Lolcat Christmas

The Truth About Fairy Godmothers.

Maria has an Ipod! (and Alice Cullen hair. Shh, don't tell anyone!)

And finally, Jareth's Baby Sitting Service.

Finally, I must state that it amuses me to no end that Casa de Miel appears as a street in Mexico in livejournal's locater.

Happy Solstice!

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:44:47 GMT

Happy Winter Solstice denizens of the inter-web.

To begin, this makes me so incredibly happy, there are no words. I've already expressed my hatred for the series, but I have the utmost respect for the actors. I saw the movie and I think they all did as well with their roles as was humanly possible. And Robert Pattinson is my hero for so many reasons. This just adds to my love. He's a talented actor, he's very genuine, and he's even a little cute (in an odd, grubby, homeless sort of way). He's one of those rare people whom I'd like to take home, feed him a home cooked meal, give him some clean clothes, and then send him on his way. I might try to pursued Arabielle to give him voice lessons first. He has a nice sound but for the life of me, I can't understand a word of his diction. By the way, if anyone knows of a good, free, and easily procured "Twilight" bootleg, Maria D wants a copy to MST.

Enough of that weirdness. I've spent the day baking cookies and cleaning. Arabielle and I spoke about our dreams. I've been having prophetic dreams again, but not for myself. It's as though someone delivered the wrong dream to me, and I foresaw an important event in someone else's life. But I don't know whose dream it was! I recognized no one and I'm a little concerned about it. Experience, however, has taught me that the best course of action in these situations is to ignore it. Sound advice. I think I'll follow it.

After that, we began that oh so familiar talk about the soulmates. Josh is fighting an epic war within himself...AGAIN. Dramatize, Joshua, dramatize. And I don't know where Zachary is. I think the only reason why our relationship isn't in such a state of disarray, like Araba and Josh's, is that we're still so young. We're still friends more than lovers, and the distraction of other interests outside each other and ourselves keeps us from missing one another too much. Personally, I'm not sure if I want that to change if the other option is to be like Araba and Josh. I know there are sensible soulmates out there; I just don't seem to be related to any of them.

Uncle Mathias is visiting for the Holy Days. With all the baking, the lower house reeks of sugar cookies and chocolate. It's a good environ for magic, and you can be sure Mathias took advantage of that. The Shadow King has been giving him more trouble than usual, and Mathias has never been one to sit and take shit. but of course he's still...wounded from Pinnacle and the wars. Arabielle and I both wanted to stay close, in case he needed our help. While he was trancing the Spiritscape, I had Weaving to do. disincarnates hiding in the Veil have been giving Araba trouble lately, and I promised her that I'd try bind some of them to alleviate their interference. I've taught Arabielle how to Weave Fate a bit, and she in turn has been teaching me how to successfully bind entities. It's not my favorite training, but it's better than anything I ever had at House of Orders. Mathias noticed that, while I was binding some of the disincarnate spirits who were troubling Araba, I was trapping them in the ribbons I was braiding: an unintentional end result, but not entirely displeasing. Of course, this gave him an idea.

He'd done something kind of...rash. And while we probably would have gone along with it anyway, it was a little annoying to be working under a deadline. I hate deadlines. They're necessary, but I still hate them. In this particular case, Mathias had done something to distract the Shadow King. I don't know what since I was busy weaving for Araba. But this left us with an opportunity to bind and seal the Fake Fates; those mechanical aberrations, crafted to weave lies and silence in the universe, crafting prophecies that work for the King's purpose instead of truth. They were my Mistresses at Orders and I could no more pass at an opportunity to stop them than you could put your hand in a flame and resist pulling it out.

I can't tell you all of what was done; I can barely recall what it was I myself did. But those three clockwork fates are bound in a ribbon Araba is using to tie back her hair. Consequences be damned. I'd do this again in a heartbeat.

By the way, Maria is decoupaging bottles. They're pretty and interesting. She'll have pictures up on her blog sometime this week. You should look at them. I might ask her to make me one. I could keep that ribbon of souls in one!

My Obituary

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:19:53 GMT

It's so true! I hope it involves marshmallows somehow.

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

CHEER and the celebrating thereof

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:23:55 GMT

The Holidays have settled in at Casa de Miel quite comfortably. In fact, I'm mixing butter and sugar for cookies right now. I can't speak for the rest of you, but here at The House it has been a long time since it's truly felt like the holiday season. But this year there's a sense of joy and festiveness which has been absent for nearly a decade. Garlands, beads, bows, and over-sized ornaments are hung in every room. Arabielle, my sister, is plotting to bake her Evil Cake -double fudge with chocolate chips and cherries-, my brother, Tobai, is arranging a solstice barbecue, Kaoru has been cooking up a storm and arranging gift baskets since Sunday, Rosa is planning a counter-caroling session(with Josh writing the lyrics), and May, Polly, and Deetz are arguing over what type and how much liquor should find it's way into the punch.
Maria D is hosting a Terribly Tacky Tea Party next Monday for Trishycakes and Jessica-Jo, as well has her mothers friends and students. It promises to be wonderfully tacky and tasty (think pink flamingos with Santa hats, purple Christmas lights, and a gingerbread house made of graham crackers). I won't be in attendance as Nade and Mimi are planning to kidnap me and force me to listen to Nade's absurd boy troubles. Being a best friend is trying work and I'm glad I only have one besides my sister. The rest of you however, should try make your way over to her blog sometime over the holidays, as she has assured me that as soon as she's figured out how to post videos and work her web camera, she'll be posting some hilarious videos full of CHEER as Maureen Johnson has been so aptly phrasing it.
Just an odd thought, since this has recently been brought to my attention. Maria D is a very nice, smart, and sweet person in reality but comes across as a complete peppy bitch online. Meanwhile, I'm a crazed, mean spirited harpy in person, yet somehow project myself as a rational idealist over the internet. If someone could explain to me the hows and whys of this personality conundrum, we'd both be very grateful.
In the meantime, you can see Maria being her usual, nutty self over on youtube. One friend brought a guitar amp to school, hooked it up to someone else's laptop, and started playing party mixes better left dead. Earl managed to capture the stupidity on film and lets' us look at it here. Maria shows up at about 2:32. If you watch all 8 videos (which I don't recommend) she appears in about half of them. But the truly hilarious part is that, after this first video during which she randomly dances the Macarena, the Macarena is the next song on the playlist. Also, you can see her and the entity known as Gremily here singing about the Twelve Trials of the Red and Black (the school newspaper she works on). This was meant to be a joke but apparently most of it came true. She promises to give me lyrics to this silliness as soon as she's no longer banned from the computer. Long story.

Before You Ask

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:33:42 GMT

Over the past year, I've been asked with increasing frequency to share my opinion about the Twilight Saga. Before anyone here asks me to take a stand, I'm preemptively providing you with the rebuttal I wrote for Maria D. She had posted a review here and here(slightly more accessible), which was subsequently called "condescending" by a Twilight fan who seemed to misunderstand that this review was a statement of opinion.

The books are grammatically awkward, linguistically infantile, and by-and-large plotless. As for its social implications, Twilight is a disease of a book. It feeds into all the fetishy, pedophelic tendencies which run rampant in the undercurrent of American culture. A barely legal, teenage girl falls in love with a much older man who remains in his youthful prime forever, a teenager with a penchant for fast cars and a desire to prove his love by acting as a sugar daddy. Edwards' behavior is not that of a teenage boy's but of a man going through a midlife crisis, trapped in a teen's body. Edward sings lullabies to Bella, carries her around through half the series, and monitors her social life, effectively infantilizing her.

Bella herself can barely call her father 'dad,' and spend a solid chunk of the series pouting. Hardly the most mature reaction, even for a teenager. At the very least, their love life borders on the sado-masochistic, what with Edward "enjoying the bouquet while resisting the wine" spiel, making out with a girl he can barely keep from eating. Meanwhile, Bella is getting her kicks from making out with incredibly strong guys who either are older than her or look older than her, and who hold her until she bruises.

As if Bella and Edward's relationship weren't tacky enough (and a sure sign that Mrs. Meyer has some serious issue, some of which are most assuredly with Daddy), we have to deal with Clair and Quil. Have you heard of a book called Lolita? It caused quite an uproar in it's day. Clare Quilty, one of the main characters, seduces a young girl, Lolita, by acting as a father or brother type figure, gaining Lolita's trust and eventually sleeping with her. As SMeyer put it herself, "it's hard to resist that level of commitment and adoration." Coincidentally, both Quilty and the main character claim they fell in love with Lolita against their wills. Sounds a bit like SMeyer's description of imprinting! Mrs. Meyer was an English major, and while she may not have read the book, I highly doubt that she never heard of it. Most people I know had at least heard about it in high school.

This is my opinion of the book. I've given the matter much thought. It will not be changed. If you want to convert someone to Twilight-fandom, or even have a civil discussion about the series, look for someone else. This series has given me rabies and I will bite you. All you will find left in me is a burning desire to crush Stephenie Meyer under the weight of the thousands of trees who gave their lives so that this bullshit could be printed.

Fuck off Twilighters. Save your fandom for someone gives a shit.