I'm awesome.  Can I say that?  I give myself so much flak - I think I deserve this one.

I have posted a 500 word minimum story/chapter each week for the last 210 weeks!

That's at least 105,000 words... which is seriously an underestimation because ONE story I have edges close to 160k and it couldn't have taken up 30 of those weeks. So a better estimate is 250,000 words.

This is 4 YEARS of consecutively weekly prompt fulfillment, people.  Not saying all of those weeks are good. LOL. But I did them. Holy hay.  Now I just need to wait for the moderators to confirm... and for someone to make my award.  If I screwed up somewhere, I will be SO upset. I still want my shiny graphic, even if to some people it's just an image.  It means EVERYTHING to me because I worked so hard to get it. 

Now what will I do, I wonder?  Aside from watch My Little Pony like a fiend! That's my new favorite show by far! But as far as writing goes, I need to figure out how to take this weekly dedication... and put it 100% into my novel.

Seriously, this is the best show ever. EVER. More on that later.

Some people hate feet. I hate fingernails. I hate any kind of fingernail torture in horror (having them pulled off, or the infamous scenes of victims clawing at the floor or walls as they are dragged away by a killer, often ripping one off in the process.  BARF.)  Specifically, in real life, I HATE long fingernails. They creep me right the hell out, especially the people who have them. Let me describe the people I have in mind. These people never cut their nails. Only sharpen them.  They seriously consider them weapons.  They flick their nails together like they think they are mother freaking Wolverine, but with a much creepier sound effect.  It doesn't help that the people I've known like this all have questionable mental stability.  They scratch at everything with these horrific nails, like their arms in the middle of a silent room.  Think nails on a chalkboard to feel my anguish.  Skrch skrch skrch skrch skrch.

Let's play comparisons.

 This is quite fine.  These nails are sexy, in fact.  They are trim and somehow you can tell that they will not at any time be used to draw blood, even though they are painted blood red.  Awesome.
NO.  HELL NO.  Trim your nails, you psychopath!  This person is even in the process of flicking their nails together.  Skrch skrch skrch...







Sorry, but I will judge you in person if I see that you have such long, horrible fingernails.  And this is YOUR fault, because likely the only reason I will notice your fingernails is if you are in the process of sharpening or otherwise celebrating your disgusting weapons.  And I will judge you by telling you to never touch me while I run away in the opposite direction.  Seriously, I have asked friends of mine to never, ever, ever touch me because of their horrible fingernails. (And they tormented me instead.)

Internet friends, I do not care.  Just never ever mention if you prefer your fingernails kept in the way that horrifies me the most, and we are all cool.  Sincerely.


P.S. I get about 98% of all the photographs I use in my posts from morguefile.com.  It's a seriously free stock photo site.  A little bit limited, but worth it to not face the hassle that other "free" stock photo sites create.  My other site of choice is flickr.com, using creative commons images.

I decided to make a change and see how it would go. I'm going to keep tweaking things, but I really like this new layout.

ETA: Hours later, the search bar finally works, I can quick edit my posts again, formatting is tweaked a little bit, and I accidentally managed to activate the feedback buttons on posts. I think I have everything I need... fingers crossed!

Time for bed.

It's amazing how many people pretend that is no discrimination against homosexuals or any other kind of sexuality differing from the hetero "norm". Do they really not see how straight people are allowed to be open about their sexuality, and others are told to stop "flaunting" it? It's amazing how they will call simple truths bullshit. I'm tired of arguing the point to death. Next time someone tries to explain why they "don't mind gay people, they just shouldn't be able to..." I'm just going to respond with a big FUCK YOU. There's seriously no way to reason with these assholes. I'm not going to tolerate their shit in a world that wants to decide whether two adults in love can get married based on whether or not their genitals interlock.

I never realized how squeamish I was until 10th grade, learning about the human heart.  I got so sick, my handwriting got worse and worse in my notes, and then stopped because I couldn't hold the pencil.  My wrists felt sensitive and frail.  I wanted to smack my head against the desk.  I wasn't going to puke, I felt I was going to pass out at any second.

I always thought that people who got sick in health class or biology class were stupid or weak.  But then it happened to me, and I couldn't help it.  And no one else was affected.  A video about a girl breaking her arm got to me when it came to the healing process involved.

And it's stupid.  Really stupid, because I can talk about gore all day long.  *I* can.  But something like an academic lecture about heart valves?  Um.

I made this diagram so maybe the non-squeamish people can get a sense of how I feel when I get enervated by talk of blood.  And it's pretty much always academic or medical talk that gets to me.


I suppose I have an overactive imagination.  It bothers me, I think, because I start thinking about me and my blood and how it is pumping away in my veins and, oh dear...

A thread came up about vampires and blood loss.  I could answer the questions, because I've donated blood before and I read the pamphlets.  But as I wrote on, I started getting the above symptoms.  I had to bow out.  I keep peeking into the thread, but each time I do, I get sick again.  Never been such a problem.

Now, me, I loved dissecting in high school.  Except for the worm dissection because worms are just gross.  I loved cutting up the frog legs.  I could shove my whole arm into a dead sheep in real life.  I don't mind getting my blood drawn at a clinic.  (Last time I donated blood was a bit different, though.)  But lordy, I can't handle someone else talking about it.

It sucks, one of my favorite things is gore.  I like looking up those old medieval torture methods and devices.  But halfway through an article listing and describing various tortures, I'm so badly affected I can't function.  I have to go lay down... for a few hours.  Pretty stupid, huh?

So because I haven't officially commented on it yet, I'll comment on it now.

I had three previous posts about my step-dad's condition.

September 20th, 2010 at 12:30 am, he died.  Yeah, I'm not into the "passed away" nonsense.

He was gasping for breath, like a fish out of water.  My mother called it a "death rattle" and she knew he was going to go because she worked in a nursing home for years.  It's a horrible thing.


I'd never seen anyone die before.  I have to admit, it is as terrible as it is rewarding.  I'm glad I was there to say goodbye.  Unlike some people, I didn't feel anything when he passed.  He kept getting quiet now and then, and Steve and I would look at each other wondering, is he gone?  Then he would breathe again.  This happened a few times, and the last time it happened, needless to say it was the last.  It's a long moment wondering, will he breathe again?  Now?

There's not much of a difference between someone who was just alive and someone who is dead.  Maybe I feel that way because he was already so close to death.  There was no change, just a lack of breathing, and time.  His eyes were closed, his mouth was open.  There was a fly in the room, already stalking the scent of death.  I would have done anything to kill that fucking fly.

My mother was hysterical.  She was so mean to him the last few days before he died, mocking him because he thought he could get from point A to point B, and he would fall down in between.  I'm amazed that she managed to absolve herself so quickly.

I had to call the people from hospice, aka the vultures.  I told them who I was and that Harry had passed away.  I hate that phrase.  She said in the most unbelievably patronizing tone of voice, "He is (Pronounced "eeez").  I hung up on that bitch.

I didn't want anyone near the body except for close relatives.  It wasn't right, but they came anyway.  They brought their fucking children.  They said, "Give him a kiss."  That's just freaking sick.

It was along wait for someone to come.  I felt like I needed to guard his body.  We had to wait for paramedics to come and confirm that, yep, we're not stupid - he was dead.

They took him and the bed sheet he was wrapped in.  We all  stood outside on the ramp that had been constructed not even a week ago just so Harry could get around easier.  It was cold.  We were crying and cold from crying.  We stood outside for a long time, thinking of what to say, and trying to laugh whenever we could.

I went back to bed.  Didn't dream. Went to school in the morning, but not to class.  I hid in the music area and cried and called my dad and his family.  They didn't understand.  I found my friend at lunch and took her to a private bathroom and told her, and we cried.  That was good, because I realized that usually when you cry, you fucking cry alone.  I learned that later that night at marching band practice, when it hurt to keep going, and everyone else laughed in their own world, even though they knew, and I screamed.

He didn't live long enough to see his birthday in October, or my 18th in November, or my graduation on June 3rd.  Goals I had jokingly held him to when he was alive.  Sometimes you just can't make a goal.

I didn't dream of him for a long time.  The first time I did, he called me on the phone.  He wanted to let me know that he wouldn't be seeing me on the other side, because I didn't have a soul.

I think that's true.

My mother didn't want to sleep in the bed where he died.  She slept in the lazy-boy for a while.  But eventually she went back to her bed.

It took weeks and several strips of flypaper to get rid of the flies.  They could smell death somehow, even after he was gone.  I fucking hate flies. They are the true harbingers of death.  You cannot comprehend how evil they are until they invade the area where someone died, searching for a place to lay their spawn, pissing all over your sense of reverence, reminding you that everything is filth.

Another thing I realized about death, is how unfair it is for someone to become past tense.  You no longer are, you were.  It's the worst injustice imaginable.  I can't see how someone stops affecting the world.  Some last longer in our memories than others.  It feels like cheating them.

Some people get upset with the fact that I can still joke about death.  Crudely.  That's just too bad for them.  Life goes on, even if it shouldn't.  Too many people die for it to be offensive.  Respect the people themselves, but death is not something that isn't worth laughing at.  If only because we know that none of us will escape it.