HARROWING FOOT TALES

Or how I learned to stop worrying and embrace my infection.

/Facebook copypasta

A thrilling if agonizing jolt of pain races up my calf whenever I rotate my foot just so, unfortunately I'm starting to like it so I keep doing it.

So if you've seen me status messages/tweets about draining pus (or as Daniel called it "fluid" but I like pus) out of my foot you might have wondered what the fuck happened and why I was doing this. Other than the fact that I'm crazy. Well, the tale is MORE HARROWING THAN YOU THINK.

Yesterday afternoon my new pair of shoes arrived and so did a friend who wanted me to accompany her to dinner. I did so and to dinner we went. My new shoes fit pretty well and I hope the weather gets warm enough that I can break them in more. Unfortunately, it seems that whenever I buy new shoes something horribly wrong happens. Like yesterday.

After dinner friendy has to go to a study meeting. I walk her there since I needed to go to the library and look for a damn illustrated copy of the Jungle Book. Were none. Make own. Note to self.

But before I can even get to the library proper, as I go up the stairs there is a painful jolt in my right foot. I look down and see droplets of blood on the stair steps and a little pool on the side of my shoe. I look down and think, "Oh shit I must have scraped it." Mind you it was quite cold yesterday so it's perfectly logical that I might have hurt myself and not felt it, it's happened before. Strange but possible, I guess. Still not totally sure how I pulled that off.

So I do what any self reliant trooper would and ignored it, continuing on my merry way to the library, which soon turned into the longest walk ever as the new fake leather continually rubbed against my new wound. By the time I got to those annoying slide doors I was thinking about just abandoning my quest and hobbling myself back to the dorm room but no, damnit, I was at the doors! So I go in.

Like I said I didn't find my illustrated copy of the Jungle Book, and was sad. I did find books on teaching kids about drugs and masturbation but I would have looked extremely creepy hording those out so I left them. Such was my great pain that I wobbled to the bathroom and put some tissue between my injury and the shoe. Wasn't bleeding as bad as I thought, actually it was barely. It looked like it'd even healed up a bit and was just sore. So by the time I get back to the first floor I'm having a bit of "runner's high" and feeling little to nothing as I pimp walk back to my dorm.

Well now the fun starts. Get the shoes off, decide to bandage foot up after I have a little rest. I rest a little and look down at my foot and something is off. It's healed alright, but it looks like I've attached a tiny plastic bag to the injury. And it was filled with...something. Like, I could see damn air bubbles I thought. What the FUCK? I thought.

I decided that this wasn't natural and/or good at all so I flip my foot over the low lying, dusty sink for further investigation. It didn't look any better under fluorescent light but there's a white...thing...in the sack. I had no idea what to make of it--was it a blister? A really ugly looking wound? I can't say what really drove me to pick up the tiny manicure scissors other than disgusted curiosity and a fear that I might be getting my foot cut off soon by some over eager assistant nurse, so I poked at the white spot. It shifted. Then I poked it again. I couldn't feel anything so I tilted the scissors up ever so slightly and made a tiny pinhole...

NOTE: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. IT'S STUPID.

Stuff came out. Stuff. Clearish, odorless, thick fluid came out in copious amounts as I held my foot over the sink. I pushed the more bulbous part of the "sack" and more fluid spilled. I stared in a sort of reverent awe then realized my cell phone was behind me. I simply had to get fotos of this miraculous event!

So I hobbled over but in the process, duh, had to put my foot down so I ended up getting most of the gobbledygunk on the floor and no good pictures. So I settled for texting my unofficial doctor in training about my exciting events. Meanwhile I finally realized that I may have a problem here, so I cut the "sack" off using a pair of tweezers & the scissors, cleaned it, put some cream on it and a bandage, silently thanking my mother for knowing her daughter is a fearless loon.

And that's about as harrowing as it gets. I haven't even told you my dentistry story. With the same tools. (Don't worry it was before this incident.)

Alternative, Spring Break

So, week after next (as in not this upcoming week...follow?) I'll be on spring break. Yay! So where am I going? Cancun? At-lanna? Flo-ri-da? Travel across Europe following my favorite industrial bands since they never come to the States? The Virgin Islands?

Uhh.

Not quite.

Yes it's true; I, the most boring person alive, in between working and trying to make a decent paycheck, will be staying right here in my teeny tiny dorm room, probably curled into a ball of black sorrow and playing copious amounts of Depeche Mode and Bauhaus, fending off the urge to injure myself with index cards. I'm an ex-mutilator, you see *blink blink*

So all this goes on for a week of course. I know, I know, I do that all week every week can't stop won't stop, so spring break won't be much of a difference. Maybe with more Sci-Fi channel thrown in.

So, it's the weekend and my E key seems to have fixed itself, but, again, I have some woe to get back to. So I'll leave you with this random ass article from the Chicago tribune about the Clever and Good Looking Michelle Obama and her naughty naughty sleeveless dresses.

Some harrumph over Michelle Obama's sleeveless dress

Sleevelessness is next to tawdriness if you ask some citizens who spotted Michelle Obama in the audience of her husband's speech Tuesday night.

Although the first lady has been admired for her signature sheaths that expose toned arms, her choice of a Narciso Rodriguez sleeveless dress in this setting ignited some indignation.

"Does the lady not understand that these Big Speech Events are serious and important? Not a cocktail party?" e-mailed Tribune reader Janice Elges of Wheaton, who said she scanned the crowd for other bare arms and spied none. "The season is winter. The occasion is business. Dress was wrong place and time."

I know Haterade is delicious and all, but it's really not that good for you.

Take me to the river, drop me in the water

Warning: Angsting. Angsting hard.

Holla at ya person. You all know I have to go super hard with everything, including emotions.

I've been feeling homesick lately. I think it's homesickness. I really hope so because there's no excuse for random suicidal thoughts. I mean, I have these sometimes, but recently it's been sort of intense. I'm assuming it's homesickness because it's always connected to home...

I hate myself for bringing it up to my mother that I'll be home in May. It sounded more like I was trying to convince myself that I'll be home soon, not her. Sure May isn't all that far off and I'm already pretty well acclimated to dorm living as it were. Other than Housing coming after me (and I ignore them pretty well) I've been okay.

But...I dunno. I guess suddenly I want to be home right now. It's so empty & lonely here on the weekends, walking through the halls of this dorm & on the street is kind of creepy and well, depressing. Everyone's at home or out with friends, I can't go home OR go out with friends.

I've had to start sleeping with my TV on to drown out my own thoughts. My mind goes overactive usually just before I go to sleep, I think that's a normal occurrence. "What did I do today, why didn't I go to that class, wow that sushi was really awesome, did I get more than 400 calories today (no, that's why I'm hungry now)". You know, shit like that. But then you'd usually go to sleep, whereas I...well, I stay awake and think about incidents from eight, ten years ago. The memories won't let me sleep. I turn the TV on and screw my eyes shut and pretty much do the "LALALALALA~" routine. Lately I've started hitting my headboard and that rather hurts, but the pain takes me mind off...me mind.

So that's actually where the suicidal thoughts come from believe it or not. And...well, I think it was Tuesday night, as I hovered there between sleep and sort-of-sleep (I sleep like a cat), I thought of my dad. I thought of one particular incident where we got into an argument and later I ended up hugging him. I could...feel it so vividly and realized that over Christmas break I didn't get to see him much, let alone hug his tall, squishy self.

I thought my tear ducts were going to go into overload, and for about 5 minutes I wanted to die like that would have done any good. I wanted to die with that feeling of hugging his tummy. I come up to his chest, but I always end up hugging his tummy because it's all soft and familiar and secure. I wanted to DIE. I started thinking about all the stuff I'd read up until that point and wanted to die. I thought about cutting (I don't think I've ever mentioned I'm a former mutilator) and wanted to absolutely die. Then I just wanted to be at home.

And that, ladies and gents, is how hard I do with homesickness. And why I avoid it at all costs. This is actually only the second time I've felt that intensely about going home, and the first I've ever connected it with dying *blink* very weird...but this too shall pass.

A brief note,

But hey, Don LaFontaine died :/

"Who?" you say. Oh shut up you know who it is, it's the movie voice-over guy! You've heard him all your life. He sang your damn lullabies, not momma. He fixed your light bulbs, not daddy. When you read a movie tagline that's HIS voice you hear. And he's in a Geico commercial doing...the movie voice!

Boo ;_; he better have some deep voiced daughters or something...yes, this news made me sad, shut the hell up.

My ethernet thing came, I have some...thought-provoking posts to make.

*pets laptop* Yessss preciiioous...I've gotta record myself doing "Mum-Ra".

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Edyt: Boo, I lied it doesn't get here until next week. My PO box, it looked so empty and then I read the tracking order. Walmart is some punks man.

Sigh.

*gets out money for the bus* I may need to get some divine assistance from Western Union up in here...

Scary story time

Haha, my layout is blue now. Not all springy and colorful, but it's awfully relaxing now.

Ugh, the past few days I haven't really been able to channel my creative energy...its been frustrating :/

So...I do little things...I write here and there...speaking of which, I need to write this down:

I have a little keychain my friend gave me. It's pretty cute and kinda looks like an African warrior dude (we call it an..."it"). It's made of black & red yarn and has a sort of red sarong or red wrap, with googly eyes and a red grin, and a red tuft of hair, I guess. He's pretty simplistic.

So one day someone says its a voodoo doll (and it really looks like one). I L-O-L about it and start messing around. I thumped its head and said its voodoo only works sometimes within a 2 mile radius. A few days later my friend gets a concussion :/

Some strange events have been happening with this doll, let me tell you...I mean, I'm not a big believer in voodoo or anything and I'm sure they're just coincidences (funny ones at that), but even I admit it gets a little creepy.

Take this for example. Last week, I took a pin and found somewhere in the doll's chest to stick it. I drove the pin deep in (so it wouldn't stick me of course) and pretty much forgot it until Tuesday. I see my friend Katie with a heart monitor on her chest because she was having heart palpitations. And I was messing around with the keychain about 4th period when I remembered the pin and pulled it out...it was around the same place Katie had her heart monitor, above the collarbone.

Creepy. I look at Ryan and tell him to take a long hard look at it (and I think he's a little unnerved about it too, or at least he acts like it). I drive the pin in the keychain's head and he mentions to me a few days later about Katie or someone else having a headache (the pin is still in the keychain's head at this time). He tells me to be careful where I stick the pin from now on :/ I can't help but believe him a little...

I mean, it is creepy. The fact that it's not having immediate effect just makes me go "Wow, that's freaky but a coincidence nonetheless". But at the same time it's only affecting people I know. Then at the same time, I usually tell someone to look good and long at the doll before I do something to it, but its never that person that's hurt or whatever, someone else. So, I wonder what's REALLY going on with this doll eh?

I'll tell you what else is gibberish

This shite:

Sweet LJ copypasta

My friend Diaphanus posted this article about J K Rowling's recent attempts to protect her Harry Potter franchise, I guess. And after seeing some comments about the article I figured I'd...either chime in or just...yeah. I thought it was an interesting issue.

Harry Potter storylines are gibberish, judge tells Rowling

J. K. Rowling heard her work described as “gibberish” by a US judge yesterday at the end of a three-day trial into an unauthorised encyclopaedia of her Harry Potter novels.

Rowling has asked the federal court in New York to block publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a guide to the characters, places and spells in her novels, written by Steven Vander Ark, 50, a former school librarian.

District Judge Robert Patterson Jr said that he had read the first half of the first Harry Potter novel to his grandchildren, but found the “magical world hard to follow, filled with strange names and words that would be gibberish in any other context.

“I found it extremely complex,” he said, suggesting that a reference guide might be useful.

Rowling said she was “vehemently anti-censorship; and generally supportive of the right of other authors to write books about her novels”. But she said Vander Ark had “plundered” her prose and merely reprinted it in an A-to-Z format.

A decision in the case is not expected soon. It will be weeks before lawyers finish filing documents, and possibly longer before a verdict is given. Judge Patterson is deciding the case, rather than a jury.

Okay, well that's the article. So JK Rowling's trying to stop a lexicon of her famous books from getting published. Why, exactly?

Argument tiem:

I'm not going to pretend to be well-versed with Harry Potter because I'm not. Read some of the books, saw the movies, not the greatest fan. And I'm not even going to act like I understand why she doesn't want what's essentially a fan-made guide on her work being published for people who may not understand it all.

The article says about Rowling's not wanting the lexicon published: But she said Vander Ark had “plundered” her prose and merely reprinted it in an A-to-Z format.

Well, yeah, last I checked that was the general gist of buying a guide like that. Let's say I'm an avid Harry Potter reader and I just want more info behind the spells or I don't understand "levitatum caninis" or some shit like that. Or maybe I'm having trouble keeping up with all the minor and major characters, or I'm not sure on what Snape's motives are for such-and-such. It's not "plundering" prose, it's laying it out in simple terms I think. She makes it sound like he maliciously tore her books apart and distorted them beyond recognition or something :/

As for what the judge said about the books being gibberish, that was a great burn :P nothing more to say on that. Not that I agree or anything, but OW.

Some of the comments on the article bothered me too. Like this one:

"This has nothing to do with anyone's opinion of Rowling's books or of her personally. This has to do with stealing someone's work and trying to label it as your own. If she doesn't approve, then it doesn't get published. Its her work, her story. If you were a writer, you would understand. Despite what you think of it, this is years of her work."

Again, maybe I'm missing something here but these guys are making it sound like Vander Ark went to Rowling's house and stole her manuscripts and tried to pass it off as his own or something. From what I see this isn't even the case, all he's doing is compiling a guide for the fairly complex world of Harry Potter. I mean, what is the DEAL? It's true, if she doesn't want the thing published she can protest and stop it from being published, but that doesn't mean she has the right to go "Omg no you can't do that!"

And this one:

"It worries me that a judge can't follow Harry Potter. The books, especially the first book, are easily read and understood by elementary-schoolers."

Wow, you must know some hyper-intelligent first graders. I don't even think the first book was designed for kids of elementary school age. If they can understand it, good for them, that doesn't mean the Judge was wrong for not being able to follow it. It shouldn't worry you, if you're trying to go for a quick quip (which you failed at anyway), it should make you think about the other people that may not be able to keep up with the books.

Another good point brought up by azalaisdeveyrac, who said, "It's not copyright infringement, it's not bashing... what's up with that?"

It really isn't. To me it's like super dedication because this guy went to the effort to even get this information down into book form. God, that should be commended :P not shunned.

In all, I think this is one JK Rowling just needs to let go. It's not like the guy is doing anything horribly malicious, to me it'd be pretty helpful. I don't know what I'd think if this book wasn't actually able to be published. As it's her work, it's her right to stop the book from being published, it's true, but...really, why?

And some other comments from the original article I found interesting:

"A Fischer you have, like many others missed the point of this legal action. J K Rowling is in favour of such guides provided that they provide a narrative to her work. What she objects to and we as consumers should object to is the rearranging of her work in extracts and passing this off as a guide. The guide in question, she argues, does not add anything new and is effectively just re-arranging her text."

Rearranging her text you say. So...has anyone actually seen this lexicon yet to prove it's just a "rearranging" of her text? I'm curious about that now. I can understand using exerpts as examples and stuff like that, if that's what this person's trying to get at. That's not "rearranging" the story to me.

I thought this one was pretty fair too:

"Rowling is anything but genius, she capitalized on a collective folklore/mythology that has been around for almost a millennium. She targeted an audience (children) with a quirky wit and that is all I can give her.

The judge is right to call it gibberish in comparison of actual literature and English scholars, while redeeming qualities have been noted it terms of turn of phrase, will still tear it part in terms of writing skill, plot devices, theme and its over all place in the canon of Western Literature. Commercial success does not mean that it is any good.

As for the lexicon. By have PR folks feeding the books to the media and colleges for examination she opens up scholarly debate, that means fair use if encouraged. She herself supported this fellow until he wanted to publish his work. Does that mean she is going to go after a college student that submits a scholarly essay based on her work to a paying magazine?

She has run around the world saying she is done with it. So be done"

I don't necessarily agree with all of it (especially the last line) but he makes a couple of good points, mostly about the commercial success and fair use of content.

This one's a little odd:

"By definition FICTION == giberish. As is her case against the guy. "fair use" applies. In addition I find it gauling that you can make some crap up and have its copyright protection extended essentially indefinitely yet if you invented a gizmo that cured cancer you get a paultry bit of patent coverage time."

Fiction equals gibberish does it? Where did he get that? Is there some archaic definition of gibberish I'm not aware of? But I thought his comment about copyrighting was pretty fair.

Lastly, this one's just funny:

"So what if he writes a Harry Potter reference guide. Does that mean I can't write an article about the History of Coca-cola because I'm infringing on their trademark or slogans?"

Tru dat :P although, I think Coca-Cola can sue for something like that...legal system, it is to laugh.

No, Fuck YOU Universe

I'm sorry for the harsh language but it's been that kind of day.

Er, yesterday was anyway. I've lost my voice and gone through a pack of Halls and my eyes are dry, did you know that?

It's also...40 degrees out...and last week it was in the 70s. Again, fuck YOU Universe.

So here's a quick story of disaster, copy pasted from my LJ:

So, instead of my usual colorful ramblings (aren't they colorful?) I'll just skip to the point with this story.

We're going to Rivergate, AKA Sorta-Richland Where That Mall Be At, to pay some bills. Momo and I riding in the Death Wagon.

Momo has desperately been needing tires for...er, forever. And EVER. But, us being po'folks, cannot afford them, so we've been driving on janky (yes, JANKY) tires for god knows how long.We get on the interstate. The car starts vibrating.

I shout to Momo over the radio, "We need to get off this road! The car's vibratin and I ain't got no panties!"

We discuss the pros and cons of freeballing. The car continues vibrating, jittering all of my anatomy harshly. We get on a particularly ugly stretch of road and I just get a thought in my head, Shit, these tires gon' blow out and I say to Momo again, we should get off this road since it sucks and has like a jillion more potholes than these crappy highways usually do.

So, a few miles down, I pop in a CD of songs I saved from friends AGES ago (did Daniel ever send me some songs by Cake? I forget now) and I'm skimming through the songs, trying to remember what's on the CD. Then, in a sort of blurry surreal moment, I hear "BAM!" from the back of the car.

Momo is perfectly cool while I'm going "AAHAHHHH!" which is a total switch. I calm down after I realized, FUCK NO, the tire in the back blew out. I exclaim, "Are you effing SERIOUS?!" as we pull over to the side of the road.

We sit there and take it in. I glare as hard as humanly possible and am just PISSED.

Longer story short, we dial Triple A, they're useless and take 20 minutes to understand the directions and even longer to arrive, Highway Patrol sees us and I shout "THE FUZZ!", TDOT hooks us up with the spare tire in the backseat, and we go to Firestone to get ALL the tires replaced and traipse around in Petsmart.

Now the second part of this entry as indicated by the title, which doesn't have anything to do with the accident besides a few jokes. I've taken to wearing a cute pink sleeping mask on my head like a headband because...it's...cute? And I call myself Gay Zorro (like Zorro the Gay Blade!) and that's it. It also doubles as my eyepatch. I'm a pretty pirate!

I'm messing with the Blogger Draft features. I don't know what I'm going to do. I watched an interesting arty-horror film called Bruiser and I thought I'd do a reviewlette sometime...stuff sticks in my memory for a while. Also, it's foliocrunch time again right now. MONDAY is the day before I can finally REST goddamnit.

I don't really know how this "Scheduled Publishing" thing is going to work...but...I'll try it!