1. When I was really little, my mother says I would fall asleep at breakfast. She’d turn around and find me face first in my scrambled eggs. I have never been a morning person it seems. 2. Someday a library is going to profit by my death as I’ve made it clear when I die that all of my books are to be donated to the smallest library my family can find. 3. I’ll listen to just about any kind of music you can name and I probably own a little bit of everything. I always thought my collection was pretty extensive until I started working at Borders. My coworkers have turned me onto all kinds of new music since then. Right now, my favorite musician is Voltaire. I can’t even describe the kind of music he creates… mock Goth maybe? 4. I have my own space pirate fleet called Those Pesky Scholars. We kick ass in a nerdly way. 5. I take after my great grandmother on my father’s side. I look like her. I even have a weight problem like her. She died when I was eleven. Every summer we would spend a couple weeks at her home, but I don’t know who she was. I mean, I spent time with her and we did stuff together, but I don’t know her history or who she was as a person really. It annoys me because everyone on my father’s side of the family, including my father, are dead and I have no one to ask. 6. When I am trying to sleep, I often hear whispering in my room. So I have a sound machine that I crank to cover it up. In fact, I have two because my mom bought me a new one this past holiday and I play them both. I have no idea if the whispering is ghosts or my empathy making the leap to telepathy, but what I can make out rarely makes any sense. It’s mostly just annoying. 7. I’m addicted to the internet. I log on everyday, sometimes twice. If not for the internet, I’d have no social life whatsoever. 8. When we were young, my sister and I would fill a garbage can with water and wander the neighborhood for ingredients (weeds) to add to our “cauldron” to make our potions. 9. I am not a girly girl, but I still like frilly pretty things. I just don’t like pink. 10. I’m allergic to chocolate, but it’s my favorite flavor. It’s a good thing I’m not deathly allergic to chocolate…. 11. One of my favorite snacks is peanut butter on a spoon. 12. I really do want to be a superhero and if it would have been feasible, I would have quit my job to be part of Stan Lee’s Superhero show. 13. I have a lot of superstitions, but fear of Friday the 13th isn’t one of them. 14. I’ve woken after a restless night’s sleep to find the closet door open and come to the realization that I don’t sleep well if I forget to close it. 15. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a vampire. I would drain the beef blood from the dinner plate after dinner, salt it, and drink it right down. Now I’m a vegetarian. Go figure. My eye teeth are quite sharp though. 16. I’m an asexual, but I would so totally date Abe Sapien. 17. I hate the Matrix movies, but I love the idea of it. (I’m just not big on Keanu Reeves.) 18. I was once sitting on a porch all alone and a hawk flew down and landed on the fence right next to me. I could have reached out and touched him. He sat there and looked at me for several minutes before flying off. 19. I’ve never been kissed or been on a date. 20. According to my IQ, I’m technically gifted, but none of the schools I ever went to could be bothered to have gifted programs. So I spent all my time in the library and gave myself an education. I think my family should be reimbursed all those wasted school taxes. 21. College was a waste of time and money, but I’d go back if I had either just because I’m a big nerd. 22. I think most scary movies are funny. 23. I hate movies that make animals into monsters (Jaws, Anaconda, etc.). You shouldn’t fault an animal for doing what animals naturally do, prey on weaker animals. All these movies do is make people paranoid. 24. When I was fourteen, there was a nest of garter snakes under my father’s horse shed. I caught them all and put them in a barrel, but then I couldn’t think what to do with them, so I let them all go again. 25. I once chipped an arrowhead out of rock, and then I found one a short time after. I still have them both, but I have no idea which is which. 26. I was a Native American in a past life, but I made my arrowhead years before I recalled that past life. My name was Angry Sparrow. I was hanged for horse rustling; I was innocent. 27. When I write, it’s the closest thing to “lust” I’ve ever felt. I have word lust. It makes me feel full and hungry at the same time. I am a glutton for the written word. 28. When I was small, if I was fully engrossed in coloring or being creative in some way, I would always have the tip of my tongue sticking out. My mom would make fun of me for it. I don’t do that any more. 29. Unlike Superman, I have to wear my glasses in order to see. In my quest to be a superhero, I’ve considered breaking an old pair of glasses just to incorporate the lenses in a mask. 30. I tell myself stories to get to sleep. They’re nothing I’d ever write down, but I’ve done it for years. 31. I love the howling of the wind in the night and rain on the roof. I love being in the wind and letting it play with my hair. When I was little, I loved going out in a storm with no shoes on and splashing in the puddles but my mother said I would get hit by lightning and made me come in. Sometimes I’d like to go out and play in the puddles even now. 32. When I’m at work, if I don’t get to read on my break, I am very irritable when I come back. 33. I really don’t like Aretha Franklin’s singing. I don’t care if she’s the best singer of the century or whatever. My coworker calls her Urethra Franklin. lol 34. I used to love Night Court, but my favorite “characters” were guest appearances by Mel Torme and Yakov Smirnoff, the only two characters that played themselves. 35. I’ve been a Pagan since I was eleven, so 23 years now. I try to be open minded about all religions, but people who became witches because of Charmed, the Craft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Practical Magic are like fingernails on chalkboard to me. 36. I like medieval ballads and sea shanties. 37. Despite the fact that I have hundreds (close to a thousand) books, I’ve only ever made the error of getting duplicate books twice. 38. When I was little, I would pretend to be a dolphin when I was swimming in the public pool. 39. I don’t plan on being reincarnated the next time around. 40. I used to think everyone was telepathic/empathic and that they were just ignoring me for some reason. 41. Sometimes I think about walking off into the woods and not coming back. 42. I hate driving and would really rather own a horse, but unfortunately, you can’t ride a horse to work. 43. I wish I wasn’t allergic to cats because I really adore them. 44. I’m running out of things to say. 45. I put people on a pedestal and when they disappoint me (as people are wont to do) I cut them off completely. I know it’s not their fault that I have unrealistic expectations for them, but at the same time, I hold myself to high standards and I think if I care for someone, they should have high standards for themselves too. 46. The worst thing about being a vegetarian is the gas. Or maybe that’s just a personal problem… 47. I refused to dissect any animals in high school and accepted the B in biology though I could have had an A if I had agreed to cut up the lab animals. My argument was that everything was in a book, and I could just as easily memorize the parts of the animals from the book as I could by cutting open a cadaver. It really ticked me off though when they dissected a live worm and insisted it felt no pain when from its squirming, it was obvious that it did. 48. When I was 17, I told my mother I was going to try to get to the faery Otherworld and I spent several hours in her doorway on Midsummer’s Eve waiting for midnight. It didn’t work. 49. When I was thirteen, I woke up in the middle of the night and there was a shadowy robed figure standing next to my bed. It freaked me the heck out, but I figured my best defense was to pretend I didn’t see anything. I rolled over and shortly fell back to sleep. I haven’t seen anything since. I sometimes wonder if I should have gotten up instead and asked it what it wanted. 50. I wish I could dye my hair green, but no unnatural hair colors are allowed at work. My argument is that two-thirds of the world is green, so green is the most natural color in the world. 51. My spirit animals are the raven, the jaguar, the dolphin, the turtle, the snake, the spider, and the hawk. I have been a jaguar and a dolphin in a past life. 52. When I was younger, I identified more with the Greek pantheon, specifically with Apollo, Athena, and Hermes. Now that I’m older, I identify more with the Egyptian and the Norse Pantheons, specifically with Thoth and Ma’at, Loki, Tyr, and Vidar. My personal deities are invariably gods of truth, justice, or trickery. I am an enigma. 53. Sometimes I think my life is a game that I’ve grown bored with, and I can’t tell who’s also playing or who might just be part of the game. 54. I’m a terrible procrastinator. 55. I like looking up at the night sky and wondering who might be up there. I wish some aliens would come talk to me and tell me if it’s all worth it or is humanity a waste of space. 56. I like communicating with people over the internet more than I like communicating with people in person. 57. When my sister and I would visit our great grandmother when we were little, we didn’t have a night light. I would stare into the darkness and imagine I saw static like you see when the cable is out and images. It makes me wonder if I had stronger psychic ability when I was little than I do now. 58. I really don’t like being human. I feel like I should be more. Humanity disappoints me. 59. I think I was H P Lovecraft in a past life but I only have vague memories of dying of a stomach ailment and my love of cheese to go on. 60. I worry sometimes that I might have cancer. Not any specific kind of cancer or in any specific place, but just that I have it and it’s growing and I won’t know until it’s too late. I worry that my back pain is cancer, or my irregular menstrual cycle is cancer, or my headaches are cancer. I worry that my mother’s smoking has given me cancer. Stroke and heart disease run in my family but I worry about cancer exclusively. 61. I’m more afraid of living than dying. 62. I love animals. They’re a lot more honest than people and I respect that. 63. I like to cook for people but if they begin to expect it, I feel like they only like me for my good cooking. I also resent it when some (well meaning) old lady says, “You’ll make someone a good wife some day” as if that’s all a woman’s good for. 64. Sometimes I wish I could I could live in the worlds I write about. 65. I don’t love my job any more. 66. I believe dolphins, parrots, ravens, apes, and elephants are at least as intelligent as human children and should be treated with the kindness and patience due a small human child. 67. I have been told that I was born ahead of my time, and I’ve been told I belong in eras long past. I honestly can’t figure out which is correct. 68. I have ten past lives, plus one. The plus one is a weird memory I have that could be Atlantis or could be a colony on another world. 69. My father told me my great aunt was a druidess, but he was a pathological liar so I don’t know if he was a trustworthy source of information. 70. Though I don’t hold as much respect for the office as I did when I was a child, I would still like to be president some day. Though I don’t hold out much hope that the American public is ready for a female, pacifist, vegetarian, Pagan, socialist president. Maybe if I left out the socialist part. 71. Now that Obama is president, I’m glad I didn’t leave the country. 72. If the government promised to “go green” by 2012, I’d give them half of every paycheck. 73. If everyone decided to leave the planet tomorrow to look for a new home in the stars, I’d stay here and try to clean up our mess. I hope others would too. 74. I had a dream when I was in high school that gave me hope for the future despite its dark forecast. I won’t go into detail, but I’m less worried about the planet than you might automatically assume from my general tone. Everything will be alright, with or without us. 75. I am not afraid of any bugs and will take spiders, wasps, bees, etc outside with nothing more than a tissue or piece of paper. Centipedes give me the creeping heebie jeebies though. 76. I think it’s unfair that with as much as I love nature, I still have airborne allergies. On the other hand, that might be due to the fact that air pollution increases respiratory sensitivity. So in a way, I am atoning for my species’ misdeeds through my suffering. It’s still unfair that I can’t have a cat or go outside in the summer though. Mother Nature should make the corporate big wigs responsible for most of the pollution more allergy sensitive, not me. 77. There’s not enough time in the day for me to indulge all of my interests. I don’t know how the geniuses of the renaissance did it, not that I think I’m a genius, but you catch my drift. 78. We used to play hide and seek in the dark with the neighborhood kids. So long as I could find a tree, I could never be found. I just had to stand perfectly still. Once I hid “behind” a tree that was no thicker than my wrist. No one found me. 79. I don’t like loud noises. I don’t like trains or yelling or children crying. It makes me want to find a hole and climb into it. I’m more than a little agoraphobic. 80. More than anything, I want someone to take care of me. I don’t want to be responsible for my finances or my needs. I want to read and write and that’s about it. Basically I want to be a child again. 81. Languages fascinate me, but I don’t have a talent for them. I collect symbols and alphabets, but beyond a few phrases in German, French, and Spanish, I’m hopeless. 82. I belong to seven libraries. 83. I once went to a little hole in the wall gallery to ask if they would show my paintings. The woman asked if I had a name, and I said, just the one I was born with. Needless to say, they did not agree to show my paintings. I haven’t really painted since. 84. When I was three or four, I declared a day penny day because I found about 10 cents in pennies all over the house. I wish I was so easily amused as an adult. 85. Once when I was visiting my great grandmother (I must have been about four) some of our cousins from Ireland came to visit. They were all very tall as people on my father’s side of the family are (he was actually a “runt” at 6’1″). One of the women had a huge beehive hairdo that was a foot taller yet. I sat on the floor and cried. I don’t remember anything else from their visit or any of the other people except for this woman and her beehive hairdo. I don’t know why I cried. 86. I think my hair and my hands are my best features. Sometimes people compliment my eyes, but since I need glasses I don’t really include them. I used to think my feet were pretty nice, but after 34 years in shoes, they’re starting to look a little worn. Least I don’t have nail fungus. (I know, thanks for sharing, right? lol) 87. For several years when I was a kid, I believed in “grabbies” which were the deformed children of the boogie man and bloody Mary. If you let your hands or feet outside of your covers, they would come in the dark to snatch them away to replace their own misshapen limbs. I had a similar belief about letting your feet dangle in public restrooms, namely that “something” would come and snatch them underneath the door. I have no idea how these beliefs got started and I don’t recall when I stopped believing this would happen. 88. I think psychiatrists and their ilk are nosey buggers. I think the half of them only practice so they can see how messed up you are. It makes them feel better about themselves or something. I don’t know. When I was a kid, the school made my sister and I go to a therapist for our “problems.” She never did give me any insights into my psyche. Just asked questions and listened to me talk about how awful school was. 89. My great grandmother on my mother’s side was legally blind for pretty much my entire life. I sometimes worry that I will go blind too, even though her blindness was the result of a botched surgery. I don’t think I could live like that though. 90. Hey look at that… and I didn’t think I could even get to fifty. 91. I once didn’t talk for a month and nobody noticed. It really depressed me and showed me how much I was “worth” to the people around me. It’s one of the reasons I won’t stand for being taken for granted. 92. I sometimes miss red meat, but I’ll never go back to eating it. 93. If I do reincarnate after this lifetime, I’d like to come back as a tree. I don’t want to be a consumer any more. I’d rather be a provider. 94. I hate the ghost hunter shows that have proliferated the television stations. Every house I’ve ever lived in has been haunted, right down to the trailer my mom brought me home to when I was born. You don’t see me belly aching about it or calling in an exorcist. Those shows are such sensationalist trash. It’s like daytime talk shows mutated into Jerry Springer hunting Dracula. I hate the dramatizations, and I root for the “demons” that inhabit the houses and “force” the families to call the paranormal investigators for help. It never surprises me when the “demons” come back after the exorcism/smudging is done because the priests usually admit to not believing in demons or God and if the smudging is done the way it is dramatized then they’re not doing it right. Bleh. 95. When I was a kid, I really liked math. I thought I was pretty good at it. Then in fifth grade I had a teacher who suggested I retake her class the next semester even though I had an A. I thought, okay, well she’s the teacher; she should know what she’s talking about. So I retook her class but then I was behind for algebra and my self-esteem never really recovered. I don’t like math so much any more, and I’ll never forgive that teacher for her bad advice. I think she probably put that on everyone’s report. 96. I like the idea that humanity was originally an alien colony, but I don’t put much stock in it. Even though it kind of makes sense. 97. I make obscure jokes that no one gets. I have a very dry sense of humor and people often don’t even realize I’m joking. Sometimes I say something completely outrageous and people just look at me slackjawed as if they think I’m serious. 98. If time traveling monkeys from alpha centauri left the galactic center 5 billion years ago to seed the earth with African violets… where’s my blue banana. 99. I commend you for getting this far. Please ignore the previous entry. 100. I’d rather never leave the house again, but since I’m allergic to cats and who ever heard of a crazy book lady, I guess I’ll have to continue to be gainfully employed.

In places all over the world books are being banned by people saying that the books are bad in one way or another. What gives them the right to tell you what is good or bad for you? Are they just locking up knowledge? What do you think about censorship of literary works?
i_heart_concussions

Would the people who founded America be proud or ashamed of the choices we’ve made and the state of our country?
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Tattoo

According to folk tradition, a nice day today meant nice weather all year. Snow or rain brought a bad year for crops. Clouds or mists meant a bad year for animals, and thunder was a forerunner of windy days.

What do you think? Was I right or wrong? I mean, yeah it was pretty stupid to blurt that out, but was he being unethical or was I being too discerning? I’d be the first to admit I have a very strong moral and ethical imperative and that people often disappoint me, but I think he knew he was wrong and that my honesty just pi$$ed him off because he knew I knew it was always his intent to rip us off.

Hold yourself down, hold yourself down
Why dont ya hold yourself down?
Why don’t you listen, you can
Trust me,
Oh there’s a place I know the way to
A place there is no need to, to feel you
To feel that you’re all alone
Hear me
I know exactly what you’re feelin’
’cause all your troubles are within you
so begin to see that I’m just bleeding to
Oh Love me, love you
Loving is the way to Help me, help you
– Why must we be so cool, oh so cool?
Oh, we’re such damn fools…

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.