Welcome Sixth Follower . . . Who is Apparently Invisible

I was having internet trouble today and wasn't surprised when Blogger wouldn't load. Nothing else, has so why would it? Anyway, when I arrived at the Dashboard, I noticed I had a new follower. This is always a moment of joy for me because, you know, I have so few. Anyway, I click on the followers link to see who it is . . . and get some Chrome yadda yadda page about things screwing up.

I would love to say I did something smart at this point, but I didn't. I hit reload and then I hit reload again. Then, because clearly this was the path to success, I hit reload again. It's shocking how that didn't work the third time.  For some reason, my brain started working again and I flushed my DNS.

Wow, I kept typing "DNA." Can you imagine how cool it would be if we could flush our DNA? Just kind of select the stuff we like and then knock the rest of it out in favor of better coding?  This would be excellent.  But back to the story.

I come back to Blogger and click on my Followers. By now, I'm really invested in this because I've spent, you know, more than two minutes on it, so the excitement is building. Who could it be? Who could it be? And . . .

For some reason, it tells me I only have five followers. I'm a little confused at first. Five? It said six. I look them over, happy for the people I have. Hi, guys! Love you! And I realize that maybe it was a mistake. Someone probably followed me but then realized they didn't mean to and backed out of it just in the midst of the process of my DNS flush.  Oh well.

But when I went back to the Dashboard, there it was again. Six followers. Six . . . but the sixth person is invisible . . .

Huh.

Now I'm completely obsessed with this. I have a sixth follower, but someone I can not see.  Who could it be? Who could it be? I have some theories.

• The sixth follower does not wish for people to know they read my blog. I can understand this. It's kind of like how I don't like people to know I fucking love Justin Timberlake watch Gossip Girl and stuff like this.  If this is the case, then you have no idea how overjoyed I am at the thought of being someone's dirty little secret!

• The sixth follower blocks themselves from view for privacy reasons. If that's the case, I get it. The interwebs can be a scary place.  You don't want people knowing who you are and you don't want them stealing your stuff. Cool.
  
• The sixth follower is from the government. Yeah, this totally wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure the government has been listening in on my conversations for years.  It's fine.  I have no problem keeping them entertained.  They probably cry when they have to leave the Watching Blackhaired Barbie assignment. 

I'm sure there are other reasons as well as to why the sixth follower is invisible. Whatever the case, welcome. I'm glad you're following me. I cuss a lot. I hope that doesn't offend you. I also repeat myself. Often. Probably best just to skim the posts, that way whatever you actually pay attention to seems fresh and new.

Though, if you wish, it would be really fun for you to drop me an email or leave a comment telling me who you are . . . unless of course the government won't let you. I understand if they won't.  As for me, I'm going to go back to listening to "Sexy Back" watching the Borgias.

Topic Control: The Riddle of the Sellsword

Hello, everyone. It's Monday again and my topic was chosen for me. Topic for the day was "You watched the new GoT trailer. What do you think of the riddle of the sellsword?"

The trailer is posted, but if you don't want to watch it, I shall explain. The riddle is asked by Varys and it goes like this. "Three great men . . . a king, a priest, and a rich man. Between them stands a common sellsword. Each great man bids the sellsword kill the other two. Who lives, who dies?"

Varys asks the riddle to discuss the idea that power, like most concepts, is just an illusion.  People have power when we allow them to have power, and more importantly, because we believe they should.  In this case, it is the sellsword's perceptions that are important, as he is the one who can act or not act.

Now, because each of the three men is asking for the other two to be killed, it can be assumed they have no weapons of their own or lack other means by which to commit the murders. This means, in actuality, the three "great men" are without power. All true power lies with the sellsword as he is the one who will decide everyone's fate. On one level, this could be seen as a "might makes right" situation.

Society is rarely that simplex. For as long as their has been civilization as we know it, brute force has been a type of power, but not the dominating power.  Most often, it becomes a tool by which those in power keep their positions. In the case of the riddle, this means the three great men. One holds the power of rule by law. One holds power by belief in the divine.  The last holds power because he has means to buy a lot of stuff.

Now, it's kind of fun to really dig into this riddle, as I've been watching the Borgias. Rome in 1492 (and in many other years) was certainly a place centered around power via faith, law, and wealth.  At the end of the day though, quite often you see this same riddle playing out.  Everyone needs soldiers to help them hold what they have.

So . . . who lives and who dies?

This depends on the paradigm of the sellsword. What does his really believe? Some people would say that if the man is a sellsword, a mercenary, then he will save which ever man offers him the best deal.  The great man who promises the most wealth, the most blessing, a title, a home . . . this man will be saved.  Others would argue that most mercs would see even that as pipe dreams and just go with which ever man had the most money on hand at the moment. It's practical, after all.

In both of these scenarios, it's likely the rich man will be the one to live. He has the best chance of having money on hand and the one most likely to be able to make offers the sellsword will see a viable for him. He's also the one who probably has the most experience convincing people to do what he wishes. The king and the priest can do this within their own realms of influence, but won't have the skills on practical matters (probably).

Those are just two possible paradigms though. We tend to believe someone who is a sword for hire has no loyalty, but that doesn't take into account his history or the truths he made not always admit to, but really believes.

If he believes in the divine, he won't kill the priest. The king and the rich man die. It will not matter what the other two offer him.  If he truly accepts the idea of a god (or in this case, gods) that rule over everything, no amount of earthly wealth will matter. This life is temporary.

Now, on the other hand, some people have these really strong emotional bonds with their leaders.  I think in a way, this is something we lack as Americans because we trade our leaders out so often (and should). In places where the leaders rarely change and people see them as the focus of what makes things stable and good, people develop strong ties to them. They become, in the minds of some people, like family.  So, if the sellsword, at the core of his being, is a loyal subject of his king, then the priest and the rich man die.

What happens if the sellsword has no strong paradigm leanings? What if he isn't that practical, has no religion, doesn't like the king, and just kind of doesn't care?  Then it will depend on any number of other factors.  Who is the least annoying?  Who hasn't been rude to him before? Which one looks the most like the man who stole his wife?

Of course, and this is where those of the upper classes get nervous, if the sellsword thought about it, the best course would just be to kill all three of them. More than likely, each of the "great men" has done enough stuff in his life that he would deserve to be put to the sword.  The world would be rid of them and better off in the long run.

However, it takes the common classes a long time to reach this point.  Quite often, society does everything it can to keep them from it. Usually whatever conflicts happen between the rich, the powerful, and religious can be pushed aside when they need to unite to smack the common people back down.

What would I do personally? For me, it comes down to a matter of trust. I don't think I could trust a king who ordered the death of others simply to push his agenda, nor could I trust a priest under those circumstances. In both cases, there is this assumption that they should put the needs of others before themselves. The rich man on the other hand, I can trust him. Will he lie and backstab me? Yes, of course he will if it benefits him. He never said he wouldn't though.  In the end, I'd rather deal with an obvious bastard than a skulking one.

The Year of January

I'm not really sure why it is, but to me it feels like January of 2012 has lasted forever. The weeks seem to drag by.  The hours go on and on. Half the time I think it's far later than it is in the day. I'm not even sure why this is happening. This month is in slow motion.

A lot of people believe you want time to move slowly.  It's running out, as it were, so the slower it moves, the better off you are.  As for me, I somewhat have an interest in winter and spring lasting as long as possible before Hell!Summer gets here again. However, I find that as much as I'd think I'd like time slowing down, in all actuality, it annoys me.

It's not that I want time too move too quickly (other than the aforementioned summer months), it's just that I want it to stay consistent.  I like time when it moves at a regular rhythm. It's comforting.  When things get off of that cadence, I start to feel screwed up.

This also leaves me with a mystery.  Has my screwed up mental state of paranoia and anxiety been because of this upset in my sense of time movement . . . or has the sense of time movement been altered because I've been paranoid and anxious?  The problem is, I just really can't tell. It could be either.

I was sick a lot this month. And, again, I can't tell if the illness made time feel slower of if the time pacing made me sick.  Though, between my mental breakdowns and the days of feeling under the weather, I can safely say that more of the slow January was in pain than it was out of it. Again, perhaps that is why it felt so slow.

So what happened in this year of January?

• The stupid government tried to take over the internet and we told them no. They backed off but it seems that some shadow world government is trying to do it again. Fuckers. 
• I finished watching Gossip Girl and loved every minute of it.  I also wrote a post about it, but you already know that. 
• Past GG, I started watching Borgia: Faith and Fear. I thought it was awful at first, but the guy playing Rodrigo Borgia does so with such charming decadence that I can't help but love it. Besides, no matter what throne people are playing for, I'm always going to love watching them.
• I had a lot of fun with my roommate watching stuff on the Roku and playing games. It's really been a wonderful addition to our lives.
• Our kitchen faucet decided to die slowly and then die really fucking fast. This caused stress, agitation, and cost a lot of money.  Now we have a new sink that looks less scary and works far better. Yay!
• We killed mice.
• My blog turned a year old and I felt a total rush of accomplishment.  This sensation is so rare for me that it probably did shock damage. 
• I enjoyed my cats and my happy little household I've been blessed enough to have. I slept in a very comfortable bed.

So, January has a couple of more official days left to it.  That's what my calendar is saying anyway. In reality, I'm betting it will feel like weeks before Feb. 1 gets here. I'll do my stuff, haunted as the hours drag, and try to remember how and why this month is taking forever.  I hope February has a normal pace to it and everyone is less sick and crazy. I hope things don't break or, at the very least, break during regular business hours. I hope life is happy and good, that it's a memorable month in nice ways.

I really hope it doesn't last another year. 

The Worlds In My Eyes

My imagination is my favorite place to be.  Yeah, I know that line is hackneyed and often said, but in my case, it's actually true. I love the weird crazy place inside my head.

All of my life, I've had a pretty vivid and active imagination. My brother and I had our own make believe world. I've roleplayed with almost everyone I know, creating not just characters but lands, empires, universes, mythologies, and histories. Of all the things that happen in my life that are half-assed, the stuff that goes on inside my brain never is. I spin stories and I entertain people.  It's what I do, why I'm here.

Everyone has their tools for surviving life. Imagination is how I've managed to cope and stay at least passably sane. Back when I was a kid, I'd pull myself through the rough patches by pretending about a better future.  A time when I was in charge of my own destiny, with no mother or craziness to chaotically ruin things for me.  Not sure that ever happened, but I could usually release enough happy brain chemicals to sooth me through the process.

It's also how I keep from getting really bored. I can always entertain myself with my brain. I tell myself stories and create strange little people to amuse me. I rewrite endings to books, I explore relationships between characters I think have great chemistry, I think way too much about Arthurian legend.

Now, I'm sure there is a lot of unhealthiness to this . . . or so some people would say. They probably believe that being inside one's head so much isn't a good thing. It keeps one from being in the real world and dealing with what is going on around them. There might even be some validity to this.

I don't care though. I like my brain. It IS my favorite place to be.  It always will be until my brain goes way.  Assuming it does go away. I have plans to have my head frozen in a jar.

Das Zaa

Le abstract and poorly drawn pizza.

When I was a little kid, I hated pizza.  I'm not sure what my reasons were for that. I have two basic theories. One is that my mother ordered pizza that was either spiced to hell or she spiced it when she got it to the house.

The other theory is that  it was just too complicated for me to handle . . . too many flavors all competing together. Whatever the case, as a small kid, I was content to eat spaghetti when everyone else was eating their pizza. Well, spaghetti and the garlic bread. I always loved the hot gooey goodness of great garlic bread.  My mom's was amazing, actually.  She made it taste like heaven.

Over time, I got past the aversion to pizza and embraced the concept.  I'm guessing this had to do with the fact that my mom started working at Pizza Hut and I was around it all the time. Actually, my family has quite a legacy with working in pizza places. My mother did for years, as did one step-father, my brother, and my sister-in-law.  In fact, the last time my SIL worked in a pizza place, she was my brother's boss.

I have to admit probably my favorite pizza memories are tied in with my grandmother and frozen pizzas.  It's not that the pizza from the store was good. In fact, it really kind of sucked. The crust tasted like cardboard and all of the meat on it was questionable. The peppers were cut in little square cubes that added so much water to the pizza as they melted that they made it soggy and weird.

Gran had her own little GRAN tricks about it too. Round pizza always ended up on a rectangular baking sheet, so there were lines of burnt down the back.  This is assuming the whole thing wasn't burned. It often was.  If it wasn't burned, it was either slightly underdone or very very VERY crisp. The kind of crisp that cut your tongue and made you worry for your teeth.

Despite all of that, frozen pizza with Gran is still a great memory because it made her so happy. Gran, as I have mentioned before, hated cooking.  Any meal that was easy and basically effortless delighted her.  I think she felt like she was cheating the system somehow.  So every time we had frozen pizza, she was in a great mood.  After all, the most work put into it was hacking through the stiff crust after we pulled it out of the oven.  It really doesn't surprise me that I like my food on the burnt side.

In college, whenever my best friend and I would host parties, our party food consisted of frozen pizzas we would chop into small, bit sized pieces. Yes, that was our finger food. I think we even thought the bit-sized portion made it all fancy.  No one ever complained though. Then again, poor drunken college students will eat anything. I'm shocked we didn't serve bite-sized ramen noodles.

Speaking of college, lux food for us in those days was Domino's.  We'd always get the pepperoni in shroom. After we got some non-meat eating friends, we started getting cheese with jalapenos (even our non-meat eating friends could never commit to leaving off cheese). We'd take the jalapenos off and enjoy the hot cheese with the happy essence of jalapeno juices still in it. This is still a type of pizza I enjoy quite a lot.

Over all though, my favorite pizza is and always will be pepperoni with mushrooms. I don't get it that often these days. The local places don't do it well and if it's not up to standards, it's really not worth eating. Most of the time, I opt for the safer bet of thin crust sausage. Oh, and not sausage with fennel in it. I hate fennel. I miss the pepperoni and shroom, but as I said, if I can't get it good, there really isn't a point.

Hmm. Maybe that's what happened when I was little. Maybe my first tastes of pizza had something objectionable like fennel or bad crust or crappy cheese.  The fennel thing really wouldn't surprise me. I think my mom liked it a lot. She was always kind of twisted like that.

And They Will Find her Dead Body Half- Eaten by Cats

As much as I would love to claim to be this unique snowflake who did everything as unconventionally as she could . . . I know that in some ways, I'm just as stereotypical as I can be.  I'm sure you've noticed quite a few of these . . . don't bother pointing them out, in my moments of self-awareness, I notice them all.

The biggest place where I fit the stereotype is being the single woman with mental problems who has cats.  Yes, cats. Okay, not like fifty or something. I only have three. Well, we used to have four, but then one of them died. Of course, once we moved into our current house, we adopted three more. Two of them are exclusively outside cats. One of them is indoors only half the time.

Okay, dammit. I have six cats.

And yes, I am one of THOSE cat people. I talk to my cats. I sing to them. I make up songs about them. They have nicknames. Not just ONE nickname, levels of many nicknames.  In fact, our cat Salem has been called Fluffy for so long, he doesn't even answer to Salem anymore unless he thinks he's in trouble. I don't make clothes for them, but only because my cats are mean and would rip off my fingers if I tried.  I have to admit though, the concept of Alice being in a dress is kind of awesome.

I'm not one of these people who loves cats and hates dogs though. I love dogs too. In fact, most of my life, the really significant pet in my life was a dog of some sort. They shaped a lot of my childhood.  Dogs really aren't suited for my current life though. They demand a lot of emotional attention. They have to be walked and need to go outside to do their business. Oh, and the barking. Kinda gets on my nerves.

This isn't to say I believe cats are perfect.  Cats play a lot of emotional games with each other and with humans. They puke. They scratch on things. They meow often and loudly.  And there is the litter box.

Despite their flaws, I find the evil little bastards charming.  I love the sound of purring.  I love the feel of their soft fur.  Most often, I have at least one of them sitting on or near me. They do kind of pretend to comfort me when I'm upset.  Cats are great house accessories. They can make even the most trashy of couches look classy.

I also love drawing the cats. Cats are great for quick art projects, because you have to really work fast to capture their pose before they change it.  And believe me, cats DO pose.  Some of them go to great length to look perfect at every moment.  In a lot of my art, you don't see the cat's face. In fact, sometimes, I don't even draw them facing me.  This is because I often draw them as they sleep and they tend to bury their heads or face away from me. I won't read too much into why they do that.

You know, it takes all of my meager self-discipline to keep from turning this into a crazy catlady blog.  Well, self-discipline and a desire not to be mocked. I could though. I have enough stories every day of stuff the cats do and pictures I could take and everything else in the world that could feel blog entry after blog entry.

To be honest. I really don't even have a problem with people doing that. I think if you want to blog about your pets, go for it. Who knows, maybe one day I'll start another blog where that's all I do. I'll join catlady forums and finally start knitting for them and the rest of the world be damned.  Will I be diving head first into the stereotype? Of course.

Of course, as with any stereotype, there will always be more to it as well.

The Me

Hello there and welcome to the Me.  The Me is a strange place, but an entertaining one.  It's snarky, sarcastic, prone to getting by with the help of its friends, and believing Luck is an important concept.

The Me's favorite number is 4.  If given a choice to pick, four (or a multiple of four) will always be the choice.  The Me loves 8 almost as much as 4, as in the mind of The Me, 8 is the daughter of 4. For some reason, however, The Me disapproves of 16.  It may be 4x4, but 16 is, as we all know, very much a rebellious and vexing child who seeks only to cause problems for the four. Oh. Also in the mind of The Me, four is male.

The Me's favorite color is red.  Given a choice of all the candies in box, The Me will always select the red one. If there is a choice of reds, The Me will always choose the most intense red and the swear it has the best and most unique flavor . . . even if all the candies taste the same.

The Me has always resented the concept that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Fuck that. RED is for girls. Red is rich and deep and wicked and scandalous. Red can't be blackmailed because she quite joyously and brazenly lets everyone know all of her misdeeds. Hmm. Perhaps it does make sense they try to promote pink for girls. Pink is demure to red.  People fear the women who embrace the red.

The Me's favorite letter is L.  Even if The Me's name did not start with L, there is reason to believe L would still be the favored letter.  L has such a contrast in presentation. Sometimes it is a perfectly rigid right angle. When L is cursive though, it loops and makes lovely ovals. It is an elegant and feminine letter.  Well, elegant but dangerous. Lust. Love. Loki. Lore. Combine L with three letters and your whole world can change. Oh.....it goes without saying, perhaps, that a red L is the most scandalous of all.

The Me loves hot cookies.  Hot and almost still uncooked on the inside and burnt on the edges.  The Me loves chocolate cake, bitter pickles, and the scent of lavender. The Me piles her bed high with pillows and sleeps on all of them.  The Me loves the feel of warm blankets and cold pillows . . . all at the same time.

The Me gets panicked and depressed. The Me has mental issues and sometimes despairs.  And yet . . . The Me always knows she is loved, always feels grateful, always gives thanks.  The Me sings songs in her head, made up lyrics to other songs, sometimes strange little tunes of her own. The Me loves minor keys.

Sometimes, The Me dreads the morning, dreads the day, dreads the life. Sometimes, The Me tires of being The Me and wishes to be someone else.  Only for a while though. In the end, The Me truly loves being The Me.

The Me hopes you enjoy being YOUR The Me as well.