thejunipertree: (Default)
01 - Introduction
02 – Your first love
03 – Your parents (this is long as HELL
04 – What you ate today )

05 – Your definition of love
06 – Your day
07 – Your best friend
08 – A moment
09 – Your beliefs
10 – What you wore today
11 – Your siblings
12 – What’s in your bag
13 – This week
14 – What you wore today
15 – Your dreams
16 – Your first kiss
17 – Your favorite memory
18 – Your favorite birthday
19 – Something you regret
20 – This month
21 – Another moment
22 – Something that upsets you
23 – Something that makes you feel better
24 – Something that makes you cry
25 – A first
26 – Your fears
27 – Your favorite place
28 – Something that you miss
29 – Your aspirations
30 – One last moment
thejunipertree: (Default)
01 - Introduction
02 – Your first love
03 – Your parents (this is long as HELL) )

04 – What you ate today
05 – Your definition of love
06 – Your day
07 – Your best friend
08 – A moment
09 – Your beliefs
10 – What you wore today
11 – Your siblings
12 – What’s in your bag
13 – This week
14 – What you wore today
15 – Your dreams
16 – Your first kiss
17 – Your favorite memory
18 – Your favorite birthday
19 – Something you regret
20 – This month
21 – Another moment
22 – Something that upsets you
23 – Something that makes you feel better
24 – Something that makes you cry
25 – A first
26 – Your fears
27 – Your favorite place
28 – Something that you miss
29 – Your aspirations
30 – One last moment
thejunipertree: (Default)
01 - Introduction
02 – Your first love )
03 – Your parents
04 – What you ate today
05 – Your definition of love
06 – Your day
07 – Your best friend
08 – A moment
09 – Your beliefs
10 – What you wore today
11 – Your siblings
12 – What’s in your bag
13 – This week
14 – What you wore today
15 – Your dreams
16 – Your first kiss
17 – Your favorite memory
18 – Your favorite birthday
19 – Something you regret
20 – This month
21 – Another moment
22 – Something that upsets you
23 – Something that makes you feel better
24 – Something that makes you cry
25 – A first
26 – Your fears
27 – Your favorite place
28 – Something that you miss
29 – Your aspirations
30 – One last moment
thejunipertree: (Default)
A number of my friends have been circulating this meme and I've been playing with the idea of doing it in an effort to get myself writing on a more regular basis than I have been.

So, I think I finally decided to do it. If this peters off somewhere around the second week, don't blame me. I have the attention span of an addled fruit fly at the best of times, and the motivation of a three-toed sloth.

01 - Introduction )

02 – Your first love
03 – Your parents
04 – What you ate today
05 – Your definition of love
06 – Your day
07 – Your best friend
08 – A moment
09 – Your beliefs
10 – What you wore today
11 – Your siblings
12 – What’s in your bag
13 – This week
14 – What you wore today
15 – Your dreams
16 – Your first kiss
17 – Your favorite memory
18 – Your favorite birthday
19 – Something you regret
20 – This month
21 – Another moment
22 – Something that upsets you
23 – Something that makes you feel better
24 – Something that makes you cry
25 – A first
26 – Your fears
27 – Your favorite place
28 – Something that you miss
29 – Your aspirations
30 – One last moment
thejunipertree: (Default)
I came across an entry in [livejournal.com profile] deadphotos this evening of two luna moths. Ghostly green and lying face to face on a weathered wooden plank, beautiful and strange in their alien gauze.

For those of you who have never seen one in person, luna moths, Actias luna, are goddamn gigantic. The largest generally having a four and a half centimeters wide wingspan, they dwarf the moths people are more commonly familiar with. The gypsy moth, what most people in my area think of when think "moth", is a mewling cousin in comparison.

I've been a bit obsessed with lunas ever since the first time I saw one, on a camping trip I went on about eight years ago with the Engineer and the MWC. It was the second time I'd ever gone camping since I was an honest-to-God Brownie and I was pretty psyched at the prospect of building a great big fuckoff bonfire in the fire ring spending some time outdoors with my friends.

On our way there, a two hour drive, the Engineer and I stole constant unhappy glances at an ever-darkening sky. Storm clouds loomed over the trees and the temperature dropped several degrees, but mile after mile deeper into the Pine Barrens, rain still did not begin to fall. It was a slow and torturous drive full of quiet So, what do you think we should do? exchanged between the two of us. Neither of us had a cell phone at that point, so we couldn't call ahead to the site and see what was going on there, as our friends had arrived several hours earlier. I couldn't leave work early enough that day and so the added threat of the oncoming night also weighed heavy on our minds. The weather was turning to shit and it was getting dark, these are not optimum set-up conditions. Who wants to put up a tent in the fucking rain and the dark? Not this silly bitch.

When we finally got to the campsite, it was full-on dark and fat drops of rain had been splashing down for the past twenty minutes. The Engineer and I grabbed our tent and bed gear, leaving everything else in his PT Cruiser until the rain stopped. From the our parking spot, we had a hike about the length of a football field to the camp site, which was situated off the tip-most point of a wee penisula jutting into Parvin lake. Oh, sure you're thinking. A football field length of a hike, you fucking crybaby. And normally, I would agree with you. It's not that far to hike at all. However, there are certain times when that bit of a jaunt through the woods seem more like a trek through the Appalachians.

1. in the dark
2. in the rain
3. in the middle of the night

All things considered, my vote for The Worst Ever is number three. Normally, I am lazy to the point of staying in bed until I am in physical pain before I get up too pee. The mad dash to the bathroom after a morning of blanket-wrapped don't wanna is mercifully brief. In my apartment. That "mad dash" because some serious fucking business when one is on a camping trip and is a special realm of hell I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

First of all, we always camp in the spring and fall, so the middle of the night pee runs are usually done in damp, chilly weather. Damp and chilly weather is so not enjoyable when one has been curled under a down sleeping bag next to a snoring Engineer (seriously, he's like a fucking furnace). One particular camping trip in early April, a deceptively warm weekend had gone brutally cold overnight unexpectedly and we were so not equipped for that change of temperature. That time, I remember there being tears. Mine or the Engineer's, I will not divulge, but there were definitely tears.

But that night, that second-time-ever-trip of the rain and the dark and the hey hey hey? I remember walking down the trail for the first leg of unloading, it's pissing down rain and I can hear the Engineer mumbling unhappily under his breath ahead of me in the darklightdark bounce of my flashlight. We finally reached the site after a soggy dog's age and a half and I dumped the tent gear next to a line of brushes that started the natural, guarded perimeter of the peninsula. It was a great site and would prove to be extremely beautiful, come morning when the sun was out and it had stopped raining. As the bag hit the ground, I caught a flutter at their edge out of the corner of my eye.

Looking around the far edge, I found that I had just missed squishing flat a sodden moth the size of my goddamn hand, weakly waving its pale green and eyespotted wings in the rain. I'd never seen such a thing before in my life and forgot everything going on around me as I watched it twitching its antennae at my flashlight cutting beams through the dark. In my bookjunkie travels prior to this trip, I'd already read about luna moths and had found that they only lived in their adult form for a week and didn't have a mouth; so they didn't eat during that time, either. The handstapleforehead pretentious goth girl side of me that I've never been able to quite shake marveled at the impermanence of its life. To be so beautiful, for such a short period of time! It was tragic, a Grimm's come to life and before my very eyes.

With everyone situating themselves around the campsite, it needed to be put in a spot where it wouldn't be trod upon or squished unceremoniously flat by tossed gear (I still cringe at the thought of how close I came to unknowingly killing it, even now, so many years later). So, I took the time to select a nearby cove of shrubbery (hee, shrubbery) where it would be safe and as much out of the rain as possible.

That finally accomplished, I started the slog back to the Engineer's car to pick up more of our camp equipment. The rain had soaked through my braids and they were beginning to trickle down the back of my Dawn of the Dead hoodie, so I pushed back the hood and slicked my hands through my bangs, pushing them off my skin and turning my face to the tapering rain. I've always been a tactile creature, reveling in the feel of my fingers brushing down a perfectly smooth and cool surface or plunging my hands through the fabric of a dress on a store rack simply because it looks good to touch. Water in all its forms and methods of delivery has always been a favorite, so even though the conditions at the time were less than optimal, I still took the time to carve out a small moment of sensory enjoyment. I was already soaked through and it was fairly warm out, so what was the harm?

The Engineer caught me like that, face in the rain and grinning like a fool. A purely happy moment that I sometimes revisit when things get shittastic, as they have been lately. We've pulled mostly through and can see at least a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, but it's shaky. Money is tighttighttight, as always, and I'm starting school again next week after being out since I graduated from CCC in December. I have tense moments of quiet desperation and there is a constant sense of teetering, which have driven me into either a series of short and intense bouts of depression, or just one really long one with peaks and lows.

I come home from work snarly and make sure to rub Timothy's belly as soon as I get in the door. It is a tiny joy I wait for all day. I try to laugh as much as I can, when I can. I make elaborate-on-a-budget meals and have experimented with ingredients I've typically shied away from, purely for eking out the thrill I still get whenever I make something from nothing. Taking my little pleasures out wherever I can has largely kept me from going completely into the deep end lately.

I think of my moth; nothing is permanent.
thejunipertree: (Default)
The awesome mirror that I briefly mentioned in one of my recent entries has been located, strangely enough.

The Engineer and I have been on mission to clear out all of my junk a large portion of my junk from my father's basement so that we may bring in his paintings and canvases which are currently residing in a storage space. When he moved out of his apartment and into mine, the art had no home here, so he decided to rent a space to keep them in. This money is far better served in other areas, so I offered up my space in my father's basement.

The majority of my stuff hasn't been touched since it was put down there, unless I was rummaging for books I wanted to bring home, and is therefore extraneous. Over the past several years, I have gotten rather mercenary about possessions in that if I haven't touched it or needed to touch it in over a year, then I most likely have no further need of it. Some things will always be kept out of sentiment: old journals, certain toys, things of that nature. But, I really do not need or desire to keep the rest of it.

Not only are those boxes a giant and looming reminder of my failings as a wife (the boxes, after all, would not reside in the basement had I not left my husband in 2001), but also of everything else I have started with good intentions and went on to fuck up. I don't need them, I don't want them, and the very thought of them gives me anxiety.

We had been putting off getting this job done all summer for one reason or another. Most of the time, we were both just too busy or frazzled to make any effort in planning. But I had recently promised a co-worker of mine all the Hello Kitty swag her young daughter could ever hope to own and I was starting to feel bad whenever I told her I hadn't made it to my father's yet. I also wanted to go through my books and bring home the reminder of what I wanted in my shelves in the apartment and sell the rest. Money's been extremely tight lately, so even if I only get ten dollars for them, it's ten dollars I do not currently have.

So, we girded our loins or whatever one girds before descending into a pit of despair, and drove to my father's house this past weekend to begin the preliminary excavations. My primary goal was retrieving the Hello Kitty swag and any books I could find that I wanted to keep. Any other books would be set aside for another weekend because I don't have any time soon to bring them to a used bookstore and they would be in the way in the apartment.

And even though I am still unable to locate the Best Box of Books Ever (tm), the one I'm convinced grew legs and walked out of there, I was able to find the Second Best Box (tm) and brought them home. So, I am once again in possession of M. Gira's The Consumer and my much loved copy of The Thief of Always, by Clive Barker. I also brought home my antique books because the damp was not being kind to them. The one from 1894 is in shameful condition, with the cover held on by threads, but it was largely woeful when it first came to me. My collected fairy tales printed in the 20s is still doing ok, though.

The Engineer found the mirror in the middle of my bitching to my father from the bottom of the steps, snarking up into the patch of day light he stood in from the kitchen doorway about kleptomaniacs and disrespect. He had walked over to the other side of the basement, glanced up at the top of a shelf, pointed, and said: "Is that it?"

Lo and behold, it was. Someone had put it way up there, above my head, and as everyone around me knows: if something is put above my head, it winks out of existence. Egg on my face, I would reckon. I don't rightly care; I'm just glad to have my mirror back.

As I've mentioned before, it was a wedding gift from a very dear friend who knows my tastes well enough to totally nail buying me this present. It's about three or four feet long, a wall mirror, and is in a silver painted, wooden, hourglass-shaped frame. It is completely me and I adored it from the moment it was handed to me. It fits in well with my bordello leopard print couch and the sweet ass red tile and wrought iron coffee table I bought from the dirt mall (for twenty dollars!) years and years ago.

And now it's mine again. It took me forever to clean it, my father's basement is dank after two hot water heaters implosions and just the sheer basementy-ness leaves everything covered in grossness if left down there too long. But, it's spotless once again and one can now see themselves clearly in the glass, instead of through a sepia-toned thick as linen haze.

I need to find a good place to hang it in the apartment. Wall space is at a premium here, considering our bookshelves and my framed prints and the Engineer's giant hung canvases. I wanted another mirror on the front of the hall closet's door, but the last one leapt to its death and shattered across the carpet. The idea of that happening again does fill me with joy and song.

When I get the rest of the apartment clean to my usual standards, I'll take a picture of it. I've been meaning to photograph the apartment to show everyone how the Engineer and I merged our lives together when he moved in, but I haven't had time for a true deep cleaning. Given that school starts in six days (SIX DAYS?!), I dread the idea that I won't get this time any time soon.
thejunipertree: (Default)


This song is only second to David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me?

Speaking of book-fapping, I recently decided to start re-reading Caitlin R. Kiernan's books in something resembling a vague order. I have the majority of them, so it would be something fun to do. It's unfortunate though because I used to have To Charles Fort, With Love and Tales of Pain and Wonder, but I haven't been able to put my hands on them for years now. I'd like to think they're in my father's basement with the rest of the books I never brought home from when I left Philadelphia, but I've been through those boxes so many times to find stuff to bring back to the apartment, I'm sure I would have come across them at some point.

That being said, I'm fairly convinced there is a box of books missing from down there. I couldn't find Death Scenes or ...Or Not To Be: A Collection of Suicide Notes for God or country and the Engineer wound up re-buying them for me as gifts for one birthday or a holiday or another.

They're all probably in the same place as my Towering Inferno cd and the awesome mirror Commander Jurin gave to me for my wedding. hrmph.
thejunipertree: (Default)
One of the only reasons why I keep my Facebook account active is because it keeps me in contact with Middle Brother. We're pretty much all the family that either has got. I mean, I have my father, but that's it. And Middle Brother only has me (he's my half-brother, but we were raised to ignore that fact). He updates rarely and its usually forwards of one kind or another, but they're there and it's a small bit of contact I'd like to retain.

He came over last night because he's moved back to the area and right before he arrived at the apartment, I was struck with the realization that I had not seen him since December. It left me unsteady for a few moments, with a bitter and metallic taste in my mouth.

We hung out for several hours, me and him, the Engineer and the Amazing Larry. Middle Brother sat in the recliner and drank his shitty beers and talked a lot of nonsense about aliens and programs on the History Channel. It was a good time and he left with the two of us making plans for me to visit his new apartment in the very near future.

When I logged into Facebook this evening, I saw that he had "liked" the page: I WISH I HAD MY MOM I TRULY MISS HER TAKE CARE OF YOUR MOM CAUSE YOU DONT KNOW HOW LONG YOU HAVE HER

And it made me cry. Even though it'll be six years in November since she died, we still don't talk much about her. I don't know if it's our family-taught brand of stoicism or our own emotional stuntedness, but we just don't talk about her. Once in a while, one of us will pass a comment about her, but it's always in a general our mom was a little bit nuts, in a slightly annoying and charming way. And whenever it happens, we both smile for a brief time and kind of share a small laugh over it because, at her heart, this was very true.

She could also be a real ball-breaker, our mother. And I won't lie and say that I don't carry many scars. She could be warm, when she let herself and when we, because it's not all her fault, let her. She loved us fiercely and would go to great lengths to protect us. One of the things she said in the lead up to her death was that she was scared. She was scared and worried for my brother and I because she wouldn't be there to take care of us. When she said it, I put my arms around her and told her not worry about us. And while it didn't settle her mind completely, it was enough to calm her.

She loved us. But, at the same time, she was deeply unhappy with how her life had turned out. Even back before the cancer was just the barest thought of an abnormal cell in her blood, she was miserable. Pregnant at 16 and married to an abusive narcissist. Divorced at 23, with two young boys in tow and no skills to survive. Married again to a man she didn't love because her attorney told her to "get married yesterday" because her ex-husband was making noises about a custody battle. A single mother, who initiated the divorce, in that time was not a sympathetic figure. Working an endless stream of dead-end, soul-killing jobs. Failed relationship after failed relationship. Drunk mother. Dead father. All of that and then cancer gnawing away at your guts? Yeah, I'd be a downright cunt about the entire affair too.

So, I don't blame her for being miserable. She didn't have many options. The disparity between her life at 35 and my life at 35 gives me The Fear and the idea of a very similar bullet I am dodging every day leaves me awake at night. No blame and no grudge held, but the scars remain.

Every year, they grow a bit fainter. I look in the mirror in the morning and see her face more clearly every day.

Last night, my brother had himself a good laugh over the thick crop of white hairs I have been growing as of late. I haven't dyed my hair since January or so because I haven't had the money, so my grey has gone dandelion wild. Despite the fact that he is older than me by five years, I'm the one who got hit with the shitty end of the genetic stick. Both of my parents were completely grey by the age of 25. He only has half of the faulty genes I'm afflicted with and from all reports, his own father still has a full head of jet black hair.

Her birthday is coming up in two months. I should go to the ocean for a visit. Labor day weekend, perhaps.
thejunipertree: (Default)
The snakes (my two, anyway) were overdue for a feeding, so I drug myself off the couch and staggered around the apartment in preparation. I haven't been feeling well all weekend and really didn't look with fondness on the idea of going through the song and dance of all that is entitled in reptile feeding. It had to be done, so I fucked off with the self-indulgent whining and got my ass up.

Aristotle gets two mice because he is still so wee, which I don't fully understand. I realize he's a male and male ball pythons are smaller than females. Damballah and Mrs. Robinson are unconfirmed females (sexing based purely on visible qualities points towards girls). Mrs. Robinson came to me as an adult, but the Engineer got Damballah when she was a yearling, much like I got Aristotle when he was around the same age; they were about the same size.

But, Damballah at two-some years was so much larger than Aristotle is now. It's vaguely concerning. When I got him in January of 2008, he could fit coiled up in the palm of my hand and stretched from fingertips to the crook of my elbow. Now, almost three years later, he has gotten a bit rounder and stretches from my fingertips to just over my shoulder. But, he has the tiniest little head, the length of my index finger and about the width of two fingers together at his widest point. So he's kind of long, but he hasn't bulked out like Damballah did by this age.

He's been a fairly steady eater, with the except of a small handful of brief hunger strikes due to him being a goofy eater who'd rather strike the prey, squeeze it, then proceed to hang out with it all fucking night like its his new best friend. All in all, I'd say he eats slightly better than your average ball python is expected to. Given how picky they tend to be, as a breed, and all that. I know that every snakes has its quirks and a lot of feeding issues actually come down to husbandry and not the breed; I recognize these concepts most heartily. But, and that is a very big BUT, I am also very very glad that I am not the one saddled with Damballah's care and feeding. She is solely the responsibility of the Engineer (as is Betelgeuse) and I am PERFECTLY FINE with that because she goes on hunger strikes like she's getting a pay check. I would pull all my hair out.

So, he eats well, right? He totally should have outgrown his tank by now. I started him off in a smaller tank because it was all I had the money for at the time, thinking I would buy a new one when the time came (and we could use the smaller tank for a new hognose, see how crafty I am?), but the time never came. Ever time I would come into a windfall of a little bit of play money, like tax return time or student loan disbursement leftovers, I would look at his tank and decide it just wasn't needed yet. If he still had plenty of room, then the money would be better spent elsewhere.

And I would think his genetics and bloodline are semi-decent because he came from an actual breeder and not a pet store like Petco/smart where the snakes can be of of dubious quality. Then what's the goddamn problem?

The Engineer tries to placate me with tales of male vs. female snakes and how vastly different the sizes can be; I'm taking that into account as well, don't think I'm not. I took that into account to a certain point, but now it seems clear to me that it's gone beyond that. I think he's stunted or something. No immediate health concern really, just...small.

It makes me a bit sad because he's such a beautiful snake and I was really psyched for when he got kind of big, because he would be just gorgeous. He's not an incredibly fancy morph, just a pastel, but he was pretty and he was thriving under my care and he was mine.

He's still all of those things, I suppose. Just...in miniature.

Mrs. Robinson made an absolute mess of her dinner this evening, which is a bit uncharacteristic of her. I gave her the usual thawed out and warmed up rat, which she hissed at and took from the tongs before I could release its tail, and I left the room to give her privacy to eat and to get Aristotle's mice together. When I came back some time later, she was still in the middle of swallowing the prey, which is nice because I very rarely see her in action. She generally pulls the prey under her rock and eats it there where I can't see or takes so long to get down to business that I get bored and leave.

Tonight, the rat was only halfway in her mouth, so I sat down and watched for a bit. At one point, she moved a coil of her body and I saw bloody aspen beneath her. What the shit? Further worried examination through the tank was unsuccessful, but when she finished swallowing, there didn't seem to be any scratches on her. She yawned hugely while facing me dead on, so I also got an impromptu looksie down her throat. Nothing appeared wrong there either. So I'm guessing it came from the rat somehow. Are her teeth big enough to do the kind of damage that amount of blood generally comes from? Jesus.

It's not like the Wizard of Gore in there or anything, just some splashes on the aspen litter. But any blood in a snake's tank is cause for concern, in my opinion. Even if the prey is pre-killed and obviously dead, the claws can still accidentally cause damage if the snake is over-enthusiastic (Mrs. Robinson) or haphazard and graceless (Aristotle). Or a wood chip can become lodged in the mouth (which Aristotle has done on more than one occasion). Or hell, even just from a cleanliness standpoint. That shit's not sanitary to keep around.

I can't clean the crime scene up as just yet, even though she's long finished eating. She's got her head sticking out from her hide, inches away from the mess and I am not stupid enough to stick my nice, warm hand all the way in there and root around for a couple of minutes. Hell, I don't do that when she's not all fired up on hunthuntkillkill. I only reach in when she's completely under her rock or on the other side of the tank and facing the other way. And even then, I have someone act as a look out or keep my eyes on her the entire time and make a blind grab for her water dish, or her shed skin, or whatever it is that needs to come out of the tank at that moment.

I'm very familiar with my snakes and they, with me. Instinct will always outrun familiarity in a handful of circumstances; the knowledge of this and the forethought to be responsible about putting it into practice has been what has kept me bite-free these few years. And the Engineer, as well. I've been struck at once or twice through the glass (Aristotle, acting like a weiner when he was being a pig who just ate hungry and I leaned in front of his tank and once with my hand in the tank (Aristotle again, because the mouse dangling from the tongs in my hand had grown cooler than my hand holding the tongs), but never bit.

By these guys, at least. I've only been bit once and it was years ago. Commander Jurin's rat snake (was it a rat? I don't remember now, but it was all black and rat snake-shaped), Otis, nailed me once. But, that time, I kind of had it coming and Otis could be a little douchey when he was hungry, which he was.

It's surprising that none of us in Punk Rock Plaza ever really got bit by any of the reptiles we lived with. I got bit by my tokay gecko, but it was a fucking tokay and all they do is bite (Sirhan Sirhan, I miss him). And not because the majority of what slithered was of a cool disposition. We didn't lack for angry snakes, a reticulated python named Kubrick comes specifically to mind, but there were few injuries.

Astonishing to think, the pack of us in all our haze and ridiculousness, still had some small presence of mind and responsibility. Bodes well for our futures on at least some level, I would reckon.
thejunipertree: (Default)
Also, after Timothy's vet visit this week, I was given the cremated remains of Baby and Tinker, which the vet's office had been holding for me since April. I hadn't been able to bring myself to pick them up, but I couldn't ignore it any longer.

Their loss screams at me every day whenever I see Timothy or Henry Lee. Every time I wake up without Baby's warm, purring bulk smashed against the side of my head; every time I take a bath without Tinker hunting for imaginary fish in the water.

Photobucket

It's amusing that Tinker's box is so much larger than Baby's. I put his teeth in there with his cremains.
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I got it into my head this afternoon to clean out the hallway closet. Who knows why? It's not as if, or so the Engineer said when he came home this evening and I forced him to go see, we go in there all that often. It's for storage; it's a closet.

But, the idea that he couldn't get to his comic books always chafed my ass, mostly because I knew that his not being able to easily reach his long boxes spells the comics being left on the kitchen table, which always equals a rather irritated me.

It's a fuckoff big closet, too, for those of you playing along at home who have never been to my apartment. And for those of you who haven't known me all that long, it's also my former bedroom. Which should do wonders in telling you that this is no ordinary closet.

It's about 12 feet by three feet, if I remember correctly. Or 9 by 3, I forget which. And I used to have the majority of my worldly possessions in there, along with my bed and a oscillating fan. I was so psyched when my mother and I originally looked at this apartment because, after having been kickbanned from the UK and torching my former life, I had been sleeping on her couch for many months. We couldn't afford a three bedroom between the three of us and I technically wasn't supposed to be permanently staying.

Almost ten years later and here I still am. And the closet is once again a closet. It's full of everything that the Engineer and I couldn't make fit into the rest of the apartment when we combined our habitats, all the belongings we refused to part with. His bass is in there, and its amp, neither of which have been touched in over a year. My turntable and all my mother's vinyl, which I haven't played in God knows how long. You get the picture.

Speaking of... )
thejunipertree: (Default)
There is a particular word that I have been unable to remember for about two hours now and it is driving me mad. I used to be able to just bust it out at any given time because I thought it was one of the best words ever, and the fact that this specific concept needed a word to describe it tickled me to no end.

And now, it's flown the coop and I am left bereft.

For those of you playing along at home, the word that has left me and broken my heart describes the type of mouth the inner mouth is when an entity has two mouths. Like a mouth inside a mouth? The name of the little mouth.

(The above turned my brain inside out, trying to write it.)

Many of you, being of a rather nerdy bent like myself, will recognize this concept immediately in the Xenomorph:

Photobucket
which is, to me, the best movie monster of all fucking time.

or the Goblin shark:


which is my third favorite shark because I am ridiculous to the point of needing to even have lists of favorite sharks (speaking of sharks, SHARK WEEK STARTS TOMORROW OMG and I have been so wrapped up in my school drama that I have not thought to write about the impending annual festivities).

In looking for those two images, I came across a single .jpg of Xenoporn and am now trapped between wanting to bleach my goddamn eyes for the rest of my life and the burning insatiable curiosity to do more searches to see what other images I can find.

Further distress is caused by the realization as I write this that tomorrow night is the beginning of Shark Week, the second episode of the new season of Mad Men, and the next episode of True Blood (which is beginning to redeem itself for me from the shittiness of the second season, so I've been kind of psyched to see more). Shark Week premiere, Ultimate Air Jaws, is on at nine. True Blood is on at nine. And Mad Men is on at ten.

I know they are all going to be re-aired ad nauseum all night long, but I am torn between what order I should arrange this all into.

On top of that, Mister Kyle is coming over at 7 and there is just no watching anything in anything resembling a serious manner when he's hanging out (not automatically a bad thing, because it is fun as hell to heckle whatever it is we're watching and be ridiculous with Kyle, but some things I want to just watch and appreciate the hell out of).

My life as of late, as you can see, is beginning to resemble that of a shut-in. I think I need some more of the Big Blue Room type of activity. The weather has been so goddamn oppressive lately, like a hot wet sock shoved over your head, any time you step outside. I haven't wanted to do much in my free trip that didn't involve air conditioning and my couch. Today wasn't too bad though, so it gives me hope for a near future which includes a day trip to Cape May. I want to dig for diamonds in the surf and revel in the ocean around me.

It's been far too long.
thejunipertree: (Default)
Today has been an absolute shit-tastic day that has largely resulted in me wanting to burn down banks near and far, but after moping on the couch for most of the night and eating some 85% Green and Black's organic dark chocolate, I'm beginning to feel a bit more human.

The fact that all four snakes are currently cruising around their tanks and making ribbon shapes in the air during their explorations and the fact that Timothy has been draped over my right thigh and straight licking my arm for the past twenty minutes has down many great things to elevate my mood.
thejunipertree: (Default)
I had to take the day off from work yesterday and do a bunch of driving around, from one school to the other, because MCCC told me the week prior they had lost my goddamn transcripts. The ones I hand-delivered back in March, remember those? Yeah. Lost them. Poof!

So, I hie my ass hither and yon to get new transcripts, then drive up to the school. Upon plunking my ass down in the financial aid office with the woman who told me to calm down, miss on the phone, I find out that now the system is showing they have them.

What the actual fuck?

This is just not cool, but all I can do is laugh. It's either laugh or start screaming hysterically. I am wound tightly as of lately. If one would take their finger and flick my arm, I would most likely ting! like fine crystal.

It's so frustrating, all of this. Half the time, I'm not even sure what the point of all of this is. Is it avoiding a fate like my mother's? Working a dead and menial job for the rest of my life until I find myself in an early grave? Or am I just chasing some stupid ideal pounding into my head since my head was able to be pounded into? This stupid dream.

At any rate, I am now at least registered for four classes (remember that part about me being part time for the time being? Not happening, apparently), with three online and one in person. I can only take one funeral services class because I still need a final anatomy and physiology course, but there's nothing available for me this semester, so I'm taking a bunch of doofy electives online to pass the time and keep the loan servicing agents off my neck. Abnormal psych, Moral Choices, and Women in Literature. And so it goes.

A bright and shining spot in the day, or at least one I am attempting to cling to in a fake-it-till-you-make-it sort of way is that I finally received my diploma. I stood out in the parking lot with the sun beating down on my head with the Engineer's fifteen-year old cousin standing next to me (she's visiting from California and I stole her away for the day to keep me company). I opened the thick navy blue folder the diploma had been placed in and read the words granting me a degree.

It's so fucking weird. And I kept saying so. Shelby, the cousin, asked what was so strange about it. I told her how I'm the first person in my family to receive a degree, the first to have even graduated high school, let alone college. But, now I've got this fancy piece of very expensive paper to broadcast that accomplishment. I want nothing more than to show it to my mother, because she's the only one of my blood who would really give a damn that it even happened.

My father thinks it's great that I'm going to school, but it's in this kind of meandering and vague way. He doesn't understand why I need a degree to do what I want to do and thinks it's kind of ridiculous. Middle Brother just gets kind of quiet when I talk about it and has, once or twice, accused me of being a braggert when I talked about my grades.

My mother would have taken my hands in her own and kissed my face, over and over. She always loved it when I did things she was never able to do and even though I never heard much in the way of I'm proud of you, I could at least feel it coming off of her in waves.

I'd like to feel that at least once in a while from the remaining family. I recognize it's just me beating myself against that brick wall again, but the desire remains.

thejunipertree: (Default)
So, a resume comes across my desk that has one huge glaring error emblazoned upon it.

Well, actually just the cover letter part, but the error was there and it made my entire goddamn life.

Their printer must have shit itself or something because instead of "respectfully yours", it said "respectfully yo".

I have been cackling for hours.

XD
thejunipertree: (Default)
These are special moments. They may be creepy and awkward and weird, but they're special moments. I do this because I love you.

Apparently, I don't appreciate creepy ball-drying behind my chair enough. According to the Engineer, at any rate.

Before that, he was booty dancing in a wet towel to the Dead Weather.

O, my life.
thejunipertree: (Default)
A smeary article appeared in one of the local newspapers this week about my work and its CEO. What fun that has been, I must say.

And like any good reporter, the falsehoods were mixed so intricately with the truths that it's a bit difficult to tell them apart. I, like some of the other oldheads at the office, have just been going about my way and keeping my head down to the desk. The HR department has been such a swamp lately, both in temperature and in actual workload, that I don't really have all that much time for wild hysterics, not that I'm really prone to them in the first place. Other departments, however, are doing their very best to fling around paranoia and it is growing irritating by leaps and bounds.

On top of the article, and because of the article, Operation Rescue darkened the doorstep of one of our offices. And for once, I mean that literally. They actually stepped foot in the fucking office, thrust a camera phone in the face of one of the employees and took her goddamn picture.

Not fun.

All of this during the third week of a new Director of Operations starting with us. And here we thought we'd be able to convince her that this is such a nice and normal place to work, at least for a little while. Trial by fire, ya'll. I've been trying to keep her sane by taking her out to Starbucks for chai and lending her Jason X.

It's times like these that make me long for the days of mindless mortgage companies or soul-crushing retail work. At the same time, it also reminds me of why I continue to work here.
thejunipertree: (Default)

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!




I didn't think I used words like gibbous and cyclopean enough to be old Howard Phillip, but so it goes.

This is an otherwise content-free post, by the way. A brutal combination of depression and anxiety has not allowed me to think much outside of i am going to hide under my bed for the next seven years.

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thejunipertree

January 2011

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