All Souls' Night

Alright, I realize that I'm spoiled, but come on, people! Text rotation and text direction. I want them. ( I do databases. Not spreadsheets, databases. )

We go to a party and it's one we've been going to every year, and I know what to expect, but this time they let me have the adult portion. However, it takes so long to prepare that the rest of my party go on ahead and I can't find them. But I do find one of them, by which time I've misplaced that portion (some sort of dumpling, and some vegetables and a little bottle of sake). We get to talking, and I go:

Me: Can we stop by the [word for meat]? I'm getting hungry.

Him: Sure. *starts telling me about the various options*

Me: But I don't have the plate. I lost it somewhere.

Him: [don't remember] *starts loading up on a white bag*

Me: I don't have anything to put it on.

Him: *sort of ignoring me still* Is there something traditional to do if you lose it?

Me: Like calling on spirits or forgoing the rest of the meal?

At which point he turns on me with the knife. Specifically, he presses it into my shoulder until it cuts through the skin and then waves it around my face and throat, asking me if I want to be kicked out, and if I think Soviet Russia will treat me any better than he is.

At which point I wake up, because I've gotten good at that.

I HATE nightmares. I really, really hate them. My father would never do that to me.

Dammit, why can't I remember some good dreams for once?

It may not be a truth universally acknowledged, but in most cases, really the only way to learn about something is to do so from someone who believes in it. Thus, to learn about things that the average member of society doesn't believe in, you have to find those labeled "nuts" or "quacks" or whatever. They may or may not be, but the belief they hold makes everything seem so reasonable that, even if one doesn't believe themselves, it still makes sense.

I haven't looked at the whole site, but the section on alchemy, at least, seems to be just a presentation of knowledge without any attempt to convert. I can, and do, respect that. It's far better than someone saying, "look at what these idiots believe! They're wrong, of course, but..." I have absolutely no patience for that.

I got something of a scare when, listening to Japanese TV, we thought they had announced... but no. The vocab was wrong. It meant 'counting' not 'president'. Besides, nobody's really elected till the electoral votes, so...

Personally, I don't have much of anything against Bush. I don't particularly like some of the things his administration has done, though, and the one thing I really don't like is just the same as Lina, for pretty much the same reasons.

Still, that was a bit alarming, and I'd probably say more if I didn't have this creepy feeling of big brother watching. Hello! Free speech? Rights of the press?

... ah, fuck it. We've been ignoring the constitution so long, it's not like anything I say will change that.

It's the morning after because I fell asleep instead of just taking a nap, but... Last night we made a pirate ship in our hall. A feminist pirate ship. See, originally, it was just a fort, because most of us have boxes in their rooms that they're tired of having there, so they threw them out to Susan and Chrystal and me when we started building with the boxes we already had - namely the boxes that came with Chrystal's new computer and printer. We were going to make a fort originally, but we were low on blankets and high on boxes and Susan has this sort of ideal future where she lives in a warehouse that's really just a disguise for the pirate ship inside. So we started to make a ship instead. Then some guys - namely Tom and Dan - came along and started complaining that it was too girly, because of some of the boxes we were using: Kotex, tampons, Slim Fast, etc. You get the picture. So we took the idea and ran with it. Diana brought out this pink kitty umbrella with ears that stand out and I managed to attach my rubber chicken (the figurehead) to it somehow that I've since forgotten, and to the broom and mop that were serving as our mast we added a fan, a parasol, and a bra. The guys (aka Malex) tried to make it more masculine by adding a very penis-shaped banana and a jock strap, but we threw that last back as being too yucky. The banana stayed, and we added a 'cannon' next to it, as well as a sticker that says "Boys Make Good Pets" from Alejandra.

Then things got even silier. Once we had finished the back of our ship, we went in search of piratey things to wear - in Susan's case, a scarf tied around her head and an eyepatch and a bent hangar for a hook. In Alejandra's case, another scarf around the head and a teddy bear for a parrot. In Chrystal's case, a curling iron with the cord wrapped around her hand for an I-don't-know-what and an attempt at a scarf around the head that failed. For me, a pair of knitting needles with the yarn wrapped around my hand made for an acceptable version of a hook, and I pushed my shirt down around my elbows in an imitation of Fae Valentine from Cowboy Bebop in order to fix one of Alehandra's teddy bears into the straps of my dress and bra as another parrot. Diana provided the music, to which we danced for a while. But then we got tired of that (and we had made cannon balls out of crumpled up paper) so we went on pillage. We came in, yelling "Arrr!" and throwing cannon balls and carried off first some of Malex's stuff, and then some of Dan's, including his skateboard, which I quickly dubbed the jolly boat. And then, because some people who were traveling randomly through the hall didn't understand what it was, Susan sent me off in the jolly boat (man, that really works your stomach muscles, to push that thing around when you're sitting on it!) to get a printed version of the Jolly Roger. And then another, for the other side.

And then, after a bunch of sitting/lying around in the ship (me, Susan, Alejandra, and Malex) I went off to get my cat and Susan gave me her eye patch for it and then Malex went away and then we watched Pirates of the Carribean, which is an awesome movie. I hadn't intended to watch it at first, but they were smart to make 'Captain Jack Sparrow' the first guy really there after that dream/flashback thingie. He really draws you in, you know? Makes it hard to ignore the story, which turned out to be pretty cool anyway.

I think that's all I have to say for now.