Tuesday, August 31, 2010

It looks like fall but feels like misery



The leaves are changing, but it's been in the 90s since Sunday. And won't stop until basically next sunday. And I don't have air conditioning. And I'm dying.

I am totally happy to be back in B-Town, but legit. This is ridiculous.

Why isn't it fall??

Friday, August 27, 2010

Being Afraid

I have this bad habit of, on those nights when I'm alone, putting on a horror movie and promptly getting terrified.

I really really really really love horror movies. I love being scared. When I'm with another person, at least. At least one other person. Then, I can just assume, no matter how unrealistic it is, that they'll protect me.* When I'm alone, though, any noise is obviously something malicious and crazy.

The movie doesn't even have to be particularly good or realistic. I could even be watching something like this or this, and I'll just be giggling over how ridiculously ridiculous everything is, when there'll be some gust of wind and I'll be all, "oh, shit! A ghost!"

It's the worst when I have to get up and pass a mirror. At night, especially in that state of mind, I can barely even look at them. I pointedly don't, really. I think I might have watched an episode about them in Are You Afraid Of The Dark? back in the day that scarred me. Or it could be the fact that every horror movie ever, at least since the last million years, includes a creepy ghost or ax murderer popping up in a mirror, looking all evil and creepy. So, that's kind of what I expect. It's awkward.

But it's still a delicious feeling. As much as I prefer getting afraid with other people by me, there is something special about doing it alone. I'll be back in college, where alone time doesn't exist, on Sunday. I think I might actually miss that private terror. Of course, I'm totally excited, too. As much as I'll miss my Cape friends, I'm wicked stoked to see all the Camp Champ kids. Wow, this is a conflicted entry.

*Awkward true story time: when I was little I used to sleep with about 80 million dolls and stuffed animals on either side of me, so that if a monster came, he could eat them first, and hopefully be full by the time he got to me. And when I was five and we'd just moved from Rhode Island to the Cape, I insisted on sharing a bedroom with my little brother-- I probably figured that my twin brother'd be too annoying-- so that I wouldn't be alone. Like my infant brother could save me if anything happened. I was a weird child, I think.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Little Things

  • I was at CVS earlier today, looking at nail polish and stuff, when this guy walked in, with this little brown bird following. It fluttered around a bit, and then landed on the ground, looking around. No one else noticed. I even said something like, "oh, hey, a bird," and no one even looked over. A few seconds later, the bird disappeared over shelves of cosmetics and candy bars. Still, no one saw it but me. It was the weirdest, most surreal thing ever. Especially since I had my earbuds in, so all I could hear was music.
  • The other day, I was walking somewhere when I heard someone rev their engine behind me. I looked over, expecting it to be some kids my age or older, but instead, they were just two old ladies. Like, they were eighty or ninety, and they were revving their engine. It made me laugh. It was kind of like this one time at work, when I had two old ladies buy a bunch of shot glasses. You know, when I get old, I want to still live life like that. I don't want to stop having fun.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I feel smart

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that there's really a correlation between feeling smart and being smart. Shit. I guess.

Anyway, do you wanna know why I feel smart?

It's because I totally debunked an urban legend. Yes. Debunked.

You know the one with the girl and the creeper in the back seat of the car? I'm guessing that most of you do, but I like telling stories.

*

So, this girl is driving home after a basketball game at her school. It's nighttime and there probably aren't many street lights, so everything's wicked dark. She starts to get uneasy for some reason she doesn't understand, but she keeps driving, knowing that she'll home in only a half hour or so.

After a few more minutes, she starts to notice that there's this car following her. Not only that, but every so often he puts on his high beams, like he's staring at her. She finds this just wicked sketchy. Naturally, she wants to get rid of him, so she decides to drive home the really rural way that no one ever takes. Of course, he does take that way, and he keeps following her. By now, the girl is really afraid, especially since the dude is still turning on his high beams. After what seems like hours later, the girl finally gets home. The guy in the other car stops right before the driveway and starts to get out as she does. The girl is overwhelmingly terrified, and runs as fast as she can to the doorway, screaming to anyone who can hear her to call the police.

The police come pretty quickly, luckily. But as they're arresting the man, he cries, "wait! I'm not the one you should be arresting!" and the police stop arresting him and say, "I am intrigued by your outburst. What is it, good sir, that you need to tell us so urgently?" because that's obvs how they are. Anyway, the guy points to the girl's car and explains that there was some other guy in the back seat of the car, with a knife. He was following the girl to make sure the the sketchy dude didn't kill her; whenever the creeper was about to actually do it and slit her throat, he would turn on his high beams and the killer (because you know he's killed before. He's probably an escaped convict from the ye olde towne mental hospital) would shrink away. So, he saved her.

*

Of course, as I epiphanized* one night coming home from work, it isn't really possible to see inside the cars at night. You can't even see shapes. Just blackness and sort of shadows. Um, yeah.

Honestly, I don't remember how that popped into my head. But I felt unreasonably proud about it. I still do, actually. Yay for an inflated ego.

In other news, I'm tired.

*new word. Copyright, me.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Warlock

So, there’s this movie that you guys all need to see. It’s called, “Warlock,” made in 1989, and it’s even more amazing and terrible than its name suggests.

It deals with three characters: Kassandra-with-a-K, Giles Redferne, and a warlock.

According to IMDB, the warlock doesn’t have a name. He isn’t special enough. You see, Kassandra-with-a-K is wicked special. You can tell because of her name. The writers used the same technique when they named her that Stephenie Meyers used with Bella Swan. You know how Bella’s always like, “Oh my gosh, you guys! Everyone here calls me Isabella! ANGST!” and then when Edward calls her Bella for the first time, she’s all, “Oh my gosh, you guys! HOW DID HE KNOW MY TRUE IDENTITY?” Well, it’s the same deal here, except even more so. Kassandra-with-a-K derives all meaning in life from the fact that her name starts with a K. At least Bella has a couple other aspects to her personality. Like the fact that she’s so super mature that she likes Jane Austen, because obviously no other teenage girl ever likes her. And the fact that she doesn't like rain, and she really really doesn't like snow. Well, with Kassandra-with-a-K, though, the K is all she's got. She is that K-- lives, breathes that K. Someone could walk up to her and be all, like, “HA! I’m gonna call you Cassandra! WITH A C!” And she’d be all, “Noooooooooo.” She'd be devastated. She'd be nothing. It'd be legit.

Except no one in the movie would say legit, because "Warlock" takes place in the 1980s. I don't know what the '80s equivalent would be, but it'd probably be pretty lame.

Anyhoo, here's a synopsis of the first thirty minutes, give or take. You'll probably have to actually watch the movie to find out the rest. My words can't give it adequate justice, anyway.

***

The movie starts out in 17th century Plymouth Plantation. It's supposed to be Boston, but it's totes not. The warlock is locked away in a tower, shackled by his toes. Seriously. My guess is that he has really oddly shaped toes, where the tips are giant and the beginning bits are teeny. Which leads me to wonder why he didn't just use his magic to make his toes normal. Probably, that's just part of the movie's mystery.



Anyway, the warlock's just chillin' in his toe shackles when a bunch of these pilgrim dudes climb up and are all like,"You trafficked with the Divvil! Also, we have, like, scottish-ish accents. Yeah, we don't know why, either."

Then, this dude, Redferne, comes up, and he's wearing a shit ton of furs for some reason, and has this long mullet that probably hadn't been washed in a couple years.



He's totally Scottish and stuff. And he hates the warlock. They're totally enemies. Not even frenemy enemies. Legit enemies. So, they yell at each other for a while, and Redferne tells the pilgrim dudes to keep the toe shackles on the warlock for, like, infinity. But as he says this, the warlock does his magic and in a flurry of graphics probably done on Microsoft Paint, the warlock escapes and it's suddenly 1989 California. Which brings us to Kassandra-with-a-K. Hells yes.

Kassandra-with-a-K has really bad fashion taste and lives with her gay roommate, Chas, who also has a really bad sense in fashion. Kassandra-with-a-K has diabeetus, too. And she doesn't like old people because they walk too slowly and totally take away from the gravitas of her pleather windbreaker, giant globe earrings, and awful driving.



Anyway, Kassandra-with-a-K and Chas are sleeping when, what do you know, the warlock crashes through the window into their house. Even though the warlock's wicked creepy and cult-y looking and, I don't know, just flew through their window, they don't seem to find terribly much odd about this. They even let him sleep in Kassandra-with-a-K's bed. How sweet.

The warlock's awake by next morning, and the roomies are all, "OMG! He's British! That automatically makes him safe and totes awesome! Here, have some tea and crumpets!" But he's really not safe because when he wants Chas' heirloom ring, he totally cuts his finger off to get it. Then, he uses his magic to totally kill Chas. It's gross.

The police come to tell Kassandra-with-a-K all about her poor roomies' death while she's at work, about a half hour later. I'm not really sure how they found out, since Chas and the warlock were the only ones home, and the doors were locked, but I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation. Maybe the warlock was so wracked with guilt that he had to call them. For his conscience. I mean, it's not possible for a British person, witch or not, to be completely evil, right?

Anyway, the po-po start talking to Kassandra-with-a-K, and there is this little gem of a conversation:

Coppehs: Did [Chas] frequent public parks?
K-with-a-K: He didn't dick little boys from bathroom walls, ok?
Coppehs: You said your roommate was gay.
K-with-a-K: Not queer! Big difference!

There's really not much you can say about that (other than, maybe, holy shit! Homophobia, much????) so I'm just gonna leave that blank.

The next scene takes place in this hippie psychic store, run by this hippie psychic with a man-face and feathered hair. The warlock's there because he wants her to, "channel me a spirit!" And she wants to say no, because it's after hours, but she totally has the hots for this pony-tailed creeper, and agrees. So he tricks her into channeling the Divvil, saying that the Divvil's his daddy.

When the Divvil talks through her, he's all like, "YOU DON'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES, JACK! YOU HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE ISLAND!" and the warlock starts crying and saying, "HOW MUCH DID YOU DRINK, DAD?" but then he remembers that his name isn't Jack! It's The Warlock! So, he tells the Divvil that, and the Divvil's all, "My bad, son," and tells him to, "bring together my Bible." Apparently the Bible in question, the Grand Grimoire, is separated into a bunch of pieces, and once they're all brought together it will, "thwart creation itself." Which would really suck, apparently.

Oh, and then the hippie psychic with a man-face and feathered hair dies. It's not particularly sad, really.

Anyway, meanwhile Kassandra-with-a-K is understandably pretty freaked out by everything, so she goes home to pack. And while she's stuffing ugly '80s clothes into her ugly '80s suitcase, she hears glass breaking. (I'm pretty sure that all of the windows in the house are broken by now). This time, at least, though, it is not the warlock. It is Redferne!

Redferne totally thinks that Kassandra-with-a-K is a whore, but that's okay because I think everyone does, what with her silver pleather ensemble and everything. But then he hits her and gets her in a chokehold, which is really just douchey. As he has her in the stranglehold, he's all, "WHERE IS THE WARLOCK, HARLOT!" and she's totally freaking out. But then Redferne explains that the warlock's a warlock, and she's pretty much totally cool with it. Until the warlock comes over to her and utters what is pretty much the worst spell ever written: "Tout, tout. Through and about. Your callow life in dismay. [plus a bunch of latin]"which makes it so that she gets 20 years older each day.

Oh, and Redferne totally gets tazed, bro, by the police and realizes that it's the 1980's.

And the warlock finds a bit of the Grand Grimoire inside the dining room table.

Once Kassandra-with-a-K wakes up at forty-- and she did not age well, believe me-- she busts Redferne out of jail. The two then decide to team together and become a merry duo and stop the evil warlock.

Friday, August 20, 2010

2:22 AM

Okay, so I need help on this one! Do the stanzas work? I mean they all take place in different places, with different people, but does that work? And is it obvious that the stanzas are still all about the same subject? And, any advice for anything?


***

2:22 rushed in through the window shades
with sirens and lights flashing hollow, urgent ribbons.
A girl sat quiet on the bed.
She’d been trying too long for dreams
and she couldn’t shut her ears
even after the jumbled life cries flew away.

Cars drove by the twisted, sprained metal,
headlights stared at it, a gallery,
engines wondered.
Blinking night owls murmured curious sympathies,
knowing the rain will fall soon enough.

The kids laughed together in their hoodied huddle,
clinging to their Dunkin’ Donuts cups against
frosty sunrise air. They whispered flickers
of this time and that time
and hanging on rollercoasters one last time,
before winter suspended all life in the air.
They didn’t know, yet.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Almost

Sun
beating down heavy
light. Tropical sugar sunscreen seeped
into the poetry of air.

We could be at the beach,
our feet buried in sand.
Warm, soft.
A thousand beads of sunshine,
freezing waves lapping close,
and we can feel the ocean
currents swaying inside our skin.

We aren’t. But the passing cars
roaring beside us
and the people
tossing and turning together
remember the sea
rolling back and forth
endlessly.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

A Fake

Sometimes, I think I'm not a real writer. I'm not like the other writers I know, who can scribble down magic in a second.

I'm slow. I can't just start writing anything. I spend minutes and minutes just staring, trying to figure out some idea. And once I start, I cross out more things than I keep. Sometimes, even with all that, my writing still turns out to be complete shit, and I can never show it to anyone.

When I write short stories, I don't know everything I should know about the characters, or even the plots. I almost never even know how I'm going to end them until I do. Or, usually, they just never get endings. They just languish wherever.

Whenever I read a book, I think about how I could never write anything so fantastic, or so big. I wouldn't even know how. The biggest thing I've ever written was about thirty pages, and that was totally an anomaly. Usually, I don't make it past eight.

Even when I think my writing might be good, I never know for sure. People might complement it, but even then I never know whether they're being serious or not. Because what else are they going to say? You could be the worst writer on the planet, and your friends aren't going to say anything.

I know that all writers have these thoughts, or ones like them, and that a lot of the times, they're unfounded. But, what if I'm that one writer who really just can't do it?


Saturday, August 14, 2010

Work is destroying my brainnnnnn

Really. Each day my IQ drops a point or two, I'm pretty sure.

When I'm at my register, my life revolves around the phrases, "Hi, how are you doing? Could I have your zipcode, please?", "Your total is klshgkhdrgrld!", "Could you sign here, please?" and, "Have a great day!" After a while, though, I start to mix everything up. I'll ask for their zipcode for a second time while I'm handing them their receipt. And then I'll be all like, "Oh wait! Haha, I meant, could you sign here, please?" And they'll smile and nod, and then later, as they're packing up their cars, they'll tell their children that that's why you stay off drugs.

Also, every time now that I talk to someone I don't know or haven't seen in a while, I have the strange urge to cheerfully and plasticly wish them to have a great day. I guess it could be worse, though. I could be asking them for their zipcode.


Friday, August 13, 2010

(Totally) Rational Fears

It can sometimes be hard to say what is more evil: bees or jellyfish. They're both dastardly little sonsofbitches, definitely, but which is worse?

I didn't know, either, until I came across this series of photographs. Just so you know, they are deeply disturbing. Younger viewers may wish to look away.

***


Babies are unfortunately the favorite prey of the jellyfish.


Not only does this jellyfish have the Dark Mark, but, contrary to the books, he killed Fred Weasley. As tears fall from poor Fred's frozen face, the jellyfish can be spotted wickedly gloating.


Despite the fact that the pipe clearly reads, "OIL LINE DO NOT CUT," (well, the word 'line,' could have been clearer. Whoever built it definitely did a shoddy job of it) this jellyfish is about to cut it open, wreaking unknowable amounts of harm upon the ocean, and the world.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

telephone lines

she followed the lines,
the sunset sepia ghost roads
for hours
counting the telephone poles:
one one hundred two hundred.
infinity.

names and tones thunder leapt from the wires
into her throat.
they cried out conversations
secreted away like lies
years ago.

they marked her like a bruise,
the truths,
the panics and the cries.

she walked that long road
to the sea.
the last pole was just
an indented slice of drift wood
shifting inwardly between the surf
and the blinking highway.

the sky stretched
aimlessly, rusted
with cracked mascara and dew.

she turned around before her heels could sink
into the shore.

the sun rose and set
and she walked back.
the historic static heaved
away from her with each step,
each gust.

only a few buzzing fragments stayed, still
piercing her eyes
with barbed wire and muttered
moments.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Bear Grylls and the Badass Christmas Cards

I'm giving my two weeks notice tomorrow! Wicked stoked.

I actually don't mind my job that much. It's tedious, uninspiring, and the seconds drag on like hours, but it's better than it was last year, when I worked in the back. And I'm in air conditioning the whole time, which has pretty much been the only thing keeping me sane this summer.

Also, I have this gamething that I play. To keep myself from having a boredom seizure, you know. (And while I think I just made that up, watch it be totally legit). It started out innocently enough. It started out with me imagining how I might possibly survive, were I to suddenly appear on some abandoned island with only the things that the most recent customer bought.

Say someone buys 3 jars of cranberry jelly, 1 box of salt water taffy, 2 beach towels, 1 thing of Hawaiian Tropic Sunscreen SPF 50, and 1 thing of Christmas cards (because we've totally had those since the beginning of July.) I figure, I can probably ration out the food for about a week. Maybe two if the cranberry jelly turns out really nasty. I can use the towels as blankets, and the sunscreen will last me about a month before it runs out and I get skin cancer. The Christmas cards, though? Well, maybe if the jelly is really really really nasty, I can use it as ink and write my memoirs on them. But, you know, that got me to thinking, Bear Grylls would have found a really badass way to use those Christmas cards. Because he's badass. And he named his kid Huckleberry.

So now, whenever I ring up a customer, I think, What would Bear do? It's probably better that way, because before I would always secretly get a bit annoyed when people didn't buy food, or at least something that might help my chances of survival.

Bear would probably fold up those cards into a water bottle,* and it would somehow be one of those environmentally friendly metal ones, because Bear is (probably) all about the environment. And magic. But he wouldn't use the water bottle for water. That's not how he rolls. Basically, he would pee in it. And then drink it. Because that is how he rolls. Also, I think that his pee must have magical properties or something. Maybe it's how he turns his Christmas card water bottle into metal.

*See, I could never do that. One time in fourth grade, we were supposed to make boxes out of paper, and I folded mine wrong. My teacher called me an idiot. And then she asked me if I liked her. Seriously. She was like, "Ashley, you are an idiot. Do you like me?" I was confused.

Not a Squirrel

I swear, everyday at work, at least someone comments on my voice. They're always like, "I love it! It's so cute!" and I never know what to say, because really my voice is awful. Actually, that's usually what I do say. I'm always like, "Aw, thanks! It's awful, though!" because what else is there?

I've had people tell me I should be a voice actor, for little animated woodland creatures. Little squirrels and chipmunks that squeak.

I did have one person tell me I should be an actress. That was pretty cool, actually, though I have no idea how she decided that after only about a minute of knowing me. (And of course, I couldn't ever. Acting's totally fun, but I'm really awful at it. Seriously, I've tried. I was in theatre in high school, and it was ridiculously fun and amazing. But I couldn't, and can't, do it. I just end up giggling. I swear, the play could be about the most depressing thing ever-- volcanos could be engulfing villages, killing all of the towns' babies, and then someone will look at me and I'll just start cracking up. It's terrible, really.)

I've had other people say that I look just like my voice, which I'm still not sure how to take. (Hopefully it doesn't mean that I look like a little animated woodland creature).

I wonder what my voice will end up as when I'm old. Probably really awkward. I look younger than I am, and even though everyone always says that I will appreciate it when I'm older, I totally expect to just look weird. Like, a baby face with lines and wrinkles. Wicked attractive.


Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Sentimental Post of Sentimentalness


It's my little brother's 15th birthday. I'm almost more weirded out by him being fifteen than I am with me being twenty. And the fact that he's going to be a sophomore in high school? Definitely impossible. He's still in elementary school, I'm sure.