Holiday Cheer~WTF is that?


Well I haven't posted here since ... well not since the first blog which was ... hell if I can remember. The world has been a blur of training manuals, training simulations, rough draft revisions, research and I managed to squeeze in a few posts to one of my older blogs.

Tomorrow's Turkey-day and in a month we'll be kissing under mistletoe, leaving milk and cookies for Santa; and thanking him with lip to c*ck service, or tongue to p*ssy service for the new sports car, diamond ring, or the $500 pair of shoes.

Well I won't be getting that stuff. My Santa Clause is poor and can barely afford reindeer food. She had to pawn Rudolph for a new red sack. One of the metal slats on the sleigh went bad and needs an alignment. And she's too thin to be jolly.

But she'll get tongue service, just because. My Santa knows how to make me feel good.

Anyway, thing is ... I can't seem to get excited about the holidays. Even when the money was plenty, I couldn't seem to find the holiday spirit. I'm no bah-humbug but each holiday seems more of a chore to me (at times) than a time for celebration. As for being thankful for family and friends--I'm thankful everyday for the love I have and for those who share my slice of the world. I don't need a holiday reminder to make me realize that I'm blessed.

I don't know when I stopped becoming giddy over Turkey-day, Easter and Christmas. Some time during childhood is as best as I can recall. I can't name a year or an age. I don't know if there was a specific occurrence or if there might have been several that led up to my ambivalence. Or maybe they just simply lost their magic for me just because. They don't depress me ... they just start approaching and I always want them to hurry and get over with ... because it always seems like my life is on hold until they pass.

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's as simple as the holiday seasons make me feel as though my life has grounded to a halt and can't run smoothly again until T-day and Christmas have gone by.

Is that selfish? Probably is. But that's the truth of how I feel. I don't begrudge others their merriment. I'm not quite the Grinch ...

...but I just don't see the hype.

Not from the Christian or the secular point of view.

Of course, I feel the same way about my birthday. Somewhere down the line it became just another day. I hit 38 in March and suddenly I can never remember if I'm 36 or 39. Funny. I honestly can't pinpoint the when and why these days 'supposed special occasions' became nothing more than inconveniences.

I enjoy having the family and friends around but labeling an occasion for it makes me feel resentful. As if the other times spent with the people we care about are somehow less special and not as noteworthy as a holiday gathering ... or the gifts we give or receive to and from each other through-out the year are somehow less important, less appreciated and less special than at Christmas time.

I'm always thankful. Always grateful. And the love I'll feel on June 6th 2007 for my lover and friends will be no less powerful or wondrous than the love I'll feel for them on December the 25th 2006.

Claudia

PRODUCTIVENESS

You ever have one of those lives when everything you wanted just seem so far away? You can almost touch it with the tip of your finger ... and you just can't seem to reach it?

Damn. I hate that.

I'm tired. Cranky. My eyes hurt and I haven't had much of a productive 2 weeks, writing-wise. Training for a new job--Now that I'm pronounced well healed enough to work.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy working.

It's just that after four years of being disabled, getting back into the swing of job-world is traumatizing.

I'll get over it. I can do anything I set my will too. After all, I'm walking without a cane ... a crutch ... or one of those stupid space boot looking pieces of Cr*p I had to use for the past four years.

It's just that right now.

Everything seems loud and frantic. Lights too bright or too dim. Too busy or not busy enough. Too cold. Too hot. I'm either tired or so jazzed that sitting in one place is like torture. But I do it.

I dreamed about training material ... ME! the master of dark dreams. Of course they weren't happy Lalala ... I'm at work dreams ... more like OMFG there's a giant phone trying stab me in the ear ... and a training manual with teeth like a shark... So you know, that part was at least comforting. But dreaming about work even if in a dark-dream context--man what a bummer.

So it's Friday. I'm exhausted. And it's frustrated attempting to train myself to go to bed by at least eleven so I can wake up at the time I'm normally going to bed. And then I'm suffering writing withdrawals throughout the day ... so that's all good right cause this is all for a good cause ... to support my broke *ss while I revise my works to get them ready for publishing.

Only right now ... not much revision is getting done. But you know what? I got a lot of faith. I was once told that I don't look at the world realistically enough ... But it's not true. I see a very realistic version of the world ... and I know that despite all the hellacious crap that goes on it ... good things happen too if you work for it.

So maybe I'll get published and maybe I won't ... but I'll still put my stuff out there for anyone who wants to read it ... I write first for myself and then for the entertainment of others.

Oooh but I did at least get five Chapters of the Voice of Tin Gods revised ... the first book in the Armageddon Chronicles.

So I was a little productive ... (tiny bit) minuscule ... wee.

EROTICA/P*RN

Well I've been busy.

Doing what you might ask?

And I would answer (blushing, and yes we folk of color do blush) Reading P*rn. Well not just P*rn. Erotica too. Visiting sites with Erotic and P*rn art. And sifting through the tons of it on the Internet and I ...

I have seen the dark side and it is scary.

I've been researching ... comparing my work to others and discovering what people are reading and asking for. What works and what doesn't ... and there is so much out there ...

P*rn and Erotica for women. P*rn and Erotica for men. P*rn and Erotica for Lesbians and Gay men. She-males. Transsexuals. Intersexuals. The list goes on.

And then there's Kink. Fetish. And a whole list of stuff under those subgroups.

And I'm sorry but I don't think BDSM and D/s should be classified under Kink or fetish. Not if it's a way of life for a whole group of people, hetero or otherwise.

Seems to me the only people who think of it as kink are the people who either abhor the lifestyles or are intrigued and yet ashamed of it.

But Kink well I guess it's all relative ...

I mean if you like your nipples or balls slammed repeatedly in the dresser drawer and that turns you on and gets you off than that's kink or just really sick. I can't tell any more my mind is swimming with naked writhing bodies.

But anyway, I try not judge what other people get off on at least in the writing and or the reading of fiction. And some of what I've read or the art work I've seen has been down right frighteningly and vicariously violent.

I didn't think much could disturb me but I found it. And I appreciated the pieces of art or written words that could disturb me so. Not just because of the theme or themes which were disturbing in themselves but the presentation ... the ability to put me there in the moment and make me squirm from the unpleasantness through carefully constructed prose or from the skillfully crafted imagery—to shove my comfort zone in my face and say this is what really lies beyond ...

That takes talent ... Because anyone can Write or attempt to Draw or Paint filth and you simply flip away. Back out of the page and Or shut the book.

If a reader or viewer isn't the sort to get off on those particular dark themes and subjects ...

Only talent can leave a person holding a heaving stomach and keep the eyes glued to the screen with that 'I am staring at a stranger's gangrenous limb and I shouldn't be' feeling. Not aroused but compelled to see the end even though the reader or viewer just wants to smash the off switch on his or her CPU.

And the reader or viewer feels violated and raked over by the time he/she has gotten to the end or has seen every picture.

I didn't dash off nasty notes to the authors or the artists ... Why? Because it was my choice to read ... or look at the art work ... And I can choose to read no more. I don't have to go back to those sites ... I don't have to pitch a fuss or a stink about them unless of course their posting (K P*rn and exploiting C*dren) then you bet your ass I'm going to complain right to the police ...

But as for the other stuff ... I have no complaints ... freedom of expression is exactly that ... You are free to express yourself ... as long as those expressions do not cause me are anyone else harm.

And as for people who argue that someone might see the kind of violence, that I've come across the past week, and might decide to act it out ... Bullsh*t.

From the beginning of time of people have done all kinds of stupid and twisted Sh*t and refused to take the blame for their actions ... Case in point ... if you believe in the Bible ... Who did Adam blame his downfall on? Who did Eve blame her downfall on?

It's really easy to cast blame for the things we do on outside influences ... And there's no better influence for our evil deeds than our society.

Which is run by a bunch of hate-promoting secretly perverted outwardly repressed stiff-shirt war-mongering money grubbing bigots with sticks shoved so far up their asses they serve as each other's puppets.

Anyhoo ... did that sound bitter? Sorry.

Our society rather than take the blame for its failings, prepares plenty of scape goats for crime and the misdeeds of our youth. Folks are running around waving the banners "Kids are violent because of TV and Internet. Kids are promiscuous because of TV and Internet."

What I don't get is if and the Internet and TV are the problem and these banner waving, Sour-mouthed righteous individuals love their kids so much ... instead of bitching and groaning and trying to get the government to babysit their evil little seeds ... why not shut the TV off? Monitor what their kids are watching, the books they are reading, and the games they are playing ... Put parental blocks on the Internet.

Don't use the government to control ME and what I read, write, watch, see or listen to.

Don't try to control me because you're too F**king weak to take care of your own.

Don't come into my house or my bedroom and try to take over you maniacal egotistical lazy ass sorry excuses for weak Americans who will also spout in the next breath that our country is founded on freedom.

I AM NOT YOUR KID.

My parents taught me the difference between what is real and fake on TV.

What the hell's wrong with your children?

I didn't agree with everything my father did, but my father wasn't afraid to turn the TV off when he felt we were watching too much of it. He would send us kids outside to play no matter how we mumbled and grumbled.

I was a horror movie fanatic, and according to my mom, from the time I could hold my head upright.

And you know what ... my Mom never had to be concerned that I was gonna suddenly go all CHAINSAW MASSACRE on some one's ass.

And to this day I still don't feel an urge to suddenly don a ski mask and wield machete.

But I do get an itch to pop a few folks upside the head every time I hear about book banning or talks about my Government trying to control me through Censorship.

Okayyyy ... well that gotta way from me has nothing to do with what I originally started to write about after the P*rn and Erotica research segment.

The Presence: PART3

A Year later after the lady incident ...

College again ...

It was a year of many bad things on campus–a suicide. A gang-rape at a Frat house Toga Party just-before Summer break. The fraternity was not involved. Some Walk-ins from town had joined the party and had followed a young girl from the house. The bathroom had been occupied. So she had wandered outside and around the side of the Frat house to throw up in the bushes. The walk-ins jumped her.

School started up again and ...

We'd had trouble almost as soon as fall semester began .. Three female college students had been attacked on Campus. A suspicious figure was spied entering my dorm of residence from one of the upper floor balconies. The cops and security had been called. All us girls had been evacuated. We stood outside the building waiting for 2 hours, in pjs, gowns long night shirts, t-s and boxers, as the dorm was searched.

The fear we felt was real. Not much chatter went on ... I kept hoping they would find the guy in there ... and haul him in and at the same I was afraid they would find him in there. Afraid because of what it would mean ... that a stranger had invaded our safe-haven with the intention of hurting one of us ... It made it more personal than just acknowledging that three girls had been attacked. Because now it made more of a 'it could have been one of us. It could have been me. It could be me next.'

They didn't find him.

We all laughed it off as we headed back inside, joking that one of the girls had probably tried to sneak in her boyfriend. And that's what the caller had probably witnessed.

Still the fear remained.

Someone had seen a stranger sneaking into our dorm on one of the upper floor balconies. Where had this stranger gone? How had he gotten out of the building and past security and the police? Past all us girls who had stood in a circle around the building?

Because of my own past, I was on edge by the time I returned to my room. Frightened. Angry and resentful that a stranger had given me reason to feel such a terrible fear. Things that I had constantly tried to keep buried were rising to the surface. I was a automaton by the time I'd reached my room. I'd grabbed a small dagger I'd kept hidden in my room and slipped it under my pillow.

I'd kept the light on and tried to sleep but I couldn't. My hand had held onto the dagger handle under my pillow and I kept asking myself ... can you use it? could you really use it to protect yourself?

So I heard something outside my door. My eyes went immediately to the doorknob and my stomach plummeted--I'd gotten a weapon to defend myself with and here I am ... the great genius who'd forgotten to lock her own door. I saw the shadow of shoes at the crack at the bottom of the door. I think I stopped breathing.

I couldn't move.

My hand was paralyzed around the dagger hilt and yet I couldn't make my arm move to pull it from underneath the pillow. The doorknob gave a soft clink ... you know the sound it makes when you try to be quiet and you first put your hand around the doorknob before slowly turning it.

I couldn't even scream.

But finally, I sat up as the knob turned. I slid the dagger from under the pillow ... I decided then that I wasn't going to be a helpless victim again. I wasn't that little child anymore.

The door opened just a crack. And I nearly let loose a stream of piss. My heart was in my throat, beating so fast it hurt and it pounded in my gut like that was an alternative escape route.

But I was on my feet –

It happened fast.

The door flung open wide. As though it had been yanked out of the man's hands.

And then it slammed shut, loud ... so loud it echoed. I heard a man's panicked hiss of "oh Shit!" A couple of girls screamed ... from down the hall.

I heard running. And I just stared at that closed door until a form began to take shape. He turned and looked at me, dark haired but I couldn't make out his face too clearly only a sense that he was handsome and maybe had a beard but it was the amusement in the eyes and vague smile that was so startlingly familiar. He looked at the dagger in my hand and just smiled, bowed and then disappeared.

Anyway the guy ran right into the police who were already there ... after having gotten several calls from frightened girls about someone trying to get into their rooms. Thankfully their door had been locked.

The Presence: PART2

Anyway we were talking about the supernatural and Dreams, disembodied voices and Ouija boards. So I recognized the presence that was with me the last night I ever touched a Ouija Board.

Not the voice ... just the feel of the presence and something about the undertone of amusement in the presence's voice.

The first Occurrence for me actually being aware and seeing was College. I was having a hell of a time, going through ups and downs as college students tend to do. So I had taken this Weight Training Class. I hoped it would make me feel more confident. I was shy ... a bit of introvert --- now my close friends kindly label it eccentric. Anyway I didn't have a spotter ... too shy to ask anyone to partner with me.

So I was doing the squat thrusts (Minds out of the gutter) Anyway I had managed to work my way to 175 lbs. And I had on my weight belt and everything but still not a good idea to work out without a spotter -- never really a good idea. But I was in my own world ... I went down for the squat and started to rise ... I could actually feel the muscles in my arms legs and back tearing and burning.

I put myself in a world of hurt. I was embarrassed and felt humiliated. I didn't scream... I just kind of grunted, gave some lame excuse about pulling a muscle in my thigh and got the muchly deserved lecture about lifting weights sans spotter. I hated having people's attention on me. But God I hurt.

I didn't want the coach to know I'd hurt myself worse than I'd let on, so while no one was looking I crawled into the shower room and hid in there until the coast was clear. Horrible mistake -- I should have immediately sought medical attention.

It took me an hour to walk from the gym to the infirmary across that small private Christian college.

I had done what I'd thought I'd done ... tore several muscles, arms, back and legs. It was horrible. It was horrible. I had major projects due in classes and couldn't miss them. The weekend came and I couldn't even stand the notion of climbing into a car for my folks to drive me home. So I made up some excuse to stay on campus. By then I was barley walking. I looked like a cardboard cut out.

Friday night and I'm in the bed and I hurt so bad that I couldn't reach the covers and pull them up around me. The air conditioner on my muscles felt like I was being tortured. I'd misplaced my pain pills and I remember eventually crying myself into an exhausted but fitful sleep. Again too damn introverted to ask for help ... I felt too small to be worth any one's attention.

I remember waking up groaning because of the cold ... and trying to get the covers up around me ... when my door just breezed open. A woman glided in dark-haired. I can't even remember her face but I remember thinking she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. She was smiling ... her eyes actually sparkling with amusement. She grabbed a soda from the mini fridge ... and kicked around my pants on the floor until she'd uncovered my meds where I'd dropped them and buried them beneath dirty clothes.

She sat on the bed, helped me sit up, gave me something to drink and one of my pills and then sat the meds beside the beds. She pushed me gently on the bed and kissed my forehead chuckling as she pulled the covers up around me. I couldn't say anything ... all I could do was stare ... and I was so grateful someone was helping me that it didn't occur to me wonder who the woman was or how she'd gotten through a locked door.

"Silly girl," she finally spoke. "What am I gonna do with you?" She kissed me again. Sat with me until I fell asleep.

For weeks I looked for that woman. I even asked my dorm mother about it ... she just kind of looked at me like I was crazy and not with a little alarm that there might be some strange woman possibly with a master key, just letting herself into student's dorm rooms.

Sheesh, she wanted to report it and everything ... but I convinced it her that it was probably just a friend and that I'd forgotten I'd given her a key to check on me. A lie but gosh ... I hadn't realize she'd make such a big deal out it.

Anyway that was the first encounter with the presence ... before the Ouija Board.

Tell you about the second another time.

The Presence: PART1

So, Anyway, I dream all the time ... and I usually remember them.

My dreams are usually dark and disturbing ... so much so that I've gotten used to them being such and have found a level of comfort in the fright.

Maybe that sounds odd. But I've never danced in field of Daisies or played hide N seek with Unicorns in my dreams ... I suppose most writers who write dark fiction are like that.

When I was a kid I used to dream of a shadowy figure with red eyes ... actually he looked more like he was made of black vapor ... I could never tell if I were sleeping or awake ... I started having trouble sleeping when I was kid ... But anyway ... this black vapor monster with red eyes would pin me down to the bed, arms and legs ... Sometimes he'd pin my arms over my head and put a hand over my mouth and no matter how hard I would try to scream it came out as muffled whimpers.

It was so odd because in the dreams It seemed as though ... if I could just free my mouth and scream ... scream anything then the black vapor monster would go away. I began a story under a different name using that premise. But my writing was so sporadic and I lost the thread of the plot trying to hurry and toss installments online for eager readers ...

Maybe one day I'll go back to it and fix it ...

Aha ... a mystery, yes?

Another dream I had was so strange. I was probably twenty-three.

It was several dreams within dreams ... and at the end of each dream I thought I was waking up only to fall right back into the same dream. I'm in bed ... A stranger with a knife comes into my room he lunges at me ... I escape by dodging each lunge and finally slided to the foot of the bed to the door ... I get to the door frame wake up only I'm not awake ... I'm in that same dream again ... the stranger with a knife comes into my room ... That dream repeated like seven times one night ... Finally I switched rooms with a roommate never told her why ....

Until she told me that she dreamed a stranger came into the room with a knife ... the dream repeated for her too ... So we got a friend to stay over with us ... told him nothing ... but had him sleep in that room ... and sure enough ... no one slept in that room after that we used it as a sitting room and to spook friends out at night ... during parties by telling them why we no longer used the room as a bedroom.

This was years ago when I was in my twenties.

I lived with a group of friends ... I dreamed of flying a lot ... at the time we meddled with Ouija Boards, Parker Brothers version, one's we made and one a friend of mine found in her Mom's attic. I was a sceptic about such things--Go figure right? you know with all the strange and unusual things that have happened to me and around me, throughout my life... but one night I got more than I bargained for and I'm not going into specifics. You'll think I'm crazy enough after I tell you this little bit...

We were on the board one night for four hours and I'd thought it had only been about twenty minutes. Just my friend, Chris and I.

Things happened that night that I convinced myself had been hallucinated. But my watch stopped at exactly the moment those things started happening and it didn't start again until several hours after we were off the board.

So after deciding that what had happened couldn't have been real ... Chris went to bed ... I was a little hyped up so I fiddled around on the board a little more ... you know ... doing that ... "it happened ... it didn't happen debate" ... mostly I just kind of stared at the board and tried to work up the courage to touch the planchette again ... I was thinking about all the stuff I'd been told that night "supposedly" by the spirit on the board ... things no one could have known unless Chris had become a mind reader.

You see I had devised a test ... I had placed my hands over Chris's rather than directly touching the board or him and as another part of the test, rather than asking questions out loud ... I thought them in my mind.

I still get tears and chills when I remember that night...

So finally, I crashed on the sofa ... I'd gotten so exhausted from just sitting there and staring at the board ... I would have put it away but I didn't want to touch it again. I just couldn't, you know ... So I left it on the floor ... So I'm on the couch tossing and turning, exhausted. But no surprise that I couldn't sleep ... I felt weird ... wrong and I couldn't shake the feeling.

You ever get a broken heart feeling when nothing actually happened to break your heart. So I'm there on the couch--gave up tossing and turning and just stared up into the dark as my eyes adjusted at the ceiling. The edge of the couch sank in near my left side.

I started talking, thinking it was Chris.

"Chris, maybe the Ouija Board isn't something I should do again ..."

"You're right. You shouldn't. You're not ready."

So--- it wasn't Chris voice. I sat up fast ... My hand shot out and touched air. My heart was beating in my gut and throat at the same time. There was warm breath on my face and I was trying to push whatever or whoever it was and still touched nothing but air.

"It would be safer if you slept, now. It's easier to hide in dreams from that which can see clearly in hard reality."

There were hands on my shoulders pushing me to lie on my back.

I tried to scream and couldn't get a single word out.

"I'm gonna sit here for a while, keep guard," the voice said. "You and your friend didn't close the doorway."

I whimpered. Literally whimpered. "Who are you?"

I doubt I'll ever forget that laugh. "You've always known me."

So I recognized this being ... not the voice but the inflection of amusement as the being spoke. I felt safer.

I haven't touched a board since that occasion but the odd things still happen ... The weird dreams still come ... And one day I'll share with you from where I recognized that voice ... from once as a protector and another time acting as guardian of mercy ...

I am the odd ball aren't I?