Swashbucklers AND Samurai!! Hip Hip Hooray!

So I walked over to the local comic book shop, Main Vein Comics, yesterday at lunch. I haven't been in a few weeks, because I have sooo many comics that I haven't read, all sitting in the tidy little bags I carried them home in. I need to catch up, but I'm always looking for something new to read. I'm so bored with X-men, the Black Panther/Storm miniseries I was reading is over, and I'm just kind of sick of X-Men in general. I liked what I read of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. Actually I liked the artwork, and what I remember of the story was clever. I could read some of the husband's comics, but, nah.... And there was something I picked up that I meant to read, I even got a TPB, but I can't even remember what it was. It's somewhere in a tidy little bag, waiting for me to find it again, and go, "Oh yeah! I wanted to read that, but...."
So why the heck was I in the comic book store anyway? Well, I had to say Happy Birthday to Moose, the owner, and it's always fun to chat with him about kids and comics. I wanted to check to see what Living Dead Dolls he had so that I could get an idea of what I might get my little budding Goth kid for Christmas. And to see what I might like to read if I ever get around to sitting down to read a comic.
And there it was: Samurai. I was originally attracted to the artwork on the cover. Not too busy, there was a beautiful woman, and a handsome samurai on the cover. I thought about the Sorcerer game we're playing, and my tragically forgetful, teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown character, Shizuka, (the name of a Chemistry professor at my alma mater/former employer. Prof. Shizuka is not forgetful or on the verge of a nervous breakdown.) and her homicidal demon husband, Taietsu. (An intentional bastardization of the name Taitetsu, who was one of my Religion professors in college, and definitely not a homicidal demon). This could be interesting, I thought. So I snapped it up, along with another (yawn) X-Men, just so I could finish the mini-series, not that I cared.
The art rocks. The story so far is interesting. Lost love, blood and gore, swashbucklers, cool costumes. Right up my alley. Yayy! I love comics again!

Julia's Dream

Thursday night (Thanksgiving), I had a terrible dream. It started out as a standard post graduate anxiety nightmare, where I was back at school, and forgot to attend a crucial class. Had that part of the dream continued, I eventually would have discovered that I never attended the class and thus couldn't graduate. But this one was a little different. When I got to class I saw my mom standing in the doorway, and I went over to talk to her. She was dreamily cryptic, telling me I knew why she was here, smiling but sad looking. Then I heard her mumble something, which my dreaming brain interpreted as "I have Cardiac Amorphism." I tried to remember what I had learned about Cardiac Amorphism in nursing school, and I didn't think it was a good thing. So I asked her what she was going to do. She said there a surgery that might help, but it had an incredibly low survival rate ("One Tenth of One percent"). She was not going to have the surgery. She would live with the illness and die from it soon. I cried, she cried, and she told me had accepted this, so I should, too. The rest of the dream is a little sketchy. I woke up incredibly sad and heavy hearted.

So this part is real and not a dream: Yesterday my mom had an EKG at her appointment with a cardiologist. The EKG detected an abnormal heart sound, and given my mom's family history of heart disease, the cardiologist recommended she go in for a cardiac catheterization, to see if the abnormal heart sound indicated a blockage or other defect. She asked if I thought she should have the catheterization done. I told her yes.

I dream in color, I have vivid dreams, and I remember a great many of my dreams. When I was growing up, I frequently had nightmares (Bea does, too). As an adolescent I learned how to alter the course of my dreams. Basically I realize I'm dreaming and then I can do what I want, like fly, make the bad things go away, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I frequently have deja vu, so much so that I don't pay much attention to it. Dead relatives visit me in my dreams all the time, although they generally don't have much to say. They just kinda check in. And I've had dreams that seemed to tap into real events. In 1995, I had a dream that I was in an elevator, looking out a building across the street, and that building suddenly exploded and collapsed. I woke that morning to news that someone had detonated a bomb in a building in Oklahoma City. In 2001, I had a similar dream, where I saw people jumping out of a building and the building exploded and collapsed. That was a couple of days before Sept 11. I've had similar disaster dreams before high casualty earthquakes. I assume this happens to all of us, and some of us are more open or tuned in to it.

And I scare easily through visual stimulation, much to my husband's chagrin (he loves horror movies). If he gets me to watch a scary movie--one with angry ghosts or evil spirits--I watch it through a screen of my fingers. Scary movies give me nightmares 80% of the time, and I already have a nice little collection of recurring nightmare themes. I don't need any more.

11/29/06--Edit: I'm having an easier time processing the wierd and freaky cardiac amorphism dream as it relates to the reality of my mother's abnormal ECG than I am the uncertainty of the significance of the abnormal ECG. So I hope the 3 or 4 people who actually read this will think of or pray for my mom that her cardiac catheterization goes smoothly.

I Been Good! I Been Bad!

On Thanksgiving Day I did not pig out, but I did eat much.

The day before Thanksgiving, I sat on my parents-in-laws' couch, and worked on Get Away Jordan for a solid hour or so. I made fantastic headway, and can happily say the rules are 90% complete. I will try to write an actual play account on The Forge on Saturday.

The day before we left for Thanksgiving dinner I took Jed for a walk and forgot my neighborly plastic bag. Jed ended up crapping in the yard of the neighbors who let their pit bulls loose all the time and inevitably find their way to our yard and crap in our yard. I did not feel much remorse.

The husband and I are about to check into a hotel near Salem, MA, sans nos enfantes, to celebrate our 8th year wedding anniversary, and we plan to be very, very bad. Well, as bad a two married folks can be with each other.

Dandelions and Exercizing Music

I'm a huge fan of missbhavens. So I'm following the directions from her October 31 entry.

1. Grab the nearest book. If you are currently reading something, that'll be fine too.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your Blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet I know that is what you were thinking!

One ounce of the fresh leaves contains enough large amounts of vitamin A and calcium, as well as substantial amounts of vitamin B1, vitamin C, sodium, potassium, and trace elements.
Dandelion roots are thick and dark brown on the outside, with a milky interior. The crown of the plant, where stem and root meet, can be several inches long when dandelion is grown a deep mulch. The leaves of dandelion plants grow in a rosette form against the ground.

From Growing and Using the Healing Herbs by Gaea and Shandor Weiss. This book was on the floor of the computer room.

Speaking of health, I have been doing my body good for the past two months by going to the Y at least 4 days a week to work out. I'm beginning to see some great results. I've gone down at least one dress size, my clothes are looser (thankfully, I wear mostly hand made patchwork clothes with drawstrings, so I don't have to buy a new wardrobe just yet), I have more energy, I sleep better, my back doesn't hurt, and I feel less stressed out. The husband has been doing the same, and is looking quite the cutie lately. I can even see the early formation of a six pack on his stomach, although he says it's just the way his fat sits. I am forever the optimist, though. I have not lost my stretchmarks, my battle scars from childbearing, but there's definitely less flab in my belly region.

Something that has not necessarily improved is my regular music listening patterns. My usual folk and bluegrass isn't as fun to jam to on the elliptical (I HATE TREADMILLS, btw), but here's what I've found to be my favorite excercise music. This doesn't necessarily mean I love this music, it just has a good beat the keeps me going:

Kodo, the album Mondo Head. I do love this album, and I hadn't listened to it in a couple of years until I went to the Y. The song "Psychopomp" is my favorite. It sounds like being tickled.
The Best of Nina Simone. Maybe not the most upbeat, but it's just so awesome. "Wild is the Wind" and "See Line Woman" are my favorites.
Tool, "Stinkfist", "H.", "Prison Sex", "Undertow". Songs I can't listen to with children around, reminds me of college. I generally only listen to Tool when I'm cleaning the bathroom or excercizing.
Dead Can Dance, Aion
Ministry, "Every Day is Halloween". Reminds me of high school. Makes me want to look for my Skinny Puppy CDs.
Anything by Bob Marley, because I generally listen to anything by Bob Marley at any given occasion.
Random songs by The Smiths.
Random songs by Prince, but only from the 80's and 90's.
Random songs by OutKast.

Ingrid just came up here with a very incorrectly snapped diaper. Must fix it and pick on the husband.

A Letter to James, our "Beloved" Cat

Dear James,
Please believe me when I assure you that Jeddy, the dog, does not give a rat's ass about you. Any lies that your buddy Sal has told you about him are lies. In fact, Sal gets along with him just fine while you're upstairs hiding in our room.

I understand you've been through a lot in your life, but you have a good home here. You're going to have to adapt and get over this. You managed to adapt when we brought Sal home. I know you've lived with dogs before. We wouldn't have adopted Jed if we thought he would hurt you.

Your little passive-aggressive notions have not gone unnoticed and I demand that you cease and desist shitting in our closet, and get over it. Move on. Embrace life with a dog. If you continue this behavior, you will not be permitted in our room any more. You will have to find another pile of laundry to sleep on, most likely downstairs, where the "big, bad" dog lurks. I do not intend this as a threat. It's a promise.

You have two places you can defecate: the self cleaning litter box on the first floor, and the back up litter box in the basement. Use them, not the closet. This will require that you go downstairs. You'll survive.

With much affection,

Parthenia and family

Another WTF website

Dog Litter?
If you need dog litter, maybe you should have gotten a cat?

But My Husband's Not on There!

I'm not sure how we got on the subject last night, but Meg told us about The Cleaning Hunk website. I just checked it out, but I'm at work, and it's making me laugh so hard I'm crying. So I'll have to delve deeper later.
But this site is flawed. Where's the husband who has scrubbed the toilet maybe 3 times in the nearly 11 years we've been together? I don't think I saw him work a toilet even when we were housemates--when he was really hunky. I mean he's handsome and attractive still, but we've had two children together, need I say more? We're not the hotties we were in our twenties, and I have cleaned many more toilets than he has. Suffice to say, it would be a greater turn on to watch my husband scrub the toilet than one of those pretty boys. I want to watch a real man clean!
Perhaps I'll change my mind after I really look at the website. The husband may not scrub toilets, but he does clean the kitty litter, take out the garbage, change diapers, and do the dishes. I don't see Cleaning Hunk scoopin' cat poo.