Friday, December 29, 2006

December Wordsmiths Challenge 2: The Gift

The sexy beasts over at Wordsmiths Unlimited have unleashed a second writing challenge this year because we've all been good (or is that naughty?) little boys and girls. This time, we have the picture below and a default beginning, and we are tasked to write an additional 500 words. I put the default in red italics.




The Gift

A loud rapping at the door awoke me from a deep dreamy sleep.

It was early, too early to be awake, and certainly too early to be out in the streets pounding on doors. I thought that there must be some emergency in town and ran to the door to find out whatever news there was from whoever was there. Much to my surprise, there was no-one at the door ready to identify themselves and their message, and yet a package with my name on it had been left at the door.

It was a most curious circumstance, and yet I saw no real harm in it, because secret gift giving was the hallmark of the holiday season. I myself had delivered many a gift in that manner over the years. The package was heavier than it should have been from its size, and once I had it indoors I eagerly opened it to find out what it was and who had sent it.


Alas, there was no identification of the giver, and more's the pity because what was inside was a most remarkable carved wood box, worked with figures of animals and dragons all over, in a magnificent shade of red. Whoever sent it to me must have been a prankster, though, because I could see no way into the box, no clasp or lock announced itself, no hinge or platen presented itself as a means to the inside. I was locked out, and most frustrated by this unfortunate turn of events.

"So, what do you think so far?"

I had read my husband's story while I waited for the curling iron to heat up. He was in the doorway of the bathroom, perched on the edge of his wheelchair, awaiting my judgment.

I shrugged. "It reminds me of 'The Raven' a little."

"Poe? Yeah, I can kinda see that. That's good, right?"

"I guess," I dropped my copy of the story in the sink, and the corner of it started to absorb the tepid water pooled at the bottom. I wrapped strands of my hair around the barrel of the curling iron, heard the faint hiss of it being gently scorched.

"Do you want some lunch before you go?"

"No."

"I can make you a sandwich, Rachel brought some roast beef over- "

"I'm eating at the Christmas party."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Do you think you'll be home early tonight?"

Ten months ago a drunk driver neatly divided our lives into two categories: before the accident and since the accident. We bought this house before the accident, but since the accident it's become a maze of ramps and gauze and bedpans and metal railings bolted to every vertical surface; our tables and kitchen counters had been lowered. I stumbled through the house, banging against modified furniture and my husband showing me his latest project: model airplanes, crossword puzzles, watercolors of me camped out in the guest bathroom, the one place that we hadn't changed. Before the accident I might have used a smear of lip gloss and called it a day, now I have an hour-long beauty ritual.

The red box that he based his story on sat in his lap and every so often he'd rub the pad of his thumb against its carved enameled surface. He'd seen it on the clearance table at Pier One a few weeks ago and bought it, saying that it reminded him of me, and I had cringed inwardly at the pitiful, awkward metaphor: beautiful to hold and fused closed for good.

"I don't blame you if you don't want to come back."

I looked down at him, saw that his hairline was receding, his jawline was softer now, and for the first time since the accident I didn't feel pity.

Somewhere in the city there was a young couple wrapping presents for their newborn child, there were cups of thick egg nog enjoyed by handsome men who were able to place the angel on the top of the Christmas tree, there was a man in a dark car waiting down the block for me. In this house, since the accident, there was a small Frasier Fur that was decorated only along the bottom half and a man who couldn't fit his wheelchair through the bathroom door so he could touch his wife. I put my lipstick down and sat in his lap, though he couldn't feel it.

"So this story you're writing..."

"Yes?"

"Who left the mystery box? And what's in it?"

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Christmas for the Nooch

This story is my Christmas present to Noochie, who not only introduced me to 'September' by Ryan Adams but also the idea for making it into a story. I've included the lyrics below in purple italics. Everyone have a kick-ass religious observance of your choosing!

Laura lays on the foot of the bed
Mimics a noose with the telephone cord
Doctor's on the phone
And she hangs up and says
"I ain't never gonna see the winter again"
Then, I don't know how, but she smiles

September, September
September, September

They carved your name into a stone
and then they put it in the ground,
I run my fingers through the grooves
When no one's around
Drink till I am sick and I talk to myself
in the dog days of the summer
And I feel you coming but I don't know how

September, September
September, September

Daniel waited for the coffee to brew while Laura planned her funeral.

He rinsed out Laura's only coffee mug, which was shaped like a snowman's head and chipped along the rim so he had to be careful where he put his lips. She was out of milk, and for a brief second Daniel considered whether sour cream would be an acceptable substitute. He dumped an inch of sugar in the bottom of the cup, topped off the rest with fresh coffee and gulped it down quickly, scorching his tongue and throat. He washed the mug again, refilled it and brought it into Laura's room.

She had been up all night scratching ideas for her funeral across slick, blank sheets of paper, and when the sun came up she started to frantically make phone calls to funeral homes, cemeteries, crematoriums, her finger blazing a trail through the Yellow Pages in her lap. She tucked the receiver under her chin and took the cup of coffee from Daniel with one hand, then set it on the night side table amidst the avalanche of empty Diet Coke cans.

In his brief absence to the kitchen Laura had sprawled with her notebooks and pens across the blankets. Daniel stood by the side of the bed for a minute, waiting for her to move over so he could lay back down, watching the pale steam from the untouched cup of coffee curl into the air. After a minute he realized that she wasn't going to let him back into bed, so he slipped into his jeans and t-shirt and sat on the floor.

While he waited for her, he rested his head against the IKEA bookshelf they had bought earlier that year. Laura had refused his help putting it together, and it tilted to the left very slightly. The slanted shelves were stuffed with books from aborted projects: knitting, drawing, ballroom dancing. Textbooks from the accounting class Laura took for a few weeks at Gwinnett Tech. Dozens of literary classics she'd meant to read: A Farewell To Arms, Catcher In The Rye. The Grapes of Wrath, which he'd never read, but it made him think of singing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' in third grade chorus.

Laura had been in the hospital the previous week while her doctor tested out theories for her sudden weight loss, her overall brittleness. She had thrived on the attention from her coworkers who came by with flowers and balloons, the doctors and nurses who would pat her knee while they took her temperature and drew blood, and Daniel, who camped out by her bed in a stiff armchair and gamely watched 'The Price Is Right' with her every day.

"Bet a dollar! A dollar, stupid!" she'd yell at the mounted TV, and then slip into a coughing spasm when a nurse would poke her head in the room.

She'd talked them into letting her stay an extra two days, and then they released her from the hospital yesterday. Daniel had relished signing her out; he liked the official sense of responsibility it gave him over her care and comfort. The nurse had told him to put fiancé as his relationship to patient on the formal paperwork. "We can't discharge her to anyone but family," she'd said with a wink.

As he drove her home, she fiddled with the radio and started rummaging through his glove compartment. "What if I had died in the hospital?" she asked, Jiffy Lube receipts in her fist.

Daniel's eyes darted over to the passenger's seat, saw Laura pull out a map of Georgia like an accordion. The thought of her death had sent him on impromptu runs to the gift shop or the bathroom while she was in the hospital; he hadn't wanted her to see him crying, making frantic, breathless, incoherent prayers to whichever deity would answer him.

"I'd be sad and depressed. I'd cry. I'd miss you every day. Are you looking for something in there?"

"No, I'm just being nosy. You need to clean this out. Is that all you would have done?" she asked, and they shared a sudden, simultaneous vision of Daniel sleeping on the dirt of her fresh grave, drunk on Wild Turkey, tracing her name on the cold granite marker with blind fingertips, and they both felt comforted.

The September morning was unseasonably chilly and the bare floorboards had made Daniel's ass numb. The early fall light shone golden through the grubby blinds, making the dust motes sparkle around Laura while she talked on the phone, picked at the chipped dark polish on her toenails, sketched a crane in flight in the lower corner of the phone book. She fidgeted and looked everywhere around the room except at Daniel.

"So, is there a discount if I'm not embalmed? Oh. Yes, yes I guess so."

Daniel had met Laura three years ago when he had been married to a sweet girl; a pharmacist who kept the fridge full of milk for his coffee and the cabinets full of coffee cups. Laura had been in front of him at the checkout line in Kroger, frantically searching through a weathered knapsack for the eight dollars she owed for her groceries. "I know it's here somewhere," she repeated, taking out her wallet again and painstakingly pawing through the tiny pockets which held pictures, ATM receipts, expired coupons, two library cards- everything but money. After five minutes Daniel stepped up and offered to pay for the stack of Ramen noodles, squeeze bottle of ketchup and box of tampons she was trying to buy.

"Thank you so much," she'd whispered as he helped carry her bags to her car. "I was going to shoplift all that but a security guard followed me and I had to pretend like I was going to buy it."


"Ah...Oh. I see." His palms began to sweat.


"Well, I would have bought it but this month has been hard, I lost my job and then a few months ago..." she reached up and ran her fingers along the curve of her jaw, and Daniel saw a blue-green vein pulsing elixir under her pale skin, her earlobe with its trio of silver hoops, her bitten, bloody cuticles.


"Well, you don't want to hear about it. It's just...hard sometimes, you know?" she'd sighed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. It was the first of a hundred thousand times she'd hint at some dark monster that always haunted her. Daniel developed his own theories over time, but kept them to himself because he feared that he might be right.

"Can you hold on a second? I have a call on the other line. Wait...Hello? Oh, hello Dr. Thomas." Laura looked at Daniel, including him for the first time this morning.

"It isn't? Oh, I see. That's good. Yes, yes it is. Thursday at noon. OK. Thank you...Hello? Damn, he hung up."

"Well? What did he say?"

Laura curled the phone cord around her neck, her tongue hanging out. "I'm done for. Never going to see another winter." She smiled and waited.

Monday, December 18, 2006

December Ear-gasms

What would Christmas be without music, and what would this blog be without Sea Hag acting like she has authority over all creation? With that in mind, here are a few songs that Sea Hag suggests your download to your iPod pronto:

'A Long December'
Counting Crows
A long December,
and there's reason to believe
maybe this year will be
better than the last

An ideal New Year's song, Adam Duritz gently hints at a year full of loss and grief, playing his earnest vocals over some beautiful piano. This song is at the same time painfully sad and sweetfully hopeful, as in what I went through this year was so bad there's no where else to go from here but up.

'Pretty Good Year'
Tori Amos
Lucy was pretty,
your best friend agreed
well, still, a pretty good year

Another great New Year's song in the same vein as 'A Long December' where the past year was obviously crappy but the singer is trying to embrace any positive aspect she can. A big part of celebrating New Year's is reflecting on the past year, and I think both of these songs capture that melancholy mood.

"Our Winter"
Jason Anderson
My mom says I need snow tires bad,
but I'd just as soon spend that money on records
and sit with friends in living rooms
and sing the songs we know by heart

Cool little song about some slacker hanging out at home for the holidays.

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"
Judy Garland
Traditional
It's imperative that you get the Judy Garland version of this song, because of the emotion she puts into it; she sounds so incredibly sad, like she's coming out of a weeklong bender and woke up in some hotel room out of pills and far from home.

"Silent Night"
Manheim Steamroller
Instrumental
This song always reminds me of my dad. I get goosebumps every time I hear the child's piano at the end.

"Winter"
Tori Amos
I get a little warm in my heart
when I think of winter,
I put my hand in my father's glove

Another nugget of joy from Tori, this one about growing up secure in her father's love. A must for all daddy's girls.

'Santa Baby'
Eartha Kitt
Traditional (kind of)
I love this song because it's vaguely naughty. And I would love a Christmas tree decorated with the best from Tiffany's.

"Song For A Winter's Night"
Sarah McLachlan
I read again between the lines upon each page
the words of love you send me

Sad, sweet song about someone curled up on a cold winter's night, contemplating the absence of their lover.

"Christmas Day"
Dido
And the last words I heard him say
were I shall return for you my love
on Christmas Day

Yet another sad, sweet, melancholy song. What's up with that? It seems like the holidays seem to lend themselves to a certain kind of dark moodiness. Maybe it's the crappy, cold weather. Maybe it's because you aren't able to be with the people you love this year because you had to work or you couldn't afford to travel or they passed away. Or maybe it's because as an adult, Christmas just doesn't seem to have the magic it did when you were a child.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas"
Vince Guaraldi
Yes, I do mean the entire album here, and if you can find the edition they just released with 4 more songs on it, that's all the better. By far my favorite holiday album, it's jazzy but not that pretentious, crappy kind of jazz. It has a lot of traditional Christmas songs but also has a few other pieces so you don't get burned out on yuletide joy.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Update!

My recent absence is mostly due to the fact that this happened:



Ha ha, fooled you! That's my brother up there and my new sister-in-law. Sisters don't shake hands, sisters hug!

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Wordsmiths Challenge for December: Secret Sharer

Once again I was invited by the rad folks over at Wordsmiths Unlimited to participate in the first of two December writing exercises. This one involves a conversation with a childhood toy, and, of course, must be under 500 words. No picture was provided for this round, so I had to use my imagination here. Oh noes!
~~~~~~~~~

Secret Sharer


"What am I going to do?"

My mouth was worn away long ago, but I can still answer her: I don't know. But you'll be fine, you'll see.

Tears fall warmly on my gray, dingy fur. I feel her wrap her finger around my threadbare tail, an old habit.

"I don't know what to do. I just don't know what I'm going to do." She pulls me to her chest tighter, rocking back and forth, repeating herself. Her chin digs into the top of my squishy head. This feels good.

You will figure it out. You've just got to be strong.

This is all in her head, our conversation.

"I'm so tired of this. I can't start over again. I can't do this without him."

I am just a little stuffed leopard, a hidden treasure of childhood with all the velvet fuzz loved off my nose and half of my whiskers missing. My polyester filling is saturated with red bicycles, the waxy smell of crayons, the ice cream man, Saturday mornings with cartoons and big bowls of sugary cereal. I've been stowed away inside a shoebox in her closet since she got married. She pulls me out when it gets bad.

"I just want him to come back. Do you think he'll come back?"

It's bad now.

I don't know. But you've been unhappy for a long time, maybe this is for the best.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without him. He's everything to me! What am I going to do?"

I am used only in emergency situations.

He is not everything to you.

"He is! What am I going to do?"

I am her flotation device.

If he meant so much to you, why did you cheat on him?

I am flung across the room and land softly on the bed. This hurts.

I'm putting this in perspective for you.

"Shut up."

I can't.

"My life is falling apart and I'm arguing with a stuffed animal."

I'll never leave you.

"You're just a toy."

I love you.

She crawls to the bed, pulls me down on the floor with her.

"You're all I have left."

I love you.

"I don't know what to do."

It's OK. It's OK. I love you, I will never leave you, and this is her lullaby, this is how we fall asleep: I whisper into the pink spiral of her ear her own comforting thoughts over and over, hypnotic and sweet, I am only made real by her desire for comfort, but it is enough.

I love you. I will never leave you.

Yay December!

OK, it's finally December, so everyone can officially start getting ready for Christmas...






Now!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Things I'm Embarrassed to Like: Cosmo

It's mostly advertisements and pretty pictures. It's stupid. It's repetitive. It preys on your every insecurity and probably kills hundred of brain cells if you look at it.

It's Cosmo, and I like it.

I'm not exactly sure how I got into reading Cosmo, but around the middle of each month I start hunting the grocery store racks for the newest issue. When I get home, it always goes in the bathroom to be browsed at my leisure.

Cosmo: For me to poop on.

If you've ever read Cosmo more than once, you've probably noticed that the magazine is kinda short of fresh ideas. Most articles involve the same old crap:

1. Stuff about how to get or keep a man

2. New sex positions (which are really the same ones over and over again with different names)

3. Stupid interviews with a marginal celebrity (what's your favorite body part?)

4. Some sort of story about rape or stalkers or kidnapping or disease that's designed to scare the crap out of you.

5. Picture of a dude without his shirt on

Of course, besides the tiny articles, there's a ton of ads for clothes and makeup. My favorite feature is usually the embarrassing 'confession' stories which generally involve a) getting caught having sex b) expelling your own bodily fluids or gases in public, typically while on a date c) doing something mean to a roommate. Heh heh, stores about getting your period and ruining your new boyfriend's parents' couch are ALWAYS FUNNY, damnit!

The thing is, the entire magazine is designed to make you feel like a totally unsophisticated, unsexy, ugly troll. As in, you dress like a hobo, here's what you should be wearing instead. And your face would make small children cry, so plaster it with all of these cosmetics, for the love of everything good and holy. Plus, you couldn't get a man if you had Super Bowl tickets and a ribeye steak stapled to your forehead, so here are some totally desperate ways to find a dude. And once you get him, here's some nearly impossible sex positions you can try that pretty much guarantee several trips for at least one of you to the chiropractor. But the worst part is, they hide all this under a 'you go, girl!' guise.

But in spite of all this, I still read the damn thing! In fact, I feel so bad about it I got a subscription to BUST magazine (which is kind of a grrrrl 'zine) just to offset the grody feelings I get every time I pick up an issue.

It could be worse, I guess. I mean, I could be reading...um...shit, I can't think of anything worse. Damn it all.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

I hate everyone: People on the road today

It's a good thing that I don't have a laser mounted to the hood of my car, or else I'd have been tempted to use it on some fellow travelers today. Here's a select few who should be thankful that they didn't end up suffering my vengeful wrath in the middle of I-85:
  • The guy who was reading the paper while driving in the fast lane at 80 mph.
  • The 16-year-old kid driving the HUGE truck who decided to go 20 mph on Sugarloaf because he was so obviously scared to be driving such a gigantic vehicle
  • The girl who was turned around and trying to slap her kid in the backseat from exit 104 to 96
  • The two people who cut off an ambulance with its lights on
  • Everyone going to the Falcons game

Thursday, November 23, 2006

No idea why I thought of this today

You've seen 'The Sound of Music" right? The one with Julie Andrews. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Right. Anyway, you know who my favorite character is? The Baroness. She's such a great villain, shrewd and back-stabbing and ice-princess beautiful, but when she saw that Captain Von Trapp preferred Maria's vanilla pudding of a personality, she very gracefully took her leave. That's classy! Plus, she was a Baroness so she wasn't a gold-digger or anything, I guess she just really dug her some Christopher Plummer. Also, I know people think that she was horrible to the Von Trapp kids, but damn, there were SEVEN of them! And they were total brats, I can't blame her for wanting to send them to boarding school. I mean, they ran off all those governesses with spiders and snakes and frogs and whatever, and most disturbingly, they never once mentioned their poor dead mother, as in 'gee, I miss Mom.' Not once! Plus good God, they sang all the damn time once Maria got a hold of them.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

I still hate my neighbors

Oh look, my neighbors decided to decorate for Thanksgiving, and they went for a poop-sachet theme this year!


So very, very classy. I don't know how I'll ever top that, unless I get a drunk bum to squat outside my front door for the duration of the holiday season.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about

I've lived in Atlanta for about 14 years, and for the last 10 I've driven almost daily through the middle of downtown, and every time I do I never fail to look at the skyline and think damn, that's so cool.


Thursday, November 09, 2006

Coffee-mate pisses me off again

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson last time I decided to try a new flavor of pussy-ass coffee creamer, but oh, how wrong you were. The good people over at Coffee-mate have some 'limited edition' creamer flavors out just in time for the holidays and I just had to have them.

They have four flavors: pumpkin spice, egg nog, gingerbread, and peppermint mocha. I decided to curb my crazy OCD impulses and just get two of them, so I got the gingerbread one and peppermint mocha. I figured pumpkin spice, egg nog and gingerbread would all be pretty similar anyways, tasting like cinnamon and nutmeg and sweet, sweet sugar, so gingerbread won out by a blind grab. Peppermint mocha got to come home with me because Starbucks makes a killer peppermint mocha for the holidays and I was hoping to find a worthy replacement for my $4-a-day peppermint mocha smack habit.

As you can see, the offending creamers have been banished to the No-Man's Land that lies behind the Gigantic Tub O' Margarine.

But lo, I partook of each of these non-dairy products, and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, for both of them were not the tasty bursts of yuletide goodness they had proclaimed, but an unholy alliance of sugar and my bitter disappointment.

Really, how can you mess these up? First of all, both of them required almost double the amount of creamer I normally use just to taste it, and then the taste wasn't all that spectacular. Peppermint mocha was almost completely devoid of chocolatey goodness, I'd have gotten the same taste if I'd squeezed some super-sweet toothpaste into my coffee mug. Gingerbread was even weirder because it tasted almost exactly like nothing, I had to use a ton of it to get even a faint hint of any sort of flavor, and even that little tease was totally disappointing. It tasted like cheap birthday cake frosting.

So, once again, Coffee-mate incites my rage with promises of coffee nirvana. Damn youuuuuu!...though, maybe egg nog would be good. I do love me some nogs.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

NaBloPoMo, mofos!

According to some people who think they can tell me what to do, it's National Blog Posting Month, and to celebrate you're to update your blog every day. They even came up with a cute logo for it!

They have a list of prizes for people who do this, but oddly enough, none of these includes the bear that is so prominently featured on the NaBloPoMo seal. What gives? I would certainly be more motivated to post on a daily basis if there was a the threat of a bear attack. Or better yet, they could reward you by giving you the use of a bear to maul your enemies and smite them but good for a day.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Gnome mojo

For anyone who has known me for more than five minutes, you're well aware of Franklin. For those of your poor, unfortunate souls who have never had the pleasure of my company, Franklin is my Travelin' Gnome. Yeah, I stole the idea from 'Amelie'. Whatever.

Anyway, Franklin's been with me for a little over 4 years, and we've been everywhere together: Florida, Seattle, New York City, Mexico, Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas, Boston, the Caribbean and, of course, all over Georgia. Franklin's recent trip was to the city of Macon, where he met NASCAR driver Tony Stewart.

Incidentally, Tony Stewart tried to sign my gnome at first. Duh.

After meeting Franklin, Tony Stewart has gone on to win the next two NASCAR races. Coincidence? I don't think so.

All hail the power of my gnome!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

I Hate Everyone: Tall Dudes At The Concert

I went to see The Decemberists a few days ago, and they're my favorite favorite favorite band right now, and I very much want to have lead singer Colin Meloy's babies, and the album they are touring on (The Crane Wife) is super-good, so I was totally stoked. This was the third time I've seen them because I'm just that much of a hardcore fan, yo.

Anyway, they were playing at The Tabernacle, which is a cool venue and doesn't have that claustrophobic fire-y death-trap feel that The Roxy or Variety Playhouse has. I wound up standing about in the middle of the floor, which really isn't that far from the stage (balcony seating is for losers!) So the opening band comes up and plays for a (mercifully) short time, then as they're setting up for The Decemberists people start pushing forward. This is standard procedure, so it's all good.

At this point, though I'm not as ear-searingly close to the stage as I'd like to be, I can see very well, mainly due to the fact that this is an all-ages show and a lot of people here haven't really got aboard The Hormone Train to Pubertyville yet, so they're all pretty short. But then, three guys start pushing through the crowd and decide to stop directly in front of me and watch the concert whilst sipping on their cans of Coors Light.

Look at us, we're a bunch of gimpy dorks! Let's stand in front of this short girl and crush beer cans on our heads!

HATRED! They're all good 6 inches taller than I am and they're totally up in my personal space. I know it's close quarters at a concert where it's standing-room only, but if you got there late then you have to live with the fact that you've got to stand behind that big control-room desk thing with all the switches and lights at the back of the room.

Don't try to shove your way all the way to the front five minutes before the damn show starts, decide you aren't going to be able to get all the way to the stage, so stop in front of me so the only parts of the concert I can see is the glimpses I get when I jump up and down and peek over your shoulders. Plus one of them had earplugs in, and though I'm all for hearing conservation, The Decemberists aren't exactly gonna rupture any eardrums while they're rocking out the mandolin and accordion. As an extra added bonus, because they were so up in my personal space, I got elbowed in the boobies and stepped on repeatedly.

So I will concentrate my powers of hateration on you three tall guys at The Decemberists concert. Curse you for preventing me from staring longingly at the suave emo visage of the future father of my children, and for bruising my chest and toes.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

November Wordsmiths Unlimited Challenge: The Chapel

I was recently invited to join in the fun with the massively sexy people over at Wordsmiths Unlimited for their November Challenge which involves writing a scary story involving the picture below. You have 500 words or less with which to hang yourself, and this month there's the added challenge of not using any word over 4 syllables (which was surprisingly easier than it sounds). So here's my contribution, and everyone have a rad Halloween.


The Chapel

This place is haunted.

Look at the picture of it; you can tell without having to be there, following your husband to this shell of a building on the edge of his grandparent's farm. You won't be able to feel the damp November sky peek through the rotten timbers of the ceiling; you can't smell the scents of fern, dirt, animal, fire. You can't see the way the shadows hide things, but you can look at this photo and know that yes, it is filled with ghosts.

The ghosts are around you now as you clutch your husband's hand tight, standing in the doorway. You are trying to be brave; this trip is important to your husband. He walks inside, picking his way through the wild growth. You stay where you are, trying to listen to the ghosts that tickle the backs of your knees, prick you between the shoulders.

What are they saying?

To hear what they say you must first know what happened here. This is what your husband tells you:

When I was young I spent summers here on the farm with my grandparents. Their acreage included part of some woods, and at the edge of the woods was an old building. It was probably a barn or a stable, but we always called it The Chapel. My grandparents forbid me to ever go near there because hobos liked to camp out there sometimes. But I was a dumb kid and one night I snuck out there. There were two men there and I saw them cooking something over a fire. They heard me and they found me.

So this visit is meant to be therapy, helping your husband come to terms with that night, and the ghosts are those of small animals and the sad innocence of a little boy.

The ghosts are victims, but you've heard them wrong.

You can hear your husband scuffle around, then you hear him sigh. It takes monumental effort to join him inside The Chapel, and when you do you find him staring at a charred ring on the ground. You wrap your arms around him, oh my love.

The ghosts are louder now but you are too absorbed in the misery of your husband, you try to hold him and comfort him.

This is what you are missing:

Once there was a little boy who lived with his grandparents during the summer. They lived on a farm, and at the edge of their land was a rotted-out building they called The Chapel. He liked to bring animals here. One time he brought his dog, a big German Shepherd. The last time he was here he brought back his baby brother. They found the baby in the creek, thought he had crawled too close to the water and drowned.

Your husband is holding you tightly, too tightly, there is something cold and sharp in between the knobs of your spine.

The ghosts tried to warn you.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Hangover apology

God, I'm so sorry I blogged you so late a few nights ago! I didn't wake you up, did I? Oh. When did you start going to bed so early? Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

I was... well, I was drunk. So very, very drunk. I don't remember what happened after I blogged you, I passed out shortly afterwards and woke up on the couch with my arms wrapped around an traffic cone and I was missing a sock. And it's not like you haven't drunk blogged me, you know, remember that one time last summer when you were coming back from that birthday party? Remember all that crazy crap you were telling me about how you 'experimented' in college? Man, that was funny.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

My first drunken post EVAR!!!1!!

Wooo orange juice and vanilla-flavored vodka!!!!!!

I love you guys!!!!!!!!

Friday, October 20, 2006

Lazy-ass post

Look everyone, I put new linky-dinks in the sidebar over there to your left! Go check that crap out.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Sea Hag's adventures at Sea World

So I took a little road trip a few days ago to visit a friend, and we went to Sea World. I hadn't been there in about 20 years so I decided to actually remember to bring a camera and use it to document this joyous occasion and share it with all you Sea Hag fans.

So, when you first walk into the park there's some flamingos standing around. Very cool.


Then we went over to the beer hall, where they hand out FREE BEER! For realz, not for fakez. Because the park is owned by Anheiser-Busch, they give out all you can chug beer, and it's decent stuff too!


Apparently there are like, some dolphins and fish and shit at this park too, but I stayed in the nirvana that was the Free Beer Hall.

I love Sea World.

The End.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Things I'm Embarrassed To Like: Music

I think everyone has a few songs that they would never admit they really like, but if they're in the car by themselves they feel free to rock the fuck out and sing at the top of their lungs. Come on, you know that there are a few songs on your iPod that you pray won't start playing if you're around other people. Don't make me come look at your Playlists!

The ones on my list are mostly fluffy pop gems or country-esque tunes which will more than likely take away a lot of my indie cred, but oh well. I'm going to be proud of the unredeeming shit on my iPod for once!

Feel free to share with me your own craptacular musical choices, or mock mine severely, I know I deserve it in this case.

Worst. Playlist. Ever!
Toxic - Britney Spears
Baby One More Time - Britney Spears
Naughty Girl - Beyonce
Tubthumper - Chumbawamba
Fruita Fresca - Carlos Vives
Strawberry Wine - Deana Carter
Missing - Everything But The Girl
Silver Spring - Fleetwood Mac
Fever for the Flava - Hot Action Cop
Anything by John Mayer
Nth Degree - Morningwood
Like A Bird - Nelly Furtado
Set Adrift on Memory Bliss - P.M. Dawn
Don't Cha - Pussycat Dolls
Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy -Big & Rich
SOS - Rihanna
Kiss From A Rose - Seal
I Saw Red - Warrant

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Hot blog check in...what what!

Want to be included on my Sexy Blog Links thing? Send me an e-mail to loveseahag(at)gmail(dot)com or stick a link in the comments. I'll cruise your bloggy and if I deem it to be all sexified, it'll go up.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Hey baby, what's your sign?

Hello all you fabulous people!

I've already posted this over at The Monkey Barn, but I decided to put this over here too because I wanted more reposnses and I was feeling way too lazy to come up with a new post.

I want to know what are the best and worst pick-up lines you've ever heard or used, because some of us need a good laugh, and some of us need new material.

Post them in the comments or e-mail them to loveseahag(at)gmail(dot)com, and sometime next week (in other words, when I'm not drunk and puking on someone's penny loafers) I'll post the winners. You may even get a prize!

Take it off!

So a few nights ago I went with some friends to The Pink Pony. For those of you who don't know of this establishment, or can't figure it out by the name, this is a fully-nude-lady strip club in Atlanta. It's great for many reasons: they serve alcohol, the strippers are usually very nice and cute, there is a good variety of strippers there, from very natural-looking girls to uber bodacious ones, and it is one of the very few places that has stripper poles.

I had a great time. I got way drunk and saw tons of naked ladies, and what's even better is that there were other women there enjoying the scene and having a good time.

I think there's a natural curiosity for many of us middle-class suburban girls with people who work in the sex industry. Maybe it's because the whole enterprise is presented to us (directly or indirectly) as we're growing up as the very lowest station in life one can sink to. You study hard, make honor roll, get accepted to college so you don't become a stripper or a hooker or whatever. And, of course, being human begins, we are often attracted to the very things that seemed so forbidden and opposite our own experiences. Or maybe we're just seeking some bad-girl cred.

Or maybe it's just a matter of the boundaries we perceive between 'normal' and 'abnormal' sexually are starting to become more relaxed. After all, things like homosexuality, pornography and fetishes, while not exactly accepted by everyone, are definitely more mainstream than they were just one generation ago. So maybe as we become more open-minded as a society, having a job in the sex industry is seen as not really that big of a deal anymore.

Of course, there are those people who frown upon stripping because they feel it exploits women, and they certainly have a point. But then, aren't men and their desires being exploited as well at the same time? For example, there was one very pretty dancer who got up for her set on the big stage, and a young, well-dressed man came up and started dropping dollar bills on the stage. Hundreds of them. Literally. She had so much money by the end that she literally couldn't hold it all, and they had to get her a bucket to haul it off in. We cheered for her, and I'm guessing she walked off with maybe around $500 bucks just for being naked for about 5 minutes. Hell, I get naked every day in the shower and I certainly don't get paid, so you have to wonder who exactly is getting 'exploited' when she walked off with more money than some people make in a week. If that doesn't deserve a big ol' you go girl! then I don't know what does.

I suppose that if you are a stripper you are privy to some seriously odd people though, but then I think everyone has to put on their game face to go to work so I suppose it's not terribly different. It probably takes a long time to unwind and kinda settle back into your body though.

Anyway, enough for my thoughts on boobies for the time being. If you'd like to learn more about boobies, visit your local library! (Sea Hag suggests 'Candy Girl' by Diablo Cody and 'Strip City' by Lily Burana).