Beautiful imagery

I can't stop thinking about the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe. It's come to the forefront of my mind because of singer/songwriter Sarah Jarosz. I found out about her just by chance and have been enchanted. Her music is lovely and some of it is downright haunting - sticking with you like a determined ghost. Two songs in particular have struck my fancy: "Run Away" and "Annabelle Lee." The former is the song I heard in a second on the radio while I was flipping through channels. I heard it and knew I was going to go home and buy her album, which I did. The latter song is the treasure I found on her album once I'd purchased it through iTunes.

Sarah's "Annabelle Lee" is Edgar Allan Poe's poem adapted to a beautiful song she wrote. I've always delighted in the macabre, and the poem "Annabel Lee" is just that. It's beautiful, sad and more than a little disturbing if you pay attention. Sarah's version is almost exactly that, but she adds some fantastic lines that add even more amazing imagery to the already magnificent original poem. In particular, these two:

They shut her up in a tomb
Below this kingdom by the sea
But no maiden's grave could sever my soul 
From the love she bore for me


and

For many years I've wandered
Through this kingdom by the sea
I've laid myself beside the bones
Of my beautiful Annabelle Lee


In Poe's original, he speaks of no angels above or demons below being able to sever his soul from Annabel's love, but Sarah Jarosz's "maiden's grave" is just enchanting. The same goes for the second quote. In the original, Poe's narrator lies "down by the side" of Annabel in her tomb, so you know that he's in her tomb, but she could be in a coffin for all we know. With Sarah's lyrics, however, you've got that narrator right next to his darling Annabelle's exposed bones. It makes you see him wandering all these years since his love's death just to finally give up and break into her silent tomb to lie down beside her bones and wait for death. It's hauntingly beautiful, isn't it?

I've gone for a bit without any good inspiration for my writing, but Sarah Jarosz's "Follow Me Down" album is proving a wonderful jolt for my mind and imagination. Close your eyes and just listen:

Interesting dream

So...I got a wig in the mail the other day. I'd ordered it from an eBay seller in China from whom I bought my lovely Kaylee wig earlier this year. It was supposed to be a gorgeous long, blonde wig, but that's not what came. When I opened the package, it was quite pretty, but the danged thing was yellow. You know, like anime yellow.  I like that and sometimes I think I want to buy a Sailor Moon wig in this particular shade of yellow, but that was not what was in the picture and that was not what I ordered for my mermaid character.

My mermaids have always been very natural, long haired creatures with little to no makeup, which is exactly what this new mermaid character will be. (However, I may opt for some makeup because I'll have my "makeup artist" sister with me.) I wanted her to have hair like this, but blonde:

Sooo...I got my money back from China (and still got to keep the wig, interestingly enough; who knows what I'm going to do with the yellow thing) and bought a new one this morning from California. I do hope it will be what I saw in the picture on eBay. These things are always iffy. 

Oh, and during that whole wig debacle, I had a dream about being a mermaid. That, in and of itself, is nothing new or remarkable (those are some of my favorite recurring dreams), but it actually pulled reality and some of my everyday interests into it as well. It was interesting to say the least, so here it is: 

I was a mermaid and I had a friend with me. We were in human form, walking along toward our destination, which was a stately manor in Georgia. However, on our way, we had to cross a river...a very wide, deep, murky brown river. With misgivings we slipped into the dingy water and knew immediately that something was wrong. There was another mermaid - a strange creature - living in the river, watching us too closely. As we swam faster to get to the other side, something sharp and ragged tugged at my fin. I could feel her harsh, questioning thoughts and possessive nature all around me as she let go. It was a warning, but we had to get out fast; she wasn't going to let me go a second time. My friend tried to reach out to her with her thoughts, but was raked along her side with claw-like nails without so much as a glimpse at the creature. Faster and faster we swam and, just as we could feel we has overstayed our grace period, we reached the other side of the river and clambered out of reach of the water. Looking back, our hearts beating almost too quickly, we held onto our tails and watched as a silvery flash flicked the surface of the water just a few yards from the edge - much too close. The negative feelings that we'd felt in the creature's water lingered as long as we were wet, so we stretched out and dried ourselves with the bright sun. It wasn't pleasant, drying out so completely, but it had to be done. Right as we were beginning to dry a little too much, a familiar voice called to us from the mansion; we jolted up, having almost forgotten about our quest, and dashed into the mansion. 

Inside was large and hollow. Of course there were all sorts of appropriate furnishings and trappings for an antebellum Georgian manor house, but something was off. There was a television, a gramophone, a telephone and a few other modernities that threw me off. Ignoring the strangeness, I led my fellow mermaid upstairs to where the only sounds in the house were coming from: a bedroom. We heard laughter and the muffled sound of a television show behind the closed door and, when we opened it, I wasn't surprised at all anymore. There were Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa (before his promotion) sitting around a computer, laughing. Sparrow looked up to see us in the doorway and beckoned, his eyes bright and playful.

"Hector and I just HAD to show this to you two! We thought you'd love it with your love of pretties and things..." he said. Barbossa just kept chuckling to himself. 

Coming around to the other side of the monitor, I saw an episode of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" playing. The bright colors and moving pictures fascinated both myself and my friend and we watched, enraptured. It seemed familiar somehow and, next thing I knew, I was in a clawed-foot bathtub, being kept wet by a running showerhead. There were agitated voices in the hallway and I felt scared, like I should flee. I tried to move, but I couldn't and as I tried to figure out why, I woke up. 

Waiting with hope

Sooo...I'm going to be a mermaid in October (if my contract ever makes it to me) AND I'm going to see Duran Duran in concert AGAIN! Oh...AND I should be getting a new car (to me - not an actual brand new car). I just wish all these wonderful things didn't cost so much. I guess that's part of life, right? "Live, pay taxes, die." Doesn't matter how you live, you still have to pay to live and pay taxes.

The mermaid thing I mentioned before: I'm going to be a mermaid at a pirate festival in Georgia. I'll be sitting somewhere and the kids and people will come to me to take pictures and chat with me, the real live mermaid. I just bought a lovely long, blonde wig from China and I have the tail; all I need to work on now is the top and I have a fantastic idea for that one. I think my sister is going to come with me and be my personal makeup artist - I just have to pay for her meals. That's a fair trade; I suck at makeup. I really hope she can get off work with me. It's going to be awesome!

The week before I transform into a tail-flapping mermaid for a weekend, Ryan and I will be attending a Duran Duran concert for their "All You Need Is Now" tour! I still can't believe that I'm going to a DD concert with someone else; I've only ever gone by myself. Heck, I even went to Flight of the Conchords by myself. The standard procedure is that my parents drop me off, I enjoy, they pick me up and go home. Fun, but lonely. I mean, there are thousands of people at DD concerts and we're all fans and friends in Duran, but it's still lonely. This time will be totally different and I can't wait. Oh, AND by that time I will be a card-carrying GOLD member of their fan club with a special edition t-shirt, messenger bag and other sundries. I had to pay extra to join, but it was worth it because I got great seats for the concert during the pre-sale for members only. Well, now that I am a member, I am that much closer to saving up for a meet and greet with the band. That's my secret plan. Don't tell anyone!

As for the car, well, my ride right now is a 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera SL. Color: rust. No, really. Not rust-colored. It's made of rust. It used to be mostly maroon, but that's not the case anymore. No air conditioning and the automatic passenger window is practically dead when I have to drive almost an hour home every day in the awful Florida summer sun. Luckily I can keep my mind off the worst of it by turning up my iPod and singing along, but sometimes it's barely bearable. I've had it since 2004 and the honest truth is that I need a new car. Unfortunately, I'm awful with money. I've made a resolution to do better with it, but I'm not there yet. Luckily, my amazing boyfriend (who also happens to be a mechanic) wants to buy a nice used one for me outright and have me pay him back. We've been searching for a few days now and I think I found my dream car: a green Kia Rio (not blue-silver, but I can't afford to be too picky) with air and manual windows. Unfortunately, it's an hour away from our house and we have to wait until the weekend to go see it...IF it's still there. We have to call them tonight to see if they even still have the car. I hope so. I also hope they don't sell it before we get to it. Here's to hoping, wishing and waiting.

Rounding out July

Just thought I'd get one more post in before July ends, but I can't think of much to post. Sure plenty has gone on since the last one, but the question is: do I want to post about it or not? Obviously.

The coolest thing that's happened to me since the last post was that I was asked to be a mermaid at the Southern Pirate Festival in Georgia in October. I'm so excited that I catch myself flipping through a calendar at least once a day just to see the dates again. In the mostly-three months until then, I need to fix two holes in my tail's seams that came apart because of wonky sewing, I need to get a lovely wig because my hair will not be a sufficient mermaid length in time (stupid slow-growing hair) and I need to construct a new top that will fit my character. Honestly, "excited" doesn't really cover what I feel about this opportunity. A mermaid for reals (and not just randomly swimming in a tail in a spring/pool)? Yes, please!!!

Hmm...that's all for now. Fighting mind-wise over how I want the next part of my fanfiction to go, waiting for October and trying to avoid car-related deaths and tickets is all I'm doing outside of regular work right now. Oh. And watching Korean teen soap operas. "Boys Over Flowers" is awfully addicting in a weird way.

Here are some observations that I found randomly on a random website that I completely agree with:
How are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

It really annoys me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

Caught

I think I have been ticketed (or will be) for sort of running a red light and yet Casey Anthony gets away with murder/manslaughter. Backwards much?

Last Friday, it was raining heavily during my long drive to work. A traffic light is yellow and I go through it. As the halfway point of my car goes directly underneath it, I see a flash. It might have been lightning, but I seriously think it was the stupid red light camera. I've been thinking about it on and off all weekend and I've convinced myself that I'm going to get a "civil penalty notice" in the mail by the end of next week. I seriously hope I'm worried about nothing, but I've got this sinking feeling that I will be out $158 dollars this month. I drove through the GREEN light this morning and stuck my tongue out at the sign that says "PHOTO ENFORCED." Grr. Not happy. The light was yellow when I went through it and it must've turned red as I was still going through it. That shouldn't count and I hope it didn't or that, like I hoped before, it was a flash of lightning. We'll see if my mailbox disappoints me with that "civil penalty notice" or not.

As for Casey Anthony, well, I've been following the trial like many other Americans and am simply saddened that she got away with it. Ok. So the State didn't prove that she outright murdered her baby...then they should've tagged her with manslaughter!!! Couldn't they see that she was negligent? Maybe even criminally negligent when it came to little Caylee? That cold, selfish person was out partying while her little girl was irrefutably missing. How could any rational people let her get off completely free? How is it not a crime to cover up your child's death whether you did it or the swimming pool did it? It's so freaking sad. Oh well. She'll probably at least be in prison for a few years and maybe someone will be mean to her about it at the very least. Yeah...and when she comes out, there are going to be movie deals and book deals and hell, Casey can probably get a deal for a reality show with Octomom! That would be interesting.

Nadya loves her babies. Casey loves to party.
What will they do when they both want to go out for a few nights and there is no one to watch the kids but the imaginary babysitter?

*Send in your own recipe for chloroform and it may be used on the show!*

I just hope against hope that Casey doesn't have another child ever again. Not that I think she'd make another huge mistake like what happened to Caylee, but I don't think any child of hers would ever be able to have a good, wholesome life.

Absentia

There's always a post or few about "sorry I was gone so long" and this should be one of them, but I'm not going to do it. Nope. Not even with that title. I just did it to tease you (or annoy you...whichever the case may be).

The convention was a great day. I wish I could've gone for the whole weekend, but I honestly don't think it would have been worth the money for more than the one day I went. It's not that the panels weren't good, because they were great - mostly because of Candace's friends being the fun people they are - it was just that the dealer room was REALLY sub-par this time. I don't know why. Maybe it's that I didn't find too much of what I wanted or maybe...aww heck. I really don't know. I just felt cheated dealer room-wise. Meh. Had a good time in artist's alley having portraits drawn, which was interesting. Our costumes were perfect, absolutely perfect. They fit well and looked great, except for Candace's wig. I hated that it made her head hurt. I need to find a good replacement wig for her so she can enjoy when we wear them again. Oh, and another bad part about only going with the two of us was that we didn't think to get pictures of ourselves! I loved the way our costumes looked, but there weren't many opportunities to take pictures for ourselves. Boo. Oh well. Maybe we'll do a cosplay "School Rumble" photoshoot with our "sister from a different family," Kenya. I've never done a photoshoot before and Candace is a pro. I wonder what it will be like! I have a funny feeling I'll be laughing a lot because Candace and Kenya keep me in stitches; their interplay is WAAAY too funny.

Ugh. I feel so off. I've been sick this whole week and the cold/sinus infection is finally leaving me, but it's taking its sweet time, leaving me snotty and funny-sounding in the process. One good thing about it is that Ryan and I have been taking garlic pills to help fight the cold (for me) and prevent it (for him) and they're working, but they have the strange side effect of making us both have quite vivid dreams. It's funny because I was thinking about how much I've been dreaming and remembering it since I started taking the pills and Ryan just out of the blue makes a comment that he's been dreaming (and remembering them) every night since a few days back. I tell him about my theory on the garlic pills and he agrees. Unfortunately, he seems to have nightmares and/or sad dreams and I end up with weird stuff that makes me smile. Different people, similar but differing reactions. Huh.

I think I need to go swimming to set me straight again. It's the start of summer and I've yet to go in the water since the 21st. I know that's a factor for some of this off-ness. Hopefully I'll get the chance this weekend if the dreary weather lets up. If not, I'll jump in a full bathtub to help alleviate this wrong. That'll do.

I Wants: I want to see a ghost sometime soon because I have a few questions to ask; I want a silver blue definitely-not-new-but-nice-looking-and-shiny Kia Rio (with A/C) to begin the Duran Duran mobile; and I want to be able to finish my fanfiction so I can satisfy that one freaking reader who is great and consistent, but kinda pushy about updates!  

Glossing over

I've started and restarted this blog over and over and I can't seem to get it right. Something in my head is telling me that I just have to write this blog and then I can move on to the unimportant stuff I usually post about. I'm tempted not to do it at all. Of course, I know that if I choose to do that, I won't come back for a good long while. I'm sure of it. Soooo...as this is such a nice little steam-letter-outer, I just have to get through this blasted post.

Why is it so hard, you ask? Because it is. So there. Life goes on and we just have to get through it - that's what family and friends are for!

Yay! I did it! That was all. I know it's vague, but didn't you read the title of the post? Sheesh. Some people.

...

I started playing the video game "Red Dead Redemption," which I got for my birthday from Ryan. It is WAAAYYY much better than "Grand Theft Auto IV!" I LOVE IT!!! In the game, you play as John Marston, an ex-outlaw whose goal is to get back to his wife and kid. Dueling, retrieving bounties (dead or alive, of course), shooting coyotes (which I now pronounce 'ky-ohts' in my Old West enthusiasm) and all manner of interesting creatures, including a jackalope (which I have already bagged, by the way). Woo!

So far, I think my favorite thing is still riding the horse. I just enjoy it. He's so neat. He snorts and whinnies and shies and doesn't poop. That's a dream horse right there. On another note, my character currently has a beautiful golden palomino stallion named Santo Domingo.

John Marston on a Kentucky Saddler, which is Santo Domingo's breed.
Courtesy of the Red Dead Wiki

I told Ryan that I named mine and he immediately started looking in the menus to find out how to name your horse. I laughed and explained that there's no naming your horse in-game, but that I did it just because. I asked if he wanted me to supply a name for his horse and he said he'd name it himself; he called it Brownie, which suited it as it was a bay horse. I say 'was' because Brownie wandered onto the train tracks and got hit by a steam engine.

You see, Ryan had dismounted to be less of an easy target for a group of outlaws he'd been tasked with killing. When you dismount out on the plains with no hitching post around, your horse just decides to go wandering and that's just what Brownie did. When Ryan finished killing the bandits and lassoed the gang leader, who had a hefty bounty on his head, he realized his horse was gone.

Ryan: "Where is it?"
Me: "It exploded."
Ryan: "What?!"
Me: *sad face* Brownie got hit by a train.
Ryan: "What? When?"
Me: "When you were shooting those guys. I saw it. He exploded like a balloon filled with red mist. It was sad."
Ryan: "Huh." *he whistles and a pretty chestnut horse shows up*
Me: "Ooh. What are you going to name him?"
Ryan: "Dunno. Reddie?"
Me: "Nice. Noooo...really think about it. Get to know him for a bit and THEN name him!"
Ryan: *laughs a little* "Ok."

To my amusement, he listened to me and after a round of hunting out on the plains, he noticed that this new horse stuck a lot closer to him when he wasn't on it than Brownie ever did. In fact, the horse followed him around "like a dog," he said. "I'm gonna call this one Doggy," he told me with a smile. AWWWWWWWW! He humors me and gets a kick out of it to boot. I think he still has Doggy the horse, too.

As for me, Santo Domingo is still my mount of choice, ESPECIALLY since he's one of the top 3 types of horse in-game. Also, I'll get a trophy if I can keep the same mount for 20 story missions without hitching a new one to the post in front of my house. I didn't think that was hard until last night. I go out to pick some flowers for an old guy and first, I fall off a cliff while saving a man from mountain lions. I was on Santo Domingo at the time and, though I survived the fall, Santo did not. I was devastated and re-loaded my game. This time, I traipsed around to near the same area (where those blasted flowers grow) and a mountain lion came out of nowhere, killed my horse and then killed me. So...after 30 minutes or so of playing, mountain lions put me right back to where I was twice. No sirree. I'll get it right tonight...stupid mountain lions. I'll wear all your mangy pelts AND keep my pretty Santo Domingo! Hah! Take that, you overgrown house cats!

...man, I love this game!