*laugh* Yeah, those were the days. I was dealing drugs out of a health food store. ~ Blaine

I found a lot of interesting little things tonight.

1) There are some very attractive men in the world named Egor. Most of them live in Russia, or are engineers at Berkely, but! The point remains.

2) I can bowl...not so well, but I'm getting better. But more importantly, I can dance in bowling shoes. Go me...go me....

3) The pool tables at the bowling alley are slanted. Any ball you hit, will basically, go along a path of it's own before hitting it's destination...assuming it gets there at all.

4) There's an insanely perky girl working at Il Vicino now. There's a new staff, practically, with the exception of the floor manager who's been there at least as long as I have been going.

Oh.

Yeah....okay, that thought came and went.

YAY! I get paid on....whatever that day is where I get a pay check....uhm......Tuesday? Yes. Tuesday. I won't be as broke. Go me. Go me.

Yeah....

Deaths boatman takes no bribe - Horace

I think it's your skin
I'm missing
and craving
I think it's your soul that's
taunted me
it made me surrender from the start

I have a dream
we're in the mountains
on the rocks
tranquility in 10 shades of grey
another one of our moments
and then I'm gone

All of my pain,
and all of my tears are
stricken in grey
tainted with white
10 shades of grey
and I'm swimming in you

I'm already gone
dead to the world
but I watch myself die again
I am spiraling above the surface
while you linger by my side
and I'm covered in your quill pen

Once rain is joy
and pleasure is pain
the symbolic mysticisim
of hearts gone astray
lingers while you're quiet
staring me in the eyes

the serpent stares at me
something to toy with his mind
waiting yet again I know I'll
be easier as three
I couldn't regress
but I give you one more part

let this be my final fall
let my body take on wings
and this time you could slink
or beat down in madness
and the rain drops would fall
on my land

go away moonless sky
what's wrong with loving
if it's only left to die?
why need you taunt me
with your reaction
to my desperate actions

please capture me
for only you know how
to take me away
and leave me broken
in 10 shades of grey
lying under the stars

Whatever would I be, without you in my life?

The display of Christmas lights on my street reminded me that Christmas is coming up soon. I have already done a little bit of Christmas-Gift-Giving Preperation. Teeheehee. It had occured to me I still need to send out my Christmas Cards from last year. It all boils down to this one very true, very simple fact: I'm really fucking lazy. I bought the cards. I filled them out. I put the date on them, December 2003. I addressed the envelopes. All 50 of them or so. And then I just never took them to the post office. They're still sitting in my room somewhere. Hm. I meant to send them at the 4th of July, but something came up. Anyway, I have lots of different people to send the cards to this year. Or deliver, as I am lacking some addresses.

I love Christmas. I don't particularly like receiving presants, but I love giving presants. I wish I had more money, so I could give more. I like making people happy. I like seeing joy on their faces. I like making people laugh, or smile...like 3 christmases ago when I gave Frank 222 cough drops....or when I gave my younger brother Joey a sugar rush. (I have him somewhere in the range of 5 pounds candy) I like watching people laugh, and have fun opening my elaborate packages. Frank....muwahaha. 222 cough drops, that was fun. I was shopping with my step-mother, and I told her I was going to buy Frank 1 gross of cough drops...222 individual cough drops (If I had more money, I would have given 222 packages, but alas...as it is, I cleaned out K-Mart's Cough Drop selection, and the grocery store). I went through the aisles grabbing bag, after bag, after bag, of cough drops. I got the cheap ones. The expensive ones. The lemon ones. The green tea ones. The cherry ones. You name it, I got it.

Then I went home, and I individually wrapped each and every cough drop package. I put 5 packages in a shoe box. Filled the shoe box with packing peanuts (or something like that), wrapped the shoe box. 4 got wrapped in their own box, and then the box was wrapped. A bunch went into gift bags. Etc etc. I believe I gave him, in total, 12 boxes/bags to open to receive all of his cough drops. See, the cough drops were an inside joke....we never told any of the.....1, 2, 3, hm.... 6 or 7 parental units about it, but it stems back to a converstaion we had earlier in the month when he was talking about this sex trick where you go down on a woman with a cough drop. It's supposed to be stimulating, or something like that. (personally, I don't buy it, but hey...to each his own) See, I'm a bit of a bitch. A nice bitch most of the time, but a bitch nonetheless. My idea behind this gift was to give him 222 cough drops.... 1 gross of cough drops on the assumption he will never use that many cough drops. Unfortunately for me, I didn't clarify what he would never use those cough drops for, and well, he ended up getting sick that year, so they ended up coming in handy, but hey...

Every year, the family goes over to my grandparent's, Frank's house (for those of you that don't understand the connection, it's long, elaborate, and makes my family sound like a bunch of inbred hicks), for Christmas Eve dinner. We all go to Christmas Eve Midnight Mass (the one time a year I go to church), and then go back to the house for a big spaghetti dinner. There's a minimum of 15 people in the house. Usually it floats between 25 and 35. We eat dinner around 3am, and then all the grandkids, myself included, open their presants from the grandparents. This is also where everyone gives gifts to the grandparents, uncles, etc. After church we were all back at the house. I was wearing my flowing black velvet pants, with my loose black velvet shirt, black heals, pearls, and my turquoise bracelet. (yeah, I dressed up...that only happens when I go to Christmas Eve mass, the ballet, the opera, or if I have a very expensive date) After everyone gathers into the living room, I walk over to the tree, trip over the bottom of my pants, fall on my face, and gather his packages. I manage to make my way back to the sofa...10 feet away, without falling (go me!) and set them at his feet. With the first package, he laughed. Second, he laughed.....and as it went on, he laughed more. I think it took about 10 or 15 minutes to open all of them, and if I recall correctly, he still had cough drops at this time last year.

I enjoyed that. I really did. Frank never smiles. Or very rarely.

Hm, on a more somber note... I told someone the other night I don't want to marry him. He said he loves me, and he should have married me a long time ago. He proposed to me...again. It was kind of awkward. It always is when someone gets down on bended knee and says, "I love you. Will you marry me?" No matter how many times it happens, it's still awkward. I had to be honest, however, I don't love him...not sure if I ever did. We haven't been together in about 2..5 years, and we had a messy breakup. He couldn't have expect more than that.

"Ah, but I'm dishonest, and you can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you've got to watch out for because you never know when they'll do something quite stupid." --Sorry....couldn't resist!

I'm weak
I've never been anything else.
I wanted to lose myself in you
I knew I would lose my soul if I did
But I didn't care.
It's not my inner demons
The ones I am fighting every day
That need slaying
But the woman in me
Question all the time
Lonely, yet consumed
Angry, yet apathetic
Serene, yet tormented

- Dreamscape -

I was running through the woods of Transylvania, pushing, it seemed, through the thick fog of an early autumn morning. I had been woken from a sound slumber only a few hours before to discover my candle had flickered out from a sudden draft of icy wind coming through my room at the Napoca inn. Startled, and suddenly nervous, I gathered my belongings, tarot cards, journal, cloak and daggers, and started running. I didn't know what from, nor did I care. My twin daggers were thumping against my hips in time with my feet crunching the fallen leaves. They were a gift from my father only days before he passed away. The feel of their cold oak handles brings me a small amount of pain amidst the calm contentness.

After what I surmised to be 30 minutes, I slowed my pace to a stroll taking in the scent of the trees, and staying alert to the sounds of the birds, as their tune, or lack thereof, would alert me to approaching danger. This part of the forest, nestled in the foothills of the Binor Mountains, was abnormally quiet and dank for this time of day. I had spent years running around these mountains as a child, weaving in and out of the trees and playing games with the children of the forest. I had grown accustomed to the sound of silence. The usual cheerful songs of the birds have decreased significantly to the random song of a bird in search of his mate.

I found myself resting at the foot of the Carpathains, gazing through the trees, where my eyes met my destination. Sibia. I had heard a long time ago, nevermind how long exactly, about a priest specializing in divination who could help with matters sickening the heart. Every gypsy has a set of tarot cards, but not everybody had the sight that lived within Benesov.

Benesof is rumored to be one of the older memebers of the Darne clan. Our paths crossed once, a long time ago. I was staing with my uncle at the time. Uncle Arad. My mother's younger brother. His clan was camping outside of Alba. Some years back, Arad had a disagreement with some of the elders, and they told him he was no longer welcome among our people. They said he was conjuring images of detlene, and black magik was not allowed. My mother was frightened when she came to me late one night. I remember I couldn't sleep. I was unnerved. I was rubbing my talisman nervously with my skirt wrapped tightly around my legs, and my knees pulled towards my chest, rocking...rocking back and forth in the dark.

She cried out, running towards me, with a frightened look in her eyes. She knelt down until she was leval with me, crouched against our wagon.

"I feel something coming..." she whispered, taking my hands in hers.
"What Mama?"
"You must leave us. You must get to safety." she said to me, handing me a bundle of items.
"I have gathered for you, your cards, a few coins, and writing objects in case you need to write a letter."
"But..."
"Go! Gather some clothes, and go. I have a map for you to find Arad's clan. It should be in this region." she pointed at the map clutched in my hand.

I nodded, and then looked at my mother's troubled brown eyes.