Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Wild Raspberries & Blackbirds

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Hiking to the wild raspberries I found her on the gray asphalt, her body still warm and fluid. I held her limp form next to my heart, against my dead mother's flannel and stroked her downy head.

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Construction workers paused to glance out car windows at the woman in the plaid flannel holding an empty wooden basket and a dead female blackbird against her chest, wandering down a slightly misty country lane by herself at six in the morning.

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New Strategy

ALL I CAN SAY, RIGHT NOW, IS IF THIS NOTE WRITING, PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE BULLSHIT IS MY FATHER-IN-LAW'S NEW STRATEGY HE IS SORELY (SORELY!) GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED IN THE RESULTS. (THAT GAME? TOTALLY //NOT ON//, MR. AWESOME.)

PS: JUST IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN...YOU AREN'T MY "DAD". BECAUSE, IF YOU WERE, I WOULD'VE GONE FUCKING PSYCHO ON YOU WHEN YOU TOLD ME THAT "BLEACH IS THE SAME AS BAKING SODA" WHEN I CAUGHT YOU SPRAYING BATHROOM CLEANER ON DISHES IN THE DISHWASHER. ENJOY YOUR FUCKING PRIVILEGE.

Lammas Legs

Ah, fuck, it's practically Lammas.

...I guess I should shave my legs, or something.

First Time, Old Time Witchery

The backroom's become an epicenter of first time (but old time) witchery. On every surface - the tiled coffee table, the secondhand speakers, the turn table's glass lid, the tv's flat pack cabinet, the robust 70s tinged carpet - there's a half-finished project sitting in limbo. (Living, breathing in damp soil and plastic containers, not yet spent but close to the end, and the dead and gone, lost and loved, drying on old newspapers and kitsch ceramic trays.)

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Delicate sheets of tobacco leaves sit in Papa's (Ghede) skull planter, waiting to be ground down into autumnal flakes of gold. Open jars of dried elderflowers and black currants tremble on glass whenever I walk past, the jingling spice jars warning me of future catastrophe. (YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO LEAVE OPEN JARS ON THE EDGE OF A SURFACE!) Colored tissue paper from a belated birthday gift shivers in the stirred air like a origami bird, its wings gently fluttering against the ceramic planter filled with brittle amber leaves.

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Up until yesterday a bucket of blood gingerly peered from beneath the coffee table, my soaking menstrual rags lost beneath an opaque ocean of red whose still and stagnant waters began exhaling the scent of fetid Woman with every passing day. (After the rags were wrung the blood water was funneled into an empty plastic water bottle to feed the wheat outside and the two plants in the closet.) Up until two or three days ago a scuffed plastic bowl - more gray than black now - sat, offering the nearly dried necromancy contents to the air. (After the first grinding I saturated the incense blend with (my) blood and whiskey, and then, once dry, I ground the mixture a second time until a pinch fell like granulated sand.)

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Pot leaves and bird wings dry together on a 60s ceramic tray, the curling leaves and black feathers hiding the grotesque, textured pattern of celery. (HEY, IT'S 60S KITCHEN WEAR, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?) Charcoal and candle wax from Midsummer still sit in a cast iron pan next to the consecrated spiral from the Yule log, but now they're joined by a new spiral found at the edges of our property around Midsummer. Papa's chilies, proud and strong, create a living barrier of green with flashes of ever ripening red that sections off the indoor garden that grows next to the patio doors.

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Nestled between an underdeveloped pot plant, recently repotted succulents and a baby chili I'm drying graveyard dirt from the Nun's grave. (A few days ago I finally made good on a promise and planted some lavender next to her headstone creating a miniature altar with two plants, a small slab of rock, a partially broken snail shell and an angel statue that had drifted off its resting place. Displaced dirt was gingerly pocketed in a ziploc bag and brought home to add to my growing collection (one from a farmer, one from a druggist, one from a nun and earth from an unfilled grave).) The branches of my jade plant dip into the plastic tub like chlorophyll powered tentacles, curiously investigating the new addition to the room.

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Everywhere I look there's magic, but in two days it'll all be gone - potted up, put away, tidied up...hidden away like a deep, dark secret. (Because, in two days, the in-laws return home, and, in this house, leaving //anything// out //anywhere// is an invitation for my father-in-law to touch, play with, ruin, kill and/or throw out without asking. In this house everything belongs to him, and if you don't want it appropriated, confiscated or tossed out you need to keep it out of reach and sight.)

Cemetery Lost-N-Found

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Whenever we walk to the local cemetery there's always something waiting to be discovered.

Sometimes it's fresh roadkill, just missing eyes. Sometimes it's a nurse's blue and white top (hanging inexplicably from a wooden post). Sometimes it's a black currant bush exploding between four graves. Sometimes it's a wheel off a toy, a broken piece of statue, a polished rock, shards of antique pottery or a discarded Jurassic Park 3-D coloring book.

(HELLO AND WELCOME TO MY JUNKYARD WITCHCRAFT WHERE EVERY RUSTY, WATERLOGGED PIECE OF TRASH THAT CROSSES MY PATH IS A PROPHETIC OMEN OF A FUTURE WAITING TO HAPPEN.)

On a recent graveyard trip - not the last visit, but the one before (an unintentional visit; we were out photographing the sunrise over the hills and lakes of dissipating mists and decided, all spur of the moment like, to pop round for a visit) - we found a black currant bush nestled between two sets of graves.

While considering the possibilities (while considering the NON-CULINARY possibilities of black currants since I HATE AND LOATHE THE TASTE OF BLACK CURRANTS DOWN TO THE VERY PIT OF MY (IM)MORTAL SOUL) we ambled around the cemetery until we were at the edges of the cremation section where I found a dusty, dirtied black bottle half sunk in Scottish summer mud.

Too far removed from the memorial plaques there was no way to connect it to its proper owner so it was gingerly tucked into my basket (I originally intended to harvest the last of the elderflowers but I got distracted, hence the rural chic basket outing) along with a broken penny we found en route to the graveyard.

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(But what should I do with it? Clean it up and give it as a gift (filled with graveyard dirt or some other witchery)? Clean it up and keep it for myself (peacocks are kind've sort've a significant spiritual animal thing for me)? Christ only knows. For now it's sitting on my nightstand altar behind my Apis Bull statue, holding the dry spray of flowers I wore in my hair on Midsummer.)

What does an American witch in Scotland carry in her Easter basket on an unplanned graveyard walk at five in the morning? The camera's tripod, a bottle of still water, an unearthed cemetery treasure, a mongoloid Pacman created out of a copper coin, her ritual shears wrapped up in their still bloody covering (I keep the kitchen scissors wrapped up in the unwashed towel I used to staunch the bleeding after I stabbed myself with the shears) and a dying buff-tailed bumblebee, quivering and shaking in its dampness as it slowly crawls off its yarrow deathbed and curls into the folds of her blood stained kitchen towel.

(It's magic, baby.)

Cemetery Currants

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Currants harvested from the local cemetery.

(What does a witch do with fruits harvested from a graveyard? I dunno. What does a witch do with fruits harvested from a graveyard knowing that they'll be useful for something even if she really fucking hates the way they taste so they'll in no way EVER be used for anything culinary? She cleans them, dries them and bottles them in a clean spice jar for future witchery.)

Bedside Altar, July 09

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My bedside altar's getting crowded and it ain't from Papa's doings (for once).

(Sort've left to right: Kadesh statue holding my gold Czarina earrings, my birthday peacock (Inanna's consort, Tammuz, is symbolically linked with the peacock) and my Hathor statue. Behind the peacock you can almost see Chippy's Sassanian amber bead (circa 400 BC) sitting in its display box and behind THAT sits our gratuitously graphic ritual bong (SORRY, THE INTERESTING BITS INADVERTENTLY WERE CENSORED). The dry sprig of flowers towering above Hathor are the flowers I wore in my hair this year when we performed Hieros Gamos in a local wheat field on Midsummer.)

From Seed to Sheaf

HOLY SHIT, I GREW THIS FROM SEED:

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ONE OF THESE DAYS I HAVE TO RECORD THIS TWO YEAR PROJECT/RITUAL.

(The short short of it? We performed a reaping ritual during a lunar eclipse in a local wheat field last August (or was it September?). After I spilled His blood I cut a huge bundle to create a didukh that was dressed for Christmas, featured in our Easter/Great Rite altar (you can't see the wheat itself, but you can see the decorative cloth it's wrapped up in behind the sickle) and then "threshed" (<- FANCY FOR SEPARATING EACH FUCKING GRAIN BY FUCKING HAND AND DISLODGING THE SEED FROM ITS SPINY, PAPERY COVERING) the sheath so we could ritually plant the ritually gathered and ritually infused seeds at home.)

(There's a lot more than that, but at least you get the gist.)

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Every day I go out - rain or shine - and stroke my beautiful, beloved wheat. (And when I water it it BLEEDS. <- NO JOKE. I'VE BEEN MEANING TO TAKE A PICTURE!)

ETA: HEZBOLLAH, WHEAT FARMER!

July 11th Gardening

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I'm SUPPOSED to be braiding freshly harvested garlic right now because we're leaving tonight for a few days to let our hair down in town. (I LOVE MY SLICE OF EDEN THAT I'VE CREATED, BUT ONE MONTH OF STARING AT IT EXCLUSIVELY - BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO TRANSPORTATION WHATSOEVER, SO YOU CAN'T GO ANYWHERE OR DO ANYTHING - CAN GET BORING. THANK GOD FOR CHEAP HOTEL ROOMS FOR A CHANGE OF SCENERY.)

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I should be braiding garlic because I still need to SHAVE and DEEP CONDITION MY HAIR and WASH and STYLE MY HAIR and PUT ON MY MAKE-UP FOR TONIGHT and GET DRESSED and PACK and MAKE A RESERVATION FOR DINNER and FIGURE OUT IF IT'S WORTH WALKING TO THE MOVIES IN THE RAIN and...well, you get the point.

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I've wanted to be more active here, but I just can't find the motivation to sit in front of a 600X800 screen when there's the botanic gardens bursting with life out back (complete with swarms of bumblebees and frisky cheap-cheap birds and crows who pace back and forth on the roof of the outside room, waiting for a chance to attack the pile of peanuts I've left for them). I suspect, with how vacation's been going this far, that my attitude's probably not going to change anytime soon.

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I AM more active on Livejournal right now, though. (It's a terrific place to post "LOL @ THIS!" entries and, also, pictures of my ass. <- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.) If you have an account please feel free to look me up and friend me (I'm msgraveyarddirt), and if you DON'T have one that's cool, too, because all of my entries are public (so you can read them without having to create an account for yourself). The link, if you're interested, is: http://msgraveyarddirt.livejournal.com/

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I didn't plan on any major gardening yesterday (it's been gray and cloudy for days now; in fact, I've actually had to wear CLOTHES - including pants! - due to the temperature drop) but when I heard that the weather was supposed to take a turn for the worst I knew I needed to haul ass to get the elderflower heads I needed to jump start my homemade hooch and get my witch's garlic out of the ground to cure. What started as a simple mission to collect 7-10 heads of blossoms eventually ended in butchering part of our hedge and pulling moss encrusted wooden planks off their fence posts. (It was just one of those days.)

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OH, GOD, I ONLY EVER SHARED ONE PICTURE OF MY BRAND NEW RAISED BED PHALLIC WORSHIPING GARDEN ALTAR, DIDN'T I? (I have an entire folder just sitting on my desktop next to a billion other folders that I haven't touched since transferring them from camera to computer.) Sometime last week I created the Shango (Bone) Tree Altar; it wasn't something planned or even considered, it just sort've happened (thanks to a pile of bricks and stones sitting right next to the tree).

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I planted dill in the raised bed knowing that it'd do better in kind've partial shade than basil (which got planted elsewhere). And thanks to another patented moment of Ms. Graveyard Dirt brilliance I also inadvertently planted birdseed. (Long story short? After the last brick was fitted, after the last firming pat on the earth, after the last dill seed scattered, after the fitting of the balls (YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE EFFORT IT TOOK TO FIND TWO STONES THAT WERE CLOSELY PROPORTIONAL AND THE SAME COLOR, SRSLY), after hammering in our Midsummer signs I filled and hung Shango's bird feeder - directly above the new "garden" I had created. <- DUMBASS, I KNOW.)

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Not 100% satisfied with dill (and, uh, birdseed) - MORE, MORE! I WANT TO GROW MORE! I WANT TO SEE MORE GREEN! MORE NEWNESS! MORE LIFE AND TENDER SHOOTS! - I planted early maturing peas in the holes of the bricks and transplanted homegrown parsley. (I REALLY, REALLY WANTED TO PLANT BUNCHES NEXT TO MY PHALLIC MONUMENT FOR PUBIC HAIR, BUT I KNEW THAT WITHIN WEEKS IT'D DWARF AND THEN COMPLETELY OBSCURE MY STONE COCK. SIGH.)

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I weeded what I could (thankfully the birdseed hasn't completely choked the dill along with an EXCITING MYSTERY BAG OF UNIDENTIFIED GERMINATED SEEDS*) and picked through the earth to remove any twigs and leaves - you know, general altar clean up activity. (* Are they pot? Are they tomatoes? WHAT THE EFF ARE THEY? <- Stay tuned to find out when we find out!)

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The Shango (Bone) Tree broke free (Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, used wire to "stake" the tree to the fence behind it, but during a recent bout of gusty Scottish wind the binding popped) and has begun dropping some of his bones and gifts (feathers found in the yard, a bulb of early garlic that got accidentally pulled when I was weeding) I've painstakingly wedged between branches straight onto the altar top. I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with the second life gifts so everything got gathered and placed around my V. erect stone monument for safekeeping.

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(Lord only knows what my in-laws are going to think once they come back from their American sabbatical. <- I WILL ALSO KEEP YOU POSTED ON THIS SO WE CAN BOTH LAUGH AND CRY //TOGETHER//.)

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A lot of the gardening I do is intuitive - I'm too lazy and proud to read books or on-line tutorials (JESUS, READING - WHY?!) so I go with my gut feeling and learn through trial and error. The system works okay with NON-CHTHONIC vegetable and plants (BRIGHT, SOFT, SCENTED? TIME TO PICK!) but anything truly (and deeply!) underground is a whole new game.

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The great and wise INTRANETS told me that it's time to start harvesting garlic when the exposed plant is 1/2 to 2/3 withered'n'dry. (LOOKS ABOUT RIGHT, YO.) And, also, that it's best to stop watering them about two weeks before picking. (IT HASN'T RAINED IN THAT LONG, BUT WE WERE SCHEDULED FOR SOME - WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE SINCE I WOKE UP TODAY AND IT'S BEEN RAINING NON-STOP FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WEEKS - WHICH MEANT I NEEDED TO GET THEM OUT OF THE GROUND PRONTO.)

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With my elderflower champagne fermenting and the Shango (Bone) Tree altar cleaned I knelt on dry earth and dug my fingers into the course, sand-like soil and lovingly uprooted every single bulb of garlic until there was nothing left except a vast expanse of empty, black dirt. (MAGIC, BABY, PURE, WONDERFUL "I MADE THIS!" MAGIC.)

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Now to get those mofos braided together and curing...

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I steal what I can get away with. Since outside is still considered my father-in-law's territory I can't do any overt or deliberate gardening - if I want to grow something it has to be in a container. I've watched small patches of ground, over the course of several years, either succumb to the V. MUCH HATED trash heap phenomena (WHY CAN'T HE JUST THROW SHIT OUT? WHY DOES HE HAVE TO CREATE MINI-PILES OF TRASH THAT CLUTTER UP THE GARDEN?) or become completely abandoned until there's nothing left except an exposed section of earth with absolutely no growth whatsoever.

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Last year, around October, I stole a neglected, narrow stretch of land directly beneath our office/computer room window. Without asking I turned and prepped the dirt as Mr. Awesome suspiciously spied on me in the distance, and without asking, I planted cloves of hardneck garlic around Midwinter. (PLANT AT MIDWINTER AND GATHER A MIDSUMMER!) This year I properly stole his plum tree (aka The Shango (Bone) Tree) and created an altar at the base. And then I stole even more land - two small, raked over sections on either end of the wooden beams that he's left outside to rot. (AND ROT THEY HAVE, DEAR AND GENTLE READERS.)

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I gave him a chance, though. Early on in the year - hella early on - I weeded the jungle of a rock garden and removed two small trash piles and left the cleaned space to see what'd happen. And after four months of "nothing" I claimed the land and promptly planted a variety mix of basil. (I MEAN, WHAT'S HE GOING TO BITCH ABOUT? THAT I PLANTED SOMETHING THAT EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY CAN ENJOY IN A SPOT THAT WAS ONCE DEDICATED TO GARDEN TRASH? SRSLY, WHAT COULD HE POSSIBLY BITCH ABOUT? THAT I'VE STOPPED THE EROSION PROCESS THAT'S BEEN EATING AWAY AT THE GROUND NEXT TO THE "POND"? THAT I'VE HIDDEN DIRT BENEATH A BLANKET OF VEGETATED LIFE?)

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I wasn't sure if the seeds would germinate and the plants take since I literally raked up the exposed soil and sprinkled a thin layer of compost over it, but, HOT DAMN, they did which is crazy evident with the V. liberal sprinkling of butterfly winged seedlings. (MY FAVORITE ARE THE PURPLE ONES, AWW!)

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(One day, when I have time and the inclination to feel my blood pressure skyrocket, I'll tell you guys the story behind the garden's "pond". <- ANOTHER ONE OF MR. AWESOME'S PROJECTS THAT HE STARTED AND NEVER FINISHED. THE INCOMPLETE POND IS NEARLY - IF NOT - TWENTY YEARS OLD.)

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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, SO //THIS// IS WERE I "STORED" THE HYACINTH BULBS I NABBED FROM MY MOTHER-IN-LAW'S BIRTHDAY PLANT ARRANGEMENT! (Uh...whoops?) BUT IT'S COOL AND AWESOME AND OKAY BECAUSE I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE THIS PARTICULAR SABBAT WINE THAT CALLS FOR FRESH HYACINTH FLOWERS AND HOW FUCKING COINCIDENTAL IS IT THAT IT BLOOMED AGAIN JUST AS I BEGAN MAKING HOMEMADE ELDERFLOWER CHAMPAGNE? CLEARLY IT'S A SIGN. (<- A sign to pluck every little hyacinth flower off the stalk and drop them into my fermenting moonshine, which, naturally, I did.)

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I totally regret not getting a BEFORE and AFTER picture of this effort. (I can still get the AFTER but it's raining right now so that particular photo's going to have to wait.) The wooden fence that runs along the hedge between our yard and the street has begun falling apart, literally. And since "home repair" now falls on us we decided to tackle the problem ourselves which involved prying off all of the boards along the section in order to prune back the undergrowth pushing against the wooden planks. I think we spent several hours pruning, cutting and clearing and the only picture I have to record the monumental change is a small portion of the hedge we cleared.

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The "stolen" and "narrow stretch of land" that runs beneath our office/computer room post-garlic harvest and post-weeding. (IT LOOKS SO SAD AND DEPRESSED WITHOUT ANY PLANTS! I'm planning on creating a proper witch's garden in this area (it's too shady for garlic which I'm going to grow in containers and in the local graveyard), but in the meantime I think I might fertilize the soil and sneak in a long row of early maturing pea plants...)

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MY LINE OF WITCH'S GARLIC HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN HARVESTED! (That calls for a harvest celebration, right? RIGHT? <- ANY EXCUSE TO CELEBRATE!) I need to braid these guys together and let them cure in a dry, dark place. Once they're cured I'll take pictures and write up an entry tracking the entire WITCH'S GARLIC process. (WATCH THIS SPACE!)

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We ended up gathering WAY, WAY more elderflower heads than needed. (I SWEAR ONE OF THE CHAMPAGNE RECIPES CALLED FOR 1 1/4 LBS OF ELDERFLOWERS!) The skankiest portion's been dried for bath use (I'm going to make a batch of industrial sized tea and add it to a SEX BATH for Italics and I), the nicer portion's being dried in my in-law's bedroom for medicinal and cosmetic use, and the best, most fragrant and beautiful heads were added to the champagne bucket. (<- I STILL NEED TO GET A PICTURE OF OUR FERMENTING VAT. <- "FERMENTING VAT" = ORANGE BONG BUCKET. I KNOW, I KNOW, THE LULZ.)

Buff-Tailed Bumblebee

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A (worker) Buff-Tailed bumblebee visits my courgette flowers.

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Nocturnal Teddy Bear

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"OH, JESUS, SHE'S DRAGGING ME INTO THE HOUSE AGAIN." (<- You can tell he's male by his outie "belly button".)

Incense Making In Progress

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I'm dissolving a dehydrated blood clot (<- I PICK BLOOD CLOTS OFF MY MENSTRUAL RAGS WITH A PAIR OF TWEEZERS AND THEN DRY THEM ON GREASEPROOF PAPER FOR LATER USE) in some whiskey to add to a personalized necromancy incense blend I'm working on. (To the left are the first two WITCH'S GARLIC bulbs I've harvested this year.)

Summer Reading

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I don't read. I mean, at ALL. (Which is terrifically LOLERIFIC if you knew what I did for a living.) And the only thing I hate MORE than reading is READING ON-LINE so READING A BOOK PURCHASED FOR A LAUGHABLE AMOUNT ON AMAZON MARKETPLACE WHILE SWINGING NAKED IN THE HAMMOCK is the lesser of two evils.

Thunder Moon Gardenia

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A single gardenia flowered in time for July's full moon.

Shango (Bone) Tree Altar

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Constructed within a half an hour using locally sourced materials. (<- "LOCALLY SOURCED MATERIALS" = THE PILE OF FUCKING BRICKS AND ROCK THAT HAVE BEEN SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO THE TREE FOR YEARS. THANK YOU, MR. AWESOME, FOR YOUR FORGOTTEN PILES OF "TRASH" DEPOSITS HIDDEN AWAY IN THE RECESSES OF THE BACK GARDEN.)

Circle Casting

CAST A CIRCLE FOR PROTECTION AND/OR CLEANSING? (What the fuck FOR? I GET DOWN ON MY FUCKING HANDS AND KNEES AND BLEACH EVERY PART OF THE FUCKING TOILET WITHOUT FUCKING LATEX GLOVES. Isn't my house ALREADY CLEAN?) WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE WHO LOVE TO DO MORE WORK THAN NECESSARY? JESUS.

Random Factors

OH, GOD, VACATION - HERE YOU ARE WITH YOUR SCORCHING, TOTALLY NON-SCOTTISH HEAT, INFLATABLE POOLS WITH HOLES AND HOUSES SO HOT THAT YOU'RE REQUIRED TO PONYTAIL YOUR HAIR SO IT DOESN'T PLASTER TO THE SWEAT OF YOUR NAKED BACK WHILE SLEEPING. (<- I've slept au naturel since a teenager; anything more than socks is like being strangled while sleeping.)

Yesterday I awoke to beautiful silence. (Which is, honestly, something you probably hear readily at 2:30 AM on an early Wednesday morning, but this wasn't the artificial version of "beautiful silence" when the house hums with a gentle serenity due to everyone being asleep. This is the proper quiet, the REAL quiet - the quiet shared between you and the house like a whispered secret before sunrise. In other words? IN-LAWS ARE GONE, THE HOUSE IS /MINE/, PRAISE ALL THAT IS DIVINE AND HOLY FOR THE QUIET AND SOLITUDE OF 2009'S SUMMER HOLIDAY.)

First day of vacation officially began yesterday at some time before three in the morning. I had everything set for a date with Movable Type (the journal program I'm using here on Graveyard Dirt) - an empty looking kitchen (because you don't get much cleaner than "barren and undecorated on the verge of eerie"), a tidy office (as tidy as an office can be when three hyperactive rats call the room their home and two people their workplace) and a single Early Grey teabag sitting at the bottom of a bone dry cup next to the kettle (there's nothing that screams "VAY-CAY-SHUN!" more than me prepping my first cup of tea for the next day the night before - nothing except, maybe, my complete and total lack of clothing; if I'm naked you can bet any amount of money it's "vacation").

Everything - EVERYTHING DOWN TO THE EFFING JOURNAL ENTRY - was planned in advance. What I DIDN'T plan was waking up dehydrated and, consequentially, sick. (DEHYDRATION = INVOLUNTARILY SWALLOWING AIR, INVOLUNTARILY SWALLOWING AIR = AIR THAT GETS PING PONGED FROM BROKEN STOMACH TO MOUTH, AIR THAT GETS PING PONGED FROM BROKEN STOMACH TO MOUTH = BURPING SEIZURE AND DIFFICULTY BREATHING.) And I didn't plan to beeline, first thing, to the bong bucket. And I didn't plan on actually GETTING THAT HIGH, and I didn't plan on Italics staying up (effectively waking up with me), and...well, lots of random variables that can be strung together with the use of "and".

So I eased into this year's summer vacation without an update; sometimes random factors just happen. And since I'm feeling distinctly uninspired (YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I'VE WRITTEN AND DELETED, REDRAFTED AND REWORDED) I'm going to bring down the hammer, right now, to spare the world from another journal entry with no purpose.