Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Next Big Thing: Ladders

Filed under: Oh, Internets!

I posted this over on my Tumblr blog the other day (<- think of it as Graveyard Dirt lite; I write less, but update more), and it's so fucking OH, INTERNETS! ridiculous that I had to record it here for posterity (and to ensure - once this shit goes Llewellyn mainstream (snort) - that I'm remembered as the originator of the altar ladder fad):

How to Make a Halloween Altar @ eHow

Or, more accurately, "How to Make Ms. Dirty's Halloween Altar". (<- Do you think the eHow writer knows that the use of ladders isn't standard practice, and I have a very personal, very ancestral reason for including the item in my rituals and beliefs?)

PS: LOL @ "THINGS YOU'LL NEED...A LADDER". Christ.

PPS: Pictures of my completed Halloween altar can be found here (lights on) and here (lights out).

PPPS: I resent the fact that the difficulty's been listed as "easy"; the fuck it is! How many motherfucking ladders has this eHow writer dressed with multiple cloths, garlands, fairy lights and dangling paraphernalia? APPARENTLY NOT MANY (OR NOT WELL).

Metaphors, Similes & Analogies

Filed under: Life

Look, it's not like I don't know that the use of metaphors is a lazy motherfucking thing, but I haven't really written anything with serious chops since February, which means my ass is way out of fucking practice when it comes to writing. And when one can't be articulate as fuck - I can be suspiciously coherent when there's a motive, so don't think this entire "mothereffing Jesus blow me in the fucking ass Christ Almighty" routine is anything more than me being inexcusably lazy - one inevitably employs the use of a grammatical crutch to lamely limp past the obstacle of inarticulation.

My metaphor's a dress. Yeah, you read right: a dress. (Just humor me, okay? I haven't had a full night's sleep in almost a month, I'm constantly covered in crow shit and I haven't felt a sense of satisfaction from completing a project in over three months. I wish I had something more witty to offer than "HEY GUYS, A //DRESS//!" but, right now, that's all I got. Maybe by next week I'll have upped my mental capabilities to allow me to play fast and loose with analogies, or, if you're really fucking lucky, similes.)

So I have this dress - my internet metaphor dress - and Christ only knows how long I've been fucking working on this dress, but it's been a lifelong project full of disasters, miracles, trials and errors. It's a constantly evolving experiment that gets shaped by personal experiences; sometimes the new stitch I'm trying to learn just isn't cut out for what I'm trying to achieve, and sometimes, seeming by divine intervention, I accidentally create a new stitch that nails several problems. The most important thing, though, is that the process of creation has always focused on piecing together an article of clothing that tailor suits my unique needs (and my 36-34-52 physique; Tinkerbell, eat your fucking heart out, you gossamer-winged bitch).

...but the dress didn't just suddenly appear, and it wasn't sewn together overnight by singing vermin and overly optimistic woodland animals. First, the very fucking idea of a dress had to be conceived, and once the question marked suggestion had firmly lodged itself in the back of my mind a long period of mental incubation was needed. Back then I was a kid with an underdeveloped body who still needed to physically grow and learn about myself before committing to a lifelong, balls out project. I mean, Jesus, at that age I could barely thread a needle let alone draft my own sewing patterns.

The thing is, I'm allergic to a lot of manmade fibers. As in, I get tremendous, cystic acne welts on my ass, inner thighs, along my armpits, beneath my tits and along my neckline from inorganic fabric so I have to be careful of what I wear, and, if I'm not wearing anything, what I'm touching or sitting on. So, my dress material had to be made from from something natural, which meant I had to grow, nurture, harvest and then weave the fiber into cloth. But, like, the entire "grow, nurture, harvest and then weave" gig only came AFTER years of agricultural blood, sweat and tears.

In order to reach my very scientific conclusion I had to test every viable option, see every plant through its lifecycle and then produce a finished product from every effing harvest just to find the one fucking fiber that was durable enough to keep up with my version of life while accommodating my sensitive skin. And that work - I'm talking about motherfucking years worth of work just to get an acceptable, workable beta version - wasn't just limited to producing a homegrown, homemade cloth for my dress.

The same effort went into finding and creating dyes to stain it, deciding what thread grade to use, finalizing the all-important cut of the dress and then, finally, masterminding a pattern that both encompassed and reflected years of laborious work, billions of tearful trial and error processes, and some hardcore wisdom that only comes with decades of devoting yourself to a (mostly) singular goal.

At the almost-but-not-quite-new age of 31 (I swapped a digit back in April, so, like, I'm only really a month into my real 30s) I finally have the ability to step back and see something tangible. I've grown my fiber, made my cloth, grown my dyes, dyed my cloth, selected my thread grade, taken my measurements, drafted (and redrafted) my dress pattern into something permanent and, in the last few years, I've begun piecing my metaphor dress together on a Ms. Dirty shaped clothes dummy.

I never intended for my dress to go public - at least not until it registered as done (or, if you're like me, medium rare; if there ain't blood, it ain't worth it) - but without thinking I set up my lifelong, balls out operation in a huge ass bay window (better natural light, y'know?). And even though I didn't promote or push my dress on others, people still somehow managed to find it, whether by coincidentally walking past as I worked on it or being told about it by someone else. Sometimes those people came back, sometimes they didn't and sometimes those people pretended they didn't even though they secretly did (and still do).

A few years ago it was relatively easy to go about my fucking business because it was just me, my dress and my ongoing mission to see this motherfucker of a challenge through to the very end. Things got complicated when uninvited parties attempted to get involved. Even though I hadn't asked for help people began giving me unsolicited advice about my dress, people tried to aggressively educate me on how I was sewing my dress (and where I was getting it wrong) and some people - some pagan/witchcraft-based people - even went as far as telling me I should completely abandon my dress and adopt theirs instead because they thought it was a better fit.

About a year ago I began noticing a new trend: people weren't happy just admiring my dress anymore. They wanted to touch it, try it on and see how it fit. When people reached out towards the Ms. Dirty shaped clothes dummy to cop a feel I politely tried to elbow them back, but, after a while, it was like trying to hold off a motherfucking stampede of PCP tripping wildebeests. Before people actually considered what I was doing and wanted to understand why ("what did you use for X? why did you make that final decision?"), but now people are grabbing fistfuls of fabric while screaming "OH MY GOD! THIS IS ME! THIS IS TOTALLY, TOTALLY ME!", tearing entire chunks out of the dress I've been working on for over twenty fucking years of my life and demanding validation, from me, for a job well done.

Yeah, it chaps my fucking ass, but when you've got something that's considered different or edgy or unique or new people are inevitably drawn to it, and in my experience when a certain sort've person's done admiring something they put on a pedestal they consume it, all Cronus-style. And it's not done out of fear or a futile war waged against the inevitable, but because somewhere, inside, those kinds of people are empty and think they've found something that can fill that dead space.

The problem is, using someone else's experiences to fix your spiritual potholes just doesn't fucking work. You can't use someone else's life like it's an organ donation for your sole benefit; most folks who have a body part from someone else actually have to take an immune suppressing medication for the rest of their goddamn lives to ensure their body doesn't reject the unfamiliar part.

If you're unhappy with that comparison (which, BTW, qualifies as a simile - congrats on getting that motherfucker one week early!), how about this one: those smart ass high school math books with all of the answers right in the fucking back? They never provided an illustrated step-by-fucking-step tutorial on how to get to those specific magic numbers. You had to figure out how the fuck to do the work, and then put what you learned into practice in order to really earn the grade. The answer's fucking meaningless without the theory and work, because without them you can't back your shit up.

Look, guys, the answer isn't eviscerating someone else's dress in a desperate hope that you can patchwork parts of it into your wardrobe. Stealing, tearing and ripping isn't creating, and while I totally get the entire ~*~creation and destruction~*~ process role-playing someone else's life and spiritual duties isn't the way to become one with the cosmic ebb of the Universe.

Why wear a dress that was customized for someone else? It ain't never going to fit your ass right (it certainly isn't going to fit my fucking ghetto racehorse ass), and it belittles all of the experiences, joys and suffering of both you and the dress's real owner. Why put yourself out to the world as a pale imitation of someone else in an unflattering, ill-fitting outfit when you have the ability to be a unique individual in a homemade dress tailor-fucking-made for you by your own effing hands?

Answers, please, on the backs of those little white index cards that we used way, way back in 5th grade to help keep our asses in line when reading out our favorite animal (and why) speeches to the entire effing class. And, dude, no cheating, because the only wrong answer is if you copy and paste someone else's and pretend it's yours.

"Living with the Earth"

Filed under: The Black Arts

Internet, we need to talk. I saw something last night that appalled-confused-disgusted-infuriated me and there's no fucking way I can move on with my life - or any other journal entry topic - until I've finally addressed the bug up my ass.

I know it's somewhat hypocritical of me to cast any sort of judgment on pagans doing their pagan thing (mostly because I don't actually consider myself pagan despite my practices), but when you're a pagan recommending motherfucking Cocoa-Peanut Butter-Banana Smoothies as a suitable Imbolc course for your ritual feast to other pagans it's my goddamn duty to step in and call a time-fucking-out.

Sorry, but I totally fail to see how Cocoa Puffs, peanut butter and chocolate milk relate to Imbolc. (Maybe I'm not as gastronomically sophisticated as I thought?) I spent a whole night thinking and dissecting and ruminating over the non-existent connection between the ingredients and the holy day (non-fat yogurt and chocolate milk aren't proper dairy, so don't even think about arguing those points with me), and the only real conclusion I came to is that the pagan community would really fucking benefit from more people spending entire fucking nights thinking, dissecting and ruminating over connections between ingredients and holy days.

What gets me the most is the undeniable lack of thought that goes into observing seasonally specific festivals/sabbats. If you're celebrating a holy day, you're celebrating a fucking concept, and that shit should be influencing your activities. Even if you're doing nothing else but having a nice fucking meal on the day, the food should at least reflect and embody the core of the observance.

I get rabid as fuck about this shit because I loathe watching pagans parade around their motherfucking GUYS, I'M TOTALLY ~LIVING WITH THE EARTH~ superiority while simultaneously ignoring the campaign they're enthusiastically promoting. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if you're eating a fucking Cocoa Puff smoothie for Imbolc you aren't living with the motherfucking earth. I mean, Christ, you aren't even making a fucking attempt to eat seasonally for one fucking day.

Look, I know people know what Imbolc is all about, so I'm not going to bore you to fucking death with wombs and lactating teats. But what people don't seem to know is how to incorporate the idea of the festival/sabbat into the food being prepared to mark and observe winter's almost end and the very beginning of the agricultural year. (I'll give you a hint: peanut butter and sugary children's breakfast cereals aren't it.)

For a second just ignore what your grocery store has stocked and really fucking think about what was available around Imbolc in the past. I mean, serious past. One hundred, five hundred and a thousand years ago. What did the land you're living on provide the indigenous people? What did the land your ancestors lived on provide them?

It's the very start of February in the northern hemisphere, winter's been at your throat since late October and your peasant ass isn't comfortably walled up in a aristocratic tower eating roasts studded with buckets of imported spice - what the fuck are YOU eating on Bride's Day-Candlemas-Imbolc? What you grew, what you harvested, preserved and dried. You're eating what's available, and by February rations are starting to look sort've meek since there isn't anything fresh yet to add to the fucking pot.

I'm not saying that to be a good pagan you need to make soup out of frozen earth, rocks and weeds, but for fuck's sake - at least ATTEMPT to make some sort of connection to the food you're eating, and try using seasonal fucking ingredients as the backbone of your dishes. Part of living with the earth is making the most of what your land provides at that time, if you aren't actually living in that moment then why the fuck bother observing the celebrations that do?

Circle Casting

Filed under: Oh, Internets!

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.

Personal Favorite Favorites

Filed under: Oh, Internets!

YOU KNOW WHAT'S ONE OF MY PERSONAL FAVORITE FAVORITES? WHEN NEW PEOPLE STUMBLE ACROSS MY CAPS LOCK AND MAKE "OW, MY BRAIN" AND "I FEEL UNINTELLIGENT AFTER READING THAT" AND "THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE" COMMENTS.

WTF, DUDE, DOES THIS LOOK LIKE BROKEN ENGLISH AND FRAGMENTED SENTENCES TO //YOU//? AT WHAT POINT IS YOUR FLUENCY - IN WHAT APPEARS TO BE YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE - LIMITED BY THE USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS?

SO, YOU'RE TELLING ME, HYPOTHETICAL COMMENTER WHOSE FIRST, PRIMARY AND PROBABLY ONLY LANGUAGE IS ENGLISH, THAT YOU CAN'T READ OR UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE YOU WERE BORN AND RAISED SPEAKING IF THE TEXT APPEARS IN ALL UPPERCASE?

AND //I'M// THE ONE WHO'S DUMB?

New "Colors"

Filed under: Oh, Internets!

The Color Quiz? It's the only FOR REAL ACTUAL internet quiz / divination tool that's ever FOR REAL ACTUAL worked with / for me. (SOMETHING ABOUT BEING RETARDED AND REACTING BETTER TO COLORS THAN WORDS - IT ALL MAKES SENSE, TRUST ME.) I've been using this system for years to "CHECK MYSELF" and it's always been A LITTLE TOO EERILY ACCURATE ALL THE TIME.

Generated on Wed Nov 26 17:29:51 2008 (SO, WAIT, LOL, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ALL OF YOUR LIFE YOU'VE ALWAYS GOTTEN THE SAME BASIC THING OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND IN THE SPACE OF 6 OR 8 OR 10 MONTHS YOU SUDDENLY GET SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT - NOT JUST SORT'VE DIFFERENT, BUT ENTIRELY COMPLETELY INSANELY DIFFERENT - AS IN, THE ANSWERS THAT NEVER CHANGED HAVE INEXPLICABLY CHANGED AND YOU'RE LEFT IN A SENSE OF STONED INTERNET SHOCK.) (...I'M GOING TO DIE, AREN'T I?) (OH, WAIT, WHAT WAS IT THAT CAINER SAID ABOUT THIS WEEK, AGAIN?) (WELL...OKAY THEN.)

"Three Fold Law"

Filed under: Oh, Internets!

IF I HAVE TO SEE ONE MORE GODDAMN THING ABOUT THE "THREE FOLD LAW" I'M GOING TO PUKE.

(AND WHEN THAT FINALLY HAPPENS THE POSTER IS GOING TO HAVE TO FUCKING COME TO -MY FUCKING HOME- AND CLEAN VOMIT OFF -MY FUCKING MONITOR- BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE "THREE FOLD LAW" STATES.)

(WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE, ANYWAY? I SWEAR TO FUCKING CHRIST IT'S LIKE -ESTABLISHING AND MAKING UP YOUR OWN RULES- HASN'T EVEN BEEN -CONSIDERED-.)

(I MEAN, YOU GUYS KNOW THIS ENTIRE -MAGIC- THING EXISTED BEFORE BOOKS BY NEW AGE PUBLISHERS CAME OUT, RIGHT? YOU KNOW THAT THERE WAS A TIME -PEOPLE HAD TO MAKE UP SHIT FOR THEMSELVES- BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T REFER TO A BOOK OR SITE OR A LJ USER WHO'S ALREADY PRETTY HARD ON THE EYES WITHOUT HER ICON BEING (DELIBERATELY) DEFACED TO LOOK LIKE THE JOKER.)

(THERE WAS A TIME WHEN NONE OF THIS SHIT WAS TALKED ABOUT OR PERSONALLY ENFORCED AND SHIT STILL GOT DONE AND SHIT WAS FINE AND THE WORLD CONTINUED SPINNING ON ITS AXIS AND THERE WERE A HELLUVA LOT LESS "OMG, GUYS, LOVE SPELLS - IMMORAL AND WRONG OR OKAY?" DEBATES GOING ON.)

(GRANTED LIFE WAS TOUGHER, HARDER, AND REQUIRED MORE WORK TO ENDURE THAT SORT OF LIFESTYLE. BUT AT LEAST IN THAT LIFESTYLE PEOPLE WERE FORCED TO TAKE PART IN THE NATURAL CYCLE OF LIFE AND THE SEASONS, GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY, AND SEE THAT LIFE AND ALL OF THE EXPERIENCES THAT COME WITH IT AREN'T BLACK AND FUCKING WHITE, AND CAN'T BE SHOVED AND CONTAINED IN A FUCKING "WICCAN REDE". MODERN (WESTERN) SOCIETY'S SO REMOVED FROM THE HARSH REALITIES OF LIFE AND DEATH AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN THAT MAGIC'S BEEN REDUCED TO ARGUING ABOUT WHETHER "LOVE SPELLS" ARE AMORAL, OR NOT, ON-LINE.)

(DO YOU REALLY FUCKING THINK THAT A SCOTTISH WITCH TWO OR THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO WHO WORKED AS A CROFTER IN THE FUCKING HIGHLANDS AND WHOSE ENTIRE LIFE DEPENDED ON HER SHEEP AND WHAT HER FIELDS COULD PRODUCE IN THE VERY MEAGER GROWING SEASON WE GET IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD FUCKING CARED WHETHER A FUCKING LOVE SPELL WAS AMORAL OR NOT? AND THAT IF SHE DID SOMETHING, IT WOULD COME BACK TO HER -THREE TIMES OVER-? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST - DON'T MAKE THIS TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL CROFTING SCOTTISH WITCH LOL, OKAY? <- LOLOLOL, BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T FOLLOW THE "THREE FOLD LAW", LOL!)

(JESUS, I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE I'M THE ONLY PERSON WHO'S REALLY DECIDED THAT THE ONLY LIMITATIONS SHE HAS ARE THE LIMITATIONS SHE -CREATES-. (WITHIN REASON, OKAY? DON'T GET ALL CHEEKY ASTROPHYSICS WITH ME BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.) "OH, HEY I'M GOING TO PLAY THIS GAME MY ENTIRE LIFE THAT SOMEONE ELSE MADE UP!" FUCK, WOULDN'T YOU RATHER PLAY A GAME WITH RULES THAT YOU CAME UP WITH YOURSELF USING YOUR UNIQUE LIFE EXPERIENCES? DOESN'T THAT FUCKING -RESONATE- WITH ANYONE ANYMORE?)

Impressive Hernia

Filed under: Pay Close Attention

So I said PLEASE, GOD, SHOW ME A SIGN, SHOW ME ANY SORT OF SIGN SO I KNOW THAT IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL! (See FINAL ANSWER.) Wait, wait, I can actually copy and paste shit - LOL!- so I believe a direct quote would be:

At 1:12 AM today (the day of the full moon, the day of Harvest Moon) I found this "stat" waiting for me: When I traced back the search there were only nine web sites that Google even listed for "impressive hernia"; Graveyard Dirt, out of that nine, was number five. (FIVE IS A MAGIC NUMBER!) Regardless of the numbers (BECAUSE 7+1=8 AND 8 FITS -RIGHT NOW- SO THAT'S ANOTHER NUMERICAL THUMBS UP!), I think I just got my answer. Hiatal hernia, here we come? (OH, WAIT THAT'S MISSING SOMETHING! I WONDER WHAT IT COULD BE? OH, THAT'S RIGHT, -IMPRESSIVE-! IMPRESSIVE HIATAL HERNIA, HERE WE COME?) OH, INTERNET, DON'T LISTEN TO WHAT THE NEO-H8ERS SAY, YOU'RE -TOTALLY- MAGIC!

Name Tags

Filed under: LOL!

I love to hear "HELP, I FEEL SPIRITUALLY DEAD!" from people who insist on defining their beliefs by using someone's last name.

Perception Personality Image Test

Filed under: Oh, Internets!

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test...

You perceive the world with particular attention to nature. You focus on the hidden treasures of life (the background) and how that fits into the larger picture. You are also particularly drawn towards the shapes around you. Because of the value you place on nature, you tend to find comfort in more subdued settings and find energy in solitude. You like to ponder ideas and imagine the many possibilities of your life without worrying about the details or specifics. You are in tune with all that is around you and understand your life as part of a larger whole. You prefer a structured environment within which to live and you like things to be predictable. Compared to other takers: * 89/100 You scored 12 on HumanityToNature, higher than 89% of your peers. * 14/100 You scored -5 on BackgroundToForeground, higher than 14% of your peers. * 85/100 You scored 10 on DetailsToBigPicture, higher than 85% of your peers. * 44/100 You scored 1 on ColorToShape, higher than 44% of your peers. Take The Perception Personality Image Test (ITALICS - YES, NO, YES, NO?) (IDEALIST? OH, WELL...I GUESS.) (...MAYBE.)