Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Days of the Dead

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Man, this writing shit is some hard motherfucking work. I've been circling my dinky little laptop for days, eyeing the case warily while half-pretending that house chores are infinitely more important than resuming my cardinal fire-fueled campaign to take over the effin' internet. (<- I start with a ram and end with a pair of fish; fear me and my Alpha & Omega astrological bookends!) And there's nothing I can do - or have done - that's managed to distract me from one unavoidable real world truth: my ass is seriously out of practice.

It's not just the lack of practice reeking saturnalian havoc in my journal life (could havoc be anything OTHER than saturnalian in this house?); nothing's familiar. I mean, at all. My carefully crafted decade-old Rainman routine bit the fucking dust the second Peck-Man became a permanent member of this household to the extent that, for the first time in 10 motherfucking years, I'm working on an unfamiliar computer (dinky little laptop) in an unfamiliar room (the kitchen).

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For someone who's got revolution running in her veins I'm autistically incompatible with change. Any disruption to routine kick starts a butterfly effect that tsunamis its way through every fucking aspect of life. There's room for spontaneity in autism's habitual nature, but it's structured and fragmented into neat little Tetris compartments carefully arranged around great expanses of familiarity. (In other words, I'm totally capable of running a wild card round, but only because I found a way to view the element of randomness as a fixed feature in a fixed routine.)

This groove, this rhythm, this life I'm leading right effin' now is so fucking foreign and alien to me that I'm a half-heartbeat away from an Oscar-winning FOUR MINUTES TO WAPNER! freak out.

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I guess what I'm trying to say as I blow through all of these older Fet Ghede pictures without addressing what's being depicted is that if I sound sorta off, or only make a quarter of sense (instead of my usual half, although I'm willing to make 100% sense if your ass is paying for that secret pleasure) it's because I'm caught in a tide pool of motherfucking rabbits...and because I'm probably high.

(It's a little known fact that if I wasn't high all the goddamn time natural disasters of cataclysmic proportions would occur leading to the extinction of the world as we fucking know it.)(<- See? Beneath my cloven hooves and forked tongue there's an honest-to-fucking-God humanitarian; look upon the bleeding heart of your ovarian Christ, world, for She smokes AND inhales because of Her love for you.)

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While it's been all kinds of swell wading through rabbit-populated shorelines, it's time to decisively navigate towards terra-fucking-firma to get my work on before next year's serpent-tinged onslaught. (Hello and welcome, year of the motherfucking dragon! <- It could either be a really good fucking year for St. George in this house, or it could be absolutely disastrous. 2012, you're a giant fucking question mark only slightly overshadowed by the fat-assed reptilian monster hovering above you.)

Getting my work on, though, is easier said then done when I'm hella fucking rusty and writing in an entirely new environment on an unfamiliar computer. (FOURMINUTESTOWAPNER!) I mean, how the fuck do I go back to baring some of the most intimate parts of myself when I've been hiding behind photos for most of the year?

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Out of necessity I allowed Graveyard Dirt to slip into a formulaic existence (i.e., image, two or three mostly on-topic sentences, image, two or three mostly on-topic sentences...) because it was the easiest fucking way to provide consistent content throughout Harvest. Six months later that journal-saving device has become an automatic routine, and my Taurus midheaven is more than reluctant to let that productive formula go.

As much as I hate the thought, fear the thought and down-fucking-right loathe the thought, I'm going to have to sacrifice that detrimental familiarity on the high altar of Asperger's otherwise my ass ain't progressing no-effin'-where. Cause let me tell you, I've spent a third of my fucking life chasing after spectral perfection to no avail, and it's taken me this effin' long to realize that you're not moving the fuck forward if the scenery around you never fucking changes. (<- Look at me making those motherlovin' rabbits proud!)

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But now's not the time to be radical. In fact, now's the time to be uber-radical but not being radical at all. (<- Hey now, this is some seriously gutsy shit coming from an autistic Aries animal.) Up until now all of my changes have been volatile fucking processes, obliterating everything - and, occasionally, everyone - in their path. What if, just for once, I took a deliberate step back from my natural inclinations to find a new method of creation from change? What if this time I didn't push over the mothereffin' Tower in one monstrous go to create something new? What if I continuously changed one small aspect of it until it eventually became something new through measured means?

So maybe the answer to serious journal writing isn't balls-fucking-out blocks of text in the vain hope that I'll somehow net myself some older entry sparkle. Maybe the real fucking answer is building on something successfully preexisting that accommodates change (much like our old Christian friends!). It's not about dropping pictures (yeah, I considered), Godzilla-ing metaphorical towers (although it's tempting), or Lady Godiva-ing some of the most intimate parts of myself prematurely - if I'm really effin' serious about returning focus to the diary aspect of Graveyard Dirt then I just gotta write more. (Novel, right?)

Fuck! Guess who just pissed away six Fet Ghede photos from 2009 on a blog-gazin' tangent. (<- Guilty as mothereffin' charged!) Now any attempts to steer this journal entry in the right fucking direction will seem like a bolted-the-fuck-on addendum...

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I work the dead. No, sugar, you didn't read that wrong, and I didn't accidentally forget to jam a "with" between "the" and "dead"; I work the motherfucking dead. As far as I'm concerned, if you wanna be on this team you better be willing to pick up an effin' shovel and get your sweat on. (<- Ain't nothin' free in this life, or in the after.)

Almost every effin' facet of my feral witchcraft has roots in traditions and experiences that both our ancestors - Ukrainian (me), Native American (me) and Scottish (him) - would've been familiar with (i.e., hunting, gathering and growing), so the biggest contribution the dead make to this house is providing the reassuring knowledge that I'm not the first fucking one in the line to personally encounter the trials and tribulations, agonies and ecstasies of living with - and off - the land. (Admittedly not to the same extent they were forced to.)

As retarded as it might sound, I actually feel closest to my predecessors when I'm crying about and/or freaking out over shit that I know they experienced and dealt with in their own lifetime(s).

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November is winter's spring, and it's really fucking hard not to have a slight bounce of joy in your step when your ass works the dead because the last and final harvest of the agricultural year is celebrated as a sort of necro-homecoming. Over here in NE Scotland hard frost signals when it's time to haul the dubious Ms. Dirty & Co. carnival indoors for five to six mothereffin' months of hardcore merrymaking. (<- The ancestor gig? Has its perks.)

Halloween, in all of its John Carpenter glory (I was born in 1980 and was lucky to have experienced the vintage crepe paper'n'cardboard version of the holiday before it went all decals'n'plastic in the 90s), is the opening ceremony of our necro-homecoming that ignites winter's indoor revelry. Our observance of All Hallows' Eve is a tribute to everything childish and sinister wrapped up in a nostalgically creepy death-themed bow.

Gaping skulls and whitewashed bones then psychopompically lead the skeletal trail to Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), when we thank, honour and remember those who've already taken the big fucking leap into the unknown. Fet Ghede - Papa's super-special feast day on November 2nd - has a different spin in this house since my relationship with The Old Man is a double shot of unorthodox. (Despite their tough guy appearances even spiritual sugar daddies need an annual Father's Day to feel appreciated.)

Pictured above: 2009's Full Moon of the Dead Día de Muertos/Fet Ghede kitchen altar. For more Ghede-centric adventures, altars and stories simply plug "Fet Ghede" into Graveyard Dirt's search engine, and be sure to hit up my Fet Ghede Flickr tag for pictures. Similarly, you'll find all of my Halloween shit the same way: through my Flickr altar set, my Flickr Halloween tag and by combing through older entries using the search engine.

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There's no effin' way I can succinctly address wheat's significant role in our lives and religious practices in several paragraphs, so I'm just gonna gloss over the finer details of its importance and save my mental bullet points for a different journal entry. What I can probably cram in this tight space is that wheat represents two major aspects of my spiritual beliefs: the body of God (which is ground down into meal as a form of sustenance - you know, flour), and my ancestral heritage (Ukraine's known as "the breadbasket of Europe" thanks to its famously fertile steppes).

So baking bread, for me, isn't just a kitchen witch role-play of domestication, it's an ancient, ritualized art that involves growing, nurturing and inevitably "killing" one of God's tangible forms before physically manipulating it into something that's then consumed. We view the act of consumption as a sort of holy communion, which is why I hold all of God's forms - whether flesh (meat) or blood (hooch) - as sacred; they were all derived from one of His once-living manifestations.

The act of baking bread is one of sacrifice and compassion. One of my metaphysical obligations is to create and destroy; with one hand I hold His body upright (I plant and care for His seed), and with the other I ceremonially cut Him down (I reap, protect and distribute His seed). Wheat, as I've defined in my Choose Your Own Adventure spirituality, is my husband, my lover, my king and God, and His death - by the hand of His wife, His lover, His queen and God(dess) - ensures that others (including myself) live. So it only makes sense that the first offering I ply our collective ancestors with during the Days of the Dead is a loaf of homemade bread reverently made from the body of my beloved.

Pictured above: One of 2009's Pan de Muertos. While I don't have a drop of Hispanic blood in me, I do have fond memories of my Ukrainian grandparents feeding me quarters of fresh oranges in their retro-as-fuck prefab kitchen. Those experiences established a significant connection between me, the dead and orange-flavored bread, so it's no effin' surprise I eventually created a tradition of baking Pan de Muertos for All Souls' Day (aka as Fet Ghede, and day number two of Día de Muertos) to commemorate the lives of those we love who've passed the fuck on.

Necro-Squared Motherfuckers

ETA: Sold out!

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It's been a helluva couple of days at Casa dels Ossos (House of Bones). After a six week sabbatical my father-in-law returned home from Florida and immediately began fucking with shit. Within 12 hours of stepping off the goddamn plane the motherfucker managed to mess with some of my altar work, single-handedly compromised the controlled environment we keep the mushrooms in, nearly lost our ticket-receipt for our Christmas goose and immediately returned to "hiding" potentially gluten-contaminated dishes, cooking utensils and cutlery.

(The long-short? Wheat and gluten are intestine-destroying poisons that cause Italics's body to attack itself. Any trace of either - whether stuck on metal filaments of toasters, or dusted across used plates and dishes - is enough to make him seriously sick. Despite knowing how severe his symptoms are his parents never seem to clean up after themselves (I tried getting them aboard on the gluten-free express to make our kitchen more safe, but they won't buy into it), so I'm constantly sanitizing the kitchen because they don't even sweep their food crumbs off the fucking counters.)

(Our #1 gluten-free problem? Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, doesn't normally use detergent when washing dishes by hand. (Yes, we DO have a dishwasher, and no, I don't know why he refuses to use it.) Which, obviously, is pretty fucking problematic when you have one person with a crazy-serious medical condition triggered by a food group that 1/2 the house indulges in. Worse yet, he's begun "hiding" the unwashed dishes amongst the properly cleaned ones so he doesn't get caught out. To ensure Italics doesn't get sick I actually have to clean every fucking plate, fork, pot and cup before using it because I don't know if it's safe.)

But wait! There's more! (<- Almost all of Ms. Dirty's dealings come with an extra helping of WHAT THE FLYING FUCK and/or ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?.)

In addition to my father-in-law returning home and completely destroying the rhythm of the house, we were forced to give away our Tori Amos tickets because we just couldn't afford the travel cost (our two concert tickets were equal to the cost of a single one-way train ride), I'm so fucking far behind with shit that I have no idea how I'm going to finish up all of my promises, obligations and duties (everything from working on packages for people to making our Last Harvest offerings at various cairns, standing stones and graveyards) before the holiday season hits, let alone hold a motherfucking Harvest sale at the end of this fucking month and - LOL! YES, THERE'S MORE! - yesterday we learned that I might've potentially lost everything I had on my fried computer because, for whatever divinely comical reason, my files didn't transfer properly to our external drive.

(As in, every-motherfucking-thing; my entire effin' life to this effin' point. Projects, notes, my baby pictures, all of our pet photos, recipes I've created from scratch, unseen homemade porn I made for "Santa Claus" and years worth of fucking work (I mean, like, actual career work-work). Everything I ever saved, created, scanned or noted in my 31 years of life was on that fucking computer.)

So things have been a bit...intense...here recently, and because of that some of my goals for this week (i.e., write some VIP emails, finish a few projects and sell all 11 jars of Papa's rum-infused plum sauce) got unexpectedly jostled around. One minor luxury of working for yourself, though, is having the ability to take a step back for a day or two to get your mind correct. After a long ass crying session - and a good night's sleep - I'm feeling a lot fucking better about everything*, and I'm totally ready to hustle some motherfucking sauce.

(* Although I'd really like my computer shit back, Universe. Christmas - you know, the season of peace'n'love'n'good-effin'-will to all (especially those who've worked REALLY FUCKING HARD this year despite those pesky motherfucking rabbits) - is just around the corner, and I know you don't wanna disappoint Santa's favourite reindeer.)

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If you've been rubbernecking my foul-mouthed adventures on Facebook, you'll know that we harvested 24 effin' pounds of plums from our two backyard trees back in September. A third of the crop was used to make my winterspiced plum liqueur (it's the holy amongst holies in my hedgerow hooch collection), another third was was used to create a rum-based libation for Papa (my attempt to make a ritual His'n'Her set) and the last third was deliberately scattered throughout the countryside to return a portion of the fruit back to the earth.

It'd be utterly retarded to just throw out the rum-preserved plums, and since there's no way I'm going to eat eight fucking pounds of hoochtastic sauce in two weeks I thought I'd offer a wee taste of Harvest goodness to you guys. This necro-culinary delight (necro squared; in addition to being a by-product of a psychopomp-themed libation, half the fruit was harvested from the plum tree growing over my roadkill altar) is a simple puree made from only three ingredients: fairtrade sugar, dark rum and death-enriched homegrown plums.

Before you whip out your wallet to make it rain you need to know one thing: I can't send this shit internationally. It's not that I don't want to; I'm just really worried about the lids of these jars. I saved, sterilized and reused a bunch of baby jars not knowing that the tops wouldn't seal again. These fuckers should travel a-okay within Europe, but I doubt they'd survive longer transits. I feel so effin' bad about fucking this up that I've already promised you non-EU folk the ability to pick my next super-special Harvest project in the hopes you'll forgive my sorry ass. (<- Mushroom ketchup made with my Wild Woodland Mix seems to be winning.)

And now for the nitty-fucking-gritty:

* There are exactly 11 undecorated jars; once they're gone, they're effin' gone.
* Jars are £1.50 GBP each; you can buy as many as you like.
* There's approximately 128g worth of sauce in every jar; jars roughly weigh 221g once filled.
* Postage costs are determined by number of jars being sent; sending one jar within the UK is roughly £2.50, sending one jar within the EU is roughly £3.00.

If you're interested in snagging a jar - or two, or six (ahem) - all you've gotta do is send an email to graveyarddirt@gmail.com with the following information: your paypal address, how many jars you want and what country the jars are getting sent to (it makes figuring out postage a helluva lot easier). First-come, first-served and, like I said above, once these necro-squared motherfuckers are gone, they're gone.

Pampered Psychopomp

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An already pampered psychopomp being deviously plied with offerings of homemade pecan pie, pot-infused rum cocktails, homegrown chilli peppers, miniature bottles of hot sauce (both Italics and Papa thank you, Cosy!) and two carefully selected Ms. Dirty pubes for a very personal - very pussycraft - touch.

All Souls' Day

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Fet Ghede

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Cracklin' Rosie

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Nothing but me, 4 ½ lbs of necromantic wild raspberries*, a bottle of brandy, a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, the blessings of Papa's hard fucking cock and Neil Diamond's greatest motherfucking hits. (Oh, we gonna ride till there ain't no more to go...)

* These fuckers? Were picked at an old Scottish graveyard situated near a pair of effin' cairns. Necrotastic, or what?

Gluten-Free Honik Lekach

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Internet, we are crazy fucking beat. Somehow I managed to convince myself that I'd hit the ground running the second we got home from Glasgow (SEND PACKAGES! WORK ON TRADES! WRITE THOUGHT-PROVOKING, SPIRITUALLY MEANINGFUL JOURNAL ENTRIES! <- LOL! Just kidding. I mean, me? Thought-provoking and/or spiritually meaningful? Good fucking grief!), but I soon discovered the grotesquely warped Dorian Gray pictures of those optimistic aspirations locked up in the ATTIC OF MOTHEREFFING TRUTH and had to eventually accept reality for what it was: a force unwilling to yield to the list of my more than reasonable Aries demands.

After two days of traveling, an evening of goth-flavored exhibitionism beneath the world's biggest rotating disco ball (think I'm joking?) and several fucking weeks of constant worry about leaving TC for a whole 24 hours* we've come to the collective conclusion that all our asses need a long weekend off. And, for once, I'm grudgingly accepting the fact, but there's still a teeny tiny part of me that absolutely fucking loathes leaving Graveyard Dirt untouched for more than 48 hours so I've decided to continue posting less mentally taxing entries until I've fully recovered from last week's GO! GO! GO! rush.

* Which, okay, doesn't SEEM like a super big deal, but the crow has a tendency to trip over its lame wing - it hangs more than the uninjured wing - and when it does it can't right itself. We need to physically flip Peck-Man like a turtle otherwise it just lies on its fucking back playing dead with its little corvid feet in the air.

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The story of this particular gluten-free Honik Lekach (a Jewish New Year honey cake) doesn't begin with culinary intent, but with a gag-inducing mistake. While exploring our favorite "Afro-Caribbean, Mediterranean & Middle-Eastern Halal Continental Food Store" a few weeks back I was bewitched by a squat little glass of honey, and without even looking at the ingredients - I'll be honest, Internet, I totally wanted the glass more than the honey - I tossed it into our basket not knowing that it was mostly glucose syrup.

I expected a golden tongueful of luxurious middle eastern honey brimming with exotic, unfamiliar sweetness, but got an unappetizing mouthful of bland, watered-down sugar syrup lamely disguised with a drop or two of unflavorful honey. I won't lie; I dry heaved over the sink. It was only after I choked down the colloidal mess oozing around my mouth that I read the back of that squat little glass and discovered the horrific truth behind the jar that had bewitched me: "glucose-fructose syrup, honey".

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My first instinct was to flush the fucking "honey" down the drain, but that would've been several different types of wasteful I didn't have the fucking heart to consider. I wasn't hot on the idea of using it cosmetically (since it didn't have any real holistic benefits), ritually (I'm all about working with what you got, but even I draw the fucking line at glucose-fructose syrup unless I'm making a goddamn point and/or being terribly clever) or as an additive for any of my homemade liqueurs (high-fructose corn syrup in my hedgerow hooch? not in a million motherfucking years).

So what the fuck do you do with imitation honey if you really don't want to taste it, let alone use it? You deviously hide the monstrosity within a homemade cake (in this case, a gluten-free Jewish New Year honey cake) by covering it with a neutral - but intriguingly nutty tasting - oil, an indulgent trickle of Madagascar vanilla, the aromatic woodiness of autumn spices and a shot or two of Papa's super fucking fine cognac. Then you present the finished product to the #1 psychopomp in your life because you know that motherfucker could fucking care less if real honey wasn't used if it resulted in a very fucking real cake sitting on his Ghede-pleasin' altar.

I have to grudgingly admit this cake was good. In fact, it was so fucking good it bordered on being suspiciously good. (Just some lucky black arts magic?) As if it being incredibly edible wasn't bad enough (I was just supposed to make it palatable, not create a top 10 masterpiece!), it also paired perfectly with the pistachio gelato we needed to use up, and when it finally began the process of staling it turned into a chewy breakfast bread that was easily eaten over a hot cup of tea without the need of a fork or plate.

Another Morning After

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Ghede-Pleasin'

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Altar photos from a recent weekend session of Ghede-pleasin' pussycraft. I'm way too fucking tired to write anything remotely coherent, so I'll save all stories, explanations, anecdotes and recipe (oh, honey, yes I'm super sharing!) until later.

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Pussycraft

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Motherfucker's getting a very personal - very homemade - dose of hot'n'heavy pussycraft* tonight. (My Ukrainian ancestors? Rolling in their motherfucking graves. But, like, proudly.)

* Pussycraft; the Ghede's favorite sort of witchcraft.

Second Favorite Spot

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Papa's second favorite spot to spend time in: our growing closet with my collection of homegrown tobacco, homemade hooch and two types of preserved psychoactive mushrooms. (For the sake of motherfucking decency, I won't tell you his first.)

Spoiled Psychopomp

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Offerings of homegrown tobacco, lemongrass beer and ostentatious bling for one spoiled ass psychopomp. (<- Motherfucker transcends "spoiled" in this house.)

The Morning After

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The morning after Superbowl Sunday. (Thankfully my mother-in-law's partially deaf in one ear so she didn't hear me howling "WITHIN SIX FUCKING POINTS, WITHIN SIX FUCKING POINTS!" as I furiously masturbated - and climaxed - during the last three minutes of the game.)

Superbowl Sunday

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When the Superbowl, gambling and voodoo-flavored witchcraft collide.

Hexenhaus Strange

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One of my biggest problems is that I "shine". Papa's always running after my ass like I'm wantonly cavorting around naked and need to be clothed for public decency. "You shinin' too bright, babygirl," he'll warn, and slap the spiritual equivalent of a handful of fucking mud across my body. (I voraciously clean using ritual washes and scrubs, and the motherfucker's always two seconds behind me scuffing up the surfaces I just finished polishing.)

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Now House shines too, but in different, more obvious ways. They're little, almost normal things: instances of firsts, lasts and just slightly out of the ordinary that suggests that something different, something sort've weird is going on here.

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In spring our flowers bloom first, in autumn our leaves are the last to turn and fall. Without even trying I've attracted hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, deer and an abnormal amount of a variety of birds despite living in a rural subdivision.

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In winter our home is the only residence that sports mammoth-sized stalactites growing from freezing gutters, and the icy motherfuckers comically frame the office window I'm perpetually looking out of as if to damningly say to our neighbors "IT'S HER, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! CAN'T YOU FUCKING SEE THE MOTHERFUCKING WITCH HOUSE YOU'RE LIVING NEXT TO?!".

(Oh, they know I'm strange, but they don't know I'm hexenhaus strange.)

Christmas

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Christmas; all 12 boxes (and 1 bag) of it.

Fet Ghede Altars, Dark

Due to Chooch's very recent passing neither of us were up for the wet'n'wild Halloween celebration we had planned (she left us three effing days before Halloween; an awesome-ideal time to die, although NOT an awesome-deal time to deal with death - especially "so fresh it's only been 72 fucking hours!" death).

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What energy wasn't spent on eight hours of entheogen-flavored ritual sex in front of the Black Goddess altar got funneled into observing Papa's holy feast, Fet Ghede, with gifts, homemade food and new altars created on-the-fly. (Throwing myself into the festival with every ounce of my motherfucking being? Equal parts of loving devotion and a not-so-fucking-sneaky execution of my best coping mechanisms - cooking and cleaning.)

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Normally I keep Fet Ghede - or anything Ghede related - low key in this house because any sort've voodoo shit is still motherfucking "voodoo" to the average person (namely, my in-laws - specifically my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, who, incidentally, is carrying more graveyard dirt in his bowels than the local cemetery).

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This year, though, I threw caution to the psychopomp-tinged wind and created two altars for the occasion: one on the kitchen windowsill (that bit of tiled ledge is about as close as I get to having a sacred space in a shared, communal setting) that oversaw the blessing of ritual items and food that was used in our celebratory meals, and the second incorporated some of Papa's very favorite things (i.e., his Tupac and Biggie votive candleholder) and gifts we bought him for the occasion on a corner unit momentarily residing in the hallway. (<- Famous last words.)

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To keep things from getting too goddamn epic I'm posting these dark images first, and then - once I have more time - I'll write a follow-up entry explaining what's going on. If you want to see my Halloween and Fet Ghede altars "unveiled" (in other words, "with the fucking lights on") be sure to keep an eye on Graveyard Dirt, where all will (eventually) be revealed. (Or, you know, something to that effect.)

Sharpie Voodoo

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Drawing Papa's veve on glass vodka bottles with a Sharpie marker? Much harder than you'd think. (But not as hard as Americanizing a British Christmas tree. <- The UK doesn't have affordable strands of lights that plug into one another, so our 6 fucking foot tree has something like 8-12 separate plugs hanging off of it every fucking year.)

Each cap sports some sort've doodled skull, and the bottle on the left has its coffin drawn onto the base. Later tonight I'll be funneling the vanilla bean-flavored coffee liqueur (I used rum instead of vodka) I made on Fet Ghede to age in these consecrated vessels. Once they've matured I'll bury them at Papa's grave, exhume them and decant the homemade Ghede hooch into smaller decorated bottles.

Papa's Fet Ghede Pie

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I totally intended to take one of my hallmark arty photos of our homemade, gluten-free sweet potato pie with some of Papa's Fet Ghede shit, but the (natural) light was fading fast and I had a whole day of cooking waiting for me in the fucking kitchen.

Fet Ghede, 2010

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"Give me any grief," I said to him, "and next Fet Ghede you'll be hanging by your neck." The Old Man just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Fet Ghede, 2010

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"Give me any grief," I said to him, "and next Fet Ghede you'll be hanging by your neck." The Old Man just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Fet Ghede's Checklist

Things I need to accomplish in the next 48 hours: create a coffee liqueur out of a bottle of rum bought and dedicated to Papa, give the Old Man his Fet Ghede gifts, bake Pan De Muerto (soul cakes this year need to be made for Shakey Bear, Wuzza and the Chooch), visit the local graveyard to make an offering, lay some cards down and create a gluten-free southern-themed meal from scratch (gumbo, crab cakes, hoppin' john, cornbread and sweet potato pie).

Things I've actually done: make a pot of coffee.

Used G-String Offering

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Never one to miss a party, I relocated Papa's skull to the lounge's coffee table, and the mouthy ass motherfucker started even before I could properly set the Halloween prop down. ("Baby-girl, why don't you plant that sweet pussy on this face?")

Hello (and welcome!) to the next six months of my life.

Have Myself a Fucking Bath

OH, JESUS, NOW HE'S TALKING TO ME THROUGH THE INTERNET. (<- I DON'T KNOW HOW OR WHY MOVABLE TYPE CREATED A DUPLICATE ENTRY OF "OH, GOOD LORD...", IT JUST DID. I'LL SAVE THE SECOND ONE AS A LOL! REFERENCE: #1 and #2.)

I'M TOTALLY WIPING MY HANDS CLEAN OF WHATEVER THE FUCK HE'S UP TO. IN FACT, I'M GOING TO GO AND HAVE MYSELF A FUCKING BATH.

(I SHOULD PROBABLY MENTION THAT WHEN HE SAID "WE GONNA START TALKIN' AGAIN" WE WERE IN THE KITCHEN AND I WAS GETTING READY TO DUST'N'CLEAN HIS ALTAR DOLL AND THE WASHING MACHINE SUDDENLY TURNED OFF MID-CYCLE. AND THEN I GOT A WEIRD ASS STATIC SHOCK, OR SOMETHING, WHEN CARRYING THE DOLL BACK TO THE COMPUTER ROOM.)

(...THIS IS ALL BECAUSE I SHARED MY GODDAMN CINNAMON BUN COFFEE WITH HIM THIS MORNING AND GAVE HIS SORRY ASS THE LAST GINGERBREAD COOKIE, ISN'T IT?)

(OH GOOD LORD.)

Oh, Good Lord...

PAPA: WE GONNA START TALKIN' AGAIN.

Oh, Good Lord...

PAPA: WE GONNA START TALKIN' AGAIN.

2010 Vegetables, Round 1

Writing, internet, has been hard. Actually, I take that back. Writing hasn't been hard; feeling motivated to plant my ass down in this fucking computer chair and hammer out something that isn't one or two sentences mostly composed of "MOTHERFUCKER", "SHIT" and "GOD" has been hard.

Ever since (Chef) Shakey's death I've felt flighty; I think it's Spring, and how amazingly stupidly insanely far behind I am on things. (Don't EVEN get me started on all of the shit I haven't done because my list will make you weep with exquisite hopelessness.) I spent a quarter of a year off our perfected routine, and I still don't entirely feel like I'm back on my mojo axis.

It feels like I've taken a partial step forward, but despite the hesitant move I'm still hanging in limbo because my other foot's firmly planted in its original position. I think I'm waiting for something, specifically one of the remaining rats suddenly getting sick (i.e., Wuzza and her mammary tumors), which would require me to retract that partial step and revisit territory I lived in for nearly four fucking months.

In a way it feels like I'm reluctant to move the fuck on because I'm not sure if the Universe has officially closed that particular chapter of my life. So instead of plunging head first into new projects (and completing old ones) in my brash Aries style I'm straddling the threshold of change going "DUDE, ARE YOU SURE? ARE YOU, LIKE, FOR REALLY REAL SURE, OR ONLY KIND'VE SURE, UNIVERSE?" and not getting a lot done.

ANYWAY.

It's raining, which means I can indulge myself with journal writing without experiencing an ounce of guilt. (<- YOU KNOW HOW IN SPRING EVERY NICE DAY FEELS LIKE THE LAST NICE DAY, EVER, SO YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ABSOLUTE MOST OF IT? YES, WELL...THAT.) But because I'm hella rusty I'll leave the V. SRS shit alone and focus on something that isn't inordinately taxing: gardening.

The madness started with Gothel's Garden being reopened after a day of intensive cleaning. I wish I could be someone who could overlook a mess and get on with her shit, but despite my chaotic personality my need for cleanliness borders on divinely anal. (Isn't that contradiction cosmic poetry? Even chaos requires a certain amount of organization to function properly.)

So before anything - before compost buying, peat pot separating, seed buying and seed sowing - I had to strip, straighten and clean the yard. (I view our property - especially the backyard where I'm often found high as a fucking kite gardening in the nude - as an outside altar during the Light year. Most summers I don't even bother with indoor altars since all of my time, energy and effort is spent on our fruits, vegetables, herbs and plants growing directly beneath our bedroom window.)

The front yard - or "dirt yard", if you're a longtime reader - was taken care of in February. Thanks to my father-in-law burying garden waste in my prepared vegetable bed I had to spend the entire day excavating rocks, weeds, roots and frozen leaves out of my sidewalk strip in order to plant my garlic (which, LOLtastically enough, never got planted because I had to spend the entire day cleaning up after him, but that's story for another day).

I took care of the MAIN PATIO next, and then, yesterday, I tackled the mess that formerly inhabited the OPEN VESTIBULE in front of the outside room. All I have left to do is clean the walkway that runs adjacent to the garage door / bonsai house / outside room, weed Mr. Awesome's ABANDONED ROCK GARDEN, and prune back the hedge that's started to smother the fruit trees.

So, before I forget (because I like to keep this shit noted), yesterday I: watered the garlic in the dirt yard to prep it for seed sowing, planted both beets and carrots behind the garlic, hauled about 10 fucking buckets of earth from the backyard to cover the seeds and sprouted garlic with more soil, buried a reduced to clear 1/2 shoulder of lamb directly beneath our computer room / office window (a badger offering! not the lamb itself, but the insects that'll inevitably break down the decomposing meat which'll - hopefully! - attract Badger Beh), moved the circle of rabbit bones onto the Shango Tree phallic worship altar and cleaned the outside vestibule*.

(* "cleaned the outside vestibule" = moving EVERYTHING out of the space, sweeping the ceiling, walls, frames, doors and corners, digging out the weeds between the concrete slab cracks (I'm hoping that my in-laws will be okay with me planting creeping thyme in those earthen spaces), sweeping the patio thoroughly, moving large wind fallen branches and wooden signs I want to keep for various magical projects behind the old grill to ensure Mr. Awesome understands "THESE ARE MINE AND I WANT/NEED THEM", emptying the old grill of garbage (WHY THE FUCK WERE THERE BENT PIECES OF METAL FRAMES IN MY BONFIRE WOOD?), refilling the old grill with wood for Beltane fires, cleaning the ceramic container that holds my support canes, bundling up errant bamboo canes into the cleaned ceramic container, throwing out all non-burning junk (including metal frames and broken pottery) and dumping the contents of the containers filled with garden waste into sacks for future disposal.)

That? That's all OUTSIDE STUFF which doesn't even hint at all of the INSIDE STUFF going on. Vegetablewise, I grow everything from seed. And because we have such a short growing season here in Scotland (short to my Midwest American ass, anyway) I get everything started indoors and acclimate whatever germinates and grows around early June (believe it or not, I've actually experienced motherfucking frost in early June).

I planted our first round of vegetables - 93 effing plants! - on April 20th (which was 100% unintentional; I didn't even know it was earth day - or a good day to sow seeds - until after I dusted seedling compost off my hands). Making up those 93 plants are: 36 X sub-arctics (tomatoes), 20 X baby corns, 10 X artichokes, 06 X cherry bombs (chili), 06 X red peppers, 05 X beef hearts (tomatoes), 05 X green bushes (courgette), 04 X rings of fire (chili) and 01 X voodoo (weed).

As of now I still need plant gourds, lettuce, peas, squash and wheat. I'm on the fence on whether I want to start Russian-olives from seed (which I have), or purchase immature seedlings. I'm also tempted to plant more carrots and beets where I grew garlic last year, but that side of the house doesn't get a lot of light when the sycamore's in leaf and I may need the space for my 20 corn seedlings. (I HILARIOUSLY FAILED TO FORESEE THE PROBLEM IN FINDING ROOM FOR 20 CORN AND 36 TOMATO PLANTS.)

I'm short a few vegetables I had my heart set on growing (i.e., bean, broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, marrow and potato), but that'll be easily rectified once I get my shit together and draw up my herb list for this year. (You don't even want to see my fruit, flying ointment and baneful herb "to buy" list. Let's just say that I'm V. lucky that my husband and Papa are EXCEPTIONALLY good gamblers.)

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93 motherfucking plants sown, baby! The two spiky plants on the other side of my skull incense burner are Dragon's Blood trees (the seeds were given to me by my friend, Carolina). The bushy shrub next to them is my gardenia (which looks like it could do with a prune) and you can JUST make out my Stone Cock on the wooden table (a sprouted yam is sitting on His balls).

I'm drying various Spring flowers (crocuses, quills and grape hyacinths) on the plate beneath the metal side table that visiting bumblebees favor to create a bee-themed incense. The glass vessel is the vase I took from the morthouse (remember? instead of taking the ladder I took the discarded vase?), the two plastic packages are lady's mantle and goldenrod (which I still need to plant) and beneath the pewter church goblet was parsley submerged in water (which I've already planted).

The day after my vegetable seed planting extravaganza the sun was shining crazy bright, like God him-fucking-self was smiling down upon my late night work. Hours of unjamming peat pots, ruining markers, packing containers with compost and planting seeds were sanctified by Spring's glorious sunshine.

...and then within ten fucking minutes of taking the picture above IT STARTS MOTHERFUCKING SNOWING. (VERY FUNNY, UNIVERSE, VERY EFFING FUNNY.) I was horrified, but not surprised. Everything's been out of whack for so goddamn long that I haven't even had a chance to change the guard and welcome Chile Bird back home.

As far as the weather in northeast Scotland's concerned it isn't Spring until Ms. Sovereignty 2K gets off her just married ass and updates the Egyptian / computer room / office altar accordingly.

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Normally I start my vegetables way too fucking early, and by May the backroom's a humid, sweat house of a jungle. This year, though, I got an unusually late start which meant, for once, I was actually sowing seeds when you're supposed to.

(Great for not appearing like a unfashionably early spastic, not so great for not appearing like a hyperventilating spastic when it turns out almost nothing germinated and you're way too late in the season to begin an emergency round.)

I'm use to quick germination because we usually start shit in the closet beneath a grow light and I wrap every pot with cling film to create miniature greenhouse conditions. In my experience certain plants - cucumbers, squash and pumpkins - sprout within three days of sowing. Tomatoes generally come next, followed by the rest of the vegetables with some chili and pot seeds trailing behind at the very end.

Our closet is currently packed with ritual/ceremonial objects that are otherwise homeless, so our only options were to either keep them housed in our growing closet (until we can afford buying proper storage containers), or chuck everything out in the backroom (and pray to God that my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, doesn't touch, ruin, break, appropriate or throw anything anyway).

Take a wild fucking guess which option we went with (or, alternatively, simply study the images above). And because there were ninety-fucking-three plants there was no way I was going to sit down and cut out a circular covering out of fucking cling film/saran wrap for every single pot. My vegetables seeds, for the first time ever, were thrown out into the world without a blanket of plastic or any artificial light blazing down upon them.

Yesterday was day six without so much as a tiny crack or disturbance within ANY of the pots. ("Desperate" and "panicked" didn't even cover it.) Anxious I might miss out on vegetable growing this year due to unresponsive seeds I dragged myself over to Papa for help from his black ass. (I don't really consider him a gardener, but he is Underground which means at least he could give the seeds a push in the right direction.)

I'll spare you from the super explicit details, but suffice to say masturbation magic (especially when Papa's along for the ride) has never let me the fuck down. Yesterday there was nothing; today there were tomatoes, and all it took was assuming a birthing position in bed while coaxing stubborn seeds to sprout and grow up into the warmth of my awaiting uterus.

(ADMITTEDLY BIZARRE, BUT ~MAGIC~, READERS, ~MAGIC~. SO MAGIC, IN FACT, I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO MAKE MYSELF ONE BILLION PERCENT CLEAR TO EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING THAT DESPITE MY MASTURBATORY VISUALIZATIONS (WHERE A COCK'S A SEED AND THE WOMB'S THE SUN) I HAVE ZERO INTEREST - AT THIS PARTICULAR TIME, AT LEAST - TO BECOME WEBSTER'S DEFINITION OF "MOTHER". COMPRENDE, UNIVERSE? PERVERSE SEXUAL FANTASIES INVOLVING MOTHERHOOD NEED TO STAY OUT OF MY REALITY UNTIL OTHERWISE NOTED.)

Requiem

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House's curse has been lifted, but I'm suspicious enough (of a last second psych-out) to petition the help of Papa. (Our tickets for Mozart's Requiem - the performance we're booked to see tomorrow night - and free coffee from Starbucks arrived on the same day. I promised Papa that he could have one (the coffee) if I could have the other.)

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He wanted pancakes. At that very second. Fucking pancakes when I had a million things to do and I was super insanely high on an indica that was barreling through me.

(I KIND'VE SORT'VE FORGOT TO MAKE A SPIRIT PLATE YESTERDAY. THE JAM AND STRAWBERRY SMOTHERED PANCAKE? (FROM YESTERDAY.) WAS FOR MY DECEASED MOM. I HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THERE ARE SOME HURT FEELINGS I WASN'T PREVIOUSLY AWARE OF.)

We negotiated; pancakes within seven days.

Temporary Limbo

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Normally Papa's mask hangs just above my nightstand in the bedroom, but when time came to strip down the old wallpaper his ass got relocated to the computer room/office (at least until the redecoration's complete). A few days ago I caught him grinning like a fool, looking way too comfortable with the recent change in scenery.

"AIN'T //NO// WAY, NEGRO," I warned before the twinkle in his eye (socket) got any more glittery and flirty, "BLACK MAN? BEDROOM. WHITE MAN? OFFICE. OTHERWISE I'M NEVER GOING TO GET ANY SHIT DONE." He laughed, but I so totally wasn't joking in the slightest. Men (especially the incorporeal, voodoo-flavored subconscious skeletal link to the divine masculine)...pffffft.

Cleaning Under a Witch's Bed

Late September we hauled everything out of our bedroom in anticipation of THE GREAT BEDROOM CLEANING OF 2009. (<- SEE CLEANING UP AFTER THE BRIDE.) And thanks to committing ourselves to one too many things we still haven't managed to clean anything, so we've been living in a hollowed out room for over a month now.

Due to living with a nosy father-in-law who flat out doesn't give a shit about other people's personal property (or their feelings) I have to keep the majority of my witchcraft projects hidden in the bedroom. (Mr. Awesome? Loves to throw things out and "fix" things. Unfortunately, they're usually OTHER people's things, and he never asks if it's cool beforehand so you don't know that something's gone or ruined until you notice that it's gone (or ruined) and by that time it's way, way too late to save it.)

Our bedroom? The third smallest room in the house, not counting the hall closet. We have enough space to fit two small nightstands, a double bed and one tiny wardrobe. Things WERE kept in the wardrobe until we began our homegrown operation, but once the lights, fan and seedlings moved in everything had to move out. And when that happened there was only one place for refugee witch items to go - under the bed.

I have wet dreams about those flat, elongated storage boxes with wheels. They're my fantasy storage solution; frictionless movement, clean, sterile compartments and a tetris-like ability for stacking on top of one another. In reality, though, I have the gutted frame of the futon that we once slept on (see link above). Dragging the fucking thing out from under the bed - with the insane amount of shit packed away within - is a Herculean task and something I completely avoid unless absolutely necessary.

Unloading it requires an entire room due to my autistic talent at packing. (<- I SWEAR TO GOD I MUST BE THE ONLY EMPLOYEE IN THE HISTORY OF WAL-MART WHO BECAME FAMOUS FOR HER GROCERY PACKING. PEOPLE ACTUALLY TOLD //OTHER PEOPLE// ABOUT ME AND THEY WOULD ALL MAKE A PILGRIMAGE TO MY CASH REGISTER, OFFERING PRAYERS AND SUPPLICATIONS OF APPEASEMENT ("HONEY, YOU'RE JUST ABOUT THE BEST BAG PACKER THIS WORLD'S EVER SEEN!") AS I CREATED AN INVINCIBLE PLASTIC GROCERY BAG BY USING TWO CEREAL BOXES FOR MY NON-PERISHABLE FOOD MASONRY STRUCTURE.)

A tiny path cuts through the stacks of boxes, books and jars from the backroom's door to the opposite side of the room, the patio door. On either side hidden curses, brittle bones and empty bottles of booze sit silently, collecting dust, waiting to be reunited with the calm darkness beneath our double bed. We have the new wallpaper (AN ABANDONED GRAVEYARD BACKING INTO A HAUNTED FOREST), now we just need to be up at the right time to strip the old wallpaper down, thoroughly wash the walls, room and furniture, hoist up the new wallpaper and put the jigsaw puzzle of our bedroom back together.

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So sometime last year (or the year before?) I glanced away from my computer monitor and went "BABY, DO YOU WANT AN ANTIQUE CEREMONIAL INDIAN SWORD?" to Italics. Normally I don't bother asking - especially if I'm considering getting the item in question as a gift - but "swords" and "daggers" hang on a very precarious line of AWESOME and HOLY SHIT, LAME.

(Antique knives - especially ones specifically created for butchering - garner an automatic "YES, PLZ!" from me (don't EVEN get me started if the handle's made of bone, horn or antler), but due to overexposure to horrifically shit fantasy swords, daggers and axes my inclination to collect anything longer than a plain knife (or a pair of scissors) is practically non-existent.)

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It was listed with its original scabboard, came with a price tag of £10.00 (I think?) and had two beautifully engraved Islamic-like floral patterns stretching across the length of the blade. I saw it and thought "IT'S A SWORD, WHICH IS KIND'VE GAY AND LAME, BUT IT'S A CEREMONIAL SWORD AND IT COMES WITH A SHEATH AND THE ENGRAVED DESIGNS ARE KIND'VE SORT'VE NICE AND IT'S NOT LIKE THERE ARE MALFORMED HUMAN SKULLS OR A HOWLING WOLF STUCK TO THE HANDLE..." but I couldn't reach a final decision, so I asked Italics what he thought.

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Finding it perfectly acceptable - which was my original hunch - we snagged it for its opening bid. (<- MUST'VE NOT BEEN FANTASY/GOTH ENOUGH FOR OTHER SWORD COLLECTORS. "WHAT, NO SCREAMING DEMON SKULL? NO THANKS.")

To the left of the sword and gutted futon are my retired Black Goddess heels. They were my very first stilettos - black satin with golden Asian dragons - bought at a vintage shop for $15.00 when I was a pre-med student at the University of Arkansas.

One of the straps snapped during a particularly debauched New Year's Eve celebration (which was TOTALLY unplanned; who seriously eats a 4-5 course Chinese meal and then pops a bunch of ecstasy immediately after and listens to Sigue Sigue Sputnik while partying their way into the new year? US, NATURALLY) rendering them completely useless, but the witch in me insists that they're still useful for SOMETHING so they've been living under the bed since.

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I have a retarded thing for boxes. Little boxes that preferably fit into larger boxes; a weird sort of forgotten drawer archeology. When I clean I usually rediscover one or two, and opening them up is like stumbling across an entirely new world perfectly contained in a tiny space no larger than three or four inches.

The contents always look magic; an unspoken spell, a quiet blessing. It's okay to paw through the collection of seemingly random objects, to turn them in your hands and remember their origins, but it seems almost...sacrilegious...to remove something. Even though I don't entirely see it, everything is there for a reason - it makes sense to the Universe - and by fucking with it I ultimately fuck with something in perfect harmony and balance.

(This Ace of Spades box contains pink ribbon from an antique table linen purchase (for altar use), an Ebay business card which has a part of my infected tonsil I coughed up (taped to the card; a gift for Italics - "I FOUGHT THIS WAR, YOU DON'T HAVE TO") after coming home from the hospital, a handmade cloth bone from a friend, a piece of sea glass, a toy truck that came out of a Christmas cracker, a ceramic chili charm bought for Papa {Ghede}, some UK change, a snail shell, a hoop earring found when walking in town (there was a period, a few years back, where I ran into "broken circles" daily), a bee charm sitting onto of a Pazuzu pendant (bought from the seller whose business card now contains a portion of my tonsil), an Asian dragon from a friend, a sea shell from the North Sea, a communist propaganda looking button and a set of plastic tires from a non-existent toy.)

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OH, GOD, IF I ONLY LABELED EVERYTHING THE SECOND IT CAME INTO THIS GODDAMN HOUSE. I think - THINK! - the pair of dirty ass rocks forced into the first glass jar on the left might be from the "grave" outside. (Last year around this time they dug up the road - smack dab in the middle of the crossroads we're perched on - and just before they sealed up the hole I threw in a homemade witch bottle, but also stole some earth and rocks for future witchcraft.)

I'm not really a rocks'n'feathers sort've witch, but both still manage to find their way into this house. Behind the pair of crossroads rocks are a collection of feathers (crows, rooks, magpies, wood pigeon) found when walking to and from the cemetery, and behind the feathers are my collection of OUTSIDE BONES.

("Outside bones" = the weathered, whitened remains of offerings I made from the previous year. Throughout the year the bones get kicked around by visiting wildlife until it's time for a YARD CLEANUP. When a yard cleanup happens I round up all the bones I can find and add them to my growing collection. Eventually I'll clean them and use them for divination; they were offered to the spirits and ancestors as gifts, consecrated by nature and the weather, stirred, moved and chewed on by wildlife and, after all of that, still managed to return to the hand that gave them away - SOUNDS PRETTY MAGIC TO ME, YO.)

Behind my OUTSIDE BONES (I DON'T KNOW WHY IT REQUIRES CAPS, BUT IT DOES) is Bee's jar of honey. (We associate Bee, our pet ray who passed away last year, with bumblebees and honeybees so more than ever there's a loving focus on the local nectar gatherers. Last year we became members of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and spent the warmer months learning and identifying visiting bumblebees, and researching what plants, flowers and trees we should be growing to encourage Bee to come back home.)

That bone sitting by itself? I can't remember what it is, specifically, but I know it's a half-completed gift for a friend. (It was one of Chippy's bones which he decided to give away. <- DEMONS ALSO GET A WARM FUZZY GLOW OF HAPPINESS BY SHARING.) I bought the sunflower egg cup for myself since it looked like the PERFECT vessel to soak seeds in (I submerge my seeds in water and then cover them with something larger so they sit in darkness for a day or two; it results in a better germination rate) and I'm drawing a COMPLETE blank where the two rocks behind the egg cup came from, or what the fuck I was planning to do with them.

(WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I NEED TO //LABEL EVERY-FUCKING-THING THAT COMES INTO THIS GODDAMN HOUSE//.)

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Holy shit, where do I START? In the mess of bottles, jars, containers, tins, mugs and tupperware are:

Graveyard dirt from a grave in the St. Nicholas Kirkyard (ALEX FULLERTON, DRUGGIST), a jar of preserved baby octopuses given to Tentacle Monster as a Christmas gift (I haven't exactly figured out what to do with these yet), a ceramic jar filled with a shea salve, a coffee mug which I still need to fill and bury at Papa's grave in the local cemetery (when pinching some dirt off his grave I unearthed an old flower container which I took with the promise of reburying something in return), what's left of this year's bridal honey (made during Spring / Great Rite / Sacred Marriage / Easter / Hieros Gamos celebrations), dog beer (an offering for Chippy), an empty metal canister for paska/babka baking (paska/babka are traditionally more pannetone-like; more tall than round, and to get that shape you need to bake them in cylinder containers - OH, WAIT, I HAVE A PICTURE (I FORGOT!)), an empty Grand Marnier bottle (kept so I can make a proper witch bottle), an unopened jar of "BONE SUCKIN' BBQ SAUCE" bought for Papa, a bottle of hot sauce given to me by a friend, an empty rum bottle I'm supposed to fill with graveyard dirt and keep under the bed (I DON'T BOTHER ASKING; I JUST DO WHAT I'M TOLD), a coffee jar filled with medicinal bath salts I'm curing for Italics (clove and mint oils with olive oil and rose petals), an empty Amaretto bottle which I've since decanted the curing bath salts into (in preparation of giving as a Christmas gift), a bottle of plant fertilizer, a treasured jar of the sweetest, most syrup-y balsamic vinegar, ever, sent by a friend who lives in Italy, Papa's bottle of Hennessy (PAPA GETS RUM //AND// HENNESSY!) and a sealed container of some homemade incense specifically made for Papa (oh, God, don't ask because I SERIOUSLY can't remember what I put in it other than dried chilies, graveyard dirt, rum, a drop of urine, sexual fluids, coffee and whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time).

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A pair of feet from a male blackbird, and the remains of a crow.

I remember finding both; the blackbird was lying flattened in the middle of the road on the way to the cemetery (I clipped the feet off and carefully placed the malformed body in the ivy hedge (my Native American grandfather's a holy man, and he taught us to leave dead birds in trees and bushes)), and the crow had already begun decomposing in a cow field we were cutting through.

Since it was too far gone to carry to the cemetery and back home I left it hidden beneath a discarded ottoman in the ruined church adjacent to the pasture we were cutting through. (The property which owns the church - an old manor, complete with an abandoned walled garden - is currently being used as a nursing home, and, for whatever reason, they dump old furniture and garbage in what used to be a small chapel.)

A year later my crow was reduced to a pile of bones, and year after THAT someone finally made the effort to clean up the church and the area surrounding it. So now I have two jars filled with one crow - including a perfectly immaculate skull - and a clean ruined church to have outside sex in.

(YAY FOR NO LONGER RUNNING THE RISK OF CONTRACTING TETANUS FROM RUSTY ASS WHEELCHAIRS, BOO FOR GETTING A URINARY TRACT INFECTION AFTER HAVING SEX ON A SKANKY MATTRESS RIGHT NEXT TO THE CHURCH. <- OKAY, OKAY IT WASN'T THE MATTRESS; IT WAS HAVING THE START OF A UTI BUT, DESPITE IT, HAVING SEX ANYWAY, AND THEN NOT MOPPING UP THE JIZZ IMMEDIATELY AFTER.)

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Way in the back (to the left) are Papa's bottles of "Bone Suckin' BBQ Sauce" and hot sauce. To the right - in the three jam jars - are the remains of a black bird (feet) and crow (the skull was so large it needed a jar for itself). In the "DO NOT EAT, DO NOT SMOKE, POISON" container is shredded datura, sent to me by a friend in Finland.

There's an empty bottle of Strega behind the datura (ritually consumed during that debauched New Year's Eve party where my Black Goddess stilettos broke), and an empty bottle of Hennessy. (I CAN'T GET RID OF TINY LIQUOR BOTTLES, THEY'RE LIKE A MAGIC PROJECT JUST WAITING TO HAPPEN. IT'S SO EASY TO PICTURE THEM FILLED WITH SOMETHING - DIRT, INCENSE, HERBAL SALT - AND DECORATED WITH CHARMS AND PIECES OF BONE.)

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Antique "witch" hairpins won on Ebay. I don't know anything about the magical workings of hairpins, but my gut feeling is any mundane object you can twist, bend, break or distort is good for SOMETHING (whether hexing, healing, bonding or separating) - especially if it has WITCH stamped across it. I used a few of the pins when I created an impromptu witch bottle last year to throw into the "grave" created when workers dug up the crossroads in front of the house to fix a broken water pipe.

Full Moon of the Dead

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A full moon rising over my El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) kitchen altar.

Fet Ghede, 2008

My problem's always been with moderation (and not even in (anti)socially accepted "cool" ways). Drugs and alcohol aren't my weakness; going OVERBOARD by expending more energy and effort than necessary is. "Simple", "easy" and "quick" aren't in the forefront of my vocabulary until I'm stressed out, strung out and on the verge of an autistic breakdown. (<- USUALLY INVOLVES FRUSTRATED TEARS, NOT UNLIKE THE TERRIBLE TWOS.)

When two sabbats and/or holidays back into one another I know - despite planning for BOTH - that it's only a matter of time before one leaves the Thunderdome victorious. (TWO SABBATS ENTER, ONE SABBAT LEAVES.) In other words, out of the two religious dates I plan to simultaneously observe, one will eventually garner major emphasis and the other becomes discreetly assimilated into the first (although it's still reflected in ritual and celebration to some degree).

Halloween and Fet Ghede are perfect examples of two major festivals riding each others nuts. Both are crazy important for me (with Halloween welcoming back the Divine Female/Black Goddess, and Fet Ghede welcoming home the (now dead) Divine Male/Papa), but both require exceptional amounts of effort and due to THAT fact I've never managed to celebrate both to my idealized standards.

Samhain requires nearly a month of planning. The Halloween boxes need to be unearthed, and the various altars created. Pumpkins need to be purchased and carved. Music playlists need to be created, ceremonial outfits need to be planned and all of the intoxicants and entheogens need to be sorted. The entire house has to be cleaned (including the bedroom; washing away the Bride to welcome the Whore), certain rituals need to be performed (the changing of the guard, our biannual haircuts) and a magic supper (usually homemade soup and bread) needs to be made.

On the day itself I need to prepare myself, the house, the ritual room and Italics. I brush, floss and choke on mouthwash until my teeth gleam. In a steam bath I massage extra virgin olive oil into my skin and shave my legs, underarms and bikini area. I rub myself down with a homemade sugar and honey scrub to a ridiculous degree (behind ears, the soles of my feet and between my fingers and toes) before turning on the shower to thoroughly wash myself and my hair.

Eyebrows get plucked, my hair gets dried (and set in curlers) and I then spend over an hour in the bathroom - with a glass carving board sitting on top of the sink to create a square ledge for my brushes and jars - applying make-up. Later on in the day/night - just before taking our first MDMA pill (<- A PURER FORM OF ECSTASY) - I'll get dressed in my ritual outfit, take the curlers out and style my hair.

That? That's just me getting ready; one thing out of thousands that need to be accomplished that day. (I'll spare you from what I do to the house, the room and to Italics before the ceremony begins.) Preparing for the Samhain/Halloween ritual requires a tremendous amount of planning, effort and energy - all of which doesn't even take into account the tremendous amounts of effort and energy needed to actually PERFORM the ritual (or put yourself in the right frame of mind to undertake such a serious role).

The problem with celebrating Halloween the way we want to - taking copious amounts of drugs (<- MDMA, POT, MUSHROOMS, POT, ALCOHOL, POT, NITROUS AND, YOU GUESSED IT, EVEN MORE POT) and having ecstatic, debauched sex all night into early morning (<- WE'VE EASILY GONE FOR NINE HOURS) - leaves us pretty wrung out for Fet Ghede.

When you spend the entire night of the 31st pissing in ritual bowls, sexually taunting and teasing your familiars and helpers, having anal, oral and vaginal sex, anointing each other in oils (and alcohol) and assuming the role of the Black Goddess you're going to wake up to three things the morning after:

1.) A stiff jaw which refuses to open for anything wider than a straw.
2.) A happy, but thoroughly exhausted body.
3.) The unholy mess you managed to create the night before.

November 1st, then, is spent laughing about the night before while cleaning the mess up, occasionally complaining about any stiffness and/or soreness experienced. Not much gets done due to the innate need to "keep it easy" so the house gets straightened up and the rest of the waking day/night is spent having more sex or relaxing in front of the TV.

Rather than being better, November 2nd (Fet Ghede) is actually worse - the happy MDMA buzz that was still influencing you on November 1st has finally worn off and you're suddenly aware of how physically (and mentally) exhausted you are. Thanks to the serotonin floodgates of Halloween you suddenly find yourself with a serotonin deficit leaving you irritable, cranky, moody and unmotivated (<- DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH MDMA YOU TOOK) - not exactly an awesome frame of mind to be in while attempting to celebrate the resurrected spirit of the Divine Male. (OR, LOL, RATHER FITTING IF YOU'RE A WOMAN CELEBRATING THE DIVINE MALE. <- HA HA!)

The problem with Samhain is that it requires all of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual attention. Fet Ghede - at least for me - demands physical and mental exertion more than anything else. (The festival is the first meal of thanksgiving we have during the Dark year, it's the WELCOME HOME, PAPA! feast. I set up an altar for him and create - from scratch - a three course "southern" dinner and we get terrifically stoned (and drunk) while eating and watching God-fucking-awful movies that only Papa could like (i.e., White Chicks).)

If you've never created a multiple course meal solely by yourself for a crowd of folk let me assure you - without my typical Aries exaggeration - IT'S A LOT OF HARD FUCKING WORK. Between planning the meal, shopping for it, creating it and executing everything perfectly so there's no scorched food or delays between courses requires a stupid amount of concentration, motivation and good mood - three things I typically DON'T have two days after a heavy night of exalting the Black Goddess.

Last year we were struck down by a debilitating case of influenza mid-October. Thanks to our ability to only celebrate Halloween/Samhain during a very specific time frame (<- WHEN THE IN-LAWS GO ON VACATION FOR TWO WEEKS LEAVING US ALONE IN THE HOUSE) we never managed to haul out the boxes to create our seasonal altars. For the first time since we began exercising our own unique brand of spirituality and beliefs, the Black Goddess wasn't welcomed home and I was devastated.

(OH, THERE WERE LOTS AND LOTS OF TEARS, LOTS OF FLU-TINGED TANTRUMS AND UNEARTHLY HOWLS OF INCONSOLABLE DESPAIR...OR SOMETHING.)

The ONLY positive from all of that negative? Fet Ghede finally had its (his?) day out of Halloween's shadow. Despite the presence of the in-laws (I normally don't leave any sort of altar when my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, is home since the last time I left an altar out he threw garbage onto one of my offering plates) I brazenly created a quick'n'simple altar in the communal lounge for Papa due to the special circumstances (2008 election year, Papa had some V. SRS investment) and it sat - for all the members in the house to see - from Halloween to November 5th (the day after the election).

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2008's Fet Ghede altar was EXCEPTIONALLY low-key for me. (THIS IS ABOUT AS BASIC AS IT GETS, FOLKS.)

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Papa's altar (and doll) was in perfect position to "watch" TV during election night as we ate our celebratory Fet Ghede feast.

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Despite the lack of complexity I'm sure the Fet Ghede altar spread was more than enough voodoo for my in-laws.

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Some of Papa's favorite things sitting on top of my ballot envelope. (<- I TRADED MY VOTE FOR A PROVERBIAL "GET OUT OF JAIL FOR FREE" CARD. PAPA GOT TO VOTE, I GOT A GOLDEN TICKET.)

On Fet Ghede we bake Pan de Muerto for our ancestors and loved ones recently departed. Unlike the previous year (2006), our skull sculpting wasn't up to scratch (I'M BLAMING THE FLU) so you'll have to excuse our embarrassing foray into bread shaping (something we're usually A LOT better at).

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Last year we lost our Busy Bee (one of our pet rats). It was particularly hard to lose Bee since it was immediately after Hezbollah's death. (Bee always acted strangely - "OH, BEE'S JUST BEING BEE!" - but she began exhibiting even stranger behavior after her roommate, Crazy Rat (aka Hezbollah), passed away. It turned out that our Bee had "a brain thing" (tumor) and quickly succumbed to the disease within weeks of Hezbollah passing.)

Bee's FOR REAL name was Sloop John B (Hezbollah was Rhonda and Jigga was Barbara Ann). Due to being introduced into the family in the later stages of Hezbollah and Jigga's life she often got referred to as "the Baby", which eventually shortened to "Bee".

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Hezbollah got sick out of nowhere (which is typical of rats due to their high metabolism rate). Despite knowing it was her time to go I flexed my magic muscles and attempted my first ever stab at healing. Despite all odds, she lived, but only just. After several weeks of unexpected ups and gut wrenching downs we finally lost her, and I'm 100% sure the only reason why she lasted as long as she did was because of our little magic sessions.

Crazy Rat's favorite movie was Hitman (IT'S A HUGE LONG STORY THAT, ONE DAY, I MAY TELL), so it was only fitting that her individual pan de muerto reflected her taste in cinema.

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I remember being EXCEPTIONALLY frustrated with the ancestral loaf of pan de muerto because, going into the oven, it was PERFECTLY skull shaped. Unfortunately, it entered looking one way, but left looking entirely different. The cloves originally gave it a cutesy jack-o-lantern appearance, but once baked the clove studs lost their Halloween charm. (SIGH.) It tasted fantastic, though - I added a little bit of rum to the orange-sugar glaze before brushing it over the bread, and added just a wee taste of the marmalade glaze made for the ham.

Last year we feasted like we had never feasted before. Dinner was a three course meal spread throughout election night. (Instead of celebrating on the 2nd we postponed the festival until the 4th.) We started with a traditional southern soup - Brunswick stew - and carried on to an eight dish dinner (marmalade glazed ham, roast potatoes, roast squash, crabcakes, hoppin' John, pan de muerto, buttermilk rolls and homemade lemon butter dip (for the crabcakes)) and finished with a homemade pumpkin pie.

Despite wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving (in 2008) I never got a chance to, so Fet Ghede stepped in - unbeknownst to me at the time - and provided us with our thanksgiving meal, albeit earlier in the month than I'm accustomed to. (<- TRADITIONALLY, IN THE USA, THANKSGIVING IS CELEBRATED THE LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER. AND TYPICALLY IT'S TURKEY, NOT HAM, HEH.)

I won't even want go into detail how much food I managed to pack away that night because it just might make me sick to even consider. (NORMALLY I CAN EASILY EAT FOR TWO, BUT, THAT NIGHT, I WAS EATING FOR PAPA, CHIPPY AND ALL OF OUR ANCESTORS.)

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The marmalade glazed ham in all of its glory.

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The marmalade glazed ham in all of its glory.

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Left to right: roasted acorn squash, carved ham and homemade crabcakes.

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Homemade crabcakes.

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More marmalade ham and crabcakes.

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Roasted squash and ham. (<- THE DAMN SPICES - CINNAMON AND NUTMEG - GOT EFFING SCORCHED IN THE OVEN, BUT THE SQUASH DIDN'T TASTE BURNED, THANKFULLY.)

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Hoppin' John. (A traditional beans and rice dish.)

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Roasted potatoes and roasted squash (again).

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Our place settings with the pan de muerto to the left, the homemade buttermilk rolls to the right and the lemon butter dip (for the crabcakes) in the center.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Dessert: homemade sweet potato pie with a spicy streusel topping.

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

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Papa's place setting for the Fet Ghede feast (it was right next to his altar space).

This year we DID manage to celebrate the return of the Black Goddess Ms. Graveyard Dirt style (with a LITTLE less intoxicants than usual since it's been A VERY LONG TIME (<- NEARLY TWO YEARS!) since we "partied" due to my broken stomach valve) which left us out of commission for Fet Ghede.

Although considering last year's effort - flu and all - I'm sure Papa doesn't mind TOO much for this year's laidback atmosphere. (<- ESPECIALLY SINCE I PROMISED EVERYONE THAT I'D DO THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR //FOR SURE//. <- I AM TOTALLY, TOTALLY READY FOR SWEET POTATO CHEESECAKE WITH A MAPLE PECAN GLAZE.)

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.)

Be(d)side Papa

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A Lot of Food

If there's no obvious holiday decorations, ornate altar spread in the lounge, or sheepskin rug and rocket bucket in the backroom, how do you know we're on vacation?

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Food. A lot of food.

(A lot of food of the likes you've never seen and probably don't want to see and probably shouldn't see after a day or two of mingling and standing at room temperature. <- LOOK, IF YOU'VE GOT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE TOGETHER WHERE EVERYTHING RUNS FLUIDLY INTO ONE ANOTHER LIKE EFFORTLESS MOVEMENT IN GOLDEN WATERS AS HEAVENLY CHOIRS SING, CONGRATULATIONS. SOME OF US - THE LESSER EVOLVED - ARE STILL TRYING TO IRON A FEW KINKS OUT. <- ONE OF MINE BEING "THE DISPOSAL OF RITUALLY OFFERED FOOD AND BEVERAGES IN A TIMELY MANNER.")

(AND WHEN I MEAN "IN A TIMELY MANNER" I MEAN BEFORE IT BEGINS WITHERING AWAY LIKE MOLD ENCRUSTED ASTRONAUT FOOD AND SMELLING LIKE FERMENTING CAULIFLOWER MINERAL WATER.)

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After a day or two shit begins to pile up, and by day three our speaker/stereo cabinet begins to look like the table of a buffet enthusiast who's prepared to exploit every single word in the promise of "all you can eat." (One of my greatest sexual fantasies? Italics, unlimited pot and a booth at Warsaw Inn. I AM THAT BUFFET ENTHUSIAST, AND I DON'T WEAR UNDERWEAR, REALLY, SO I'LL BE MORE THAN COMFORTABLE WHEN MY WAISTLINE'S EXPANDING.)

Papa (the Baron Samedi altar doll) doesn't usually "head" the table, but, somehow, his ass managed to park itself right next to the food. I love his GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON LOOKING RESOLUTE WHILE CROSSING THE DELAWARE expression in the picture below, if you look above (at the first picture) you'll see the target of his grim, fixed gaze - the dessert plate.

(FOOD. IT'S HIS JOB (OR AT LEAST WILL BE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS), AND HE TAKES HIS JOB V. SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU.)

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On schedule

You do realize there are solar eclipse sabbat cakes you should be baking right now - the day of the solar eclipse - otherwise you're never going to get it done, right?

(Happy year of the Earth (<- chthonic) Ox (<- bull!), baby.) (Chthonic bull? Fuck me, this //is// going to be a "crazy, but fun" year; Negro knows what he's talking about.)

(LOL @ CHTHONIC BULL, BTW, AFTER SPILLING THE BULL'S BLOOD IN THE WHEAT FIELD LAST YEAR. <- LOCAL FARMER OWES US -BIG TIME- FOR THIS YEAR'S HARVEST.)

Nasty Ass Tobacco Spit

ADD "WART" TO THE LIST OF AFFLICTING GIFTS I'VE LOVINGLY BESTOWED UPON MY FATHER-IN-LAW. (I TOLD YOU WITCH'S SPIT IS VENOMOUS.) (LOLOLOLOL! NASTY ASS TOBACCO SPIT. OH, PAPA, YOU DO MAKE ME LOL, <3!)

She Spits, She Scores

My father-in-law? He never learns. (And now he's walking in slippers filled with graveyard dirt and his daughter-in-law's fury. <- OH, I WAS SO ANGRY I HAD TO SPIT -FIVE TIMES- BEFORE FUCKING HITTING THE SHOE.)

I've been growing tobacco, from seed, for Papa. Since Imbolc (LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL, I KNOW, I KNOW! I THOUGHT IT WAS AN -APPROPRIATE- TIME!) I've tended to his plants, and when they got hardy enough to withstand the "greenhouse" (where Mr. Awesome, my father-in-law, keeps his plants and trees) they were transported outside.

Since mid-May my/our/his plants have been happily growing without any interference - ANY INTERFERENCE UNTIL YESTERDAY WHEN I FOUND ONE OF MY THREE CONTAINERS SITTING OUT-THE-FUCKING SIDE, EXPOSED TO THE ELEMENTS AND MUCH COLDER AIR (WE'VE ALREADY EXPERIENCED FROST AND SNOW IN THIS REGION OF SCOTLAND), WITH THE TIP OF ONE OF THE PLANTS INEXPLICABLY CUT OFF.

If I hadn't gone outside to make an offering to ANCESTORS, FRIENDS, and HELPERS I would've never seen the container - THE CONTAINER WITH MY ONCE SUPER HUGE TOBACCO PLANT WHICH I WAS HOPING TO GET SEEDS FROM (BUT NOT ANYMORE SINCE HE CUT OFF THE FLOWERS THAT WOULD'VE PRODUCED THE SEEDS) - sitting on the patio because it's not like he ASKED ME IF HE COULD DO IT or even INFORMED ME OF WHAT HE HAD DONE. I was livid, and then so frustrated that all I could do was cry because there's nothing I CAN DO.

The plants? They'll either survive or they won't. I can't do anything about that now. The tip of the plant with the flowers for seed? Cut off. I also can't do anything about that now. Complain, shout, threaten, or demand an apology or at least an explanation as to why he was still touching and breaking and killing and ruining my things after being told so many times for over seven fucking years not to touch my things (or, at least, JUST ASK ME BEFORE YOU TOUCH MY THINGS)?

Or why a near seventy year old man can't seem to remember the one simple thing I ask from him (i.e., PLEASE ASK ME BEFORE YOU TOUCH OR THROW OUT ANYTHING THAT'S MINE.)? (One, simple thing that EVEN A CHILD WITH LEARNING DIFFICULTIES CAN UNDERSTAND.) Or why, when I confront him after he's threw away part of an Anniversary gift I was working on for Italics, or my mother's ashes, or -

- actually, let's not even start with the "ORs". In fact, I'm totally done with this entry before my blood pressure rises any more and I find myself screaming at five in the fucking morning because one of the hardest fucking things I've ever had to deal with in my entire fucking life is living with someone who has told me, face on, that they will decide the inherit value of an object on -my- behalf and will act accordingly without consulting me.

I am completely, hopelessly bound in a situation where there is someone else in my life who doesn't have to live at the standard he expects everyone else to live at, and that it's easier - for the entire family - to let him act out and ruin other people's lives because it's -less tense and stressful- than to reprimand him for things like THROWING AWAY ASHES THAT BELONGED TO YOUR FUCKING MOTHER.

HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT'S WORSE THAN HAVING ASHES THAT BELONGED TO YOUR MOTHER GET THROWN AWAY? THE PERSON WHO DID IT NEVER APOLOGIZING TO YOU FOR IT, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE TOLD WHAT THEY HAD DONE. (IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS NOW, MR. AWESOME, AND MY MOTHER AND I ARE STILL WAITING.)

(YEAH. -THAT'S- WHAT I LIVE WITH, AND HE'S FUCKING LUCKY THAT I DIDN'T ASK FOR HIS BALLS BECAUSE -I ALMOST ALWAYS GET WHAT I FUCKING WANT-. <- AND HE, MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD, SHOULD KNOW THAT BY NOW.)

Recipe for a Handjob

I was thumbing through some of my old notes and came across this passage and couldn't help but LOL AT MYSELF (because my PAST SELF still manages to amuse my CURRENT and FUTURE SELF):

LORD, I STILL HAVE THAT BOTTLE OF PERFUME AND BOTTLE OF SALT -SOMEWHERE-. (I THINK IT'S IN THE NEGRO'S DRAWER WHICH MEANS IT COULD LITERALLY BE -ANYWHERE IN THIS UNIVERSE- KNOWING HOW THAT MESS LOOKS.)

(IF HE THINKS HE AIN'T GOING TO CLEAN UP THAT MESS WHEN HE COMES HOME HIS DISTINCTLY BLACK, BONY ASS HAS ANOTHER THING COMING. <- THERE ARE PROS AND CONS LIVING WITH AN ANAL WHITE WOMAN WHO HATES CLUTTER, AND HE KNOWS IT. <- LOL @ THE SO MANY JOKES THERE.)

Buy Me Things

Papa is an opportunistic bastard. When you have your guard down he'll slip in during that second when you're too far past the threshold to go "OH, HEY, HEY NOW! LET'S NOT BE HAVING NONE OF THAT BUSINESS HERE, PLEASE!". He waits until you've crossed the point of no return, and then invites himself over (invites himself in?).

Sometimes he slides in for a partial ride, and sometimes I discover, afterwards, a skull or skeleton inexplicably staring me in the face when there wasn't a skull or skeleton there before. ("WAIT, HOW DID THIS GET HERE AGAIN?") FOR INSTANCE (OH, LORD, YOU KNEW THIS WAS GOING SOMEWHERE DEEP DOWN INSIDE!), FOR EXAMPLE, FOR THIS ONE SITUATION CIRCUMSTANCE I GIVE YOU...TODAY!

Today? Today I pulled my brand new BUY ME THINGS t-shirt over my demi-cupped tits and proudly showed off my newest gift from Italics to Italics. And then, approximately 15 minutes later, we were both on our knees, stoned, and he was fucking me in the ass against my computer chair while the Commodore's song Nightshift was playing in MP3 form. (THE SAD PART OF ALL OF THIS? I WASN'T EVEN TRYING. (COME TO THINK OF IT, THAT'S ALWAYS THE SAD PART.))

(LOL, ACTUALLY, THAT'S A SORT'VE FUNNY STORY WITHIN ITSELF! I WAS ALL "WHAT SONG DO YOU THINK WOULD BE GOOD FOR BUTT SEX?" AND HE WAS ALL "I DON'T KNOW" SO I THUMBED THROUGH MY 80S COLLECTION AND WAS ALL "SOMETHING, YOU KNOW, NOT CRAZY BUT MORE FUNNY" AND KNEW THAT THAT DIDN'T MEAN PURPLE RAIN, OR, UHM, THE OTHER ONE I SUGGESTED WHICH MADE ITALICS LAUGH AND MADE ME GO "OH, RIGHT, THAT PROBABLY FALLS IN THE "CRAZY" CATEGORY, DOESN'T IT?" (DAMN MEMORY) SO I WENT "WHAT ABOUT WE GOT THE BEAT?" AND HE WAS ALL, LIKE, "ISN'T THAT MORE NITROUS MUSIC?" AND I WAS "YES, TOTALLY, 100%! WHAT ABOUT I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW?" AND HE LAUGHED AND I LAUGHED AND WE BOTH LAUGHED AND WHEN SETTING IT UP I NOTICED THAT WINAMP LOADED NIGHTSHIFT AGAIN BUT I DECIDED TO -NOT- REMOVE THE SONG AFTER HITTING "REPEAT" BECAUSE ME KNOWING ME I KNOW HOW QUICKLY I COME DURING ANAL SEX AND I KNOW I AIN'T GOING TO LAST AS LONG AS TIFFANY DOES IN I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW. (OR, LOL, SO I THOUGHT!) SO WE ACTUALLY STARTED ON I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW BUT BECAUSE I TOOK SO GODDAMN LONG WE ENDED UP FINISHING DURING NIGHTSHIFT. ("GONNA BE SOME SWEET SOUNDS, COMING DOWN ON THE NIGHTSHIFT...") SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT HOW I'M NOT REALLY TRYING EVEN THOUGH IT MAY APPEAR THAT WAY? I'M JUST A VICTIM (OF MYSELF, APPARENTLY).)

What's the first thing I see after collapsing into my computer chair? Four top hatted skulls and three crows staring at me (at eye level):

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See what I mean about SKULLS and SKELETONS inexplicably appearing? I hadn't planned on having anal sex, let alone against the computer chair next to the window. But the next thing I know I'M BUTT BEEF EXTREME (just think of "butt beef" as a pet name for the act in this house; kind've like how you give your favorite child a cutesy nickname...or something) AND MOVING IN TIME WITH THE COMMODORES IN FRONT OF A BLACK CLOTH ALTAR WITH GREY SKULLS AND WHITE CROWS. (I THINK what must've happened was me thinking that I would quickly pull my new FOUR OF A KIND tee on after sex to see how it fit and slung it, all absently, over my computer chair for safe keeping. AND THE REST HAS BEEN SLOPPY RECORDED IN PREVIOUS PARTS OF THIS PARTIALLY CAPS LOCKED ENTRY.)

Sneaky bastard. (I hope he got my "message". (LOL! "BUY ME THINGS"! LOL!)

About a week back I heard that René Cigler from StrangeMonster.Com passed away. The name stuck with me for a day or two but I couldn't remember why it seemed so familiar until I remembered, long, long, ago, that I had bookmarked (DOG EARED?) a hoodie she had designed.

When poking around Strange Monster I came across FOUR OF A KIND and was immediately sold. I mean, HOW COULD I NOT BE - it was on -SALE-! It was BLACK and had THE ACE OF SPADES and SKULLS and PAPA and CROWS and IT WAS ON SALE! So I ditched the hoodie (it wasn't there, anyway), and wound up with an unexpected, 100% out-of-the-blue purchase.

My FOUR OF A KIND t-shirt arrived the day before my first appointment with the specialist. I felt sad for a second, handling something so obviously death related, knowing that the only reason why I was holding it in the first place was because of René's unexpected death, and then it felt...I don't know...right.

And fall.

It felt like fall had come, and it felt like Papa was letting me know that he's getting ready to come home for winter. (I've missed you, Old Man.)

The Great Temptation

Sometimes Mr. Awesome just leaves things sitting out. Like sweaty socks, mangy underwear, and, my personal favorite, a cup of coffee that sits uncovered, untouched (SUPPOSEDLY) on the kitchen counter for 12+ hours.

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(IT'S ALMOST LIKE HE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ITALIAN WITCHCRAFT, OR A BASTARDIZED VERSION OF VOODOO, OR HOODOO, OR VODOUN OR WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT WHEN YOU USE GRAVEYARD DIRT FOR NOT SO NICE THINGS. (His loss, right?) IT'S ALMOST LIKE HE'S -DELIBERATELY TEMPTING ME- OUT IN THE FUCKING OPEN.)

You don't even want to know what I did with his suspiciously stained unmentionables during the 25 day summer vacation. (Oh, no, honey, I did. By hand. Suspicious stains and all. On THE fucking day they came hone.) (<- The hand that cleans the streaks out of y-fronts, is the hand that rules the house. And, also, your balls. THANKS FOR THAT, MR. FATHER-IN-LAW!)

(But if you DO want to know then you're in luck. Because I have a story.)

(...and some pictures.)

(So stay tuned.)

The Long Walk

When Bee was younger and her Bok-Bok self I used to say to her “BOK-BOK! YOUR FACE IS SO CUTE THAT I’M GOING TO RIP IT OFF, BEE! I’M GOING TO RIP IT OFF, YES I AM! AND THEN, AFTERWARDS, I’M GOING TO BEAT IT WITH A HAMMER, BOK! WE’RE GOING TO BEAT IT WITH A HAMMER AND FLATTEN IT OUT AND MAKE IT INTO A MASK THAT I CAN WEAR LIKE MICHAEL MYERS, BEE-BEE! I’M GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR FACE TO MAKE A MASK!” and she LOVED it, and would give me THAT LOOK (that satisfied and proud look you get from pets when they realize that you’re sweet talking them) and chuff and look right pleased with the attention. (WELL, HOW MANY RATS DO YOU KNOW THAT HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THEY’RE SO CUTE THAT YOU HAD TO RESTRAIN YOURSELF FROM PEELING OFF THEIR SKIN AND WEARING IT LIKE A MASK? EXACTLY.)

It’s harder to do that now. (I tried the other day, but it wouldn’t stick.) Bee, caught somewhere between living and sleeping, is very nearly comatose now and almost too weak to breathe. Not long after Hezbollah’s death (Bee’s former roommate, aka Crazy Rat, her BFF) she went blind in one eye. I knew something was up, but couldn’t put my finger on it. (YOU KNOW HOW YOU JUST KNOW THESE THINGS WHEN YOU HAVE PETS. YOU JUST KNOW.) That uneasy feeling only became more concrete when “WOMAN, BEE SICK!” boomed (OH, WHEN YOUR SUMERIAN DEMON DOG WHO SOUNDS LIKE ANIMAL FROM THE MUPPETS DECIDES TO CONVERSE WITH YOU WHEN YOU’RE SUSPENDED IN A CONSCIOUS-BARELY CONSCIOUS-ALMOST SUBCONSCIOUS STATE YOU WILL FIND THAT HE HAS A TENDENCY TO BE ALL...BOOMY) through my flashing (HIGH, BUT NOT THAT HIGH, WHICH MADE ME PAUSE AND GO “WOW, I DIDN’T EVEN THINK I WAS HIGH ENOUGH FOR THIS SORT OF THING”) thoughts.

It was so left field, so unexpected, such a non-fucking-sequitur that I automatically knew it was one of two things – I was either really fucking high and making shit up (A PARANOID, OVERREACTING PESSIMIST EVEN SUBCONSCIOUSLY? SWEET!) or it was true, and Bee was a lot sicker than I had imagined. (At the time I had forgotten, but Italics pointed out that both she and Hezbollah had been on antibiotics for a significant time for colds they couldn’t seem to shake, but when you’re not the person administering the medication you have a tendency to sort’ve forget.) I guess, really, it sounded so fucking crazy that it could be true. And, as it turned out nearly a week later, it was true. Bee had gone blind in one eye with no explanation as to how it happened since there weren’t any wounds. The vet told Italics “it could be a brain thing” and when I heard that my stomach dropped to the floor because I knew it WAS instead of IT COULD BE and to know that we’d be back at the same place we were a month ago (with Hezbollah) and have to witness the rapid decline of our last remaining pet…Christ, we had just barely gotten over the Crazy Rat ordeal, you know?

I lost my Bok-Bok Baby (WHO, IN FACT, WAS A GREAT AND TERRIBLE SPACE PIRATE, FEARED FOR HER BRUTAL SAVAGERY AND FOR HER INEXPLICABLE LOVE OF DIRE STRAITS) when she lost her Bok-Bok spring. (It wasn’t a change in disposition or personality, she just lost that gleam that made her BOK-BOK, and it was a very sad thing to witness and realize.) In her place I got my Special Little Flower, my BEE-ZEE-BEE, my Sexy Bumblebee, my Bee. And Bee seemed happy and content, and got to live on the floor ALL OF THE TIME (no other rat we’ve ever had has had the freedom she did) and was let out of the room several times a day for a “walk” (she was allowed supervised expeditions into other areas of the house) and seemed, for the most part, not entirely bothered she was blind in one eye.

But, as the weeks went by, it became more and more obvious that it was, in fact, “a brain thing” and there was nothing we could do other than watch our BEE-ZEE-BEE fade because she’s a rat, and rats have two medical options – take antibiotics (and if they don’t work, they don’t work, the end), or go under the knife (there’s always a good chance they won’t survive the anesthetic). Bee didn’t get either, because there’s no medication for “a brain thing” and neurosurgery hasn’t really advanced in the rodent world.

Our only option with Bee was to make her as comfortable as possible, and to prepare ourselves for the inevitable – the wasting away, the loss of personality, the sleep deprivation, the constant, around-the-clock administration of antibiotics, and pain and allergy medication, the cleaning, the fussing, the preparation of special food that can be easily eaten, the worry, the grief, the angst, and, also, the burst of almost overwhelming resentment knowing that there’s a good possibility that we’ll have to euthanize something that’s become a member of our family by ourselves with our own hands.

(We use nitrous (aka laughing gas) when it’s necessary. When you’re faced with the prospect of watching a beloved pet suffocate to death in front of your own eyes – complete with self-conscious awareness which means they’re panicking while gasping and withering around, and the sounds, Jesus, the sounds they make as their lungs shut down and they can’t breathe, and the looks they give you because they know that in the past you’ve always been able to fix things for them or help them, that you’ve always, always been able to make things better and THEY KNOW THAT and THEY LOOK AT YOU WITH THOSE BEGGING, PLEADING EYES AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR LIFE YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO MAKE IT BETTER OR MAKE IT STOP (EXCEPT FOR ONE THING) – you harden your heart, cling tightly to something deep, down inside of you (“I KNOW THIS IS RIGHT, I KNOW THIS IS RIGHT, I KNOW THIS IS RIGHT..”) and get on with being Death.)

So it’s harder, now, launching into the entire “BOK-BOK! YOUR FACE IS SO CUTE THAT I’M GOING TO RIP IT OFF, BEE! I’M GOING TO RIP IT OFF, YES I AM! AND THEN, AFTERWARDS, I’M GOING TO BEAT IT WITH A HAMMER, BOK! WE’RE GOING TO BEAT IT WITH A HAMMER AND FLATTEN IT OUT AND MAKE IT INTO A MASK THAT I CAN WEAR LIKE MICHAEL MYERS, BEE-BEE! I’M GOING TO RIP OFF YOUR FACE TO MAKE A MASK!” thing, because reality is hitting home today (we’ve both already agreed that if she didn’t pass on her own accord today, that we would have to finally help her along) and I know the long walk from the computer room to the bedroom is going to be very long, and, inevitably, I’ll feel like I betrayed her, somehow, by ending something that’s already half-done.

(BEE, I JUST WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND, IF YOU CAN, THAT I REALLY HATE DOING THIS, AND I FEEL LIKE A PART OF ME DIES EVERY TIME WE HAVE TO “HELP” YOU GUYS. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I AM VERY ANGRY AND SAD THAT THIS HAD TO HAPPEN, AND I’M ALREADY RESENTFUL THAT YOUR TIME WITH US WAS A LOT SHORTER THAN IMAGINED. (THERE WERE SO MANY CHAPTERS LEFT TO ADD TO YOUR STORY, BEE!) AND THAT I LOVED YOU VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY MUCH, BEEBEE, AND YOU’RE THE ONLY ANIMAL I’VE SHARED MY LIFE WITH THAT GOT TO REMAIN BEING MY “BABY” LONG AFTER YOU BECAME MORBIDLY OBESE AND GROWN-UP. BEE-ZEE-BEE, PLEASE DON’T HOLD WHAT I HAVE TO DO AGAINST ME, OKAY? I’LL MAKE YOU A HOMEMADE BOWL OF GRAVY AFTER, I PROMISE.)

The other thing I heard when Chippy told me that Bee was really sick? Papa chimed in and informed me that I’m not going to be happy with what they find when I get diagnostics done. (I finally got a referral to see a specialist regarding the “condition” I’ve been living with for 15+ months, so I’m now waiting for an appointment to get all of the necessary testing done.) At the time I dismissed it, along with the Bee being sick thing, because, seriously, how fucking unfoundedly pessimistic is THAT shit? I finally had to confess about a week back to Italics (I mean, how couldn’t I after the entire Chippy premonition thing?) but followed it up with “BUT THAT COULD MEAN ANYTHING, YOU KNOW? THAT COULD MEAN THAT IT’S VERY, VERY OBVIOUSLY A HERNIA (LIKE WE SAID), AND I’LL JUST GET PISSED OFF WHEN I FINALLY HAVE UNDENIABLE X-RAY PROOF TO STAPLE TO MY GP’S FUCKING FOREHEAD (HE’S NOT ENTIRELY CONVINCED IT IS BECAUSE, STATISTICALLY, I’M TOO “YOUNG”)” because, honestly? I don’t even want to think about it.

Your Ass High?

Sometimes, when I’m half asleep and buzzed, the Old Man starts talking like we’ve been having a conversation all day, dropping all sorts of crack pipe nonsense that makes you go “NEGRO, YOUR ASS HIGH?” (Oh snap! That’s four words! WAIT, WAIT, I’VE COME UP WITH A NEW AND IMPROVED CONFIGURATION THAT ONLY REQUIRES THREE WORDS. (CAN YOU GUESS IT?) Crisis averted!) And when in that hazy state of lucid drowsiness I go with the flow and just entertain his raving black ass, because, really, the crazy shit he’s throwing out of left field is only a puzzle waiting to be decoded. (Effort? Work? WHO THOUGHT EITHER WERE NEEDED TO STAY SHARP AND SUCCEED AT THIS GAME.)

(Admittedly a lot of the “crazy shit” is in the form of poignant commentary on things I’m thinking about, or ideas that catch a significant portion of my attention (A LOT MORE DIFFICULT THAN YOU THINK WHEN YOU’RE REALLY FUCKING HIGH AND ON THE BRINK OF FALLING ASLEEP, IT’S LIKE BEING FORCED TO WATCH 1000 TV CHANNELS – AT LEAST SEVERAL SIMULTANEOUSLY - BUT NOT BEING ALLOWED TO CHANGE THE CHANNELS YOURSELF SO YOU JUMP FROM SHOW TO SHOW AT RANDOM INTERVALS, WITH NO EXPLANATION AT ALL, BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE – WHO YOU DON’T SEE AND DOESN’T EVEN SEEM TO BE AWARE OF YOU - HAS THE FINGER ON THE BUTTON, CONTROLLING EVERYTHING) for a brief second before the next distraction comes tumbling down. Admittedly, times two, that his form of poignant commentary during these fugue states - where the conscious meets the subconscious, and they both work in unity for my emotional, mental, and spiritual well being and progressive growth as an individual - usually involves the words “let”, “black”, “cock”, “me”, “suck”, “ass”, “pussy”, “up”, “fuck”, “Negro”, “in”, “nigger”, “me”, “you”, “why”, and “the”. (SUPER SECRET AWESOME FUN TIP: If you strike out every instance of the use of one of the previously mentioned words, you just might be left with a simple, fragmented sentence. (CAUSE THEY BE ALL EDUCATED NOW.)))

Two or three days ago the Old Man caught me turning over an idea (much like the Rubik’s Cube analogy I used when talking about my grandfather (64 Degrees and Cloudy). He watched me for some time as I studied it from all angles, not saying anything (watching me more than my mental process), and then after I finished completing the thought, or coming to a final decision (because I can’t exactly remember what I was thinking about other than something about MAGIC –

WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! I ACTUALLY REMEMBER! LOL @ HOW WRITING THIS (ARUGABLY RACIST) ENTRY JOGGED MY MEMORY! I had a stunned, really fucking dumbfounded moment after I started mentally revisiting things I’ve done (aka “worked on”, ahem). As I refamiliarized myself with the situations I found I was able to tick almost every one of them off as “HAPPILY EVER AFTER!”, which left me with an eerily high ratio of success. A RATIO SO UNNERVING, SO ILLUMINATING THAT MY ONLY REACTION WAS A COSMIC BILL & TED WHOA.! (It’s the truth! Okay, it was more of an unsure “Uhm...?”. Okay, okay, so it was more like an unsure “Uhmmmmmmmmmm...?” (ONLY RIVALED BY BANGLADESHI DOCTORS!) so there was enough room for something, anything, to feel like they could jump on in and provide any sort of explanation without there being an awkward silence.

PAPA: “BABY GIRL, IT CAUSE YO ASS BE ALLLLL FUCKING...SCIENTIFIC...IN SHIT.”

So, apparently, the secret to my Midas touch is BECAUSE I’M “ALL FUCKING SCIENTIFIC, IN SHIT”. (See? Educated.) Italics’ response was A+ better than mine, but since this is a family friendly journal I’ll refrain from repeating the anecdote due to its use of a stereotypically negative view of the culture he comes from (for comedic purposes). And, really, if I don’t think about the children or take a stand for them, right here, right now, who will?

(KIDS, ONE DAY YOU’LL LEARN YOU CAN BE AS DEROGATORY AS YOU WANT ABOUT ETHNIC STEREOTYPES; JUST AS LONG AS THEY’RE ALL ABOUT YOUR OWN CULTURE. OR, IF YOU’RE SERIOUSLY INVOLVED WITH SOMEONE WHO FINDS IT SEXUALLY AROUSING WHEN YOU’RE BEING DEROGATORY ABOUT THEIR CULTURE/ETHNIC STEREOTYPES. THOSE ARE YOUR TWO CHOICES, SO CHOOSE WELL.)

Exactly.

Wing and a Prayer

Thinking back, now, it seemed so obvious, it seemed so perfect – being instructed to bury an egg beneath the window on nothing more than a wing and a prayer (oh, that time was tragic and epic and the whole “wing and a prayer” sentiment played beautifully in that near final act and is no part, in anyway, an artistic exaggeration or embellishment for my previous bohemian sadness), hoping that, one day, it’d all make sense. Back then, though, the egg sat (Christ, did that fucking egg sit!).

That hard boiled egg sat, nestled in a purple shot glass, from near Fet Ghede (2006) until Ostara (2007) with only a trio of succulents and a handful of Ukrainian newspapers to keep it company. Every fucking day I’d see the damn thing staring blankly at me, making me frustrated that I hadn’t found the fucking time to bury one single goddamn egg like Papa told me to all those weeks and months and days before.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN EASY FUCKING JOB, YOU KNOW? ALL I HAD TO DO WAS BURY ONE GODDAMN HARD BOILED EGG IN SOME DIRT JUST BELOW MY COMPUTER ROOM WINDOW. It was never the right time, or conditions, or I was too busy, or I’d forget, or I just couldn’t be bothered (which, really, is just an accumulation of everything previously listed) and before I knew it March had come on and the egg Papa traded for back in November had become a permanent resident on my intricately carved, yet almost unusable £5.00 middle eastern wooden table.

(“ONLY A FIVER? FOR SERIOUS? ONLY BECAUSE THE TABLE TOP IS COMPLETELY WARPED AND STARTING TO SLIGHTLY ROLL INTO ITSELF? AND BECAUSE THE LEGS ARE UNSTABLE AND SLIGHTLY MISSHAPEN DUE TO “ONE OF A KIND ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP”? OH, AND BECAUSE THE LEGS THAT ARE UNSTABLE AND SLIGHTLY MISSHAPEN DUE TO “ONE OF A KIND ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP” DON’T ACTUALLY FIT INTO THE TABLE TOP THAT IS COMPLETELY WARPED AND STARTING TO SLIGHTLY ROLL INTO ITSELF MAKING EVERYTHING UNBALANCED AND LACKING IN ANY STRUCTURAL CAPABILITY? HELL, WE’RE TAKING THAT FUCKER HOME!”)

After four months it started to smell. Not, like, full on, or very in-your-face noticeable, but something was slightly off. By the time I realized where the very organic scent was coming from a small puddle of liquid had appeared at the very bottom of the shot glass. (I don’t know, I didn’t want to know, I didn’t even bother to look.) I was disgusted, but that statement, surely, could not be fully appreciated unless you knew me completely.

(Long short – way before all of this CSI business became popular I had entered pre-med with the intention of becoming a forensic pathologist; anatomy, dissection, microbiology – loved it, loved it, loved it and excelled in it all savant-style. I’ve butchered animals, fed pets menstrual blood clots, picked apart putrefying road kill, scrubbed the remnants of a friend’s father off a wall, and regularly clean the house toilet without so much as a complaint. I DO GROSS AND SICK, AND I DO IT GOOD BECAUSE, MOSTLY FOR THE MOST PART, IT’S FASCINATING AND WONDERFUL AND TERRIFIC AND MAKES ME FEEL ALIVE AND TALENTED...EXCEPT FOR THE TOILET. I FEEL THAT I COULD REMAIN LIVING AT THIS LEVEL OF ALIVE AND TALENTED WITHOUT HAVING TO CLEAN THE TOILET. (I have surgery hands whose goodness is now only known to liquid eyeliners. LOLOLOLOL, MAYBE SHE’S BORN WITH IT?) With that sort’ve in mind – imagine what would really disgust me. In fact, I don’t even want to think about it...ew.)

But that was when I was depressed. I was Underground, waiting in hopeless limbo for a resurrection that was only supposed to take a few days but took a few months. (It’s easy to get lost down there, and even easier to not find your way back. I GUESS THAT’S WHERE THE BALL OF STRING COMES IN HANDY.) By spring of 2007 I was tired of the whirlpool (which made it even worse since I was the one who originally decided to jump into it, thinking I was one billion percent ready of the consequences because, GEE, I HAD COME ALONG WAY, YOU KNOW? HOW HARD CAN THE ROAD TO A BETTER, MORE COMPLETE PERSON BE?), and in that fed up restlessness I finally did something and broke out of that hollow mould I had been living in – I buried the petrified egg.

“Cailleach Beara, goddess of the changing seasons, renewed her own youth whenever she was tired of being a hunchbacked old woman.” – Goddesses, A World of Myth and Magic

Domestic Variables?

On Thursday, April 24th I finally got around to laying some cards down after a week or two of ignoring Papa’s ass. I initially went for the Halloween Tarot, but made one of my infamous FUSSY FACES when I realized we owned International Icon Tarot (ZOMG HAPPY SQUIRREL!) and it WOULD’VE BEEN TOTALLY BADASS TO LAY CARDS DOWN USING STICKMEN APPROXIMATIONS. I stuck to my original guns. (Peh, next time.)

Due to the arrangement of junk (LOL, “JUNK”, LOL!) on the windowsill (i.e., devil fish tealight holder & two skull candlesticks) I pulled four cards, and each was placed in the space created by the objects. Throughout the course of the evening (wandering in, getting high, absently pulling out a card that felt “right” (or dropped out of the deck inexplicably), placing it in an empty space, wandering back out – RINSE AND REPEAT THREE MORE TIMES) I pulled: the Sun (R), Judgment (R), Queen of Imps (QoW), and Nine of Imps (NoW, R). The first card laid down was the Sun (R), but the first card I flipped over was the Nine of Imps (NoW, R).

Sun (R):
Shadowy secrets. A worried mind. Possible future trouble

Nine of Imps (NoW, R):
Confinement, conformity, stagnation. Fear of breaking out of a rut. The need for perspective.

…and then I was all “SO THIS IS WHAT YOUR NEGRO ASS WANTS TO SHOW ME?” to Papa. Something didn’t seem right; everything seemed a little too ordinary and obvious and mundane (you know, stuff that otherwise wouldn’t warrant Papa riding my backside for a week or two).

At the time we were dealing with weekly household strife (OH, BUT WHEN ISN’T THERE SOME FORM OF STRIFE AND GRIEF IN THIS HOUSE?) and Hezbollah dying, and even more than before I was feeling trapped and imprisoned by the situation. (i.e., At least with depression I know where the feelings and thoughts are coming from, and I know what needs to be done to shake it off and get my life back on track. Up until this point I’ve primarily dealt with internal struggles that lead to feelings of “stagnation” and “confinement”, but with the Crazy Rat situation I felt PHYSICALLY, FOR REAL SERIOUS, TIED AND LOCKED AND IMPRISONED IN THE HOUSE.)

I’m not surprised I got the cards (in fact, there was a sort’ve “OH, HEY, IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE FACT THAT YOU’RE SERIOUSLY UNDERSTRESSED, EMOTIONALLY EXHAUSTED, AND DEPRIVED OF SLEEP THESE CARDS WOULD HAVE BEEN -THE RIGHT WAY UP-” feeling), but I don’t think they were the ones that Papa was talking about. I’m not sure if it was a bad reading, bad night, or if there were too many domestic variables going on that inevitably influenced this totally underwhelming spread.

Usually I get a good sense of what’s being said, but in this case there was nothing I was being told that I wasn’t already aware of. (Although getting the Sun reversed (i.e., “shadowy secrets” & “possible future trouble”) is-was-is interesting, since it pre-dated the breaking of three different pieces of glassware over the course of three separate days. Superstition says "to break a tumbler is a sign that some secret will be discovered” and a brand new M&S tumbler broke after I had loaded it into the dishwasher.)

Hey, Hey, Mama Lion...

The following post ventures into "OLD NOTES" territory. In this particular case it's a copy and paste job from an old livejournal entry from December 4th, 2007 (although the events that took place pre-date the writing; actual date of said events would have been late November, 2007 (i.e., during Thanksgiving)).

On Thanksgiving morning I was a vindictive bitch and sprinkled Fet Ghede (07!) Dirt in my brother-in-law's shoes while he slept. (DO NOT PISS OFF SOMEONE WHO COLLECTS BLOOD CLOTS, DIRT, AND DEAD INSECTS, OKAY?) It wasn't enough; it wasn't immediate, and I didn't get a sense of closure. So I went back and spat on his shoes. Both of them. And I felt A+ satisfied and Papa was all "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!" but also "BABY GIRL, THIS NIGGA AIN'T NEVER GONNA PISS YOUR ASS OFF!". (<- That's because he knows I'll show him the door AND THERE AIN'T NO HOMEMADE CORNBREAD SITTING ON THE DOORSTEP FOR HIM.)

(He's very supportive of my WITCH INSTINCTS but takes a step back when I'm a-cursin' or a-hexin' because he's a V. smart man who understands YOU DON'T GET IN THE WAY OF AN ANGRY WOMAN, ESPECIALLY AN ANGRY WOMAN WHO CAN BREAK LEGS AND BRING SNOW. <- Thus proven and cemented by a conversation Italics and I had regarding his father's medical misfortunes when I told him how Papa sort've becomes passive and very "YES DEAR, NO DEAR, OF COURSE DEAR" when I get all MAGIC STROPPY and Italics was "NO SHIT, WHO WANTS THEIR LEGS BROKEN? I DON'T!" and there was much LOLOLOLOLOLing on my part because two of the most important male figures in my life HAVE COME TOGETHER TO THROW UP THEIR HANDS WITH A "WHOA!" (<- THEY STILL SPINNIN', NIGGA!) AT SOME OF THE COINCIDENTAL THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED JUST AFTER I ANNOUNCED I WAS GOING TO MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN THEREFORE MAKING EVERYTHING UNDENIABLY SCIENTIFIC.)

Before the Ghede gang were informally invoked for ANGRY WOMAN revenge there was THE SHANGO MAN. Now Papa be all MODERN and HUMAN so ignoring his presence is HARDER than noticing it. (Y'ALL, I GOT A LARGER-THAN-LIFE, STEREOTYPICAL BLACK MAN LIVING WITH ME, OKAY? I'VE WATCHED ENOUGH MAURY TO UNDERSTAND A FEW THINGS: 1) LIE DETECTORS DON'T LIE (DARLIN', IF YOU NEED TO DRAG HIS ASS TO THE MAURY SHOW FOR A LIE DETECTOR TEST HE'S CHEATED), 2) THE BABY CAN -STILL BE YOURS- EVEN IF IT "DON'T LOOK NOTHIN' LIKE ME!", AND 3) THEY ALL PLAYAZ (OR AT LEAST THEY ALL THINK THEY ARE). <- I'm not actually sure how #1 and #2 figure into things, but they're somehow relevant. SOMEHOW.)

TSM is Papa's opposite, and either is V. content to co-inhabit quietly, or is somewhat silenced by Papa's perpetual trash talkin' presence. (THIS MAY SEEM A BIT SHOCKING (MORE SHOCKING THAN THE FACT THAT I'M A 27 YEAR OLD WHITE WOMAN WHO OPENLY ADMITS TO USING THE WORD "NIGGA/NIGGER" (<- I HATE THE A. I HATE IT. I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO FUCKING -FAKE- COMING FROM ME BECAUSE PAPA WANTS TO HEAR -THE REAL THING- AND BECAUSE I AM WHAT I AM I'M NOT -ALLOWED- TO SAY -THE REAL THING- SO WHENEVER I SAY THE -FAKE VERSION- YOU CAN TOTALLY, TOTALLY TELL THAT I'M THINKING ABOUT THE -REAL VERSION-.) AND THAT I'M A-OKAY IN CELEBRATING ETHNIC STEREOTYPES!) BUT PAPA DOES, IN FACT, ENJOY STEALING THE SHOW. OFTEN. AND GOD FUCKING FORBID ANYTHING MALE (OTHER THAN HIM OR ITALICS, OF COURSE) GET INVOLVED BECAUSE THE SECOND A THIRD PARTY DICK ARRIVES ON THE SCENE IT BECOMES -WAR- AND I'M THE ONE GETTING BOMBARDED WITH "BABY GIRL, WHY YOU TALKIN' TO THAT NEGRO CAT? YOU KNOW HE DON'T UNDERSTAND NOTHIN' COMIN' OUTTA YOUR MOUTH! HE ALL...OOGA BOOGA IN SHIT!" AND "BABY GIRL, WHY YOU WASTIN' THAT PERFECTLY GOOD PIECE OF LIVER ON THAT UNGRATEFUL NIGGER?" AND ALL I CAN DO IS ROLL MY EYES INTO THE BACK OF MY SKULL AND REMIND MYSELF THAT I SHOULD BE -REALLY, REALLY HONORED- THAT PAPA GHEDE IS SO DEVOTED TO MY SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL WELL-BEING THAT HE IS EVER-FLOWING WITH WISDOM AND GUIDANCE, ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M BENDING OVER WHILE VACUUMING AND MY GHETTO ASS IS SALUTING THE AIR. HAR HAR.)

I met TSM during one of my very first MDMA trips. While standing over a container pouring out ribbons of copal smoke I had a series of hallucinations, and in each split second "vision" my outfit was V. V. similar (in ancient Egypt it was a white dress and green headdress as I walked on flames, and in ancient Britain it was a white dress and green headdress (again), although this time I was more aware that the headdress was a crown of oak leaves - whatever that means (X2 with "green headdress" in ancient Egypt - I GUESS THIS IS SHIT I SHOULD'VE LOOKED UP ALREADY)) except for the last one which found me standing at the top of a South American ziggurat in the mountains. So there I was, bare feet firmly planted on chiseled stone, standing in what I think was a temple and being very aware of my "priestess" status, looking across a grassy courtyard (more like a field pitch) towards a parallel ziggurat.

I don't remember what I was thinking, or what I was doing. It was one of those weird lost-in-non-thoughts moments, when you stare and observe and feel REALLY, REALLY AWARE yet a part of you still feels a million miles away. The thing that broke that disconnection/connection was a large black jungle cat at my side. (ZOMG, I KNOW, HOW WONDERFULLY LLEWELLYN FANTASY, RIGHT?) One second I was 100% absorbed in this non-thought while staring at an overly familiar Super Mario Brothers 3 World 2 pyramid, and the next I'm back in reality, wearing a white dress and super bold, blood red feathers in my hair (RED JUNGLE BIRDS? ALL I CAME UP WITH WAS "MACAW".) as my pet Jaguar/Panther/Black Leopard/Whatever stands by my side. (AND NOT EVEN ALL NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC COOL WITH TEETH FLASHING AND EARS PINNED BACK AND HISSING AND CLAWS EXTENDED, JUST, YOU KNOW, STANDING THERE, QUIET, SILENT, CALM, AND PROTECTIVE.)

Eventually BUT FOR REAL reality trickled in and after a long second or two I was just me - just me in a dim family room hovering over a bowl of V. fragrant incense. No more green headdresses, no more white dresses, no more red feathers in my hair, ziggurats, flames, grassy courtyards, or high priestess imagery that spanned several civilizations over thousands of years. The only thing that remained was my sleek, black jungle cat who (awkward tense shift approaching!) never says anything but stands there, quietly, silently, calmly, and protectively. (Further SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN by the fact TSM adopted a wee stuffed Scottish lamb (THE SHANGO LAMB!) around Easter this year, which doesn't seem like a big deal at all until, ZOMG, you take in account that I spiritually identify with the concept of goat/lamb/ram/sheep SO IT IS V. V. V. OBVIOUS TO ME WHAT HIS JOB IS IN THIS HOUSE.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is - EVERYTHING HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE KINK. (I, uh, think that's what I'm trying to say?) Papa is loud and obnoxious and big and really, really likes to put on a show, which is all in-keeping with how he's generally received in the voodoo/voudon belief system. TSM manifested differently for me, for whatever reason (but still decided to identify himself as "Shango", but that's another long-winded story that y'all probably don't want to hear because if you're like ME these sorts of "OH, HEY YOU GUYS! LOOK AT HOW SPIRITUALLY AWESOME I AM! I SHALL EVEN CAPSLOCK EVERYTHING FOR YOU SO -YOU HAVE TO EAT IT LIKE UNSWEETENED OATMEAL-! HAH! HAH HAH HAH HAH!" entries just piss me the fuck off), and I'm just rolling with it. (i.e., Chango/Shango in voodoo/voudon tradition, to me, isn't entirely different from Papa with his love of woman, vices, and confrontation. But the Shango I know and live with is a 180 from the caricature portrayed, down to preferring blue as his offering color instead of the widely accepted red. (THAT MAKES HIM A CRYPT, I BELIEVE! <- LOL!))

SO, ANYWAY, BACK TO THE STORY I WAS TELLING BEFORE I WENT OFF ON A 6-7 PARAGRAPH TANGENT THAT SEEMED V. V. V. IMPORTANT TO WRITE OUT AT THE TIME. (JESUS H. CHRIST HELP THE WORLD SHOULD I EVER GET MOTIVATED ENOUGH TO PUBLISH MY OWN SILVER RAVENWOLF BRAND OF MAGIC MANUALS! <- LOL! UNLIKELY! HIS DAD DISLIKES US ENOUGH TO MENTION US SEVERAL TIMES IN THE BIBLE! WHY DO YOU HATE CAKE SO MUCH, GOD, WHY?)

Thanksgiving Eve found me in a sullen state with an uninvited guest spending the night (I had Thanksgiving worked into a schedule, people! AN ACTUAL, HONEST TO GOD SCHEDULE WHICH WORKED A+ PERFECT AWESOME UNTIL MY GODDAMN BROTHER-IN-LAW DECIDED TO THROW A SPANNER IN THE WORKS!), and as I crawled all demoralized into bed I caught THE SHANGO MAN'S indignant expression (the, uh, stuffed animal version of him). And THEN I had one of those MEMORY FLASHES where YOU REMEMBER SOMETHING, BUT NOT ALL OF IT, BUT THE GIST OF IT IS ENOUGH TO BE HELPFUL DUE TO ITS GENERAL VAGUENESS AND AMBIGUITY THAT CAN BE BUILT UPON CREATIVELY and it happened to be "VOODOO BLEND - BLACK CAT - BLACK CATS THROW SMALL INCONVENIENT HEXES".

And when THAT happened I thought "I WONDER IF SHANGO MAN WOULD BE UP TO MAKING SOME SHANGO MAN MISCHIEF FOR ME?" and I got SLAPPED HARD with an image of my sleek, black jungle cat darting in front of M's feet while walking and tripping him up. To that I was all "LOLOLOLOLOLOL! YES! EXACTLY!" and I THEN got SLAPPED HARD AGAIN with an image of TSM, in stuffed cat form, sitting in front of a steaming turkey leg. HOW COULD I RESIST THE OFFER? (GOOD...TRADE.)

The morning after I was in a piss-poor mood. Without even really thinking about it I grabbed my baby jar of FET GHEDE DIRT and HEXED IT, HEXED IT REALLY GOOD and spouted something about FEET NOT CROSSING THIS THRESHOLD WITHOUT MY SAY and then came back to SPIT ON THE SHOES to seal the deal, totally forgetting that the previous night M'S LEGS/FEET WERE ALREADY IN PLAY THANKS TO THE SHANGO MAN.

I WOULD SAY THAT THE DIRT WENT DOWN INTO THE SHOES BETWEEN 9:30-10:00 AM. By 11:30 AM I already had my first result - M missed his train by 3 minutes and was then forced to sit in a cold, open train station for 45 minutes for the next one which, no doubt, helped screw up the rest of his day. (SMALL INCONVENIENCE, ANYONE?) I had totally, totally forgotten about this hex because, you know, OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND (I'm really volatile emotionally - I explode like you wouldn't believe, V. quickly scary-like, and then after the Pompeii explosion I'm cool once again and forget all about it), until YESTERDAY.

See, the first thing I did after carving the turkey on Thanksgiving was remove THE ENTIRE LEG OFF THIS 14-18 BEAST and take it outside to THE SHANGO TREE. (Another long story!) SO THERE I WAS, SICK, WEARING A STRING BIKINI & MINI-SKIRT & A COOKING APRON WITH ARMS OF LOCAL SCOTTISH FAMILIES, TRAMPLING OUT IN THE COLD (I HAD MADE IT SNOW EARLIER, REMEMBER?) WITH 1/5 OF A ROASTED TURKEY, FORCING THIS SUPER HUGE TURKEY LEG BETWEEN A WOODEN FENCE AND SOME ROCKS SO NEIGHBORHOOD CATS COULDN'T MAKE OFF WITH IT ON THANKSGIVING'S TWILIGHT.

I had 100% forgotten about this incident until two nights ago when I took some leftover mashed potatoes to THE SHANGO TREE and saw the leg bone, clean as a whistle, sitting perfectly poised on fluffy Scottish moss, at the very base of the tree (one or two feet away from the crevice I had hidden it in). Whatever ate it did so WITH MEDICAL PRECISION and then simply left the huge leg bone BETWEEN THE SHANGO TREE'S BASE AND THE DEAD CROW DIRT CONTAINER. (<- Okay, I'm not saying that it's SPECIAL CRAZY MAGIC that the leg got eaten, because, dude, that's the entire point, what I am doing is LOLing at how WHATEVER ATE IT DIDN'T BOTHER TAKING IT OUT OF THE YARD and WHATEVER ATE IT DIDN'T BOTHER TAKING IT OUT OF THE YARD BUT POSITIONED IT PERFECTLY, IN OBVIOUS SIGHT, SO YOU WOULDN'T HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO SEE WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE SUPER SECRET OFFERINGS!)

I LOLed when I saw what the flash of white was in the darkness, and then I LOLed when I brought it in, and LOLed some more when I retold the story to Italics, and then we LOLed together and speculated what else has happened that we don't know about. (IF THERE WAS AN INCONSPICUOUS WAY TO CALL SOMEONE YOU HEXED AND GO ALL "SO, RIGHT...HI! YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HAVING, YOU KNOW, SOME IRRITATING OR UNFORTUNATE EVENTS HAPPEN TO YOU RECENTLY, HAVE YOU?" I'D BE SO ON THE PHONE THIS SECOND, OKAY?)

...AND IN CONCLUSION, BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS ENTRY IS-WAS-IS GOING, OTHER THAN A SUPER SPECIAL HOMAGE TO THE SHANGO MAN (IT HAPPENS TO BE CHANGO'S/SHANGO'S FEAST DAY TODAY!), THAT IS PRETTY MUCH THE STORY.

Nine of Wands

The following post ventures into "OLD NOTES" territory. In this particular case it's a copy and paste job from an old livejournal entry from November 14th, 2007 (although the events that took place pre-date the writing; actual date of said events would have been October, 2007 (i.e., during our Halloween vacation break)).

So there was this Saturday before Halloween, just before midnight, where I found myself gloriously stoned and in my Ghede thong, absently flipping through a tarot deck as Dr. John played in the background.

Papa and I sat, face to face (face to skull?), and in-between his sweet nothings, in-between long stretches of time where music sank past flesh and muscle and tissue into bone, when we were lost together in a haze of cigar smoke and incense I asked him to skin-walk with me to show me something I needed to know. With hand within hand five cards were pulled, but I only remember one, and it hasn't left me since it was first turned.

When the music stopped and the last of the cigar smoldered away I was left cross-legged on a leather couch in front of a smiling plastic skull. Still somewhat cloudy headed (and with a thong riding up to a totally unsexy degree) I sat and stared at the last card of the triplet, not entirely sure if the birdman wearing a top hat* (bird = blackbird = papa's birds, top hat = well, uh, top hat, and the vines growing up and around the wands on his back = papa's cherry bomb chili plants trained up wooden poles) could see the two thorned clubs that were lying on the ground as he walked past.

So I asked Italics because I couldn't tell if he was AWARE that there were two batons still on the ground, or if he had dropped them and just left them, or if he had walked past completely obvious that there were two more identical wands just waiting to be picked up. He said it didn't matter, but I didn't understand. And I didn't understand for a while, even though the card stayed fresh in my mind, even though I sat for days and days and days trying to understand why it didn't matter.

And then, while ponderingconsideringcontemplating, I got my first "oh, hey, are you okay?" email, but because I was so busy I didn't have a chance to reply. Then another one appeared, and then a livejournal comment sneaked into my inbox followed by another, and another, and another, and another. And all the while I thought "I can't believe anyone even noticed I wasn't around in the first place..." as notifications began to pile up, and, try as I did, I just didn't have the time to sit down and reply with some sort of answer, even though I already had it in the forefront of my mind.

It doesn't matter whether Mr. Birdman Wearing A Top Hat knows (or doesn't know) there are two more wands still strewn on the ground, all that matters is that Mr. Birdman Wearing A Top Hat is totally aware, and totally conscious of the fact that he's carrying all that he can manage. He might've seen them them walking past, or he might've walked right past them without knowing, he might even be thinking about looking over his shoulders and back at the pair while engaging in a brief moment of second thought, but the important thing is he's knowledgeable of his current personal limits.

So if you emailed, or commented, or even thought "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HER?" the answer is "9 of Wands", and I thank you V. V. V. much for your care and concern, but even more for the fact that despite not being around and in everyone's face you still remembered that I exist. XOXO.

* Bosch Tarot, 9 of Wands

1.21 GIGOWATS

Papa's been on my case about laying cards down but I could really give a fuck so I've brushed it off every time he's brought it up. (He already said I was going to "get it" come Halloween which is an idle threat right here, right now, when daffodils are in bloom, and the trees are budding, but if you get around to asking me again on October 30th you'll probably find me desperately looking for a cheap Delorean. <- LOL! EVEN IF I CAN'T GET THE FLUX CAPACITOR TO WORK AT LEAST THERE SHOULD BE A BRIBE UNDERNEATH MY SEAT!)