Nothing but Song

Feeling :  accomplished  Listening :  Not Falling Apart - Maroon 5  Reading :  Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bad Childhood - Good Life, Ranma 1/2 #17

Three things in this entry: my Christmas list this year, rules to kick ass by, and a friending meme.

All I Want for Christmas Is This…

1. Anything listed on my Amazon Books & DVDs wish lists. Mind you, those are 2 separate lists. I’d really try for anything on the Books list first though, I can live without the DVDs for a little bit longer. I’ve gotten back into reading and collecting books, and have filled up my current bookcase to the brim!
2. Anything with Hello Kitty on it. Not any of the other Sanrio characters because then my whole collection will be thrown off. But siriusly, ANYTHING. If you don’t know how much I adore Hello Kitty, you can fuck right off right now.
3. Blank journals, any style, shape, size, colour
4. Christmas cards! If you want my home address, leave me a comment, and I will send you my address. That is, as long as I know who you are. If you got one from me last year, you’ll get another one this year. I think instead of sending the standard Xmas cards you buy, I’m going to make mine this year.
5. Donation to the “I Love Gill So Much I Wanna Send Her to College Scholarship Fund” (default donation is $1.00, but feel free to send what you can, rofl)
6. Hoodies, size medium or large, depending on who makes them. I prefer the zip-up hoodies as seen in my faux scene default pic on MySpace, rofl.
7. iTunes / Target gift cards
8. Paid LJ time, or a permanent account (!). My username is stumble.

Self-Defense… and then some!

Everyone should learn how to defend themselves, no matter how safe you feel. I saw this on a LJ community I’m in (I forget which one now), and it’s pretty relevant.

1. Strike with the heel of the hand right under the nose, moving arm straight up. If done right, it will break the nose.

2. Strike bridge of nose with heel of the hand, moving arm straight out, pushing forward. This will also break the nose.

3. Grab flesh of ear and pull down toward the ground as hard as you can.

4. Grab any finger and bend backward until it breaks/dislocates, moving attacker’s body off balance toward the ground.

5. Use your elbows as weapons to the face.

6. In general, if you want to strike with maximum impact, aim for eyes, throat and kneecaps.

Music/TV Multi-Fandom Friending Meme

I’m pretty sure everyone knows how these work. Just fill out the questions, and if you see someone you think you would click with, don’t be afraid to ask to be friended.

Name: Gill
Age: 24

TV
Fandoms: Don’t watch a lot of TV anymore. Watch pretty much anything on the History Channel/History Channel International, and Futurama religiously though.
Favorite Character [s]:
Favorite Pairings [ships]:
Favorite new show:

Music
What/Who You’re Listening to Now: Muse, Mutya Buena, Patrick Wolf
Favorite genre of music (you can list more than one): rock, indie, UK pop, R&B
Favorite band(s)/singer(s): I listen to everything, but I generally try and have songs by these artists as staples on my playlist: The Killers, Siobhan Donaghy, The Academy Is…, M.I.A., All Saints, The Beach Boys, Sugababes, Dizzee Rascal, UB40, The Smiths, Justin Timberlake, Gym Class Heroes, Panic! at the Disco, Cobra Starship, Duran Duran.

Other
Favorite Book[s]?: I read everything. I like “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Fahrenheit 451,” “Angels & Demons,” and the Harry Potter series of course.
Journal Type [F/O or Public]: Friends-only, but that’s only for neatness purposes. Every LJ entry is a crosspost from my regular blog.
Anything Else?: I hope I meet some cool people.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.

That’s the best way to make these successful.

?: “Have you made your Christmas list yet?“

Feeling :  gloomy  Listening :  People as Places as People - Modest Mouse  Reading :  Bad Childhood - Good Life by Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Had a bit of family trouble last Friday. Something wasn’t right with my bills, and it turns out my gut instinct was right. I don’t feel comfortable talking about what went down, but I will say that the implications that it was my fault was completely uncalled for. You think you trust someone who knows better, and they listen to the little devil on their shoulder instead. *le sigh*

Wow, I got a lot of comments in that last entry! I’m going to reply to them, because a lot of them asked questions that need to be answered. But instead of wasting this entry answering them in this entry, I will edit them and add my comments.

This week is Thanksgiving. This year is a little different, I’m going to be working. I will be closing, because I get holiday pay. Besides, my supervisor asked if I could close (wanted a mid shift instead), but since I figured I owed them for all the times I’ve asked to change the schedule for my gigs. TBQH, I don’t really want to go to the family party. It’s gonna be the same as always, everyone dividing into cliques and pretending that I want to be there when really, all I want is the food.

My dog got sunburned on the tips of his ears this summer. And now black flies love his ears. I rubbed it away, thinking it was dirt like our other dog had, but it wouldn’t go away. So I looked it up, and it’s called fly strike. Sheep get it mostly, but dogs can get it if they are outdoors in moist, hot conditions. Which makes sense because we bought a mist system for him, thinking it would help cool him down. We did it the previous summer with good results. It kept the dogs cool and we don’t have to constantly bring them in and out.

Apparently, he has had this condition since the summer, but my nieces - who usually take care of the dogs - didn’t say anything. They just assumed it would go away on their own. What hurts me is that they didn’t question it. And then I feel guilty for not taking care of him when I should have.

It gives me creeps to see the words, and see it actually happen. The tips of his poor ears are black and crusty. He can’t enjoy lounging around in the sun without the flies flying around and being incredibly bothersome, poor baby. They’re not red or bleeding, like the symptoms on the veterinary websites I’ve researched say, so I hope they don’t arrest me for animal abuse. It’s awful. I feel like a terrible dog owner.

If I hadn’t had the dream about him, I would never have noticed and I would’ve gone on with my life as usual.

Yeah, speaking of that dream… I had this dream that me and my dog (his name is Simba, like the lion, rofl) went swimming in the ocean. If there’s one thing my dog hates, it’s baths and water. I’ve never taken him to the ocean, so I’m not quite sure how he’d react. But he trusted me in my dream enough to go in with me. In a way he was leading me there, telling me it was okay. So I woke up the next day feeling guilty and went outside to take care of him and Coco (my sister’s dog). That’s when I noticed the flies buzzing around, and his ears.

I bought him and Coco a stinky fly trap from Home Despot that attracts flies. It hasn’t been working as well as I thought it would, but the directions said it works better in the sun. So I did some research in between customers at work. I was like, “I have to do something, this isn’t right.” So I moved his kennel so that he - and the fly trap - will be in the sun more often. It’s only a temporary solution, but I’m going to Banfield first thing in the morning. They take walk-ins, so I’m going down there with him and try to be the first ones in. I’m not going to live with this guilt in my stomach any longer.

I want to skip my classes tomorrow for him, but that’s not the way to go and I know it. No one else in my house wants to take care of him beyond feeding him and picking up his poop. He’s my baby, and he’s suffered enough. I’m not a tree-hugging PETA hippie, but I love animals and don’t think they should suffer like this. In my defense though, if I had known about it sooner, I would’ve taken care of it sooner. I’m the kind of person who can’t watch Animal Cops on Animal Planet without wanting to cry half the time! I hate people who treat their animals like the people on that show do.

I don’t want to be known as that kind of person either.

?: “Do you have any pets?”

Feeling :  contemplative  Listening :  Say Something - Mariah Carey and Snoop Dogg  Reading :  Ranma 1/2 #5

Crossposted from mySpace with some edits.

I made a conscious effort to NOT do my homework Wednesday for my Thursday classes. It is usually my one day off where I don’t have to run to school or work. I can just fart around if I want to. Truth of the matter is, I just didn’t feel like doing anything.

I’d been complaining to my BFF Kat for the last 2 days that my creativity has been zapped by my current life situation of utter monotony: close at work, school during the day and not on the same day. Be a good little worker bee, Gilly, and sit the fuck down. I’m tired of that, and I wanted a break from it all.

So I flipped my commitments the bird and did absolutely nothing. It was glorious.

I take that back.

I didn’t completely waste the day. I made spaghetti, and took the girls to Sahara West for their biweekly library fix. I got the first few Ranma mangas they had for myself. This decision was based on the fact of me walking past it for months as it’s near the kids’ section of the library (which I doth protest). And my nieces are still youngins and all. I decided to get some to reacquaint myself with the series, and manga in general.

I miss that part of my past. I was such an otaku in high school. And right then and there, I decided to start collecting mangas. I never had the lettuce to do it back in high school. Anime and manga were a rather expensive hobby to maintain. And some incomplete sets are on eBay for hella cheap. Just waiting to see how much is left over after this payday. *crosses fingers* Then I found this cool site that could fill in the gaps! I’m so excited. Working at the bookstore that I do has inspired me take up reading recreationally again, and that’s definitely helped.

I was inspired by my marathon MySpace message with Kat to change some little things I knew I could change on my own. I decided that instead of bitching about how I’m not writing, to just STFU and write. So in Bible as Lit on Tuesday night, I took the whole class time, and wrote a one-off short story inspired by Understudy. Under the guise of taking notes, of course. Tee-hee.

I used to do that ALL THE TIME in high school and the early years of college. I bang out stories better when I’m in an academic setting, for some reason. Maybe too many technological distractions at home? Probably.

I miss Understudy so much, and this character - an agent in another Section Seven program - leapt out at me. She sounds like me at this point in my life, which is what Understudy is to begin with. Understudy is a fictional autobiography of my life from 19 and on. She’s cynical because of her circumstances, about where her life is going and where it has led her so far. Anyways, I don’t want to give too much away. It’s really good, if I can toot my own horn.

Then Wednesday night, I said, “You’ve got two choices for the rest of the night. Finish the works-in-progress you’ve had on the Brandon or do your homework.” Brandon is my computer’s name. I had some light reading to do for my classes.

Of course, I chose my stories. For some reason, I felt inspired by my demons. That night, of all nights.

I banged out the endings to “Everything We Had” which I renamed to “40 Steps” (and yes The Academy Is… references are intentional). As well as “The Car Thief.” I might subtitle it “A Love Story,” but that would be kinda cliche, and maybe even cheapen the effect I was going for. I had them on Brandon for months. They were burning holes in my hard drive, know what I mean? I’m still editing them. They’re 99.9% done.

I was going to stay up all night and finish “The Car Thief” in one go, but I thought I should get some sleep since I had to close at work on Friday. I could feel my body falling asleep as I was writing it, but my fingers and brain were like, “NO! A little bit more.” And I obliged.

Not like sleeping did much good. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I kept waking up for some reason. Like I had some burning desire to do something else. Finish the stories, I bet.

I guess no matter where my boring life is headed, writing is my passion. I can’t ignore it. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m not gonna make any money from it, but writing is my destiny. I knew from the moment I could write that it was what I was meant to do. I just knew.

Writing and music are my drugs. Screw anti-drugs. I need them to survive.

I love the fact that when I write or type out a story, I can’t write or type fast enough. It’s like the characters in my head have a great need to bleed through my fingers to get their stories told.

This is the epiphany I’ve been waiting for. I hope I can keep it up. Frankly, I don’t care what I have to do to keep the bills paid, so long as I can write. And write. And write and write.