oddities, life lessons, and a starless void

maybe it’s working at a school, but i’m realizing lately just how much i’m learning about myself and how i work.  for instance, i’ve been trying to work on appreciating the small things in life as much as possible, like people who don’t tailgate and days when i can sleep in.  i’ve always sort of noticed the little things.  you’ll notice if you look at my facebook albums that i take an inordinate number of squirrel pictures.  i’m quirky.

i’m learning to appreciate a good quirk.  the squirrel thing is one.  i also tend to bounce when i have food — that’s something that i’ve mentioned before.

i really like sleeping.  as in…really like it.  so much i might even consider it a hobby.  first on the list is probably staying up late and sleeping in.  that is a glorious use of sleep right there.  there really isn’t much i find more personally satisfying than that, except perhaps adding a nice cuddle into the mix.  behind that is naps — the kind where you can get cozy in bed and curl up with a pillow.  again, also very nice if you add in a cuddle.  it’s one of my favorite things on the planet, sleeping.  maybe because the world just isn’t built for people like me, who function best between the hours of around 9 pm and 4 am.  add to that the fact that i get so anxious when i try to go to sleep that i have to drown out any little noises with a fan and have it completely dark, and i’m just not really made for this world.  so whenever i do get a chance to sleep and sleep well, i treasure it like it’s the last flower petal after a nuclear holocaust.

maybe that’s a little melodramatic…or not.

i also have some really ridiculous fears.  one i realized on the way to work this morning is that i’m afraid of the “friend zone.”  i think it’s an after-effect of one of the most favored relationship cliches:  “i think we’d be better off as friends.”  shudder.  what an awful thing.  of course, i’ve always been of the mind that the best relationships are passion rooted in very deep friendship, so hearing “we’re such good friends” as a reason to not be together is really counter-intuitive for me.  but maybe i’m weird.

on that note, and just because i thought of it, i’ve been thinking about just how many relationships begin about 2 seconds after meeting someone new.  you meet, you date — with dating as the way to get to know someone.  i’m a pretty picky person, so the percentage of people i like after a couple dates is pretty dismally low.  i think that’s one of the reasons i kinda hate dating.  i mean, face it — how often do people meet someone they really click with enough to have a relationship?  and i mean not just someone they can stand to be around for a few months — i mean someone who they genuinely like enough to get serious about.  that doesn’t happen very often.  and i see a lot of people who do the former and try to force it into the latter, which usually just makes a big, big mess.

maybe that’s why i’m so happy right now.  i’m in a relationship with someone i’ve known for almost a year and a half.  we didn’t start anything till now because of distance, but it sort of forced us to find out how we worked together.  and we work rather remarkably well.  i could get into this fully because frankly, i already knew that we still liked each other after over a year had gone by.  more, even.  i don’t have to worry about what i’m gonna think of him next month, and even better, i don’t have to worry about what he’s going to think of me.  he knows me pretty damn well, and he’s quite fond of me just as i am.

anyway, my current happy place aside.  i’m just sort of rambling.  i think i had other interesting things to say.

oh, right, that.  i remember now.  i wanted to talk about my fascination with preternatural critters.  you know, the ghoulies and ghosties, long leggedy beasties, things that go bump in the night, etc.  those ones.  (after seeing paranormal activity, “things that go bump in the night” take on a whole new level of yikes, by the way.  sheesh)  i have always, always, always liked the supernatural.  anything weird or creepy, gimme fangs and a full moon over sleepless in seattle any day (seriously, see above, re: sleep.  sleep > sleepless, hands down)

first of all, we’ll start with vampires.  and for the record, i’m not really that big a fan of the tragic vampire character.  you know, as in interview with, or angel from buffy.  or, *gasp, egads, the horror*, edward cullen.  i’m a big fan of the self-actualized vampire.  gimme a fanger who is quite fine and reconciled to her or his situation in unlife.  those characters are much more fun, because they’re just not so goddamn whiny.  “ooh, poor me, i’m beautiful and immortal and virtually indestructible, i don’t want to drink blood, call the waaaaambulance, wah.”  stake me now, why don’t you?

obviously, vampires in general are a rather interesting concept.  first of all, it’s not so entirely out of the ballpark of the conceivable.  there are plenty of critters on the planet who sustain themselves fully upon the nourishment of blood.  even some mammals.  so why not vampires?  plus, they’ve been so sensualized that they’re just so sexy.  vampires are irresistible.  even the ones who are supposed to just be ravening monsters (what you’d expect from say, 30 days of night if you only saw the movie and weren’t awesome enough to read the graphic novels).  they have an allure about them.  maybe it’s the fact that they almost always go for the neck, and that’s an erogenous zone for most people.  yep, i said it.  i think that might actually be one of the biggies in terms of why vampires rock people’s socks.  sexy little bloodsucking bastards.  bite my neck.

next, i’ll go onto witches.  i’m also gonna say here that they are not entirely out of the realm of possible.  who hasn’t looked up at the harvest moon in fall and felt that something magical could exist? there are plenty of unexplained phenomena out there that we don’t understand — not that they’re conclusively and ultimately unexplainable, but it’s usually enough to make you wonder on occasion.  witches are interesting as hell, because they can control things.  sometimes thoughts, sometimes manipulate the physical world or create something ex nihilo — all of which are really quite nifty tricks.  plus, they make great scapegoats.  someone in your village got cholera?  that’s because that grouchy old lady put a hex on her!  cows not givin milk?  damn witches must have spelled those titties.  better use them for combustibles.

which brings me to my main point about witches (not that they are flammable, weigh the same as a duck, or float).  witches are intriguing because they have power that allows them to change what is into what could be.  and we all know that human beings covet power.  that’s probably why witches have been both the subject of extreme interest in all of the literature, films, etc they have spawned/inspired and also got the whole short end of the scapegoat stick.  personally, i like them because they gots some shiny shit.

now for the furries.  and no, i’m not talking about people who strap on tails and perform bizarre sexual rituals (hey, to each their own.  if you wanna get some tail in a real and literal sense, at least it’s attached to a human and not something of the bestial variety.)  first of all, how freaking awesome would it be to change into another animal at will?  i can’t say i’d really enjoy having the moon dictate when i got furry with it, but if i could shift on command, that’d be sweet.  plus, the lycanthropes usually end up with the animal magnetism goin for them as well.  notice a trend with that?

on a very basic level, i think that psychologically, the furries represent the primal animal nature that we’ve (mostly) learned to eradicate in our oh-so-civilized culture.  the draw is about surrender to the instinct, surrender to the id.  (go, freud, go.)  so go for it.  take your tail and howl at the moon.  of course, lycanthropes are probably the most far-fetched of our preternatural critter zoological journey.  while you can stretch to think that psychic activity and bloodsuckers are within the stratosphere of the quasi-believable, shapeshifting is something that is like taking macroevolution and turning it up to eleven.  but they’re still fun as hell.

so that’s that bit.  now, since it’s about 2:23 am, and i’m wide awake, maybe that’s something to write about.  i really like nighttime.  first of all, i like the dark.  i have a hard time sleeping unless it’s as dark as possible.  cave-like, if at all feasible.  second, it’s peaceful.  maybe that’s the introvert in me; there are less people around after midnight.  i like the quiet of it, the serenity.  i also like stars, and i’ve always been fascinated by things in outer space.  nebulae and star clusters and galaxies far, far away……….. 🙂  ………..but really, there’s plenty of light when the sun goes down — it just doesn’t seem like it because it’s farther away.  i like night.

i think i’m kind of a weirdo.  i can’t help it, i suppose.  i like all manner of odd things.  i’ll go out of my way to step on a crunchy leaf in fall (look out, cos here they come).  i like looking at animals.  i’m very fond of tea.  i like books, movies, and videogames when they come with creepy crawlies and lots of blood and guts i can squash or shoot or pummel (or watch).  one of my favorite things is when someone brushes my hair back from my face.  i like the word “marmot.”  i cry when i think about world war ii.  i love all things celtic and handmade leather shoes.  i mostly don’t care for fashion, cos most of it doesn’t seem to really be me.  there’s an awful lot more to me than just that, i suppose.  when i read over that, it doesn’t sound all that weird, but i still often feel like i really don’t fit in.  i’m not sure what the reason for that is.

it’s another quiet night after a long sort of day.  my whimsy seems to have deserted me, and at the moment i feel sort of…lost and alone.  somedays the world seems so small that i can reach out and touch every part of it — see the rolling highlands of scotland with their heather and gorse, feel the grass of the planty under my hands with wawel castle in the distance in krakow, smell the olive trees in spain as the rainclouds roll in over the hills — but right now the world seems very vast, very much bigger than a very small me, with only a void slipping between my fingertips.