:: 2007 12 January :: 4.48 pm

I live, ho-bags!

Anyway. I have not completely forgotten you, and there is still much love in my heart for Ye Olde Woohu.

I know several of you roleplay, so I thought I'd pop in and let you know that my forum has moved to a new, more accessible location.

BITE ME

:: 2006 31 July :: 10.06 pm

Went to India for two weeks for a school trip.
I'm back. Our studies in ayurveda are basically going to bore you, so I won't bother you with those. Our touristy stuff I can tell you later.

I can give you a fairly good representation of one crazy day in India.

We were on our way from Delhi to Agra in a rented A/C taxi. Dr. Bauman had been chatting with the driver in Hindi, because that way they rip you off less and are less inclined to drive you to places you don't want to go just to get a commission from some shopkeeper in case you buy something.

He passed a roadside rather-shady poll collector. It's hard to tell the government officials because they look just like local people who are simply pissed that a road was built and want to take your money to get back at The Man. He passed it, but thought better of it and went back after driving about half a mile down the road. We were left in the middle of a dusty road full of other vehicles.

Dr. Bauman turns around. "So, since it's been a while since the first time I was here, what are you guys really finding interesting now that you're here?"

"What's interesting?" was the general response. "What do you mean, have we seen anything interesting?"

Then, the circus began.

A woman approached the car with a handful of beaded necklaces. "Beads, madam. Madam. Madam. Hello." She tapped on the window. She called through the window. She clinked the beads against the glass window where they rattled and clattered and jingled. No amount of telling her no in English or Hindi would dissuade her.

A man walked by on the side of the road followed by two bears on leashes.

By this point we were laughing hysterically, far too involved in how rediculous this was to actually pay attention to how many rupees the necklace woman wanted.

A fakir arrived on the scene, fully arrayed in robes, turban and beard, coming from behind the car with monkeys trailing behind. One or more of them leapt up on our van, clinging to my window (Reread. MY WINDOW.) and gyrating violently in a distinctly sexual manner. We now had the beadwoman, two bears, and a humping monkey seven inches from my face. The laughter contined.

When the fakir noticed that we remained unenticed by his monkey, the animal disappeared. He crept up to my window and began stroking it muttering something about rupees. I looked up and we all collapsed in laughter again. Noticing we still hadn't opened our window and given him money, he raised up to the window a damn cobra. A cobra, people. As Dr. McGrath said, "If he thinks showing us the snake is the best way to get us to roll down the window he has really misjudged his audience!"

The tears flowed, the laughter continued. Still probably not the reaction he was hoping for, but he really didn't want to give up.

Then our driver came back to rescue us as a clown (yes, a clown, in full getup and a plastic clown mask) walked down the street away from us. I guess someone told him that the circus was over and the foreigners were on the move.

See anything interesting, Bauman?

Nah. Who are you kidding. *whistles generic circus theme and walks away with her hands in her pockets*

2 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2006 9 May :: 9.48 pm

So. Obligatory end of year post?

Sure. I'll do that. I have to do something to give this year some closure, after all.

I've spent another year at Butler and found that some things never change.

One, I will never ever have enough money. I will be perpetually screwed financially, and the best I can hope for is to survive up to the point where being screwed by Butler is irrelevant in any immediate sense. This is a result of the fact that my parents are changing their legal residence to New Hampshire, where they live. Up until then, we've taken advantage of various military loopholes that allow me to be an in-state student. My senior year I lose at least four thousand dollars in state funding. However, I won't have to register for classes again, and maybe I can save up to help defray that. I won't know until the time comes.

Two. People are the same no matter how old you are or where you find them. Many people are worth talking to, spending time with, even loving. Others are petty, greedy, and generally not worth any of the above. The people I've found are often variations on the same theme. These don't beg for respect. They take it. They simply are to be respected, without any need for them to cry out, "I told you so." I've met a few of these this year. Some people are distractions, but these new friendships... they are the diamond in the ashes, which I take in spite of you.

Some things have changed, though.

One. I'm becoming both more selfish and less self-centered if that makes any sense. I consider what I want instead of what is expected of me. I will not be guilted, manipulated, bullied, or abandoned when another more useful commodity comes along. My autonomy is coming along a bit. However, with this growing freedom is coming the realization that I don't have to need people to be around them. I don't have to be using them as a means to any end. It's okay for me to value the company of another person. It's safe to value the needs of others if I keep my head about me and remain conscious that their needs are not my needs. I don't need to mortgage my identity to anyone else to be relevant, but I can lend the identity I've chosen to the causes I value. The distinction may seem small, but it's a step in the right direction.

Two. Summer vacation isn't looming on the horizon as a three-months span in which life simply.... stops. I can spend that time with a young man I love very much, knowing that he loves me and is glad to have me around. I can go to my parents' house just long enough to see my cat. I can go to India. I can go to Ohio and get a job so that I can stay with Brian. Small sacrifices in order to gain everything worth working for.

Three. As I become more expressive of healthy emotion, I'm learning the difference between what's helpful and what isn't. I'm becoming a little easier to be around, very slowly and very gradually... but I'm getting there. I figure it's the least I can do for the people who stayed. They deserve that at least. The others? Let them remember me as they wish. I do not regret anything I have done. I was not unjustified in my scorn or dismissals all these years. I still have not been proven wrong. I simply intend to treat the people who love me with more gentleness than I've previously been capable of.

How are those for some changes? I am the same as I was, but greater in many ways. I will make different choices in the future than I have in the past, but the past is still there where it always was. I do not regret a moment of it.

3 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2006 30 April :: 2.34 am

Blue Roses!

For my own record, but I really thought someone else might think this is nifty, too.

2 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2006 28 April :: 6.16 pm

You know what?

I've been away for a very long time, and now that I've come back, the things that were bothering me seem to have gotten a bit better.

The people I'm watching are writing entries that are more specific. They were always personal, but people are actually saying what's going on now instead of merely telling me why everything is pain and suffering when you're fourteen years old and damn doesn't it suck.

The grammar's gotten better. Even in journals I'm not watching. People are using English, and it gives me hope for the internet.

I'll still be on livejournal, but for those of you I used to know: I may be around more, trying to get to know you again.

4 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2006 28 April :: 6.16 pm

New GM Struggles with Existing Paradigms!
Read more..

BITE ME

:: 2006 28 April :: 6.12 pm

An update some few of you will be able to understand.
I just had an odd request from a high school speech friend of mine. I said hi and the first thing he did was ask me for the whereabouts of Caleb. Now, I realize that in high school I was the only one who knew half the time where the boy was or why. I realize that I stuck by him for nearly two years even though that junkie wasn't exactly the best thing to have in my life. He didn't have anyone else, because no one else would have been able to handle being with him. No one else deserved it, so I stayed instead and everyone knew it.

But two years after the fact... apparently people still expect it to be true. Joe seemed... sad that he hadn't spoken to Caleb in two years, and that he'd never probably see him again. I told Joe that I cut ties with him after graduation. This was largely due to certain actions on Caleb's part after graduation that really don't need to be hashed over again.

It's just strange to have that reminder again. Even weirder is that it comes after a very.... odd dream that I had last night. Something about Caleb and a non-descript friend of his waiting for me in a men's room to rape me. Then I tried to get a cop to go with me and he asked me if it could wait because he was taking a break. Odd behavior for a policeman.

Maybe I'll try to think more about what that dream means, especially when you factor in the introduction of the topic into a totally unrelated conversation. I'm either superstitious, fatalistic, or simply don't believe in coincedence. However you want to see it, this is strange to me.

If nothing else, it reminds me of how much better off I am now than I was in high school. I don't regret anything that I did. I don't regret the (arguably undeserved) devotion to someone like Caleb. I forget who explained it to me this way, but she was right when she told me, "You're the most important person in his life. I just don't think that you're the most important thing." For a while that was enough. It never will be enough again, though. I had never been with anyone who told me I was beautiful without the obvious motive of squirming his way into my pants, or anyone who sincerely told me that he loved me. Most of the boys I've known have loved me the way a smoker loves nicotine gum. A pale substitute for what they really want, but for now it's better than what they've lost.

I won't say that they didn't have their reasons. Caleb's first love died of a drug overdose. He watched her die. Link...well, there was Tara. I shouldn't have to explain it that much further. I can't blame them, but I can say that I'll never sacrifice myself to people like them again.

BITE ME

:: 2005 25 November :: 2.13 pm

There used to be a girl on this site who used the handle "Porcelain."

I miss her. She was cool. Every time I log on and think about how much respect I had for her. Unfortunately, her mother found her blog and she had to leave us. Then her journal was wiped out in the Great Deletion of Unpaid Journals.

Well, Porcelain. Here's to you, wherever you are. I haven't forgotten.

4 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2005 25 November :: 1.59 pm

Proof that I'm becoming an elitist condescending adult:

Every time I see an entry on a weblog that looks like this:

"oh man why cant i just have love but no one will love me becaus i suck and there's no way anyone can love a thing like me because i suck and everything i do cuz i have no worth and i should just die becaues n oone cares and ill never ever be loved and i'm so alone and theres no hope for me cuz no one understands"

...The first thing I want to do is look for the person's age. It could be the bad grammar. It could be the lack of capitalization or punctuation. It could be the lack of specific explanations or thought of any kind. But the main thing is, I doubt the maturity of entries like this. The people I've kept on my friends list use proper English, and sometimes proper French or Japanese as well.

The other reason I doubt the maturity of these bloggers is that, yes. I'm like everyone else. If I'm supposed to believe that someone who's never worried about the cost of food or where they'll be living in a few months' time has problems worth reading, I want to read some kind of actual justification. Just because this is the internet doesn't mean you're excused from actual communication.

In conclusion: Quit your bitching or at least start bitching in a way that makes people believe your problems have some relevance.

This time of year I'm thankful for a lot of things. I'm thankful that no matter what has happened to me or is likely to happen, my problems will still never be that bad. I look at victims of wars, diseases and natural disasters all over the world and see that it can always be worse. I have it pretty damn good, and so do most people who live in an area where computer access makes blogging possible.

2 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2005 25 November :: 1.57 pm

I'm getting my WIS teeth out over winter break. As a result, my mother wants me to plan to be totally incapacitated for two weeks. This is the royal edict. This means I cannot plan to go to Brian's house over break. Why can't we just see what happens and maybe I'll be able to do it? Fantastic question! Because! My mother is buying me plane tickets. She will be doing this within the next day or two. This means that she'll be buying me a ticket back to Indianapolis. This means that the Fords couldn't drive me home to Indy without wasting a perfectly good plane ticket.

This all has one grand implication. I stay with my parents and endure not only oral surgery but four weeks around them, or else be a selfish ungrateful bitch for not wanting to be away from Brian for that long. That's what it means. And there's nothing I or anyone else can do about it.

BITE ME

:: 2005 30 October :: 1.02 am

I return for a quick post.

3 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME

:: 2005 2 September :: 8.04 pm

I'm not dead. To the max.

I can be reached more reliably on AIM with the SNs:

Lithaladhwen
alias pending
Mekta Satak Kai

That is, you know. If someone needs something.

BITE ME

:: 2005 2 September :: 8.04 pm

I'm not dead. To the max.

I can be reached more reliably on AIM with the SNs:

Lithaladhwen
alias pending
Mekta Satak Kai

That is, you know. If someone needs something.

BITE ME

:: 2005 6 August :: 1.12 am

Arch mage144: Women are just full of very strange ideas.
Lithaladhwen: They are. Quite often.
Ganon fro: Strange, and to their minds "logical"
Lithaladhwen: Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Smartzvn85: ....Such as, Ashley?
Lithaladhwen: Well, this morning I was angry at the English because I had a dream that I was in William Wallace's militia. I thought they were going to sleep with my wife.
Arch mage144: That is impossible in at least three ways.
Smartzvn85: I am sure that the wife thing is one of them.
Arch mage144: William Wallace is dead and has no militia, the English are not at war with the Scottish, and you aren't married.

BITE ME

:: 2005 5 August :: 10.47 pm

June 30th Entry
You know, I'm always amazed at the things people have no opinions about. I can write an entry in which I basically admit that I'm out to get all of you. And that has absolutely no impact? It's totally irrelevant to you.

You don't have to respond. I don't really know whether I expect you to answer. However, to have an opinion and not share it when invited to do so... not my game. It actually baffles me a little.

Of course I was worried that people would post to tell me that I'm a good person and they don't know me very well but they can tell by the way I write that I'm a nice girl and I shouldn't worry about that because everybody feels that way sometimes so I should just know that I have people to talk to if I need to *less-than-three*.

Or something.

Maybe that's why no one said anything. Because that's the only acceptable response to an entry like that. But really... do blog communities exist to reinforce one's sense of humanity? If that's true, people need to clean out the angst like old earwax and get to loving harmony and shit.

However, if you have anything else to say in the future, feel free. It's why I post here. Because the truth does hurt and sometimes I want to hurt you like only I can.

BITE ME

:: 2005 31 July :: 3.00 am

Ignore the nocturnal bitterness.
I've been getting back into some of the artsy stuff that interested me before I got to field school. It's not that it's creatively stifling to be around so many people, but when I can't be alone, I have problems uncurling my brain enough to do something new with it. Staying on the IPFW campus has been good for me. I don't have to be near so many people. I don't mind them. I even like many of them. But the fact remains the time I've had to myself, whether while working on a computer or spending a weekend or two alone, has done wonders for me. I felt kind of... bound.

But I'm starting a piece of artwork I've been wanting to do for a while now, and due to recent events I think that this character deserves a representation.

Also, some interesting questions have come up. I don't know that I want to address them in detail at this point, when I'm quite frankly a bit tired. But, here goes. The question has recently arisen that if I were a god, what would I be the god of? People often have some kind of theme to their personality. I guess mine might be obsession. For better or worse. There's no middle ground for me. Every opinion is polarized somehow. Except on the subject of caramel, which not only do I have no feelings on one way or the other... but I can't even decide how to pronounce it.

However, consider this theme carefully. The obsession theme actually puts me frighteningly close to Desire of the Endless. I don't know how I feel about that.
The problems I have with it are as follows:
First of all, it seems a little egotistical, which stops me more often than you might imagine.
Second, I don't think people are supposed to embrace the cruelty inherent in Desire. I mean, sure it's there. But there are conventions in place to prevent that from coming out. It's malicious but oddly indulgent.
Third, isn't this what I've been avoiding thinking about for a long time? I mean, I've considered it with a sort of vague pride, but I've never questioned it or cared about the consequences. I manipulate people. It's what I do. Call it charisma, attribute it to a certain affable streak. The only problem is that those things are not conscious. When I stop analyzing the most efficient combinations of words and expressions to get what I want we can change the designation to friendliness from calculated manipulation.

Sometimes I manipulate people out of indulgence. There have been people who could not be trusted with their own well-being. They wanted someone to make them feel like there was something in the world worth wanting. To tell such people the truth (as I always eventually did) was cruel, sadistic, and the only payment I asked for in the end. That final taste, that final truth. That final destruction of everything I'd built around them, leaving them honest and naked. I relished it. And there's nothing in me to persuade me it's wrong to tell people the truth out of cruelty. To enjoy their pain as they realize I've never been on their side. I've been enjoying their happiness as some bizarre form of psychological foreplay. It's not the point, but it will do for a while. Whether or not they become stronger in the end or break entirely is up to them.

I don't know whether the strong ones or the weak ones are ultimately more rewarding. The strong ones allow that nice self-righteous feeling. The one that tells you you've done exactly what you should be doing. It's a surprise that never fails to amuse... when one of them, after being pulled to the dirt and bloodied again and again, stands and defies their own weakness. In a way, it makes me want them more. The ones who break... well, all I can say is better luck next time.

There's only one question... What about love? I know that I do. But where could it possibly come from to have the strength to pass all that monstrous venom unharmed? I don't expect an answer from any of you. I'll be surprised if anything I've said sinks in. Part of me hopes it will. I hope it does because I want you to understand and because when you finally do appreciate all that I've said, the nagging uncertainties will live in your mind long after you've forgotten me.

BITE ME

:: 2005 25 July :: 5.01 pm

I feel like I should say something. Something about drinking alone, something about wanting to drink a white russian instead of coffee with my morning can of ravioli. Something about Raven from Teen Titans. Something about Dawn or Eve or Myrnal or one of the other RP plots I'm devising.

Something about feeling lonely... or maybe feeling like I should be lonely. I don't know if I am. I was in a room by myself for the past couple of days, and I liked it. Except for meals, I didn't see anyone if I didn't want to. I like being alone. The only reason I can be around Brian no matter what is that he's not an extra person like these people are. He's an extension of myself. The only difference between being alone and being with Brian is that instead of being the voice in my head that never lets me be lonely he's right there. Like wearing my hair down as opposed to tied back. I'm forced to recognize that it's there and why I grew it in the first place. Being around Brian forces me to remember why he's the most important figure in my life. I'm rambling. I know it. I'll stop this subject until someone wants more details and forces me to clarify. I know this makes no sense but I'm too tired from looking at numbers to tell exactly how.

There are things to say.

There are things I miss, and things I wish I could bring myself to miss. Things I wish I could care about.

I was thinking about Caleb the other day. I'm so glad he's gone. I never thought I'd be happy never to see someone again. Usually I've got some snide remark, some driving urge to have the last word, to finally win, to deliver the coup de grace... but not with him. I just want him to stay gone. I'm not bitter anymore, though I probably would be if he ever showed up. I just... don't care. The girl who loved him until her mind broke is dead. I killed her myself. If Caleb wants to visit her grave he's entitled. But he wouldn't like what he found.

I'm happy now. In a way that would never have been possible with him. The difference? Brian loves me. He loves me. And that's worth everything.

Link is having a son. A son that I'll probably never meet. I don't know how to feel about that. If I were his girlfriend, I probably wouldn't want my fiance's ex-girlfriend hanging around, so I definitely understand. It's just... he is my friend. I could never have loved him romantically, but he needed me, and he had no one else to take up his cross for a long time. No one but me. I can't help but feel like I got him away from Tara and got him to the point where he could be with someone else. I was never dating him. He never loved me. He loved me like nicotine gum. But I took care of him for a while until someone else could give him what he wanted. He was in danger because of Tara. He's still here because of me. I don't entirely approve of what he's done with his second chance, but he had it. Not everyone does. He had a chance. And now he's having a son.

So. What do I do now? Go back to my hotel room, have a drink. Watch some TV. Wait for tomorrow to come so that I can get online and continue gamemastering. I enjoy it. I feel like in the midst of all the spreadsheets and numbers and geophysical equipment I'm creating something. I hope I can live up to what I've started.

So... I don't know what else to say. Comment with questions, comments, points of clarification, whatever you wish. Don't be shy. LJ is for me to vent my weird rantings. It's also for you to see if you choose. I share the feelings that don't matter in the long run, being mere chemical fluctuations in my brain. The chemicals pass and they're irrelevant again. But for now, for the sake of thorough records... here they are.

1 TOOTHMARK | BITE ME

:: 2005 9 July :: 8.41 pm

No, I haven't forgotten woohu. I've just been busy. At some point here I'll paste in a monster entry to get you all up-to-date if you like.

3 TOOTHMARKS | BITE ME