Don't Drink The Wormwood!

I set the timer for three 15 minute intervals in a row: do you have any idea how much you can get accomplished in 15 minutes?  It's ridiculous.  I kept having to check the timer to see if it was broken because it seems like it should have gone off already.  Nope.  I got a lot more done than I set out to do because of this little trick - but more importantly, I got off my ass and started.  Fifteen minutes.  Mind you for more physical jobs like cleaning the apartment I think ten minutes may be a better idea, depending on my pain levels that day, because I found myself needing to sit around the ten minute mark.  But I pushed on I did!

Then I made myself a Swanson's microwave dinner and Mel came over.

And like the magi she is, she brought me frankincense and myrrh. This is the same friend whose handfasting I was at last Saturday, the one who was married by Santa :-D

I made a pot of wormwood tea.  Have you ever had wormwood tea?  It tastes like you're chewing aspirin.  No exaggeration. In fact, it's possibly worse than that. I got the stuff from Brian, who told me it was not possible to finish a whole cup of the stuff because of how nasty it tastes.  I had to test this theory, plus I wanted to see what effects it would have since it is well known for its ability to bring altered states and enhance the third eye etc. and since we were going to do readings, that would have been fitting. So we did our best to tolerate the horrific taste (with O.J. chasers).  I managed to finish half a cup, Mel was a real trooper and managed to finish all of hers.

The effects were good but not THAT good. Not good enough to repeat. I'll take my wormwood in incense form, thank you.

It was a nice, witchy night.

There's a story about her earrings that I find interesting:

Mel's step-mother gave her a pair of earrings that were owned by her sister.

The sister's name was Dana "Poppy" Pastori.  Poppy was her slave name.  She was planning to leave her bf/Master but I guess he didn't want to release her because instead, he strangled her and chopped her up into pieces which he then mummified and shoved into a box.

Her body was in that box for three years and then came Hurricane Katrina.  That's when her body was discovered.  He had kept her with him, even BROUGHT HER WITH HIM when he and his new gf moved.

Now he's in prison.

And her sister (Mel's step-mother) gave Mel the earrings that Dana had been wearing in that box the whole three years.  She told Mel she wanted her sister's spirit to "live with her."

So now Mel has these earrings...

Before mentioning any of this, Mel asked me to tell her what I felt from them (psychically).  That was on Saturday right before she was handfasted.  I felt nervous excitement.  Then I felt like the oxygen was cut off from my head and my ears started ringing.  So Mel then told me a bit about where they came from.

I held them again tonight, this time I felt like I was being pushed down and had a cutting pain in my arm right above the elbow.  Then Mel filled me in on a lot more of the details about these earrings.

I asked why her step-mother would want her sister's spirit to live with her rather than to move on - kinda weird don't ya think? But as the step-mother wished, Dana's spirit seems to now be hanging around Mel.  At least that's what she tells me.  But at least she's trying to help the woman move on, and I find it pretty cool that she seems to mainly be doing so in her dreams (yay dreams!).

Now there's a good lesson for all you Dom(me)s and Masters/Mistresses out there: if your slave wants to be released, it means s/he wants to end things, it does not mean you should go mental and pull an "if I can't have you, no one will" or something equally as psycho.

P.S. I love you Master! mwa!


<3 M

Boxing Day

This is the reason Christmas wasn't a complete bust:



Also, cause Don came over for a bit and I got to give him his present.  And there was wine and Ativan and chocolate.  And I got a pink and black playboy bunny blanket from my younger brother (the father of the cute baby girl); slippers, and herbal tea.  My mum got me modeling clay, scratch tickets, and Chapters gift certificates :o)  Tim gave me some canvas and a really fancy shmancy pen that you use to write with or to do fine details with in your art.

So yeah, Christmas is over, thank the gods, and we're almost done new year's as well.  Until then, not much going on around here, kinda bored actually.  I'll probably sit in front of my puter with a bottle of wine for new year's eve - we shall see.  I'll have my own little LOFNOTC party.

I spent most of boxing day sleeping and internet window shopping for sales - ended up finally upgrading my toy collection.  I was going to go for books since I got the gift cards, but there were no good sales.  I watched two movies I've never seen before: '8 Mile' and 'Just Friends' - interesting combo.  '8 Mile' had a lot of good stuff in it, but also some crappy stuff.  But now I can finally compare the movie with 'Clueless' - another big movie that Brittany Murphy played in.  My verdict is that 'Clueless' was the better movie, had a bigger cultural impact, and that Brittany's performance in this film trumped her performance in '8 Mile.'  On a side note, the sex scene in the factory was really hot.

The other movie, 'Just Friends' was kinda... cute I guess?  I expected more from it for some reason but I'd say it was probably more corny than the average corny chick movie.  But I definitely related to Ryan Renold's character as the geek who is ever in the 'friend zone' - always the friend never the girlfriend.  I've also been known to play the part of the friend with benefits... just never the girlfriend.

I need to think of more good movies to watch.

Oh, P.S. I WANT THIS! (NSFW)



Love M

Wendy McNeill

My cab driver was playing this album and I was really into it so I asked him who it was and made sure not to forget so I could look it up when I got home.

And I'm glad I did, because this is really fucking good. I love finding new music I love.

You can hear more at http://wendymcneill.com and http://myspace.com/wendymcneill.

Enjoy.



-Love Marylin.

Impermanence

I keep trying to write about things that are going on in my life but it's just not happening. I'm just feeling too emotionally crazy right now to talk about anything mundane.

I've been watching a very long documentary, 'Walking With Dinosaurs' or something like that and it is extremely humbling and for some reason that makes me feel better.

Life on Earth began hundreds of millions of years ago. Since then, species have lived, evolved, strived, struggled, and died out. Even the dinosaurs, for example, who reined for a few million years... poof, gone.

Also since the beginning of life on this planet, the Earth has undergone so many major changes that have effected whether a species lives on or dies out. Major, MAJOR shifts in weather... millions of years of ideal tropical weather to millions of years of extreme cold and ice.

Extinction has been a matter of fact throughout history - no species is exempt from it. There are so many species today that it happens a lot more often then we're even aware of.

All it took was a comet hitting the Earth to wipe out the dinosaurs: they were just fine until that happened.

But of course, that could never happen to us, right?

It's not like, history repeats itself, or life works in cycles...

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here, is that we humans have been here about a hundred thousand years or so. We're an arrogant creature who tends to believe we'll always be around, that nothing so horrible could happen in our lifetimes, that nothing like that is bound to happen for millions of years in the future, yada yada yada.

But logically, we should know without much doubt, that our fate is indeed, extinction. There's no reason it can't happen today as easily as it could happen in ten million years. We don't know. The earth will continue to change and go through cycles that inevitably change the climate and weather patterns - thus effecting all living things, from vegetation to humanity.

I'm sitting here, writing this at the bottom of what was once a very large, deep lake. Life if weird, and in its weirdness is awesome, uncontrollable, impermanent, and a never ending source of our curiousity.

It is by luck/fate that humans developed these large brains, giving us the ability to rise to the top of the food chain using technology rather than our own physical devices. We are unique in this way.

But I believe it's this uniqueness that allows us to be so arrogant and believe our species is so special as to be the only one in history to ever avoid the forces of nature and be exempt from extinction.

It's the same arrogance that allows us to believe life doesn't exist anywhere in the universe but here on earth, even though the universe is so ginormous that I don't think there's even a word suitable enough to describe how large it really is (and it never stops expanding).

We are smart, that's for sure. And there's a reason we evolved to be what we are. I won't pretend to know what that reason is, but I do believe everything happens for a reason.

What I don't believe, is that the earth is quite finished with us yet... we try to defeat nature, but we never do, not permanently anyway.

So, our species has been around for about a hundred thousand years. And only at the tail of hundreds of millions of years of life on the planet. Our existence is just a small fraction of history. We're pretty new to the game and there's no telling how long we'll be around.

And like I said, that is very humbling, and for some reason, makes me happy. Kinda takes the pressure off in a way, doesn't it?

Following this theme of impermanence, I watched a video earlier tonight (it came up in my feed reader) on the same subject, aptly titled Impermanence. It's a talk given by a monk on the subject of the Buddhist philosophy that nothing is permanent, everything is always changing.

I needed to hear it at this time. Emotions shift poles. Bodies live and die. The current changes. The mountain erodes. Nothing is permanent but our true selves. This too shall pass. I am not my body or my mind, I only have them to use as I see fit.

More peacefully humbling truths.
A lot for one day, but then again, good lessons to learn on days like this where all I feel like doing is lying in bed because I'm so depressed.


-Love Marylin.

Never Ending Story

I got a Van Gogh!!! Well, a print of one anyway. I've been wanting a nice large piece to put above my kitchen table ever since I moved in and my dear Donovan came through for me last night with a salvaged, excellent condition, ginormous print of 'Starry Night' - yay! I love when stuff like that happens :P



What else is new and interesting?

I got to hold a wee baby chick on Saturday! Sooooooo cute - I got pictures! They're in Don's camera though lol.



Being there (at Howard's gorgeous old home on a beautiful huge property) made me crave something similar for myself: even just a wee little home on a decent sized property - close to the city but secluded enough to feel like you're really in nature, apart from crazy society. To lounge outside among trees and grass and gardens; to be free and inspired to write and make art and just create create create... I dunno, it's rejuvenating and I love being close to nature. Yeah I've got some ideas :P

Also went to a couple of flea Markets on Saturday - so many (toooo many) awesome things to look at! It would be dangerous for me to go there if I had alot of money!

I didn't buy anything but I definitely had my eye on an old telephone:


Sort of like this one but much nicer and it was black. It was around $40, which I probly could have done but I thought I should wait till I can really truly afford to buy it (or one similar to it). I just think it's so cool! I don't want it for use, I just want it for decoration - it will go well with the antique type writer I plan on one day finding. Awww yeeaaaah!

Blah.

What else...

Ummm oh I'll show you the thingy I made for Don! He's the clumsiest feller I ever met - he accidentally broke one of my coffee mugs but I held onto the handle for some weird reason. This is what I did with it:



Oooooh 3D-craziness!



The quote says "Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature" - Salvador Dali

He claims to like it lol.

Ok I go now!

-Love Marylin.

What!? No 'E'?

In 1939 an author named Ernest Vincent wrote a 50,000 word novel called 'Gadsby'. The only thing unusual about the novel is that there is not a single letter e in the whole thing.

Importance Of Punctuation

An English professor wrote the words:

"A woman without her man is nothing"

on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote:

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females in the class wrote:

"A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Punctuation is powerful.

Miss Chief Eagle Testickle

Well things have been up, down, and all around with my life lately. It's really none of your fucking business but I will say there are a few things keeping me very happy these days.

Went to the Art Gallery Of Hamilton (AGH) not too long ago with a friend, that was a blast. I've gotta say my favourite part was Kim Adams: Bruegel-Bosch Bus.



That was pretty fascinating - it's been in the works for seven years and is a permanent exhibit in the gallery. I wish I had had a camera with me for that.

And a close second would have to be Kent Monkman (aka Miss Chief Eagle Testickle): The Triumph of Mischief.



There, we were allowed to enter Miss Testickle's elaborately decorated tepee and watch a very cool silent film noir by the artist.

His paintings are fascinating minglings of historical scenes and in your face sexual perversions. They're like staring into a wild dreamscape where nothing is as it would be expected.

In other news, you can check out my poetry as you're walking down King Street, downtown Hamilton ;) cause my piece, 'Steel', was just accepted for the sixth edition of 'Street' - a journal of fiction that reflects our shared urban experience.

That's good enough for now you nosy bastards!

Love Marylin.

The Biggest Loser

214 pounds???? Holy shit!!! Now THAT is inspiring!

Things I like about the show:

• The people are real people with REAL weight problems... these days people think a size 14 is fat, so this show definitely isn't like that.
  
  
• They don't put the contestants on a 'diet' (aka low carb, low fat, high protein, cabbage soup everyday, etc.). They don't really emphasize food besides stressing a healthy, easy to maintain, long term way of eating -- it's not a diet if it's forever.
  
  
• It's inspiring - it makes me feel like it's something I can achieve too.
  
  
• Bob the trainer -- he's awesome! I wish he'd come train me!
  
  
• The theme song -- inspiring as well.
  

Things I don't like about the show:

• It's for Americans only. (I'm Canadian!)
  
  
• Although they don't put them on a diet, which I like, I wish they would talk a bit more about what the contestants ARE eating, and why.
  
  
• Although inspiring, for someone with alot of physical disabilities like myself (asthma, osteo-arthritis, fibromyalgia), the idea of the rigorous workouts they do is out of the question, which makes wanting to do the same thing a Pipe Dream
  
  
• What's her face - the new trainer. She's no Bob.
  
  
• The finale, when they come back and show their great new bodies -- it's awesome to see but for some people who are extremely obese, like Erik was, you have to wonder about the whole hanging skin thing that usually happens when people that big lose alot of weight. Their bodies look perfect, but did they go through any skin surgeries, etc. before the finale?
  

Weird fact about me: for some reason, whenever I watch 'The Biggest Loser' I have to be snacking on something... hmmm.

Anyway, here's footage of the Biggest Loser, Erik from New York, weighing in for the last time:

http://video.nbc.com/v/?linkId=50699&sender=mins_stuff@yahoo.ca&name=maryiln#

Stay healthy!


Love Marylin.