Runaway Gator
Well, I suppose I could use this space for fun stories from the past instead of just rants.
I will start with my favorite one.
Summer of 2007, Pittsburgh, Pa. It was a horribly hot summer and I was in college, going to AIP and working on my demo reel for my portfolio class like there was no tomorrow. I lived with my then boyfriend, Chris, and two roomies, one was Brad (Game Art and Design) and the other was Sara (a reptile breeder).
Sara had two alligators. They were about 2 ½ ft – 3 ft long total and about 4 inches wide (I think… been a while since I saw it). They were kept in separate tanks. Actually the only times they were let out of the tanks were when Sara was cleaning them (then the one getting the tank cleaned was put into the bathtub… that made for some great mornings) or when she put a muzzle (electrical tape around their snout) and a cat harness on them and walked them around North Side (her nickname was the Reptile Lady – she normally had a snake draped around her neck, too). She also had a few dozen snakes, countless mice and rats, a few ferrets and three dwarf rabbits. There was also two bearded dragons, bloated man beast (no clue on the species there), hissing cockroaches, monitor lizards, and a scorpion. Ah, fun times. The only time I screamed was when a bug ran over me in the middle of the night just as I was falling asleep.
Anyway, I was up early one morning, having gotten much needed sleep and I wanted to veg out for a bit on Soul Caliber II on the Game Cube Huzzah for button mashing!
There was something odd that I noticed when I got into the living room. The alligator tank was empty (the second one was in Sara’s and Brad’s room in another tank). I did the first that I always did – went into the bathroom to see if it was in the tub. Nope. I freaked a bit and started to look all over the apartment. I even woke up Chris to have him help when I looked through it a second time (it wasn’t a big apartment and if you got near the alligator, per Chris, it would hiss in warning). My exact words were, “So, um… yea. The alligator isn’t in it’s tank. Help me find it. I don’t wanna lose any toes.”
We searched it twice. No luck. No hissing. No gator. I sat down and started playing my game hoping (for some reason) that it was in a different tank in Sara and Brad’s room. When Brad woke up a few hours later I asked if the gator was in his room. I got a blink then a confused look. I asked again, and told him that it wasn’t in it’s tank. He blinked again, went to the tank to confirm, then went into the bedroom. “Saaaaraaaa… the alligator is gone.”
We searched the apartment once more. Still no gator. We hoped that it would show up. After a week with no incident we decided aliens must have taken it and just forgot about it.
Two weeks after this I was in the tutoring lab at AIP telling my old roomie, Ruth, what happened. She told me what happened to the gator. You see, the morning it went missing there was a Bass Fishing tournament in the Mon. An alligator was caught. The same size as the missing one. Now unless there was another alligator in the river (very unlikely that far north) it was Sara’s.
It wasn’t until the larger bearded dragon got out of its tank that we figured out what must have happened (because the bearded dragon tried to do it twice and we saw what he did the second time). He used his tail as leverage to angle himself up and pull himself to the top of the tank. Then he proceeded to walk across the tops of the tank to the window we had a fan sitting in – there was just enough space for him to squeeze between the fan and the window seal. Then he managed to survive a three-story drop to the ground and either got into the sewer system or walked through North Side to the river about half a mile a way.
My guess is the sewers since Pittsburgh always seems to have people walking about regardless of the hour.
Without further adieu
Your Hostess has returned!
Sorry. Lot’s has changed and I needed to get back into the swing of things. About my “carefully laid plans” post. All destroyed. Huzzah! Including bits of myself.
Going through an odd period, too. Not sure how to go about describing that.
Also, when did the TOS change on here? Or am I imaging things? I haven’t had a computer for a long time and I’ve only been able to get online via Android phones.
So… hi. How goes it with everyone else?
Perfection
Perfection. For the longest time I didn’t think it existed. I even said that the definition of perfection was “it doesn’t exist.”
Now I realize something. Maybe it’s just me, but I believe that the actual definition of perfection is that all the little imperfections that make life as we know it perfect. Perfection does exist, but it is a paradox. Because we’re caught up so much in the idea of perfection we don’t stop to think that what we have is perfect.
Of Carefully Laid Plans..
This January I had it all figured out. I was going to complete my massage certification in June and move back to Pittsburgh. I was going to slowly convince the then boyfriend to move up with me and I would work in a spa there. I’d hang out with other classmates and friends in the Steampunk group there. Yup… all planned out. Even the part including never getting married or having kids or any of that!
Then March came, and with it SheVaCon. The day it opened was a friend’s funeral (she had a very rare, very malignant form of breast cancer), so I was late in going since I had to drive to my hometown for the service. Still, I let my roomie borrow my car and head out there after doing her con makeup. I put on my business gear, picked up some flowers, and met two other friends before we headed out to my hometown for the service. It was late in the day when we got back, got me into costume, and one of my friends dropped me off. As thanks I let her borrow one of my own costumes (yay for improv!) and she was a gypsy.
I wandered around the con looking for my roomie and ended up meeting someone who unknowingly threw a wrench into my carefully thought out plans, and I stood there and let it all happen quite willingly. He was dressed up like Riku from Kingdom Hearts II. I spent most of the con on the lookout for him because I thought he was very attractive, and he intrigued me. His aura was very attractive, and even if I can’t quite see them anymore I can still sense the colors. Cool yet rich blue mixed with bright green and yellow (for the meanings as I see them… http://www.reiki-for-holistic-health.com/auracolormeanings.html). A very nice combination.
After the con that night Nykki and I went to IHOP per hitting up the area proper tradition. The roomie had invited a group of people that she met to meet us there. Among those was the Riku cosplayer. I ended up sitting next to him and we talked for a long time. I found out some about him (some of his likes, his name (Andrew), things like that), and told him some about me as well. At the end of the night I offered him a massage the next day — your basic chair massage. Nothing fancy or over elaborate.
The next day I didn’t bother to dress up save for a pair of jeans and a Quidira shirt from Pathfinder (a tabletop RPG). Because of the heels I wore the previous two days my ankle was a bit swollen and hurt like hell. I was busy with going to panels that day so I didn’t get much time to wander about. During the course of the day my roomie had told me about the Shevacon Speed Dating. I wasn’t really interested because I had a boyfriend. However, I decided to a bit before it started, my reason being “for the lolz.”
As luck would have it the cosplayer was there, and I was able to give him that massage I promised him the night before. Once I finished I was struck with the overwhelming urge to kiss him. I didn’t, though. We talked a lot before the event happened, then even more during it, and finding just how much we had in common. Right afterwards we went to a Burlesque show. Now it was about as safe for work as a Burlesque show could be — the dancer wore skin toned clothing underneath. It was so much fun! I wish I would have been coherent enough to have stayed to ask questions at the end when the dancer asked, but I was too exhausted.
After that we parted ways and I head home, and Andrew headed to his hotel room. Now the next day there really wasn’t much going on, and I couldn’t talk (who would have thought that two hours of nonstop talking over a lot of people would have caused me to lose my voice, mm?). I ran into him a few times and we exchanged info for our Facebook and deviantart sites.
A few days later we were talking on Facebook. Here I expected it would be like other people I’ve met at cons — there’d be some chatting, a few comments here and there, some “likes,” and nothing more.
A week after the con he asked me out. He knew at the time I still had a boyfriend. What he didn’t know was that I had gone invisible and was having my doubts of the relationship. After all, why would I avoid talking to someone for weeks on end if everything was fine? I asked for time. I needed to figure out what I wanted.
That was my head talking, and I knew it. My heart kept jumping at the opportunity to date him. I had gone too long with logic and working on making others happy instead of myself. I knew what I needed to do. I gave Andrew my answer, it being a definite yes. A week later I had worked up the courage to call the previous boyfriend and broke it off.
And now?
I couldn’t be happier. I have someone who has many similar interests with me, that has aspirations I can see myself being a part of or helping him to achieve, and I can definitely see a future. As much as I don’t wish to admit this, I never could see that last one with anyone, no matter how many times I tried to look for it.
Sketch Dump
As a warning, this may be a bit graphic heavy.
That’s it for the sketches I had on my phone. I still have some at work and in my notes from school…
SheVaCon
Okay. So my attempt to do the daily drawing thing didn’t quite pan out. Since my last post I have 1) had a partial break down, 2) recovered, 3) had at least an hour and a half of overtime each work day (we were waaaaaaaaaaay behind in stats [and this was part of the reason why I had the breakdown...]), 4) worked on two costumes, 5) went to SheVaCon <3, and 6) made a lot of new friends.
I’m going to explain my breakdown and recovery. Ever since high school I have had two pieces of jewelry I’ve always had and worn. It was rare to see me without one or the other on. One is a pentacle necklace while the other is a pentagram ring, and both are sterling silver. I’ve had them since I was 16 — so it has been a decade.
I haven’t worn either in over two weeks. I have come to realize that there is a… darkness attached to them. Now they didn’t come like that, and it has absolutely nothing to do with both having a pentagram in them. I wore these through the darkest parts of my life and I believe the memory of those times is stored in the metals. Sadly, I gave that particular darkness a name so that may have been a bad thing…
HOWEVER, those two pieces are now off of my person, and stored away until I can figure out what to do with them. For now I feel a lot happier, my soul lighter. I sadly cannot remember a time in which I felt this.
Onto some news that is far more fun! SheVaCon is a local mixed genre [scifi, fantasy, horror] convention here in Roanoke, VA. It started out in the Staunton, VA area and has grown in size. It went from having a few hundred people at the very most to having a few thousand (I believe that was the estimate).
So who all was there? There was a group of Mandalorian Mercs, a North Carolinian branch of Ghostbusters, the 501st Legion of Storm Troopers, Virginia Hey, Samurai Dan and Jillian, aaaaaaaaaaaand [the entire reason why I went to the con this year] Peter S. Beagle. ^^ I got him to sign both my copy of the novel and a copy of the comic book that came out. <3
And now that my fangasm is over with (for now), I shall go on with the last bit. I’m not used to running into locals at cons. Sure, I expected to see my coworkers and the regular con goers, but I met a whole slew of people nearby or sorta nearby. Info was exchanged, and networks were created.
By far, I think this was the best con I’ve been to. Maybe next year I won’t lose my voice and have a twisted ankle through most of it.
To my friends, may there be more meet-ups at IHOP! I look forward to them. And to my readers, I shall post pictures eventually. Including the pictures from my daily sketches.
Massage and Healing
As stated in earlier entries… I’m going to school to become a massage therapist. In addition to that, I started going to get regular massages by the director.
When my roommate moved in I stopped going. Probably it was because I felt as if I did not have the time and that I was strong enough to heal myself of the darkness that has plagued me for over a decade.
Yesterday I went back in for a massage and I found that whatever progress I had made went back so many steps. I even had stopped working out — though the time my roomie moved in I was undergoing that whole “you’re sick but not/we have no idea what is wrong with you” thing with the doctors. I was de-motivated and depressed because I wasn’t getting any results. Sadly, I realize it now, it was because I am part of the me-generation. The generation that wants results instantly or it’s not worth our time.
It’s humbling to realize and understand that the goals we want in life will not be achieved instantly. We won’t be rewarded for every small achievement we reach for the true reward lies in the very end.
My instructor, I’ll call her Sapphire, is also a major spiritual influence for me. While I like to think myself as open-minded, I really can be small-minded and closed off. Especially with anything dealing with Christianity. I’ll admit, I do sneer at them, thinking that the religion is below me. Now I realize that I’ve done to them what I always expected them to do to a Pagan like me.
“Just because you’re Pagan doesn’t mean you can’t believe in God, or the Light,” is what she told me. Too long I’ve let my darkness rule me. I need to untie myself from it and let it go if I wish to heal and move on. However, to even do that I have to believe that I deserve it.
Any suggestions from anyone out there? Will doing affirmations every day help? Meditation, when I’m ready?
A new goal
I realize that I have not been keeping up with my sketches as I used to. Before I would fill up a notebook within a month. Now it may take a year or more.
I’m going to change that. I’m going to sketch at least one thing a day, be it in a note-book or in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet. True, I may be a call center employee trying to survive the monotony of every day calls as I work toward becoming a certified massage therapist.
I’m going to post my artwork here at the end of each week in a blog. I’ll be updating my regular galleries, like Deviant Art when I finish them.
Here’s to changing everything for the better. May I grow instead of stagnating. That, I fear, is a fate worse than death.
Research fun
I decided that I was going to look into some of the things one of my massage teachers told me about. She was going on and on about the health benefits of castor oil. Then she mentioned something that caught my attention. One of the supervisors here was just recently diagnosed Crohn’s disease.
A few months ago she had a client in whose mother has lived with Crohn’s for the last thirty years. She’s been miserable, to say the least. When my teacher learned of this she suggested to apply castor oil to the skin on her abdomen. She said the next time her client came she was told that her mother is no longer suffering from Crohn’s. It vanished.
Now I’m not sure if it just fully vanished, as I don’t know her client or her client’s mum,but that sounds pretty amazing.
I looked at the some articles with Castor oil and found this little gem. I’m gonna do some more research on this as well as some other oils. It’ll be nice when it comes to knowing them when I start doing massage therapy.
I’ll try to update some with it to share my findings. :D After all, might as well share the wealth, ja?
On the agenda:
- Finish Massage Therapy
Get certification in it
- Find a Reiki master and get trained in it
Get certification in this, too
- Study oils and their uses
Examples: Castor oil, Lavender essential oil, Peppermint essential oil…
Once more, I’m excited. Maybe I’ll start doing lists and working on research during Leadership II training at work. Well.. at least during the breaks for Leadership II.
