A small black ferret

The mind of an eccentric

Picture only included because pictures make everything more interesting (and yes I took that). This is a post about parents. No, not my parents, just parents in general. The summary of the words below are: what the fuck, guys. I cannot stand the way parents are now. I do not mean all of them: yes, there are some that are respectable. But more and more, I’m seeing parents turn into overprotective blobs of JELLY. There’s a few specific things I’m seeing, in convenient bulleted form for you. “But parenting is so haaaaaard! It’s the hardest job in the WORRRRLD!” It’s also optional. So quite whining. And again, now, parenting is easier than ever! You just live such pampered lives that you need SOMETHING to whine about. “No don’t touch that YOU’LL DIE A TERRIBLE DEATH IT’S GOT GEEEERMS.” I ate dirt. I’m alive. You’re actually harming your child, you realize that? Without proper exposure to germs, the immune system falls down a drain and dies. Then when your kid DOES get sick, it’s that much worse. “Hi, I’m going to live through you and get pissed when you develop your own interests, okay?” Otherwise known as pageant moms and football dads. “But if I DON’T give it to him, he’ll just keep CRYING and CRYING….” Then try this novel concept: discipline. “I’m going to buy you everything and do all of your chores. That’ll prepare you for the real world!” Self-explanatory. “I’m very disappointed in you.”/”YOU’RE GROUNDED IN 3…2…1…….. stop it, dangit!” Empty threats and “disappointment” are not very good for punishments. When I did something stupid, I got a smack on my ass. I’m not dysfunctional, I bear no grudge, and there is no deep, lasting trauma. Parents who crush their children’s dreams. Let life deal out it’s own reality checks! (For more on that, http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/unconventional-wisdom-why-passion-matters/article134606.html)

Picture only included because pictures make everything more interesting (and yes I took that).

This is a post about parents. No, not my parents, just parents in general. The summary of the words below are: what the fuck, guys.

I cannot stand the way parents are now. I do not mean all of them: yes, there are some that are respectable. But more and more, I’m seeing parents turn into overprotective blobs of JELLY. There’s a few specific things I’m seeing, in convenient bulleted form for you.

  • “But parenting is so haaaaaard! It’s the hardest job in the WORRRRLD!” It’s also optional. So quite whining. And again, now, parenting is easier than ever! You just live such pampered lives that you need SOMETHING to whine about.
  • “No don’t touch that YOU’LL DIE A TERRIBLE DEATH IT’S GOT GEEEERMS.” I ate dirt. I’m alive. You’re actually harming your child, you realize that? Without proper exposure to germs, the immune system falls down a drain and dies. Then when your kid DOES get sick, it’s that much worse.
  • “Hi, I’m going to live through you and get pissed when you develop your own interests, okay?” Otherwise known as pageant moms and football dads.
  • “But if I DON’T give it to him, he’ll just keep CRYING and CRYING….” Then try this novel concept: discipline.
  • “I’m going to buy you everything and do all of your chores. That’ll prepare you for the real world!” Self-explanatory.
  • “I’m very disappointed in you.”/”YOU’RE GROUNDED IN 3…2…1…….. stop it, dangit!” Empty threats and “disappointment” are not very good for punishments. When I did something stupid, I got a smack on my ass. I’m not dysfunctional, I bear no grudge, and there is no deep, lasting trauma.
  • Parents who crush their children’s dreams. Let life deal out it’s own reality checks! (For more on that, http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/unconventional-wisdom-why-passion-matters/article134606.html)

The above picture is entirely unrelated to the ramblings below: I posted it because I’m proud of it (and it’s that time of the year again, constant snow!). I’ve come to realize something. My complete and utter lack of emotion and interest in the “real world” is probably caused by the firm roots I’ve planted in my own imagination. Most of my  time is spent in my mind, creating and building on my stories and thinking about my dreams. I can feel the things I think physically, especially the emotions and sensations (such as those of flight) of my dreams. Lately a lot of my dreams have to do with flight. Once I was flying from a pirate ship; another time I was a gryphon, soaring above the nearby mountains. I think about these dreams a lot even when I’m awake, imagining how amazing it would be to launch into the air and fly at every moment through the day. I can almost feel my shoulders rolling forwards to push off the ground and away into the sky. I also daydream constantly about characters and events of my own creation, mostly those in my novels. Is it a bad thing for my head to be in the clouds, constantly interacting with characters of my own creation to the point where I’m more worried about imaginary happenings than real ones? No. Because I’m happy. And I’m still getting along rather well in the real world, I just lack interest in it. It’s not a bad thing to love your own characters more than the people in your life. The key is to make sure you’re well enough off to be able to dream all day.

The above picture is entirely unrelated to the ramblings below: I posted it because I’m proud of it (and it’s that time of the year again, constant snow!).

I’ve come to realize something. My complete and utter lack of emotion and interest in the “real world” is probably caused by the firm roots I’ve planted in my own imagination. Most of my  time is spent in my mind, creating and building on my stories and thinking about my dreams. I can feel the things I think physically, especially the emotions and sensations (such as those of flight) of my dreams.

Lately a lot of my dreams have to do with flight. Once I was flying from a pirate ship; another time I was a gryphon, soaring above the nearby mountains. I think about these dreams a lot even when I’m awake, imagining how amazing it would be to launch into the air and fly at every moment through the day. I can almost feel my shoulders rolling forwards to push off the ground and away into the sky. I also daydream constantly about characters and events of my own creation, mostly those in my novels.

Is it a bad thing for my head to be in the clouds, constantly interacting with characters of my own creation to the point where I’m more worried about imaginary happenings than real ones? No. Because I’m happy. And I’m still getting along rather well in the real world, I just lack interest in it.

It’s not a bad thing to love your own characters more than the people in your life. The key is to make sure you’re well enough off to be able to dream all day.


Fish are just as alive as any other animal. I don’t get how people don’t understand this. Haven’t you noticed that just because they aren’t as cuddly as ferrets or dogs, fish get treated like they’re autonomous, lesser beings that can’t feel anything? And no, I don’t mean ‘feel’ as in emotion, I mean it as in ‘pain’, ‘hunger’, ect. Someone dumped a fish, still in its bag, on a counter and just left it there. It was there for several days before I took it home. Nobody knew who had put it there, and they didn’t feed it. The line of thought seems to be: “Oh, I guess I really don’t want this fish. Eh, it’s just a fish, I’ll let it slowly starve to an agonizing death.” Even when I took it, people delighted in telling me “That fish won’t live”, “Let us flush it”, “Can I feed it to MY fish?”, and the like. If it was a kitten, would you tell me that it wasn’t going to live? If it was a puppy, would you tell me to give it up as a lost cause? No. A life is a life, damnit. I named him Kushi. Pic related; it is a snapshot of Kushi that I took to prove he’s still alive.

Fish are just as alive as any other animal. I don’t get how people don’t understand this. Haven’t you noticed that just because they aren’t as cuddly as ferrets or dogs, fish get treated like they’re autonomous, lesser beings that can’t feel anything? And no, I don’t mean ‘feel’ as in emotion, I mean it as in ‘pain’, ‘hunger’, ect.

Someone dumped a fish, still in its bag, on a counter and just left it there. It was there for several days before I took it home. Nobody knew who had put it there, and they didn’t feed it. The line of thought seems to be: “Oh, I guess I really don’t want this fish. Eh, it’s just a fish, I’ll let it slowly starve to an agonizing death.”

Even when I took it, people delighted in telling me “That fish won’t live”, “Let us flush it”, “Can I feed it to MY fish?”, and the like. If it was a kitten, would you tell me that it wasn’t going to live? If it was a puppy, would you tell me to give it up as a lost cause? No. A life is a life, damnit.

I named him Kushi. Pic related; it is a snapshot of Kushi that I took to prove he’s still alive.


An unusual dream

That is actually quite epic in the telling.

It began in school. All I can remember is the white page before me, listing a bunch of career choices and why you would be interested in them. Then I was in a Jeep with a woman named Sarah and two men (Jeffery and Timothy, I think), heading toward a cave on an archeological expedition. The opening to the cave was small, and we had to wiggle forward on our bellies.

A few yards in, Sarah (who was in the front) remembered that she had an urgent gynecological appointment that she had to get to, so we all crawled back out. Once she had left, we entered the cave again.

This time, it was open and airy, complete with dusty wooden slats on the floor for more stability. We soon came to a door that looked remarkably like it had been ripped from a lego castle and set into the reddish-coloured wall. When we opened it, a horrid scene greeted us. A skull, complete with dripping blood and a length of rotting skin hanging from it, was directly in our faces. Half-decayed corpses and skeletons were piled in the corners, while the center of the room was taken up by a pool that contained about half a foot of liquified, congealing flesh.

We shrugged, shut the door, and moved on.

Slowly, the rough rock began to flatten out, and the walls became more squared and even. I recognized some of the contours of the rock- we were in my high school. Sure enough, another door opened to the Astronomy classroom. We nodded at the teacher; he nodded back; and we left again.

It gets a little fuzzy here. I do know that Jeffery got abducted by a giant bat, while Timothy beat at him with an oversized bug net that he had acquired somewhere. But to no avail: with a last dramatic cry of “Hi-ho Silver, awaaaaay!”, Jeffery was gone. Tear.

Timothy and I came to another door. I got the creeping feeling that there would be more death and decay behind it- I distinctly remember wondering aloud how many corpses we would find. Instead, it opened into a room of my old middle school. Timothy ran back into the cave to check something, and I stayed in the room, just sort of standing there. A fat kid in the corner laughed at me. Apparently the whole class had heard me wonder if there would be dead people behind the door. I did not like his laughter, he was an annoying little snot. So I took him, lead him back to the first room we had found, threw him into the pool of flesh and locked him in. Fatty.

And I woke up. Odd, eh?


Mother Nature needs a slap upside the head and a dicitonary with the words “desert” and “summer” highlighted. Now, this is a bit of an old tale, but I’ll tell it anyway. On the fourth of July, my city throws a good old-fashioned carnival, complete with rides and stuff to blow up. My friend and I had just gotten off of a nasuea-inducing ride (you know the one, a great big circle that spins so fast you’re plastered to the wall?) and were heading to get some deep-fried artery cloggers. We stopped on a hill to let our eyes stop spinning, and felt something- a drop of hail. We barely made it under cover. It started to hail so ferociously that a lot of unfortunate people yelped in pain. The two lovely gents we stood with didn’t make it any easier; they decided I was an excellent hail block. They made up for it though. They had awesome accents, which totally excuses every wrong ever in my book (honestly, honestly, I’m serious. I’ve killed a man, no joke). It hailed so hard that poor little carnies had to go around with brooms to push the water and ice off of the tents so that the canvas wouldn’t break. This is just a continuation of the ridiculous amount of rain we’d been having; it rained almost constantly for two weeks at the start of summer, making the classification of “desert” pretty pointless. On the other hand, it stopped after about an hour and the day was clear after that. the following fireworks show completely made up for the weather’s horrible atittude. Though that might be the pyro in me showing through.

Mother Nature needs a slap upside the head and a dicitonary with the words “desert” and “summer” highlighted.

Now, this is a bit of an old tale, but I’ll tell it anyway.

On the fourth of July, my city throws a good old-fashioned carnival, complete with rides and stuff to blow up. My friend and I had just gotten off of a nasuea-inducing ride (you know the one, a great big circle that spins so fast you’re plastered to the wall?) and were heading to get some deep-fried artery cloggers. We stopped on a hill to let our eyes stop spinning, and felt something- a drop of hail.

We barely made it under cover. It started to hail so ferociously that a lot of unfortunate people yelped in pain. The two lovely gents we stood with didn’t make it any easier; they decided I was an excellent hail block. They made up for it though. They had awesome accents, which totally excuses every wrong ever in my book (honestly, honestly, I’m serious. I’ve killed a man, no joke).

It hailed so hard that poor little carnies had to go around with brooms to push the water and ice off of the tents so that the canvas wouldn’t break. This is just a continuation of the ridiculous amount of rain we’d been having; it rained almost constantly for two weeks at the start of summer, making the classification of “desert” pretty pointless.

On the other hand, it stopped after about an hour and the day was clear after that. the following fireworks show completely made up for the weather’s horrible atittude. Though that might be the pyro in me showing through.


Bear with me, for this is an awesome tale. So, there wasn’t enough room to stay at the house we were visiting. I had to stay about half a mile out in the back, in a nice-sized RV. It was beautiful. The wind rustled the sagebrush. It was pitch-dark, except for the small square of light coming from another home about a mile away. The thinnest beam of light from the camper faded into the blackness. I had a radio going faintly in the background, the music just barely louder than the static. And at midnight, I stopped, took it all in, and thought- This is the perfect setting for a werewolf attack. And it was, too. My mind kept playing tricks on me- that flash of light off to the left wasn’t a firefly, but the moonlight reflecting off of the beast’s eye. It wasn’t the wind or a snake that caused that rustle in the sagebrush, but a figure creeping up from my blind side. I could see the attack in my head: it would lunge, not at me, but at the camper, causing it to tip. I would lose my balance and fall against the wall; it would take advantage of my flailing limbs to go for the throat. All in all, I was pissed when nothing happened. Pic related; it’s the view out the door of the camper, complete with rusted farm equipment. Sorry for the quality, my camera is shit. Believe me when I say it makes everything seem much closer (and that was the only section of fence that still stood, the rest had been knocked down).

Bear with me, for this is an awesome tale.

So, there wasn’t enough room to stay at the house we were visiting. I had to stay about half a mile out in the back, in a nice-sized RV.

It was beautiful. The wind rustled the sagebrush. It was pitch-dark, except for the small square of light coming from another home about a mile away. The thinnest beam of light from the camper faded into the blackness. I had a radio going faintly in the background, the music just barely louder than the static. And at midnight, I stopped, took it all in, and thought-

This is the perfect setting for a werewolf attack.

And it was, too. My mind kept playing tricks on me- that flash of light off to the left wasn’t a firefly, but the moonlight reflecting off of the beast’s eye. It wasn’t the wind or a snake that caused that rustle in the sagebrush, but a figure creeping up from my blind side. I could see the attack in my head: it would lunge, not at me, but at the camper, causing it to tip. I would lose my balance and fall against the wall; it would take advantage of my flailing limbs to go for the throat.

All in all, I was pissed when nothing happened. Pic related; it’s the view out the door of the camper, complete with rusted farm equipment. Sorry for the quality, my camera is shit. Believe me when I say it makes everything seem much closer (and that was the only section of fence that still stood, the rest had been knocked down).


So I was down at the Utah/Arizona border recently, and I saw something that just pissed me off. There is a cave down there, called the “Moqui Cave”. It’s a whole big tourist thing, but it’s actually a very large, beautiful cave. It was closed. How in the HELL do you close a natural landform? What’s next? “Oh, this river is closed.” “Sorry, this field is down for matinence.” Sorry, but that is bullshit. Just because you found it first doesn’t mean that you get property rights, especially with caves and other landforms. Nature should never, and I mean NEVER, charge an entry fee. I understand with national parks and the like, to a degree: they’re about conservation. It helps fund research. But a damned cave? It’s like this everywhere. All the biggest, most beautiful caves have an admissions fee, with an option to go on a tour. This is not good news for an avid caver, no matter how many other gorgeous caves there are. Pic unrelated; it is not Moqui cave, it is a cave across the road from it.

So I was down at the Utah/Arizona border recently, and I saw something that just pissed me off. There is a cave down there, called the “Moqui Cave”. It’s a whole big tourist thing, but it’s actually a very large, beautiful cave.

It was closed.

How in the HELL do you close a natural landform? What’s next? “Oh, this river is closed.” “Sorry, this field is down for matinence.” Sorry, but that is bullshit. Just because you found it first doesn’t mean that you get property rights, especially with caves and other landforms. Nature should never, and I mean NEVER, charge an entry fee. I understand with national parks and the like, to a degree: they’re about conservation. It helps fund research. But a damned cave?

It’s like this everywhere. All the biggest, most beautiful caves have an admissions fee, with an option to go on a tour. This is not good news for an avid caver, no matter how many other gorgeous caves there are.

Pic unrelated; it is not Moqui cave, it is a cave across the road from it.