( Easy reference for easy reading... )

Readers should note that all fic has been transferred to my fic journal here. All stories (and their chapters) have been deleted from this [my personal] journal. Also, any new stories will not be posted on this journal.

Hearing. Because you'd get arrested if you touched everything. It'd be disgusting if you licked/tasted everything. Smelling could be potentially gross, and I was under the impression that when your smell goes taste goes too anyway. Seeing would be good, but without you're not biased, you don't base everything on beauty. And while I'd be sad that I couldn't enjoy the Louvre as much I used to, it would potentially make me a good judge of character. Especially if I could hear because then you become attuned to voice inflection and can tell when people are lying or not. But the best part about hearing is that your ears are what you use a lot of the time to judge human emotion, when you hear a hitch in someone's voice and know they're sad. Or they sound stiff and formal and you know something has upset them. I can get on the phone with my best friend and all she has to do is say "hi" and I can know her mood, that something is wrong. And the best part about keeping your hearing is that you don't have to sacrifice music. Nobody will ever have to describe the sound to you. I once knew a deaf girl whose mother described music to by using colors and pictures. I don't think it would be enough for me. I love visual art, but music is better because the singer can make you feel and I love Fur Alys way too much to never hear it again.

My feelings are mixed. I admit that after two beers, if there is someone smoking in the vicinity, I will catch a few drags or steal a whole smoke. But while I am only a 'social smoker' I also am completely incapable to forming an addiction. I have a genetic flaw that doesn't allow me to form an addiction to nicotine, something I found out after 'smoking' for 2 1/2 years in high school in that way that smoking is both cool and uncool and definitely rebellious. So my feelings remain mixed because while I smoke 'socially' (and by 'socially' I'm mean 'only when I'm halfway to drunk') the smell of the smoke makes me sick if I don't have a beer in hand and an empty sitting in front of me.

I think that it's obvious that the non-smokers should have more 'rights' because they are technically not the ones changing the conditions of the area. The smokers are releasing something else into the air that is not naturally there so they should have to recognize some restrictions on it. The non-smokers are not releasing any unnatural byproduct into the air so they should have the 'right of way' in the situation because second-hand smoke is unhealthy and it's not their choice to breathe it in if they are next to a smoker (unless they chose to be there, then it's totally their fault).

I definitely agree with the banning of smoking from public areas because it's easier to go out when you don't have to worry about the fact that you will ooze that smoking smell out of every pore of your body the next day. That if you happen to go out and then end up cutting the evening short for a family thing that you were previously not informed about you don't have to worry about how bad your hair smells (because obviously I changed my clothes). Also, it's just easier being in the bar.

"Full of Grace" by Sarah McLachlan. It's the song that made me fall in love with music. I was 12years old and I can't even remember if I'd heard it first or if my mother, not paying attention, accidentally bought me a non-country album, exposing me to the wider range of music available to me (after this album it was Natalie Imbruglia's Left of the Middle and after that I was uncontrollable in my musical tastes). I just remember being holed up in my bedroom with that CD and listening to this song over and over. It was just so beautiful to me. I loved the entire CD (it was on constantly, I did homework to it, read to it, got ready for school to it, everything) but this song just 'touched' me. I couldn't shake it. Eventually I started making mixtapes and this was always on them (along with that 'Backstreets Back' song that haunts me even now, it's my shame, I loved Backstreet Boys, but again I was like, 12 or 13). I still put it on a lot of my burned cds (having graduated from literal mixtapes long ago) and when I realize that it's on quite a few of the cds I back off and try not to use it as much. But I'm 24 (and a half) now and I still love the song, still listen to it pretty religiously, it's the most placed song on my iTunes, and always has been.

At first, when you listen to it peripherally it's just beautiful. The soft and melodic piano, the strings, the way it starts out, melancholy of her voice, the sweetness and fullness of the notes. Then you listen to how she sings the words, how her voice tapers off and gets softer and then stronger. And then, once you've listened to it as much as you can without taking in the words, you really listen to the lyrics. To me they can mean different things each time I listen to them, they reach me in new and different ways. It's been 12 years, half my life and it can mean something new to me. Depending on what is going on in my life it can mean something different to me.

(by the way, you'd totally be able to tell that this is my favorite song just by looking at 'What I Hear' on a good portion of my entries over the years)

I've Prepared a Top 5 Though
1. "Full of Grace" Sarah McLachlan
2. "Take A Bow" Madonna
3. "Rain" Patty Griffin
4. "Clean Getaway" Maria Taylor
5. "Daydream Believer" Mary Beth Maziarz (yeah I know, but it's slower)

Honorary Mentions (that I still love and have a hard time not putting on here)
"Breathe Me" Sia
"Age of Consent" New Order
"Reason Why" Rachael Yamagata
"Farewell to the Old Me" Dar Williams
"Any Other World" Mika
"All These Things That I've Done" The Killers
"Mr Brightside" The Killers
"Amateur" Aimee Mann
"Running Up That Hill" Placebo
"Bittersweet Symphony" The Verve
"The Freshman" The Verve Pipe
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" Nirvana
"Time After Time" Cyndi Lauper
"Ring of Fire" Johnny Cash
"El Paso" Marty Robbins...
"My Way" Frank Sinatra
"Candyman" Sammy Davis Jr
"Tiny Bubbles" Dean Martin
"I Can't Help Falling In Love" Elvis
Anything else by Sarah McLachlan
"Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" Nancy Sinatra
"Here's Lookin At You Kid" Gaslight Anthem
"Let It Be" Beatles
"Wild Horses" The Sundays (any version really, but I really love the Sunday's version)
"Virgin State of Mind" K's Choice
"Keepsake" State Radio
"Kiss With A Fist" Florence + The Machine
"I'm Going to Stop Pretending I Didn't Break Your Heart" The Eels
Okay, I have a music problem because I just realized that I'm probably going to list all 10,000 songs on my iPod if I continue this.

Anyone know any good Apple Pie recipes? I'm looking to make one for Turkey Day because my cousin Liz's are mushy because the apples are too small and my cousin Angel's is bad because she adds too much clove, almost no sugar, doesn't peel the apples and cuts them into quarters so it's like choking on an apple (and the last time she made the apple pie for Thanksgiving I had to resort to stealing my grandpa's slice of pumpkin pie which I tried for the first time and didn't like) and my grandma has taken to cooking only with Splenda because she's diabetic and no matter what people say Splenda doesn't taste 'just like real sugar', it leaves a horrible aftertaste and it's just gross (and I eat pie for the sugar high). So the apple pie is up to me because I'm really the only one that refuses to eat pumpkin (although there's a pumpkin cheesecake recipe I want to try).

So email apple pie recipes... if you know any good ones

"Surfacing" Sarah McLachlan. I've loved it since I was 12, since 1997. This is the album that made me fall in love with music. I heard "Full of Grace", which is track 9, and it made me feel. I know I was only 12, but this is also the album that led me to find my own musical identity instead of the blind love of country music that my parents had instilled in me up until this point. Before this album it was all Shania Twain and Faith Hill and Reba. Don't get me wrong, I still love a good country song, I'm just more appreciative of the good ones. This album caused me to sit and listen to the lyrics, taught me to actually connect to the music I was listening to. "Full of Grace" is still my favorite song. It was the first song that just sitting and listening to it made me cry. The lyrics and the emotion she conveys through them is heartbreaking and beautiful. I've listened to it thousands of times since my mother broke down and bought me this album, and it still moves me. Sometimes I play the music in the background because it's soothing and comforting to me, but I still connect to it. Then there are the times that I put it on specifically to just listen to it, and in those times it can move me all over again. I can listen to "Full of Grace" now and fully understand the song in a way that I couldn't when I was 12. Now I can listen to it and connect it to different parts of my own life and my own feelings. It's been 12 years since I first sat down and listened to this album and "Full of Grace" and I still connect to it and I've never gotten sick of it. "Full of Grace" is still one of the most played songs in my iTunes. It's tradition in my group of friends to have our favorite songs as each other's ringtone on our phones, while theirs tend to change with fads and phases and personality shifts mine never does. So if I could listen to one CD for the rest of my life it would be this one because I don't think I could go through the rest of my life never hearing it again.

Two Years Ago...
One Year Ago... and This One
October 2009

Here's Lookin' At You Kid
Gaslight Anthem

( That's total deceit... )

First job was a babysitter/worker at a childcare facility. Then I became the personal assistant to the woman (who my mother calls the 'local billionairess' and I call the 'antichrist') which was probably what my own personal version of hell will be like.

I either get even more sarcastic (and kinda mean, when someone makes me nervous it tends to bump into defensive) or I start babbling. The really bad thing about me babbling is because my mind is kind of a mess and I talk really fast, almost as fast as my mind skips around to subjects, making it hard for anyone to follow along or even understand.

"God never gives you more than you can handle." Really? So you know for a fact that God wants me to get through this and isn't making an example of me? What if my whole purpose is to fail at this to teach everyone else a lesson, that he gave me more on purpose? Aside from that, what makes you so sure that God is taking an active role in this little venture we call 'existence'? In my opinion, at this point, he's more of a silent partner, a spectator if you will, and we just happen to be his main source of entertainment. Like we're his soap opera and he's watching what exactly we do with out free will. (this also confirms that there has to be other intelligent life out there in the universe, because nobody can watch just ONE channel)


"What doesn't kill you makes me you stronger."
Really? What if something happens that completely wrecks me? What if I can't fucking recover from that? What if something happens to me and I spend the rest of my life in some drunken haze? Does that mean I'm stronger because I'm not dead?


"When life hands you lemons..."
Well, what if life doesn't hand me lemons? What if he fucking hands me kiwis? Or Pineapples? What do I do with those? And what about the fact that I don't like fucking lemonade, what then?

In a 7 Pounds way? Probably not. Actually, I'd probably donate bone marrow. A kidney? Most likely not. I had an issue a couple years ago (gallbladder) and the ultrasound chick said it was a good thing it wasn't anything with my kidneys because they're so well protected by my ribcage that the surgeon would have to use a rib-spreader to get to them. That's probably something to do with the fact that there's about an inch of space between my ribcage and my hips. I've actually bent over the wrong way and had them hook onto each other before. The woman that did the ultrasound said that she had trouble finding my kidneys because they were so well protected, she couldn't even get a proper 'picture' of them.

Instinct. That sudden pitch in the pit of your stomach that resembles a faint flutter when you feel something is right, or the cold feeling of nausea when it isn't right. I always think that I'm going to go about things in a logical way but in the end it always comes down to that first instinctual response. I usually go with whatever my first thought is, and whether it's right or wrong in the end it doesn't really matter. Things usually end up okay for me, no matter what the decision I always seem to come out okay, but there have been times where I've made the decision and it ended up being the wrong one. I've never regretted these decisions, because they were all my decisions and no matter what, if you look, you're going to find some fault in every decision. So maybe that's how I make the decision, whether it's right or wrong, if I'm going to regret this later. Or if I'm going to find so many faults with it that I won't be able to live with it later. But for a long time I lived by "the end justifies the means" and the golden rule and all the other philosophies you could think of, but the live without regret one, that's the one that I've found easiest to live by.

"Relax" Seriously? I hate it when people tell me to relax. They always say it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Oh, you're running late with all your paperwork by at least an hour and you've been at work for 13hrs and you've had one meal today? Relax, it'll all get done." or "Sorry, that the fucking retard in front of you in the drive up teller queue has, for some unknown reason, put his truck in reverse, slammed on the gas and slammed you so hard that you nearly choked on the seatbelt before nearly knocking yourself unconscious from rebounding of the steering wheel, then shifted and disappeared into a mess of traffic. But you should really relax." If it were fucking possible for me to relax I would have fucking relaxed by now. Shut your mouth!


"Don't be sad, he's in a better place, the best think you could do now is celebrate him." Something someone told me right after my dad died. Don't be sad? What the fuck is wrong with you? He was my father, and I was most definitely a daddy's girl, why the fuck wouldn't I be sad? Better place? I get it, you believe in heaven and that it's a much better place than here. No, I never once entertained the idea that my father would ever end up in hell. But you can forgive me for thinking that the best fucking place for my father would be here, with his wife and three children, one of which just moved out of the house and is only 19! So fuck off. The best I can do is celebrate him? Worst part of the whole thing. And people say this all the time at funerals, or the time in between the death and the funeral when hundreds of people show up to 'pay their respects' and bring useless things like plant holders and mini-muffins. What the fuck are we supposed to do with mini-muffins? You need, like, 6 of them to equal a regular muffin, and then there aren't enough of them left for anyone else. Why would you bring plants? Someone is dead, so obviously you should bring something else for us to take care of every day and remind us of it as if the thing is saying "you got me when you're dad died, remember that day? is sucked right?". And celebrate him? How? Do you want balloons? Streamers? A fucking clown? Not likely, but every time one solitary tear escapes you're on my back about 'celebrating' his life! News flash, his life is over and he's not coming back, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't see the fun in the fact that I now have to readjust my entire life to exclude someone that has been a pretty integral part to ever decision and action I've ever made. DIAF!!

okay, I got this in my weekly girliegirlarmy newsletter... it's totally fab for dog lovers, especially if you love Pit Bulls. I know people insist that these dogs are awful and violent, but the ex-roomie had one and he was the biggest wuss that ever lived. It's true that it all depends on how they're raised and treated.

I have a DreamWidth Code if anyone is interested. Email me or comment for the code if you want.


I currently am using my mother's computer due to a little mishap with my laptop and a small glass of water (seriously, I'm praying it's okay). So there will be no updates to The Return for a while. I'm praying for the swift recovery of my laptop if only because there is a half written chapter of the The Return on it, along with a good portion of a story I've been working on for nearly a year now. I've been writing it on the side while I try to finish up The Return, so there's a lot done for it. Timeline, bits and pieces of different chapters and pretty much the whole story concept. It was getting good, all fine tuned and stuff, and really helping me with my muse. Every time I wrote for it I would get a surge of stuff for The Return too. Sadly, all my new stuff withing the last month (and there was a lot) it solely on that laptop. I usually have everything copied onto one of my [three] portable hard drives, but I just hadn't had the time (or inclination) to really rush and make sure it was on one of them. So I'm praying that my laptop makes it out of this pretty much unscathed. And that my 'C' key and Space bar start working again (okay, I'm hoping that both bottom rows of keys start working again after it dries out) and that all my information is okay. I'm just pissed that I did this and that it was the one time that something wasn't completely saved on a external hard drive. First time ever, I swear. At least all my music is safe. If I lost almost $7,000 in music just because I was clumsy enough to tip my water glass over for a second I'd kill myself.

And then the story would never be finished.