Everyone I Ever Was and Everyone I Ever Will Be

Been a nice past couple of days-- went on a long drive and wrote a bunch of story notes.
Also, bought Slipstream, which gave new meaning to the word 'weird', but in a good way. I'm probably misinterpreting it wrong or something, but I thought I got most of what was going on-- there's where a scene's getting rewritten, here's some dialogue that's being tweaked, a few snippets of things that influence the later story, etc. I told Chris that I recognized some of that stuff from my own thought processes, and this is what followed:

Chris: "That's how your brain works? I'm scared of you now."
Me: "As well you should be."
Chris: "My brain's more like, 'Hm, I should go get lunch-- ooh, motorcycle! I don't want to go to work today-- ooh, motorcycle!'

In Kaylee news, she slept for 8 hours last night. 8. Hours. Ahahahaha, sleeeeeeep.

Yeah, I've been tired lately. Can you tell? ;-)

And when we were over at mom and dad's house, I picked up a copy of one of dad's magazines, read part of an article in it-- which succeeded in raising my blood pressure a bit-- and then held it up in front of Kaylee.

Me: "Kaylee, you know what this is?"
Kaylee: *URK*
Me: *snickering* "Hey dad! I held up your copy of National Review, and Kaylee threw up!"
Dad: "Hm. She does take after you."

Well, the running-around for the day is done . . . went to visit my parents, my grandmother, and Chris's family. All before 2:00, because that was when Chris had to be at work.

And we're probably going to be unconscious for a good long while tomorrow, because we stayed up until 3 in the morning last night (Devin brought over Dawn of the Dead and The Hills Have Eyes for nice cheerful holiday fare). Pictures from last night and this morning under the cut.

( 'Twas the night before Christmas and my brother was reenacting a scene from Trilogy of Terror because he's a freaking psycho )

I'd already taken tomorrow off work, in honor of Halloween, but after I sprained my toe I took today off, too-- and a good thing, since I'm limping like crazy. Chris and I did head to the grocery store, though, because I want to walk around enough to gradually prepare myself for Wednesday.

I like having days off, but it always throws my mental schedule out of whack. Wasn't until Chris left for work that I really remembered-- "Oh yeah, it is Monday, genius. Update Karavan's Mirror."

So that's done, and now I'm going to do some more NaNoWriMo plotting/panicking.

***

My dad was walking home from work the other day, and he heard a woman shriek, "Leave me alone!" Her voice was coming from a house about half a block away, and as he walked closer she yelled it again. So he took out his cell phone and called 911.

A moment later, a guy comes out of the house, looking none too happy.

Idiot: "What're you doing?"
Dad: "I just called the police."
Idiot: "What the . . . you just called the cops on me?"
Dad: "Yes I did."
Idiot: "And now you're just gonna stand there and wait for them?"
Dad: "Yes I am."

So the guy proceeds to yell at my dad, threatening him and saying a bunch of 'if I ever see you around here again' stuff. Meanwhile, the woman who was in the house heads out a side door, gets into her car, and drives off, circling the block. The guy sees this, gets into a different car, and leaves. When the cops get there, the woman comes back and she and dad explain what was going on.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why my father is awesome. :-)

***

Speaking of awesome, if you haven't done so already, go rent Slither. I cannot recommend this movie enough. Nathan Fillion! Sarcastic characters! Alien slugs bent on world domination! It's great.

Chris is cooking some form of jambalaya, with cheddarwurst, pepperoni, cubed ham, pasta, and just about every kind of spice in our cupboard. So while he's doing that, I call my mother:

Me: "Hey, we saw the owl again last night. Stood at the window and watched it for about ten minutes."
Mom: "Where was it; on the clothesline again?"
Me: "Yeah."
Mom: "That's so neat."
Me: "I know. Hey, what's the kid doing tonight? Ask him if he wants to come over and watch a horror movie about a demon coming out of a Ouija board."
Mom: "Okay. Hold on, your father has to tell you a horrible pun."
Me: "Oh no."
Dad: "So Devin wants to make sure I don't eat any of his Doritos, and he crunches all of them up inside the bag. So I say to him, if that bag breaks and some of the contents fall onto this recently spilled coffee, what will it be?"
Me: "Do I even want to hear this?"
Dad: "Flakes on a stain."
Me: "That is just not right."
Dad: "Devin said he's going to kill me."
Me: "He would be justified, and I might come over to help."
Dad: "And then, because I don't know when to stop, I asked him what it would be if he bought a package of Hostess Ding-Dongs and dumped them in the sink."
Me: "Cakes on a drain."
Dad: "Very good."
Mom (in the background): "What's another term for Peking duck? Drakes on a flame."
Chris (calling back a few moments later after I've explained all this): "You're very sick, you know that? I married into a twisted family."
Mom: *laughs*

Really, seriously lucky.

Got to a point in the emails that's over three years ago now, when something bad happened to me (a guy I'd been friends with proved that he was a total jackass). It was a low point, and remembering it was not fun . . . but then I got to the supportive emails from my parents and Kath, and-- well, see the title of this post. Couldn't ask for better parents, or 'adopted' sibling. :-)

Went over to mom and dad's last night . . . my brother was going to go see Silent Hill with a friend of his, but then he called and said that he wasn't feeling well. So Chris and I offered to go with him--

Biiig mistake. Had a couple of friends tell me after we got out of the theatre that the game actually succeeded in being scary, while the movie-- not so much. But that wasn't even one of the main things that bugged me.

Spoilerific mutterings under the cut.

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I stayed home from work today, because when I woke up I felt like my head was going to explode and my lungs were trying to escape my body every time I coughed. Yay cold season.

Anyway, after being an utter slug for most of the day, I feel better-- cough is still there, but at least the annoying invisible man with the sledgehammer has stopped whacking my head.

On the good side, LOST last night was pretty cool . . . yay for Claire and Sayid and Hurley and Sawyer and Eko, all of whom I love; I'm still not sure where I stand with Locke; and Charlie needs to be bapped with an 'everything is not all about you' stick. Or a 'maybe if you stop lying people will be more inclined to trust you' stick. Or both.

And the other day my parents were watching The Day After Tomorrow, and they got to the point where the girl was snuggling up with Jake Gyllenhaal 'to share body heat', and dad said he had an MST3K moment and immediately thought of Jake's character saying, "Well, that's fine, but I'd like this more if you were Heath Ledger." ;-)

Okay, this is probably going to be absolutely weird and rambling, but I've thought it through and it's been a long time coming and I figured I'd put it out here.

I went to church when I was younger. Wesley United Methodist. I was too young to really understand any of it, and most of the learning was centered on, "Hey, if I can memorize this verse I get to go along on the trip to the lake." After I got older, I had no interest in going, and I was an agnostic for a while.

Then I started dating Chris, and I basically went to his (and his family's, and my family's for the most part) religion, Christianity. Started reading the Bible (still haven't gotten through it yet, though hopes are high), went to church once, etc.

But I'm really not sure that I'm cut out for this.

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So it was a slow point in the day at work and I picked up the paper. Big mistake. First thing I see on the editorials page is a piece by Michael Medved, who is absolutely certain that he knows why Hollywood is in a slump lately.

They've lost touch with America. They're controlled by godless heathen liberals right now, but if they'd only get back to moral values, then they'd do better.

Of course, this brilliant man doesn't stop to think about the fact that DVDs and whatnot are encouraging people to stay at home, where we don't have to deal with shrieking infants at an R-rated film, babbling teenagers, and the crappy music piped into the theatre beforehand.

No, it's so much more fun to say that evil liberals are ruining Hollywood with their lack of proper values.

I remember reading some movie-essay book by Michael Medved when I was a teenager. I did not finish it; by the time I got to some blathering essay about how movies like Pump Up the Volume and The Little Mermaid contain insidious messages about teenagers always being smarter than adults and therefore encourage teenagers to rebel and disobey their elders, I was laughing too hard to continue.

I didn't know that I was being taught evil messages about how I was really smarter than my parents by those films. I distinctly don't remember thinking that. When I was watching The Little Mermaid, I was eight. My mindset was more along the line of, "I wish I had her hair." And when I was watching Pump Up the Volume at fifteen, let's just say that my parents were the furthest thing from my mind. Heh.

But now I understand. I know that despite the good relationship I have with my parents, it has been tainted forever by the immorality of the movies I watched as a youngster. I know that despite the fact that I have never shot anyone, I am doomed to do so someday because of my affection for Tarantino movies. And I know that regardless of how hard I try to be a good person, I cannot be, because I still go see films made by the valueless people in Hollywood.

Pray for me, everyone. And be sure to thank Michael Medved, for showing me the light.