Y'ALL.

HOW IS THERE A 'BEST OF FRAGGLE ROCK' ALBUM THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE SHINE ON ME?

INTERNET OUTRAGE!!!

* Tattoos: 2. the triforce from Legend of Zelda (left shoulder) and the Eye of Sauron (upper back). Got the first one for the 20th anniversary of Zelda. Needs an upgrade for the 30th. XD

* Ever hit a deer: Despite growing up in Arkansas, no!

* Ridden in an ambulance: Yes, once I was a volunteer RPer for a SWAT/EMT training. So I was fake shot, and got fake triaged, and fake carried into the bambalance.

* Sang karaoke: Used to do it on the regular in my 20s. Won a competition once. Full disclosure: it was at a training event full of tax accountants.

* Ice skated: Yes, but not since I was a teenager. There was a rink in the old mall in my old hometown. It has since been bulldozed to the ground. Tell me of the malls of your homeland, Usul.

* Ridden a motorcycle: My dad worked at a level 2 trauma center. N O P E.

* Stayed in hospital: Nope!

* Skipped school: Twice! Once with parental permission and once with the teacher's permission, to go get something for play practice. Which followed the period I was skipping. Real rebel.

* Last phone call : HR at my work apologizing for accidentally changing my name. Long story.

* Last text from: Meej, about elves, as 90% of my texts are.

* Watched someone die: Yeah. "He died surrounded by friends and family." Sounds great. Isn't.

* Pepsi or coke: As my friend Lyn once said, "Pepsi? NAW FUCK THAT YANKEE COKE."

* Favorite Pie: YES.

* Favorite pizza: Anything with a cracker-thin crust.

* Favorite season: Fall. It's pretty and the daystar is not my enemy then.

* Broken bones: No! How I managed this as a child I have no idea.

* Received a ticket: Several. I was not a good teenage driver.

* Favorite color: Green

* Sunset or sunrise: Sunrise, how I became a fucking morning person is beyond me but it happened.

Listen.

Yesterday, the great serpent Apep, also known as Apophis, attempted to eat the Sun.

My grandfather told me it would happen.

I was a freshman in college when my grandfather died. I was really into Neil Gaiman's Sandman, in which the character Death wears a silver ankh. I came home wearing one. My grandfather was almost ninety then, but if there was anything that man loved, it was a story. He was always giving me books, or recommending books, and they were inevitably good ones. On that day, he pointed to the ankh around my neck, and asked me if I knew what it was.

"Sure," I said, "It's the Egyptian symbol for life."

"NO," he said gleefully, "It's a PENIS."

He proceeded to tell me the REASON that it was the Egyptian symbol for life. He told me that the Egyptian god Osiris was killed by his brother, and his body cut into pieces and scattered, but that Osiris' wife gathered all the pieces, and put them back together to bring Osiris back to life. There was one part she couldn't find. GUESS WHICH PART IT WAS.

He couldn't remember the brother's name. I went back to college, and learned in my mythology class that the brother's name was Set, the god of chaos, and the desert, and foreigners.

A week later, I visited my grandfather in the hospital. He was on a respirator and had a death rattle. It was not good. We were only allowed to go in one at a time. I went in to talk to him, and the last thing I ever told my grandfather was the name of the brother he couldn't remember, in the last story he ever told me.

Set.

He died about six hours later.

Yesterday, even though there was a whole party at my workplace and my coworkers went up on the roof of our building to watch the eclipse there, I went alone across the street and lay down in the parking lot of the closed school there. It was partly cloudy, and I was afraid we would miss it, and I didn't want my coworkers to see me cry and have to explain I was crying about Egyptian mythology.

An asshole cloud moved in about 45 minutes from the eclipse, and there it fucking STAYED. There were two different ones, moving in two different directions at two different heights, and when they met they boiled around each other and started building up a thunderhead RIGHT THERE. Two minutes from totality, they were just straight up taunting me. They had almost moved out, and were JUST covering up the sun. I could see the rays streaming through one side, which would have been beautiful ANY OTHER TIME. I texted my friends that I was disappointed on the level of the villain in the Fifth Element. I watched the birds and other night creatures get confused and come out early. I listened to the cicadas start up like they do at dusk. Everything felt weird. I was emotional.

One minute before totality, the Sun came out. At the literal last minute, it came back out, and I watched through my stupid disposable glasses until the light went out, and then I took them off. It was beautiful. For a minute and a half, there was this weird twilight, and the Sun wore a beautiful rainbow crown, and it was so strangely quiet.

Then the Sun came back.

The Sun came back because one of the gods fought for it. One of the gods fought Apep every day. One of the gods was powerful enough to push the serpent back, and beat it off the Sun, though he often received himself an epic fucking beat down doing it.

You know who that was?

Set.

Thanks, grandfather.

I SERIOUSLY LOVE DON'T STARVE YOU GUYS, here, have some screenshots.

( Ali, Willow and Wilson on the Isle of No Return )

Here's the thing.

I have a birthday this year, and it's a real one, too.

It is on a Wednesday, which is only SLIGHTLY less sucktastic than the years where I don't get one at all. I do not usually specifically ask for presents, BUT:

Here is what I want for my birthday: I want you guys to post something to do with The Pirates of Penzance.

Do you draw? Draw someone in a costume from the Pirates of Penzance. It does not have to be me, or one of my characters. It can be you. It can be your character. It can be Dr. House. I do not care. Someone.

Do you sing? Record yourself singing something from the Pirates of Penzance. You do not have to sing very well, or very loud. Do I have a preference? Yes I do, and it is the recitative beginning at 2:17 and ending at 3:43 of this clip right here.

Do you have a flip phone? Dress up like a pirate and take a picture. Dress your dog up like a pirate and take a picture. Dress a popsicle stick up like a pirates and take a picture.

None of that suits your fancy? Find me a you tube clip of Pirates of Penzance that you think is particularly awesome. Tell me why you think it is awesome. Is the pirate King dressed as Jack Sparrow? Is Ruth like ninety instead of forty? Are all the daughters like forty and Ruth is like twelve? I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

If you have no idea what the hell I am on about, netflix The Pirates of Penzance, watch it, and tell me what you think of it. It is okay if you hate it.

These things should be posted, in case it is not obvious, on February 29th.

That is what I want for my birthday, people.

I hate it when servers are down for extra maintenance, because mornings is when I answer my mail.

IT IS BAD ENOUGH ON TUESDAYS grr argh snort. >.

ALL ABOARD THE HORMONE TRAIN.

So this morning, post-shred, I had a particularly hard time wrangling cats. As most of you who read this already know, I have one cat (MoonUnit) who has always been fairly active and reasonably in shape for a cat, and one cat (Midge) who was very fat until the vet recommended that she become Atkinscat, eater of soft food.

The problem is that Midge was a stray, and so she will EITHER wolf down any food in her immediate vicinity, then run and eat MoonUnit's, OR she will run to MoonUnit immediately, beat her up until she leaves her dish, eat THAT food, and then go back to her own and eat it. MoonUnit is too polite to go eat Midge's food during strategy 2.

I solve this by feeding MoonUnit in the office and closing the door. Lately, they have both for some godforsaken carpetstaining reason unknown to God or Man decided that they need to pick up the chunks of soft food, drop it on the floor, and eat it off the floor. I don't fucking know. Thanks, cold weather.

Midge has been dragging hers toward the office to try and get in there when I open the door to check my email/continue a raid/whatever, strategy three being to drag HER food under the end table, eat it, and then go beat MoonUnit. Meanwhile, MoonUnit has decided that when I am in the office with her, it is not time to eat food, it is time to get in my lap and get love. Which is... nice honey, but your dumb fat sister is going to be at the door wailing to eat your dinner in five seconds so EAT YOUR DINNER.

This morning, I opened the door to go get email and failed at wrangling; Midge zipped inside and MoonUnit zipped out, bowl still half full, and I threw up my hands like Pontius Pilate all DON'T LET ME STOP YOUR GREAT SELF DESTRUCTION, STARVE IF YOU WANT TO, YOU MISGUIDED MARTYR and just let Midge go to. Then I walked back in the kitchen and packed lunch.

I looked over the bar, and there is Mooners, rolling merrily around on the freshly vacuumed floor (as cats do), chasing what I assumed was her tail. Then I realized, she was playing. With one of my weights. That I use for embracing the Jillian Michaels. (It was one of the three pound ones.)

SO. Ninja does not want to eat heartily, is working out hardkor. (Three pounds is a lot for an eleven pound cat.)

I can only assume that an epic ninjitsu battle with the Clan of the Sun Dog is imminent.

Okay, I love me some rain. I really do.

But today I am the biggest emo pussy that ever emo'd, and I would like some sunshine please. :(