Fuck this.

I just came across a site that specialises in Vampire fiction.

http://www.lovevampires.com/index.htm

It gave five stars to Twilight. It's one of the most badly written, repetitive and less than mediocre books I have read in my life and that site gave it a solid five out of five review. No, wait. In fact I could not read it. No. I couldn't. I doubt I finished it. I think I just passed it on to another poor unfortunate soul, may God/dess have mercy on her.

Going through the site I discovered that there is a crapload of books in the vampire genre, by authors I have never heard in my life. It appears that there are more vampire's asses out there than there are vampires. It's scary and intimidating for someone like me who writes an essentially vampire novel. I mean for crying out loud. My vampires are not mysterious strangers that chuckle softly to themselves from the shadows of their dark castle. No, one of them appears with a mop in hand in the very first chapters. Another starts crying because he's so upset that he can't help it. The third has been used as a punching bag for so many years by his progenitor that has developed the psychology of a lifer in prison. He pussyfoots around everything and anything and tries to be invisible most of the time. How's that for dark and mysterious strangers? No?

Look, I am a woman. I can't help being romantic. But there is romantic and romantic. Most people believe romantic is dinner in a candlelit restaurant. I have very different ideas on it. And there is one very important element that does NOT mix with a romantic outlook. Realism. Realism and romanticism just don't get along. I am first and foremost trying to write a book that has a strong, realistic core to the degree this is possible since we're talking about vampires. I don't want black and white characters and I most certainly don't want caricatures or stereotypes. So if someone has to mop in the house of a very paranoid and misanthropic vampire then this someone is the vampire himself. I don't know who mops in the houses of all those other vampire characters. I suppose that unless they live in a sewer or a burrow someone DOES mop the house. :) So bite me.

I think I must invite all my male hesitant emo characters in one gathering and let them pat each others' backs for several hours and nag to their heart's content. Even if I turned that meeting alone in a book it would probably make a better read than Twilight.

And as I said before, bite me.

:) Ran :) dom :)

• When my hair was longer, whenever I took a shower, I afterwards had to remove long hairs from between my ass-cheeks. Now that my hair is barely at shoulder length, nothing has changed.

• I like to sing self-made songs with ridiculous lyrics whenever I am angry, bored or just because. One of them is an ode to my cat, another is a repetition of the words "zucchini  with oregano, zucchini over the piano."

• My newest cat loves to play fetch. She likes to play that with hair bands and me. She throws me to the other end of the room and then the hair bands pick me up and take me back to her, usually with a mild concussion. Hair bands like in early metal years, only from rubber.

• A good mosquito is a dead mosquito.

• A good Nazi is a brainwashed, hippy fucking, reduced to drooling moron and willing to admit the error of his ways, dead ashamed Nazi, who works as a volunteer at the third world countries.

• I have an authority problem. They cannot break my cat communicating code and wish they could eat the amounts of chocolate I eat and live to tell the tale. I, on the other hand, cannot talk because my mouth is stuffed.

• Sometimes I want to chase after people and when I catch them, beat seven shades of black and blue out of them. Sometimes it happens to me several times in the same day. And sometimes I love everybody, including my boogers. If it happened often my boogers would have reached 8.9 points in the Buddha scale, so I try to avoid it.

• Birds usually excite me as much as they excite my cats, especially small birds. I want to put them in my mouth whole. Robins are so cute and tiny. Worst of all are hummingbirds. I want to eat them in handfuls. I guess they are lucky not to live in Greece save for the island of Crete? The smaller the bird, the bigger my excitement. Small fluffy things that try to escape me. Nom nom nom. All mine. Same goes for baby rabbits and hamsters and generally small cute fluffy thingies that try to escape me.

• When I touch items that have been put aside for a long time and have gathered stale energies I start farting. Sometimes it smells so bad that I have to run to the other room while making outraged gurgling noises. In reality I'm secretly proud of their potency. I also like to smell my own dirty socks and underwear and yell 'ew!' before throwing them at the laundry basket. Oh, and I always want to look at my production after number two, to appraise the possible value and be sure no-one stole my poop from inside the toilet or something.

• Morbid and grotesque appeals to me as much as cute does. The combination is my specialty in my daily communication.

• Boobies are God/dess's gift to the boobless.

• Humongous boobies make the best pillows but not for the one owning them. 

• If we are not animals, why there is blood coming out from my vagina once a month? And why do men have trouble avoiding walls when they unexpectedly see boobies?

• For those of you who will read the above and claim I did not breastfed enough, I have breaking news to announce. I am still at the Freudian anal stage as well. I can hear my sense of humour cackling like a witch with rheumatism from the bottom of a toilet. Live with it.Or piss off.

• The perfect man is a combination of Jung and Oscar Wilde, with the past of Nero and Casanova and the bright future of Gandhi on the rare days he was possessed by the spirit of Jeffrey Dahmer. I won't mind less than perfect abs. But he has to have manners and killing lines, and be kinky in bed. And I would like him to be attractive. At least to me. I swear I'll be spoon feeding him ice cream, naked and dressed in whatever ridiculous outfit he wants me to wear. Even a bee suit. 

• I cannot live without eggs. People who do not eat eggs are infidels. They must all die. Except for those allergic to eggs. I'll let those live and feed them eggs three times a day.

•  God is a metaphor. God is prone to boob hypnotism. God is on vacation and forgot to return. God is particularly pissed off at me, but he can eat my pussy after I have shaved it sparkling bald and smooth and kiss my well developed ass. God/dess, on the other hand, is another story. One with a happier ending.

I dare say I am done. At least for now.

A harsh dose of reality...

A Letter from a Shelter Manager - anonymous in North Carolina

I think our society needs a huge "Wake-up" call. As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all...a view from the inside if you will.

First off, all of you breeders/sellers should be made to work in the "back" of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know.

That puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute little puppy anymore. So how would you feel if you knew that there's about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at? Purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays", that come into my shelter are purebred dogs.

The most common excuses I hear are; "We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat)." Really? Where are you moving to that doesn't allow pets? Or they say "The dog got bigger than we thought it would". How big did you think a German Shepherd would get? "We don't have time for her". Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs! "She's tearing up our yard". How about making her a part of your family? They always tell me "We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her we know she'll get adopted, she's a good dog".

Odds are your pet won't get adopted; how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the "Bully" breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door.

Those dogs just don't get adopted. It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well behaved' they are.

If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.

Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down".

First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails. Until they get to "The Room", every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They will find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don't just "go to sleep", sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves.

When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy another one, right?

I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your head I deal with everyday on the way home from work.

I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be there unless you people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter.

Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there are homes.

My point to all of this DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!

Hate me if you want to. The truth hurts and reality is what it is. I just hope I maybe changed one persons mind about breeding their dog, taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope that someone will walk into my shelter and say "I saw this and it made me want to adopt". THAT WOULD MAKE IT WORTH IT.

Fallen

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

- Muslih al-Din Sa'di (Saadi)

Gulistan (Garden of Roses), 1258

It's never enough.

 

Once you had told me that my way of thinking is too narrow. Perhaps it is, but I will repeat it. This world is a fallen place. This world is a sad place. I don't really care what you think. You perceive the world through your eyes. I perceive it through mine. And I see a fallen place. A sad place to be.

It's not only the people that are sad. It's everything. The tastes, smells, sounds, colours, everything is reduced to a flat minimum. I see ghosts and shadows instead of people and colours. I see the hidden flaw. I was created to see flaws in the continuity, and put them right. I cannot do that anymore but strangely enough I still see them. This place is a sad place to be. Purgatory, not hell, and the kind of purgatory that never redeems one of anything. It's like sticky shit that just won't wash off no matter how much you wash it. The stink of it stays with you for what seems an eternity.

Entry level copycats that try to pass for beings with consciousness populate this sad imitation of a place to be. I would love to know who is responsible for this mess to execute them in the slowest way possible, or even better, trap them here and let them live the rest of eternity on this plane. EVERYTHING is not enough and I have much, much less than everything.

I see a work of art. I hear a song. I see a beautiful, truly beautiful person. And my heart stops and I remember divinity. I remember for a split second what it was like to live in a state of being where the four elements were united in a fifth, where the ecstasy of fire, the bliss of water, the enlightenment of air and vitality of earth were united in Ether, and I lived immersed in it. I hate this place, I hate this pathetic imitation of a world where mediocre is considered worth of praise and unoriginality is the norm. I hate this portion of universe and everything it contains, because I still can feel with my heart what it was like to be whole. This world is not enough for me, and the time I have is not enough to do what needs be done. This too is a trap. There is no time, but how conveniently this place is designed to deprive us of it.

I have been waging war against reality and normality for as long as I remember myself. It must be the way I am made. I cannot rest, I cannot stop seeing, I cannot ignore. I am not happy with my share. Yes, I appreciate everything I have. It is not enough. I need to become better. I need to become the best I can be or go mad. This place refuses to host me and I refuse to integrate. This reality doesn't like me and I don't like it either. I will somehow manage to make it bend to my will or I'll destroy myself trying. I don't care one way or the other. This existence makes me deeply unhappy. I will either create a haven in it and transform the whole of reality or nuke the fucking thing. I will either succeed or die trying. I want to see people that sparkle with intelligence, creativity and beauty from within. I want to converse with equals or shut my mouth and concentrate on my task. The rest don't concern me on any level. Yes, I care about humanity, but at the same time if 90% of the human population was gone tomorrow I would sigh with relief. They take up space. Nothing more, nothing less. And they take up space due to their choices, their beliefs and way of being. Not because anyone forced them to be wallpaper. So let them go fuck themselves. I don't have a minute to spare for those who perpetuate this condition of irresponsibility and not thinking and avoiding pain. They have their own thing to do and I have my own thing to do. Let me be. I am busy.

Fuck you all, and your convenient ideals and fashionable cars and empty insides.

Fuck off and die a quiet death and leave us all alone.

Earth is full. Go home.

Bloody idiots.

Run, little fishie, run.

You were certain it was dead.

You were on the way to put some money in the atm of the bank to be able to buy something on Monday. It was Sunday. The weather was great for October, and walking to the bank seemed like a pleasant thing to do. Till you saw it.

There is an abandoned house with a garden near the bank. It used to host a pizza chain, then changed to another food-related franchise, till it went out of business. Now the garden is unkempt and full of garbage. Your eyes stopped on a black and white tuxedo cat sitting on the grass, its face turned to the other direction, looking towards the empty building. Looking. Not really looking. You walked there and pushed its head with your foot, absolutely positive it was dead. Flies and wasps were buzzing around it and you were sure it was a matter of time before the smell of decomposition hit you at full blast.

It never happened.

It was still alive, face hidden in its front paws, green fluids running from a nose covered in crusted mucus. Its eyes were sunken in its skull, it was bony, dirty, and it smelled like something that ought to be dead already.

You got away from it, cursing your luck. You did not want to see this. You did not want another responsibility.

You walked away still cursing and went to the bank. Tried to put the money in, but there was no envelope to use. You decided to walk to the other bank and think over what to do with the cat. You did not want to take it home. It would die anyway and you have too many cats and too little time already. So walked all the way to the other bank you did, only to discover there was no envelope there either. How typically Greek is that?

Outside the church on the way back, you stopped and picked up a black satin bow from the ground. It had probably fallen off some shoe or article of clothing of a churchgoer. You unwrapped it, pleasantly surprised that there was no glue on it, and decided to play a simple game. You would wrap the length of satin around your index finger. If the number of times it went fully around was odd, you would take the cat home. If it was even, you would leave it there. So you wrapped the satin ribbon and it went around your finger three and a half times. Odd number.

Cursing your luck you went back to the empty building. You still did not want to take it home. But then you remembered that on Monday you had picked up a half dead Death's head Hawkmoth from the ground because you did not want anyone to accidentally step on it, and kept it in a little box until it died peacefully. Wouldn't you pick up a cat when you claim you love them so much, especially one that had flies and wasps crawling on it though it was still not dead?

You took off your long sleeved t-shirt and put the cat in. It was a he. When you got home and unwrapped the bundle, you had one more 'pleasant' surprise. He was full of flies' eggs. You had to wash him three times to get rid of all of them, and neither of you was happy with the procedure. Then you dried him with towels and the hair dryer and wrapped him to be warm and put him in a cardboard box to be safe and alone. You tried to give him food, or water, but he wanted neither. He was going to die and you both knew it.

He died later that night, while you were watching True Blood and eating your dinner. He started making weak, pained sounds, that startled you and made you go to the box to see what was going on. Though he was a cat you did not know and had never petted, you prayed for whatever entity cares about them to make it quick. You even shed a few tears for him and petted him and once more you wished you had not picked him up. But the decision is rarely ours to make. There are always two roads ahead, each with a different cost for our soul. Neither road has hell at its end. Hell is an indisputable reality within our heads.

Next morning, before you went to the bank for one more time, you threw the box and him away.

There is no moral in this story. Or if there is one, you still don't know it.

(I am Pisces, hence the title).