Death Becomes Me

Today Aunt Tudi had to go to the doc for a follow-up from her sleep study. Her appointment was at 2 PM. I got up at 1 PM, threw on some clothes and a hat to cover the hideous Exxon Valdez oil spill that is my head, and got her to the doctor's office at 2 after 2. She's never been late for an appointment before and it's because I'm a slug she was today.

The sleep study doctor came in, one Dr. Alexander Rocha Abreu, and zing zing zing went my heartstrings! I think I got out the word "buh" when he introduced himself and shook my germy hand. Omigawd, this man is BEEEYOOOTIFUL. He's not handsome. He's BEEEYOOOOTIFUL and I sat there looking like Pigpen on crack. He told Aunt Tudi what I already knew: she has sleep apnea and has to have another sleep study with a C-PAP machine to find out what pressure she'll need on her machine at home. This means we'll be seeing Dr. Alexander Rocha Abreu again. I will not look like Digger the Dermatophyte next time. If I hadn't been afraid he'd scream out in horror, I would have wrapped around him like an Alien facehugger today. As we left, I made a comment to the receptionist that I needed to get sleep apnea quick. She said, "Girlfriend, don't even go there. All us women up here are already practicing on our snoring!" I've got to get a picture of this man. He's like a picture. A pretty picture. A picture I want to dip in chocolate sauce and lick all over.

After that, I got to the post office and mailed the Simians' map priority, and spread my germs to all the postal staff. We then went on to Dr. Patch's to get Motley's tapeworm pill. Aunt Tudi needed to go by Wal-Mart, so I took her, but stayed out in the car and moaned. When she was ready to check out, I went in and paid, and we came home.

I got home and ate for the first time today, then got online to find a letter from Stevie:

just to say I was up in central London last night to meet Barry who was in for a days shopping from Swindon, and also met the record producer who had met up with B showing the egg and its box contents, it looked really cool, and on the certificate or the first mock up one, 0001 it had you name on it! I asked how many had been sold, aparently 14, and you got in first, so felt jelious, good on yeah, it does look really ancient and old and wonderful at the same time, the box it comes in will have straw in it for the egg, and with lots of stickers etc, its so cool, thought you'd like to hear that of course.

I got egg number one! I know that sounds bizarre. It is bizarre. But it makes me very happy.

Now, I'm drugged up on medicine and am about to curl up under some blankets on account of I'm cold. Got chills. Maybe I'm running a fever again. Am gonna linger on the computer for a while and attempt to write that song-by-song I've been promising Barry. The words to express how I feel about the songs are finally coming to the surface. It's about time. And I'll be heading for bed early. Gonna wrap myself up and read more on The Stand. I figure since I already have Captain Trips, I may as well be entertained by it.

Buh.

ACHTUNG! You FASCIST PIGS!

This is a personal message to any FASCIST SMEGMA-HEAD who may be monitoring this journal or any other journal belonging to intelligent persons who speak out against your CRUEL and DEMENTED REGIME:

I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING BUT GUESS WHAT? WE'RE WATCHING YOU TOO. Rome fell, Hitler failed, and SO WILL YOU. The Christ you claim to be at your side said himself that the MEEK shall inherit the Earth. That leaves your stinking, oil-slicked arses out of the equation. Enjoy your reign of terror while you can, FUCKERHEADS. It will NOT be tolerated for very much longer. In the meantime, enjoy reading my journal from your office in the Pentagon or the White House or whatever underground bunker wherein you're hiding along with all the other roaches. My opinions, my journaling, and my voice will NOT be changed by the knowledge that you're present. You can all go fuck yourselves with oil pipelines for all I care.

This message inspired by the latest warning that vocal anti-war groups and individuals are being watched by the Pentagon

Motley update

She's growing more affectionate, but still has issues when on the floor and out of human hands. Her feral nature comes out and her first instinct is to run and hide, so we're letting her do her thing and become comfortable on her own time. When I first pulled her out of the pen, she was all lovey-dovey and possessive. Her motor ran constantly and she decided that she would mark my face as her own. So my face now belongs to Motley.

Aunt Tudi couldn't help herself, so she took a couple of pictures. Please don't click the link if you don't want to see a greasy-headed zombie girl in a bright purple shirt.

( Motley! )

Coyote

Yoinked from a number of LJ victims friends.

I took the "The Animal Spirit" quiz on gURL.com
		My animal spirit is... The Coyote According to shamanistic wisdom, coyotes are the animal world's trickster. Coyote people have a way with words, and a unique way of seeing the world. Never ones to take things at face value, coyote people question authority with sly jokes. Read more... What is your animal spirit?

The Augury of Gideon

It was never a given that the Augury of Gideon was a actual book. To my understanding, it was tradition in most ancient civilisations to transfer wisdom by rote. Some believe this is because humanity was once illiterate and had to commit everything to memory as a result. I prefer to believe that learning by rote is actually a more advanced way of transmitting information because it triggers portions of the brain that we probably don't even utilise today. Portions that are more intuitive, empathic, and connected to the realm of thought and memory. Books are becoming the new "rote" thanks to the Internet. Many people don't even buy books and seem to have little regard for reference sections of libraries. I've found myself being drawn to the convenience of the Internet. But books and the Internet aren't eternal like, say, cellular memory. The Internet is even more temporary than books. Books can be burned. But memory, the history of tribes, can be passed on, even if it's just a fraction of what once was. It continues in the genetic make-up. The passing along of wisdom by rote I think encourages the awakening of these deeper memories.

So. The Augury of Gideon. Its actual form came to me by accident a few days ago when Gideon passed it on to Paine. What better way to pass on a collection of prophecies, wisdom, and ancestral memory than in the cells that actually carry it?

The sun was losing its power as he and I found a secluded place behind some tents. The hippie sat down on the ground and dug into his jeans pocket. He pulled out a small red stone and held it out to me. “Sit down, Paine,” he said to me. “I’m Gideon. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Astonished that he knew my name, but not really thinking much of it since it seemed that everyone knew everyone else during those mad and magical days, I sat down across from him and took the stone.

“D’you know what that is?”

I shook my head as I rolled it around in my fingers.

“It’s petrified Blood. My own. Yeah. It’s that old. I’m that old. You wanna live forever? Wanna taste that crazy trip called immortality? All you gotta do is drink. I can be your fountain of youth, man. It’s that easy.” His grin displayed a rainbow of madness and I began to feel tad uneasy, even in my inebriated state. I handed the red stone back to him, but he refused to take it.

“No, man. It’s yours. Keep it as a reminder. Keep it to remember me by.” He closed my hand around the stone with both his hands, squeezing my fingers against my palm with the strength of desperation.

I was wondering why Gideon did what he did and why I was writing it down. Honestly, it thrills me when characters do things or behave in a way that seems purely independent of myself. It gives them a sentience that convinces me that all of us are merely characters in someone else's collection of stories. But that's another theory altogether.

What I find so intriguing about all this is now the Augury of Gideon, the precious collection of Vampiric prophecy and tradition, is in the hands of a mortal.

Agatha turned her attention to the strange stone Paine had passed on to her. Odd…..She could almost sense the weight of history throbbing from its center. It was important, enough so for Paine to give it to her. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, then returned to her story. She’d sort the stone out later.

I'm now really jazzed about Gideon. I want to learn more about his history. The only things I truly know about him is that he was one of the Original Ten, which makes him Tarmi, he was driven mad by his own visions of the veiled present and the future, and that he might have led the Quest Army during the Great Mortality. That last bit I'm a bit iffy on now, though. I'm thinking that another "Tenite" was responsible for that because I really can't see a madman being a war general. What the hell did I just say, living in a country currently being led by a madman? Okay.... I'm not even going to go there.

It's always been quite clear to me that Cadmus Pariah held Gideon in a "kind of fascination" because Gideon foretold Cadmus. As such, Gideon knew more about the Pariah than even his own mother and father. He became much like the crazy old uncle that you hear a lot about, but never meet or hardly know. Maybe Gideon was driven mad specifically because of his foretelling of Cadmus Pariah. Goddess knows, he's been doing a good job on making me crazy as hell. I'd say that Cadmus knows more about the Augury of Gideon than any other vampire. How he knows it has yet to be explained to me. The Augury came into being in the short story I wrote for Me'Shel'le called The Embrace of Cadmus. The idea of prophecy and arcane wisdom has always been associated with Cadmus in my head, so I thought it would be pretty cool to make his taking a bride something that had been foretold. "The Augury of Gideon" just rolled of my tongue, so it manifested.

The Augury itself isn't a lucid thing in my mind. I've quoted from it a couple of times and referenced it many more, but to say it's something that I could quote would be a vicious lie. Maybe in the future the contents will become clearer but, for now, I like the idea of a mysterious collection of prophecies and insights that no one has ever truly seen (to their knowledge), yet everyone knows of its existence.