Another thing swallowed by the black whole that now exists where UJournal once orbited is my Word of the Day list. I shall start over. Here are some of my past words of the day. I’ll be sure to add as I go from here…hooked on phonics and all that…

anthropomorphic adj : described or thought of as having a human form or human attributes – ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things
Little Joshua squeezed the black crayon hard as he drew the winged thing he called “Crow” in his kindergarten class – later in life he’d call it “muse” the anthropomorphic spirit of his imagination given sable winged shape.

chthonic \‘than-ik\ adj : of or relating to the underworld : infernal
Sharon compared entering her brother’s basement bedroom to a descent into chthonic regions and she was always a little frightened of what she might find there.

desiccate v : to drain of vitality, especially to divest of vigor, spirit, passion, or a capability of evoking mental or emotional excitement
The dull teacher desiccated the entire class of fun and spirit.

penny dreadful n (ca1873) : a novel of violent adventure or crime
Malcolm, pillow uprased, lurched towards his cowering sister like a villain out of a penny dreadful.

necrotic adj : being dead or having to do with death
Malcolm sat up with is sister and watched the late show movie where a grotesque zombie reached out for the heroine with necrotic hands.

Well, since UJournal seems to have gone to whatever digital purgatory all dead websites go to…I’ve apparently lost all my old posts. Thought I’d dig this up from my dead blog. It was a hand out in a writing class. I don’t know who wrote it (sorry) but it was not I…but I think it applies to any creative art (not just writing).

For the young who want to

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

All points of convergence have led to today, and I crawl out of the dung heap, strong once again…

I got over my nasty cold from a week ago, which gave me the strength to unpack my shit and clean my room and get set up like a human being…

My long lost computer came back to me, healthy and clean and now I have reset her and am reorganizing her so I can get back to my thesis and work in general…

My snake has finally started eating and has turned into a glutton. A few days ago she ate three baby mice in all of 30 seconds. I’m used to a snake slowly eating one meal and then hiding. This was more like an old clay-animation monster movie where the serpentine dragon busts in and picks up and swallows victim after victim and then searches for more…

Speaking of my spectacular serpent, I have finally named her. I’ve come full circle and gone back to one of the names I started with. LENORE.

And now things are back in place and I’m shaking off the dust of a slothful summer – stretching dormant muscles and unfurling creaking wings…

I got this Dante test from Dee’s blog. Apparently I’m banished to the second level of Hell. Oh well, spending eternity with Cleopatra and Helen of Troy doesn’t sound all that bad.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test

I still need to get my hands on a digital camera to take a picture of my little snake.  But here is a picture of her hatching from her egg (or just after the fact).  She is a little bigger now and the red color on her mouth and nose is mostly gone (except for a little dot on the tip of her mouth).  She looks more like that really good indigo picture posted below.  And yes…by this weekend’s end (that is to say…today) I shall name her!

I got my baby indigo to finally eat! For those who don’t know, it is a long and drawn out process. She is here, with me at school (Shhhhhhhhh…We’re not supposed to have pets).  I still haven’t named her but will get on that as soon as I may and get a picture posted to boot.  My computer is still with Dell…as soon as I get it back I’ll be back to doing more complete posts.

But for now…here is some free writing I had to do in my short fiction class.  The teacher was reading from this book full of wacky thoughts and sentence-short stories and we had to try and imitate the style.

“SHADES”
People ask me why I wear sunglasses so much.  “Trying to be Joe Cool,” they ask, “Trying to be Pensive Pete?”

“No,” I say, “I just hate to squint.”

When I squint, my whole body squints and I clench up and I get achy and my mind shuts down.  Wearing shades fixes that.  My hungry eyes open and when my eyes open, my body opens and then my mind opens and that is when interesting things fall out.

“RINGS”
“Do you have any idea how old I am?” spat the angry, geriatric frown.  I added his purchases up pleasantly, desiring to leap over the concession stand, cut him in half with a chainsaw, and in a smiley, customer friendly voice, calmly count the rings to him.

“WARDS”
“A blue safety blanket,” he told me, “for four headed monsters under the bed.”  “A rough, tough and tumble teddy-bear,” he said, “For boogey men scratching in the closet.”  “A holy wafer,” he whispered, “pocketed at church, for vampire moths flapping at the window.”

And then, his father walked by and he fell silent and stayed silent.  He did not have an answer for that.

In the words of the late great Walter Matthau, from THE ODD COUPLE, “If I don’t touch something soft in the next two weeks, I’m in big trouble.”

Oh those crazy born again christians. For the full scoop on a born again Domino Pizza employee who shot his fellow employee in the face because he thought he was a vampire…go here: http://www.local6.com/news/2921701/detail.html

Fiction just isn’t weird enough…I should start writing non-ficiton…

While I’m familiar with pain in the short term and depression in melts-in-your-soul-not-in-your-hand bites, I don’t understand perpetual angst.

If the world is really, indeed, such a horrid place…then being upset about it just seems redundant to me.

This has been the summer of computer sickness. Mine is in the shop (getting a new motherboard). The household comunal computer is very sick (I think it has syphilis). So I’m forced to use the library whenever it happens to be on my way.

But soon I shall be back at school with a fast conection and my own computer back and the live journal updates willf flow like…some type of fluid that flows in copious quantities, “flowin’ like an avalanche, comin’ down the mountain.”

Let’s see…I’m still trying to get my darling little baby indigo to eat (she is stuborn but that is normal). Nick and I have made visits to Chi-town, seeing a preview of a play with Nichole Walker (titled “Papa’s Got a Brand New Baghdad”) who acted in the indi film (BLACK DAYS) we did in the winter. We hung out with her for a while afterwords – circling the set of the new batman movie (but never getting in), wandering the streets, and playing ski-ball and shooting digital zombies at Dave and Busters.

Now I prepare for school…