Wrong Number

Somebody stole my phone number.

Well, technically, numbers are free spirits and were in the public domain before Euclid, so no one actually stole it, but my phone number has none the less been liberated. My phone would feel violated, if it had feelings.

I was home when a Correctional Facility called me and asked for "April." My name is not April. I know no Aprils, except for the month. I politely told them they had the wrong number, and the lady at the other end hung up. This happened twice more, while I was home.

During vacation at the beach, I received another call asking for April. Oh, April, this nefarious April. Why do you follow me and torture me from afar? The lady at the other this time promised me, after I assured her that I knew no one named April and that I was not April, that she would remove my number from April's contact information at the Correctional Facility.

I was relieved. No more annoying calls from a jail-house. I could rest that no felon was passing off my number as her own so she could do her dirty work in peace and let me take the fall––or whatever it was that was happening. I just knew I was frustrated and hate phone calls and despise checking my voice mails.

Time passes as it does in the summer. My vacation ended though the waves continued their battery against the sands, and I went back to work. I thought all was fine, until just now––another call for April.

Can they not find this girl/woman/soul-sucker, so must bother me to death? Was the secretary who promised me peace so inept that she did not remove my number from the contact information? I requested again to be left alone, but I heard the phone click off before I finished my sentence. So much for Southern Hospitality?

So, April, if I ever meet you, since the System seems to be working so very well––what do you think will happen? First, of course, I need to ascertain that you are the April of Infamy. I shall look for prison tattoos, so if you are she and happen to stumble upon this blog, I suggest you do something about them now. Second, I can hope to go through the seasons first: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter––500 Days of Summer style, but change it instead to months of Aprils and coincide with how many calls I've received. Fifty? Okay. How many Aprils have I met? Okay, you're the un-lucky one.

Now that I've finally found you, what do we do? We shall have a wonderful hang-out time. We will talk and be best buds. What else? I know you so well, by now, after all, your big bad secret that you were in a Correctional Facility and it seems on the run or something like that. And you know me so well that you even memorized my number! How '90s! Let's exchange numbers! And then I will call you non-stop, so that you will eat your own soul.* **

*Dear NSA, this is aaaall meant in the most passive, world-loving, well-intentioned way. Please don't incarcerate me.

**#Talk as in happy little words aimed at making friends for life, everything Geneva Convention friendly. #NSA #Icomeinpeacedudes #donteatme

The Blog Game: Rules

I think the rule for a blog is that it's a self-reveal, a journal on the internet, where people pour all their deepest-darkest-secrets for the world to see––even if people aren't saying "duuuuuudes, I'm cheating on my wife. Look at me!" They want you to see them doing it, so they post things and hope you get what they're doing. (see this scarf? see me flippantly toss it in the air towards my lady-love and see her smile at me as well; it's all in the photo that is on the web that no one is even looking at anyway)

Rules.

Well.....

Nope.

Not playing along.

Go away.

(for now)

Pure Imagination

My imagination is a little too powerful. Once it is on a certain track, it can be hard to stop or intercept. One moment, I'm researching a grad degree––reading the Prospectus, getting all hopefully-not-too-tragically-excited-and-hopeful––then BAM! youtube distraction, and I've created an entirely new world that should probably never see the light of day. My brain is fun, but also . . . weird.

David Tennant reference on a Facebook page. So, I type in his quote, find the specific youtube video interview. I get distracted from the internets and find my brain making up for it by putting me in the hot seat.

Dear Readers, I know you have all done this. I am not the only one who suddenly found herself being interviewed because some blah-dee-blah-ed thing she did at one point in her life. Of course, in the daydream, I'm graceful and eloquent, haven't tripped up the stairs yet, and people are laughing with me, not at me.

So, this daydream. One moment, I'm wondering what the real youtube video could possibly be about. Then, I'm in the hot-seat, wondering with one half of my brain what the heck I could even be wearing, and the other half of my brain decides to throw in the swimming pool from the Prospectus. So I'm talking about how I make a regular habit of swimming (lies! my imagination lies). Also, in my fake, successful future, I keep my hair nice using one of those rubbery swim caps, it seems.

The talk show host, who looks like Caesar Flickerman of "The Hunger Games," laughs (at what again?) and says "And you do this because your hair is dyed. But you dye your hair a lot, don't you?" I then launch on to how I do indeed dye my hair, since I prefer to be ginger rather than a brownish-y brown-head. Caesar Blue-face (his entire face is now blue, dear Imagination) pats my hand, and I think we cut to a commercial break––or did we?

Somehow, we get onto why I'm actually in the hot seat. I'm a writer; I've made it; people do like my stuffz. My "dreams," as it were, have come true.

Blue-Face: "And you went to school in England?" (Leave me alone, grad school. Don't break my heart)

Imagination: "Yes, and then on to the BBC. But they thought I was weird. I was a weird American, with all these weird ideas and sense of humor. After a few great years, I came back to Hollywood." (and they took me, just like that *snaps fingers*)

BF: "And then?"

I: "Well, they thought I was weird, too. 'You've spent too long at the BBC, your stuff is all weird.' So I plan to head to the middle of the ocean now and go scuba-diving, drag up Atlantis, and make my own filming company."

BF: "You have the Archaeology specs for that, at least."

Pause. Then we had a pause. I don't know what the transition was, per se, but––the conversation changed.

BF: "And your sister? What does she do?"

I: "She is an art therapist." (No, she isn't.....)

BF: "As a writer, do you go to her for your therapy needs?"

I: "Noooo."

BF: "That was emphatic."

I: "I don't even think that's allowed. *shifts uncomfortably on chair* Anyway, when you pass the turkey plate during Christmas dinner, and then the butcher knife that cut it, do you want to know the thoughts that are going through the person's head that is holding the knife? I don't think so."

BF: *crickets* "I guess not."

He smiled suddenly and turned to the audience. "Thank you, Sfisaohafsohg;v;hsf!"

My distraction was ended. So I wrote this.

I think I need to cool it on the Prospecti or the planning or the––coffee. Maybe the coffee.

The Epic-ness of Passwords

We live in a time of illusory epic-ness. Wars rage all over, but here we are safe on our couches and munching on chips, saying "weeeeeeeeeeeee" to the next rage viral video. And we think we're epic, because, dude, our instagram says we're eating an awesome, epic meal at an awesome, epic restaurant in an awesome, epic city on DUDE, the most awesome-est, EPIC-EST planet ever...dude.

This is not to say that people in the past were "more epic" than us. Honestly, it's not a contest. We shouldn't want it to be a contest. If you want it to be a contest, fight a mythical battle, lead a think-tank and build a horse, survive many more dangerous foes––like giants that eat your friends raw (instagram that)––build a raft, launch yourself into the stormy Mediterranean, land beaten and stripped naked on a mysterious shore, arrive home, and finally write a huge, epic poem about it all––then rename yourself Odysseus (or Homer....). Okay, maybe people back then were more epic.

One way We––I would define We, but at the moment, I don't know precisely what We are: Westerners, Mankind, Interneters?––have dropped in epic-ness is through our passwords. I remember those days when I was a kid, just after I established a fortress imaginary or real. Invite friends over, and all play––but then come the invaders, the surprise attack of a sibling. What does one do? The trusty password. None can enter if he does not know the password. "Banana" or "acorn" is pulled from the air, since sundaes have bananas or the fort is in a backyard, but either way the effect on the invader is devastating, and he runs away crying. The day is saved. That history of the password is thoroughly more epic.

Of course, the further history of the password is great, as well. One ancient force doesn't like another force, so they send a little pawn in to gather info. The second ancient force sniffs that the pawn might be a little suspect (maybe the cuneiform code on his clay tablets was a bit rusty), so they ask him a password. He starts to panic, but he guesses anyway. "Banana!" He gets it wrong. Nobody but him even knows what a "banana" is, since only he has been outside of Sumer anyway. As punishment for his slip-up, he's not sent away. He's tortured for information, dismembered, killed, then his head sent back to the first ancient force. They realize their mistake and start training their spies to say "acorn."

In any case, blood and guts and flayed fingers is quite more epic than "dude, my password isn't working. 'Guess I have to reset it now." I don't want to lose any fingers, but––I think we are getting a little bored.

Ovid

Once upon a time, Ovid lost his balance, fell over a sacred wall, and was turned into a goat. The gods intended it for evil, but Ovid––since he was Ovid––found many ways to enjoy being a goat. He retained the mind of a man, which he found confusing at times, but he made do. None of his family recognized him; they shooed him away from their flock of she-goats as if he were a feral thing. At first, the gods thought his antics were funny, and they gathered on Mount Olympus to watch him and commentate. They started betting against each other, and so one sly one god or another would whisper in his hairy ear and ask him to do one thing, and he would bleat a yes, to everything. Jupiter, however, became jealous and angry and felt a little out-done. He turned Ovid back into a man.

Twilight Rant: Because Every Blog Needs One, And I Don't Think I Have One Yet

I'm just waiting for the day for/if I have a child.

And I name him Edward.

Random stranger: "Aww. Like after the vampire, after Twilight?"

"Erm, no. Edward is my grandfather's name. . . . And I named him after my grandfather."

*Gibbs slap the random stranger* ––Besides, why was the stranger hanging around anyway?

Just because Twilight is from my generation does not mean every action I take thereon is influenced by it.

The Creepy Old, Blind Prophet: Teiresias

So, really––just how old is Teiresias? He was old with old-man King Cadmus. He saw (but not really....) Pentheus torn and eaten. Long generations later, he tried to warn Oedipus to not delve too deep into his past, but no one listens to the blind man.

By the way, no one knows enough about Teiresias himself. A little googling and bang, yes, he has a history, but are there any myths about him, in myth form? Say, Hesiod? Or Sophocles? Aeschylus? Euripides? I'm sure they would not soil their tragic hands with such light matters as Teiresias' early life.

What has he to tell that a tragedian might want to elaborate upon? He's blind, but oh, that was taken by a comedian most likely. You see, in one version, Teiresias went walking in the woods one day and saw two snakes writhing in the grass, copulating as snakes do. I'm going to assume in his youth, Teiresias was a weirdo. He hit the snakes with a stick.

As punishment, the goddess of sex turned him into a woman. Yes, a woman.

For some reason––or perhaps he is just that weird, or a major xenophobe––Teiresias did not seem to leave Thebes. Some years later, he came upon the exact same snakes, doing the exact same thing, and this time he let them do it without any cudgeling.

Hera saw, and she rewarded. Ta-da, and now he was a man again.

However, Teiresias had a problem with staying out of trouble. Hera and Zeus were having a spat about who enjoyed intercourse the most. They could not agree, so they turned to the only person who could answer honestly, having been both male and female: Teiresias. They put him to it, and he said men had more. Hera, indignant (always), cursed him with blindness. Zeus (most likely) shrugged, and he gave Teiresias second-sight as compensation.

But, answer found––Teiresias knew the answer to their question.

Teiresias is a weirdo.

*****

Teiresias got to rest, it seems, from the glimpses we have in mythology. Unless he does nothing between Theban crises and god-spats, he must be pulling his hair out as the local city-seer.

Then, of course, Odysseus was still asking for his advice from beyond the grave. That was an interesting moment in Homer.

Odysseus pours some blood in a hole in the ground and uses a stick to swat all non-Teiresias ghosts away.

Teiresias comes, slurps up the blood. "Why, thank you, that was nice and tasty. I don't get to eat down here. Now how can I help you?"

"I need to get off an island with a beautiful but crazy lady. She turned my men into pigs once, but then we had sex for about a year; it was nice. Still, I sort of miss my wife."

Hello, Greek Lit.