pity party 12/31/06

New Year’s Eve is without doubt the worst holiday bar none. I used to think that Valentines day might be a close second, but now that I am older and work with married women the one upping of who gets the most and biggest bunch of roses is no longer an issue.

New Year’s Eve is a holiday that one is expected to attend parties, be jolly and then embrace sweaty strangers who have drunk way too much. I do not feel jolly and I certainly do not feel like effecting said merriment for the sake of others.

That being said, there is something rather depressing about just ignoring the whole event by retiring alone to bed at 10:00. I just talked to a friend of mine who informed me that she was really sorry that I was all alone on New Year’s Eve. NOT perhaps the most tactful approach in giving an unsolicited opinion.

What to do? Pretend that I am sick in order to avoid going out or go out and receive pity parties from those who feel that their lack of singleness gives them a one- up on me - sort of like the girl who I worked with when I was 22 that always received a dozen long stem red roses each Valentine’s Day. The roses did not make her better, smarter or prettier, but she sure thought they did.

My Birthday is on New Years Day which I am certain has a lot to do with my general apathy about New Year’s Eve. I do not want to appear un-festive so I shall go out early and wish happy New Year to everyone. When the time is appropriate I will slip out of the party and hope that no one notices my absence. This is a good solution to waking up with a hang-over on my birthday. Of course ever since I have been of drinking age even if I do not have a hang over most of my friends do which then makes my birthday celebration not much fun.

Ok enough of my pre birthday pity party - I am going to embrace the whole year older thing along with the single thing with dignity and work on doing better for New Year’s Eve 2007.

Is the Golden Rule really golden?

I just spent an edifying yet non productive day reading a friends blog comments. I guess I do get credit for filing 3 months of invoices for a company that I work for, but though that could be described as productive I found it rather mind numbing.

The edifying portion was reading the comments on the Christian Blog site. I was amazed that people who claim to follow the teaching of Jesus and who supposedly have a close relationship with God could be so self absorbed and pretentious. Maybe my Sunday school teacher did not do a good job with me, but I thought followers of Jesus are supposed to have humility and embrace humanity.

The Christians on this site were more involved with debating why a human should value another human; coming from the stance that humans should not necessarily value humans, than preaching what I thought was the core of Jesus’ teachings: Brotherly Love.

The topic centered on the Golden Rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. My friend the atheist seemed more able to comprehend this than the Christian writers who broke the “rule” time and again by bullying the atheist – calling him names and demanding that he defend his beliefs, but never once backing up theirs.

The whole read was a lesson in true religious hypocrisy.

I have contemplated the “Rule” before and wondered about its true measure, because what if how I wanted to be treated was totally opposite to how my neighbor wanted to be treated? To assume the functionality of the Golden Rule we would have to assume that we are all the same and want the same things. I think it is safe to say that as humans we all do not want the same things. Not even intrinsic things such as world peace, love and health.

War mongers may hope the results of their conflicts will result in world peace, but the means to the end is certainly not a result of consensus of thought. Some want to fight wars, some want diplomatic measures employed. Most people want to be loved, but we all certainly do not seek love in the same manner. In fact most peoples approach to love is quite unique. There is the person who falls in love at the drop of a hat and tells the world; heart on their sleeve, while others that cautiously invert all feeling afraid of being hurt. We all want to be healthy; yet one person’s approach may be to exercise while another person might eat only vegetables while another will embrace the Atkins diet.

I guess my point is that the Golden Rule is good in an altruistic approach to life, but in actuality is not something that is achievable as we are all unique.

Hopefully my Saturday Knight will fill me with further enlightenment!

Merry Christmas

Bump in the night?

Ok on with the ghost stories which I am told make a nice change to the gross stories.

After living with Kate and Lisa for 3 years I had enough of the hot little back bedroom and decided that it was time to move out. A friend of mine and her husband told me about an apartment that was up for rent in their building. By now you have heard my stories enough to know that the “feeling in a house” is an important factor in making the decision to live somewhere, especially if you are forced to sign a lease.

Well this little apartment did not give me a very good feeling, but it was in my price range and next door to my friends so I thought how bad can in it be? If something goes wrong I can always bang on the wall and get their attention. From day one the apartment had odd things going on. The toilet liked to flush itself. The lights liked to turn themselves off and on and the temperature fluctuated at an alarming rate given there was no central air or units controlling it.

My friend Marlene who liked to crash at my place when she had a bit much to drink at Shanahan’s to drive was the first victim of the thing that inhabited the apartment. She typically would sleep on the gold couch in the living room. When I woke up one morning she was sleeping in the bathtub. Yes I know my stories do seem to have a bathroom escape theme – what can I say it is the way it happened. I assumed that she was in the bathtub because she might have felt a bit sick in the night and gone to use the toilet,then passed out.

She said that as she was sleeping on the sofa that something/ someone? Crawled on to it with her and tried to become “familiar”. I thought well I can certainly think of worse things happening. However she described this thing as being like a zombie ghost monster thing – and I guess that I certainly can not imagine much worse than that happening. As we discussed the situation I thought that it might have been my friend’s husband given that they had a key to the apartment. (I hope he never reads this blog as that is not a very flattering comment) but I really could not think of what else it could be.

The next time Marlene stayed at my house I woke up in the morning and she was no where to be found. I thought perhaps she had left, but her car was parked out in the street still. I got dressed and went outside and there she was sound asleep mouth wide open snoring. I banged on the window and asked her what she was doing/ besides sleeping in her car all night with the door unlocked. She said that the “thing” had tried to follow her into the bathroom this time and as she was still too intoxicated to drive she had to go sleep in her car to get away from it.

I never saw the “thing” in the apartment. However I was in my bed room one night when the toilet and the lights and the temperature did their thing all at the same time; all of a sudden it was pitch black the toilet is flushing like mad and the room went from a balmy 75-80 degrees down to what felt like 40 or 30 degrees. There was a little tiny door in the bedroom across from the bed that led into a small storage area. I always kept the door closed because it reminded me of where goblins would live from a kids’ book that I used to read. The door was around 3 foot by 1 foot. As I sat up in bed and tried not to look at it, it opened.

I jumped out of bed I was really freaked out. Definitely stuff that nightmares are made of and started banging on the wall for my neighbors. When they came over about 2 minutes later the lights mysteriously worked and the temperature had risen.

I broke my lease and moved out 3 days later. I ended up getting an apartment with my friend Marlene and the weird stuff continued to happen…

Rubber works in magical ways

Imitation of Christ Psychedelic Furs...






I decided this evening that I should either do a comical post or continue with my “supernatural experiences."

I can’t help it – I was going to go for the next installment of ghost, but the comical is going to make my mood brighter and lighter.

The first apartment I lived here in New Orleans was not just odd by its room set up but made more odd by the number of people who frequented it. My friend Kate, Lisa and I decided that after living in dorms the first year of Tulane that it would be cheaper to live in an apartment.

Kate got the big master bedroom,Lisa’s Boyfriend built a wall around the center dining room area which then allowed me a secretive passage of 1.5 feet down the side of her wall to my bedroom hidden in the back of the house.

The problem with the deal that I had made with my roommates was that I had absolutely no air conditioning in my bed room. At 19 I had my job at Shanahan’s a local bar, but no money to pay for an A/C unit for the window.

As you might have noted from my previous posts, I have a tendency to make more of the obvious and attribute it to the supernatural. I was dating this guy named Gary and well – he spent some time with me in the hot in the back room.

I had 2 windows in the room and they were directly beside the twin size bed. One morning I woke up and there was this green oozy thing that seemed to be growing on the window sill. I am like well this room is 100 degrees in the day, no doubt that this could happen. The next day I noted more green ooziness. I did not think much of it as I thought it was probably mold. The next two weeks the oozy colors on the sill changed from green to red, then yellow then purple: then they just all melted together. At this point they expanded where they started to expand and grow in length, width and of course the interesting meshes of color.

I was looking at the dripping ooze one night and said in a loud voice that drove my roommates back to my reclusive bedroom, OH MY GOD, I THINK JESUS IS GROWING ON THE SILL. Surely as I am writing this, the ooze had deteriorated to a Technicolor muck that had given up the rise into a down ward drip that looked like a guy with long hair, a beard and a mustache.

As I cried out, Kate, Lisa and Gary all ran back to see what was up. I pointed out the religious experience on my widow sill. Kate and Lisa started to hysterically laugh and Gary said- we are broken up.” Do not Call me again EVER”

Being a bit naïve I wondered what the problem was – Kate and Lisa informed me that the wonder mix of Jesus on my sill was a profound mixture of Shanahans condoms.

Lovely first experience with condoms: I remember going EWWWWWWWWWW = do you think he put them there to use, or do you think he used them and put them there?

I will never know the answer to this question as I simply took a razor and removed them. My roommates teased me about Jesus condoms for years. This was a most unfortunate and a very embarrassing experience. I hate to say it, but I have 2 more condom stories that are quite amusing, but I will share them in another post.

The horror of reality

This is a horror story, but not one based on supernatural experience. Last night, in my district #2, we had a vote on who should be our congressional leader. By an OVERWHELMING majority Bill Jefferson was re-elected. Slick Bill is the former high-ranking democratic leader that Nancy Pelosi kicked off the Ways and Means Committee because he accepted bribes of which $90K in marked bills were found in his freezer.

I am sick to death of the people that do not live here, but some how still have a right to vote. They are screwing the progress of the rebuild through ever lasting ignorance. Yes Bill Jefferson will be indicted and maybe someone better than Karen Carter will run against him. That was: is not a reason to have voted for Jefferson. This type of vote makes bonafide the image of New Orleans as corrupt and the residents Stupid.

Talking about stupid, I would like to discuss recent conversations with friends that 5 years ago supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq. I do not use the word invasion lightly, because that is exactly what the US arrogance was all about. We did nothing about Bin Laden but went after a more tactic target that actually had nothing to do with the strike on NY. We have created a mess that is luckily in death toll less than Vietnam, but in my mind higher than is acceptable. Why do history buffs keep pontificating about remembering the Holocaust when we can not even remember the war that took out thousands of soldiers 40 years ago and was never resolved?

Is it possible that we are breeding stupid and more stupid people in the United States? Perhaps the support for “stay the course” is all about the soldiers that lost their lives fighting a war mandated by the commander and chief. We would not want to say they died in vain for a cause that they were by obligation and commitment to Mr. Bush to fight. I do not think the people, soldiers that lost their lives did it in vain, but hopefully as a technological society we can record their brave, imposed and indoctrinated effort to complete a mission but not let future persons fight the fight that can not be resolved.

In conclusion, I can not see how GW Bush, Karl Rove or Bill Jefferson can sleep at night. As much as I understand there might not be a hell or heaven or even god looking out for them, I hope for their sakes this is true. Death is an easier punishment; if it is not true their souls are damned for surely there is not a god out there who would find their actions acceptable.

We are damned here in New Orleans until those of us that support the tax basis can get a good candidate elected to represent us as Mayor, Council Person or yes Most importantly, Congress person. Our world is so profoundly F’d- up that I despair for those of my friends that want to bring children into it.

Tomorrow I will do a less realistic horror story, but doubt it will chill you more than the fact of what is happening NOW.

Audley Street - London

I am sitting here: that would be in my house that has no heat and freezing, yet have an understanding that I really ought to do a post. I should take a picture of the temperature gage which reads 38 degrees.

I said that I was going to do one about the subject of ghouls that should never be said. As it is so cold in my house, it reminds me of the events that transpired. – I shall make a freezy-cold attempt at the story.

When I was 5 years old we moved to London. I can attest that the scarcest thing I had thus encountered was “The Wizard of OZ”, and there in the monkeys and the Wicked Witch were terrifying. When my family moved into a temporary flat in Audley Street it backed up to a Church and a graveyard. If you have never been to London it would be hard to understand that this was not like an American burial ground, but more like a nice quite park. At 5 years old, I had never heard the word ghost; therefore had no idea what one was.

My sister and I shared a room upstairs in the flat, with my brother in the room next door to us. My brother, who even at the age of 9 is the most stoic person I know, would have these terrible dreams where he would hit his hand against the wall until they would bleed. I on the converse of physical kept seeing these 2 Victorian clad people coming into my room each night and clinically observing me. My sister who is 8 years older said that she never felt anything and that I was crazy. These visitations upstairs started to become more frequent and more frightening. I started to have dreams? Or a reality based thought about fire coming out of the stove in the kitchen and then walking down stairs to turn the stove off and then looking into the stove and having a demon trying to pull me in.

I finally refused to go upstairs to bed before my sister was ready to go. So my parents would put me in their bed down stairs then carry me up. One night I was sleeping in my parent’s bed and the 2 Victorian Ghosts came into their bedroom. I saw them by the door first then they approached the bed. The man ghost said it was time to take me. The Woman ghost started to argue with him. I screamed by head off and told my parents that I wanted to sleep upstairs with my sister.

My sister did not really want me in the room with her as she felt that I was somehow drawing these things into the room. She denies any recollection of the story, but she does remember the night when it was very cold outside and she was the baby sitter in charge. My brother with bandaged hands, me with an unnatural ability to feel a presence in the room and her who did not believe was all sitting in front of the television set watching Dr. Who when it happened. All the lights in the flat went out first. She was bummed because Dr. Who was a favorite, and then became alarmed because the room turned from warm to freezing in about 30 seconds. My brother was crying and I was screaming that they were in the room, because I could see these two ghosts as clear as if the lights were on.

My sister who is a devote non – believer in the supernatural even at the age of 14, became like a mother lion and spouted any clever thing, none of it Christian based I might add, to make it go away. The lights flickered more. I know she saw them. I am positive my brother did, but to this day they deny any memory of the incident. When I talked to my parents about the “Audley Street experience they are appalled that I never told them what the problem was: though they too think it was an over active imagination of a 5 year old. My brother and sister still cut me off short if I bring the subject up, because the subject in my family is off limits.

I am not going to write any more tonight, but one night in a cold apartment that I used to live in here in New Orleans, my sister finally saw something that disturbed her non- belief enough to question me about the incident that happened so many years ago. What she saw will be my next post.


PS – when my parent’s showed us St. Stephens Close the permanent apartment that we were moving to, I breathed a sigh of relief, because I thought what ever it was could not follow me there…