Someone call the ambulance; there's gonna be an accident......

My mother used to work with this guy named Vinnie. I have only vague memories of him, as I was only four years old at the time. She worked with Vinnie at a printing company in Carlstadt, and I remember him having dark eyes and dark hair, and wearing nice suits, but I don't remember if he was handsome or not, or how I even gauged handsome at the age of four.

On weekends, Mum often had lots of friends over on Friday or Saturday nights, or she would meet those same friends for dinner and some drinks at Il Villagio (it wasn't that fancy back then...). Some of my earliest memories are of Il Villagio--in particular memories of falling asleep in the booth after my dinner of noodles with butter (which wasn't even on the menu, but they made it anyway because it was among the only 4 things I would eat in general {plain pasta, potatoes in any form, chicken nuggets, and chocolate}). I have vivid memories of laying down in the booth while Mum and her friends ate and drank, and of being showered with salt (Mum uses a TON of salt).

I was in love with Vinnie. I was actually convinced that we were getting married, and I told him so one weekend when Mum had him and a bunch of other friends over for barbequed steak and drinks. The adults present, of course, just laughed because they probably thought it was cute--how adorable, this kind of odd and sullen-faced little girl wants to marry handsome (let's just say he was) 30-something Vinnie from accounts payable.

I did not find this funny in the slightest. I fully intended to marry Vinnie. But Mum sent me off to bed and made me say goodnight to him, and I recall feeling kind of pissed off that no one had taken me seriously.

That was the second time I tried to run away.

Vinnie had a silver sports car. I knew which one it was because he had shown it to Mum and me when he arrived that evening. So I packed some essentials into my Care Bears backpack after Mum had sent me up to bed, and then crept downstairs, out the front door, and found Vinnie's car in the driveway. Lucky for me, he had left his silver sports car unlocked.

I presume I fell asleep in the backseat, because my memory goes blank there. The next thing I recall is coming home (with Vinnie) to my mother and not understanding why she was mad at me when she was the one who ruined my wedding.

'Tis interesting what a child's mind remembers. 

Recipe time!

I came up with this all by myself--a tasty and slightly healthier version of French fries. I have successfully served this to children without telling them that it contains Strange Vegetables, and they all liked it. 'Tis also very easy to make.

You will need:

- Parsnips

- Olive oil

- Salt and Pepper

- Rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano

To prepare:

- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. I usually do these in the toaster oven, but you can do them in the regular oven as well. I line the baking pan with foil, because it makes for easier cleaning, and grease it with just a tiny bit of the olive oil rubbed on the foil.

- Cut up the parsnips into French fry shapes. I make them just about the size of Wendy's French fries, but you can really make them whatever size you want--just make sure you adjust the cooking time.

- Dump all the cut up parsnips in a mixing bowl. Add enough olive oil to coat them evenly, but not too much oil or they end up too greasy (last time I made this, I used about 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil for 6 smallish-medium parsnips). Then sprinkle on some rosemary, thyme, and sage to your taste. And add a pinch of oregano (I'm not crazy about lots of oregano, so I only use a tiny pinch, but you can really use as much as you want). Mix it up together so the parsnips are evenly coated with the herbs. Add some salt and pepper as well.

- I prep the baking pan by throwing in a tiny bit of whipped butter (after coating the foil very lightly with the oil), and then sticking the pan in the oven for a couple minutes just until the butter melts, but you don't have to use the butter. I just think it adds a bit of a nicer flavour to the parsnips.

- Then dump the parsnips into the pan, and try to spread them out evenly. Cook about 30 minutes (less if your French fries are smaller, longer if they're larger).

Delicious!

♥

That would be an ecumenical matter.

xoxoxocd sent me GORGEOUS print of one her watercolours. 

Y'all should check out her blog--she's really amazingly talented. 


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
You know how sometimes when you partake of certain smokey treats, some things are like 1,000x funnier?


When I'm not boarding up the windows, running from black helicopters, and scouring the house for listening devices, I am in fact prone to intense fits of laughter. 


Like the kind of laughing fits that leave you writhing on the floor and sobbing. And you never know what's going to set off these laughing fits. It could be anything. 


Jump ahead to 50 seconds into this song:




I happened to catch this in a scene of Breaking Bad  after a nighttime smokey treat.


And I almost died laughing. So I thought I'd share. :D


Sometimes you really just need a good laugh. 




Hope y'all have a nice weekend! I'm behind on comment replies again, but I shall try my best to catch up. I have a busy-ish weekend ahead, what with getting my hair did and going on a shopping expedition for Jeanne's birthday basket, but then I think it's good to keep busy. 


xo!
♥

King illegal forest to pig wild kill in it a is!

I'm not going to b*tch about the football because I know it's a Big Thing, and I also know that as an American disliking football the way that I do, I am in the minority. 

Having grown up watching rugby, I find that I am simply unable to take football seriously. They seem like rather similar sports, except that in football they stop the game every 8 seconds, and they have the players padded up to their eyeballs presumably so they do not get injured. 

. . .

Rugby players do not wear padding. 

But regardless of all that, I am still a Yank and so I will proclaim my allegiance to a football team if pressed to do so. I will support the Eagles, and I get a lot of sh*t from a lot of different people here in the NY/NJ area because of that. So now I shall explain myself. 

I flat out refuse to support either of our "local" teams--the NY Giants or the NY Jets. Why? Here's their stadium:

Why oh why does New York get TWO teams and New Jersey gets NONE, despite the fact that both teams call New Jersey home?!? I find this preposterous and refuse to support such a grievous insult.

Even after explaining this to people, I still get "but WHY the Eagles?!??!"

I used to live in Philadelphia. Specifically, I lived in Philadelphia in 2005 when the Eagles played against the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Eagles lost. 

I have never seen such madness. CHAOS IN THE STREETS. It was like something out of an apocalyptic movie. The citizens of Philadelphia all LOST THEIR MINDS the minute that game ended, and took their insanity out on their own city. 

That night, I was hanging out at a friend's apartment. He lived on the 3rd floor of his building, and across the street from The Irish Pub on Walnut Street. The Pub was packed, and in the apartments above it, people were having Super Bowl parties, so between the partiers and the pub-goers, we stayed up to date on the game without actually having to watch it (by shouting "what's the score?" out the window every so often). We watched a marathon of all the Alien movies instead, which both Chris and I found much more interesting than football. 

We could generally tell how the game was going by watching the people at the party in the apartment directly across from us, and the people hanging out outside the Pub. It didn't seem to be going all that well. 

When the game ended and we inquired as to the score from the people outside, we did not receive any answers; because it was at that point that everyone had lost their minds. 

From our spot three floors up, Chris and I had an excellent view of the ensuing mayhem. People knocked over street signs and traffic light posts and street lights. They hurled dustbins and newspaper vending machines into the streets. They hurled them at cars. A couple dudes started throwing footballs around, which quickly escalated into a bunch of dudes attempting to bludgeon each other to death with footballs. People were screaming and yelling and swearing and sobbing. 

AND THEN

two complete idiots (or perhaps they were just a bit touched in the head? I mean seriously, every sane person living on the East Coast knows that people in Philly are craycray about their sports) come out of a bar down the street

wearing Patriots jerseys. 

It was like watching one of those nature documentaries, when the lions spot a couple stray hyenas in their territory. 

The two Patriots fans got jumped by nine HUGE dudes. They didn't even get a warning. No foreplay of hostile words were exchanged, as would have been customary under the normal circumstances of drunken sports-related fights. No shouts or jeers from the Eagles fans as a preliminary show of hostility. Nope. The nine guys who attacked were actually that furious. And as far as Chris and I could tell, those nine dudes didn't even know each other. 

Two cops saw the whole thing and attempted to break it up, with nightsticks. 

They gave up after a couple seconds, and one of them radioed for back-up while the other watched the fight and tried to hide his proud smile for his fellow Philadelphians.  

I stayed on Chris' couch that night, as we both agreed that it would probably not be safe for me to walk the 16 blocks back to my apartment alone. The next day, wandering around the city, I saw that it wasn't just the people near Chris' place that had gone mad with grief when the Eagles lost the Super Bowl--every part of the city that I saw was left in chaos. Cars destroyed, windows broken, whole city blocks T.P.'ed, traffic lights and sign posts and street lights laying in the street.... It was nuts. No one from New England was safe in Philadelphia for the next several months. 

And that is why I support the Eagles. I'm not supporting the football team itself really; I support the Eagles' fans. 

I know what people like you get up to, and I think it's DISGUSTING.

I'm sorry to all of you whose blogs were once linked on the side, in my blog roll. Blogger is being a turd and wouldn't let me update it, and when I tried re-installing that widget it just went away forever instead. I have complained multiple times to Blogger about this problem, but SURPRISE SURPRISE they're doing nothing about it. :*(

I finally got around to answering Kazehana's questions!

1. Your first car: What was it's name, color, make and model and what's one good story about something ridiculous that happened in it? (e.g. my first car was named Pablo, burgundy '78 vw bug. once swerved up a hill and ran over a neighbor's lawn while driving high in a hail storm.)

My first car was just The Jeep. I think I've already relived most of what happened to that car. The Devil's Tower story is probably the best. 

...but what my friends and I got up to in The Jeep is probably a fun tale unto itself. 

My first two years in high school, I had a lot of older friends--mostly people I had met through a long chain of other people, like friends of friends of friends of friends. I did A LOT of partying. Sex and drugs and rock and roll to excess. But then after my sophomore year, a huge chunk of that group of friends went off to college, and the rest of the group scattered. I started a new school in the autumn for junior year (because I was SO DONE with Catholic school). I knew people at the public school already, so I fell into a new group of friends pretty quick.

But none of them did drugs. Or partied like the world was about to end. Or did anything, really. 

(This was a good thing, as by the end of sophomore year I was probably very near to needing an extended stay in the loony bin.) 

Mum had also cottoned on to some of my more brilliant tactics (like telling her I was sleeping at a friend's house and having that friend's older siblings pretend to be their parents and tell mum over the phone that I was welcome to stay there the entire weekend), and so she curtailed my already limited freedom quite a bit. 

On top of all that, I live in THE MOST BORING SPOT ON THE PLANET. And my friends and I had absolutely feckall in common with the other kids in the area. 

So what's a group of 16/17 year olds to do on a weekend when we had no money, no drugs, and nothing remotely exciting within reasonable driving distance?

We drove around the most populated town centers and screamed SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT and WHOOOOOOOOORE at all the annoying Typical Bergen County kids. Sometimes we told younger kids to kill their parents, Marilyn Manson style. Sometimes we told the asshole I'm-so-cool-because-my-parents-are-super-rich types to go back to Mexico. We told scantily clad 14-year-olds to put some clothes on. This activity evolved over time, gaining new phrases and in some cases, noisemakers. Like the vintage car horn that came off one friend's great-grandmother's car in the 20's. Or the Crimson Hooter (don't ask). Or the jam band with the Crimson Hooter, a harmonica, and a kazoo. 

You don't need drugs when 4 out of 6 people in the clique are out of their f**king minds. 

2. Who was your first best friend and how did you get rid of them (or if you got dumped, how did they give you the shaft)? I'm talking grade school, people...I want the playground dirt.

I have wracked my brain over this question for like 2 weeks. 

I didn't really have friends in grade school. I hated everyone. Up until around age 7, in my town you were friends with the children of your nanny's friends. I do have a good story for that... 

My nanny was friends with this nice other nanny named Yvonne. Nanny and Yvonne were from around the same part of Jamaica, and so they liked to chat and hang out maybe once a week, which was pretty easy when I was 5 and only in school for half a day. Yvonne's charge was the same age as I was, and also in half-day kindergarten (except David was in the public school). 

David's family was filthy f**king rich. FILTHY. I wish google had caught up to them, because I'd love to show y'all a photo of their house. It takes up their whole side of the street. And it's their second house on that spot--sometime in the 90's, they apparently got bored of their house, so they knocked it down and built a new one. 

Now as you can probably imagine, David was a wimpy, whiney spoiled brat. I hated that child with a passion very unbecoming of a 5-year-old girl in frilly pink dresses who was extremely small for her age. The fact that I still remember this so vividly proves just how much I despised him. 

David loooooooved to show off his masses of the most expensive, most awesome toys ever. Even more than that, he loved snatching them away the moment you saw them, and proudly declaring that they were HIS toys and you were NOT allowed to touch them. 

Yeah well I had enough of that sort of thing in like 2 minutes. I remember being outside by myself a lot at his house, playing on his amazing swingset. I had a strong dislike for most other children, so I was quite happy playing outside by myself. 

But then one day, for some reason, I really wanted to be inside playing with his toys. Of course, peasant that I was, I was *not allowed*. 

L O L.

Employing my skills in cunning and trickery, I somehow managed to get little David out of his playroom (this thing was about 3 times the size of my bedroom, filled with every toy you could think of, and was generally every small child's greatest fantasy). And then little Mich shut the door, and locked it from the inside. 

And I had my way with David's toys while he kicked and screamed outside the door. I gleefully shouted through the closed door that I was touching ALL of his toys, and there was feckall who could do about it. HA!

Nanny didn't take me to David's house after that. 

I never really went in for the whole "best friend" thing. Honestly, I don't think I had anything resembling a proper bff until I met M in high school. I've always been more of a lone wolf. :D

3. Once upon a time there was a world with no television; if you lived then, what the fuck would you have done to entertain yourself instead of hanging out in front of the tube?

I don't watch much television now, to tell the truth. I'd probably do much of what I do normally--read, take lovely walks outside, write. I'd probably either sing or play music (in my head this world is the 18th century) since well-to-do ladies were expected to be learned in singing and playing something like the harpsichord. I would enjoy fashion much more than I do now.

delicious painting by Jean François de Troy

I would have tea parties with my lady friends, and spend lots more time bird watching. And I would probably go to bed early. 

4. What's the most vivid dream you've had in the past week?

I dreamt I could take off my spider tattoo and it would come alive and be my buddy and hang out on my shoulder. And then when I had to hide him, he would go back to being a tattoo. 

5. A Wookie, a Jawa and an Ewok steal a TIE fighter. Where the hell are they going?!

They're part of a massive intergalactic drug ring, and the Empire is starting to crack down on their manufacture of celestial meth. The lab they were using on Tatooine was raided by storm troopers, and they accidentally blew up the lab on Endor, so they decided a mobile lab would be best, hence the stealing of a TIE fighter, because who the heck would expect a floating meth lab hiding in a TIE fighter?

6. Revenge or PRE-venge?

Both. Need to keep all your bases covered. 

I am snowed in! :D 

...but the mf snow has stopped already. So much for the blizzard that was meant to last until this evening. 

♥

I'm unclean a libertine, and every time you vent your spleen I seem to lose the power of speech; you're slipping slowly from my reach.

Ok so I realize that when most people go shopping for gifts for other people they're not considering whether or not the gift recipient is a hoarder. They're just trying to be nice by taking time, effort, and money to get that person something nice. And I shouldn't be looking the gift pony in the mouth.

I overheard Mumsy on the phone with Loud Auntie the other day. Mum had just unearthed a stash of National Geographics (a stash I thought I hid pretty well, actually...) and said: "I really wish people would THINK before they go getting Mich magazine subscriptions!!"

A number of friends and relatives are quite fond of giving magazine subscriptions as Christmas and birthday gifts. If you are a hoarder, or if you know a hoarder, you know why this is a disastrous idea. Most people who read magazines and receive magazines in the mail are perfectly fine with reading the magazine once and then throwing it away.

I could probably build a decent sized house out of all the magazines currently in my possession.

Once in a blue moon (usually under the influence of some strong sedatives), I can pull myself together enough to go through the house and get rid of all the magazines, but ONLY if I'm taking them to the recycling center. I attempted, at one time, to keep a box out in the garage, right next to the spot where we dump all the newspapers. I told the fam that this new box was for magazines and junk mail, because there's a bin at the recycling center for that.

(Junk mail is a whole other problem--non profit organizations will insist upon sending me more address labels than anyone can possibly use, as well as personalized notepads, dream catchers, year planners, magnets, etc. etc. etc., and I am also incapable of throwing those away.)

So the recycling box was a good thing, I thought. I can handle it if we're recycling the magazines and the junk mail. It's the WASTE that upsets me most. Mum, Lil' Sis, and Stepdad all make fun of me relentlessly because I am obsessive about the recycling. (Our town only picks up the recycling once a month or less--generally we have to go to the recycling center and do it ourselves unless of course you want your garage to become completely overrun with empty plastic bottles and cat food cans.)

We're good about recycling plastic, aluminum, and glass. We're a bit lax with the cardboard, but that doesn't make me as crazy because it's mostly biodegradable. Sometimes I find Lil' Sis trying to sneak plastic bottles into her bin upstairs because she's too lazy to take it downstairs to the recycling bin, but usually she's pretty good with that because by now she and Mum are afraid of me.

But for some unfathomable reason, no one can seem to grasp the concept of the junk mail/magazine box. I even caught Mum a couple times tossing magazines and junk mail into the regular bin, the one in the kitchen that is THREE FEET AWAY from the box right outside the door. When I confronted her about it, she was all like "what the hell's the difference if I throw 3 things in the bin instead of recycling them??"

::facepalm::

As cliche as I know it sounds, every little bit does in fact make a difference. And having lived in New Jersey for the past 30+ years, you'd think Mum would know exactly what kind of difference it makes.

See all those pleasant rolling green hills?

Yeah those are hills made of garbage.

You can see that from the New Jersey Turnpike, and after you drive past it your car will STINK for miles.

So I stash my magazines where Mum can't see them, with the intention of gathering them all up on the weekend when I do the recycling. Except I never remember them when I'm loading everything else into the Virus Pimp. Over time (as in months), the magazines pile up. I've got two whole shelves filled with National Geographic, Smithsonian, Discover, and National Audubon magazines. A while back I started sneaking the new issues into the office, to the little basket in the waiting area. There's like six months worth of them in there.

Big Sis#2 is usually the culprit, at least the last few years. This Christmas, she got Mum Us Weekly (I have no problem throwing those away for some reason) and me Nat Geo and Smithsonian (as opposed to Discover last year). I get the Audubons anyway because I donate to them. And Big Sis#2 is a hoarder, too!! She's worse than I am. She uses the bannisters of her stairs as a giant filing system for like four years' worth of mail. (It's brilliant and it makes me warm and fuzzy inside.) Considering that, one would think that Big Sis#2 would steer clear of things like magazines.

This morning, I forced a huge pile of magazines back under my desk at home, and blocked them from spilling out again by employing the use of my file boxes (milk crates--I have four of them, and they contain everything I've ever written, separated into colour-coded folders).

THIS WEEKEND I shall leave many many post-it notes reminding to me to empty the house of magazines!! Y'all may want to open the betting pools now. ;) I'd say there's a 5:1 chance of me not even noticing the post-its and forgetting all about the magazines for another two years.

Bored?

Want to see a great feat of knitting? (Jeanne, Peri, and Amber--I know you'll appreciate this!)


Search this on Google Maps: 44.244273, 7.769739


Then switch to satellite view, and zoom in.


That was knitted by a bunch of old ladies.

Did you say "Abe Lincoln"?

OMG

...although I'm not sure the child should be reading anything related to Sookie Stackhouse...

but YAY, a child I've never met likes my book! :D




I've been kind of quiet, I know.... I apologize. But it's actually for a POSITIVE reason this time!! I've been writing up a friggin storm in the fiction world. After finishing the first rough edit of the fairy book, I was finally free to devote all of my attention to Book 3. I've been working on that one on and off for over a year, always forcing myself to back off from that project to finish the fairy book first. But now it's all about Book 3, which I'm pretty sure is the best thing I've ever written. 


With that in mind, I am in desperate need of guinea pigs to read the finished fairy book!! Any of you who read Underwood interested in reading Book 2??


I also had a few side stories/notes I've been playing with since the fairy book got started, and over the last several days one of those has actually turned into something that could well end up a novel. I'm not questioning it at this point--I so rarely get such intense bursts of inspiration that I do not question them when they happen. 


So since I have been neglecting blog-writing, I'll share a super secret recipe instead......




Mich's Epic Brownies!
(a.k.a., Coconut Curry Brownies)


From this point on, I must ask y'all not to question me. They're delicious. I promise. My friend's mother once consumed a total of 17 of them in one day (they were tiny, but still...). Whenever I tell people the ingredients, they're like "omg ewwww, really?!?" But the brownies are AMAZING; I swear.


You will need:
for the brownies...
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 - 3 tsp curry powder
- 1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips (~6 ounces)

- 1 cup melted butter (2 sticks)
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 can coconut milk


for the icing...
- confectioners sugar
- 1/2 can coconut milk

- 2-4 tbsp. melted butter
- curry powder


To make them:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then add the 1/2 can coconut milk. 


In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt and mix them together. Then add the curry powder.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar/butter mix, until it's well blended.


In a saucepan, melt the chocolate chips on a low heat.

Stir that into the brownie mix. Once it's all mixed together, pour the mix into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan. I like smaller, denser/fudgier brownies, so I make it a pretty thin layer in the pan, and thus have enough mix left over to also fill a 9" x 9" pan.

Bake between 30 - 40 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean.


To make the icing, just mix together the 1/2 can of coconut milk, with 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, 2 tbsp. melted butter, and a sprinkle of curry powder. You can add more sugar and/or butter until it's the consistency you'd like. I like to drizzle it on the brownies rather than ice them properly, so I tend to use less sugar and butter, and more of the coconut. I also like to make the icing a bit more exciting with food colouring, and then sprinkles. 

that's half of the batch--each brownie is about 2" x 2" (bite size)

I made these for New Year's Eve. The entire batch was annihilated in under an hour. By 7 people. 

You tell me. You're the one that looks like you just crawled out of a microwave.

No progress on the M issue yet... Our work schedules clash a bit, so I prob won't get a chance to talk to him until the weekend.

More progress in the anti-ED movement. (That being said, I feel the need to apologize again if I'm not commenting on your blog when you've commented on mine. I'm not ignoring you, I promise; I just need to to avoid triggering posts. Self preservation and whatnot.) It's a daily struggle, but I'm doing pretty well, I think. It helps that I do really LOVE food. I like trying new foods and experimenting with making new foods. I'm still counting calories, but not in order to restrict them; it's more because I have lost the ability to know how much I should be eating on a day to day basis and I don't want to unknowingly start consuming 4,000 calories a day. I figure I'll ween myself off of the calorie-counting as I re-learn how to feed myself properly.

Keeping the ::omgI'mtoofattolive:: anxiety at bay is tough, but I'm starting to like my body again. One good thing about the weight I've put back on over the last couple months--my boobs are back! The ED robbed me of my delicious rack, but it's now starting to come back into its former glory. And I'm starting to remember how much I loved having an actual figure. 

that's the dress I wore on Christmas Eve

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Matthew nominated me to answer some fun questions (thanks, guy!!), so here goes:

Question One- Sadly you're forced into competing in a fight with famous boxing legend Mike Tyson in his prime. Before fighting him in the ring however you're allowed to pick three other bloggers who would come out individually to fight Mike before you had to (you know, with the intention of weakening him or beating him so you'll have an easy fight or won't have to.) Who do you pick to fight Mike?

Well now, that is a dilly of a pickle. Sadly, I don't think I could live with myself if I sent someone else into danger in my place, so I'm afraid I'm just going to have to take my chances and fight him. I might propose, since he clearly has the best chance of winning a fight in a boxing ring, that we compete against each other in a different sport?

I might not win that one either, but sure at least I'll have fun while I'm being slaughtered.

Question Two- What super power would you pick? The ability to read minds, to teleport to anywhere you want to three times a day, to see everything you touch turn into gold, or to turn into a cockroach on a whim (that's not really a power though but still!).

The cockroach power would actually be quite useful, but I'm going to have to go with teleportation. I've no desire to see the inside of anyone's mind (my own is quite enough thanks), and gold kind of clashes with my skin tone. But teleportation would not only allow me to never set foot in an airplane ever again, it would ensure that I remain in 1st place in the ongoing competition between myself and my siblings (and a few cousins) in which we attempt to frighten the living daylights out of each other with stealth.

Question Three- Some record company bigwig phones you up and orders you to feature with any musician alive or dead in their next album. Which musician do you pick?

Marilyn Manson, without question. I've always wanted to be in one of those videos.

Question Four- Can you draw? If so draw me however you interpret me, it's fine if you can't!

Question Five- What would you rather be? A bar or a car? (My best friend Ryan once asked this question during "open mic" night at a bar and the confused faces made back at him were hilarious.)

I'll have to go with car, as bars tend have more of a chance of being filled with skanks, idiots, and vomit. But what kind of car? So many choices!!

1968 Firebird?

Monster truck?

Jaguar Roadster?

Question Six- Um, could you tell us something about your past that nobody on here knows yet?

I tried to think of a good story, but me mind is a blank. So instead, here is something almost as fun.......

ONE of the following is NOT true:

- I lost my virginity at age 14.

- I once crashed into a parked car and fled. it wasn't a bad crash, but still...

- I have never told either of my parents that I hate them.

- My favourite meat is wild boar, second favourite are game birds.

- I have participated in consensual incest, and it was within the first 4 degrees of kindred.

- I adore Phil Collins, Abba, and Britney Spears, and have all of Brit's albums on my ipod.

- I started working (as in for money, and not doing things for my parents) at age 12.

- I have twice worked as a bookkeeper for vitamin* dealers.

- One of my close friends used to kill animals for fun, and leave the bodies on his enemies' doorsteps.

- I have peed in my sister's shampoo because she pissed me off.

- I do not own any pornography.

- My mother used to bring me to the bar with her when she couldn't get a babysitter, and leave me to sleep on a bench in the corner.

- I have been a serious insomniac since age 12.

I'll let y'all guess which one is the lie, because I'm never telling. :)

And now I need to come up with six more questions, and six people to answer them. 

>:D

First, the victims:

- Kazehana

- Insomniac#4

- Jeanne

- Elk

- Honor Regzig

- Peri

Question the First: Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

(Bonus points if you know what movie that's from.)

Question the Second: What was your favourite band/musician when you were 15?

Question the Third: You're on a crowded train and the person sitting next you has REALLY BAD gas. The only other seat available in your car is next to a mother and her screaming child. What do you do?

Question the Fourth: You're running late for your best friend's wedding, and you're in the bridal party. (Or you're one of the groomsmen, if you're a dude). While you're flooring it down the highway to get to the church, you see your arch nemesis pulled over on the shoulder--their car is on fire, and they're struggling to get their 2-year-old and their dog out of the back seat, but they can't seem to get the door open. There's no one else on the road. What do you do?

Question the Fifth: Why is a raven like a writing desk?

And finally, Question the Sixth: Are you prepared to give your life for Gondor?

Do we walk in legends, or on the green earth in the daylight?

Another new year! Time to make ourselves promises we don't intend to keep.

Lastyear's New Years mantra-thing never came true as far as 2011 not sucking as bad as 2010. If anything, I think 2011 was worse. So let's hope 2012 is a bit better, eh? And the only way to ensure that this year is a bit better than last is to MAKE IT better than last. We are the only ones who can make ourselves and our own lives better or worse, and this year, I want my life to be a little better.

I am determined to make myself a better person. I want to love myself as I am. I want to try and get back some semblance of who I used to be before the ED and this depression, and to do that I am not going to focus solely on my relationship with food; I'm going to focus on everything else. 

I am going to make more of an effort to go out and do things with friends and acquaintances, because this whole hermit thing is unhealthy. I want to do activities on weekends that do NOT involve going to the gym. 

I shall also stop the unrealistic fantasies about running away, and instead turn that into something doable--starting this week, I shall deposit as much as I can spare from each paycheck into the Maine Fund. No epic plans, no unrealistic goals; just saving. When I have enough money that moving to Maine is actually feasible, then I will decide if it's something I really want to do. 

My internal well-being will no longer be a giant pile of decaying sludge. It WON'T, dammit. I want the Old Mich back--the fearless (often reckless) Mich who scoffed at dangerous things like foul weather,

 wild animals,

 obnoxious people,

and poor body image.

That last one continues to be an ongoing effort, but it's actually going pretty well. I'm defeating each small obstacle (eating out, knowing if/when I'm full or hungry, not bingeing, etc.) as I encounter them. I have, however, just encountered an obstacle that is proving the most difficult one yet....

(...be warned, lengthy blather ahead...)

The bonds of friendship should be strong ones, right? Especially with people you've called friends for over a decade. Doesn't that make them practically like family?

A year ago I might have said yes without hesitation, until certain events cast shadows of doubt on that concept. After that, I would have said yes, but only perhaps for the CLOSEST close friends. Now after last night, I am doubting even that notion.

I've had more or less the same group of friends since the second half of high school. We gained and lost members of our group over the years, and we're not as close to some of the others as we used to be, but as for the two friends I've known longer than most of the other people in my life, we're still very close. I've known one of them for ::omgIfeelsoold:: 22 years, and though we probably could not be more different in personality/interests/etc if we tried, we will be friends until the day one of us dies. The other I have known now for 12 years, and even though there have been some rough patches, he's probably my closest friend ever. Out of all the friends I've ever had, he is the only one I would say is more or less, at this point, part of the family.

.....and by now I'm sure you sense the BUT coming...

M and I have survived as bff's this long because we are so alike in our interests, in our dysfunctional family histories, and in our numerous hang-ups. We're not so much alike in personality, but our natures complement each other, so that when we're together we just kind of bounce off of each other like Eddie &Patsy, and the differences don't matter. (For the record, I've always been Eddie.) We've had rough patches--M can be equally unreasonable and quick to anger, and I'm a stubborn mule who will not give in, apologize, or back down EVER--so there have been times in which we stopped speaking for months over something completely retarded. But we always went back to the way things were after a while. (Usually with no mention of the fight--we would just go back to being bff's while pretending the latest fight never happened.)

Among our shared hang-ups are the issues with eating and weight.

Our ED-behaviors are pretty similar: most of the time keeping a "healthy" weight as a result of the never-ending binge-starve-exercise cycles, with ocasional extremes. M tends to reach those extremes more often because he is that sort of person--he does everything in extremes, never with a happy medium or any kind of moderation. It's all or nothing.

So almost a year ago, M had lap-band surgery. He had been in a nasty binge cycle for a really long time and finally reached a weight that his doctor said was "medically" obese, and so I think his insurance covered the surgery. I didn't think M was anywhere near obese, but then he is 6' 5" and so he could probably weigh up to 400 pounds without ever looking obese. 

After the surgery, his eating didn't really improve. Yeah he couldn't binge like he used to and he couldn't eat a lot of the binge foods he used to without the lap band forcing him to throw up, but he found that he COULD binge on certain things (like ice cream) and so after the initial weight loss, he was really just maintaining a healthy weight.

And then a few months ago, he stopped eating. I didn't see him for a good while what with the holidays and me being a hermit because I've been in an epic funk, and then just before Christmas when I saw him again, he looked EMACIATED. On a 6' 5" frame, that looks kind of alarming. He's also--I have only very recently discovered--been seriously abusing vitamins*. But unlike me (only using them when I work out) M is using them all the time. And I'm pretty sure he's been using them for a really long time. Like long enough that he has stopped paying his credit cards and his car was repossessed for non-payment, and M is now filing for bankruptcy. I also heard hints that he's not paying his phone and his dad was helping with the car insurance. And since he only moved into his apartment a couple months ago, I would imagine that at least most of his money has been going towards the vitamin* habit.

I am in no position to tell anyone they should eat. I am also in no position to tell someone they have a drug problem and should seek help. It would obviously be hypocritical of me.

On Sunday night, M showed up at my house completely off his face on vitamins*. He informed me that he had just come from the hospital, and that he had snuck out of the hospital because they wouldn't let him drive. M had surgery on an ulcer a few weeks ago, and he said he went to the hospital Sunday night because he was in pain.

I'm not sure I believe this, because our vitamin*-friend decided to quit the vitamins* last week (>:O) and so is no longer selling them. M was getting desperate when I spoke to him on Friday, and then lo and behold, he comes over Sunday night fresh out of the hospital hopped up on dilaudid and with a prescription for 20 percocets.

-________________-

I want to help M, I really do. But he doesn't want help. He wants to be thinner still, and he sees no reason in quitting the vitamins* (whereas I Officially Stopped on Saturday because my supply ran out and I am not looking for more). I've also been doing ok in the eating department as well--not perfect, but ok.

As much as I hate to admit weakness, I have to say that it's REALLY FRIGGING HARD to remain hell-bent on this recovery when M is deep in the madness of anorexia. I see him looking gaunt and sick and I would be a total liar if I didn't admit that I feel jealous beyond words. I see him looking like a chemo patient and I want it too--I want to not eat, I want to lose 20+ pounds, I want to look half-dead--and the more time I spend with him the more my carefully constructed foundations of healthy eating start to crumble.

The part of me that wants to be free of this hell--the part of me knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that being that thin, aside from being unhealthy, IS NOT ATTRACTIVE IN ANY WAY--that part of me is saying OMG RUN. That part of me wants to distance myself from M so that I don't sink as well, because I have come way too far to let the same old demons sink me now.

But I feel like a coward, and a bad friend. Running from someone else's problems has destroyed some of my past friendships. I don't want to destroy this one. I don't know what to do.

The only thing I can think of to save myself is sitting M down and telling him that, while I don't want to tell him how he should live his life, I cannot continue to be around him if he's planning to stay on this path of starvation and drug abuse. But that feels cowardly, and bad-friend-ish. 

What do y'all think? If you've kept reading this far, that is... I'm scared for M, but I'm twice as scared for myself. 

♥