tonight everybody dies

The book is now live on Amazon! Alternate purchasing options to come...

I am fairly confident that this is the best thing I have ever written. ....or at least it's my favourite. 


In other news:

I have decided to join the A-Z Blog challenge thing. I'll probably give up after the first entry, but sure I'm going to try anyway.


FOR THOSE OF YOU IN MASSACHUSETTS, any of y'all live near Sturbridge??? I'm going to the Tattoo and Art festival at the end of March. The Goddamn Gallows will be playing, and I would much rather drive into Massa for a day than risk my life going to South Street in Philadelphia at night. And if the Goddamn Gallows are anywhere near the east coast, you better freaking believe I'm going to see them. 

Also I need this hoodie.

an update

I am so sick of this mother-effing snow I could vomit. 

And you know if I'M sick of snow it's really bad. 

Officially over a week at Mum's house. 

It's supposed to snow again tomorrow.

T.T

I miss my house. Went there yesterday to get more clothes really just stand there and cry. The ground in front of my steps, and also the ground directly outside my door have more or less turned into an ice skating rink. And the driveway is a mess, and since it is a vertical climb onto the road, my car cannot really exit the driveway without risking death by head-on collision.

What this means is that I am stuck at Mum's until the snow in my driveway melts enough that I can drive up to the road normally, as opposed to backing all the way up to the barn and then flooring it and praying there are no cars coming. 

UUUGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I just want to be back in a place where no one judges me for having 2 or 3 ok fine like 4 or 5 glasses of wine with dinner. 

We've been stuck in the house twice so far.

snow piled up outside the back door--it's twice as high now

the deck last Thursday

the deck as of Monday

We cannot go out the back door because there are 5-foot long deathtraps icicles hanging from the roof. 

upstairs bathroom window--I can't see outside unless I stand on something

I spent all last Thursday attempting to make my hair more Viking-like.

Like Lagertha.

Because she f*cking rules.

I'm getting better at it. Need to go to Harmon and invest in some more hair styling stuffs. Also need to find chains to braid into my hair. 

I am actually at work on a holiday. 

Like I went into work on my day off, when Bossman isn't even in the country, to do filing. 

I am that bored. 

OMG NEWS I ALMOST FORGOT. 

Book 3, Westley and the Witches, should be hitting the virtual shop shelves THIS WEEK. 

So, you know, y'all should probably go read the first two in anticipation. They might be free on kindle at some point during the week....

Back to the filing I go!

-____________-

We all must make sacrifices; however, as luck will have it, it's yours truly who does the choosing.

I feel like I shouldn't bother blogging if I have nothing interesting to say, but I'm bored.

I only went to work three days this week because of the snow, but it feels like this week draaaaaaaaaaaaaagged.

We got like a foot of snow on Wednesday. Here's what my car looked like that morning:

Half an hour later, when I left the bathroom after getting showered and dressed, I glanced out the window and my car was completely cleared of snow. Ginger Upstairs's uncle/roommate cleaned it.

I still couldn't get out--my car was frozen to the ground. Which was the worst possible timing because I absolutely had to get to a shop very soon, as I had run out of certain *supplies* and needed them before my apartment started looking like a crime scene. I begged Stepmom to come rescue me, and we had an awkward trip to the supermarket, and then a somewhat less awkward coffee in Quick Chek.

Yesterday, it took me like half an hour to get out of my driveway, but by the power of prayer and cat litter, I managed it somehow. No way was I parking in my usual spot to do that all over again, so I texted Ginger Upstairs to ask him which side of the driveway I should block and which side they preferred to use, so I could park mostly in the street.

Not only did he tell me to park on the side that's not as steep, he told me to text him when I arrived home and he would come to the car and shovel me a better path to my door.

:/

oh   ?

I said he didn't have to do that, I could manage in my snow boots, but thanks anyway.

In other equally unexciting news, I might be heading down to Mumsy's tonight or tomorrow morning, since we're due to get two more snow storms over the next seven days.

I love winter. I really do. But this is getting old. And I really really don't want to get stuck at Mum's again for a week. T.T

Also tonight, I shall meet Big Sis#2 at Niecey G's school for Bingo Night. I have no recollection of agreeing to this, but she insists that I did.

Poison Ivy is getting really fat.

I need a drink. Or 12.

time's cruel clock

Since the Irish Times doesn't feel it necessary to bother reporting the damage currently being done in the west of Mayo, I shall supply some highlights.

So this is happening right now:

They've had non-stop storms since the New Year. 100 mph winds. 100 foot waves. No power. Yet another headed their way this Friday.

My cousin Samantha died of cancer in 1992, at age 20. Across the street from my grandparents' house, down the Gallaghers' driveway, you can access the shore of Achill Sound, and wander around in the sand dunes. Not far from where the road ends at the sand, there is a huge rock just hanging out in the middle of the beach, "SAM" carved into one of its sides. We call it Samantha's rock.

Guess what.

After these storms, there is no more Samantha's rock.

I bate being this morbid and sentimental, but sometimes you have to.

I was only seven years old when Samantha died. She was one of the older cousins and not in my clique (you know you're Catholic when there are so many cousins you actually have cliques), so I wasn't as close to her as some of the others. But I still remember feeling a sense of loss when we heard that she had died. We hadn't even been home for that long when we got the news. We had gone to see her in England not long before, because the doctors had said she didn't have much time left.

I don't remember that whole trip to England, but I remember seeing Samantha. We had spent time together before then, but I was too young to remember most those times. That visit to England, though.... I'll not forget it in a hurry.

Samantha had no hair. She hid that fact under a scarf, but I saw her take it off and readjust it and put it back on, and I think that's when I realized she was really sick. I was only seven, so I had only a very basic concept of sickness, and no concept of death.

But Samantha didn't act sick. I thought she was pretty and fun. She was kind, and she acted happy and lively, and she showed me her collection of hippo toys (she loved hippos), and when I told her I loved cats, she gave me one of the stuffed toys she kept on her bed.

I still have it.

Even though we weren't that close, I still felt this crushing sadness when I found out she had died. I had seen her alive in England only a couple weeks earlier.

Her birthday is February 17th. I realized today that Samantha has been dead longer than she was alive. A bright candle snuffed out long before her time.

(poem written by one of our cousins)

We'll never forget you, Sam. Your rock will always stand, no matter where the storms take it. <3

Our vertical leap is beyond all measurement.

Well friends, sadly niece and I did not win the chili cook off. We WERE the crowd fav though, which makes us the winners in my mind. Kazehana said we lost on a technicality, since my chili had no beans in it. I hate beans, and had therefore replaced them with bacon.  

Had a snow day today. "Dusting" me arse. We got like 6 inches of snow. I spent the day cleaning, reading, and engaging in adult activities, the latter of which may have been a *tad* louder than necessary, so the neighbours probably think I'm a giant whore now. 
-_____-

Anyone else have an exciting snow day?