Lost in a Cemetery

A new friend of mine told me something interesting. It was about a tower inside of a cemetery that overlooks the city. The coolest part is that this tower is open for the public to climb and enjoy the view. This morning, I set out on my bicycle to find this cemetery and its tower.


Finding the cemetery was fairly easy. Finding the tower was another story. This cemetery is enormous. It lays on over 175 acres and I actually got lost. I thought I could just look around and see the tower, but the many, many tall trees stopped my life from being so simple. I found a map of the cemetery and tried to remember which way to go, but that didn't work so well since I have a horrible memory. Eventually, I asked an older couple that was sitting in their car if they knew how to find the tower. I felt horrible for interrupting their cemetery experience, which was probably a solemn one, but I was losing my patience. Luckily, being lost in the cemetery wasn't too bad of a thing. I came across several things to photograph.

I found a tombstone that had dead, dying, and thriving vines all over it. I thought they looked awesome.

The cemetery had its own greenhouses and this disgusting thing collected rainwater for later watering. How eco-friendly.

This was in the entry to some building (this place had lots of them). I thought how the light highlighted the chair in the shadows was pretty cool.

I found this grate and this red leaf stuck in some cobwebs.

These flowers were already knocked over when I found them. I swear. I didn't do it.

There was this whole section of cemetery that was being reseeded with grass. At the moment, it's just dirt, headstones, and awesome looking.

After wandering around for what felt like hours and being told by multiple employees that I was not supposed to have my bike on the cemetery grounds (and even being given a flier on "Cemetery Etiquette" by a man in a minivan), I found the tower. A plaque told me that it was built in the 1850's. The view was pretty spectacular. The area has a lot more trees than I expected, but we've all seen trees, so I won't bother posting them here. What was really cool was the view of downtown Boston that the tower offered (see below).



About This Whole Job Thing . . .

I had every intention of finding a job once I had moved to the Boston area. I'm very nervous/meticulous/obsessive/successful(?) when it comes to my finances, and the biggest concern I had was about whether or not I would be able to financially support myself.  I foresaw myself filling out countless applications, sending out numberless resumes, and not resting until I had secured some type of employment. But has any of that happened? No. And is any of that going to happen? Not at least until the school year starts up. Here's my new plan . . .
Rather than immediately getting another dead end job that will not provide me with anything impressive to put on my resume, why not wait until I have access to the resources which my college offers? I can seek out internships and jobs through the connections it has with the local publishing community and, subsequently, obtain worthwhile experience.

I have an inkling that all of the fall internships will have already be taken, but that's not so terrible. I can focus on securing one for next semester. And if I desperately need employment, I can always find something along the way.

I think my reasoning is good, and I will insist that this is what has influenced my decision the most. But, just between you and me, faithful reader, there are other, and equally influential, reasons. These include :

1) It's summer and summer is for fun, not working
2) I'm lazy
3) I don't want to work
4) I took out enough student loans that I don't have to work
5) There are too many things to do in this city
6) My social life is suddenly four times what it used to be

So, with that, I gladly cross off Summer Goal #15 -- Hunt for a new job. Not because I completed it, but because I have abandoned it. It's a great feeling.

Sushi = Difficult

So, with my move to the Boston area being more or less successful (barring travel problems--see The First Leg and The Second Leg--and losing some books that I shipped through USPS), I have begun to wander the areas surrounding my apartment. One day, I came across an Asian market and found what I thought would be all of the supplies I would need to make sushi.

I have a sushi addiction. I could eat it every day, but being the frugal graduate student that I am, I decided I should learn how to make this expensive food, as opposed to spending the outrageous, yet understandable, prices that restaurants charge for it. The only problem was that making sushi is a bit more complicated than I expected--especially when the directions you're using leaves several unanswered, pertinent questions that only arise once you're in the middle of preparing the sushi.

COOKING THE RICE :

Rinsing : Rinsing sushi rice is essential. The website I initially trusted to guide me on my culinary journey said I needed to strain the rice after rinsing it. So, I went out and bought a strainer. But, as it turns out, a strainer is unnecessary. You can simply put the rice in a large bowl and then mix it around. When the water gets cloudy, dump out the dirty water, and repeat until the water is relatively clear.

Batch #1 : Luckily, this didn't turn out too bad.

Cooking : The instructions for cooking the rice were very fuzzy. The first website I consulted told me to let the rice sit in enough water to just cover the top of it for a half hour. Once the thirty minutes had passed, I was to then cook the rice without adding additional water. Bad idea. The rice had soaked up the majority of the water and started burning. The second website I consulted told me to boil the rice for 7 minutes and then let it simmer for 15 and was very adamant about NOT STIRRING THE RICE. As you can imagine, it didn't turn out very pretty.

Batch #2 : Mmmmm. Crispy. Thank you, Internet Sushi Dummies.

SEASONING THE RICE :

Apparently, you have to make a special mixture to season your sushi rice. I didn't realize this when I was buying my supplies, and I wasn't about to trek across town a third time. I figured I wouldn't need the seasoning since I bought soy sauce and wasabi. I figured that would be seasoning enough. I'll just buy rice vinegar for my future sushi attempts (and successes).

ROLLING THE SUSHI :

So, I understood the idea of spreading the rice across the seaweed. But, dang it, that rice isn't called "sticky" for nothing. Spreading it out was much more difficult than I anticipated. I couldn't get it to spread too evenly.













The actual rolling of the sushi was something else. I thought I did pretty good.

And then I flipped the roll over and saw my seaweed sticking out. I would have considered this a fail, but the sushi held together and that's what really counts, right?

CUTTING THE SUSHI : 

This was my first attempt at cutting my sushi. One sushi-making video I watched online showed the chef making one swift chopping motion. I attempted to do the same, and obviously failed. My conclusion is that I will need a knife as sharp as a samurai sword to do this correctly.

After my first attempt at cutting the sushi roll, I proceeded with a bit more caution than before. I think I did okay.

SOY/WASABI MIXTURE :

So, finally, I had some semblance of sushi. The rice was too thick and unseasoned and the roll looked like it had been cut by being run over by a lawnmower. But, whatever. I'm not picky. And then I realized that I didn't have one of those little dishes that you generally use to mix your soy sauce and wasabi. I may have to buy one in the future, but for the moment, a mixing cup worked just fine.

CONCLUSION :

Making sushi is difficult and the Internet is an incompetent teacher (at least in regards to making sushi). I heard that my landlady's husband teaches sushi classes and I plan on taking it. I will learn how to make sushi that is both tasty and beautiful . . . one day . . . one day.

The Second Leg

All I really need to say is that Amtrak sucks and I never want to travel with them again, but I like to go above and beyond what is necessary. I've been known to talk more than I need, and this blog will not be an alteration of the norm. Picking up where I left off (see The First Leg), the second leg of my Amtrak trip did get any better.

But just to make sure we're on the same poor customer service page :

RECAP OF THE FIRST LEG : I got on a train--that was two hours late--and was informed that there had been a derailment beyond my transfer point. I was then told I would be transferred by bus to a point beyond the derailment where I would get on another train and complete my journey.

The promised buses of deliverance were supposed to arrive at 9:30 pm but did not actually arrive until 10:30 pm. When the buses finally arrived, they began calling people up in order of their destinations. A whole slew of people lined up and filed out to the buses. A second slew followed suit about forty minutes later. My destination wasn't called until the third and final round. I lined up and was taken outside to where the buses were being loaded . . . only to find out that there wasn't sufficient room in the buses to fit everyone.

This sent me and my fellow stranded Amtrakers back to the waiting area/holding pin. We were then told that another two buses would be arriving in another other. An hour came and went. A second hour came and also went. And no one told us anything. At this point, it was nearing midnight and I was pissed off. I took my heavy carry-ons and went to the customer service counter.

The first person I spoke to was an elderly woman who was very short with me. She said the other buses would be arriving in ANOTHER hour. I asked when she was going to tell everyone who had already been waiting for two hours and then asked why they didn't order enough buses in the first place. I know I annoyed the woman, but I hope I also scared her. Either way, she didn't answer my questions. Instead, she turned around, opened a door, loudly proclaimed "We need a manager at the counter", and then disappeared. How rude!

The manager who came to the counter turned out to be a pregnant woman, and I hesitated to be so cranky with her because, well, she was heavy with child and I probably shouldn't be mean to pregant ladies--but that hesitation and consideration for mothers-to-be only lasted a second. I snapped out of it and was back to my cranky self.

The pregnat manager informed me that the higher ups in Amtrak were the ones behind the bus shortage and that the trains would not be waiting for us to arrive at the transfer point. What this meant for the rest of my trip, she couldn't tell me. I voiced my displeasure and was interrupted by a very annoying man. "I know it sucks, but, come on, man. It could be worse." he said. I replied that "The only way it could be worse is if someone came in here and shot me." The man fumbled over his words (and the people around me made very uncomfortable faces) and then he began telling me a story of how he had missed his train and how Amtrak was helping him out. I didn't want to hear any of it. I interrupted him--"That's great for you, but that's not what I'm concerned about." and then I turned back to the manager. It felt great. The man's optimism remained silent.

What happened in the end?

The two final buses that arrived (which didn't get there until 2:30 am, which meant we didn't leave until around 3:00 am) divvied up the remaining stranded people and took them to their final destinations. Although, I must say, this outcome was not certain for several hours into our bus rides. The drivers, who were third-party, didn't even know what has happening for sure. We were just heading in a general direction as our minds were tormented with concerns about our luggage and our bodies were tortured by the rough seats and close quarters that constitute a charter bus (PS -
 I went to the bathroom on the bust and when I flushed the toilet, brown, stinky water came out. It was so rank that it made me cough. I was surprised that toxic sludge hadn't eaten through the pumbling.)

When I finally arrived at my final destination at 11:00 pm, I tried to locate my baggage. As it turns out, the baggage claim closed at 8:30 pm, but that really didn't matter because the train with my luggage had not arrived! It had break problems somewhere along the line, was delayed six hours, and wouldn't arrive until 3:00 am. Break problems? Six hours? No baggage? What next? I'll tell you what next . . .

The following morning, I called the Amtrak station to see if my baggage had come in. I gave them my baggage claim numbers and waited for them to go check. When the employee returned, he had bad news. He couldn't find it, meaning it wasn't there--meaning "WHERE IS MY BICYCLE AND OTHER 250 POUNDS OF PERSONAL BELONGINGS?!" I called Amtrak and explained my situation to someone who must have been inbred and partially deaf, judging by how many times they made me repeat myself. But she couldn't have been that stupid. She called the Amtrak station and found out that my baggage was there. Apparently, the guy at the station hadn't been trained how to match numbers that he'd written down to the printed numbers on boxes.

I had a game plan of complaining and trying to get my money back since the service was so horrible that I can't help but feel swindled, but when I called Amtrak, I was told I had to write a letter to some big wig located in Washington DC. Nothing ever gets done there! Wish me luck. I think I'll mention that I have written all about Amtrak's incompetence in my blog. I hope he likes that.

The First Leg

Well, I must say that the first leg of my first Amtrak trip is not shaping up to be a very good one.

Let me start from the beginning.

While waiting to board my first train, a woman with cracked out hair kept asking me to watch her bags so she could go outside and smoke. I don't mind doing nice things for strangers, especially when it requires little to no effort on my part, but this woman was very, very odd. It probably didn't help that it was 2:30 am and I was tired and nervous and old men kept falling asleep and snoring something horrible.

As it turned out, my first train was two hours late, giving me an additional two hours of sitting next to the crack-hair lady. And then when the train finally arrived and I was able to board, the person I was supposed to sit next to stole my window seat! I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, and all I really wanted to do was sleep, anyway, so, I let it slide. But before I could fall asleep, I got a whiff of the window seat thief's stale, greasy body odor.

While en route on this first train, we kept being stalled due to track congestion. We stopped repeatedly on the tracks and had to wait for things to clear up ahead of us. This put us an additional 3 hours behind schedule, and prolonged my exposure to Senor Stinky.

Eventually, it came to light that our delays were not the only obstacles to overcome. A train had derailed up ahead and we were now having to be rerouted. When I got off the train at one of Amtrak's stations, I was told to go speak to someone to find out about what my reroute would entail. I went to a desk that seemed likely to give me such information, but there was already a long line. I was ready to wait patiently, but then a white-haired, old lady budged to the front of the line. I thought to myself "she better have dementia, or I'll cut her so bad she'll wish I never cut her so bad".

When the worker at the desk, notified everyone that we were in the wrong place to obtain the information we needed for our various reroutes, we all flooded to the correct desk. And guess who budged to the front of the line one again--the old, white-haired lady! That wily she-devil!

And to make matters worse, the worker at this desk was an idiot. Instead of answering people's questions in the order which they lined up, he started walking around and answering random people's questions! Chaos! Chaos, I tell you! Everyone was shouting and trying to get his attention at the same time, and this really upset a man who was wearing a basketball jersey. He had been at the front of the line but was ignored by the ignorant worker. He started screaming "SIR! EXCUSE ME!" over and over again as the worker most likely ignored him. In the end, I was able to speak to the wandering worker, but he seemed like an idiot, so I left and decided to ask someone else about my reroute.

I think I have to catch a bus which will take me to another station, and then I'll get an another train that will eventually take me to my final destination. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. But when it's all said and done, I'll just be happy if I get all of my luggage in one piece. Here's hoping.

PS - All of these delays and reroutes might be my fault. While waiting to board my first train, I was reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It was at a point in the novel when a character was taking a train but kept getting delayed and rerouted. It appeared to be a bad omen, and I told myself that I was lucky that I didn't believe in such things . . . but it really does appear that I jinxed us. I jinxed us all.

My "Painting"

I bought a blank canvas with the intention that I would paint something really cool on it . . . and it ended up sitting in my room for over two years. I couldn't decide on anything particular that I wanted to paint. And since it sat so inconspicuously in the corner, I forgot it was even there most of the time.

But as graduate school approached, finally using the neglected canvas climbed up my priority list. I knew I wouldn't be able to take it with me, but I didn't want to waste it just the same. But even with my new found motivation, I still had no clue what to paint.

My brother wanted me to paint something creepy. I can do creepy. I love doing creepy. But when I finally got paint and brushes, I was reminded of how horrible of a painter I am. I started over about three times, repainting the canvas with each attempt. Eventually, I became so angry with my embarrassing skills that I bought spray paint and markers and came up with this . . .

First, I sprayed the canvas black to hide all of my failed attempts (a monster, powder explosions, bird-like creature, stripes, amorphous color blob, and spray paint drips--wow, I suck) and then sprayed a gray mist over the entire thing until it looked foggy. I then sprayed words like hatred, betrayal, sorrow, regret, etc all over and topped it all off with a large WAR that was meant to stand out and be easily discernible. After that was done, I took a Sharpie and wrote "Take a look inside and tell me what you see" all over it in all kinds of directions and sizes.

I'm not completely happy with it, but it'll do. It's not like it'll be hanging in my living room.

Summer Smut

I have a sickness. It forces me to buy more books than I will ever be able to read. In order to make my move to graduate school easier, I gave away about half of my books, and I still had too many. I told myself that I wouldn't buy any more books until after I move, but that is much easier said than done with disease this severe. But when I come across a hardcover, illustrated, retro edition of The Wizard of Oz, how can I resist? Or how can I resist a hardcover edition of A Shore Thing by Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi for only $1.50?

Yes. I bought Snooki's book. I have only seen about two minutes of one Jersey Shore episode, but I've heard plenty stories about the idiots that star in it. I was a little worried that I'd lose a few IQ points from just touching Snooki's book, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

After doing a little research, I was disappointed to learn that Snooki didn't actually write it. She "collaborated" with a writer--which must be code for "I spoke to a ghostwriter about five times and contributed my skankiest personal experiences to be incorporated into the book". What a shame. I was hoping this would be beyond-belief-stupid. But even without Snooki writing the book, it's still pretty bad.

I didn't actually read the entire novel, but I did scan through it and will now share a few of the gems that I found.

Chapter One : Karma's a Bitch, Bitch

"His chest muscles strained the fabric of his black tank top. It fit across a tummy that was hard and flat enough to cut salami on . . . He stared as if he could see through her dress, right down to her zebra-print bra and thong set underneath."

Reaction : Apparently, she doesn't know what "chest muscles" are called and is forced to use what feels like a childish description. And what is up with the whole "tummy" sentence? First off, "tummy"? Is he a toddler? Secondly--why is it specifically salami? Why not tomatoes or fresh eel? Does the salami coat the skin of his stomach so the knife won't cut into him when it gets all the way through the salami? Is she cutting the salami while he is standing up? Is it acceptable to cut salami on a man's "tummy" in public? Are there YouTube videos of this?

Chapter Six : No Hug

"Some of the skin was pale, and some burnt. He must have laid out limp, and now, when he got hard, the stretching caused red and white stripes. Gia couldn't help herself. She started laughing. 'It looks like a perverted candy cane. But thicker. Much thicker.' -- 'I was thinking barbershop pole' -- 'Dr. Seuss hat.' "

Reaction : Does getting sunburned down there really create a striped pattern? . . . . I might need to try this . . .

Chapter Twelve : Swimming with Sharks

"Yeah, it was scary to stand next to a shark with, like, thousands of rows of needle-sharp teeth. But at that moment, it was just a helpless vulnerable creature that probably felt scared and lonely. Gia knew in her heart that the shark would not harm her. -- Just to be sure, she said, 'Don't eat me, Bitch.' -- The shark rolled to look at her. Gia could see her eyes. They were black, flat, and sad, too."

Reaction : First reaction -- The grammar, irrational and unwarranted switch in narrative style, exaggerations, and metaphors almost killed me. I feel ill. Second Reaction -- You can read a shark's emotions in their "black, flat" eyes? Third Reaction -- Escaping a shark attack is as easy as calling it a bitch? Why isn't that posted on a sign at beaches worldwide?


Chapter Thirteen : Penises Look Bigger Underwater

"Frank couldn't help staring at how the wet T-shirt clung to her chest. He could see everything. -- She must have been cold. -- His dick sprang to life in his jeans."

Reaction : There is a penis in this chapter--shocker!--but it's not underwater. The only character that was underwater was Gia, which is pretty much Snooki. Does Snooki have a penis? And does it look bigger underwater? Sounds like we need Dan Brown to write novel about this!

Chapter Fifteen : Shouldn't Have Had So Many Oysters

 ". . . Gia wriggled on his groin like a professional lap dancer. She knew this for a fact. She'd taken a stripper dance class and got a certificate at the end."

Reaction : Classy.

Chapter Twenty-Nine : Code Brown

"Meanwhile, like ten guys grabbed her boobies. If she weren't about to paint the room brown, she would've loved it. A few grabbed at her butt, too. 'Not the ass!' A too tight squeeze and she might explode."

Reaction : This girl is on the verge of having diarrhea in public and she decides to crowd surf to get to the bathroom? What a genius! And what kind of woman would love to have "like ten guys" grabbing her breasts at the exact same time? And how large are these breasts that so many men can grab at them? Maybe they weren't trying to grab them, but push them away so they wouldn't be smothered! 




This book disgusts me, mostly because the idiotic, self-centered, egotistic, slutty main character was created in the mirror image of an actual person. On the bright side, the book does not take itself seriously. It's a cheap gimmick, it knows that, it oozes that, and it's not ashamed of it in the slightest. If anything, it provided me, and hopefully you, with some entertainment. It is smut for smut's sake, and we might as well scoff.

Chatroulette AKA Pervert and Jerk Central

My BFF and I had a conversation about Chatroulette with some of her friends yesterday. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a web chatting service that pairs you up with random people all over the world. All you have to do is sign in (which doesn't even require actually signing into an account, which I thought was weird) and some random person comes up on your screen. If you don't want to talk to them for whatever reason, you simply hit "NEXT" and then another person comes up. Conversely, if the person on your screen doesn't want to talk to you, they are also free to hit "NEXT" and hope to be paired with someone better.
Anyway, My BFF's friends recently had their first go on Chatroulette and told us all about it. They had encounters with interesting people, but they also came across many shirtless men and even a few people who were wearing Halloween masks.

I thought this sounded amazing. I love running into strange people, but if I don't actually have to physically run into them and can "meet" these people via the Internet while they're many, many miles away without any knowledge of my whereabouts . . . well, it just can't get any more ideal than that.
So, I eagerly signed onto Chatroulette and was sorely disappointed. I got skipped and skipped and skipped and skipped. No one seemed to want to talk to me. Why? Probably because 95% of the chatters that came up on my screen were shirtless male teenagers who were lounging on beds or couches. It was disgusting. I had no idea this is what Chatroulette was all about.

We did not, however, give up very easily. We ended up speaking to a few people with much less scandalous intentions--some of which I will recap for you . . .
French Guy : wore a very strange hat with a white button up shirt. He had this horrible long, high pitched noise playing in the background that he said was a French hip-hop song. He asked me to "bring a noise". I used my BFF's Flarp to give him some farting noises and then hit "Next".

Norwegian girl : claimed she was studying to be a lawyer while also modeling clothing. She made fun of the United States and said that Norway was richer and had more and cheaper crude oil. I thought that was funny and asked her to share her oil with us. She laughed. Then she wanted me to say things in her language--"I have four tits and a stinky face" is only one example (thank you, Google Translate, for exposing her cruel intentions). After learning what she was making me say, I told her she was mean and that she should leave us poor, oil-needy Americans alone and then hit "Next".

Algerian man : only showed his left arm. He was smoking. Said he loved the United States but hated Obama. He called Obama a Jew. I told him Obama wasn't Jewish. He said that he knew that.

Turkish Guy : who looked like he was about to die. He said he had drank too much and wanted me to Facebook him. Uh, no thank you. I clicked "Next" and left him to die in peace.

Jar Jar Binks : was held up in front of the screen. The person holding him was making him dance around. I said "Jar Jar! Speak to me, Jar Jar!" and the person responded "You're funny" and then hit "Next". Jerk.

Overall, I feel like our Chatroulette experience was worth something. I met international weirdos! I heard French music that sounded like it was made by half-deaf dolphins! I even heard ignorant racial/religious slurs! What fun!

Jalapeñ-ow

A couple of week ago, my brother was making enchiladas. While doing so, he chopped up some whole jalapeños and then "itched" the inside of his nose. But, don't worry, he was punished for his poor food preparation practices by a sudden burning inside of his freshly excavated nostril.

Anyway, when he told me about it, he went on and on about how badly the inside of his nostril burned. He screamed and groaned and even tried to rinse out his nose with water. I told him I doubted the pain was as excruciating as he made it out to be and that he was just a big baby. He then challenged me to chop a fresh jalapeño, coat my finger with the juice, and then rub it around the inside of my nostril. I defiantly accepted his challenge with one stipulation--that he purchased the jalapeño.

A day or two later, we had a party to go to, before which we went to a grocery store and bought a single jalapeño. I intended to take him up on his challenge and put him to shame, but by the time we got home that evening, the jalapeño had gone missing.

Until earlier this week.

I was emptying out the pockets of my shorts before changing into my pajamas when I reached into one of the cargo pockets. I felt something squishy inside, pulled it out, and found this beauty (see picture on right). No, no, no. It's not a decomposing bird corpse or a chunk of zombie flesh. It's the missing jalapeño!

It's so flat. And so pretty. Look at the coloring of that thing! I suppose that's what two weeks of record summer heat will do to a forgotten jalapeño in a cargo pocket. Lesson learned.

The Sunscreen/Eyeball Incident

Today, my BFF and I ventured to Valleyfair where we met up with some of her friends and their friends for a fun-filled day of nauseating thrill and water rides. For those of you who are not in the know, Valleyfair is an amusement and water park. It's not the largest or most impressive amusement park out there, but it's decent, and we ended up having a really good time. The worst part of the day wasn't having to leave at 4:30 pm so the person who drove could return to their dog before it peed on the floor or walking around in water socks all day. It was the painful combination of sunscreen and my eyes.

Being very white and very bald, I depend on sunscreen with high SPFs to save me from the harmful rays of the sun. Today, I applied an SPF 40 sunscreen to my body and head, and it wasn't long before my right eye started burning. My assumption is that the sunscreen I applied to my head mingled with my sweat and dripped down into my eye. I didn't think it would last long, what with my eye watering and me blinking incessantly, but last a long time it did.

I was in line for the Steel Venom (see Steel Venom Details), one wild roller coaster that shoots you forward and backward several times, when the burning started. Not wanting to leave the line, I tried my best to not rub my eye and smear even more sunscreen into it. I pushed through the pain, rode the ride, and then found a drinking fountain to rinse out my eye. It felt a little better for a few minutes, but then both of my eyes began burning.

Eventually, I left everyone in line at a water ride to go and find another water fountain to soothe my reddened, watering eyes. As it turns out, Valleyfair is going green by having very, very few water fountains in their park, and I was unable to find one. It was horrible. I couldn't keep my eyes open for more than a second at a time, and it felt like someone was stabbing pencils into my eyes. I stumbled around for five minutes until I found a bathroom and was able to rinse out my eyes at a sink. I rinsed and I rinsed, but my rinsing didn't work. Defeated, I set out--almost completely blind--to find the First Aid station.

With the aid of a kind girl who was manning a carnival game, I was able to find the First Aid building, and the blessed woman stationed there guided me to an eye washing station.

While I was undergoing the horrible procedure of trying to keep my eyes open with cold water shooting into them, a few people came into the First Aid Station. First came a little girl and her mother. The little girl had been riding a ride when it jerked, as amusement park rides tend to do, and she smashed her face into something. The poor thing had a large, swollen bruise underneath her eye and she was doing her best not to cry. The other person who came into the station was a female worker. She hadn't been feeling the greatest for the past couple of days and had puked at her work station.

After what felt like several days of rinsing my eyes, I set out to meet up with everyone. My eyes were feeling a lot better and I could actually keep them open. They hurt for the rest of the day, but I was able to see. I suppose the bright side to that is that we now know that this specific sunscreen really is waterproof.

Other than the sunscreen/eyeball incident, it was a pretty good day. We went to a candy store afterwards and I bought a little Wii remote that dispenses little candies, much like a Pez dispenser, for only $1.69. It may have been the best $1.69 I've ever spent.

Fantasy Land Funeral

My BFF and I have been best friends for just over eight years, but being college students with very different educational and career paths, we have not lived in the same town for over seven years of that bestfriendship. Over the years, we have planned visits that have extended over several days, and we are currently in day 3 of a 10 day BFF extravaganza that will include, but not be limited to, eating lots of junk food, watching TV and movies, playing Wii, and taking stupid pictures.

Today, I wish to share something we witnessed. It was a funeral. Or at least what appeared to be a funeral.

A large number of dressed-up people were clustered around the cars in a parking lot of a church. My first thought was that it was a wedding. People were laughing and appeared to be having a great time. But my BFF's first impression was that it was a funeral. And she was right. We pulled up to a stop sign and found a hearse parked against the curb.

Being the horrible person I am, I looked into the back of the hearse, trying to spot the coffin, but was disappointed to find it empty. Luckily, my disappointment did not last long. As we waited for our chance to go through the stop sign, two men pushing a casket on a type of coffin gurney exited through the front doors of the church. But rather than putting the coffin in the back of the hearse, the hearse cut off my BFF and drove off. The two men did not seem perturbed by this and began pushing the coffin down the sidewalk.

It was the strangest funeral I'd ever seen. People were laughing and having a good time, the hearse was driving erratically without the deceased person inside, and the coffin was being pushed down the sidewalk by two men who seemed to be telling jokes back and forth over the casket.

What possible reasons could there be for such mirth at what is supposed to be a solemn occasion? I know the real answer is most likely that the hearse needed to move to a different location to easily load the casket and that the laughter of the people probably resulted from the need for some kind of relief, but I don't like to think in such boring terms. So, let's move on to the answers I actually enjoy having inside of my brain. 1) The deceased was a horrible person and the people who attended were those who were happy to see them pass and be sent on their way to rot in Hell, or 2) Me and my BFF were being Punk'd.

I'm not sure which answer I like better because I really like the idea of people singing "Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead" at a funeral inside of a church chapel, but I also like the idea of sticking it to Ashton Kutcher. But, come to think of it, this is my fantasy land--I choose both to be true!

The Unintentionally Scary Museum

There are a lot of things in this world that are unintentionally scary. Clowns were originally meant to be jolly beings, but so many people exhibit a natural fear of them that they have been a staple of horror films and nightmares. Babies are another example. They are supposed to represent the future and life and potential, but the very thought of them has struck terror deep into the hearts of countless men and women. And I must not forget to mention well-meaning celebrities such as Michael Jackson or Barbara Streisand. I just shuddered.

This past week, I found another unintentionally terrifying thing -- the local museum in the town where I am currently living. I went with the purpose of fulfilling one of my summer goals (#14 - Go out and do more photography) while also learning more about the town. I had no idea that what I would find in the museum would be so eerie.

The museum was originally a high school, so it's quite large and has several floors. The displays are found in the many, many rooms. When I arrived, the first person I saw was an elderly, overweight man in overalls. He was ambling down a hallway and grunted to me as he passed. Other than that, I didn't see or hear a living soul for almost an hour. Walking around that enormous building, surrounded by old, old things such as creepy olden-times surgical tools, I couldn't help but feel like I was trespassing or stumbling upon things I should not have been seeing. The thing on the brownish blanket was supposed to be used to aid childbirth. Yikes. Keep those away from my baby.

But that wasn't all of the terrifying medical equipment. No. There was this strange metal claw thing.

And then there a reminder of how insufficient medical knowledge was back and how families and even entire communities were sometimes shut away from the world because the only available medicines failed them.

But it's okay. I'm sure the children would rather suffer through a handful of days or even weeks of vomiting up blood or being delirious with fever than be pushed around in this stroller for months and months. As a matter of fact, this may be the cause of those unstoppable diseases. A baby buggie constructed out of materials that look like they were pulled out of a malaria-rich swamp!

But if the disease didn't get the children, their playthings probably did. The children didn't play with their toys, the toys played with the children in the most vicious ways that broke their fragile spirits.

But what kind of toys would you expect a mother that wore dresses like this to give to her children? It's like someone pulled this clothing directly out of the wardrobe of an evil stepmother or abusive school mistress or wicked witch or any sick combination of the three.

But maybe we shouldn't be too quick to judge these demonic toy bestowing mothers. They were probably driven mad by being locked into and tortured by machines such as this! They thought they were just having their hair curled. They were so thrilled to show off their curly locks. Little did they know that their vanity would cost much more than the hairdresser's fees--their sanity and the natural love they had for their children!

Another reason I didn't feel entirely comfortable in this museum was the fact that it was filled with creepy mannequins. I kept walking into rooms or around corners and was repeatedly surprised to see someone standing ever so still only to realize the figures weren't people at all. This one wasn't as unnerving because it looks like his nose has run rampant across his face.

And then there was the basement. It was grungy and filled with cobwebs that suggested people rarely went down there. It was supposed to be filled with agricultural artifacts, but a lot of these displays looked more like they could also double for torture devices. Here, for example, is a beautiful array of barbed wire, great for keeping your victims immobile while you have your cruel way with them.

I think this was supposed to make fences. These spools fed wire through a loom type thing which twisted them together to make a mat of squares. But what was it keeping in? Animals? Or human victims? And how can we be so sure this barbaric looking device was intended for innocent purposes? We can't. Especially when it's found in this museum.

And then I found a door that had a slide lock across it. Being alone, I unlocked it and pushed open the door. There was no light in the room and this picture was taken with the aid of the flash on my camera. That really creeped me out. I shut the door, locked it, and went to what I felt was a slightly less unnerving portion of the museum.

The museum was devoted entirely to local history, but I think this may be a history that would be better either forgotten or repressed.

To My Dear Possum-Loving Reader(s)

For some reason, my blog entry titled The Sword-Wielding, Possum Slayer has become wildly popular.

Thanks to the smart individuals who have provided us with Blogger, I am aware that the aforementioned blog entry has been viewed anywhere from 15 to 30 times a day for the past five days. I am also aware that these views have originated from the Google searches "possum", "possums", and "pictures of possums". As it seems unlikely that a large number of people have suddenly become interested in possums and have begun searching for them on Google, I think these page hits come from one individual. And as I have no idea why anyone would keep accessing the same blog entry over and over again, I am writing this to ask that he or she or they step forward by leaving a comment about why they are viewing my blog entry so often.

This is not meant to be a chastisement by any means. I am grateful for your readership, but to satisfy my own curiosity, I ask that you tell me what keeps you coming back to that one entry. So, please, leave a comment below.

Frida

I am proud to announce that I have completed my first summer goal -- "#8) Make a wall haniging of a woman's torso".

And now, I will take you on a photographic journey of the process . . .

The plan was to make a paper mache torso and then spray paint it. So, of course, I first needed to make the wire frame.

Here is another picture of the wire frame, specifically of the breasts. I am very proud of those. Don't judge me. 

The next step was to paper mache the frame. Originally, my vision for this torso was of something that was very realistic. I have no idea what I was thinking. I'm not am amazing artist by any means, and the torso came out hideously misproportioned and lumpy. Seeing this, I decided to put my own twist on it -- AKA -- make it look as disturbing as possible. With that in mind, coming up with a PLAN B was a snap.

To make the torso gross, I put jagged scraps of paper all over the face of the torso. Afterwards, I ripped out chunks of the paper mache to look like it had been through the Hell.

Next, I spray painted the entire thing red. It took an entire can of paint because I didn't want any of the newsprint showing through.

After spray painting this red, I kind of liked it how it was. The red was very bright and glossy, and it made me think of Britney Spears' red jumpsuit in the Oops, I Did It Again music video.

The next step was to spray paint the edges of the missing portions black and then spray a fine mist of black over the entire thing--thus, making it look like it had been charred. How awesome of a PLAN B is that?!

And here is the finished product! I am very pleased with how it turned out. Sadly, I will not be able to take this with me when I move. I am giving it to my brother. I should charge him.

I named her Frida.