Category: journal

Dream of Reality

Laura Highcove

There is a certain intersection on the way to my fiancé’s parent’s house that we pass at least once whenever we travel up there. I have a very strong memory tied into that intersection, such that every time we pass it, no matter what else is going on, I remember this particular conversation.

SD is telling me about a book he read sometime in his past while we were waiting at a stoplight. It is a mystery book, in which a dog is a detective. He has a particular device on him that makes his inner thoughts audible, and in this way he communicates with humans. The particular scene he was describing to me is where the dog is trying to solve the mystery, and the clue he is currently looking at is a huge, complex painting. It has a whole bunch of things painted on it. And the dog is discussing how he came to ‘solve’ the painting to a girl. At first he was confused by the number of things on the painting, until he realized that anything that had the number zero on it meant absolutely nothing. Front and center in the painting are some of Jesus’ disciples, depicted with holy haloes around their heads. The dog says that the disciples really confused him until he realized that the haloes were actually zeroes, and as such they did not matter either.

We’ve gone past this intersection several times, and I have this memory, but only the most recent time we were there (Easter) did I actually bring it up with a: “Do you remember when…?”

And SD swears that, that conversation never happened, and he’s never heard of a book with any plot anything like that. The really strange thing is how tightly that memory is tied to that intersection. The only reasonable explanation (besides that SD has just somehow completely forgotten the book.) is that I dreamt the whole thing at sometime in the past, somehow choosing that intersection as where the dream took place, such that every time I pass it, I recall this memory. Not only that, but I remember it so vividly that there was no doubt in my mind that it had really happened until SD denies remembering it. Even now I’m more convinced that he just forgot than that I dreamt it.

Memories of Middle School

Laura Highcove

Let me start off by making one thing perfectly clear. I love SD’s (My fiancé) family. They are all wonderful people who have welcomed me with open arms. That being said, my post:

I was never popular in school. I wasn’t lucky enough to be a nerd, but instead I was just decent at school and weird. Middle school in general was not the favorite time in my life. Barring band and track (which helped me find the friends I did have during my last years of mandatory school) I spent all of my time with my nose stuck in some book or another, trying to be as unobtrusive to the outside world as possible.

Those days are thankfully gone. I have since garnered another layer of self-confidence that I often wish I could have had during those dark days. However, this past weekend, I was reminded of such days in the most unexpected of places.

SD has a mother. SD’s mother has a sister. SD’s mother’s sister has a daughter. Which would make her my…cousin-in-law-to-be? She’s eight years old. She’s always been somewhat of a brat, as kids are wont to be at that age. So we’re at the Grandparent’s for Easter. We’re all hanging out in the living room, and in comes in my cousin-in-law-to-be. She immediately begins showing off her new outfit and Tinkerbell necklace to Kelsey (SD’s sister.) and then describing the other Tinkerbell items she has acquired. She makes her rounds, and as a normal female when presented with a young child showing off a possession, I appropriately gush over said item.

And she gives me this look. The look that says, “Oh my Gawd, why are you talking to me, do you know who I am?” If you’ve ever been an unpopular kid in school, you probably know this look. Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of said look. That one look, however brief, given to me by an eight-year-old child, immediately took me back to those days in middle school when I was a self-conscious of my lisp and so desperate to be accepted yet shunned by nearly everyone in the popular crowd for not being ‘cool’ enough.

I brushed it off, telling myself that I’d just imagined it. We go on with the Easter proceedings. Both cousins-in-law-to-be (being the only children young enough) go out for the easter egg hunt. Once that’s done we all gather for the meal, and the cousin-in-law-to-be sticks her finger in something or other being set out on the table and licks her finger. She is immediately reprimanded by her mother, (Who is amazingly nice, and funny and a pleasure to be around.) and I see the look again. Not exactly the same, more of a, “You are going to regret talking to me like that.” look. I was completely shocked.

Right in front of me was a budding “popular girl”. Not one of the followers. She will be one of the leaders. One of those who people makes everyone who doesn’t make the cut’s lives miserable for as long as their hormonal insecurity allows them no self-respect. One of those people who believes she is entitled to things simply because she exists, and that the rest of the world are simply peons that exist to serve her. I saw all of this in an eight-year-old child!

And I immediately wonder on the Nature vs. Nurture argument again. Thinking on the article I read on Penny Arcade. I mean really, what do you do if your child turns out like that?

Apologies

Laura Highcove

So yesterday two things happened. First off, I put off updating because I thought I had a portion of the next section of Estrella written on paper at home, and I was going to go home and type it up and post it. Truth be told, it is there somewhere, but I can’t find it. As such I have to rewrite that section, and I’m sorry for the delay.

Secondly, it came to my attention that in my attempt to make the blog look as similar to my original website as possible, there was no way to go to older posts. I took the basic theme from the minimalistic one Koi made for our guild website, and that removed all of the archive and “older post” links. As such, I spent most of yesterday adding the bar on the side with the archives…which brings me to the second apology. For those of you using Firefox (as I do at work) you’re good. You can see the new bar, it’s pretty, and you can click on it, and the world is a wonderful and happy place.

For those of you who use Internet Explorer (as I do at home) some unknown, hidden option is making the body of the post wider than the space allotted to it, (Or perhaps IE is just interpreting something wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised.) thus covering over most of the bar on the right. After discovering this odd behavior or IE, I spent about an hour tracking down what controlled that bit of my website and trying to fix it to no avail. As such I am deferring to Matt, as soon as he gets his lazy butt out of bed. For now, I just wanted to explain wth is going on.

Edit: And once again, Matt saves the day. But now I see other things I’d like to ‘fix’. I know it’s silly to work on a live site, but I’m just a silly person. I’ll try and make sure nothing stays aqua, or hidden for very long.

Edit2: Learning many things. Once of which is to look-up stuff sometimes rather than trying to figure it out through trial and error. Another being that IE is like an annoying conservative when it comes to tables. If an item is in a table IE believe that it should be in that position, and no other, and that the entire table should follow that no matter what any css or anything else in the world might have to say. Firefox kinda looks at it as a suggestion and goes from there. As such, I will probably go on a crusade to get rid of all tables from my site at some point in the future. It wasn’t viable until I learned more about css, but I think I can handle it now.

Melting Pot

Laura Highcove

So today is March 11th. Meaning that yesterday was March 10th. March 10th happens to be my birthday. I’ll give you a minute to catch up. I usually have trouble putting such facts together, explaining why I haven’t called either parent for a birthday in over two years.

So this year, oddly enough, when people asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I actually had answers for most of them. SD’s instructions were and arcanine plushie that came out recently, and tickets to The Lion King at the Kennedy Center. (A show I’ve always wanted to see, and that is coming to the area in June.) My sister went on a Caribbean Cruise, and while that would’ve been a nice birthday present in itself, I asked for some sort of odd object painted with a pretty picture to hang on the wall. (Akin to those saws with the turkey painted on them, only decidedly more ‘tropical’. Maybe a shell with a palm tree on it or something. I dunno, I’ve never been to the Caribbean. I left it open ended for just that reason, and maybe to annoy my sister slightly. I mean she’s going on a cruise, she should have to do some thinking…but I digress.)

To my mother, I requested a gift certificate to The Melting Pot. Read More

New direction?

Laura Highcove

I read webcomics. I am a sucker for pretty pictures, and for stories, and anything that would combine the two is of course something that would interest me. And as much as I like the “joke a day” comics, I find myself much more attracted to the webcomics that have one major underlying plot (as opposed to just an infinite number of archs) because it’s so much like reading a novel, just with pictures.

The point? I clicked on a new link today, and found myself at a webpage that was set up like a webcomic, but was actually…well he calls it an e-novel. Basically instead of putting up a new comic on some weekly updating schedule, he puts up installments of a book. Each installment usually isn’t as long as a chapter, though some are longer than others. It’s more like each installment is a scene or so.

While I wasn’t interested in the story itself (I don’t like ‘Dark Fantasy’, as he labeled his genre.) the concept of the webpage itself is greatly interesting to me. It also shows me that perhaps there are people out there who will come to a website for something even if there aren’t pretty pictures. (Of course webcomics will probably always be more popular, but his link was an ad on a webcomic site so there’s some correlation.) But this has given me some interesting ideas for my own website, which is made all the easier by the recently added “blog” on the front page.

One of my major issues is my inability to keep focused on one story for very long. I can go through stints of writing on one story for a few weeks, and then have weeks where all I do is read over random stories and maybe write a few lines on the end, or make some changes, and still other times all I’ll work on is the background or details of the world. However, the blog would help greatly in this, in that each “piece” I post is put into a category. That way you could choose the “Demonslayer” category and just see the posts that add to that story. Then once I have posted all of the pieces of a chapter, I can compile the chapter and put it into the already existing structure of my website. But perhaps fact that I won’t have to have an entire chapter done before I post it will encourage me to post more than I have.

Of course the issue still comes out of the fact that I want people to read what I write. I do write for myself. I write what I like and what I want to see, but at the same time there’s nothing better than getting feedback on something I’ve written. (Assuming it isn’t done in a nasty way, I even appreciate constructive criticism.) Not only does it make me feel good that someone else might care about something I’ve put so much time and effort into, but other perspectives and suggestions help to expand my skill.

At the same time, I don’t believe I have nearly enough confidence to actually rent out ad space on popular websites to bring people in. But I do want to bring in some people; more people than are just randomly floating around here because they know me from who knows when. (Not that I don’t appreciate you guys hanging around.) After talking to Ajin, of Misadventures Etc fame, I found out all he really did was post the links on a few forums he went around to, and possibly word of mouth did the rest. Now he’s rubbing elbows with some of the greats of furry artdom. (Though improving his art skill has done a lot toward that end as well.)

I suppose, however, that the first step is…well taking the first step. Posting a piece of story to the blog. Perhaps throwing up the link to this site on a few of the forums I go around to, and see if anything happens.

Mindblade Geto!

Laura Highcove

Yesterday was a horrible day for me, but it ended very well, which is the important thing.

After an agonizing day at work, I came home and read some more One Piece. I’m enjoying it more than I did the anime, mostly because I hate the art style…okay that’s not entirely true. I hate the art style when someone starts crying/yelling, because the faces are just so entirely distorted. There is no “I’m a little sad” in this series. Anytime anyone gets upset, it’s full blown rivers out of every part of their eyes and snot dripping from their nostrils. With the manga, I can just spend less time on those panels, whereas in the anime I had to sit there and go at it’s pace.

Anyway, I was logged onto WoW, I had done my cloth transmutes and was waiting on the Kara group. I was asked to heal on bosses, though I stayed shadow, and White and Mal didn’t even really need me that much. I dpsed the rest of the time. We one shot everything except Netherspite when two people (tank included) got stuck outside the door when we started.

And the lewts you ask?

Nathrezim Mindblade Heh, finally. Now I can stop with the horrible pvp, and four more badges gets me the last upgrade I really need.

Also, for my healing set:

Pauldrons of the Solace-Giver
Pantaloons of Repentence
Signet of Unshakable Faith

All in all, it was a good night. And now I don’t really need to run Karazhan anymore (I guess unless I wanted to improve my healing gear.) but I think it’d be better to let some other people go and get their badges and gear. I’ll work on getting that darn head enchant, and enchanting what healing gear I do have.

Plants

Laura Highcove

So I went to PA this weekend with my mom for a cousin’s wedding. Whenever I see my mother, a few things happen. First, she is much more religious than I, reminding me of my not quite as intense relationship with God. Second, I am reminded where I got my love and knowledge of plants, animals and music.

We’ll save the religious implications of this weekend for a later post, hopefully delaying the wide eyes stares and scoffs of disbelief that that post will bring. In any case, my mother does not have a green thumb, but she does have plants. Whenever we travel, she will always ask for clippings of plants friends have, or seeds, in order to attempt to bring them home and cultivate them. I inherited this “not green thumb, but loves plants” and as such, I generally get just as excited about grabbing random clippings of plant matter, while attempting to keep them from going into too much shock from not only being moved, but going through drastic changes in temperature.

Plant 1) Aloe vera: A common plant that you’ve probably heard of, I am a huge fan of this plant because of the smooth beauty of the leaves. I also remember the aloe plant that was kept in the window of Richmond Comix (my first real comic book style ‘hangout’) that must’ve been nearly a foot or two tall, and would bloom every now and again. I’ve attempted to have them in the past, and I’m pretty sure I drowned them each time. I’m at it again with a plant from my aunt. It had some wide, ungangly leaves that were bent several times in transport, but I’m hoping it will survive.

Plant 2) Nightblooming cereus: A plant I’d never heard of until now, it’s an odd plant that only blooms at night, but the flowers are so beautiful that many keep it anyway, and then stay up to enjoy the blooms. We got a cutting of this from my mom’s Aunt Joy (My great aunt?) unrooted, so we had to keep the end wrapped in a wet paper towel. It’s supposedly easy to root, and right now it’s sitting in a cup of water at home waiting for some roots to grow before getting a pot of its own.

Plant 3) Angel’s Trumpet: People call it a tree, but it’s actually a large shrub, the boyfriend turned husband that was living in Poppie’s house grew one of these in the basement. It was nearly 6 feet tall, and had recently dried up and come back to life (he doesn’t live there anymore, so it’s probably a bit neglected), and had six or seven beautiful orange/peach blossoms. My mother watered it while we were there, and when we came back later that day they had suddenly begun smelling amazing. I managed to find a tiny little sprout, and after detaching it from the main shrub, found it had a nice sized root of its own, so I put it in a little container and brought it with me, in hopes that it will grow up big and strong.

Plant 4) Christmas cactus: Another common one. While at the Home Depot to get soil and some new pots, I came across a collection of plants being sold at discount after Christmas. I picked up one and decided to bring it home because I’ve always wanted one.

New information: I have failed at plants many times in the past. I moved to Rockville with three or four, only to have the shock of moving zap them all. (including the spider plant, which is usually impossible to kill.) I decided this time I would learn everything I could in order to give these plants the best chance at survival possible. (There’s only so much you can do if they just die from the shock.)

So this is when I learned that I probably killed my old aloe vera by overwatering. (It’s a cactus type plant, and usually goes dormant in winter months.) I also learned Angel’s Trumpet are usually hardy (though toxic, I’ll have to watch out when we get a cat.) but they can lose all their leaves before growing when they’re being rooted, as mine is. I also learned that the aloe and christmas cactus like well draining soil, while the trumpet likes moist soil, so I got different types of soil for the different plants.

I also found out after the fact that repotting also causes a good amount of stress, as such I will be watching them all very closely for the next few days in hopes that I haven’t already killed them all. Updates to come later.

Catching up

Laura Highcove

So I took all of last week off. I did not play as much wow as I was expecting, nor did I play as much Disgaea 2 either. I spent most of my time catching up on a few anime series and drawing. Yeah I know, weird. But it was well relaxing, and I enjoyed it.

Thursday my mom came to pick me up to head to PA for my cousin Kelly’s wedding. One missed exit had us visiting New Jersey for almost three hours before SD saved us with some google mapping, and we finally arrived at Poppie’s old house. The next day was a “chill and visit family” day. We went to my Aunt Janice’s and I saw Eric (cousin) and their new house. Ann and Kevin came right about dinner time. The next morning we left right on time, and ended up going in the wrong direction (the directions we had told us to go west on a road, when the only options were north and south), only to show up after the wedding was over. So we went to the reception with everyone else and had a very nice time. The food was good, and the wedding party played Guitar Hero, which was neat. We didn’t stay too long, and afterward we went to a local hotel and spent the night. I got a little raiding in after moving rooms to be close enough to get the hotel’s unsecured wireless signal. Managed to get home with no mishaps and we were able to see 28 hawks sitting alongside the road, which my mom (who does this whenever she travels) says is a new record. The old one only being 16.

So many things I want to write about: Drawing, photographs, Blacksburg, God, plants, writing. It’s a pretty long and varied list, but there are still four work days left in the week. I’ll have time.

Sad girl in snow

Laura Highcove

So I went to school for computer science, but along the way picked up a business minor, as such I had to take at least one marketing class. Directly because of this, I often can step back and pick apart advertisements, and figure out what audience a commercial is aimed at, how it’s aimed, and that sort of thing.

Point of fact, everyone knows and loves the Geiko commercials. Some of them are totally random, put out there simply to remind people of their name in tandom with good (clean) humor. But many of their commercials also say “why”. They save people money, they have good service, they have a high approval rating, it’s easy to switch and here’s how, etc. They’re just good commercials in general. (As a totally random note, State Farm is now apparently trying the humor angle as well, and has failed in my opinion, but I digress.)

However, this morning I heard a commercial on the radio. I forget the name of the company, but in this case I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s pretty much a male voice, over some emotional music talking to you, the audience, about how you often think of winter as a fun time to go out and play in the snow, but then shifts gears into talking about how some people don’t have heat, and sit shivering in their homes throughout the winter. Complete with clip of a little girl saying, “Mommy, I’m cold.” Then goes on to say that this company (an oil company of some sort?) wants to help, and all you have to do is call such and such number, and they will give you all they help they can in keeping you warm this winter.

It elicited an emotional response from me. And so I figured the commercial had done its job. It was aimed to make people aware of the plight of people without enough hea…wait a minute. Sure, at the beginning, it was aimed at “me”, (“Me” being people with enough money for heat throughout the winter, only suffering when my mother started menopause.) but somewhere after the little girl talking, it suddenly shifted to be talking to “them”. (“Them” being the people without enough money for heat.) The end of the commercial is, indeed, telling those without enough heat to call such and such a number for help staying warm, and at that point, I realized I no longer had any idea to whom this commercial was aimed, or what the actual point of it was.

When it started, I thought it was one of those commercials that would bring up a sense of duty, protectiveness, or even pity in the general populace, and then ask you to donate money or something of that nature to the company so they can help. The tone of voice, the music, and especially the clip of the girl all seemed to drift toward that end.

But the actual message itself in the second half was talking to those without heat, telling them to call to get help; and that this company would help these people by donating so many barrels of oil toward this end. (They gave a monitary figure in the millions.)

So, of course, as I’m driving down the road, my mind is putting together the fact that the commercial makes sense, if you think about the nature of companies in the United States, King of Capitalism. The entire message was aimed at “me”. It was saying basically, “Hey, we’re going to make you feel emotional, and then show you what fabulously wonderful people we are, by offering to do whatever we can to help these poor unfortunatepeopleheresourphonenumber.

Now I can say they failed in the fact that I don’t remember the name of the company at all. (Though possibly this is because I was too busy being confused about the nature of the commercial.) However, for those people who don’t have my particular background, I’m quite positive this commercial did what it was put out there to do, accepting, as I have, the fact that people in this country are very susceptible to even the most obvious of “buy my stuff!” commercials.