Morbid Romantic

On July 4, 1776, America claimed its Independence from their colonial masters in Britain. Americans of the thirteen colonies fought from 1775 and 1783, the war ending with the signing of the Treaty of Paris; many gave their lives for the hopes of freedom, Democracy, and the pursuit of creating a nation that was our own and not an extension of a power overseas. What began with the first Jamestown settlers in 1607, men like John Smith and Captain Christopher Newport, ended when America won their Revolutionary War. The iconic moment of this era is the signing of the Declaration of Independence on 1776, on July 4th, in which the Father’s of this country put on paper what America was meant to be about. This is why the 4th of July is such an important day to Americans all over the nation.

Regardless of how you feel about the country now (because trust me, I am very angry at my elected leaders right now), at least recognize what Americans have died for on this very soil. Remember the brave soldiers who joined little more than poorly equipped farmer’s militia and fought against the better organized and more modern British army. Don’t forget that men like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine passionately defended the ideas of republicanism that came to shape what our country is about.

Though not perfect, we have to concede that nothing is. Nothing ever has been. That is why we must keep trying. Unhappy with the government? Get out and VOTE. Register now so that you are ready for the presidential elections. Pay attention to what our candidates are saying. Don’t sit around and ignore all of the campaign information with little interest in voting if all you are going to do is complain about the state of our nation. CHANGE IT. Forget that, “our votes don’t count” crap. That’s pessimism at its finest.

So, as a little gift for everyone:

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511tacticaloutdoors.com is the homepage and store of 5.11 Tactical, a sister site to LA Police Gear, Inc. 511tacticaloutdoors.com specializes in 5.11 Tactical series products and clothing for the safety of professionals in the law enforcement, military and firefighting fields. They have a wide selection of head to toe goods and beyond for you including tactical shirts, tactical pant, tactical knives, under gear shirts, and even bags to carry all of your gear around in. Their products usually ship out within 24 hours and the administrators at 511tacticaloutdoors.com promise a ready response time for customer concerns ; if you buy a certain amount from their website, you might qualify for free shipping!

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A friend decided that he was going to help me complete my 28 Books in 2008 goal. He has a crap load of books and has already sent me our next book. With one completed, I am now one book closer to my goal… okay, so one book out of 28 by this time of the year isn’t that good. I lost an entire half a year. But, in my defense, I had a LOT to do. I finished college and then I did my student teaching. Neither one of those things were events to take lightly and they required every bit of my concentration. Still, I am proud to have begun to meet my goal. One feels a lot better than a big fat zero.

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Summer is here and it’s time to start planning a vacation. AN RV is the perfect accessory to a good vacation. There’s comfort, convenience and space for everyone. Also, and better yet, you can stop when you want and take in any local sites as you pass them. You’re not restricted to point A and point B like on an airplane. With an RV, you are master of your own vacation.

That’s the kid of vacation that I would want. Unfortunately, I need an RV before that dream can be fulfilled. That’s where RVs.com comes in to my rescue. Through browsing the site, I’ve found that RVs.com has Motorhomes and RVs For Sale in both new and used models. RVs.com has great markdown sales right on their front page if you are looking to save a few bucks this season, which is important now that the cost of everything is rising. Check out RVs.com and let them help you have a great vacation this summer in a new or used RV or Motorhome.

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I just want everyone to see what Kel sent me today:

Amazingly wonderful, isn’t it? She has now started me on my access CD collection. I’ve gotten Iceman (with the exception of one album) and some Asakura Daisuke. Now is the time of access, though.

I have to email her ASAP and thank her for it. Hopefully with it being summer and all, we can start to write together again. Kel is one of those really rare people that I’ve known for a while and have never once at any point disliked. I can’t recall a point where she has ever annoyed me or pissed me off or bothered me any way at all. So, she’s special.

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Imagine mounting a roaring, vibrating motorcycle, revving the engine to hear the deep and powerful sound of the motor. Ahead of you is road and promise, the possibility of good times in the open air. There are sites to be seen and places to go. You look forward to the freedom of the wind in your hair, the open elements experienced from the back of a motorcycle.

Except, you down own a motorcycle.

Eaglerider offers Motorcycle Tours and motorcycle rentals. If you need or want a motorcycle, you can rent a bike for you own use or also book a vacation/tour through Eaglerider. Eaglerider offers tour packages and self drive tours, as well as adventure packs for those of consider themselves a bit more extreme and in need of action. Motorcycles aren’t for everyone, so Eaglerider also rents out ATVs, dirt bikes, scooters, snowmobiles, and watercrafts. Eaglerider has locations all over the United States and Europe, so you don’t necessarily have to drop your rental off at the same place you picked it up at.

It sounds like a lot of fun to me. I haven’t been on a motorcycle since I was a kid. And while I am not the type who wants to frequent motorcycle bars, go out with men who have long hair and ponytails, or wear leather, there’s something exciting to the thought of riding on a motorcycle. I would love to take a motorcycle trip across the country, connecting to the world around me all the more keenly because I am not surrounded by metal and plush seating.

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I am attempting to pack.  I have to split my things into three categories: going with my mother for storange, going with me for use, and going with me to be stored in Alfred’s garage.  The things that I am putting in Alfrefd’s garage will be kept in their boxes (things like my dishes) or in tubs that won’t get messed up if it happens to flood or something since you can never predict what the ground will do during hurricane season.

I don’t know what to put the stuff I will be sending with my mom in; I suppose for those I will use just boxes.  She will be taking my lunchbox collection and dolls and books and couch and all that stuff.  Just stull that I desperately want to keep but simply don’t have the room for.

My task right now, before I get boxes this weke, is to separate my books.  I need to decide which ones I am keeping and which ones I am sending away, far, far away.  I will still technically have them, but I will have them at hand.  Alfred assures me that I can keep as many books as I want, that we will find room for him, so that makes me feel good.

He has been being really wonderful lately.  For a while I was questioning how worth it this entire thing was.

Back to the books.

I want to keep them ALL!  I NEED all of my big history and government books because I use them all the time. Rather, I use the history books a lot as research material for my writing.  The government books will/may come in handy if I get a long term sub position in between now and Grad School.  I could need something like them and then really hate myself for not having them at hand to simply open up and flip through.  But other books like my Irvine Welsh or my Piers Anthony… those aren’t books that I often pick up just to scim through, but I can’t imagine life without them near!

I made two sections of piles of those books that I know are definitely going with my mother and then the others.  Out of the others, I need to make further choices to eliminate as many as possible.  This is necessary.  I still have too many books to bring.  It’s going to be hard to do, but I can’t clutter up the space.  I keep assuring myself that I’m not ‘losing’ the stuff, just putting it far, far away…

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Harry Houdini remains one of the most famous magicians of all time. Houdini stands not only as an icon of his time, but as a lasting element in the continuing and constantly written anthology of popular culture. He was a master escapist, famous for getting himself out of devices that, at the time, seemed impossible. Houdini escaped from handcuffs, straight jackets, and even put his life on the line to perform a trick wherein he submerged himself bound in water. You can imagine how the people in Houdini’s audience would have reacted to this tricks, this magic. It’s also obvious how Houdini has inspired magic and magicians, who look up to him and the standard that he set as one of the famous firsts of his kind.

Criss Angel has taken the realm of illusion and magic and stepped it up to an unprecedented level of style and creation. He gives an edge, a sensual flair to magic and illusion. Angel’s unique tricks of mind and matter hearken back to the illusions of Houdini, which people then marveled over just as they now marvel over Angel. I have to say as someone who has watched Mindfreak from the beginning that I love Criss Angel’s entire persona, technique, and yes, at the risk of sounding redundant, his style. Growing up, I saw too many puffy sleeved magicians in vests prance around to music with scantly clad women fixed with plastic smiles. There’s none of that in Criss Angel’s act. He doesn’t need it. He seduces the mind with his magic and his charm. There’s no pretense, no flashiness, just great magic and stellar illusion.

Did you guys know that in addition to having an amazing show, Criss Angel also performs at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas? Well, it’s true. He does. In fact, he is working with Cirque Du Soleil on a new show called ‘CRISS ANGEL Believe.’ The name itself pays respect to Houdini and the ‘codeword’ he gave to his wife before his death.

CRISS ANGEL Believe is an image of what a world would be like if Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll worked together to make their own dream version of the world, an alternate yet grounded vision of our world that seems more a fractured fairytale or feverish dream than reality. It’s just creepy enough to give you a chill but thrills you just the same. I love things that are macabre, darkly Victorian, threatening but dreamlike and all the more confusing for its tangibility because reason tells us it’s a dream and nothing more.

And guess what? There is a contest going on right now where you can win two free tickets to the show. Just text ‘Believe’ to 22122. If you are lucky enough, you can be the one who wins those two tickets and gets to see the show. Lucky to be anyone in that audience for sure! I’d love to be among the crowd.

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I know, I don’t have enough in my life to try daily updates, but today is a day and this is an update, so it is a day update.  They are sporadic and inconsistent at best, but I really don’t have enough in my life at this point to attempt daily updates.

Alfred called me today, which was hopeful.  Alas, not.  He asked me if I wanted him to come over and hang out, but I said no because there’s nothing to do here.  He’d be bored as shit sitting here with me.  It’s just better for him to go home after work where he has his TV and his computer and his games and his car to get into to go where ever he wants when ever he wants.

Now, if Alfred had offered to come over and take me somewhere, I would have definitely said yes.  I’m so bored sitting around here that I would have jumped at the chance to get the hell out of the house, at least for a little while.  But to sit around here?  No, I’d rather be alone and I’d rather him be able to do what he wants without having to worry about me.  And he worked all day, so the last thing he needs is to ‘work’ once he gets off.

Still, it would have been nice.  I hoped he was going to ask me to go out, but whatever.

When he called, he said, “Do you want me to come over?”  While this is all well and good, he always talks to me with hesitation and uncertainly.  It would have made all the difference in the world if he said, “I want to come over and see you” with confidence.  I don’t want a guy who hesitates or seems uncertain, I want a guy who puts himself out there.  Also, when you say, “do you…”, it seems like the person is just trying to pleasure you in spite of what they want.  I want to know that he wants to spend time with me, but he doesn’t outright say it.

Right now, I am so desperate to not feel this way that I want to call Alfred up before he leaves work and beg him to take me somewhere.  But, I won’t.  I am going to stuff it all in and hold back and keep myself from doing that.  Because after he told me I am a bitch on Sunday, I resolved not to lay that kind of stuff on him.  Obviously, trying to make me happy is a burden and I am no longer going to expect that from him.  I am no longer going to expect him to try to make me happy.  I am not going to demand anything from him or ask for anything.

I don’t think he even notices how unhappy I am.  I think I’d have to slit my wrists before he’d notice that I’m depressed and I need someone so bad right now.  He is really that blind, or else he just doesn’t care.  Instead of noticing that I’m depressed, he takes my unhappiness personally and reacts negatively and that just makes the situation worse in me.  He can be selfish, but I won’t be anymore, which is why I am not going to ask him for anything.  I am not going to ask him to do anything for me.

I’m just going to keep packing.  My mother decided that she is going to take my couch, which is a relief to me.  I wouldn’t have room for it and I’d have no place to store it in the meantime.  She needs a couch and it’s less than a year old.  I didn’t want to throw it away!  She is also going to take most of my books and my lunchbox collection and my dolls, the ‘Historical’ ones like Ancient Egyptian and Feudal Japan.  I want to keep these things, but again, I won’t have any space to put them.  I won’t have a bookshelf, so why have piles of books?  I’ll just take what I want, the essentials, and what I haven’t read.

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Years ago, my sister and I went to visit my grandparents in Los Angeles, California. It was my first time visiting the West Coast. The thing I remember first noticing about Los Angeles were the palm trees; I had only ever seen a palm tree in movies or television shows. Seeing one in real life was a big, “WOW” for me.

My grandparents found some great things to do in Los Angeles for my sister and I. We were kids at the time, not interested in beaches or sand, so we went around to all the theme parks in the area. We went to Sea World and watched dolphins and whales play around. Then we went to Knotts Berry Farm, which is an amusement part with a Snoopy mascot! At Knotts Berry Farm, my grandfather convinced me to ride a ride called Sky Dive where they essentially took us high up in the air and dropped us down super fast. He was recording a video at the time and I screamed the whole way down, but it was a lot of fun.

Of course, we also HAD to visit Disney Land. I got to ride all of the trademark rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and It’s A Small World After All. Still, my most clear memory of Disney Land was on the Peter Pan ride where they took us above this small scale model of a city, like we were high up in the air. It was a night scene and there were all these great twinkling lights. The sight was really beautiful.

I would LOVE to go on a vacation to New York, though. It’s where Alfred is from and I keep hoping that he’ll get the idea in him finally to really plan a vacation there for us. At this point, I’d be willing to plan it! A site like Trusted Tours & Attractions could help a vacation novice like me find a bunch of fun things to do in New York like visiting the Metropolitan museum of art. As someone who has a degree in history and loves art passionately, I would very much love to visit the Met.

As part of a special promotion, by singing up for the Trusted Tours & Attractions newsletter, you can win a win a handheld GPS. One of those would be a great vacation accessory- you’d never have to worry about getting lost or asking for directions to any destination you want to go to. But, you have to sign up for the newsletter quick because this special offer ends on June 30th, 2008. Also, if you are planning a vacation, take a look at their online travel guides. The online guide is a really fun read with great experiences, so definitely check it out.

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