I saw this label fail at a McDonald’s. It was sweet.

Found on the streets of Monterey. It was almost too dark to take the photo, but I just had to try.

There you have it! Funny, non-politcal post for my 5 readers! (actually, I have no idea how many people are subscribed to my blog. If anyone can tell me how to find out, that would be great.)

Today I had an interesting conversation. I believe this guy could be a nice person if he wasn’t a partisan jerk. People who get completely wrapped up in being either democrat or republican are a little scary to me; it seems like they would need an uncanny ability to completely deny reality in order to be all on board for one party or the other. Both parties are so full of douchebaggery that, in my eyes, even the “we’re not as bad as those guys” routine doesn’t really work. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing bad about having a little pride in your beliefs and, consequently, your political party. But at the expense of being a reasonable person?

The discussion in question happened on plurk. I was browsing random profiles when I saw a photo that caught my eye; it was obama juxtaposed with socialist leader, complete with corresponding quotes. The idea, of course, being that Obama is similar to a radical socialist.

I could go into my argument about why this image is ridiculous, but it doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that it is a ridiculous image which any critically thinking person (on either side) should be able to see through. But critical thinking takes a serious backseat to partisan loyalty, at least it has in this election.

Anyway, it was a long conversation, and at the end the guy I was talking with actually said he didn’t care about thinking. My mouth dropped open when I read that . . . I couldn’t believe a person would actually say that. He kept try to pin me as some kind of evil obama supporter (which I am . . . but that’s beside the point) and I kept saying that I only cared about critical thinking, wading through the bullshit, no matter what side you are on. To which he said, “Ah, thinking critically. Hope that works for you. I’ll worry about America and our constitution. You worry about thinking.”

Shocking, but true.

You can read the entire conversation here, but I must warn you, it contains deadly rays of stupidity.

It was while watching the Oct. 23 episode of the Colbert Report that I saw an interesting sketch about the National Hummer Club (beware, this site is ugly . . . almost as ugly as a hummer). The sketch was shot in the style of a serious film about conservation, with such notable quotes as “if we can save the hummer, we can save America.” But what really caught my attention was this gem, implying that driving a hummer is the epitome of American patriotism: “If that’s not patriotic, I don’t know what is.”

Of course, my first reaction to that is well, you’ve got no fricken clue what patriotism is, then. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized I don’t either. Patriotism hinges on what your definition of being an American is, and Americanism is almost impossible to define. (This is what I hate about not being able to turn my brain off– I watch a simple comedy sketch and it makes me contemplate the meaning of Americanism.) This is important because patriotism is a heartstring that gets yanked on constantly. People are always attempting to define patriotism in ways that will be beneficial to them, but it seems fundamentally wrong to me that a specific group of people should use love of country to control and isolate.

Republicans and Democrats will tell you that they are the true patriots, but how can one party be more patriotic than another? Ours is a two party system, so “love of country” would involve both parties. You can’t be patriotic if you hate half the people who live in your country! That’s not patriotism, it’s just party loyalty.

Some people will tell you that capitalism is patriotic. Those are the people who have been brainwashed by capitalists; quick, sell them something before they run out of money.

When I think of patriotism, I tend to think of the founding fathers and the freedoms they fought for, such as the freedom of speech and religion. In that sense, I suppose driving a Hummer is patriotic– it’s nothing if it isn’t a statement. Perhaps what I’m leaning toward is the idea that patriotism is open for definition in many ways, and it differs a little for each person. Therefore, next time someone tells you that “real” patriots are ________, exercise your freedom of speech and tell them to fuck off.

Until this moment I’ve never spoken publicly about my mom being gay because she’s not “out.” But I realized today that I have some very, very important things to say about being raised by a lesbian couple.

First of all, I’m not totally fucked up, I’m not a completely dysfunctional human being, I’m not an atheist, and I’m not gay. These are all things I’ve heard as being what happens to a person raised by a gay couple. I was never molested as a child, and neither were any of my friends. My upbringing was virtually no different from anyone else, except that occasionally my friends’ parents would discover my mom’s homosexuality and I would not be allowed to play with them anymore. At 9 or 10 years old this made no sense to me, especially since my mom seemed just like all the other moms. My mother always encouraged me to be myself, follow my dreams and love myself for who I am like all mothers should.

Today I’m a full time student at a university working on my bachelors degree. I’m married (to a man) and I plan on having children someday. I’m a Christian who goes to church 4 times a week (Wednesday night choir practice, Thursday night womens bible study, Friday night couple’s bible study, and of course Sunday) and reads the bible almost everyday. While Jesus never personally condemns homosexuality, there are several passages which allude to it as being wrong (though there is, of course, a significant amount of debate about the meaning of these passages). What Jesus does say is that it’s wrong to pass judgment on others: “Let the person among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).

The reason why I’m talking about this now is because there’s a proposition to be voted on in November which, if passed, would amend California’s constitution to forever take away my mom’s right to get married. I don’t think my mom wants to get married, but if she did, no one would have the right to take that right away from her. People have certain inalienable rights, and it’s a perversion of government to take away a person’s rights. Government is meant to protect rights. I don’t usually talk about political things, or take sides, but this is really important.

I believe most people support prop 8 because they don’t agree with homosexuality, and that’s fine. This is a free country and people have the right to their own beliefs. But you can still disagree with homosexuality AND vote NO on prop 8; it just means you’re not passing judgment. Only the Lord has the right to pass judgment; “judge not lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). If what is written in the bible is true, then someday she may have to face judgment, but that judgment should not come from me or anyone else on this earth.

My mom is not a political issue, she’s just my mom. When I was little she would tell me stories at bed time. When I was in the third grade she dressed up as a pilgrim for our history field trip. When I was in the marching band in high school she came to the football games with me and kept me company. She is a real person who has always been loving, kind, caring and supportive of me, and now is my turn for her.

I’m staging a full-on revolt against the shady money-changers who have taken up shop in the temple of my self-esteem. I may not be the smartest person in the world, or the most beautiful, or the most anything else, but I am who I am and I can either love myself or not. As a human being, I am too wonderful to let my perception of myself and my worth be controlled by a corporation whose idea of worth is completely different from my own.

I think I was probably fooling myself when, a few months ago, I took the internet addiction test and scored normally. The truth is that there’s nothing normal about my internet usage. No one I talk to in the real world ever knows what I’m talking about when I mention aspects of my online life. Most people have heard of Myspace. But Mixx? Twitter? FAIL? OMGWTFBBQ? My lucky FAIL shirt takes at least thirty minutes to explain to a non-internet user.

What I’m trying to get at here is that I need out. This wave has taken me as far as I can go right now. I need to rid myself of the bad habits I’ve picked up since I’ve been assimilated into the interweb-borg. I’ve been having trouble turning off my mind at night when it’s time to go to sleep, trouble concentrating on school work, trouble doing all sorts of things I’ve never had trouble with before.

It’s not been a complete waste of time. There is something very fun about being on the cutting edge of a world and watching it evolve all around you. There’s something unique about being in the middle of something important right as it’s happening, even if it is just internet importance. I’ve met some awesome people I never would have met otherwise, learned some HTML, was part of a million inside jokes, and that has made everything worth it. Those of you who have my cell number can call me, and those who don’t– well, I should be back in a little while. I’ve got some books to read and some “outside” to explore; I’ll be back after my plurk karma has dropped to zero and I’ve got some real karma under my belt.

Is it just me, or is politics being treated more and more like some kind of reality TV game show? It seems like some kind of performance that gets consumed rather than a method for distinguishing the values of a leader.

For example, the kerfuffle over whether or not Obama really “sold” his being a Christian at Rick Warren’s questioning. I’m a Christian and I couldn’t give a crap whether or not Obama “sold” his “performance” as a Christian. What about whether or not he’ll fish the economy out of the crapper, or whether or not he’ll go to war? Religion is a private thing, and while I don’t think it’s impossible for a politician to be sincerely religious, I resent the way Christianity as played a a chip in the game. Perhaps I resent, more than anything, how people watch these performances and make judgments based on them.

Then there was that whole bit with Hillary not really selling her support for Obama at the convention. What more is she supposed to say than “I support Barack Obama for president”? Should she give him a blow job on national television? Then the pundits would argue about whether or not she swolled, or how much she spilled, and ultimately decide whatever the hell they wanted to decide about it.

It seems like it used to be more about “the issues” than it is now. Even when the politicians would lie about what they would do, at least they were talking about important things. Now it’s all about how good of an actor the candidate is. Do we really want a really good actor for president? Someone who lies with expertise? Honestly, I could hardly tell whether people on the radio were talking about the election or the Olympics.

Treating politics like the Olympics is extremely dangerous. This is not a game; this is real life, and we are playing with our lives.

My fellow Mixxers and SuperMixxers, I come before you with a new challenge – this time directed at Mixx itself!

As some of you are aware, we have focused some energy in working against those who have previously abused the system. It was a two stage campaign – reactive and proactive.

It is now time to begin being proactive.

Mixx, over the last year, has been growing very steadily, gaining new users every day. We’ve always been a tight community, what with The Mixxing Bowl and individual interactions we’ve had with each other. It’s time to extend that community feeling outward and welcome the newer users.

The key goal here is to continue helping Mixx to grow, and so our goal for The Ultimate Challenge is two-fold:

1. Help Mixx retain our new fellow Mixxers coming into the community

2. Get more quality submissions hitting the popular page

The question is, “How do we do this?”

Let’s take a look at what we can do to help accomplish this ultimate challenge.

Welcoming and Retaining our New Mixxers

Jump on the CNN Submissions
Many of you have noticed, as have I that submissions made by CNN Reader will often have numerous comments made by new users. These new Mixxers, more often than not, have come in from CNN.com and registered to make a comment. Some of these new faces may just want to have their say on the issue at hand – but some of them could also be potential new Mixxers! My recommendation is to jump on the CNN bandwagon – and follow CNN User. If you see a submission that has a lot of new commentators, then jump on it! Wish ‘em a warm welcome to Mixx!

See a new user? Roll out the welcome mat!
Quite often we get so caught up in our own little circle of friends at Mixx (my hand is up – I am guilty of this too!) that it’s very easy to miss new users popping into the site. Some of them fly “under the radar” for a little while; which is why we started doing the User Focus segment of Social Blend. So, keep your eye out for newbies, and check out what they’re submitting. If they’re submitting great content, drop them a line! Roll out the welcome mat for them! More often than not, people will keep coming back to sites where they’re receiving the most positive interaction.

Go ahead and follow them!
If you spot a new user submitting great content, go ahead and follow them. It’s easy to become reluctant to follow people because it can become overwhelming; so no-one is saying to stop being selective (if you are so) about following new users. Just keep an eye out for them, and if you like what they’re posting, go ahead and click that follow link.

Invite them to the Mixxing Bowl
The Mixxing Bowl has become such an integral part of my Mixx experience, that if I ever hear from a new user, I cannot help but tell them about it! As a matter of fact, some users who jumped into the Mixxing Bowl forums have found a whole new level of experience with Mixx and it’s helped them to keep coming back to the site. So, if you have any interaction with a new Mixxer, go ahead and mention the Mixxing Bowl to them – you never know, you could be helping to foster a new solid contributor to the whole Mixx experience!

More Quality Submissions!

Don’t stop what you’re doing!
A lot of the power users and SuperMixxers checking this out already submit content on a regular basis. So keep at it – because we love your stuff! The idea here is to increase the amount of quality submissions being made to Mixx.

But what about people who complain about traffic?
Tell them to come back, if you speak to them. To get Mixx generating more traffic, we need more quality submits, by more users. So the more the merrier! The traffic will come in time, but we need to start somewhere.

Submit more.
No-one’s asking you to give up your livelihoods and submit to Mixx 24/7. But everyone could boost their submissions a little bit. I’m not talking about clogging up the upcoming sections of the site by any means; but let’s say for example, that you submit two things to Mixx in a day. Bump it up to four and see how things pan out. Do you only submit every so often? Try submitting once a day and see how it goes.

Where am I going to find stuff to submit?
There are so many sources online that it can be, quite often, a little overwhelming to choose something to submit. There are some great resources that you can use. One place, for example, is PopURLs.com. PopURLs aggregates all the popular stories from a wide range of social media sites, including Digg, Reddit, and Fark and so on. There is so much there to choose from. The basic idea is that if something hits the front page at Reddit (as an example), there’s a good chance it will probably be received positively at Mixx as well. Also, check out another article I wrote called Mixxing 102: How to become a SuperMixxer – while the title is clearly aimed at those yet to become SuperMixxers, there’s a whole load of handy tips and suggestions for making submissions – most notably, where to get them from.

Sent a funny or interesting link to someone over IM?
Submit it to Mixx! Seriously…I’ve mentioned this to numerous friends online before. They’ll send me a link to something they’ve enjoyed or thought I might like; but unfortunately that’s only how far that interaction goes. If you liked something well enough to share it with a bud, share it with everyone else by submitting it to Mixx!

Share, Share, Share!
People, for some reason, are very reluctant to share their submissions. While it’s understandable with some sites (such as Digg and their shouts) have had negative issues with share functions; at Mixx, their e-mail share function seems to work very well with the site. I share a lot of the submissions I make, but usually my sharing is based upon thoughts like, “Who might be interested in this?” Don’t be scared to share your stuff – especially if it’s a submission that you feel strongly about.

Share someone else’s submission
I challenge you to share one submission a day – a post that was made by someone other than yourself! This kind of action will clearly help Mixx’s development. You may have found something interesting on the site – but it could well be a situation where if the post is not shared, it might not hit the popular page. So, share it. I dare you to give it a shot. I do it as much as I can. You should too.

Power to the Mixx

We have fought spammers on a reactive front, and have been winning that battle. Now it is time to focus on the more positive front, and help Mixx become bigger and better.

It starts with us. We’re the Mixx community, and we can do this.

I challenge you to take on The Ultimate Challenge.

Last night I had this crazy nightmare. I dreamt (yes, dreamt is a word, I looked it up) that I had the power to change reality with my dreams, much like George Orr in The Lathe of Heaven. With my new-found power I changed the flow of the time-space continuum and molecular structure of DNA in all beings. No longer helical, the new and improved DNA had more of a flux-capacitor shape. I could even draw it for you, it was so clear in my mind.

Anyway, supposedly in all my genius I misaligned the new flow of time-space with the flux capacitor DNA because shortly thereafter everyone died terrible deaths.

If you and everyone you know suddenly suffers massive cellular death for no apparent reason, it was all me and I’m totally sorry.

UPDATE: Well, it looks like everyone is still ok. Huzzah.

Well, it was beautiful living here while I did, but I just can’t afford it anymore. Goodbye Aptos!

“Hey Sophie,” he yelled up the hill, offering an odd smile. It suddenly reminded me of a time when we were kids and we had to take our dying cat, snowball, to the vet. Snowball sat on the examination table purring, but his face was tense and we could tell he was incredibly uncomfortable; he kept looking around the room at us while desperately pleading with his eyes to be taken home. I asked the vet why he was purring when he was obviously so scared and miserable, and she said a cat’s purr is a lot like a human’s smile– we don’t always do it just when we’re happy.

Maybe Ivan’s smile looked strange because it’d been nearly a year and half since I’d last seen him and he was starting to show the strain of life. He was tall, about six-two with thick, highly disorganized brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Unless he was really laughing hard, he had this funky little halfway smile that most people would probably classify as a smirk. Sometimes I think he looks a bit like a young Harrison Ford, but if I ever told him that he’d probably say he didn’t look like anyone but himself. Over the past ten or fifteen years that he’d been running his own business he’d grown more serious and calculating, but I still retain this mental image of the goofy, teenage Ivan who was going to join a rock band and be the next Jimmy Page.

“Hello!” I tried to sound cheerful, but my voice sounded tinny and hollow, far away from me like it didn’t belong. As a cluster of clouds rolled by, temporarily obscuring the sun’s end of summer rays, the cemetery was very suddenly colder. But by the time Ivan finally reached me, the clouds had passed and all was well again.

“Sorry I . . . didn’t make it for the whole thing; I was kind of, you know, running late,” he said. Seeing Ivan again after so long and everything that had happened was wonderful, but seeing him like this was horrible. I had no idea what to do or say so I just stood there, like an idiot. There was so much pain in his face I thought my heart was going to rip itself out of my chest right there, but just as suddenly as the clouds had left the cemetery his face changed. He smiled his weird half-smile and said, “let’s get out of here. There’s a new cafe I want to take you to.”

The standard protocol for dealing with unspeakable tragedies in my family is to pour relentlessly into work talk. Almost immediately Ivan was absorbed in the telling of work stories, and I was glad for it. He owned a small web design firm in San Jose, and while he never mentioned money I knew he was probably well off. We usually had Thanksgiving dinner at Ivan’s four bedroom Sunnyvale home as a family . . . but with mom gone things would be different this year. The farther we drove from that place of death the more the darkness seemed to lift from him, until everything seemed nearly ok.

We were headed to a place situated rather inconveniently in the industrial district of Sand City. Though I’d lived in this area all my life, it was an entire section of town I’d almost never been to. In the midst of this industrial wasteland lay the Blue Dragon Cafe.

(Click for larger)

Well, this isn’t actually original content. I stole this from my journal then wrote off the lines that didn’t make sense. Enjoy!

22 June 2008 @ 03:01 am
It’s late. It’s 3 am late. I think three a.m. is officially, like, the middle of the fucking night.

I just got off skype with a friend of mine. We talked about a great deal of things, among which was our time spent on the internet. He mentioned feeling like he’d wasted an incredible amount of time online, and I can surely sympathize. Sometimes I wonder if there’s any point to being online at all; the internet is this weird little world that is separate from reality with no way of knowing how relevant it is.

I am completely naked right now because I just got out of the shower. Good thing I don’t have my webcam going! lol! “Lol” means “laugh out loud,” which I didn’t actually do just now. In fact, I didn’t even smile. The joke really wasn’t that funny.

The real question is what is important? What is important to do with your life? Obviously if the goal of living is to make friends on the internet then spending tons of time on the internet is crucial, but most people seem to have this idea that time on the internet is really just interstitial. You spend time online while you’re waiting to do other things that are important. Therefore, nothing you ever do is important because you spend all your time online. For the hyper-wired semi-masses, the internet takes over and the line between reality and nonreality becomes a little vague.

For the mind, there is no real distinction between high imagination and reality. It’s becoming more and more plausible for people to live an entire life through the internet. Who’s to say there’s anything wrong with that? Who’s to say it isn’t a complete waste of human life?

So I ask myself what I’m doing online and why. Why am I in the thick of social media and does that really mean anything? If I simply unplug myself from that world it will keep going on without me; I’ll be just a blip on the radar. But I suppose that is the way it is with all things.

Boy, this was a happy entry.

I guess it’s better than having my house catch on fire, though. Part of Watsonville was on fire yesterday, and I realized that if I had to evacuate I could leave everything and not miss any of it, which made me very happy.

End existentialist rant #0. And, if anyone can tell me why images aren’t working so I can get back to wasting time on the internet, that’s be swell.

The first thing is that I have no idea whatsoever how to write a novel. I’ve never taken a single creative writing class in my life. As a result, I’m mainly versed in how to write persuasive essays and research papers which are boring as hell to read. Papers where you must be concise and say exactly what you mean in as few words as possible. Creative writing isn’t like that at all. I imagine the job of the creative writer is creating an experience rather than an idea. How one goes about doing this I’m not sure.

The only thing I am sure of is that I want to do it. Just for me. One of those “before I die” type things. I don’t care if it gets published or if anyone reads it all or even if it’s any good, but I just want to do it.

That having been said, if you have any feedback whatsoever, please email me. My new super-spiffy email is thehotchickATcalinazaretDOTnet. In fact, you’ll have to email if you have anything to say at all because I’m disabling comments on the “novel” posts. Not exactly sure why. Perhaps because I think people will write more honest, in-depth feedback if they have to write an email.

So there you have it! Now back to our regularly scheduled ramblings.

She had died in a car accident. My step father, James, told me they were arguing over the phone as she was driving home from work. It was one of the three times a year when it really pours rain in southern California, and she just hydroplaned right over a cliff. More than likely she was driving way too fast as she often did when she was irritated. It was the deepest kind of tragedy; one of those stupid thoughtless mistakes that changes absolutely everything in a single moment.

For some reason I have never been able to figure out, James waited a full two days to call and tell me what happened. It was a horribly awkward conversation that’s almost impossible to describe. The closest I can think of is how it might feel if the ground beneath you suddenly disappeared. It’s true that my mom and I were not exactly close, but the idea that my mom had been dead for two days without me knowing gave me an uneasy feeling. Watching James now, with his head in his hands and weeping, I had conflicting feelings of embarrassment and sympathy. He was a bit short and had this unfortunate sort of piggish look about him, but he’d always been kind. James really was a decent man and I was glad my mother found him. Not that I particularly interacted with him much; at 28 I had my own life to worry about. I was glad my mother remarried, but I was too old for a father-daughter dance or any of that crap.

An antsy, persistent anxiety crept into my bones. The funeral was basically over, and what I really wanted to do right then was drop my purse and run full speed out of the cemetery. Not to my car, just out. I would just keep running until I couldn’t anymore. For a second it seemed like a perfectly fine and sane idea, but then I realized I would just have to come back for my car and purse eventually, and what would I say to explain why I’d run off the way I had?

I hadn’t cried the entire time. I knew my mother was buried and never coming back, but there was something about the situation that felt a lot more like I was watching it in a movie than actually living it. In much the same way that a dry river bed is strange, useless and sad, my eyes refused to give a single drop. But then I saw a distant figure standing at the edge of the trees that brought me as close to tears as I could possibly go– my brother, Ivan.

But serious, I wish me to have a small turtle. The turtle is teases to like very much. My can’ whether t does decide I’ d rather has a small turtle or big, though. The child is you can ride teases the affection, big these. I possibly did not know that which are better.

Let’ s give a Whirl to German. Possibly German is better. At least it’ s Germanic. Which English is. I find am hard to be believed, but sometimes truth is stranger than invention. Strangely as duck a computed platypus is strange. I mean, what the Bumsen is above with this, God? Seriously.

And you’re about to freak the fuck out about it for no reason.

Not that you ever read my plurks/tweets/submits.

Not that you care what I had to say, or even noticed me in your massive list of friends.

***********************************************

We’re sorry to interrupt this blog post, but there appears to have been some mistake.

It appears the writing was unforgivably shitty and we simply cannot let it go on any longer. For now.

Thanks,

-the management

About a year later, when my mom was having trouble paying the rent, I watched my saddle ride away in the back of some man’s truck. Somehow my mom had lugged the huge saddle and its wooden rack out of the house without me noticing, but I got to watch him drive away with all my little girl dreams of owning a horse. I wondered for a long time if that strange man had any idea the part he played in the destruction of a little girl, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Later on she told me that she sold my saddle for $300 and she needed that money for rent, but I didn’t understand these things. The bitterness of that single moment would follow me through the next few decades. Years later the anger and hurt would still well up in me, and I’d think that she should have sold something of her own, like her useless first wedding ring, or some of her other jewelry if she needed the money that badly.

But one Saturday afternoon in late summer many years later, as I sat watching her casket slowly lowered into the ground, I wondered if it had been a foolish thing to hate her for.
piece #2

It starts off innocently enough; I’m in Ohio visiting my family there. My uncle and cousin Bill decide they want to go play darts. I was stressed out because I’d forgotten my makeup (in real life I rarely wear makeup, I didn’t even wear it to my wedding) and I totally suck at darts.

When we got there, my uncle had turned into Steve Buscemi and my cousin had turned into a woman. In real life, my cousin is actually gay, but to the best of my knowledge he’s never wanted a sex change. Apparently he got one sometime during the car ride, and well, who the fuck knows what happened to my uncle, but he was suddenly really good at darts.

As my Steve Buscemi uncle was amazing everyone there with his superior darts skills, a group of J-Rockers came over and started hitting on Billy. (What a Japanese rock band was doing in the middle of Ohio, I’ll never know.) The flirting turned into teasing, which got out of hand, so I broke it up. After throwing a plate at them, I yelled “Hey! Billy just needs to be herself. Don’t ever fuck with anyone in my family.” That’s when this dream really goes down the rabbit hole of weirdness.

The J-rockers were furious and they chased me out of the bar. Once outside, I realized we were in downtown San Jose, near the convention center. The J-rockers had turned into a group of girls (not much of a change, really, but anyway.) They chased me through downtown, throwing darts at me, and telling me that if I didn’t stop they were going to sue me. I yelled back that you can’t sue a person for running, and just as I said this I ran into the door of a hotel I hadn’t seen before. It was a HUGE hotel, bigger than the Marriot in San Jose (which is 26 floors).

The Marriot in San Jose from www.cdengineers.com

On the doors hung a “KEEP OUT” sign, but I walked in anyway.

The instant I closed the door behind me everything fell totally silent. There wasn’t another person in sight, only a huge, sprawling lobby. Instantly I noticed the decor was a very old style, like a hotel from the early 1900’s. The center of the hotel was open to the sky, so that it looked like a gigantic straw with rooms all along the edges. In the center of the room there was a huge, cube-shaped glass tank up on stilts, about 50 feet in the air, with a tiny ladder leading up to the top, but I had no time to look at that now. Quickly I darted down a set of stairs to my left which led through a door and into a very small, tight hallway which became smaller and smaller until it was barely a crawlspace. At the end of the crawlspace there was a door through which I could hear the sound of an older woman humming. I looked under the door and saw two feet—one was the foot of a young girl in Sunday clothes (white stalking, little black tap-dance type shoes) and the other foot was that of a dog. I had barely enough time to think wtf? When the door burst open and there was a wolf glaring at me. The wolf, standing on its hind legs and holding a tub of lipstick, had three normal legs and one human girl leg.

artist’s rendering of wolf woman. Media: MS Paint.

It appeared she had been putting on makeup, and was now incredibly angry that I had disturbed her. I hustled back down the crawlspace as fast as I could, running when I was able to. No matter how fast or slow I went, the wolf was just behind me, barking and frothing at the mouth. I ran through several doors and hallways of different sizes until I stumbled upon a ladder and began crawling up.

I went up through a few floors and then realized I was back in the lobby, crawling up the ladder which led to the tank. The inside of the tank was much bigger than the outside; it was a very large, snowy field. I walked along, wondering what the hell kind of hotel this was, when suddenly I saw a polar bear, sitting on a rock, reading children’s stories out loud to himself. When he saw me, he let out a huge roar, which sounded to me a lot like him saying “READ!!” but I didn’t move.

artist’s rendering of polar bear in snowy field, reading children’s books. Media: MS paint.

This was the wrong thing to do, because he stood up and chased me out of the tank. I jumped over the side, falling about 100 feet, and just before I hit the marble floor of the lobby, I woke up.