Absent

Haven’t been wanting to blog here lately, isn’t that totally obvious by now? I’ve had these feelings recently like writing on this blog is like standing naked in the street and screaming - I hardly say anything important, hardly anyone reads it, but still. I just can’t say what I feel here, I can’t be who I am.

Things that have been happening recently:

  • Elise is totally, completely 100% potty-trained!! Can I get a ‘HOLLA!!!
  • Still writing about vampire zombies from space.. still not letting anyone read it. Unless you ask. (hint hint, nudge nudge)
  • Waiting impatiently for fall, for hoodie season, but having a sinking terrifying feeling that it is going to be a long, LONG cold winter
  • Watching too much TV, oh my!
  • Being bored
  • Being lonely

Surprise, surprise.

Don’t worry, ya’ll. I’ll be back soon/sporadically.

Zombies and such.

(Not sure if anyone would be able to tell, but I actually wrote this on the 20th and THOUGHT I published it then, but alas I did not. Silly Wordpress..)

I have no idea what to say so I am going to say whatever comes to mind, haha!!

My cat, Elmo, is so annoying. He’s already ruined two sets of my living room blinds so I have now switched to lime green curtains which color coordinate perfectly with my bright blue pillows and orange map tapestry (ahhh color!) but now the curtains are COVERED in nasty cat fur because he is up in the windowsill every .05 seconds. And I’ve only had the curtains for like, two weeks.

Is anything new going on in my neck of the woods? I launched a new website: www.vampirezombiesfromspace.com, which I soon after password protected for various reasons, but you can just leave me a comment, shoot me an email, msg me on Facebook, etc. if you want the password, which is super easy to remember and will unlock all the posts.

MMmmmm, Zombies.

Saturday night I went down to Niantic with Elise and my family to go to the street fair and see the fireworks. We sat on the beach, Hole In The Wall Beach, specifically, to watch them. I haven’t been to Hole In The Wall since I was in high school, which, haha! is nine years past at this point, and I don’t remember it being as small as it is. With that said, there were innumerable people packed onto that beach for the fireworks show, and it was an exodus in the dark leaving the beach and going through the tunnel under the train tracks to get back out onto the main street. A few minutes after the fireworks were over, after we had mostly gotten our folding beach chairs packed up in their very inconvenient bags, floodlights suddenly went on at the tail end of the beach and cast this eerie like-daylight-but-totally-not glow over the beach. Which made it easier to see the masses of people behind and in front of us trying to squeeze into this tiny tunnel, which is the only exit back off the beach onto the road. It was creepy. It was even creepier when I got into the tunnel, clutching Elise to me for dear life as people were nearly crushing against me, everyone trying to get out faster than they should try for practical and safety purposes, and all I could think to myself, ALL I COULD THINK, was “This would be an awful time for a sudden Zombie apocalypse.”

Then, last night, I had one of the most vivid dreams of my recent memory of a post-zombie-apocalypse world. It mainly featured way too many people trying to live their lives in a horribly constructed shanty town within a multi-level parking garage, which seems wrong on so many levels. The zombies in this dream were quiet, and fast. I hate the fast ones.

So yeah, been writing a lot lately, mostly about the zombies. Zombies zombies zombies.

Zombies.

More on that later, I’m sure

Goodbye to a Great One

Today was a hard day - the funeral of one of the best men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. Papa Teel passed away on Tuesday after a long illness, and although we all knew his death was coming, it was still hard, and I am shocked by the faith that the family has - the faith that it won’t be long until they see Papa again in heaven - a faith that on days like these I wish I had.

When asked by the pastor if anyone wanted to say anything about Papa, only two people decided to do so, both family members. I wanted to, but I just don’t handle death well, and I probably would have cried during the talking more than his own grandchildren did. Yeah, I just don’t handle myself well. It wasn’t that he and I were close, we weren’t, but I knew he cared about me and my family as I did about his, and the grief I felt today was for his family that is going to be missing the great man that brought that family to the world, a family I have always loved and have felt lucky to be sort of a part of for most of my life.

So here is what I would have said:

I remember Papa Teel like so many of his family members did - as someone who commanded a room and demanded respect, which was well deserved for all he did for our town, not to mention our country. I also remember scurrying away from his recliner when he came into the living room. I remember that he never just called me Cheney, it was always Miss Cheney Meaghan, no matter what. I remember his booming laugh, his big strong hands. And if I were to pick one memory to hold on to forever, as obviously I have, it was of one of the days the pigs got out on the farm. We were little, I remember. I remember it being me, Korie and Jordan, and I think Matt was also around that day, and we were already done with the swimming pool for the day and inside the house watching TV when one of us, it was Jordan I think, saw a pig running by one of the living room windows. The pigs escaped from the barn! (To those who have no idea what I am talking about, the Teel’s operated a pig farm years ago.) All of us kids ran outside to see if we could catch the pigs before they ran out of the yards and off into the woods. I had no luck, and I don’t think Korie did either. Jordan had gotten one pig around the neck, but the pig was almost as big as he was, and it started dragging him off down the dirt road. That’s when I remember Papa Teel finally running out of the house and promptly started screaming at Jordan to let go of the damned pig!! Let go!! While us kids had run outside after the pigs, Papa Teel or Grandma Teel had been inside calling the reinforcements - all the adults on the farm. But I remember Jordan didn’t let go right away, and Papa kept yelling, and when Jordan finally let go and fell off the damn, pig, Papa ran over him to make sure he was okay, and then he started hooting and hollering about the pigs. Well, we kids were shooed off to the sidelines while the big men took care of business and got all of the swine herded back into the barns, and when they all finally came back into the house Papa Teel sat down in his recliner and took a nap.

That’s my memory. I was so little at the time, I had to only have been in second grade, third at most. What would that make me? Eight? Nine? It’s strange. I practically grew up in that house, spent countless summer days there, afternoons after school.. and for whatever reason when I think of Papa Teel I know that the image of him running after Jordan who was hanging onto a pig for dear life is the the one I’m going to hold with me for the rest of my days.

Ahh, well. Goodbye Papa Teel. We’ll miss you.

Hating my neighbors

If I had starting writing this about a week and a half ago I probably would have written all about how much I love my new apartment. Yes, since I’ve last written here, I have moved. About 15 feet.

The new apartment is in the same building as the old one, but it’s much nicer, everyone agrees. I can’t tell if it is smaller because I don’t know the square footage details, but it seems more cozy at any rate. One of these days when the new place is spiffy clean I’ll put some pictures on here to show off.

However, last Tuesday I became ill. I must say, this sickness that has afflicted me is one of the worse I have ever had, and I don’t even want to talk details because it’s also the grossest. Bottom line is that I haven’t been able to keep anything (food, beverage) in me since Thursday, and spent a good five hours in the hospital yesterday getting yummy yummy IV fluids with a side of anti-nausea drip.

So now, I want to tell a few stories of why I’ve been seriously thinking that I want to move out of my pretty new apartment.

I’ve never been home in the daytime like this before - off of work for two days, then yesterday, and now today - that is four days home sick, all alone (minus the trip to the ER, my mom joined me), and the entire time I have had the displeasure of listening to my new neighbors carry out their parking lot dramas.

Someone is always playing their ghetto-fabulous gangsta rap, carrying a heated, ebonics filled telephone conversation with their “mothafuckin MOTHA!” - who, from what I can hear, is indeed their actual mother, and/or screaming across the parking lot at each other from their balconies and windows.

How do people live like this?

I’m not talking about me in my situation here, I know exactly how I live like this - I keep my blinds and curtains shut and keep to myself, and don’t get too bothered by the noise because Elise hasn’t been bothered by it yet, and until she is woken up in the night or actually gets afraid by what she hears outside I’m not going to be making any complaints; I don’t want to be THAT neighbor.

But the neighbors, how do they live like that? How do people go on every day fighting with each other all the time? How do people get through life when 80% of their vocabulary is made up entirely of curse words? Seriously, how do people get so incensed when another denies them a cigarette? I just don’t understand.

I mean, I have drama, my friends have drama, we all have drama. But these people, it seems like all they HAVE is drama, and they seem to be proud of themselves if their particular drama is more serious than another’s. Not more upset over their situation, oh no, but more PROUD.

Can they be happy? Do they have feelings? Are they REAL?

Seriously, nigga. Whoops, I guess it’s starting to catch on. Seriously. I just want to go out there one day and ask them if they need hugs.