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Total Number of Books I’ve Owned:

these are all rough estimates. except for the manga and GN–I actually went in and counted those

Paperbacks: 450+ (on last count, about 2 years ago)
Hardcovers (fiction): 25
Text/Schoolbooks: 30
Sewing/Design: 15
Occult: 25
Manga: 191
Graphic Novels: 50
Comic Books: no freaking clue. Lots.
“Kid’s Books” (Roald Dahl, fairy tales, etc.): 25

Last Book I Bought:

Dead As A Doornail, Charlaine Harris.

Last Book I Read:

The Raven & Other Poems and Tales, Edgar Allan Poe.

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

1. Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton.

This is the first in a series of books that follows a smart-ass, gun-slinging, beautiful (if you don’t mind all the scars), woman who is so fucking scary the vampires call her the Executioner. I’d love to see this woman pump Buffy full of lead.

2. Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett.

This is the first Pratchett book I’ve ever read. I think I was 12. I’ve since snatched up every book of his I can get my greedy little hands on. This book holds a special place in my heart, because it introduced me to Terry Pratchett, and the Diskworld.

3. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman.

I first picked this up because I saw “Terry Pratchett” on the cover. But this book also introduced me to Neil Gaiman, who is an amazingly incredible writer. Can anyone say Sandman, or American Gods? I found a first edition of Good Omens at a library book sale. For around a buck. (insert evil gloating laugh here)

4. Amano, Yoshitaka Amano.

This is the complete prints of Yoshitaka Amano. I have one of his paintings tattooed on my back, both for the meaning of the character (the Fool) and the beauty of the image. Amano is one of my heros.

5. Strangers In Paradise, Terry Moore.

Moore created characters and situations that simply fascinate me. Never have I been so addicted to a comic series since The Sandman. And this one is still running.

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According to the news (tv), the robber broke into the home of a martial artist who beat the crap out of the guy, and held him until the cops showed up.

The last note on that segment brought a smile to my face:

“The man is now in the hospital being treated for his injuries.”

Ahh…Justice.

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Dad noticed last night that the motion sensor light kept going on and off at my uncle’s place. So he went down to take a look, and saw the door open. Whoever did it may have heard dad coming, so got out of there because the place was empty. Except for the mess–they ransacked the place. Dad called the cops.

My uncle is in Europe right now, and only left two days ago. How did they know he was gone? Are they watching the house? Did they not care if he was home or not?

I live on the side of a small mountain, and my uncle lives a little futher down on the same property. I can walk to his house in less than a minute. Why the hell didn’t our dog bark? He barks at everything else, including people he knows. My uncle has an alarm on his house, but the piece of shit thieves knew how to unplug it, dismantle it, whatever. So these guys know what they are doing.

We can’t get ahold of my uncle to tell him. He’s not answering the number he gave us, so he doesn’t even know yet.

The cops told my dad that there isn’t much they can do since the owner of the house isn’t there. Bullshit. They can freaking do SOMETHING. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. They can take fingerprints, right? Something.

Dad has to go to the Big Island tomorrow for business. Only for a couple days, but now it’ll be only me and my mom home (my brother doesn’t count. he’s never home). The thieves probably know they can come back to look more thoroughly, and so what’s stopping them from trying our house too?

I think I’ll be up all night for the next couple of nights. With all of the house lights on and my cell phone in one hand and an axe in the other.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. What a goddamn mess.

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This prof is an excellent teacher who gives interesting assignments (even if us students bitch about them when he hands ‘em out :)), gives great advice, tells neat stories, and is someone you can really talk with. In fall ‘04 I needed another 300 level class, so took 311, Autobiographical Writing, because it sounded interesting and fitted in my schedual. Wow. It was a writing workshop, so every paper was peer edited, and while not all advice was used, it was certainly welcome. The prof gave us a chance to play with styles, and encouraged us to try new things with our writing. The improvement in each paper handed in was evident by the end of the semester, and by that time the entire class was one happy, if disfunctional, family.

He offered another class for the spring semester that was essentially a follow-up to 311 called “Creative Nonfiction” (412). Nearly the entire class tried to sign up, but because the computer registration at UH is fucked up, only a handful of us managed to get in. For some reason, the computer registration didn’t apply the pre-req restriction on English courses so people who didn’t have the required classes to get in got in anyway. This filled the class immediatly, keeping most of 311 out. This eventually got sorted out, but by then only five from the first class was in this one.

The prof had warned us that the 311 class was a rare and wonderful thing–that with all of our diverse personalities and writing styles we still trusted each other and got along well. We didn’t believe him, not really, so when 412 got started we had a nasty shock.

Out of a class of fifteen, five were from 311 and was there for love of the prof and the work we did, about five were there only to fulfill a requirement (mostly ed-majors), two of them wanted to write but would get extremely touchy and didn’t handle critisim too well, no matter how constructive and polite it was. The rest seemed fairly good-natured, a true blessing. As a result, the 311 gang tried to relive the “good ole days” but was slowly beat down by the zombie stares of the education majors and the tantrums of the “serious writers.”

I’m being unfair, only showing the worst of these people. They all had their good days, where the class would almost come together, and the zombies and uptights would loosen up a bit. This was, sadly, too rare.

The biggest sticking point to this class, and one of the reasons I respect this professor so highly, was the autistic girl. She has Aspergers Syndrome, and would constantly disrupt the class. She was loud, obnoxious, interruptive, and had zero social skills. The entire class, even the aggressive ones, tried to be as kind and understanding as we could. After all, it wasn’t like she had that much control over what she said and did, but bygods, it made the writing workshop difficult. The prof handled her better than I, or anyone else in that class, could have expected. He did his best to keep her in line, and did it without being cruel or harsh. He would gently remind her that it was so-n-so’s turn to talk now, or please let me finish this thought.

But, at the end, we got some work done, and a few papers written. After Priss told me how to put up Pages instead of Posts, I said why not, and put a few up. All of them need work (some more than others), but all of the ones posted were fun to write. Or, if not exactly fun, was a good exercise and taught me something. And sometimes that’s all you can ask for.

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Okay, you pushy woman, you. I hope this is the one you’re after:

Total Volume of Music on My Hard Drive:

None. It’s all on cd.

Last CD Bought:

Neil Gaiman’s Telling Tales. At least, the last cd I bought. Adam got me Kittie’s Until The End. Gotta love a guy who’ll buy you a heavy metal cd of all-girl insanity as a “thinking of you” gift.

Five songs I listen to a lot:

1. Joan Jett I Love Rock-n-Roll
2. Ramones I Wanna Be Sedated
3. Johnny Cash A Boy Named Sue
4. Lucia di Lammermoor Alfin son tua
5. Rob Zombie Everybody Scream

There. I don’t know who to push this on to, ’cause no one does these things when I ask ‘em to. Wait, why am I doing this again?…

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