gnu

The evidence suggests that all baby snails are dead.  That they have never grown.

Maybe they are shooting into some parallel universe.  From this point on, this is what I shall choose to believe.

The baby snails are happily growing and using their radulas on fields of algae in an alternate universe.  There is an invisible worm hole in my tank which takes them to this magical land - a land where the pH is just right, and there is sufficient calcium so that their shells develop properly.

I got my doctor to admit that my septum is way deviated, but she will not operate on me unless I can stop being depressed for at least one year.

No one wants to operate on me, ever.  I should be happy about that.  Instead, I feel rejected.

I sing songs sometimes, in a room with other people.  The other people also sing songs.  We don't ever sing together, though.  I'd like it if we sometimes sang together.

I saw a ghost in the Burbank Olive Garden last week.  It may have just been a migraine aura.  If only the Burbank Olive Garden was haunted.

I will now choose to believe that the Burbank Olive Garden is haunted.

The Olive Garden in Burbank, California is haunted.  The lights go on and off, and cannot be adjusted by human workers.  A computer controls the dimmers, and that computer is haunted, too.  I saw a puff of smoke, of vapor, of ectoplasm, sitting at a table just a few feet away.

I wonder if Linens 'n Things, David's Bridals, or Panda Express are also haunted.

I want to know very much if airplanes are ever haunted.  Or, is the space that airplanes fly through ever haunted?

Dear airplane workers - please type me a note re haunted airplanes.  I do not mean grounded old museum piece airplanes.  I mean airplanes that fly around every day.

Boats can be haunted.  How about cars?  Camping tents?  Coffee cups?  What are the physical requirements for something that is haunted?  A physical structure that contains space?  Something that people can go into, something that people have gone into?

Can, say, a ten gallon fish tank be haunted?  Are objects that are haunted called something else besides haunted?  Like the screaming skull - what's up with that?  Is it really haunted, or is it more cursed?

I wouldn't mind if my skull is haunted, after I'm done with it, of course, and so long as I don't have to be the one haunting it.  That'd be like...working a garage sale.  Without fresh air or the prospect of earning any dollars.

Can I get a job haunting, even though I'm still alive?  I might be good at haunting.  In fact, I'd be very good at haunting places like Linens 'n Things.  If Pizza Huts were larger, I might like to haunt one of those for a few weeks.  Is there a haunting temp agency?

Please don't take that idea.  I'll get to work on the story straight away - promise.

I don't know why ghosts haunt bars, or nightclubs or comedy clubs.  I can't imagine anything more depressing, besides maybe working a garage sale.  No one would ever hear or notice you until they were too drunk for it to matter.  That would be like haunting my dad, or maybe haunting my old relationships.  That would be like...talking to some of the guys I used to make out with.  And stuff.

Sigh.

I would buy Calgon, if I really believed it could take me away.  It is easier for me to believe in wormholes in the dead baby snail tank, or ghosts at the Olive Garden.  In fact, I am offended by Calgon's claim of being able to take anyone away from anything.

Blog TK:  List of things that offend me

Adios.  I promise to cook up some life news soon, for those who stay tuned for such things.  As far as urinating ladies go - haven't had much luck with that, but please, lovers of ladies urinating, continue to visit my site.  Someday, I might surprise you.

videotape

I've started a videotape.  On this videotape, I will trap images of disasters, like those pretty, pretty fires in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Somehow, I was comforted by the running footage of reaching, lava red fire, the sprawling white houses with the extremely green lawns, the helicopters dumping water all over everything.  The low-level anxiety that I always feel wasn't there anymore.  If it had been normal news, or the daytime commercials (like for bail bonds or mail-order diabetes medication or motorized wheelchairs or loans for those with bad credit or mattress superstores), I would have felt that things were not okay.  As usual.

My plan is to tape all sorts of attractive disasters, burn them to dvd, and use them sort of like...like those things you put in a baby's crib, to quiet them, to quell their upsetness and loneliness.  Like a wind-up mobile of felt animals, or a softly glowing lullaby machine, that is what my disaster dvd will be.

Not every brush fire works, though.  I have certain standards.  They have to be pretty.  The fires out in the desert usually depress me.  I prefer the fire not to burn in an area that's already been blasted by the elements or poverty.  The fire is soothing in the backyards of rich people who can afford to deal with it, with rich helicopters drenching the brush with water.  The rich people in Palos Verdes stood in their yards with their garden hoses aimed at their property lines, helping.  I appreciated their efforts.

It is important for the footage to be live, with the danger still pending.  I don't like it when the disaster is over, and it's just being recapped on the news.  I get the same feeling as when Christmas is over and the presents have been opened and the food has turned into leftovers.  I need that Christmas Eve feeling; the tornado's coming this way and the sky's gone green.  That is when I feel connected and safe.

I know the footage won't be live on my dvd, but it'll be the hours of live coverage, instead of the wrap-up nightime news story, and I think that's the key.

The next segment of my tape is a marlin attacking a teenage boy.  I hope more sea creatures get in on the disaster news footage action.  Does anyone have tape of that dead whale exploding in Japan last year?

Counting sheep

Some sheep committed suicide:  billowywhitepile.

The tongue of a blue whale weighs as much as an elephant.

I fed some snail eggs to the fish last week.  The snail went right to where the eggs were, and looked upset.

The heart of a wild giraffe weighs up to 25 pounds.

matter

I haven't seen one for-sure alive baby snail.  Every day, I find at least six newly hatched baby snails, and I put them in the water.  They never move.  I am haunted by them.  I feel them - behind my back when I'm in class, when the teacher asks me what I'm feeling.  Or right now, at my shoulder, as I type into the computer.

Are you mad at me, dead baby snails?

On a lighter note,

...

nothing. 

Oh - I experienced synesthesia today.  Just a touch of it.  And, I am reading books.  The things from the books should filter through my mind and out into my blog soon, like a play-doh factory.  Remember play-doh factory?  Remember play-doh make the hair squish out of the guy's head?  Remember the lever?  The lever is just like the lever of my pill cutter, except my pill cutter is much smaller, and I put klonopin in it, not play-doh.

I am using my old pill cutter to cut the algae wafers for the snails.  Do you think I've murdered the snail babies with klonopin particulate matter?  Perhaps I have just eased their transition between the poles of non-existence.

Klonopin play-doh would be a fun toy.  It would feel good in lots of ways, as long as it wasn't coming out of the holes in some plastic man's head.

Why were there so many dolls that had hair coming out of their heads, like Pretty Cut 'n Grow?  I was afraid to cut Pretty Cut 'n Grow's hair because you had to mail order more.  So, I couldn't even enjoy her hair-growing feature, due to my scarcity issues.

I don't know if enjoy is the right word.  I finally broke down and cut her hair short.  When I tried to grow it back in, it got all tangled up.  All those years, waiting for a tangle.  There was a whole loom of yarn in her belly that I never let out.  My Pretty Cut 'n Grow lies in some storage bin somewhere, with a giant bezoar.  Perhaps I can use the bezoar to make myself well.

Have you seen the bezoar of my Pretty Cut 'n Grow?

I know something else that has hair coming out of the head, something besides people, play-doh factory head, and Pretty Cut 'n Grow.  Dead people.  Is that true?  Do hair and nails still grow on dead bodies?  I can't imagine they do.  Isn't it just the skin coming away, so that the hair and nails look longer, like when you get a manicure?

Yikes, sorry pregnant ladies.  I'm sort of a downer these days.  Marie Louise von Franz tells me that there's something important going on in my subconscious, and it being down there is why my psychic libido is so underwater.  My psychic libido wants that stuff.  What is that stuff?  Do you think baby snail ghosts can go in and help me find it?  Are they big enough to carry it up?  There are a lot of them, so maybe, just maybe.

How about it, baby snails?  I'll share my bezoar with you.

If you know what a bezoar is, you are probably pretty disgusted.  Unless you're a medieval king.  If you are a medieval king, you're jealous.  And, you're dead.  Is your hair still growing?

the windowsill

The windowsill is popping and cracking.  When I came home today, the cats were hiding.  Maybe an earthquake is coming.  I am having some elements of an earthquake-like experience, hearing trucks rumbling down all the streets.  But, I do have a very good imagination.

The apple snail people say I need to drown the snail eggs.  I will try to feed some to the dojo loaches tonight.  Unless there's an earthquake.

Besides having an earthquake coming and a lot of baby snails to kill and/or save, I'm having an allergic reaction.  I'm not sure what I am reacting to, but if I break out in hives, I'll take pictures, promise.

This is me, upside down:

ps - someone came to my blog by doing a search for "ladies urinating."  I know who you are.  Your secret is safe with me.

pps - I don't really know who you are, but thanks for looking that up.  What did you find out?  I don't have any pictures of ladies or anything else urinating that I can post for you.  I'll keep an eye out, though.

floating baby snail

Here is a floating baby snail.  It sank within about a minute.  It sank onto the faux Greek colonnade.  Perhaps it is alive.

    This is blurry, but it's the best I can get so far with these tiny things.  Maybe I need a magnifying

    glass.  Has anyone got a magnifying glass that I can borrow?

six little hatchlings

Still, the snail lays her eggs.

 

Last night, I saw my first baby snail, inside a half-split open egg.  I took all of the eggs out of their hatchery*, and spread them onto a paper towel.  My hand was too big to pick up the baby snail.  Do you know how hard it is to pick up a tiny sliver of wood, once you've removed it from your skin?  The anxiety you have over re-splintering yourself?  It was like that, only replace re-splinter with responsibility for squishable, brand new life.  Still, I managed to get the baby snail onto the tip of my finger.

It didn't move.  It was so small that, even if it was moving, it would appear to be still.  Maybe.

I put the baby snail into the tank.  At first, it floated, so I held it down under the water, until it sank to the gravel.

They're supposed to go to the gravel when they're born.

I don't know if it was alive.  I don't know if it is alive.

This morning, I spread out the eggs again.  I found five more babies.  I had no way of knowing if they were alive or dead.  They were still. 

I put them in the water, too.  They sank right away, into the path of their mother.  She was busy eating.  I noticed she was down there, but I kept dropping the babies in the same place, right in her path.

They're so small, the baby snails.  The only reason I can see them at all is that their guts are filled with red yolk.  They look like the tiniest speck of orange-red blood, with a semi-translucent wing coming off the edge.

They are smaller than a poppy seed.  They are smaller than half an empty sesame seed.  They are smaller than a grain of salt.  They might just be the size of a grain of sugar.

I can't look for more babies tonight, which is probably for the best.  The snail is busy depositing more eggs.  The eggs slide up her face as if they are riding an invisible escalator.  Are the eggs being pulled up or pushed up?

Did you know that water is pulled out of a plant by the sun?  Water is pulled from the roots to the leaves at the top of a tree by the heat of the sun.

01:03 AM in Current Affairs

* this is the hatchery.