Tanks in the House

I would write a real post, but Steve just bought the sixth season of House.  We've watched two episodes already, and they're absolutely mind-blowingly amazing.

So I'll just update you on my parades and be done with it, since we both know that's what you're here for, right?

Because guys, they got tanks.

I don't know how they did it.  They even have little military pickup trucks!

First banners, then instruments, and now this?  They're showing off new skills every day...

The Last Point is the Most Thought Provoking

Metamorphic

My gaze is anchored to my reflection

and I squint oceanic eyes, scrutinizing the parts of me that everyone else can see.

In a sudden, unanticipated movement,

my fingers dart up to brush aside a lock of hair.

A similarly abrupt motion

tugs down the hem of the shirt that I always sleep in.

After several minutes, I stop adjusting everything about myself,

even though I'm still not satisfied.

I stretch out my hand for a tissue and grimace at the familiar pain.

Retrieving my hand, I squeeze the finger with the paper cut that has been

hurting me all day.

Eventually, I stop dwelling on that, too.

I swipe the tissue across my lips,

transforming

my mouth from Hollywood shiny to natural and unadorned.

After sleep takes me, an angry man's face appears in my mind, his mouth wide in fury.

His fist rises above me, poised to fall full force.

I turn my head away from the coming blow and before my eyes is my mother, dying.

She sighs out her last breath and I feel like my heart has crumpled under that delicate expulsion.

My body, aware of my mind's distress, twists and tosses to get away from it.

Is it my mind or the distress that it's trying to escape?

It causes my blankets to wrap around me tightly in a chrysalis that no longer lets me move,

leaving me vulnerable to the torments that plague my mind.

Jeering, hateful words come out of the shadows.

I'm standing under stage lights, with caked make-up covering my face and a huge fancy dress.

All of it is uncomfortable and I want to be rid of it,

despite what my cynical audience thinks.

Dread overcomes me. The overwhelming thought is, suddenly,

What have I done?

Those stage lights fall before me, but they are now a bonfire.

Someone is throwing masks into the fire.

The masks have every expression, every different kind of face, but they're being turned to ash.

They are my masks! Someone has to save them!

I turn around, looking for someone to help me, and there he is.

He is obvious perfection.

Somehow, I know that I love him...

but when I embrace him, his fond and radiant smile becomes fangs, and his face becomes a monster's.

At last, I awake.

In a frenzy, I fight my way out of the blanket that encloses me.

Finally freed,

I stride toward that mirror whose opinion used to mean so much.

My arm muscles tense and my hand lashes out,

paper cut forgotten.

Something tumbles. Something cracks.

Now the glass is broken.

I look up at it to blink

in surprise

and something falls from each of my eyes. In the sink lie two circles of blue.

In fragmented reflections of the mirror, I see

my true green eyes: the color that I'd almost forgotten.

This time, I don't stare for very long.

Instead, I look around for whatever it was that tumbled when my reflection got broken.

There, in the trash can. It's lip gloss that I recognize,

although I feel like it belongs to some other girl.

I won't bother getting it out.

--------------------------------------------------------

Just thought I'd entertain you with something I wrote a while back, since I had ideas for a blog post today, but after a full day of work, I promptly forgot them.

On a different note, I built a parade route for my little people in City of Wonder!

Now they can march without distractions.
More importantly, I can zoom in and do nothing but watch my parades now.

It should also be noted that they have once again switched to fans and banners.  

I am convinced there is a pattern to this that I must decipher.

The Goblin King's Domain and Still Honored

I watched Labyrinth for the first time ever today.  (I blame it on the fact that I was too sheltered growing up.)

Impressions:

1)  If I had seen it earlier, in my childhood, like I bet most people did, I think I would have liked it a lot more.  The old special effects and bratty main character would have seemed more fun and less irritating.

For an ugly worm, he was surprisingly cute.
But not exactly a realistic-looking creature.
Looks kind of plastic-y.
Maybe his mother was a film canister.

2)  I saw more of this David Bowie guy than I wanted to.

There's a certain focal point in this picture,
and it doesn't count as a character...

3)  I liked Sarah's obvious character development from beginning to end.  You don't always see that much in today's movies.

This point, of course, needs a picture to go along with it
in order to make it seem even more interesting.

4)  As Steve and I instantly agreed, the most awesome part of the movie was the stairway room.

As an added bonus, his man-parts aren't featured as prominently here.

5)  The second coolest thing was the helping hands.

The way the thumbs protrude enough to catch the light and make eyes?
Pure genius.

6)  Overall, it was much more goofy and less dark than I expected it to be.

I didn't know ahead of time that the movie even HAD puppets.

Commenter Questions: Did Sara's brattiness drive you crazy when you first saw Labyrinth?  Do David Bowie's prominent man-parts strike you more as sexy or trashy?  What's your favorite part of the movie?


Also, I feel it important to mention that in City of Wonder, my parade has now changed again.

Banners and...sousaphones??

My faithful subjects like giving me variety.


all pictures found using Google Images

To be the Honor of Parades in a City of Wonder

I built a city a couple of days ago.  Today, the economy and population really took off.

City of Wonder is a Facebook application/game, and like all the others, it can be addicting under the right circumstances.  As it turns out, snow+winter break+a laptop+internet are ideal mating grounds.

When I started playing, I had no idea what I was doing.  First, I'm happily buying things that do...things.  Then, suddenly:

Me: What is that?  What is that?  Steve, what's that fog stuff?  What's that on my screen?

Steve: Those are clouds.

Me: Clouds?!

Steve: Yeah, they're just clouds.  See?

Me: What are those doing there?  I didn't buy those!

Steve: Uh, the clouds are free.

I guess I'm a little excitable sometimes.

After a while, I got the hang of it, and now I mostly know what I'm doing.  And I quickly discovered (with Steve's help) that when you do enough of the right things, the little people in your civilization get happy and put on a little parade for you!

They love me...they really love me!

And, even better: after good encounters with other civilizations, their little leaves get upgraded to trumpets. ^_^

Which also, for some reason, made them change direction.

They only have a big square of road to march along, but do you think that stops them?  Their devotion is boundless.  And watching those tiny little people march around and around is so adorable that it makes me smile lovingly at the computer screen just to see them.

I could tell you more about other aspects of the game, but to be honest, I'm more delighted about that little parade than just about anything.  (After all, don't people always say to "write what you're passionate about"?)

You can't really tell how cute it is until you see it animated.