Tragedy is back

Tragedy said nothing for several minutes, she was trying to remember who Djana the dark was, she couldn't remember having ever heard of her, but she didn't like to ask because she thought Nohna had probably told her during lessons and would be disappointed that Tragedy didn't remember. Tragedy had a notoriously poor memory and it caused her a lot of embarrassment and she had developed ingenious ways of faking her way through situations like this, but finally she had to ask, "Okay Nohna. Who is Djana the Dark? I'm sure she must be someone very important and very evil and I suppose you are about to tell me that I have set in motion the end of the world or something. Hmmph!! And my parents always said I would never amount to anything."

"Huh? What?" Asked Nohna who had drifted off into her own reveries, "Oh no Tragedy, no, no. Nothing like that! Djana is a pain in the ass, that's for sure, but she isn't all that important."

"Says you!" snarled Joy from the corner.

"Oh shut up, Twit!" snapped Nohna.

Tragedy screwed up her face very unattractively and stared very rudely at Nohna. It was a facial expression equivalent of being flipped off. She was tired and getting grumpy and she just wanted to be told what was happening without having to drag it out of Nohna.

"Oh Tragedy! Out with it, what is it that you want to know?" Nohna was getting crabby too, she was overwhelmed by the thought of everything that she was going to have to do in order to get ready.

"Well, excuse me if I can't understand your vague mutterings. I could start reading your mind if you're too lazy to talk. Do you want me to start reading your mind? Because that's what I'll have to do if you aren't more clear. You'll leave me no other choice." Trinity had jumped up and was angrily glaring at Nohna. She knew very well that if she read Nohna's mind that it would give Nohna a splitting headache and that Nohna wouldn't want her to.

Joy started to giggle. "Oh, will you shut up!" screeched Tragedy and she flung a piece of bread at Joy which hit her in the forehead leaving a big glob of butter. Tragedy had gotten to a point where she no longer thought of this thing as her sister or she wouldn't have done that.

Nohna started to snicker and Tragedy paused stunned, then yelled in mock anger, "Shut up! Or I'll throw my stew on you!" Nohna friskily tossed an apple through the air and bounced it off of Joy's head. Nohna and Tragedy both began laughing hysterically and it might have turned into a food fight if Brian had not arrived home at just that moment, sending all of the straw in the roof fluttering. Gasping for breath, tears rolling down their faces, Tragedy and Nohna went staggering out to greet him leaving Joy to sulk.

"Okay, Tragedy. I'm all yours. Tell me what it is that you want to know." Nohna said after they had settled down. They had explained to Brian why they were laughing and he feigned to be too sophisticated to find such antics funny; but he looked through the window for them and told them that the butter was still stuck onto Joy's forehead, that she hadn't wiped it off yet . Not only that, but there was a piece of apple on top of her head and Joy looked really stupid trying to be fierce with an apple fragment on top of her head. This sent them into fresh hysterics at which Brian pretended to be displeased.

Eventually, Nohna was able to settle down and tell Tragedy who Djana was. Djana, it seemed, had been a well-loved wizard who had sent herself into oblivion doing unapproved spellwork and had never been able to find her way back. Tragedy had opened up the way for her to come back by performing her glamour-off. Djana had been the only wizard ever, until Tragedy to earn the fealty of all 4 kingdoms of elementals.

"Djana had been much loved for her kindness but her spell work was atrocious. She couldn't cast a spell to save her life! Everything that she did turned out wrong somehow. And she came from a long line of powerful magicians, that was what made it so hard to understand.. No-one knew quite what to make of it, she seemed to have no magical aptitude whatsoever. People actually ran when they thought she might begin to cast a spell. For her spells never turned out the way they were meant to, but for some reason could not be set right, that was the only thing that was strong about them is that they could not be fixed. You will see several magicians tomorrow who were victims of her ineptitude. Her spells were very silly...try not to laugh!"

"Eventually, they had no choice but to ban her from doing magic. So, when the elementals came forth to offer their allegiance everyone was shocked and didn't know what to make of it. There were many long discussions about this as this was an unheard of thing and needed to be made sense of."

"I'm afraid that some people were rather hard on poor Djana, jealous of course. For everyone was a better magician than her and yet she was the one who received this honor. Some cruel things were said. Some of these things got back to her. And Djana was very sensitive and she took these things hard and she was helped in this by someone who was not good for her."

"Djana had a cousin, Emele was her name and she was one of the best magicians of our time. And Emele was enchanted by Djana. Djana was everything that she wasn't. Djana was a beautiful girl, Emele was plain; well not simply plain...ugly would be it. But Emele was smart... she was so smart! She felt that this should make up for her plainness. But Djana always had all of the attention though because of her beauty and it really wasn't right. This made Emele become cynical and bitter."

"Because Emele had more talent than all of us. Only thing is, she was so mean. Oh was she mean, and she became even meaner! Everyone was afraid of her, except for Djana, she was always kind to Djana. But when Djana was honored by the elementals this finally caused Emele to come loose. She began to hate Djana as well as love her, maybe she had already hated her."

"Her love became strange, with hidden knives inside it. She began to toy with Djana, to become sadistic. She was the one who made sure that Djana knew what people were saying about her. She did her best to make Djana feel that everyone was laughing at her and that no-one respected her. Djana began to spend all of her time with Emele, to avoid other people who she only felt uncomfortable around."

"Then she offered to help Djana, to teach her to do magic properly. She was able to invoke an amulet to protect her from the ill-effects of Djana's spells so that she wouldn't end up with an arm growing out of her forehead or something ridiculous like that, though that would certainly have been an improvement on her looks. No-one knows what her intentions were, whether she intended to help Djana or if she was operating out of revenge. She knew that Djana was forbidden to use magic. Though Emele would have been chastised for her part in it, Djana was the one who would recieve the punishment."

"As Emele was so talented, she actually began to help Djana. Djana actually became able to do some rudimentary spells without mishap. Then came the spell that wax the end of them both. At least the end of them as they had been known."

"Which spell was that?" Tragedy wanted to know.

"A Glamour-off," replied Nohna.

"Just kidding!" Nohna chuckled in response to Tragedy's horrified gasp. "I'll get to that in a minute dear!"

"None of Djana's mishaps had ever really hurt anyone, they were actually quite funny as long as you weren't the recipient. Perhaps this lulled them into a false sense of security. For a beckoning is a spell that is normally easy to perform, only due to Djana's 'problem' the potential for mishap was there. As you know, one needs to use precautions in dealing with the dead."

A beckoning as Tragedy knew, was a spell in which the spirit of one who was dead could be beckoned and then made to answer questions. The power of the spirit beckoned was dependent upon the stregnth of the magician casting the spell. A beckoning is quite fun, for the living as well as the dead. "

On the night of a full moon, Djana, Emele and Persepha went deep into the woods to perform the beckoning."

"Who is Persepha anyway?" asked Tragedy.

"Persepha is Djana's lover," replied Nohna.

"Djana had a female lover?" asked Tragedy, intrigued.

"Okay, actually her name was Persepho until Djana accidentally changed him into a woman when one of her spells went awry. They began calling him Persepha in order to avoid awkward questions."

"Oh, I see," replied Trinity bemused.

"Of course, this would explain why she is so bitter and slightly insane, plus....I think she has a crush on you!" chuckled Nohna wryly.

In defense of being slovenly

I have a book calleld(please don't think I'm too shallow, I'm a compulsive book buyer! I wind up with some real doozies!) The Best Kept Beauty Secrets. They tell you how to give yourself home made facials etc. (And don't knock it, facials work a lot better than you think. I'm not being defensive am I?) Anyway, the masks mainly call for food products, such as milk, oatmeal, avacado, sugar and different fruit juices. The oatmeal and the sugar have abrasive qualities which will remove the top layer of skin revealing the 'fresher more youthful skin beneath' , and the milk and fruit contains various chemicals that peels off the top layer for the same reason!

So, I've been mulling over this lately for it seems that I am beginning to notice that the skin around peoples mouths doesn't seem to be as wrinkied as the rest of their skin. Perhaps I'm just imagining it, I don't know.

Well, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this: of course I'm wondering if these are people who do not wipe their mouths after they eat. My mind is kind of going wild because when I see someome with a relatively unwrinkled face I envision them with food smeared all over their faces. And the people who are wrinkled, I see them as excessively neat which in this context seems disgusting while now I am beginning to see the non-face wipers as enlightened. Strange how your persepective can change isn't it?

So, I think that I'm going to smear food all over my face when I eat and then I'm not going to wipe my face afterwards. It will keep me youthful in more ways than one. And when people think I'm revolting, well...we'll see who has the last laugh 20 years down the road.

Family Tradition

My mother is a history major. She taught highschool history way back in the 70's. She didn't like teaching and didn't do it anymore after that. When I grew up I was always being given little impromptu history lessons which usually started with, "See Diana, years ago......."

One of the things that we often had around the house were books written about the daily habits of people who lived 'years ago'. I learned many interesting things from these books. For instance, did you know that in the dark ages no-one used silverware? There was no such thing as a fork. Everyone carried a knife and this is what they ate with. If you went to someones house you used your own knife.

In Holland, children did not sit at the table. They stood behind their parents chairs and were fed like little puppies. The lower-classes in London subsisted on a barley-based gruel. That was it! Hence, the life expectancy of 30. I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the idea.

So I picked up a book called "Inside the Victorian Home," the other day and it has been as enjoyable as I thought it would be. Here is an excerpt which will hopefully illustrate why I like and get a kick out of these books.

"For us, mice and rats are the first thought at the word "vermin"; for the Victorians it was bugs: blackbeetles, fleas, even crickets. If the struggle against them was not waged with commitment and constancy, they would "multiply till the kitchen flooor at night palpitates with a living carpet, and in time the family cockroach will make raids on the upper rooms, travelling along the line of hot water pipes...the beetles would collect in corners of the kitchen ceiling, and hanging to one another by their claws would form huge bunches or swarms like bees, towards evening and as night closed in, swarthy individuals would drop singly on to floor, or head, or food...........Mrs. Haweis did not object to rats and mice, which she thought were "nice, pretty, clever little things."

Okay, one more and I promise I'll stop!

"As soon as the water was hot, the sheets and other linens were taken out of their overnight soaking water, rinsed in hot water ladled out of the copper, and rubbed or beaten with a dolly or a possing stick." "The sheets were then wrung out, and the water was thrown away. A bar of soap--there were as yet no detergents--was shaved, cut into pieces, and dissolved in boiling water to form a jelly. The jelly was rubbed through the sheets. Then the water was added to transform the whole to a soapy mass, and the sheets were agitated again. More water--as hot as could be borne by the laundress--was added, the sheets were rubbed a third time. The water was thrown out, more was taken from the copper, and the items were put in their first rinse, then wrung out. They were then put in the copper itself, together with one teaspoon of soda to every two gallons of water and boiled for and hour and a half, to remove the soap thoroughtly. After the boiling the sheets were taken out, rinsed a third time in another tub of boiling water, and then a fourth in a final tub of cold water, which had had 'blue' put in it." "After the blue rinse, everything was wring out for a third and final time, and hung up to dry. Thus, the first--and simplest--load of laundry took one soaking, two washes, one boiling and four rinses:"

Conversations with Tragedy

It seems that Tragedy doesn't like the way the story that I am writing about her is going. (She's decided that she wants to be known as Tragedy after all. We are allowed the privelege of being shizoid!) She's been complaining about it and she just won't stop. So her and I had to sit down and have a long talk about a lot of things.

First of all, she thinks that her character has become wooden. She is absolutely right. If you knew Tragedy you would see what I'm talking about. We both agree that character development has been sacrificed for plot. And furthermore, we think that this has happened because her story is really not 'short story' material but is rather, novel material. I'm happy to say that Tragedy wants me to write her novel. Though she doesn't especially like the way this story is going she still likes my writing and thinks that I have potential.

She thinks that her story doesn't have the right tone. She says that we need to decide who it's audience is intended to be and then just stick to that. We have decided that it is meant for young adults and the young at heart. This means that as we revise we will have to remove a few of the racier parts. Tragedy thinks that there are other angst-ridden adolescents who will identify with her.

Tragedy thinks that I didn't think over what I wanted to do with the story before I started writing it, that I just plunged into it with no idea of where I was going and that now, we are sort of stuck on a course that we don't really want to be on, wouldn't be on if we had thought it out a little bit better. I told Tragedy that she should remember that it is merely a first draft and she was satisfied with that.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things that Tragedy likes about the story as well and after our talk she felt much more positive. Now she wants me to finish and has decided that she will be helpful instead of critical in order to help me proceed. She has also given me permission to write other things about her, things that will reveal her character and make her come alive a little bit more.

Tragedy had been giving me a lot of trouble with her constant criticisms, making it hard for me to write. But now that we are done arguing the story is proceeding again.

My new game!

When I read these lines I gave a little laugh and knew that I was in for a treat.

' Victor was the reservation John Travolta because he still wore clothes from the disco era. He had won a few thousand dollars in Reno way back in 1979, just after he graduated from high school. He bought a closet full of silk shirts and polyester pants and had never had any money since then to buy anything new. He hadn't gained any weight in thirteen years, but the clothes were tattered and barely held to his body. His wardrobe made him an angry man.' Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Here are the rules. Show why someone should read the book you are reading. Show this by quoting a line or short scene, a paragraph, a description...something....anything...that you feel somehow epitomizes the book. It does not have to describe the subject of the book, though it can. It doesn't have to even make sense to anyone but you. But whatever you pick, it should be something that you feel should make a person curious about the book and think that they might possibly want to read it.

An alternative post could be using the same rule as above, pick out a scene, line etc...that epitomizes why one should not read the book you are reading.

I tag Enemy of the Republic, X, Trevor and Eric. (I did not tag you twice X) You don't have to make a post about it, just put it in your post at some point. It could be at the beginning, end whatever. Then tag some others. I know Trevor hates to be tagged but comeon! This is a fun one. An original (at least I hope) way to talk about what you are reading and suggest books to others. And of course, I realize that it may be a little while before you can put it in because you have to read your book first. So, I will wait while impatiently tapping my foot.

How You Heard About Madeleine?

Have you heard of Madeleine Mccann?

She's a 4 year old who was abducted from her hotel room in Portugal where she was vacationing with her parents? She has been missing for about 40 days. Her parents, both physicians, have launched a massive media campaign and raised a huge ransom in order to get her back. It's a horrible story and I've become riveted by it. Children are abducted every day. Why am I so sad about her as opposed to all of the other children? I don't know.




She reminds me of my youngest. Here she is. How could anyone destroy such beauty. To try and understand drags me into the abyss.

Her parents made a horrible mistake and they are bleeding all over the press. They will leave no stone unturned they say. Her mother carries Madeleines toy, cuddly kitty with her everywhere she goes. All she has left now.




When my younger daughter was 6 weeks old, I had to go back to work. I used to have a dream that I had lost her. It was an atmospheric dream of emptiness that stayed with me all day. The story makes me feel the way the dream did.




My daughters will go to Mexico. What if I lost them. What if they were hurt and frightened and I wasn't there. I wouldn't want to ever leave Mexico because I would feel like I left them. I wouldn't be able to move out of the house that we lived in ever again, even if it was falling down around me because I would be afraid that their spirit would not be able to find me. I wouldn't even be able to ever use their room for anything else because I would want their spirit to have a place to be. I guess that's why they can't go back to England.

She's a pampered child who has led a fairy-tale existence. We hope that the one who took her was someone who couldn't have a child and wanted one and they are being kind to her. But we all know that this isn't likely. We know why she was taken. Do you think she would be better off dead than sold into a child prostitution ring? Can things be so bad that death would be better?



We barrier ourselves against the world. We try to block all of the bad things out. We do this out of necessity, because sometimes the world is too much. Sometimes something happens that cracks open your barrier and everything that you've held back all comes rushing in at once. That is what this story has done to me. I will continue to post updates about it.

Irrelevant Factoids and Antecdotes about.....MOI!

I was Tagged by EOTR. I won't tag anyone else accept Trevor because everyone who reads my blog has already done it. I realize that Trevor will probably politely decline but I will Tag him anyway just so I can say I tagged someone.

1. I severely compromised myself when I named my younger daughter. I have a rule, I don't want the name to be in the top 100 list.

I wanted to name her Vivian Jewel. I thought of naming her Vivian Scarlett but apparently there is something really obscene about this name that I am just not getting because when I mentioned it people drew away from me like I was some kind of freak for wanting to name my child this. I am aware that Vivian Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and that this makes the name slightly cheezy. I didn't pick it because I have an obsession with Gone With the Wind or anything. The fact that the two names are connected were just an unfortunate aside as far as I was concerned. I chose it simply because I thought it was pretty, but I didn't have enough guts to use it, given the reaction I recieved.

So, I reverted back to Vivian Jewel. When people asked me about my name and I triumphantly announced it they would first look slightly stunned, then vaguely disgusted, then they would hastily compose their features and mumble something that I couldn't quite make out. So I finally wimped out and went with Mia Ange. Mia is now in the top 20. In my defense, I have liked the name Mia long before it became popular and it isn't my fault that it became popular and common. It's a pretty name but I do feel that I sold pussed out in using it. Oh well.
However, here is something that saves it from complete banality. Mia means mine in spanish. So if we went over to Mexico we could easily get into a comical "Who's on First" type of scenario.

"What is your daughters name?"

"Mia."

"I know she's your daughter. I'm asking you what her name is.!" etc....So, I'm expecting to have lots of fun fucking with people when I go to Mexico.

2. I can't read the news in public because I very obviously cry. Either it affects me more than the average person or I am less able to hide my distress, I don't know which. I only know that I don't see any other people sobbing brokenheartedly when they read the news. On the plus side, I've been caught at it a few times and the people who caught me seemed to be somewhat in awe of and impressed by my ability to feel anguish and afterwards they treated me like a fragile piece of china...... or like I'm nuts I'm not sure which




3. I used to have a friend whom when we got together, brought out each others wacky sides. We would get together and laugh and giggle until we were almost high and we would egg each other on to bizarre antics, each trying to top the other and we didn't give a shit what anyone thought.
Once we tried to leave a drive-thru window without paying for our stuff. (I was driving.) We weren't really doing it to get away with anything, we just thought it was funny. When I got to the end of the drive, I couldn't get out because there was too much traffic and the manager came sprinting out to make sure we paid. He was pissed! But we were laughing so hard we were practically drooling. (you can get away with stuff like this in smaller towns.) Though whether we got away with it or not is debatable. We did have to pay, but we didn't get thrown in jail.

Once I pulled into the wrong parking lot when trying to go to pizza hut and I didn't feel like getting back on the road, so I just drove through the grass.
Once we casually flashed people to see if anyone would notice it if we did it very nonchalantly. It took a really long time before anyone noticed. I think that the only reason that they noticed is because we were giggling so hysterically. I'm sure that we were very annoying but we didn't care. That was the beauty of it.
Oh, I don't act that way anymore. Sorry.

4. I've dropped all of my kids at least once when they were babies. Well, the two older I dropped once apiece. But the younger one I dropped numerous times. Well actually, I didn't really drop her, I would just let her slide around. Like out of her stroller or off the bed or something. I was so relaxed and mellow by the time I had her that I wasn't careful enough. My husband did it too. Once he and my older daughter were playing video games and he was so into the video game that he wasn't paying attention to her and he suddenly noticed that she wasn't on the bed anymore. She had rolled down a quilt that was hanging off the bed and was playing on the floor, completely oblivious to the fact that she was being neglected.

5. Everyone has something really gross that they like to eat. Something completely low-brow and childish. Something that has no nutritional value whatsoever and something that you would feel slightly demeaned if anyone outside of your family actually observed you eating it. Mine is chef boy r dee (sp?) beefaroni.

7. Once when I was young, I went swimming and me and some guy I knew but wasn't attracted to swam out to the buoys together. The water was deep that year and I couldn't swim back until I rested, so I was sort of tightrope walking on the wires that connected the buoys together and treading water trying to catch my breath. I inadvertently put my hand on the guys crotch. He took it a little more seriously than it was intended. (It wasn't intended at all!) and proceeded to try to feel me up in the water. I was still too tired to swim back so I tried to casually get away from him without making a big deal about it. So, I was kind of tippy-toeing along the wire trying to catch my breath and he was tippy-toeing after me, pursuing me along the buoys. Now that I think back on it, I don't know why I didn't just say something but oh well. Well, you know how slowly you move underwater. So, it was kind of like a high-speed pursuit in slo-mo, if that makes sens.. I'm sure it could somehow be made into a Monty Python-ish, or Charlie Chaplin-ish type of skit if one had a mind to.

8. I make fun of my husband's accent sometimes and tell him that he sounds like a vampire. Is that mean?

9. I've always been soft-hearted. I thought that they should let the rabbit eat Trix.

10. Once I started a story about a heroine called Trinity and a dragon named Brian. There were people reading it and I suddenly stopped writing and left everyone hanging. sorry. I'm going to finish it soon. I've been having a hard time getting to my blog lately. I've been very yang and have been getting a lot done....all except for this. I may have to rethink it because I don't want to quit, but I will have to make more posts that are less time-consuming to write or I simply will not have time to post.